NHCS Board of Education Regular Meeting | Aug. 1, 2023

001we can have a field trip to the Caribou Factory good evening welcome to the August regular Board of Education meeting we are glad you are here before we begin I would like to share a few 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 the flag and opening prayer if you choose and when participating in a call to audience please remain seated during our meeting we hope to have a productive and efficient meeting and your help is greatly appreciated also note from our safety director Mr Silverstein he asked me to remind you that if you do leave the building that someone else will be allowed to come in your place so if you need

002to step out into the foyer to uh to talk on the phone or whatever please do that but otherwise if you do leave the building there's somebody waiting to take that seat so please be cognizant of that and again we thank you for being here today uh at this time Miss Bowie would you please call the roll good evening Pete wildeborg present Pat Bradford I Josie bornhart Stephanie crabill here Melissa Mason here he McManus a key and Stephanie Walker here right thank you very much uh we do need everyone seated please so we have some people standing at this point please find a seat [Music] again uh gentlemen in the back with the shirt the love shirt please have a seat thank you very much I appreciate that um at this point board members I

003would entertain a approval of the agenda so moved Ms Bradford makes a motion second second Miss Mason any discussion it's great bill um like to to make a motion that we we remove we're not removed table item number letter um under new business the advanced placement classes until our September meeting okay we have a motion to table a new business item a b advanced placement classes is there a second second you have a second first and second discussion yeah I'm bringing I'm I'm bringing this forward because um they're they're Miss Bradford had brought up the point last time that some of the people may be getting confused when we were talking about appeal hearing and um the here a public hearing and so I'm just thinking that until we get the hearing behind us about

004that is stemming from an advanced placement class that we hold off discussion until we make that decision and then we have a a clear slate to talk about improvements or enhancements that we can make to our advanced placement class thank you Ms Grable and again your motion is to table not to is to table until September okay okay any ones want to speak against that no it's Miss Walker you had your hands yeah so um thank you Mr chair I I agree in the sense of I also don't understand why we should not under information or discussion it could potentially be something actionable and I'm not prepared for that because I don't really know what we're exactly getting into with this discussion so that's why I seconded it I would like to move it till

005September okay and yet further discussion board members if not uh Miss Bowie would you call the roll please again the motion is suitable new business Item B advanced placement classes until the September meeting next month's meeting Scrabble yes Miss Walker yes Mr McManus yeah Miss Mason now miss Bradford no and Mr World War no that passes assuming is defeated four to three with that said we have a motion a second to approve the agenda any further discussion if not all in favor of the let's do it by roll again please no no Miss Mason yes Miss Bradford yes Mr wildeborg yes and Miss Barnhart yes passes forward three thank you board members we will carry on at this point with our invocation we are pleased to have Pastor William Urena from the Hispanic church at

006Global River and he will be coming forth to do the invocation thanks for being here tonight pastor thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to come and open the meeting in prayer I'm a pastor and I would like to read some scriptures before I pray the reason I'm 24. it says the Earth is the Lord and everything in it the world and all his and all his people belong to him for he lay the Earth foundation on the Seas and build it on the ocean depth who may climb the mountains of the Lord who may stand on his holy Place only those who hands and hearts are pure who do not worship idols and never tell lies They will receive the Lord's blessing and have a right relationship with God their savior such

007people may seek you and worship you in your presence of God of Jacob open up ancient gates open up ancient doors and let the king of glory enter who is the king of glory the law is strong and mighty the law invisible in battle open up ancient gates open up ancient doors and let the king of glory enter who is the king of glory the lord of Heaven the law of heaven heaven means he is the king of glory as the word of the Lord and I want to read Proverbs 28 verse 2 or part of the verse 2 says when there's moral Rod within the nation the government topples easily when there is moral right within the nation its government doubles easily and I just want to pray a prayer today that the Lord

008Buddha in my heart so I pray heavenly father in Jesus name that we confess your word is day concerning our children as they pursue their Education and Training at school Heavenly Father you are effectually at work in them creating Within create within them the power and desire to please you they are the head and not the tail they are above and not beneath and we pray that our children will find favor good understanding and high esteem in the sight of God and the teachers and the classmates and I asked you Lord to give our children wisdom and understanding as knowledge and presented to them as of in all fields in the studies Heavenly Father we thank you that our children have Divine protection since they dwell in the sacred place or the most high and

009one I want to add to you brothers and sisters that the secret place is the God's heart I have a grandson and I love unto death and I can tell you that anybody anyone who harm my child my grandson is is basically doing to me so the Lord in Matthew 18 Matthew 18 verse 5 and 6 says and anyone who welcomes a little child like this one and behalf in my behalf is welcome me but if you cause one of these little ones who trusted me to fall into sin it would be better for you to have a large Millstone tie around your neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea that is the word of the Lord and that is a very strong word I'm not here to to please or to

010tell you what to do what not to do but I take the word of God very seriously as a pastor and that's how I live my life our children our children trust and find their Refuge we pray that our children trust and find their refuge in you and are protected by your love they will and in no way they will and shall not be led straight by philosophies of men in teaching that is contrary to the truth of the Lord in no way our children should be less straight by teaching that is contrary to the truth of the Lord so Heavenly Father you are the shio and the bakla protect them Lord From Any attacks or threats we pray that the teachers of our children will be Godly men and women of integrity so Kiva

011teaches understanding understanding hearts and wisdom in order that they may walk in the ways in piety and virtue Reverend your holy name so father God I just thank you for this great evening this this people Lord who representing father God or the future of our country we pray for our future children Youth and little kids father God protection for them they are our future and we ask you that you lead them Lord by the Holy Spirit you be the one protecting and guiding our children through these leaders father and we thank you and we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen thank you thank you we are going to skip over the national anthem at this time so if you ask uh it's Barnhart if you lead the pledge allegiance

012to 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 thank you all right at this time we will move ahead with our administrative introductions oh I'm sorry I skipped over approval missed uh do we have a motion to approve the minutes so moved yeah we have a motion to approve do we have a second before well that that sounded like a second but I don't think that'll count we have a second okay I'll second it any discussion I just had a question about um the minutes of were the minutes from February 7th the ones that are supposed to be in there it's Bowie it says we have 7-Eleven um 2023 which was fine and then the minutes

013from 2007 the February regular meeting did we skip that somehow or is that just was February 7th 2003 2023. I know that they're there did we mean for them to be there okay then then I do have a comment there if you go down to section 13 where we're talking about um letter c it's on page eight of them in the last little paragraph where it says Miss Mason member board member Melissa Mason inquires about what contributed to the decreases Ms Farnam shares that the major component is and it doesn't say what it what it is so I'm just thinking that might have been just left off when you okay so other than that um if we can just add in what what it is then I'm good with it okay very good first and

014second is there any other discussion board members if not all in favor of approving approving the minutes please signify with that uh correction or addition excuse me uh please signify by saying aye aye all opposed carry 7-0 do we have administrative yes okay I've been sure I've been uh introductions please yeah I won't be singing that for you tonight uh I wanted to say good evening to everybody um I'm sorry I want to introduce two of our new staff members tonight one is Mr Sal Cardella Mr Cardella comes with us um as the chief uh Communications officer I'd like him to have a chance to say hello good evening everybody I'm truly excited about being part of the team and really looking forward to contributing my experience to our goals thank you heck of a

015first day and then I'd also like to introduce Miss Brianna Ayers Miss Ayers is the new assistant principal at Ashley High School Ms Ayers has been a counselor at Ashley for the past seven years and got her master's degree from UNCW we are so excited to have you here just wanted to say thank you for this opportunity and that I'm really excited to move into this new role at Ashley thanks for being here welcome in and welcome it's great great to have you both as part of the team um at this point we will go on to the superintendent's report Dr Faust this thing's the first day of our restart schools as we eagerly welcome students back to our restart schools at Snipes Academy of Arts and Design and Rachel Freeman School of Engineering there's

016much to be excited about we're filled with joy as we embark on a new chapter of learning and growth supported by our dedicated staff enthusiastic students and caring families our primary goal is to ensure that 90 of our students read 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 guiding Compass throughout this journey New Hanover County schools had the privilege of Hosting Senator Tom Tillis for an essential school safety and Adolescent mental health Roundtable alongside other esteemed leaders from the New Hanover County government in North Carolina we encourage we engaged in meaningful discussions on how the Federal Government Can collaborate with mental health professionals Educators law enforcement parents and communities the focus was on enhancing the delivery of

017mental health care services fostering better integration of physical and mental health care and implementing measures to prevent violence in our children's schools if your child needs a new community bus stop or given a stop as an exception please make Transportation requests at least three weeks before the first day of school August 7th is the deadline for traditional schools in August 15th is the deadline for our pre-K schools families can contact their school's main office to request a bus stop bus stop request submitted after the deadline will be will not be processed until two weeks after the start of the school year our dedicated staff will return to our buildings later this month gearing up to create a safe and engaging learning environment for our students we are eagerly looking forward to the 23-24 school year

018we are equally thrilled to welcome back our students to our traditional schools together we will embark on a learning growth learning growth and collaboration of Journeys ensuring a successful and rewarding academic experience for all the 2324 school year holds great promise as we welcome our year-round students and they've already started we anticipate a wealth of opportunity growth collaboration and academic achievement this concludes my upbeat thank you Dr fast appreciate that I will carry on with my brief report I will share a brief Chairman's report at this time first I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and getting ready for a fantastic 2023-24 school year we were fortunate enough to be able to attend the New Hanover County Schools Leadership Retreat at Murray Middle School joining with most of the board and school level and District

019level leaders to plan and prepare for the coming school year two days very well spent it was wonderful to spend time with our district and school level leaders and they are exceptional so that was a very very good time the Board of Education worked well last together last week as we discussed Board of Education workshops and then work together on human resources matters in closed session the board also met to discuss and plan for today's agenda at the agenda review meeting last week as previously mentioned we welcome our new chief officer of communication Sal cadella and he and I have been working to finalize the Roundtable discussion set for August 15th it will focus on our strategic plan and there will be more information coming out very soon and finally at the Press Conference held

020immediately before our meeting today we announced that on July 27 2023 a settlement agreement and release of claims was fully executed by the parties in John does 1-14 versus New Hanover County Board of Education case number 19 CVS 2745 in the New Hanover County Superior Court as previously reported the board agreed to pay the plaintiff the plaintiffs a sum of 505 I said twice wrong 5.75 million dollars and to make several non-monetary commitments in exchange for the dismissal of the claims against the board and release of any and all past present and future claims that ends my report we are now going to move into our closed session it's no we're not no we're not I'm getting ahead of myself again we're going to be moving into the call to audience reminder to everyone we'll

021have a 60-minute called audience which is a general call to audience we'll follow that with a special edition called audience and that will be a 30 minute so we'll have a 90-minute block of time I would ask and I know people are going to be very uh happy and cheer for you know whatever anyone says which is fine but if someone's staying at the podium please be respectful of them and let them begin their time to speak that way everyone will be heard I think that's only fair to everyone thank you very much for that Ms Bradford tonight we've got two lists and if you're if somebody's not in the room I'm going to pick you up back at the end of the first list and the end of the second list so if you

022have someone who's not here yet I'm going to call the name if they if they're not in the building we've had traffic issues we've had rain so nobody panic we're going to get to everyone if I mispronounce your name I apologize now um with a label that could be attached to me as being a dyslexic pronouncing names is somewhat challenging for me and I appreciate this opportunity that chairman multibore gives me to practice and I will do my best to get your names right and if you don't know that on these boards all the names are listed so you can see where you fall if you don't know the person in front of you behind you just count off on your fingers so that you're prepared so you don't have to hear me through the

023crowd number one Audrey tool thank you chairman Baltimore and fellow board members for taking this matter up I want to begin with a quote from Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Andre sakharov intellectual freedom is essential freedom to obtain and dispute information freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices such freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths which in the hands of treacherous Hypocrites and demagogues can be transformed into bloody dictatorship as the product of a public school education I was compelled to speak this evening when I became aware of the one-sided anti-American education in this AP language course I attended Mooresville graded school district and just four short years ago I was sitting in a high school classroom I'm beyond thankful for

024the education I received and the Educators that taught me how to think not what to think this phenomenal educational background of critical thinking and in-depth analysis is ultimately what enabled me to enter the political Arena and fulfill my passion for leadership at UNCW after all a true education is being equipped with the tools and skills to not only learn but debate and reason with contradictory ideas I wish I could stand here and Proclaim these students in this course are Scholars of an Effective Education but that simply is not the case and these students are now victims of indoctrination and Viewpoint discrimination my reason for speaking today is not solely on this one specific book but yet on the course curriculum as a whole the pieces of literature mandated by the curriculum are all influenced by

025individuals who do not recognize the gift it is of being an American our founding fathers knew the importance of valuing and constitutionally protecting dissenting ideas I encourage you to ask any scholar and they will tell you an Effective Education can only be accomplished by evaluating different opinions and viewpoints and the discovering of strength and flaws within each Dr Martin Luther King Jr once said the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically intelligence plus character that is the goal of a true education thank you Melissa got pick her back up Stephanie Fortunato good evening board members and ladies and gentlemen in the audience reading is a is critical to democracy that is especially true when children read that they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights that to

026secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the government President Obama once said elections have consequences on November 8 2022 this board became only one of 17 County boes to be flipped in the entire United States and it derives its just powers from those who worked to elect them Abraham Lincoln called the Declaration of Independence a rebuke and a stumbling block to tyranny and oppression it's defining concept that all men are created equal continues to inspire people around the world to fight for freedom and equality the author of the book stamps policy proposals from defunding the police to restricting Free Speech are alarming Mr candy is an open advocate for race-based discrimination arguing that the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination even worse he has proposed a federal

027department wholly unaccountable to voters with the power to veto any law at any level of government not fitting his brand of discrimination a policy that verges on totalitarianism his core thesis that racism is a single self-evident cause of racial differences in everything from school grades to incarceration rates and to income reiterates critical race theories basic concepts mercifully his so-called anti-racist discrimination remains deeply unpopular with voters despite the recent push to replace equality with Equity Americans still support the system of individual Freedom equality under the law and colorblind public policy thank you thank you Chris kahaney Haney Chris Sutton I believe our call to audience system is a very important part of our uh our Board of Education it allows a minority voice to be heard and allows the community to either support or dissent against

028a decision being made by the board we used to have an open list for call to audience unlimited sign ups with the first 30 guaranteed to speak if someone didn't show up then an alternate who signed up and showed up would still be allowed to speak a board member could make a motion to hear the entire list if they felt it was necessary without a board vote occurring a prior chairperson changed the process and no longer allowed extra signups the sign ups closed after 30 names were submitted three months ago our call to audience was switched to a trial Lottery system where we have to get lucky to address this board Not only was the lottery system implemented this board also knocked down the number of speaking spots from 30 to just 20 while at

029the same time talking about wanting to hear more from the community this board acted like they were doing the community a favor by adding 15 more spots to speakers tonight even though 10 of those spots were just taken away from us three months ago the three month trial is over which means we revert back to the old call to audience procedure unless a discussion and vote occurs to extend this trial I'm asking for y'all to kill the lottery system and seek better options my suggestion would be splitting the call to audience time between 8 AM and 8 pm and have a teacher voice section added to the agenda if you really wanted teachers to be able to voice their opinions without having to battle battle the rest of the community for speaking spots lastly I

030believe the list should be open-ended like it was uh decades prior if a board member who doesn't believe extra call to audience is productive then vote against allowing everyone to speak if a fellow board member makes a motion um we used to be allowed in this building at 4 pm I used to be here I've done this for close to five years now we used to be allowed in at 4 pm now even in 100 degree weather even in a torrential downpour we are keeping even our senior citizens outside dead serious I watched a senior citizen almost get blown away like a sailboat while trying to hold on to their umbrella a little bit ago that's not cool thank you [Applause] thank you I apologize I don't have much of a voice tonight but I

031still wanted to speak um I don't have anything prepared but I did just return from a summit where I was protested by youth communist League I didn't even know there was such a thing still around this is what our youth is being molded into today and it's books like this that's helping this I don't I'm not asking to ban books I think there's appropriate time an appropriate place for everything to be discussed I'm asking you to guard our youth as they get those skills so they can disseminate and discern my my 16 year old she's not even 16 yet she can't go get fake eyelashes until she's 16. but these kids are being able to see pornographic material in elementary school middle school and high school it's unacceptable they have not developed those skills to

032know what's right wrong what's appropriate what's not inappropriate it's up to us to guard them and show them the way and right now it seems like it's all everything goes be careful what we end up with we end up with a whole society of people with no morals that Anything Goes that's all I have to say thank you for your time thank you Caitlin Harris Walker reminder if everyone good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight my name is Caitlin Harris Walker and I am a prior student of the New Hanover County public school system and while I no longer reside here in New Hanover County my parents my family and my nine-year-old niece does and it's for her her classmates and all students that I stand here today to share

033with you my thoughts as a former student the reality is literature is a reflection of our culture our history and Society it's a window into unfamiliar places to opposing and sometimes controversial perspectives in a society that supposedly values freedom of speech and expression the act of censorship and literary restrictions stands as a threat to the core of democratic values we're pressing the educational curriculum no matter how well intended undermines intellectual Freedom stifles open discourse and hampers the growth of well-informed diverse and tolerant society which begins at the younger Generations no worries history has shown us time and time again that censorship in any form leads to the destruction of freedom and Democratic Values systematically removing certain literature would deprive our children of the opportunity to engage in healthy debates and thoughtful discussions changing the literary

034curriculum to not challenge mainstream viewpoints risk cultivating a society that's narrow-minded intolerant and absent of diversity and inclusion instead of listening to the voice of a few outraged parents who never even took the time to read the book let's listen to the teachers who dedicate their career to helping our children Excel the teachers who spend years in higher education to better serve your children let's work together to make a difference for our children's lives [Applause] if we could get word out I just got a message that Melissa got who was on the call and Chris Caney are both outside trying to get in so if someone would allow them in so they can speak please is Mike Harnett here I know but we they're going to be allowed to communicate there's two seats here there's

035a seat there you see them tuck has them outside and at the end of the list okay perfect thanks sir all right Lewis Bernstein where are you here yes you are do you feel that so I'm here to share my perspectives on potential censorship in advanced placement or AP classes I am a parent of two Rising seniors at Ashley High School one of those students took AP Lang at Ashley last year taught by Kelly Kidwell I'm here to support Miss kidwell's ability to make appropriate choices for content in the AP Lang class the Ashley High School mtac and the district level mtac my student elected to take AP Lang all AP courses are optional AP is an international program created by the College Board to offer University level curricula and examinations to high school students

036quoting from the AP website parents do not Define which college level topics are suitable within AP courses AP course and exam materials are crafted by Committees of professors and other expert Educators in each field prior to the start of the school year the syllabus of materials used in Ashley's AP land course were approved by the AP one small part of the class had most of the students studying the rhetoric and composition of the book stamped one parent out of dozens objected to the use of this material in the class and was it removed removing even a small part of the content of the AP Lang course could cause the AP to choose to invalidate the students test scores and take away the college credit they earn bypassing the Nationwide AP Lang exam censoring or removing

037this book would affect dozens of students mine included if the board decides to remove the book from apline curriculum or the school system it will send the following messages whether those messages were intended or not the board wants to jeopardize the accreditation of the AP line class offered at Ashley high school and the potential college credits earned by the student in Kelly kidwell's outstanding college level class the board does not trust respect or value the AP Lang teacher Kelly Kidwell the board does not trust respect or value the high school mtac that unanimously agreed the book was used appropriately thank you your time is up thank you foreign [Applause] good evening I've taken the time to look about uh read about the book stamped I've reviewed it and add completely and wholeheartedly agree with Katie

038Gates I hope you take the time to thoroughly review it and make the rightful and biblical decision to remove it from our schools at this moment I'd like to recommend some other books for our Public Schools I'd like to recommend that this the King James Bible foreign I like to recommend why do we need government in the first place where every American needs to know by Dr Christine mcmathers I'd like to recommend it young conservative and why it's smart to be like us by Young America I'd like to recommend reasons to vote for Democrats by Michael J Knowles and I would like to recommend the popular children's book series total twins the books of over 4 million copies here in the USA alone and they can teach children about economics Freedom I'm not going to

039put their other things I also would like to Advocate you to vote against the the new call to audience Lottery system system it just is completely complicated and it just wouldn't work please take the time to review all of these matters and listen to the concerns of the people let's go Brandon thank you Hazel here she comes thank you foreign hello my name is Hazel I am in 10th Grade and I would say that I am an active reader I love reading and learning about New Concepts in the world around me as we all know analyzing And discussing literature helps us form critical thinking skills which are necessary skills for success in life these discussions are necessary part of my education and I would hope that this will not be taken away because someone is

040threatened by a book the entire concept of book Banning is quite confusing to me and it does not make very much sense if you do not like a book then do not read it but but it is important to challenge yourself and learn about others perspectives and Views I believe challenging ourselves and learning about our community and the world is a foundational part of public education public education is exactly what it says education for the public so we must represent the entire public we ban a book that speaks for some members of our community we silence their voice I personally believe that all voices should be heard and valued learning about others perspectives and recognizing the fundamental divides in our society helps us to come together and solve these problems that is why we need

041this book and other books like it books like stamp to challenge us to have a better understanding of our world even if we don't agree with what the book is saying we gain knowledge and learn how to defend our opinions if you are upset about a book that discusses racism then you should ask yourself why this book does not scare me it challenges me and allows me to think please do not deny me and my classmates a quality education because someone is afraid of a book thank you what is it like to have a foundation so shaky that a book can threaten to erode it I'm secure in my world view opposing views are not a threat to my Foundation because it's built on truth it is solid and strong like a rock I can

042defend my opinions with relative ease and when new information comes along I'm not afraid to change my mind because my Foundation is strong enough to withstand change I'm also confident in my parenting my children are free to read whatever book they choose we Embrace learning about ideologies from that differ from our own we wrestle with complex Concepts and seek understanding as to why others believe differently we unders we use that understanding to strengthen our own foundation not erode it I'm confident in my relationships with my children they come to me to discuss any topic they know they are safe and when they come across something that differs from our foundational beliefs we discuss it we are not afraid this is how my children learn to think critically and how to defend what they believe my

043job as a parent is not to control my children but to guide them to help them build a foundation that is strong and built on truth and wisdom so that they can withstand challenges without collapsing or losing their way unlike the man who built his home on Sand that can easily be washed away by opposing views my Foundation is built on rock my Foundation provides my children freedom to read without fear I feel sad for the parent who is afraid whose Foundation is so shaky it can be eroded by a single book A book her child never even read some of our own board members cannot even be honest about their intent to ban books because their Foundation shakes when confronted with truth our children and Community will not be chained by one parent's fear

044instead we say Let Freedom read is Beverly sells here I think so Dorian is this you no last name thank you the North Carolina NAACP as well as the New Hanover County NAACP is calling on an immediate reconsideration halt on the Banning of the book titled stamp racism anti-racism Nu from school libraries and classroom use putting a hearing on on a historic historically and culturally relevant text is censorship based on racism and politics stamped racism anti-racism in you has been reviewed review reviewed and approved by the New Hanover County Board of Education District media and Technology advisory committee which is a makeup of pay Professionals for the county yet the district has an elective board that is that is politicizing a book this is this you know this is absolutely crazy that one parent one

045parent made one complaint on a book and that's all it took for this to come to this there are so many other issues in our school district but this issue has a hearing has people coming out the Woodworks this is crazy to me like we should be focusing on getting real issues solved and the fact that I have to come here and read a statement by one of the oldest organizations in the country from our state chair Deborah dicks Maxwell and our local chair Laurent Montgomery is absolutely crazy I we should be focusing on bringing up our children no matter where they come from but instead a book with a complaint from one parent whose child does not have to read the book the government body wants to ban the book for everybody that is

046a total waste of time in government tax dollars everybody Marlena as a former instructional materials writer and high school special education English teacher I oppose book bands stamped is a collect is a Scholastic book it's been reviewed by academic professionals and grade level for ages 12 through 18 readers certainly not too advanced for an AP class Five Points a rational appeal toward irrational idea one diversity of thought of ideas of other opinions and perspectives different from our own if we only allow our children to read and hear ideas that we agree with we give them a one-sided view of the world and eliminate opportunities for them to analyze and debate other viewpoints and to be creative and Innovative cornerstones of American individualism and exceptionalism two rights parents have the right to contact their child's teachers

047and let them know that they don't want their child to read a particular book a teacher will bend over backwards to accommodate a parent's wishes as was done in this case but other parents also have rights they may want their child to read that book and their child should not be banned from doing so three precedent by allowing one parent to ban a book for everyone you said a dangerous precedent another parent might request a ban of a book that you would like your child to read such as the ones that the young man held up previously Banning books opens a Pandora's Box four student readers many students these days don't like to read books they would rather read text messages and posts on social media we all know that kids especially teens like to

048test our boundaries but putting a Banned Book label on it will make it more appealing to students because it becomes forbidden fruit five the Constitution the first amendment protects freedom of speech and freedoms therefore are inherently unconstitutional Banning a book makes the county and the school board as well as the requesting parent vulnerable to Legal challenges foreign thank you for all you have attained for our children our children are a Heritage from the Lord good leadership is built on Love and Truth the education of our children must be truth to both discern and walk in truth as adults we protect our children from developmentally inappropriate actions there is a reason movies are rated for children why you must be 16 to get a driver's license and 17 to join the military the enemy is coming

049after our children you were elected to restore conservative values to protect our children and parental rights to remove anti-American viewpoints critical race Theory and sexual grooming from the curricula to restore physical and mental safety and a focus on Reading Writing math and Civics with a quality curricula to support academic growth Jesus warned take heed no man deceive you judgment is waiting for those who mock truth be careful that you not corrupt one of these little ones it would be better for him to have a heavy Boulder tied around his neck and be hurled into the deepest sea than to face the punishment he deserves books purposing to indoctrinate our children have no place in our schools common sense is no longer common I pray in Jesus name you choose the narrow path that leads to

050life for our children that you honor God's holy instructions guarding your life with his Revelation truth Jesus ignite our schools with your light and your truth Your Kingdom Come amen thank you I'm going to remind everyone at this time we are going to have order in this room if you are if we cannot do that then we will have to ask people to leave I do not want to do that but we do need to have order thank you sorry about that speaker continue I teach AP English Literature at Ashley my pass rate this year was 92.7 percent in 22 years I have taught every secondary Ela course including nine years of AP English language composition and six years of college freshman composition I have a bachelor's degree two master's degree and I'm a national

051board certified teacher I would say that I probably know a few things about selecting texts that are appropriate I sat on the school level mtac committee and I am satisfied that parents have a sufficient voice as parents have opportunities to be heard by large panels of people in addition to meetings with the teacher principal superintendent and open comment sessions at all regular board meetings in addition policies 3200 and 3210 adequately function with two exceptions first a parent's complaint against a book should not be a moving Target the first complaint should be the only complaint carried through the process it is incumbent upon the parent to do their homework before they file a complaint second policies 323210 cannot become a bag to swing around anyone's head the professional code of ethics for school board members states

052that boards will quote render all decisions based on the available facts and independent judgment and refuse to surrender to judgment to individuals or special interest groups end quote elected officials should not be allowed to make a decision about removing a book or anything else based on partisan influences and book bans should not be independent of the reviews and recommendations of school and district-based Community or committees comprised of teachers from every Department admins parents students community members and media Specialists these committees are a balanced mix of educational experts and people who hold the community standard it is unwise to ignore their expert testimony in your process in my department no student is forced to read a book there are always Alternatives Banning books restricting access removes First Amendment rights for students parents and teachers and I

053will not support it Terry snuff Carrie Snook okay we'll come back NC case good evening gonna need a lot of millstones um first of all nobody's trying to ban a book so egregious and exaggerated that it makes me sick we're trying to communicate to everyone in the room and all of the parents and citizens and taxpayers of New Hanover County that contrary to some of the board members would like us to believe based on what came barreling out of their mouths at the Town Hall their critical race theory is not being taught or implemented from an ideological standpoint in New Hanover County and I'm sorry if anyone has a problem with what I'm about to say then feel free to clap your hands louder but it's patently false not only is race Theory and its

054ideology and framework being pushed in a most pedagogical way you're lying about it now I'd like to understand why we don't have any copies of Thomas Soules book in any of our libraries I mean if we're talking about Equity right but I would also like to remind you and I feel like this needs to be said because sophic Solutions got it wrong respectfully Equity is not equality and I think everyone needs to brush up on their definition of such for the AP language course the college board says that uh students should challenge their readings and persuade others through their own writing but I'm not sure that Miss Kidwell encourages that critical analysis because there's a lack of access to counter perspective like discrimination and disparities by Thomas Soul again why isn't this book available you

055want to talk about not Banning books then explain to me why we don't have this one here um you know at the end of the day I trust respect and value things and people too but you know what I don't trust and respect or value Marxism being taught in our schools [Applause] Pastor Tony McGee Tony McGee Tony McGee is outside okay thank you Alicia ogendelli good evening my name is Alicia ogandelli I'm with the Little Rock children organization oh thank you my name is Alicia ogandelli I'm with the love of our children organization here I love our children we still haven't heard about the act or questions that have not been addressed and have gone unanswered during the past two months here they are how was the public notified about the sanctions by the federal

056government's individual with Disabilities Act the idea during the first five years except when Miss Barnum revealed them a few months ago it hasn't been discussed publicly at school board meetings and it wasn't highlighted in last year's annual report next which services and programs were not provided to our special education students during the past five years if the sanctions were for 15 of the Ida money something had to be reduced or eliminated what didn't our special education students receive next a requirement of the sanctions is to establish a review team that must be reviewed the district policies practices and procedures related to suspensions who was on that team each year and finally when will the review team five reports be made public it seems like New Hanover County schools are sitting on a lot of data

057of out-of-school suspensions especially about the significant disproportionality of the suspensions of black students and black students with disabilities love our children believes that policies should benefit all students making information about Federal sanctions public will help towards improving short-term suspension policy 4351 thank you thank you Yolanda Hernandez thank you good evening when I was in seventh grade I attended a majority white school I was one of three African-American students in the class of 300 students I remember one day the history teacher came into class saying today we're going to learn about Africa he turned off the lights and put on the projector I remember seeing barely cloth people jumping around in trance-like state some of them wore bones and other strange objects in their noses and ears I remember someone remarking they look like monkeys the

058room fell eerily silent as the students remembered that I the only student of African descent was in the room I cried silently out of a sense of embarrassment of being associated with a people projected them to film I hated history it was the only class I ever got seized in fast forward to 8th grade our class was taught by a student teacher who introduced us to the book A people's History of the United States by Howard Zinn I began to learn about the other side of his story I began to learn things that had not previously been taught us like how the United States inhabited by Native Americans who if not for the help the European settlers would have perished I learned how enslaved Africans had been uprooted kidnapped from their Homeland trafficked robbed of

059their culture language and religion raped having their families torn from them and sold to another slave holder never to be seen again it was the missing link that allowed me to understand history from another perspective I contend that the student that the book stamped offers the opportunity to view history thank you Mr Hernandez different perspective love our children advocates for the safety of all of our children and staff in our schools it also advocates for using positive behavior support alternatives for keeping our four five six and seven year olds in school where they can learn and we believe that young children should have the right to have a parent or other representative present during the informal hearing that will determine if they receive an out-of-school suspension for up to 10 days policy 4351 says that

060students under age eight and under third grade will not be suspended except for incidents involving drugs assaults or possessing weapons are serious infractions five six and seven-year-olds deserve the right to have a parent present during the informal hearing about those infractions and a possible suspension we ask that the policy committee revise short-term suspension policy 4351 and include the sentence quote students under the age of eight and under grade 3 have the right to have a parent or other representative president at the informal hearing end quote love our children stands United with our community members who oppose the Banning of the book stamped we support the AP teacher and the decision of the 10 administrators and teachers of the mtac committee who support the use of the book in her course Let Freedom read thank you

061[Applause] thank you love our children supports the principal's right to decide if a five six or seven-year-old child will receive an out of school suspension for incidents involving drugs assaults or possessing weapons that decision is made during the informal hearing with the young child if the principal decides to suspend the five six or seven year old the parent is contacted after the decision is made love our children believes that young children should have the right to have a parent or other representative present during the informal hearing that will determine if they receive an out of school suspension for up to 10 days having a pres a parent present at the informal hearing does not take away any power or authority from the principle and because principles will have or will have already developed a good

062relationship with parents with the child's parents Arrangements will have already been made as to how to contact the parent in an emergency we ask that the policy committee revised short-term policy suspension suspension policy number 4351 and include the sentence quote students under the age of eight or under grade 3 have the right to have a parent or other representative present at the informal hearing end quote also love our children opposes the Banning a book stamped we support the AP English teacher and the decision of the mtac committee keeping children in school includes making sure they have the freedom to read thank you Jim Nesbitt [Applause] good evening thank you for giving this opportunity for the community to speak on this issue I agree with the young man earlier who said I think you have better

063things to do with your time education of children the discussion of a book Banning to me is totally inappropriate at this time books have been banned by communist Marxist as the lady referred to and dictators we don't need to be dictators we need to have open minds and we need to create open minds as a teacher and an educator I felt it was my duty and responsibility to make children think critically not give them any indoctrination on anything if a book is challenged or student challenges me I welcome that because they're thinking and we have to have children thinking we can't close their minds and we can't try to dictate what happens because you all know or you should know that children can only observe what they're capable of observing I mean absorbing so a

064five-year-old is not going to take the theory of relativity so don't worry about it and don't give it to them so teach them what's appropriate the other thing that I think is important is I'm just wondering how many of the board have read the book stamped could you show the audience with the raise your hands how many have read it oh well I thank you if you have but I challenge you to come up with a reason why children can't discuss it thank you starting with Melissa got [Applause] good evening thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you my name is Melissa Gott I have three children we live in downtown Wilmington in our district in to New Hanover high school because of the crime there we were very blessed to be

065able to get into Isaac Bayer Early College I thought that was wonderful because we would be able to avoid the crime at the downtown campus but I did not realize we would be confronted with additional challenges at Isaac Bayer so I just wanted to bring those to your attention so that the board actually knows what is going on topics presented as a at Isaac Bayer are presented with one point of view if you walk around the school and look at the posters if you look at the flags if you look at the books if you look at the reading material everything is slanted One Direction when you listen to the teachers joke with the students the students as high schoolers there are very jovial they will joke about Donald Trump's bad comb over they will

066joke about Donald's Trump's bad tan the teachers will laugh along with it however when one student said chocolate chocolate chip and everybody knew that that was referring to Biden that same teacher immediately chastised the student in health class when gender and sex was discussed a student told the teacher that there was only one truth and that is that there is a male and a female the teacher immediately shut the student down recently the New Hanover count New Hanover County along with UNCW started coloring the landscape with UNCW the emphasis on that was skin color and treating people differently because of skin color I have taught my children differently your time is up thank you very much for your time doing the ones that we missed Chris keaney I got it covered we're good where's candy

067Hey sir I'm coordinating with Mr Anderson first I would like to thank all of you also all ever all the members of the board for being here because I know it's got to be murder you're having to sit here in these tumultuous times in our Society in our nation and the rhetoric and the hate you guys all are getting I know that you're getting we are however a representative Republic We the People hired you for this thankless job I hope that none of you are profiting from this appointment we the people hired you through an election process knowing sometimes you will make difficult choices you are employees of the people hired to look at and Digest through the evidence and make the decisions based on that evidence the choices you have to make today or

068in the future are no different but there are guidelines you have to follow these guides do not involve feelings or rhetoric they do not involve name-calling or divisiveness they are not they do not separate American citizens by race or color I had the benefit of growing up in many countries and many continents in schools that had students from virtually every country in the world those were my my elementary and middle and high school I learned to get along with all these people we learned from each other on how their their races and their Creeds reacted to each other there was no animosity between us they were just other kids sadly I cannot say the same for my children sadly they were taught in schools of North Carolina they grew up in a society where thank

069you your time is up thank you Mike Garnet thank you sir and a quick reminder those that are standing if you would please have a seat we would like to have everyone have a safe place Mike Harnett thank you Beverly sets Carrie Snook okay and Pastor Tony McGee is he here okay then we're gonna go on to the second list starting with Barbara bakowitz is she here I've previously spoken about book bands here and now four members of this board are considering removing the book stamped based on the complaint of one individual I'll say it again removing I.E Banning a book is choosing the path of fascism via censorship one of fascism's initial tenets is to obstruct everyone's right to read what choose what's others choose not to or are uncomfortable with the driving fear

070about this book comes across as racism and selective education Hitler in 1939 South Africa during apartheid Soviet Russia the fascist dictatorship driven by communism in ruling Ukraine through 91 there anyone who taught from or read books the oppressors didn't approve of were imprisoned and sentenced to hard labor for years my relatives lived through that the silencing the censorship the punishment and it's why they're resisting now because we're Russia's repeating it again they're banning books library shelves people's homes are being wiped clean of books books are being burned fascisms paths so here in America in 2023 Are you seriously thinking of implementing fascism starting with Banning this book have you reviewed history to understand fascism's very very broad context what else will you consider Banning because I understand there's a growing list of other books proposed

071to be removed in spite of choice policy 3210 I urge you to respect our Educators and the civil rights of everyone and to not overstep your Authority or hold special hearings to entertain book bands we're not an autocracy with the Democratic Republic of America with First Amendment rights censorship via book bands is fascism it's as clear as that and it's a very dangerous slope indeed I would like to encourage the district to reevaluate the procedure of intact and curriculum selection the reason I believe all the library contact and curriculum should be unbiased and well-rounded without work without learning in any political Direction in my opinion this book is not fit for AP language curriculum I was an AP student its content promotes racism towards particular classes of people it Praises communist marxists like Angela Davis

072and Malcolm X this material does not allow for critical thinking on the part of students it indoctrinates students into the CRT ideology candy believes successful black people are to be shamed shunned and hated he believes they have benefited from capitalism he believes white people are segregationists why are people so adamant to continually perpetuate hatred why do people want to continue to be divisive and attempt to destroy our country I am not asking for Banning of any books I believe it boils down to this does this book get positive educational value for students that should be the question with every decision made why are we teaching children to hate others why are you Crossing excuse me why are you erasing the history of the progress races have made to become Unified I have never seen in

073my life the hatred that is expressed towards others what is the goal to teach hatred to children thank you thank you that are speaking they gave you respect now you respect them knock it off Libby done I think you're the one that gets to make those calls yeah hey good evening thank you again for all of your service I know it's a lot of time that you guys put in and taking the time to read the book really is appreciated and I thank you for the additional time for the audience as well um as people have mentioned already this is not about banning books this is about the curriculum all curriculums and books should go through a review to determine appropriateness for grade level and academic content in 2021 we are promised critical race theory

074is not being taught in schools so I asked chat GPT is stamped racism anti-racism and you considered critical race Theory the answer yes stamped racism can be considered to have elements of critical race Theory it's rooted in the work of eberne X kindy who is known for his advocacy of anti-racism and his application of CRT principles the book explores the historical and systemic aspects of racism in the United States discussing how racist ideas have been perpetuated and how they have influenced public policies and social norms the authors present their interpretation of History through a lens influenced by CRT principles again this is all direct from GPT um stamped portrays those who question or criticize its premises as racist this diminishes the possibility of respectful and open discussions which are vital to finding effective solutions to

075complex issues this books paints a false dichotomy of racist and anti-racist and defines anti-racist in such a way to essentially mean Marxist a direct quote from Kennedy says capitalism is essentially racist racism is essentially capitalist they were birthed together from the same unnatural causes and they shall one day die together from unnatural causes kidney goes on to Define discrimination as the defining question is whether the Discrimination is creating Equity or inequity [Applause] but I'm here tonight as a parent of three nhcs students I had a conversation recently with Dr Bertha Todd who is the librarian at the segregated all black Williston Senior High School in the 50s and 60s Dr Todd recalled placing a book order for her library that the district refused to fill she had ordered too many books for her students about

076integration and civil rights they told her those books were divisive they said they embraced dangerous ideologies reading them might incite these young black students to push back against Authority Dr Todd bravely challenged the superintendent which put a Target on her back going forward but as she told me I was seeing injustices that I could not take and I wasn't going to take people who want to ban or limit books like to believe there's one way of seeing the world and it's theirs it was remarkable to me how closely this parent's arguments against stamped mirror what Dr Todd was told in Jim Crow Wilmington in the 1950s this parent has said this book is socially divisive and anti-American and promotes subversive ideologies and my personal favorite she complained that the book is recently demeaning races that

077doesn't seem like it says to dig but maybe that's just me Dr Bertha Todd new at Williston then what we know now that books exist as both mirrors of our life experiences and as Windows into the experiences of others she wanted to give her students books that mirrored them where they could see themselves and feel seen as well as books that offered them a window into a world that was different than their own that's exactly what our educators are doing today my kids educations have been richer because of the diversity of students in their classroom and the diverse materials provided by their teachers and when they come home with new ideas they want to test against my own I'm a happy parent and Public School employee because that tells me the system is working they're

078learning to be Global Citizens and think for themselves and sometimes believe it or not I'm learning from them and changing my own views to our teachers from Bertha Todd at Williston to Kelly Kidwell at Ashley today keep holding up those mirrors and opening those windows for our students you are heroes and we thank you [Applause] thank you all for having me here tonight my name is Donald mapson I'm a retired school teacher I taught in this system for 20 years and I certainly do appreciate all the hard work that you do in making this the school system better for all children but I'm here to say that I wish that this book be not banned um as an educator I promised my students I wanted them to be critical thinkers I didn't want to put

079my opinions on them I wanted them to challenge me to think and work harder to bring the best out of them I think it's very important that we keep challenging young people and I think that we need more books like stamp when I was in elementary I was doing I did not have the opportunity to have books like this and I think that it's important that these kids get exposed to as much as they can because as a minority I needed to know more about myself and know about my community and I couldn't find too many books in the library that would challenge me and so I think books like this for all kids are very important because they they do need to know about racism they need to get they need to be challenged

080they need to have an understanding that everybody is somebody and everybody needs to be loved by everybody and so I I would certainly um like my brother was saying why are we here well we're here because we need to challenge this situation because if we let it go here it could mushroom into something else we need to stand up now because if we allow this to happen it could happen when your time is up I'm sorry thank you [Music] members of the board my name is George philasses and I'm vice president of the NAACP Branch here in Wilmington four months ago I testified during the call to audience in opposition to a change in board policy which would discriminate against transgender students denying the right to participate in sports based on their gender identity the

081board passed it anyway today I am back in opposition to another attack on our school system and our students an attempt to ban a book on the effect of systemic racism in American society I want to reiterate what others have said Banning books is what authoritarian governments do to preserve their control over what people think so why ban the book stamped racism anti-racism and you is it because of a political movement in our country to push back the Democratic advances made in the last 60 years by racial minorities and other minor marginalized groups to this end it appears that supporters of this movement want to write the continuing struggle for equality out of our history in effect to whitewash history systemic racism is America's original sin the effects of our 400 year history of white

082supremacy continue in clearly visible ways down to today exposing students to the reality of racism in our society both historically and today is not to make them feel guilty but to give them the understanding so that they can join in overcoming this barrier to building a truly Equitable Society as I noted four months ago our house is on fire public education is in a crisis it's time to be a board stop throwing gasoline on that fire and worked with those of us to support public education [Applause] [Music] there has been much talk this evening about banning books I would suggest that instead of using the term ban we rephrase the terminology to that of being highly selective you as the Board of Education have every right to be highly selective of the material and curriculum

083that is used to educate the children of New Hanover County in the case of this particular book stamped we should be highly selective I understand it as being portrayed as a non-history history book in AP Language and Composition for the purpose of rhetoric the author ibram X candy has argued that the only remedy for past discrimination is future discrimination I ask you if a book authored by white supremacist David Duke was being introduced for the purpose of rhetorical debate would there be a hue and cry about banning a books coming from those who are speaking in support of stamped this book comes from a world view that blames whiteness for all of America's problems on the first page of the introduction it states racist and anti-racist ideas have existed in the human mind for nearly

084600 years born in Western Europe in the mid 1400s racist ideas traveled to colonial America and have lived in the United States from its beginning this is an absurd and ridiculous proposition clearly the authors have not studied any history prior to the mid-1400s this seems to be the hot Trend among Academia which blames Western Europeans for creating this thing called racism which has been around since the earliest points of civilization the only thing this book should be used for is an example of poor writing styles and logical fallacies I will end by quoting the Great American Scholar Thomas Soule racism is not dead but it is on life support kept Alive by politicians race Hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as racist thank you [Applause] I'm here as a

085concerned parent Community member and former AP student as well my oldest daughter is um we should be a junior at Ashley and we also have this book and we've had it since the beginning of 2020 and my husband and I began reading it with our daughters when they were in elementary and middle school so I was really shocked to hear that it could potentially be banned when we were teaching them some of these concepts of reading some of this with them years ago when the book first came out what I understand as well is that there's still no concrete proof that specific moments in the book are clear violations of policy 3200 in addition I know we live in Wilmington and Wilmington does have a history of trying to cover up history as evidenced by

086the handling of 1898 and how that has it wasn't taught in our schools for decades until afterwards so we already have that history here as well we have a very diverse student population here and it's really important for our students to be able to see themselves in what they read and also for others to be able to see different viewpoints in books so they can better understand various cultures and contexts in which we live both of my daughters have experienced racism in the schools whether they've been asked if they want to be enslaved been sent memes with the KKK saying this is how you keep people away from a watermelon patch and they've also been called racial slurs maybe if some other children their classmates had access to this book at the high school level

087maybe they would think twice or have a little bit more compassion before they talk to their fellow classmates that way in addition from what I understand the school board is supposed to uphold the Constitution which does include the First Amendment which includes students right to read and also the board of education has to follow North Carolina's School Board Association and there's language there that says that that disallows political and special interest groups to drive decision making if history is considered Un-American then maybe some self-reflection is necessary Maybe [Applause] okay thank you for letting me speak um I just want to hit on some of the points that others have made and sort out by the quote that's been then has been said many times by the author the only remedy to pass discrimination is present

088discrimination so I ask everybody do you agree with that would you teach your children that I mean this is the author and founder behind this book I would have to disagree that we really feel that we want to teach our children this so but this is a quote by Mr Kendy he's an open advocate for race-based discrimination he has supported and said that his um that claiming CRT was a foundational uh to his work that he's done but later distance himself from CRT after he received some backlash so we if we want to support critical thinking let's ask these questions to our children and to those that are on the board to maybe look at these types of books that would challenge kids to look at things in in these ways I also have heard

089a lot of people talking about banning books we're not about banning books in support of this idea that we're censoring our kids we're merely trying to to guard their minds not close our minds and censor their their abilities to communicate he proposes on other um things like you're afraid of censorship well candy has also proposed a federal department of anti-racism which is unaccountable to the voters or legislators with powers to suppress racist ideas and to nullify and veto any law not deemed anti-racist that is censorship that's restricting free speech he's in support of that um and in closing I just want to say that um we're really just trying to guard our kids from Marx's philosophy and and things that support and push radical racial division in our in our schools thank you thank you

090[Applause] hello I come to you today as a parent of two children in New Hanover County schools and a former AP language teacher my 16 year old will be enrolled in AP Language and Composition in a County High School this year books like stamped written by award-winning authors in complex styles that are still accessible to teenagers are exactly the types of text I hope will be part of that class it is ironic that we're discussing removing a text with strong argument well-developed rhetorical strategies and multiple elements of persuasion from an AP language course this is a course designed to provide multiple perspectives and support students to think deeply and critically about how to best create their own arguments we need to trust our teachers exposure to diverse perspectives in school while supported with highly certified

091experience and award-winning teachers like those in the county is exactly when students should read discuss critically analyze and reflect if my children share questions about a required reading in school I will pick up the book and read it with them one parent should not be able to determine what other children can or cannot read in school there are processes in place to opt out of a text and receive an alternative one Banning any book in any classroom in any school sets a dangerous precedent stamp is a book committed to helping communities negotiate critical conversations about America's racist past and present it is a book that works to move us collectively toward repair not further separation it is not by chance that this is the first book to come before the board this challenge is designed

092to raise fear and erase experiences of black and brown individuals my children as upper middle class white children have always had access to books that are mirrors for their own lives all of our children deserve to see themselves in schools removing stamped other books of black and brown children just creates narrow windows and takes away mirrors for all of our children thank you Lindy Ford last call yeah it is last call Anna Lee Anna Lee hello my name is Anna Lee I'm a parent of a rising 8th grader and fourth grader um and in a way it's like difficult for me to believe I have to stand here and implore you today to keep the book stamped available in the Hanover County schools because it seems such so obvious that it's a well-written researched piece

093of literature on the other hand it's not difficult for me at all um it's not difficult because I see that this parent request to ban the book is rooted in a long tradition of a desire on the part of many white people to hide the realities of racism away Supremacy in our culture because doing that allows us to maintain the status quo it allows people to maintain their power and as a previous speaker pointed out our county has a history of this I was an honor student at Hogan high school and Mr McManus is principal there um I never learned the history of the 1888 Massacre and race riot when we said not once my 13 years of schooling and that was an intentional choice on the part of people in power in various roles

094in our community you know why because it's inconvenient for the perpetrators of that to have that true out um and so that's why I think in some ways yeah um not surprising that there are folks who want to continue to keep those realities hidden from our kids but I'll tell you this our kids can handle the realities black children and brown children as I heard a mother so eloquently say just now experience those realities every day and white children are more than capable of learning about the realities of racism and white supremacy in our culture and they need it they need it to be good citizens I want I have done that for my children and I want that for all children in this County to be empowered with the knowledge of the history and

095present so that they can change it and make your time our community better foreign [Applause] news sources are correct the argument made about the book in question are that it contains Marx's ideology inaccurate reframing of history untruths and disrespect for our nation in the Bible the name Marx is mentioned once and communism is mentioned 14 times the book each time it's because the historical figure discussed in the chapter became a communist or was a member of the Communist Party iewb Dubois Charlene Davis Angela Davis sorry and Charlene Mitchell the book at no point makes any suggestion for the superiority of any political ideology instead pointing out the failures of multiple political parties and ideologies to make progress in regard to racism in our country inaccurate framing of history and untruths all of the statements in

096the book which says in the beginning that is not meant to be a history book but rather book about history come from cited historical sources if the point of view offered offends anyone's sensibility it is worth remembering that is written from the perspective of the Black American population at the time discussed disrespect for our nation as both a veteran and a student of history at the facts about his the history of our nation make you feel disrespected then maybe you need to take some time and reflect on what that should be telling you disrespect for the Bible one there is no part in the book I read that showed preference for or degradation towards any religion also if I'm correct actually as a public high school not a private Christian one and therefore under no

097requirement the censor their library or resources for only pro-christian pro-christian literature as with my previous statement if the Christian faced history of support for human enslavement genocide and economic and social violence and segregation bothers you then you should probably reflect on that in private once in your personal version of History to be true doesn't make it so all of your favorite historical figures were human beings and live complicated lives just like the rest of us the founding fathers weren't Saints or superhuman the foundation of our nation's economy at its birth was the literal trading of human lives as labor and everything from fake science to religion has been used to justify extreme racism in this country we as a society still don't fully acknowledge the death of the depth of its effect today if history

098makes you uncomfortable then you should look and find out why thank you in 1982 the Supreme Court heard the Island Trees Union Free School District versus Pico case the case started in 1976 when students were upset that their school board directed that certain books such as Slaughterhouse Five and black boy be removed from the school library shelves the Supreme Court decided in favor of the students it said students have First Amendment rights in the school board's actions denied the students of those rights the Supreme Court decision went on to explicitly say that school boards cannot remove books from schools simply because they disagree with the themes or subject matter and here we are in 2023 a parent complained about a book the teacher immediately accommodated her request and her daughter never even had to be

099in the classroom during the book study this is where the issue should have ended but the parent wasn't satisfied with simply exerting her parental rights over her own child she filed a complaint at the school to have the book removed and it was denied then she filed another petition and it too was denied she then petitioned the school board and here we are where her actions have have the potential to impact every student in the district my question is this why have you given her so much power by even considering removing this book you are giving her more power than the superintendent the school board all the people at the central office all administrators and all teachers you are also giving her the power to dictate what other people's children can and cannot read why

100why does she get this consideration and thousands of other parents and Guardians in the district do not sometimes the answer to a request is no and it just needs to end there I've heard board members insist this issue isn't a book ban but the definition of a ban is to officially prohibit which is exactly what you will be doing if this book is removed is that what you want is your legacy I'll leave you with a quote from Deborah Caldwell Stone of the American Library Association to be told your books can't be on display or that your books are inappropriate because they simply reflect your life and experiences it's not only an act of censorship but an act of violence to the community think before you act [Applause] our founding fathers agreed that a robust

101public school system was crucially important for the preservation of our democracy I'm sure that's part of the reason you ran for public office you want to help our school systems produce educated thoughtful citizens everyone in this room will agree that parents have the right and responsibility to monitor their child's Behavior and that includes what they read inside and outside of school everyone in this room ought to also agree that one parent should not have the power to dictate what everyone else's child reads this one parent wants to impose her wishes on everyone else and there's a name for that and it is not democracy book Banning is not really about a book it's about Free Speech it's about the suppression of dialogue and ideas that you don't agree with that's not a healthy thing for

102our schools or our children I have three grandchildren currently in our district and two grandsons that have graduated from New Hanover High School one of them earned a Physics degree from App State and one is starting a second year at NC State I'm grateful for the good education they received from our caring and our competent educators Sheldon our kill our children from challenging ideas a diverse perspectives will not equip them to face the realities of the world we must Empower them with the necessary skills to think critically analyze information and form their opinions finally we live in Wilmington North Carolina if any Community excuse me if any Community should be Reckoning with his racial history and education as children so it doesn't happen it's us did Lindy Ford come in is Lindy Ford here that

103concludes our list for the night hi board members uh I would entertain a motion to take a five-minute break and then we can about an eight minute uh let's all right eight minute break first and second all in favor signify by saying aye aye we'll take an eight minute break we will be back at uh 650 650. what do you think come on back we need one more board member and we'll go ahead and start great miss crabs here we got four we're ready to start all right those in the audience if you are going to play in the stay please have a seat actually Pete we have a minute because it's supposed to be 6 53 you gave us eight minutes oh I actually had 6 50. okay all right again if we get

104the board members to make their way back up those in the audience please have a seat we're going to carry on with the business of the board and I do want to take just a second to thank everyone and please pass it on a lot of people have left but I think overall the quality audience went well I do appreciate everyone overall doing a good job with that so thank you for that we're going to carry on um just a point uh that I would I should have mentioned before but I mentioned now we do have two closed sessions uh listed we are not going to take the first closed session um because we do have people here we'll carry on with our rest of it and we'll do a closed session at the end

105of the meeting so uh just let everybody know we're gonna probably leave that in there just so everybody knows that we could do that in the future but again we're going to bypass the closed session so we'll go on to consensus items um we've allotted five minutes for that I would entertain a motion to accept the consensus uh to a motion to accept the consensus items so moved we have a motion we have second second I'd like to amend that question Mr chairman can we please pull a off for just a quick discussion absolutely so we want to pull a off anything else we need to pull off board members so if not uh we'll be voting on items B through l we have a motion a second all in favor please signify by saying

106aye aye all opposed okay that passes seven zero uh Miss Barnhart uh we have item a right away and permanent uh utility easements for Gordon Road widening Miss Barnhart thank you Mr chairman I asked Mr Anderson to please address this because I know this came through in some of our emails from parents and concerns of parents and this is just an opportunity to share with the public some of the steps that we're doing to involve safety and to be intentional so if you I'm going to hand it over to you thank you yes if you are a family attending Eaton Elementary School or happen to live off Gordon Road you are well aware about the traffic problems we experience those ourselves and uh we're we're looking at trying the best we can to improve some

107efficiencies of process right now but this has been a D.O.T project widening Gordon Road uh for a long time they're in the property acquisition phase now we've negotiated a settlement with them for 200 175 thousand dollars and I have requested as part of this agenda item that that money be set in a capital budget so that at the appropriate time during the widening project we can consider and Implement some improvements on site as well we want to increase parking but we all also want to evaluate the car queuing and try to accommodate as many parents on site as possible but I do think in the end with any on-site improvements that we make in the Gordon Road widening the Ingress and egress to the site will be better determine I make a motion to approve

108a do we have a second second first and second any other discussion if not all in favor of approving item a please signify by saying aye aye all opposed also carries seven zero thank you very much we will carry on I'll get back up there but we will carry on with new business mou for NC Ed core for pilot math tutoring program Dr Faison good morning good afternoon good evening wow you know third term three times the throne um so I have an mou for you for our palette program with North Carolina edcorp and I wanted to take a minute because it's such a great program to kind of highlight it for you and for our parents in our community so briefly this will be a math pilot program at Freeman and Forest Hill fourth

109graders so this pilot program will allow all of the students there to receive some additional tutoring NC adcorp is an organization that works with ncdpi already on tutoring programs for reading so um Dr Foust actually work with them and um also work to get us some money for this pilot program so we could actually pilot it in math and you asked why fourth grade math when you think about math and you think about our data and you think about fourth grade when you think of third grade we go deep fifth grade we go deep fourth grade we go vast there's so many different things so there's a logic behind this so I'm just going to take a minute just to tell you about this wonderful program that we will be piloting for this day and

110we already have some counties who are trying to jump on and copy um I'm learning it must be me because I'm the one that always has this problem but if I thank you so first of all what NC Ed Court will do is they will help us recruit and provide training for the tutors that will come in they actually will provide um training that will be embedded and when I say embed it they're actually going to do some modeling with that volunteers the volunteers will be retired teachers or retired Educators and some just Volunteers in our community of course they will recruit and help us to find these people but the these employees will be employees of New Hanover County Schools so they will go through all the screening processes that we go through and

111as I said this will be with our fourth grade students at Forest Hill and Freeman it will be all of them and this is what we call high impact tutoring and if you'll go to the next slide when you think about high impact tutoring basically you're talking about the frequency so we're talking one to three times and three times a week one to three students that they will be working with and it's 30 minutes and the measurement will actually be using data the tutors will be logging in data and working with their students based on their needs so and this is a time to support teachers this is not taken away from them and what they do but it is actually to fill in some of the gaps so our teachers we often with the

112teachers we often work on those skills that we've been working on in the classroom that the kid may not have actually picked up the students and they need to see it again the tutors will actually do they'll do an assessment and they'll see where the gaps for these students and work there so I've said a lot of these things but I just want to highlight on this um program that that they actually have the program in place with reading and they want to continue with us we don't know we have the choice we're asking for a one-year trial but they've done multi-year evaluations for external evaluations from outside companies and organizations and what they're doing for reading is proving to be effective also the curriculum is Bridges we actually already have this curriculum in these

113schools so this will not be an outside course and of course they will actually train the personnel and provide ongoing professional development for the tutors and lastly they'll do site visits and this is the timeline and I think the biggest thing that I want to leave you with before I ask you to please approve this mou and answer any questions is that this will be data driven based on student needs and the tutors will receive training on how to use the curriculum as well as if we have people who are not former Educators training how to work with our students so I will take any questions that you have board members any questions Mr McManus regardless of your answer absolutely this is marvelous we need to prove it immediately these students will be pulled in

114this all day or is this just 130 minutes in the day it's 30 minutes in the day and what we are looking at and we have to do the schedule so basic basically we're thinking the tutor will be there all day and that will allow them for maybe about three days or half days but it's going to be at times where the student is not receiving core instruction and not to take away from some of those things that the students also enjoy so it's going to be tricky figuring it out but we feel like we can do it Dr Jason would you share with us again where the funding for this is coming from this is actually we have to thank our legislators in our um you know our superintendent and legislation committee because we

115have some funding um put in the um budget for our state budget for us to Pilot this program so we're very very happy about that and Dr Faust did you want to add anything to that um I can vouch and say that several years ago Alvin has been several years ago 2010 wow I was 13 years ago I had to use all of my title one dollars when I was recruited to go to Texas and I use those dollars on 23 tutors inside the building and um at the end of the year we were a low-performing school that was reconstituted and we use it only in sixth grade so the the research says fourth Sixth and Ninth so we're starting it with fourth and the results were phenomenal um with with the just that what

116we did something similar of course at middle school you can do things a little different and we went to 91 proficient um with sixth grade math which then took us off of all um uh lists and we continued to excel with it and so it as Dr Faison said the tutors do not teach the curriculum that the teachers are teaching they teach behind and what I mean behind their teaching and filling in holes and that's all so individuals may not see the progression immediately but all of a sudden it just clicks and then if the outfit is at the at the end but the tutor will see it but the the classroom teacher may not see but the confidence comes and so what we're looking for is the confidence and then once the student receives

117the confidence they just take off yeah and the good thing about this is we actually have two extremely strong principles and the principal at Freeman and Forest Hills and with their staff they're going to create schedules that'll allow this to work for the students the teacher and the tutor so um if anyone is interested we are thinking about 10 then tutors per school if they are interested please you can send me an email and I'll forward it to the right location and you should be sending some information because HR will be handling this information handling this and I'm gonna take that back you can contact somebody in HR if you're interested because this is an HR thing because they will be of District employees um any questions before I ask for approval well I just

118wanted to say two things one I know the value of one-on-one tutoring for my own self I had a problem with long division and I couldn't get through it and I had a friend a parent of a friend that was just she just kept helping and helping and then now I'm like I know how to do it um thank goodness but and second point is this definitely aligns with our strategic plan Community engagement part of it I feel like there are folks out there that want to figure out how to get involved I think this is a perfect opportunity to do that and I think this is just awesome I think I think you'd mentioned the last time too that it's not just about helping fill the holes but also for the kids that are

119already understanding that's going to take exactly because all of the students will receive a tutor because so we will be taking the tutors we'll be taking some students to different heights if they have this working where they are and letting them gain some information as well because this is not looking at students who are just behind in math we're going to make sure all of our students in fourth grade receive this um resource all right I just want to again Echo the Kudos coming on I remember saying we have 12 failing schools and what are we doing tell me the plan tell me the money Associated where is it coming from and tell me who I need to talk to to make it happen so this program started as only allowing for reading tutors but

120because of these people calling and fulfilling the vision of this is what we want to do this is what we're how we're going to be successful this is the progress we're going to see so I'm very excited for this and with that I make a motion to accept the mou do you have a motion second second it was first and second any other discussion sir still have summer school at the end of the next group we this has nothing to do with any of our current things that we have this does not take we're not supplanting this does not take the place of anything sorry thank you any other discussion gosh I can all in favor please signify by saying this is to approve this mou all uh all in favor please signify by saying

121aye aye all opposed passes seven zero thank you thank you and thank you for your hard work on this uh our next discussion is advanced placement classes Ms Barnhart thank you Mr chairman um the point of tonight's discussion as a result of questions that I've had and how our district supports our higher achieving students is specifically in regards to our AP program our data shows that 46 percent of our students receive a one or two and a three four five which is totaling 54 percent per NCD API as of 2023 NC public universities accepted 345 as college credit through questions it seems as though our district has operated in cyclos each at specific high schools as far as AP supports and protocols and what I would like to see is if the board would be

122willing to consider having the superintendent and staff evaluate and Implement changes such that the AP program operates as a district Direction versus individual School levels and for this Vision to be shared back to the board by say November um but I would also like to make a motion now to require all students to make sure they are taking the AP exam if enrolled in an AP level course I'll second that first and second are we making a motion already yes yes sir how'd you say that a little slower yeah the whole thing or where where is your question exactly AP I'll I'll make a motion to require all students to take the AP exam if they're enrolled in an AP level course a question over that Dr Faison is there a reason why they're not

123you know if at the end of most classes we have a test and they take the test you know it's at the end of grade test end of course tests why would we not and I'm correct that we've that the school system pays for the students to take the test correct so why why is it that we're not doing that um so right now we have an extremely high rate we have over 91 percent of our students that do they do take the exam so one of the reasons I can tell you that there's a Calculus class called a b calculus a b and there's a Calculus class called BC so when you take BC I mean a b most of the students go on to take BC any c on BC and that is

124when you take the exam you only take one so if you're a Catholic Student you're taking Cal a b and then you go on to take BC you're going to take the exam one time so but we have you register in a b so that's affecting some of our data like I said right now with that even being an effect we have 91 percent of our students to take the exams we actually have two courses um that we have about 89 but most of our courses we have about a hundred percent the 97 percent of our students taking the exam there's a variety of reasons I could just speculate I mean I don't know I don't know if some of the students feel like hey I'm not ready but for the most part we have

125a high percentage of our students already taking the exam so this won't be a major difference for them but I cannot I do not know why the few who do not take it are not taken I can't speak on that Miss Walker did you have your hand at first yeah I I guess I'm trying to understand are we trying to force kids to take the AP exam I I don't understand that one because I had two children in the school system that took AP classes one that excelled and one that didn't do as well and there are a lot of reasons kids take AP they want to be pushed they want the rigor I didn't feel at one point I didn't feel like my son probably should take more but I was encouraged by the

126APA teacher to keep pushing him to do it because it really does it's one of those things that helps kind of push you to understand what college may be like or just push for the rigor purposes not all kids are good test takers especially this kind of the way the AP examine goes and like I said my daughter took all pretty much all the ones that were offered and there are a lot of reasons why kids don't want to take it but I I don't think it's our job to tell kids Force kids to take an exam and also I will say the AP classes you get College you get credit as well I believe it's still double weighted which is good for a GPA I don't know if Dr files can confirm that Dr

127Faison it's a double weighted class you know which means you know if my kid didn't do as well maybe a d they really got to be in the class because it's a the rigor is a lot harder I just don't think it's our job to make students take an exam they're not ready for it and you know I know colleges don't accept maybe a one or a two but I mean there's a lot of reasons why kids do take it maybe they're not going to get College it for it but they're going to do it just to see how they do but they also get a grade in that class as well so I don't see the point of forcing kids to take an exam I just don't think it's our job to do that

128Mr chairman before we continue with uh discussion I just want to confirm was there a second to the motion there was it was yes okay I didn't write it down thank you Miss uh Brad um Bradford um go ahead now you go the president do students receive the college level waited if they don't take the AP exam do they have to take the AP exam I've been out six years so we give I think I'm to understand it's the sixth point they're on the six point person in the Bible so the um course if they're enrolled in the course you get the GPA weight it increases the weight it's no it's encouraged but no no okay no okay um that's okay a couple questions so um teachers are required to give an end of grade

129test on an AP exam in addition to the AP exam right a teacher's still gave an exam because yeah because they can't wait to the court that comes back well the AP exam for the most part is in May for all the courses so yes we still because it goes back to Mr mcmanus's point the students are still getting a grade for the course and the AP exam and the result of the exam we don't receive until the summer and that's basically for the college credit and so a follow-up question to that is students pay for their own AP exams or does the school system pay for that the state actually pays for the exams for our students in our state all of ours okay so yeah and so I guess my my question of

130the board is kind of the same as Miss Walker's is that this is coming back to a parental Choice again if a parent and a child don't think that they are ready to take the test um why do we why do we have to force them you know to do that and I don't know you know it's been a while since our kids have gone through that process but there are a lot of schools now that don't even take threes um and some are very particular and don't even take fours you know so um you really you got to do really well and then there are some kids who are already planning to repeat the course in college and you can't get you can't use AP credits and take the class you know so you

131either take the AP credit or you take the class in college you know you don't you don't get both is Bradford I have a question for what we heard before this is it appropriate to hear to ask about that now or do we just wait a vote on this what's in front of us well what's in front of us okay I mean this whole discussion you can talk about anything can you encapsulate what you said earlier into the cliff note version foreign thank you for bringing up that some colleges only accept a four or five if we look at our data in New Hanover County for fours and fives we were only at roughly 28 percent um and so looking at the data as it pertains to successful rate of AP exam which is how

132you receive college credit we can do better and so looking at how we're supporting our staff and our students it is very sporadic and it's not a district-led initiative and when you are talking about our highest level Learners I think that it is our due diligence to support our students and to ensure that they are getting high quality rigorous education in particular when you're looking at the evaluative measure of success of the program you're looking at the AP scores because that's the comparison across everyone that you're competing against getting into college so what I would like to do is I would like for our staff to brainstorm how we can better support our staff and our teachers because oftentimes they are the sole teacher of an AP course at their you know subsequential high school

133but we are a district that has multiple high schools and multiple programs and so I would like for us to do our due diligence to make sure that these students are being supported the space I didn't know the numbers as far as how many kids were actually taking the exam but my question would be outside of that exam how were our students doing if they are taking another test to see whether they pass or fail how are our students doing in AP courses are is the vast majority passing failing how are they doing I do not have that data Miss Nicene but I can definitely find that out about APS about generic to schools but it was a general I can't remember my father with me did that include the numbers that did not take

134from those that were enrolled why you sir I'm trying to remember I have a real problem with this there's nothing more competitive than kids when they're at the AP level and to give and I have a I'm having a self dilemma here because who don't take the exam are still going to get the two weighted points with everybody else on the other hand we need kids to be challenged at that level so that's a real tough one for me but if you haven't been a high school principal it is treacherous land when you're trying to be top GPA and those points are massively important and so that's a real tough one yeah okay again I don't know it's our place to tell a parent and a child what to do I know there are a

135lot of reasons why students take AP classes there are a lot of reasons like I say the double weight the rigor but I and I I'm not sure on these statistics I'm here and I would like to verify a lot more but regardless I think that students that take it may want to challenge themselves students that take it demonstrate manis's Point are really trying to get the highest GPA they can and those are the college-bound kids that are probably going to make fours and fives on that exam but not every kid is going to do that and you know there are some kids that just want to you know take the time get the get the uh double weight and not take the exam and what's the point if they get a one or a

136two or even a three they're not going to get college credit for it anyway so I'm sure they can understand how far or how they've done in the class compared if they want to take the exam I mean why are we going to force them to go because I know when you take AP exams it's not in your classroom I think was it I think I was dropping my daughter off at another school and it's just a special day just for that exam but um like I said I've had kids two kids that were completely different and they took those classes for the different reasons and I would never force my kid to take that class if he wasn't ready so I don't know why we should Dr Faison remind me how many students do

137we have in AP class it's just the raw number we I'm sorry we have a total of three thousand and twelve exams the number of so that is different students taking different exams I do not have in front of me the number of students that didn't yeah it looks like because I do have it in front of me I just don't have a total it looks like we have probably about 2 000 students taking AP exams so just as a reminder we have over 91 percent of our students already taking exams Dr Foust sent us in our board packet on July 25th the total AP students in our district is 1492 the total exams are 27 130. um and then if you then and he has it broken out by each one of the different

138kinds but he didn't send us information hold on not done okay okay the um the um yeah and the total number of AP students um Broken Out by their score levels you know she has that so he didn't give us that but I'm trying to figure may I continue okay I'm trying to figure out how forcing kids to take the exam is going to support our staff in being better AP teachers and how it's going to support our students in being better students that's what um so I mean I'm not disputing anything that you've read I just don't see how this this motion and this directive is going to get us to where you want to be Mr McManus and I found the sheet yeah most universities except the four or five blessed are suitable

139to take anything some might take us to a three but it may make you repeat the class um above 70 percent are making three or lower um 46 are making ones and twos so we do have a number of students who are not doing well on the AP exam look back to the argument I'm having to myself is that beneficial I I have to think it probably is have we asked the teachers their input the AP staff themselves about what you are recommending Mr McManus can I just add one thing the UNC system accepts all threes across the board so any school that is in the UNC system does accept the three now do I think that might have been a change because I think that is something that might be a change because I

140know that was not always the case but right now if you go to a UNC um School in the UNC system they will accept the three it is extremely rare if they do not so you're telling me that UNC Chapel Hill NC State except threes yes sir okay yeah in 2013 they did not but yeah did you have something else yeah um so the first part of my sentiment was talking about directing our district level to come up with some ideas to help support that so those so then the second part was also making sure that their students are taking the exam now what that looks like I absolutely think and that's why I said to come back in November and revisit some of the things that we can Implement to do a better job

141because they will be going to our staff to share I know one of the things the commonalities for our core content areas is we have plc's like I said that collaboration and what we're doing to ensure you know this 92 percent pass rate which is amazing that we can bring up our other teachers because again oftentimes it operates in a cyclo and we are not just having the teachers fend for themselves we are here as a district to support them so that is that I'm what I'm hoping that the board can agree on is that we can say we'd like to see some ways in which the district can do a better job of support the second is talking about the program that many people had mentioned tonight this is an opt-in program so part

142of the expectation in my opinion should be that they are taking the exam because the point is to expose rigorous content but also to receive college credit and so if you do not take the exam then you are exempt from getting that credit I understand you are getting a weighted GPA but that is where the intent behind that's coming from Miss Mason think after hearing the numbers we do have a large amount of our students that are taking it correct 91 is a large amount um and we see the numbers there's ones and twos and I I don't know I understand what you're saying Miss Barnhart absolutely and I agree that we do need to raise the standards for our kids and we do need to make sure that if they're taking a course there's

143a purpose behind it 100 but if there is that vast number of ones and twos taking the test um I don't know if forcing them to do so is going to improve those scores does that make sense and yep I have one more person to speak a second time and then we can suspend those rules if we want to and continue the conversation and I'm fine with that but I was just going to say one interesting thought was that as a former principal myself I mean I had people coming especially a fifth grade and say you know I don't want Johnny to take that integrated test so you know and so I mean this is an opt-in class so I'm with Mr McManus kind of going back and forth this is you know you have

144the opportunity not take this class you can choose to take this class so along those lines are we not saying you know part of the class I think that maybe we can set the expectation for the classes that you take the the test at the end kind of like you do in fifth grade and fourth grade but on the other hand you know Miss Walker makes a very good point that maybe a child just wants to take the class and not go through that you know and and test some kids are I mean I've I had students uh you know that were you know sweating in and a lot worse than that um you know so I'm kind of back and forth I would entertain a motion at this point to suspend the rules and

145continue the conversation if we would like to do that or we can vote because everybody's had an opportunity to speak twice are you making a motion I'm asking for a motion okay I'd like to make a motion that we call the question okay that takes it too okay is there a second on that which means we vote on forcing kids to take the right I don't want to force them to take it we don't necessarily she's already made the motion if under your your rules uh debate had ended anyway then if there's no motion to suspend the rules to continue debate I don't even know that we need a motion to call the question okay all right so can I clarify Mr chair you suggested to suspend discussion foreign to um call the question follow

146the question yes you did that was previous is there a second to call the question to vote on it the vote on it I discussion okay so there is not a second at this point we have a additional motion and a second to suspend the rules so we can continue the conversation uh would you please put a time limit on it I will definitely put a time limit on it um for an additional it is for additional uh seven minutes so we will be done at 7 35. every additional seven minutes of discussion we have a first and second Miss Bowie would you so this this motion is to continue talking for another seven six minutes and 58 seconds now uh we have a first second Miss Bowie would you please call the roll no

147Miss Walker yes Mr McManus yes Miss Mason yes Miss Bradford yes Mr wildebeard yes and Miss Barnhart yes so that passes six to one we have a clean slate and I have it sorry what order are we going um I was I think Mr McManus had said he wanted let's go right all right Miss Walker you get to speak first okay I just I just want to reiterate as a parent with experience of having kids take AP and two kids that were completely different I would never force a kid to take an exam he was not ready to take and I think if that's what we're voting on I think that's completely a wrong thing to do I don't know what the outcome will be if you force children to take a test they're not

148ready for I don't know if you could get a zero but it's possible and that really has no reflection on how they did in the class you know maybe they did better than what they're going to do on the exam but the point of taking the exam is to hopefully get college credit you know I one kid that did well on that and one that didn't so I would never have forced any of my kids to take the exam if they weren't ready to do it whether they got credit or not and with the double weight that is just that is something that helps gpas as well and it helps them with rigor so I don't think that reflects necessarily on the teacher although it could but I just you know it depends on the

149kid so thank you Miss Walker Mr Rick Mannis yeah thank you I included foreign I don't want to make a decision without input from the AP teacher Arena my experience with ap teachers has been outstanding they are trained well they know exactly what they're doing and they challenge kids but I we haven't heard from them and so I would like hopefully we table this and then Dr Faison commute some type of communication with this the staff to see what they recommend it's like doing a calendar I know it's you know what when we meet but we need to do it and I hate to speak for the AP but what do they think what do they recommend because it's their program so I think Mr Smith yes Miss Mason just to reiterate what I had

150said before if we have 91 of our kids that are taking it and the smaller percentage that don't take it simply because of the way that the course is framed um and then we also have the numbers that indicate that we do have student the students the 91 of students that are taking it a lot of them are getting ones and twos forcing them I don't see that as an improvement I think that we need to have expectations we need to have high expectations for our AP students and ask and and ask that they take the exam I don't know if I agree with forcing them to thank you Miss Mason Miss Bradford well I'm gonna throw something different in here and I I think like Mr McManus I'd probably like to wait a bit

151but I take continuing education every year and so I am taking education and I am being tested I don't pass the test I don't get credit for it and as someone who can't do names I promise you I don't take exams well um and a couple years ago I missed my opportunity to take it in person or on zoom and I had to do it online and when there's an exam I'm going to learn more because I know there's an exam there's an accountability piece to it at the end if there's no exam I'm going to learn a little less and that's just a personal experience I just wonder if that's in some of the decision making for the students I don't know so I'm going to need more input on it but it seems

152like if you're going to get the double weighted that you ought to take the exam just my my opinion at this point uh almost use my my time here um I think I've heard you know a lot of folks say that we need more information uh Mr McManus has said that Mr Bradford just said that um I mean and I think everybody should have an opportunity to speak but I think that might be you know obviously we don't want 28 of our students to pass any test that's not that's not as as so maybe looking at the overall picture how we can improve uh that number I mean obviously if we're getting a big number of our students getting ones and twos and that's not passing uh that's not what we want to do so

153maybe looking at the whole thing I think Mr mcmanus's idea of you know maybe you know making uh and I don't know maybe we have a PLC of of these teachers but maybe bringing them together at some point where they can they can have those discussions and you know again if we have a teacher okay this teacher is phenomenal maybe they can share what's what's that program that has given me right now where the teachers support other teach leaders I mean maybe something like that where we have you know the Superstar AP teachers and they can share some insight with other AP teachers uh and and help them you know like I say uh we want everyone at the end of the day the most important thing is are the students um so I'm gonna

154be done so we can we have only a minute for 52 seconds left I'm happy to pull my motion off the floor Mr chairman um but I would like to address the staff and if the board is willing for the staff to come back and bring some suggestions that might be that might also include the examination I do think for the AP test it is an unbiased way to compare all students and when you're taught when you're talking about taking a step back and reevaluating your input of programs and how we do things I think it is um very important to look at those standards so I still would be in favor of that but I would like for the staff to potentially bring back suggestions in November working with our AP teachers as well

155I have no minutes left but I'm gonna all I want to ask is because it's at 7 35 point of clarification does the college boards require that we take that students take the test no because if the College Board doesn't require it it's not it's not our program it's their program so um that's all I have to say okay well would you like to make a motion um Miss Barnhart about bringing it bring it back so the part about getting the more information I would to Mr Vogel to see if we need a motion on the floor or if it's a consensus of the board if it's something that can be brought back well you can move postpone the motion indefinitely he she pulled it it definitely makes it die does it not no okay

156I'm sorry what is the purpose if we're not considering your motion what are you hoping she wants to talk about it in their meeting I would like if it's the will of the board to direct the staff to come back with some suggestions and solutions to improve our AP program what that looks like I am not putting a whole bunch of bounds and standards on but I think that we can do better and what I would like to for us to come back with is maybe sometime in November I think that's a realistic turnaround time to evaluate and come up with some strategies and suggestions so if that if I need to put that into emotion I'm happy to put a motion to the okay I make a motion to direct the superintendent and staff

157to collaborate with our AP teachers and District level support staff to come up with ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our AP program to come back in the November board meeting to share out some ideas that potentially will be voted on I'll second that first and second any discussion on that Miss crabill I would like for us to and I can make a motion on top of promotion but I would like for us to just treat this as any other board topic where we send them to you in the superintendent to put them on the next agenda so that the the his staff can evaluate um the pro the program I mean we don't have to tell them go find ways to improve let them decide where we need to improve because not

158all AP courses are created equal you know AP Lang and AP World History or AP Human Geography or AP unit all that stuff they're taught differently and so for there is no carte blanche answer on how to improve every AP class so I I would like to um tell me if I'm allowed to amend that motion to let's put it on like I said in the very beginning of the meeting let's put it on for September and talk about the program let us hear what the program is um and then they can evaluate if the program is not good so I would like to amend make that motion Amendment okay can you yes to amend the motion to put this on the September agenda as we would normally as we would normally do there's a

159second I'll second second okay discussion on the amendment Miss Walker uh anytime we can have more information is better like I said you know there are varying degrees of understanding of what AP is and I feel like the more information we have the better I'm all for improvement that's not the problem I think the misconception that we're having here potentially is that the exam AP exam itself is whether or not someone's going to get college credit and that depends on the college that you're replying to um but the exam but that doesn't mean that the class is not worth taking it doesn't mean it's I mean they get an exam for that class too and they have to pass it so I think if we can come back together in September and we can talk

160about it and get the information we need will be a lot more we have a lot more understanding of really what direction we want to go and if we're talking about Improvement because without that we're just sitting here voting on things we don't fully understand so Bradford I like the idea of having the staff to bring us some suggestions so I will vote for that for the amendment okay it's Mason I would like more information about because Miss Walker did mention those are the tests those are those are just those test scores I want to know the pass fail rate of our AP courses because I think that would be really good information for all of us to have so I have to say that I I want more information before improvements are made anyone

161else can I yeah I'm not part of I mean I'm the secretary but can we also throw in um Cape Fear Community College if we're gonna if we're gonna examine we have students who go there and they fail the course we pay for it and so my recommendation would be and this is so this is what happens a student goes and what parents don't actually realize is that as soon as you take a college course it starts your transcript whether you like it or not and so a student goes over there and they make a c or they make four C's let's put them at a 2.0 so then when they go to enroll in college it knocks them out of the running for certain scholarships and sometimes for financial aid so what I propose

162is that we take a hard look at it um well I'll say what we found out is that we don't have an mou that examines that and so when I had them pull it we couldn't find it and we pay for F's and so kids go and they flunk class and they flunk the class and they flunk it again and we put them back in and they flunk and I said what are you talking about they make a d we put them back in they make another D we put them back in they make another D we put them back in so as if we're looking at Fidelity and transparency we have to look at AP we need to look at Cape Fear Community College and we need to bring back so that we can

163have a true because I'll be honest with you um AP you don't have to take it you don't have to take classes at cfcc but what you do have to do is and we as stewards of the education we do have to help parents guide through and if a kid is making a c or a D in a college course maybe they shouldn't take it they probably shouldn't I mean it's okay for them not but we shouldn't take a a college course at Cape Fear if the student is making a c and so we're talking about putting parameters in so you should be taking age or bees at a college course and that's um coming from the parent side and coming from the superintendent side because we pay for it and we're looking at the

164amount of money that we paid because again we pay for it they make an F we have to pay for that course it's free for the kid but it costs the district so we'll be looking at that and so they're working on the mou um because I'm to my understanding it was in under the table handshake and never put in writing but I'll take it I'm a pro you know I following the rules and I said where's the paperwork there's no paperwork and so um that's what we will have to do that one IB has a rollout we actually have things that are in place for IB I'm certified IB principal um so I don't like to get involved on the principal side of it um but I I will not micromanage that as they

165look at me um I will give that over to them but their certification um that the principal has to take um we have to have someone at the district level to oversee it we actually will be working on those things but um we have to do what's right by kids and what's right my parents and making sure that when we send kids off in these courses that we aren't negatively affecting them and I know there will be people listening I get it I understand um and we're also going to be looking at UNCW so Isaac Bayer um we will be looking at how they enroll in the courses there um we have kids who take you know the goal is I wrote my dissertation on this so I can actually um go back and forth

166with anyone who's here to talk about IAB um the middle Early College but the premise is the learn earned degree so what they're supposed to do is to get an associate's degree or up to two years and so those two years means meaning that you go in and you have all of your basic courses taken so that when you go because we pay for that again we pay for those things so the state pays for it but if you're taking classes and I'll just say if you're taking basket weaving at the University level we shouldn't be paying for that we should um so we need to align to make sure that when students are and they're 16 year old they're 17 year olds they may not know what to take but we shouldn't give them

167just the whole plethora to run everything we have to as we have Pathways for our CTE programs we need to not just box them in but remember saying that okay you need your your math you need your science you need your um social sciences those are the ones that you need your English is when you're going and that's what the real understanding for early college is is to get them two years and so when they get into college those courses are accepted and that parents aren't having to pay for an additional three years so that they go in as a sophomore that's what the premise is that's under the learn earn degree if you want to take it and I would be more than happy to help defend it um okay so can I repeat

168my motion the the motion that I put forth was that we put this on the agenda in September and allow Dr foul or if it's if that's not enough time in October when Dr Faust and his team are ready to present us all of these um Advanced learning options so can I I'm sorry in October we will be bringing forth um all of our unembargo test scores so we'll be doing academics for um the strategic plan so we could definitely fold all of these every friendship in and will give us time to unpack we will have an mou from cfcc um we will have updated mous from UNCW at that time to help us help you understand what's going on in our our school so that again um but we don't want to rush it

169so that we don't have all the information that you're needing and that way we should be able to answer all of your questions well my emotion initially said November time frame so if you got amended to September so I'm happy to amend my motion to be October if that's what you're suggesting um is a feasible timeline the premise of this was like I said to my fellow board members some more questions that I asked the more questions that I had about different things and so when you're coming together to brainstorm Solutions it's not just going to be an easy fix and I understand that but if we're saying that this is an initiative that we want the board wants to ensure that our staff is looking into so that we can have better programs and

170that that is the intent behind the goal of the conversation for this evening so I'm happy to mend my motion to be October if that is already deal with her Amendment first okay so I'm going to amend my amendment to October can we Amendment no I'm changing the not September the same motion date different October when Dr Faust suggests that they could be ready I think it's I think it's fine her motion is to amend the main motion which was still pending okay so the amendment is to she withdrew promotion no I think that was a prior motion okay I didn't hear November I'm sorry was there original motion for Ms barnhart's original motion have November because I didn't hear November original motion had November Miss crabill said September I didn't hear that October and

171the amendment please well let's start with the amendment the amendment so that's the person we have to deal with two put on the October agenda board member board agenda a discussion of these higher level learning opportunities okay and you had seconded that I did I mean obviously when she originally put it but I mean I think the more time the better so I mean you know okay I mean October if that's what we're going to vote on I guess I'll keep that but I mean if November happens I'm okay with that too the more time the better I think but that's what Dr pal suggested any discussion any further discussion about the amendment if not yeah I know I'm confused too okay I am confused how does the amendment differ from the original motion just

172a month your original month the only difference is the month right at this point if I recall the motion that you made Miss Barnhart was to direct Dr Faust to do something and my motion was to ask for this to be on the agenda so that Dr Faust and his staff could bring us a present presentation like in new business or information that to me is the main difference I'm not I'm not asking to direct I'm asking for information okay okay yeah all right Miss Bowie would you again so now we're voting on the amendment is would you please call the role okay why not get it are you for real you want me to say it again my amendment is to ask for this to be on the October agenda Dr Faust and his

173team will bring to bring to us a information on higher level learning opportunities and grading systems for our school district all right Miss boy would you call the roll please Miss Walker yes Mr rankmanus yes Miss Mason yes Miss Bradford no Mr World War yes Miss Barnhart yes and Miss crabill yes Pastor six to one now I guess in this whole thing we still have to go back to the original motion I don't think so so it's a vote on the main motion as amended as amended so the main motion as amended which is really the same which is the same thing so basically but we'll do it just till we do it right Miss Bowie would you please call the roll just do it the same way probably yeah I'm doing it the right

174way okay Miss rickmanis yes yes yes oh Miss Mason yes Miss Bradford yes Mr wildebeer yes Miss Barnhart yes Miss crabill yes and Miss Walker yes see that's why I did it because it changed 7-0 that passes we are and with that conversation so let's carry on to our whole business uh but I'm going to ask uh Miss Sumi Dr uh Faust to um share something with the board um before we start uh that conversation if you would please Dr Faust am exactly yes sir so two years ago um when we were doing some training with our senior leadership team to bring them together and learn different personalities um we chose Center for Creative leadership to come in and do training for us they did a battery of tests for us we learned how to

175work together how to what it looked like to understand differences um why individuals thought a certain way and why they didn't think a certain way I'm not sure why they didn't think certain but why they thought a certain way and and it helped us to understand that when we are in our meetings and discussions are going on it's and individuals need to some for instance may need more information so I may not need as much information some are like I'm still going to understand and how we learn to communicate with one another um and then we did a couple teamwork exercises that also helped us we then put um a group of principles through the same training and everyone came out with just overwhelming this was so beneficial I want to say that the communications

176team also went through it um the time the chief of communication decided to take some professional adult money money for his team and take them through it so I say all that to say I want to provide the training for um from Center of Creative leadership to the board um so the board will take the same series it's like battery of tests that they will do they'll give them to you um it's like the in sjt um you'll learn all those acronyms and it'll Define it helps you define who you are why you think the way you think um your belief you understand of certain things and um but I think it's beneficial to do it um together it may not um it may not change your mind or anything but it'll help you understand

177why so the goal is getting to the fly and then it does um personal coaching just for you individual it doesn't go anywhere between you and the coach and it didn't go and literally you get um like three sessions of coaching and they will do it for you I have not reached out to them but I do have the contact but I would want to offer that in the professional development for the board to do the center for Creative leadership training and if I could piggyback and then let others talk um but I think that you know that we were talking about where do we want to start and when Dr Faust mentioned this to me you know I've not been through it but it sounds like a probably a very good place for the

178board as a whole to start and then we can go through other things and maybe you know we'll be working together even better as a board so that we can come through and you know instead of saying all right I'm gonna do this one I'm gonna do this one this is something maybe we can do all together so I'm just going to throw that out there Mr Grable this is your conversation so I'm not going to talk very long and then I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to add so just jump in when when after I get done so all I have what I get what I put at your desks and all I my whole purpose of talking about this so that we could kick-start ourselves into getting some training and so

179if you look on the um thank you Miss Bowie if you see up there on on the very top yellow where it says custom Training by the ncsba we had something similar when we first started called Master board leadership training this is taking it to another level so that is what I have been suggesting all along so I'm glad that we have um Dr Faustino kicking in on that of course we can have a conversation what this list is is so that we all know clearly what is out there and we can choose to take classes that we want we can choose to go to seminars that we want but the the main things that I wanted for us to consider and actually do is take take some of the courses that and workshops or

180training sessions that our staff took that we have questions about and um or that are apropos to what is going on in our district so the community resiliency model where we talk about Aces and where we talk about trauma-informed learning that is all being talked about in the task force where we take Darkness to light stewards of the children where that the carousel offers and but that our faculty and staff can also teach where we learn about how to identify you know sexual predators conduct you know in our schools churches all have to take that every one of our staff has to take that so why wouldn't we want to take that we just heard last month from the Carousel Center that we have a substantial I think all of our schools have taken that

181and we would be the first school district in the state if the board also took it so we don't take stuff for accolades but it would just be another thing that we can do and add to our credit so that's all that this is you know we had talked about book you know book studies we've talked about you know learning you know about poverty a lot of that can be covered in the um the community resilience Mental Health First Aid so that's all that I wanted so I don't the only motion that I would like to make is that we commit to taking training together and I think I said last time was um once a quarter but if once a quarter is too much then twice a year you know I am completely open

182to that and I also wanted to see if we wanted to get a subscription for fifteen hundred dollars to the ncsba where all of their online training is available to all of us at any time any number of times in case we need Refreshers or we want to go back and refer to things so those are the only two things that I see is coming out of this and this is just you can you can see one of your pieces of paper and I'm happy to send you the email that I got from Ramona powers where it talks about the training opportunities from ncsba and Caspa it talks about what the video subscription service is right now and what is available coming up and I'm happy to you know try and continue to get the

183information from the Carolina leadership Network they don't have anything posted except for one class in September which the date still hasn't been confirmed confirmed unless it has because she told us that the original date hadn't been confirmed that she was thinking of a different date and that they were talking about November as well it's Mason there was um I went on today because I knew we were going to be discussing this there was um there are two listed on their website for um September 17th 18th no okay different ones different ones it is uh September 27th in Raleigh or Thursday September 28th in Columbia South Carolina okay and both of those are accessible via Zoom um and they posted that was I'll update the spreadsheet and put that on there so we do have dates

184but because she had mentioned that too is that the original dates weren't accurate so that's all that this is for um we're all responsible for our own training um and getting 12 hours of credit every two years we're all responsible for that um so that's what this whole discussion was intended so I would like to make a motion that I have two motions one that we pursue the training from the career center for Creative differences for the whole board so that we together collectively can get better Center for correct Center for Creative leadership yeah I said creative differences but creative leadership okay so that is emotional second first I'll second that thank you we have first and second no I think Ms Walker wanted to talk about that didn't you there will be more added

185to this because right now the only three left that we could possibly 31st of August September 6th 8 and then September 17th which ones those ones from the lead yeah those are I those are new to the the spreadsheet because we got an email from the ncsba about that and those are this happens quarterly in the region and so if you click I I didn't want to take up too much space across but if these are the dates are available and we can go to any one of them even if they're not in our district our district one is August the 15th so we obviously can't go to that one because we've got policy and we've got Town Hall the no these are ones that they decided not to zoom they did Zoom during covid

186and we did a lot of us attend those but they're they're trying to get back to in person but they're um the the one that's not in our district that I think it's on the 14th that's in Jacksonville you know so there are um they're ones that are close Okay so we have we have a first and second about creative uh Center for Creative leadership is there any further discussion about that Walker maybe I should know but I is it on the sheet it just you just mentioned it right now oh you're talking about the one Dr fausted on here it says Master board training okay but he is is trumping me and having a better um a a more suitable perhaps training for us that he's offering to pay for so yay um defer

187to his knowledge and his dissertation um so that that's what my motion is because I think it's a good class okay so to Dr fast does it sound a little bit like what I did with Advanced leadership Corps I think is a super important I mean y'all might not know it yet but this learning more about yourselves as Leaders is very important and I learned so much about my week in ALC training I learned so much about my personality about my style and the more we know about each other's style I think communication will improve um so I I mean I'm definitely for that if that is the kind of training that we're trying to do to improve our own personal kind of leadership styles um so I if that's that's the motion no you

188don't know nothing you don't know nothing yeah just ask a point of clarification it was my understanding and please correct me wrong that missed Bowie would be would be the one keeping track of our training and so I just want for everybody's on the same page is it we're supposed to submit to you the trainings or Miss Bowie because that was my understanding that that was part of her role and when we do trainings that she would be the one to handle those and so I just want to I want to make sure we're on the same page of expectation no that's absolutely correct is I just put together a list for us to do we call Crystal and she sets us up so she's she's the one that we talked to about the trainings

189about the ones you want to go to yes all right any other discussion if not we have yellow I'm sorry I'll just throw a little monkey out there less than a month ago we had a suggestion of training and we couldn't vote on it because no one knew anything about it and tonight we have a suggestion of training granted it's coming from our superintendent but we're going to vote on it oh a whole you know wholeheartedly without knowing anything about it I just find that extremely ironic okay um Miss Bradford any other discussion I'm sorry I should have said that yes you are that's right Miss Bowie I got the wrong B again I'll get a red Luna these days would you please call the roll please again this motion is to uh set up

190a training for us through the center for Creative leadership consumer somewhere yeah Miss Mason yes Miss Bradford take a leap of faith yes Mr wildmore yes Miss Barnhart yes Miss crabill yes Miss Walker yes Mr McManus pass the 7-0 very good thank you and and so the next motion is that we purchased the video subscription from the ncsba for fifteen hundred dollars a year where and you have in front of you all the trainings and those are board approved policy approved State approves trainings we have a motion is there a second that again to spend the fifteen hundred dollars for the NC NC SBA Video subscription service and we also have to figure out where we're going to move the money from right right we hear any there's not a second motion is defeated okay

191thank you very much we will carry on with our committee reports Head Start I believe that is Miss Barnhart right B this time um yes and we I was not able um to meet with them this last meeting so I'm just kind of recapping I'm sorry I'm looking it up they did the receive the notice of the competitive status letter from the office of Head Start and we well I missed that one I think this was the same highlight I shared out last month but build Day end of the year health and wellness we're again serving 260 students I did reach out to my spouse about the extra support I know Ms Bradford mentioned that um but I had I did not have a full list of those but we will work on that and

192maybe get that for the next meeting so I apologize about that okay so that is the same okay so that's why that was the same one yeah all right thank you very much moving on to our next B agenda review ad hoc Miss Bradford we are not completely finished but we're certainly petering out um we were charged with um understanding [Music] the way our meetings go with the agenda briefings we found out that the county has two agenda briefings and two board meetings we found out that the city has two agenda briefings and two board meetings which was a shocker and they all said pretty much the same thing you can't do without it you you absolutely have to have it um it it it works it it irons out some of the Kinks and

193so while this process has been slightly frustrating because basically we haven't been doing it the way they do it um the way I had hoped when it started and so um I'd like to let us talk to a few more people but the general consensus from everybody we've talked to from town level to um County city is just that you need the agenda briefing you can tweak it you can have your staff presentations that don't need a vote you can have them in the agenda briefing meeting and um you we could even have a recognitions if it's possible done then it just depends we can tweak it out and and work with the staff to come up with a constructive list but we're not quite ready to give that to you because we still want

194to talk to a few more people all right thank you can I ask a question yes ma'am um do you ever plan on having a meeting meeting where all three of you on the team okay is there a date set so that we can watch no because we haven't reached the people it's still vacation time for a lot of people and we haven't reached all the people we want to talk to so until we've accomplished that we can't actually schedule our meeting okay thank you moving on to curriculum committee that would be me on August 16th which is a Wednesday we're going to have the four C's coffee curriculum collaboration and conversation um for elementary and middle schools reading curriculum Zello Family Life curriculum specialist there parents Academy free and reduced lunch information going to

195be at three different schools at three different times uh Roland Grice Murray middle Ogden and the cool part about it is we have some bait to attract parents and students to come in that the school that turns out the most participants will get a catered lunch for their school at a later time for the teachers so we're we're hoping we have an enormous turnout where parents can come and see the curriculum and learn about other things that they need that they they maybe they even don't know they want to learn about but definitely it's going to talk about the free and reduced lunch we've had some questions about the lunch situation and the The Collection lately so this is just perfect timing that's it all right can I ask another question another question so is

196this um this is different than the um Parent Academy meetings that are all being offered on August the 7th and the 9th at three different locations Okay Okay carry on um I serve on the Allegiant Stadium commission but I'd rather hear from us Walker so Miss Walker I'll do the best I can here uh so we had a very robust discussion um of the commission meeting regarding New Hanover High School and how they do their concessions um the city had questions from us about um maybe some of our other schools and how they do concessions and we talked about how and I I want to say here I appreciate Ms crabill because I know she knows a ton about booster clubs and that was really our conversation and so I had a really good conversation

197with her afterwards so she could help me understand so I could do the commission work better definitely on um you know the questions that the city had we got information through our athletic director and there was our list of questions that the city asked for um you know I think what we as a commission kind of thought about was the breakdown on in the in the kind of the top the how am I explaining this so the the high schools and Miss cradle might do better than definitely better than I am on here but the we what we learned was that three of the high schools have booster clubs but Hanover is a little bit different and they don't have an overarching booster club they're kind of more fragmented and when it comes to concession

198sales the rules are different at Legion because they oversee the whole process so they don't get as much and I think the city was kind of struggling with how do we help improve that for a New Hanover High School a lot of their Sports have maybe a booster club but not all of them do and therefore with these bigger booster clubs and I would like to hear from us crave on this they basically have you know how I want her to explain it if you don't mind the the they have into each of their Sports each of their teams has their own parent group and at Hanover they do not have one over they do have a booster club a 501c3 but it's only for football right it doesn't include all the other sports and

199all the other traditional high schools have an overarching booster club that all sports benefit from and then and the fundraising goes through the booster club and teams can do their individual booster club you know are there individual fundraising but when you have a unified group The your sponsorships improve and your parent involvement improves and one of the biggest things about concessions which is really the very smallest um fundraising tool that the athletic boosters have is you got to have parents that will run the concessions for that and that's where some of our schools are all struggling with parent volunteers and you don't want your football parents volunteering at a football game because then they can't watch their kid play and that kind of you know negates the whole reason for you're going to their game

200but there's a lot of little nuances that that can easily be worked on with that and New Hanover High School is very committed you know to doing that well and and that that's the the challenge they had was the volunteers to run them but I mean I think the thought process is because there is no Central kind of booster club some of the sports suffer for it um and so I think I don't know what we kind of decided on for the end result I think we were information gathering at that time but I think that maybe as a board we can come up with something that might help them I mean we can't obviously as a board run a booster club because it's a separate entity and the financials are all separate but we

201can certainly have discussions with the athletic director out there maybe he's got some ideas and I know some of the funds we learned the funds go straight to the school but we don't know how it's disbursed beyond that so I would like to figure out how we can have some conversations with them to improve the Athletics at New Hanover I agree and I think you know one thing was that like you say 30 percent concessions went there but we don't know exactly where they go when they go there and then 12 and you know Ms grable's point I think it's very true too that you know if you go to the with Blake's most familiar uh Laney Delaney with their football concessions they maybe have their soccer team in there or the basketball team or

202something you know and we would just be great if we could get New Hanover to follow that model so that you know you'd have somebody there because I think that was the biggest thing they were saying is that they were having to go out to other groups outside of the athletic uh you know whether it be Church groups or other groups to do concessions because they weren't able to do it and I think I actually brought up the possibility of you know reaching out to other groups within New Hanover like maybe the French club or Spanish club or something like those lines and give them an opportunity uh if the athletic groups are not interested in doing it yeah and I would definitely encourage you guys to talk to coach Sampson he's the athlete director

203at New Hanover high school and he knows where the money goes to you know and and how it is allocated to all of his sports teams so that would I think it is hey thank you um the biggest takeaway I got from the meeting is there is a lot of opportunity and not very much understanding of the potential profit that could be made oh yes in the process I am going to be reaching out to I'm going to schedule a meeting with Mr Sampson and Mr Sutton and um we're we're gonna we're gonna have those discussions and I agree 100 you know if we're having trouble getting parents of football players to run the concessions I totally get it but why couldn't the basketball team run it they have the opportunity um at Legion stadium

204and I'm not Buck Hardy field because New Hanover runs the concessions for buck Hardy field already but they have the opportunity to make as much if not more than the other three traditional high schools at Legion Stadium and I'll find out the the there's a 30 percent of the 30 percent of the net profit goes that's a check written to New Hanover high school and then there's 12 percent of gross sales that go to the organization that runs the concessions so little work to be done but you know like I said at the beginning big takeaway is there's a lot of opportunity here and I I just think we need a better understanding of the uh of the process so we're going to make that happen good thank you I I say I agree with

205Eddie no I just want to make sure we're not I mean I want to make sure that New Hanover High School is getting supported but if the board's coming in saying that they have to I just want us to caution that so I love Eddie that you said you set up the meeting to kind of help collaborate that and facilitate that conversation well I I think as commission members I think it that's okay for us to have conversations too I'm not going to direct any staff to do anything but I definitely um agree with Eddie on that I think we did have that was one of the big takeaways and I don't know I don't know Miss Craig will probably can speak to this better but I know how much money booster clubs can make

206for their schools and their Sports and their athletes and I think if we can do something to help New Hanover High School then we definitely should so I'm looking forward to that do you have a timeline on that Eddie do you feel like maybe um you can contact Mr waterborne Iowa when you get information or it'll happen within a week because my goal is to have these conversations and um and and try to get some information they already have their football schedule so they know what games they're going to be playing and when they're going to be playing so they need to be looking and setting up these groups now so you know the city isn't calling over there a week or two before a game and asking do you have anyone and the answer

207is no so we're gonna we're gonna have those conversations now since we've got school starting in football season starting okay let's give an update the next Commission any correspondence board members it's Grayville but you can go first Josie well I was going to say Miss crabill and I had the opportunity to go and volunteer at the back to school bass for the Foster pantry and so I just want to say thank you for the opportunity for reaching out and I appreciated serving alongside my colleague and supporting our students there was how many did you say over 125 that came there was 125 that registered but um 140 came so they got backpacks and school supplies and books and food and there was Raffles and it was just a really fun time that's awesome thank you

208thank you for sure Revenue so my correspondence is I just wanted to reiterate again for any teachers who are listening um the the summer Institute that happened in June at the end of school where it was peer-led classes were amazing and um the the teachers got to highlight their best practices and I was happy to be able to attend those classes the Leadership Retreat um was also very good thank you to everybody sitting you know over there and all of their staffs that and again more teachers you know in there who put those together the the the sessions were all very enlightening and encouraging and it's nice to know that we are on the same page and I'm looking forward to reading the book um that the district will be reading and finally I wanted

209to just thank all of the people who over the the past you know several weeks have reached out to us um with their their thoughts on um books in our schools that I wanted them to rest assured that at least I and I don't know I can't attest to one of my other board members colleagues are doing but I've read all your correspondence and I have not been able to necessarily respond to everybody but I will um over the course of the next couple days but just you know thank you parents and Community for being engaged enough in this in the education process to write Us in the first place no matter what the topic is we do appreciate hearing from you and I appreciate that there haven't been too many really ugly grams you

210know we have been in the past gotten a lot of really ugly emails and these ones have all been very professionally written for the most part with very good insightful things so thank you for that all right bells oh all right quickly we have some announcements the policy committee will be meeting on Tuesday April 15th uh at 10 A.M at the Board of Education Center general public will have an option to view remotely on nhcs August 15th what did I say April hey well um they probably will be in April too but definitely definitely August 15th I do apologize to Tuesday August 15th at 10 A.M at the Board of Education Center the general public will have the option to view remotely on nhcs tv YouTube The Board of Education will hold a town hall

211as I mentioned before Tuesday April 15th also um girl I said it again I sure did August I like April uh August 15th so I'll start again the Board of Education will hold a town hall on Tuesday August 15th uh at 5 PM the general public will have an option to remotely to view remotely and again there will be more information coming out about that the Board of Education will hold an agenda review meeting on Wednesday August 30th at 2 pm at the New Hanover at the Board of Education Center general public will also have the option to review remotely on nhcs TV on YouTube and then the September regular Board of Education meeting will be held on Tuesday September 5th 2023 5 p.m at the Board of Education Center the general public will have

212an option to view remotely on the nhcs TV YouTube at this point we will have a closed session so um I will call for a motion to enter into closed session pursuant to North Carolina General statute 143-318-1113 and 6 to consider personal matters and maintain confidentiality and Personnel records under North Carolina General statute 115 C 319-321 to prevent the disclosure of Student Records rendered confidential under the family education racks and Privacy Act uh you at 20 USC one two three two G and consult with attorney employee or retained by the public body in order to preserve the attorney-client privilege we hear such a motion so moved I'll second that uh any discussion all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye all opposed pastor 7-0 we are in closed session break sorry I said

213you should memorize that I do um I'm gonna get a tattoo there someday I would entertain a motion to adjourn I moved we have a motion first and second discussion if not all in favor of a journey please signify by saying I I all opposed we are adjourned thank you for a long day it didn't seem to be good long distance Jupiter