001I got a I'm a sheep where my sheet is there it is important announcement from Mrs Mason right there oh Jesus okay don't tell me oh geez there was nothing or I was gonna have you promote a single person you got it oh there you go if you're gonna be here my chair report ing we are chair report as uh I'm trying to do that it's right down here student reports right in here so probably about 15 minutes in sure I should do that okay okay uh let me take a picture of it you can keep it you keep it I got it thank you I got uh there it is I'd like to call the May regular board meeting to uh to in uh at this point we will have a roll call it's
002bully if you'd call the roll please good afternoon Pete wildebeer president Pat Bradford I am Josie Barnhart Stephanie crabill Melissa Mason Hugh McManus and Stephanie Walker here excuse me I think he's here mostly uh board members I would call for a approval of the agenda do I hear a motion Miss Bradford moved I'd like to amend the agenda Mr chairman okay I'd like to um well do I need to wait for a second I like to add um right before the vote for the new attorney a short discussion to potentially adopt a resolution and support of the SBI release documentation for discussion and potentially an adopt a resolution of the lands aboard okay so we have a first I will second that okay so we have first and the second for the motion to um
003say that again please it was a lot of words I would like for us to consider adopting an emotion or resolution for attorney Josh Stein's office to release the SBI documentation the request for us to do that for so are we going to discuss that a little bit Yeah okay no I mean to discuss to add um yes my suggestion would be if we're going to add that then we might want to have we might want to have a closed session discussion to talk about what we want to do to make sure that we understand you know pros and cons of doing such so the um does that make sense you got a pressure button yeah all right well I think if it's right before Legal Services we will have had a closed session um
004after call the audience is that right so there will be an opportunity for legal questions okay yeah okay okay all right so we have a motion a second is there any other discussion about it if not uh let's do a roll call just to make sure please Barnhart Mr McManus yes Miss Walker yes Miss Bradford yes and Mr wildebear hi pastor 7-0 so we're back to our original motion to approve the amended agenda we have a first and second any other discussion if not all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed also passes 7-0 uh next on our agenda we have an invocation we would like to call forward the Inman Abdul Rahman Sharif from the talud Islamic Center please stand the fact that a muscle Redeemer the most high the might
005of the wise incomparably great give of all that is good except of what only is good we pray for your Divine Providence upon this kind of School Board of Education meeting Grand board members of Staff the best Jewish prudence and insightful intellect and all decision making fairs and policies allow inspiration that will influence and impact all students to pursue excellence of human potential they're a human potential and Grant them inspiration that will influence love and appreciation for attending school and promote excellence and Perfection as a goal to be Future Leaders in the American society and when this meeting comes to an end bless all present with a safe return to the intended that's the nation amen thank you thank you very much next we will have the Ashley high school ROTC Color Guard unit provide
006the presentation of colors and it's under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Reiner principal Patrick McCarty as they come forward we'll have the Myrtle Grove Middle School student Abby Daniels providing the national anthem under the direction of Jamie wood choral director principal Cindy bless [Music] guys [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you we've asked board member Hugh McManus to lead the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks thank you you may be seated we would invite the uh Ashley Junior ROTC to come back and introduce themselves as well as our wonderful young lady that sang for us if you wouldn't mind coming forward sorry oh and the guitar player
007too yes absolutely would you guys come forward please I'm Addie Daniels [Applause] hi I'm Katie crepes I'm Nash Dallas hi I'm Hayden cornelli hello I'm Kaylee signorello good evening I'm Tyler Simpson hello I'm Isaiah Andrade thank you for being here and thanks for being here thank you thank you guys thank you thank you thank you again thank you all for being here today it was wonderful we're going to continue now with our recognitions Clarice I believe it's going to be hitting it up good evening board chair Vice chair Dr Faust and members of the Board of Education I am here this evening with your recognitions for tonight first up we would like to recognize our Board of Education future teacher scholarship recipients congratulations to the 2023 New Hanover County Board of Education student scholarship winners
008for future teachers the Board of Education recognizes the critical role that future Educators play in shaping the quality of Education in New Hanover County the winners of this scholarship will receive 28 thousand dollars each the scholarship will support these four students in pursuing their education at an accredited North Carolina Community College college or university of their choosing we applaud the scholarship recipients for their dedication to the field of education and their commitment to positively impacting the lives of students in New Hanover County congratulations again on the significant achievement and we look forward to welcoming these four students back in a few years as gifted and qualified educators Stella view Laney High School [Music] Isabella Gonzalez Ashley High School Nicholas Klein Laney High School [Applause] Reagan Lanier Laney High School [Applause] congratulations again to you for
009[Applause] Arnett's recognition is our distinguished leadership and practice program congratulations to the following principles they recently completed the distinguished leadership and practice program a year-long leadership development program for practicing school principals across North Carolina the program is designed and provided by NC principals and assistant principals Association also known as NC Papa the program uses a non-traditional professional development model aligned with the performance evaluation standards adopted by the State Board of Education for North Carolina School leaders join me in congratulations congratulating principals Deanna link Sabra Wright Brent Hall Lauren napola Christian May and Paul Slavic [Applause] congratulations again to these principles [Applause] foreign [Applause] I am thrilled to be able to recognize another New Hanover County School staff member whose quick thinking and Swift action has saved a life when a student began to choke on
010a plastic ring from a water bottle Miss Tara Huntsman school counselor at Forest Hills Global Elementary immediately sprang into action she performed the Heimlich maneuver without hesitation which dislodged the obstruction from the student's throat and prevented a tragedy from occurring your courage and presence of mind and in that moment is a testament of your dedication to our students welfare your selfless Act it simplifies what it means to be a true educator and a caring Community member we are proud to have you as a part of our school and your actions have inspired us all to be more aware and ready to impact change on behalf of the entire School Community we extend our deepest appreciation and gratitude to you Miss Huntsman please join me up here for your recognition this evening [Music] thank you foreign
011[Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] celebrates the incredible talents of our young artists who have won the Azalea Festival art contest these talented students have demonstrated a remarkable ability to capture the beauty and essence of our community through their artwork their creativity and dedication have produced some truly stunning pieces showcasing a range of styles techniques and mediums from colorful paintings to intricate drawings and everything in between these artworks are a true Testament to the imagination and skill of our young artists congratulations to the following New Hanover County School winners of the Azalea Festival art contests Tallulah cop Carmen politis kygo Roach [Applause] [Laughter] Brinley shilawaski jalowsky and Emma Dixon [Applause] for our final recognition I would like to invite Addison Daniels back up to the front Addie Daniels is an 8th grade Myrtle Grove Middle School
012student she was selected for the prestigious 2022 North Carolina middle school honors course this was Addie's third year being selected for the North Carolina honors chorus having served as for two years as an elementary school student Miss Daniels was the only middle school singer from New Hanover County Schools to have been selected for the choir this year and she represented her school and District at the highest standard Addie and other students were recognized at the concert held at the North Carolina School of the Arts Stevens Center this past winter I am pleased to have Addie back up front with her who we just heard moments ago do our national anthem congratulations to Addison for her hard work talent and determination as well as Christa Faison our interim art supervisor and Jamie Woods Addison's chorus teacher
013at Myrtle Grove Middle School thank you that concludes our recognitions from the evening thank you [Applause] all right we'll continue now uh with the approval of the minutes do we hear a motion so movements Bradford a second Miss Graybill your second okay all right the Scrabble would you like to pull off yes [Music] okay 4 20 April 424 okay agenda review from April 24th so we have a first to approve the rest of them and then we'll go back to that one uh is there a second that's again to prove approve all the meeting notes except for April 24th no second thank you Ms Walker any other discussion if not all in favor signify by I I any opposed passes seven zero Miss crabill um yes sir if we um go back and look at
014that I think that we need to have the minutes reflect that we change the agenda to allow the law firms who were like to go later in the meeting and that we did that with no vote from the board the um so I just think that we should um and as my recollection was they were given a different time Ms Sutton can you speak to that please yes there was some miscommunication as far as I think how the agenda was laid out versus the times that the firms were asked to come to present so um I think we did adjust the agenda based on the times that the individuals were set to present originally yeah and I don't have any problem with that happening I just think that the minute should reflect that we changed
015the agenda because we did and but we didn't take a vote you know to change the agenda we just sort of some people said I don't want to do it now I want to wait and some people are like okay but we didn't ever vote so I just think that if anybody else cares about that level of detail okay we have a motion to make that Amendment and anybody have an opinion on that discussion I need a second does it need a second okay let me start with that do we have a second second yes Walker okay in a second Miss Walker seconds any additional discussion on that if not all uh all uh an agreement please signify by saying aye I will post passes 7-0 so the amended let's now vote on passing that
016so we've agenda we have uh amended that all in favor of now approving the agenda the amended agenda review for April 24th I'll say that four times really quick um please signify by saying aye aye all opposed again past seven zero at this time we will move on with our student voice welcome welcome hello everyone thank you so much for having us um I am Cassidy Thompson a junior at Harvard High School hi I am Tanaya tune and I am a sophomore at Laney High School we just wanted to share some updates with you guys on what we've been up to and what some of our next steps are so first of all our student voice website is up and running Ms Clegg has been working hard to get that set up for us so
017it's on the EDI page of the New Hanover County Schools website and we've revised our mission statement and been working hard on that um Mr Johnson is also going to be handing over the Empower Ed news newsletter to student voice to kind of use it for our purposes and just we're going to be dealing with that from now on and another thing is some members of our team were able to go to the equity Summit last Friday which was such a positive experience there were over 175 students from different schools there and it was great we got to set up a booth we made a poster and got some more students to sign up we have some more students who have shown interest now from a variety of different schools so before I hand it
018over to Mayo to talk about our next steps we're just super excited that all of this is coming to fruition that we're growing out of our just idea phase and into the implementation phase and that next school year we will actually have a lot of students from different schools that will be able to talk about and impact real decisions it's just super exciting and we're so grateful for this opportunity and excited to see what the next year will hold hi guys I'm here now to talk about our next steps so for the next school year um some of our next steps are to get our interest form out and to get our kick kickoff Summit and our application ready for the next school year so students will know who we are and what we do
019and if they are interested they will be able to apply um our another one of our steps is to send out that application in August right when the school year starts so that we can get you know going and running throughout the school year um to have that kick off summer in the fall and to establish norms for our team so that students know what they are expected you know of doing while they're in our group and so that they know you know how to carry themselves and just you know what to do while they're in our group um and that's what we're trying to do you know as the new you know school year gets here and one more thing to add just about our Norms we've been discussing this with our team is
020we want to make sure that our student Voice team is one that just cultivates an atmosphere of respect and that we're not just here to complain but we're here to just offer proactive Solutions and that it will be a place where we can just understand that our views will not always align but appreciate what we can learn from each other and we really want it to be a diverse group we'll definitely make that a point in when we're sorting through the applications we want students from all the schools in the county who come from different backgrounds so that we can hear from all different types of students and we can all have a chance to make an impact on our education so that's our updates we have for you guys if you have any questions
021any questions board members Miss Walker um yeah so I just get my mic off first I want to say Well done I know do an initiative like this from the ground up is a very difficult thing to do one to form and two to get it all together and keep it going and I know how hard you guys have been working so I want to say I appreciate that very much I think for us I I assume when the forms go out you'll have on there what committees maybe people want to serve on board committees and by that time hopefully we'll have had our our applications done so we can you know be able to give you guys that too but anyway I just wanted to thank you because y'all have worked very very hard
022and I appreciate you coming back and I want I want to hear an update every month no matter what it is thank you thank you so much Miss Grayville for the students that you talked in there just to give them you know the course test um they may be already finished every time yeah so getting all this planned and still doing your s thank you so much Mr McManus I didn't want to add to what both have said I can remember this first came to discussion and we're so excited I know that some boards would be hesitant to have students according to involve and ask questions I think for us to represent every single one of you we need to listen that's what we're here for and I always agree if we can do it
023but we need thank you so much I'll just add that again thank you for coming up and speaking that you know it takes a lot to get in front of all these adults so thank you very much I appreciate it thank you thank you for the opportunity thank you have a great rest of your day thank you thank you [Applause] I believe next on our agenda will be the superintendent's report Mr Dr Faust good evening first and poor Mills I'd like to express my appreciation to our 45 exceptional school principals whose dedication was celebrated yesterday on National School principal day their hard work and Leadership have been essential in fostering a positive learning environment for all of our students I'm also delighted to announce that just moments ago we awarded the Board of Education student
024scholarships for future teachers these four scholarships valued up to 28 000 each will enable promising students to pursue their aspirations of becoming Educators and accredited accredited North Carolina Institutes contributing to the future of our district and Beyond this week we'll be celebrating a significant accomplishment the graduation of our inaugural career and leadership development Academy cohort in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce the program allowed middle school students to acquire career leadership and education pathway knowledge building their leadership skills and highlighting employable skills needed for today's Workforce this Innovative program has not only enhanced the professional skills of our students but also nurtured the next generation of community leaders later this week we'll be hosting our educator of the Year celebration where we will recognize all of our outstanding finalists and announce the overall educator of
025the year the deserving winner will receive a cash prize of approximately sixty five hundred dollars while all finalists will be honored with special prizes and gifts as a token of our appreciation for their exceptional work and dedication to our students as we approach the end of the year our dedicated staff and students are diligently preparing for integrated tests and graduation ceremonies simultaneously we are laying the groundwork for successful upcoming Academic Year by identifying areas of improvement in developing strategic plans the safety of our students remain a top priority and we have been working relentlessly to make necessary enhancements in our school buildings these improvements will ensure a secure and supportive environment where our students can thrive to wrap up I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the entire Community entire School Community for the
026unwavering commitment and hard work through this throughout this school year your Collective efforts have made these accomplishments possible and have positioned us for continued success in the future thank you for your dedication to our district and to the students we serve thank you this concludes them thank you Dr fast and I think I'm going to have to move that because you stole half of my thunder right here I was uh just a couple things I had and I'm gonna do something a little bit different uh at the end but uh first off I enjoyed working with and interviewing the teachers of the year and principals of the year uh what a great opportunity to meet with some some wonderful people we actually had a former teacher of the year that Mr Abby Nobles I believe
027she's still here is Abby still here I've asked her to come forward she's going to share an idea with us real quickly that I think is outstanding thank you for being here yes thank you thank you everyone the two 2000 oh my gosh I don't know what year it is the 2022 New Hanover County Schools district and overall teachers of the Year team Stephen O'Neill Melissa Allen Elizabeth raffled in conjunction with myself the 2022 Southeast Regional teacher of the year are excited to recommend to the board their desire to have a one to two minute spot each month at the board meetings for Teacher of the Year representatives to share teacher voice and positive engagement from around New Hanover County Schools as key stakeholders on the ground they are excited to rotate each one to
028two minute Spotlight to highlight our great teacher leaders and activity in New Hanover County Schools so that's an idea that my team and I came up with and we would love your support to make that happen in that place on the board agenda happen so thank you thank you very much we were sitting down chatting and she came up with that idea and I said you know we have student voice but wouldn't it be great to also hear from Educators in an educator voice so I think that'd be awesome something for us to talk about in the future um additionally I was going to mention that the future future scholarship interviews we were all part of that and boy I tell you it was it was eye-opening it was wonderful the Young Folks we saw
029here today with additional uh through uh three other additional students that also interviewed for that and just what a joy to hear these young people and all their positivity their wonderful ideas and the fact that they just want to come back and work here in New Hanover County Schools so much um I do also I also want to mention that we had site visits as we announced the teachers of the year and boy I tell you there were some of them that were very very surprised so tears were once again flowing and just some wonderful teachers doing wonderfully uh just doing a super job with their students throughout the school district so I would like to highlight all the teachers of the year and congratulate them as well as the principals of the year and
030finally I have a quick announcement from Mrs Mason so I announced this last month but it was right at the end and I wanted to just make sure everybody else could it's a great opportunity the New Hanover County Schools advisory Council for exceptional children are putting on a parent forum it's titled parents as partners in the IEP process it will be happening Thursday May 18th from 7 30 to 8 30 and it's going to be online via Zoom I am pretty certain they're going to be sending these this information home with parents but I really wanted to just highlight it because I think that the people on this committee have been doing so much good and hard work to make this a phenomenal um Forum so I hope that parents can come and participate thank
031you Miss Mason and that ends my report next on our agenda is a call as the call of the audience Bradford will be calling the names as usual Christina good evening I'm here tonight because I'm tired of playing games I'm tired of these side issues that keep the board from focusing on what really impacts students and teachers in New Hanover County's Public Schools first I cannot fathom your insistence I'm being content with the most minimum state requirements for funding and Staffing for decades employees have known that the State numbers are ridiculous and the only way to strengthen the schools is to enhance those numbers in order to do this the board and the County Commissioners have to work together yet we have a superintendent who keeps telling them we're fully staffed and a board who
032gives condescending presentations about the budget I hear you speak about improving student achievement but you all are expecting caviar on a hamburger budget Why Should students strive to raise to the Top If you're satisfied with the bottom it's part of your job to advocate for more funding why don't you do it also there are dozens of abuse victims from teachers who were allowed to continue teaching for decades despite Whispers of misbehaviors this predates you all but you could finish the lawsuit and put the money towards that by simply setting settling surely there is a point where legal fees exceed what the school system was hoping to save in settlement money do it help these victims move on with their lives and begin to work through the trauma and last I spent the last years of
033my career at the alternative school and I'm telling you definitively this school system doesn't discipline students consistently minority students are more likely to receive a harsher punishment than their white peers for the same offense students with disabilities aren't immune from being suspended and even long-term suspended even if their infraction was directly related to their disability I had been hopeful when the new Behavior Matrix came out but it became quickly obvious that no one was following it in closing you represent New Hanover County Schools it is your job to advocate for what is best for all students are you going to spend your time chasing and resolving non-issues created by non-educators or are you going to actually work together to create a better school system for all students thank you Karen Clark I speak in the
034name of Jesus for love to overflow for the spirit of wisdom and Revelation for the foolish things of God have proven to be wiser than human wisdom and the feeble things of God have proven to be far more powerful than any human ability I pray the wisdom from above will enter your heart in a deep Fountain of truth will be opened inside of you I pray his grace will flood you with bold courage giving you the ability to move forward in spite of what you see that you will not be easily shaken by trouble nor let us Stray by novel teachings or by false doctrines of deceivers who teach clever lies but instead you will remain strong and always sincere in love as you express the truth so when all before the father of our
035Lord Jesus the perfect father of every child in heaven and on the earth I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited Riches of his glory and favor until Supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his Divine might and explosive power then the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life never doubt God's Mighty power to work in you he will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request your most unbelievable dream and exceed your wildest imagination his miraculous power outdoes them all constantly energizing you we give God all the Glorious praise that rises from every generation thank you through Jesus and all that will yet be manifest through eternity amen thumbs up Peter radovich did you know that the words equity and Equitable appear 27 times in
036the New Hanover County School Board policy manual for example in policy 4300 it states student Behavior policies are provided to establish a system that ensures the Equitable treatment of all students in other words white students should make up about 58 percent of the out-of-school suspensions and about 18 percent would be black students because 58 of the student population is white and 18 is black with Equitable treatment there's Justice now the word equal appears 50 times in the school board policies in policy 2130 it states that an equal amount of budgeted funds will be allocated for each board member for conferences conventions or other board development activities that is you all get a fair and consistent amount of money so tonight is you consider policy 3610 counseling program look for the word equitable spoiler alert is
037not there because all of our students all of our students needs are different school counselors must be able to provide Equitable access to opportunities and if they're already doing it fabulous just put it in the policy fair and consistent access would be an injustice with Equitable access justice prevails thank you Mr thank you Chris Sutton I noticed that apparently we had another child almost die and yet we're still dragging our feet on getting an airway clearance device this is getting ridiculous if we have a child die that's going to lay on all y'all's heads is wrong okay um you have to watch how you speak to attorneys because one word can change an entire conversation so for instance Miss Bradford you asked about the elephant in the room you asked about a conflict of interest
038you said there was none but there's a perceived conflict of interest and he knew this because he brought up the Port City Daily article in which even miss Adams quoted as saying the board would speak about the perceived conflict of interest in closed session all of perceived conflict of interest is a very reasonable person can look at the details and state that there isn't a chance that someone might make a bad decision or a slanted interpretation because they have some type of gain or something to get Liberty Mutual I asked y'all to see how much money we've spent to fight the victim excuse me Liberty Mutual paid Darrington Smith to fight the victims I believe that it's close to a million dollars that's just one lawsuit they work with Liberty Mutual on potentially multiple lawsuits
039so we're talking millions of dollars potentially that is an inherent perceived conflict of interest and he ducked the conversation on the technicality because perceived was not added in that is ridiculous call to audience has two problems that have been discussed teachers and staff being unable to sign up at exactly 8 A.M due to organized uh groups blocking out a chunk of called audience posts um both of these problems can be accomplished without the lottery system that y'all are trying to introduce we could create a teacher voice agenda item before called audience that allows teachers to be heard without competing with the rest of the community I believe there's a significant uh difference in perception of what the value of call to audience is I believe some members believe it is a waste of time just
040a mandated part of the process others including myself believe that citizen participation is mandated because it is our new soapbox in the Town Square it is our opportunity to not only address our elected officials but also raise concerns with the community I didn't know we were locking kids in closets until a parent spoke at a call to audience she helped raise awareness and shut down the seclusion rooms thank you thank you Denise yeah you know good evening my name is Denise yannon I am the President of the New Hanover County Special Education parent teacher Association with each with Teacher Appreciation Week upon us it is important to recognize and support our great teachers but what does support for all teachers look like why should we support teachers at all the second question is easier to
041answer it is for the same reason that we should support parents it is because both parents and teachers hold the lives and well-being of our community's children in their hands supporting teachers means making sure they all have a lunch period a preparation period and reasonable access to a restroom support means providing enough resources for teachers to teach and for parents to learn support means enough appropriately certified staff for each classroom support means of parent support means attending to parent concerns and trying to find appropriate Solutions together support means informing parents of their rights it means open and frequent Communication in ways parents can understand and access the best thing parents teachers administrators and community members can do for our children is to find ways to support each other without anger and fear supporting parents and
042teachers is the only viable way to support our students children Thrive when parents and teachers find ways to work together heartfelt gratitude for our entire education staff our future teachers our parents and Guardians and most especially for our beautiful children Happy Teacher Appreciation Week thank you thank you miss your name Katie Gates good evening board I ask you to carefully revisit your policies and curriculum in the upcoming months and perhaps provide more oversight and maintain compliance with an already existing objectives in doing so please ensure the protection of American ideals and Heritage and guard against the promotion of marxist and communist principles that have crept into the curriculum cultural Marxism has invaded our schools through dangerous ideologies and programs that appeal to emotion not fact parents please take note of what is being taught to
043your children directly and indirectly in 1789 the First Federal Law and education linked the Christian religion and public education together declaring religion morality and knowledge as necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind President Truman repeatedly stated that communism represented a conflict between Christianity and anti-christianity asserting the only lasting way for America to defeat communism was through Christianity that worked great until 1963 when the Supreme Court took prayer out of schools in that same year 45 Communist goals were read into the Congressional Record I actually encourage you to read those all and reflect on the premises that have been incorporated into our modern psyche and our educational system since 1963. let me just read a few 17 says get control of the schools use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda
044soften the curriculum get control of teachers associations put the party line in textbooks 24 eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them censorship and a violation of free speech and Free Press 30. discredit founding fathers present them as selfish Aristocrats who had no concern for the Common Man and 41 emphasized the need to raise children away from the negative and suppressive influence of parents so I thank you for considering those as examples of Parental concerns in this area thank you thank you Miss Gates good evening can you hear me book Review Committee I'm appalled by the trajectory the majority of the board is taking and what was said by those of you in favor Banning books by whom by what criteria on what right there are parental Choice policies in place no legislation exists in
045our taxpayer-funded Public School System denying the rights of parents and their children access to books other people want removed as for objections voiced by some stating it's not a ban let's dispense with semantics and using words like Marxism taken out of context this slippery slope of a first step aligns with Fascism and autocracy let's review fascism's alignment in history Hitler for example in 1939 removing books then burning them South Africa Banning authors and their books during apartheid Soviet Russia prior to during World War II and afterwards did all of that as well as rewrote Ukraine's history and now has quickly removed books yet again then burned piles of them then there's Iran so parallels of fascism are in our country for one example there's a district in Texas right now that was actually pushing for
046a community book Burn with Putin's invasion of Ukraine the people there including my relatives both past and present were and are risking their lives for a democratic existence that also includes resisting fascistic censorship such as this with this committee they lived it and they know it they're experiencing purges now just as they experience the purges of Stalin and they'd have a lot to say about what's being proposed here and they know firsthand and they'd Enlighten you about the aligned Paths of fascism both past and present so again there's that slippery slope taught hopefully To Us by history you're out of time thank you [Applause] good evening the short-term suspension policy number 4351 states that before a student receives an out-of-school suspension they have a right to an informal hearing where they shall be informed of
047the charges and the basis for the accusations against him or her and may make statements in defense or mitigation of the charges the students Also may request that the principal here from persons whom the student claims can speak on his or her behalf if the student reasonably claims the need for additional time to to present such persons the principal May postpone action for reasonable time that may sound reasonable for a teenager in high school but does it make sense for four five six and seven-year-old child remember four five six and seven-year-old children are only in kindergarten first and second grade their reasoning and thinking are not the same as older children they may know they're in trouble but it's unlikely they will be thinking about requesting that the principal here from persons who can speak
048on their behalf and I don't expect them to request additional time to present such persons that is why short-term suspension policy number 4351 needs to be revised our younger Learners deserve the right to have their parent or other representative present at the formal hearing if this is already happening in some school that's great it needs to be in the policy so that every four five six and seven year old has that right thank you thank you Miss Stackhouse [Applause] good evening the length of board meetings has been a recent topic of discussion I would like to point out a few things that have unnecessarily used your time the calendar you have spent multiple hours debating the school calendar in 2005 the then newly elected Republican legislature declared that school must start no earlier than August
04927th and must end by June 10th this put the end of the first semester in January this law is still in effect all you had to do was follow it books in our schools again hours have been spent discussing ways to keep our children from reading the district already has an excellent policy if I don't want my daughter to Read To Kill a Mockingbird fine I tell her teacher I tell the librarian she's blocked from that book problem solved you have spent more hours revisiting policies that should not be changed the budget you minutely discuss cutting vital positions but make no mention of our top heavy Administration North Carolina has a huge Surplus in the rainy day fund urged them to use some of it on schools as is required in the state constitution one
050thing I learned in high school debate rambling is a sign of being inept the called audience seems to be the top consideration for shortening meetings if you really don't want to hear from us do what is right for the children we have given you information on programs to train teachers to stop seclusion and suspension along with laws governing policy so stop trying to eliminate The Messengers and do what we elected you to do run our schools so that the kids are safe and get the most complete education possible but if we're so dangerous that the sros need to stand behind us and you really enjoy complaining fine Mrs Abel and I are glad to keep crocheting in the back while listening to your rambling thank you Miss Posey Rocky Jeter Webb I'd like to recommend
051some books to put into our Public Schools I'd like to recommend this the King James Holy Bible I recommend the constitution of North Carolina the U.S Constitution the Declaration of Independence why do we need government in the first place where every American needs to know by Dr Christina McMasters I'd like to recommend young conservative my Smart TV Like Us by Young America and I'd like to recommend the turtle twins books this is a popular children's book series The book's episode over four million copies here in the U.S they could teach children about Freedom Liberty Liberty rights as well as a variety of other things I encourage you to vote for the new Vogel Law Firm and I'll also end on this real men aren't women and there are only two genders male and female thank
052you let's go Brandon thank you thank you Mr Jeter Webb Alicia ogundelli good evening policy 3610 counseling program will be presented later tonight during the policy consensus portion of the meeting you will hear that New Hanover County Counseling program mirrors the American Council Association my national model for counseling program except that it doesn't have hsca has 36 standards it states all 3610s can be applied to three counseling domains academic career and social emotional development the first standard is the student belief the development of the whole self including the healthy balance and mental of social emotional physical well-being and where that the phrase social emotional was deleted from policy 3610 last month policy committee meeting why two reasons we're given our schools are putting so much emphasis on social emotional development second it was reported that
053there was a vast number of parents out there who have expressed that they are interested in social emotional that they're not interested in social emotional programs they are more interested in academics I find that hard to believe when a lot of children I do don't possess academic skills and they need more emotional support second um our students are not robots they present social behaviors and have emotions we need policy 3610 to allow our school counselors to do their job and work with the whole child you're taking human out of humanity thank you make it make sense thank you thank you Veronica love all children advocates for the safety of all our children and staff in our schools it supports policy 4300 which states that school administrators will utilize Positive Behavior Support alternatives to suspensions and
054only use out of school suspension as the last resort it also supports policy 4351 which states that students under age eight or under third grade will not be suspended except for incidents involving drugs assaults or possessing weapons those serious charges demand parental participation those serious charges demand parental participation love our children NC believe that our youngest Learners should have the right to have a parent a representative present when they are a part of an informal hearing that will determine if they receive an out-of-school suspension for incidents involving drugs assaults possessing weapons a parent should be allowed and encouraged to participate in the informal hearing either in person by phone or in a video conference direct the policy committee to review policy 4351 at its next meeting revise the language so I'll four five six and
055seven year old children will have the right the opportunity the benefit of a parent or other representative representative present at an informal hearing for incidents involving drugs assaults or process possessing weapons changing policy 4351 will improve and increase parent involvement in the life of their child at school Julian [Applause] good evening and thank you to the board my name is Jill Hoffman chair of the New Hanover County Democratic party and an immigration and human rights attorney for the past 15 years as someone who regularly works with children during administrative and legal proceedings I'm here to respectfully request that short-term suspension policy 4351 is revised to allow for students under the age of eight or under third grade to have a parent or other representative present at an informal or formal disciplinary hearing right now the
056policy states that no student has the right to representation at such hearings while also expecting that child to be adequately informed of the basis for accusations make statements in defense or mitigation and request Witnesses I don't believe that any child under eight even understands what mitigation means let alone properly can process pending charges defend themselves call witnesses or request a postponement which the policy already allows for in which I'd advise each and every one of them to do based on the current text unless it is absolutely necessary I almost never put kids on this stand or bring them into Administrative Hearings or even let them witness their parents proceedings because any type of hearing where some other person or adjudicating body can decide your fate and change your future is fundamentally overwhelming scary and traumatizing
057even for adults and especially when you don't know what's going on what is going to happen or how to protect yourself this is a critical bipartisan issue to protect students parents Educators and quite frankly the school system itself for liability purposes it is not just about well-established due process or representation rights but about basic human rights dignity and fairness since the policy already allows for adjournment so that witnesses can be present it seems very much like a no-brainer to afford the same general courtesy to both parents and children themselves thus I respectfully request that policy 4351 is revised to add these much needed protections for young students thank you [Applause] books mines and umbrellas only work if they are open it is clear to this community which of you has an open mind instead of
058working to remove word social emotional and reframing from using equity and policy 3610 counseling program let's use these terms to align with the New Hanover County strategic plan and the state strategic plan why would you delete Words that point to an evidence-based program that helps you reach your goals especially when it can address some concerning practices like seclusion and restraint bullying while also helping to improve students academics the very idea of reframing from using the word Equity from the policy speaks volumes it's a standard as a parent and a Community member that I demand remains let me remind you of the research findings for social emotional learning hundreds of studies involving more than one million students worldwide across Pre-K to 12 offer consistent evidence that SEL has a positive impact on students academic achievement students
059participating in SEL have a higher level of school functioning as it reflects their grades test scores attendance and homework completion it also increases the performance of the 11 percentile points comparing to students who did not participate that's a whole grade level there's absolutely no need to remove these words from the policy and I hope that you can focus more energy on how you will reach your strategic plan and not sabotage it our kids are in crisis and I would think that the board would want to use every available resource to support our students as elected officials do the right thing and keep the words equity and social emotional in policy 3610 thank you [Applause] thank you over four years ago I addressed the board on behalf of the victims of sexual assault since then there
060are new occupants in the seats before me and entirely different board superintendent attorney and a panel of senior staff yet here we are making the same plea to keep kids safe and do the right thing a new legal contract sits before you denied of three firms to consider for your legal fiascos yet one question that has not been raised is which of them would provide advisement in the best interest of students not Barrington and Smith apparently June marks four years since Michael Kelly confessed and was convicted of almost 60 counts of sexual abuse against students and since that time your goal has been to protect pedophiles and those who enable them instead of children the board is signed off on prolonging the trauma of victims in that process and inflicting more pain through the ongoing
061hellish Court battles you find comfort in assuming that you all are safe under qualified immunity but who's keeping our kids safe the victims of these heinous crimes are not just numbers they're former students at the district failed to protect and many of us worry about the toll your actions take on their well-being every single day that this case stays stagnant so as you go into closed session to deliberate I'd ask that you give a second thought to the victims that you continue to abuse and ask yourself when does it end and what message are you sending to our students now they obviously continue to be at risk as there are plenty of predators out there watching the mess you've created with this case that has broken the trust of the entire Community you are elected
062to protect children not figure out ways to get around doing so with excuses and blindly following legal counsel no matter which law firm you go with the choice is still yours with regard to ending this case and allowing the victims to finally begin to heal and live their lives perhaps it's time to elevate their voices on a platform that'll be heard because their stories are far more heartbreaking than what I stand up here and say then maybe the public will understand the consequences of negligence of this District in failing to follow law and protect children and push for accountability and finally set the victims free thank you Mr Haney team Justice [Applause] okay most of you need to start focusing on what is best for our school district not advancing a political agenda that further
063damages our Public Schools our schools are in crisis due to lack of funding for staff and Facilities from both our state and local government stop wasting precious time on those political eye issues that do not in reality affect this crisis but add to it stop trying to censor books and curriculum developed by educational professionals that a very small group finds offensive stop trying to cut funding for needed services such as SEL programs and practices they do nothing but help all students and especially our most needy stop trying to deny the lgbtq community their fundamental rights as Americans and stop accusing them of grooming students stop ignoring the dozens if not hundreds of sexual assault cases that have occurred for at least 20 years and are still resulting in student and staff suicides and ruined lives
064and do not pick a relatively small and untried Law Firm because of political connections that will do nothing but to add to our financial costs and continued legal entanglements start doing the job you were elected to do stop focusing on funding to support repairing our start funding support repairing our facilities and keeping and hiring good and needed staff fight for the money the 1.5 billion from the hospital sale promised to us start to properly evaluate the superintendent who continues to fail to serve our schools effectively start to help our schools designated as failing through targeted redistricting and real magnet programs based on educational research and start to listen to all the staff and Community not just those who you are politically aligned with do your job according to our educational needs not how your political
065parties dictate the election is over start serving all of the people thank you Miss Justice your time is up Carletta Carletta Chrisette okay Lisa golf in honor of the national Day of Prayer on Thursday May 4th I'd like to remember what President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for National humiliation fasting and prayer it said in part we have been the recipients of the choices bounties of Heaven we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity we have grown in numbers wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown but we have forgotten God we have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved Us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom
066in virtue of Our Own intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace Too Proud to pray to the god that made us it behooves us then to Humble ourselves before the offended power to confess our sins National sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness thank you Miss golf Kimberly Spicer Yolanda Hernandez good evening tonight I'm addressing policy 3610 the counseling program and equity for all students the American school council Association has developed has developed a national model for School counseling programs policy 3610 states that our counseling program should mirror that the association has a position on equity for all students it states that schools counselors are advocate for the Equitable treatment all students in school and the community it also states that the school
067counselor's role is to develop and Implement a School counseling program promoting equity and access for all students some of the ways they do this is by using data to to identify gaps in achievement opportunity entertainment maintaining Knowledge and Skills for working in a diverse and Multicultural work setting and promoting access to rigorous standards based curriculum curriculum academic courses and learning paths for College and Career for all students in the beginning of this year the school year 13 of our schools were low performing four students received a top rate of a clearly some of our schools need more counseling support than others tonight tonight's revised policy 3610 calls for fair and consistent access to opportunities reject that vote instead for equity for Equitable access to Opportunities let's support all of our students thank you thank you
068Miss Anderson Hernandez [Applause] now case it's not here Gail taberger good evening I grew up in North Carolina my dad did not complete high school because he had to stop School in order to work on the family dairy farm he completed his GED in the military but he was a voracious reader he read everything he could get his hands on and he handed that trait down to his children his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren we read as much as we possibly can everything we can get our hands on I grew up attending an Evangelical Church we read the Bible as I still do today in my vocation and in my home I learned stories of rape and incest and adultery from the Bible and I learned that God is love and I've come to realize that
069for many this means that God is love only if you have the same religious and political beliefs as they do fortunately this type of belief runs a foul of the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution that guarantees that no law be made respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof I will remind this board that regardless of your own beliefs on the topic of book content to think about this no one on the right side of History has ever been on the side of censorship or been on the side of banning books and I implore you to consider that parents have the right to stop their child from reading a book but not to stop every child from Reading thank you thank you Davidson [Applause] good evening my name is Michael Davidson
070I'm on the clock uh first of all I'd like to say that the Acoustics here are very challenging I can hear people who speak at this mic but your mics I'm having challenges with so I don't know if you can project a little bit more or check the sound system but it's second meeting I've had it is very hard to hear you so I just want to speak a little bit about to get my phone to work which is always a challenge Okay so this is all my opinion and it is going to State it uh freedom of speech and book Banning cannot coexist how do we create a well-informed Future Leaders if we restrict what they're asked to speak what they can read uh 50 years ago when I was in high school my
07150th anniversary is coming up we had something called the William Matt Buckley stairway some of you remember who William Buckley was we had two groups in our school we had the common concern club and the Young Americans for Freedom we were both on the different ends of the political Spectrum how did we debate what we did is we took butcher paper and posted our ideas on a stairwell between the second and third floor of our High School uh our advisors caused us to look at issues critically they would not allow us to put things up it wasn't fact based it wasn't based it wasn't in some form that that we could support in future speaking uh wheat plants posted our ideas we talked about Vietnam War we talked about abortion we talked about legalizing marijuana
072but each time we spoke we spoke with respect we didn't put down the other group that was posting their ideas and also posting ideas on our on our wall allowed students who weren't involved in either of our clubs and understand ideas that we were throwing out there in fact we knew we had a Hot Topic when the stairwell was filled between classes oh I'm sorry okay thank you sir I'm sorry okay Michael Davidson that was him to Bannon hi I found it very interesting that others are talking about the sexual assault cases tonight when I've not heard one of them say anything about it before I also find it very interesting that one of the prior school board members talked about it she's been on the board four years what she do about it nothing
073uh let's see hmm we need to change attorneys because of the sexual assault case why should they try to settle it they get billable hours why hasn't it been settled these men some of them had committed suicide I consider these men to be murder victims why haven't they why hasn't this been settled can you answer this you also stated last week that you give all options to everything that's asked if you you do not you give options that you think others want to hear and when an option is brought up to you you then say Oh yeah that's right but as far as books go I don't appreciate my money being paid for the kind of books that are in the libraries you say that it's a Parent's Choice find this appearance choice but it's
074my money that's being paid for I don't appreciate that I don't want my money to be spent on trash it keeps referring to the Bible the steps in the Bible guess what it's not good stuff that's in the Bible it doesn't talk about the good stuff incest isn't good the Bible doesn't say it's good it's an abomination you keep referring to it as being stuck good in the Bible and it's not so don't refer to your incest the Bible doesn't teach a child how to have oral sex thank you thank you Miss Bannon that concludes our call to audience she did some really Spicer Kimberly ah there she is hold on for one second please your timer up do y'all have a flash drive everything up here well never mind okay I'm Gonna Be Quick
075um try to speak as fast as I can I'm speaking not just for my daughter but for all the students my daughter is a student at Laney she got hit January 3rd um she got flown to Chapel Hill we stayed there for two days so my my thing is I don't know exactly where to start but I'm starting with the school system I'm going for more Lighting in that area a sidewalk a trail whatever I'm not don't really care what it is but it was dark the night that my daughter got hit and it the younger they hit her could not see her so my thing I'm fighting for more Lighting in that area because soon as she hit the street she got hit and it was dark so my my my my thing to
076y'all is who to start from where do I go I'm gonna try to keep pushing this she's only in the 10th grade I don't care if it's after she graduates to get more Lighting in that area not just for my child but for the students you know of course leaning interest so that's my thing this is my daughter right here thank you [Music] that that ends our uh follow the audience at this point we are going to go into closed sessions uh I would call for a motion to go in close all right I got you um family educational rights and Privacy Act 20 USC one two three two G and formulate plans related to emergency response and school safety to consult with the board's attorney and preserve attorney-client privilege including the case captioned th
077by by parent or Guardian age versus New Hanover County Board of Education 23 EDC 00608 is your emotion um Mr chair in order to discuss the SBI report and closed session we'll need to add the doe cases to the closed session motion so there should be a revised one posted online um with the doe cases added the last one okay let's try again thank you sir yep thank you all right I call for motion to go into closed session pursuant to NC General statute 143 318 11 A1 3 6 and 8 to consider Personnel matters and maintain confidential outperson records under NC General statute 115c through three C 319 through 321 prevent disclosure of Student Records rendered confidential under the family educational rights and Privacy Act 20 USC one two three two formulate plans related
078to emergency response and school safety and to consult with the board's attorney and preserve attorney-client privilege including the cases caption th by parent or Guardian age versus New Hanover County Board of Education 23 EDC 00608 John does one through 14 versus New Hanover County Board of Education at all 19 CVS 2745 and Jane does one and two versus New Hanover County Board of Education at all 20 CVS 1395 and Jane Doe three versus New Hanover County Board of Education at all 21cvs 4707 Consolidated matters thank you do I hear that motion I have a motion for Miss Bradford second second for Miss Mason is there any discussion you know what I'm thinking don't you um all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed pastor 7-0 we are in closed session foreign we're
079back in Open session next uh I do apologize for the length of that there was a lot of good information given to us in closed session that we needed but I do apologize for the length of that uh we'll continue on with strategic Plan update foreign update yeah it is next oh we're doing strategic Plan update to the next meeting move the Strategic Plan update to our next meeting do I have a second Bradford all in favor please excuse me any discussion okay takes a five to two vote any discussion no uh all in favor please signify by saying aye I all opposed carry 7-0 we'll move that to our next meeting time yes ma'am I'd like to make a motion on top of your not on top of yours but in in following yours
080is um in Old business where we have legal services um I would like to move that either to a special meeting that we might have or to the next time because this is going to require some a lot of discussion and I think that we need to talk with our firms again because there's a lot of questions that were unanswered and some of us didn't reach out to the candidates um personally okay so I'd like to make that motion motion to remove C or should be postpone see to put just call a special meeting either to do it at a special meeting you know can't do it in June but but um to have to do it as part of a special meeting that we might be having okay so we have a motion to
081have a second second Miss Walker is there any uh additional discussion on that uh to move um under old business uh numbers or letter excuse me c uh legal services to a or to postpone it to a later meeting to a special meeting to a special meeting as soon as possible as soon as possible we have a first we have a second my only question Mr wood is I know that this is a there's a time constraint and so as far as an extra special meeting I'm just wondering the turnaround time in which we'd have to do it to with Fidelity to act on behalf of our RFQ that we head out I believe we my understanding and I'll ask for Sutton to uh well I asked my son just to speak to it because
082that way I want to tell you what my understanding is and so we wanted to get that taken care of this month so we could go ahead and get the notice out because if we decide not to continue with therington Smith Services we need to give 30 days notice so we were trying to get um the recommendation and get a contract in place before June 1st if possible first and second is there any additional discussion um Mr chairman I agree with Miss Barnhart this is important it needs to be done we can move some other things off of here but I think this needs to be done tonight okay other discussions would you please yes ma'am Ms Walker well I just want to add there are there are a lot more questions I mean we
083we're going to have it if the discussion is going to be had we're going to have it and it's going to take a very long time and I don't think we're going to get all the answers that we need tonight we don't have anybody else here that's going to answer the questions we have okay Mr McManus yes sir in the event that there's a change when does that become effective I think I know what I want to make sure Miss Sutton that will be the end of June correct yeah July 1 it would take effect so but we we would need to have 30 days Mr McManus we need to have 30 days if if we decide to make any changes okay just to clarify I am proposing that we do this at a special
084meeting as soon as possible like we talked about in closed session okay so that's it's not to not to not to hold it off any but just so that we're fresh because this is going to come to us at like 11 o'clock so we have a first we have a second is there any other edition of Miss Mason how soon are we talking I guess is my question that's gonna be up to us at that special meeting that we had discussed yes that's what I that's why I told you there I was going to be proposing that because um just so that we have a chance to get the lawyers back to answer questions for us um either Mike remotely because there's a lot of unanswered questions that I had and I didn't reach out
085to the the people like some board members did so she's proposing a special meeting that we would have the attorneys back at for another virtually round of questions I believe she said virtually did you say yeah I don't have the problem with them coming in virtually back and forth right yeah no it's still dialogue they don't have to come they get on they get online so that we can ask questions okay so we have a first and second we'll call the question uh let's uh if you wouldn't mind Miss uh Bowie would you uh buy oh please so again just make sure everybody understands Mrs crabill's motion is to postpone the discussion to a meeting very soon on Legal Services yes yes Mr McManus yes Miss Mason no Miss Bradford no Mr wildebear no Miss
086Barnhart no it's defeated four to three so that will stay on we will carry on so we have moved strategic Plan update to the next meeting we are on to student discipline update um is this something that we could postpone to the next meeting that would be up to will the board the Scrabble this is something that Mr McManus asked for specifically so I think we should allow him to weigh in on that well yes it was requested by yeah I just want everybody to hear the same thing so would you do we're here let's all right a couple three hours you're here I'll be here next time too okay good evening chair World of War members of the board Dr Foust as you know our New Hanover County Schools policies and professional development are
087based on several key tenants around student Behavior all students must be treated with respect students can and should be taught the skills and behaviors needed for Success motivation and responsibility should be encouraged through positive interactions and building those relationships with students student misbehavior provides a teaching opportunity and collaboration in this is critical all School staff members work together to help students behave responsibly and to meet those students needs clicking I am we're going to cover four main points the first one what do we know about our own data beyond that we're going to dig into regulations and policies in place with regard to idea OCR and our local scored policies Our obligation to respond and then what sanctions exist for us so the first piece digging into our own data what do we know about
088disciplined by the numbers and this is summary data for you from last school year as the you know the last completed school year how many office discipline referrals resulted in out of school suspension so we had 2712 office discipline referrals in the 2122 school year 16 percent resulted in out of school suspension so um that's how many office discipline referrals we had that resulted in OSS I will tell you that that is a reduction from pre-pandemic school years where we had total school year data the previous school year prior to that we had pre-pandemic in the year 1819 we had 2936 and the year prior to that we were at 3487. so continuous reduction what do we know about out of school suspensions by grade well we know that 7th 8th and ninth graders make
089up almost half of all students suspended as we do a breakdown of out-of-school suspension by race you can see by the percentages listed here African-American students are suspended at a rate almost six times more than their peers just as concerningly African-American students with disabilities are suspended out of school at a rate almost four and a half times greater than their peers what I want to highlight for you is that New Hanover County Schools is the only District in North Carolina among 115 school districts that is significantly disproportionate in Total Auto School suspensions the threshold for significant disproportionality is three times we are at four and a half times for our African-American students with disabilities top offenses that result in the assignment of out-of-school suspension are as follows you see fighting at 28.8 percent disrespect 20
090and a half percent disruptive twenty percent inappropriate behavior 15.7 and aggressive behavior at 14.9 I do have a question for you though someone please define for me what disrespect looks like anybody beauty is in the eye of the beholder oh okay interesting so whatever definition you provide for me I'm going to ask does everyone explicitly agree with that definition right next I'm going to go to the second bullet what are the regulations and policies in place with regard to student discipline in these we're going to discuss the individuals with disability Education Act regulations office of civil rights rulings and New Hanover County Schools policies not sure what's happening so let's talk about what disproportionate representation and significant disproportionality really is it's over representation of certain students by race or ethnicity for special education services there
091are three areas that this is calculated on for us it isn't about the more restrictive placement options and or the identification it's about the disciplinary removals within the parameters of federal regulations each state has to adopt procedures and processes to address whether this significant disproportionality and whether it exists in identify identification placement or discipline again for us it's discipline there is a sanction the parameters further require the reservation of funds and when I say um the parameters the parameters of the Federal Regulation requires that the district with significant disproportionality reserve the maximum amount of federal funds received under the section of the ACT meaning idea and that's 15 percent to provide comprehensive early intervening services in other words to address the root causes of the disproportionality this reserver set aside must address the factors that
092contribute to disproportionality therefore those funds cannot be used for the overall Services of the EC or special education program 15 percent of the idea funds the district receives are not able to be used toward the overall services for students with disabilities that amount of sanction over the past five years is more than four and a half million dollars and I go on to say that needs to be returned to the special education program by way of reducing the disproportionality the regulations require specifically the promotion of equity and idea the process for determination of significant disproportionality as I mentioned for this promotion of equity and idea is explained as identifying and addressing the factors that contribute to significant disproportionality addressing any policy practice or procedure that contributes to and then reporting publicly any of these changes
093I also need to share with you some rulings from the office of civil rights that require our our response so the office of civil rights is just as concerned by statistical evidence as I have highlighted here so I'm not reading everything to you word for word statistical evidence of discriminatory effect so this is the difference between intent and what outcomes look like even when we believe we are treating similarly situated students the same such as everyone involved in the fight gets out of school suspension it's still when these when the outcome still weighs more heavily on students of a particular race we still find ourselves in disproportionality so more clearly equal responses to student behaviors that don't lead to equal outcomes for students by race is still disproportionality furthermore the office of civil rights is
094concerned with the application of discretionary or subjective infractions such as Defiance disruption inappropriate behavior because these less objective infractions are more susceptible to racial bias as we will go back in review our top offenses that result in out of school suspension more than half in fact 56.2 percent of those are extremely subjective inappropriate behavior disruptive and disrespect third bullet what is Our obligation to respond how do we engage in root cause analysis and what policy and process reform are required or incumbent upon us I want to bring your attention to commentary from the safe and civil schools which is the root of leadership and Behavior Support training we've been providing in the district research 20-year body of research schools Across the Nation research consistently indicates that the most influential factor in establishing a positive proactive
095learning environment as leadership the principle sets the tone therefore who did we ask what the root causes are principles so I'm sharing with you a few slides here of their responses of root causes in their own handwriting and then I'm going to provide for you a summary slide that has multiple bullets so I'll give you a few minutes to look over the pictures and then I'm going to move on and again I have them summarized in a bullet a bulleted slide so I'm going to move to the next and one more I succinctly bulleted here for you the First Column addresses root causes the second column are what principles identified as strategies to address not necessarily lining up Bullet by Bullet I want to highlight for you root cause the top addressed issues as root
096cause mental health and Trauma of students a lack of de-escalation training or use of de-escalation in adult responses implicit bias and cultural bias perceiving that this behavior is disrespect from this student but another student engages in it I don't necessarily see that as disrespect I see that as self-advocacy that kind of thing old school supervision attitudes lack of Student Success lack of classroom engagement hunger basic need deficiencies High concentration of needs in certain schools lack of adequate Supervision in high traffic areas I'm sorry to read these but I have to highlight them social deficits a lack of connection and relationship things happening in social media lack of communication skills pressure from stakeholders for an easy out OSS is called the easy out punitive mindset in schools and a lack of use of restorative practices these
097are from the words of principles principals also identified the second column as what we need to be doing to address these trauma-informed teaching professional development counselor lessons in social emotional learning modeling and teaching the de-escalation for staff reteaching replacement behaviors for our students staff professional development in responding to student behaviors changing lens from punitive to teaching and restorative practices relationship building among students and families increasing professional development for our adults on conflict resolution and power struggles they want a district restorative practices plan versus their individual School plan they won't proactive communication with families in celebration of successes and they want effective academic interventions we know that out of school suspension is not an intervention so our New Hanover County Schools policies local policies the 4300 Series in the past we had one student code of
098conduct policy policy 8410 in our policy manual revamp we went to 18 student Behavior policies these policies were revised for the 2122 school year including the requirement for a range of consequences in each policy for each Behavior strand principals and District leaders came together to create those range of consequences for each of those violations of student conduct those range of consequences are a graduated response including instructive and restorative approaches many of what you saw identified in the strategies column from principles in these we must ensure that all School settings are safe and productive no argument there create positive School climate with a high expectancy of Student Success an expectancy of Student Success is a completely different trajectory than an expectancy of student failure or student removal and then designing effective policies and procedures for prompting
099students to be responsible highly motivated and actively engaged in school tasks again I'm going to remind you New Hanover County schools has the highest disproportionality rate in North Carolina the only way to reinstate the funds that 15 percent set aside for the sole use of students with disabilities thus increasing their academic growth is to continue to reduce overall disciplinary referrals or OSS from schools and that's by implementing policy 4302 our school plans for the management of student Behavior as were reviewed from school Improvement plans back in the fall those plans guide our staff to be proactive where problem behaviors are prevented before they begin positive or they're interacting with students in Friendly and inviting ways and instructional where misbehavior is corrected calmly and consistently to teach students to behave more responsibly and I'll leave you
100with this every student regardless of race or disability needs to be part of the growth for which New Hanover County Schools strives to be known thank you um we talk about least restrictive environment for our AC kids and a lot of the behaviors if they are behaviors happening with our EC kids are they in the mainstream classroom and if so are we looking at whether or not this truly is the least restrictive environment for those kids absolutely there is always a balance in the discussion of placement for a student with a disability and when a student is engaging in behaviors that interfere with that kids learning or the learning of others that's when that placement determination has got to be um discussed at an IEP meeting and those of course are all very individualized um
101the the real concern when addressing behavior in a vacuum is have we looked at every potential or reasonable intervention being provided to reduce the likelihood that that problematic behavior is occurring that's that assessment that we have to complete and that's where you'll hear teams talking about a functional Behavior Analysis where we're looking at what is really triggering or is the antecedent for the behavior and then how are we responding to decrease the likelihood that that behavior actually works for the kid yeah very much um Miss barn and I appreciate you hitting a lot of Keynotes because you're talking about the input and the intentional input and the idea that we have subjective nature of interpretation to our range of consequences and when I looked at it I agree with you when you talk about disrespect
102and discipline it's going to look different in the eye of the beholder so it's really important to get our stakeholders our principals together to talk about ways that we are utilizing de-escalation excuse me de-escalation strategies and I want to bring up policy 4300 because it talks about in the very first paragraph number two A system that ensures the Equitable treatment of all students and you said this you said the intent behind something versus the outcome that happens and I want to openly address this because I think this is something this Board needs to come together with a work session because we do have a lot of common ground but unfortunately over the last few years we have heard the disciplinary practices of both suspension and inclusion being used in a way that teachers have not
103done those resources and implied that and so what I hear back from staff is this is Josie I have tried I have de-escalated I have pulled in teachers I have admin and I have kids who are violently aggressive and I don't know what to do to keep my class maintained and so what I am worried about is looking at the outcome and assuming everything is wrong rather than looking at the outcome and say let's brainstorming what we're doing right and what path we need to continue to go on to get those results we want to see and so for me and I've said this before the idea and concept of virtue signaling the word Equity meaning everything's going to come out the same this is what we've done the last few years though in leadership
104we've said let's just stop doing that practice just stop doing that practice and then everyone says well what do I do rather than saying let's change the focus on the input and that's what we need to be doing is changing the focus on the input getting the support from our staff and so as we move forward with this conversation that's what I'd like to see because I know there are things that we're doing the first night that we came onto this board in December we signed three times them out for a person learning perspectives agreement and what that done what that did it was a company comes in to evaluate whether or not our AC students are getting the supports they need and they're being effective in their environment that's what we did one of
105the first things that we did and back in December so I know that there are things that our district is doing I know there are things that we need to work on it is clear from the expectation but what I'd like to do is as we move forward with the focus I want to focus on what we're inputting to get that versus just saying stop suspending because the trickle-down effect and some of our staff and schools is you are not allowed to punish if you have a child of color you are not allowed to because that's what Equitable treatment is for kids you can't have that result with a kid and I'm just telling you the disconnect and I'm telling you why there's such varying degrees of opinion of that word because of the subjective
106name of how some people interpret it and and I will let you know um there has not been a direction or a directive not to suspend thank you that's true Miss Walker first I want to say thank you for presenting in such an honest way in talking about disproportionality the data is the data and I think acknowledging it is a very important First Step secondly I I appreciate the principles coming up with root causes because until we address root causes you know um it doesn't matter if we change the word Equity here social emotional learning here this is what it is and there's a lot more to it than in understanding that we really need to to dive into I I've talked about it in other cases poverty is the biggest driver of trauma and
107so we dress a lot of these root causes um I don't see how we're going to affect real change um and I know that's something the school district can't take care of on its own that's something I hope the task force at least looks at and really has some honest conversation about um we can sit here and hash out what Equity means or doesn't mean but obviously we have definitions from our federal government about it and um it's it's embedded in our account on our own County government in their strategic plan it's not a scary word it's not a word meant to say oh you know to me and I think I've shared this with Mr man this is it's about opportunities and making sure that we are trying our best to understand the biases
108and the things that we hold and and in effect and change for our students that is a big number the disproportionality is a is a huge problem and I think it's been that that way for a while and I hope that we really have the real conversation about it not whether one word means this or one word means that I just think it's wasting time when this is the work that needs to be done no one else yeah I just kind of way things that I was looking at before we talked about this was that educational Equity means that each child receives what they need to develop their full academic and social potential and that's kind of what we saw with the principles and I would expect that it would be different from building to
109building because the populations are different from building to building so um yeah I'm just I guess what I'm getting at is are you um has our strategic plan and your actions your strategies your action steps um based on what you've shown us with with this data are you doing are you going to make changes to the Strategic plan or is it written out such that we have five years to do it and you're just you're going along to meet those those Milestone action steps yes and and I would Echo what the principals provided as root cause analysis and strategies to address that in being very much aligned to behavioral research and very much aligned to our strategic plan because what we offered as a part of our strategic plan is rooted in an Evidence base
110around student discipline student behaviors that are conducive to academic rigor and academic engagement so yes I find that they're they're very much aligned and so the follow-up Mr wildebear so these things that we're talking about right here they would fall under the pillar of school safety you know the not people not the physical safety but the people safety definitely and the creation of positive and proactive School cultures is the is a is a huge if not the most um appropriate or um Paramount deterrent for school day so school safety inside the school building correct anyone else Mr McManus yes sir I I've never lost for words yeah well I've lost for words I I've said this once before sounds like fell on deaf ears we got to get out of the box I don't know
111what that means we've been doing the same things when you get the same results you got to go back and start over again and we know the schools where this is happening we've got to do something we've got to get together if it doesn't work we try something else but we've been sitting on this for a long time we we can't ignore it uh in so many ways and for a lot of reasons some probably still to come but if it's the right thing to do we got to deal with it so we got a lot of smart people in this County and a lot of thinkers and problem solvers so what what do we do and we need to do it quickly and this board cannot ignore that if we don't agree on anything
112else we cannot ignore what you just said to us and when she needs us to pull in I mean she's brainstorming and putting this into action to say how can we respond to the needs we also have the all hands on deck that I think was a great idea that the last board had to be able to plug people in to respond to the unique needs of every school and I know that people say you know fix it fix it sometimes it's Manpower going in and being a volunteer makes a difference in kids lives as any one of our priority schools pick them go in and say principal where do you need me because they'll plug you in and we need to be proactive in saying that we want to do it okay anyone else
113if not Ms Barnum thank you so much I I think that and as I'm looking a bit at this I think that uh at least on my version it says student discipline update is under consensus items and it really shouldn't be I think it should be under information I don't know why maybe I didn't notice that before is it under your mind is under consensus for some reason I don't know why it's um it's not the same on the screen oh okay all right well that's good let's go on to our next uh item which is consensus items is there a motion to accept the consensus items as provided so moved Bradford moves as their second let's Walker seconds is there a discussion MS crabill but a lot of a lot of us may not
114know and you said that was h okay yep yeah absolutely pull H Ross that's not a problem anything else Miss Mason um I just had a couple more questions about the um one to one year three devices so I was hoping to pull off the E we can pull that off that was what my mind says F so it must be e right okay I go somewhere there it is let's hope those two off is there anything else if not then um can I get a motion to accept all the consensus items except for I think we've already had the motion but uh do we do we have a second for Miss Bradford's motion to accept the items except for e and H second Miss Mason seconds all in favor signify by saying aye aye
115any opposed passes seven zero let's first talk about uh item what's going on f101 one two one one yeah one two one questions Mason um I actually had two I had asked Miss Brinson the relative age of the current devices I didn't know if you had the chance to find that information out and then the second part or the second question was what are we doing with those devices that are still good or within use I guess okay I'll answer the second question first so what we've done as we've implemented one-to-one we have pushed the computers down so um what I'm being able to share with you is going to Clinic include some very old devices we're using we've implemented since um covid we've kind of tried to get as many devices in the schools
116as we can there are some laptops in there that still have power cords attached to them and they have to be plugged in because the battery won't last so I've done numbers right now in the middle schools we have 4054 laptops including staff student and CTE of those 1989 are come next year will be four years old or older we have some still in schools that were purchased in 1617. any additional questions if not okay let's move on to the other one that we'll take them both back in if that's okay uh I letter i n c Spark would like to kind of my question just just wanted to confirm that we were only doing it there and just where the hiring of the leader comes from is it going to come in staff or
117we're going to hire somebody new and then a question about other schools are allowed to come and use that you know how are we going to facilitate that little detail yeah so it will only be at ctec because we actually have the opportunity to have one lab it will be our choice to design the the use of the lab so if we want to allow other students to come in and use the lab that is totally up to us but see test ctec will house the lab and keep in mind what Dave tip is doing is actually providing us the resources they're giving us the funding and the furniture to house this lab and then we can actually do our own ordering and select the person and I'm sorry I can't see and select the
118person who will actually be facilitating this lab so this is an opportunity for our students to come in and see careers that they may not have the opportunity to see in a typical classroom an experience like modules that we are going to put in as the leader or AC Tech Teacher or hiring somebody new well it's probably best to hire someone new because this is a one-year um Grant opportunity so and we have funding from them and they're going to give us 65 000 and that's going to be benefits and all so you you we might want to make sure looking at this doesn't have to be a technical teacher this just will be a person facilitating instruction so we have a little leeway with the general assembly about the type of person that we
119hire any other questions NC sport entertain a motion to accept uh consensus items e and H so moved Bradford moves second second all right Miss base in seconds all face any other discussion all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed passes seven zero we'll move down to our next item which is policy consensus I'd entertain a motion to accept policies as provided so moved bathroom motion second second Mrs Barnhart any discussion Ms crabill yes I'd like to pull off several of the policies for us to discuss policy 3610 on the counseling program policy 4720 on surveys of students and this really isn't a policy it's a a working document but the one that is called call to the audience it's okay all right so that leaves us policies 26 let's see do
120I have I'm sorry do we have a second for that do we need a second okay we have a second okay we have a second any discussion we'll have discussion afterwards but let's go ahead and go to the remaining policies yes sir you don't need a second to pull from the consensus agenda obviously of one member of Jackson there's not consensus but that's true I'm sorry okay so with that remain that leaves us remaining 26.60 board policies okay that's that's called audience at 2130 uh 21 23 and 23 22 20. uh we have a motion a second to uh to approve those 26 60 is in there 2660 yes would you repeat those Mr I will so we're taking those three out so it's 26.60 21 23 23 and 32 20. yes so all uh
121any other discussion on those if not all in favor of those three consensus uh policies signify by saying aye aye all opposed S70 why don't we go right down the list let's start with 36 10. 6 10 um I wanted us to talk about that and call attention to the average person wouldn't be able to tell that these words were removed but in the first paragraph in the second set of red changes where it starts with academic career and developmental needs of the student population words that um the policy committee is suggesting that we remove our social and emotional before developmental needs of the population the um like I said in the the policy committee meeting is that none of us on the policy committee are counselors have been to school for counseling are a
122part of the counseling American schools counselor Association and have learned the national model so who are we to be saying what words come out social and emotional learning is required by DPI so just because we've removed the words doesn't mean that we're not doing it and then just if you look read through the rest of the verbiage in that paragraph when it says the EG for example it's and it says that the students will engage with talking about personal concerns individually or in a group they would be talking about some things for example attendance you know issues forming healthy friendships the need for more effective coping skills as they deal with the loss for example those are all social and emotional um Concepts so I don't know why we would take the wording out and
123I just I wanted to make sure that everybody knew those words were missing there because it's not obvious that they were missing someone that would like to speak to that um the opposing side the opposing beliefs horse here I make a motion that we accept policy code 3610 as it's written here first are we not discussing first or are we just going straight from you can make a motion because then we have to just discuss it yeah but somebody has a second incentive second okay Miss Mason's second set the second okay so now is there further discussion yes Miss Walker I I just don't understand why we are why we're just taking words out because we don't like them I don't understand this at all I I I feel like just it's like time in
124scrabble's point just because you take a word out doesn't mean it's still not there in a sense but taking it out it's almost like saying you just don't like that word I mean I think it's a direct quote that was sent to us over email was we're putting so much emphasis on social emotional development makes me happy to just strike those words out this is not how you do policy I just don't understand why we were taking just words out because we don't like them can anybody answer that or you know we pass some policy here it's our job to do that and I just don't know why we just on a mission to just remove words anybody on policy committee want to answer that I would like to have a work session so we
125can openly hash out where the disconnect is because I promise you I think that there's more common ground than we think but until we're willing to have an open dialogue then we're going to go to this back and forth so looking at the counseling program when the words were presented from ncsba the question became is this a necessary change or a recommended change and back and forth with distinction there has been different interpretation to what that is allowed as far as social emotional curriculum and development means and so what when looking at this the counselor program so if you're evaluating a counselor on their job if you feel as a parent that a counselor didn't meet the social emotional other needs do they then have grounds in our policy to push back and say they're
126not doing their job they didn't do it appropriately they didn't do it right so I I'm curious because from semantics it was like both of these two things are the same thing and since we're not willing to have an open dialogue between all of us to get on the same page you're frustrated with semantics we're frustrated with semantics so are we willing to have an open dialogue and have like a work work discussion about the different expectations of what these things are and what we do and do allow not a lot of discuss or not Mr chair um Mr McManus if you take it out they're going to ask why we don't have it at all we don't even have an opportunity to try to meet those needs I can't imagine that a board of
127education would say and take out the counseling Arena academic career and developmental needs of our student population I I don't I don't understand the rationale behind that whatsoever yeah that stays in it's not a takeout I do not understand why any of it's being removed we just talked about our suspension rate and we're going to argue over three words I don't get the priority of what the coming priorities here and what I just think we're losing the focus and concept of what we're all about Miss Walker well I mean and to that point too I mean this is the will of the board if we wanted me to have a full-on session about what Equity means and social emotional learning means and I'm and I'm happy to do that I mean I just don't think
128taking the word Equitable out and changing it to fair and consistent I don't know if that's where that is yeah I didn't point that one out but thank you it's in um I'm sorry sorry that that's in the same policy right I mean it's in the same policy sorry trying to help her find it thank you um well I think really the bigger discussion is why are we removing these words I don't let her I don't feel like this was a problem before but I feel like that they're coming up because those particular words are there and if I'm if I'm looking at the direct quote it's like it would make me happy just to strike them out that this is not how we do business I don't think that's how we should be doing
129business just because we don't like a word so I mean I'm opposed to the change and I just don't see what the point is of making it um I guess that's all I have to say okay so what Miss um Walker was referring to is in letter A in the second sentence second line where it starts with support it's the ncsba gave us the wording support Equitable access to Opportunities and rigorous and relevant curriculum for all students and Ms Bradford and Miss Barnhart wanted to change Equitable for fair and consistent I looked those up in the dictionary and they are not synonyms so and when I asked Miss Bradford if she could during the policy committee meeting and anybody can go back and listen she said that her throat hurt and she had already explained
130it once and she didn't want to explain it again so maybe now that her throat doesn't hurt she might want to talk about why those words mean something particular to her no thank you all right we have a first and we have a second is there any other discussion uh it sounds like we're gonna need to do a roll call on this one again the motion was to pass policy 3610 as we see it in front of us as amended Mr littlebor yes ma'am the and Jason help me if I'm jumping in I want to piggyback on what Miss Barnhart offered up was to can we table making these changes until we do have a meeting to discuss and get on the same page of what Equity means I mean so how can I make
131a motion on top of his or do we because if we vote on his first then I don't even get a chance to have mine heard board members there's a main motion on the floor and if a member wants to make a motion to postpone remember certainly do that whether it's to postpone until the next board meeting or to postpone and definitely pending scheduling of a special called meeting okay so then I would like to make a motion to to table the motion that we just made until we have a chance to talk about equity in a special meeting so that we're not changing the policy twice There's Hope no is it's a majority simple majority yeah do I have a second second was what I was there okay so we have a first and
132second to table policy 3610 to until we can have a special called meeting to discuss Equity discuss equity and social emotional learning yes thank you okay we have a first and second is there a further discussion on that if not miss Bowie would you call the roll on that question Miss Walker Bradford no Mr world of war no Miss Barnhart yes and Miss Graybill yes so that passes forward to three is it correct so that is tabled until we can call a message message a meeting boy it's gonna be a late night no because we we just don't we just postponed it yeah you're welcome and our second policy in front of us let me raise another board here is 47.20 a look at the um the oh where am I sorry the the wording
133in 4720 yeah 4720 it is the um trying to find it and all I had you there it is um it is in the first paragraph in um and there is where the where the the big block comes in as described in more detail detail below a parent or eligible student must provide prior written consent before the student is required to participate in a survey involving a protected topic if a survey does not involve a protected topic parents or eligible students must be given the opportunity to opt out of the survey and if you keep reading through um there there's several other changes that support that but I just wanted to call to the attention to the board that did not have a chance to watch the policy committee meeting that this is essentially saying
134that for every survey that we give parents um it no we took that out if a survey does not involve a protected topic parents have the um have the right to opt out of a survey and but we keep going down further and we basically said and and maybe I'm misunderstanding this yet again but that we have to um like in in a number two little letter C parental consent the second paragraph the um well in all those paragraphs is that a parent has to opt in you know to every single survey and versus that we have some opt out so if I'm explaining that wrong please help me out uh Miss Barnhart on that but I don't this is a change in our in our mindset on every survey we give we have to
135opt in and if I can speak to that next uh it's a change but it's been a change that I've pushed for for two years so no I agree I mean you have yeah I'm just but that's not but it's a change now again so that's why I want to make sure that we all knew that before before we voted in a consensus vote yes ma'am yeah it is the protected topics and so initially you know this policy has gone through a lot of different variations but initially it was talking about protected topics only applied for Department of Education funded surveys this would expand to any local or state surveys as well if if it is a protected topic no matter where it's coming from the consent from the family is given Patrick Mr chairman
136that move that we adopt policy code 4720 survey of students as it's written a second very first Miss Bradford except for Miss Barnhart additional discussion it's Walker out there yeah yeah I I don't know I I think we've had this discussion before a few times and I guess I don't want to vote on an um a policy where I'm not really sure how it affects our school district our funding for Grants um how we actually do surveys whether it's going to make it harder there's just a lot of stuff I don't know that that goes into doing surveys I don't know if anybody on the staff can help us with that or not just Dr facing Maybe okay I'm sorry I'm sorry Miss Farnham I just I hate to vote on something I just don't
137so you mean the timeline for implementation yeah I guess I I only think I've got to go by is when I was a when I was a parent in maybe you know of the permission forms were sent in the beginning of the year or whatever I just don't want it to hinder stuff that's going to take funding away from us or I mean maybe I'm not asking the right question I apologize but I just concern there's a lot of layers here so some of some of the concern with not participating in some surveys could mean that we don't have that comprehensive needs assessment data to be able to apply for certain types of funding so surveys in and of themselves are not tied to funding opportunities but it's about whether we have that that comprehensive
138needs assessment data that many federal grants require before we can substantiate our need for those Grant funds as far as implementing it I don't know that I'm understanding the question but as far as implementing in a timeline we also are required to provide parents on an annual basis notice of any surveys that we will be implementing and we include that in the student handbook which also includes the student code of conduct so we try to include in well we definitely include any surveys that we're planning to um to release so we don't and we we've been asked by schools if they can use a certain survey I got a question last week can I use a certain survey with my kids after we do this you know kind of group lesson can I do surveys
139on their perception of bullying harassment intimidation and I said you know actually if we didn't already have that in our annual list then no you can't so I'm not sure if I'm answering your questions no no no no you're helping Mr are you deaf I'm Sorry Miss Walker are you done I think but I might Circle back to Mr McManus oh pants presently have the option to opt out of the survey um we have it it's I'm I'm gonna have a little trouble remembering the iterations of where we have been because we've been talking about this one for quite some time um we have in most recently our parents can opt out but they are not required to opt in on all types of surveys but so you can always opt out of surveys always
140no matter what it is um it's the distinction of whether we require an opt-in for participation or we seek wait for an opt out of participation one more time I have to say this a lot we do not play well at 10 15 and we both of us got here a little after four and we had a lengthy closed session excellent but there it is yes sir this is a tough we're hitting some tough areas here and I appreciate Mr Hart saying that we could discuss it that I think we need to discuss a little more to make sure that it all sinking in and we understand the parameters or lack of um I I'm a support parent rights Panda wants money to do something they can opt out and that eliminates a lot of
141issues I'm not sure about making a policy that that makes it a little either harder or difficult but I blame again to add this to our discussion we just need I mean okay we're being shoved and pushed to do things at the last minute of the last hour and it's been a long night and I just think a little clearer and maybe share a little easier with each other for not all times all right Miss Mason the concern with this policy for me has always been that it's been opt out which means that there's that implied consent um and you have parents who are working you have single parents you have people who don't always see all the paperwork all the time and if their kids are participating in a survey that they are not
142aware of that they didn't get the chance maybe they missed that one paper um and there's information shared about their child that they didn't give permission to or opt out of that that's problematic for me um so that's why I'm I'm supporting this change Miss Walker so I feel like a lot of this coming over the horizon was based on the survey that we worked on in the Title IX committee that made national news that docked some of our employees over it really upset me because we're in a district where we want to know how our students are doing we want to make sure that we are aware of how they're feeling whether it's being bullied or harassed um you know because of their gender or whatever and so I am I'm a little bit
143concerned that this is an over correction of something of that nature and it's going to cause problems for other surveys and um I guess I mean I'm with Missouri minutes as far as having the conversation because I don't know what that's going to do for I mean maybe time will tell if this gets changed and it does make a really you know it causes problems you know for for getting information that we absolutely have to need we need for things so I mean I agree I mean and I will add also that we didn't get these agenda review I I could have come up with a lot more questions if I'd have been provided with these a lot sooner and we didn't have these to look at I I would have been able to ask
144questions that I'd I mean I'm feeling a little pushed on it but I guess you know I'll probably be on the losing side of vote any other I'll push back because I have given the information so I don't know where the disconnect and whoever I need to talk to I'm happy to do it to make sure that everybody has the stuff but after the policy meeting I submitted these as the policies for consensus that were up so there's no hidden secretive thing going on these were what's happened that I've been given a lot of slack because we keep going back and forth because the reality is there's a difference of opinion and so that we have a list of protected topics and those topics include political affiliations or release of students mental health and psycho
145psychological problems sex Behavior illegal anti-social self-incrementing or demeaning Behavior critical appraisals of other individuals whom they have close family relationships these are things that if we're going to ask in-depth questions and we need that data to inform parents of what's Happening these are intense conversations for a variety of levels because then what do we in turn do with the data that's the other part that you know is not being emphasized here but we did write into protocols and procedures that the board will be informed of the implementation as the results and the different things that we are going to be doing as a district with the surveys because I think that's the missing piece too that was not openly discussed and so these are a few things that when we talk about this so it
146is not a hidden secretive thing and I'm going to get a little a little defensive because I have been very forthcoming with the intent behind it of being transparent to provide a survey window of making the parents aware that they have an opportunity to see it beforehand as well as the board being formed of what we do after and so I'm fine with passing this survey I do understand it's late I do understand there's a mix of opinion and I think it's going to be a split boat chair I just want to make one more response please I'm sorry you've already spoken twice on this I've already spoken twice okay so I'm happy to give some context just if it helps with the board's decision your your current policy as it reads now without any
147of these changes tracks the ppra federal law and that requires prior written consent before uh implementing a survey involving one of these protected topics one or more if it's federally funded the key change that's being proposed here would be to extend that so that prior written consent is required for any survey involving a protected topic regardless of funding source that's really the key distinction instead of just federally funded this would be any survey any funding source that involves a protected topic it does not require prior written consent for surveys that do not involve protected topics every first and second is there any additional discussion this bill if you'd call the role plays again the motion now is to accept policy 4720 as provided for us Mr rickmanis foreign Miss Mason yes Miss Bradford yes Mr
148wildeborg yes Miss Barnhart yes Mr Gray Bill no and Miss Walker no policy 47 20 passes four to three Bill our next was the cold audience it um [Music] basically we rules of decorum that this Walker and I developed in the board approved that it's not codified anywhere we do mention policy 23 2010 in this document but we really need to address policy 2310 if we're going to make changes to it here if we look in the first paragraph let me paragraph where it says per board policy 2300 board meetings the County Board of Education it says may regular board meeting I'm pretty certain we meant to say Board of Education regular board meeting will be held on the first Tuesday of each month and our policy 2300 does not stay anywhere in there about
149the time so I think that might have just been something when we pulled it off of the call to the audience that we pulled off that page so I think that we need to address that that the title is really the board of the New Hampshire County Board of Education policy audience procedures and so I just it's a pretty major change it's one that we that was I did not to do um and so I just wanted to make sure that this was this needed to be made sure that we are all together on it not in the consensus item because it's talking about having a much larger call to the audience sign up window and it is calling for a lottery system using a random number generator and I'm not saying it's bad I'm
150just I just wanted to make sure that our board really understood what we were doing individuals will be notified if they're selected speech the lottery system will be used order of which people speak United if we move down in the second paragraph we struck out kind of in person will be eligible to speak based on them available we're striking that out um one thing that I would like for us to also consider is the last line under respectful Behavior approaching the dice without invitations and I want to strike out the without invitation and because people don't understand people in the back don't get to hear the conversation of the invite several of us have had things left at our desk anonymously and that's concerning to me foreign speeches the first bullet speaking time is determined
151based on the number of speakers who sign up at each meeting on the basis so everything else is good but I just wanted to make sure that everybody was clear on um this the proposal is a lottery system for 20 participants not 30 so that we can keep under our hour Bradford thank you Mr tribal this was developed through the Communications Department this is their suggestion we said in the policy committee meeting where we voted on it and passed it that we would try this for like maybe 90 days it's 20 participants plus the five that do at the door so it takes 25 instead of 35. um the system's broken this is a way to try to fix it if it doesn't work we'll try something else I move that we pass it as
152as it is as written and um yeah period and we have a motion to pass the yeah yes sir let me get let me get a second person we'll get you a question then we'll have plenty of time to talk um so we have a first we have a second to pass the New Hanover County Board called the audience okay we were first and second can I please make a qualification McManus is gonna speak next yes sir [Music] respectful Behavior last bullet notion that I was without it invitation by anyone other than staff is prohibited Graybill unclear what we're calling this this is not a policy that we're looking at this is a a document that we created so um so the I think we need to be clear we're not voting on a policy
153we're voting on a document a working document that we created so I think we need to say that in in the I think we can say that because it's a procedure this procedure procedure it's Mason yeah I actually have some concerns myself about it um the reduction of the number of voices um it's already hard enough for people to get on there sometimes depending on the topic and if we reduce it down to 20 that gives less people the opportunity there's also concern that um that people are going to people are very tech savvy at this point and how are we going to prevent groups of individuals from organizing and just spamming it and overloading and getting as many in there and preventing if like anybody else from speaking thank you miss me so I'm
154going to actually ask Mr Smith if you would uh respond to that please sure so I think it's a valid question uh AI drove a manipulation of a lottery system I think is what we're talking about um and I think it's valid and I think it's worth consideration and it's worth testing and I won't refute that it's a possibility it's also a possibility that you could do something similar with email or something similar with automated phone calls to you right now currently so it's a matter of technical expertise will all of those things I could uh I don't want to put Dawn on the spot but I'll tell you her team swats off uh cyber threats daily with regard to what's coming into our systems and our emails and perhaps you've been in receipt of
155it so I think we'd have to look at um at that as an option and it's something we'd closely monitor I think it's a fair question and the answer is I don't know what that's going to look like but we don't know what it's going to look like with regard to to any of these uh measures either I'll also add that uh Don and I in looking at some similar versions in other counties you know there there are address verification options or County residency verification options I know the policy committee and the board didn't want to look at that previous but there are I am a human and I live here type of options that could additionally be implemented where the board want to look at that Mr Bedford I can address the 20 participants
156our policy states now that that's going to call the audience will be limited to one hour okay let's do some simple math it's late and I don't do math but if you have 30 times 2 what do you get one hour we have another five that sign up at the door times two what do you get 10 minutes so we've got a minimum of 70 minutes we're already violating our policy so we have to change something the idea with this was we would come in under tonight we had 23 24 23 people sign up through the system one at the door and two people didn't show so it's not that big of a deal it's just a mental thing that you're limiting people we'll try it if it doesn't work then we'll do something else
157okay any other Miss Barnhart yeah I mean and my thought process was this and I'm going to throw out the word Equitable first come first serve basis is that equitable is that how we organize our choice schools no how do we organize them we do it by a lottery system people apply and they get selected randomly because we try to be as Fair as we can and if if that's not how we should be operating those I mean I think there was a tobacco with one when it opened up years ago but um just out of curiosity if I'm going to throw that word out there that the other thing is we have staff that are unable to sign up so the idea that Josh had suggested us to talk about was to open it
158up right after the gender review where people are listening and hearing that that they can sign up from that point on and more people can sign up throughout the week so it's a it's a longer process open it to more people with the potential of having access to a translator if or an interpreter if necessary providing that um just creating more of an open door because as Mr McManus says I I try to take as much as the input from what we said in the dice and brainstormed into policy but we constantly hear are from the same group of people so how can we broaden the net and that was the conversation that was had and this was the idea that was brought to the table the suggestion from my two colleagues about the 30
159to the 20 was because we are in violation of our policy and to make that right so that was the premise behind it the other feedback the call to audience is not the most effective way to communicate to the board in my opinion because we're not able to sit down and have a conversation actually hash out some details because I think when you have a two-way dialogue you're going to get a lot more accomplished addressing the problem but what has happened over the past few years and we've seen it all across the country is the call to audience is a way that people tell us the solution that has to happen we're not allowed to address them we're not allowed to we're not allowed to brainstorm the problem and address the issues at hand we
160just listen and I'm still wanting that opportunity for people who want to do that however I think the town halls that we've started implementing and I'd love it to be a Roundtable discussion is going to be a more effective tool for us to communicate with our community of actual problems and brainstorming Solutions Mr McManus well yeah Town Halls are not working because nobody shows up but I agree with you and I agree with this we need to try it the only thing I don't agree with if Melissa and I want to talk to Peter and we don't want to talk to him in front of 50 people and we say come up here then I think we have the right for them to come up here I know that's what I'm supporting that but I'm
161but I I think this is worth a try because I think we do need to make it Fair thank you as possible it's Mason respectfully I would have to disagree I think that first come first serve is is fair and I think that we had a fantastic teacher come up and give us a great idea at the beginning of this meeting and that is a teacher voice if we have that as an already implemented component of our meetings I think that would solve some of the problems of the teachers being unable to sign up I think we could also separate the sign ups we could have them at different times I don't I I am not comfortable with the the lottery system I think that it's too easy and there's too many unknowns for me
162to be able to trust that it's going to be completely unbiased that there's not going to be anybody sneaking in or overwhelming the system Miss Walker thank you well I will tell you as somebody that's been on the other side for almost over three years now I know what it feels like to just be shouted out or cursed out by even some of you guys up here now it's not fun no but at the same time people have a right to say what they want to say and I respect that and I feel like the people that sign up and I I'm not going to say I mean people sign up that their their intent is to want to be here to say what they have to say to me that shows the desire to
163do it and so doing a lottery I don't see how that's going to change a lot I mean I know I'm not unhappy with the same people they have they they have the freedom to say what they want to say let's just say that and I don't think a lottery is going to change it for example today we had 23 sign up and it was open probably till this afternoon so I don't see the problem with the system now I don't haven't had anybody complain to me about it um but I mean I just don't I just don't think limiting people and doing some Lottery not that I don't think it's a great idea to us it's not that it's just I've not seen it being an issue so I just disagree I don't think
164it's worth doing that's cool I'm gonna go into um and just to let you know I talked to several teachers first off the idea that was given tonight was a wonderful idea and I'm 100 you know that's why I brought it to everybody's like wow this is awesome but that was for teachers year that's not for ever you know the you know to every teacher to be able to come and speak and I've heard from several teachers you know as I go to schools and stuff where they they have said you know I really was hoping to come talk to you guys like about budget I really want to come talk to you about budget but I'm unable to come to talk to you because at eight o'clock in the morning on a Monday morning
165I'm teaching and I'm and I don't feel comfortable saying you know well then you know step away from your teaching or have somebody else do that so you can do it um so that that's just to answer some of those questions MS crabill so um just to kind of recap a little bit in um I'm not opposed to what we're doing here because I am and I've said this for three years is that our policy says an hour and we go over you know every single time and um and we have the longest comment period any people in any board in the state so and if we just look tonight we had 21 speakers and it took us 50 minutes so um just you know do the math on that one we go over all
166the time but what I would like to do um at this point is um amend who somebody made a motion Pat okay so the motion was to adopt this for as it's written so I would like to amend that motion to say that we adopt this policy for a period of three months so that we have a we have a trial date and so that we don't just keep going endlessly that we we make a conscious decision to evaluate that so amend the motion to say accept as presented with except with those chains we got to fix that first paragraph you need to take that make it what we want it to to be um and then for a trial period of three months huh and we have a motion yeah but here a second
167I'm happy to change the three months if somebody wants to make it longer I'll second that three months I think three months that's the that's that's three meetings further discussion on that um did you include cleaning this up because this is yeah this is a whole bunch of stuff in here and I don't know why New Hanover County Schools is wiped out on there I don't know why first we have a second is there any discussion on the amendment to the motion if not miss Bowie would you call roll and again this this is to accept it as written with the clarification on the front the first paragraph to to accept this procedure for a three-month period Miss Bowie Miss Mason no Miss Bradford yes Mr wildebear yes Miss Barnhart yes Miss crabill yes Miss
168Walker no and Mr McManus yes is five to two that is the end of yes ma'am yes sir that was approval of the amendment I'm trying to push through I apologize so that was the amendment which adds to three months in and clear it clears up that top so now we are voting on the procedure as written with the amendment Miss Bowie would you call is there any discussion please Ms Bradford MS crabill yes Miss Walker no Mr McManus yes Miss Mason no again pass is the same number five to two carrying on to our new business thank you uh board members we're carrying on to our book new business the ELA adoption so um I am bringing you our Ela adoption for your approval and vote tonight and I just want to tell you
169how we got here and what we're asking you to adopt oh sorry okay so I'll just begin with a quick rationale process of the selection what the recommendation is and leave some time for questions and discussions if you have them is it me sorry so when we think about curriculum we know it ties right into our strategic plan it is based on everything we do and it ties strongly with our academic performance our strategic plan 90 in 2027 we're going to have 90 percent of our graduates prepared for higher education or meaning for employment along with our third graders 90 of them reading at or above grade level sorry are because I was trying to click thank you you can click the next one it's not working for me I'm sorry so why do we
170need a new curriculum our teachers have voiced that we needed something our current curriculum is a company called school-wide so as you can see there was not an there's not any teacher paying our students don't actually have the text in their hand and the instructional approaches that are aligned with science of reading are actually not um that they do it does not align with the science of reading episode there is no online component and very little professional development so what was this process how do we get to the point to say we we need a new curriculum and is this curriculum so first we surveyed our teachers and principals we started there of course and from those surveys we then took the information and worked to determine a rubric of what will we look for
171in a new curriculum and once we had that rubric we did an RFP process and that's a request for proposal our teachers determine look through those those bids we had you're going to see later about 14 submissions and our teachers looked through those bids and reviews those bids from those bids and that community that that committee determined the finalists and then we had the finalists and we actually had fares and sent the samples to the schools to allow the teachers to dig into and actually look at this process they also have the opportunity to do demo lessons so and um from that they looked at those and determined what was the best curriculum for our process for our district so once the teachers and the principals looked at the curriculum and determine the best curriculums
172for our process we then work with finance and technology technology to make sure that we had alignment with the different platforms and we did the process correctly after that of course we've shared this we had an open fair or time for you Board of Education members and I'm here with you now asking you to present to approve this so after we approve this um doc after we approved this curriculum the next step is to actually get the materials in the hands of our schools and we're doing it now because our timeline actually will allow for our year-round schools to have their material in the timely manner that is one thing that I know all of you have heard that sometimes are year-round schools feel forgotten when it comes to things to this nature because we
173don't have the materials until August or July and they've already started school so that will not happen with this along with that we will also be having parent information sessions you know with any curriculum it is important to have transparency and you're going to see some other areas where we're going to talk about how parents are actually know what is being taught in this curriculum and of course the implementation process so what did a teacher say you see here 90 of the teachers that teach Ela in our district responded we not only talk to classroom teachers we talk to EC teachers AIG teachers our instructional staff we wanted every voice to be heard and as you can see ninety percent of our teachers said we need something an additional school-wide it does not meet the
174needs of our students so what did the teachers say they want it they wanted a curriculum that is aligned to the standard course of study of course it connects to the science of reading and think about the science of readings are those best practices that we know how students learn our standards are what we have to teach them and our curriculum is how we're going to teach them and we know we've already invested a lot of time money and energy in the science of reading and so now we give the teachers the resources to actually be able to put that in effect and make it work another thing they said was PD we need some quality PD you know you we so many times we throw things at our teachers and we don't give them
175time or the support to really dig into it and learn this and you're going to see we've embedded quality PD for our teachers because they deserve that so the RFP committee was made up of mostly teachers but we also did have some principles on the committee as well and as I share with you we received 14 submissions three of those submissions were for elementary and four were for middle school and I'll talk to you about that process and how we narrowed it down so you see we had three finalists three of the finalists when we got to the point so keep in mind when you have the RFP you have a piece of paper you have a rubric and then you determine the finalists from those 14 submissions then you actually get the material when
176you get the material you can see the actual content and the resources and we when we looked at one of our resources it was clear that it did not align to our GEOS our hegarty and our foundations and that is something that our teachers have been doing for years now and we promise them we're not going to change because remember the data that we have it is working we're outperforming the state in those areas in those lower grades so we're not going to change that so we had to actually remove one of our choices because we were not going to take that away from our teachers because they are doing phenomenal with that then when we have in the middle school we have four choices we debate it do we stay with a curriculum and
177say we have to do the same for elementary that we do for Middle School but then we thought about it we need our teachers to be able to do what's best for them elementary and middle is different so we have two different choices you're going to see but it's what our teachers want it thank you so these are just a couple of pictures from the vendors Fair the teachers actually got to go talk to the representatives and ask those questions and really look at the material along with that the demo lessons that I spoke about they could actually go in teach lessons from the curriculum to see how it would actually be and then as a school they got together and really explored and looked at this and talked about it so you're going to
178see um next that teachers they actually we actually vote the school voted and they actually did individual votes so what were the recommendation are teachers actually voted for Whit and wisdom at the elementary level our teachers and principals and you see here written wisdom receive 66 almost 67 percent of the vote there from our elementary and then when you look across with the next slide you're going to see across multiple spans look at that wit and wisdom is what our teachers wanted in elementary and I will say that we're in um great minds is also the same company that does Eureka or math so the way the lessons are set up they align for the reading and maths or our teachers really I think from what I've heard really like that aspect of this curriculum
179as well so Middle School when we did the first vote in middle school middle school they were tied we had McGraw-Hill and hmh then you go to the second choice and you will see from the next slide it's easier to see that 80 percent of our teachers got their first or their second choice with Middle School so we're really happy about how invested our teachers became with this process and how they actually got what they wanted so why these two curriculums why why these two and I just want to take a moment to show you our nation report card our Ed reports this is how inequality curriculum in our country is measured as you can see both of these curriculums are green they have extremely high marks we're very proud of that because this is
180the nation's report card and they assess curriculums across the country and these are two of the top so with these two curriculums in elementary and middle middle school there are actually knowledge building curriculums and thematic units of what we call in middle school so they're building knowledge in those so think by teaching fiction and non-fiction or informational text and literature so if I'm learning about frogs I might be learning about a frog's true habitat and actually having uh informational tax and then I might be reading a text or a novel that has a literature piece that incorporates frauds I'm digging deep into that and then I'm actually able to take the writing and we're doing writing with that I'm taking the device it is I'm sorry this is exciting because it really is it's they're
181really great curriculums and for our teachers and students to be able to get this quality in their hands and how this resource is exciting so this is just some research we have some research from forest Forbes leadership that they did a study with curriculums to this quality when you do these knowledge-based curriculums they took and looked at kindergartners to fourth grade and what they found out that kindergartners even in lower income if they stuck with this curriculum in fourth grade they outscored higher income students so this is this is the power of actually giving a quality curriculum and sticking with it and that's what we're telling our teachers we're going to stick with this and train them and give them the resources they need so you remember professional development was one of those key things
182that our teachers talked about so we're going to begin there we're going to do like a this is um you've wanted this here it is a welcome this is the curriculum that you've chosen um just like a kickoff before they go all right and then over the summer our curriculum Specialists and some of our coaches will be digging in the principles will be actually getting some training and then on August 23rd when we have our professional development PD day for the district these companies will be here training our teachers so they can have that but that's not it because we know PD is not effective if you give it one time we're actually going to be doing some embedded coaching where the coaches from these companies actually come to our schools walk the buildings with
183our coaches and teachers seeing their students and helping them to make this curriculum effective it's called embedded coaching and we've done it with our Eureka curriculum sum this year and it has been phenomenal so we've listened to our teachers about the best way to provide professional development so transparency for our families with each unit our families will actually receive information these are the things that your kids are going to be learning in the unit as well as questions they can ask to help at home remember parents are our partners this will be sent home we're also working to have this put on our webpage front and center we don't want we want this front and center with our parents because we've hurt our parents they want to partner with us so we need to give
184them those tools and those resources we're also going to have virtual meeting to let our parents look at these curriculums and two face-to-face meetings where they can come and see as well so cause our first year costs of course is the highest cost because we're actually purchasing all of the texts and the consumables and the PD so you'll see here the first year costs and with the after the first year and this is the PD that I spoke of and the consumables because For the First Time our students are going to have these workbooks where they can annotate digging this text and really manipulate the text that's going to be a game changer for our students and teachers but after each year we're going to have to replace that cost so that's what you see
185there and we've got our our elementary company to say this is where this cost will be of course our numbers could be flexible because of the numbers of students with our Middle School company we actually were fortunate enough for them to say we will guarantee that we'll replace these and if our costs increase or if we perfect our product because of course there's nothing perfect and they continue to change and build and become better that it still will be no cost to us so even our middle school students too they will be having consumables each year as well now keep in mind along with the consumables there is the online component and the online component comes with support for our teachers and our students with the writing and I think it's important to note that
186a lot of the online components that when when we think about online instruction and components with any of our curriculum our teachers have power and control where they can often stop our students if they need them to bring their eyes back on them so um that is something that we're going to have k eight we're going to have the consumables the text and the online components and the Stu the T parents can actually log in on this with their students and see the resources well any questions have any questions board members it's Mason I don't have any questions I just want to say thank you for for presenting this and two of my favorite things about this are the text in hand and the fact that we are providing all of this information for parents
187in multiple languages yes I forgot that part thank you so much Miss Mason Barnhart and I want to just re-highlight I mean when I met with the coaches it was a great session I could stay there all day uh talking about it but the paragraph and the article that she sent it was talking specifically about how across socioeconomic classes our students were successful and showed different results and how this is done in the curriculum was they have intentional scaffolding so it's already prepped for accessibility for our multi-language goods for our AIG students for our kids who are we behind and need a reteach lesson in different accommodations for AC students as well but one of the things and I don't think you mention it here but I want to reiterate to the public is we
188know no curriculum is perfect and so talk to me about how we're going to tap into our staff who are showing that they're highly effective in different demographics and how we can you know capture their knowledge and spread it across the district right so and thank you for for that question so when we were looking at the curriculum we asked teachers for their positive and their negatives because there is no um curriculum is perfect so we will be working with our teams will be working to adapt and make sure this curriculum fits our New Hanover County so our teachers will be um our curriculum Specialists and teachers will be working with these companies to do the changes in the things that we need to do if any which we know there will be some because
189we're going to tailor it to our district so they'll be working over the summer to make sure that it is a rollout for our teachers here in New Hanover County because you're talking about companies that they're across our state but they're across our nation and we want to make sure this is easy for our teachers and it is based on what we do in New Hanover County in an outpacing level it's a comment and a question so um I was very impressed with the of your choices one of the things that um I wanted to just ask so that anybody listening who you know had asked me this question um and one thing that I was very impressed about was we when I asked about um McGraw-Hill you know for the elementary and um the
190intentional decision because somebody or many had the foresight to look at how it fit in with work we'd already done so could you explain a little bit about that for us yeah so McGraw-Hill and just to make everyone is is that is the third curriculum that we had to Mark out at the elementary level level so currently in our district we do GEOS fundation and Hagerty um at the um for our students with those phonics and just basic foundational skills that is something that we are leading our state in and our teachers have been doing a great job when we actually looked at this curriculum and had it in our hand and actually talked to the representative I actually know the right and she was honest about it would be a hard fit and it
191would be different and they would our teachers would have to do something different if we adapted that curriculum so we decided we could not put that in front of our teachers because they've been doing this the entire time and that is one of the things that we said because the teachers wanted to adopt a new curriculum I'm sure I've told most of you the story how that's one of the first things they've been asking but they did not want to lose those things so we had to remove that because that is a stapler in our district and we're doing it well and we're doing it better than the state thank you I'm smears Bradford um Mr chairman I move that we adopt this new Five-Year Plan for Core Curriculum as it's been presented second another
192any other discussion if not all in favor please signify by saying aye aye and he opposed pastor 7-0 and the last thing I'll say is I have to say a special shout out as they say to Dr DeWalt Mrs Maureen Hill and Sarah jelinski these ladies have worked hard on this along with the team and I just want to recognize them and I appreciate all the work they do thank you thank you thank you very much uh the next item on our schedule is the board of education development training 15 minutes Mr krabel brought that up um yes so um before we get into that I am it is 11 o'clock and I am willing to postpone this discussion you know for 15 minutes but I'd also like to ask again to um because I
193think it's important for us to really decide what we want to take in but I think that we need to hold off on our Legal Services discussion Because by the time we get to that it's going to be 30 minutes and it's going to be 11 30 before we talk about probably one of the most important things we need to talk about tonight other than budget so um I'd like to make a motion to adopt the to change the agenda to take off the board of education development and training and legal services and postpone them to either a special meeting as soon as possible or to the next meeting eating okay actually postponed legal services to a special meeting as soon as possible and I can hold off on training until the June meeting so
194you want well let's let's take one at a time let's do the the board of education development and training your lunch would you make emotions well I I'd kind of like to do them together because I think that that right there takes off um at least 30 minutes together 35 minutes so I'd like to do it as a package okay so your motion is to postpone the board of education development training uh until later June June and then also the legal services to a meeting very soon a meeting very soon yes okay that's your motion is there a second second is Walker seconds is there any more discussion anyone no no no give me a chance no Miss boy would you call the roll on that please it's a world of war no Miss Barnhart
195Miss crabill yes Miss Walker yes Mr McManus Miss Mason now miss Bradford no that's defeated four to three I'll make a second motion I will go ahead and take off the leadership training um to take one for the team because it is 11 o'clock and we need to be fresh to talk about what we need to do to make ourselves better okay so there's a motion to postpone the board of second training second by Ms Bradford any discussion I I'm going to take a shot all in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye all opposed passes seven zero we'll move on to the county budget request for physical year 23 24 15 minutes good evening good evening before you you have our County budget request this is the same information just bringing forward to
196this meeting we had a discussion and a presentation at the April board meeting so the total request of the county is 3.3 million and that's based on enrollment of 27 500 which includes the charter schools as we discussed before that revenue is going to go the additional Revenue will go towards increase in employee compensation the four percent increase for the raise and retirement and insurance rate increases and that Revenue will also go towards helping additional costs that we are projecting based on utility rates and Insurance liability rates going up and then of course the charter school payments those are expected to increase to based on Charter School enrollment so that's what makes up that 3.3 million that we discussed in April and then also along with the county request that is the operating request we
197also have the capital request and it's right much higher than in the past as we had talked about we had some really large projects that we decided to include in our request this year so it actually brings our request to 14.7 million normally it's around 4.6 million but we had an additional I think it was about nine point let's see I have that near um additional 9.9 million compared to previous year Yep this this is a summary of the request as you can see here where in addition to those items we are asking for the it's not a change as far as an increase but for the county to continue funding our scholarships that they've been so generous to provide the past couple of years and along with the Pre-K original and the expansion Grant
198we received last year so that's just a continuation ask so at this time I would just ask for the board to approve the recommendation as presented and then I would be able to share that with the county tomorrow I'll make a motion to approve the recommendations we have a motion in a second Barnhart first for a second is there any discussion or questions hearing none all in favor please so um in this in this budget that we're seeing the um where do we look to find and I couldn't find that when I was looking at these um these handouts where do we look to find um some of the things that we had talked about before about in our different pillars for the Strategic plan and how that the finances laid out for the like
199academic performance for equity for school safety is there a place to see it laid out that way so we can see um I do not have that in these documents I can bring something back that will provide that information of how it aligns to the Strategic plan but it's not included in these documents um and and in April we were just going through the changes I didn't tie that two different sections of this strategic plan but of course that was part of our discussion so I can bring that back if you'd like well I don't I don't want to hold up because I know we have to get this to the County Commissioners as soon as possible and the board doesn't seem to be amenable to having a special meeting to discuss things um so
200I don't does anybody else share that concern that um to see it tied or just go with what the no all right I'm fine I would say that it would be great if we could see that but I mean I don't know that we want to hold everything yeah I do plan to bring so this is just our County request so they will go to the county and the county we'll have their hearing and then they'll let us know what their appropriation would be I am hoping to be able to bring to the June board meeting the actual budget resolution and I think it would be appropriate if it's okay with the board to bring that document at that time because that's when you would actually approve the budget resolution for next year thank you
201okay so we have a we have a motion a first and second um all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed that's the 7-0 next on our agenda is resolution to request attorney general Josh Stein to release SBI findings I move we postpone that due to Legal advice is that the terminology give a motion to postpone you're able to second that let me come back here Jason first and let's create those seconds can I amend that to a specific called meeting yeah in the immediate future yes I'm sorry I didn't say that would you like to amend yes I will amend it to a meeting that we will be setting up within the next 24 hours yes so the motion is to um postpone the discussion of making a resolution until after
202we have a special called meeting is that right yes okay I'll second that okay all right okay we have first answer second uh any other discussion yes ma'am Mr Weber so that I mean that's at the board's discretion how much detail you want to put in the motion you you know the another option would be to make a motion to postpone and then with direction to the chair to work with staff to schedule as soon as possible including setting the agenda do you want to re-reiment your can I just say what he said because I don't recall all of that I'm sorry yeah but it's your emotions yes I would like to make that motion yeah help me make the motion it's 11 30. can put as much or as little detail as it wants
203if you want to make a motion to postpone and to direct your chair to work with staff on scheduling as soon as possible um okay including setting the agenda that that could also go in any direction you do need to action I'm going to make a motion to postpone the discussion and direct the oh my Lord the chair superintendent and this superintendent to set up a meeting as soon as possible to discuss it I will I will second all of that any discussion if not all in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed no okay okay pass a six to one okay next on our discussion topics are legal services the Sutton I'd like to provide Just A Brief Review of the legal services procedures that we went through to get to where we
204are tonight um so on March 27th the board actually reviewed a request for qualifications and established the legal Review Committee on March 10th we advertise our request for qualifications so that was published to request submissions for proposals then on March 30th The Proposal deadline for submissions where we collected all the information from the three vendors that provided proposals on April the 3rd the committee actually the legal Review Committee actually came together and reviewed those proposals and then on the 24th we had the three the three firms selected came and provided presentations to the board and the board had opportunities to ask questions at that time and then we also had some follow-up questions that came either after or during the presentations from the board members and on April 27th and 28th I received that information
205and then provided the responses that I received to the board and then here we are today to have the discussion and hopefully make that selection so I just wanted to just take a minute to go through the process that was used to get to where we are tonight thank you but this is the will of the board yes ma'am to German I make a motion that we go with the Vogel law firm as our attorney firm on the retainer payment plan we have a motion from Miss Bradford is there a second my second base and seconds is there discussion oh yes there's a lot of discussion to be had about this motion Miss Walker I guess I can get called on um first of all I was part of that qualifications team and it didn't
206seem to me that that made any difference whatsoever because this is the least qualified firm out of the three and so I don't understand why that's not even under consideration right now um I also know that this this particular firm has had dead bias from the very beginning from a particular board member Mr chair I know that we are getting inundated with emails from people including some prominent people to lean on us to pick the most conservative firm um and I know a called an action was made last week to do so I also know that a board member has reached out to one firm and one firm only to get follow-up questions and that was not provided to the rest of the firms um so I have other concerns which I emailed you guys
207last night about one specifically was that I did not feel like one firm was honest with us this particular firm I watched the Cabarrus County board meetings and I watched it last week and I watched them last night this firm was given 120 days in January and so I know from all the research I and I've spoken with board members from Cabarrus County as well so I just feel like I don't think this is the way for us to start I don't think the this particular firm is based on my scoring which was absolutely neutral it was not based on whether I liked them or preferred them it was based on qualifications and that has to mean something with this process we have a decent sized District that needs servicing properly and I just did
208not think that Vogel will be the firm that we need to pick anyone else I guess it's kind of a question with would you feel comfortable with having a caveat in the event of our district needing more support of the workload to have that option to be brought forth to be brought forth to the board to extend services to and to for specialized interest I.E I know bonds and forfeitures are something that we utilize in special education things like that um just out of curiosity like if you're worried about the workload I'm just curious about that yeah yeah I'm gonna look at that question I have a problem because we had a committee and I don't know what value this committee is supposed to hold all I know is it was a serious process when
209I was doing it it was public record that I did it and I did it based on the qualifications minimum that this District needed so I don't feel and that will reflect in the scores and the comments that I have in my scores but also the fact that I asked some very important questions the other week and I did not get honest answers and I don't think that is the way to set a law firm for this district is not the professional way to do it and um I did my homework I did my research I checked my references I asked appropriate questions I was accused of calling them liars and I asked a simple question that's all I did so I don't think that's so I so answer your questions Marner I don't think
210at this point that factors into this because I do not believe this firm is qualified to represent this District what else I'd like to speak MS crabill well number one they told us that they only do a retainer the 12 month just for coming to our meetings um then that's 144 000 and that means that we're going to have reach out to another Law Firm to help us is our special counsel so I would like that this and so I would like to let me finish so then and if we did the um the super rate of 22.5 days that's a minimum of two hundred and seventy thousand dollars and we're sitting here golfing that we're paying you know um too much for our legal fees right now you know like 260 63 000 so
211I just wanted to point that part out that and I did so along those lines I would like to hear from the advice senior staff on how many views um Legal Services um in their day-to-day operations so that we can get just sort of a gist at the 235 dollars rate um what is 175 they weren't really clear on who's to partner or who's the associate because they so I had questions about um may I ask that question of your of your staff so um one one area that is very important and where I think that we use the services a lot is in our special ed Department and um does not have special ed resources like people find anywhere on there where I'm anybody's resume all they did was say they had it but
212I couldn't find it and like I would like to do that for each first so I don't have a specific information about that firm I know how I utilize okay um okay okay so um specifically in the area of special education um there are whether it's a request for records to be sent to another legal counsel so the legal counsel of family then we always utilize our general counsel or in-house attorney or special ed attorney to review those records as well anytime we have a student record request that is coming from either a subpoena or from another party we have them review those and then we create that letter there's a letter of notice regarding FERPA notice um routinely seeking Direction on either subpoenas for staff to appear in court that's not necessarily just special
213education that occurs a lot with counselors and social workers as well our staff are subpoenaed for you know different domestic or custody matters custody agreements they're no two are written the same with the same language and ensuring that we are complying with what the um the agreement is signed by a judge different Student Records matters it's it's for me it's definitely weekly if not daily routinely we use them for evaluating contracts and giving some feedback on wording and contracts and then also occasionally for build bidding requirements to make sure that we're doing those things properly and meeting all federal guidelines associated with that sure we we use them for Contracting for construction that could be developing or clarifying standard contracts working through construction disputes possibly even termination mitigation we also use legal services for anything
214dealing with real property whether that's the purchase of or sale of property easements right-of-ways and then we use we use them for leases mous moas and anything that operations would be associated with very rarely that's normally not what they're involved in so yes we um we use their services a lot for the contract review much as other people have spoken both yearly contracts and then multi-year contracts when we do those also lately in the process that we've been doing data sharing agreements to make sure that the vendors that we do business with and get our student data we have agreement with them as far as the privacy of our student information so we've been working with a lot for that lately um basically the same thing for contracts mou's actually when have to look at
215some different policies and language for that thank you we primarily use them for processing public records requests identifying any necessary redaction and then turning over those records and along with what everyone said about mou's agreements at the universities we pass those through legal and then also a lot of times there's a sounding board for employee relations issues we will make sure that I'm following policy want to make sure that we're following General statute and then some things that reach to termination appeal things like that always involve the attorneys as well same thing mlus contracts and uh just actually an extra layer of due diligence when I'm just investigating anything related to racial ethnic bullying you've been Scrabble anyone else Mr McManus we're going to give up of firms whose specialty their whole focus is the
216educational Arena and I believe they have 40 40 of them that's what they do across the entire state um we've had the firm I know that our attorney also goes back and refers to a lot of their others to deal with what we have to deal with on a daily basis I don't think the vocal has the numbers to give us the accessibility and the time they're in Charlotte and there are four of them at least that's if I remember correctly and I know that they get a lot of phone calls during the day and they have to be accessible immediately particularly when it comes to HR and I know some of the exceptional arenas and so whether we like a present individual or the firm they have such a knowledge base of all of
217the things that are going on whether we agree or not we're being sued we are defending ourselves we're things we that go on that no one else knows about in closed session we can't discuss them we're going to give up someone who has all and the firm who has how many years two years of that knowledge and we're going to start with someone who doesn't know one thing in their defense and they're going to have to respond and they're going to have to make some quick decisions and if the accuracy is not there the background the understanding of what has happened and what's taking place we're going to pay the piper and so I that's that's my rationale not supporting there are only for the accessibility their background I just and we're in the midst
218of so much I just can't believe that we would that we would change in the middle of the Stream when we know we need it so badly I'm gonna I'm gonna throw my two cents in here thank you Mr McManus first off you're welcome you know um I'll be honest I don't I'm not thrilled about uh any group to be honest and that's one thing I have to really focus on is we're looking at law firms we're not looking at individuals I think Mr Weber is doing a fine job I don't have a problem with that but I just go back to the statements that I think we've all forgotten about things like schools don't have a fiduciary responsibility to keep students safe wow that hurts me I mean I looked it up today I
219had I should have remembered memorize it General statute 115c 105.45 says the exact opposite you know that to me paints us all in a really bad light um that was not Mr Weber but you know that's you know his law firm uh the inability that we have when we ask questions that we can't get answers to because and I I know it's we've the board conflicts of interest keep coming up that's not what it is but I mean that that's still a concern because we have to pay a whole bunch of money to another Law Firm to answer those questions um you know so that's that's those are some concerns I'm not you know I'm Not Over the Top about any any one of the three groups to be honest um you know I I
220had I'm going to say this little story I'm going to say and then I'm going to let somebody else speak but you know this weekend I think you all know my daughter got married the one little girl came up and she was like oh I have a boyfriend he's he's okay he's not you know and and I I hate to settle in any case but um you know that's my that those are my concerns uh with our current Law Firm so miss crabill had her hand up yes ma'am um get them in so um number one I'm going to ask um if she could just clarify and confirm for me one more time about the public records request and the information that you've given us on our legal expenses that those were for our legal
221expenses for general counsel and day-to-day and not for any of the litigation is that correct that's correct is that that's something that's a misnomer and that was definitely this [Music] I if you say promotion on the floor is to talk about votal then then um I wanted to call out I checked out you know resume he provided for us I looked on this LinkedIn page and his Facebook page and he doesn't have the only higher education I mean the whole the only education experience he has is representing a education organization called strategic education which is basically the login group for higher education and financial aid and student is Student Financial Aid and Loans so he doesn't have I'm concerned that he doesn't they don't have the special education they don't they're not even an education
222Law Firm they're calling themselves that um but and each one of them does little bits and pieces here and there I just think that we're doing ourselves a disservice you know for our whole organization on that um and then I am very disturbed that um Mr vocal was less than um forthright with us on um their status with Cabarrus County you know and we've had a chance to watch two of their meetings um there was a gentleman named Mr um Mr Ken Watton a second white it's um Jake J White um and so he does all the talking and all the Cabarrus meetings that I've watched so I'm wondering you know who is this guy and why doesn't Mr Vogel even you know ever you know speed up and I'm just afraid we're going to
223get into some bad lawyering um and bad advice their whole paper that they gave us was how they were going to insert themselves into our business not advise us on our business so that those were kind of things so I before we were to to use Mr Williams Words which I appreciate before we would settle for this Council that I believe is very politically motivated because every all the emails I thought have been from um fellow Republican friends who have gotten an email that says do this we've got an email from a former elected official that you called us liberals and so why are we talking liberals and why are we having the GOP putting out a quality a call to action giving us giving constituents words to say we shouldn't be politicizing our legal
224counsel so I would like to in that thing is if this board is leaning towards going with Vogel a group that is substandard for our needs they may be fine for something smaller but I would like to amend that notion that we consider in-house general counsel um and then do a pay as you go with another Law Firm or or law firms that can help us with all of those needs that everyone out there said before we would pick a company that is not qualified so my notion is would be to go within rather than picking Vogel go just because everybody's starting to know before I can even make that vote um I would like to hear from Miss Walker and Miss Bradford on um I've seen their I've seen their notes these are my
225notes I went through and matched up qualifications and I don't see any notes Ms Bradley said in one I like them well you know I like I like Jason so but that does that make him you know his company the most qualified no so we have to really look at qualifications and not my personal opinion so before I make that motion I'd like as to why they rated the numbers that they give overcomes in last and a distinct class 56 out of 75 versus other groups that came in 72 out of 75 and um I forget what the Poynter School works like 6 8.75 so Vogel is by far the lowest and the least qualified and yet we're going to pick them so can I hear from um well well if they would like to
226speak to it later on but you you that's your second time to speak so um yes in-house counsel VES with pay as you go for special services no we would have to because there's no way we can hire one person that can handle all of those special things that they have that person designs okay so say your motion one more time so we're all sure especially for special needs special counselors okay operations construction um HR you know redaction Services you know all that all those special things we have a first we have a motion we have a second your second okay hearing none we'll carry on I would like to have my second chance Walker I'm sorry um this is just the facts we did this committee based on the qualifications I read very clearly
227what it said and we had three firms to choose from to score and I dated not they did not get the best they were the lowest scoring firm and if we're going to pick the lowest form uh lowest scoring firm just based on someone's like or a particular parties alike I think that does this District a disservice and I don't know how we could use these people serious take these people seriously because I took my job seriously when I did it and the things I'm finding out afterwards have made me feel like I felt a little I feel a little set up I'm gonna be honest with you because if there's a four vote um for this firm based on nothing but liking something and not on qualifications this is not the way the process
228is done and I don't even know why we did this to begin with so I that that's the last thing I want to say I am against this very vehemently against this based on qualifications alone now whether I like him them or whatever because when I did this I didn't know who they were I just saw their their paper and um we have a a we have a baseline for a reason and they did not cut it so it's Bradford let me list a couple of things that came off the vocal perspective whatever it's called managing attorney for four years U.S Department of Education second highest law Yer in the government U.S Department of Justice civil rights division U.S House of Representatives Council of to the Judiciary Committee U.S federal prosecutor Charlotte in fraud general
229counsel strategic Ed I mean their qualifications are impeccable absolutely impeccable to personally attack me because I like them I did my homework after the fact today we talked with Dr Barnes about hiring he talked about how they have three different meetings with people before we hire them just to be teachers and principals and vice principals in our school I'm used to that kind of vetting process that was the first meeting I did not feel well I did not understand the process so crucify me over it I believe this is the most qualified I talk to a member of the Carrabba's whatever Cabarrus County Board of Education this morning and she said Vogel is highly qualified she said with the problems that you've told me that you have in your school district this is the firm
230these four people that we saw in person is a party of six I asked a specific question can you handle the volume of what we need the answer was unequivocally yes I don't find lawyers in public meetings to be prone to lying they have Professional Standards where they can be disbarred for that the presentation we just heard from Ms Barnum read discipline and EC is one additional cause to be changing attorney firms we need a firm that will do the job this kind of training that we need for our district to keep us from having all these EC lawsuits we can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome we are stagnant we need change we have all these lawsuits we have all these issues we need fresh eyes we need fresh attorneys
231these are highly qualified attorneys some of the best attorneys in the state are with this group to say that they are unqualified is ludicrous we need change this is the first the best firm to bring a Fresh Approach to what we're doing they said they could get up to feed quickly so I reiterate this is the firm for us evil you've spoken twice anyone else Mr Mr chair respectfully yes that refutes what missed bagford just said unfortunately you've spoken twice by Robert trolls you're out of order it's enough I'm allowed to ask you're allowed to speak twice you've spoken twice continue thank you anyone else likes to speak okay if not we'll call the question yes ma'am real quick with the sub committee um Scrabble earlier this year are talking about subcommittees are not allowed
232to speak on behalf of the board and so um while I appreciate I think I thought we have might might have more than three people apply personally so I thought there might be a need for having a vetting process to streamline you know or you know as we're here for a long meeting but to streamline the process with that and so while I respect and understand what you're saying all of us are able to give our input on these decisions and it's I hear the concern for being the workload and so I would be open to saying if if this entity a new fresh set of eyes for some of the situations that we're dealing with I don't think it's a bad idea personally but if this entity is not able to handle the workload
233that we have then I think we should leave room for us to continue to respond to the needs of our of our school and so I'm not saying that they can't I'm just saying if that issue arises then it should be able to be brought to us so that we can respond to it appropriately all right if there's no more discussion we will carry on with a vote it will be a roll call vote this again the motion is to uh by Miss Bradford excuse me board members board members excuse me uh at this point we are going to have a roll call vote Ms Bradford's vote uh motion was to go with the Vogel Law Firm Miss Bowie Miss Barnhart Miss crabill no and no no no Miss Walker absolutely not Miss Frank Mannis
234Miss Mason yes Miss Bradford yes and Mr wildabour yes is 4-3 carry on committee reports thank you the same committee Miss Walker is left yes sir play aside everything for the rest of the night fighting for it it's uh almost midnight we have ladies diving home at midnight absolutely was that a move to adjourn move to adjourn I second second all in favor signify by saying aye I all opposed we are adjourned catch the Days please