001thank you welcome to the April regular board meeting of the board of New Hanover County Board of Education we are glad you are here before I begin I would like or before we begin I'd like to share a few reminders please keep the aisles clear during our meeting to allow members of the school system and the sheriff's department to move about also except for when honoring our flag our opening prayer and participating in the call to audience please remain seated during our meeting we hope to have a productive and efficient meeting and your help is greatly appreciated thank you Miss Bowie would you call the role please good afternoon Pete wildeborg present Pat Bradford I am here Josie Barnhart here Stephanie craybill Melissa Mason here he McManus here and Stephanie Walker here thank you all
002at this point we will I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda is Bradford made a motion do we have a second second from Miss Walker thank you uh any discussion if not all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed passes 6-0 at this point we were going to have our presentation of colors but we would like to uh excuse me I'm I'm jumping ahead again we would like to invite Pastor Gail Tabor of the salt inclusive Methodist community church to provide our invocation thank you Pastor for being here please stand there you go Holy One today as We Gather to do the work of providing for the education of all children in New Hanover County we first pause to remember to be grateful we give thanks for the absolute Joy
003of living in this beautiful place for the beauty of creation and our mandate to care for all of God's creation including each child just as they're made guide us as we Face times of certain fear that our choices and our vision will be ever toward all especially those who are most vulnerable May the decisions made here never be exclusive or exclusionary even when we have difference of opinions give us a Unity of spirit help us to listen as others share their point of view Aid this body to work as a unified team as they lead New Hanover County schools that no child would feel their Wrath or be inflicted with unnecessary pain help our community to work as a whole rather than as individuals May there be a spirit of camaraderie in this room and
004in our community with the ability to work together for the common good in our ever-changing world we pray for these board members and for the various level of official and staff who serve New Hanover County Schools that you would grant them wisdom a thirst for justice and righteousness joy for their work and personal peace bless the discussions and the decisions that are made here today that it would benefit all who work for attend and have a child or person with whom they care for in New Hanover County Schools in all the names of the one we call Holy amen amen thank you Pastor at this point I would invite the Murray Middle School chorus to perform the national anthem and they are under the direction of Megan Blackwood choral director and principal Justin bashetti thank
005you all for being here tonight [Music] the way we are at this [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all through life was still there [Music] [Applause] [Music] let's pray foreign [Applause] at this point we've asked Mr McManus to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you maybe see I'd like to ask the Young Folks to come on back if they would so we could meet them all from Murray we could have the Young Folks from Murray come on back up come on [Music] you did great thank you okay thank you okay so everybody please say your first name and what grade you're in I am Lillian and I'm in eighth grade Mia 8th grade Cecilia seventh grade Meadow 8th grade Emily seventh grade lean eighth
006grade Abby eighth grade Jocelyn eighth grade miles seventh grade Elliott seventh grade sailor seventh grade Lorenzo seventh grade this is the Murray Middle School 7th and 8th grade auditioned acapella group and tomorrow we're going on a field trip to our feeder elementary schools to recruit younger chorus students so thank you for having us okay great job is that going um I'm not sure who's going to be leading our introductions our April recognitions let me see It'll tell me in just a second caress if you would come forward thank you for being here at this evening board chair Vice chair Dr Faust and members of the Board of Education it is my pleasure tonight to bring to you our April recognitions for the evening we will start it off with our State Employees Credit Union Foundation
007scholarship winners State Employees Credit Union Foundation established the people helping people four-year scholarship program to help North Carolina public high school students attend college this scholarship is worth ten thousand dollars payable at one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars for up to eight consecutive semesters State Employees Credit Union Foundation takes an active role in assisting communities across North Carolina and truly believe in people helping people although the State Employees Credit Union Foundation scholarship program recognizes academic achievement the people helping people scholarship has a broader purpose recognizing leadership integrity and Community involvement it is my pleasure to recognize and congratulate the following seniors Gracie Jeter from Ashley High School Margaret made Hoggard High School Macy Killian Isaac bear Early College High School [Applause] Haley Russell Laney High School [Applause] danaya Evans Wilmington Early College High School
008Ella yo hoggart High School yoey apologies thank you Ella Yoli Ryan Reyna Graham New Hanover High School congratulations again to all of these ladies and I think this is the first room for everyone attended so thank you guys for all showing up next we will recognize our first place science fair Southeast region winners science has always been a vital component of human progress and is through the hard work and dedication of these young scientists that we can Glimpse the future possibilities that lie ahead we applaud the hard work creativity and determination of the students who participated in the Southeast region science fair your dedication to science is truly inspiring and is a testament to the power of education and the human Spirit these young scientists have shown us that science is not just a subject
009to be studied in a classroom but a way of life a way of thinking and a way of exploring the world around us your hard work and dedication have not only earned you recognition and praise but also opened up doors to new possibilities and opportunities that will undoubtedly lead even greater accomplishments in the Futures join me in congratulating the following students Ava Gilbert Bellamy Elementary Luke Johnson Wrightsville Beach Elementary Glenn Carnegie Bellamy Elementary Pierce Richardson's Bellamy Elementary [Applause] Isabel Garcia Isaac bear Early College High School Maximilian Wang Isaac bear Early College [Applause] Scott McFarland Isaac bear Early College Maya Roseboro Isaac bear Early College Logan tamadon Isaac bear Early College Gavin Borden Isaac bear Early College Sarah Taney Isaac bear Early College Jonathan Strickland Isaac bear Early College as well as stalcic Isaac bear Early
010College we would also like to recognize Ethan caught Sebastian green and Joshua vets of Roland Rice Middle School and an additional recognition to Scott McFarland and Maya Rose girl for winning the Wayne Hanson award for excellence in science of engineering a recognition of Juliet Johnson from Noble Middle School for being named the step into stem award for female excellence in stem and Isabel Garcia an outstanding and creativity award please give these scientists another round of applause thank you that concludes our recognitions of the evening thank you all [Applause] next we have Mr Dr Barnes we have our administrative and no we don't okay all right we'll move on to our next item for a business approval of the minutes do I hear a motion to approve the minutes do we have something else I'm sorry
011I'm sorry I apologize apologies I forgot one more recognition that we need to do hi we're gonna have Miss Reagan mock as some of you may remember we had Miss mock here a couple months ago when she was the finalist she was the New Hanover County Schools educator uh special gifted educator of the year we would like to congratulate and bring her back up here this month because she Not only was the finalist for our region but has been named State educator of the year so congratulations to raise him Reagan mock on being named our gifted specialist educator of the year thank you [Applause] I would like to encourage everyone to follow us on Facebook Twitter and Instagram we have a gorgeous video coming out on Miss mock later this month talking about her accomplishment
012and seeing her interaction with students that is awesome congratulations once again that's that is beyond words my goodness um we will go back to the approval of the minutes at this point uh is there a motion to approve the minutes I move that we approve the minutes Miss Mason is there a second Mr Bradford seconds any discussion if not all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed if not it passes seven to zero we will continue with student voice welcome hi uh Ms Harper and Tanaya tune are almost here but I'll go ahead and get started um I'm Cassidy Thompson a junior at high school at Hoggard high school and it's so great to speak with all you guys um thank you so much for having us again um so just to
013reiterate our purpose for those who are not familiar student voice seeks to provide structures for students to work and collaborate with equal voice with adult decision makers so there are options and opportunities for students to impact decisions that have a direct impact on them as the biggest stakeholders in our education it is important that we are involved in the conversations that affect our education so last month when we sent our recording video we had the intention of going to the principal's meeting and just sharing about student voice and asking them to send out our interest form so we could gather data to see which students wanted to be in which committees and which of the student voice structures outlined in our policy but we were advised that that wasn't the best place to share it
014because it's more of a professional development meeting so after the EDI committee meeting last night we talked about different ways that we might be able to share with those principles like a different Forum where it would be better for us to really have that good conversation with them um so we went another route during the past month we met with Equity team leaders Mrs Abby Nobles and Mr Brian Jones one of the ways students learn best is through peer-to-peer interactions so our student Voice team will be attending the student Equity Summit later this month just to interact with the students and we will have a little booth set up where people can learn more about us and what we're about and just to see who would be interested in joining next school year and we
015would still like some guidance on how we can best get our interest form out to be a completely inclusive to every student in New Hanover County we want to make sure that student voice is available and just all students from every school know about it and have the opportunity to join and we've also been communicating and meeting with Mr Johnson regularly he's been super helpful and he's been a part of our meetings lately so while it may appear from an outside perspective like things have been really slow we have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes we've been spending hours in meetings and sending out so many emails um and there have been some communication barriers but we've been working really hard and I believe things are moving forward at a quicker rate
016so that we can get this ready for the um for the next school year we want to strive to be effective efficient timely with submissions and move everything with Fidelity first so that our vision can come to fruition in a successful way so these two visuals that you'll see on the screen if we can go back to the first one that would be great it just outlines what we talked about with Miss Nobles and Mr Jones about how the equity teams and student voice will work together because the equity teams are written in our policy and just we really hashed out the details of how they're going to collaborate with each other so you can see here that they're two separate entities this Equity teams are on the school level and they're student-centered while our
017student voice specifically the student engagement team which is in our policy part part D part four yeah and um that is more student-led so we will be collaborating with each other and we'll have hopefully one to two student representatives from each school's Equity teams come to our student engagement team meetings so that we can just learn about what they're doing and collaborate with each other so they're separate entities but they will work together really closely in collaboration so that student engagement team will be it'll be students in the equity teams student any student who wants to join will definitely we're working on an application process for that and also can be composed of students from committees and students in the superintendent student advisory committee as outlined in our policy so yeah we just wanted to
018present that with you just to bring some more clarity and all the things we've been working on and yeah we look forward to continuing this process of implementation thank you guys so much for your support and do you have any questions thank you Ms Walker thank you so much for that update I I was at the EDI meeting and we did have discussions about how you could reach the principles better perhaps maybe at a next principal meeting or at the very beginning I'm looking at our superintendent he's probably not thinking about that um sorry it's okay no I think the barrier because they wanted to get in front of principles and I think it was the wrong um time for that is there any way we could maybe come up with the time that would
019be better for them to get in front of principles some there were a couple things so some of the same students are with us in um superintendent advisory and what we were talking about in The Advisory is that playing in a meeting with their principal individually so their students from all of the schools that are represent that are Representatives 55 students from each first starting there um so you have the one-on-one because it'll be particular to your school what you want to do what you're wanting to do and then of course this is different from from the others okay and another thing I know in the policy it talks about how the point of contact is also our Communications officer you said you had an issue with getting the messaging out there is there any
020way you could perhaps the group could get together with Communications on that I guess Malcolm or Josh yeah so um as our Congress in our conversations uh I am the appointed contact so it will flow through me and I'll always connect with Josh or whoever is the designee or the intended audience for our students um and as far as getting from our principals um we just recognize that again the principal's meeting for professional development who are our principals however we're not we're still exploring ways in different forms where our principles gather to what Cassie said they can have that conversation instead of just be like an announcement they really want to engage in what this looks like um so right now they're at the phase where they have their implementation they have their structure and
021now when they go before any of our adult accomplices they will be able to share a clear and concise view of what student voices is now that they are in the process of you know really locking this down um and planning their um their programming for next year okay I guess the last thing if you don't mind Mr chair um was the committee applications you guys talked about how you know you're trying to put that with your interest forms about maybe what committees I think we still have as a board need to work on the applications and I don't know if that's goes to go through policy but we should probably work on that sooner rather than later that way we can give you guys a application to to submit as well yeah it's Mr
022McManus I'd like for you pleased to reconsider it I think that the principles are key to the information that they've worked so hard to share they meet individually I think it's going to be less accepted because that puts the onus on the students to make it work if they could have 10 minutes at the principal's meeting as hard as they've worked and how important this is to our community I think hope you reconsider and let them I know the principal meetings are sacred but this is part equally as good and I just think we need to support this group so I agree with what you're saying what I was recommending to them is so at their own schools they have more the culture may be different from one school to the next those students who
023are in the um in the the students voices at that school having the opportunity to speak and share with the principal in addition to meeting with the school Improvement team because you know as a principal that's where all the decisions were technically made at your school Improvement team at the principals meeting you would have to then take the kids out of school that missed class they would come over here for maybe about even though it's they're getting 10 minutes but it's going to be more like two to three hours because you've got to wait for the bus get here then get them back and drop them off so just protecting instructional time was what I was trying versus they are already at the school with their principal and they could go into the room you
024know they can definitely come um yeah I would say I was just going to say we have done that at our own schools like Sam and I have had a lot of conversations with our assistant principal at our school so our principal is aware of it but at this point our student voice group as it is right now is really small so it's not at all the schools so I think we definitely will continue to do that and that's a great suggestion but I think it also would be great that we can have that space where we can speak to all the principles that all the schools that we aren't involved with yet and I think Transportation wouldn't necessarily be an issue in a sense because some of us do have our license some of
025us do have oh yeah what about a compromise and maybe you know because it would be to I understand Dr Faust's point that you know it takes a half hour to get here say it takes a half hour to get here and then you speak for 10 minutes and then half at least a half hours to get back what about the idea zooming in question if in person is it yeah yes I'm sorry I have a question I have a clarifying question because you mentioned the superintendent's Council and from my understanding of that for the students it's it's counselors and principals pick students from mainly high school and so that's one of the differences that I noticed with student voice that includes middle school but can you clarify what exactly the difference is because it
026seems like there has been something in in line in the process to get an ear on the decision maker of the district and so I'd like to know how this really differs from what our superintendent is already doing with our students in our schools yeah so our policy includes the structures that were already existing the equity teams and the superintendent student advisory team committee because we love what they're doing already and we want that to stay so we included those as well as the new thing we added in our policy was that students can be on committees which I think will be really really important and cool because they'll be able to um they'll be able to be involved in those conversations where the decisions are being made and what's already happening with Dr Faust's
027student advisory committee is amazing and we want to keep that how it is and then the other part that we added in our policy was the student engagement team which is what our group essentially is where we get to come we get to report directly to the board we have this standing spot at the meetings where we get to talk about whatever issues come up at the time so that's the difference is they'll be speaking directly to you all and being that point of contact and student voices also student-led it's not you know necessarily run by an adult we do have our you know allies um in our adults that guide us and help us with anything need be but you know the policy whatever is writing any visuals anything like that is mostly made
028and led by students oh yes hey girls I haven't seen you in a while good to see you um Tanaya the well first of all the um I did want to let you know that in our Shack meeting that we just had um yesterday on Monday um we were trying to figure out how best to get our students involved and those meetings we're going to rotate to the individual high schools this coming up year so that Wellness Champs can participate and so that also students can participate so that is the school health advisory and you can follow that like on on policy 6140 and so be thinking about that because that is one way that you know one committee is actively trying to make sure that you guys are in school you know doing your
029job you know attending class but also doing some of the extracurricular stuff you know to help advise because the school health advisory team it has a very important student con con component so and Tanaya would you um take just a minute to describe what you were doing in your language arts program um the student feedback form that um I can't remember what it was called the day that I was there and just to let the board know because that to me is a very important student input opportunity yeah Yeah so basically in our English English classes or and I've done it in my math class as well for any you know eocs or any benchmarks coming up um we made a folder basically for like goal setting to basically say where we want to be
030or what do we want to achieve or what do we want to improve in before those eocs or before those tests come about so that we feel prepared and so we just decorated it wrote quotes that and you know felt you know empowering or just felt us feel you know good or some that we liked and then we had academical academic goals excuse me and personal goals as well and we look back at some of our you know history of some of our benchmarks and tests to see you know places that we need to improve places that we need that we did well in and just you know again just set goals to basically you know know where we are and where we want to be later in the quarter thank you and I thought
031that was important because that's something that as you at the other schools might want to you know replicate what you're doing at Laney but that is a way to get input from students on you know when you look at everybody's goals you know what are some of our common goals you know automatically you've got some goals you know um and where do we need more help where do we where are we succeeding so I thought that was really cool and I I enjoyed watching your class and listening to some of your your goals I just wanted to add really quick um I know a lot of people haven't I mean we have a lot of new members and we do appreciate you guys giving us the time to speak today and listening to the students
032they've really been working hard um in writing this policy um one of the things I just really want to touch base on is just to remind everybody that student voice is not a policy that was written so that students can get together and complain about issues that they have in their schools they're really here to talk about the changes that they would like to see for themselves and hopefully working with those stakeholders to make sure that the two of them you know you guys and them consider the table and come up with something that works for you and that also works for them yesterday in our EDI meeting we had a conversation and one of the things that was brought up was the student to the teacher turnaround like how a lot of teachers are
033just leaving this profession as teachers we have a job to teach our students like hey you can go into this field this is an area you can go into but we don't take the time to even teach students or encourage them to be teachers right but some of our students are really concerned about building a relationship restoring relationships from students to teachers and it's best given from a student instead of it being given from an adult so they have really great ideas they have like a lot of things that they would like to do and bring forth they just really really need some support and guidance on getting the interest form out getting students to be able to join and be a part so that we can move forward so when August comes and open
034house is here we've got Flyers we've got people we've got students who want to join so we can start this kickoff and just get the ball rolling to try to improve in some areas where they you know they feel like it's a little short and they just want to contribute so I just wanted to add that and thank you for your time and everything that you do well any other questions if not thank you very much thank you so much thank you very much have a great rest of your day thank you [Music] now that we've heard from our students we will hear from our superintendent good afternoon um first I want to start with of course student uh this superintendents advisory Council last month towards the middle end of May March March um we
035did college tours so our first tour was at UNCW and the students were able to look at classes they were on campus while students were there they got to see the day-to-day life of a college student they ate in the uh one of the cafeterias and just got to get that field because that was one of the things that we had talked about what is it what's life after uh the the K-12 and so that's what we wanted to share with them and we will um plan some more events field trips for them to experience budget so budget is one of the one of the hot topics and typically is this is um the um the Love Fest for our CFO and myself and everyone that's sitting over there because we are our team so
036one of the things I wanted us to clearly understand is that when allocating funds our Focus has always been on addressing the most pressing needs while ensuring that we live within our means and serve funds one two and three has allowed us to supplement that's all supplement our resources in a responsible manner but now those funds are expiring so Esther funds sr1 is already gone sr2 will leave in September and then we will be working on sr3 there those are considered grants and with each Grant we had to determine or save what we were going to spend or how we were going to use that funding and so that had to be submitted to the state state approved it and then they allocated the funds to us can't go and do something opposite of what
037you said you were going to do because that's that would be um not truthful the other part of that is that it's important to remember that a course that it's temporary funding you you can't a grant is only for the time period that it is given that's it you get to operate within it those of you who know that back in 2020 we didn't realize we were going to be getting this these dollars so we didn't include those in our budget so we did know that we had three years of each time that that Esser dollar came um we didn't anticipate this level of funding so we must prioritize using it wisely and afford over extending our resources and I'll say this again each fund had a particular use as it was written into the
038grant so our enrollment Trends from 2016 to 2020 our student population remained consistent with approximately 26 000 students excluding Pre-K however we observed large graduating high school students and we aren't replacing or those students that are coming into kindergarten aren't the same number as those students who are going out so in order to keep that number so you have to have whatever is going out you have to have coming in those kindergarteners classes are smaller than the ones that are graduating so where are those students going some are going graduating the biggest part they're graduating in our kindergarten classes are smaller sometimes anywhere from three to five hundred students smaller and then here and there there are some that are that are that are leaving us kindergarten of course we have to have kindergarteners to
039keep the The Boat Moving and those are the implications for the for the fund so we get um from our local funds 3 400 or 34 34 334 dollars that's what local funds give us so if we once had 26 000 kids and they were given us at that point it was 28 hundred dollars they increased it however if you are doing the math or your mathematician the number of students that we had at 28 been shifted because it was at 1.25 83 and then you had 34 so that number did not account for those um students who left this so in response to change and funding we've adjusted our approach to resource allocations much like moving from a Rolls-Royce to a Cadillac so we still have the opportunity to give above and beyond we
040just can't give the Rolls-Royce impact because we don't have the funds for Rolls-Royce impact we've adapted these new circumstances while maintaining the quality of Education of our students and again remember that from 19 from 2019 to 2020 we were at twenty eight hundred dollars per student from our accounting Commissioners and then in 2020 they gave us more up until now they're continuing to give us 34.34 . so of course we always have to show the Gratitude to our accounting Commissioners so over the past two years our County commissions have been generously increasing funds demonstrating their commitment to the success of our students and our staff that has not stopped at all what we have to also consider is when our student population changes meaning the amount of students we have to do something differently we
041don't have the same amount of students so we can't have the same amount of humans in the in the building so um over the past three months our chief of HR in Chief of Finance sits down and they find out how many individuals do we have to make sure that our budget will balance what can we afford and then once we figure that out taking out our answer so last year around this time we had multiple meetings where we stated that there were about a hundred and eighteen hundred and um odd jobs that we had to decrease because they were purchased or so investor including social workers because we didn't have those counselors some of our teachers at our um our curriculum coaches who were at our middle schools at our high schools our coaches
042those were all additional positions that were given to us through Esther so we have the downsides we have to go back to what we were living with prior to Esser not fun but we have to live in reality and so what we did is after having our allotment conversations with our principals our HR individuals personally went out and met with our teachers one-on-one to say that position will not be available however if your license are here here are the other positions that we'll be putting you in so just as we stated before most of our teachers or positions that were created came out of classroom positions so now what we're having to do is put them back in positions that they were so it's a give and take so is it what everyone wanted to
043do probably not but is it what we have to do it is what we have to do to be fiscally responsible last week last Wednesday we had a trip um made a trip to Raleigh and that was one of the most rewarding trips to go to sit and talk with some of our Representatives our Senators and share some of the ideas that are going on here in New Hanover we talked specifically about um our two low performing schools and in our finance meeting in our meeting before we had talked about getting tutors and so we were able to I was able to had support I was able to get um to make a pitch to one of our representatives of getting tutors for our school so we could do a three to one and work
044specifically with math and so we're waiting to hear they're in budget season right now um we also had the opportunity to partner with our Chamber of Commerce and so they also have a leadership development um processor Academy that they work with our seventh graders so in speaking with them we got another opportunity to speak with a representative and ask for funding to fund all seventh grade CTE so we'll be looking and holding close to see if we can pilot some of those initiatives that are going on at the state level if we will be the the district that um we'll say the district to watch and that's what we are looking forward to we know that we have the um the people in place to make it happen and we were in Raleigh from about
045nine until seven and we walked we talked we took pictures we laughed um we laughed some more we met we sold our district um to talk to them once they felt fill the great things that are going on here in the district and what was unique about that trip is a lot of individuals did not have superintendent board members go and speak specifically to representatives and Senators so that was a plus for our district so that concludes my report it was a lot a little bit longer um but thank you so much thank you appreciate that um next we have the board Chairman's report uh good evening I'll try to keep my comments it's on first good evening I'll try to keep my comments short first as I mentioned in the agenda meeting last week
046we are deeply saddened by the loss of two wonderful people County Commissioner Deb Hayes who is seen here uh right here in this board room just a couple weeks ago and also DJ McLeod one of our high school students so this is a picture of Deb at the principal of the day event just a couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be asked to be participate in the principal today and spent time at Alderman Elementary School and I here you see me with principal from there uh principal Stein Hilbert and we I got to see her in action she was working very very hard and it was a very very good day the Wilmington chamber Commerce event matched Business Leaders and some board of education members as as well as at least one County
047Commissioner with school leaders what a fantastic event it was and what a good day it was additionally we several board members joined me as we welcomed Governor Roy Cooper to New Hanover County schools and to more specifically to Winter Park Elementary School again several members of the board join me as we welcomed Swanee K volletti as a new Chancellor at UNCW this past week as Dr Faust mentioned we are heavily involved in budget and are meeting with our partners on the board of County Commissioners to work together to support our students and staff additionally we're meeting with legislators as Dr Faust mentioned to advocate for our students and teachers in many areas to enable us to receive all the opportunities we can to be the very best school system in the state it has been
048my honor to work with our teacher of the year committee on the selection process I will tell you the only word that comes to mind is wow what an outstanding group of educators we are truly very very lucky and I know we will have wonderful representation by both the teacher of the year and principal of the year and more on that to come soon and finally uh the window of uh for submitting questions to our town hall later this month opened today so please work through our Communications Department we look forward to hosting that meeting later on this month that is my report at this time we will continue with our call to audience good evening thank you for being here number one Katie Gates foreign please consider these quotes take away a nation's Heritage
049and they are more easily persuaded communism begins where atheism begins democracy is the road to socialism we can thank Karl Marx for these quotes whose theories are embodied in some school texts including the book stamp that I've talked about before but I'm curious how many students in New Hanover County can recite the Preamble of the Constitution or parts of the Declaration of Independence how many kids or adults know that we are not a democracy in the United States we are a constitutional republic a constitutional republic honors the hierarchy of God above the Constitution above we the people who are above the government did you know that the phrase separation of church and state appears nowhere in the Constitution Bill of Rights declaration Articles of Confederation nor in Congressional journals or the Constitutional Convention wondering who
050in the room might be aware of these things Civic illiteracy is bad bad and it's not just a recent problem I'm still catching up myself we've forgotten where we came from and what made this country great as the most prosperous freest Nation on Earth with the most enduring constitutional government known to man our children are being weaponized by the system of Education to hate God in our nation and are being conditioned to want equity and socialism this fits right in with Karl Marx's quotes above critical theory ideology is disguised in a seemingly just and helpful way actually promote Division and he wrote traditional American values excessive social emotional and Equity driven programs distract from student education and do overburdened teachers I challenge the board to include in your strategic plan and budget a refocus on
051our curriculum to include proper civic education where teachers to teach principles of honor and integrity the value of respect and open-mindedness the value of healthy debate and critical thinking let's not focus our efforts and money on building a more socialistic Society but rather rebuild on the successful template that allows for life liberty pursuit of Happy happiness in a limited government thank you very much [Applause] from a teacher in the event that a student is locked out we are trained not to open the door from a conversation with my 11 year old have you been outside your class during a lockdown yes I was in the bathroom what did you do I stood on the toilet and was so still that the sensor light turned off I was scared but glad because if the shooter came
052in he would think no one was in there because it was so dark according to Washington Post and NPR there have been 89 gun related incidents in schools in 2023 nearly one for every day this year we are in crisis our children are being traumatized and murdered inside their schools yet today I stand before you asking you to leave the review of books to those who specialize in that field The Librarians and teachers the district already has policy in place to address concerns over Learning Materials which includes books surely you must agree that placing further restrictions alongside the current process is tantamount to government overreach taking books out of the classrooms and libraries until they are reviewed by a committee means my child can't access those books why are you trying to parent for me
053why am I standing here again asking you to consider the real needs of students begging you to hear their voices instead of advocating to protect them from being gunned down in their classrooms or being left to fend for themselves in a dark bathroom you are wasting our time considering books to ban spreading misinformation sewing Division and installing discriminatory policies and your ideas around budget reconciliation include cuts to critical positions that actually do keep schools safe in January children literally stood before you firm in their voices asking that you protect them and you refuse to meet their gays nothing was done while the so-called proud boys jeered at children your inaction was shameful you took a vow to protect all kids yet you allowed bullying behavior in a school board meeting we are in crisis and
054you are locking us out [Applause] Karen Clark okay I do want to remind everyone that uh yelling out is not going to be accepted during let the person talk please listen to them no matter what their opinion is and then we can clap afterwards if you need to but we need to listen to people thank you I want to thank each of you for serving our children train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it evil wants to destroy our children and we will reap what we sow we are experiencing this in our nation our founding fathers warned if we ever strayed from Christian character and biblical worldview our nation would eventually collapse we have authority to shape history If my people called
055by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my faith in turn from their Wicked Ways then I will hear from heaven will forgive their sin and heal their land I pray may you dwell each day in God's holy presence may God give you every desire of your heart and carry out your every plan as you go to battle as one for our children may you speak truth refusing to insult others with your words speaking out passionately against evil protecting our children while commending those who follow after the truth I declare in Jesus name that you will never be shaken that you boast in the Lord who makes you strong and gives you the victory amen and I implore each of you to do what is pleasing in the Lord's sight remove books and curriculum
056containing perverted sexual demonic evil agendas from our schools and protect our children thank you Christina um kept down water please begin a small but vocal group has been throwing the term pornography around and are insisting there is pornography in the schools the definition of pornography is a description or visual intended to stimulate erotic feelings rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings the rationale for using this word has come from Reading sentences or short passages out of context from books they admit they've never read had they actually read the books they proclaimed to be concerned about they'd realize that the descriptions were a small part of a much bigger story and that the message was not to create erotic feelings but to create emotions yes sometimes serious events are depicted but if someone is sexually aroused by
057a description of a rape then they have bigger issues they need to deal with Pender County listened to these individuals and pulled many books from the shelves for review almost all were returned as each school's committee decided they didn't meet the criteria for removal the individuals who created this issue have no intention of reading these books and in fact they have stated they will continue referring books for review and it will fall on the teachers to read and decide if the books are appropriate essentially they want to use the already overworked teachers as servants and now in New Hanover County we're going to make a committee of mostly parents and a board member that seems even worse since the majority of the board is directed by special interest groups in violation of their oath of
058office how can County residents be certain the people on the committee will be chosen fairly if I applied would I have the same chances everyone else to be picked or would my name conveniently never come up as a retired English teacher I can count on one hand the number of times a parent had an issue with the book and still have fingers left over both times I told the parent the child could take the book back to the library and get another one it's that easy there's a lot of talk about parental rights in schools right now well a parent can most definitely guide what books their own child is exposed to however the parent cannot dictate what is right for all of their students book banners have never been on the right side of
059History never [Applause] thank you Denise [Applause] good evening the Surgeon General the National Institute of Mental Health the American Academy of Pediatrics the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children's Hospital Association have declared a youth Mental Health crisis our disabled students black brown lgbtq plus students suffer mental health issues at disproportionately higher rates especially youth suicide research data shows all our children are affected New Hanover County has a reported student to school counsel ratio of 333 to 1. which is well above the recommended ratio of one counselor for every 250 students we need more counselors not less our students are suffering cutting counselors across the county will do irreparable harm equally alarming interventionist positions are being eliminated at all middle and high schools interventionists provide small group instruction to some of our
060most vulnerable students at risk academically and behaviorally behaviors will escalate without needed support eliminating counselors and interventionists will escalate the Mental Health crisis in our schools New Hanover County Special Education PTA is calling upon the school board and administration not to cut mental health staff counselors submit a monthly report documenting the number of students they see and the number of students who go through suicide and homicide protocols the numbers are increasing New Hanover County has the data and yet cuts are being made across the district the cost will be far greater than it would be to maintain staff positions our children are begging for help education staff are burning out and resigning cuts are being made the system is failing our students there is much more school board members please seek information and act for
061our students thank you thank you Denise World weather [Applause] from the 17th to the 19th century the Bible was the primary textbook in America the Bible taught arithmetic reading History Science and other subjects but more importantly it taught our children morality Benjamin Rush who is considered one of three most influential founding fathers stated the Bible when not read in schools as seldom read in any subsequent period of Life the Bible should be read in our schools in preference to all of the books because it contains the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public happiness so what's changed starting in the 20th century God didn't the Bible says that he's the same yesterday today and forever so what changed culture did courts started to slowly but systematically remove
062the Bible from the classroom as a result we are living in a world where there's Mass school shootings Rebellion to parents and Authority this is because God has been removed from every aspect of life how is this happening it's the books they're reading they have replaced the Bible with books such as George which teaches kids about homosexuality according to the Holy Bible this is an Abomination to the Lord this is the same as condoning the behavior for our kids to partake in Isaiah 54 13 says and all thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the Peace of thy children you wonder why our children are having are behaving the way they are they have no peace if the Lord is not involved in our children's education they will not have
063any peace these books that have replaced the Bible will never bring them peace it will and is bringing them violence Rebellion to Authority [Applause] first off I apologize for how I look it was either come straight from work or just missed I apologize um I listened to the agenda review and was confused by what I heard Miss crabill made the statement that the community should be funneling requests and ideas through the staff and not our school board members I tried contacting staff that was overseeing the life back subject I was called back by an assistant and told that the board would be updated AKA I was not getting a call back to discuss anti-choking device options by the way the Health and Human Services director nor the Leadership Council there had been contacted for an
064official opinion on anti-choking devices the director offered a zoom call in to set the record straight since a casual email was misinterpreted and Twisted by people like Miss Crable tried another time to reach out to staff member about an idea for changing a different policy and received no response back on a call to audience page it states that any question about call to audience please contact Crystal Bowie this is my email I sent in its entirety hey Miss Bowie do you mind letting me know who gave the instruction to add the call call audience sign up signed up as to speak you know what I'm going to skip to it long story short um months later after I was sifting through thousands of emails and public records requests I came across where Miss crabill forwarded
065my email to Dr Faust and asked if it was harassment of personnel just to ask who changed the call to audience page he responded Yes that that was harassment I was shocked I was following the written directions from the district and now if anything ever happens the administration can state that there has been a history of harassment based on just that simple email so which is it are we supposed to work with staff or not this harassing email highlights where there needs to be board oversight over the most important of subjects like whether a teacher should be turned over to the state for investigations if there's allegations of inappropriate relations with the student while Dr Faust may have felt my email was harassing I felt like the board would have weighed the facts and disagreed
066with his assessment I feel the board would have disagreed with Dr Faust decision to not report certain former teachers to the state as well we the people need our elected officials to provide oversight transparency and accountability into this system it starts with closing loopholes and policy Dr foul said we send all cases that could potentially end the revocation or suspension of license your time is up y'all have a good night thank you Diane's Ricky is Diane here Diane's Ricky going twice okay Rachel doll my name is Rachel Dole I'm a mom of students in the district and a local Pastor I come to ask that you let the Librarians and Educators you've hired do their job in choosing books for our School classrooms and libraries children's author Judy Bloom said quote I believe that censorship
067grows out of fear and because fear is contagious some parents are easily swayed book Banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children's lives this fear is often disguised as moral outrage they want to believe that if their children don't read about it their children won't know about it and if they don't know about it it won't happen end quote I believe that books are not being banned because they're hurting our children books are being banned because they are a powerful tool to teach critical thinking and empathy and children learning to think for themselves children learning empathy and resistance will grow into young people and adults that think critically and act from a place of empathy and Truth rather than a place of fear reading especially a variety of genres and authors broadens
068understanding and enriches knowledge far beyond what a person can be exposed to in their own life experiences reading allows us to understand the complexities and results of our own history as well as the possibilities for our Collective future writer and director Stephen chubowski said quote Banning books gives us silence when we need speech it closes our ears when we need to listen it makes us blind when we need sight end quote I ask that you let professional Librarians and Educators do the job that you hire them for that they were trained for and let children learn critical thinking skills and empathy as they read a variety of books and authors thank you thank you Gail Megan [Applause] good evening everyone um thank you I um to the understanding that you're going to be discussing the
069book committee so I appreciate that as if some people don't know the uh grievance was delivered to the board and various people in the school systems in December so we're thankful that you got that going and we expect you to look at this grievance thoroughly in its context of the federal state law in the Constitution that's what it's based on and as a teacher myself having trained in literacy this was taken very seriously with our teams so it's been two years it's documented documented a thousand Pages as you all know so it's very clear the only thing I want to make um ask of you one of the things is we're finding lost books they still need to be researched they're in the grievance so they are they were there if they're not there now
070you still need to look at them that's part of the grievance 73 books and they have different categories they're not just obscene their mental anguish there's incest and it goes on and on there's probably 12 categories we are currently at legislation clarifying that because the reading level has changed also we have interest level so what third grader who might be reading at the eighth grade level what kind of book might he get so the age is extremely important we also have children that are black that are being shown as they are molesters we have gays in these books that they're shown as molester so do not tell me that I have a Prejudice I have been around all kinds of people and I make it my point to understand and love Everyone understand the word
071love you're bringing hate to them George [Music] [Applause] good evening my name is George velasets I am vice president of the New Hanover County NAACP and a retired school teacher our Schoolhouse is on fire I say this quietly because the Supreme Court ruled that it's a crime DL fire in a crowded room but there is no doubt in my mind and the mind of an awful lot of people that our house is on fire and from what I can see the real crime is that some people have been throwing gasoline on that fire well since the 1980s Educators salaries compared with those with similar credentials have tanked on top of that responsibilities have increased and continue to do so particularly as a result of the pandemic with its effect on both academic achievement and social
072emotional learning so what has been the response of the county school cuts and staff larger classes fewer services for the students who need them most and while this is happening the Board of Education debates overturning policies that gave some marginalized students a little bit of respect and establishing committees to ban books is neurofiddling while Rome Burns if you truly value public education the public education system you'd be attending County Commission meetings to demand funding to provide a sound basic education for all of our students you'll be organizing trips to Raleigh to demand that the legislature immediately fund increases in the pay for school staff and you could bring some students along with you for a real lesson in what democracy looks like there are a lot of nice people today who have been very respectful
073I'm tired of being nice I'm ready to yell fine before it's too late your time is up [Applause] hi I'm Susie McCullough when children go to school there is an expectation for parents and also an obligation from the school to provide a safe environment sexually explicit and obscene books have no place in our school libraries where children can have easy access and can be swayed by dangerous and immoral content parents shouldn't have to be worried about what pornographic material their kids are being exposed to at school please keep this stuff out of the school libraries critical race Theory or CRT is based on marxists and leftists ideology that seeks to present a false Narrative of a modern day racist America including splitting races into groups we are all Americans and this country fought to end
074segregation of any kind long ago no one should be made to feel bad about the color of their skin CRT and doctorate indoctrination has set this country back many years CRT is destructive and rejects the fundamental ideas on which our constitutional republic is based CRT is divisive and has no place in any school parents rightly fear their children are being groomed in the classroom the children need to be protected from this gender hysteria as a parent and a grandparent I wouldn't want my children indoctrinated in an ideology that goes against our Christian religious beliefs the New York Post article from April 2022 entitled science shows transgender education doesn't belong in the classroom agrees with me it reads there is no reason to incorporate gender dysphoria into school curriculum inviting children to choose their pronouns and
075confusing 99 of those who don't have the condition let's stop the grooming and sexual exploitation of our children thank you thank you Barbara it's just a quick reminder to everyone um I do know this is a very passionate subject for a lot of folks but we do need to listen to the speaker give them the the diligence and the um respect to listen to them without yelling out in either case so please everyone remain silent while that person is talking and thank you very much Barbara Garrow thank you all for allowing us all to speak tonight in comparing your 2023 school budget priorities with the academic performance strategies that are part of your strategic plan and the proposed budget eliminations here are some observations while academic performance is the top 2023 school budget priority and
076strategies that support your plan for academic performance the elimination of 52 positions I understand it's the Federal Grant in your proposed budget will affect those students least likely to have educational success for example the reduction of 10 social workers a speech therapist three curriculum coaches four social emotional learning coaches and occupational therapists and an assistant a psychologist at 11th guidance counselors will make her academic performance goals very hard to reach these positions help keep students in school in a learning environment where they can Thrive where they can learn Behavior strategies that need keep them out of trouble and provide support to these students when needed there is a disconnect between your performance strategy strategic pan and budget priorities I ask you to rethink your budget and keep these staff in school to keep your system
077functional the very students this budget reduction will affect the most are the ones least likely able to reach out and pay for private Services keep these children learning and being productive citizens by finding a way to fund these 52 positions it's four million five hundred forty three thousand four hundred and eighty dollars that can be found somewhere in the wealthy community of New Hanover County thank you thank you [Applause] good evening my name is John McCullough something a little different um our nation is grieving over another school shooting sadly schools have become targets for people with mental health issues looking for attention I ask that the New Hanover County School Board be seeking any and all viable options to protect our children and staff from any similar situation before it happens here the Tennessee governor
078is now allocating funds for armed protection in the schools in Tennessee I'm sure he wishes he had done that a year before after this country witnessed the previous school shooting let that nut be us in the future I would ask that you give consideration for anything that could increase School protection in the future from police protection in each School Armed Guard Services hardening entry points allowing properly trained teachers to carry if so desired funding this could come from unused coveted funds redirecting existing funds new taxes it doesn't matter they're all better Alternatives than dead school children please be open-minded in working with each other on the board other school districts law enforcement state legislators to do whatever it takes to keep our schools safe and that we can look back and never have this problem
079in the future these are appropriate uses of our tax dollars what we should not be using our tax dollars on is sexually explicit in pornographic materials in the schools grooming material for gender fluidity in the school teaching our children about divisive and distorted CRT it's not helpful it's not healthy if we're striving for Unity parents need to be the ones deciding if their children are going to be exposed to these things not the schools we're not talking about book Banning there's plenty of that available in public libraries Amazon you can find it always on TV your time is up thank you very much [Applause] so I'm gonna ask alone so I'm gonna ask you one more time please please stop calling out during the presentations sir sir okay enough thank you go ahead hi I'm
080a District Parent here and I'm here to talk about the formation of the book Review Committee District policy 3200 is a thorough policy it's founded on the principles of the First Amendment and it's set in accordance with the American Library association's Bill of Rights the library Bill of Rights states that Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents and only parents have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children and only their children to Library resources policy 3210 supports this by clearly outlining how parents can inspect and challenge books so if our policies are ultimately grounded in the First Amendment rights that we all hold dear why the new formation of a committee to review books if not to circumvent the current policies why don't you call it for what it
081is book challenging in hopes of book Banning why don't I heard the remarks from the agenda committing last week some parents some community community members are concerned did you let them know about policy 3210 or 3200 did you try to educate them about this and if that's not your role did you refer them to somebody in the district that could help them with that but instead you jump directly to circumventing policies that are rooted in the First Amendment rights and parental rights that four of you ran your platforms on I am disappointed to say the least so I'm going to turn to my fellow parents out here and the grown-ups and the students that are here tonight and those that are watching and those that don't know what's happening in our community yet my name
082is Deanna and I am here and I know that there are plenty of us that feel the same way and they're tired of this group who do not represent the majority of us having the mic and access to what your students have the right to read should not be determined by anyone but they're grown up so I say please come and join me and let's show this board that we are not just some community and not just some parents but we are many and we will not stand for it [Applause] Chad Whitaker okay Rocky Jeter Webb before I start I just want to say this this speech is ready to CT for critical thought compliance sheet and plants distressing logical questions and critical thinking throughout I've had said in previous meetings pornographic books don't belong
083in our schools so I'd like to recommend some books that would help in our Public Schools I emailed the majority of you the teletwins children book series there are books that could teach children about critical thinking economics inflation entrepreneurship the law of Freedom rights and a variety of other things the books have sold over four million copies here in the USA alone I also like to recommend some other books I'd like to recommend this book this is the King James Holy Bible foreign I'd like to recommend this book young conservative and why it's smart to be like us by Young America I'd like to recommend why do we need government in the first place whatever your American needs to know by Dr Christine McMasters I'd like to recommend this the Constitution I'd like to recommend
084this the Declaration of Independence and I'd like to recommend this the constitution of the state of North Carolina these books can open children's minds and teach them a variety of things thought that we had that Free Speech or something that may open children's Minds to critically think for themselves and for the better to help change our future as we say children are a future so let's encourage them and let's help them along the way thank God protect our children and bring us to a better place stop the nonsense and bring my Common Sense let's go brand thank you thank you Mr Jeter Webb [Applause] thank you good evening board members I'm here tonight to public publicly support the formation of a district-wide book Review Committee I urge board members to follow the grievance letter submitted
085to you on my behalf as in Hanover County Parent regarding the 73 books with a combination of 362 copies and 29 of our schools that have obscene material pornographic material and not age-appropriate Material A Century of Supreme Court Juris Prudence supports the notion that parents enjoy the fundamental constitutional right to direct the upbringing health and education of their children in fact in 2000 the court called it perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interest recognized pesky fundamentals such as reading and writing and arithmetic are being submerged under a tsunami of cultural Marxism as the effects of inappropriate material pornography and covet shutdowns have negatively impacted the mental health of our youth review of Statistics show our children have increased sense of hopelessness and persistent feelings of sadness that has increased 40 percent between 2009 and
0862019. I can't imagine how that has increased in just the past three years we all know that suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 15 to 24. contrary to what some here may believe I am not here to ban books I'm not here to advocate for Banning books instead I'm encouraging you to offer books that promote good stewardship of the environment that promote Humane treatment of animals and of other humans highlight Thrift and expound on the dangers of substance abuse instead of offering books that promote divisiveness violence and victimhood or maybe books that reflect the true history of our great country and the brave men and women who helped create it who although imperfect themselves strived and dedicated their lives to create a more perfect country where individual freedoms and Liberties were
087protected thank you your time is overreach thank you [Applause] good afternoon board thank you for considering the books in the book your events um common sense we don't always use that sometimes we're just given our our orders and we go marching we all have somebody to answer to we have each other to answer to in this room we are not Banning books we are trying to give the best education possible to our students we are trying to keep them healthy whole and productive one child May react to one book one way another child may act another way to another book so we have to keep that in Balance so if we could get together and sit at a table and love each other as neighbors we would do much better than sitting here holding signs
088against each other and speaking out and being upset today my biggest point to you is we're under attack our education is under attack and I don't think anybody really truly gets that we're divided we have different ideas the money flow money flow is so important it comes from foundations Partnerships the community that's who controls you and that's who controls us the money we don't have to say so they put the money up here comes the education one good example that would be the stem program the stem program is an excellent program I said what's wrong with it well you know what it's wrong with it it's funded by the DPI suggested by many foundations and that money traces to New World organization plans it doesn't tell you tomorrow or next month what it tells you
089is 10 years from now your child will not be able to get a driver's license guess why because he didn't meet the standards of the world globe that's what we are doing to our children because you need to get into the DPI and you need to dig because your answers are right there we just don't go deep farther enough but we stand in this room we can fight each other that needs to end we need to come together thank you [Applause] order please remember when it was announced at the February board meeting that each division within our school system would have to cut its budget by 10 percent when it comes to the impact on children's lives those 10 percent cuts are a false narrative consider school counselors we have about 80 counselors district-wide tonight
090you'll hear a recommendation to cut 15 counselor positions that's about an 18 reduction in the number of our school counselors then take a look at the proposed local allotment formula changes our middle schools currently have three counselors the recommendation will be to reduce that to two counselors per School that's a 33 percent reduction of counseling services to our middle school students and those middle years can be tough and College Park Forest Hills Freeman Sunset and Wrightsboro elementary schools currently have two counselors per building the recommendation will be to reduce that to only one counselor or a 50 percent reduction in counseling services the North Carolina Child fatality task force reported two months ago that the 2021 suicide rate among 10 to 17 year olds was the highest rate in two decades a counselor here in
091one of our schools reported that they have completed 45 suicide protocols in this school year alone we need school counselors more than ever keep them to keep our kids safe thank you [Music] Bailey green Alicia ogendelli good evening did you know we have about 50 social workers out of school the social workers Association of America says School social workers are trained mental health professionals with a degree in social work who provide services related to persons social emotional and life adjustments to school and Society they help students by providing Christ convince interventions as citizen with students with conflicts resolution and anger management and by helping the children develop appropriate associate skills they help families by assistant parents to assess programs that are available to the students with special needs they help School Personnel by assessing students
092with mental health concerns and by assisting teachers with behavior management and so much more including in participating in the IEP meetings writing reports and providing students with individual and group counseling social workers keep our kids in school so they are not suspended or put in seclusions tonight you will hear a recommendation of 10 Social Work positions that represent 20 percent of our social workers that might save you a lot of money but our students mental health should come first our kids are worth it thank you [Applause] Jamie Foxx [Applause] good evening School Board I'm Dr Jamie Pond I have a bachelor's degree in English Masters in literature and a doctor in sociology I'm a mother and a teacher a few months ago I spoke to you about banning or challenging books and tonight I will
093continue that conversation let's be honest challenging or Banning Banning books cuts off communication and critical thinking books allow us to connect with other people and their experiences they help us recognize our place in the world and develop empathy with people who are different from us they also help us feel like we belong if you want to help prevent mental health issues in our society and in our schools give a kid a book if you want to help reduce reduce violence give a kid a book if you want to create a society where people can think critically about the world give a kid a book books are wonderful in all they do book Banning is a slippery slope if you ban one book based on your perspective what's next a few people should not decide what
094my child should or should not read that's something I can do and decide as a parent I could pick a ton of books out that I don't approve of or want my daughter to read but as a parent I have a right to have a conversation with my daughter and my daughter's librarian my parental rights are still intact if you ban books you are saying the government knows more about what's right for my kid than I do as their parent if you're if you want parents to have the freedom and right to make choices keep books in the libraries and Empower students to have conversations with their Librarians we do not need a book Review Committee but if there is going to be one please put me on it if not me I can give
095you names of experts and parents in our community in the field who would be willing to give their expert opinions thank you for your time thank you next time [Applause] Yolanda Hernandez [Applause] I need to use good evening North Carolina grades our schools every year this past year 27 of our traditional schools received a grade of ABC or c however 13 of our schools received a grade of D or F because they were low performing on the tests we know that these there are students at risk academically at all our schools fortunately we have intervention interventionalists at each of our middle schools and high schools the interventionist provides small group instruction to students who are at risk or who need additional Behavior Support students need this support so why is the district recommending that you
096cut eight interventionist positions interventionists work with students who are at risk of dropping out of school they work with the students who are likely to be suspended from school and because of our failings because our family schools have a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students I bet that they work with some of the neediest and most vulnerable students tonight you will be asked to spend approximately 788 thousand dollars for new security cameras I say take half of that money keep to keep our interventionist invest in our schools not in fancy equipment thank you thank you Mr Hernandez [Music] [Applause] I was pleased to read that student safety and wellness is still one of your top priorities for 20 20 22 27 strategic plan and I was pleased to read that one of your strategies is
097to create supportive school and classroom climates we know that our teachers and our teachers aides play a critical role in creating supportive schools and classroom climates we know that our teachers and our teachers aides are indispensable if we want positive and trusting relationships to thrive inside our schools that's why I'm very concerned about the proposed cuts to our staff tonight you will hear a recommendation for cutting 30 teaching positions less teachers larger classroom size the data will probably show an average class size increase of one student going from 22 students in seventh grade to 23 students don't be misled some Middle School classes are up to 33 students already and the average class size in the high school will increase from 28 to 29 students but some high school classes already have as many as
09838 students cut in 21 teacher assistance seems problematic as well they are often the ones who give immediate support to our children we need our teachers we need our teachers aides to maintain the supportive classroom climate that our students need keep student safety and wellness as one of your top priorities just in the Strategic plan not just in the Strategic plan but in your budget where it really really counts [Applause] [Music] thank you I'm honestly not sure what more I can say to um paint the picture of how much of a crisis our students are in right now we are in a mental health crisis our schools are in a resource crisis I'm a mental health therapist I work with young children and families and I see it in my office every single day students
099can't get the support they need for IEP Services students have do not have the support they need in school for mental health services students teachers are stressed they don't have the time that they would like to have to spend with their students to get to know them individually to be able to support them individually because they are with limited resources in the classroom teachers aides have been pulled support professionals have been pulled and you're looking at more budget cuts to those crucial positions it's reprehensible and the board is choosing to spend time on considering books books that we know are what educate our children it's ridiculous we're concerned about the reading level reading proficiency of our children and they are listening to board members to debate school books and schools it's ridiculous please stop wasting
100our children's time stop following a political Playbook we know what it is we know SEL is next CRT is next those things don't exist I work with school children every day that's not what is putting them into crisis please spend your time to figure out how to support our children how to support our teachers how to support our families do not follow this right-wing agenda we know that it's being pushed across the country stop it here [Music] [Applause] hello School Board my name is Audrey pennies and I'm a parent to a New Hanover County student new board members when running for school board you put forth your Christian values of Love forgiveness compassion humility Faith Hope integrity and service you said this is what I believe in a set of people voted for you congratulations
101you're here but now your obligation and responsibility on this governing board is to shine those values onto all of New Hanover County a much larger set of diverse personalities individual lives and ideologies I have heard you may be evaluating books to be banned from New Hanover County Schools the books on this list for consideration Center lgbtq perspectives women minorities or six all things I love if you ban these books you erase the people and perspectives that my family loves my brother my closest friends all I ask is for tolerance but there are many Christian teachings that go beyond tolerance that promote empathy and acceptance of others please utilize them like you've never had to before because your responsibility is to nurture all the students and families regardless of their beliefs that you may not personally
102support apply the Golden Rule do unto others as you would have them do to you we may have differences but I wouldn't take away books you want for your kids and I'm asking you to do the same for me apply love your neighbor as yourself I am your New Hanover County neighbor as misguided as you may think my lifestyle or our lifestyles are we are all people who deserve love and respect for and for our kids to read freely apply love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you show us how compassionate and Christian You Are by heralding tolerance from behind [Applause] Betsy Seaway seaweed going Tice okay I'm gonna have a hard time with this last one John a manchuka thank you contrary to popular opinion trans students are not under attack Christians
103are under attack truth is under attack and reality is under attack and we mourn the six Christians who were murdered in a rage of Hate by a mentally ill woman in Nashville we're in Wilmington but most people don't know what happened in 1898 when a group of white liberals came in and overthrow the power structure in Wilmington 60 blacks were killed 2100 were run out of town including white Republicans the only black newspaper was burned down and here we are the crew is still conspiring and blacks are still in the swamp as they were hiding out in 1898 blacks are in the swamp of underperformance while we focus on diversity equity and inclusion New Hanover County spends over thirteen thousand dollars per student which is one thousand over the average expenditure in North Carolina 76
104of black students are not proficient in reading by the third grade 76 percent of black students are not proficient in math by the third grade 86 percent of black students are aren't proficient in math one 76 percent of black students are proficient in math three Equity is the focus but Equity is damaging it every for things for everyone Equity is the transmission of a disease called communism Equity celebrates and rewards failure and demoralizes those who succeed today we don't need to play the games and the coup of the past what we need is Reading Writing and arithmetic we need education and not indoctrination I don't despise anyone but I do hate those who push evil agendas thank you [Applause] Miss Justice [Applause] Miss Justice come forward can't say we don't have the first day of
105opinion can you okay New Hanover County is in crisis as many people have pointed out and at this point the public does not know the full extent of the problem the most important people in our schools besides our students are the staff at this point extraordinary numbers of those staff are still leaving with approximately 60 leaving in March alone now the district is slated to lay off 125 124 more staff members next year 58 of which are teachers and teachers assistants on top of that North Carolina schools are 48th in the nation for per pupil is spending New Hanover County is one of the richest districts in the state and yet we are struggling to provide our students with the instructional support they need it would help if the County Commissioners increased their per-pupil spending
106for many reasons such as inflation yet I have heard nothing in any of these budget talks of the county raising its per pupil yearly allotment instead the number remains at 3 434 dollars same as last year our superintendent and board members need to work with the County Commissioners to raise the amount if we are to at least maintain if not improve the quality of education for all students on top of a strong and above average tax base to draw firm our county is blessed with over 1.5 billion dollars sitting in a bank from the recent Hospital sale that was promised to the residents of our County to be used first and foremost for our Public Schools but to do so the County Commissioners need a four out of five vote a so-called super majority to
107do so it is time that you the board and the people of New Hanover County demand that money is used for the Improvement of our Public Schools as promised stop trying to fight cultural Wars by the way focusing on book Banning and focusing what really needs to be focused on which is our resources our children deserve those resources so that they can attend the quality public schools that they deserve thank you Miss Joseph [Applause] the year is 2023 supposed to be anyway but the top priority is Banning books you know a lot of governments around the world such as China Bangladesh and Egypt have banned books including Germany where they started Nazi Nazi Germany and now we want to ban books here and I say well if you're going to do it go ahead and
108do it but go all the way with it you know I'm a devout Christian myself but the Bible has incest murder hate and everything else Under the Sun the Bible says that there's nothing new Under the Sun so that book has it all so if you're going to ban books do it and go all the way with it don't screw around Christians are supposed to be hot not lukewarm hot if you're gonna do it just do it I'm not going to speak on the budget because that's said and done but I will say this the superintendent said that he had the opportunity to give a pitch to the legislators and last I checked with the legislator for this area is a Republican majority of this board is Republicans so I'm trying to figure out why
109aren't you working with your Republican counterparts to get money we need for our schools to make our children more successful that's what I'm trying to figure out you guys know the budget is short you guys know we need the money you guys hold the majority of the cards do the work if you don't want to do the work get out the seat piss or get off the pot as simple as that I mean this is no laughing matter you guys want to ban books you want you want to give these folks the the control to tell everybody what their child can read and Audrey I hate to tell you this but these are politicians they can be bought and sold by majority groups in this room that's what they want to do my mother passed
110away thank you Mr February 27th and I'm gonna tell you this I got a lot of time on my hand I'm sick and tired of it and I'm gonna be on y'all every single day [Applause] [Music] [Applause] straight from Germany the Republic protection act in Germany with trash literature in 1926 there was a further tightening of the law it was intended to protect children's young people from dangerous writings allegedly immoral or pernicious literature now designated as trash literature by Nazi Germans also to be banned were the popular stable models that could be bought cheaply and were therefore often referred to as penny dreadfuls they cost only one of a few groceries a coin worth 10 pennies review boards were set up in Berlin and Munich congratulations uh trying to set up your Nazi review boards
111you could finishes here in New Hanover pouches wolves what about you recruits all right exactly what happened in 1926 Germany exactly thank you Miss Albright your time is up it's all right your time is up Angie kahaney Angie thank you last week order they further put Staffing students in danger [Music] order seriously injured right here I struggle to understand why there's an eight-person communication team but parents can't receive safety information even during this one's shelter in place that both in Canada made useless message it's interesting that in the meeting to discuss budget cuts there were cuts to social workers and counselors in the midst of a mental health crisis our music teachers EC and support staff for the large communication team say the top heavy District also safe contracts that support political papers and propaganda
112safe but these positions that directly impact our students are not safe there's probably not a lot of things that we all agree with in this room but I bet you we all can agree the staff and students are not safe in the interconnect schools while you've got the crucial staff members volunteers that are more highly qualified than most of our central office staff and the moon work free because of the need to control the narrative we allowed to do the job of five people in the district and get paid five times lessons and they need to go elsewhere because we don't value teachers to go to sorry last month he created a costly contract full-time litigation and purposely misled the public by insinuating led the victims of sexual assault are responsible the attorney only died
113is covered by that contract because he can represent the board in those cases another attorney that's being paid for by the insurance company and knows our business according to this romance have a victim and their attorney specifically requested that the case do not negative that they've had other innocent student because they care more than you do the cost of contract thank you Mr Haney your time is up your time is up here please step away from the diocese John Ripley 's parents program I'm also a member of the gifted advisory Council and I've been lucky enough this year to travel to three schools and observe their AIG programs and I just I'm here to Advocate on behalf of the ASU program here in Atlanta County um all the schools that we've gone to all the
114kids instead how much how important the program is to them how um being with other smart kids and giving kids you know helps them uh you know sees other people who are reflecting themselves um I uh I have two daughters who are both in the AIG program and um they they both love it tremendously and I just hope that y'all continue to support the gifted students of this County and that's about all my time with all this book stuff going on I just was going to throw my two cents in because this is my first school board meeting it's pretty lit and I'm really impressed all this weirdness but um there's a German poet who lived about 100 years before the rise of the Nazis uh and you said where books are burned eventually equal
115immigrant too yeah Leslie Posey water sir water okay gentlemen ladies please right foot in this country in fact trying to control people in this room it is not the evil that some people think it is not the people of allowing children access ed books it is the evil that starts with denying access to books tonight's agenda creates a Humanity to review books but as you were told last week that system already exists that is not the goal the current pollution Banning books is created by national organizations not local parents the American Academy of librarians a district district attorney Ken David has reviewed them and said they are not choreography so why the sudden push to remove these books that have been in our libraries for years power the desire for power and control are a
116continual part of History in Italy 19 1497 in regarding of the vanities the first thing on the Flames books the Inquisition prohibited a long list of books that challenge their authorities when the Spanish arrived in the Americas they abandoned native people's lives the free Civil War South a black person who learned to read enthusiastically first after the Bloomington 1898 news Suburban black newspaper office the Russian dictator founder of who didn't have to ban books the leaders of the USSR did it before him Hitler didn't start with death camps throughout history people have felt threatened by other people's ability to read and the availability of books people are tricking you into believing some books are wrong for kids you are echoing their words have you read the whole book or just the two sentences provided dictators
117of tyrants start their march to Power by Banning books there are people now trying to create a dictatorship thank you all right there are four people who did not come up is Diane's Ricky here Chad Whitaker Bailey Breen Betsy seaweed going once we're done all right at board this time we'll take a five minute recess all right foreign thank you good I have a lot of drilling function but yeah thank you [Music] um login pair from Chase it is what it is I need to survive biological party so I was watching a mistakes of course thank you um foreign [Music] credit unions um board members if I could get you to come back please 705 of my watch 706 actually all right we will carry on again we can get water uh if you're in
118the crowd if you would either make your way to the exit or have a seat please again either have a seat please or if you're heading out please head on out thank you very much we'll carry on uh our next order of business um that's where we're at is information we'll start with the anti-choking device Miss varnum I think you're helping with this please I don't know I'm really loud yeah I don't I don't have an opening just to um introduce your speaker here um Heidi and she'll take it away with the presentation for you welcome thank you so much for having me I'm coming to you from New York we are actually in Long Island in Wisconsin if any of you are familiar with Long Island and I'm out here in Suffolk County coming
119to you from our Hall of saves um you'll see behind me some pictures and faces of people that have been saved by life back we like to really look at preventing choking tragedies which is a big reason why I'm here tonight just to be able to share with you some information and I'm going to have you forward these slides for me since I'm not sharing this myself but our whole mission and our purpose at life back is to prevent choking tragedies having talked to far too many families who have lost loved ones little ones all the way up to people that are elderly it could happen to any one of us and for those of you have ever experienced a choking incident I will tell you it is one of the scariest moments of your
120life I did have one with my own son so what I want to do is just forward that slide and so that you understand a little bit more about what life back is and you know this is actually and I don't like to call it an anti-choking device it's an airway clearance device and you know the rules of thumb is just to be able to give you the ability to breathe again right so that you have oxygen go into your brain so this is a portable non-invasive Airway clearance device and it's used to resuscitate a choking victim so if you could forward the slide to the next and we are made in the USA very proud of that um you'll see a gentleman here which is my boss he's the CEO and the inventor of
121the product and we are very passionate about saving lives again this entire room and I will give you an opportunity at the end to show you there is over 841 lives that we've saved as of today you know this is a patented advice that is regulated by the FDA we really pride ourselves in the fact that we've saved newborns all the way up to a 100 year old man who had Parkinson's in his wheelchair without ever having to remove him and our mission is really to eliminate choking tragedies specifically in schools and it is another rescue option for people who may be developmentally disabled and I do know that in the New Hanover County schools there are children eating in their classrooms and they may be developmentally disabled so this is an important point for
122all of you to think about those students that are highly likely to choke to begin with some children who are on the Spectrum also do not want to be touched so that becomes problematic when there ever is a choking incident if you could actually forward the slide to the next one because I know that I'm on a very tight timeline here choking happens to be one of the fourth leading causes of accidental death in children under 14. and if one child dies every five days that is far too many for anyone as far as I'm concerned as a concerned parent I donated them to my own school district and I had to do a presentation very much like this to our school board and you know all anyone has to know is that choking is
123the leading cause of accidental death in our school systems and we've had so many children choke since the beginning of the school year I did provide Crystal with a list of all of them with links to the website so that you can actually see the news stories but token protocol what we know is the Heimlich maneuver abdominal thrust and back lows will fail 30 of the time now when you're going through your CPR training and your first day they're not going to tell you that in the training classes but I will tell you that the hundreds of lives that you see around me right now in the Hall of staves they did follow basic life support BLS protocol which is the abdominal thrust and back lows and it failed if they did not have life
124those children and those adults would be dead unfortunately so there are certain situations think about this abdominal thrust cannot be used on a pregnant person a frail person someone who may be a little larger for you to get your arms around or someone who's developmentally disabled in a wheelchair what do you do in those situations when there's a student in a wheelchair there are no choking posters to show you what to do so knowing that this is another option which will allow you to prevent any kind of tragedies from ever happening it's another option and I emphasize this I'm CPR certified and trained myself and I did have a choking incident with my own son and I will tell you I followed protocol I did everything I was told to do I flipped that child
125upside down and hidden between the shoulder blades as hard as I could because you know what it was my own child so I didn't have to follow protocol however no one wants a child to die on your watch so know that this unit again has never failed and I'm going to repeat this again ever failed to resuscitate a choking victim it has been able to dislodge or remove all the the airway obstructions it has interchangeable masks that allow you to resuscitate an adult or a child for that matter with interchangeable masks it's non-invasive and it can be used on yourself one of the things I get a question of all the time is when you push down on this unit there is a one-way valve that vents the air out the side and it basically
126stimulates what your body would want to do naturally which is a gag reflex and if you've ever had a problem swallowing a pill or swallowing a piece of food your body wants to expel a foreign object the gag reflex kicks in but if you have a full Airway obstruction you cannot do that so what this unit does is it simulates that coughing mechanism that would normally kick in it's about 300 millimeter mercury um a lot of scientific evidence that basically states that this will never cause an adverse effect it's never going to collapse along it's never going to force anything further down into the trachea what it does is it provides suction instead of force now keep in mind abdominal thrusts are forceful you can doing it the right way you can Crush ribs and
127you can puncture lungs but keep in mind this is never once had an adverse effect no one's ever died using this device if you could forward to the next slide there the device is Affordable and it's effective you know um as a retail price is 240 for a school kit which contains four separate units what we recommend is that a school nurse has it in their office the main office is where everyone runs to it in an emergency the athletic director is also CPR certified and trained we suggest for those of you who have sports programs to put it into the athletic director's office but obviously it should go into the cafeteria so the school kit contains four separate units so strategically on any campus environment it will give you the ability to reach a
128victim who is choking in less than four minutes it's Paramount that every single minute counts between four and six minutes that person is going to go unconscious and when they become unconscious it becomes very difficult to resuscitate them in addition to the fact that between six and eight minutes that person will become developmentally disabled there'll be no oxygen to the brain so between eight and ten minutes that person will either suffer Cardiac Arrest or pass and these are the things things that we're trying to avoid what I will tell you is that this device never expires and the only thing that we will ever need to replace is the masks which may deflate over time so the idea that when this is used in a choking emergency it's almost like an insurance policy we automatically
129replace that unit for you all we ask you to do is report the life saved now I will tell you yesterday I had to say it in Midland North Carolina a little four-year-old who choked on a chunk of meat and the mom was certified and trained in CPR knew exactly what to do nothing was working if she didn't have the life back her child would have died now yesterday I sent this presentation to Crystal in the last 24 hours we had seven lives saved by life at for those of you who are people who may not believe in our product I will tell you I am a firm believer not just because I actually work for the company because I believe that this product has never once failed to ever resuscitate a choking victim the
130fact that it's simple and effective in any consumer can use it with very little training is very important because in a panicking emergency I will tell you it's not so easy to remember the steps that you need to take in order to resuscitate someone we have six peer-reviewed studies that were independently reviewed and published in medical journals and we are now actually really actively looking to have the international resuscitation Council add us to protocol in 2025. they are conducting studies with all of our clinical reports that we have reported to them and stay tuned that will be something happening so if you decide not to purchase this unit now it will be something that will most likely be mandated in the future I will also tell you there are a ton of Advocates that are
131parents who are concerned not only in your own School District but in all the other schools throughout the state and what we're seeing is there's a lot of advocacy going on in New York state there's a bill proposed which is where I reside because someone had to die before someone did anything we're trying to prevent that from happening in New Hanover so keep in mind there's thousands of school districts who have deployed life back and why because someone died right let's prevent that from ever happening if you could forward this slide this is the school kit again four separate units going strategically where they need to be placed so that you can prevent a choking tragedy and the idea that we also do bulk discounts for large school districts much like yours that you have
132to keep in mind that this is for one school kit in one campus location and I always say one is better than none right and making sure that everyone knows exactly how to use it in a choking emergency it is as simple as following instructions there's practice instructions and there's emergency instructions step by step on what to do we also have a very large poster that could go right next to a wall kit this is a very similar wall kit that you see in a lot of restaurants and a lot of school districts actually are using this wall kit which gives it something that you can put on the wall grab it and go okay if you could before well to the next Slide the training is available online we have trainers all across the
133country that are certified and trained in how to train on life back if that becomes something that you need to do in-house we also do provide that online training free of charge and again anybody who's ever used this device will tell you it's as simple as placing this mask into the unit twist and lock placing it over your nose and mouth holding it in place and automatically you can resuscitate yourself now if you've ever had a choking incident keep that in mind otherwise you're gonna have to throw yourself into the corner of a table to stimulate the the Heimlich abdominal thrust all the staff members can be trained in less than five minutes and what we do on our website is we give you a certificate that can be automatically sent to the head of
134the department to let everyone know that that person was trained I will tell you that the school nurse Supply catalog carries this device Miguel's school nurse Supply catalog carries this device as well as school health Corporation why because there's choking incidents in schools all across the country four children have died since the beginning of the school year it needs to stop this is another choking rescue device for those developmentally disabled students and there is a video on our website it's also in this presentation but based on the timing that I have I know I'm very limited I'm going to leave this with all the board members they want you to be able to review this at leisure because there is trading videos again not only on our website but there's also links throughout this entire
135presentation to all the information that you need if you can forward to the next slide we need you to protect your students when we as parents send our children out into our school district we don't expect them to come home dead right and this is important and I'm being very um forthright on this you know there are premise liability laws that protect parents because we make sure that our school districts are protecting our students we never want to have anything happen to them on the premises so there was a lawsuit in Palm Beach Gardens and unfortunately this young boy teddar Williams was a 19 year old autistic student with his aide next to him in the middle of the cafeteria everyone witnessed him dying choking to death on chicken nuggets of all things right in
136front of all of his friends and that the parents of course are never going to have their child back but that school district was sued for two million dollars I don't think that they could put a price tag on any child's life but that child will never come home unfortunately so we have to encourage all school districts to take this very seriously I get a lot of questions what's the liability if someone just does it wrong I will tell you that you have a far greater liability if you don't have this on your premises we have all kinds of lawsuits happening at the moment because people now know about this device we have millions of people that have witnessed some of the videos of lives saved on camera and now parents are purchasing for their
137homes we have EMTs paramedics nurses and doctors purchasing this unit for their own homes for their spouses just in case there's an emergency why wouldn't our school districts do that if you can forward to the next slide equal first aid is an organization that was founded by a woman named Tony labate Tony libate was a caregiver of developmentally disabled people who are in wheelchairs and she herself had so many choking incidents she did a lot of research and found that having an airway clearance device was peace of mind for a caregiver now she also happens to be a grandmother so it is a grandmother she cares so much about her grandchildren and knowing that school districts have not deployed life act she is now advocating for change there is bills proposed in Pennsylvania two children
138had to die before our bill was proposed and is actively being promoted right now in the Department of Education and the Committees are pushing it forward in Wisconsin a child had to die before a bill was proposed in all these different states again in New York in New Jersey does someone have to die before there's a bill proposed in the state of North Carolina let's hope we can prevent that from ever happening so keep this in mind all this Legend legislation is happening because of the power behind one very strong Advocate who wants equal first aid for everyone regardless of their abilities and I want you and I encourage you to check out her website Tony labate is doing remarkable work and why because someone had to die before someone did anything if you could
139forward that to the next slide this is a boy that was saved twice by his mother this is rat he has cerebral palsy he's severely developmentally disabled and he has the IQ of about an eight year old and he is one of the sweetest boys twice his mother saved him didn't even have to remove him from his wheelchair and I will tell you that Tina she will tell you that her son would not be here today if it wasn't for life back because in each instance she did everything that she was taught to do and she was able to resuscitate her child twice using life back if you could forward to the next slide here's another tragedy that happened Cameron Bergman was a nine-month-old boy he was playing with a bouncy ball with his older
140sister who brought it home from school and this little boy choked to death at a bouncy ball and this is a family who's advocating for change they've donated to local fire departments police departments and their school districts and now Travis tranell the gentleman that you see in this picture he is one of the legislators who's proposed this legislation in Wisconsin and this will go through but unfortunately a child had to die let's prevent that from ever happening in your school district and again all of these links go right to videos but I am only given 10 minutes so I wanted to be able to pour down to the next slide here let's prevent and end School choking tragedies and Airway clearance device will allow that to happen the first step in any kind of CPR
141is to clear the airway it's the ABCs of CPR I will tell you that you know having witnessed many choking incidents having had it happen in my own family I will tell you that you need to have another way to protect your students every child deserves a chance to be saved in a choking emergency and there are laws with the American Disabilities Act so that every school needs to be ADA Compliant right we make sure that we have wheelchair ramps we make sure that we have classrooms and bathrooms to be able to support our developmentally disabled children in our school districts why would we not have an airway clearance device to be able to help those children and I will tell you that I know how much I care about my children and I know
142you all care about yours so I want to be able to prevent any kind of choking tragedies from ever happening in New Hanover County so with that being said if you could forward that on to the next slide which I think is let's all save a life right we have again 841 lives that have been recorded that have been saved by the life back when everything else fails your school district I'm sure has an AED they have a fire extinguisher and I will tell you you're far far far more likely to have a choking incident in a school than you are to have a fire or someone suffering a heart attack why wouldn't you have this right next to all your other safety measures why wouldn't you have a life act right there with it
143let's save lives in New Hanover County Schools I want to open it up to questions for you thank you very much to board member so we have any questions MS crabill oh yeah thank you for that very informative are there any organizations um that are monitoring the efficacy and effectiveness of this I'm thinking of like in a Workforce you would use OSHA the American Pediatrics Association um the American Medical Association all the different kinds of medical groups and then different Health departments throughout the state sure so great Point thank you so much for asking that question the American Academy of Pediatrics actually published an article about life back for that very reason um pediatricians are being inundated with questions of parents who have children that are going on to solid food so I will be
144happily able to provide you with an article again we have six peer-reviewed studies and one of those studies actually happens to be from Dr Don he is part of the international resuscitation Council what we do as a company that is registered with the FDA we actually supply all of our clinical reports that are supplied To Us by the person who is actually the person who saved that whether a child look behind me here children adults of all ages right so all of those clinical reports have been supplied not only to the FDA we are an international company so all of those are now supplied to NHRA all the countries where we sell our product and so the international resuscitation Council was natural fit so we've supplied them with every single clinical report now keeping in
145mind too the American Academy of Emergency Physicians we do have also a peer-reviewed study from them and we do have training people Heart Association American Red Cross trainers all across the country who are actually taking off their hat as a trainer and saying I'm a parent I'm a grandparent and I think you need to know about this device because our device has been around now 12 years and people keep thinking it's a new device it's something that nobody's ever seen before now I will tell you that we have plenty of evidence to state that this device is effective and it's simple and easy to use so again I'm surrounded by and you're welcome to take a look around me this entire room has the faces of all the lives that have been saved by life
146back I'm happy to supply you with all the information and any of the regulatory agencies that you wanted to to know about so the national Safety Council and a couple others are actually um let's say I don't I don't think any of the organizations like the American Heart Association will ever endorse a product period it just doesn't happen but um they have offered to do studies for us as well one more follow-up question so um what is and maybe you said it and I just it skimmed over what is the mouthpiece made of so that um like how would we avoid having um any sort of reaction to students for like latex reactions or whatever the um the mouthpiece would be made of good point it's actually blow molded plastic so um that is a
147good question I don't think I've ever been asked that question before I do know a child that actually had a latex allergy do you have a lot of issues with that in your school district I don't know I'm a safety engineer and I would have to I mean that would be the first question I would ask before I would use it on any of my employees sure all right well we've never had an issue we've never had anybody report to us that they had an adverse effect related to the actual mask itself so and when you're in a public use situation you know obviously sanitary reasons we encourage people to keep them in the actual plastic so we don't have them unwrapped so then again you're not exposed to environmental conditions dust molds things like
148that they are required to be replaced just like any first aid you know kit or anything that's contained in the first aid kit it all has expiration dates so within two to three years you're going to want to replace your masks that's an important point to make up but it is a bvn mask for those of you who are familiar with the BVM mask it is actually something that's used in CPR resuscitation as well any other questions from the board Miss Walker I just had one question um I didn't see it in the presentation but you said are there other school districts that are using this product your product right now five thousands of school districts who are using the product um based on privacy concerns I'm not always privy to giving you all the
149information but I will tell you that there is a remarkable School District in Orange Texas where they've deployed it every single one of their cafeterias on in every single one of their transportation vehicles and Kelly Meadows I'm happy to give you all the information she would be a person that you could speak to she has been advocating to be able to keep the children safe and she has a safety on the Move program specifically for developmentally disabled children so she made sure that every single boss had a stop the bleed kit had a life fat kit as well as a fire blanket in there just in case of an emergency so and you know there's a lot of school districts doing pretty remarkable things but we do have thousands of them deployed in schools now
150I will tell you that I do have a number of resellers out there that are large companies that you may be familiar with cardio Partners happens to be one of my partners um UniFirst happens to be one of my partners there are a number of organizations that not only are supplying safety and first aid equipment but they are conducting training and incorporating life act into that training great thank you any other questions all right thank you very much for your time tonight uh we are going to discuss it and we will definitely um take into consideration thank you very much thank you so much for your time have a great night thank you thank you our next bit of uh business is Parks and Rec update and that is Miss Walker hey it says parks
151and breakfast yeah oh I know it's okay um I think the the city calls it Parks and Rec I think the county just called it parks and Gardens that's the only difference so I'm sorry I was in the middle of thinking about the life back anyway so I wanted to give this update based on um you know incident that happened a few weeks ago at Trask and I know Mr McManus wanted to talk about it no Eddie's going to talk about it after me but I um as a liaison for the board I had the opportunity to sit in a meeting a couple of months ago that talked about their multi-use plans and one of them includes a multi-use plan that has been funded already that is going to go up North College Road thank
152goodness um and it also and I think I'll put a map yeah there it is it's not the best map for really looking at the location but you'll see at the very top in the blue it's been funded already in the North College Road multi-use path but it's not on the map is a discussion about the two Crossing points that there are going to put there one at the lights one is going to be at Murrayville Road and one's going to be at Danny Pence drive and they are going to be proper crosswalks um you know with a little guy that says when to walk and it's going to be coordinated with the light so I wanted to give that update especially based on you know the discussion that we're going to have and plus
153what happened recently just to let the public know that that's coming and I also wanted to um just publicly thank our County leaders and also our parks and Gardens a group because you know not only do they work really hard to make our area more pedestrian friendly but this is going to absolutely help our students and families in the Laney Trask area of the county so I I don't know I don't I can try and answer questions oh I will say I was told that it's going to be done within the year it's in the planning stages right now so they're about 35 percent they said in you know within the planning stages and they they got to work with DOT on a couple things but it's going to be coming within the next year
154great well thank you Miss Walker any questions from the board for Miss Walker not let's carry on Mr McManus had requested a discussion about the traffic safety um I guess Mr Anderson will be the one to kind of be part of this conversation Traffic Safety at trash middle and Lady high schools we did have a incident out there recently parents still don't always read what or listen to what we say a good person to say it they don't hear what we say so I'll ask Eddie if you would update so that everybody needs to be recorded what we are doing to respond to the traffic situation which we can't do overnight and why there are no SRO officers which is another question to hit sros are again wrong well I don't have some type of
155police and armed deputies that citizen account of the deputies president and I think that's um but uh if you would respond to that song so everybody can hear the same thing I appreciate thank you um well what I'd like to do is just kind of recap the information that I'd provided you in one of the updates and that is that over the past we probably start about a year and a half ago working with ncdot specifically with their transportation mobility and Safety Division and um analyzing the site and what improvements on-site could be made and I say on-site because I I think it's important to recognize that the school system alone cannot solve the traffic issues at Trask and Laney and North College Road is over capacity and you can't it's very difficult to get
156on School site the school property and off the school property but we have been able to work with them in in making some changes the final report we split that up into some recommendations that we could Implement immediately and we're in the process of doing that and then there's a phase two which is included in the capital outlay budget recommendation um so some of those things we've been we did work with ncdot and they've been very responsive in helping us to adjust the signal timing allowing especially as many cars as possible to get off the site as quickly as possible um we've provided we're in the process of Designing and implementing pedestrian crosswalk and signalization and sidewalks those will be completed this summer we're having to design those and then go through a storm water
157modification review for our storm water permitting that will provide a safer route for those Crossing North College at the intersection of North College in Danny Pence to travel down in front of Trask and then across at the bus stop location to access Laney we've done a lot of additional pavement markings we are have put up a lot of additional signage we've installed some fencing that will that help direct traffic flow but it also helps prevent shortcuts you know those that would would pull in and park or or create their own routes one of the things I've always said from the beginning is our focus is on safety that we're very we're not going to make improvements that are going to decrease the amount of time that parents get on site and off-site to drop off
158or pick up their students we're just we're not going to but it had gotten so bad that it was we really feared for the safety of not only the students but staff um so that's been our our priority the feedback that we've gotten from the school is that uh it's working parents have adapted they're following the procedure it may take a little longer to get through but you adjust your schedule and you know you're getting on-site and off-site and your students getting to school safe so that's what we've been working on and the phase two focus is primarily on the Laney side and we're trying to accommodate more cars on site for their uh for the parent pickup area are there any questions Miss Mason so I know we're talking about traffic and Landing but
159I also know that there is some serious issues over at Hoggard too I drive around there at various times of the day and there are kids running across four lanes of highway and it's terrifying I'm terrified that one of these kids is going to get hit um is there any plans for us to work toward possibly helping with Hoggard I don't know what we can do but I'm just curious if there's anything with yeah well I think that um you know we're we're evaluating and looking at different sites all the time um you know there's some there's only so much that we can control I will tell you the the the it is a marked uh school zone there's signage this is a Trask and Laney there's sawnage they're flashing lights there's a signalized crosswalk
160and a crossing guard I I can't control drivers and um you know we try to control students to the best of our ability there are crosswalks at Hoggard as well and I'm aware that oftentimes students want to take shortcuts and um so we're we we're trying the best we can to do what we can on site um you know unfortunately times have changed you know traffic wasn't an issue when Hoggard was built uh the community grew up around it and uh it has created traffic concerns um you know our culture has changed um you know it was let's say 50 years ago um there are a lot of kids walking and riding bikes to school and uh for various reasons you know families aren't comfortable with that today so you know our community culture has
161changed and just you know traffic in general in this town has changed so um you know we and that's the reason the fencing was put up on Shipyard is to try to prevent that and direct students to those crosswalks um so yes we're constantly looking at that one of the things that um we are going to be doing um just personally driving around town I've noticed that school zones aren't um consistently marked and so we are going to do a survey of every single school and we're going to indicate in the survey do they have flashing lights are is it a ordinance school zone or is it a recommended school zone there is a difference and it's and it's with the signage pavement markings all the things that that we you know what is out
162there and then we're going to develop um this is this is the standard we're going to shoot for this is the goal we want this at each and every school and we'll list the deficiencies and you'll start seeing those items come to you as projects for funding I think that I'm hopeful that more consistency in how our school zones are are identified may help other questions I have a question um and I don't know about Hoggard I don't know what the markings are like but I've noticed that the ones at UNCW that they have now placed on College Road are a lot brighter and I think a lot clearer and I don't know I don't know what the process is whether you have to petition the dot to get those done um I don't know
163you're talking about kids running across the street probably you're talking about from from the school all the way to the shopping center that's there I agree with that I know when I went to Hanover we didn't have a fence in the middle and it was just like pandemonium now they do and it helps somewhat but I do think the clearly more clearly marked crosswalks with Bolder yellow signs would be very helpful and I don't know what we need to do to get that done you may tried yeah well we put in a crosswalk today it's different than what we put in 10 years ago or when D.O.T puts those in they have different types of crosswalks and that's part of the survey that we want to do we want to identify what's out there identify
164a standard the deficiencies and then come back to you for those improvements whatever makes our students safer corner I mean mine kind of pigbacked on dot because it sounds like we have to be in collaboration with them and so from just hearing what you're saying we have a plan in place to redo and have clear signage for all of our schools I know we are highlighting Trask and learning right now but there is talks in the works do we need how can we support that or are is it already being taken care of for the whole District well obviously we um you know we we respond immediately to any concerns we'll go out work with uh transportation in the school to see how their parent pickup drop off is being and being done recommended and
165recommend any changes we've um you know we've switched locations with buses and cars before we'll work with the county and Dot if there's anything that we can do with our driveway entrances crosswalks and you know recommending they'd be added or be repaired so you know we do respond to schools when they request things um you know beyond that most of the on-site improvements are pretty they can get pretty expensive when we start expanding Aden driveways and that was that is something that we can we consider either in our Capital currently there's a plan underway in construction this summer at Murrayville to make some improvements that went through the capital outlay process so that's one way it's addressed or it could be addressed in a building program that's funding larger Renovations additions at existing schools Mr
166McManus I keep this couldn't be lengthy but roll advisors got as serious a problem as I said once before the parents are parking over in the park and those kids just bail out across that street that's where I come and go most of the time from my house to anywhere and it's I'm worried about that as well so there's no adult at that crosswalk from the Rolling rights disciple over to the park right busy place I agree no you know we the only thing we can do is is try to make the loading and unloading of students on site as safe and as efficient as possible and that option is open to all parents whether they're on a bus or whether they're dropping them off by car we're I I can't control what parents choose
167to do off-site any other questions if not thank you Mr Anderson um we're going to continue with Mr Smith coming forward to speak with to us about the Strategic plan updates thank you sir go for it turn over the last five minutes four questions perfect okay next slide please so as a bit of a primer a bit of a history the board embarked on this strategic plan in Earnest about two years ago this was 2021 in February and March of that year the superintendent brought several companies to do proposals for the plan and the board adopted a proposal submitted by a company called mph Consulting mph then presented a proposed timeline and process for the plan they facilitated various work sessions surveys and focus groups and then they presented the final version of the plan
168one year later in March that would be March of last year and then the board voted unanimously to approve the Strategic plan one year ago this month so we've had it in Earnest for just for one year as you know this strategic plan focuses on goal areas related to academic performance student safety and wellness a supportive environment for teachers and staff Equity diversity inclusion family engagement and Community Partnerships in a few slides I'll show how both last year's board and you the current board voted to prioritize elements of the Strategic plan for Budget priority purposes primarily I'll just point out the top three priorities last year were student safety and wellness a supportive environment for teachers and staff and academic performance this board voted slightly differently prioritizing academic performance as number one followed by student
169safety and wellness and then a supportive environment for teachers and staff the remaining three areas remain unchanged in their priority order next slide please so last year when we finalized the plan we also wanted to ensure its communication throughout the district you'll probably recognize this graphic there's one hanging in the back of this room as well as many of our buildings throughout the district it's simple it conveys the primary points and most importantly it helps keep it at the Forefront of our conversations and our actions throughout the district and additionally while you've no doubt heard updates over the past year on strategic plan items starting next month will be explicit in providing the board with a detailed update on one goal area per month accompanied with the stoplight chart that I'll introduce in a moment
170next slide please so as I mentioned earlier this is the Fairly raw data here reflects how the previous board prioritized goals during a work session this was last April and I'll just leave this up for just a moment okay next slide please and this slide highlights the priorities established by you the current board and that was in your January regular meeting and we'll proceed through this presentation following the order of your prioritized goals and again I'll just note that all of these goals areas hold significant value the prioritization of one to six serves simply to guide us in allocating available resources efficiently and effectively next slide please so just a note on the stoplight chart that I'll introduce fairly self-explanatory but green we were making progress we're on track to meet the goals we have
171no concerns yellow is progressing there might be a few challenges we're giving it attention similarly minor concerns and then red is we're having significant difficulties we're not making desired progress and we need may need to reevaluate the approach or the strategy next slide please all right here we go so starting with academic performance we aim to have a 75 percent of pre-K students meet or exceed age expectations according to North Carolina Early Learning inventory we're currently at 73.4 percent to meet or exceed these expectations we're on track second we target raising the percentage of third grade students reading at or above grade level to 90 percent we're currently at 54 proficient but we're seeing gains in kindergarten first and second we're implementing a high quality curriculum aligned with a science of reading there third we
172aim for a 60 of students to be proficient in North Carolina math one by the end of the ninth grade currently we're at 44.2 percent and we're piloting the Desmos curriculum at New Hanover High School to enhance engagement and outcomes fourth we aim to increase Proficiency in AP and IB exams by 10 our data show 19.2 percent growth in scores three four and five between years 21 and 22. to maintain this teachers attend college board training we establish monthly plc's with ap teachers and and lastly we target a 40 increase in CTE programs of study through our CTE Pathways we've aligned middle schools with high school Pathways we've installed Paxton Patterson Labs at Murray middle school and established plcs facilitated by curriculum instruction coordinators professional development days are planned diligently overall academic performance we're in
173the green next slide please our strategy for student safety and wellness emphasizes people in places focusing on people we create supportive environments through a variety of methods including a digital citizenship implementation plan social emotional learning instruction and professional development opportunities collaborating with curriculum and instruction Specialists regarding places we prioritize secure facilities by investing one million dollars per year in a district-wide risk assessment recommendations and we've completed 75 percent of those security upgrades thus far operations has implemented improvements at schools including security vestibules cameras electronic locks and upgraded communication systems bus driver vacancies are down by 20 through hiring incentives and program initiatives we promote nutrition and wellness by enhancing family communication via child nutrition's updated website and social media where folks can find updated menu options and nutrition information we're committed to providing school facilities
174that enhance teaching and learning with the district preparing for an update to the facility needs survey due in 2025. we have requested funding for a demographic study a facility utilization study and a comprehensive assessment of our existing facilities to better prepare the district for a building program that meets the long-term facility needs of our schools and lastly we enhance the efficiency we've recently enhanced the efficiency of our maintenance efforts with a new work order system which has led to a 15 percent decrease in outstanding work orders and a 10 Improvement in response times next slide please so supportive environment for teachers and staff first we focus on efficient operations and recruiting and hiring and Communications between departments our HR department has worked closely with principals to address concerns and vacancies early in the hiring season
175and as you might recall at the beginning of the school year we had filled over 98 percent of our available vacancies starting class with only six student facing teacher vacancies out of nearly 4 000 employees second we prioritize the efficacy of employees in delivering high quality services to students to achieve this we offer targeted professional development opportunities working closely with hiring supervisors and staff to continuously refine our offerings based on their needs and feedback third we emphasize equity in staff allotment and school diversity we've revised local allotment formulas during the budget process to provide funding more equitably additionally as you just heard the state has approved differential compensation plans for high performing teachers at Freeman and Forest Hills with plans to explore alternative funding sources for similar initiatives in the future at other low performing
176schools and finally we're targeting recruiting efforts at the University level to increase the diversity of our staff next slide please Equity diversity inclusion student voices and Equity teams aim to establish engagement clubs at every high school they're currently collaborating on a framework for the 2324 Mission Vision and programs additionally and this is where we see the one-to-one program again the districts provided laptops to all High School staff and students enhancing access to resources and opportunities for communication collaboration and content creation next slide please in family engagement we continue to streamline our processes for communicating family engagement opportunities and down to the school level that's important this is the one red light you'll notice in the entire presentation because this particular strategy was tied to a recommendation to create a budget line item it's not feasible
177at this time and will continue to create an alternative strategy while we still move forward toward this goal also note that we've standardized a district-wide volunteer training process which includes background checks and we're in the early stages of of implementing a parent Academy and collaboration with student services with a tentative opening at the beginning of the beginning of the 23-24 school year more to follow on that specific initiative in the coming months next slide please and finally Our Community Partnerships are vital obviously to the success of our schools and districts and we're proud of the progress we've made in this area we've lowered the barriers to Partnerships and sponsorships leading to over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in donations this school year alone Our Community Partnership page has seen a significant increase in web
178traffic and our monthly Community Partnership newsletter the best of nhcs has more than doubled since its launch last March we've also revamped our facility use webpage to better serve Partners like churches film companies HOAs and Athletics associations and finally we're proud that nhcs employees and community members have raised nearly thirteen thousand dollars for the United Way of Cape Fear area this year benefiting various Community organizations that directly contribute to the success of our students and schools next slide please fire hose with that we'll take your questions thank you Mr Smith uh any questions Mr scribble I know you were the one that had requested this maybe show with you absolutely and I appreciate it sorry um now I asked for this because you know the efficiency person and I just wanted to see where we
179were other than I think we're doing good I think we're doing okay and um I I appreciated the the stoplight coding because that at least puts you in the ballpark of you know where you're looking at others what else I have a couple um first talking about safety in the Strategic plan do we have I would like for my own personal benefit to have a specific safety meeting and I know some of that has to be in closed sessions so we can be debriefed on all the things that are going on our school I know we have taken some proactive approach with the um teleprompters that you have to buzz in and the vestibule and things like that but do we have a last metric Resort that we have in our classrooms I mean we
180don't want to talk about it we don't want it to come to that but that's something that is on my mind out of curiosity and if it if we don't I would wonder if it's the will of the board so that we could charge you to find out what that would look like so in terms of talking with people of safety and grants and things like that we can have an idea of number that we could say this is these are things that our department has looked into and this would be the cost associated with that so I don't know if we have a last met metric Resort what are you talking about like what give an example of what you're considering less metric Resort like a button that a receptionist presses when the guy's
181got a gun interface or the teacher has room lockdown of sorts and I've seen different different things throughout the country to like look into but um so for we had a presentation at our Workshop of something like that or a pop-out you know but I think I can't say an open session is that the emergency operation plans which are not publicly available are available to you in the board portal for your interview and that may be a good place to start the conversation to look at that thank you no one else listen I have one more thing so um in this update the the were all the things that we're doing in there especially in the yellow or perhaps in the red um did we include those kinds of things in our budget discussions yeah
182I mean maybe that's not your question maybe that's an Ashley and a Dr Foust discussion and I guess where I'm specifically going is and I could hold the question until the budget time but if school safety is number one for us last year and school safety is number two for us this year school safety has two parts it has um physical you know attributes and it has um the mental health you know welfare of our students and it appears that our budget you know is pretty we cut pretty deep into the bench um on the the the students the mental health safety and so I was just asked you know did we consider that and where and will we hear that later I'll take it I'll take a brief swing and then turn it to
183anyone else and I'll say this in the in the budgeting process at the division level we were required to and presented our budget recommendations including funding and cuts through the Paradigm and lens of supporting this strategic plan and then more specifically supporting it in the order that the board prioritized it and so that's where you're going to see our priorities manifest because that's how we presented it to the superintendent and CS yeah thank you all right all right thank you very much sir social worker mental health because I wanted one to have clarity yeah I'm happy to share so the counselor and social worker positions that are being discussed for reduction are those that were additionally funded through Sr dollars which were our education stabilization dollars through covid in that time frame that we had
184those additional funds we also increased our partnership with the county for school-based mental health professionals and access to in every one of our schools a fully licensed either a licensed clinical social worker or a licensed professional counselor to provide school-based Mental Health Services for Access for any student that that needs that and whose parent consents because again that's not just available as an intervention that is a parent consenting intervention and support so those um while of course the needs of our students with regard to mental health needs with regard to Social and emotional competencies is a serious concern we know that again as Dr Faust has described right sizing we are right sizing to the population to the number of students we have into the ratios we were at before so it's it's not a
185cut in positions where we had more positions prior this is a total reduction of those Grant funded education stabilization dollars but as I will say again the difference in in where we are now than where we were before that is the addition of the school-based mental health therapist through the support from the county so the County Commissioners found it important and necessary to provide those resources to us and sometimes those therapists are full and we run a a waiting list but they are committed to providing us more and more services as we need those does that answer the question Mr McMahon I don't know if this is the right time to respond because you're what you're sharing and Dr Faust but I can wait till we get the yes funds budget but I understand the
186downsizing but the cloud the umbrella that we have created by this reduction particularly if I understand it correctly with counselors social workers when half of the people that I've heard speak have talked about understandably and the mental situation that we're dealing with with kids today and so I'm not going to try to be negative it's going to come out negative but I still have a difficult time reducing counselors social workers Etc but we're going to spend two hundred and twelve thousand dollars for an electric sports program so what is more important we have double digits we have double-digit schools that are the lowest in the state of North Carolina and we're going to cut counselors and social workers and I'm not against it but I'm against the rationale for taking away counselors and putting 212
187000 in Esports so can I answer that so those are two different puns to make any difference it does it does because you can't buy counselors not a capital outlay nope it does it does so you have to look at your funding pot your funding source so with a sport with um Furniture I can't buy I can't um I don't use I use capital outlay for those whereas a counselor I can't use Capital outlay funds for it that's a one-time fix so if you have nine of those that's um at eighty four thousand dollars that's in reoccurring expense through Esser which was a grant we knew that going in that that funds with that those were going to end we chose we chose to give social workers counselors we could have chosen not to do
188that but we chose to write that in our plan knowing that it was going to come to an end and that's the that's the hard part is that everything is important but we have to really look and see what actually is important so cut out so don't look at the capital outlay budgeting compared to Esser funds don't look at your local funds and compare to Esser funds don't look at your state funds and compare to Esser Esser is something that just existed for One Moment In Time we have to live in in the now I understand I understand I understand but if the the student population isn't there that's the only way we get Revenue let's just finish talking about the business Partnerships and other avenues for support of the school system can't let it
189go two hundred twelve thousand dollars for Esports when we're losing staff that's just I I just that's very difficult creating a lot of negativity so even if you don't have Esports you still can't afford to bring those features back to the principle of what we're doing in a situation where we're laying off but we're not laying off reduction enforcement we're not doing a reduction in force we put them in there with the extra funds we have not heard from caring Commissioners I have to believe the County Commissioners are going to support it somehow some way we dialogue with them we have we have a lot but they support Esports for us and we can use that money for standard capital outlay in our Capital that one-time fund those are one-time funds that we're talking about
190that are Incorporated so then do we take away basketball do we take away um softball do we take away tenants do we take away the other sports because that way if you shave off all of those Sports then you can get more but we haven't had any sports I I mean I want to continue this discussion I think that this is better under when we were talking about our budget and so um I do hear what you're saying um but looking at these looking at what Dr Pals is saying is where the compartmentalizing and so to look at apples and apples because there's two components for the esport proposal that we allowed to come before us one was in the capital I think it was a to the tune of 165 000 so what you're
191saying is to see a better replace an alternative replacement rather than invest in the technology for that of where else could we use it as far as fixing up our schools and then the other would be the coaching stipend which I think was to the tune of twenty eight thousand dollars is there a better source for that as well I hear what you're saying I understand the implications and I think we should continue the conversation I just don't think it's under the Strategic Plan update any other discussion about strategic plans yeah this this kind of I'm going back to um the Strategic plan that we put into place in 2022 that um we all should be familiar with we all should have read we all should have kind of have it you know memorized um
192and then in the 2023 with the the school safety and it one of the things that struck me when Dr Faust said and I agree with him completely that you know we have to live within our means but and we have to live like we did prior to coven and my question there is do we live like we did prior to covid even though the circumstances of our reality have dramatically changed um and I'm just thinking too that we we recognized and we celebrated a young man who died lost his fight with cancer but we have not recognized students who have lost their struggle with mental health issues it's probably that is where I'm talking about in the school safety and this I'll ask this question now or I can I'll just pose it and
193we'll discuss it in the budget but I know we have some sr3 dollars that um I guess what I'm just looking for is let's can't we have a sliding scale you know into the reduction of our counselors because we're going to have to do it eventually so so esser2 is Grant funded right these positions were in those grants when you all signed off on that Grant we present it to you one question two was the definition the board at that time said okay right knowing that in three years it was going to go away but isn't the three years next year like it's September isn't it so what happens in September 2024 that's another answer that's extra three that's what I'm asking why because it's Grant funded so answer one is a total different popular
194a total different Grant than sr2 sr2 is totally different than sr3 we present it to the board every time we got Esther dollars and what we were defining what we were going to use it for everyone agreed to it and then there was no sliding scale you can't do a sliding skill on there a Federal grant that says I'm going to use this money to do X and then when that money is running out you're like I want to use it for this that's against the law okay that and that that's not what I'm asking so I'll hold my thoughts until the budget because I want to say is that we did not build the Strategic plan based on Esser at all right so when we're saying that it looks like we're cutting deep using
195Esther it's this the Strategic plan had nothing to do with Esther at all understand okay so we're going to carry on with the uh Mr chair sorry I was trying to get your attention I apologize I have a question about strategic plan real quick I'm not going to be too long but I was just thinking when we created this strategic plan um it is a living document and I don't know if there is a chance for us to come back and look at it and evaluate it again and see if we need to add in under student safety and wellness or even in equity um Mental Health Services or the way we can find it and fund it or whatever we can do because I think it is a crisis and I think it is
196important that we make it part of our plan because just because funding goes away and just because covet is supposedly over for the most part that doesn't mean that the the issues have not gone away and I know we have to cut because our funding is gone but I really do think that it would be a good idea to evaluate all our schools and the need for the mental health services and counseling and probably put it in our strategic plan maybe for years to come for the next I guess they run out 27 this is when this ends but as a living document I think we can do that so I don't know if anybody here I don't this is under information but perhaps we can come together and figure out a way we can
197have a discussion on adding to our strategy plan to try and get funding so just think about it yeah okay all right we're going to carry on um at uh 15 minutes was a lot more than 15 minutes but that was good discussion uh Democratic uh demographic excuse me and facility utilization study Mr Anderson very timely presentation Dr Faust you heard talk about student enrollment and student enrollment projections Mr Smith was talking about demographics facility needs assessments these are all things that that we do because we're required to maintain a long-range building plan and submit our facility needs to the state every five years so the last time that that was submitted to the state was 2020 next time will be 2025. I'll tell you that they easily send it to us in November and
198tell us to get it back to them early 2026 but they call it the 2025 plan but it'll be the end of 2025 and there's a lot of things that we need to do start doing to prepare for that our facility needs assessment is uh in our capital outlay budget um the demographic study and the utilization study they go hand in hand I mean you you need to do those together the demographic study will look at enrollments populations growth and the utilization study we'll take that and look at our current facilities compared to capacity where you know where we might have excess capacity where growth is anticipated and you know where we may need to consider building or expanding so we've worked with Cropper and McKibben for a while Dr McKibben is not here he's
199recovering from hip service or surgery but Matthew Cropper is here so I'm going to turn it over to him we've uh we've gotten proposals from the two of them we're ready to proceed but we felt like it would be a good time to kind of kick off our process of getting prepared for 2025 and give you a better idea and understanding of what this involves so Mr Crawford thank you Mr Anderson members of the board Dr Faust thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight I'm Matthew Crawford with Crawford GIS Consulting as Mr Anderson said Dr McKibben is my counterpart uh he has his own business to become a demographic says he cannot be here he's recovering from hip surgery so I'm presenting on his his component of the work on his behalf
200so if we could just go ahead and progress through this next slide please uh just a little just a quick overview of us a Cropper and McKibben we are K-12 planners we work with the school districts all across the United States as well as throughout North Carolina and this is just the type of work that we specialize in demographic studies and facility utilization and that type of work is that what we do on a daily basis so next slide please um just a little bit of history of our our work with New Hanover County we did do a demographic study in 2017 so it's been some time since that has been updated there was a comprehensive redistricting study completed in 2019 to account for the opening of Porter's Neck elementary school and then there was
201also a housing yield study that we completed in 2021 and that was in partnership with the New Hanover County planning office um so if you go to the next slide I'm going to talk a little bit about our demographic study process um so we are tasked in this in this particular effort to update your demographic study and bring it up to current um uh since 2017 a lot has happened in the county and in our world um we have a new census uh available as well as the impact of covid on enrollment over the last couple years and so a lot of that has really had an impact on enrollment in this district and as well as across the United States accounting for all of that necessitates the need for a new demographic study so
202uh when we do our study um we we do a population study and that results in a 10-year enrollment forecast uh the second part of the once that demographic study is complete we will uh study the forecast enrollment as it relates to utilization in Your Capacity to identify not only where your needs are now but where your needs are in the next 10 years as it relates to imbalances in utilization or needs for additional capacity and then finally we'll provide some recommendations to a company the the two different uh parts of the study to identify where you could potentially make uh resolve imbalances through boundary changes or or Capital Construction additions at a school or maybe new school construction but we won't know that until we get finished with the first two parts of the
203of our study next slide please just a quick review on our process like I said we do a population forecast it's a highly accurate uh method it's done by PhD demographers we do a population forecast a study of all of your population from 0 to 85 Plus and then that result of the population forecast drives our enrollment forecast so we look at a lot of different factors that affect change in population aging and empty nesting and in migration from new housing and out and aging as as communities get older and what's the balance of those types of things and so looking at all these different demographic Dynamics gives us a really robust and accurate enrollment forecast next slide please just another some of the other factors that we do look at a lot of things
204with the age structure mortality um fertility in and out migration a lot of uh other other factors and we will also use the pupil star that we recently completed as a guide for pupil yields for developments and anticipated developments as well um you can go to the next slide and um this is just another uh quick overview on the steps to do our our work like I said population forecast drives the enrollment forecasts and um a lot of times people in areas see growth new homes being built and they they automatically just want to add that on top of what they have now but it's important to understand what's happening to your population that's already here and how is that Aging in terms of students getting older and families having children that are aging into
205next levels and that's an important Dynamic to factor into all of this next slide please population pyramids something that you'll see for every single school and this just kind of gives us a good idea of the age structure and how and that this gives us a good indicator for what what should happen to your growth in terms of younger children moving into an area or is it aging and empty nesting in on and turning over or different changes and Trends uh it's important not only to just look at historical Trends and how that's the trend is going but also understand and identify where there may be a change in the trend and that's that's really important and that we do that well with with our process next slide please so once we have the demographic
206study we do take a look at utilization so we we compare the enrollment current and forecast enrollment to your capacity and we identify where um where you have needs now and also where you have needs in the next 10 years and whether it's going to uh enrollment's going to decline and your overcrowding May resolve itself through demographics or whether enrollment will continue to increase and you and demographic change is not going to help or where it may be stable and uh so we do a color code color code schematic kind of shows this and identifies it if you go to the next slide you can see this is just an example in Pender of some work that we did there just to identify where um you know you could see pretty well on the chart
207as you when this is developed the greens show you where you have excess capacity and then it goes all the way up to a deeper red and it really start to look this helps identify where areas and segments of the county are all overcrowded or where there may be some under utilization next to a school that's over utilized and you may be able to leverage space in the area by making some boundary changes to make best use of your space instead of building just adding capacity to a school and so making sure that we identify all of these different factors to to give you a good uh recommendation that is that's making the best use of the space that you have available in your county um you can go to the next slide please so
208then once that once we have that utilization forecast developed and analyzed then that will you we use as a guide to help determine the needs of the district and where you currently have pressures where pressures may be resolved or where there is no relief in sight um we will identify recommendations on boundaries potentially or added capacity where where their boundaries cannot resolve some of your imbalances in utilization and these recommendations are expected to be delivered this summer to early fall so we will be once we get approval from the board we'll be ready to move right away on it and I believe that is all I have if you go to the next slide be happy answering questions if you have any questions report Ms Walker thank you I think I one thing I wanted
209to um talk about that's very important is this is a precursor to whether or not we discuss Bonds in the future whether we're utilizing our space properly and like you just said whether schools are underutilized or over depending on where the population has grown in our County I guess you're going to show that to us when you do the study but also I wanted to ask you I know we just had a census but I I feel like there's under counts in some demographics and I know our schools show that we do have higher demographics than our senses really shows so how do you account for that in your study yep we're aware of under count under count exists in every census there's a lot of other bigger problems with the 2020 census as well
210and things that um that I'm not going to put you to sleep with going into much detail on it but uh we do have population data and we will be studying that as the Census Data as a component of our study in a we we also often look at under count by comparing the your your school enrollment to school age enrollment that the census counts and we have identified under count in communities across the United States when we do this so we're aware of it and we're sensitive to it but it's still something that we can rely on to give us a better understanding of your population Dynamics uh as the census tells us other questions okay thank you very much very much thank you for your presentation we will carry on uh that our
211next part of um business is our discussion of a district-wide book Review Committee Miss Mason uh you were the one that brought that for us so I'll give you the opportunity to speak thanks Mr wilgore um first of all I just want to say thank you to everybody who that is passionate about kids and passionate about books I am too um and that's what that's what this was born out of I began reading some of the books that were in our schools and the content of it was so disturbing to me as an adult with a fully formed brain with a master's degree in education with all of these inform this information that I have um it was disturbing to me that these these must have slipped through the cracks and so to me um
212I wanted to involve parents more I wanted to involve the community more we have so many people that are invested in our kids that don't necessarily have kids in our schools and we want them to be involved we want these Community Partnerships and so that's that's primarily what this is born out of um and I was asked to compare you know what the difference is between what the policy is that we have in place and what this book Review Committee would be doing that's different and the biggest difference is the community involvement I really really wanted the voices of our community be heard so much so that I want it to be as many as possible and so when you have seven parent representatives and and or other County residents rotating through the semesters you're
213getting more voices it's not just the same seven voices all the time I didn't want a school board member to be a voting member because I felt that this is the People's Choice this is the community's standards that are being set and so for me that was that was really the heart behind selecting those individuals we have the policy right now seems to me to be very um top down very you go to this person you go to this principle and I wanted it to be a community involvement type thing and that there is concerns about how we do this this is not something that's going to happen overnight um we need to do this thoughtfully and appropriately so that it's done fairly so that every single member of the community that wants to participate
214can participate um my thought process and this is all a work in progress is that we utilize scales that are used already in media we have um we have the movie rating systems that was developed several years ago several years ago and is used for parents to be able to guide their kids on what to watch what not to watch I want to use that type of scale I also was thinking of the music industry many of us who grew up with CDs or cassette tapes we saw some of the explicit content on our the warning labels and that's really the biggest Focus we need to be making sure that we are presenting age-appropriate content to our kids and if it's not then we need to put warning labels and we need to let let
215people know um and so really there's so much that needs to be done to um really work through some of the Kinks and some of the issues that will likely arise I think that having a discussion about it is really the first step that we need to take um to really find balance and to um do the right thing by our kids thank you Miss Mason didn't want to have any questions or discussion they'd like to make at this point the square bill and then um unless I do you value your opinion that you think this needs to happen I you know fortunately for me unfortunately for you um so I was just looking at it face value what we have here and um so I'm still not clear on do you want for us
216to review all 423 159 books that are in our School District Libraries and I don't know I don't even know how to estimate how many books are in teachers classrooms so it is you don't have to answer me if it's been coming off one time so just hold that thought because I don't want it um are you proposing that this is a war M standing committee or advisory committee and if such then the policy committee would um would need to get input from the whole board on how that looks on what the makeup would be and we're still working on all that what the negative property and how you get to be honest I mean question I have too is what do you think is so wrong with policy 3232-10 that District boards are using
217across the state very successfully I cannot even think about being on a committee where I have no voting rights you know that that just doesn't seem fair to a person who gives up their time and their their entertaining continuing to do that the um certainly people outside of our County and residents that don't let any children in the school should not have any more you know speaking Authority authorities be a Specialists who have okay they should be first and foremost so I don't understand what the liaison means that we're just there to sit and listen and not have any input or any say so on that having people sign up first come first served we've already seen how that works for calling the audience whoever is Johnny on the spot on their computer you know
218gets to be on this committee um how would we committee operate it leads it everyone um everybody has to be guaranteed it has to commit to reading the book in its entirety and not just pulling out excerpts of what people have told them there needs to be a rubric for discussion and decision making um which we already have in policy 3 200 and 10. so and then there needs to be an appeal process like what are we going to do if this community says hey Dr Foust we don't like these you know these 1200 books that we've just you know reviewed my guess is and I've not been on any review committees but hundreds of hours would go into this because you have to give time to read the book you have to have time
219for discussion um I I'm just having a whole hard time with creating another layer of government when half of our speakers said that they don't want government control and we're adding another layer of government control and then some of us you know here on this board ran on you and and argued with the old board that you're not in school you know you're not you're wearing masks and you're trying to take away my right to have my kid not be a mask and now you're trying to take away my right of letting my kid read the only book that they want so I'll just toss all that out and then we can you know flow from there perfect enough thank you I'll go ahead and share that my opinion will not be particularly popular with
220some of you last week a Wilmington private school educator said to me there is only one reason to put these pervasively vulgar grade level inappropriate materials in front of our students now this book right here this book have you read it have you read it it's called out of darkness by Ashley hope Perez okay 46. the young girl starts getting raped by her stepfather page 376. there is no redeeming value to have rape of a child at gunpoint where her brother watching and then having her murdered there is no redeeming value to this book for middle school children if you want to read it as an adult that's your prerogative if you want to take it home and share it with your child that is your right [Music] excuse me we're gonna be calling out
221what we have to be removed this book has sodomy between cousins incest what reason would you want an elementary school or a middle school cheap child to read that what reason take it home and share it at home but the school is here to educate not to share a material that is age inappropriate and deemed by most of the people that it is vulgar and inappropriate for that age level now Wednesday we were in Raleigh and Wednesday the budget dropped and there's some really cool things that happened but including in there um there was local committee media advisory committees requiring each board to establish a local committee media advisory committee so the state believes that we should have this at the local level the state believes we should have this at the state level what
222it looks like I don't know but this does not belong in the middle schools this does not belong in the middle schools why please yes oh I'm sorry other discussion Miss Mason I'm Sorry Miss Walker hello Mr McManus I didn't see your hand up I'm sorry that we don't agree with their movies or concerts there's clothing they're friends it's the parents responsibility to make a decision what their kids read where they go not a community and I'm not trying to be well maybe I am but can you explain when you say the community how many of you who are you talking about in the community because it's the same order please Define community you talk about we have 000 parents with 26 000 students so how many give me a number that are against a
223parent's rights to decide what your children read what getting that number what's the community I'm not really sure what exactly you're asking um I said the community the community yes so the community is it goes into the curriculum this goes into the libraries it goes and if I'm gonna if we're gonna make a a decision then the Board needs to make a decision not the community community if we were elected to make a decision they don't like it won't get elected again but we I gotta like to do what I think is best for kids at that moment parental rights you serve any special group organization or my personal feelings it's the parent responsibility not ours we have a process I've worked with that process all my life in school you go to the teacher
224you give them an alternative book if that doesn't work you go to the principal I don't work I assume you're going to go Michigan appeal to the board you you are taking away the rights of people to read what they want to how soon you're going to do away with the internet and the cell phones as well because I can assure you they can call up a heck of a lot more on a cell phone than they can in one book that's what you do is you'll Force kids to go to the cell phone can't rights I'm sorry but that that's the way it's amazing we don't make that decision thank you Mr McManus order please thank you so there's a lot of questions um to miss crabill reading all the books in the system
225is an impossibility we know that we already have a list of books that are being there's concerns about and so that's where I would want to start is with that set of books and as parents come with concerns that's the process if parents come that's what this committee is for as it comes to the no voting rights I am on two other committees where I have zero voting rights but I do that because I'm a liaison and I'm part of those discussions and I'm learning and I'm hearing what's happening in our schools with our amazing exceptional children committee with our amazing gifted commute committee and so not having a vote doesn't make me not want to go um as far as an appeal process I think that that's part of this whole thing I think
226that there needs to be an appeal process but like I said this is a starting block I didn't come to you with a whole committee this is for discussion this is for us to figure it out and sort through the details this is an advisory committee this is not a committee that's making all the decisions across the board they're advising just as we have other advisory committees that serve the board um as it pertains to the policy I think that the policy as it stands right now from many and whether you want to believe it or not from many complaints that I have heard from parents who try and try and try and are not getting the responses that they're hoping for um or are getting brushed off I think that this addresses that when
227it comes to and this was brought up before Mr McManus I'm not sure if I've covered everything Miss kreibel so I apologize there's a lot you came out of me with a lot and so I'm trying to get as much as I can um as far as cell phones there is a very large difference between a cell phone purchased by parents and books purchased by the school district parents are accountable for their kids cell phones and what their kids look at on their cell phones schools are accountable for what we present and provide to our students we are accountable if we're providing material that's absolutely Beyond The Pale we shouldn't be providing that anymore cell phones are going to be there you're not going to I mean you don't have to force a kid to
228go onto a cell phone you just don't have to they're going to that's not the issue the issue is cell phones are paid for by parents our books are paid for by our community by our taxes by and we are accountable for those and as far as parents responsibility for me I developed and thought about this before I was even any part of any government institution I thought of this as a parent this is something that I that I wanted to be involved in myself and so I don't I don't see it myself as ripping away parent rights I see it as giving more parents a voice that may not feel like they have one other discussions Miss Walker I'm I'm just going to go ahead I mean it this is a really exhausted me
229personally so I apologize I'm no disrespect Miss Mason but I just have to say that you know this is the United States in 2023. um we have a constitution that we all took an oath to and that is very very fundamental to what we do as elected leaders We're a nation of laws the district has policies and procedures in place exactly for this purpose and that lays out these decisions squarely in the hands of the parents themselves and the Guardians where it belongs and it they are the ultimate decider what their child can and can't read um it is not the job of seven of us here or a lesser committee to put in place any procedures that are counter to our policies and our laws I mean if that changes we'll see we should
230maybe we'll have to come to that but that's not passed yet so I don't really want to look at that at the moment um we know full well how to have conversations with parents and um so I'm just going to say that's not our job the district Rick and I have talked to Librarians they're very conscious and these are the Professionals in our district we have to have respect for forming an endorsing a community like this it's a slippery slope it's a gateway to doing and banning other things as Mr McManus said perhaps you know the internet is what some kids look at but they can pull it up anywhere anytime and I just feel like if we're trying to protect kids from books I mean there's a method in place to do that we're
231trying to encourage our kids to read anyway I mean we're going one to one which means I'm a lover of books I buy books I have them all over my shelves and I don't get enough time to read them but we're trying to encourage kids to read I don't think this is a way to do it and lastly I would just have to say our district attorney and sheriff's office already investigated this and I gave you know weighed in last year on whether we have pornography in our school so I mean if we're looking at laws and procedures I think we've got the uh you know things in place and I think the Librarians that I've spoken to are conscious of what they have in their their their libraries and I think they have thought
232a lot about this and um I don't know why all of a sudden this is become an issue I'm gonna be honest with you because I don't think it has been I think Mr McManus talked about an occasion it happened years ago and they they took care of it so I just wanted to put my two cents in I don't know what's going to happen but um I hope we continue to be respectful with each other on this issue no matter what please um I appreciate what everyone's saying right now the grievance that came in made me dive into the process and ask questions of how things are being done and so policy 3210 and policy 3200 are two things that we looked at um what we found out is middle schools across our district
233have different protocols some have restricted access which goes against the best practices according to the American Library Association and the American Association of school libraries I found that concerning personally then we had different sections in the library with restricted access upon more questioning I said does this come in the form of online restricted access or individual label and then how do how is there stopping of children if there is deemed restricted access so from that also from those committees they're saying that this content should not be available to all students and they're acknowledging that so then I stepped back and I looked at policy 3200 and and there's a right in there that says we have the right to review materials and to look them over and in particular one of the things that I
234highlighted here is the is the is the language that says to be able to discuss controversial issues oh here it is controversial issues that students as young citizens May developed under Guidance the skills of critical thinking and critical analysis then and letter F it says to place principle above personal opinion and reason above Prejudice and the selection of material of the highest quality in order to ensure a comprehensive collection appropriate for all users when I started looking at to the general statutes I think where the problem becomes is the word controversial and sexually pervasive or sexually vulgar and I don't like to go here because my job as an elected official is to continue to advocate but there has think there has been things that have happened in our district that should have never happened
235and we have to do our best to never let them happen again and so as we stood up here and say that there should be boundaries in place in particular in regards to sexually vulgar content and consistency for elementary I think there should be consistency across Elementary district-wide expectations middle school district-wide expectations and high school so for me personally I would like to see it in that route versus just District as a whole we already acknowledge that parents have different Pathways one no no sexual education and then we have two different means of and I forget the classes and so if somebody wants to say them out loud that'd be great but the two different Pathways that we have for our students to engage in sexual education and thank you thank you and so for
236that alone we are acknowledging that there's varying levels of comfortability and we have to be cognizant of that when we are placing selections and I think for me what that means is is there a better alternative when we come to content that is inherently sexually vulgar in nature you have to ask your question is there is there a better alternative and maybe the answer is no and truthfully if I'm trying to be open-minded and follow my own policy maybe the answer is no and if that's the case can there be some a statement of why it's Justified for those looking at it say why in the world was this book picked out of everything because we all have our own personal opinions if we read every single book we're going to come across different things
237that we like does dislike not um but the other thing and I'm going to put our superintendent on the spot because it's set in here in policy um 3200 it says the superintendent May establish procedures that provide additional standards for removing any supplementary materials and so I don't know if there's been a directive or anything that you have done or given to our staff further to clarify any of this content so I'm just going to ask that question so under that that's removal outdated outdated anytime so they do that constantly for or it could be materials like it could be science materials so from 10 years past so they go through on say monthly but yearly to remove outdates so there's a process for removing but that specifically just without data material and so as
238far as technology I know that we have given our students one-to-one devices and we're going that route um I would bet money that there are some words that they're not allowed to search and openly get information on because it's that boundary setting and so with that in mind that is where the biggest concern in my mind has been when it comes to this is the boundary setting and I'll also address the friction too because the crossover has been that hyper sexualized content in an lgbtqia plus individual are one of the same and it is not and so I want to make that distinction to here now because when you're reading through a book of graphic details of oral sexual pleasure or physical sexual pleasure I would I would look at any of my male counterparts
239up here and say if there was a middle school book that we might feel uncomfortable demonstrating for anybody in our and our public to see maybe the question is asked why is it there maybe um that's what I have to say [Applause] thank you okay is there anyone else who would like to speak on this Patrick two more things um thank you movies have ratings music has ratings and yet we have books that are available to children in the schools with no ratings and I'm not allowed to read the content of this book in this meeting I'm not allowed to read the content of this book in this meeting I'm not allowed to read the content of this book in the book in this and yet they can be available to our middle school children
240to our littlest Learners that is not right now I'm going to talk real serious when you hypersexualize a little person kindergarten first grade second grade they're sexualized forever and I will die on this hill it has to stop it absolutely has to stop we're robbing our children of their innocence we're robbing them they can never get back that innocence Craig bill so um a couple of things I'm sorry order please just kind of going back through a couple of the points the um the 73 books that were presented to us um did not come from a parent came from a list that was generated from on high at the national GOP level so that that doesn't even talk about our community necessarily it might the um I hear I heard somebody say parents are frustrated
241they're not getting the responses that they were hoping for well the responses that they were hoping for could have been get this book out of the schools when the process hadn't even been followed the I heard we've had things happen in our district that we've that we are not proud of and that are bad but I would contend that we didn't have a teacher pulling books out you know during this you knew situation so that doesn't really match up we've had zero challenges and these books have been in our libraries for quite some time so if people are that concerned then speak up and do the challenge what's wrong with going through a process that we already have it's again if people have problems with our policy 3232 10 they should present those issues to
242the policy committee so that they can be discussed as that group but the policy committee is not the end-all be-all um which we've heard is that the policy committee only kind of previews and you know triages a little bit but this whole board you know gets to make all of those calls the so I'm I'm back to you know of we want to Melissa's comments we want to do this thoughtfully we want this carefully but we the membership that you're suggesting is one School Board member who may or may not be an educator and none of us are Librarians you know and media Specialists the um a teacher on any grade level well that speaks to Ms barnhart's position that um if we want to look at it elementary middle and high then you can't
243just randomly pick a teacher you know out of that where are our central office staff our lead teachers and our senior senior staff that have years and years of experience they're not included in any of this and yet they are responsible for the decisions that their staff you know underneath them is making we have one media specialist at any level and they don't even get a vote and this is all about their area of expertise I just don't get that and why are there more parents and guardian ends than there are the educational professionals and if we're rotating through one person may not ever even get a chance to do anything you know so that seems kind of weird that you don't even have you know more than a nine week service time but I'm
244just really concerned that we're just going down the wrong path the I just read a book that I thought was going to be kind of fun and it turned out not to be quite as fun um when it was all about the um Un-American committee that Joseph McCarthy you know was putting out and he was targeting our actors and actresses because they dared to go listen to you know find out more information so if our teachers and our students are daring to go find out more information are they going to be targeted and labeled and you know Joseph McCarthy lovers you know come out and you know strike them down and ruin their reputations it just it just seems like we are trying to create an authoritarian state or a dictatorship when we really are
245a democracy which several role of our speakers spoke to and you know what else several people spoke to and I'm just as religious well I'm probably not as religious as some of you up here but I do have a faith and we do um I happen to be a Christian but there is there are many people in our County that are not Christian so to keep coming back to good old solid Christian values to me is that's just wrong and several people pointed out to us and I didn't even know this because I'm not a real Bible reader um but some of the stories that were pointed out about what was happening in the Bible were very similar to the stories that you just related to us miss Bradford in books so our kids are
246allowed to read a Bible and learn about sodomy but they're not allowed to read a book and discuss it with their parents um I I just don't get it so thank you Ms Bradford the Bible deals with really heinous topics but if you remember what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah the Lord destroyed it down to the ground so the Bible is teaching you a lesson so yes those things are in it but it changes a moral lesson so the idea that oh it's in the Bible it must be okay I have to take issue with that and Mr McManus this is probably going to go really badly with you but the four of us got elected with 160 some thousand votes so the people in this County told us when we were running for office
247you got to take care of these books you got to get some of this vile stuff out of the schools let her finish and I'll let you speak okay so we we have heard we heard for almost two years from people that encouraged us you know you're gonna do something about those books you're gonna do something about those books do I want to ban all books heck no I really don't but the ones that are sexual in nature that are vile in nature with murder and incest and rape children don't need to be reading that in school if he was a parent want to exercise your parental right and do that in your home more power to you I'm not going to say a word but you the taxpayers don't need to be paying for
248those books and spending time when they need to be doing math and reading they don't need to be spending time on those books please Mr McManus a short response my whole premise is when you start painting and that's to me the same word as removing April then you can't stop taking away parent rights and just for the record between you and I met in the parking lot after the last agenda meeting you're the only two and you said to me then I'm not sure I can support right now Banning books you remember that I'm not a fan of being books okay I just want to make sure because you've come 180 since that conversation u4 let's be honest I'm an honest person let it fall way advance before you you're right you're elected to do
249this job so if you just go ahead and call for a vote and get it open with and then we'll see what happens because I don't want to see him argue with everybody listen to the same people stand up and say the same things over and over and over again and you still still haven't heard how many the votes were there but how many people are against books I don't think 162 000 people want you to ban books I just but baby I'm wrong wrong before but I don't think that's a very good base for which to operate foreign [Music] okay there has been one person that hasn't spoken so I'm going to go ahead and speak um and I've looked at this I think what Miss Mason started as a discussion and this is
250on information so the the motion to go ahead and vote we can't vote because in information at this point there are some concerns with the president policy to talk to Ms crabill's situation I was talking to an educator today and he said well one of the concerns that he had is the fact that Laney High School in our present policy could meet say this book whatever book it is is inappropriate for Delaney high school but the same book would be at Trask Middle School uh right next door so that that to me that is a concern I mean that's why I think maybe looking at a district-wide group to talk about books because like I say if it's inappropriate one level how in the world could it be appropriate for a middle school right next
251to our elementary school I do think we do need to look and I think Ms Mason's base is very clear that this is a beginning point a discussion point it's not the end-all ready to be voted on I do think we need to have uh we need to look at more than one teacher on here I think it should be a balanced thing where we have teachers uh media Specialists and parents um you know I don't know about other County Representatives but that's my own personal opinion on that I think we do need to look I do remember miss crabill when she was chair and we had a person get up and read out of a book and um she said you can't read that here and the person said well it came from Ashley
252high school so you know if we can't read it here then I don't know that we should have it on our shelves but that's my own personal thought on that at this point we are not going to be able to vote so we will move on unless there's other discussion from anyone who has not spoken at least twice not thank you for the discussion we will carry that on next we have Esser fund update that is Miss Sutton yes sir I've provided an Essa report to you for your information as you can see on the report we've currently have a balance in our Esser funding so looking at all three three looking at all three grants together can you hear me I'm sorry um we have a remaining balance of 41.3 million dollars as you
253can see here and we've actually spent 54 of the Esser fund so that's all three s or grants together and as Dr Faust had mentioned earlier we've fully spent sr1 as you can see in this report and we're on track to spend sr2 by the end of June um yeah and I apologize if I my I have a bad memory um what is what is could you just summarize what was in sr3 so in sr3 we are paying for 32 instructional coaches we also have some HVAC improving air quality projects in there along with um some technology made projects make some small projects may be in there I can't remember if we had all of it in esser2 or if there were some there may be some in sr3 as well along with curriculum for
254around four million dollars I believe of curriculum purchases and summer school summer learning that would happen actually this summer okay so I guess my question is um I didn't hear any you know mental health workers or social workers counselors you know mentioned in the sr3 the instructional coaches are we have they been put back into classrooms and um attritioned out you know not not laid off not are you know not ripped but you know attritioned and so is um do we not have any flexibility if we're if if we're keeping all the instructional coaches with sr3 do we not have any flexibility on using them for social workers or counselors let me let me provide a little bit more clarification okay so there is some funding in sr3 that we had set aside knowing that
255at the end of sr2 we may still need to employ some of those individuals so the type positions you're talking about until we're able to find other employment opportunities Within New Hanover County schools for them so there is some funding to help cover those positions if it needed to be so that is included there the instructional coaches we would in the next budget cycle be looking at those so we we did not include that and part of this budget knowing that we had another year of Esser that answers my question is that I I was under the false impression that Esther 3 included some of the social workers mental health providers for a third year and that we were and that was where my question came from on you know just softening the fall you
256know to use some of the extra three money to not have to get rid of so many counselors and social workers in one big lump but that's wrong my understanding was wrong so sr3 is being used in case um to help with the transition of employees into their new positions that we're identifying for them so I hope I'm being clear with that so I don't want to give the impression that there aren't Esser funds that are going to be used we know that as of the end of June we may still have individual social workers that we haven't found opportunities for them yet and so we we do have funding in sr3 to help for the transition period okay okay thank you um Miss Sutton this house bill 259 that dropped on Wednesday and it's
257just proposed legislation section 7.15 remaining Esser funds to be used for reading and math so there's hope there's a lot of really good stuff in there I encourage everyone to read the proposal for House Bill 259 it has a lot of educational stuff in it a lot anyone else have a question thank you very much we will carry on with our next bit of business contracts and purchase report but that's also you in accordance with board policy 6420 I'm providing the list of contracts and purchase order report as you can see there's only one item on the report that meets the criteria to be I'm shared with the board during this report so it was just to purchase a replacement bus and the funding is provided by DPI for that bus replacement any questions from
258board members no well if not we'll carry on with Hendrick get get set go or chair members of the board as superintendent Dr Faust good evening career intended for education is excited to share that new Hanover High School's Automotive program taught by Mr Robert Nellis has been selected to receive a Hendrix get set go Grant in the amount of twenty five thousand dollars the grant is a national initiative that supports schools to enhance their local automotive programs and the funds would be presented at a a special event that's going to feature Cal mascara Cup Series champion Kyle Larson and varied activities for our students and we're just requesting that we can begin preparing to receive and extend those funds yes ma'am does this even require us to say yes we can take it or is
259this just like an information that we're just taking it we're receiving it this one is the information once they give us the money then we'll present the check and then we will but we don't have to vote we don't do anything okay very good thank you very much thank you next we have consensus items uh would entertain a motion to accept all the consensus items as provided unless someone wants to pull one out Ms Bradford I would like to take policy code 3610 the counseling program and send it back to the policy committee please you're in the wrong section of consensus items uh 10. I'll make a motion to accept all the consensus items under um number 14 14. yep do I have a second second heart all in favor please any discussion if none
260um agree please consider saying aye aye all those opposed like sign kit passive 7-0 now we're on 15 policy consensus Miss Bradford I would like to pull 3610 counseling program and send it back to the policy committee we hands discussion then we found out afterwards when we said we'd send it we found out that night that some things were not quite what we thought they were I want to take it back and have a thoughtful consideration of those things that I brought up in the meeting so I make a motion to send that back to policy okay there's a motion is there a second okay Mr Barnhart seconds is there a discussion it's great though um yeah I'm wondering who the Wii is that got some special information because I'm a part of the policy
261committee and I didn't get any but um so I'd like for you to say what information it is um so that we before we vote to send it back we know what you're trying to do well Mr Weber send it to all of us so I'll let him answer but so board members there's discussion at the policy committee around the inclusion of the phrase social emotional in the first paragraph of the policy and a question came up as to whether the committee and the board could remove that phrase from the policy itself so during the meeting I was trying to research that to see if it was required by State Board of EDS standard course of study or anything else and from a legal perspective the committee or the board could um decide not to
262include that phrase in the policy the the key is for the standard course of study for guidance programs to follow the North Carolina state board of education requirements those requirements include social social emotional learning standards so as long as the program itself is compliant with the State Board of edge requirements the inclusion of that phrase and the policy it could be there or you could decide to take it out that's at your discretion so follow up to that if I if I might so we can take the words out but we still have to do it just like in Title IX we don't have to say Federal but um we still have to do it so it's just semantics at this point just to prove a point well the phrase isn't is not in the
263policy now it was part of the school boards Association recommendations and the the school boards Association when they release those they'll categorize different changes as required or recommended that particular portion of the policy was categorized as recommended and again the the key is for the program itself to comply with State Board of Ed requirements which right now include they describe it as socio-emotional learning objectives so as long as the program is following the stage requirements the phrase doesn't have to be in there okay so we have a first and second any other discussion if not uh Miss Bowie would you call the roll please for this one so again the motion in front of us is to send policy 3610 counseling program back to policy the policy committee for further discussion Miss Barnhart yes Miss
264crabill no Miss Walker no Mr McManus no Miss Mason yes Miss Bradford yes and Mr Voldemort yes so it passes four to three it'll go back to uh policy for further discussion at this point [Music] um I would entertain a motion to accept the policy consensus items uh the amended policy Amendment items so moved Mr Bradford makes motion second second Miss Barnhart seconds any discussion if not yes ma'am quick well two quick things in policy 2130 it talked about the board will meet twice a year to develop up to to discuss upcoming development professional opportunities and so I would just like to bring that to our attention so that when um as the next few months roll out we can look at different professional development that we all would like to join in on so
265that we can have a cohesive Collective environment and then also there was a discussion of you needing to name a liaison for the school boards Association yes thank you so we have a motion and a second at this point to accept the consensus the policy consensus all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed carry 7-0 new business the 2023-24 recommended budget changes Miss Sutton thank you I appreciate it tonight I'm presenting the budget recommendations for next school year so fiscal year 23 24. you have in your binders a copy of the PowerPoint presentation and it's going to be in the binder behind budget recommendation tab if you want to take a look there yes yes so if I didn't have your binder I just placed it at your seat so yeah okay
266we'll start we will start with Revenue updates as you know we don't have a state budget as of today but we do have state planning numbers as far as enrollment projections so we're building our budget using that enrollment information to calculate our estimated state revenue numbers for next year the state is estimating New Hampshire County Schools to have 25 230 students that's about well actually less than one percent increase compared to the current year funding of 25 085 students so fairly consistent with this year with the exception of assuming the state's going to fund raises and benefits that they put into place through their budget we have enrollment analysis here for you for your information over the past five years what that enrollment looks like so to share with you how this graph is laid
267out the blue bars represent enrollment as of the second month of school for each of these years and the green bar actually shows State enrollment projections and as we've talked about previously in the past two years or previous two years you notice that our student projections green bars that we receive from DPI were right much higher than our blue bars which were actually our student enrollments the second month of school during these years the state did provide Revenue that they let us take advantage of even though I guess to support school districts it wasn't just a Sandy School District in the state that had student declines in their enrollment they they provided some Revenue to help in those situations thinking that the students would come back after after the pandemic and so we've talked about
268previously that didn't happen for us and so this year they actually no longer provided that additional revenue and so that's where we had the reduction that we've talked about in previous board meetings where the revenue went down down to actually fund the 25 085 students that were here that second month of school so Ashley can you explain to the board in 2223 where our actual numbers were 25 85 and we were allotted twenty five thousand seven hundred seventy seven what happened to that other even though we were allotted that money so what happened after the second month of school and DPI received our information they actually took back um we actually had to fund increase our budget by four million dollars using fund balance to offset the reduction in Revenue that we received from the
269state Bank say again so technically we had to pay it back yes technically we had to pay it back that's correct and as you can see here in the graph where as I had mentioned in the previous Slide the 25 230 is the projected number from the state for next year for federal we also do not have a budget related to those federal funds yet we do know that we'll have some Federal grant carryover so we are taking that into consideration when building our budget we're using the same information and you'll see further in the PowerPoint presentation for raises and benefits we're using the same rates for all of our employees even though you know employees are fun if through different pots of money at the end of June of this year we are anticipating
270have about 28 million dollars remaining in sr3 and so we will use that as we're budgeting for next year we've talked about that previously at the end of June 30th we are projecting to have a fund balance remaining of this 10.2 million dollars that you can see here of that 10.2 million of fund balance 6.9 approximately will be unassigned meaning available for use through our budget process or our budget that we're presenting tonight we are actually reducing the use of fund balance so in the current year budget based on what we just talked about we were using eight million dollars and we are adjusting that down to 4 million for next year's budget if we end up using all of the four million dollars that we are including in next year's budget through this recommendation
271at the end of June 30th we'll have approximately three million dollars of fund balance or savings left that's about 35 percent of one month's operating cost and our current expense fund so why do we have the right size the right size is critical because we've got to make sure that we can actually fund what we have all the expenses that we're incurring we wouldn't want to have people come into work and not be able to pay them when it comes time to write payroll so we we've got to make and and we all agree that these are really tough decisions and you know we can make different choices but in the end we've got to get to a balanced budget so you you can make different choices on what the reductions are going to be
272but we still have to make sure we can afford what we're saying that we're going to pay for so if we do nothing what happens we do nothing we would end up using another eight million dollars of fund balance and more than likely the state would come in and they would start running the school system because they would say we are not fiscally responsible a little bit about what you know Mr McManus was talking about before about moving from you know Capital Ally fund to per you know to be able to fund um counselors or whatever I'm sorry repeat that question well basically he was talking about the um Esports yeah thank you Esports and taking the money away from Esports and then you know paying for counselors is that is that at all possible
273or so you are not able and and this is true with most of our funding we're giving funds in pots of money and we've talked about it a lot related to state and federal money we haven't talked about it so much with capital but capital is another example of we're giving x amount of dollars either through State Lottery funding or through our County Commissioners but when they provide that funding that funding is specific for certain purposes and you have to spend Capital outlay Money on Capital outlay type expenses and so those would be expenses for repairs and Renovations furniture and Equipment vehicles or technology equipment so you have to spend that those funds in that area once again I mean they're the 20 the athletic stipend money I think it was 28 000 I've got
274it in here when we get to that screen that could be used to help in a different area once again you can make different choices but you still have to get to a balanced budget so if you decide to fund social workers or guidance what are you going to not do so you can fund those things so that's what you you will keep coming back to we can make different decisions and you know we're glad to do that but we have to make choices that get us in the end to a balanced budget Bradford oh two questions two questions Miss Sutton how solid is the 25 000 230 ADM State projection since they were so high twice before how solid do you think that is I know we're close to that now but yeah we
275feel that that's a pretty good number because we we always do our own internal projections and the difference was 30 students we came up with 25 to 60 and I believe they were 25 to 30. okay second part of that how practical is it that the County Commissioners will open their pocketbook and up our ADM from 34 34 to a higher number I I cannot really speak for the County Commissioners I can say that um I am not hearing that that's something they're considering I agree I'm not hearing it either thank you the other questions if not if something if you want to carry out um I have one I'm sorry um in this is this is just our local funding does this also include the different grants like the Ready set go like Grant
276that we just heard about it does not so yeah this is just our our local budget but some of this is um will all is going to be used for state and federal as well so for example as I was just talking about the raises and the benefits is going to impact the other budgets as well but we have flexibility with our local current expense funding so our local budget where we don't have as much flexibility with state and federal because of how they allot the different pots of money they say how you're going to use those different pots any other questions if not did you have a question sir yes do we a manner try to find out why it's obviously charged schools taking close to all over almost 11 million dollars out of
277our budget so I think so yeah so when you go back and we look at the enrollment analysis so for 2020 when of course that was during the pandemic so that next year our kindergartners didn't show up as we thought they were going to show people kept them out of school and so um then we started to this school year they started to go up a little but we've just not recaptured um that strong group of students as um again those high schoolers when those seniors graduate if that class is um 2200 meaning all the seniors that are graduating if we get 1800 kindergartners in you've got a 400 so it may not be that they are leaving we just don't have as many births there's not many births ahead and that is the um
278I'll use the word that's the gamble of doing a school budget because we are actually building a budget off of projections yes and then how many I think what is it we can get to that slide so we'll um here you go so this is the next slide so our County request is um for 20 to fund 27 500 students and that includes the charter schools that you just spoke of um these projections that we have here are it's going to be about a three percent increase for our student enrollment and about a four percent increase for charter schools now charter schools did see during the pandemic they did see an increase if you look at the previous five years and so when we're projecting for Charter Schools I don't have the same type information
279that we have through our student Support Services data so all I can do is use the previous five years to try to project out for them so that's how that number came to be so as you can see here our County request based on the 27 500 amount to uh requests of them of about 94.2 million and that is still based on the per pupil funding of 3434. in a separate request so we have two separate two requests of the county one is for our local current expense which we also refer to as our local funding and then the second request is the capital outlay request and so that is one reason we have to submit two separate requests and break it out separately because for them it's two different funds and two different pots
280of money with different funding requirements different criteria for using those funds so two different checkbooks from the County Commissioners one for our operating and one for our Capital Outlet and we can't mix them even though they come both from the the um the Commissioners and if we make a change which is about 10 percent we have to go and ask for um approval right capital or capital or or local or even our current expense if it goes over um I think for current expense is 25 a threshold between different purpose functions then we have to go back to them and request approval that wraps up our Revenue changes that we're anticipating for next year and those revenues as I had talked about before we're using to build our budget so looking at what we can
281afford to fund through our budgeting for anticipated expenses going into next year the biggest increase we see going into next year is going to be raises and benefits and normally that is the case that's going to be your biggest expense that you incur from year to year can just so we can just kind of slow drag yes around the year so when we're talking about the four percent increase that the state is giving so the state gives state employees um we have about 4 000 employees however not all of them are funded through state so we have some that are funded from federal and we have some that are funded from local so it's about I think it was about 700 positions are funded through local when they give a four percent increase state only
282takes care of sometimes the state not always they don't take care of all of them so we have to make up the difference in for our federal employees and our local employees so when we again don't have as many students and we don't have the funding that we used to have then we have to tap into another source which is our savings account so that's not best practice when you're trying to balance a budget because you can't continue to do that or we won't be able to make payroll so what everyone is saying we need we need we need I agree we need but we can't afford afford afford and so you can't live outside of your means because that's bad practice and what will happen is Ashley and I will be on the news
283and I'm not willing to give up my license because of individuals saying they need something when I know I have to sit in the seat and make a hard decision and I support Ashley and Ashley and I sit down we talk and I will say well what about this and we sit down and we go over it and this is four percent and we know that it's going to be several million dollars for four percent so we have to build that into the budget if they come back and they say well we want to do seven percent we're about to sit down and we're going to have to take a deep breath and we've got to find out where to find that other three plus million dollars for seven percent um so we have those
284are things that we have to do in order to bring to you a balanced budget because if it's we're doing it based on four percent but if they say five percent get the balance the budget is no longer balanced so we have to go back in and fix it and so those are the things that we have to consider and we again want to be able to fund everything but you can you just can't not and be fiscally responsible which is what actually is um job is solely based on and and my job is based on being fiscally responsible and I refuse for us to run it down in the hole um we just can't that would be the worst ever okay so I'll I'll just add that the increase in benefits and you do
285see there are large increases that I'm projecting here and so when the state comes back their budget the final budget approved maybe less than this but this was just an estimate based on the previous five years because we've seen a constant increase in both those and for health insurance and for retirement so this actually the amount that we have budgeted here for salaries and benefits is around 11 million dollar increase and now that also includes in addition to the raises and the benefits you see here also you know we have our local supplement scale it includes moving our certified staff to the next experience level on the local supplement scale as well the mandatory increases that are included in this budget are the payments we talked about for charter schools so we receive funding from
286the county to help pay for those Charter School payments but we we of course can't keep that money we have to write the charter schools a check based on their enrollment and provide that funding to them we know that we this year and going into next year we had rate increases for insurance and for utilities so we built in those increases to this budget and we also had some continuation of programs and services some increases there that we wanted to account for in this budget so we could continue these programs and to continue having this software so this included in the budget as well during the budget process we reviewed all of our local allocation formulas and we have listed here and there's several slides we'll go through of some of the changes that we've
287made to those local funding formulas to get us closer aligned to the state funding formulas in these different areas we've got reductions in our allocations for assistant principals and we're reducing a um a Pre-K director in that area as well along with the two assistant principals we're going to have ISS teacher assistants going forward instead of ISS teachers we're no longer going to have an allocation for graduation coaches our current guidance counselors will be assisting to provide that support and then of course our smaller elementary schools are going to be sharing our music teachers yes reducing two Pre-K directors to one which one of our pre-cases do we know is gonna um is there going to be a director that's shared between two cases yes yeah and okay so there's only there's only one there'll
288be one left and that one will share between the pre-ks and there we also have an executive director for Pre-K Mr Patrick I thought we had three pre-ks I'm sorry point of clear that is supposed to read assistant principal is not supposed to read Pre-K director there will still be the same three Pre-K programs and three directors for those three pre-ks it's the assistant principle that's going to be removed the assistant principal for pre-k yes ma'am okay sorry so line number two is telling us that we're reducing two APS at our pre-case no I'm sorry for the confusion right now we currently have one AP that shares with two different Pre-K centers that person will be matriculating up into our elementary school so there won't be an assistant principle for pre-k anymore just the directors
289correct thank you thank you Miss Sutton would you go back this local allotment formula changes did you say this is matching what the state says we should have oh no we are still in a Cadillac so we're nowhere near what the state says we're still in the Cadillac thank you we wouldn't have hardly I don't think how many APS would we have at the elementary level if we did this thing currently and just going to give you just the broad Strokes they will provide one month of an assistant principal from the state for every 98 children there are in the building which means that an elementary school wouldn't have an assistant principal unless they had 980 kids it would mean our high schools would have two our middle schools may have one so the formula
290is is very anemic so we make up the difference in that in local funds right correct thank you that's that we will be increasing the ratio of teacher to students when we are allocating using our local formula by one student as you can see here going for each of these grades so with sixth grade through 10th grade I mean 12th grade we're also going to have an adjustment to the teacher assistant student ratios here you're going to notice an increase in the number of students that when we're doing the allocation for kindergarten it was based on classes of 18 and now we're going to change that to classes of 21 and then first grade is changing from 16 to 21. and the these changes let me go back this teacher ratio changes these are the
291state allocation formulas and then the same with the teacher assistants these are the state allocation formulas that we are adjusting to and we'll be sharing with the principals tomorrow um about the ratio and that we will from the district office be monitoring this we can take a harder approach to look to see to make sure and so for instance like at your high schools when a class has 12 students in it versus to 2029 um those 15 kids or so are somewhere in someone else's class so we've got to make sure that they understand that you can't have 34 kids in a classroom you have a class with 12 or 10 or five you've got to do something more creative so we'll be monitoring that through PowerSchool and having executive director sit down with principals
292of course prior to being a superintendent I have the title of Master scheduler no one's ever asked me to help them schedule although I can do it but they I'll be helping them schedule this time and so I'll share that with them tomorrow I'll help you take your time so um oh to them to that point um does that equate to if a let's just say a and a course has only 12 people in it and we needed to have 28 then that course wouldn't go and those kids would have to be rescheduled into something else well typically what happens in the you'll find those in your AP courses um and sometimes you'll have we have honors courses which if you look at our curriculum um a regular grade level course and an honors course
293there's I'm still trying to figure out what the difference is um because it's just my name um and so I'm wanting to find out then why is your honors class smaller than your regular class because technically you want to have more in your honors class in your regular class if that's the classic has more um of yours you're struggling as soon as you want to put the more of your Advanced students in the higher classes because it's it's just that's how it's done so we'll be talking about those those um makeups of those classes but we found we've pulled some of that data and we will be talking with those principles actually showing those principles of some of their their audits that we found and just a question um basically this these numbers do not
294reflect like title if a teacher assuming a school wants to pay for an additional teacher to lower numbers because with Title One funds or other funds right this this is straight um based on state funding so any additional funding they receive on top of that they would have flexibility to use that how they see fit because they can purchase they can use that to do something totally different with them okay so these are the the next slide shows the changes for second grade and third grade once again we're increasing the number of students in that calculation from 17 to 21 students the next adjustment we've made to our local allotment formulas is we will no longer allocate funding for intervention Specialists and we're also adjusting the guidance counselor formula so there will be one per
295Elementary School and two per middle school with any additional allotments would be based on identified risk oh we required this year for our before you go can you explain what it means it says based on identified risk so I'm gonna kick that one over to Julie as far as based on identified risk any additional positions that we have available for guidance counselors I believe you have we we do have a rubric that we use for additional needs it includes the number of students with mckinney-vento status it can include the number of students that have disability services or special education services and it also does include priority recognition for the school such as other risk factors I can share that in the memo if that's of Interest foreign next we have our division reductions we required
296each division to submit a 10 reduction in their areas I did want to point out though as part of the calculation when we were determining the 10 reduction there were certain things that we did not include in that number one of those things of course is going to be salaries and benefits so we these are non-salery things that we were looking at making reductions for the 10 percent we also did not include anything related to local supplements our SRO contract nursing contract we didn't look at anything for school allocations we kept those the same we also kept the same allocations for our school athletic allocations Pre-K and then we didn't make adjustments related to utilities or insurance or the charter school payments that were required so those are some of the things when we were
297determining for each division what they could cut we we did have boundaries where they couldn't reduce in these areas so that's how we came up with the different amounts of the 10 for each division and these did not touch the schools correct these were straight from these budgets that we're talking about are from the central office they're not allocated to the schools but even though these budgets are central office budgets a lot of these things are still in the division budgets but because they were going to support the schools we didn't include those in the reduction hey Bill the um so the the athletic stipends that we just I think that we looked at at the last meeting those are included in here like because we did do increases to make sure that everybody was
298equal yeah so we will have in the expansion piece of the presentation towards the end I'll actually have a slide that shows those the percent increases and so here we're just showing the different areas that made up the 970 thousand dollar reduction for the divisions we've talked about the federal grants ending and as a result of the federal grants ending and preparing for that we do have in this budget a reduction of non-classroom instructional support positions that is about 4.1 million and then in addition to that Technical and administrative support positions of about 382 000. expansion items that we've included in the budget amount to approximately eighty eight thousand dollars and one of these items is for Career Technical education student supplies there are some supplies that are not allowable with federal funds so we
299wanted to pick those things up here so for example things like slip resistant shoes for our nurses Gatorade for our students participating in the fire program so these these were some of the supplies that were being requested we also have a vacancy in a technology project manager position and we are wanting to use those funds from that position not fill that position and move media lead media coordinator into that position the lead media coordinator is currently funded with sr2 funds and this would allow us to keep that position but there is that position actually costs about 12 600 more than the project manager so we did need a slight increase there we have in the budget the Esports membership so if we were going to um transition that Esports Club into a sport one of
300the things we would need to do is to pay for this membership now the twelve thousand dollar membership that's shown here is actually for a full year when we went back and evaluated this we determined that we could we decided to make this a fall sport so it wouldn't be a year-long sport so that it would just be taking place over four months and so at because of that change the membership actually went down to sixty four hundred dollars so it's a it's less about half of what you see here in the budget we also have funds to increase the athletic stipends that we're providing it was a four percent increase for most positions there are a couple of things that are different in the schedule and we'll talk about that as we go through
301the schedule so here's our current schedule and I've added the new monthly amounts to the schedule for your information as you can see comparing the current month and yeah the current monthly amount and the new monthly amount is increase for most of these stipends of the four percent the athletic coordinators stipend went up from 140 a month to 280 which is um a 50 percent over 50 percent increase but that was based on after evaluating the duties of things that those individuals were responsible for we felt like that increase was needed for that area we did not provide an increase to the cheerleading because we just brought that sport on a couple of years ago and we didn't feel like that needed to be adjusted at this time so those are the changes to the
302middle schools next you see the high school athletic stipend schedule and as you can see here once again the four percent increase in the different areas we also at the bottom you see we've added Esports so that's new so that's why you don't see anything in the current month column we also um I think that's the only change here I thought I had missed something a girl swim coach um so there we got several Sports here so the girl swim coach we'll see on another slide a little bit further along so here once again these coaches are getting the four percent increase all of those are set there and then here is where you see the addition of this girl swim coach stipend this was the only High School sport that didn't have a separate
303swim girls stipend and so that was added through the budget process I will mention because the question came up in our board budget work session uh about the question was asked about the different amounts for the different coaches why they weren't all the same and So after talking to Mr Lewis he explained that the differences were based on the length of the season and how many in a week how many games were being played and so that's why you have some variance between the different head coach amounts and the different sports there's no consideration understandably maybe but if they go to the playoffs and then they another month or we do we do not have anything built into our stipend schedules to pay additional funds if they make it to the playoffs question so is
304um track is considered boys and girls or cross country is considered on one page in middle school it's got cross-country boys and girls that's just one team yep so middle schools cross country this one head coach coach coaches both boys and girls okay and then moving on to high school on the first page when you come down there's a line basketball with nobody next to it um what is that it says it's like one two three four five six down basketball assistant and then basketball comma plane I think that's an error where we had um is that what we had JV and we consolidated okay okay and I asked this question last time but and I don't and I'm sure we got an answer at but I've forgotten it so basketball is had 8.75. but
305like baseball for instance is only why would that be because you know baseball I know I was a baseball coach we have to take care of the fields you got lionfields basketball you show up and you know I mean that's a very important job the um how long when practice started like how when they started practicing how long how many months they had games it doesn't say right it says four months and basketball is four months answer that question okay um baseball soccer lacrosse those typewrons were quite a bit less than the basketball so she was able to work in the Dr house was able to give them closer to the master okay thank you Mr Lewis and if that's it for those questions that wraps up our local current expense budget recommendation and next
306we have our County Capital outlay request to the county foreign I wanted to share more details related to the capital County Capital outlay request because this changed from when we met last time so when we had our our Capital outlay committee meeting we we had our blue line and that's where we stopped based on our normally what is funded by the county so they normally fund us around 3.7 million dollars the past couple years they've given us an extra million on top of that for Safety and Security and we've been doing phase one and phase two of that true north logic assessment being able to do those security vegetables of what we've been working on so we were using the same logic when we met before with that committee since then we've decided to increase
307our request to the county and the increase is going to be 9.9 million almost 10 million dollars and I wanted to go through and show you what the changes are so a lot of these things were included on the previous requests but we've added some things to the request so one of the things that we've added is Safety and Security repeaters for the SRO SRO radios and so that's 428 thousand has been added we had our um the next two projects on the previous request we've added the Porter's Neck Elementary School Middle I'm sorry modular classroom building that's going to provide four additional classrooms the district-wide facility needs assessment was also added there you see for 500 000. a commercial culinary arts classroom at New Hanover High School has been added our artificial turf at
308Laney High School we're actually willing to have that at all of our Traditional High Schools we would start with Laney and we'd phase this in over uh I'm sorry three three traditional high schools and we would phase that in over a three-year period we were looking at the New Hanover High School Broad and classrooms some structural repairs improve roof and sight drainage along with some exterior repair and waterproofing all that those are all at New Hanover High School I will say there's an error in the slide and I made a note on your PowerPoint presentation that should not be 1.2 million dollars for the last item there it should be 470 000 so I apologize for that error yes the um the the project that Eddie talked to us about earlier about um doing the
309school zone markings is that included in here is that a capital request or is that operating expense that's included in the capital request so where would we see that it's just farther down the list these this is uh you know supplemental request above and beyond our capital normal annual capital okay so this would be a one-time uh appropriation for these specific projects if approved then it will allow us to go further down our annual Capital list and that would be funded thank you okay we didn't have any changes in the next couple of slides related to Capital outlay these are the same items that we'd share previously related to technology and then the same items we shared previously for furniture and Equipment as you can see here we were able to um use Lottery funds
310to pick up these three projects so this would be outside of the county request this will be a request through Lottery funds and that is it for the budget recommendation for next school year I'll be glad to answer any additional questions any questions from board members Miss Barnhart okay I have one just clarifying question because then Mr McManus were discussing this earlier so from what Eddie just said and this this whole request for the capital outlay this is a one time we are asking the County Commissioners for an additional 10 million dollars for all of these so we are asking additional money to make these things happen so this is not like okay because I was one of the things that we were when we were brainstorming of if this is if this has to
311be in the budget but this is a one-time request that we are asking for Above and Beyond in Esports is included in it so the county hasn't confirmed or denied this but this is in the request right so I'm providing this information tonight for you for information and I will actually bring it back in May for approval and once the board approves the county request I'll submit that and June normally is when we would hear back from the county what they are actually going to fund fields yes the capital outlay the capital outlay monies that we're looking at is that for projects to be completed within one year or completed within two years um well we haven't heard back individually all of those products could be done in a year we don't know at this
312point whether the county will fund all of it none of it part of it you know until we have a commitment of funding from the county then um yeah I I can't answer that question Bradford listening to the counties manager was pretty pretty saying if they can't complete these requests that they will bring us whatever they're going to be in one year then we should not fund them for any more than that one year so if you go back and listen to that part he was he was really rallying the troops on that point so I would agree I don't think that none of us anticipated that the county was going to give us 10 million dollars this year um but I think if the county committed to 10 million dollars over the next two
313years and then we could work with them on where to break that so that we are completing projects this year and then next year with the additional funding thank you Miss Sutton don't go anywhere though because you're up next resolution to the opposition of uh HP 219 Charter School omnibus hold on just um so I've provided in your packet a resolution that I would like for the board to consider approving and signing this is related to a house bill 219 that shifts more public school funding over to Charter Schools So currently the system requires us to share our Revenue that we receive from the county and fines and forfeitures with our Charter Schools based on their student enrollment that we've talked about previously this new bill is going to require additional funding that they're currently
314Revenue funding that they don't have access to us to share those funds really related to program specific funding that we receive and so some of the examples and you see it in the resolution there but and I won't read all of that but some of the examples of funding that we would have to share would be donations so if we receive donations from the community we would have to give the charter schools part of that donation if that's the 25 000 from Hendrick yes yes so that's a very good exam example so Charter Schools based on their current enrollment would get seven percent of that 25 000. now the other thing to keep in mind is normally when people donate money they have a specific reason that they're donating the money and they expect their
315whole 25 000 to go towards what they're giving the money for but if this goes into place we would be required to give Charter Schools their seven percent so we would have to find that seven percent from somewhere else to be able to pay them that money and that's a small that's a small donation this think about Pre-K so we get Head Start Federal Pre-K money we get ins we get um local Pre-K money from the County Commissioners and right now because that Revenue we receive is for specific purpose for specific kids that we serve we're not required to share that money with um the charter schools this bill would require us to share that money Headstart is not going to let us take their money and give it to Charter Schools so we would
316have to find funding from somewhere else within our budget to provide that funding to the charter schools to be in compliance with this bill the other big thing to me in this bill is fund balance we will be required to share our fund balance Appropriations so think about whenever we receive money from the county right now I give the charter schools their seven percent this bill would require us when we if we don't use all of our money and we have savings at the end of the year it goes into fund balance which is for example like a savings account for us whenever we decided to use that savings that we set aside for ourselves we would have to give the charter school seven percent of that too so they got it on the initial
317revenue and they would get it again on the appropriation of our savings when we use that in our budget so those are the big areas that cause me some concern with this house bill and so I just bring this to you for consideration for um to sign off on the resolution so that we can submit that to the state I'm showing our opposition to this bill as a as a board what members we have any questions yeah I just wanted to point out too that under the Pre-K classrooms section where it said that Charter Schools can apply for the funds directly and they don't have to share with us you know so it's just they just got their hand out they need to close perhaps Barnhart um I I definitely see the concern and I
318doubt I would like to see I'm hesitant to sign an opposition because what I like to do is like to say this is what we want to see so I definitely have when I've had conversations like see it separate entirely versus US be like the middleman funding um that's just my personal uh difference of but I I'm hesitant signing an opposition of this we're going to oppose people who are the people making decisions that we get funding too so that's my only hesitation but I think we should definitely have a consensus that we're advocating for support for homes public and separation of what sorry thank you no I was um I am in full support of this because one right here they don't have to do the same for us so and we know that
319we provide services they don't have to provide and I just don't this is more of just taking money from the larger system to give to Charter Schools when it's not reciprocal and I just don't I don't care who's sponsoring this bill I would never be supportive of taking funds from public schools it's just wrong that's so thank you Miss Walker Mr Bradford I just wanted to add in there we've already written a resolution in opposition to our legislators when we did the calendar that we're saying we don't like your calendar law and we're in opposition to it so that's true Miss Bradford and actually I I agree 100 I'm against all those things but I kind of feel like Miss Barnhart um are there other counties that are doing this what we did with the
320resolution you know we we kind of got in line with some others so we had we had some clout um I you know we can take a delegation to Raleigh and talk one-on-one about this do you know where it is is it stuck in a committee now because a lot of these things get changed enormous amount over the time they stay in committees and they never come out of committee unless they have enough votes but I can't imagine any County in in North Carolina would be in favor of these Charter School measures it just they're just gutting us so is the resolution the best way to attack this thing is what I'm asking you I'll leave that up to the board Mr craigville so at the spring law conference this was a topic of discussion
321and the ncsba took a hard stance on um that they want they think we should be in opposition to this and I'm happy to share those um the notes from that that topic Mr McManus are our legislative branch right and Miss Walker well so you would like us to I mean I'll explain one more so the difference to me when I'm reading this is this is an active bill versus the calendar was a resolution that we came to say this is something we want to advocate for so this I would like if if we wanted to come back to say to have a consensus resolution of we're going to actively say instead of us being the middleman you're directly fund Charter directly fund to us like don't make it I I would be in support
322of that and I have had actually that exact discussion of saying this is a concern this is why is it why it's a concern so um the four of us had that conversation with one of our local Representatives on Wednesday when we were there so let's sign well um but you didn't want to sign them no that was separating out Charter from so that we get out our pot of money is our pot and their pots their pot I can Advocate all day long for that but is there a pot come from us to make their own pop I mean they're part of our money why don't we go go ahead and call the question so uh there's first off would somebody would like to make a motion we don't have a motion yet so
323miss crabill I'd like to make a motion that we adopt this resolution as presented by Miss um Sutton okay we have a first we have a second second it's Walker seconds uh we've discussed it any other further discussion if not miss uh Bowie would you call the roll please miss Graybill yes Miss Walker yes Mr McManus yes Miss Mason no Miss Bradford no Mr wildabour yes and Miss Barnhart no sort of passes one two three four it passes four to three so we will sign it okay carrying on finance committee update oh there it is um we had the thank you Mr I'm sorry thank you we had the inaugural meeting of the finance committee which was created by the old board and we didn't have a whole lot of Direction but Miss Walker found
324some the members um from your board are Mr McManus Miss Walker and myself and um we had I I believe our meeting was it was a great success we got a super understanding of everything except salaries that we're going to be in the budget so that we're not all confused we separated those out and we looked at everything that was being spent except for salaries in that meeting um Dr Faison and Dr Faust unveiled um their plan to tutor fourth graders in math at our two lowest performing schools um the very you know and and in that in those meetings we had those couple of days we said hey let's let's have a field trip let's go to Raleigh and no one was excluded everyone could have gone um but four of us ended up
325going we had the opportunity Dr Faust presented that to a number of either Representatives or senators and we got very favorable remarks on it it was a hugely successful day and it all started in the finance committee um we don't have another one planned or we're going to see what happens after the budget cycle and we discovered that Ms Walker you may have to help me out we needed to add some members out of the community and so that's something that we have to do if we next time we meet yeah I the email I'm reading that I sent to the I'm sorry no no you're good um basically toxic in our policy it talks about the finance committee and it talks about a representative from each School level elementary middle and high and I
326think the superintendent maybe advised us that it would be better with different members Dr Faust yeah you want to elaborate on that or does that something we need to send back to policy we would need a change policy for that okay all right so can we get that on policy it's great build so just to offer some um This was um proposed that this finance committee was actually proposed by By Me based on some conversations that I had had at some ncsba conferences and working with Miss Sutton and um the warding was put together based on that and it was it was meant to replace the budget committee which is just all of us sitting down and talking about the budget so why would we have a committee when we're all going to meet anyway
327so that's where that came from and it does say in there that we that on who the membership is supposed to be so maybe that that just they just didn't get invited to the first meeting but it it clearly lays out what our what our policy says about the membership is two board members the Chief Financial Officer three individuals from the senior leadership team and a representative from each School level elementary middle and high so that was the purpose of the the finance committee and basically for the three board members to learn more about and then to sort of be like the whip you know tell the rest of us what's going on um and ahead of time so that um when we have budget discussions and and other and just and to kind of
328give you know more feedback on a regular basis so that was what the the intent was very much Miss Walker so I so I'm you know I'm kind of taken the lead from the superintendent here on this like when we when we had our financing meeting we I read this out loud and we didn't have those people on here and it was our first meeting so I mean I don't I guess can we just talk about it at policy maybe superintendent can help figure out who else should be on there I mean I didn't form what do you want to talk about like taking people off adding more people yeah adding so I guess I'm confused that we we just didn't have the right membership at the first meeting because we didn't know who to
329invite is that what the is that what the issue is we did not have someone from each level elementary middle and high okay so we just didn't invite them we forgot no we didn't forget we actually because nobody could tell us exactly what the finance committee was going to do so we were just feeling our way in the dark and it was a hugely successful and I know I watched okay we're gonna carry on if you don't mind at this point uh with the Head Start report um so this is the head start March report um looking at some of the things I know since we just had our meeting earlier for training the attendance was really important so we're at the 85 daily attendance which is wonderful and tomorrow we're actually meeting to discuss
330with the policy Council and we'll be sharing the results of the audit and so I'll be sharing that with you in the next board report um but any questions that you guys have if not we will carry on with the legislative committee I believe that's also you it is and I apologize that um so the legislative we're first meeting and we the calendar resolution that the board adapt and acknowledge where um are some of our reps actually took that up to create a house bill and that has passed through the house and it's in the senate for support or death depending on what happens um but that we discussed that the committee would be the responsible party for creating resolutions discuss the opportunity for having remote learning days and and the large focus of discussion
331just because I think there's a lot of excitement was supporting our priority schools because while funding we know is necessary we have the most amount of funding and we now have 30 percent of our district as high as priority and so with that being said we have to look at to what we're doing and reevaluate and refocus so that we have a plan to promote academic growth and so when I was discussing creating an agenda what I had asked Dr Faust and the team I said if there was money how would you target intervention so that we don't have any priority schools in our district and so with that they took the ground running and shared some ideas that we could advocate for for funding with touch points of what that would look like and
332how it would be used versus it just being a hypothetical situation of course nobody wants any failing schools nobody wants under under performance of students and so we discussed that and with that we kind of ran short on time but um that we were going to discuss legislation which has caused um lots of discussion with the parents Bill of Rights and so we kind of went through some talking points of concerns and areas of interest for that um as well as moving forward the district priorities for this committee some of the things that we discussed was to have a round table discussion with our central office as well as to discuss the results of our surveys from the teacher satisfaction surveys of the different things that we can do and the priorities that we can
333have with our strategic plan about areas of interest that we have to advocate for as well as expand that to a southeastern regional with some of our surrounding superintendents and if there is legislative committees on on other boards great or board chair that we can come collectively sit down to discuss some of the commonalities of intersection of support that we would like to see changed I know there's been a lot of discussions with allotment formulas being being messed up for lack of a better word and so really to have some consensus of what that looks like to rebuild to advocate for again with the plan and then as we move forward to have a legislative lunch with the legislative agenda of different things that we are supporting and advocating for so kind of the recap
334Scrabble yeah so I um I attended that meeting was a great meeting there was a lot a lot of information that was shared the um one of the things I wanted to just add like so the whole board could hear before your next meeting is that um it was the intent of this board when we wrote this policy that we the board the legislative committee would bring to the board issues that we needed to like Pat's gutter binder and all the different you know she's on the on the um on the list serve to get you know all the updates and things but and it was not for that was not supposed to be a place and maybe I'm wrong you guys can jump in um McManus and Walker and wildeborg that it was not
335to be a place for the legislative committee to bring to the school system ideas it was the other way around so I just wanted to make sure that when we go to Raleigh you know to talk to our legislators you knew on both sides of the aisle that the whole board you know has a chance to weigh in on that that the policy committee I mean the legislative committee is not allowed to take action without the whole board so that I mean I brought that up at the meeting as well so I just wanted the rest of the board to um you know have that information and perhaps weigh in anyone wanted to weigh in they were talking so they didn't hear me I mean to to that acknowledgment I just want to say you
336know what I'm doing yeah the question became it was asking of staff to say what does it look like so this was not you know Josie Direct you're willing to do I said we have a lot of we have 30 of our schools underperforming what if we had a plan what would that look like and so that's where the conversation became um and we don't have the money to fulfill it and so then it started saying well how can we do this what does it look like and the the more information that we have um and I had planned a trip to go up to Raleigh on the 29th because that fit my personal schedule and then some others said they wanted to join and it ended up Dr Faust was able to explain himself
337and say this is the plan this is how we're going to get there and when we get there we want to be the district that leads other districts to turn around so that there's no other and it was um great because I didn't have to do any explaining of anything but um yeah I just want to say I did all the asking the legislative team did not do any asking other than just cordial um conversations and that would that was very very good let me just say he did a lot of asking he's got good stuff to bring back from from that day absolutely absolutely I mean I was paying attention when we were just anyway I was just um the legislative committee wasn't Stephanie Adams bring and I I think this was our first
338meeting and hopefully going forward reason we made it bipartisan is because we have leaders from both sides of the island do serve here locally in state and so if we're making trips like this I think we need to be more I think informative to everyone that maybe can go I was never invited and that's fine I don't have to go to everything and it's okay I have conversations as well but I think going forward I think it's a good idea to give updates from legislative on what our bills are and I think we've just had our first meeting let's just look at what we did what we can do better and then maybe you know it can be what it's supposed to be I think I haven't read the the description but I definitely think
339it was needed when we when we'd approved it so anything we can do to get more money for our schools I think is is great and I'm on board with that better we didn't exclude anyone and we didn't actually go as the legislative committee the chairman went we went as a we went as a we went as a as board members and it was spontaneous it's just one of those things and I know um it wasn't the legislative committee so no actually Mr wildebear is not on the legislative committee he was announced it and we'll carry on now with Miss Mason she's going to share with us about the AIG committee please that's all right a bit short because it is late um I had an amazing opportunity to go to the gifted advisory committee
340meeting um or back in March or in April no gee first um and I learned um about some of their site visits that they've gotten to do the most recent one that they had gone on was to Alderman Elementary and it was um overall a positive experience but some of the frustrations that they had were that the space at that particular site was very small was very distracting um and so that was one of the concerns that they brought forward but um the kids at the visit they said were amazing they said that the AIG classroom has allowed them the opportunity to grow and explore interests which is great to hear um their most recent site visit was on the um principle when when I was a principal for a day so I wasn't able
341to attend the second site visit on the 22nd they went to New Hanover High School um one of the comments was that the students have to be advocates for themselves so I'm guessing that that not having spoken with them I don't want to make any assumptions um some students felt prepared some do not um but I think that the more that we discuss it we'll find more about the other next meeting for the site visit for the advisory Council for exceptional students that was also a phenomenal meeting we have some great work happening there they're really trying to make resources available for parents who are just finding out their kids have these diagnoses kids that have IEPs and um really just providing them with the resources and the contact people to go to because it's
342a lot to handle when you first get that but the important thing that I wanted to share with everyone is that the New Hanover County School Board advisory Council for exceptional students um in partnership with the New Hanover County Schools representation will host an online parent Forum the evening of May 18th to discuss important topics related to special education in our district this forum will be an opportunity for parents to learn more about specific topics as well as share their feedback so I think that that's a great opportunity I hate that this is so late and I'm hopeful that people will see that because I think it's going to be a good resource for our for our parents well thank you very much thank you very much does anybody have any correspondence nope okay we're
343going to carry on with announcements um we do have one additional one that is isn't here but the policy committee will meet on Tuesday April 18th 10 a.m at the Board of Education uh 1805 South 13th Street general public will have an option to view remotely on nhcs tv YouTube uh also on that day we will have our town hall meeting so that'll be on the uh Tuesday April 18th um and then the May regular board meeting will be held on Tuesday May 2nd 5 PM Board of Education Center 1805 South 13th Street the general public will have option to review and just when you thought we were done we're not um we have a closed session so I call I'm calling for a motion to go into closed session pursuant to NC General statute
344143-318 11 A1 3 and 6 to consider Personnel matters and maintain the confidentiality of personal records under at North Carolina General statute 115c the s319 through 321 to prevent the disclosure of student identific education records and personal identify and identifiables information rendered confidential under the family education rights and Privacy Act 20 USC one three two one two three two G and to consult with the board's attorney and preserve the attorney client privilege do I hear a motion please somebody it's Mason thank you make that motion and I'll second that all in favor please signify by saying aye aye and he be opposed pastor 7-0 we are in closed session okay and they thought you said you got 165. 916. there it is thank you foreign things foreign there's nobody out there thank you foreign put
345down there [Music] with me Open Session move to adjourn second please signify by saying hi oh yeah thank you