001you are here before I begin I would like to share a few reminders please keep the aisles clear during our meeting to allow members of the school system and the sheriff's department to move about also except for when honoring the flag our opening prayer and participating in the cold audience please remain seated during our meeting we hope to have a productive and efficient meeting and your help is greatly appreciated thank you very much and again thank you for being here this evening at this time we will ask Ms Bowie to call the roll good evening Pete wildebear present Pat Bradford I am Josie Barnhart here Stephanie crabill Melissa Mason here Hugh McManus and Stephanie Walker here thank you very much uh I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda so moved so moved by
002Ms Bradford do we hear a second [Music] oh I'm sorry yes ma'am um to add a student voice back in to the agenda and I I think we put it after recognitions we'll do that after recognition is there a second I'll second okay you beat me to it second all in favor of adding student voice uh that will be added again right after recognitions uh all in favor please signify by saying aye all opposed passes seven zero uh with that change uh we do have a motion and I think the Scrabble would you mind continue with your second on that oh yeah yeah second all in favor of approving agenda signify by I I all opposed again passes seven zero at this time if you would uh please join us as we stand and have
003our invocation by the Reverend Angela Walker thank you for being here this evening good evening let us pray dear Lord Heavenly Father we just come before the throne room of mercy and Grace tonight we acknowledge Lord father that you are sovereign God we acknowledge Lord father that you sit on the throne of mercy and Grace and that you are high and lifted up Lord father as we go forth in this in this meeting tonight I invite your holy presence to dwell Among Us Lord father saturate us in a very Mighty way that everybody at the sun of my voice would experience a mighty move of your power and your presence Lord God and filtrate the hearts and the lives of every person here Lord father help us to remember Lord God that you are in
004control of all things and nothing escapes you you know in advance how this is going to turn out tonight and Lord father I just pray right now that you would be mindful of the people that are here and help them to be mindful Lord God help them to be mindful of the way they conduct themselves that they would conduct themselves in a holy manner Lord father reminding each person to be respectful to be honorable to be truthful and Lord father to display Christian values Lord God lord father we love you Lord father tonight I pray against any demonic demon devil tactic Lord father that is set up here tonight Lord father we acknowledge Lord father that the enemy plants itself here to disrupt to dishonor to dis to provide Discord and Chaos Lord father I
005tear down every stronghold of the enemy tonight Lord God and we just acknowledge your presence here because Lord father where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and I thank you Lord God for the opportunity to come before you tonight I pray raise your mighty name and I glorify you because you are king of kings and you are Lord of lords and Lord father I just pray peace be still tonight Lord God let peace Rule and reign in this place tonight as we glorify you and we thank you in Jesus name amen amen thank you Reverend Walker at this time we will have the Hoggard High School Junior ROTC Color Guard unit providing the presentation of colors it's in the direction of Commander David Everett and staff sergeant gachardo principal Mary Paul Beal
006March last thanks the national anthem will be performed by the Ashley High School band under the direction of Robert Parker [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] colors Ready Cut helicar Porter Ellers thank you ready ready a word March I pledge allegiance this evening will be led by a board member Melissa Mason congratulations of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you may be seated at this time I've asked a colored guard to come back up and introduce themselves to us and also the Ashley band thank you I'm Cadet Ensign Giles I'm in 11th grade at Harvard High School I'm an 11th grader at hogger High School Cadet petty officer third class McAuliffe and I'm in ninth
007grade at Harvard High School [Applause] my name is Jasper Schultz I am a clarinetist bass clariness at Ashley High School my name is Jackson Kennedy I am a tuba player at Ashley high school and I'm in 11th grade my name is Brandon Scheck I'm a euphonium player at Ashley high school and I am in 10th Grade I'm Karis McCray I'm an L to the saxophone player I'm in 12th grade at Ashley High School [Applause] again thank you all for being here this evening thank you very much we will continue with recognitions and introductions caress I believe is going to be leading that there she is I can find you I'm sorry good evening Boardman with our recognitions for the month of March bear with me we do have quite a few to recognize for their
008excellence in the district first up I would like to recognize Kim lizotto Kim graduated from the North Carolina Association of school business officers Academy earning a school business director certification this program is focused on North Carolina School finance and certification requires the completion of 21 courses with an assessment of each at this time I'd like to welcome Kim to collect her certificate [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] last month we were able to recognize our UNC Catalyst conference attendees and our Hobie leadership seminars attendees from both Laney and New Hanover High School this month I am proud to recognize those from Hoggard and Ashley powered by college students to empower high school students the University of North Carolina Catalyst conference connects North Carolina's next generation of catalysts for a positive change during a weekend at UNC Chapel
009Hill go Tar Heels students develop leadership skills and awareness of issues impacting today's society the following nhcs students will be attending Leah delange from Ashley high school and Sophie dickers from Hoggard High School foreign [Music] leadership seminar at North Carolina State University the North Carolina Hobie leadership seminar is a three-day leadership program for approximately 140 Rising High School juniors held each June in Raleigh Hobie ambassadors have an opportunity to develop their critical thinking skills learn about their leadership styles and form an appreciation for community service they attend panel sessions featuring prominent speakers from our government businesses media and educational communities they participate in leadership development workshops and activities when these students return they serve as ambassadors to their populations eager to impact their their schools positively congratulations to the following student Caitlin Foy of Ashley
010High School [Applause] [Music] Lincoln Woodall of Ashley High School Krish Mishra of Hoggard High School and the parna dulip Pala of Hoggard High School [Applause] congratulations to these students congratulations to Roland Rice Middle School on winning their second black history Bowl championship your impressive achievement is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the students teacher and staff and void involved in the competition by demonstrating your knowledge and appreciation of black history and culture you have shown the importance of celebrating diversity and promoting inclusivity in our society your success is not just a reflection of your academic Excellence but also a source of an inspiration for others to follow keep up the great work and continue to make a positive impact in your community and Beyond congratulations and I welcome up the Roland Rice
011Middle School black history Bowl team [Music] thank you [Applause] so we're missing a few but this is the amazing Liza Blackburn and Jack Snowden and we're missing Max Pollock Ingrid rhodus roses and um thank you Eduardo Flores sorry I just got stage right but I'm in awe of these children I just cheer for them [Applause] oh thank you I'm going to stand in for Chris for just a moment and as I do I'd ask the communications and Outreach team to go ahead and come forward and as they do these are the folks that tell the stories of our students our staff our community they're behind the camera they're behind the keyboard they're behind our social media platforms they stream these meetings they keep our websites running of which there are 4 000 plus individual Pages
012they answer questions in the media they manage public relations they bring in invaluable contributions donations they enhance Our Community Partnerships last month this team took home 30 awards at the North Carolina school public relations award Association ceremony and the most gold Awards of any District in the state of North Carolina in addition to one bronze and 12 silver Awards they received gold awards for the following work and I'm going to use my Auctioneer voice here because we still have more to get to Caleb price and Anita baggy digital media engagement for the all hands on deck Community Partnership and engagement Caleb price best of nhcs community partner newsletter Anita baggy digital media engagement for the nhcs curriculum and instruction webpage Kevin Hubbard and Chase Fulton Electronic media for National School Social Work appreciation videos Kevin
013Hubbard Electronic media for Hispanic heritage class videos Chase Fulton Electronic media for learning targets videos cares clay graphic design for the nhcs crisis protocol caress Clegg Russell Clark and Kevin Hubbard Electronic media for the nhcs recap video series Russell Clark Kevin Hubbard and Chase Fulton electronic media for the nhcs Insight video series and finally Christina beam won the best of the best writing award for the second year in a row for her piece still she Rose Black History Month through Angela Henry's Wilmington additionally Christina took home excellence in writing for right alongside you Ann Hughes excellence in writing for forever their angel remembering Bellamy teacher Rachel Mack publication of the 2022 annual report photography for the first day selfie graphic design for the district instructional framework graphic design for coveted relief funds board members colleagues
014and guests this is the best school communication team in the state of North Carolina I would pit them against any in the country I'm honored I'm humbled to work with them every 18 congratulations [Music] [Applause] okay good thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] at this time we would not like to recognize our 44 national board certified teachers who have renewed maintained their national board certification this accomplishment is a testament to these individuals High Caliber and classroom practices they have achieved the highest recognition as a teacher though this honor is reflective of each individual who has achieved their national awards we know that our students of New Hanover County will be the true beneficiaries at this time we ask the following individuals to come up Brittany Barton of Castle Hayne Elementary Rosalie serverney of Castle Hayne Elementary
015[Music] [Applause] [Music] Lori Lynn Gerard of Murray Middle School [Music] [Applause] Lisa klingson Smith of Coddington Elementary School [Applause] Heather Bastian Anderson Elementary School [Applause] Dora Davis Ashley High School [Applause] Dana Wolfe Ashley High School Janine Romero Forest Hills Elementary School Christine go Bellamy Elementary School [Applause] Wendy Lewis Bellamy Elementary School thank you Jeremy Milligan Holly Shelter Middle School Jennifer Booth International School of Gregory Leticia Kirby Isaac bear Early College High School I was beginning to think no one else showed up Stephanie Cruz John T hoggart High School Ann Sinclair Hoggard High School [Music] Lauren flight Murrayville Elementary School Peter hunt Murrayville Elementary School Allison red Myrtle Grove Middle School formally of Myrtle Grove Middle School currently NC North Carolina in hgs Math League still on your certificate Maureen Hill literacy Lead Teacher [Applause] Ashley
016Hawkins Pine Valley Elementary School [Applause] Kristen Boberg Masonboro Elementary School Michelle Rapp Masonboro Elementary School foreign Delaney Wrightsboro Elementary School [Music] and our final one that is here in attendance Brent Hall Winter Park Elementary School [Music] and just an extra congratulations to bran Brink Mr Hall currently serves as the principal of Winter Park it's not very often you see principals who continue their national board certification so congratulations to Mr Hall [Applause] [Music] thank you congratulations you're welcome just a few more to get through I am honored to recognize Kristen Thacker can Kristen come up [Music] Miss Thacker is the athletic trainer at Laney High School while at a wrestling match her heroic action has saved a life her quick thinking and decision action helped to prevent a tragedy and demonstrated the importance of first aid
017and CPR training Miss thacker's actions served as a shining example of the importance of first aid and CPR particularly in high stress environments such as sports events her bravery and dedication to her profession or an inspiration to all of us and a reminder of the critical role that athletic trainers play in ensuring the safety and well-being of the athletes and Spectators alike that they support on behalf of all of those whose life she has touched I said my heartfelt gratitude and recognition to Christopher Thacker for her life-saving measures at a railing a Laney wrestling match this year for her selfless and heroic actions [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] foreign wrestling team come up [Applause] so this has become a tradition here for the past three years I have been able to write
018the speeches and recognize Laney High School wrestling team I am I am thrilled to it's saying congratulations to each and every one of you for your outstanding achievement of winning your third consecutive State wrestling championship your hard work [Music] your hard work determination and dedication to the sport have paid off in the most incredible way possible your success is a testament to your exceptional skills teamwork and sportsmanship you have shown that with perseverance passion and grit anything is possible your performances were truly exceptional and you have made your school and Community proud not only on the mat but also in the classroom you have set a high standard with 19 scholar athletes for other teams to follow 19. scholar athletes foreign congratulations on another remarkable season and I'm just going to go down the line
019and say everyone's name there's 44 so bear with me congratulations uh and all their certificates you can give them to coach Adams and he can give them out Donovan amens Aiden Arrington Timothy Betts Mason Blue Grant Bradshaw Nicholas Brodeur Tyler and Avery bonacor Jenny bugbee Tristan Cotto Chris Cruz Zach Flournoy Florida Ben Garrett Tommy Gillespie Harry Godwin Alex Hopper Evelyn Hong Marquis Kelly Mia Kaiser Matt koppeman Sam koppelman Samuel McQueen Kingston Neil Santiago pacio Pacheco apologies Elena Pollock Noah Riley Christian Richardson Daniela and Cynthia Orlando Jacob Rosen Asante Ross Ty Rutherford Katie Simmons Katie Smith Caden Smith apologies Ethan Strickland Robbie tan Eli Thomas Noah Thomas Holden Walker Dylan Webb and Michael Williams and a special congrats to Elena Pollock on winning women's Invitational Championship this year [Applause] while you guys stay up here I
020would like to acknowledge your coach coach Adams I met coach Adams probably over a decade ago when he was MMA wrestling in Wilmington he used to come into a restaurant that I worked at every week at least once a week and order a six egg Tex-Mex omelette blackened chicken onions Peppers mushroom with a side of salsa and sour cream on the side like clockwork and our um our restaurant sponsored him in his MMA fighting so what I learned early on was about his dedication his determination and his grip it is with that all here I'm here to congratulate coach Andre Adams for being named North Carolina wrestling Association Coach of the Year this is a tremendous honor and a testament to coaches Adams hard work dedication and leadership in the sport of wrestling coach Adams
021commitment to his athletes and his team has clearly paid off and his coaching skills and strategies have helped guide his guide his wrestlers to success on the mat and in the classroom his ability to inspire and motivate his team to perform at their best is a true reflection of his passion for the sport and his commitment to helping his athletes reach their full potential once again congratulations to coach Andre Adams on this well-deserved recognition as North Carolina wrestling Association coach of the year he is truly an inspiration to his athletes and the wrestling Community as a whole and at this time coach Adams I want to give you a minute to say a few words [Applause] thank you um not really sure how I follow all that but um I'd just like to thank you
022guys again for having us today we are proud to be able to bring back the highest achievement of our sport to New Hanover County and Laney High School for the third time this season which was filled with adversity truly showed the power of determination and belief as the whole state counted us out this season we fought to become the five-time mid-eastern Conference champions five-time Eastern Regional Conference champions dual team State runner-up and as you know the three-time individual tournament state champions this season we also had a boom in our female participation we went from two to eight wrestlers this year finished fifth as a team in their individual Invitational championship and had uh four go to the Invitational championship with the boom of women's wrestling we are excited for next season that will be the
023first official year of women's wrestling being section SC already had Jesus Jesus as we have so much success with our program we sometimes forget the other important statistics of our accomplishments she recognized that we had 19 members of our team become scholar athletes that's maintaining above a 3.5 GPA 10 of which had above a 4.0 three out of our six State placers this year were scholar athletes including both of our state champions Avery bonacor and Alex Hopper [Applause] [Music] both of which embodied the overall goal of a of our coaching to use our sport to create better young men and women we look forward to upholding the standard to the best of our abilities and will always take pride in representing Laney in New Hanover County thank you [Applause] [Music] that concludes our recognitions for
024the evening thank you and please give our our recognitions another round of applause okay [Applause] um thank you [Applause] at this time I will call Dr Barnes up for the administrative in not doing that okay we're gonna skip right over that we will go on to our superintendents report Dr Foust yes ma'am oh yes I'm sorry at this point we will have our student voice presentation thank you hi my name is Cassie Thompson and I'm a junior in high school hi I'm Simon Bond and I'm also a junior I'm Olive Pollock and I'm a junior well we're all Ops team a team of students working towards greater collaboration and co-creation with adult decision makers in New Hanover County Schools thank you so much for your patience and support throughout this process we are so grateful
025for our designated space to speak at each board meeting we just wanted to give you all an update on what we've been working on since our policy was passed in October moving forward in case of conflicting schedules we will always have a represented some way meaning or such as this video after a short break our group of students has been crafting an interest form to send out to middle and high school students informing them on student voice opportunities outlining our policy and Gathering data on how many students want to join each structure such as the Committees we we're going to present this form at the next principal's meeting in April asking for support and distributing the form in whatever ways are most effective at each School Once We Gather the data about student interest we
026will report to Mr Johnson another thing we've been working on is coordinating with Mrs clagg to set up a student voice website for students to find information about our policy joining structures and how they can get involved we are also in the process of coordinating a meeting with Mr Johnson and Equity team leaders Abby Nobles and Brian Jones to discuss the logistics of implementation and specifically a yearly Summit for students involved in school Equity teams and other structures outlined in our policy our goal is to reach all types of students to create a diverse student representation from every middle and high school to collaborate with adult decision makers and use their voices to create effective and efficient communication between students and adults as students we want to make sure decisions made for us are made
027with us in a safe and productive space which we are excited that our policy will allow us to do every student has a unique perspective and valuable insight to share about their educational experience that can greatly benefit the school board we thank you again for supporting us and working so hard to give students a New Hanover County and exemplary education thank you bye-bye [Applause] in the months to come at this time we will carry on with our Stu our superintendent uh and his report good evening um first I want to start with we're excited to announce our upcoming principal of the day event on March 22nd which is aligned with our strategic plan to cultivate strong Community Partnerships for the benefit of our students this event which we planned in collaboration with the Chamber of
028Commerce offers the elected officials and Community leaders and unparalleled chants to Shadow our principles and directly observe their day-to-day operations Our Community Partnerships are essential to us and we are proud of the work and we're proud to work with a diverse group of leaders from local businesses non-profit organizations and government agencies we believe that this event will further strengthen these relationships and help us ensure that our students have the resources and support they need to succeed both in and Beyond School next is budget planning the budget planning process involves several meetings including finance committee meeting a budget work session with the entire board and Senior staff and our regular board meetings where we proposed and finalized budget drafts are presented for approval the final budget is then presented to the County Commissioners for consideration and
029approval this is our local budget the current Year's funding sources were distributed distributed as followed 43 of our budget is from the state 20 from our federal government and 24 from our County and 13 with this is a combination of Capital School fund services and fund balance appropriation throughout the budget process we use the Strategic plan as a guide to ensure that resources are allocated in a way that supports the goals and priorities of the school district as I mentioned last month we have proactively initiated a right-size effort across all divisions to ensure that we can maintain a balanced budget part of this effort will result in a 10 reduction in all division budgets this is necessary due to several factors including State mandated increases to salaries Rising costs of retirement medical benefits and other
030expenses as well as a decrease in student enrollment additionally our student population has of course decreased from approximately 26 000 students to approximately 25 000 which has affected our funding for the upcoming fiscal year to balance the 2223 budget that's our current budget we'd use 4 million from our fund balance to appropriate as a result we must scale back our expenses this year to ensure that we maintain a balanced budget while providing our students with the resources they need to succeed principles principals have been meeting individually with our HR and finance departments to go over proposed changes to the allotment formulas as well as reduction in certain positions as a part of balancing the budget these proposed changes include staff reductions at school as well as central office just an update um I just want
031to give some information on call to the audience last month and then yesterday we ran into some um technical difficulties on one and then some I'll say human error on the other in January they were when we opened up call to the audience there were so many people that signed in sometime at the same second that they weren't able to stop at the 30s so that's why it led over into the other so then this time we were putting in the some added information from from the board and deleted part of the link and so when it was time to open it wasn't connecting the Google form wasn't connecting from one site to the next site so we had to go back in put the link back in updated and so those individuals had to
032refresh individuals have reached out to board members if you sent us the email we reached back out to those individuals to make sure that they were on the call to the audience at the time that we I think probably about 10 o'clock or so when we looked at it they were 21 and then we looked again today it's like 25 individuals had signed up at that time so if we had missed anyone we were asking them to reach back out to our um our offices then we were going to put them we'll put them back in one of the things that we are looking at is how do we um allow it to do it automatically and so those are some things that we'll be investigating as we um pursue but it is um it
033does get overwhelming on Mondays so we want to thank all of those who were working yesterday and there were a lot of people who were trying oh my gosh to make this thing work and make it work effectively but there were I'll be honest with you there was no scheming or anything behind the scenes it was literally um the link got cut off half as we were cutting and pasting it into the new one but we're going to be really and truly investigating what it looks like looking at an automated system so that it will do its own thing and not a no one has to start it and stop it at those times that concludes my information and I'll turn it back over to you thank you Dr fasta I do appreciate that and
034thank you for letting us know about what's going on with called audience um next we have the board chairperson's report it was a busy month first I'd like to thank my fellow board members who reached out and shared their schedules with me you have been very very busy uh some highlights from my month we had school visits I was had a great time I went to Williston to Freeman sat down with a new principal there Wrightsboro Murrayville Trask Laney and Castle Hayne so I was at several schools I'm going to continue to try to get out to schools as much as possible you know that is one of the best things you know one of the things I enjoy most about this job is going back and seeing students working hard and teachers working hard
035with them others working hard with them so we do thank our staff for all their hard work and students you'll see me again I also stopped by Wrightsboro for the read Across America parade I got there right on the nick of time so we thank you thanks principal Overby for putting that on and for inviting us to come out to it as was mentioned a minute ago the black history bowl at Williston we do thank principal Madden for hosting that congratulations to all the competing teams it was one match that I saw that went into overtime and it was I think Trask and Willison and it was quite the match uh last round of overtime and one of the Young Folks from Willison pulled out that pulled out the answer so congratulations to all the
036teams that participated in that and of course a special uh congratulations Ron Grice on winning that I met with the Cape Fear Community College president and chairman of the Board of Trustees we had multiple discussions with the New Hanover County sheriff and his Department about meeting safety so I do thank all the deputies that are here this evening for all their hard work and also the sheriff meeting with a Board of Education meeting uh member excuse me Dr Faust and Community member about new and innovative ways to support our priority schools a great meeting we had and it was the beginning of hopefully many many more meetings about that multiple meetings with our County Commissioners concerning the budget we will have another one coming up this this week and we will be inviting more and
037more of the board members to take part in that I happen to walk into the CTE fair at Laney High School I do want to thank Principal Little for inviting me over there and boy I tell you what a great great event that was the gentleman who was in charge the CTE director over at Laney shared with me that it used to be that they would bring a busload or maybe two bus loads of students to Cape Fear now they bring Cape Fear to Laney or to the other high schools and they're able to have over a thousand students find out all about CTE things so just phenomenal I spent I think 45 minutes there walking around talking to folks thanking for being there but it was awesome and lastly I attended the state of
038the county meeting yesterday uh and I think that was a very good and profitable meeting also that ends my board chairperson's report we are now at the call the audience I do want to read just a quick snippet before we start we are now at the call the audience portion of the meeting agenda the call to audience period will be one hour speakers will be recognized in order that they signed up each speaker will have two minutes present comments um please know that if uh public we have public comment opportunities at all our regular monthly meetings and you are welcome to provide input through emails or letters additionally and we will be setting dates for our public participation meetings later on in today's meeting so we will have three of those this year uh we'll
039be talking about exactly when they'll be uh whatever topic you choose to address please remember this is a public meeting of a governmental body as with all such meetings it's important we preserve order and decorum please also remember that we are a public school system and children may be in attendance or maybe watching from home I ask that all model civility mutual respect and orderly conduct in our words and actions today all points of view are welcome but profanity or derogatory language is not appropriate at this time I will turn it over to our vice chair to start our call the audience good evening Mr with Theresa Maples Theresa Maples good evening I'm here I'm here to encourage you with the word of God first John 1 5 says God is light and in him
040is no Darkness at all John 1 5 says light shines in the darkness and darkness cannot comprehend it or overpower it in Jesus name I pray you are encouraged as the Lord exposes ungodly policies and agendas bringing them to light I pray you are encouraged that you were hand-picked anointed and appointed for such a time as this when the hate mail comes I pray you keep your eyes on Jesus and you walk by faith not by sight I pray you know Jesus promises to lead you and guide you to advise you and to watch over you if only you ask as you stand for righteousness certain people will be upset you will be falsely accused even attacked personally as well as your business as I know one of you already has been but I pray
041you stand firm and you remember what Psalm 46 5 says it says God is within you you shall not be moved I pray this truth settles deep in your spirit in your soul so when you do what is right in the Lord's sight you truly will be unmovable and unshakable and I prayed the words of Jesus himself over you found in Matthew 5 verses 10 through 12 and 16. he says blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven but so they persecuted the prophets who were before you let your light so shine before men
042so that they may see your good works and glorify your father in Heaven in Jesus name Katie Gates good evening board I remain concerned Why books like stamped racism anti-racism and you still have space in the AP Lang curriculum I also wanted to point out that I have received no acknowledgment of receipt nor any response from the superintendent to my formal appeal regarding this book despite contacting them many times so back to this book stamped it really does present a biased view of history that claims America is irredeemably racist from its Inception while offering solutions that create division promote Reverse Racism and political activism we are a constitutional republic and that's not the way this country is designed to operate this book promotes and Praises social Marxism and profess Communists like Angela Davis it promotes
043and Praises political activism through strong use of persuasive rhetorical ethos students do need to learn about all of our U.S history The Good the Bad and the Ugly though history and Civics curriculums have failed us the 2021 Fordham Institute study graded North Carolina Standards in history with an f and a d-minus in Civics so what then are our kids learning about history here in North Carolina they're learning that our country is systemically racist from books like this presented in English class books that praise activism Over Law and Order praising mob rule over republicanism and federalism yet the school curriculum committee tells me this book was chosen because of its strong rhetoric and it being a stellar example of a persuasive argument they say it wasn't selected based on content well this is alarming as a
044parent because the constant content is being consumed and it is destructive and it is divisive and it's not compliant with District policy 3200 standards we live in the freest nation in the world with the most successful governing document of Any Nation only the Constitution biblical and moral principles stand in the way of tyranny let's celebrate what we have what made our nation great let's teach our kids to be aware of our country's mistakes and learn from them educate our children not indoctrinate them through books like stamped thank you thank you Ms Gates Judy Justice Judy Justice okay was going to talk about call to the audience but just listen over the last I'm sorry over the last two months New Hanover County Schools have repeatedly made the national news first for the attack on our
045lgbtq youth by preventing students from playing Middle School sports because of their gender identification next for the law breaking behavior of the white nationalist proud boys who are intentionally trying to intimidate and scare people now this week we are in an article in the Washington Post detailing the retaliation against one of our social studies teachers for teaching the real history of Christopher Columbus whose intent was when he reached America she was teaching using Columbus's own words as primary sources from a journal he wrote as he landed and took control of an island he wrote how easy it would be to enslave The Local Natives and that he had already done towed to several a parent complained because she said that her white son had been made to feel guilty for learning these facts when the
046teacher defended her Mission which is to teach facts the parent escalated the situation all the way to the central office where HR told her to stop teaching Real History they also put a disciplinary note in the teacher's file because she was trying to teach Real History teaching Real History is necessary for democracy to survive and thrive an authoritarian governments like Russia and China Iran people are lied to in their schools that way they can keep tight control of the citizens and prevent them from telling the truth and knowing the truth this happened last year while I was on the board the situation was a teacher we were never told by our superintendent in the HR department that that censorship had taken place I know that some of us on the board would have stepped in
047and prevented the retaliation against his teacher I also know that this teachers and others have been told by their leadership not to contact the board about this and other matters yet another reason that our experienced teachers are leaving in droves censorship and more are taking place in our classrooms under this leadership it is now your job to protect our teachers professional ability to educate our children with real facts not hide these facts from our students thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you for your time I've been thinking about many of the Board of Education discussions we've had over the past year or so regarding student behavior and strategies for successful learning for New Hanover County Elementary School students there have been many published reports this last month or so that are fairly disturbing and it
048occurred to me that maybe it would be wise if we had um more guidance counselors and also hired for screening purposes child family therapists I don't know if the school has any board the school district has any and who do they serve and where they located I think screening problem situations before they happen when they're identified as potentials would be a great service for the students the teachers the resource professionals guidance counselors for New Hanover County Schools um and I have talked to a therapist friend of mine who's worked in state hospitals in school districts around North Carolina and it can be very successful if there's a screening program in pre-k first grade areas so I would like you all to consider that along with hiring more teacher professionals guidance counselors and other support staff
049thank you [Applause] thank you Gail major good evening everyone as you know we've been working on the book grievance evidence has been combined in probably about two years now I am speaking you today because I have not received any response from any board member superintendent commissioners Title IX the Sheriff's Office I did get a call from the DA's office today which was very nice of them and I think I let some of you know that it looks like they want the burden to be on you which is where it is according to the grievance and I'll refer to 115 c9h which c98 which I referred to before it gives you the seven board members Soul Authority to make a decision look at the books according to how they've been given to you with the evidence
050there and formal committee I was hoping that I could hear a little bit of discussion about that maybe adding it to the agenda today but I see that's not happening do you understand the grievance do you understand the consequences if you do not respond have you been told that you lose your immunity if you have not perhaps you want to address your lawyer I'm not sure where that person is because the Trey Allen 10 page Act displays that clearly and do you know the penalty if it goes to civil a million dollars per item right now I have 73 books not saying that they're all going to meet civil that's your job to figure out what it means but I know darn well that these are awful they do not belong in the children's libraries
051and they have access through ebook thank you Miss major thank you Chris Sutton uh first congratulations to Lenny high school wrestling team for another championship and having 19 scholar athletes hopefully statistics like that will help secure stipends for women's wrestling coaches county-wide since that is currently up in the air one year I've been pushing for life back life back anti-choking devices to be in our schools one week out from finally having it discussed by the board I find out it's been pulled from the agenda and replaced due to an agreement being reached with Novant to cover the cost of anti-choking devices which is great but I have questions and when I reached out to Novant in the school district I was unable to receive the answers so please board members consider these questions tonight during
052the discussion did did they come to us or did we request it from them is this an inserted tracheal device a device that goes past the voice box or whether this stays outside applied to the like a plunger is this training is there specific training necessary for the device is that going to be offered for free for Novant or are we going to have to pay for it what is the lifetime of the device life back was a lifetime never expiration device how many devices are they giving us is there enough devices for each nurse's office because kids with low blood sugar eating a snack sometimes pass out and creates an major choking hazard that's a lot of cause deaths there are is there enough devices for EC classrooms where special needs children eat their
053food will we have some for athletic trainers since we just had meth Thatcher stable life in one way she might save a knife uh life in another way um next do due to our checkered history I got not much time due to our checkered history I'm asking for a change in policy anytime an investigation into inappropriate relations with the student ends and termination or resignation I'd like for the school board to go into closed session look over the evidence and vote on whether to refer to the state currently that is left up to the administration to decide unless mandated by state we can have this board vote after after the appeal process is satisfied and only for cases that Administration didn't send to the state in cases where the case is referred to the state
054by the administration the board should be briefed and given all evidence against the faculty member thank you [Applause] thank you two minutes is not a lot I show up monthly because I care about the teacher staff and students in our schools well I cannot speak to all my concerns in two minutes when I stand in front of you I can hope that you're listening many of you sitting up there were in my spot not too long ago and I'd like to think you'd appreciate the importance of the Public's voice you now you are wanting to limit it yes last month was intense but this month the call to the audience was open through noon today please don't go creating solutions to something that's not usually a problem it detracts from the important aspects of your
055job I looked up the code of ethics for board members and I wanted to highlight a few commitments each of you signed when you were sworn sworn in Endeavor to make policy decisions only after full discussion at publicly held board meetings allow controversial issues to be presented and considered fairly and without bias render all decisions based on the available facts an independent judgment and refuse to surrender that judgment to individuals or special interest groups represent the entire County without fear or bias remember always that a board Member's First and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of the students attending the public schools I've watched you all sign this code yet I'm not seeing all the members following it with Fidelity I see a number of you pushing personal agendas that are identical to special
056interest groups and not in the best interest of all students this cannot continue to happen board members must be advocates for local public education and in doing so they need to listen to the people who are face to face with our students daily teachers first then support staff at Administration they need to be your guide our students have one chance to get a solid education and it is the board's primary job to make sure they get it I'll start by giving my advice as a retired educator there is no program that can replace a caring human being in a classroom As you move into budget season look for ways to put more educator and staff in the buildings and support these people when you invest this way the students will be the ultimate winners work
057together and do what's right for the kids [Applause] good evening I'm sure some of you are wondering about my scraped nose and black eye last weekend Martin and I were walking our dogs and Carson the youngest lunged at a dog barking in the yard we were passing I was standing on gravel he pulled hard and I went down flat on my face so when we got home what did I do I could have locked Carson in his crate so he would be safe and not hurt anyone else I could never take him on a walk again I could send him to a shelter and hope he would be adopted by somebody else but I'm not I realized that Carson hasn't learned impulse control and as a result I got hurt he didn't mean to I
058was not prepared for his lagging skills I also was not honest with myself about my lagging skills we took dog training classes but I obviously needed more so now that I've identified the problem I'm establishing a plan to do more practice with the skills Carson and I need so that he will be able to go on walks without hurting himself or others I am not blaming Carson for not having these skills instead I'm taking a proactive approach this is very similar to what's happening in New Hanover County Schools we have children who haven't learned the skills they need to be successful teachers need the time and additional training to plan for and work with children with lagging skills there are excellent programs available to help everyone improve the skills in these ways but you are
059not taking the time to discuss these issues or programs give the teachers the training they need or support them you are not being proactive you are continuing to lock children in seclusion rooms blame the children or their parents for their missing skills and in some cases letting the situation deteriorate until the children end up in the prison system I'm not doing that to my dog why are you doing it to the children [Applause] she I'm gonna put her to the end of the list maybe she'll show up Stephen Isles um a letter from my wife dear teachers parents and children I'm sorry for over two years I have passionately fought for each of you and have failed to our teachers I have tried to get the support you need I know you feel defeated and
060demoralized each day you are asked to do more with less I'm sorry that Dr Faust and the board have ignored our pleas to empower you so that you can support our children we begged them for over two years to provide training developmentally appropriate tools increase Staffing I'm sorry they have abandoned you to our parents I'm sorry that you're still fighting the same injustices that parents have been fighting for decades each day our children are discriminated against because of their race disability sexual and gender identity I'm sorry that our district has not adopted models that protect our kids from discrimination to our children I'm sorry you are blamed for failures of our board and District leaders I'm sorry you are required to go to school each day afraid and unsupported I don't know why Dr Faust
061and our board have not made you their priority I don't know why you are in classrooms that are overcrowded or thought a full-time teacher or TA or why there are not enough trained adults to understand and support your specific needs I don't know why they have chosen to blame you for challenging behaviors when they created an environment that is not designed for you to thrive and learn I'm sorry I'm sorry they have not solved the problem with seclusion I wish I knew why Dr fausten awarded blocked progress and transparent discussions on these problems tonight they will spend more time talking about how to limit our voices than they will solutions to support you clearly our teachers parents and children are not their priority and for that I'm sorry it's laughable my wife could not be
062here to read this because the board finds her more threatening than the proud boys see you next month hey [Applause] last month this board passed an illegal policy to intentionally do harm to trans students in our district did any of you stop to consider the students who were devastated when they received that news the following day did you pause to think of those lgbtq plus students who have suffered panic attacks and self-harm since that meeting as a result of your careless decisions probably not as many of you are arrogant and ignorant enough to actually believe that those kids couldn't possibly be your own and therefore you don't care one board member cautioned you to undergrade to undergo Title IX training before voting as clearly it seemed that you did not understand federal law another was
063bold enough to create a blog indicating that you did understand Title IX and would still vote to make sure that trans students were denied equal opportunity to Athletics this was outside of the recommendation of the policy committee your board attorney and the Title IX coordinator many students and families are outraged and intend to seek legal recourse on how to hold this school board accountable in fact you've attracted the attention of outside organizations and litigate Nation who hold far more power than the advocates in this room that you work so hard to silence so keep that attorney contract because it sounds like you're going to need it perhaps you should also pray hard that we don't lose more children to Suicide as their blood will be on your hands the EDI committee met yesterday and barely
064even mentioned the willful discrimination of this board towards lgbtq students it's almost like they weren't even here for the last meeting and in a district of 27 000 students does anyone believe that none of our students felt compelled to speak on behalf of trans students where's their student voice they've received the message not to anger the Beast or risk the negative repercussions when students have to seek approval to show a video and have their speech censored what's authentic about that especially when the students in need of advocacy are the ones that this board seems to hate our youth are stronger smarter and resilient than most of the adults in this room most of them won't sit around waiting for permission to make true change while their classmates suffer in silence you may keep their voices
065out of this board room but you won't keep them out of this community [Music] will you tell me how to pronounce your last name please it's Atlas zavatieri hi my name is atlas I'm a transgender person I use he him pronouns and I'm a resident of the city of Wilmington I'm here to address the decisions being made around policy 3620 it is very clear that the New Hanover County School Board does not understand the differences between sex sexuality gender expression and gender identity did you know that puberty blockers were invented for cisgender children in 1993 to slow down puberty that was deemed too fast where in policy 3620 does it address the advantages and disadvantages of cisgender children and teens on puberty blockers and enhancers while playing sports where in this policy does it address
066intersex children who do not fit within the strict binary that you are labeling for them if they want to play sports for example oh excuse me there are bigger issues to focus on like the staunch racism within our school systems for an example over a month ago a young black girl was handcuffed at College Park Elementary School why aren't we discussing the safety issues of our children than attacking trans youth because it's trendy on Fox News I would credit you Melissa Mason Pat Bradford Josie Barnard and Pete wildebeer to be more intelligent people but clearly you've proven that to be wrong you have a job to do better to serve the community and not push a Personal Agenda and to exercise and abuse your power by bullying trans queer and intersex children I implore you
067all to find the self-compassion and humility to admit that you are wrong and you have no credentials to speak on what is Right regarding trans youth within my community [Music] thank you [Applause] good evening tonight I'd like to discuss with you the difference between punishment and discipline punishment is when we send a child to time out or get the SRO in to deal with an issue discipline is what we are called to do as people who work with children discipline is what is done throughout the Bible by Shepherds they have a rod and a staff the rod and the staff are used to bring the shape safely up to the field to keep them safe and bring them back it's not to hit them though some people have taken Rod that way that's not what
068it's about in the Bible it is a rod to gently guide our children are struggling they need to be gently guided Shepherds cannot Shepherd 200 sheep they have to have a small group so that they can have a relationship with each sheep and know what that sheep needs to be able to function and to do what they need to do as you prepare the budget for next year you need to plan for Staffing so that we can discipline and bring our children up rather than punishing and sending them to sros our children need us thank you [Applause] in last Wednesday Star News there was an article about seclusion in New Hanover County one educator was quoted as saying we're pretty much told do not use seclusion rooms now I'm still advocating for using positive behavior
069Alternatives and for a policy that ends seclusion but this sets a bad example if we expect policies to be followed the current regulation 4302r still allows School Personnel to put kids in lock padded closets as reasonably needed for possession of a weapon breaking up a fight self-defense or the threat of imminent physical harm to oneself or others sadly increased violence to teachers and staff is being reported in New Hanover County and all across the state so what's being done to support our traumatized students teachers and staff dismissing teacher and staff concerns isn't working their voices must be heard where decisions are being made that includes permanent pay increases higher levels of Staffing and protected lunch and planning times with 112 seclusions so far this year wouldn't it make sense to assign an individual aid to
070any child with an IEP who poses a threat of imminent physical harm to themselves or others that certainly would reduce the use of seclusion so before you build new schools buy more computers or add more sros take care of the kids we have in our schools right now you can start by taking care of our teachers and staff that will increase safety for everyone Bellamy how y'all doing my name is Robert Bellamy and I'm here in support of love our children as a former student even though uh eighth grade education was all I received as a kid who like many in the system has failed my teachers never failed me and I take my hat off to every educator who now works for this system that continues to fail them they are so underpaid while
071the cost of living never stops increasing and greedy politicians vote to fill their pockets they have greeted politicism vote to fill their pockets they work on the harsh conditions he teaches while still inspiring kids to reach their goals they risk their lives every day not knowing the outcome of an eight-hour shift after two years of covet so many are stressed and traumatized we are losing so many great Educators because of the conditions they work on them why would the board the education not support the staff and Educators knowing all the facts ignoring their needs and dismissing their unheard cries a place for thought that does not end in concreteness it is not easy to be too open or too curious it is dangerous to dwell too much on things to wonder who or why or
072when to wonder how is dangerous how do we the people get out of this hope what's the way to fight might I do like Richard and wrath and Langston Hughes and them did no it's not easy to be an educator here but yet they teach they teach they teach thank you very much [Applause] Huxley Steelman okay Mark Whitehead in 2006 the World Bank did a study to find out what makes the country's economy tick and they came up with three components which they called Capital there was natural capital or natural resources there was productivity Capital where what the country produces and then there was an intangible capitalistic work ethic the discipline how hard people work and how they stick to their guns it turns out that for the average country in the world natural capital
073accounts for five percent of their economy productivity capital accounts for 18 percent and intangible capital accounts for 77 so over three quarters of a country's economy is based on its uh discipline and work ethic Switzerland was the number one economy of the year they did the study it had one percent natural Capital fifteen percent productivity Capital which meant 84 percent of the Swiss economy was intangible capital and having grown up with a Swiss mother I can test testify to the intensity of those people likewise the United Nations human development index measures life expectancy access to education mean years of education for 25 year olds and expected years of income for education of those entering the school system also per capita income the United States is 21 on that list Switzerland was 21st there are only
074four non-western countries on that list and two of them Hong Kong and Singapore are merely uh city-states the other two countries on the list that aren't western or South Korea and Japan and both of those were rebuilt by the United States and made in our image so I've lived in three countries I spent 18 weeks backpacking through uh Asia I backpacked through Europe I've been to a whole lot of places I have two passports but when the New Hanover County tells me I have to do culturally responsive teaching and how do I turn my classroom into something that's responsive of the kids in it I say that's insulting because I never expected anybody to change for me when I went to another country people are coming here to better their lives I teach world history
075I teach other cultures I teach feng shui but this is the United States and our culture shouldn't be diminished because that's why the people are coming here we're not going there thank you very much thank you Mr Whitehead Dr Kimberly McDuffie good evening I have nothing written I just want to say thank you all Dr Faust and the board for having me I am coming on behalf of the gifted advisory committee for here in New Hanover County I serve New Hanover County for 11 years and in my experience there has been an un represented population of students in that program I joined in with the GAC Committee just this past few months just to kind of give my insight on what we can do I think a lot of times with the AIG Community a
076lot of our underrepresented communities like our minorities they may not have the information that they need in order to have their kids to participate in the AIG programs I know that we are in assorted of teachers but I do think that when we are selecting our AIG instructional coaches that we should consider the underrepresented uh community if they're not aware of what we're offering they don't know what to ask so I came here today not to say anything negative about the board or anything negative about our superintendent but just to make you aware of their needs to be some things done in order to push the information out to the representatives of the Hispanic the minorities the African-Americans so they will be aware of what we need to do in order to invite purposely invite
077our community into the AIG system thank you Dr Faust involvement [Applause] Alicia organ Deli good evening I'm glad that a year ago the Board of Education voted to end out of school suspension for four five six and seven-year-olds for minor infractions I'm also glad that Ms Barnum finally reported to the total number of K-2 suspensions for first half of the school year 21 out of school suspensions is a much lower number but it still represents young children being kicked out of school so how are you going to support teachers and staff for the remainder of the school year to help them bring that number of suspension even lower are you going to add more staff or at least restore positions that were cut last year it seems to me that there are awful lot of
078teachers and staff resigning or retiring every month that makes it harder for teachers who haven't left to implement your policies maybe it's time to start paying them a livable wage and I'm not talking about bonuses I'm not talking about permit permanent pay increases our teachers and staff workers need conditions that our students are need to learn in Better Learning conditions our teachers and staff working conditions are students learning conditions when they're not supported the children suffer stop suffering and treat everyone with dignity thank you thank you [Applause] here is some good news 42 schools have reported no seclusion this year let that sink in 42 schools I wonder why have they been so successful this year how many EC children are in their schools how many teachers teacher assistants counselors and social workers do they
079have are they using the lives in the balance training that Ms Barnum found funding for have they even started any of that training yet which positive behavior alternatives are they using which strategies have they found most successful and I hope you will invite representatives from those schools to the May board meeting to answer those questions and to help educate the public on the positive and proactive ways educators are helping our children learn and thrive in our schools I also hope that you'll ask for disaggregated data on seclusions at minimum you'll need to know the percentages of students in K2 3-5 in the middle and the high schools who have been secluded and their gender race and if they have an IEP data presented at percentages help protect the identity of individual children with disaggregated data
080you'll be able to better determine the effectiveness of policies and programs adjust those policies and programs as needed identify the Staffing and resources needed at each school and please remember to get feedback from our teachers and staff the people in the trenches feedback is the engine of improvement use it to improve student achievement and to keep our students and staff safe in schools thank you thank you [Applause] Patricia Coolidge I couldn't see the screen Patricia College thank you I came here tonight to back up the grievance that Gail Majors had given the board it's been um it's been 90 days I think 90 days is sufficient amount of time for you to look at the grievance and understand what's in there so the question is why have you not done that yet the people voted
081in four new candidates that claim their their Republicans you claim you're conservative you ran off the books you know what they were made of but yeah silence nothing a little taken back by so my question to you tonight would be is who controls you who tells you what you can do and what you can't do because the people here obviously they fall upon deaf ears I don't know who represents you but you represent this community and I think it's time you start listening to it the attorney if he hasn't advised you by now to look at this grieving seriously then he's not doing his job you're not doing yourself any justice not reading that grievance each and every one of you you are liable please lower the sign you are liable please lower this you
082are responsible for every book a child picks up in that school so the question is why are you sitting here as Republicans ignoring the grievance do you not care about the children you took the time to do the horse and pony show about the transgender policy pour some pony because you all know like I know that that can be changed by those children going down and changing their birth certificates maybe that's why you did it is that why you did it Josie you want to roll your eyes that's exactly why you did it so you look like you were conservative and a Republican a real conservative and a real Republican represent the people and it's time you step up to do your job Josie Pat and when the people hold you accountable pack age thank
083you my corn Mike corn can you not hear me Mike come on yeah good afternoon first thing I want to do is say congratulations to some of the new board members up here and I've worked closely with a couple of you I've known you for a few years some of you and um you guys do you have a big burden on your shoulders I'm not going to rehash what's already been done but I'm going to remind you of a couple things that we worked hard uh on that grievance for the schools we know what's in there we know there's a lot of folks that are really questionable we know there's books that's pornography there's books that are over the red line pornography like you wouldn't believe and they need quick attention from you guys with
084all the issues you guys have going on that that's a big one and we really need you guys to pay attention to that we have a lot of people in the community speaking up about it it's just a bad thing it's going across the country now one thing they mentioned is about the liability of this well don't let us just be the talking post look at what's going on in the news across the country how many school boards have already had lawsuits brought to their attention there's one that just the other day that has to pay up um things like that I mean we got to accelerate this a little bit and get these problems taken care of you guys the new new people have a big burden on your shoulders we really appreciate that
085and if there's one thing your attorney can do for you instead of comforting you and saying you're exempt because of 190.15 you know it doesn't mean it's not illegal according to 190.1 it's not right but they can work on the solution to help you guys out with getting rid of these books instead and tell you the truth about the Civil potential of monetary damages punitive damages if you continue um I appreciate it thank you very much thank you [Applause] my name is Ellie Klein I'm a retired educator and policy maker I was coming here tonight to talk about embracing all of our children however given the beginning of this meeting I intend to speak truth to power we are a nation of a democratic Nation we should be listening to the intent of our founding
086fathers and our founding mothers we are a nation of people from all over the world we are a nation of Baptists Christians Protestants Jews Muslims Hindus etc etc I want to remind this board this superintendent and yes some clergy that we do not embrace one religion in public government meetings thank you [Applause] protect your children I keep reflecting on that campaign slogan used by the newly elected board members I know full well that it was targeted to a very specific subset of parents some of whom we've heard from tonight with a narrow agenda of what protection means however now you are elected officials elected to represent the entire community it is your responsibility to help ensure that all of our children are protected speaking as a parent social worker and mental health professional I know
087that our children are indeed in crisis as are our schools and teachers and they need our protection however it is not protection from books and accurate teachings of our complex shared history or the made up Boogeyman of CRT Dei and s-e-l and it's certainly not protection from the true diversity that exists within our student body and community for now at least I ask that you focus on ensuring that our children are at least protected in this public space this space should be devoted to creating supportive Equitable education and enhancement opportunities for all students yet here we've been subjected to inflammatory offensive comments made by community members based on their personal and religious biases that have served to dehumanize children and their families for their sexual and gender identities students have been heckled for speaking their
088Truth The Proud boys essentially the modern day KKK have been allowed to break state law stand fully concealed with their identities for the purposes of intimidation and to flaunt their extremist ideologies they're not here tonight but they will be back we know that and most egregious of all you all are making policies based upon those narrow views it is time to stand up serve our community protect all of our children do the right thing thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] last call John McCullough that concludes oh there you go my name is John McCullough thank you for having me uh just a quick note sometimes in the audience we have a hard time hearing really appreciate it I don't know if those microphones get any closer y'all could lean in a little bit more sometimes
089we have trouble hearing you um I'd like to address 3620 very briefly wasn't really my main intent those in the community that supported the the new policy there's not a lot of animosity there's while we might have some religious beliefs that have motivations there there's still the primary driver of protecting our daughters and granddaughters in the sports that they have so that they can participate against biological females and not have that other competition you can take a lot of other stuff aside personal feelings and religious beliefs but at the root of it that's one of the things that we're very concerned about one of the other things I wanted to talk about I've had family members in my direct bloodline which have been Educators and we've seen in the news and social media and all
090these things um some of the terrible things that are going on it's not safe for some kids unfortunately there's a small percentage of children of all ages we see that even at very young ages where violence is coming in and the kids and the teachers need to be protected I've seen some horrible things where the teachers cannot even protect themselves and my own son when after going into education and doing in a very short period of time bolted and ran not doing it anymore and and it takes away from the rest of the kids in terms of their education I know it's a very complicated issue in terms of how you address that but let's make sure that our children and the teachers and staff are supported in that and that we can stay focused
091on education and and just make sure you're supporting the kids and the teachers in it thank you for your very much that concludes the call to audience there were just 25 people that signed up um except for me I signed up today at 10 50 and just testing the system so you tell your friends and family there's still room on the agenda for the audience we will continue now with our approval of the minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes thank you Ms Barnhart is there a second second second is Bradford Miss Graybill um was that motion to approve all of the minutes at one time or is it to do individual I would support all the consensus approval me too okay so in the first and second for all the Motions um
092I'd like to pull off the minutes for January 10th then okay cool off January 10th is there any others would you like to pull off okay so the motion now is to approve all the um minutes with the exception of January 10th we have a first and second all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed okay Miss uh crabill uh let's address uh January 6th uh January 10th excuse me wanted to look on page nine where it states that Miss Bradford makes another motion regarding policy 3620 there is no second to the motion I'd like to have the motion recorded in the minutes so that we can have a record of that and I listened back and it was a very convoluted motion but here's what I think it said and Miss
093Bowie can just go back and listen herself about 100 times I move to consider a proposed interim amended language suggested at the May 11th policy committee meeting I move for consideration now to move forward with the second reading of the policy um 36 20. I would like that to be I would like her motion to be included in the minutes and not just miss Bradford made a motion okay does anyone else remember that in that way Ms Bradford you can listen to it I mean it's in there all right so there's motions or a second to amend the January uh minutes you you can is there anyone that would like to second that oh without listening to it I I feel I'm going to second that Mr thank you Miss Walker all right uh any
094further discussion um if you don't want to take my word for what was said I would just ask that Miss Bowie go back and listen and do her best to put in what Miss Bradford said I just want a record of what she was moving okay so would you like to change your motion then or do we want to my motion is to amend the minutes to include what she said and I was attempting to tell you all what she said but the um somebody else can certainly listen and try and interpret it as well all right is there any other discussion if not we have a motion and a second in front of us all in favor of amending the January minutes to reflect uh what Miss crabill mentioned it's great to mention Miss
095Bradford's motion Miss Bradford's motion to to have the whole Motion in there all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed Carrie 7-0 thank you so we we have carried on there so we'll get out of there okay so we will carry on with our information uh very excited about this first one a Mr chair we have a bathroom please let's take a five minute break at this time my watch says uh 6 38 so we'll be back at 6 43. is there a motion to approve the minutes as amended no do we didn't do that okay I'm sorry I thought we did I'm sorry so uh is there a motion to approve to the January regular board meeting as amended please signify us uh is there a motion yeah yes I'll make
096that motion motion I'll second that all in favor of that um you know the uh signifying by saying I I all opposed Okay carry 7-0 now we will take a five minute break and we'll be back on the dice at 6 43 6 43 5 minutes foreign all right three where have all my board members gone where one more I don't know that we do we got one two three yeah yeah now I'm gonna go see if I can get one more to come up here so we get somebody back here board members return please all right at this point we will continue with a very exciting topic changing the path for our low-performing schools doctor face good afternoon Ward and um yes so I am going to talk with you just a few minutes
097about changing the path for our low performing schools in our district but I'll begin with first defining what is a low performing school and our state defines a low performing school with any school with a report card grade or a d or an F and does not exceed growth you cannot exceed growth and be low performing why because if you exceed growth you have grown a student you have grown your students more than the year of the state requirement so you've exceeded that growth so no matter what your report card rate is if you exceed growth you are not considered low performing and that's important to note because we do have some schools that are exceeding growth in um in that category next wanted to share with you the trend of our schools and the
098low performing status as you can see we were definitely trending down down prior to covet but of course when covet hit we know the impact it had on our students but you can see even with that we still did not rise to the level of the state and where they are sorry next I thought it was important for us to look at our districts and surrounding us so we'll kind of know where we stand so here you have the districts that surround us and where we fall and the amount of the percentage of low performing schools that we have compared to those that are around us who are these schools in our district you have the 12 schools that are listed for the state on the board I'm sorry on the screen but you actually
099have some asterisks besides some of those schools because they have special programs or magnet programs so these students and these programs actually get some extra things like we have extra dance and extra opportunities as Snipes for these students we have the Spanish program so you see that some of our low performing schools have extra opportunities for experience and exposure so a lot of times when people think about low performing schools they think about money and the first thing I will tell you as a former principal of several low-performing schools most two at the time the lowest in the state and to get those out of there you're not going to buy your way out of low performing it's not about money it's not about that type of capital it's about human capital and we'll talk
100about that next but what you have here is the federal dollars that we receive for our low performing schools this is on top of any state or local money this is federal money and I'm going to direct your attention to the the column that says CSI which is comprehensive support and Improvement schools so those two schools in our district receive additional funding due to their status in the state they receive additional funding for the next three years and this is the amount that they will receive we also had Mosley in that category but because of their graduation rate they actually exited that category so the state puts you in the category for two a couple of reasons but one you can do graduation rate and where you are with your graduation rate and that's why
101Mosley was originally in it and they exited or it's because you fall in the bottom five percent of the state so that is how you get in that category now there's a lot of challenges with our low performing schools but the biggest challenge we face is recruiting and retaining high quality staff that is the biggest issue that we have so here on the screen which you have is the amount of the percentage of BTS in the in the schools and I've highlighted the two CSI schools and I'll tell you why in just a moment but think about the percentages you're seeing and then think about some of our high performing schools where there is one with zero percent zero and then in other words two and then some with ten seven so we've got to
102figure out how to attract and retain quality highly effective staff in these schools I think this data speaks volume for what is the major issue when people ask the question this is the major issue we cannot have a revolving door because you think about the training and the professionalism you do if the door is revolving you have to keep doing it and it doesn't stay and it doesn't build so what are we doing there's a number of things we're doing but these are the things that I want to highlight for you the big things and some of these we're doing across the board but in particular our low performing schools we're really focusing on this first recruiting and retaining highly effective staff I'm going to show you just the moment a plan that we have
103to do this with those two CSI schools with the funding that they have we've got to figure out how to get highly effective Seasons experienced teachers in there to support those students and also support the BTS that are in there District support based on individual School needs we're not saying now this is what's best for everybody we're looking at the schools themselves and asking what do you need that is the biggest message that we're carrying with these schools and we want everybody to hear ask what is needed let the school tell us what they need and let the data speak about what they need also the tier support for the teachers and the leadership in those schools a number of these schools have new principles I'm glad to say most of them are on we've
104grown them okay so we have to support them different than we will support a season principal and we know that so we're working to do tier support our curriculum Specialists that we have spent a number of their days in these schools modeling instruction Dr Faust and I and um Mr Worthington were actually visiting a school yesterday and we walked into a room where our math curriculum specialist was in there with another teacher and I really questioned well wow this teacher is really it was really a great lesson and you know I'm surprised she's in spending time with her she's so strong but what I saw was they explained the math specialist had just taught the lesson for the first period this new teacher was now reteaching that same lesson she had just saw so that's
105what we have to do we have to tailor that support and do what is best for schools I wish we could do that even more often but of course we are limited with our Personnel but those are some of the things we're doing also quality curriculum support you guys have heard me talk about our reading resources our teachers spoke volumes you have to help us there and this is across the board this is just not for our low performing schools this is for our district so we are working on our RFP and our teachers are actually working with our with our curriculum team and the principals to select a curriculum resource that will allow the teachers the resources to teach with the science of reading in mind because they're learning the science of reading they
106know it's best practices now it is our responsibility to give them the resources to implement those best practices next data literacy we've got to help our principals and our teachers understand exactly what is the measurement that the state is doing how do we get here we're meeting with those principals going out to the building and actually having a sit down with them and their instructional leaders about these data conversations helping them to see exactly what the state is measuring how do we use these item analysis and these standards and the breakdowns from our Benchmark to move instruction and they have been some very powerful meetings doing that again of course for all of our schools but we're doing it more intensely and more often with our low performing schools and lastly we're fortunate in New
107Hanover we have a community that they ask what do you need how can I help and they're there you know everybody doesn't have that we have that so one of the things though that we'll be working with our community and our support is to tailor try to tailor that support based on the needs of the schools let's ask the schools what do you need and then try to see how we can fit that in and ask our community for that now I'm going to take you back to the Bowl and I told you to keep in mind the two num the two the column on the right for CSI we will be doing a plan that will incentivize our teachers and everyone to come to those buildings this plan is for all staff I want
108to say that because it's important to note that though the classroom teacher carries that weight and we all look at that classroom teacher it is everybody in the building that makes the school successful down from the bus driver to the cafeteria worker to the classroom teacher to the custodian and um and the assistant principal you will not see the principle up here because the state actually does an incentive for our principles they've got that covered so we're trying to pick up the slack in these two schools for others first we would love to do this for all of our low performing schools I just want to say that but of course right now we have funding from our state to do it for the two CSI schools so first part of it is is just
109for being in that school our staff can make from 250 to 5 000 dollars and that is because we're going to be asking more these teachers are going to be tutoring more they're going to have longer days they're going to have some PD days so we know we're asking more and the challenges are greater so we're going to compensate them for that and you also see that the entire school where we can receive incentive will when the school meets or exceeds growth remember what I said about exceed if you exceed growth you cannot be low performing you can't grow kids more than what the state expected and then be low performing so if our teachers exceed growth they can actually get up to four thousand dollars and everybody building everybody in the building will get
110some of that reward if the school exceeds growth and of course we have the incentive for our assistant principal because again the state takes care of the principal so plan and where we are for our low performing schools but at this time I'll take any questions yes good point so the grant is for three years so the incentive is for for the three years of the Grant I will say to you because the first question people always say well all the teachers will leave after the three years you're talking to someone who led some of those schools they do not leave because you've built this culture of collective efficacy and then you think about it you're not going to leave and go somewhere with the cost is higher you're gonna it would just go back
111to what the other schools are so the data does not say that it's a massive Mass exited so I just want to make sure I share that coming from CSI yes we get accused of so much like a loss of teacher turnover Etc and we never defend ourselves how many times have I said that um article today's paper if I recall a national major national issue people who do not want to go into teaching anymore now we can argue the rationale for that exactly but everyone basically has a major issue getting teachers and keeping teachers and I certainly the more you give them great they deserve it and I said once before about getting out of the box I think we need one thing I think that we're missing is address why they're tired they're
112tired they're worn out Maybe I'll leave that up here in the maybe cloud or some other expectations of additional time required of teachers sit in front for new programs and I understand new programs come with new books or new technology programs excuse me books are outdated about two weeks after we get them that's why we get a technology it changes every day and it's the most current but feel like we've got to start listening and I also visit schools I don't really ask questions but I do listen and I don't apologize being as young as I am I have students working in a lot of the schools and they still address me and they still share with me our teachers need some time it takes something away from them for a while so that they
113need to leave at 3 30 to do something that's for their family or for themselves or personal they can do it I'm afraid that we're on overkill for lack of a better word yeah and I I will tell you that one of the things too that is a good practice and um will definitely work with our principles all of our principles are is to look at those things that you can take away if I'm being honest a lot of the things that our state does I mean when you become a low performing school you have to do extra instead of taking away they pull out they put on so it makes it difficult um because it is state requirements but that is definitely I totally agree with you um there one of the things too
114is about respect and we are working hard to have the voices of our teachers I mean we're just not bringing a curriculum or anything to you without them they are the ones they are the experts in our district and we're listening so I think those are some of the things that will help us because if you talk to or look at any research with teachers they leave because of things to them maybe because of the leaders some of the things that are in place but a lot of it is we we're fortunate if I'm being honest our HR and the number of teachers we have we don't have the struggles across the state that and Across the Nation I mean I know people think we we might but we just don't the numbers just do
115not pan out and I think that is because we do listen I mean of course we can't just because we listen doesn't mean everyone's going to have their way but we are listening and I think you're so right and that's why I think this program is there because there are some things we have to do to close this Gap and bring these schools up and we know it's going to be a harder feat so you compensate people and you ask them to do more work you don't just ask them to do it you compensate them if you can and that's what this program is going to do foreign thank you Mr chair um I would like to thank Dr fayson for putting this together I I know his agenda item I asked for and I
116spoke with Pete about this and I'm the superintendent and I I think this is a really great starting point for the further discussion and um I mean I'm I have suggested and I'm excited to um to lead a small task force and you know along with our superintendent staff and other members of our community to be determined obviously with the blessing of obviously the chair because we have spoken you mentioned that earlier um to take a look at the data and drill down on actions that we can take to grow and support our Schools staff and students especially for the schools that needed the assistance the most the aim for this task force is to not only identify the strengths and challenges but also identify Solutions and opportunities from our community and Community Partners and
117leverage the task force Collective Knowledge and Skills in support of our students our academic goals and our strategic plan so the intention and hopefully you know is it's going to be an ongoing thing and we were like to report back monthly if that's okay and to see how it's going and I'm excited I know we had a really good conversation earlier about it and like I said we've got some good things to start with and some good data and um how can I say it again I'm really excited and I just want to add on that Miss Walker I really appreciate that because I will tell you that one of the things that I found in leading the schools that I've done out of low performing is the community and having that structure and having
118someone in a plan in place like that I think that's a fabulous idea that sounds very exciting the other day yeah and I will tell you you're right it starts with the leader you know everything starts at the top we just have to be honest with that um so we are definitely working with our principals on that it is not as easy to find leaders any I mean we have challenges with our teachers and and finding them like I said we don't have as greater challenge here in our district but it's not hard to and it's not easy to find seasoned leaders and then seasoned leaders who can do this work because it's a different type of leadership but you're definitely right and that's why we are working with our leaders and really helping them
119we're leading this charge because it's different when you're running a school that is in the status but I totally agree absolutely get these additional money that they what happened right very good point so you know and this would be getting into we would actually have I don't know if it's a contract or whatever you would call it but you can't compensate people if they're not meeting the mark in this level so you just can't so there will be things in place for that so um Dr Barnes is working with the principles on that and our Title One director and myself on exactly what that looks like but we do have safety nets I'll say in place for that sir foreign I want to congratulate you thank you I would like to echo on what Mr
120McManus said I am hearing teachers say that they are exhausted I think the word harried you know just their plate is over full so I just wanted to Echo that please yeah um I'm excited about this that there's a plan in place and obviously the money and the funding is great for those two schools coming from that Grant and so um we'll have to have a side conversation prior to going into legislation because that's one of our things we need to ask so that's on my topic um on the 15th for the legislative to talk about some of the innovative ways that we can support our PRI our higher priority schools but one thing and Dr Foust kind of opened the meeting saying that we're seeing a reduction in funds because we have decreased in
121students and so we need to be creative in how we provide the solutions for all of our schools specifically at this list so for me I was thinking about you were talking about you walked in on a modeling session and the teacher was teaching it and so have we and if we haven't I'd like to put for those years to be into play so that we can record those model teachers so they can be replicated at any one of these campuses so they have access to the high quality instruction and support that we can provide them and if we're a able to do that I think that will help just kind of breathe for some of those teachers who feel really overwhelmed and I think that we can do it effectively with this group that
122are already being incentivized and so I'd like to put that on the radar for us we actually we actually talked about that yesterday and you know it actually we would love to actually have I don't know if you want to call it a Playbook or somewhere where teachers could go to see some of those high impact standards uh models so we're on the same page great suggestion yeah two questions for you one um the did I miss a memo about the task force I when she just said that I didn't yeah okay so are we going to hear more about it or I mean like sure we can talk about it and like I said we're going to update on it but yeah I I had some really good conversations and the reason I brought
123forth this agenda item is because I feel like you know there's more that we can do and like I said I feel like it's it's a process we're starting here and we're moving forward and we've got some good suggestions already so I'm excited about that and I'm excited to talk to each one of you guys about you know your ideas and your thoughts and so who's on the task force to be determined it's at least the three of us okay all right so I didn't miss anything I'm trying to keep up um the the second question was um for the for those two schools and are we with the vacancies are we looking to put in have teachers transferred from other schools or are we looking outside trying to find teachers that are um experienced
124in this both we want highly effective teachers in New Hanover County any other County if you hear me we we want to have a pool of applications for those schools so um we're actually both in Dr Barnes is actually been working that the transfer window I think will be extended or it's not closed it'll definitely be able to they'll will you speak to that sir we wanted the board to be aware of it first and once we do we will reopen the transfer window for a period of time for folks who are interested in this opportunity we've got this for next year thank you guys so much foreign in this agenda item it was defined more to talk about our process for addressing bullying harassment discrimination and the investigation process so I wanted to highlight
125a few of those pieces and then if there are specific questions I'm happy to answer so the first part is that our administrators of course have policy they understand policy 4329 bullying and harassment bullying harassing behavior and that that is prohibited we have taken this and created an investigation guidance document that is loaded for you in simile so that it really lays out what the terms are the definitions and then the processes chair I don't think there's an attachment there we don't have it okay so the the agenda was created prior to this being on so that was what I shared with Crystal so I don't know if you can maybe forward that okay thank you um so I can I thought that was linked so I'm going to talk you through it and then
126we'll figure that out um so for bullying really identifying that it is not just a negative peer interaction it's truly deliberate conduct intended to harm it's repeated unwanted aggressive behaviors and there's a real or perceived imbalance of power those pieces are really crucial to substantiating bullying specifically as something very different than negative peer interactions cyber bullying of course is following the same bullying process and definition but it may exist in the absence of power imbalance typical of other forms of bullying just simply through the nature of it being digital means of course we understand harassing Behavior it's intimidating hostile abusive unwelcome even potentially of a sexual nature and then the protected categories are really important for us to remember it's someone who has or is perceived to have differentiating personal characteristics these may include but
127of course they're not limited to race color religion ancestry national origin gender socioeconomic economic status academic status gender identity physical appearance sexual orientation or disability and some would then turn term the last one or differing abilities so the process really moves through three main points and the main points I just want to bring to your attention are first screening screening the situation second investigation and then the resolution and documentation the main parts of the screening are number one to stop the behavior that's occurring immediately stop that create that ethics 360 report one of the reasons that we adopted ethics 360 not only to be able to capture concerns from members of our public or our students or anybody else whether they want to be identified or not it gives a way to communicate concerns from
128an anonymous perspective and then a way to have that communication and feedback but it also gives us a universal standardized place to record and log all bullying incidents and so the first step is ensuring that all that information is entered into ethics 360 then we use that as our authoritative source for the amount of or for the rate or types of bullying incidents that occur um in that next step if there is evidence of criminal conduct making sure that school resource officers are informed of any of that information and making sure that just because that may have been communicated to law enforcement that doesn't mean that the principal or designee stops the investigation on the school front because we still have a responsibility to conduct our investigation we just make sure that we stop that
129in the interim so as not to interfere with criminal investigation but while putting a support plan in place at the same time we don't say oops there's nothing we can do Noah support plan is put in place at that time and and then the investigation continues as soon as we're able or as soon as law enforcement is completed and then the next is identifying the three-step criteria regarding whether bullying and harassment discrimination did occur and that is rechecking the details of policy did harm or threat of harm occur was the action unwelcome um and then also digging further who initiated there we go thank you who initiated was this pure conflict and then this the third criteria really identifying is this action severe is it single a single time or is it serious violence such
130as a sexual assault or persistent multiple times or is it pervasive that it's spreading so really identifying all of the details around this so that's in again the screening and kind of gathering of the facts the next piece which goes into right there thank you The Bullying protocol the investigation piece number one in that is making sure parents are knowledgeable and they've been notified ensuring that and that's for all students involved ensuring that we're documenting the facts some of that means we're still collecting those facts and trying to decipher what are facts and what our perceptions really trying to make sure that we are triangulating around all those details in doing that gathering with a sense of urgency because there are time frames that we have identified to ensure that we we have our administrators
131and support staff or designee really moving this along to ensure that we come to a safe resolution quickly so we have for example that notification is no later than so we we choose we prefer same day but no later than two business days after initial report so that screening has to move quickly and then moving through that intake and Analysis of course that third piece then is all about the resolution and documentation so fully documenting May mean that we Circle back to gather more information it may mean interviewing again of course not wanting to if a certain situation was traumatizing to a student working to eliminate or to mitigate re-traumatizing by talking about things multiple times but ensuring that we have an accurate picture making sure that as soon as a resolution a resolution is
132completed that that official notice is provided to parents all parents that are involved and then within a certain time frame after there's been resolution and documentation still following up on the well-being of our students follow up with our students who have experienced bullying harassment intimidation discrimination following up on their well-being and their perception of well-being it also means that if the if the behavior is substantiated if bullying is substantiated following through with our 4300 series policies on any necessary disciplinary actions so making sure that that part is completed as well and specifically policy 4329 is what really addresses the response to bullying harassment or intimidating discrimination Behavior so I don't know if it wasn't really speaking of anti-bullying practices but I was answering the question that I thought was asked in the agenda review so
133are there any questions any questions Mr McManus okay people upset some people when I say this but there has to be discipline someone said the night that's not behavior in education it is we have to have some consequences for behaviors and I'll go back now and Associate that with the teachers a little bit that's part of their working condition no matter how hard we try no matter how and what we put forth financially or Staffing kids are going to misbehave and hopefully and I think we do we have a tremendous amount of staff available particularly in the low performing schools we have it what I'm concerned about is is there something that's in writing about the expectations for instance I was taken aback today and I'm not picking on you Dr Warren you just happen
134to be the speaker I guess I'll direct this toward the soup a little bit so I open my emails and there's the longest email I think I've ever received from a parent and without naming the school it was a middle school that had a major issue which to me is the worst bullying I've ever heard of and what took place with a child that would lead the sheriff's department to accuse a child when someone had stolen their identity and posted stuff I would like to think that that was something that the board wouldn't have to read from the parent of the child assuming that was correct I'm taken aback that wouldn't share with us I don't know if you've read your emails but just in the time discuss about anything but I think we've kind
135of have to have some behavior consequences for kids who do these things because what you do is you set a precedent intended or not and I just feel like we've got to have a healthy balance I'm not sure it's healthy and I think I'm speaking for a lot of Administrators and teachers in our educational Arena right now in our policies there are definitely a graduated response system and there are disciplinary consequences that include removal of students from the school environment we have to frame our um our policies related to student behavior in an instructive and supportive way if removal is going to help instruct that that behavior is less likely to reoccur absolutely and if it's to the degree that it requires removal absolutely but we have that graduated response system and our policies to
136ensure that our students have been had an opportunity to be taught appropriate behavior that's the positive behavior piece of it it doesn't mean anybody that defines positive behavior supports as only reinforcing appropriate behavior hasn't studied it it is about it is about increasing the likelihood of appropriate behavior while decreasing the likelihood of negative behavior and inappropriate behavior through consequences who's the final decision maker in those situations in a situation of an investigation at a school level and that would be the principle so unless that's been appealed or if there's a review that's brought upon it but the principle determines School level discipline up until and that includes all short-term how they handle the investigation their following of policy but again the parameters such as this guidance document then refer them back to that policy in
137our student code of conduct now for the past two years has that range of consequences attached to certain Behavior infractions but then you also have to look at how do you that graduated response system how are you increasing the severity of consequences as the behavior increases you don't I mean you know applying out of school suspension for a kid with tardies doesn't really make sense so that's not lined up making sure that it's lined up appropriately in order to to decrease the likelihood of negative behavior so at the end to the schools individually design their own discipline and or is it consistent amongst the different levels so every year the board approves the student handbook and at the last page is on page 12 that's where all of the um displaying actions range of student
138consequences can be found and so when a principal is assigning a consequence he or she may look here and decide if it's a level one level two three four five or six and then that's how they equate whatever the discipline measure is that they're going to use and I'm going to jump in does anybody else have any questions work for his farm and every year or so again our schools created the school plan for the management of student Behavior that's how they are going to be addressing and managing their daily weekly monthly structure in their building to seek to have the behaviors that they're expecting the desired behaviors so they follow those plans and and then build their school plan from that just in a way following up on Mr McManus I think it was
139two weeks ago there was an email that we all should have received from a parent and just outlining what's happening to his child so if parents are resorting to emailing us a resolution is something broken um there would be just uninformed or is it the principal at that school is not not doing what they're supposed to be doing where's the disconnect so I'll I'll answer on behalf so better on any occasion any parent can reach out to a board member and give their information and that's you know of course that's encouraged um to do we would love for them to reach out to the principal first and if they're not getting the information satisfaction from the principal then level it up to the next to the next level however when you're getting specific emails like
140we're getting them at the same time so we may not know because unless it's um at a level where it may be um I don't know if it's a huge outbreak or something that's what we would know but some of the things that are happening we definitely don't know what the central office until it happens and I am corrected you know that the normal progression would be obviously trying to if it's a teacher level thing you'd start there then the assistant principal principal then the central office and then you know maybe yeah I was just going to jump in on that just to to clarify is that when we get that we should direct them straight back to the print I'm just asking you for your opinion um or your or your thoughts your delicious
141um we direct them back to the principal and if they don't get resolution there then should we direct them to their student support like um to Penny or Jared or Lauren should we should we direct them there so typically if I'm included on the email then I'm directed to the individual it may be their executive director um and then there's follow up and that means oftentimes the executive director will in collaboration with the principal because what we don't want to do is circumvent the power have power but certain circumvent the principle and um so then there's an investigation so the executive director is working alongside with the principal and they sometimes they'll call the parent or they'll have the the principal call the parent and get more information on that and sometimes the sit-down conversation
142with the parents should just for the record I've never gotten involved in any of that as a board member or even partially but I do uh the fact that they email us stuff that we're not aware of bothers me but more importantly the fact I always refer them back to the administration or if it's something I think I don't know it's big I fast forwarded to Dr Foust but so that's not my issue my issue is and I'm not having issue with the principal's decision I guess my to be quite honest our principles do they feel somewhat tied in what they can do with students who continue to disrupt classes in the school I don't look for an answer that's just a statement student Behavior you and I can chat and we can add it
143to policy if we wanted to look at to give more guidance so that there's more consistency if that's what I'm getting that's what I'm getting you're trying to say and that's where we can help rein in as a board is if we want to give more direct guidance through our policies then there's less gray area for the administrators anyone else yes sir there's and I'll say is there's always going to be a gray area when it comes to discipline when you give a range one principle may go hard and heavy another one may give not so much another one is going to work through it so when you give and it will say up to So when you say up to and that because there may be different instances or um things that yeah certain
144circumstances that we may not know of and it's hard so that's why I think it's it is somewhat vague but it gives the principle the laundry the laundry and the latitude to examine what he or she sees fit for their their student for their campus and of course there are times where it does escalate up and individuals have to get involved to say okay well this was not a level one this was a level four this was a level three and this is what and then actually asking questions of tell me why you coded this at the level one If This Were the um the problems or the issues that have taken place so there's sometimes where you walk through those incidents and conversations with the with the leader Miss Walker I would also say
145I you know having this discussion I appreciate the fact that we do get emailed a lot of things that um could potentially come to us later on and you know sometimes you know I think we don't see a lot of what happens in the school level and the principal is the one that is supposed to be I guess the the person that makes the decisions on the school level so we're going to probably get a lot of emails and we do about various very things and so I think once in a while they're going to break through and I think that probably puts a little bit of nervousness on us that you know maybe we need to be doing something and perhaps you know sending it to the appropriate person is the best thing to
146do thank you Miss Farnham uh next we'll have so these non these bullying um policies they um they're not about sexual harassment right they're for non-title nine now they could potentially be in including sexual harassment and so in the specific steps um right at the beginning in screening ensure that you know of course we we've um manage the screening part and then number two right under um the screening is any sexual harassment complaints um we notify the Title IX coordinator immediately so that then that process that then that team really takes over case management of that investigation process gotcha in the beginning thank you for asking that and I want to clarify one thing on the range of consequences um for our discipline policies uh about two years ago administrators and principals meetings spent about
147six months creating the range of consequences so it wasn't created by an outside team or committee it was actually created with the team of principals okay just laying it up yes sir no I was just going to add that your board policy on um bullying and harassing behavior is very specific in terms of what it does and doesn't cover and it includes cross references to other policies that might cover other types of behaviors such as harassment based on race and it points to the Title IX sexual harassment grievance process as well so it does point to the different policies and processes that cover different types of potential discipline thank you Mr Weber next we have uh Andy choking device discussion and again that will be Miss Farnham okay so I had an update even this
148afternoon from our partners at Health and Human Services for New Hanover County and also they were communicating the information from Novant so I'll start at the beginning in accordance with policy I like to talk about policy in accordance with policy 6120 our student health services are determined by our governing State agency's Direction and that of course is New Hanover County Health and Human Services for us and we have to follow their Direction in the development of our procedures such as the provision of emergency care and we have a local manual created on how to respond to emergency situations so when the question came up about anti-choking devices or when there was a possible solution for that of course my first step is to reach out to those that state agency that governs our responses per
149policy and over a matter of two three months engaging in conversation with them and as of last week my update for you in the agenda review was that um Novant was interested in in purchasing D choker the choking Airway clearing device as of today the response is that Novant did not pursue the purchase of D choking devices and that the health department has also our health and human services has also not pursued the acquisition of any D choking devices it does their information to me did say we've been in talks with Novant regarding tourniquets or stop the bleed kits which we think are a more necessary item to be purchased for our schools so to clarify we follow um under under the direction of New Hanover County DHHS the emergency guidelines for schools and that
150comes from the work in U.S Department of Health and Human Services and our Emergency Medical Services for children's program so my recommendation is to maintain that procedural Direction per policy 6120 and utilize the direction of our health department okay does anybody have any questions so basically in a nutshell that we were here last week that Novant was interested in purchasing a similar device for us they no longer want to do that so we may want to put it back on back back to square one for next next month and discuss it again thank you for that update um yes ma'am is crabill yeah so also to summarize I think what I'm hearing her say is that we are being advised by the health department not to pursue using this equipment because it's not in the
151best interest of our money at this point in time then we should be pursuing other more pertinent medical things that's what I think the summary is not just that we're not interested in anti-choking devices because it was coming from a different recommendation it was brought up this month to be discussed so we'll see if it's brought up again when native to the agenda for next month thank you so much uh we're going to continue on with uh Capital uh Capital requests committee meeting update and I mean I believe that's Miss Sutton thank you Dave if you were not able to listen or attend the capital outlay committee meeting you have a binder that is labeled budget for budget development for this current year coming up here you've got several tabs in that binder if you
152look behind the capital outlay budget tab you'll see a summary of the capital La information that we shared with the committee and as we meet and we're having our work sessions I'll provide additional information that you'll be more welcome to include in your binder there behind the appropriate tab as we go through so on the summary information you have there you'll see a chart at the top you'll see the total requests that were submitted through our Capital outlay process so the types of items that were submitted were repairs and Renovations technology furniture and Equipment you'll see on that first chart the total request submitted were 64.4 million and you'll see that it's broken down by year so your First Column is the recommendation for the upcoming budget year and then the 2024-25 fiscal year and
153then future years in middle of the page you'll see the funding sources that have been identified for the upcoming year we were able to identify Revenue sources through two different types of blottery funding as well as hoping the county will be able give us the same county appropriation that we receive this fiscal year and so that's how we came to the 6.6 million dollars of funding that was identified you'll notice on the sheet we do not have vehicles included and we usually have vehicles included but the reason they're not shown this year is because the past two years of vehicles that we've tried to purchase we're still waiting on delivery so we've decided to take the funding that was given to vehicles in the past about three hundred thousand dollars and actually put that towards
154going further down on the list for repairs and renovations behind the summary sheet you'll see the next seven pages just shows the details for the repairs and Renovations associated with the prior priority One imperative items that were identified page one shows Midway shows the projects that have identified identified for the upcoming year related to repairs and renovations and then if you wanted to flip to page eight you'll see the details related to the technology request and page nine the details for the furniture and Equipment request so that's a brief summary of the information that was covered in the committee meeting have any questions inside Mr McManus yes all the schools got there they all got their Furniture that's correct Kevin Lee made sure he shared that several times I believe I think the one one
155thing too that we kind of had to take away from is that blue line that were that we're we're at um and I think the discussion that we were having um at the time was the Brogden Hall repair and I I think I don't know if you can speak to that or not or Mr Anderson can and we we kind of were a little bit shocked that I mean not that it's below the line but that you know we can't get the funding for that and maybe we need to have some conversations um I don't know if that if if maybe you want to just briefly say what's going on at Dom New Hanover Mr Anderson for the members that weren't there so um we had we were experiencing some roof leaks and upon investigating
156them found that the roof leaders uh are failing the roof leaders are internal to the building they're not exterior I think you see at your house after studying this for a little while we quickly determined that the best thing to do would be abandon those in interior roof leaders and reroute the drainage to the exterior of the building the two immediate areas of concern we went ahead and fixed that but this would complete the remainder of the roof area for Brogden Hall I think you were saying I think you were telling us unless that's changed that they were it was substantial leakage did that give her a parent or the the two areas that we fixed were pretty substantial okay yeah I mean that since we met is that after I mean that we met
157we no we we had uh we had fixed the the areas that we had leaks but this would you know prevent any future leaks I mean we we know that the uh the interior leaders are failing and it's going to continue until we reroute them just kind of like that because I think when we heard it the first time we were a little bit worried about it and hopefully we can have some conversations don't know if it'll help but I know it's below the blue line but um thank you I wanted to ask a question of Crystal should we leave these on our desk so that we can get more information put in the tabs or do we have to bring those back with us each month I'll be glad to take those back if
158you want me to do that and then bring them back when we have okay I just want to I mean I don't mind you know um giving it back so we can get information and save okay I'll be glad to do that okay anybody else from a second not thank you Miss up appreciate that uh we next will be on to consensus items there are a through l um I wouldn't entertain a motion to approve all the consensus items Miss Walker makes a motion to complete to approve the consensus items is there a second this crabill has a second any discussion if not all in favor of approving the consensus items signify by saying I I all opposed passes seven zero we continue with policy consensus we have two policies on there I believe and
159I'm correct 34 20 and 4 400. um I would entertaining a motion again to pass the policy consensus as provided make a motion Ms craigville makes a motion there's Barnhart seconds did I hear that yes is there any discussion if not um I would uh all in favor please signify by saying aye aye all opposed again passes seven zero we move on to Old business just flying right along which is great uh the third grade literacy Dr Faison uh Europe please so you could have the presentation I don't know if it's loaded yes it is loaded up so basically if you can go to the previous presentation and just the data slide do you have that loaded up so the last time um last month yes if you can just go to yes yes I
160think that's it go down it should be us live just the um slide number six thank you sir so the last time we highlighted how we would get to the 10 percent um per Mrs Bradford's request and we talked about some of the things that we're doing of course I just highlighted for you that we are excited about the opportunity to have a new curriculum resource for our teachers that actually aligns with the science of reading so that's going to be huge for us so this is how we see getting there and then you also have and you don't have to go to that Mrs um baggie but you also have how this aligns to our strategic plan so I will just take any questions you may have Bill yes so um in in looking
161at the Strategic plan strategy 1.2 it looks like we are already addressing this and I guess what um two things one I guess I'm a little concerned that we're folk we're hyper focusing on growth instead of proficiency which we already looked at you know in a previous discussion that proficiency seems to be also something that we need to be taking a look at and that we um might be having to alter our strategic plan to do this at a point where we've already recognized you know piling on more teachers so I didn't know if this if what you're I mean the numbers you've given look doable but I didn't know I couldn't ascertain from this presentation on what we're going to do and is it really necessary at this point in time why can't we
162wait and see what our our numbers play out at the end of this school year um because I I am I'm going to be an advocate that we need to change our strategic plan or at least look at our benchmarks before we adopt something else anyone else you know I would just uh like to add that I think you know I've been at this for a long time I've actually sat down with a superintendent recently not our own one but a different one um and we were talking about how important reading is so and I definitely agree with Ms crabill that um growth is you know is looked at as as much as proficiency but you know uh even sitting down with one of the principals recently he said you know my school we're going
163to grow we are going to grow we may not make that that Line in the Sand I think they are both important but uh as a former principal I definitely think that growth especially for some of our low performing schools is really where it's at so you know both are important but I think that that's really where you know because we may not you know we want everybody of course to make that line but we may not get there at least in a year yes ma'am at this time thank you Dr Faison at this time I would like to move that we instruct the superintendent to create this and to increase our student reading proficiency by 10 Improvement in the third grade reading scores across the board by the end of the 24-25 school year
164what year did you say 24-25 so by the end of next year so we have a motion is there a second to that motion again the motion is to to improve our reading scores third grade reading scores by 10 percent um by the end of next year and I think we have a plan in front of us that can they can do that so I guess it becomes we want to put that in in writing or put that line of sand or not from somebody who knows more than I do about that please Dr face the quote tell me exactly um the question to increase by 10 yeah well I guess I'll ask that question I guess the question is do you think it's a doable by the end of next year do you think
165it's doable to increase across the board our we're talking about proficiency correct yeah I'm going to be honest with you um I'm excited about the new curriculum I really am and I think with the new curriculum we're going to be able to do some amazing things um I really I'm at this place where I don't want to say yes because of the simple fact I don't know what if I think this will be the first year I I don't know where we're going to be with our third grade reading um with um the data now because these students and where they've been I think I'm being honest it doesn't scare me because I have faith in our teachers and what they will do and what we'll do with this Korean this curriculum but that unknown
166that we are going through and we just I just don't know what this year will bring and how that would that effect will be um so I know it's not the answer you want but um I am excited about the new curriculum but then again I know there's a year of learning the new curriculum so we will do what you charge us to do um and we'll make whatever you charges to do happen sure respond thank you a question last summer actually okay not hurt no um thank you Dr Jason I feel like say that that is the plan um obviously we have to look at the the numbers this year as well I think that's what we're kind of waiting on and it's hoping that something we can address with the task force too
167I mean it's a good goal but it's a goal and sometimes you know you want to shoot for as much as you can um and hope for the best and I think that's what we're trying to do all the time I mean I I don't know if passing a motion to State what we've already stated is is going to be helpful or not I mean I think we intended to do that and this discussion shows that we intend to do that I just don't know what that means to have emotion about it well I'm unclear and I'm going to add in um again back to my my days as a principal I remember one point where I you know used a number that I knew we could make and the superintendent looked at me squaring
168the eye it was you know one of the ones up in Pender and she said you know why why you know are you afraid of that goal so I'm gonna go ahead and second uh Ms Bradford's motion um which we should have done before we had this discussion but I think it is I mean I think we do need there's nothing you know if we don't make it it's what you know we try but at least we've had that at least we have that that Focus we have that that here's here's what we've got to do and if we and if we do that's outstanding and at the end of the day we want to do everything we can for our students and third grade reading is so so important so uh we have a
169first and seconds or any other discussion about it I do but then we have the status right the red yellow and green so as far as looking at the implication what if we don't meet it I mean that's what it comes down to it's like either we're going to make it or not but we have this you know stop light pattern that's we're evaluating to meet that goal and what we do to change it and so when I look at the action steps of what we're targeting I definitely think I don't think it's unrealistic to have that as a written out Benchmark in here but I guess my question would be when we come to the end of a school year and a goal is at a red status or yellow or green how do
170we operate to change that pathway like does it come down to our teachers like what does it look like and I think that's what Mr MC minutes was kind of wondering of like if we don't get there is it going to be like oh teachers you know you know it's never a blame game so I I'm sorry sorry so what would typically happen is it would go to Yellow okay and so there's a caution and so then we would have to go back and look and see okay well what was what people was needed what professional development was needed um that caused it so if you go back and if we look at the enrollment cell for 21 22 so it says number of tested that means how many students that was eighteen one thousand
171eight hundred eighty six so in the other its enrollments 1828 kids so then the question is like okay so does this number change if the enrollment decreases um so what does the five percent what is the five percent so if you're looking at a different um group of students so you're not doing Apples to Apples you're doing apples to oranges because these are now your fourth-break kid so we're not actually an encounter we don't know what our second grade kids can do so I'm not afraid of a challenge I don't think any of you I think you all know that what happens is Charles will push and you'll get you'll get emails but if you're setting it up and it's not that we're pushing pushing pushing and pushing individuals down we have to make sure
172that all cylinders are rolling and then that requires accountability so they are things that you have to look at and you know again we'll do the will of the board um and Dr phase and I both have done this turnaround where we go back and forth and um we talk about it and how we get there and how you do it but on some of these occasions I mean it that does burn out burnout does happen and um you have to be careful and so there's a balancing act of you push and you celebrate you push in you celebrate you can't just push push push push push without um celebrating and helping people understand and I'm sure when you're um your super your um Supernatural solving you is like well are you scared meaning you're
173almost there so it wasn't a conversation of you've got to do this right here it's like okay you're already there what are you afraid of so it's it's about the conversation but I um we would have to definitely share with our um and of course this will be for next year we're prepping this year but it would be for next year and helping everyone understand what we would need in order to to get there and what that professional development looked like and what our literacy um Maureen Hills team would look like and what the training and I'm sure there would be specific training just for third grade so they can see it um because we have the same call projections and we work with kids and so we would be looking at okay what does
17460 look like at this school what does it look like in this school or what is 80 because some schools are going to get 90 some are going to get 40 um you know and so it'll be all over the place but then when it all washes out people would be to get to the 60 but it has to be um an agreed upon I want to say agreed upon that everyone understands that it's not a bashing because you don't bash people for not meeting a goal you um you ask so tell me what happens and that's what some of the things we were doing yesterday with that one class when we were in it's like so tell me how is this one so high energy um this person was in here teaching so they're
175mimicking what they saw until it's like okay so then that's how we came to us like when we need her in more classes Ms Walker hey Miss Graybill and we'll finish up so thank you Mr chair I would just say um these are good conversations because I mean that's one of the things we don't want to play a blame game and I think um what we can do and discuss with the task force as well is figure out ways that we can support staff because I know they need it and I feel like um that's part of the discussion you know looking at scores seeing how people performed but also how we can kind of wrap around for them and help them you know um whether it's whatever the ideas we come up with that
176will help us attain this goal and I would say the second point is was the motion about third grade 10 percent growth or overall or just third grade did you say third grade okay so that's that's okay so I I'm feeling like looking at the the slide that she talks she shows us about increasing proficiency by 10 the equal distribution and the realistically I just feel like our our time and our energy would be better spent if we're looking at individual schools than a broad stroke across the district just to check off a box a campaign box or a box box or and we all know that the Strategic plan is what one of the things that we hold Dr Faust accountable to so when we're saying that this is not a Blame Game the
177buck is going to stop at Dr Foust so if we are going to put in a goal that we think we can reach even with as she as Dr Faison talked to us about our change of enrollment our redistricting our new curriculum all the different things that she cautions us about new eogs and expectations for proficiency lots of different things I I am just thinking that we our energy would be better spent looking at raising each school because the rising tide raises All Ships rather than just focusing on some broad stroke number to say that we did it because we are the other slides she showed us said that it would mean some schools already are there so they don't have to do anything does that mean we take the eye off that prize some
178schools only have to do just a little bit so they can squeak It On by and some schools which we know and we got a list from Dr Faust of the ones that have routinely for the past three or four years have been lower performing and not meeting proficiency or growth so I would rather us not take a broad stroke and just focus our energy on the work that Ms Walker is suggesting for our task force so that we find tune with the schools customize our fine tuning to the school so that's what I think that is is a better approach than a broad stroke let's check off a box all right thank you and Mr McManus I like that that's a that's a great point because there are schools that are at the top
179and there are schools at the very bottom so there's the difference in expectations but I have no problems with the accountability my question do you recall for me last summer we had literacy Math and Science summer school for elementary is that correct that would be this these were second graders last year now these but this is last year's third grade this data is last year's third grade yes so tell me if I would call them correctly we identified people the kids yes so what we did right was their first product right so yes based on where we identify kids who were at a certain scale score they were very close for being proficient so we gave them some additional Remediation in literacy was the top T the main focus and then it could be math
180was next you know maybe I passed literacy and I needed math and then fifth grade science for our fifth graders yes sir and we identified how many students I think you're close but when you say 1500 I'm not sure if that's 1500 all grade levels of that I don't have that data in front of me but yeah I'm sorry I don't I do not have that in front of me I at least not bringing that up if I understand it was half or maybe a tad less than half identified which I guess I guess my question is what can we do how do we do a better job well you remember we're doing summer school different this year or some type of summer program so we are doing summer school different if you if you
181recall last month we actually will do summer testing different okay so we are doing some difference because and I can't remember the numbers so we will have that um High number but not only that students do better when we go back and look at our data I can't remember what we got last year it was it was um substantial but it wasn't what we had gotten in the past when we did it and their teachers could do it so we we've done it like we've done it in the past because we actually do see a significant amount of increase at the elementary and the Middle School level and they attribute that to part of some problem yes well yes I'll say that if I'm being those are kids that were so close and the way
182we've done in the past and we're going to do it this year they get additional days of remediation but it's not a long summer program it's it's like maybe this kid had a bad day and they they get some extra remediation and then they get another opportunity Miss Bradford um I'll say it again I believe that leave the Strategic plan and changed it as we voted this year to make academic accountability be our number one that we we want to improve our reading so you've come up with a plan and it's just I'm stupefied that we're having this discussion that we don't want to challenge we don't want to do what you think we can do to improve our literacy scores we hear parent after parent talk to us about the prison to pipeline the
183prison to pipeline is not being able to read it's not being able to read and if they can't read by the third grade it's pretty much over so this should be a no-brainer I don't understand the the pushback on it but um we owe it to our kids to try to do this there's no penalty to it we've set a goal we can have a giant party when we meet it because I have no doubt in my mind that you will meet it and we will be a little further along in in remediating all of this learning loss that we have gone through this last two years Miss Bowie if you would uh you've we've already had enough we've already had this is an opinion this is a question about how it impacts the Strategic
184plan and literacy plan well we've already submitted to DPR we had several uh discussions you've already spoken three times on this point and uh so bye Robertson about literacy plan if you would call the roll please and again the motion in front of us is to improve our third grade reading by 10 um by the end of next year Miss Bradford yes Miss Barnhart yes Mr crabill no Miss Mason yes Mr McManus yes Miss Walker yes and Mr Voldemort yes it passes six to one thank you guys thank you thank you Dr Basin thank you we'll carry on with new business uh call the audience um and I think it says Miss Bradford I believe it actually came from his barn heart so I'll give him his Barnhart the um thank you Mr World War
185um I want to open this discussion uh we have had the call to audience as a first come first serve sign up um that is something that I'll pose the question do we think this is an equitable way to do this I know that we have a lot of choice schools in our County we do not do it by first come first serve because we try to provide an equal opportunity what happened last month has happened a few times since I've been um involved in the school district where we have an overflow and we have to pick and choose who we want to hear from I'll be frank I want to hear from everybody the call to audience we are not allowed to communicate back and forth with individuals I think to have meaningful time
186to actually engage in conversation is more beneficial I'm not going to limit the time I don't we our policy says an hour I'm fine with keeping it back if we want to change it to have an infant amount let's make it 10 hours if that's the best way to hear from people I personally don't think it is so I would like to see us look at potentially a lottery system where people sign up they get assigned a number and similar to jury duty you would get chosen for the slots that we have but I would also like to add we have about 20 percent of our district is multilingual and we have an opportunity to have a small tab a drop down say I need a translator so we have our community and family members
187who can't communicate to us their needs we have a large Hispanic population but it's not just them Vietnamese um Arabic you know go the list goes on Ukraine German and so I would also like for us to consider for a Communications team to provide a drop down support for our families who want to speak but do not have a way to translate to us and I think that we can utilize Our Community Partners to assist in providing that support of what that looks like I would really like for us to look into that and in addition and I think this is already in place and so I'm looking at Dr fast maybe other people to see to make sure that we are able to have subtitles of our committee meetings on YouTube in different languages
188so that our families can actually receive the information and not just second hand gather it and so um that's why I want to open up the discussion well I would like to add that last night I thought it was excellent that at the state of the county meeting there was actually a sign a person doing sign language throughout the whole thing boy I thought he was moving but it was a lot of discussion but I think even having that we've discussed that before in signing um you know so that people can that that have you know either or deaf or have trouble hearing can actually participate in a better way so I just would like to add that it's Mason I took your thunder I'm sorry you did take my offender I've actually been hoping
189for this kind of conversation for a while um and I know that Miss Barnhart and I have had that conversation as well um but I absolutely would love it if we could provide those services to our deaf Community to our Hispanic Community to all these communities and having that drop down would just be a simple way to show that we are listening and that we do want to hear from everybody no matter the size of the group whether the deaf population is big or not we want to hear from them you know and we want them to have access we want everybody to have access to all the things that we're doing here and so I think that's an excellent step in the right direction thank you Miss Walker so I guess the next question
190is is that possible maybe Josh is the one that could answer that question uh YouTube is it capable I mean I'm sorry Dr Foust well first uh Communications just got a new job sorry well I mean because because we're having some questions and I didn't know whether he might be the one to answer whether it's capable I I can I can address the YouTube question now and that is that option is already built into YouTube so we've tested that and if you select the language uh it's very similar to the captions scrolling across the bottom select Spanish it'll be in Spanish and so that's an option already afforded by YouTube so that's already there thank you and everything else we're happy to look into and one one additional conversation that I'd like to have is
191you know and something and like I say I'm just throwing it out on the table I know that before the pandemic or I've heard I was before my time actually on the board but that sign up was actually 100 here I'm not suggesting that but I have heard over the years that especially teachers students eight o'clock in the morning on a Monday morning is very difficult they you know they're teaching or learning uh and they would like to participate so maybe we want to look at the possibility of you know maybe 50 50 where you know we have 30 or 35 people sign up uh maybe doing 20 here and uh you know the other 15 online to give people more of an opportunity here to do that I'm you know I'm just throwing at
192that possibility where we have more of a shared thing uh shared ability Ms Bradford and I Echo that we get we get messages that we wanna stop the public speaking we actually want to hear from more people and tonight is a really interesting example because we only had 25 people sign up with a day and a half to sign up that's kind of interesting but it would be you might be curious to know of those 25 people 50 of them spoke last month they spoke the month before they spoke the month before so that small group that we hear from every month are the ones who've figured out how to get through to the call to audience technology I believe that the technology is broken that we need a new way of doing it I
193don't have a solution but the way we're doing it two months in a row it's been a disaster it creates an enormous amount of frustration when you're sitting there trying to get in and it doesn't work you don't know if you're going to get in you might have to go to work your child might be crying your dog may be waiting at the door to go out and it's just it you can't do it on your phone you can't do it on your iPad you have to use a computer and it disenfranchises a certain number of people including the teachers so we need to come up with another way I don't have the answers but we need to come up with another way Square bill yeah I would like for us to take a look
194at the wording in policy 2310 where it says the board will allow up to one hour of public comment and call to the audience and so tonight we had just under an hour with 25 people um last month with our people there we had um one hour and 20 minutes of time and that was just in the beginning we only had a five a seven minute break from the Ruckus so that would be an hour and 13 minutes so our policy says one hour and we have the longest public commentary of any District in the state so um and so even when it says you know that we will have 30 participants that that is not in our policy that is something that we just made up so in order to get more people in
195but the in reality we don't have to do it that way I think we should address the hour and um when you're done when we're done at the hour then they need to move to the end because that's what our policy says or we're going to have to change our policy and it doesn't say that we get this many to sign up online it doesn't say we get this many so maybe we need to have a procedure like a 2310-r or something if we want to codify that um so we asked them not to applaud we ask them to be ready and yet we still go over the time every single time Miss Walker so yeah so but if we're asking people to sign up when and we don't know how many people are going
196to do it that was the easier way to do it I think and I know we're going a little bit over but you know there is transition time and sometimes it we do take a little bit longer I think it was under an hour you say this time it was a little over an hour last time I think unless we changed the way we sign people up I don't know we can control that part um with the online sign up you know as far as like just doing exactly an hour because we don't know how many you know how many people are going to sign up we don't know you know we don't know circumstances you know people take a little bit longer to get up there I don't know I just feel like you
197know if we're being a stickler about an hour it's just going to be hard doing it the online sign up I think maybe our smartest next step on this would be to bring it back to policy to let policy kind of come up with a an idea or a plan because it's going to have to change our policy and I've been before accused of trying to do a lot of things from the diet so maybe that I would make a motion that we I don't know if we need to make much but we'll make a motion make it official that we send the call audience back to policy for further discussion and for them to bring us back a plan second was crabill all in favor of sending you to policy oh is there any
198discussion are we trying to see the Christ how we enroll people and call to audience are we wanting to see a train a translation option for students who need a translator I I mean I'm happy to explore this but if there was specific directions that we want to see come out of policy I'd like to know now versus go back and forth I would like to say that we would definitely like to look at how we signed people up to see if there's if we want to balance it more I'm not one to say we need to reduce it at all but I think maybe we should you know have some kind of house because I don't think in a couple of times that I've been the chair we haven't had you know people not
199show we we actually had two today so I changed my mind as I say that but we had two today that signed up and you know somebody else would have taken their their spot so you know maybe at least balancing it so that we have you know some people here so that would be my I think that Mr Smith has already said that he can do most of that maybe we should say that we you know maybe we should put it in policy that we will have translators as needed because I do think we need to to be able to provide for for people like I say even last night I thought it was exceptional that the County Commissioners had someone there signing to share Mr chairman yes ma'am I think if to take it
200to Paul we have to address the fact that if we have 30 people that sign up online and we have five people that can sign up outside that's 35 people times two minutes you're already over the hour you're already over the hour and that's not counting the transition time between the speakers and dealing with the the Clapping so we have to address that issue and I don't have a solution I just I'm aware that it's a problem Miss Walker so I I just want to go ahead and say I'm not in favor of allowing 60 minutes and then kicking somebody to the end of the meeting I just think that's that's not appropriate I think we we had a kind of a mix-up last time and we made people wait and they they had to
201leave because our meeting went five hours so I'm not in favor of that I feel like if there you guys are gonna are sorry the policy committee is going to look at how we sign up or versus time and maybe maybe we need to get some public input I don't know this is just a suggestion we have a town hall perhaps coming up soon and maybe we'll hear about that then but um it's definitely to miss barnhart's point about um are we doing time and if we're going to get people that need inter you know interpreters it's going to take a little longer and so I'm just saying now I'm not in favor of kicking people to the end of the meeting all right oh well we have a motion and a second if there's
202no further discussion all in favor of uh sending call to audience uh to the policy committee for their recommendations uh say aye aye all opposed I carry seven zero and Pete I think it should be policy 2310 not call to the audience okay yeah yes ma'am all right carrying on public participation meetings we do have three per policy a minimum of three per policy hopefully you brought your calendar I have mine in front of me we would like to space these out obviously um Mr McManus made a point the other day that we haven't had to have any interim meetings well we're going to have at least three because I think that's the typical time that we do that um we could possibly do it as early as March um excuse me not March I'm
203sorry I'm a month off we could do it as early as April which would be the 18th or we could wait till May for the first one which would be the 16th so preferences yes ma'am last year we did May July and September just for reference for folks so we spread it out you know um throughout like one in this school year the rest of the school year and then one in the summer and one in the fall so last year for some reason I would say it was March but I guess you're probably right March was the first one that we had last time right so it was it was March March July and September okay you said you just said May okay I'm sorry I meant March March so yeah July and September
204was it the summer one that was really poorly attended yes yeah I believe it was so since we're already halfway through March why are we uh is it does April 18th work for everyone Ms Barnard is that policy on the 18th of April well it's over that is on the agenda to be voted for the third Tuesday so um it could be yes because that's a week after spring break all right so we will hold our first public participation meeting on April 18th Mr Woodward let me can I ask a question yes ma'am so we're still going to have our regular board meeting on March the 4th correct because April I mean I'm sorry April the 4th yes ma'am because April the 8th April the 11th we're on spring break spring break the 10th through
205the yeah and then so our policy would normally be April the 18th that's in the morning so we could do it you know we can do one in the evening okay okay is everybody okay with that it's two hour meeting five to seven five to seven okay that's what I was gonna ask oh it's tax day in case anybody is going to be under the gun and can we can we somehow reach more people with the media that we're having it so we have better attendance I mean everybody says they want to talk to us and then we have it and they don't show up so you know can we can we somehow reach the media is aware in a different way yes man we'll Market it uh the media is aware of the meetings
206though and it's it's their prerogative to attend or not okay yeah I think uh thinking back and I may be wrong but I thinking back from last year I think the first one we just did kind of a extended call audience so I think then the second meeting sent a lot of people to jump because they were just like well it's gonna be the same thing so yeah back and forth right um so our second meeting I think Miss crabill's idea of July um so the first Tuesday and let's look at that right now the first Tuesday is actually the Fourth of July so instead of waiting until you know that month to decide you know we may want to in a style of agenda so we please think about the fact we may want
207to move that meeting if we were to move that meeting we probably would move that to the 11th yeah I think we should go ahead and just make that decision right now okay is everyone good can you repeat that please the board meeting is July the 11th the regular meeting okay and I'm thinking you know it's summer people are on vacation maybe we skip over that and go to August I don't know I would agree with Miss Bradford on that I'm sorry I would agree with Miss Bradford on that because I feel like everyone will be away and if we want participation I would I would Echo okay so if we were so we've moved the July regular board meeting to 11th um I think is it can we just do it by consensus everybody's
208good with that all right then we move on to August the first board the Board of Education meeting the first one would be on August first that's only three weeks between meetings and then the second so then we would look at August 15th is that a good day for us Dr Foust had a great day for us when do teacher work days Academy guys are you okay with three weeks between the two board meetings they still have to have the agenda briefing it's pretty tight from the 11th to the first there you go does anybody see any problem with the 15th of August being the the next public participation meeting but we're having we're having the regular meeting on the 8th so we're not hearing suggested oh that it would be a month out you
209know Mr chair is that more comfortable I see one head shaking it's over there I mean I just put you guys in a squeeze right now Mr World of War yes sorry I know you're concentrating I know we were asking staff but they're not generally here right for the meetings where you miss Brad for asking I think I'm at the general board meeting oh okay because 11th we just moved it and if we move if we go to follow our plan then the July I mean the August regular board meeting will be on the first and in between those we've got to squeeze in the agenda briefing and all the prep and all the reports and all that stuff that they do in here okay to miss Bradford's Point um in last year we when
210we were having interim meetings we were basically having a meeting having an agenda review having a meeting having a gender review I mean it was terrible but um that's what we did so one month I don't want to say anything going to kill us but I don't think we should start getting off of our regular meeting schedule just because we're all I would agree okay I would agree so unless we hear in the next 30 seconds we're going to go with the first and then the 15th sir okay nothing okay all right so we'll do public participation on the 15th I would think we would want to skip September instead of having two back-to-back months so maybe October is that okay with everyone October so that'll be our last one um so we have the
211first Board of Education meeting is on the third and then the 17th would be the public participation meeting can we designate Town Halls well with the first one we'll say is a town hall and when we look at how that is and how the feedback from everyone will go from there so the first one will be a town hall okay so we have again those dates uh we let me reiterate those real quickly uh April the 18th public meeting Town Hall then we are going to we have moved the July 4th meeting to July 11th our next public participation meeting is August 15th and our final public participation meeting is October 17th all right moving on quickly from there we are on to Legal Services contract Miss Bradford well excuse me see me um actually
212miss Sutton yes yes let us take his consensus for those three dates that I just said all in favor say aye aye aye all opposed past seven zero we will carry on uh Miss Sutton so we wanted to have a discussion about our attorney our legal contract our attorney contract can you hear me okay you can't hear me yeah you can't help yep thank you yes ma'am so as we had talked about briefly um I believe it was at Agenda review meeting our current contract ends for our Attorney Services ends June 30th of this fiscal year and at that point in time we can renew for another year or we would need to provide 30 days notice of non-renewal at that contract so if we decide to non-renew then we would need to go through
213the process of putting out a request for qualifications um and as part of that we would want to um and I I will go ahead and say at your desk or your seat you should have a draft of a qual request for qualifications and this is based on what was done previously so we have done this I think about two years ago and so is this a similar document is what we released at that point in time and so I've just provided some highlights for some dates that we would need to identify before we could actually put that out for bid or for qualification responses and you'll notice in that request for qualifications it also talks about something that we would need to talk through is you would create a committee to be able to
214evaluate the responses that come back for those qualifications previously that committee was made up of two board members superintendent and I think the chief finance officer at that point in time but the board of course could decide who's on that committee I would also say we're required to post that qualifications for responses at least two weeks or 14 days I would recommend at least 21 to 30 days just to make sure you you are getting as many responses as possible so when you're doing that evaluation and so I'll be glad to answer any questions you have as I said at your seat you have your request for qualifications just a draft and you also have a rubric that was used by the committee last time to evaluate what was submitted I do have one question
215where do we post that I've talked to one attorney and he said that he you know he's on all the boards you know whatever they call them the boards and he said I never saw anything from you know last time okay yeah so we definitely post it on our web sites within New Hanover County schools and we also would post in newspaper and then wherever else we think would be a viable way to get people to apply and then of course if we know of people that are qualified that we were interested in we could also send the RFQ to them just as a heads up that this has been posted for people that are interested and so I can talk to my purchasing department and my purchasing agents to identify other sources or resources
216that we could use to get that posting out as well it's cribel hey there's a motion for us to extend therington Smith for another years or a second okay well let me just see first we get a second wait is there a second hearing none Miss Barnhart so my question was Miss Sutton is is there anything stop shopping from therington Smith to continue to apply I just know the dollar amount is a large amount of money and so my thinking of potentially looking is to see that but I don't I'm not I'm not personally at the point to say they're not allowed to apply I just no they would certainly be eligible to apply okay I just I want that clarification thank you Miss Walker yeah so I think Miss Grable and I were on
217the committee last time and I think that Darrington was allowed to apply again so I mean I think it's worth looking at their their contract as well as as others I think that I think what we struggled with last time is the lack of either I wouldn't say interest or you know like you say Mr World of War like where was it posted and perhaps we didn't get as many as we had hoped and so hopefully this time maybe we can do a broader search I mean I don't remember how we did it exactly last time but it wasn't I think as broad as it could have been thank you famous welcome Mr McManus a crucial hopefully particularly the newborn Brothers that we have a history we have the sexual assault which some of us
218get blamed for all the time you're waiting on the board but you're talking about whether you like his haircut or not or is able to just firm you're talking about someone who's been with us for a year and who knows the interesting interest anyhow yeah it's like everything they know so much about where we have been how we've got to where we are and then what we're having to deal with in the future which is Maryland it is overwhelming so I can't just agree that you want to open and discuss but I would hope that we would never consider someone who doesn't have a background in educational Arena particularly working with boards because real regret it we will regret it yeah and and I just think that's the key to this whole process the last
219time we had somebody who had never dealt with an educational Arena at all so think about the complexity the stuff that we haven't discussed the stuff that we discuss in closed session he knows all that how do you bring a new rep up to date for the last three to four years of what we've come through I think that's crucial but I like him or not he is the dictionary for where we've been where we are and where we're going to be absolutely Miss Bradford um I I send it to all of you so I know you have it the public doesn't know it I I ask Miss Sutton for the last five years of our legal fees and we've gone from having a on staff attorney someone who was on staff they got vacation
220time they got comp time they got Social Security all those things we started we start this this chart with that and and now we have and I don't mean it Mr I don't know how else to call it except for billable hours so we've gone through that and in between there's another option is having an in-house attorney sometimes people refer to the person who was on the staff as being in-house but we're talking another option is an in-house it's an outside firm that every time we call them and we call them a lot we involve them a lot that's one option so I'd like to look at options but just so you know in the five-year study in the comparison we're up 163 percent and our cost so if they follow this trend that we've
221already established we're going to be at a half a million dollars in less than two years with the increase so I am I am always interested when we're spending a half a million dollars to look at other options I agree with with Mr McManus this this firm has to be we have to uh equal or greater than so I Make a Move Motion Mr chairman that we instruct the superintendent to have Ashley prepare us and she's calling this a request for qualifications which most of us know is an RFP but I've been through it at length and it's a request for qualification to solicit responses from education law firms for Board of Education legal counsel both as in-house counsel and or how we have now as billable hours and to prepare it and have it
222for review for the uh chairman and the finance committee on March 21st 20 2023 the already scheduled meeting can you repeat that please sure I did Mumble a bit we instruct the superintendent to have the central office staff prepare we've already got a draft of it here request for qualification RFQ to solicit responses from education law firms for Board of Education legal counsel both as in-house counsel or as we have now billable hours not considering on staff or fq to be prepared or this one that we've got in front of us updated by staff for review by the finance committee at its March 21st 2023 scheduled meeting we have a motion we have a second question second no for a second I I would second but I would want to admit the date I I
223moved to amend the date so that we do the allotment time that Miss Sutton said of the 21 to 30 days out which would be a minimum of what the 28th I believe maybe I misunderstanding this but I think that she's just saying prepare the document not no she gave us a date to have the doctor prepared or to have the I don't I guess let me ask you a qualifying question are you asking to have the document prepared to send out by that date or are you saying you want to have all the responses by that day oh gosh no no the document prepared and she basically has it prepared so it's it's um the 21st is several weeks away the library tracked my amendment I thought you were saying the whole process I
224was like so we have we have a motion do we have a second I seconded okay we have a first and a second now we can discuss it Scrabble and I want to amend that motion to have the date be at our April meeting so that we don't have to have another meeting I'd like to amend the motion that that the date that she suggests on March 21st is be prepared for our next board meetings which will be April the 8th right one thing to keep in mind is there we do need to be able to have something in place you know award it before June the end of June and so you know we'll have the board meeting I think it's June 2nd I think that might be the date um so if you
225don't if we're not bringing it back for the board to be able to review the draft until April and then if the next day if we're posting it if you're trying to go at least you need at least 14 days I mean that's a state requirement the longer you go the more responses you're going to receive so I'm just saying that's a quite a very quick turnaround and if we follow the same procedure as we did before where you have the committee that reviews everything that's submitted and then they make the recommendation of the top however many firms that applied then remember those firms came back I didn't State this earlier but they came back and did a presentation to the board so if you have that piece in there it it's um it's a
226link the process I'm not saying we don't have time to do that but I think we need to go ahead and get started as quickly as we can to make sure we have time unless you're not going to do the board presentations um and so and Miss Booker maybe you can help me remember or miss crabill or Mr McManus um I think last time we did it was like in October so it was the middle of a contract so typically I think we we revisit in June which is the summer which is it's probably better because I feel like we want time one and two there are things that are going on in in the schools that we need our attorneys for and um I know that like Dennis Sutton's point we have to have
227the presentations and we have to have time to put it out so I would I would just say I don't know what the maybe I don't understand the current motion but can we wait till you know to make the decision in June can we aim for that that day because I feel like that's in our in our policy that June is when we revisit anyway I might okay so here's the timeline on October the 5th 2021 we sent out the RFP it was presented at a work session on 12 7 21 after Miss Walker and I had um reviewed the information we voted on 1 4 2022 for the um the 2000 the February 22 to 6 30 22 contract we voted to renew the contract on 5 3 22. so the um and then
228in between there he gave the they gave us their annual report so we started in October we presented on in December to the board at a work session we voted on it in April and it's my recollection that we didn't approve the RFQ you guys just put it together because that's what your expertise is we don't approve the RFQ but they they review with with our legal and tell us how to put that out so it was a it was a three-month process October to November two months before we even heard a presentation and then another month before we voted so it's like it's a three-month process okay we're in three right now so we have we have March through so we we you know could get it done by the end of June and
229to miss Walker's Point was we heard a presentation from all of our senior staff on the multiple ways that we use therington Smith that we use you know we use Jason as our general counsel um and then any fill-ins in case you can be here but we also use other staff attorneys for every Department uses them you know for contracts for EC for HR um and all that kind of stuff so they're not the RFP RFQ is not just for being our general counsel and when we had in-house counsel with Mr Bullard he had to go out and use other attorneys and basically he went out and used Barrington Smith so it's it's not just for legal care it's not just that simple just so you'll know to wrap your forms around that your head
230around that Mr McManus the billable hours that's just for Farrington and Smith now it would be who whatever attorneys that were using so if there is a situation so that's not Anthony Smith in that total yeah so the the total would include all of attorney fees um I did break out in the last document oh go ahead I was just going to say in the last document that I sent you because of some additional questions I received I did break out the Farrington Smith total from the total contracted Services that's okay but yes that's all of our attorney fees and Mr Wilbur we also it comparing how Miss Bradford did you know straight up you know percent increase didn't take into account the specific issues that we were facing um in those years we had
231lawsuits we've had hearings we've had other different things that have come up you know for we had a changing of the of the leadership you know from chair to chair which heightens some of the billable hours as the new chair is getting used to what's going on so it's not just as simple as going percent increase because you don't know what happened right but like the lawsuits and and tell me if I'm incorrect lawsuits are typical in most cases that especially the big one is handled not by our that would not be in your your Finance piece that we don't we don't pay for that that's actually our insurance carrier that pays for that correct right so that wouldn't you know lawsuits wouldn't be part of that but ancillary stuff like the other part of
232the lawsuit Mr sharpless yeah yeah okay okay all right yes ma'am um Sutton and I have been going back and forth I took the dates that um Darrington sent us earlier um that piece of paper that had the cases and the dates and I put them into that spreadsheet and then miss Sutton's given me some additional information I've got that done it's not really germane to this we're not arguing dollars and cents here we're just saying hey if there's another option out there we'd like to put out the RFQ and look at it and we want to do it in time that we're not rushed the staff's not rushed we can do all the things that need to be done and we need to do it really before we get into budget because that's going
233to take a lot of our times that a time that's why I said you know we've got a meeting scheduled for the 21st and and the things already pretty much done I would like for you to consider where is my draft um the the special ed you and I talked about it earlier tonight um oh yeah on the first paragraph in the introduction fourth line down after public education special ed law I'd like to add that in there that this attorney firm has great expertise in that um and we're not saying that we're making the change we're saying let's bring in some options let's look and see what's out there I went back and reviewed every meeting that we've had on this there was a lot of contention between the old board about how things
234were done and where it was put out and so on and so forth I listened to the two presentations this is just to see if there's a firm out there that is a better fit for us or if not you know therington will still present I'm certain they will so it's not we're not saying we don't want them we're saying let's Troll and see what options are out there and let's make a decision and go forward I did not write down your emotion can you re-read your motion please maybe yes before she reads I will retract my motion to change the date okay instruct the superintendent to have the central office staff prepare uh the request for qualifications are fq to solicit responses from education law firms for Boe legal counsel both as in-house counsel
235not on staff in-house and or as we have now by billable hours and to have it this document that we're looking at tonight the draft updated by staff for reviewed by the finance committee at its March 21 2023 scheduled meeting we've finished committee okay uh Ms Bowie would you call the roll please man I think she just reread it true um but she's preparing it so it doesn't really need to be said does it it doesn't it don't you Faust so just for for clarity um how what's how long of a process because this contract ends on the 30th and if we're not and you have to give according to I think our policy it's the 30-day notice right and so we don't want to get into legal trouble for not right how much right
236right so how are we extend so so what you're saying we need to make our decision by making yeah well we need a we need to go ahead and put an RFP out like tomorrow oh okay I can't wait that long because then if she needs 21 days well and especially if if you want to see the presentations at a board meeting or either an agenda review like if you don't want to have a special meeting to see presentations and to vote you know on awarding the contract I think as soon as possible that we can go ahead and get it posted the better let me let me last piece off my motion so and and let me let me say it again instruct the superintendent to have the central office staff prepare the RFQ
237adding special education law to solicit responses from education law firms from Board of Education legal counsel both as in-house counsel and or as we have now by billable hours so are you saying that you don't that you're only caring about the extra special ad you're not caring about construction law you're not caring about the um HR law and the other ways that we use their existence did you read this I did but your emotion is is no I said adding the special ed to that introduction because it's missing from all those other things that you just mentioned okay all right so we have a motion um do you second that since we've changed the motion do you second that still okay okay we have a first and second um I'm sorry I don't mean to
238delay I just we took the date out so we're trying to do this as soon as possible should that be an emotion or not well it's time for because with no date it's it's immediate okay just clarify all right so we have a motion we have a second Miss uh Bowie would you please call the roll Miss crabill no Miss Mason yes Mr McManus no Miss Walker yes Mr wildeborg yes Miss Bradford yes and Miss Barnhart yes that passes five to two we will get that uh next thank you very much Miss Hutton uh can I ask a clarifying question now that that's been passed so as part of the RFQ there are dates that I need to include in this document and so I'll need I just want to make sure that the board's
239okay with so if if we release this RQ on the 9th which will be my goal and then we would close it 21 days later which would be March the 30th um we need to determine who's going to be on the committee I can reach out to them and have a committee meeting I can work with them either March 31st or April 3rd and then would it be okay to do the presentations The Firm presentations on April 25th because I would like to include all that in the document so when they're you know submitting their qualifications um back to us they they are prepared they know that they're going to have to do a presentation and what that day that presentation would be on so the only I just wasn't sure if it would be
240okay scheduling that for April 25th because that's not a regular board meeting that's an agenda review meeting I just want to make sure that would be okay we can add that in absolutely okay okay and I will give you the names well let's go ahead and I will uh nominate uh Miss Walker Ms Bradford and uh Dr Faust so then our goal would be to bring back um for board the award contract for board approval on May 2nd which would give us plenty of time to notify if we have a change does that sound okay I should ask are you okay with that I think I will be here that's okay so on either March 31st or April 3rd were the dates that I was hoping we can meet that would be the day after
241everything would be submitted back to us the uh the career day is on the 31st of March from 9 to 12 at Legion Stadium just just saying and I'm fine with either one of those dates whatever works for you so I would add to the the chancellor insulation and I don't know if anybody has signed up to do that UNCW um that's in the morning as well [Music] well last time if you remember Miss Adams picked a group to do it so oh Walker and who is Bradford and this is ready for the finance committee would be part of that yeah so I think now we're not bringing it back I'm going to go ahead and use these dates to prepare the document so I can go ahead and get it released so it we're
242okay with the third it's a good time for you okay yep third works for me what time Miss Sutton all right um is two o'clock okay that'll work all right thank you thank you so much thank you yes yes sir thank you board members I can make a clarifying point if staff do have questions about the RFQ um in terms of its development or content I would encourage staff to reach out to the school boards Association and not to me you know we certainly look forward to the opportunity to submit a bid it would be inappropriate for me to give input into the document itself but I know the school boards Association does provide those services certain thank you very much thank you Mr Weber um at this point uh Ms Princeton please is that
243for Esports does anybody need to take a moment or to break no one we're good all righty time to introduce the group behind me because they're actually going to be the ones presenting so um Holly virgin and Floyd Benfield have been my digital digital teaching and learning Specialists who have been working really hard to get this organized and set up and Joel actually is a teacher at Hoggard who actually first brought this to me they were doing a club at Hoggard and the interest was there to have Esports and then we also have Mr Lewis here if there's any questions as far as Athletics so I'm going to turn it over to Joel good evening thank you members of the board for the opportunity to speak with you this evening my name is Jay Campbell
244I'm a CTE teacher at Hoggard High School I teach digital design and animation and game art design last spring I approached my principal principal Bell MS Futrell CTE director and assistant superintendent Miss Brinson about the possibility bringing a Esports Club to Harvard High School um if you're unsure what Esports is in a nutshell Esports is organized in-person competitive video gaming students can compete either in a collaborative team of up to five players or can compete in one-on-one formats depending on the game participation in Competitive Gaming or Esports is growing exponentially across the globe not only are there more professional Esports athletes teams sponsors competitions but also millions of viewers are spectators of these events online projections indicate that in the next few years there will be 84 million viewers of Esports competitions in the U.S
245which is more than the 70 79 million Major League Baseball viewers or 63 million NBA viewers that would make Esports viewership second only to the NFL North Carolina is positioning itself to become a leader in this huge industry not only do we have the one of the largest and most influential gaming companies on in the globe and carry in epic games but the North Carolina general assembly and the governor signed a 30 million dollar grant program to Foster Esports in North Carolina including the Esports industry Grant fund similar to the NC film Grant the Esports industry Grant offers Financial incentive for companies to host esport events in the state of North Carolina 12 million dollars of those monies are going to build a new Esports arena in my alma mater NC State University which when
246it's built will probably be the biggest Collegiate Esports arena in the country one area that seen tremendous growth within the larger industry of Esports is Collegiate and high school sports Esports colleges across the United States are launching Esports program programs at an increasing rate with well over a hundred programs currently in existence between 2018 and 2019 the number of high school leagues that facilitate Esports nearly doubled and some of the programs started out as student-run clubs like ours but many are seeing participation in organized leagues now this bell Miss Futrell and Miss Brinson were really excited to offer their support for our club two games were installed in my classroom on the PCS and this fall we began holding our initial club meetings Hoggard hosted the first face-to-face Esports competition against C-TEC in October in
247my classroom and our second competition in December involved teams from all four traditional high schools and ctec and Miss greatbow attended that event currently all eight new high New Hanover County high schools have an active Esports club and dedicated Esports coach we would like to take it to the next level I'm here this evening to propose the board formalize Esports as an athletic activity in New Hanover County Schools I'm not here however to advocate for Esports because it's popular I'm here because of the value that it adds to our schools and to our students Educators know that taking part in extracurricular activities boost success a lot regardless of the activity whether it's playing football or video games studies show that students who are involved in extracurricular activities are more successful in a number of ways
24897 of teen boys and 83 percent of teen girls play video games some of these teens are involved in schools clubs and sports many however are not by offering Esports as an extracurricular activity schools reach students who are often otherwise disengaged from the school community Esports in schools can transport those kids from the solitary world of digital gaming into the common space of the school community Through the library or computer labs these otherwise uninvolved students join the ranks of their successfully involved peers more likely to be engaged during classes more likely to graduate more likely to Aspire to higher education and less likely to suffer the spread and harms of feeling out of sync with their school community gaming can be an isolating pastime when students can join School Esports teams it becomes a social
249experience without School Esports Club passionate Gamers often feel left out of the mainstream School social life organized Sports bring these kids into the fold it can help them become accepted and respected members of their school community team sports teach valuable skills many parents encourage their children to participate in traditional team sports for just this reason team sports provide an arena for teaching important lessons and life skills beyond the classroom the skills practiced and honed as part of a team applies equally to any team activity Esports is no exception these skills include working with others strategic thinking and planning managing success and failure time management team sports of any kind can provide an opportunity for coaches to instill positive values principles and standards of behavior like good sportsmanship fairness and respect persistence honesty fun and healthy
250competition these values can buoy students throughout their lives Esports in schools also Fosters stem learning one of my roles as a CTE teacher is to expose students to the growing number of stem Fields as well as careers in the gaming industry offering Esports is an extracurricular activity it's a great way for high schools to encourage students to pursue careers in lucrative STEM related fields not only does school does school Esports boost student interest in higher education but it can also provide a pathway to post-secondary scholarships nearly 200 U.S colleges and universities collectively offer 15 million dollars a year in Esports scholarships in conclusion Esports provides an invaluable experience for normally under-involved population in our schools thank you [Applause] questions do we have any questions Mr Bradford yes ma'am I'm looking at the physical implications oops
251thank you I'm looking at the fiscal implications 165 000 for equipment twelve thousand dollars a year for League membership and Coach stipends where's that money coming from submitted for the equipment a capital request and then for the the coaches stipend we've submitted another budget request um we understand that budgets type that may or may not happen we may have to continue it as a club until we can do something um but the interest is there so I want to make sure we still do it in some form or fashion Ms Mason um as a mom of two boys that love video games I love this I love this concept I love this idea and and giving them a space because so often they're sitting at home playing isolated and so they're if they have friends
252around them um it definitely helps so I I love this it's great bill yeah um I was really skeptical when I heard about the last stand um we're talking about the benefits one thing they didn't do that you guys did was talk about the career implementation doing their scholarships and colleges but they were you know to play the game but they weren't talking to you to connect um and you're going to kind of got a shout out at that because we were working with conjunction with ucw but this is slated for um fall of 2023 to begin okay High School only yes okay and then um how does the coaching stipend and you're that you have listed um compared to the other high school sports coaches it would it would work the same way in
253that hour I can use my cooked boys first we're a long way past the Atari 2600 right uh our coaches stipends for our athletic teams they received that stipend in the season and it becomes in the month perhaps during spring so our spring coaches get their stipend February March April and May um and so it would work the same way um with the coaches stipend for the Esports coaches and to tag along with that um every coach in New Hanover County schools has to sign a coach's code of conduct the esport coaches would fall under that same requirement and then the esport athletes don't miss Brinson wants to make sure that our esport athletes are also following the same eligibility path that our other sport athletes are following as well [Music] so what we looked
254at is with the stipends it looks at like how big the team is you know how many students are on it so we were looking at that depending on Esports teams I mean you could have anywhere from five to you know 50 kids a lot of it depends on the games that you play so so we're not sure so I kind of looked in there after talking to Mr Kelly and seeing um kind of where it would fit you know as we kind of figured out so it's not the smallest but it's also not the largest kind of in the in between but it would be a kind of making sure once we start forming it where it kind of would belong to make sure it falls online where it should be with all the
255other sports if I could just ask a quick question and then I'll get back to you um I guess because it says a recommendation for next uh steps is to approve the Esports team to be added this High School number one I think it's great um but my question is if we were to tonight say yes we thumbs up and and does that put us you know like with your budget requests would that no that's what you're going to go through the budget process you're just saying that it's going to be a sport we still have to go through the budget process for Capital and the regular budget for the other items okay that was just for your information what's on there okay it's Barnhart um so I have just some questions so how do
256the kids try out and then what games will they be competing in and then can they letter in this just similar to other sports that's a good question a lot of high schools are now offering as an official Varsity Sport okay some have varsity and even JV Varsity RJ JV teams um and they are allowed to letter um that would be more of a Kelly question as well to as far as the national you know the North Carolina High School Association as well I know that with with speaking with a number of leagues when we were looking at participating in a league that they are working on those those type of arrangements so it's coming as far as tryouts I coach tenants at hogger and tryouts would be no different um kids come to apply
257that the difference the main difference is is that there are different games that players or students or athletes are good at so um it's it's more analogous to attract me where or track team where you could potentially have very large team where each player specializes in a particular game and that's their specialty but it's also kind of back to miss crabill's Point as well Esports is much bigger than the athletes UNCG has a number of programs right now that they've just brought on board certificate associate programs that focus on the business side of Esports this is the billion dollar industry and growing every year so it's not just about the athletes it's about the sponsorships it's about the marketing it's about you know the support in addition to the team members there's a lot of
258extra activities that students can participate in even if they're not playing the games so social media filming streaming streaming the con the contest helping the coaches set up the technology so there's a lot of roles and response disabilities as far as an Esports team probably more than traditional Athletics the games we're playing right now are rocket League Valhalla we're looking at bringing on Minecraft creative or survival rather and then you know most of what they the kids want to play um you know obviously we go through our process but we're not offering any first-person shooter games it's not appropriate for the school environment most of our games are going to be raided by the ESRB appropriately for the age of children that are our kids are going to be playing fable yeah the I want
259to go Miss Walker for say I meant that I'm from the original gaming generation and I know how positive that was for me and making this more of a team sport is definitely a good thing it's tied to stem it's tied to our local and state economy um it's a unique opportunity for our students because especially because of Kerry you know the businesses they have and carry and it is a huge industry like I think I saw documentary on it it's a big deal I think it would perhaps launch careers maybe eventually most colleges and universities who run Esports programs have huge interest in stem engineering math and the like so yeah and there is a connection there between those career fields and Esports absolutely yeah yeah I've seen that so yeah I'm supportive I
260think the only question I would have is I know we had a discussion about our Middle School athletic directors and their um what do you call their supplement so I mean but I support this completely I just say you know if we can have conversation later about them as well that would be a good thing too but I'm in favor thank you Miss Walker subscriber yeah so um a couple called follow-up questions so is this a year-round sport yes ma'am okay so the the the the the proposed 687.50 per month would be times 10. okay um so and then it's my understanding from the ncsba that this is not a sanctioned North Carolina High School sports Association sport is that right so they can earn letters that we give and it's not um it I
261mean I just want to make sure that we're clear that we're not following we don't have to follow their rules you know um we can we can opt to follow those rules but we're not under their their umbrella is that right [Music] um [Music] provided [Music] okay so if we approved it to be a sport tonight um and yet we couldn't approve it in the budget um what would be our next steps just keep it as a club team and and keep competing until we can raise money or find a sponsor or a grant of any sort you know to do that and are you you're that you're the Kelly of this of this sport right yeah okay yeah okay thank you questions if not I'd entertain a motion to approve Esports to be added
262for high schools Bradford ads made a motion any second second second uh all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed passes seven zero thank you thank you we're on to committee reports at this point uh Head Start that'll be Miss Barnhart do you want me to go down there you can stay right here okay um I can go down there go down there if you want to foreign so um The Head Start committee I actually had the pleasure of being a liaison and I went to their meeting on the 22nd of February and I what's really cool about it and this is in our policy and I know all of you guys um sit in our policy man you'll read it from time to time but the Head Start policy council is
263fully made up of parents and so they're the kids that are already in the program so the report that you see that has the student number of like 260 that is just for Head Start but we know that we serve about over a thousand Pre-K students total so that's just to keep in mind we've exponentially grown so in this Council it's all the parents that are making the decisions and basically we talk through um I listened and we talked through what the expenditures were and what something that they're going to be doing is with their cares act money like their covid relief funds they um hired a firm to basically evaluate them and so that was a bulk of the meeting they were discussing with what was coming and so they're going through that process
264process this month and we're meeting again in April but the biggest takeaway for me to relay to the board is we do have a training that we're required to do and so there was a suggestion to get it done before the summer and suggestion of April to do that um I don't know uh with with the RFQ being added to the gender review in April I don't know if that's the best time for it but at some point we do need to put that in the sooner rather than later future because it has to be done prior to the summer so that is essentially their report and I'll put in a plug right now we have our pre-k program Open What's really cool and I've been talking with Miss miles more just to be educated
265about how we're doing it but we have a universal process so if any child of three and four-year-olds you can apply and it doesn't matter all the grant funding that we get for different things in the local County funds your application gets submitted and we can place you in there so if you have a child that fits the criteria and wants to be in pre-k please apply and Johnson Pre-K Head Start Center has been hosting families to walk through the program because that we know that is a daunting process and so it I was encouraged to hear that Family Support Network for our students you have any questions from Miss Barnhart um thank you I have a comment 260 funded enrollment and of those 183 come out of a single parent home that's more than
26670 percent is something we really need to pay attention to yeah I mean and it's just it's just a great program that we're able to serve a lot of our students in our community and so like I said I was really excited to see that this council is purely made up of parents and the program I think that's great for the family involvement and just shout out to the Johnson Pre-K Center for just opening up the space to provide the resources for our parents and community members who want to get their children enrolled in school and they'll get that constant reminder until they finish it so any other questions or comments if not thank you very much Barnhart next we have our Shack and that will be Miss crabill um yes thank you um do
267you want to stay here and go down there I'm going to stay here I'm good you already saw me standing up there last time playing video games CTE video so um the school health advisory council is also known as Shaq policy 6140 um next slide please the um so I just wanted to for the new board members and just as a refresher to the US board members policy 6140 is the one that addresses School wellness and um this is where the shack Falls underneath we meet every other month right now as we're going back through our goals we have a new leader Susan Cole replaced Sherry Pinto as co-leader and then Amy Stanley is you know Susan's co-leader um with our one another one of our subject matter experts being Joelle Newman who is our
268lead health and PE teacher so the um and then we also I just wanted to share what the vision was because at every meeting we we go back and we look at the vision to make sure that we're we're always on the same page working in lockstep with each other New Hanover County Schools envisions Health literate students staff and community members who are committed to Social and emotional and physical long-term lifestyle choices so one of the things that we talked about there was we we went back and we Revisited what is considered an advisory Council to make sure that we also stayed focused on that so the first exercise we did and I would encourage us to do this from time to time as we're looking at our advisory teams is you know think in
269your head when you hear advisory what do you mean and some of the things that we threw out was we give advice we give guidance but not necessarily directed action we provide support we provide relevant data we provide expertise and then we also amplify the voice of others so that was just a definition and you compare it with the definition of advisory from the dictionary and it's having or consisting in the power to make recommendations but not to take action in enforcing them so that I just wanted to bring that up because that is something you know that we struggle with from time to time so also so the next slide is the whole no I can't remember the names whole school the whole child tell me help me a whole wscc so okay it's
270awesome thank you so that is that is our model yeah it took me a while because I mean we were all like chanting not chanting we make sure we know it but there are 10 um you can see in in the circle that there are 10 goals you know in the model and um you can read those the physical education and physical activity nutrition environment and certain Services health education um social and emotional climate physical environment Health Services counseling psychological and social services employee Wellness Community involvement and family engagement so the ones that are highlighted are the ones that are in the goals that the board developed with the shack committee at a work session in January of last year and so the community involvement and the family engagement piece they are embedded in all
271of the these standards each one of these standards has a um a subject matter expert you know assigned to it um that are better here it is whole school whole Community written right in front of me so I did um but so it our the goals were broken into three different sections students staff and community and each school has a wellness Champion that works within their own school to figure out how they want to you know pursue that it's of the wellness plans are included in the school Improvement plan so you can read any of the school's Wellness Plans by looking at their at their school Improvement plans but so each one of these has community members you know from like the what Clinic from the um the health department the um from Novant Health
272and we've got a principal rep from elementary and secondary we have um you know Amy Stanley from you know Child Nutrition and you know Susan Cole obviously and then we have some other community members where we are looking right now is the role I played prior to being a board member was a parent representative so we are working with the PTA Council to help us you know find a person and as soon as we you know have our application process done then we will they will be able to apply through there so that is basically and and then also that we it's a lot of exciting things that are coming from the group in the future but I'm not going to steal anybody's Thunder will wait till that you know happens but we are required
273to hear a um that they are Shack goals are in place for three years but we are required to you know hear a report from them you know every year so we will work um Susan we'll work with you know Miss Barnum and we'll figure out a time that's appropriate to hear and update so um it's bless you it's a uh it's a very good committee very active committee um so I just wanted to update you guys on that so does anybody have any questions about school health advisors okay thank you for the opportunity thank you thank you I appreciate it uh has anyone received any correspondence if not I haven't received any but I had something to say in that section please do so um do what so I forgot and we forgot last
274month to counselors week February 6th through the 8th through the 10th and we can't let the school counselors go unnoticed for the extraordinary work that they do March is also National reading month and so a lot of us and I want to thank all the schools that invited all of us to come to their schools and read you know during last week the Dr Seuss birthday and read Across America and so I thought that was that was pretty cool and I had the opportunity which I wanted to share with all of you all that um the for the next month the first one was last Thursday the County Commissioners are meeting prior to their agenda reviews to talk about their budget and so um and New Hanover County Schools is in there so I attended
275the last one and um just to see kind of what they were thinking for the county because you know I live here but also how the school system fit in and and of course I didn't get to do any input but I got to listen and make notes um the next meeting is Thursday um is not this Thursday but it's next Thursday the 16th and then the next one after that is March the 30th so we can follow along on their thought process if anybody's interested they have it at the community the government center and we can go and listen or we can watch it um on you know on their YouTube or their government channel so that was all thank you well thank you and thanks for giving us those dates because uh we
276I think everyone is very very interested and the time is um three o'clock three o'clock okay thank you very much thank you um announcements very quickly we have a policy committee meeting going on Tuesday March 14th at 10 o'clock here in the Board of Education Center the general public will have the opportunity to vote to view remotely on the nhcs TV YouTube and the legislative committee will meet on Wednesday March 15th at 12 30. also here and the audience seating capacity will be 150. the general public will have the option to review to view remotely on the nhcs TV YouTube I don't think we have a need for a closed session nope so our final bit of business tonight is to adjourn do I hear a motion to adjourn so motion to adjourn second second
277all in favor bye thank you board members thank you senior staff thank you Dr Foust for being here this evening thank you to all those that made it through please remember to leave your