001be able to watch right now but the full recording will be uh but we're recording everything that we're doing and that will be available tomorrow so um just in case you're hearing from friends that they that they've lost the feed we are aware of that and we do apologize okay so um first up is veronica mclaren brown oh wait a minute i'm sorry let me let me you can come on no you come up i forgot to make my announcements i apologize we were sailing through okay so thank you for signing up to share your comments and concerns with the board we welcome engagement from our school community and from the community at large there are several items we need to cover before we get started with call to the audience per board policy 2310
002board boards are allow up to one hour of public comment for call to the audience please speak on the topic that you indicated on your call to the audience sign up the public has asked this board and our school system to be more transparent and truthful and we respectfully ask that you do the same please please refrain from using profanity derogatory language and other slurs in your remarks or you will be asked to sit down and perhaps even leave individuals may stand at their seats in support of a speaker or stand alongside the podium while an individual speaks but aisles must be kept clear at all times per fire code regulations no one at any time is allowed to approach the diocese we must respect the rights of individuals who have come here to address
003the board as well as those who are just here to listen audience members should refrain from yelling out or responding to comments made by speakers during the called the audience violators will be given a warning and if the behavior continues they will be asked to leave disruptions by any person or persons at a public meeting will be subject to action including removal from the meeting per general statute 143-380 a person who willfully interrupts disturbs or disrupts at an official meeting and who upon being directed to leave the meeting by the presiding officer willfully refuses to leave the meeting is guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor okay so with that introduction ms mclord brown go ahead the vision of new hanover county school system is to provide and maintain a safe respectful and secure learning environment
004but can you provide a safe and secure learning environment when you lock children in seclusion rooms the answer is no no it is impossible locking children in seclusion rooms causes them harm feeling of anger embarrassment humiliation sadness loss of their dignity loss of hearing learning time pain that lasts for a lifetime and sadly enough we also know that locking children in seclusion rooms may be a deadly practice in the use of seclusion rooms in all new hanover county schools seek input from our educators and families provide education and training in the use of positive behavior supports crisis reduction and management de-escalation techniques techniques and other best practices past policy that achieves the vision of our school system to keep our children safe make our vision for our children more than just some words on a
005website in the use of seclusions rooms for our children thank you [Applause] you're going to go up instead okay all right so speakers um next up is barbara guerrero um our countdown clock is not working okay all right then never mind we'll save you from my loud obnoxious buzzer so um go ahead i'm glad i'm here tonight i haven't been here for a month or two for several reasons but i would like to ask you to please place on your september board meeting agenda an item that would end the use of seclusion rooms in new hanover schools by july 1st that time frame gives 11 months to prepare for the end of this isolation method that data shows to be ineffective and harmful it is not a practice that is employed in many of the
006new hanover county schools and therefore the end of this practice should not be hard to accomplish you know it's harmful the audience knows it's harmful and we want you to please end this practice thank you ms guerrero sam pierce [Applause] hello thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for all the work that you do it's so important this is my first time uh before this body and i'm brought here compelled to speak on the subject of seclusion rooms i i find it very very disturbing and i i just don't believe that there's any research that supports this practice for changing behavior in a in a positive way i think actually there's there's a lot of evidence that that this can do great harm and this is harm that will pay society will
007pay for for a long time when you disrupt the well-being of a child by by putting them into a seclusion room i feel strongly about this and i feel strongly about the children and i just ask that that you bring this forward and you end this practice for the school year the 2023-24 school year i think that's time to get it done thank you very much and again thank you for your work thank you mr bellamy [Applause] oh i'm sorry sam i'm sorry wrong name i thanked you for being the wrong person robert bellamy how you doing today um [Music] i just want to uh explain this the way i see it i it's kind of simple but i just wrote it um i'm not here to place uh any personal attack on anyone here
008because believe me i like everyone here but i know if any of you board members were kids again you will all be you all look at being in seclusion in a little different way i like miss just judas miss judy justice in my mind would be like why are you doing this to me even as a kid she would know this is not right and fight against anything cruel any type any type of cruel treatment and the fight never ends with miss jewish justice i know that mr hugh mannis he probably would be like i don't understand this this is america we cannot allow this treatment my daddy is the mayor this is in my mind that's what i'm thinking and miss crabill you know would be fighting all the way to the end biting
009if she have to if needed because she would be would not allow anyone to treat her in any foul way i know you're a fighter dr foust would be like this don't seem right i need to talk to my parents can i call my dad that's where i see that if you was a kid you'd probably say that and miss adams you know she probably would say miss adams would be like i would not accept this i won't let you treat me like a boy my daddy will be here and tell you all off tomorrow i am a princess i see all of you being in some type of fighting spirits and uh and i feel that you can also do that as grown-ups and i think you know i know you guys made a
010great decision with the the kids one one through seven and i know you guys you know are you terrific you know you got a terrific mind your terrific thinkers you wouldn't be in a position if you weren't so i feel that you will make a great decision when it comes to getting these kids together thank you thank you let me just um say that the live streaming is back up okay so um we're back on track but for the folks who are listening in that little section that you missed you'll be able to review that tomorrow um when we get on tv um next up is laura axtown i hope i pronounced that close in america we say phonetically anyway i'm here to urge you all to plan to vote to end the use of
011seclusion rooms and closets in all new hanover county schools by july 1st 2023 please revise policy 4320r with 11 months between now and then real progress can be made educating and tr and training school staff and positive behavior alternatives that will benefit all students staff families and the community as many other people have said this is a long-term effect rejection isolation shunning expulsion and seclusion do nothing positive for a person and as especially an immature child thank you laura staff house [Applause] i am here tonight in support of changing policy 4302 aura and ending the use of seclusion rooms effective 2023-2024 school year similar to the change in policy regarding in the suspension of children 4 5 6 and 7 years old with specific exceptions ending the use of seclusion rooms would have similar exceptions
012use of rooms require written consent from parents following child specific iep uh describing behavior and circumstances in which seclusion could be used and situations when seclusion is necessary to protect the student or another person from physical harm or non-fiscal intervention or when that has failed of the 25 000 students in new hanover county school system approximately 50 were secluded each year there's no data available for the school year 2021 the percentage of total students affected is minimal minimal training is required for the students for the schools that would have to put something in place to stop using seclusion the board should be sure to make a policy change to treat all students equally therefore a vote to change the policy for school year 2023 2024 should create minimal disruption please change the policy and stop
013traumatizing our children thank you thank you ms stackhouse mary blaylock i'm a friend of peter rolich and he asked he's recovering from surgery from last week and he asked me to read a brief statement of his first i want to publicly thank some of our board members for publicly supporting end of the year seclusion rooms by the beginning of the 23-24 school year thank you to judy justice stephanie walker and pete wildeboar children have been harmed by being forced into padded closets and will continue to be harmed during the current school year new policies can take time to implement and student ieps will need to be revised but based on your own data the next 11 months is more than enough time to begin the training of positive behavior alternatives that will benefit all children
014and school staff vote to ban the use of seclusion rooms at your september 6th meeting thank you and he also uh said that he'll be back on for the september 6th meeting and looks forward to celebrating the end of another punitive practice that targets our youngest neediest and most impressed students thank you thank you mr blaylock [Applause] hi there this is my first time speaking to the board and i thank all the members for the opportunity i'm an immigration human rights attorney a former graduate of hogwarts high school and first vice chair of the democratic party and i strongly believe we must end the use of seclusion rooms by july 1st of 2023. children should not be locked in cages at the border and they should not be locked in padded classrooms in our local
015schools they are unnecessary ineffective and unsupported by data and research they not only disproportionately affect and harm students of color and those with disabilities but they haven't been shown to be effective in any manner in any positive way policy 4302r unquestionably is detrimental to our students and i respectfully request that the board changes the policy at the next meeting thank you all thank you miss hopkins tammy o'keefe hello i'm cammy o'keefe i've lived in wilmington for over 20 years once again i want to congratulate this board on rescinding the policy of out of school suspensions for children seven and under tonight i will advocate for another positive policy change joining others in opposition to the policy of the use of seclusion rooms in our schools i request that the board end this policy by the
016beginning of the 23-24 school year because of the small number of schools and students involved 11 months is sufficient to support administrators educators and staff in implementing positive behavioral alternatives the use of seclusion rooms harms our children change this policy and help our children thank you alicia ogindelli alicia okay um stephen exhale thanks to my wife for coaching you up on the pronunciation my name is stephen axthelm um i have two young adult children emmett and charlotte i could not think of any time during their schooling when they would have benefited from being locked up alone in a room i assume all of you have children or grandchildren and grandchildren right judy do you think they would have benefited by being locked up alone in a room scott wilson's son spent 1900 minutes in seclusion
017rooms in 2018-2019 do you think any of your children or grandchildren would have benefited from spending 31 and two-thirds hours of their school year locked up alone in a seclusion room and then there's this the most recent data this is from the star news from the office of civil rights on seclusion in new hanover county schools filed in 2017 shows 55 students with disabilities were put into seclusion during the survey year of those students of those 55 students 70 were black 30 were white while in total there were 1087 black students with disabilities and 1 431 white students with disabilities that's 43 black students and 67 white students so there's something else there the new hanover county school system is in the business of helping children learn not locking children up is this the training
018wheels experience for the school-to-prison pipeline and the use of seclusion rooms please by july 1st 2023 use the next 11 months to begin the training of positive behavioral alternatives that will benefit all the children and the staff vote to ban the use of seclusion rooms on september 6th carol [Applause] thank you for the opportunity to speak i'm brand new to this but i am a mother and a grandmother and i was a school social worker not in north carolina but for over 35 years what we do know what research does show is that the dropout rate among students is very much affected by disengagement and students in elementary early elementary school become very easily disengaged from education from the process by suspensions by seclusion by restraints by punitive disciplinary actions and we do know that
019children can learn educators are here to provide for the whole child and we know that social emotional learning interpersonal learning positive behavioral supports help children learn to manage themselves be able to control their behavior and work appropriately with others so i urge this board to ban seclusion and restraints and to begin initiate training staff and educators to provide positive behavioral supports thank you mark whitehead quarterback dr fowles people thank you i'm here to expose some of the insulting wasteful factually baseless racist critical race theory indoctrination that is forced on our teachers two summer summers ago we were forced to watch an equity podcast by a man with an online degree he began by saying at 418 and i quote i ended up in idaho not a lot of brothers out here but i get by
020at 5 30 he said you think with a phd a brother would know how to do fractions in decimals not a guy with an online degree and he said this because he was talking about his kid it was fully 15 minutes into the um presentation that he started talking about what he was supposed to and this was apparently his motive operandi because the teachers at another presentation told me that a teacher actually typed in asking him to get to the point at the 15 minute mark there was only one fact in this whole seminar of two hours oh and this one that i typed in the chat box over 50 asian organizations had recently sued the ivy leagues and unc chapel hill for admissions to which our online doctor was shocked he had no idea
021because it did not fit his narrative of victimization which he reinforced at an hour and 17 minutes by saying quote our system was not built for people like me end quote well apparently our system was built for the first generation asian kids because they're the who they do the best i cannot comment in part two of his presentation because the next day he forgot about it and came on an hour late the third time i saw him he did the same thing that's what we're spending your money on we also had a microaggression training the lady showed us an example of microaggression from the tv show blackish in which a black female anesthesiologist is asked by a white female counterpart where she got her degree and she answers u.n university of california los angeles the
022older white lady is really impressed and the the character in the show became very angry and think we're not very young but angry and insulted that this was a microaggression there are three things wrong with this one the lead character is insulted by a micro aggression of someone in in insulating that she only advanced because of her color they also had a check your privilege slide on this presentation that's the exact thing yes thank you very much [Applause] why is my time started because you're at the podium and you oh no no no that's not how it works it starts when you speak you didn't do it to the other people on july 19th the department of ed released new guidance to help school support students with disabilities and avoid discriminatory use of discipline in
023this guidance the ocr and i quote a school policy that is neutral on its face may still have the unjustified discriminatory effect of denying a student with a disability meaningful access to the school's aids benefits or services or of excluding them based on disability even if the even if the discrimination is unintentional if ocr finds sufficient evidence that the policy has discriminatory effects based on disability ocr would likely consider the policy to be discriminatory end quote in new hanover county over 90 percent of seclusions involve disabled children the elementary education specifications document adopted by the board in 2009 requires seclusion rooms to be built in ec classrooms there is no such requirement for gen ed why aren't the rooms built in neutral spaces that serve all students new hanover county specifically targets disabled students with
024this requirement and for 13 years have shown clear intent to disproportionately seclude and discriminate against them not only this but the board consistently fails to support our ec program staff and students ms adams you bring up safety but i've never heard you ask how you can improve our ec programs you defend this policy by blaming young children and have chosen to discriminate against them versus protecting them this is not equity new hanover county has received negative media attention for the use of seclusion disability rights paid us a visit the department of justice is looking at the use of seclusion across school districts in north carolina and now the ocr is telling you to avoid discriminatory discipline you must end seclusion otherwise you risk getting a call from the department of justice or office of civil
025rights the choice is yours thank you miss isles christina mercier good evening it's no secret that new hanover county schools has had a share of issues with employees who have had inappropriate interactions with students as of now these former employees have either been convicted of their crimes or died before trial as a result of their actions all teachers in new hanover county schools were required to take professional development on sexual assault now i'm going to talk personally about what happened to me as i took the class which was online and offered during covid when i was working from home as i was taking the class i had a memory i'd repressed pop into my mind i had been sexually assaulted over several weeks by a peer who was in my sunday school class he did
026not rape me but he definitely touched me without my consent here i was a veteran teacher and i didn't know what to do about it the memory took over my thoughts i had no one to talk to there was no instruction in the course that said if anything in this course has caused you trauma please contact i was alone and i didn't know what to do surely i'm not the only teacher who had repressed memories of sexual assault i eventually sought out professional counseling on my own but why was there no preparation by the school system and professionals who created the course for this why were we left alone as i've dealt with my resurfaced memories i've seen multiple articles about how the lawyers for new hanover county schools are trying to get most of
027the defendants in the civil case concerning michael kelly's victims dropped every time i see her hear this mentioned i become angry one of the last stories i read said the victims are going to have to undergo a mental health evaluation again i cannot believe the torture of the school system's lawyers are foisting upon these young adults these young people were abused for years and some even told adults who did not act on the information i cannot imagine the anguish they must live with daily and honestly the fact that they are still living is a feat in itself and i hope they all understand that it does not matter that none of you are here when michael kelly's crimes occurred while it's an issue you inherited you should not be re-victimizing these young people i'm urging
028you to not worry about saving money settle the civil case and let these young men heal and don't just concern yourself with checking off boxes when it comes to something as important as sexual assault we all deserve better make that your legacy [Applause] good evening tonight i want to talk about setting timelines over the last several meetings members of this board and your advisors advisors have repeatedly said it is impossible to set a timeline for eliminating the use of seclusion rooms i strongly disagree in the 30 years i taught in new hanover we continually had timelines it might have been a professional development course that we were doing independently there was a completion date therefore a timeline training for state or local testing had timelines this is true everywhere one example outside of schools my
029son-in-law works for the computer programming company sas his job is project based he is given a project and a completion date he is responsible for the timeline to finish the project by the designated date timelines are vital and readily doable for the ending the use of seclusion rooms the timeline is simple there is an obvious completion date completely in the use of seclusion rooms by august 2023 you already know the steps necessary to complete this use the training program the district already has to train the programs in the required schools how to de-escalate and make the use of seclusion rooms unnecessary you have already identified that there are less than 10 schools that still require this training so as one prominent shoe company says just do it thank you cozy dorian good evening my name
030is dorian camardi first i'd like to thank miss bernadette allen at rachel freeman pta today we had open house we signed up over 50 parents so far that i left around 5 30 and 10 of the parents five other parents are new parents and fi the other five are men of color so that's a big improvement for us the other thing i would like to say that you know seclusion does need to end right away because at the town hall i asked the question and the response was because of staffing so if seclusion is still happening now but you can't end it because of staffing problems then are you really adequately staffed i mean unless you are 110 comfortable with locking a child in a room because they threw a chair across the room i
031mean you're fine with locking a child in a room and leaving them there because that's best for them because he threw a chair and that scares you but really he's probably just acting out because he doesn't know how to express his emotions properly or maybe he has a behavioral issue but the solution is to lock him away and then expect him to do great things when it comes to growth and progress in school everyone here wants to end it tonight even the people on the right you can make a motion tonight for a tentative timeline to end seclusion you can at least do that and if you get it wrong you amend it but you can at least do that tonight so i don't see how we are staffed at all these schools doing great
032things but at the same time practicing seclusion i don't understand that but mental health is a top priority here it's something we love and practice here thank you mr cromartie thank you [Applause] good evening first i wanted to comment about the title ix policy change that's under uh first reading it states that basically if a formal complaint comes forward it's usually resolved through a formal investigation and adjudication and now we're trying to add in a sentence about or a informal or an informal resolution process which is concerning we've already had issues with that where people went through a complaint process got ran around in a circle and it was considered an informal process things need to be done there needs to be a paper trail there needs to be accountability no gray area please do
033not reconsider that whoever decided that one that was ridiculous come on now uh next false anniversary congratulations two years here that means either an evaluation just occurred or an evaluation is about to happen so let's go back and review what's happened as far as kansas city comments from teachers and administrators we had people state that they resigned because they were bullied and disrespected they that you created a toxic work environment and he actually threatened staff at a convocation there in kansas city there was comments that basically he blamed teachers for the shortcomings of the district which that reminds me that we had the same thing happen here where we had dozens of teachers show up and confront you about some of your statements and then the same thing we had the new hanover county association
034of educators start a petition for you to resign as well same thing this is from a news article the move leaves the district with few apparent options most top administrators from the previous superintendent left in months after faust where's mr o'brien at where's a bunch of other people that have been here for decades and that i've known for decades this is our city and you came in and you've pushed people out same thing with another one a comment left faust targeted black administrators people were fired demoted or was forced to resign where's lashawn smith at you resigned you demoted her right and you did so stating that you had the will of the board that's what your attorney stated that because of your contract you had the will of the board to do so this
035is ridiculous mr sutton your time is out y'all have a good day see you next month josie barnhart good evening tonight i want to openly address my concerns for the pre-k in elementary implementation of the sexual abuse prevention curriculum safer smarter kids i've spoken up with my concerns about our district suddenly bypassing parents to survey our students and in the summer of 2021 new hanover county changed their policy to allow surveys to be administered to students without receiving parental consent by simply stating an opt-out policy i've questioned this decision because in the last year we have seen surveys of the title ix survey we've seen panorama surveys at select elementary schools and also the tobacco state survey i've asked what are these goals what changes are we planning to make with them how can we
036ensure students of parents who do not want their kids participating have alternate activities who gets this data parents don't like to feel bypass when it comes to our kids this sex abuse prevention curriculum for our three-year-olds came as a result from the title ix survey that we gave to our secondary students let me be clear it is not the role of schools to talk to our kids about sex when we talk about this in an open forum what we're essentially doing is a group therapy session i'm asking you today to have an alternative for parents like me who do want who do not want my kids participating in a potentially traumatic experience that they're going to be sharing from from counterparts of an experience that they should not have had as a child we should
037be training our teachers in signs of prevention so that intentional intervention with specific kids can be given two questions i want to ask will this curriculum for our three-year-olds require parental consent versus an opt-out program which is what we just updated in our last month policy for our middle school or sex ed the second is with budget cuts being a concern how much money would we save if we didn't utilize this curriculum and instead implemented trainings for our teachers i'd love to hear the answers thank you thank you miss barnhart lewis considerably shorter good evening i'm melissa mason this board this evening is considering amendments to policy 78.05 the superintendent's evaluation but the real issue is oversight the board this board was expressly constituted by state law to make the superintendent accountable to voters yet
038faust's contract was written and approved to limit oversight by the community by keeping the content of his evaluations relatively quiet i haven't heard anything now the current board wants to further limit its own ability to hold the superintendent to account we spend roughly 50 percent of our budget on schools the superintendent has the sole responsibility for the education of our children our future so why do we keep taking steps to make the most power powerful position in our county less accountable and what's the consequence well if you're the wilsons and you found out that your child has put in been put in seclusion rooms for countless hours as a disciplinary measure you might want to know if this egregious violation of your child's rights or county policy came up at all during the evaluation new
039york state prisons banned seclusion because it was deemed to be a form of torture surely the wholesale abuse of this barbaric practice in our schools should be a matter for public scrutiny the wilson case involves violation of policy failure to dissipate discipline guilty parties and false reporting all of which are fireable offenses for everyone involved contract does not trump state law which gives this community the right to oversight we need to make sure no contract is ever written like this again thank you miss mason matt rhodes [Applause] thank you for letting me speak i want to talk a little bit about school safety as we approach the upcoming school year but from a standpoint of truancy i've got children in the school system my son just graduated uh from hoggard um very proud of him
040my daughter is going to be going into eighth grade and when i would drop them off to school a lot of times i would stop somewhere and get a cup of coffee and the you know people working there know i have children they say where are your kids i said they better be in school because that's where i left them so what i've seen a lot of is that kids that are walking to school or being driven to school they get dropped off near school and they they appear to be going towards the woods anywhere but school so that's concerning for me there's not a lot the school system can do if they don't come in the door and i know they get 10 excused absences but i want parents to be aware and children
041to be aware that you know every year we have close to 840 000 children are abducted fbi says every 40 seconds a child is abducted so these kids could be putting their lives in danger but also too i know that some of these students have told me and their parents have told me as well that a lot of times they will come home in the middle of the day maybe they forgot something maybe they want to eat lunch at home or use a restroom and then they go back and the parents say well how did you leave school did you check out no i just went through a door and left well how do you go back you go to the front office no one of my friends leaves the door open or is waiting
042for me so those are security issues that i hope that we'll be aware of and that we'll deal with because it's very important and kids being in school is where they need to be and the reality is is that if they're not they could be at the wrong place at the wrong time and i do not want to see anyone's child hurt or injured thank you thank you rocky [Applause] why are pornographic and sex books being allowed in our public schools what person or what people approve of this material to be put into our public schools we think exposing our children to this material is a good idea okay first it was books then across other states they have what's called and in some public libraries they have what's called dragon story hour i mean
043what's i mean what's next are they gonna invite strippers to our public school schools and set up pools and have them demonstrate in front of our children i mean that's completely outrageous i came across a particular book in my alma mater and it reads this take her out back we boys figure then hand on the titties put it in their coin box put it in her cornhole grab a hold of that braid rub that calico that can be found on page 39 of the book called out of darkness that can be found in my alamo at new hanover high school long story short the book is about anal sex i do not want our children reading about animal sex sex i want you to focus on education i want you to focus on reading writing
044english math science arithmetic this is completely outrageous these books have to go and for those of you who want to know where these books can be found you can look on pavementeducation.com where you can look up the book where these books are in our across our county in our public schools so who are the people that are proves this material to be read because this is completely unacceptable sneaking these books in without without parental knowledge or taxpayers knowledge this needs to change we will find out who approved this material and we will get you out good night thank you mr judy webb pat bradford good evening the second book in the list of books that sheriff ed mcmahon sent to the district attorney to evaluate was called out of darkness by ashley perez this book
045is found at holly shelter middle ashley high and new hanover high school three excerpts that i have for you tonight can be found at pavementeducationproject.com page 33 tells the story of miranda and it says none of us like miranda all of us pretend to the text goes on to explain that miranda is latino on page 67 she was there when henry came into the bathroom and closed the door behind him she watched as he placed both hands on the wall beneath the mirror and pressed his forehead against the glass a moment later one of his hands slid into his pajamas page 68 he took he took one of her hands in his and squeezed it come over here he pulled her to her feet close to him he shifted his pajamas and then the part
046of him that made him a man stuck out reddish purple and frightening she had never seen one before except on a baby this was different page 380 lie back open your legs stop crying don't try to tell me this is the first time you've done this henry said henry she protested i haven't i never you've lied already enough he said then he pushed her back until her head was on the ground beto you come here watch but don't try anything i've got the gun right here better look long enough to see the revolver his father held near his sister's face and the shotgun and i won't continue besides the rape the book ends in murder this board has the ability to take your school this book out of our schools your time is up you
047need to do it okay so um thank you all for your for your input um next up is closed session so is there a motion to enter closed session pursuant to the items that are listed on the screen for to discuss personnel matters and board of education versus john does one through 13. motion to go into closed session is there a second second um all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed okay we are in closed session okay we brand new clutch how much you're on the clock with your babysitter well we were supposed to be at 7 50 we were supposed to be here so we're not too bad we will anita are we ready did you say yes oh i'm sorry okay so next on our agenda are there consensus items um
048do i hear a motion to approve motion to approve consensus items as presented um is there a second sure okay any discussion all right all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed okay those are approved with um pete i didn't hear you did you say something no no ma'am no i said aye you said i okay approve 5-0 okay next up under old business um local salary schedules for fiscal year 22-23 good evening everyone good evening so at your seat um you've got a copy of the powerpoint presentation that we'll go through and you should also have two different salary schedules i've provided a draft of the new salary schedules that we'll we'll just go over overview of those tonight but i wanted you to have a copy of the complete salary schedules in
049case you wanted to look at particular things you'd have that document and then you also have the one that we use for this past fiscal year that we're currently using to pay from just if you want to compare the two you have that okay so for mr wildebore um he will just be following along on what's on the screen yes it's an assembly okay so pete you may have to go back and forth okay so um first i just wanted to start off by saying when we go through the presentation the salary schedules that we talk about are going to be based on the state budget bill that passed and that actually passed july 11th i think we discussed that last board meeting and so our recommendations for these salary schedules will be based on
050that state budget that passed and also the conversations that we've had regarding the board's budget initiatives um over the past several months and do i have the clicker i think it's not working okay thank you i appreciate your help um so first i just wanted to share that the when the state passed their budget it was effective as of july 1st so we will certainly make our schedules also effective july 1st and what will what will happen is once the salary schedules are approved and so if they're approved tonight then we will go back and we will include these raises or pay changes in our employees paychecks for this month and then of course as i had mentioned before it's retro or it's effective as of july 1st so we've already paid that july check
051so we'll at the end of august we'll also include that increase for july that hasn't been paid yet so they'll get both those payments in their august checks i did want to share the state retirement contribution the employer paid contribution in the state budget that passed was 24.50 it was a little bit higher in our planning budget we had estimated 24.19 percent so there's just a small difference there that i'll bring a budget amendment back to you for that small change and the health insurance amount was the same as we had in our planning budget so we were good there and so we'll start with the certified salary schedules these salary schedules are actually prepared by the state so we all use the same certified salary schedules and so we will just use those salary
052schedules as we're implementing the raises and as you can see here the teacher and instructional support personnel the raise for them the average for that scale increase was 4.2 percent and that range from 2.5 to 7.2 depending on the years of experience for new hanover county schools the average teacher salary is about 51 000 now with these new scales and beginning teacher pay is actually increased with these scales it was four hundred 35 sixty dollars um annually and now it's up to thirty seven thousand the teacher i'm sorry the assistant principal salary schedule also increased four percent and the principal salary scale went up four percent as well just to share a little bit just to refresh your memory about the principal salary skills in case you're not familiar maybe you don't remember principal salary
053scales are actually based on average daily membership at their school and also their growth they it's based on their growth data and um evos right i just might it just left me and their evos growth um and so something that's a little bit different this year previously when we had good test data we were looking at the best two of the last three years but you know we've held principles harmless for the past two years so the state's doing a reset on this and so actually when they're looking at principal salaries when we get our test scores related to last year we'll usually get those around december january i believe and so once we get that information they're just going to be looking at last year's test scores um to determine that growth piece of
054the principal pay so that's that's a little different than what we've done in the past and so now let's move on and talk about our non-certified sometimes we refer those as classifieds salary schedules and so these are really the schedules that we're bringing to you for your approval tonight and the reason we're approving these is these are actually the state gives us ranges for these different pay types and then each lea has the flexibility to determine their own salary schedules and so that's why we're bringing those for approval and of course they're based on the state mandated increases so even though they're our salary scales we still have to give a four percent excuse me a four percent increase to our employees and we still have to pay a minimum um hourly rate of pay
055of fifteen dollars an hour so with that certified i'm sorry um central office administration the salary schedule increase was went up four percent and the non-salary personnel um we had the state mandate was like i had said before the 4 or the 15 minimum pay however as a board this was very important for us so we decided that we really wanted to do we wanted to fix our salary skills the compression that we had in those non-certified salary scales and so as a result of that a lot of these grades received more than the 4 percent that was required by the state and so you can see that here so grades 55 through 60 looking at those grades they actually received an average increase of about 11 so that we were able to fix that
056compression for them and then grade 61 through 78 they there wasn't as much compression once we got that far down the chart if you can envision kind of how the charts laid out and so we were able to just give the four percent in that area and not um negatively impact the salary schedule bus drivers and bus aides uh average salary increase for them was 6.3 percent that allowed us to once again fix a compression on that salary scale as well and also put them on a 30-year salary scale they were on a 15-year before child nutrition the same thing were able to fix the compression on that scale and because they were um paid even lower than what the bus drivers were that ended up being about 13.7 percent increase for for them um
057to get them to where they needed to be and also to get rid of the compression that was on that scale for them okay um do we want to wait till the end is going to answer questions as we go is this a is this an intermediate stopping point or should we just hang on okay i mean that's fine okay yeah the bus drivers um so at this point we have bus drivers that are making are making similar or making at least 15 an hour along with the child nutrition workers that are in the cafeterias correct so bus drivers are making 16 an hour because they were already making 15. okay and we wanted them to be making more than the bus monitors and we were required to pay them the 15. so so they're
058they're at 16. okay i just wanted to clarify that yeah thank you for that thank you and if i could ask before we jump off that slide um where exactly are tas in this um in in the in the grades um and i actually have um if we go if we'll wait just a second it's the slide after the next one and then and then we'll be able to see that and also mr world aboard if you um there are two uh documents in the supporting document column if the first one is under local salary schedule which is the powerpoint that ashley is doing now if you click on the local salary schedule you'll see the salary schedules i think there's what a 58 yeah so teacher assistants are 57 57 thank you yes and
059we do have some more information on that coming up before we get to that i did want to share that we had some hourly rates of pay and the flat rates that we are also adjusting that i wanted to make you aware of and so these are specifically related to instructional substitutes and so the items you see start their long-term license subs and tas as subs or teachers the state actually mandates that we base that rate of pay that daily rate of pay on beginning teacher pay and so we've done we've made the adjustment here and that increase is of course due to the fact that the beginning teacher pay went up and then we adjusted the other rates accordingly um based on where they were in the previous year so they got a either
060a four percent increase or if for example um there was last year between full-time unlicensed sub and full-time with experience in north carolina or out of state license there was a two dollar difference in two between those two rates of pay so we kept that same logic and so that's where the hourly rates came from at the bottom of that scale okay and then on the next slide we have we're going to talk about tutors and non-instructional substitutes and the same logic is used here as on the previous slide so the certified tutor rate is based on beginning teacher pay it's just an hourly rate there and then um if you look at the bottom of that scale you know where of course as we talked about before required to pay at least 15 an
061hour and so we had to bump those rates up to 15 and then previously bus driver sub was 50 cents more than the bus aid sub and so we kept that same logic as we were going through the scale okay and then here this is the slide that i thought would be helpful so these are some of the areas that we had talked about previously and i think i had this written down so bus drivers so this is um we talked a lot about beginning pay for different areas and so you have the salary schedules there that you can look to see where each of those different grades what the starting point is for them but i thought it was important to point out so bus drivers even though they start at 16 an hour
062if we look at years of experience for our bus drivers in new hanover county schools they average at about a step 15 so a step 15 on that new salary scale is 17.94 and then the same thing for child nutrition based on years of experience in of our staff in new hanover county schools most of our staff fall around step 15 as as far as our hourly child nutrition staff and so that hourly rate of pay is 15.57 teacher assistance the average years of experience here is nine years that's a grade 57 and so that on average our teacher assistants are going to be at 16 and 74 cents and custodians on average are going to be at 16.24 their average years of experience is about eight so they're on step eight i also thought
063it would be helpful to talk about bonuses so you we've already talked about these and you've approved the s or bonuses but i feel like it was important to go through this and just in case you hear things about this so in the state budget they also approved to reinstate the performance bonus for grades three through eight math and reading and that will be based on last year's test results and they're going to continue the bonuses that they've been paying over the past several years for cte and ap ib and aice for principal bonuses they didn't pay those last year but those are going to be coming back for this upcoming year once we get the test results for last year principals will be eligible um depending on what their scores look like to receive
064that bonus again and then this is something we have talked about previously using esser funds to pay a don certified bonus and so we are still planning to go forward with that and building that into our essar plan that will be coming back to you for approval but as part of that plan that bonus is going to go to employees with standard hours of 30 hours or more a week they're going to be permanent employees the retention bonus is going to be the thousand dollars that we talked about and we plan to pay that 500 in on november 30th and that's going to be based on people employed as of november 1st and then pay the other 500 june 30th and that'll be based on employees employed as of june 1st and that is all
065i have for you tonight and so i just request approval of the local salary scales as presented um is there a motion to approve the salary schedules as presented motion to approve okay is there a second second okay any more discussion or any more questions is justice yes i just looked at this a teacher's assistant with nine years of experience makes 16 and 74 cents it's not your fault that's for sure so don't think i'm accusing you i'm just saying this whole situation is sad the county just gave their employees the 1685 minimum this is so sad this is just sad this is wrong but is there a question well my discussion is that i i i know how i feel about it you know how i feel about i haven't changed it and i
066wish the county would change it i know the state's already given us money so it's their turn and they got okay anything else miss adams just a quick comment thank you miss sutton for all that you've done on this this has been a long process and you've been amazing your finance team has been amazing and thank you dr foust for guiding this as well thank you thank you but you still have to come up once in a while and speak just so yeah i'm looking forward to a little break [Laughter] okay um all in favor of the um accepting the salary schedule as presented say aye aye aye mr waterboard um i i guess i i i i i i um yeah i i i gotta echo some of the thoughts that uh you know
067this is a shame i i you know i've been fighting so hard for that you know but i guess we have to do what we do is we give them something so hi okay so that passes by well i didn't vote you didn't i thought i heard your voice okay no miss billy will you please call the roll miss justice no mr mcmanus yes mr wildebore yes ms craybill yes and ms adams yes okay so that passes five to one thank you i mean i'm sorry four to one order one yes okay so before we move on to the next item i um need to apologize i in my case to get rolling i skipped over approval of the minutes and so um could we go back to item 13 and is there a motion
068to approve the amendments as presented [Laughter] i'll make that motion um is there a second okay um any discussion um so miss bowie i did have a question for you on the june the seventh minutes um when we talked about the year-round discussion calendar um we it has everybody down as vote not recorded okay thank you um other than that i don't have anything so all in favor say aye aye aye aye mr waterborne i'm muted i'm sorry i was muted i okay thank you okay and so i do want to just circle back for one second two to the um the consensus items i just wanted to take the opportunity to um acknowledge and thank and express my sincere appreciation on behalf of the board of education to all the organizations who partner with
069new hanover county schools to enrich and enhance the educational experience of our students and our staff so that they get the richest and most robust learning opportunities that they can so for any partners that are listening and any folks that work with these partners please relay that to them for us okay now back on track old business we just finished new business policies for first reading so i will be taking those on behalf of um mr boyer the policies for first reading we really don't do anything with policy code 1725 40 35 72 36 r is a a new policy for us but basically all it's doing is just pulling out definitions which we had never done before so the ncsba recommended that we have a second policy for that and then policy 7805 was
070the superintendent evaluation um so those are those are just for first reading so they're really not discussion items at this time unless we needed to add something yes if i could i just had to hang on miss missions miss justice no excuse me let him go ahead and go first season paul on the policy committee yeah i just had a question because we have two different versions of the superintendent evaluation here and the only reason that they are both there is one is show the one was really hard to read because it was so marked up and so they're both really the same thing um the the one policy that has all the red it was um where we we struck out and put back in that the the one with the one that we're
071approving is the one that um is they're both the same actually one and that is the the entire thing from the end uh from the uh ncsba that um the majority of school boards across the state are using but okay i just want to make sure that i was clarified thank you yeah thanks pete okay okay there's two things first of all i'd like to ask miss uh mr i'm sorry um now this evaluation 7805 that is our current policy for the board correct absolutely i don't think there's currently a superintendent evaluation policy in place we had it we voted 18 20 or 1840 from the old policies so it's still so it's still in place if it's the old policy manual correct if the board hasn't acted to revoke it then yes yes okay
072so it is so i want to make that clear 7805 is in place no no it is not why not it's the the version that was in the previous policy manual is now obsolete since the board hasn't acted to remove it that's the one that's currently in place until the board adopts the 7805 well i'm confused we've been through 7805 like three times and it keeps getting sent back this is the policy that we want to put in this is the only policy we have left that has not been approved so what is ours what is our superintendent's evaluation policy presently that we are using the only policy that is currently in place is from the old obsolete policy manual and the board hasn't revoked that prior policy so technically it's still in place this
073policy would replace that policy when adopted because this is correct this was a doc this was adopted according to this it says adopted blank there is no there's it has not been adopted i remember voting on this because we didn't we has not been adopted this is a brand new policy that's why it's on for first reading so we have two of them no one is just a cleaned up versions for make it for easier reading one without any red is what we're doing removing all the red and that's what you had just told pete was what the reason was was to clear it up yes and that reason remains the same okay i would like to go ahead and clarify something too with mr scheid i do know that we didn't talk about this
074policy and we as a board voted on at the time that we were going to use the superintendent's uh state evaluation that was a vote up here on the diocese so what does that mean as far as that is uh at this point until i guess we adopt this which is what we're looking at since we did a vote on that does that mean that's the one we should be using according to what we did yes so the board so the board actually doesn't even have to have a superintendent evaluation policy there's no requirement that it has such a policy and so the board chose in the absence of having this policy previously to vote to use a certain tool and even with this new policy you can still do that so this this policy
075in the first paragraph says the board shall annually evaluate the superintendent the board may use the evalua evaluation process and guidelines established by the state board of education including the rubric for evaluating north korea superintendents or such other processes and evaluation tools as the board chooses so moving forward with the adoption of this policy the board can continue to use the state board of education rubric or another um rubric or document if it so chooses okay does the previous and i don't have it popped up right now because of the confusion does it come does the previous superintendent's evaluation that we're using before these is that say anything about the north carolina state it doesn't okay but i do know that we as a group up here voted to use that we voted to use
076the um the old instrument that's the only thing we voted on that's that is what that that one we didn't go through all that training for that voted the vote that you're speaking of is when we voted to adopt the new tool for this year yeah so that was the vote but that the policy is about the process right so that's the difference so we did vote we did vote to use that tool for this for 20 years 22 23. thank you that's what i've been trying to clear up for every time i ask this question because i remember the vote and i'm glad that you've got the historical knowledge uh because we don't have policies in place right now to straighten things up that's that's aligned to what our voting was so for this
077year we did vote to do that thank you very much okay so those are policies for first reading they will be back on the agenda next next month all right next up are the title nine policies and um basically the there were very few changes um in in what um we're still using the ncsba structure and when we adopted these policies back in october of 2020 and then revisited and revised it in february of we had opted to to leave out the informal grievance process because we were still um getting our training together we were still grappling with making sure that everybody knew how to follow um the formal grievance process so the only thing that has changed with these two type with these two policies is the insertion of the informal grievance process um
078which and then so jarrell will be developing um in conjunction with his team what the informal grievance process looks like and um and then training will ensue so that's what those two policy changes are all about nothing and and the wording is straight from ncsba and is from the federal government okay once miss justice all right and this is first reading correct no these are these are we're adopting these are already in place and so we don't have to do first and second reading we we just read them and we vote you're talking about the title nine one the the new title nine ones yes i mean the old title nine ones the title nine policy 70 17 25-40 40 35 72 36 sexual harassment prohibited conduct and reporting process and policy title ix 4036-7237
079harassment grievance process did we have a first reading on this judy we adopted these back in october of 2020 and then we revised them in february of 2021 so we have already voted on them we are using them actively right now in our district including the informal district no we are adding in the informal um process so you're adding that in tonight for the first time you want us to vote on it there's no first reading on that part no that that's not how the review process works once it's a policy you don't have to do first reading okay so this is the first i have heard of this except i think it's been under discussion from the public uh for the last 24 hours or so and uh here's my concern i would like
080to see what the processes that jarrell is going to come up with and strength before he even trains anybody so we can approve that because with our history and what we have been through i do not want to have the question the public in any way shape or form question what we're doing it's not going to be any better because we've got a heck of a lot in the future that's going to be involved with the sexual assaults that went on for decades here allegedly and so unless we can help the public trust us and i think if he would present to us first what his investigative process is before he does the training and then we could vote on it then the public would feel better about what we're doing well judy the um
081the board does not approve procedures that is what the superintendent and his staff do we approve the policies and they enact them into place so we don't approve those procedures normally you don't but the board can do it well mr shive mr scheib what can should can the board approve procedures i you know instead of them automatically happening i would like to see the public know that we know what they are and that we approve them uh believe me this history and this district is still here and we've got as i said there's a lot facing us in the future and i want the public to trust us as much as possible they would probably like to hear what these investigative uh policies are how they're going to be gone through considering what didn't take
082place for decades allegedly and if i said if i could add something don't yell at him is talking oh i'm sorry all right yeah hang on i'll call on you go ahead colin so i'm i'm reading this policy for the first time and i defer to mr lewis about the particulars but i believe that an informal process requires voluntary written consent of both the parties so it's not something that would be forced on anyone right and so it's not if there's a concern about the district using the informal resolution process that's that's only going to be available or would only be utilized if both parties agree to that in writing and it can also be rescinded if they change their mind before the investigation is complete is that right that's what jerrell told us at
083the policy committee okay all right mr voting okay thank you and i was going to mention that i had been made aware of a situation at one of the schools that um it drugged on for months after months after months and the the complainant uh was was arrested around the other the other child and it was very concerning to me and also to the the person so i think this actually addresses that where it can be instead of it you know ongoing situation that takes months after months after months um it is a situation that it can be taken care of a little bit quicker and again it does have uh this stipulation that both parties have to agree to it so i i think it is um it's got some merit to it for
084sure mr lewis are you online are you on the zoom call with us yes i am would you care to um please weigh in this obviously i'm not doing a good job of describing what we talked about the policy committee meeting so if you would just weigh in on this i'd appreciate it uh sure so i i think to understand the informal resolution process i need to discuss what the formal process is so for a title ix investigation to begin for sexual misconduct the first has to be a formal complaint filed a formal complaint can be filed by a complainant or victim or in certain circumstances i as the timeline coordinator can decide to file a formal complaint if a formal complaint is filed what happens next we begin a timeline investigation process that can
085take up to up to 120 days mr wilderboard acknowledged some of these can be pretty lengthy depending on how many witnesses we have if there are you know students with disabilities students or families that don't speak english as their first language can slow things down so with the formal process we investigate and we determine if there is a violation of the title policy based on the facts that we find under the informal resolution that would allow us to have a wider base and range of options to resolve title complaints the way to enter into the formal complaint the informal resolution process is there first still has to be a filing of a form complaint by a victim or the title ix coordinator from there the parties would be presented with their rights under the informal
086resolution process such as voluntary written consent before it's being entered by all parties involved at any time during the informal resolution process a party can withdraw from the informal resolution process and then enter into the formal investigation process if they are no longer comfortable in the informal resolution process or something does not work as they thought it should um so and at the end essentially the informal resolution process allows for the parties to have more say more of a better grasp on how this particular situation impacts them directly and better fits to their needs while also providing a quicker resolution than the formal process also the informal resolution process cannot be implemented or utilized for in cases of a student making a sexual misconduct complaint against an employee so it can be used on employee
087on employee cases student or student cases but it can never be used for cases involving a student and an employee yeah and also mr lewis [Music] will will you still you still have oversight over all the comp all the complaints no matter what resolution process is used is that correct correct so my role would be to ensure that all these cases are carried out following federal policy federal law regulations so i would still be hands-on in this process formal or informal okay thank you miss justice has a question well thank you for that this and this is what i want to do is have the public understand what we're doing so there's no confusion as far as the process now are the parents from the very first time that the child approaches an adult are
088the parents notified about what's going on so that the child is not just left to their own devices to do this until maybe the end of the day or the next day or is the parent notified immediately about what's going on yeah so the parent is notified as part of the standard title on process so like i said once we get that formal complaint we have to do a follow-up what we call the interactive process where we talk about the rights and that's where we would offer the opportunity for the parties to utilize the informal resolution process with the caveat that all parties the um a correspondent and the victim must both agree to enter into the formal resolution process so at that um at that first meeting with the family we talk about the
089rights that all students and the families have they would have all that information beforehand so they can make an informed decision about what works best for their particular case so so no questioning no versions no discussion with the child will occur until the parent is there present and you give them their rights and and so that everybody will know exactly what's going on and the child's not alone so there's no way in shape they're going to feel intimidated or are alone feel like they have to please the adult that is part of the title my interactive process this informal resolution would not change that interactive process so in other words a parent will be there from get go very first a parent or an advisor or caregiver would be involved okay the legal whoever is
090considering the guardian of the child will know immediately before they question the child to i mean that that's another concern of the public is that children not have an adult representation and children do have a tendency to want to please adults around that's just kids and so that a lot of the public is concerned that the child will not have that immediately upon the making the complaint or the even the child accused so that both of the parents or guardians that could be guardians are notified immediately before anything's done correct thank you okay so is there a motion to do do we want to approve these um one at the time or do we want to do them together as a unit because they both they're both um have insertion of the same words i
091mean i'll make a motion to approve the amendments to title ix policies together okay is there a second is there a second you are talking about these policies in front of us now yes all right i'll second it um any more discussion oh okay okay miss bowie will you please call the roll mr weltabor aye miss justice aye mr mcmanus yes miss craybill yes and ms adams hi okay that's five to zero thank you okay so next up is paul's amendment to policy 2660 and so that this one falls um into some of the discussion that we had earlier today board appointments to outside committees the major there is one major change there the hannah block historic uso building community arts center committee it was disbanded so we're taking that out of our policy and
092that is really the only change on that one move to approve um is there a second second okay all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed okay um next one up is policy 2670 also going along with our board committees um the business advisory council and um so what we have done with that one is inserted cte or we'll probably spell out career and technical business advisory council some of the wording in there has changed we've gone from nine members to 11 members and inserted that a board of education member will be a member of that council new hanover county schools career and technical and met including a wilmington chamber of commerce designee but um none of none of the and i i forget why these these highlights are in there they don't mean
093anything um to that no i was it was a note to myself to to ask a question so yeah so that um is those are the changes for that and then they will be referenced in the board committees is there a motion to accept this one as presented move to approve okay is there a second second okay all any more discussion yeah um is this is the one that you said previously was the uh i was the c-tec advisory board this was not this was not originally c-tech c-tec advisory board will be absorbed into this okay i'm just trying to clarify how they're not being left out they're just going to be absorbed okay okay um all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed okay great that one passes all right so um going
094on down okay let's see we'll go to announcements unless anybody has a committee report i didn't know and told me that they did um the policy committee will meet on tuesday august the 9th at 9 00 a.m at the board of education center and the august interim meeting of the board of education will be held on tuesday august 16th beginning at 5 pm so next on our agenda is the second closed session do i hear a motion to go into closed session pursuant to the items listed on the page motion to go into closed session is there a second second okay all in favor say aye aye aye any pose okay we're in closed session one more of them out here we can adjourn just one more body so we can adjourn yeah we don't
095even have an advice chair so i don't know what's in there i hope karma is out there okay next on the agenda is um adjournment do i hear a motion to adjourn second okay all in favor say hi any opposed okay we are adjourned thank you all thank you very much you will be here okay so where did you stick in the um the thumb drive you