001um who are with us the um we're having technical difficulty this morning but i think we're ready to roll so um i'll go ahead and call the roll um mr wildeboard present um miss craybill i'm here mr boyer okay not here okay um is there a motion to approve the agenda so moved um i second all in favor say aye aye okay any post no okay approval of the minutes um don't hear motion to approve the minutes okay i make a motion to approve the minutes as presented second okay um all in favor say aye aye aye opposed okay we got that um before we roll into our policies um i'd like to introduce matilda scott ap from williston who will be joining us as the nc papa representative so thank you for being here
002miss scott all right so let's just roll right in sorry okay the first up is policy code 3210 parental inspection of an objection to instructional materials is that ms brinson oh she's on zoom too isn't she okay so we'll hold that until later yeah or is there anybody else that wants to um talk about that all right let's put 3210 then to the side we'll come back to that okay so the next would be policy code 3460 graduation requirements um ms varnam yes um with regard to policy 3460 um we realized that an um a piece of information that we had in prior policy that really is essential to us grading and placing students at the high school level um really needed to be included again and so we added a section um a new
003section c and you can see it in blue print if you keep scrolling on promotion requirements right there and this really is necessary for like i said grading and placing in high school um in accordance to um the particular grade level not just by credits and in this um students would have would be required to have the following credits for grade to grade promotion so for 9th to 10th it would be 6 credits from 10th to 11th it's 12 credits 11th to 12th is 20 credits and then of those 6 credits required for promotion to 10th grade two must be english math science and social studies and then there's um detail on how we would process transfer students so which is the the total number of credits they were allowed and then reducing that opportunity
004so in the past we had this in a little bit of a chart form and i think we can do that again it just didn't move over like this but the recommendation from from curriculum instruction as well as student support would be to include these promotion requirements okay i i had a question about that this is just um wordsmithing a little bit but the last sentence where it says please see your guidance counselor for total number of credits um i was wondering if we wanted to put that more in the third person saying something like school counselors will advise or confirm rather than you as you know does that make sense that does make sense this was pulled from our curriculum guide okay um which is written from the perspective of students but that completely
005makes sense okay all right so i had thank you for that um that that's completely fine with me the another question came up it's on page 26 number four about early graduation and it's talking about students wishing to graduate from high school in less than four years may request permission to do so on an accelerated schedule do we have um any um guidelines or stipulations on when we can have an accelerated schedule like just because you feel like it or because you're trying to get out early and not have reduced credit that kind of thing so um state board policy requires that we make an offer to students between 8th grade and 9th grade or so incoming freshmen that we make the offer to them and their parents that they can graduate on an accelerated
006schedule so that's a state board requirement it's just that an accelerated schedule as we've discussed before requires all of the graduation requirements of the state in the district so it's still a 28 credit um plan it's just an accelerated plan and it has to be um it has to be driven with some zero period and some fifth period courses potentially or summer courses and a lot of dual enrollment so we don't need to say anything about that that this is just so folks are clear that we don't have an accelerated schedule to get us out with anything less than 28. so the curriculum guide that was revised and um approved at the last tuesday night's meeting uh includes all of that because we did that in the revision i yes that's what made me think
007about it because i read it in there but we don't need to have that in policy so that folks are clear i mean i don't know i don't want to over policy ourselves but um so i'm open to options i think this is the guidance and what's in the curriculum guide is the practice so we don't want to mix the this with the practice no i understand that the i think this i mean from from my stance if someone is going to graduate early we know that you have to start it in 8th grade um you have to come in with x amount of credits in order to get to 28. there's no way that you can come in and upgrade with the regular attempted credits and graduate early okay right yeah so there's i
008don't this is a specialty and at the bottom it says the principal shall submit a student's written intent intention to graduate early to the assistant superintendent of instruction so they have to submit okay documentation so there's no so we feel like that that our practices in place will cover us on this and there won't be any future misunderstandings about what that means right and there's been clear professional development for all who are doing academic advising on that okay um my last thing was um is there a reason that we don't put um the numbers like in your charts where you have the you have the state requirements and you have the number kind of it's all the way to the left you know kind of buried in the text but is there a reason why
009we don't put um the number out in the local requirements as well so that we like we did on page 20 you put the six out there and then on page 21 you have the total of 28. but is there a reason why we don't do four four like that so that shows that we mirror the state um i want to look and see which ones your which one you're talking about any of the charts so right there like any of the charts there's no number in the far right column so this one um this one is occupational course of study and you do not have additional local requirements for occupational course of study because they have work hours so this is for students on um that have disabilities that are specifically eligible for and
010on the plan for occupational course of study but if you scroll up to um plans one and two so this is number four so if we go um up and this one is still occupational yep so the the right hand column long story short is only if we have extra right like with the electives right okay that is the only place local requirements um exist they do not exist in the specific course work local requirements only exist in the electives column which is why it's only there should it be though should we not say then extra local requirements instead of just because it does you know if i was looking at this and didn't know what was going on uh it might i might lead it to say well there you know there's nothing locally
011required but there are you know it's we're just following the state requirements so maybe instead of saying local requirements extra local requirements might you know or additional local requirements something along those lines so it is clear to someone that there are additionally so i mean i think that's fine if you want to add the word additional but if you go to the top of the chart that column says um who's in charge of scrolling yeah so all the way up because it if we just go all the way up to the beginning we'll see it here it just says local that's that's my so remember we have state requirements right 22. right but because of our district and board says okay we want to adopt six more that's where the local comes in technically you
012know by state requirements that's all you need right right um so that but i mean that to me that makes it a little bit clearer to folks if i'm just looking at this don't know what's going on local requirements so basically there are no additional local requirements so that's why i think you put that word in there or a word and there might be where we take one wait right here additional local requirements like at the top of the chart for requirements additional so that they know it's a plus little request um i don't have a i don't have a concern if that word additional went into the top of that column but it would only be for sections one and two um because it would not apply to um to three and four right
013but is there any verbiage in there that leads in in the sentence that talks about locoh not specifically it does in the curriculum course guide in multiple places but not specifically because we um this it and and please understand this is a 3000 series which really is curriculum instruction i'm just stepping into this land um because of graduation requirements specifically um but this is the school board association um driven verbiage so i think if we added a sentence and there wouldn't be a problem at all i don't know that it exists all right that's where i would think if we added a sentence at the top to save the local code so that that chart would still just put over say additional local requirements but if we put it in a sentence that kind of
014led into to why we do local requirements right yeah in section a i think we could add a sentence that says students graduating from new hanover county schools will because our previous the very top sentence in the in the very beginning of the policy um says that the board recognizes the importance of setting rigorous graduate graduation requirements to help ensure kids are receiving an education of course to prepare them to be career and college ready and productive members of society you could have a sentence right there that says you know therefore beyond state requirements new hanover county schools graduates will have six additional elective credits right that would probably be the simplest way to do it and yeah it doesn't matter but i am in um concert with mr wildeboro on just making sure that
015folks know that okay um any other comments um mr wildebore or anyone who's with us on graduation requirements okay well then we'll move that one forward as presented um huh oh oh as as with it with the the two changes the adding the additional and then um and then changing up that last sentence in the blue but that's not where that we don't need a we just need that to be changed and we'll bring that forward okay um next up is policy 50 50 40. what fight i'm sorry excuse me if i could uh suggest maybe we could go back to to 10 mrs brenson has well i was just going to go in order okay we'll do that um 5440 news media relations uh mr smith we're going to take that one forward sam
016good morning all thank you so policy 5040 news media relations was adopted by the board last summer and that was around the time i joined the district today i'm proposing the committee and subsequently the board consider a slight change to remove the restrictive language which requires nhcs employees to quote receive approval from the chief communications officer or the superintendent prior to sharing information with the media and change it to something like the communication outreach division will upon request coordinate news coverage with media arrange staff interviews and respond to requests for information in compliance with policy 5070 7350 public records retention release and disposition nhcs is always open and accessible to the media news organizations may contact any staff member to ask questions about a story positive or negative nhcs employees are welcome but not required
017to speak with the press and are encouraged to contact the communication and outreach division with any questions or concerns now full disclosure i lifted most of this language from another north carolina big 12 school district so this change is in line with best media relations practices across larger districts and equally important it makes it clear to our employees that there is zero retaliation for unsanctioned interviews um so with that alternative for discussion okay that's your word questions well no it's not a question but i think i think it's very appropriate because i've heard and i and like i say very uh from from different sources that that supposedly there is some kind of retaliation you know the folks have been told not to speak on you if you do it [Music] if you tell the
018truth to me it's not there's no you know i've not heard or seen any proof of it but you know there's a rumor out there in the cloud or something so yeah that's a thousand signatures to it so but i think so this makes sense to me and i think nine times out of ten it'll still be folks coordinating with the office getting the information they need for interviews logistically setting them up um but i think very little will change other than best practices in the message it sends okay um just a couple points of clarification um not necessarily that we need to do anything more um it are employees who give comments are they allowed to do it during school time during school hours so we're during employment hours yeah right right um we're
019always looking at internal controls and so um and the board's been on my corresponding emails with the press asking them to coordinate with us and some of that most of that is around internal controls if a teacher is teaching we can't have them doing interviews and so we facilitate that logistically and so i think again the language is encouraged to coordinate with us and in so doing we would ensure that it doesn't disrupt class time that it doesn't disrupt you know operations during the day um but i think that we should probably stop shy of saying they can't do it during school hours because we otherwise probably would have done it during school hours just coordinated an appropriate time okay before that interview but they also can't just show up on campus there are some
020rules right right and then that is in here you know as well yes i was just you know curious because someone recently brought up an email that an employee sent us on their on their own to on their school on their on their work time and so i just wanted to make sure that we were on their lunch break well exactly so um yeah so that's what they're planning okay i'm sorry good i shouldn't have acted like i wasn't gonna keep talking i'm sorry yeah we also need to understand too that if it's a classified employee it really should take place during their work hours because we would have to pay them if it was outside work there's some fair labor standards act about classified versus certified folks i don't want to over policy it
021you know but i just wanted that that um to be brought up um and then so and so what if i'm hearing it correctly that we don't need to have the same sort of policy with employees that we have with the school board um policy 2220 where we're supposed to if we give a statement we're supposed to let the superintendent and the communications department know so we don't need to go that that level that that would be my recommendation that we not add the language for that requirement furthermore i would i would recommend that either today or if we're not prepared to do so in the future look at policy 20 to 20. and amend that requirement i think that would have been appropriate you know several years ago when we didn't have the the
022tools and capability to kind of um scrape the media environment and and see what was out there but but now i don't mean to sound like a marvel character i see everything we know everything that that uh that's happening with google and others and so i don't think that uh that that requirement in that policy is even required moving forward but that's at the willing board we can come back to that okay yeah mr dr barnes i don't know if this is a common response or not if someone does respond during work hours does that mean they represent the school system when they're speaking or are they speaking as an individual that was my next question so yeah colin you want to jump in on that could you hear oh sorry i couldn't hear the
023question i can hear you miss craig but i'm having trouble hearing other folks okay hold on he'll come down my question is if we allow people to speak while they are working does that indicate they are speaking for the school system or they're speaking as an individual so it doesn't necessarily have to indicate that they're speaking for the school system but it it possibly you know could based on the circumstances so we might want to have them clarify that they're you know they're speaking as an individual um and i guess you know depends on the facts and circumstances and what it is we're talking about if we allow we'll release somebody or allow somebody to take time out of their work day to speak with the the press about something um yeah i mean i
024think we would maybe want to talk about it on a case-by-case basis um i mean i think we we can say that you know folks during the work day need to just be attending their work duties and they don't have the right to do this during the work day but we also could allow folks some some flexibility to do that as long as they made it clear they were speaking on their as individuals and not representatives of the school system yes so colin um what you probably couldn't heard her here was when we were talking about um what were we talking about that addressed that kind of same thing that they don't need to tell us that they're doing it and um oh and during school time um dr barnes had said that he would
025prefer um at least you know right this minute to have classified employees speak on school time because they um we would have to pay them overtime if they came back to speak but then would that not imply that i think the first i guess i'm not clear what we're talking about really like i mean if a classified employee is out there talking to the press in their individual capacity we're not going to pay them for that because they're just it's not that's not work they're just expressing their first amendment rights okay so the second question really answers the first okay all right so i i think we're clear so um could you work with josh and like make sure we got the wording right on on that i will and i apologize i have to
026step off now but appointment at 9 30 but i will i'll get with mr smith okay all right that sounds good thank you for attending bye okay so um with those you'll get with him and um that one i think is ready to move forward with the edits everybody go with that mr what did you have any more questions okay all right so we will do that one so without colin doing that julie's doing that okay so then we um come back to policy 3210 that is ms brinson the um parental inspection of an objection to instructional materials yes so we have this policy in place and so we also have procedures that go along with the policy and the procedures you know have been on our website under um curriculum instructions page um under
027resources it's a couple clicks to get to it so it wasn't really easy so i've asked the webmaster to change that and to have it under the main heading of students and families and those resource links there but my question was you know initially should we also somehow either link it in this policy or i wasn't sure if he had procedures on it so that way when people see the policy they can click and then they see the procedures and the forms i don't want people assuming that we are trying to make it difficult for them to complete this process mr president if you wouldn't mind can you just walk us i've read it but can you walk us through exactly you know i go to x y or z school i'm upset about this
028book because i think it's yep so you're a parent you have a kid at x school there's a book that your child brought home that you have concerns with so the first thing would be to have a conversation with the principal if it can't be solved quickly then if there's this form you fill out and basically that starts the challenge process and then that goes to this at the school level the media specialist pulls together a committee that includes parents teachers um the media specialist and the new specialist kind of guides the process they don't really have a say in it because they're guiding the process but you have representation of the school there they then go through the process read the books look at the um read the evaluations of the book and what's
029out there trying to look at the curriculum see where it fits in the curriculum they then do a write-up come to a conclusion do a write-up and then that's given back to the parent you know with their results as the parent if you're not happy with what the results are then you can take it to the district level and then that's where dr faizon's office then would do the same process at the district level involving central office people at that level it does go to the same process then again communicates back to the parent what their results are you can either like it go with it if you're not happy still then they can appeal it to the board and then that's when it will come to your level of board members okay is there
030any kind of time frame on this because i know i've heard one people got like a there there isn't because a lot of it depends on if it's a if it's an actual book in the media center because it's all instructional material so it can be an online resource it could be anything but if it's a book the issue is you've got to find enough copies of the book to give them to everybody at the school level to be able to read it and then give them time to read it on top of everything else that they do so um there really isn't time i know i've seen other districts where it says the school level one could take up to 30 days because you've got to give people the time to read it pull
031the resources together you know check for the um get all the documentation together before they communicate so it's not a simple quick process it does take time you know a lot of it depends on also how big the book is you know one final question just because um this is brought to me also we had a situation where a book fair had a book that was similar and obviously one thing is you could say something if you don't like the book don't buy the book right it was you know questionable book that was brought in in a book fair situation so um the media specialists are the ones who bring the vendors in for the book fair um i think and i'd have to check because i haven't you know had conversations with them but
032i imagine if it's elementary school doing a book fair they try to find books that would you know go above and below because you've got kids at all different levels so they try to make sure they have books that would probably you know be you know kindergarten even maybe a little bit lower to middle school books because the kids at fifth grade or fourth grade can read much higher so they have tried to have a wide variety of books that cover a wide variety of topics but but right the issue is you know if there's a book there that parents have concerns with then you're right then you wouldn't want your kid to buy the book you know but you can't stop somebody else from being able to purchase a book that you know may
033be appropriate for their child and the other part of that is that a parent has to who has a student at that particular school has to make the request yeah and then because that book may not be at school b they may say that's okay so it's not actually pulled from that vet school so we um have to make sure that we are looking at you know the school um even if it goes all the way to the board that other school have to do the exact same thing yeah so you're only removing it you know the process only applies to the one school where the parent has a child that's attending site specifically yes thank you for bringing that down to two words for us so let's just say that we have like we've
034been hearing from call of the audience about um a lady that says that she's checked out all these books you know how does a lady from the community go and check out books she didn't check out like physically check the book out and take it she we do have online the destiny library so basically you can go to our website and there's a link to all of our schools catalog basically so you can do searches and see where the book is so that's what they've done they didn't physically check the book out and they know that the book is in that library because of seeing that information okay all right so a couple questions i had in there well first of all do to mr mordevor's point do we need to have any wording in
035here about um the time frame will vary or do we not need to do that like i know in a lot of our um special ed kind of things it says you have you know five days to do this and three days to do that um so is this worth even making a note that time frames will vary to give me to even say what you just said yeah so um dr faust actually shared some resources with me so we will be going back and looking at the procedures and doing some edits and changes to kind of give more information as far as like the time frame and then you know more information about you know um just the guidelines in the process to kind of make it more clear to kind of answer these
036kinds of questions okay so is uh all right so he's not gonna change the policy he'll just change the procedures it will change procedures we don't okay i put in policy okay so the um do we need any of what you just described about that procedure um to be like a 3210 p or dash r like we do with um suspensions or you know how we have the the dash r after some of our policies do do you think this one warrants that level well i know in common detail in conversation that we've had we talked about just linking it maybe right in the policy so linking the procedure and the policy instead of having the the dash are after it because i think typically we just do regulations we don't do procedures okay if
037we're going to start doing one procedure then we probably need to have all procedures that way and that's that's a lot so we are looking at just linking the procedures within the policy so help this this newbie what is the difference between a regulation and a procedure um when it comes when we come right down to it like i'm gonna let julie speak to that through the regulation piece so um generally regulation those that are listed as a policy regulation like for example if we were looking at graduation requirements and if if state board requirement or um general statute required regulations to be created as a part of policy or related to policy then we would do it that way that's my understanding because policy is really the the what and we develop the how
038separately from that so that we have a little more flexibility to make those edits based on nuanced situations um so i think if if um general statute or state board policy don't require it and of course i'll let dr faust weigh in if he sees that differently um that i would say linking a procedure makes a lot more sense okay and i think that that's what colin had told me he's not here to verify that but i know i've talked to him about i'm sure you have um that he he was fine with that um so do we in the link it does the link take us to the page that says um reconsideration procedure for instructional materials yes okay and then as that part of that link is where you find the request form
039correct because it's all there all four pages so they can see the whole process okay that has to happen and then they see the forms and the form is there for the school level as well as for taking it up to the central office level so we're giving them the forms all up front okay so let's just say that a parent doesn't know about this policy and they go to their principal to talk um would the principal be able to pull up the procedure and or the form and give them a copy of the form yes i have been sharing that with the principal because of you know what's been questions that have been coming up for the called the audience so i have been sharing with principals you know the procedures that they're supposed
040to be following this policy these procedures and so once we link it then i will email them again saying this is where it's linked the media specialists are also familiar with that process because typically when when somebody evaluates and there's an issue it's typically with a library book okay you understand this process though is for all instructional materials right like if you're watching a video or if you're watching or if it's a website or you know that you don't like or something okay so we should be um kind of talking about that sending your concern to the school board really is not your first step correct the first i mean it's just like every other thing you you address it at the at the um the level closest to the situation yeah and when we
041meet later this week and i go through that demonstration i will be addressing that then okay all right so the only other question that that's very good thank you so much the um the only other question i have was in the first line where it says um in the policy 3200 selection of instructional materials the board establishes a process for the selection of materials um so when does the board do that i don't know that i had the where should i be there is a policy for selection of instructional materials it is policy 3200 right that actually goes through but you guys improve the process that they're supposed to be going through schools are supposed to be going through and i shared this with schools also and tell them that they need to make sure
042they're following this process so the board establishing means we've already seen the policy and we approved it correct okay um is the curriculum committee involved in any of that well we are having our first curriculum committee meeting may 24th i mean 25th but i will tell you trying to get some history around it the way i understand that the meetings have been more about the instructional team um sharing an overview of the curriculum right so i think if at that time if the board had some questions they were being answered because the curriculum committee like this time the enrichment classes and special classes will be sharing an overview of their curriculum okay so i don't know how in depth and how many board members have been there but that yeah and miss justice is our
043liaison yes right but we don't really get a report back from that the only way you find out about it is if you um okay is if you've read or or watched or were in attendance okay so that may just be board member homework that we have to just go and make ourselves more familiar well i can definitely talk to miss justice and make sure that we give an um an overview of anything came out that i think the board or we think that the board should be aware of but i think that would be the time if i'm thinking and there isn't there is a section on our on our um every agenda for um right okay we haven't really been getting highlights of that yeah and i can tell you that um on
044the same lines as that is we really have invited more teachers we've we've really encouraged principals so our curriculum meeting next time you should see more teachers and administrators because we're not we want everybody to see the curriculum and ask the questions because when we're on the same page it's just easier for everyone to communicate what we're doing and we're also working on something on our website that's another okay that sounds wonderful all right so for one point yes and since we're talking about this policy this this one section comes to mind and i and i just maybe need some more clarification on it uh you know in the one two three four five i'm sorry mr wilber what policy are you talking about right who still has 30 uh 32 10. okay yeah um
045you know it says the school committee determines any material violates constitutional or other legal rights of this parent or student um my concern there is you know say there's something that's just totally inappropriate for an elementary school just totally inappropriate something that's vulgar or whatever and you we can all think about whatever what we all heard about that wouldn't necessarily be addressed here i don't think because it's not it's not illegal it's not uh constitutionally you know but it's inappropriate for us for a you know a second grader to get their hands on well and was that addressed here in the process when they look at it when they look at the the piece that's challenged they look at the whole content instead of taking just a sentence or a paragraph out of it so
046they look at the whole thing that's why we have to get the book for the people so they look at the whole the whole book the whole resource instead of just one piece of it to then look at the context and everything and then see how that relates to the curriculum so that's how that would be evaluated and then a determination would be made okay but but i'm saying i guess the the criteria here is is it illegal or is it against the constitution but what if it's just inappropriate i mean that's not addressed here i don't think i think what happens when you go through the process so i can remember when i was a teacher there was a book i think beverly theory who was the dear goddess margaret yeah yeah yeah and
047so there there's a a scene where the little boy is i think his little boy was nervous and he turned and he tried to go but he goes into the girl's bathroom and in there so there were some parents who were like that's inappropriate for where you get into this bathroom so the school had to read the book and then give context around it wasn't like he just said oh i'm going in the girl's bathroom it was he tried to go she tried one of the characters just tried to get away from the situation and the door was just it was like so it technically wasn't um for some it was offensive but once we put context to what it was that it was doing so but all the way through the committee they regret
048it and they gave feedback to the to the parent so if it was just but say it was worse than that i guess right you know what it is it doesn't i mean i guess my concern here is we have a a bar we put up here that's either illegal or it's unconstitutional but it might not be either of those but it still could be inappropriate mr wilbur you still can't if you feel if the parent feels that it's inappropriate they can still completely so mr wilbur it says if an objection made by parent or student is not based upon constitutional or legal rights the school may accommodate the objection after considering the effect on the curriculum any burden on the school teacher or other students that the accommodation would create and any other relevant
049factors so they can still do it for those other things okay that's i just wanna make sure that we did have that party thank you and i also kind of just wanted to use the same analogy that um let's just say a fourth grader you know was reading this book and we know in that book um margaret you know gets her menstrual cycle for the very first time and some parents haven't talked to their kids about that so there's nothing wrong with that i mean the parent just i mean everybody's moral compass is and tolerance is a little bit different so i personally don't think that the school system needs to be on top of everybody's moral compass so that book was that's where i thought you were going with that and now yeah i
050do i thought you were on that too yeah i wasn't sorry but it but it's the same thing i mean that book would not have been pulled well some parents would say no you can't read that book i haven't talked to my kid about that yet um so yeah and and just to be a little more typically i should say typically most teachers will read hopefully they'll read the book and then let parents know this is in my book and sometimes as you get older in english so you would then let parents know any chapter this is what's going on or we're not going to read that chapter in class but it's going to be difficult and then all we're going to do is have a conversation around it but again if a parent has
051an issue with it i can definitely talk and sometimes coming and talking with the teacher helps explain where they're going and then sometimes like well i'm not going to talk to a teacher i don't like it and this is what i want they can do that too so they can do the complaint they can go through the committee or they can go talk to the teacher and the teacher can explain this is where i'm going with it with my lesson will they be given an alternative book yes you can i've done that yeah if it's a lesson they'll do that so there's a difference between a teacher using a book and with instruction versus a book just being a library that a kid can check out so yeah if they're using a book with instruction
052yes everything dr faust just said they'll do you know they'll have that issues and they'll ask you know say we're look reading this book this is the this may have some concerns you know it's your choice and then ultimately if you don't want to then typically it's finding another resource that still covers the same objectives or content that they're trying to get usually if there's a book in the library and then it's different it would be okay that's fine then you have to have a conversation with your kid maybe you know that that's not the book that they check out usually we front load um with the curriculum piece is and what i mean by that is you teachers and principals kind of know books that might have some issues so they do like dr
053faust and they educate parents about this is what's coming hopefully as well our teachers are saying this material is here for you to you know to review and allow that and most of the time when you do that one or two things happen parents realize that it's part of the context and it's fine or the teacher can go in and address that this kid will not be part of this because nobody wants to present information that is contrary to what a parent wants for their child that's not our role that's not who we are so we you know with the front loaded information and i say that to say if we can make sure our policies and i think they do direct the policies back to the principles the teachers they they really can handle
054a lot of that situation and then it's it really stops there most of the time and it really is incumbent upon the school board to send people back right it's really the level closest to their work and not field all the you know and tell parents that when they send us emails because ultimately we gotta hear an appeal so it's not our job to go into the school and say hey principal a you got bad books yeah and it's a matter of being feel supported that way the teacher feels supported they feel respected as well right that you trust them to to do this but they know they're hilarious right you just can't just do anything so yeah i think again with all of our teaching using a novel um oftentimes you want to ask
055what is the standard that i'm trying to teach what is this stand out for my kids to learn is this the only book that will provide you know excel excellence for that standard is that the only book and then there's conversations that our school leaders have to have with teachers and saying you know if it's controversial why why do you want to what is it about this book this is the only book that you can teach let's just take another look sometimes you have to have those conversations because sometimes you know if i'm a teacher that may be my i've taught it for three years it gets what i want but it's not the only book and i had to have that conversation as a superintendent with a book um in another school district um
056and it was with a group of high school students and the teacher thought hey in this class we'll raise our hand and how many won't say the word okay so the kids raised their hand and they were kids who offended then there was a group that's like well let's just do hmm on this one so make a long story short the question was why did you choose this if kids if you're having to go around and vote to see if you want to say a word or what then let's pull the whole book right yeah there's no reason to make someone feel uncomfortable in a class just for you to teach a book because we can if that's the purpose i'm sure there's some other books out there that will teach the same principle without
057using that book so i mean there's really good conversation dialogue that can take place um when you're really trying to hit the curriculum but it doesn't have to be a specific prescribed book so ms scott i would like to add um many times in the plcs at the beginning of the year um there are a list of novel sets that are belong to the media center um they get along with the media center um and talk about those banned books every year um and so those books are really pre-selected and in the pocs they talk about the controversial books that they cut up so there's a lot of plc around that um in the ell a class having experience with working with a lot of the teachers so they do a lot of pre-planning prior
058to just selecting those and they try to stay away from the controversy very good thank you all righty so um are we ready to move this for are there any changes that we need to make to this to move it forward that i was trying to jot down and i mean the most of them were just like my questions but you had said that you were you were looking at the procedure but if we're only looking at procedure then the policy is probably ready to go forward i mean the policy is already there you've already approved the policy it's there so yeah we're just we're just working on changing the procedure we'll link this for now and then i will work with dr faison you know for the recommended changes we want to make and
059then we will when those changes come up we will share them with the board what those changes are and we'll get those then posted okay so we're ready to move um 3210 know to the next level with the the change of just hyperlinking the procedure and the forms as they currently are correct okay all right got that one down all right and so then the last one um we have is policy 4400 attendance um ms farnham yes i don't have a um we've not had time to pull a group of staff together a group of teachers and administrators together have had some conversation with administrators though and and we know from an administrative level and at the teacher level we see a need to go back to some additional high school requirements consistent with prior
060policy language so prior policy language um but but we need to discuss books so i don't have wording for you but i think we need to discuss kind of the ramifications and the unintended consequences for example so in my research i found that prior policy and again this is prior to the north carolina school board association working with us on policy revisions prior policy was and the additional high school requirements um were added in under 11th absence so after for additional high school requirements um you know of course talking about while school attendance is important at all levels and then it goes on to say at the 11th absence a student who misses more than 10 days in a semester shall receive an incomplete for the course and may not be awarded course credit except
061by determination of the attendance committee upon careful review of the students records so what that yielded was students who were passing the class but not being awarded credit and being marked in power school and then on their transcript with an af for attendance failure so they passed the class um with regard to their grades but they did not um receive a credit and and so in my research i found that um in november of 2018 um senior staff had this on their discussion on their agenda for a discussion in an effort wanting to modify this policy in order to better affect the dropout rate of course so you've got students who by their grade demonstrate at least proficiency if not mastery but then don't earn the credit and so those are students that may contribute
062to dropout and certainly we're not contributing to the graduation rate by remaining in their cohort for their credits so it was a way to enable credits for those who pass regardless of attendance so that's the other side of this um however it is still the recommendation so there are going to be some unintended consequences and some layers of this work which i think really requires a group of administrators teachers and again students like we have done with regard to other work with grading practices for example i think a team needs to come together to really determine the language around and the expectations around this um just so that we don't create unintended consequences that are that are worse i could jump in i agree with you i think i think that's an excellent idea i
063think we does need to be looked at very closely uh i'm gonna use example that i've used several times and i hate that you know just gonna say that thing again but i i've spoken uh for an hour and 45 minutes with one of our seasoned teachers at one of the local high schools and he was giving me the example of a person that was with him for the first quarter and he got an 83 and he turned around and said i won't see you again because there's no attendance policy and the you know the 50 average with the 83 i pass so i don't see it again and i go back to the simple fact that our job is to educate students and if our job is to educate students they need to be
064with their teachers and you know i remember as a principal spending many many too many days in in courtrooms because we had to get people to get their kids to school but i think that is that we do need to have some kind of intense policy at the high school level to you know because students need to be with their teachers so i think it should actually be pre-k through 12. oh yeah right i find it very difficult because i go to the different games and see an athlete who has 37 absences and so then my question is so how much seat time did you kiss because so how is it how is that a student gets an 83 and then misses i'm using that you're 83 in the 37 days out like i don't
065understand how that works because um if you're not in the classroom how are you being prepared and then i think about what the state talks about chronic absenteeism so there is a definition by the state that's called chronic absenteeism so we have actually gone over and i think it's more than 10 maybe there's a definition for it so how are we violating that and not calling it what is it so we have social workers and so there's chronic absenteeism so how is it that we are abiding by the rules of chronic absenteeism and i don't get around if there are only 90 or 78 days in the semester if a child misses 27 of those days how is it that we didn't justify so i'm looking over that if a student because i looked up
066a student um had 60 and i was like well how does the student get a 60 if you missed 37 days right so then it's not the and i'll be honest it's not the 50. then i was like well why didn't someone talk to the teacher because if you had and i know it sounds like i'm playing with teachers but i'm like if you had a kid in your class how'd that kid get a 60 and he missed 37 days and then they were out on our fields playing all right so you're doing a representation you're representing our district and you've violated it and we co-signed it and so my question then goes back to why don't we have something in place for chronic absenteeism why aren't we holding individuals responsible if they're not coming
067to school and i know that there are rules in place by law that states that students have to be in school and how did we get around not having a policy for um attendance and i get it you know i'm i'm a student i'm a super a student superintendent so i'm going to fight for students always doesn't matter i'm going to fight but if they're wrong they're wrong kids have to come to school so to offer a little bit of clarity um with regard to compulsory attendance we're compliant with compulsory attendance the issue is that um many of our high school students once they get beyond 16 years old they don't fall under compulsory attendance and then they're not attending but what about chronic absence yes so i'm under 16. so under in the compulsory
068attendance age range which would be at the time they enroll until they're 16. so that is what many of our school social workers are doing our juvenile attendance council sitting with judge corpening bringing those families in and looking at interventions there's a lot of work around that this is this is in addition to that where where we reach those high school kids who and they can also manipulate students can manipulate their attendance because we've got period attendance being taken at high school and so you may have perfect attendance in one car in one course and miss you know 60 days in another the other thing that complicates this as dr faust mentioned is athletic eligibility is based on prior semester and so you can have a student who is still eligible and on the court
069as an athlete who in the current semester really would not or for the pre um future semesters wouldn't reach um athletic eligibility due to attendance and and possibly grades so this is really specific to those high school students but i maybe i'm wrong but a lot of school districts have a definition for chronic absenteeism and i think it's more than 10 days um or the state someone justifies what that actual product would be because when it gets there whether they are 16 or 17 we're responsible for educating them right and i know that i would have a hard time as a teacher if the kid wasn't in my class right and and compulsory attendance does define the general statute identifies that and it's the it also clarifies when we do the three-day letter the six-day
070letter the ten day letter and it requires at the ten day letter and mr wildeberry and i worked on this for years back in another district together uh we had one situation where we worked on so much but um at the tenth you have to determine before you you um issue that um you know to the magistrate that request for appearance you have to determine if a good faith effort was made and general statute requires that good faith effort determination so that is where that definition lies and so up until through the compulsory attendance age our practices are in place it's it's that high school level where they aren't in place because if policy doesn't make a requirement for attendance and then all we have are grades then students don't actually have to attend so
071that's why we think that they're we're recommending as an administration um to bring this back and after having pretty consistent discussion among um traditional high school principals it's just the wording of it and and um the way to go about this really needs to be developed with um administrators teachers and students says who's chronically accident from a school in north carolina and against percent students who missed 15 days or more and this was um and they consider them chronic absent wellness i would like to make a motion to take policy 44 100 and hold it in committee until the committee can be performed to uh review this policy the all right so before i second that the i want to make sure we're all on the same page with this so this where a couple
072questions so as we're considering for this um committee that's coming up um we used to make phone calls you knew um every time a child was absent and i don't think that's happening anymore they're called the morning safety call now during um during times of covet where we didn't have 100 of our students in school it became really problematic to figure out who was on which schedule and to do the safety call so they were stopped but at the um at a time soon after we returned at 100 um for all students face-to-face um the am safety call was sent back out so how can a how can a parent say i don't even know my that my kid's not in school it's because they're not listening they're not picking up their calls their phone
073number might not be the right phone number and power school too right okay parents need we would want parents to ensure that we have their um current um contact information and those um are automatically generated every day and some some of us still have the old landline so it might go to landline and the parent may actually be at work at that point a child might be at home so right and you can offer text messages too because i get text messages as well okay and parents love that so we did that that's a communication thing you know that we talked to parents about yeah actually established the definition for chronic absence using february 21st of 2018 and it says the board's definition is consistent with the guidance shared by the north carolina early childhood
074foundation and national organizations attendance work as missing more than 10 of enrolled school days in a given year so the 10 of the enrolled school day so yeah just because you show up in the beginning in the morning right if you're not there at the end of the day or if you come in late every day and it right exactly it counts as for um regarding tardies as well for example right for example that's actually um data that's used in determination of a student with a disability if that student is not present in school and has has reached that definition of chronic absenteeism that brings into question whether it's a disability or an attendance issue okay yeah so we have all those things to worry about um the under b with later rivals and early
075departures where it says each high school must establish protocols to address late arrivals and early departures would that not be one that we want to be consistent district-wide on and not let each school develop their own or am i just reading too much into that district-wide policy yeah i mean that's that's my thoughts and so i just wanted to i i don't like when i mean i know we talk a lot about site-based management but some of these things principals do not need to have that much latitude i don't think i mean i think principals would love it if they could say it's a district-wide policy because it it's one of the things that parents really get upset when you tell them that you know we can't dismiss at this time or you know because
076they come ten minutes before we have to find your kids but you can't yes so i think principals would appreciate having some meat behind it may i add um i haven't taught high school for three years my students need the policy better than 90. and they can tell you well as long as i show up and i pass the class i'm so and i was new to high school and so i was not experiencing that in the lower levels um but when i got to ashley high school the chronic absences existed and that was one of the things it's like okay that was my introduction know this a lot of our students will come to pass the course but will not be in school when i was like how does this happen um so students
077and they share that information among lower levels so then you get the 9th grade and 10th graders who adopt this attitude this characteristic because your juniors and seniors have gone through those three years of absenteeism with know the course so i think it's very important that it's very specific um in the language that students as well don't read between the lines and try to manipulate the promises i think i think it sounds like we already have an nc papa and school administration rep and ms scott to join that that committee which i feel like is landing in in my lane well i'd love to serve on that too if if that's okay we'll we'll okay so that's how it works and make sure all board members get a chance to do this absolutely um on
078page 30 where um where we're talking about in addition students participating in disciplinary techniques categorized as in-school suspension may not will not be counted as absence um can that be like can those words be different or like restorative practices and you know including such as i mean is i don't know i'm just trying to yeah so that's a that is um specifically referencing the um the codes in powerschool for example in school suspension is a specific code if you want to call it something different at the school level that's fine but it's still an iss and the same thing with osf but both neither of those can or an iss is not counted as an absence and an oss has a specific specific absence code so that you know it was an oss not a
079choice absent okay and again that's language from the school board association okay so we have to do it not a big deal um and right above that where it says career the things that you're getting approved for career and technical education student organization activities um what about um like in science olympiad i mean that's a that's a club you knew or robotics against them but that that's number three school initiated in school scheduled yes yes okay so how come we have to call out career and technical i i mean i don't have a problem with it i'm just wondering why we do that i wonder if it's a job internship i i don't know this says student organization activities so why wouldn't if you let me go to the page because career and technical education
080is a federal um program it might be that there is some reference to that in the federal regulation that says that local dis i'm guessing because he's not mine yeah but um i'm guessing the reason it is mentioned is because like dr faison said there are so many um like job embedded and and on you know off-site school opportunities with internships that that is probably something in the cte yeah for example we're trying and you're not aware of this yet because it's just it's just chatter but we're trying to do something with the chamber where those students will actually do some visits and technically they're not cte students but it is going to be a partnership with them so there's so many things that this the career and technical education um program does that looks
081different so maybe that's it okay all right so back to mr world of war that's that was all of my comments i just wanted to say if i'm not going to be on the committee i wanted to make sure i said those out loud the all right so i will um second your motion to keep policy 4400 as it is because we have to have a policy and then but have it go back through evaluation for that are we are we intending that this will go into effect um in the school year 22 23 [Music] which means july so that means we really have to get rolling um on that i mean is that doable um it's going to be tough with the summertime but i do think that should be a goal okay i
082mean obviously that's not part of emotion i was just asking that question all right so we'll go ahead um all in favor okay all right so we're going to keep 4 400 we're gonna hold it in in committee revisions will be held in committee all right so that's all we had for policies unless anybody's got another one to sneak in remove the injury oh that's yet all right so um the last thing that we need to do item five is um mr boyer who is the chair of this committee um wants to recommend since we now um are on a really short you know time frame i mean that time frame we only have you know one or two weeks ago um wanted to move the meeting for the policy committee back to where how
083you they used to do it in like an hour before the board meeting um so that we could just get those done and then everybody's already here and we roll into the board so that the time would be moving it to 3 30 so go 3 30 to 4 30 give us a half an hour to redo whatever we need to do and then move right into the board meeting so that's what he wanted um us to he's in favor so um thoughts on that the only thing i would offer for consideration and i think it's fine is the format of the room would need to be the same as it would be for the board meeting so board members of the diocese senior staff at their tables miked and then we rolled right into
084the meeting without the necessity to logistically change the room up if that's fine and what they used to do is we had it in here right but is that something but the the public the public can come in if they want but it's it's tight yeah it would be a consideration yeah it's it's not possible to live stream from that room as we can here we've got this camera set up um so that would be that yeah i don't see that as a problem um dr faust do you have an opinion on that at all i mean we're going to be here anyway it's just going to be add an hour to our streaming all day but am i missing anything anita did i characterize that appropriately okay can we take the irr for the
085end then i like that take it i second that the hour we take the hour off the end then i would like to take three hours off the end but the we can work on that all right so um i am making a motion um to move for our committee to move back um is there a second second okay so all in favor okay so that's a 2-0 so you said three three thirty three thirty yeah it will be three that's just four thirty if we're not resetting the room as i just heard could we not move it say four to five and then well because that way because there's there's things that all of us need to do to get ready for the big the bigger meeting um and then just so we have
086at least 30 minutes of downtime okay you know to prepare ourselves up there mingle go around lots of prayers yeah okay all right all right so now um when we do oh okay right i'm asking i think she's i think she means every week okay so do we have a policy but we have a policy meeting in front of every board media only when we do we'll come at 3 30. if if we have any policies because going forward we should have a policy every meeting you know so it should only be and then that would be announced and separately and you wouldn't know it okay thank you kim will keep us all on track on that okay thank you all right so mr boyd i mean mr little board yes ma'am uh i will
087make a motion to adjourn this wonderful meeting okay a second of that so all in favor say aye aye all right well thank you guys for coming i mistaken thank you you