001call this meeting to order welcome to the new han County Schools December regular board meeting thank you for joining us and for those of you that are in the audience we will be repeating this message in a little bit uh we appreciate your interest participation and advocacy on behalf of our children and their education uh before we begin a quick reminder that masks are currently still required in this building as a result of the new hanur County Schools districtwide mask mandate please keep your mask above your nose and under your chin if you are signed up to speak during call to the audience you may remove your mask when you reach the microphone to present to the board if you are unable to wear a mask a reminder that this meeting is being live streamed
002on the nhcs YouTube page and can be viewed in real time thank you in advance for adhering to this requirement this evening we will have students present and we are committed to creating safe and welcoming spaces for them and our community as a whole right uh next item on the agenda is roll call Miss buoy good evening Miss Adams here Mr Buller here miss Justice here miss crille here Mr mcmanis here Miss Walker here and Mr wior present all right thank you very much we do have a quum present uh this evening we will be starting with a work session and a legal services presentation as you all know uh we put out an RFP not too long ago for legal services and this evening we will be receiving presentations from two firms poer SC
003LLC and darington Smith LLP um so I believe we will start with po good evening and welcome Miss Cornetto good evening I'm Katie Cornetto and it's nice to see you all Dr F members of the board um I'm going to just test the technology and it works beautifully it is a pleasure to be here today on behalf of pointer spru LLP um a law firm in downtown Raleigh and it has several other locations that I'll get to in just a moment um you all have our RFQ and um it was several pages that we submitted to you all in addition we have four short slides that we're going to run through very briefly we know we've got 10 minutes and then we're going to be answering questions that you all have of us um our
004slogan as you can see is large enough to serve you small enough to know you you all are of course uh one of the many Boards of Education in North Carolina I come to you with a little different experience in addition to representing local Boards of Education I worked for nearly a decade as the general Council to the State Board of Education and that had its own uh exciting times and uh with all the experience there I uh wanted just to tell you that in that capacity uh at one point in time the State Board of Education needed to seek outside councel for litigation and as general counsil I worked with them to find the right fit the right fit for the State Board of Education was pointer Rule and I'm going to tell you
005why um and I'm going to tell you just a little bit about the firm the firm is a uh comprised of approximately 100 attorneys it was 90 before we came and we joined the firm in uh the middle of October and November of this past year there are four offices in North Carolina it's a full service firm and we have offices in Rocky Mount Raleigh Charlotte and Southern Pines some fast facts about Pointer Sproule uh two firms merged in the 80s pointer which was established in the 40s and spruel which was which was established in the 1880s so it's a longstanding traditional firm that's now expanded to the area of Education law practice and as a firm we chose to come to pointer because it's got a well-earned reputation for providing prompt costeffective and professional
006legal services and we Endeavor to match our services with your budgetary needs and our strategy enables us to assist clients effectively and efficiently in connection with a wide range of legal needs and transactions so let's meet the team there are 10 of us who practice education law at pointer spru our firm is um full service and I'll get to what that means but we operate as a firm within a firm we operate as education law practitioners so we deal with all the issues that confront local Boards of Education of the 10 education law attorneys I've got with me today Brian Shaw Laura Cromer Brandon mcferson and Rachel hitch in addition we have four Associates Amy Dr Amy clay Rebecca Williams Rachel Nicholas and Grace Pena but what sets us apart you can hire a law
007firm they can do your legal work what makes us different for you all there is a substantial uh information out there about your board and its functioning and it's hard work um we've studied it and we've seen great promise and great grit from you all our commitment to every board we serve is a commitment of responsiveness and to partner with you we're not going to make decisions for you we're going to share with you all the information you need to make an informed decision you can talk to our clients and learn we're zealous Advocates and we work alongside the board and it's not just a typical school day we're there at night we're there in the morning and we're there all weekend and we're there in holidays because your work doesn't stop nor does ours
008our people are our greatest resource and as I mentioned to you what sets us apart is we don't just have 10 lawyers we have 10 attorneys who are committed to public education in North Carolina our firm is unique in that we have a doctor of psychology who is also an attorney practicing special education law with us that's Dr Amy clay you're not going to find that just anywhere we have Brian Shaw who is a beloved professor of law at Campbell law school he teaches our future generation of Education law practitioners he also teaches the practicing attorneys about case law updates at our regular uh continuing legal education classes we have Laura Crumpler who is of council and she serves after 30 plus years representing the State Board of Education and at the Department of Justice
009in fact a special little tip Laura in the 80s was an assistant city of Wilmington attorney uh I I asked if I could share that fact but I think you should know welcome she says it shows how old she is but we know um how committed she is to public boards and the service but her true passion is education and she started out as a public school teacher in addition to two other of our attorneys so we don't just practice law we practice education law in public schools of North Carolina for the betterment of boards um one of the very important things that we want to communicate to you all is that every single expected and unexpected issue that you deal with you don't need a legal answer but you need to know the law
010sometimes you need to have strategy in play we do all that with our clients and we help work through issues and you all decide how they're answered lastly a day in the life of a board looks like what's on slide four we think the honeycomb Busy B uh illustrates and depicts what you all are confronted with on the slide it talks about all the different issues and there are probably about a thousand more what we know is that you never have the same day twice and we understand that in protecting children the stakes are high and you need to have Partners who are available to you at at a moment's notice with the right answers and the right approach to serve your needs uh one of the most important things that we can ask of
011you before you make your decision is to talk to our clients now they will tell you how we're responsive they will tell you how we counsel them and they will tell you that they trust us to give them the information to make informed decisions and from your perspective your job humbles us why you decided to be a board member of a public school system is amazing in and of itself and it's not easy work but with the right supports you all can do great things and I'll open up the floor for questions all right thank you so much um I will turn this over actually to Miss Walker and Miss crel who uh led the RFP review team so miss crel and Miss Walker you want to start with your first question okay yeah the
012um one of the things that um that we are looking for is the ability for you all to help build capacity within us so that we do not have to call you every day you know or every week for an issue um so how how would you guys go about doing that and are you available well go ahead and then I'll just start with there that question is my favorite question so I'm glad you let off with it um one of the reasons is that that part of you know Katie started to tell you some of the things that set us apart but we feel very strongly about that because we have all benefited from public education we are very careful about about several things one of them is we love to teach we love
013to teach boards it's it's my job or the way I see my job is that for everything you have to go through you have to learn from it and it's my job to not just finish the finish the legal part of it but to end that by saying okay where what could we in hindsight what could we have done differently what can we put in place so you never have to go through this again I'd like everything that you if you ever have to hire a lawyer it should always always be that when you get to the end of that experience you learn something that helps you from having to do that again um and we feel very strongly about that we do that all from boards all the way down as long as the
014board will let us we do lots of training with boards on how to work through conflict um what your piece is versus what the administration piece is in the school system we love to work with boards to learn new things and all even your your administrators we love to talk to administrators we teach one teach them about special education you know we want to teach give them the tools to be able to make the decisions and and understand the decisions that they're making in that moment that prevent them from ever having to call us if we do a great job we don't hear from you that often thank you awesome well I have a a followup question we did a lot of discussion with our senior staff about what was important to the district and
015what we needed um one of the questions was um do you guys have it any your firm that specialized in special education and especially when it comes to getting critical updates on federal um State Law changes well it's me again um hello it just so happen that I I supervise our special education attorneys that practice special education and we are heavily involved in special education from on a national level all the way down to the local level for school boards we present nationally um we consult with with the um National School Board Association has a a National Council of school attorneys which has a smaller group of attorneys that they consult with on special ed matters in terms of trying to um help Congress understand the implications of congressional decisions and the law and what
016what how that looks at the local level so we we present on the state level we present at the local level um and we stay very up to date we have some resources that we spend the money on that are specific to special education because it is so new nuanced and so heavily regulated it's very easy for school systems to miss dotting an eye or crossing a tea and so we keep up to date not just on the the law cases that go through the court systems but even on the administrative decisions at the administrative level before it ever gets to court and we've we've done we've had an extra eye on that since Co because Co presented so many unique issue issues for special needs students that you know we wanted to try to
017follow what are the trends what are the the lowest courts or the lowest administrative units deciding now on issues of things like compensatory education and how you provided fape during covid and those kinds of things so we stay very up to date on special ed just just a follow up to that thank you um how quick is your return on that kind of stuff when there's like due process issues you know how how fast do you get back to are you available to get back are you pretty on special ed or any of the other issues so one of the things you should know about us is we my business card has my cell phone number on it every single special ed director that I work with knows if they call me if I can
018answer I will answer if not I'm going to respond in a text message and let them know when I can answer and is it it a you know is it an emergency if it's an emergency I'll step away I've stepped away from a Saturday night concert it doesn't matter when the phone rings and somebody has an issue we answer it okay so they're not waiting if you don't hear from me then something's wrong with me oh my goodness you should send someone to check on us okay you want to do the next one yeah I just had um one more that that wasn't quite covered in some of your stuff so um which one of you will be our lead councel that we would go to on the the on the regular and um versus
019a specialty need that one of our senior staff might have I'd love to take that question um we are all capable of helping you but I know what it means to have the speed dial and the one point of contact to get you what you need quickly I am able to do that for you Rachel is able to do that for you and Brian we were actually fighting in a meeting earlier today about who it would be so you would have some say in who that one person is we get why you want one person and we're happy to help with that thank you right I think um some other board members have some additional questions yeah no think we'll go to miss Jus I'm sorry did you have one first Miss Walker no I
020was just saying let's go to miss Justice and then we'll go over to Mr wior that the being not the oh dear did I blow that should I repeat it I can repeat it it would help if you could it's hard to he okay and I'll take this down to and I did not know thank you whoever did that uh yeah okay you're the number one now I understand the confusion on your face that makes me feel better that way because you couldn't hear me not the question uh the number one focus of us and any law firm should be the students you're serving the students first and I've had associations with other firms other individual lawyers and other districts and in here too and often times it just feels and it may not be
021true but it gets the feeling that the the legal services are are serving either the boards I guess interests or maybe our uh employees interests as opposed to the interest of the students first How Could You assure me that that would always be the students needs what's best for them that that you are going to be responding to that's right uh good evening um brandom in person happy to be here Mr Justice the thing I'll say is our North Star is serving kids and doing what's best for students say what could you speak up now yes ma'am yes ma'am can you hear me yeah our North Star is serving students and doing what's best for students what I will tell you though is our ethical obligations because of our profession is to serve our client
022and in this instance our client would be the Board of Education and there are going to be instances in which the interest of an individual student or group of students will be contrary to the board of education so please understand that anyone who serves in this role will have an ethical obligation to do what is in the best interest of its client Cent the Board of Education and that is an ethical obligation that we cannot do anything about because that is who our client would be okay so this is a follow-up question and that what you're saying then in essence is it would be up to the board to ensure that it's the students needs that would be coming first as opposed to the boards yes ma'am and I believe I don't serve with a
023single board in the state of North Carolina who doesn't use students as their North Star they keep the students at the Forefront of all educational decisions and doing what's in the best interest of kids so thank you for your response I'm GNA pass this to Mr wbore and we do need to be aware of time uh because sington Smith still has to present so Mr wior just real quickly then um what uh area schools in sou eastern North Carolina do you serve or have served recently what other what other school boards uh we currently serve as the board attorneys for the pen County Board of Education um which is your neighboring School District so we also are currently serving as special counsil with Eno um for some specific issues uh so we uh we are
024in the Southeast and uh have been working in southeast for quite a while thank you yes M Justice this is almost a follow-up question you said you you're representing Pender County I thought the Schwarz firm was representing Pender County um uh pointer Sproul are the board attorneys for the Pender County board of education but they weren't they previously as of November 1st okay thank you just to help clear opin confusion I'm Brian Shaw uh I used to be a partner with Schwarz and Shaw and all of our attorneys except my friend and and partner Richard Schwarz left and joined pointer spru in October and November and so Pender is now with this set of attorneys who has represented Pender for a number of years as well okay thank you very much Mr mcis all right
025and then let's close it out and we'll end with this question one quick question we are in the process of suing an insurance company for as much money as we possibly can to take care of a plaintive situation that we have that you may well be aware of this is the time to discuss it how would you transition what knowledge our present legal Arena has to you all the background what's taking place Etc um there'd be a series of meetings I mean it would not be a singular event it would it would be a coordinated effort to follow up on every legal issue that you have existing at the time I mean it's that included so I mean it's going to be a series of meetings getting up to speed leading over to a handoff
026just like with any other transition whether it be from board members to superintendence to uh School administrators um it's a it's a process and it takes a period of time to get um the handoff of information especially with the detail uh to which any litigation involved so yes thank you very much thank you all so much for being here this evening I know that you traveled to be with us and we appreciate you answering our questions and on that note if you all would take a c um I believe we are going to invite um our representatives from sington Smith up for their presentation thank you thank you very much thank you thank you good evening G members my name is Eva dubis I'm a partner in The Firm of Fairington Smith and this is
027my partner Rod Malone and we're here to present to you tonight on our proposal to serve as to continue serving as your general counsel now obviously you've got to know us over the past about 18 months as we filled into that role but I look back in our files today and our firm is actually represented New Hanover County schools for specialty matters um almost as long as we've been doing this back at least to the early 1980s and so to give you that background our firm has been in existence for nearly 60 years and our education Law Group has been representing school boards for more than 40 years um and we have been counsil and some of our clients have been with us that whole time we've been counsel to the Wake County Board of
028Education since 1978 and there are 18 of us now who do exclusively public school work all of our clients are public school boards of Education um we have a a couple dozen for whom we are general counsel but we have represented at least a hundred for those specialty matters so almost every school district in the state has used us at some time or another now you have seen what we do in Schoolboard meetings but most of what we do that's sort of the iceberg you know the tip of the iceberg and then below the surface is most of our job which is supporting the school system as a whole now as you heard your attorneys represents the Board of Education and not the administration and that's always important to remember um but often the way
029that we do that is by supporting the people that you've hired and so our attorneys have walked with your staff through some very sticky Personnel situations over the last couple years and and for many years before we've handled a lot of um property and construction matters for you which I'll let Rod talk a little bit more about and we have served as your special education Department's EC Council again I believe for more than 20 years as I look back in our files I can see that we've been doing trainings for your staff on special education I found a training that our partner an Majestic gave to your staff on special education in 1992 so um we have that institutional knowledge and that stability that I think is important for a school board and it's important
030to remember that we stick with our clients elections should not matter to the board of attorney um once we represent the Board of Education we help you achieve your goals as long as it's lawful and we help you design something that is is lawful and we help you achieve it when there's an election if a new board wants something different we help them achieve that that's the purpose of the board attorney is to represent the board and help it achieve its goals um and so as we do that I think some examples of the way that we have helped in the covid area particularly using that institutional knowledge we have and those relationships that we have by the fact that we represent School systems across the state and are involved at a national level and
031I'll give you an example my partner Carolyn merkus spearheads the special education representation for new Handover and of course we were working frantically during school closures to figure out how our clients could serve students with special needs and there was little to no guidance coming out from the state and federal level and so this summer as Carolyn and I were answering the same questions over and over we decided decided all of our clients have the same questions instead of doing this work separately for everyone let's get them together and we ended up doing a webinar that I know new Handover participated in as well as I believe 29 other or close to 75 EC administrators from about 30 or so districts where we just answered those questions that everyone had about how to write IEPs
032when you didn't know if you were in plan b or plan C and how to communicate with parents parents how to hold IEP meetings virtually how to provide speech therapy and those sorts of services and at the same time we were communicating Carolyn is part of a working group an idea working group on the national level um we were communicating with school attorneys across the state as our colleague said and bringing that knowledge to your EC department proactively so that you could anticipate and avoid problems before they came up and I know that Carol and help the EC Department put together some proactive Communications to parents and some forms that could be used by staff um rather than waiting for things to go wrong and that's an important part of our practice um and so
033what we would propose to do for the board of education is essentially the continue that long-standing representation and bring that expertise to your staff and to you and so what I I hope you might do is speak to the people who work for you about whether they feel they have been supported over the last year and a half whether they feel they've gotten information when they needed it and gotten creative ideas when they needed those and if they have then I hope that you would continue to support them by allowing them to continue to work with us I don't have a ton to add over um what Eva said I would just say that for my practice areas primarily uh Construction I've been working with Addie um even back when he was in Wake County
034and certainly over the years before we even started um representing you in this capacity I've worked with him on Contracting issues worked with him and Wayne on other matters throughout the time I've also over the years worked with um when Wayne was here he had us come in and handle some Personnel matters for him so we've worked and I personally worked with the new Hanner County Board of Education and and school system for you know a good part of the 30 something years I've been doing this uh one of the other things we've been handling for you in the short term has been uh Bond forfeit matters and DWI seizures and we've been handling those we've had a really good working relationship with the clerk's office uh the DA's office that's going seamlessly um and
035really seems to be working well so um it's we have enjoyed the work I personally have enjoyed the work and enjoyed working with uh with the staff members that we work with on a fairly regular basis with that I think we'll just take your questions all right Miss crille and Miss Walker open it up to you again you got start us off do you have do you have questions um well the um the the question that I asked to um the the First Council was you know what kind of capacity do you build in us and I think you've covered some of the things that you've already done with that um and so I guess I'll ask you know um we will we keep the same dedicated person or um are you guys going to
036rotate around to be our yes we're happy to keep you with Colin shive with your same dedicated attorney unfortunately he had to go argue before the fourth circuit tonight and so that's why he's not here today but um he's enjoyed working with you I know and is happy to continue to do so and I do want to note as far as internal capacity building that you know in addition to doing that with our EC Department I can give you another example one of the things that I've done with some districts with their personnel department is um FMLA training and what we actually do is put together a full notebook of forms that we've developed form letters and then sit down with payroll and HR and train the Frontline staff on how to recognize when someone's
037asking for FMLA what letters to send them and these are the kind of things that we can provide without having to reinvent the wheel without having to I don't have to create that for you I already have it so that's the kind that's one benefit of working with our firm one other thing we did in that area is we provided working with the finance officer form contracts that can be used for services so that they can contract without having to send us contracts to review and that saves them time and also saves the board a lot of money we we try to be as proactive in as many of those areas as we can I don't I don't have any questions personally I think Mr wbore had a question Mr wior yeah U again I'll
038ask the same question question I asked the other group um what area school systems do you currently serve or have served recently in Southeastern besides us Southeastern North Carolina so as I'm just visualizing the map uh we represent dupel bordt County perquimans um [Music] Jones Nash edcom I'm kind of working my way around Scotland special Council for Brunswick um Craven Craven and trying to um that may be it in this in the sou well yes Scotland and hope okay thank you right Miss Justice uh yes it sounds like you have been working with our system for some time we had a lawyer on staff previously and I know that when he needed U help because it wasn't his expertise or or situations that arise uh were you the firm that was mainly uh contracted to
039work with him is that I I don't know if anybody up here would know that maybe Mar so this is the firm that in the background had was helping our previous legal services for how many years I see people shaking their heads does anyone know for sure I know that he called us on occasion but he may have called others too I'm not sure yeah I certainly have worked with Wayne um but even before he was in house counsel you know when he was outside counsil he would he had reached out to us I mean probably going back a good 25 years i' I've worked with um with the New Hanover County Board of Education okay I see some people shaking their heads over here that might be able to answer this question because um
040actually miss vnam was the one that was shaking her head yes uh do you know how long or there were other legal um groups that were advising uh our previous Council besides sington Smith uh you just was shaking your head I thought you might know that okay maybe Mary Miss small might know yeah I just I would just like to know the extent to which the the previous legal council was working with durington we'd have to re search it I think there were specific issues that may be depending on if there was a a special case or lawsuit there there might have been um different firms that they worked with um in the past but but we we have all these records that we could go back if that's something the board was interested in
041I guess and we could look at that after this presentation if you could thank you sure all right any other questions from board members all right well thank you both very much for coming this evening to present to the board during this work session uh we appreciate the work that went into these presentations from both firms and um we will be discussing and uh vote would be next month I believe all right we'll be reviewing your information thank you all very much thank you thank you thank you all right moving along on the agenda our next item is this evening's invocation it will be delivered by the salt Fox Church Senior Pastor Michael Mattis um and it will be remote so if you could all please stand hi this is Michael Mattis I'm the pastor
042of salt Fox church here in Wilmington and I wanted to call and offer an opening prayer for the no Haner County school board so uh father I am so grateful for the board I'm grateful that they serve Lord I'm grateful for their time their expertise and father I want to lift up Stephanie Adams as she chairs um this at this time and in this place and space um I want to lift up Nelson bullu as he is part of it and Judy Justice I want to lift up Stephanie Crile and Hugh mcmanis I want to lift up Pete wbore and Stephanie Walker and Lord I want to would pray for five things today I'd pray for safety for this team safety for them individually safety for their families extended families father i' also pray for
043wisdom um especially in the wake of the shooting that happened earlier this year at new hover or the Michigan shooting that's just taken place Lord give them great wisdom father I pray that you'd give them Unity um of in decision and and unity of um just orientation and Direction father I pray you give them courage uh to carry out those decisions and Lord I would ask lastly that you would give them great vision for our school for our students for our families um for this County over which they preside Lord we're so grateful for them and I pray a special blessing over them and their families in the mighty name of Jesus we pray amen thank you all for serving we're so grateful thank you Pastor Mattis if you'll remain standing for the Pledge of
044Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you you may be seated next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda are there any changes uh Madam chair I'd like to move that we combine the two call audiences at one at the at the beginning all right so the motion is to combine call to the audience for agenda items and non agenda items into one uh is there a second second thank you Mr Buller uh any discussion all those in favor say I I I all right thank you so we will combine those Madam chair I have a second motion yes sir if I could thank you I
045move that we move uh the masking vote to right after the call to audience uh that is what number sorry number number sorry all right moving the monthly mask vote to right after call to the audience yes ma'am is that all right is there a second second thank you Mr bullier any discussion yes is it possible hold on let's Miss Justice first yeah um part of what we were doing was having the report from the health department first that doesn't make sense to wait until after the report from the health department and then do the vote there was a logic to it um I mean just a that's what I thought we were planning to trying to be as efficient as possible and also knowledgeable and that was the reason that we had the health
046department come out would you like to amend that to do the co update first and then the state required Mass vote both of those items I'd be willing to amend that okay so the amendment is to do both move both items the co update and state required vote regarding mask in schools to below call to the audience or right after call to the audience is there a second second all right thank you Mr bullier any discussion about that that addition right all those in favor say I I opposed all right E and F in under old business have been moved um Miss Grey did you yeah I was wondering can can we move it up before our closed session so that we can um like go ahead and approve or we're we're approving the agenda
047but move it up before we go to close session so we can just handle that item or is that not appropriate I don't know if that's appropriate right now we've got a lot of items in close session that we've got people waiting we need to get to work with that we already behind okay okay all right um I believe we did we voted on the amendment now do we need to vote then also to to move okay so is there a motion um to move E and F under old business to call to the audience right yes is there second second thank you Miss Walker all those in favor say I was opposed all right that item is moved uh yes Miss Justice yes I would like to ask add a discussion of of concerning
048um bonuses for our employees something that people have been requesting for [Applause] Christmas under local salary schedules that is included in that discussion uh this is for tonight a discussion and an act an action but the local salary schedule's presentation includes some of that right but I that the bonus the actual discussion of the bonus I'm not going don't know if it's going to be included in that I'm talking about a separate bonus from New Hanover County school if that's included then that's fine but I want to make sure that that's included in there yeah that conversation's there all right anything else all right um all those uh the motion now is to is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended move to approve as amended thank you Mr Buller second thank you
049Mr wi deore any discussion all those in favor say I I oppos agenda is approved all right next item on the agenda is a closed session from 5:30 to 6:30 do I hear a motion move for close session thank you Mr Buller is there second thank you Mr wior the recommendation is to enter into closed session pursuant to North Carolina General statutes 14338 do11 a13 and6 to consider Personnel matters and to maintain the confidentiality of personal records under North Carolina General statutes 115 C- 319 and- 321 to prevent the dis closure of Student Records rendered confidential under the family educational rights and Privacy Act 20 USC 1232g to consult with the board's attorney to preserve attorney client privilege information including in the case captioned John do V new han County Board of Education at Al
050new han County Superior Court case number 19 CVS 2745 uh any discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed we are in closed session thank you very much [Music] this week eighth graders across the district learned about our high school specialty programs and non-traditional high schools the presentations included a brief overview of each program breakout sessions hosted by each High School's Lead Teacher and a Q&A session the application for all signature programs opens today at 400 p.m. it will remain open until January 21st if your student is interested in applying please visit the signature programs website with all of the writing and the research and um critical thinking that we do I think it's really prepared me well for the college curriculum that I'll be um seeing in the future I've really enjoyed
051uh the structure I like having a smaller group that I can really connect with and we can all help each other with things that we have questions on and your teachers also know you really well because they all have you for a number of years don't be nervous because nobody's going to judge you here because we we all we all like to learn we all like to just we all want we all just want to get to like the same objective but we can all do it in a different way and just just don't be nervous when if you want to come to miss and ask her questions or ask one of the stem leaders many programs and like classes and helps and it helps you like get to know what you like best and
052helps you kind of prepare and get into like that kind of mindset and feel of what it actually like is to like be part of um a really good program um there is an application for each program it is a common application so one application for every program students can choose to select as few or as many programs as they would like to apply to and the application will be available until the end of January that's it for NHS recap be sure to visit nhcs on social media and on nhcs.net [Music] so IB dates back to the 1960s um it was a program named the international back Gloria program and IB um that was started in Europe by a group of Educators inventors and thinkers who wanted to challenge how traditional curricul um um kind
053of evolved Beyond I think in the I program you sort of get a chance to begin almost like a college major early so I love politics and so I've been able to focus my studies no matter what subject area it is into politics in some way so the Marine Science Academy we have extended the program to be all four years we find that that supports our New Hanover County students the best um the Marine Science Academy is an 11th or 12th grade program and we're finding that those students are really settled into their home schools at that time it's just a really great program to be in um you get to experience a lot of cool things and get some great opportunities so I definitely would recommend it anyone at the career Readiness Academy we
054are a small non-traditional high school with a focus on personalization I got started with the Mosley program about uh middle school um with the eacademy side of things by doing that I've gotten pretty great opportunities like the CCP program getting early college work done kir and this really great internship at liveo well wex is a cooperative and Innovative high school and it is partnered we partnered with KF Community College our students can graduate actually with a high school diploma and a two-year associates degree and they can also graduate with some type of credential so they have many option the teachers there they really do want you to succeed so like they encourage you to answer questions and to also ask your peers questions you know whenever I did come into school in nth and 10th
055grade it was like I was coming to a second family [Music] almost [Music] the S program at Laney is primarily designed for students who have a strong interest in sence technology engineering and math we offer five levels of Project Lead the Way engineering courses including aerospace engineering and we just added architectural engineering as well and civil engineering when going into high school I was easily chose this school because of the stem program I've been able to play um High School sports at high level been able to get a high education as well it's been unlike anything I've seen at in County CC's the best place on Earth we are in our fifth year of operation we are serving 240 children this year up from 44 just five short years ago we've lived through the pandemic
056and the hurricanes and all the things and moves across buildings and we're still standing and growing and and getting better every day I needed that family type connection to learn better and you're really close with like all the teachers and the other students here that was a really big thing for me the goal of the lysium program is interdisciplinary learning it's getting our students involved across the subjects I'm learning both inside and outside of building so when it comes to AP testing it's easier because you have a whole year to master the content and you have teachers available to help you as a very early college high school is part of the North Carolina cool operative Innovative high school we give an opportunity for students to come and get fast tracked into life after um
057High School it has honestly been a phenomenal program both in regards to the curriculum and my peers you end up just forming a really strong connection with your cohorts it just it makes you feel prepared to pursue anything you want to [Music] do this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of November 8th on Tuesday the New Hanover County Board of Education held its regular board meeting the board recognized numerous staff and students for their achievements and excellence and discussed a staff climate survey as well as halfday Wednesdays starting in the month December no decision was made on either subject the board voted to hold their monthly mask vote until after the Department of Health and Human Services made a decision on the county mask mandate
058the board will hold a special meeting on Monday to vote Murray Middle School became an official unified Champion National Banner school this week they were recognized by the Special Olympics USA for meeting 10 standards of excellence in their work to develop an inclusive School the Murray Falcons were only one of five schools in the state of North Carolina to receive this award for 2021 we are proud to recognize and honor our veterans on Veterans Day new handu County Schools employs a number of veterans and we are pleased to be able to share the stories of some on our social media accounts thank you to all of our veterans both staff and community members for their service to our country and their dedication to the preservation of [Music] Freedom that's it for nhcs recap be sure
059to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs.net this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of November 1st last weekend new H County schools with the invitation from the New Hanover County NAACP attended a community engagement event for our families we enjoy the collaboration which allowed us to share our continued focus with the students and families we serve every day nhcs looks forward to being welcomed and engaged in future events with the community on Monday November 1st students in Mr Rodriguez Hispanic heritage class presented on the Day of the Dead students and their families provided flowers Pand morto food and painted their faces to honor the holiday with an authentic presentation selected students from all traditional middle and high school orchestras were invited to the
060mini Evans Arts Center for a two-day clinic learning and performing music with the aid of guest conductors Dr Jim Walo of Meredith college and Corey Franklin of Chapel Hill carboro City Schools students performed a joint concert for the public on October [Music] 30th that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow NHC on social media and visit nhcs.net this is NHS recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of October 25th this year our off County Choir chorus Clinic invited students from all of the traditional middle and high schools to two separate locations to spend a day learning and Performing music together as one District chorus family high school students worked with Dr Jonathan Seager from Mount H college and the middle school students worked with conductor Paul flow
061from P County [Music] Schools students at elementary held the anual booster fun the students raised over $40,000 the funds will be used to help provide Renovations and updates to the school's Media Center it was a great fundraiser that paired school spirit with the dose of Fitness at a special meeting held on Thursday October 28th the new Haner County Board of Education voted to make November 12th a wellness day for staff and students this will be an undesignated work day have you completed the new H County public input survey community members parents School Employees and students can share feedback and input through the survey the survey is open through November 1st safety revolves around how the community treats each other and if we go out and we work on this survey together then we're going to
062be encouraging that Community to grow we're going to be encouraging safety among students and staff we're going to be keeping people safe and I don't understand why you would want to do that that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs.net [Music] this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of October 18 18 ctec along with the Wilmington Kate here Home Builders Association held a pumpkin carving with power tools event on October 18th this event was to celebrate the National Association of home builders careers in construction month it was a fun hands-on experience that allowed CC students to learn to use different power tools while also learning about the construction industry as a whole also on the 18 Snipes
063Academy of Art and Design held a dedication ceremony for their Outdoor Classroom this project was started before the pandemic but was just recently completed students and teachers are able to use the space to teach a variety of lessons as well as have lunch outside the project was largely funded by the landfall foundation Dr fa along with other members of the senior staff and Board of Education were all in attendance new han county is launching a public input survey about school and Community safety reporting incidents communication and Community programs and resources the survey is completely Anonymous and will be open now through Monday November 1st it is intended to gather direct CommunityWide feedback to help inform the continued development of an actionable plan and Investments this is part of the County's initiative to improve school and
064Community safety rville Beach Elementary School was named one of the 2021 US Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools for their efforts to reduce their environmental impacts teach students how to live sustainably and be good stewards of the environment students from rville Led tours for members of both the US and North Carolina Departments of Education demonstrating what their school does to promote these pillars members of the Board of Education Dr F and other senior staff were all in a attendance that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs.net this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of October 11th students and staff over at Murray middle school held a ribbon cutting event for the installation of their new solar panels
065Murray has a pole mounted 5kw system that was installed through an NC green power Grant with matching fundraising by the school the other 110k watt mounted system was purchased through Duke Energy rebates from various projects over the years the sixth grade cor Bandon Orchestra also performed Here Comes the Sun [Music] our prek students were given tips on fire safety informed about smoke alarms and identified a meat spot at their homes and in between their stop drop and roll routine they even had a visit from New hanor County Fire and [Music] Rescue October is principal appreciation month this month we honored our principles at their monthly meeting with the video presentation we recognize the hard work and dedication that they put into their schools and students we appreciate everything they do not only this month but
066year round that's it for the NCS recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs.net [Music] this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of October 4th students at Bradley Creek Elementary held their annual W ride your bike to school event the event that is celebrated nationally helps promote physical activity teach safe pedestrian and bicycling skills concern for the environment and reduces traffic congestion and pollution something we know our families appreciate the new Hover County Board of Education held its regular meeting this week they heard presentations from District leaders on the literacy campaign budget and salary projections and from Head Start the board also extended the universal mask update for nhcs and was given an update on the the vaccine and testing options
067within the district it's homecoming week over at hogard and the Vikings are gearing up for their big game on Friday with spirit week on Wednesday they held their annual Powderpuff football game congratulations to the toughest Nails senior girls who defeated the Juniors 24 to six that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs.net [Music] this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of September 20th schools across the district have been celebrating start with hello week a curriculum and event through Sandy Hook promise that teaches Indian social isolation through empathy and reaching out to your peers this week we saw heartwarming scenes from Myrtle Grove Middle School where students wrote encouraging messages to each other every student deserves to feel
068a sense of belonging in our schools and we'd love to see our Educators and students working toward that goal wesboro elementary school held a family night escape room this week the cool cat school mascot went missing and Miss Overby enlisted students and families to attend the family night to help find him using escape room strategies and hints hidden throughout the school from teachers to tutors HVAC repair experts to Plumbers Treasures to Cooks new H County Schools is hiring with flexible hours competitive pay and great benefits you can start here and grow anywhere join us for a career fair this weekend to get an on the spot interview that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs . net this is nhcs recap where we look back at some
069of the top events from the week of September 13th Miss Moore AIG teacher at Porter sck Elementary has coordin ated a leadership opportunity for upper grades called Safety Patrol fifth graders are taking on roles in the morning like greeting students putting up the flag doing the announcements and more September is suicide prevention month students and adults alike experience villains of stress anxiousness disappointment and sadness sometimes our emotions become more than we can handle it's okay to not feel okay your emotions are valid if you or one of your friends are experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression know that you do not have to go It Alone share your concerns anonymously through the says something app or tell a trusted adult or School staff member remember that you are not alone this week District leaders gathered
070for their monthly principles meeting principles heard updates on Career and Technical education regarding Pathways in view to presentation on Fidelity and education where they were treated to a sneak peek at The District's new literacy newsletter read lead succeed there was also a presentation on gang task force and the SRO mou training Hispanic Heritage Month began this week over the next four weeks schools throughout the district will recognize the achievements and contributions to Hispanic heritage and culture right barel Elementary Cool Cats wasted no time in starting their celebrations students and staff have been showing their Hispanic heritage Pride through their wardrobe and accessories that's it for the nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs.net [Music] this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from
071the week of September 6 the new H County Board of Education held its regular meeting this week they heard presentations from District leaders on the Career and Technical education audit literacy and math framework as well as after school tutoring enrichment and acceleration programs the board also extended the universal mask update for new han County schools and provided information on their joint effort with new H County Commissioners to work on teacher Recruitment and Retention incentives having an open line of communication with our families is one of our top priorities as a district and we're excited to be adding texting to the way we reach our families receiving text from new Handover County Schools is easy just text yes to 6758 7 to opt in our community has come together over the last week and a half
072in support of our staff students and families at new han High School from Elementary Bulldogs to cross town rival Vikings New Hanover County schools has stood in solidarity with the Wildcats the orchestra and CH students at tras Middle School even put together their rendition of Lomi for the Handover [Music] family 20 years ago our nation was struck with the tragic events of September 11th for those of us old enough to remember we can tell you exactly where we were when the towers were struck we can recall the horrifying footage that played out on our televisions that morning in the days to come we grieve with those lives lost and we hold in esteem the countless First Responders who race toward the chaos and we honor the men and women in our military forces who serve
073to protect our nation near and far this morning at new han High School the JC held an observance of remembrance for all of the lives impacted by the events of 9911 that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs.net [Music] this is NH CS recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of August 30th on Monday August 30th a physical altercation occurred at New Hanover high school during the altercation a student fired shots striking another student in the leg and hand in the days after the incident new H County schools has worked to provide support and resources to the Wildcat family the district's crisis team have made themselves readily available and have also provided outside resources to students and staff through Trum
074health and the Wilmington Health Access for teens or what Clinic we encourage our students to talk to a trusted adult teacher or a counselor if you are in need of additional support as a result of the incident new Handover County Board of Education members with the new Handover County Commissioners held a joint special meeting Friday September 3rd to discuss how to ensure the safety of students and staff at all New Hanover County school facilities this joint meeting was held at the Board of Education Center where community leaders were able to share what safety measures they would like to see implemented going forward today the stakeholders at this table have an opportunity to discuss Lessons Learned ask questions and share ideas for Solutions and next steps we need to do our homework research and develop a
075wellth thought out plan to prevent violence in our campuses three years ago marray Middle School's unified Falcons made a commitment to work to build a more inclusive School in that time the Falon have participated in Special Olympics Unified sports where students with and without disabilities train and compete as teammates fostered inclusive youth leadership and maintain whole school engagement Murray is a national model School of inclusion and was awarded status as a unified Champion National Banner School some of our youngest Learners headed to the classroom for the first time this week students at Hal Johnson Mosley in College Road Early Childhood Center had staggered enrollment for the first half of of the week and rounded out the week on Thursday and Friday with full days that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on
076social media and visit nhcs.net this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of August 23rd this week new Handover County traditional schools K through 12 students headed back to the classroom for full-time in-person learning after 18 months of remote and hybrid instruction teachers were so excited to welcome back familiar and new faces to the classroom the the promise is to make sure that you know we provide a safe rigorous education and that's what we're going to do though are K through 12 students May their comeback this week our pre students will return on Monday August 30th this week our youngest Learners attended open open house where they met with teachers and toured classrooms the district was able to fill over 800 spots in early childhood education
077thanks to a joint effort from the New Hanover County Commissioners and our New Hanover County Board of Education and we couldn't kick off the 20121 2022 Traditional School year without recognizing our Child Nutrition staff and bus drivers the communication and Outreach division provided Donuts to both departments so we can officially say we started the year off with NHC s running on Duncan that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs.net [Music] this week eighth graders across the district learned about our high school specialty programs and non-traditional high schools the presentations included a brief overview of each program breakout sessions hosted by each High School's Lead Teacher and a Q&A session the application for all signature programs opens today at 400 p.m. it will remain open until January 21st
078if your student is interested in applying please visit the signature programs website with all of the writing and the research and um critical thinking that we do I think it's really prepared me well for the college curriculum that I'll be um seeing in the future I've really enjoyed uh the structure I like having a smaller group that I can really connect with and we can all help each other with things that we have questions on and your teachers also know you really well because they all have you for a number of years don't be nervous because nobody's going to judge you here because we we all we all like to learn we all like to just we all want we all just want to get to like the same objective but we can all do
079it in a different way and just don't be nervous when if you want to come to the s ask her questions or ask one of the stem leaders there's many programs and like classes and hopes and it helps you like get to know what you like best and helps you kind of prepare and get into like that kind of mindset and feel of what it actually like is to like be part of um a really good important program um there is an application for each program it is a common application so one application for every program students can choose to select as few or as many programs as they would like to apply to and the application will be available until the end of January that's it for nhcs recap be sure to visit nhcs
080on social media and on nhcs.net [Music] so Ivy dates back to the 1960s um it was a program named the international back laurate program and IB um that was started in Europe by a group of Educators inventors and thinkers who wanted to challenge how traditional curriculum um kind of evolved Beyond I think in the I program you sort of get a chance to begin almost like a college major early so I love politics and so I've been able to focus my studies no matter what subject area it is into politics in some way so the Marine Science Academy we have extended the program to be all four years we find that that supports our New Hanover County students the best um the Marine Science Academy is an 11th or 12th grade program and we're finding
081that those students are really settled into their home schools at that time it's just a really great program to be in um you get to experience a lot of cool things and get some great opportunities so I definitely would recommend it to anyone at the career Readiness Academy we are a small non-traditional high school with a focus on personalization I got started with the mosle program in about uh Middle School um with the e Academy side of things by doing that I've gotten pretty great opportunities like the CCP program getting early college work done cir and it's really great internship at liveo well WX is a cooperative and Innovative high school and it is partnered we partnered with capf Community College our students can graduate actually with a high school diploma and a two-year associates
082degree and they can also graduate with some type of credential so they have many options the teachers there they really do want you to succeed so like they encourage you to answer questions and to also ask your peers questions you know whenever I did come into school in 9th and 10th grade it was like I was coming to a second family almost the Sim program at Laney is primarily designed for students who have a strong interest in science technology engineering and math we offer five levels of Project Lead the Way engineering courses including aerospace engineering and we just added architectural engineering as well and civil engineering when going into high school I was easily chose this school because of the stem program I've been able to play um High School sports at high level been
083able to get a high education as well it's been unlike anything I've seen at the county CC's the best place on Earth we are in our fifth year of operation we are serving 240 children this year up from 44 just five short years ago we've lived through the pandemic and hurricanes and all the things and moves across buildings and we're still standing and growing and and getting better every day I needed that family type connection to learn better and you're really close with like all the teachers and the other students here that was a really big thing for me the goal of the lysium program is interdisiplinary learning it's getting our students involved across the subjects um learning both inside and outside of the building so so when it comes to AP testing it's easier
084cuz you have a whole year to master the content and you have teachers available to help you Isaac be early college high school is part of the North Carolina Cooperative Innovative high school we give an opportunity for students to come and get fast tracked into life after um High School it has honestly been a phenomenal program both in regards to the curriculum and my peers you end up just forming a really strong connection with your cohorts it just it makes you feel prepared to pursue anything you want to [Music] do this is nhcs recap where we look back at some of the top events from the week of of November 8th on Tuesday the New Hanover County Board of Education held its regular board meeting the board recognized numerous staff and students for their achievements
085and excellence and discussed a staff climate survey as well as half day Wednesdays starting in the month of December no decision was made on either subject the board voted to hold their monthly mask vote until after the Department of Health and Human Services made a decision on the county mask mandate the board will hold special meeting on Monday to vote Murray Middle School became an official unified Champion National Banner school this week they were recognized by the Special Olympics USA for meeting 10 standards of excellence in their work to develop an inclusive School the Murray Falcons were only one of five schools in the state of North Carolina to receive this award for 2021 we are proud to recognize and honor our veterans on Veterans Day new Handover County Schools employs a number of veterans
086and we are pleased to be able to share the stories of some on our social media accounts thank you to all of our veterans both staff and community members for their service to our country and their dedication to the preservation of [Music] Freedom that's it for nhcs recap be sure to follow nhcs on social media and visit nhcs . net welcome back we are going to continue with our meeting thank you for your patience while we were in closed session uh we welcomed a few people since we left and so just a couple comments to reiterate our reminder that masks are currently still required in this building as a result of the new han County Schools districtwide mask mandate please keep your mask above your nose and under your chin if you are signed up
087to speak during call to the audience you may remove your mask when you reach the microphone to present to the board if you're unable to wear a mask a reminder that this meeting is being streamed on the new hanor County Schools YouTube page and can be viewed in real time thank you in advance for adhering to this requirement um this evening we have students present and we're committed to creating safe and welcoming spaces for them and our community as a whole um also um as we move forward I understand that there are many issues we are facing as a school system and there are passionate people on all sides of them we thank you for your engagement and we encourage you to continue to share your thoughts and comments through emails and during the opportunity
088of call to the audience that portion of this meeting at other times though we ask that you mind your voices actions and we request that you show respect to your F fellow meeting attendees it is the season of Goodwill after all we are focused as a board on completing the governance work necessary for our students staff and schools disruptions will not be tolerated pren statute 14338 d117 a person who willfully interrupts disturbs or disrupts 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 to misdemeanor please be mindful of your behavior our children are watching all right next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from from the special meeting on 11:15 2021 do I
089hear a motion move thank you Miss Justice is there a second thank you Mr Buller uh any discussion all those in favor say I I I all those opposed minutes are approved thank you next item on the agenda the best part of the evening Mr Smith if you would mind coming up to the microphone for our recognitions and achievements chair board members Dr colleagues and guests first up this evening we have Lincoln woodell if you could come on up Lincoln a member of the Lumby tribe and a Powell dancer since the age of four Ashley High School freshman Lincoln woodell was invited to perform at a luncheon hosted by the first lady at the event in uh by the first lady at the event in Washington DC he was paired with a female fancy Shaw
090dancer from Colorado for dignitaries and leaders from around the country the pair brought the event theme of touch the Earth to life when asked about being honored in Washington DC Lincoln had the following to say it meant I was representing everybody back home that can't can't represent themselves they don't have a voice so I can use my voice to represent [Music] them next up we have Ella King and Nina Noble each year the historic Wom Foundation hosts the impact of preservation high school speech contests for juniors and seniors across New Hanover Pender and Brunswick counties this year students presented on the topic why does preservation matter speeches were five minutes and participants could choose from nine historic sites this year we're pleased to announced that New Hanover County Schools does not have just one but
091two winners at this time please join me in congratulating Isaac bear Early College High School junior Ella King and Senior Nina Noble who both tied for second place W and Ella and Nina both earned $500 scholarships next up Board member Miss Stephanie Walker congratulations to board member Stephanie Walker Miss Walker has been accepted into the advanced leadership Corp program through UNCC School of government for the 2022 cooh report this prestigious residential leadership development program for local elected officials Works to improve and Inspire one's ability to work toward a shared Vision develop insight into what it means to govern in the public sector as well as being able to adapt to different communication styles for better relationships we congratulate Miss Walker on this wonderful opportunity and finally for the second year in a row the New
092Hanover High School socer team has played in the state championship game actually I'm going to ask you guys come on up to the stage get ready for the photo however however however unlike last year we're thrilled to be welcoming the team up as your North Carolina High School Athletic Association fora soccer Champions the team defeated Huff High School to capture another Banner for the Wildcat Community we're pleased to have with us here tonight principal Philip Sutton head Wild cat soccer coach reny and his 2021 team now I time this takes about 32 seconds to get through the name so while they do photos I'm going to get your names and if I don't get it right your parents can email me okay I'm gonna try it here we go all right Johnny depaz HD Anderson
093Cameo Vias Mendes Andy MCC Preston lean Shea Payne Hayes Matthews Hol Rogers Luis Miranda Charlie Leon Aiden Payne John Frack Elijah Lopez Da Silva David Goen Oliver Bane Jonathan Leon Didier Max krian Luke Carter Liam Davis jacobe buroughs Walker Hicks Henry Boyd Owen Hayworth Brody Frank Micah Hall Sam Lancaster Angel Barrera Anthony Reyes Maron Rowan lean Christian Mullins Jacob shart and Chris sales [Applause] [Music] congratulations [Applause] congrats all right congratulations wild cats and all of our recognitions you are making new han County Schools proud well done students all right thank you Mr Smith all right um I know we had those seats originally reserved for our guests so if you'd like to fill in please feel free uh then now that the students are leaving we have those seats available all right next item up
094is call to the audience um as we've already said um there was a motion to combine both agenda and non-agenda items for call to the audience before we get started just a couple comments um thank you for signing up to share your comments and concerns with the board we welcome in the engagement from our community um I'm going to call two names at a time to keep the flow of participation moving if you are next in line to speak you may wait in the middle of the room while the person ahead of you speaks um you may remove your mask when you arrive at the microphone to speak but please remember to replace it back on your face before you head back to your seat uh please refrain from using profanity disruptions by any persons
095or persons at a public meeting will be subject to action including removal from the meeting all right first up for our call to the audience we have Peter rowit and he will be followed by Miss Natasha too sometimes they whisper sometimes they shout sometimes are still or they will wiggle about they make obey or be out of control they're just four five six and seven years old you've got to love our children love our children love our children love our children you've got to love our children and keep them learning in school they've been suspended when they show disrespect they've been suspended when they throw it on object they've been kicked out when they don't do as they're told they act like four five six and seven years old you've got to love our children
096love our children love our children you've got to love our children and keep them learning in school out of school may be the last resort but the kids don't get help there's no support when they miss their lessons and get left behind they're thrown into the school to prison pipe [Music] line what's all this talk about Equity if you won't change your policy stop the Stalin and the rig ofar roll they're only four five six and seven years old you got to love our children love our children love our children love you've got to love our children and keep them learning in school thank [Applause] you ladies and gentlemen the signs need to stay below height it cannot impede Vision thank youo Miss Natasha to followed by Mark D thank you hello I'm here to
097speak tonight in support of parent choice and once again remind all of you that federal law products issued with an emergency use authorization are considered experimental and thereby must be able to be refused without penalty this includes mask it has been proven repeatedly that mask wearing does not stop the transmission of the virus in fact The Continuous mask wearing is harmful to our children not to mention that our kids have a statistical z% chance of dying from this disease if they were even to contract it this is madness as I have previously stated this mask mandate is not about public health it's about control and greed I would like to thank Pete and I would like to thank Nelson for voting and respecting parental rights by voting against the continuation of mask mandate however I
098was not surprised to learn that the rest of you voted to elect to keep it consider that very socialist move not respecting the United States Constitution however I was surprised to see a very recent picture of 13 of your administrators maskless attending a fall imposium posted on their Facebook page the same day that you elected to keep the mask on our kits that did surprise me a bit do y'all need reminding of the Gospel of St Luke 17: 2 it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble your unlawful mandate is a violation of the nurg code and a violation of the United States Constitution if this mandate is not discontinued immediately we
099are prepared to sue in Federal District Court under title 42-1 1983 civil action for deprivation of rights under color of law in both your official and personal capacities we will seek compensat compensatory and punitive damages each of you would do well to remember the landmark Supreme Court case of 1803 Marberry versus Madison in which rules all laws repugnant to the Constitution are null and void Mar followed by Veronica mclen Brown hello my name is Mark de and I'm a veteran teacher of 17 years in North Carolina schools and I am speaking as a parent about my daughter's former School although I can honestly say that we are starting to have some of these same issues at my school as well we recently removed our daughter from Forest Hills because of the trauma that our child
100endured there a few days into the school year we noticed a huge change in her demeanor she cried often and discussed how much she hated school on a regular basis she mentioned stories about the chaotic classroom in the school environment and even described when her 15-year veteran teacher cried in the middle of class and told his kids he was not coming back because he couldn't take teaching anymore we found some of her stories hard to believe in fact they seemed ridiculous her teachers later confirmed that she was quote 100% accurate they were equally frustrated and overwhelmed by the situation because they do not have the necessary resources or staff to accommodate the needs of their students other students are not as lucky as my daughter because they may not have the same options we do
101it is up to the school School Board to make their education a priority if you do not respond both immediately and effectively you will continue to lose the most valuable resources that you can offer any of your students good and dedicated classroom teachers and teacher assistants even classroom Educators have their breaking points and we are there I am among the many teachers strongly contemplating resignation myself what will you do when you have no one to work it is time for the school board to use the budget we seem to be saving for a rainy day because we are actually in the midst of a monsoon season in our schools Now teacher assistants and substitutes are Saints and a necessity let's substantially fix their pay it is a joke support your teachers ask for their input
102because no one knows more about classroom instruction than a veteran teacher actually in the trenches right now stop overloading them with work outside of their regular classroom instructional assignments to make up for a lack of resources and Manpower created by low wages and little respect Act Fast thank you [Music] by Donna Garg every board member signed the code of ethics statements required by policy 2120 the last sentence of the policy 2120 states that your first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of students maintaining a policy that throws four to S our prek to second grade students out of school for insubordination chose no concern for their welfare and is unethical maintaining a policy that causes students to lose valuable instruction time shows no concern for their educational welfare and is unethical maintaining a
103policy that hurts students rather than heals them shows no concern for their welfare and is unethical honor your commitment to your code of ethics show that you care about the educational welfare of our four five six and seven-year-old children add the statement the current to the current discipline policy suspensions will not be used as a consequence for four five six and seven year old students except for weapons drugs or serious bodily harm and provide the schools with the resources that they need our community is flush with cash advocate for more funds from the County Commissioners take a hard look at the current school budget decide what we can do not what we can't do a quote by Mrs Walker from the November meeting stop the excuse excuses stop the excuses please stop the excuses change
104the discipline policy keep our babies learning in school Donna garget Donna garget followed by Jacqueline delesio Donna again Jacqueline delesio next Frederick Douglas said it's easier to build strong it isn't easier to build strong children than a to repair broken men the school board may be using all the right terminology but there is not enough action to take excuse me not enough action to back up your words I'm not sure you have really heard our teachers parents and support staff besides losing valuable teachers we are losing our most vulnerable kids largely due to perspectives that are outdated and disciplinary practices that are punitive with each detention suspension restraint seclusion and arrest at the school there are children who aren't getting the help they need and are being pushed away from caregivers who could instead be
105helping them the cost to all of us is profound overwhelmed discouraged Educators frustrated desperate parents disenfranchised marginal ized alienated kids a pipeline to prison this isn't just a coin phrase but reality you know what else is linked to that prison pipeline low literacy rates according to 2000 study in Texas Approximately 80% of prison inmates are reported to be functionally illiterate I've listened to several parents cry about how unsupported their EC students are in our school system they are beyond frustrated some to the point of pulling their children out they think there's no place for their child is there somehow I am still hopeful that the board will move to action to help our students get their social emotional needs met and their educational needs met with urgency you have the power to change the course
106we have community members here looking to partner and support the schools let's stop working against each other and put the back in community to support all the children in new han County thank you your time is up after Jacqueline Delio is Alicia I think agell good evening Dr fa and members of the school board my name is Jacqueline delesio and I am a special education teacher at Winter Park Elementary I'm here tonight to stand up for my Tas Tas throughout the county and all classified staff members these hardworking and dedicated individuals deserve a right to a living wage of $17 an hour while the proposed salary increases and bonuses are a step in the right direction they still do not pro provide enough compensation for these individuals people who have been supporting students much longer
107than I have will be making less than $30,000 per year in a county where the price of living is ever increasing I am doubtful that you all could support yourself and your families on such a salary I cannot do my job without my Tas the IEP Services of my students would be lacking without them they are the backbone of my classroom and are often the ones holding it together when I am involved in meetings professional development and department chair duties they Forge strong relationships with our students and make them feel safe and most importantly loved and they are just one of the faces of a classified staff member that my students see each day I applaud your efforts to begin taking action to give these members of New Hanover County Schools staff the wage that
108they deserve however in order to retain the talent we have and to recruit more highly qualified individuals to our County you must be able to go above and beyond just what is right I implore you to compensate classified staff members in a manner that is deserving of their hard work and dedication at $17 an hour with commensurate pay for years of experience only then can we as New Hanover County show a unified front in competitive and livable wages for all employees thank you for your [Applause] time Follow by [Music] Sandy my name is Alicia ogelle sorry discrection okay I'm here tonight to speak about the policy 2120 item two under specific board meeting members commitments States remember always that the board members first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of the students attending
109the public schools I think you may have forgotten that when you allow four and five six and seven year olds to be suspended for reasons other than guns drugs or violent assaults you are showing that you have no concern for that educational welfare keep our children in school their mistakes are teachable moments help them learn take care of their social and emotional needs change students behavior policy 4300 you no suspensions harm children it's time to love our children love on them and show them instead of throwing them away so hopefully my concerns don't fall on deaf airs when it comes out keeping our children in school and there's a lot of work we need to be done and we're crying out from the community that you hear and listen to the parents the teachers the
110teachers the citizens all of us are crying out to you to make a change with our students and like you had just mentioned today our students are watching us so it's it's in our best interest to do what's best for them and that's what our pleas are here today so again I will reiterate uh let's love on our children and um you know be an Exemplar factor of what y'all can do y'all can make changes and this is not the first time this has come up but I really would like to y'all to examine your own selves cuz these are our children and our concerns and we we tired of seeing them Overlook so um that is what I brought to you today thank [Applause] youy Isles will followed by Melissa Mason good evening in
111honor of the holidays I've created a festive paper doll Garland to represent the 123 students who were secluded in North Carolina in 2017 as reported by the office of civil rights the 59 red figures represent the children from new han County schools and they make up 48% of all students secluded in the entire State now we can make excuses or dismiss this data or we can acknowledge the 59 children who were involuntarily locked in padded rooms 486 times that year and the following year children were locked in rooms 98 times we almost doubled our seclusions in one year we can also blame children for misbehaving or blame parents or teachers but blame does not solve problems the fact is and I know every staff member in this room will agree seclusion and restraint is dangerous
112teachers risk Serious injury every time they restrain in include a child our practices hurt teachers so I ask why are we putting staff and students in danger I doubt I'm sorry I missed a page um students also face serious risk of injury or even death not only is it extremely dangerous but it does not fix or prevent behaviors 98% of seclusions involve children with disabilities and their IEP is supposed to support their behavior needs but if we are repeatedly secluding a child it means their IEP is not working and we are not preventing behaviors it also means we likely stopped using this as a last resort and instead rely on it as a dangerous behavior management tool we must shift from crisis management to Crisis Prevention so I ask why are we putting staff and
113students in danger I doubt our teachers wanted to lock these 59 children in rooms because it's dangerous and traumatizing to do so you must review the data and re-evaluate our practices because your failure to do so is putting our students and staff in danger by blocking them from safe effective tools they desperately need to educate our children thank you Melissa Mason and Melissa Mason will be followed by Josephine bar oh sorry no sorry Patrice tney good evening I would like to talk about honesty and integrity honesty is defined as being free of Deceit or untruthfulness and integrity is defined as having strong moral principles as a board of education and administration to in a county of 43 schools you are held to a higher standard because you are in these positions you are called upon
114to be role models for a students and our community as a whole the policies you make and how they are implemented all reflect your character the contract with sopic solutions for the equity audit as well as the implementation of it have been shrouded in secrecy and deception the student event involving this company that occurred on November 19th was not on the calendars why if this countywide initiative is such a priority why is an event such as this kept hidden why are these students who are involved in equity diversity and inclusion committees and who are selected to attend this event told to keep quiet regarding the topics they're discussing how were these students selected and when asked because I have asked the individuals responsible can give no answers the title 9 surveys have also been problematic
115when parents in IR ired to see these they were given samples in addition many parents were unaware that they could opt their kids out with some students in some schools being told by their teachers that they were mandatory clear communication and information regarding this should be made available this type of survey should be a Parents Choice and should require parental consent rather than implied consent our community deserves a board and an Administration that is is open and honest parents as well as our community members have the right to know what is happening with students while they attend school and during school functions and our students deserve role models that display honesty and integrity patri tyy and after Patrice tyy Josephine barnhard my name is Patrice tney Prim I a classified staff member I have a
116master's degree in Reading recovery I've been a teacher for close to 20 years and now I am a proud ta at new H High School I decided to take a job as a TA just to keep doing what I love but I certainly did not realize that I would be doing just as much work as when I was teaching for a salary I can't survive on with my current salary I can't afford basic necessities I go to food pantries just to make ends meet I have many bills that go unpaid most of us classified staff members do it wasn't easy being a teacher but as a classified staff member I am so much more overlooked and undervalued by the district the teachers received a higher covid bonus a higher supplement and while of course they
117deserve more so do we are our lives worth less do our work does our work not matter I've been at the front of the classroom as a teacher and I've filled in every Gap and need as they arise around the school as a TA and I can assure you we are essential our work is important and our students depend on us after years of upheaval and stress you need to invest in us and all classified workers so so that our students and schools can Thrive we know the county has 85 million in covert relief funds and 350 million from the sale of the hospital that the county can use for school safety retaining and recruiting highly qualified Educators so that students are known and supported and safe is an issue of school safety we've heard
118you say you can't use the co relief funds on raises tell us where all that money is going then if not to solve this Staffing and wage crisis because the raises you are voting on tonight are not enough we still won't be able to live off what we take home each month I will still have to go to food pantries more educators will be forced to leave our schools and we cannot afford that please hear us when we say we need a starting minimum salary of $17 an hour we need you to do everything you can to invest in your staff members this whole district is counting on you thank [Applause] you and following Miss Barnhart Miss Loretta stack house good evening tonight I come to talk to you about intentional transparency in regards to
119how we are implementing equity in our district our school district is living in alternative realities one in which the idea of something great as presented and then how it falls on our staff and what our implementation of it is last year the board started having conversations about a better school district and prior to starting a relationship with sopic Solutions and Kate Fair Collective the goal of equity and helping all was the conversation we can all agree upon that but how that was going to be implemented and the process of what was going to happen was not laid out and clear that is our job to do as a district but sopic Solutions what they do is they create qualitative reasoning to quantitative data meaning they provide words why our data is the way it is
120on Friday November 19th the district hosted an equity Summit in which secondary school Equity teams were chosen to come to a field trip here to be in front of sopic solutions and discuss the ideas and the path forward of what Equitable positive change looked like for a district Miss Dr bous you extended the contract with sopic Solutions and also promoted Dr Smith to be the EDI coordinator with discretionary funds as you can tell we have some needs for funding elsewhere as well but there was no itinerary no District Outlet publicized this event which I found odd because this is a district initiative if this is what our goal is then we need to be clearly expressing it to our community and to our staff by a loud I started thinking about how have we implemented
121Equity the one thing that I can think of is October 2020 we implemented equity and lowered the grading standards to be a 50 to 100 now let me stand here and tell you as a mom of three minority children I'm insulted by the insinuation that Minority children cannot achieve greatness because quite frankly that's untrue all children can achieve academic excellence and we should not be bring bringing them down in the name of equity so as we move forward what I want to see is intentional transparency in how we're implementing that thank [Applause] you Loretta stack house followed by Miss Barbara Anderson the learning process development and Foundation Building a sound basic education begins during the first seven years of life suspensions interrupt the learning process causing the child to fall behind his or her age
122group this is evidenced by lower reading and math scores once this happens catching up is difficult some children repeat grades some never catch up some drop out and never graduate from high school suspending four five six and seven year old children interrupting the learning process Foundation Building needs to stop the board can do this by changing the policy now four children died last week when those with the authority neglected to act how would your life be if you had started with the foundation that had been weakened by interruptions in your learning process thank [Applause] you Mar Anderson followed by Carrie Miller good evening I'm sharing a reflection from a friend and a fellow teacher in the elementary school in New hanur County and this is what she had to say to shine a light on
123how badly teachers are treated in the last 24 hours I talked to nine teachers who are ready to leave teaching as soon as they can get a new job outside of Education from a firste teacher to 22-year teacher many of them cry every night it's not that they don't love the kids or what they do it's the pay all the required testing with no assistance not enough employees to support the staff ungodly amounts of training and a sheer lack of respect throughout the education system and then we have to regularly deal with the social stigma that we are ungrateful that we are already overpaid that if we don't like the system then we need to just get out of it and that we are blamed as inadequate when every student doesn't suceed it's exhausting it's
124stressful and it's heartbreaking that even a mass Exodus of teachers doesn't seem to phas or Administration on any level they just don't care is what she said I would add that as of this morning there were 156 job openings 42 certified staff 18 teacher assistants mostly in the elementary level the district is not flush with staff as it has been put out to the public except maybe at central office how can you be overstaffed when you can't even keep the minimum staff levels and and maintain them 42 certified classroom teachers are out in this in this district and at this rate I really don't know if you're going to have enough staff to even do a climate survey when you finally get around to getting one out teacher assistant are being pulled to cover classes
125because there aren't enough Subs teachers are leaving in droves they're getting out of the profession even my niece who was the last one of the state to get a scholarship for teachers fellows is singing about quing she's had enough she can make more as a waitress and tips please take care of our teachers we [Applause] losing Carrie Miller followed by Denise yon good evening I'm Carrie Miller I a parent of a local kindergartener I'm sorry a kindergartener and I'm also a co-founder of a local nonprofit that serves amilies here in new han County I'm here today to speak about the low wages that our teacher assistants and all classified staff um across the district are paid they are not being paid a livable wage this is a huge problem for me because I have a
126child living with disabilities and mobility issues my child needs a teacher assistant to thrive and be successful by not giving our teacher assistants a livable wage you are putting at risk the success of my child and every other child who needs extra support with a shortage of all staff members and with more considering leaving the profession because of how difficult and underpaid it is my child will continue to face instability and inconsistency more experienced and talented Tas will leave our schools how could that possibly be successful for how could that possibly be successful with this continuing to happen the solution is to listen to what these educ ators are telling us they need a salary increase of a starting wage of $17 an hour um the salary increase that you're proposing tonight is not going
127to work they will continue to have to take multiple jobs to survive we know that the covid relief money is out there and it can help and we also know that you're reluctant to use it but we're telling you the situation is dire um please don't pay pass a $14 an hour minimum wage tonight um for our classified workers we need you to do better um do everything you can use the money we have for a $17 an hour minimum wage for all classified workers thank [Applause] [Music] you M Cooper malany Cooper will follow miss you know we are excited to announce that Donna garget Denise yon Linda Higgins and Carrie Miller together with a group of determined Advocates have formed a planning committee to Charter a special education parent teacher association called SEPTA here
128in New H County there are SEPTA units across the country but to our knowledge there are no active chapters in North Carolina SEPTA advocates for exceptional students and collaborates with school district administrators and educational staff to help bring about the most positive educational and social emotional outcomes for our children all 45 new hver County Schools will be included to unite and Empower parents grandparents and caretakers of exceptional students sep to provides families with an organizational structure resources and the opportunity to be a collective voice for their child and all children SEPTA sponsors workshops and speakers on topics that advocate for exceptional students and helps parents better understand the special needs and individual diagnoses of their children SEPTA units end feelings of aloneness by offering parent support parents speak on issues that concern their children caretakers
129learn about doctors and services that are a positive experience for their child and places to go for an eye exam or a haircut that aren't stressful many chapters offer family fun days like sporting events or picnics this is a comfortable and safe space for families to be together exceptional students need support to survive and thrive we hope we can count on the New Hanover County School Board administrators and educational staff to help form a mutually beneficial collaborative partnership with the special education PTA thank [Applause] you cooper melany cooper followed by Jessica Wilson good afternoon ladies and gentlemen my name is malanie Cooper I'm the founder of speak your peace North Carolina this evening I'll be speaking on policy 2120 I would like to start off with a song if anyone knows it and they like
130to sing it please join along a b c d e f g h i j k l MN o p q r s t u v WX Y and Z I chose that song because that is the language that four five six and seven year olds speak they should not be suspended from school all of you before me sit in a position of power all of you before me sit in a position where you have the authority ity to change this rather than speak to This Racist oppressive climate that looms within this community you prefer to begin the labelizer truthfully the global majority and not the minority that you call them the dictionary defines oppression as prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control this is what's happening Malcolm X States America preaches integration and practices
131segregation stokeley carmichel quotes there is a higher law than the law of government That's the Law of conscience I ask that each 1 two 3 4 five 6 seven eight of you use that tonight A B C D E F G H I J AK K Ln O P QRS stop the [Music] nonsense after Jessica Wilson Becca Bal good evening my name is Jessica Wilson I am a parent with two children in the new Handover County School System I'm here tonight to speak um in support of the $17 an hour minimum minimum wage for all of our classified employees from bus drivers that ensure our children get to school safely and home each day to our cafeteria workers that are ensuring our children are wellfed and our teas that provide so much direct support to
132our children each day they are all deserving of a livable wage I want to speak specifically about our teachers assistance as I mentioned I have two children my son is in third grade and he is an EC student as part of his IEP he spends a large portion of his day with direct support from a TA his ta consistently goes above and beyond the Call of Duty he has a great relationship with my son that is incredibly important to my son's success at school when I send my son to school each day I know he has the support of someone that he trusts someone that makes him feel safe and comfortable in a world that for him is many times overwhelming when I say my son loves his ta I mean it he loves him
133he's probably his top five people in the world um and I know that there are many others that have similar experiences to ours as a parent you cannot put a price tag on something like that all of our te Tas are doing such an important job and I'm thankful for the positive impact that they have on all of our kids I doubt any of our classified employees have salt their jobs because of the pay but if we want to retain these employees employes we are going to have to understand and acknowledge the work that they do every day and how they benefit our children's educational experience and we're going to have to compensate them accordingly thank [Music] you and following this title if I'm saying that correctly uh Mr Chris Sutton my name is Rebecca
134bidal and I have worked as a teaching assistant in new Hanner County for 15 years and I still make well below $330,000 my job is both rewarding and exhausting physically and emotionally I consider myself a professional however my salary does not reflect this under the new state budget and your proposed raises a newly hired teaching assistant will start at $15 an hour for the 2022 23 school year which is still not a livable wage I'm wondering what would a teacher assistant with over a decade of experience received an educator who has attended professional development workshops alongside teachers who runs small groups test students documents behaviors substitute teaches who teaches the whole class while the teacher is busy helping a student who is having an emotional breakdown or vice versa we shouldn't have to tell you
135how important we are but we are paid like we don't matter like we are disposable we are asking for a starting salary of $17 an hour with substantial increases for years of service we need to use the Esser funds of 88.5 million to give us a raise now we are going broke more than ever with the rising cost of living in this expensive city you could take a survey to see how the teacher assistants feel about receiving covid relief funds even though These funds are not recurring I know the answer would be we need the money now I applaud CLW Vice chair Deb Hayes for asking why funds were allocated to fill new positions but dollars couldn't be redirected to raise the pay of teacher assistance I am asking the same question thank you and
136following chrison is Barbara G all right first off um Dr F I think that you need to explain to these people why you yanked the endowment fund part off of the agenda when we had two board members that wanted to speak about it Miss Adams I put it on there I believe you have the power as chair where even if he didn't want to discuss it you should have allowed these people to discuss it you'all want to talk about not having money we've got $1.25 billion in an endowment fund that we could have asked for money for okay but that's not the only thing tonight's your last night as chair and the problem is that you have kept so much off the agenda and misused your power power tyrannical is the word that comes to
137mind truth is that even tonight we still haven't even had the conflict of interest conversation yet here we are talking to Arington Smith and this other organization which by the way pointer has already worked with them multiple times they're close enough together that they're sharing each other on their Facebooks and they're a block apart how do we end up with those two tonight there's a lot of things that we have questions for I don't have much time to even touch on but what matters tonight the most this board vote cuz I am concerned that some of these people up here miss krael unfortunately Nelson Boler I am concerned about them potentially getting the chair position because honestly they're going to stifle and impede just like you have and it's nothing personal me and you had
138a great conversation before but the raw reality of it is that you stifled and impeded progress multiple times including with the endowment fund cuz you had the power if we would have had a Pete or a walker up there it wouldn't have went that way we would have had a discussion even even if they were against it and that's an issue this keeps happening over and over so tonight board members especially you Mr mcmanis I love you uh we really need y'all to take into account what's best for our community and right now I don't believe it's Miss krabble and unfortunately I don't think it's Mr bullier considering that he lost control of this place within an hour of stepping into your position when you left and not just that but he also didn't support
139the Constitution but I'll see you on the debate stage if I make there Mr you can only duck me so [Applause] long followed by Rocky Jeter web God good evening I can't sing and I'm not going to my message tonight is that you the Board of Education have the power to make positive change for all the staff in this room for all the teachers the school bus drivers and the children teaching assistants here in North Carolina are paid 64% of the national average pay while the cost of living here is 105% of the national average according to zip recruiter the highest paid teachers assistants in North Carolina are in Winston Salem Greenville and Greensboro we are fifth in the state behind Raleigh we should be the first the cost of liing excuse me the cost
140of living in Wilmington is in with the one percentage point of Raleigh and Greenville and 9% higher than in Greensboro aren't our teachers assistance as valued here as in these other cities in North Carolina teachers assistant are instrumental in the classroom care of Young Learners and allow teachers to have the extra hands and and helping Young Learners stay on target in terms of learning and group Behavior hire more teachers assistants and Specialists pay them well thus reducing classroom stress and enabling those students that need more help to receive the attention they need keep four five six and seven year-old children in school where they belong you have the power to help both the teachers teachers assistants and young children and you have the access to fin cial resources to make this happen thank [Applause] you
141Rocky Jeter web followed by Pat Bradford how much money have y'all made over the last year and have half thism how many lies have yall told the public and students of public schools what science says children are at risk of catching Co in that mass work why is critical race the being secretly intimate into our schools when it's based on a lie why is the sheriff department blocking us and against us from entering the building to exercise our constitutional rights why is the Board of Education scared of public criticism why are public schools getting the shots and trying to force to want children why didn't new County sell out the health and freedom of our children for $57 million all these questions still have no answers if y'all spent time doing actual research you would
142know children pose little to no threat of catching Co if yall did actual research y'all would know that children are more likely to be struck by lightning than catching Co have you never read a medical book have you never read a history book or are you just an elected bureaucrat hungry for power either start listening to us follow the science do your research or get ready to lose your suits in the next election keep the shots out of our schools because they will kill our children and take the mask off of our children let's go Brandon Pat Bradford followed by Cheryl [Music] Emma good evening here we are again I have really tried to figure out why you do what you do and it occurs to me that there's three types of fear so you
143have some decisions to make tonight you have people here that are afraid they don't get paid enough kids are getting locked up kids are suspended there's fear right there's three types of fear there's rational fear rattlesnake in the driveway you got to get to your car that's rational fear there's primal fear fear that's defined is an innate fear that's programmed into our brain that's the figh or flight fear and then there's irrational fear irrational fear is the ones that don't make logical sense and they can vary greatly from person to person and that describes you but there's good news the Bible says for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind that is 2 Timothy 1-7 and here's the thing you're supposed to love children
144but I don't see any love you're supposed to to have sound minds but I don't see any sound Minds so I'm going to pray that for you right now father I thank you that each and every one of these people sitting in this power of this position of authority tonight will have a sound mind and they will love children and I bind fear in this room and I bind fear in your lives and I replace it with love joy peace longsuffering gentleness meekness Temperance and faith in Jesus name now this box we all recognize we've bought hundreds of them it says right here on the box instructions warning this mask does not eliminate the risk of Contracting any disease or infection come on you guys this doesn't work Miss Bradford your time is up thank
145[Applause] youer Emma followed by Robert Bellamy Dr Fon board members I'm Cheryl Emma I spoke last month at this meeting and after the decisions made on the state level I decided to speak again clearly we are not valued at the state level and I'm asking that new hanor County shows that it values teacher assistance by providing a starting wage of $17 an hour with additional increases for veteran Tas I have been a teacher assist assistant for over 16 years making $14.84 an hour my take-home pay last month was $1 1979 some people may think that we have it made with the Summers off I am unemployed during that time so I have to get a part-time job I had an option to spread my pay over 12 months but declined to do so because then
146I would be working with about $1,600 a month can you make ends meet with that several colleagues are considering looking into food stamps to see if they qualify to help with their monthly needs we shouldn't have to worry about whether or not we could meet our basic needs each month and still give 110% to educating our students with the race that the state wants to give us I will be getting an additional 37 cents that's including the 2.5% factored in which still puts me under $27,000 at $17 an hour we would be making just shy of $30,000 which would start to compensate us for the many hats we wear such as substitute teacher on the Fly small group group instructor counselor and nurse we continue to work in this profession because we love being a
147part of educating children but the demands being put on us do not match the pay that we receive teacher assistance most likely helped educate every adult in this room I understand that money has been earmarked for new positions that are needed however if are once again passed over for significant pay raises which would bring us up to a livable wage in this expensive city we will see more vacancies thank [Applause] you Robert and following Robert belly is Marielle Cruz hello everyone my name is Robert Bellamy I'm a member of speak your peace North Carolina I'm here to support policy uh 21 uh 2120 love our children um I wrote a poem and the poem is called you suspend it but I'm just a child there is something we as Americans we should always mention there
148is no way a kid 4 to7 years of age should even have suspension especially especially if if danger is not near and his fist is just clenching can we get can we get your attention can we get your attention I am upset with just the fact that is even allowed you suspending a baby when you suspending a 4 to seven year old underminded undeveloped Mind of a child who are these intelligent adults who make these ridiculous rules is it because your kids are in private schools how can anyone teach a kid anything without basic Common Sense corrective work skills and Thinking Tools who are these people who who gets to choose when a kid's mind when a kid's mind who who is starting when a kid's mind who is starting to develop is always the
149one who lose it is shameful parents people stand up our leadership is Laing let's send these stupid laws and anyone who supports them packing where where there is no compassion the people and the parents must take action love our children love our children our Nicks come in attraction thank you very muchel Cruz and following Mariel Cruz is Yolanda Hernandez hi my name is Marielle Cruz I'm a mom of a fourth grader and a seventh grader and I'm an elementary TA in New Hanover County Schools I'm here to ask that you use the federal covid relief funds Newan County received to increase the salaries of all classified staff members to at least a minimum of $17 an hour I love my job but I hate my salary on the employee that you want to head daily
150bus transportation to help third graders who need their math lessons reinforced to Aid 21 kindergarten ERS in learning to read and write and all the tears that come with their big daily problems I Monitor and help clean up after kindergarten through fifth graders in the loud cafeteria my schedule often changes daily when I'm asked to cover or substitute at any time my co-workers know that they can count on me at any time for help with anything they need and yet for all I do I don't make enough money to survive I sadly gross less than $24,000 as a 10-month New Hanover County Schools employee yes yes that's gross that's barely $10 an hour for 40 hours of week for 40 hours of work a week which is considered poverty wages I have a bachelor's degree
151which I'm not compensated for and more than eight years of experience in education I'm smart patient and qualified and yet what did I do over the Thanksgiving 5-day break I worked even on Thanksgiving this past weekend I worked the coming weekend I'm going to work how can I give my all when I get so little I know that my work is appreciated but in the end this is a job and I need to pay my bills the salary increases that you are proposing tonight are not enough I will still have to work a second job I will still make poverty wages and I will continue to have one of the lowest salaries in the entire nation I'm asking you to do more if you want qualified experienced and hardworking educators ERS then you need to
152listen to us and value our work use Co relief money to pay all classified workers you the Board of Education have the power to change policy the last time a a strategic plan was adopted by the board was in 2016 that's five years ago nothing has been done since then ending out of school suspension for four five six and seven years old they're babies remind you except for guns drugs or violent assaults needs to be part of your 2020 2022 strategic plan for the upcoming year when four five six and seven year olds are kicked out of school they are receiving no education and yet the Board of Education speaks about their concerns about learning loss okay learning loss is created by out of school suspension during which time children get no support because when
153they're acting out it's usually because they're not getting the instruction that they may need at home so they need our support and what is the value of an education sorry I just lost it okay a strong public education excuse me educational system is essential to the individual and Collective well-being of our country okay and its people and to the development of an informed and engaged citizens citizenry without which a democracy cannot exist and flourish so we need these babies in the school we need to support them we need to find or you need to find ways to assist these children not kick them out of school okay we need to find we need to support them with mental health staff and M herandez your time is up and we need to be responsible for teaching
154Stamper next sunny Stamper and following Sunny [Applause] Stamper hello my name is sunny Stamper and I'm a beginning teacher in my third year of teaching and this is my second year at Forest Hills Global Elementary I'm one out of 12 beginning teachers at Forest Hills and I'm one of the few staff at Forest Hills to return for for a second year we have an exceedingly High turnover rate for the staff at Forest Hills because of Staffing shortages low wages and unsafe working conditions every day I see my co-workers crack under the weight of responsibility and exhaustion juggling new curriculum pandemic protocol additional duties needs of students with adverse experiences and finding time to just use the bathroom a lot of days I'm on the other end of that scenario unsafe situations are regularly escalating to
155crisis before staff can respond to properly solve the situation due to lack of Staff these situations often lead to the evacuation of classrooms disruption of learning environment and additional stress to the other students in the classroom this afternoon afternoon even I stopped when a tea subbing for a fourth grade class um had to evacuate her classroom an instructional coach came running to help as we waited for someone else to be able to respond to the assistance call we cannot teach in these conditions I do believe teaching requires passion and I know that I wouldn't do this job if I wasn't passionate about doing absolutely everything I can to support my kids that's why we're all here because we want to better support our students however there is a breaking point we deserve to be treated
156better for the than this we're asking for help we're asking for grace and support coop cooperation as well as compensation we're asking for better pay which will to hire attention and Recruitment and to be respected and heard by leadership at the district and the state level I implore you to hear those sharing tonight and to continue to be present in our schools and work alongside us to better the futures of our schools and our students we need you to show up for us and them thank you followed by Jasmine Garcia hello Ward and Dr F let's talk about the equity pep rally Summit that took place on November 19th it was hosted by sopic Solutions a newly formed entity riding on the equity bandwagon 70 to 80 kids were chosen from all the middle and
157high schools in the county to attend not one board member knew about this there were real problems with the content and lack of substance but let's first look at the great secrecy and covert nature of it the administration was told to keep this Hush Hush it wasn't even put on the school calendar a nonpartisan group of about 12 parents showed up to observe not one peep was made to the kids yet lean Smith had us thrown off the parking lot Stephanie crel so wisely spread the rumor that these parents yelled at the kids nope didn't happen and we have at least nine videos to back that up kids were inside the summit texting their parents that they felt uncomfortable but they were too afraid to speak out they were made to chant Equity is equality
158and that is a lie as the co-founders of sopic solutions Stephanie and Rodney Smith were sneaking into the back door Mr wber went over to them and introduced himself as as a board of ed member they laughed at him and wouldn't give their names on a pod 2020 podcast intitled sopic Solutions on systemic racism Stephanie said there's a need to redistribute power and change structures let me interpret let's not base anything off of Merit initiative or hard work Stephanie did defend the burning and looting of buildings in 2020 at the end they both trashed capitalism with Stephanie's exact words being racism is a tool to perpetuate capitalism we need to dismantle the system steeped in capitalism the funny part is is that the Smiths would not be making the boatloads of money off of our
159school system without capitalism Charles F brought his buddies here and paid them out of our discretionary funds that money could have been used to pay our hardworking [Applause] Tas Garcia followed by Kevin kogan good evening um I work as a special education ta at bars Hills Elementary School and I spoke last month um here with you to you guys about how overworked and underpaid um Tas are at our school and I'm back uh because you all are voting on a $14 an hour minimum wage tonight and it's very insulting it's depressing and it's devastating um as you've heard and we've all tried to make it clear that our students and our staff in New hanur County are in dire crisis we're we're in need and these past two years have pushed us to our breaking
160point and you are the only people again who can help us um and we desperately need to retain and recruit high quality Educators or this crisis will only get worse and we know that you have the 88.5 million of unspent Co relief funds you could choose to use this money tomorrow for raises that we need today we need now um but yet all we hear is that you can't why I would really and I think everybody else would like to know why is it that we cannot allocate those funds to be needed where they are needed um why shouldn't we prioritize buying more technology or laptops when the very core of our school is deteriorating um why can't we use this money to stabilize this Crisis Support our classified staff Ure I'm sorry of our
161schools use the extra time to find more money for recruit I'm sorry recurring issue raises I'm sorry I'm so tired um you've met with the County Commissioners um and ultimately no action was taken or we haven't heard about it um when you do the the brave thing the necessary thing we will be more than grateful um Miss I'm sorry your time is up oh I'm sorry okay thank you by Paul Summers hi my name is Kevin I'm actually a former special ed teacher and I I left teaching because I made more at my part-time job than I did at my full-time job but that's just a separate from that um I represent a growing group of people that look at my three that took my three children out of the school system this past year
162as did many families in my neighborhood good solid supportive families all leaving the school system we have seen this play out elsewhere and the schools go into a downward spiral with loss of funding teachers get no support this doesn't end well but you are creating the same toxic atmosphere here the mass the sex abuse the safety the lack of focus on actual education are all factors I hope the school board sees this growing Trend and refocuses on what's really important board some of you will be here long after fa has gone and leaves another failed school system on his resume but please don't leave that on yours too one day you will have to stand in front of these same parents and ask them for their vote for re-election furthering your political aspirations St and
163there will be parents like me holding you accountable and asking what have you done you have awoken us we aren't voting down ballot anymore we all know and we're wise to your games you can't hide behind following the science when you've never listed AKA Judy you've never listed one study you've never listed one medical journal not nothing never not one how about a board member going in front of a group and admitting their they have raised this thoughts I ask any me minority in this room seriously I ask you how do you feel that a member that you're looking at right now admitted day of racist thoughts but hasn't resigned their position and still asserts their position of power over you it's all a transparent act it's a political posturing it's nonsense I hope you
164see through this like I do please just teach our children Pay Teachers let them teach stop causing the very mental health issues you are now wasting my tax money to F to fix just teach Reading Writing math science there's nothing more empowering than knowledge so stop teaching kids what to think rather teach them how to think and how to [Applause] learn final will be Amy bets good evening my name is Paul Summers I just have a few words of advice as you formulate the next four-year plan I hope you will be sure to end the suspension of any student at Elementary School in the county uh except for possessing a Lethal Weapon or illegal drugs or committing a violent assault and what you can do now this year is to amend the policy 4300 so
165that to to end the suspension of our youngest students ages four five six and seven I know some of you are convinced that a gradual policy an incremental policy uh of improving discipline methods um will do the job and and a policy change to forbid the suspension is not needed uh I'm familiar with the plans that uh Julie varnum and Susan Cole produced to uh provide special training for principles and teach teachers in the summer and to uh get new uh plans for student discipline formulated by the different schools uh I hope this works it it may work if you adopt a policy ending the suspension it might be redundant it will serve as a documentation for the what we are finally doing in the county the right thing I think we should trust our
166principls counselors social workers psychologists resource officers teaching assistants interventionists Behavior Support Specialists uh trust them to teach proper behavior don't send our youngest students into exile for their Exile from their learning [Applause] environment fin the audience is Amy Betts um my name is Amy Betts I drove four hours to be here today and I'm going to apologize if I'm a little emotional um I am an educator a mother and a founder of a nonprofit called ades my rights continue to be violated with the assistance from this public school system along with the administrative State some of the agencies and the sheriffs I also continue to be retaliated against for speaking out my please for help continue to be ignored I'm a parent of three school-aged children one 11-year-old here in New Hanner County I've been
167fraudulently kept out of the schools as they continue to violate my rights as an American citizen today I walked into my daughter's middle school with the principal with the vice principal and then I was escorted out by the principal with assistance of a sheriff I showed up to do PTA but I had to leave my questions for you are why am I being escorted from my school's CH my child's school why are parents fraudulently being kept out of our children's schools we want to help but they're you all are keeping us out the schools need the help I'm an educator but you all continue to keep me out what is the purpose of the masks I follow the science I read it I work for a research organization I read a lot about a lot
168of different things why does new Hover County continue to violate my rights when I continue to reach out for assistance why are the public school boards who have never met me and do not have medical degrees creating criteria for my health and people that they do not know why does a New Hanover County School Personnel Administration allowed to do what they want but violate the rights of others with assistance from the Sheriff's Office are you aware that new H County sco your time is [Applause] up moving along with our agenda um are um amended agenda we will move on to the co update um I'm going to ask Miss vum to come to the microphone and just as a a note um Miss Carla Turner from the health department had a conflict this evening so
169she is not going to be here to present um she has sent information to miss vnum to be able to share as far as the data goes and so miss vnum has access to that today to share good evening chair Adams and board members as just shared I'm bringing you the local Health Department data um as Miss Turner had another engagement this evening I'm doing this in order to bring you the most recent Community metrics I wanted to make sure that I was um providing you information from today as of December 7th so I can share with you that um the the New Hanover County Health and Human Services um case rates test percent positivity and vaccination rates as reported by the health department are as following the CDC transmission rate remains at substantial the
170uh percent positive is 5.49% and the vaccin vaccination rates um are broken down by percentage with one dose and then percent fully vaccinated I can share with you with percent fully vaccinated 5 to 11 years old is 8% 12 to 17 years old is 49% quoting from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services frequently asked questions dated November 22nd given that our student population is largely not yet vaccinated face coverings remain a critical tool for protecting children and keeping them safely in the classroom this information um is 5 days old I can give you but at the point that I needed to upload this for um public review um it was it was current so I can provide you the December 7th updates which is um just a little bit different but the
171North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Public Instruction strong schools toolkit cites CDC guidance as the following currently for new han County North Carolina 7-Day metrics dated today December 7th the cases um have moved from 160 to 225 the case rate per 100,000 has moved from 6824 to 95. 96 the percent positivity as I just shared it has moved from 4.45% to 5.49% deaths remain at zero the percent of population um of fully vaccinated greater than 12 years greater or equal to 12 years has risen from 64.9 to 65.1 new Hospital admissions are no longer 17 but are 21 for this 7-Day period the new han County covid metric Trends had seen significant reductions since the third week of school over the prior six weeks from last week uh had
172seen reduction I will mention that um there was a slight rise last week um and we had 20 or less positive cases and quarantines separately over the past six or more weeks but last week uh we moved to 36 I did not bring my glasses 35 positive cases last week and 23 quarantines there's not yet a local update on the new variant and its implications and that remains current as of today so the quarantine guidance from the strong schools toolkit Pages 15 to 16 shares that individuals who are not fully vaccinated after a close contact in a classroom or other school setting if masks were being worn appropriately and consistently by both the person with covid-19 meaning the person who has tested positive and the potentially exposed person meaning that potentially exposed person does not
173need to quarantine and this is based on updated studies that have shown low risk of covid-19 transmission in classroom settings when face ma mask were being used appropriately by both the person with covid-19 and the potentially exposed person as well as multiple layers of preventive measures in place to prevent Transmission in school settings that would include the routine cleaning and distancing this applies to exposures in classrooms other in school settings and school transportation but of course does not apply to exposures during extracurricular including AC um athletic activities I will share that quarantine measures remain consistent those have not changed per CDC guidance and the strong schools toolkit uh also provide you an update on ongoing vaccine and testing efforts uh we have been gauging our families through our Communications and Outreach division on their interest
174in vaccine clinics um again parents must be um present and they must explicitly consent before any vaccines are delivered and our W clinics which is which is uh stands for Wilmington Health Access for teens in our Traditional High Schools is also supporting that um testing and Vac but again with explicit parental consent not a generic what Clinic consent that is all I have for you all right uh does any questions from the board regarding Co updates um Miss Justice yeah well you brought the statistics that she just gave you for today did she give you how many oh sorry about that did she give you the statistics from um the case the if there's anting case increase you said it was 5 point up to 5.4 49 uh do you happen to remember what it
175was during our last meeting I don't know what it was during our last meeting but as of last week it was in it was in the twos at the last meeting I think so on December 2nd I can tell you um what it was and I can go back uh I believe I can go back and find that okay um and I can certainly get it from Miss Turner well you know Miss Adam said I think it was two something I can't remember the number but it's sounds like it's doubled um and honestly I looked up before I came to see from yesterday and there was 86 positive cases yesterday which is increasing it's up to 33 a week now as opposed to the week before it was 21 a week I'm just saying there's
176obviously an increase here so wouldn't you agree M chair yes Mr Vore um just a question uh the new Hospital admissions were any of those um 18 and under do we know I don't have that information but I can I ask okay anything else thank you very much Miss farum appreciate it all right thank you for those updates uh then that brings us to the next item that was amended onto the agenda the state required vote regarding masks in schools uh per Senate Bill 654 section X for the 2021-22 school year each Public School unit shall adopt a face covering policy and local school board shall vote at least once per month on whether the policy should be modified based on information that has been received do anyone want to bring forward a motion Madam
177chair I'd like to make a motion that we make mask masking optional also called Choice effective tomorrow morning at the beginning of the day in all schools and school system buildings of new han County Schools okay so the motion the motion is to make masks optional in all New Hanover County schools and Facilities uh within the district beginning tomorrow Tom is there a second second thank you Mr bullier is there any discussion that would like to start M crille the um I would like for us to cons make sure that as part of that motion we address Sports because Sports will we've already talked about the winter sports but spring Sports will be coming up and I think that we should also address um having visitors in our schools um perhaps not be mask optional
178but um mask mandatory um can I can yeah that was be my question if there are different regulations or conversations that the board wants to have regarding this does that need to be separate motion do you need to make a separate motion and the answer is you can either make a separate motion or you can move to aen I'm sorry amend Mr Wilder's motion um there's certainly no downside to having multiple motions that I can see and addressing them separately I'll address separately okay all right um Miss Justice well obviously the discussion is instead of things getting better and I I really want these masks off I have two kids at home I live with every day I have to put the mask out walk the door and yes I've read plenty of scientific articles
179and I'm not going to be posting them all over the email constantly we all have um it's getting sort of old the same request um but anyway this is for the sake the health the kids it's doubled again I know there's some board members up here that said if it got above 5% they would be concerned again well please do uh we've got this variant we have no idea what it means it sounds like it's not horrible compared to I guess the condition I'm not a scientist there I'll admit that but it's it's not any more deadly it looks like but it is more contagious here we go again I would love to be over this we're not going to get over this until we keep trying to prevent it from happening which is what
180the masks are about and it's only 8% of the kids that are vaccinated at this point uh that's what Miss vum said I'm talking about the elementary school kids uh give them some time that's our best bet is vaccinations and wearing the mask that's my take on it I want to keep kids safe I'm always going to keep Kids Safe that's always first thing and the staff these staff over here can be put at risk I don't want them at risk either thank you other uh comments Miss Walker well I I've had plenty of discussions with everyone and I was I mean if the rates were still pretty low can you okay if the rates were still pretty I was very prepared to you know entertain a mass optional issue um the fact that it's
181gone up so fast so quickly um I I I feel like we should be cautious about it I do take Miss grille's exception when it talk when she's talking about sports cuz for some reason I mean I I mean I know I'm probably not saying the right thing here but I just feel like kids running around in basketball you playing basketball MK on I mean I don't think that's necessarily I'd like to address that separate but to this motion here um I mean I've been struggling with this I know we all have been struggling the fact is at some point we're going to have to Pivot to existing with this virus and we're going to have to you know experiment with the mass off when the rates are lower um you know I was prepared
182but but seeing the rates this high again I'm I'm really kind of feeling like I want to pause on that Mr mcmanis come back to Mr Buller this this has certainly been a Challenge and we'll continue to be first it is this going to be something we're going to have to live with for the rest of our lives probably um I'm going to support the optional no mask and I'll tell you why because I we tied ourselves to the health department and we were steadfast as long as the health department kept their mandate they dropped it and so I feel we need to try the option but I would like to follow that up with saying if the numbers go up they already have and if they do we're going to have to rethink and
183talk about it right Mr Buller thank you madam chair um yeah you know I know I think the one thing I've learned in two years of dealing with covid-19 like I hope most of you have learned it's going to go up and it's going to go down and it's going to go up and it's going to go down it yo-yos it's consistent it's almost the only thing I know for sure about covid-19 here in New Handover County have the numbers pulled up we have 29,000 579 total cases and we have been dealing with this for 20 years which means 12% of our population has been infected so how long do we wait to get to full immunity before we do what France has done and England has done and said look we don't know exactly
184what the risks to our students education is but we think they're there and we want to deal with this uh in a little bit different way so I uh I will do what I did last week and continue to support mask optional until uh hospitalizations and death increase not cases okay I would like to um just make a few comments um you know for me this has always been about instructional time and keeping students in schools and last week new Haner County schools had 35 cases which led to 23 quarantines okay so a total of you know 50 students were impacted in Brunswick County they had 75 cases and they had 300 quarantines because our mask optional in Pender County seven cases meant 40 quarantines if we are trying to keep our students in school
185masks are the way to go and I'm going to stay steadfast with that and that's how I feel it's about the safety and protection of our students and staff Madam chairwoman I if I could insert a couple of legal considerations um not not with the motion itself um but two things for the board's consideration one and I was just Consulting with your Miss Barnum about this one is um would the board consider making a a mask optional policy or specifying that it is um if consistent with applicable federal law and the reason I say that is because you have some Head Start class rooms who are under federal regulations and may still be required okay can you expand on that just a little bit for the board to understand um so some of your a
186few of your prek classrooms are um funded and provided by the federal Head Start program and therefore um are governed by certain federal regulations and executive orders that your other classrooms are not um this and I don't know how many classrooms that is it's not it's a whole school oh okay I'm sorry it's one whole school the second is whether you would consider a allowing the staff discretion to require masks specifically of people who are interacting with medically fragile students and that's to stay consistent with the idea to the extent there is an individual medically fragile student whose particular condition requires that people around them be masked so those are just considerations if the movement is comfortable with with making those stipulations if not it's up for discussion so if we go ahead and vote
187on this item and I'm not I'm actually not 100% positive which way it's going to go right now but with if if it were to pass mask optional would we then need to do additional motions to address the two things that were just mentioned so if the movement and the second are comfortable with including would say accept like a friendly amendment to include those conditions that would be one way to handle it without doing a follow-up motion um if they're not comfortable with that then the board can certainly address in a second motion I think I'm so basically you're asking for medically fragile children to have have people around them have masks and the one school right if it just to note that okay if required by federal law that those schools would still do
188it and that um staff still have the authority to require it for specific medically fragile children if necessary I think that's fine um that's fine all right Mr wior says yes does the second okay and one other thing is just to note under the CDC requirements again our transportation is also federally regulated masks will still be required on buses but that does not need to be within the motion that is just something that is required for all so all students regardless of which way we go will continue to have to stay massed on buses that's the current rule yes M yes sir I just wanted a quick point of uh clarification from you um we still have to vote every month that's correct it doesn't matter what we do today we have to vote every
189s single month okay yes yes M Justice yeah and I want to point out that both brenwick County and Pender County which are mask optional and now it looks like their quarantine numbers are getting big um there are a lot smaller counties than we are the schools are a lot less crowded than we are so we're endangering and I'm really concerned about having hundreds of kids out of school if we follow this because it's going to be really hard Madam chair I'd like to go ahead and call the question please I'm sorry I'd like to call the question please all right uh M oh miss kille do you have a it's it's around that so um the medically fragile students yes is um would we be required to create a list at each school because
190I'm I'm trying to figure out how we're going to manage that because the thing that bothers me most about how we're managing it right now in our school system is that um it's not being managed and at many of our schools masks are not being worn or worn appropriately it's being posted on Facebook that they're not so we we know it so how how would we manage that protect those medically fragile children and I would not recommend that there be lists but just that the same way if when you have a student who has a severe peanut allergy sometimes there's a sign on the classroom door that says those who enter you know no peanuts come into this room because we have someone with a severe allergy something similar just to say that anyone who
191comes with you know and again this is very few students yeah I mean and they would you know be students with disabilities that there be the ability if needed for those special education staff to require that if people are going to come close to the student that they wear a mask okay what do we do if we have a parent or a kid or parent that comes in and wants to move their kid out of the classroom with the medically fragile child because they don't want to wear a mask I mean so we do we have to accommodate that I mean I'm just thinking of all the things that parents are going to do um to to do that so I was honestly concerned more about the adults who are working with those students okay
192um I think just as we do with service animals and other things that we would have to take that on a case-by Case basis okay okay U Mr wior has asked to call the question uh Miss buoy I think we're going to have a split vote here so if you could please call the role in the uh just to remind everyone the motion that is on the table is to make Mass optional um in all New Hanover County Schools facilities with the exception of the federally funded prek programs as well as buses the buses right right got it morning starting beginning tomorrow morning correct got it Miss Adams no Mr Boer I miss Justice no Miss crille yes that's optional Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker no and Mr wbore I all right the eyes have
193it in a four to three next item on the agenda are our consensus items uh do I hear a motion move second thank you Mr Buller thank you Mr wildbore any discussion all those in favor faor say I I I all those opposed consensus items pass and I would like to welcome Dr Barnes up to the podium um within our consensus items we did have a Personnel report and we would like to welcome some new employees we're proud to announce U the hiring of 89 staff for the month of November want specifically highlight and congratulate the 21 substitutes that are added to our substitute pool as well as two of our new administrative staff members Deb Tron as the assistant director to transportation and Jared Worthington as the executive director of school support thank you
194very much and thank you everybody thank you very much Dr Madam chair we did not talk about the the the second motion related to the first motion on addressing Sports and visitors who come into our schools in our classrooms may we go back to that I'm sorry M Madam chair the sports I assumed that it was it was in under the same jurisdiction it fit masks optional Athletics would fall under that but as far as the volunteers I know I've looked at some other districts across the state and they do require masks for volunteers any adults that come into the building so I I'm assuming that would require a motion Eva I'm sorry say that again if the if the board feels that volunteers or you know anybody coming in from outside of the school
195that is a visitor what how is that handled with the mask optional so my what I I heard of the original motion was staff and students did I hear that correctly the the was was just for all in all buildings okay Mas optional well I think it's worth what was the intent of the original motion and what was the understanding that everyone in everyone in the buildings would be able to be mask optional um but do we is that something that we want to discuss further as far as visitors so you can definitely discuss it if I guess may have misunderstood if your concern is maybe visitors should be required I wanted to amend the motion that Mr wildbore made to include that visitors into our school buildings where children are located have to wear
196a mask and was told that we could make a separate motion to discuss that so that's what I'm asking I'm sorry I understand now um so yes you can make a motion that visitors be required to wear masks in schools okay so do I have to go back on the agenda now since I moved forward and we moved ahead with still the agenda item of no we just voted on consensus items so we moved forward another another item on the agenda so do we need do we need to go back I suppose so yes okay does that need a motion a motion to go back yes and I apologize for my quickness to move there sorry about that um I think if there's I think the board could allow that by consensus does the board
197allow it to go back to that okay yes all right okay uh Miss crille go ahead I'd like to make a motion that within our mask optional policy for staff and students then we have all visitors into the school that are non-staff visitors have to wear masks I'll second that is there a second yes Miss Walker all right any discussion yes I I definitely appreciate that a I'm not sure what it's going to do and B I feel like that's well that can get confusing that they're Allowed no masks in the county no masks in the school visitors who come into the school have to wear the masks I I just to me it kind of seems like we're putting a a lot out there to try to mitigate you know what I perceive to
198be somewhat minimal risk all right Mr wbore Madam chair I just had a question on that motion also are we talking about you know maybe um a basketball game every every adult that comes into the building we're going to have them wear masks is that what you're saying I can't hear you Mr an athletic event if you have those are considered visitors not talking about volunteers during the school day if it's not I'm wondering if you're talking about yeah I'm sorry whether you're talking about like just volunteers coming in the school day working with students or say you know we had a wrestling match or a basketball game we had a lot of you know parents that come in would they also have to be masked I'm more interested in the classroom where visitors come
199into the classroom and are working one-on-one or or in groups with students any other discussion I say is it's probably more likely because they're they're they're coming from the outside into the classroom setting and um I just think that it's um it makes sense to you know to have people to wear masks in that case because they're coming from the outside into the school environment there I think that's what Miss cel's talking about I'm not really sure miss Justice yeah so specifically are you saying just for the school but not for like games I was just trying to look okay I I mean I'll I'll be honest I you know I volunteer at my son's school and in the morning and when we have you know tardy students the parents are coming in to sign
200their child in and if they're coming in without a mask we are now providing them a mask so are we saying that anyone that comes in that is signing their child in are we providing them a mask for those three minutes that they're in the front lobby or are we only talking about classroom environment I'm talking about classroom environment where we are working we volunteers would be working one-on-one with students so particularly really it's the volunteer in the classroom is the definitive motion yes okay all right so the motion is to um require masks for volunteers that are within classrooms all right there's a second by Miss Walker any other discussion all right um Miss buoy I guess could you please call the role Miss Adams I Mr Boer no Miss Justice I miss Crill
201I Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes and Mr bore no all right motion passes 5 to2 all right um do we want to take a quick break anybody need to okay um let's do five minutes uh let's we'll yeah five minutes we'll meet back up here for old business four five I know I just saw this crille she was just here always remind me I haven't fallen yet but I do down if there are board members in the room if you could please make your way back to the dis all right the next item on the agenda are we back on thank you next item under the agenda we're moving into Old business and we are going to have a strategic Plan update and I believe we have Nancy Parks Hunter and Dr Pamela Palmer
202waiting on Zoom for us to provide an update good evening good evening ladies how are you [Music] um I can't Nancy that just you just got M muffled can you say that again please um we have a PowerPoint and I'm just asking if um it could either be shared there as recorded it on or if I can be they don't we we don't have a copy of it you guys have the copy of it if you could um I believe that they're giving you sharing rights you should be able to share it um from your computer great thank you and Dr Palmer will start off with an update on where we are with strategic planning good evening everyone I'm Pamela Palmer and I am um one of the two Consultants on the strategic planning project
203um in terms of the strategic planning process we did share this outline with you that um at at a previous board meeting uh that um outlined the process our process has five phases and the very first phase of the process is for us to gather uh feedback data um getting some sense of and inquiring with key stakeholders as to what the um the preliminary um areas of focus might be as it relates to the focal points of the plan so again in that first phase we um inquired with um stakeholders by way of surveys those in terms of online surveys interviews focus groups and in doing so we were able to determine some preliminary Direction in terms of what the priority areas might be as it relates to the plan and N you'll talk a
204little bit more about that here in just a minute in phase two um the plan is to um engage with uh new hanal County School Board um as well as the staff in the in the form of a retreat and to gain insight as to uh and perspective as to where we will be at that point um with the specifics and particulars around focal points in the plan the third phase of the process uh is to uh hone in on those areas and develop and create um specific statements uh as it relates to the goals and the plan present that um get feedback on that and then finalize the plan with any edits that are necessary again um we have um moved um quite um specifically uh in the in Phase One around um getting
205some data back um to identify what those priority areas um um are at this stage and I'm going to let Nancy talk to you a little bit about that unless there's a question share with you what we see as emerging areas and um what we want to do from this point is to ask for full feedback from um all the community parents students staff um everyone on how you feel about these areas um that we see emerging so one is academic performance which is achieving high performance by all students and providing many avenues for academic and career exploration the second is student safety and I should say these are not in priority order they are equally weighted it's just with we're looking to see what are the things that need to be areas of strategic
206work so student safety and providing a safe welcoming and supportive physical and emotional environment for all students another is supportive teacher and staff environment providing teachers and staff with the tools and support that they need to give Excellence to their students Equity diversity and inclusion ensuring that every student feels valued and included and has access to the resources they need to excel family engagement encouraging parents caregivers and family excuse me engaging parents caregivers and family to encourage students and enrich School setting and then finally Community Partnership strengthening and enhancing relationships with Community Partners in order to support students and schools so these are the areas that we see as potential areas for um strategic work over the next five years for the school system and what we would like to do now is to reach
207out to everyone to hear your voices um to take this brief survey that will allow you to weigh in on each of these priority areas that we identified as to whether you feel strongly that it should be a priority or whether you disagree uh with that it will also give you an opportunity to look at some other priority areas that we identified that you might feel should be a top priority and you'll be uh have an opportunity to express that and then finally there'll be a space where if none of the areas we have identified are are um sufficient to support what you feel should be a priority you may write in other areas that you feel should be a priority so this is the link to the survey um I don't think people need
208to copy it down because it will be distributed through school Messenger to famili students and staff everyone um the link is also going to be located on the district website and social media accounts and we would like to invite everyone to please go participate in that survey weigh in on what we've identified and please let us know if you believe it reflects the correct strategic areas for Action over the next five years it will open tomorrow December 8th and Clos December 31st uh when it is closed we will bring the results of that the voices that weigh in on that survey um we will bring that back to the board and staff um in a retreat format in January and I believe Miss Billy is working now to set up that and we'll let everyone
209know um the time and date for that um and at that point in time we can use the data that includes everyone's voices on on these areas for focus and once we are able to see what those areas should be um then we can begin to develop the actual strategies and action steps to support those and that part of the work really will move much more quickly once seats are identified but we have felt it's important to take the time to be sure we get the right areas so um we would again appreciate everyone's participation in that survey even if you have already given us some qualitative data previously please take the survey uh we want to hear every voice weigh in on the weights of these priorities are there questions all right thank you
210uh any board members have any questions for uh either member of mph yes Miss Crill the um so I'm looking at your weeks 21 and 20 for phase four weeks 21 and to3 what does that translate to in like real weeks like January the week of January 4th like for example um in in real life it it generally translates we like to leave about three or four weeks for that we understand that there's a little bit more speed required here because of the um need to get the plan um at least the priorities and areas for work identified um in times of budgeting so we would expect expect that to be somewhat compressed and hopefully completed by February again it depends on how long it takes the that those strategies really get developed by the
211senior staff that are responsible for leading those areas so um it depends on how much time it takes them to drill down and develop that other questions okay well thank you very much we look forward to you know we encourage our community staff students uh community at large please put your voice into that survey um as they said it is going to open tomorrow and I believe I saw Nancy it's on it's going to be right on our website and um the more voices we get the better the Strategic plan will be we want to hear from you so please make sure that you complete that uh between now and well excuse me between tomorrow and December 31st right thank you very much Dr Palmer Miss Parks you guys have a lovely evening and thank
212you for sticking around thank you so much all right have a good night all right next art uh item on the agenda are the local salary schedules for 2021 22 Miss Mary Hazel small welcome to the microphone with a budget thank you um so you've seen versions of of this before but toight we're going to add some information about the state budget and how it impacts what we are proposing locally um the what was posted um officially of last week has since Been Changed by a um um technical Corrections bill so this version has the original information and some other items in red just so that you know what's current as of this morning at N9 o' so um we're going to start with um the state salary um budget update um the I've sort
213of separated this between salaries and bonus information because there's a lot of different bonuses in the state budget as well as one that we're doing locally so it gets a little confusing so we're going to go through the state budget we're going to go through our local scales and then we're going to kind of come back to the same information by employee group so it's easier to see which employee groups are getting which things so hopefully that will be make it a little bit easier um so one thing that is um very unique because of the lateness of the state budget is that the salary um scales are are actually effective the the changes made by the state effective January 1 um and so going forward that's how we'll pay people on those new scills
214including the ones that you approv locally so that'll be the effective date but then there will be a bonus um for what would have been the salary increase if it had been effective in um starting July 1st so it'll be retro bonus but you have to be employed and this is one of the things that changed in the technical Corrections bill so it did say you have to be employed as January 1 and so now it says that you um does not apply to person separated from service prior to December 31st and what that means is the retirees now benefit and we'll get anybody that retires as of January 1 whose last day of service was December 31st will get the retro pay so there was a lot of confusion about that so um you'll
215see that over and over on the different pages but um just wanted you there's a lot of effective dates that affect who gets what um the other thing is that the um retirement rate and the um health insurance rates also increased um effective January 1 they that is not retro that's just going forward um and we've already um discussed I believe that um we were hoping for health harmless which did happen meaning that um the state is not going to reduce our funding in the current year for the fact that our enrollment is less than their projections for us and that would have been a significant reduction it does it is a planning issue for next year and that we will lose funding for um we were able to to hire more positions this year
216to to help in part of our recovery but we won't have that ability next year so we'll we'll go back to funding on actual enrollment so for the state bonus so I already mentioned the the retr pay bonus which is the differential between current and new pay scales and the recommendation is to follow this you know regardless of the funding source that your salary comes out of everybody's paid you know on the same salary scale regardless of funding source and so the the um my recommendation to you is that you don't have a differential between State paay paid folks and local um the premium pay bonus is um a state initiative which is $1,000 for all local full-time employees with an additional $500 for employees that make less than 75,000 for the entire year and
217um that applies to people that are employed as of December 1 a new date um so that's the effective date for that um the I think in an earlier version you know that was that was um January so now now it's December which is which is helpful and um we did learn today I don't have it on here that it does not include longevity because even though longevity is pay that's considered a benefit so it's just you know base salary and supplements that that would determine that 75,000 and who would who would get the 1,500 versus the ,000 um the state is paying this regardless of the funding source of employee so this is going to be paid for all of our employees with State funds so um or federal funds that are allotted through
218the state um for teachers only there's also a covid bonus and the clarification receiv received today is that it's teachers and certified instructional support so all the licensed employees that um work in the school um not not administrators but licensed employees that are in the classroom and supporting the classroom they would get $1,000 bonus if we have documentation that they receive training associated with covid-19 I mean that is something HR will be working to get the documentation from the schools because there's been lots of training and anytime from the beginning of covid through the end of this month training would count and then employees would be eligible for that bonus all teachers also get a $300 we'll get a $300 bonus um you may remember that prior to covid there were performance bonuses for teachers
219third through e8th grade trade um because we don't have that information at this point um the state is using that recurring State funding to just pay um a flat rate bonus to all the teachers um the the second year of the binding and budget because this is a two-year budget they'll it will um return to um performance-based bonuses so the $300 is one time for this year only also Advanced course and CTE bonuses based on the test information that we will have um for secondary we do have for the secondary schools for um last spring testing um will be paid in they said today January February we don't have the information from them but once they send the information as to who eligible we will pay that um principles similar to teachers in that they're
220not doing performance pay for for principles this year it'll be a onetime monus of 1,800 next year it goes back to Performance pay yes ma'am okay so this is December the 1st that they're going to going to be paying this as opposed to the January the 1 dead the none of none of the the bonuses will be paid in December that that are part of the state budget they'll be paid in January the effective date is when you're employed by they they move the effective date is when you were employed by so there's just no way we can get all the information that we need need to document everything like we won't even have the documentation on the the um Advanced course in CTE from DPI they said till January or February so the only
221one that are possibly paid in February would be those two the rest of them will be paid in January thank you um okay so Switching gears to salaries so um the non-certified Personnel the the state for the next two years there will be increases the higher of 2 and a half% um or whatever it takes to achieve a minimum of $13 an $13 an hour for this year going to $15 the next year and um we'll get to our proposals a little bit later we did the 13 last two years ago and our recommendation is using that same money they're giving other counties to get to 13 for us to get 14 so that that is that'll come in just a moment but just just to understand where that funding is coming from um okay
222so the I lost my place give me a minute okay there we go thank you Central I'm looking at the wrong slide central office administrators um 2 and a half% for each year of the banum teachers and and instructional um support salaries they're increasing the the base scale it's the same format um 1.3% and then there's a step increase but not every step on the teacher scale has an increase so there that means that the low the low end for teachers is 1.3% and the high end is 5.4 if there's also a step in there um those are published and and um somewhere in the presentation I have a link to the state salary schedule and you can look at those um school count they also um school counselors psychologist speech language pathologist and audiologist
223um all of those schedules are tied they're based on the teacher schedule but they're a little bit higher so for counselors they um they're changing it to a a an additional $100 a month built into their um salary schedule so now there's a new salary schedule so it's what they would get as a master's level teacher but then you have to have Masters to be in that job and then you would also get $100 more a month psychologist speech and audiologist um theirs is tied to their their scale starts so what would be a six-year teacher and then they're adding so they get the same raises teachers plus an additional $350 a month added to their salary um assistant principles it is the same as the teachers um their scale is just 19% higher so
224they would have um an average increase just like teachers of Two and a half% and principles um their their base scale is going up 2 and a half% for each year of the m so questions on the salary oh so is when we're looking at the state salary increases is is there an amount that we can't go higher than because of State salary has some sort of limit I'm I'm trying to understand this and read the legislation too hard when we're talking about certified staff who are whose based salaries are paid on state schedules then we follow the schedules and then you can supplement that which we do so we have a supplement for principes and a supplement for teachers for non-certified and central office administrator there are ranges and they recommend that you stay
225within the ranges there's certain positions that they will not let you use State money if you go over so so specifically bus drivers and and Tas and there's a few others that they check and so you could do it with local but you can't go over those ranges with State funds and most of those employees are state funed so um one of the things that we are allowed to do with our local essr funding is bonuses for certain um purposes that meet the guidelines of of there's several categories that we're allowed to spend Sr funds on and so back in I'm really lost count but I believe it might have been October we brought to you this proposal that we were going to submit that we have submitted now to to use the funds for
226a school support bonus of a $1,000 and that will be paid um the board had already approved that this is just informational now that will be paid on December 15th to the employees that are listed there um clerical support um instructional support in schools and um instructional support Personnel that are more systemwide that are serving schools so you know the bus drivers Child Nutrition workers custodian skills trade that group so that's that's $1,000 each and that's one time to be paid on the 15th so um Mary Hazel just to clarify so the folks that are listed under this eligible employee categories they are going to be receiving $1,000 bonus in December from Esser funds from our local Esser F local Esser funds in January they will be receiving for most of the people that we've
227heard from because they're under 75,000 they're going to receive another $1,500 from the state funds that is correct right so in total we're looking at $2,500 bonus for the non-certified positions essentially and not not every employee Falls in every category and we'll look at that at the end but for most okay um that is true so um now going to our local salary schedules so this is the non-certified salary schedule I know it's really hard to read so kind of focus on on the blue section um you have attached um the 22 page salary schedules um for all the different categories but the the highlights of this are the $15 minimum um which will'll be going to we know we'll be going to to $14 minimum going to 15 the second year so this is
228this year salary schedule starting January with and this is what we will determine what that retro bonus is based on so the the check starting in January will be based on these salaries and then we'll go back and calculate the difference of what it would have been if they had it since July um there are 31% steps there are um we're also doing a two-step increase to catch up for the fact that without a state budget last year that there was a step increase for teachers but there was not one for noncertified so people will move two steps if they've been with us you know at least two years um there's a 2 and a half um percent minimum the average increase is 8 and a half um and the following year and I don't
229know what the actual schedule would look like but the following year the state minimum will go to $15 an hour and when you say for the for the year 2023 we're actually looking at that would be June 1 of this year so the the the the FY 23 starts in July July of 22 and goes to June of 23 and that's already approved by the state in the budget that that will go up this coming July or a six months from now that's going to go to the 15 an hour minimum yes wa there two I don't know Miss and then miss justice so um roughly if we were to go 15 now and then 16 in six months what does that look like is that like a million dollars you know $5 million or
230I thought you might ask and so right before I came up I glance at some early calculations and I am this is so rough that I will not let you quote me on it rough as at a minimum a 4 million probably 4 to 5 million um more of every year in continuing I just haven't calculated it on we also have new retirement rate so so I that is very very rough but just in case you ask right M Justice and then Mr W well I'm just going to go ahead and ask about the $17 would that be double that amount uh the roughness you really I you would think but not necessarily because it really depends on where people are moving to you know if you just went to one of the questions is
231um if you if you went to 15 would you just say that would you just compress the steps and would you move everything to 15 and then the ones above that would just get would just get you know the raise that was proposed or would you somehow modify that I know that um HR is currently doing a salary study where we I think it would be better to have a little bit more thoughtful planning on how you implement that um so that you don't end up a situation where people people don't get step increases for the next 10 years either well that makes um and so it for two reasons one we need to figure out how to fund it um but but also to figure out how best if if that is something the
232board want would want to do I feel like we would need to to bring back a different plan and not just just approve it without looking into exactly how much it cost and then how how it would affect people and that's actually I think something you brought up a couple years ago about the $15 an hour the state had done it and we never got a chance to do that that is true so so we did our our budget fory 19 and that was the year that we went to minimum 13 the state went to 15 for all other state employees that year so um at the time it didn't happen for School Employees because it was too expensive Statewide to do they wanted to come up with a plan to do it every time
233interesting how that worked out so well I wanted to complete that question so if it was the will of the the board if we requested that kind of study for the $17 an hour and and accompanying steps to make it Equitable and fair um that that is something you could do correct I'm saying we certainly could come up with salary scales um whether or not how it would be funded would be another issue for the board so have to figure out taxing body we would have to figure out where it's going to be well I'm just I'm asking question which would mean relationships that we're building with County Commissioners you got to start somewhere and just remember our ADM will change and so you're going to get a decrease in funding next year so the
234funding the funding that you have for I think is 26,400 some the state we receive over six like 6500 from State and then county is I don't remember exact number 3,400 something like that for stud that that will go down for the lock once more time you got to start somewhere I want I would started a couple years ago and it never happened um Mr wildor and then Mr mcmanis all right um first off I want to say that I think the T and bus drivers are very very valuable I mean we need them I mean there's no doubt in my mind um and in my days as a principal I remember that you know you have different pots of money but I know we have added several people at the central office uh is
235that is that money fluid where we could move some of that money if we didn't hire say as many people at central office and move somebody down not we won to lose anybody at central office but I mean maybe in the [Applause] future so so I will say that the funding we do have is currently budgeted we we we do expect to there there's been a lot of discussion tonight about Esser funding and can we use it for salaries we we can we can put positions we could add positions in Sr funding but you can't use Sr funding to pay raises for employees that are not funded by AER that's that's not allowable so I don't know if that kind of gets to what your question is so um you know ultimately when the you
236know the budget was proposed and approved by the board th those those are the positions but um certainly every year it's up to the board which positions to have and and what changes to make whether it's salary or or changes in allotment formulas or or numbers of the positions in central office that certainly is at the board's discretion but it's kind of hard to um say do a comparable without specifics that money could possibly be moved from here to here where the rubber meet a road so I'm not sure I understand I think what you're saying is so the the positions in that are one two positions that are in central office actually do support the schools and I think individuals don't understand like we fund more than what the state gives us so the
237state gives us an allocation of um for State funding for every school there's an allotment we go above and beyond to give that money so I don't know if individuals and I do plan for us to have to give to the board at our next meeting um an allocation of how we allocate to the school because we are well over what the state offers and so when we are giving so for instance right now in one of the elementary and Forest Hills we have one principal we have added a retired principal and an assistant principal there are three administrators in that one school three and we've also given them uh Dr Pinto who is also an administrator who was in the this at the central office who's also in their school in addition to giving
238a coach to the principal and giving five days of our lead teachers so they go over and so we've given that's just one example of what we've done and so when we say that it's all at the central office that's actually not true we give above and beyond and other schools aren't getting that um but I'm definitely going to provide for the the board at our next board meeting how we a lot and how we're above what the state is actually asking for because I don't think um I don't think everyone sees that it seees it I want to clear up that that that myth that there are more uh individuals at the the central office Mr mcmanis then Mr Buller yes Mr mcmanis is it still would you retire from the state it's your
239four is it still your four highest consent itive years of pay that determined your retirement it is it is it is it's an average of the four highest high consecutive years so if someone was making x amount of dollars and then they had to lose a portion of that they've made their retirement until until they catch up or surpass which then you got to stay four years for that to average out so so far we're kind of agreeable so to give a raise to our classified employees we would either have to go to Esra funds which was brought up by county commissioner so we need to address it it's not going away but they don't last except through 23 but we can't we you can't do a raise for a position paid by other funding
240sources okay so we can't then we need to tell everybody why we can't use that money if that's accurate number two that that means that the board would have to look into the budget yes and that would only way we could do a reoccurring to keep that every year that's correct okay and and and it is I'm sorry so it would come for the board you in our budget season you would have to ask our local funds so you'd have to go to the Commissioners and ask state is already set Federal's already set the only way you would be able to do it is to make a request to the commissioners of how many how much how many millions you would need for the next and that came up at the county commissioner meeting with
241us and I think we heard that they said because they had given so much that but they don't have it right now also if I understand correctly the states given us how much per student you say 80 I I don't remember the exact number I'll was top of my head right now but it's it's in the it depends on which which students but it's it's probably in the 6 to 7,000 and the County Commissioners are about 35 3600 so we're getting almost $1,000 between the state and the county stent so remember every time we lose a student we're losing that money that is true and so I just want the public to understand that it's not as simple as us saying because if we were I we' give a raise today and and we need
242to look at that and we need to discuss and open how we can do it and why we can do it or why we can't do it and we need to have that discussion because everyone is on a different plateau and everybody just thinks the board says we're going to do it and it's magic it's not I I would just add to that that um currently we're about 85 86% of our budget is on salaries and benefits and and y'all don't control the benefit rate but just the retirement contribution um you know is almost to 25% for every dollar salary we're putting in and so there's these hidden costs that make it difficult so I'm not saying it's not important and that you know you don't want to plan to move forward but those are
243all the things you have to take into consideration hold on it's m Mr buller's turn and then we'll come back Miss Justice yeah thank you very much this is kind of a thick mask so I'll pull it down briefly I first I just wanted to thank the people who continue to show up and advocate for themselves because I see what you do and uh I definitely appreciate it and I know this port does as well it's it's Yan's work it is God's work it's really important stuff so uh I'm I'm very grateful uh and you know I know we have the salary study coming out is there an ETA on that the um an yeah an ETA when February February right before budgeting so I mean I I I understand what Mr uh Mr mandis
244is saying we I mean I personally will commit to do everything that I possibly can to make sure that you know you have the funds you need to live a good life and to feel like you are valued because I know how important that is um but we're not a taxing Authority so we really have to do it as a team we have to do it together and it's going to take all of us talking to our commissioners and our state delegation to uh work hard to get this go okay M Justice and basically you first need to plan right you need to see what you need and you need to have figure out how to get there and then you need to look at the whole budget and literally pick out if you decide
245to do something correct and that's what we need to start with first we need to have figure out how to get there yeah I I would imagine that that salaries will be a big part of of the initiatives in the upcoming budget just based on everything we've heard this year but you can but you yourself can look at the $17 and figure out how just to start with and then move forward and then we can look at the budget and everything and how it's spent like somebody brought up central office there's other areas a lot of other areas that could possibly be looked at that I have in the past and I would love to bring this up during budget discussions and and I I think another important point is because we know we're in
246a very unique position that we hadn't been in in four or five years that we know next year's State funding and it really is hard to build a a local budget when you don't know local or state funding when we have to do it so that's different because we're major most of our funding is state that this will make this year's budget planning a little easier so that you know going in how much money you can expect thank you all right Mary I know that you still have a bunch of slides here so we will let I'll try to talk fast but we'll try and hold we'll try and hold questions now until the end get some clarification there so I want say sorry um bus drivers the minimum is 15 you you remember two
247years ago we went to a minimum of 14 for them um they have a 15 step scale Which is less steps but it gets them to the top of the state range at at step 15 um and the average increase there is 7% Child Nutrition now a lot of Child Nutrition employees are on the non-certified scale this is the a separate scale that was developed a few years ago it used to be flat rate these are the part-time helpers that are not they don't get benefits that it's less than 20 hour a week employees and so it was raised to 12 an hour we're we're proposing 13 um next year's raise for them will will eliminate the scale it it'll go to 15 next year so um the scale still there and you know there
248Step increases in the same format as the others but just by looking at it you can see the top of the scale is 14 and next year the minimum will be 15 so you know part of next year's planning will be you know how to handle this group of employees but we know right now that it will be um the minimum of 13 this year and 15 next year central office administrator um The Proposal um was to provide more Equity with um school with school administrators and um also created a a category of um with this particular state scale you you can locally Define what every level of administrator is so you know in our County we've got um the level one is you know supervisor supervisor two assistant director Tex specialist prek director is
249was inserted and now director and um executive director and so um this is also 31% um steps and part of what we're doing with this you may remember from from previous discussions is we had a very compressed scale that we've been trying over over several years to eliminate from the recession and so this is getting us back to where all of our steps are even um and so this is a bit a little bit higher increase just but it's certainly not for everybody it's an average um some folks you know that are already the near the top of the scale they'll their increase would be um two and a half but those um further back getting two steps would be more um or those moving from one category to another can you can you speak
250to the excludes contracted senior staff please who that refers to and who is excluded from this it's on the the very bottom in thank you I just F right over that because I'm trying to hurry so um this is for for folks that don't have a contract so um the cont contracted senior staff it says in their contract that they get an average of their raise would be equal to that of an average teacher which we now know from the previous slide is 2 and a half percent so these this average increase shown here does not apply to senior staff so senior staff meaning the folks that are sitting here these folks thank you um subs and hourly the um Dr Barnes brought back I don't really know I think it was the second meeting
251of October possibly we increased the instructional Subs um I have it listed here just because it's part of the same scale um one number that's in red was was part of what was changed by the state and they I had I my estimate was close to that number but they announced today that the maximum is $161 that's for a long-term license sub and then um the tutors the um non-instructional substitutes we're we're taking all those to a minimum of 13 um but also some of them were already higher and and they were slightly adjusted and so this is this those rates are what you have seen before so now there's nothing new on the next few slides I'm just going to explain it a little differently so it might be easier for employees trying to
252figure out how this affects them they would know they could look at a couple of slides and know what to expect so once again this is kind of repeat the salary increases um go into effect January 1 if you were employed as of December 31st you're going to get that retro adjustment assuming you were here you know since July for whatever that bonus would have been um we will pay those bonuses in January the um skip over the next this is different so we had said before um that it would be subject to retirement contributions which is true because this is considered salary um but there was clarification today um that that because it's salary it's not supplement most times bonuses are supplemental wages and they're taxed at that higher flat rate but they they
253clarified today that these um are considered salaries and not supplemental wages so it won't be taxed at the high rate which is favorable to employees so that's just the Retro bonus all the other bonuses won't be subject to retirement meaning the employee doesn't have to pay their 6% but they will it will be taxed at the high rate so it's kind of six one half dozen on the other but um the teachers and instructional support this is just summarizing their salary um schedule increases and this is where the link that I mentioned before to the new salary schedule is so um employees that this this presentation is attached to the um board agenda and you can link there or you can just go on either our website or the states and and link to this
254the public P the Public Finance page has a link to these salary schedules um for bonuses for teachers and instructional support there's the premium bonus that applies to all the state employees 500 or500 if you make less than 75,000 a year they also there's a covid training bonus for the teachers and instructional certified instructional support they also get the 300 a year and then depending on what they teach and what there the student grades were they may get those last two for school administrators they're getting the I lost my place um salary increases the premium bonus the um assistant principles they're um getting the basically the the same increase as teachers um percentage wise um principal salaries is a little bit more detail for them into part of their salaries based on how many students
255are at their school so there's some adjustments and it tells them how to calculate that so little details there but the principal bonus is um 1,800 and then there's a link to their salary schedule as well for non-certified um this is the same information that was on the slide that had that sample so it it goes through the change in the pay scales but also which bonuses apply to them so we're looking at the Retro bonus the premium pay bonus and for those specific employees that we talked about that were on that that slide we're getting the local Esser School support bonus that's another thousand and that's the only one that's going to be paid this month um bus drivers um the summary of the salary increases um and then those same bonuses that were
256pretty much the same as the last page in terms of bonuses the CH nutrition the only difference is you have to be full-time to get the um the state premium bonus the the $1,500 one um and so that would not apply to our part-time folks that work they're not considered permanent employees um same thing here a summary of the salary schedule for central office and changes and then that they would be eligible for the Retro bonus and the premium pay bonus can can and that is yeah can I quickly ask a question yes ma'am okay all right um theer funds um the bonuses that aren't going to be paid until January now some of the bonuses are going to be paid this month correct the the lo lo the local initiative of Esser funds I'm
257trying to find it real quick is the one that we're paying in December on December 15th right and that's to who that is to this employee Group which is let see if I can read so it's school-based um classified clerical and structal support so it's going to be the Tas um I'm trying to think of the other examples of um bu driver eight Nutri I'm trying to think of the other school base classified so maybe some of there's some other titles like um liaison those kinds of things so certified don't get certified don't receive any Sr funds this in that group not not with this um they part of the state funded funding bonuses are Sr fund are state in the state asra budget in in January it gets confusing yeah that's in January so
258so so the local certified staff aren't getting any budgets any bonuses this month no no one is because this all just happened and we're still getting clearly even today the like I don't even I'm not even positive that the governor signed the technical correction bill as of this morning he hadn't but I'm really hoping he signed it today could our local Esser funds been used for certified say that again could our local es could our local Esser funds been used to pay certified staff this month the board had not approved any bonuses for them they did for the classified so nobody brought that in front of us there was no proposal this was the only Esser proposal that we considered for bonuses remember our um Commissioners gave our teachers or created a supplement for them
259to be the highest paid in the state that but however our classified um clerical support instruction support they didn't receive anything M Justice we've also been presented this information multiple times this isn't the first time this is coming out I we've approved this we approved the classified uh at the time I did not okay we know that the teachers have got the highest in the state you keep saying that over and over again but there's all multiple issues or situations that could have been discussed at the time I'm concerned about the certified staff this has been a really rough year for everybody and even with that supplement I'm concerned because I it would have been something and I did try to bring it up I believe if I remember right that we should have possibly
260put on the agenda and discussed maybe even voted on just just because I don't think that the Tas are going to or not just the Tas that the classified staff would begrudge some kind of supplement for Christmas for our certified teachers a small one a bonus they wouldn't have begrudged that that's my take on it question all right any other questions or comments yes Miss kill so um is this the correct time to tell me if this not the correct time to ask this question because and I will withdraw it till the correct time but um when we're looking at um some of the supplements that we took um we took away from teachers like lead teachers and their national board certified because we needed to pay for them out of a different category um
261or priority schools that get the extra pay for being there and then the IRS supplement you know that lead teachers that's not a part of this but that is part of when we um implemented last July the new supplement schedule and so I can address part of it just from memory but the um prior to that there was a um a base supplement schedule right and then a targeted supplement schedule that was $2,000 higher per teacher um at five specific schools what was being proposed was higher than that by at least 2,000 so so all those employees at the targeted schools also got an increase it just um it wasn't they didn't we didn't keep the targeted the plan was to develop an know that is part of what what um Human Resources will be
262working on for next year is a um I can't think of the right word with it help Dr F A incentive not incentive but performance-based um bonus structure rather than just identifying certain schools and paying them higher so so you're talking about performance as outcomes for the teachers as opposed to the school situation where they're I mean obviously they're struggling situations that you're not going to get the outcomes that necessarily are Equitable to what they're working with is that what you're talking about this this is the salary schedule the board approved you know last spring and so you know if you want if it's something you want to look at changing you know we certainly could bring it back in the future but that's already been imp approved and implemented I was talking about next
263year is what yeah so then the appropriate time to ask my question again would be when we're looking at this the budget for next year okay yeah but I mean you can always ask it might be I might have better answers well I want to ask it at a time where we can actually you know do something about it certainly all right so at this point um the request is approval of the salary schedule as presented uh do I hear a motion so moved thank you Mr bullier is there a second second all right I'll second any discussion um obviously it's going to be this way without further study we don't know what it would mean to be able to bump up the salary schedule because we do need study first as you brought up
264um at the same time this is I mean we're going to have to approve it for them to even get the 14 correct y for us to pay any increases we're we have to approve approval of something yes so otherwise it'll stay with the state it STS where it the state says yes ma'am so we're still between a rock and a hard place for those of us that have wished we'd been more proactive but have been trying to get information been very difficult thank you all right uh let's go ahead and I guess uh Miss buy can we do a roll call on this motion is to approve the salary schedule as presented Miss Adams hi Mr Buller I miss Justice I miss crille I Mr mcmanis I miss Walker yes and Mr wbore yes
265all right salary schedules approved 7 to zero thank you and small all right next item on the agenda uh the nhcs employee climate survey update Mr Smith welcome to the microphone good evening again I'll be brief um since our last meeting we developed two separate surveys one for classified and one for certified staff along the way we took refinements that you suggested uh to include the most recent input as of this afternoon and are now ready to launch the surveys as is as quickly as this evening assuming you approve questions were derived from ncdpi climate surveys each survey is 30 questions in length uh with the opportunity to write in if desired all responses will be completely Anonymous uh and it'll be located behind our staff portal to ensure the Integrity of the results and
266as I'm talking Anita is driving and we'll pull up um where folks will find the survey um all staff logging into the portal they'll meet a popup encouraging their participation and we'll also spread the word with all district emails uh the board report at the conclusion of this meeting that we send out as well as our internal newsletter um I'd suggest that we run the survey for the remainder of the month of December close it out on the 31st and then I'll export those results to the board the first week of January um with that I'll turn it over the board for any further questions or refinement but but we're ready to go with your approval all right uh Miss crille so how are we going to um ensure that that people understand there's two
267surveys going on we've got our strategic plan survey open tomorrow through the end of the month and then we've got our climate survey so right so with regard to the Strategic plan survey and we're using the utilizing the same software on our end so just a a matter of clarification we procured a Survey Monkey contract if you will or license to be able to survey that number of folks it was approximately $300 so we can we can survey and survey and Survey so the Strategic plan are utilizing some of that capability that'll be W widely broadcasted on our website to the public however folks will have to get behind the the uh staff portal to access the nhcs or as you were the um the classified and certified surveys there it's probably impossible to to
268guarantee absolute Fidelity but if for example we get 6,000 responses to our staff survey we know that it's been compromised yes so but you'll they will be able to tell like in some subject line absolutely you staff this is one and then okay yes ma'am right any other questions or comments All right we look forward to seeing the results thank you very much and thank you for hearing the feedback and flexing with the need the desires and wants of the board to make this uh the most robust survey that we can to get get a good barometer of where our staff is right now absolutely it's my pleasure I'm going to stay up here for the next topic as well oh yes public records next item public records retention release and disposition uh this is
269regarding uh policy 5070 which was approved few months ago um so please take it away so as Anita is pulling up our next request portal I did just want to take the opportunity to introduce the public uh Records request software it's known as next request folks can find it on our website um and she'll walk you through it just briefly but it will allow us to move on from rudimentary spreadsheets and and datae keeping to a more streamlined and efficient way to um to to both solicit respond to public records requests there there's a level of transparency available to the public Anita if you could just go to search I'm sorry back up um as well as it improves the efficiency on the staff side to aggregate the information for said requests and so every
270open request that we have currently is uploaded I think we've got approximately 38 here uh eight have been closed out 30 remaining que to date this year we've closed out approximately uh 100 public records requests the majority of which uh do not require uh redaction and review U and in that they're they're closed out faster so with that I understand this is a board discussion item I'll happily answer any questions you have all right Miss Justice yes um I'm not even sure where to bring this up at this point are we still charging people that I mean this is I know it's part of the same topic though are we still charging people that made public record requests before we changed the system to start charging them are we still doing that so a point
271a few points of clarification if I may we've not uh received or charged anyone we've not received any money to to date zero dollars to date to close out public records request some of the requests that existed prior to the implementation of the policy were so large in scope to the tune of millions of pages necessary for redaction that it hasn't been start started yet and so um with regard to the policy the board passed policy 5070 we enforce and apply uh or comply with policy 5070 and with regard to necessary interpretation around these incidents we would refer to the board attorney to help us clarify and that's where we are now so the answer is uh there are two if I'm not mistaken two requests um that pertain to what you're speaking of um
272and the uh estimate so far is it's the six figures the time necessary to review and redact all of that information to be in compliance with North Carolina law so in that it's in a six figures um we defer to the attorneys and the best way to move forward because it's certainly not a cost that we immediately want to pass on to the district um and so but just to be clear of the 130 some odd requests at least this year that I'm aware of that we are uh addressing or closing out the specific ones that may uh pertain to your question are are two and they exceed 1 million uh individual email pages that require review and redaction and anything additional I'd have to refer to well thank you for that also along the
273same question what about we keep getting these mails about people that it ask and they still haven't gotten them and it's been for months and I'm not talking about that great number of ones I'm talking about why is it that they're not getting these requests they had months ago they just keep asking us and so I just wanted to know what's going on because you know I have no answer sure absolutely so again the the vast the vast majority of public records requests that come in that we can all now see are not message or email specific they're specific contracts or presentations or data points that can be easily garnered and so we do begin to address them when they come in if they are specific however to email requests or messages or ba you
274know items that based on North Carolina public records law require redaction we do forward that batch over to thanington Smith for review and redaction we do not have that capab ability inhouse as of yet this software allows a rudimentary element to of redaction but we don't have the Personnel or the training and so Theon Smith will provide us with updates along the way now if to your point there is a a small public records request smaller in scope that came in several months ago and it hasn't been closed out it may be because there's a backlog of review and redaction ahead of that but again I would defer to them for exactly why I just know we keep getting them and I'm why they keep asking us and I have no idea and I'm trying
275to find out why why they're not getting their requests done they're not they're not the large ones and they're old old requests so I think if you'll forward that to the communications and they can certainly check with us if it's one that our office has um you you have this has been a year of unprecedented public records request and um and our office again you're speaking of thousands and thousands of pages um because when someone requests emails we have to go through and you know determine which ones are public records so it is is something I've never seen before in 14 years well when I'm talking because they're specific we read them they say they're only a couple I mean they're not I'm not talking about the thousands ones okay I'm talking the ones that
276say like a week There's a couple that I want and and this has been going on I'm getting tired of getting these emails honestly I want an explanation I just send them to the people I don't know what the problem is well we're sending as rapidly as we can as a matter of fact if the board will allow uh Anita if you don't mind pull up uh 2129 if you will click on the actual number and the capability here will allow us to say it's not completely closed out I just I'll use this one as an example because it's large in scope but not yet closed and so and you see under the documents they're again available to all and Mr Buller will just use you as an example these are your emails right these
277are three batches they're thousands of pages um but they're they're there for public inspection they're there for all to see so we certainly want to provide Updates this will allow us to upate update in real time as we get information back or redacted and again for the public to inspect as is their right any other questions or comments didn't answer that okay we thank you for that update and excited about the software it's nice to be able to see that it's the ease and streamlining of the process so thank you very much thank you all right next item on the agenda policies for second reading Mr Boyer yes thank you madam chair um so the only policy that I know there was disagreement on during the first um of these policies was the policy on
278facility naming didn't know if anybody wanted to have any further discussion on that but I certainly wanted to pull it out to allow for a roll call vote um if there is no objection Mr rore if I would I actually ran that meeting so I would like to mention that we we did in that uh the policy that Mr Boer is uh referring to we did change the wording on 9300 from because there was a lot of discussion before as he said he was right on right on point there uh that new or renamed facilities may be named only for geographic terms or mascots where the wording before actually said with words or terms that have meaning for a given school and that was actually my suggestion that if we're going to say you know
279if we don't want to you know basically clarify it so it was more clear okay and um I I saw Snips parts of that discussion and and that actually had to do with what happened with the Laney football field um which was really during the discussion that didn't come up but yet during your policy meeting one of the members of the policy board said oh it's if we somebody has a million dollars then we'll name it after them uh and we're we were talking about naming it after an educator a respected educator and so there seems to be some kind of problem here with um inconsistency and actually hypocrisy so uh we need to clarify this either take it out or go back to naming it after people and including teachers not just millionaires so
280we need this straightened out so are you wanting to pull it out or since that edit's been made do we just want to go ahead I wanted to to pull it out to vote for it it was discussed quite a bit at the last meeting um and so I I think it's ready for a vote but I know there's disagreement so I wanted everybody to vote as they please example you like to uh sure so F first I will entertain a motion to uh accept policy all of the policies listed uh with the exception of 9300 all right is there a second second thank you miss krael any other discussion all those in favor say I I all those opposed uh policies are approved with the exception of uh pull pulling out of 9300 and
281now I would just ask for a motion to approve policy 9300 is amended all right uh is there a second second thank you miss crille miss crille I didn't hear what he said say I'm voting on 9300 as amended okay and how was it amended where read it it's it's right on the computer up and you'll see the Mr Justice basically we've replaced the words uh with words or terms that have meaning for a given school which we had all discussed could possibly be a person's name with uh only the word mascot so that was that was a change to try to you know to make it clearer okay thank you all right Miss uh Miss buoy could you please just do a roll call Vote for This Miss I'm sorry hold on do we
282have a second yes M CR any other discussion all right Miss Adams hi Mr Boer I miss Justice no Miss crille I Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes Mr wior no all right uh policies approved 5-2 thank you very much um moving along to the next item uh that is on the agenda which is policy 2120 um tonight we are going to be um electing a new chair and vice chair and I think it is a good time for us to review uh policy 2120 the code of ethics for our school board members um we had a few people speak to this this evening um but I just wanted to remind all of our board members as we set the tone for a new year who are we trying to be how are we going
283to present ourselves and there have been some behaviors that have occurred that I think are pressing the line of this policy and I think that as a board we need to be cognizant of it we need to be aware of what we are here to do and how we are to be conducting ourselves and so if there's any other comments regarding ing this um I'm happy to open the floor um to anyone else that has anything to say about that um but I just think it's important that we bring attention to this as we move into a new year new tone uh Madam chair Mr Willer yeah thank you um you know we have a lot of important things going on and you know routinely we have board members who violate the law openly flaunt
284uh you know Personnel law um it's frustrating I would use the phrase oppressive it's a uh it's a hostile work environment for some of the people that we supervise and it's really disturbing uh It's upsetting and it just distracts from our work and you have you know add to that you have people going on Facebook and saying you know awful things about supporters of Donald Trump or whoever forgetting that thousands of our employees and tens of thousands of our students uh you know are followers of a different ideology or a different idea and you know I would just ask how can you sit in a meeting um you know to when you hear about a suspension of an employee or you hear about an expulsion of a student and you know how if you are
285that person how can you have confidence that the person judging you hasn't already judged you and Damned you and I I just get very frustrated with that type of stuff we need to be better than that uh you know we need to stop living on social media and start you know governing effectively and ethically thank you anyone else I just had a couple um ones that that spoke to me when I when I wasn't certain why we were looking at this but I looked at the the policy again and if you look in the second section where um it says specific board member commitments the the ones that that struck me as ones that you know perhaps we I I want to take inventory of and other board members are are welcome to do that
286as well as they see fit but number one um item number one attend all regularly scheduled board meetings in so far as possible and become informed concerning the issues to be um considered at our meetings and I put aka read all our documents um be before we go to meetings um the third one allow controversial issues to be presented and considered fairly and without bias I think we need to definitely work on that um number five um model civility to students employees and all elements of the community by encouraging free expression of opinion by all board members and engaging in respectful dialogue with fellow board members on matters being considered um so that is one thing that um not taking myself out of that we all you know I I need to work on that
287and so I would hope that my fellow board members would see that as well number six respect the confidentiality of information that is privileged under applicable law and refrain from unauthorized disclosures of matters discussed in closed session um that to me is probably one of the biggest concerns um number 14 refrain from in investigating or attempting to resolve complaints received personally um but instead direct the complaintants to the board's complaint system um or grievance process to resolve um concerns the um so those those are my biggest ones that we just I just think that as we're coming into a new session you know you just kind of renew our vows you know um that that we go and we look at them and and internalize how that might apply to each of us individually yes
288Mr wior well um I didn't go through six or seven like U Miss crell there I just went through one and I think it's the one we always need to remember and never forget and that's the last one remember that uh board members first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of students attending the public schools and I think we all uh at least I think we all strive to do that I me I I really do think that as as a board we do um you know but that's got to be our Focus it's you know the teachers and T are extremely important bus drivers extremely important but at the end of the day the most important thing is our students so uh that's what I needed to share thank you I agree
289Miss Justice yeah a lot of stuff gets I think we need to do exactly what um Mr w war said that should override everything else above all of it there's going to be people that are going to disagree personally about what's done people are I mean we're supposed to be here for the kids not for our own personal I'm not sure what perception of what you're you know what you you see is right and wrong what should be the gauge for what's right and wrong is what's good for the kids and we have other laws of course we have to follow there's also accusations that many of us have heard since you've been on the board for a year and some of us longer that really are ridiculous and we need to stop that we
290need to focus on the work we need to some of us take things too personal and don't focus on the kids and what's good for them I think Mr worldo has a point and that's why we're here anyone else I think you know one of my final things is as chair that I want to say is you know let's be unified this year let's work together we've got an incredible district with Incredible staff and amazing students and we're coming out of the toughest two years ever and so just want to thank you all senior staff for being absolute rock stars during really difficult times thank you Dr fa for leadership during difficult times and we as a board let's remember our ethical duties to our constituents and our kids uh yes MRIs I'd like to
291say this is an opportunity for us to address all the concerns that are brought to us yes we can and this is how how we going to do it or no we can't and this is exactly why we can't do it so everyone needs we need to defend why we don't do something but at the same time explain why we can't do it and I I just we hear the same thing all the time we just need to be openly honest and we need to begin the year like that we need to address it yes we can do these things no we can't M Justice final comment transparency is exactly what he just said and we need a lot of it and we haven't in the past I've been on this board for 3 years
292I agree totally with Mr mcmanis transparency will let people know what's going on and it won't be coming back at us so much as as we can answer questions they can understand what happens and we can get better questions and better results so thank you Mr mcmanis we need transparency all right moving along to new business I believe who are we welcoming up for this uh Dr Smith the 2022 23 calendar yes good evening and um thank you for the opportunity to stand before you and present to you the calendars for the 2022 2023 school year um I'd like to begin by first thanking the members of the calendar commit committee um it is through their input their hard work that we are able to bring these calendars um before you and then also to
293thank Mr Boer for his leadership in that work as as well um as you know um a little bit of History um our district has seven calendars that's down from the nine that um we have had for a very very long time um the first calendar that you see before you is the traditional calendar um this calendar probably has the greatest number of changes when compared to the current Year's calendar um we've added some addition days understanding that we are in a process of recovering lost learning opportunity for our students so we've increased those days also it was very apparent from the feedback that we received that there was a need to ensure that we had balanced semesters um for um you know first semester and second semester that was critical for us as well
294um also very important feedback that we heard and received from teachers was that they wanted to see um work days embedded throughout the year um one of the challenges with that is every work day that we embed throughout the year is one less student day that's why we're maintaining our extended um school hours um so that we can compensate for that as well so in that calendar you'll see that we have 175 school days um well excuse me student days you'll see that we have teacher work days that follow every grading period um and that we are um in compliance with the North Carolina calendar law that restricts um when we have to open school as well as when we close school um the next calendar you'll see um is the year realm calendar and
295it very much mirrors this year's calendar um we work very closely with our yearr round principles and um they work of course very closely with their staffs and their parents to develop and design this calendar so this reflects what they um have indicated as as needs for them um the next calendar we have is our prek calendar and of course our prek calendar mirrors our traditional calendar um all of our prek follow that traditional calendar um except for where we might have a half day or early release we know that those students won't be in attendance those days um the following calendar um is our restart calendar um for our prek which again um this this is specific to Freeman they have their own unique calendar here and it just mirrors our restart calendar and
296again we work very closely with the staff of Snipes and Freeman to develop those restart calendars um and then we will have our early college calendars for Isaac bear and then CC and wax um um Shar calendar and again we work very closely with those principles who work very closely with their staffs um and um this year we were really excited we actually had a student on our calendar committee as well so happy to answer any questions that you may have and just ask for the board's approval of the calendars for the 2020 2023 um school year all right Mr bullier and then miss Justice first uh Dr Smith thank you for all you did on this committee I think if everybody looks I can see it's draft seven uh and they don't just like
297pop up uh it's a lot of work to put these together it's been one of my most enjoyable experiences on the board working with you to do these um look forward to it all year as you know but I did just want to point out um that each uh you know one of the things we really heard a lot of from our teachers and our administrators was you know uh burnout burnout it's a really long haul to get from you know Labor Day all the way through to Thanksgiving and you know and then there's other po portions of the Year where it just uh it wears on you and so we did put a designated teacher work day before each uh report card comes out at the end of each um quarter so I did
298just want to point that out to our to our teachers and our staff we definitely heard a lot of that so thank you very much for listening and putting it together well thank you very much is Justice yeah I I'm a little confused um yes the traditional calendar in the past one of the things that we fought for for a long time was to get the uh first semester finished before Christmas and now it looks like we're bumping up we're going to have that that couple weeks Gap there during Christmas holidays and they're going to come back and have to do exams and that means here we go again with a bunch of review and stuff yeah so I thought we had decided in the past and this has been going on for a long
299time that it would be a good idea this in fact an excellent idea to end it before the end of the semester and it looks like now it's being carried on until at least January the 20th so this year and last year were the first years that we carried the calendar where we ended first semester before the um December Break um that is very popular with a lot of students but once we um took into consideration the overall impact and the overall impact is you end up with very imbalanced um um significant imbalances within the semesters and so you might have um your first semester will you have 72 or 73 days of instruction and your second semester will you have 93 days of INR instruction and then when you take into consideration the additional
300loss time because of exams um it makes it even more difficult those were conversations and considerations given um but what I will say is that when presented with the calendars as they are they were unanimously um approved by the calendar committee okay and and also another question on what about the Kate Pier Community College and UNCW where they start much earlier how are we going to do that with the students there so we have um taken a look at that and we do have quite a few of our high school students who take um the career in college promised courses but we've talked with our High School principles and asked them to be very intentional in building out those student schedules so that um students who are taking courses in the fall as well as
301in the spring will will in all cases possible mirror that schedule that will um not negatively impact them so they won't have to necessarily over um um have courses that are um can't come up with the word that that are are where they're in the community college course in the high school course at the same time know why the word is escaping me will they be able to start early when the when the cap Fear Community College and the uh University start because if we don't start I mean their their classes started first of January around this so the word I was looking for is overlap so I apologize for why escaped me so prior to this year in the year before we had children who were success successfully navigating um those courses so again
302we're asking our High School principles to make accommodations for those students and building out um their coursework creative scheduling excuse me creative scheduling yes and then also um Mr Boer has volunteered to be AIS on with us for the cap Cur Community College so that we can work with those professors so that they're not negatively impacting our students if a student has to miss a class because they have a high school course that they have to attend so um I feel very confident that we have navigated through those situations okay so right it'll be interesting to see how it works out and then be able to revisit it if it's successful it is yes we will definitely keep track um and date on that because again we don't want to NE L impact children by
303any decision that we've made but we do believe that the calendars that we're presenting to you this evening are such that they are in the overall best interest of all the students of the district okay thank you um yes you had said I mean I love the calendars I mean the the the time at the end at the end of each grading period I think is going to be so beneficial um and now that we've done this parents will have plenty of time to you know arrange for those you know daycare options that they need I heard you say the extended hours calendar so does that mean we're going to school longer each day or do I misunderstand so yes so we've added um essentially 10 minutes to the school day to compensate for the
304reduced number of of days within the calendar um calendar law um establishes that we either attend 185 days or we um have 1,25 um scheduled hours and so we don't attend 125 days so we build out um an instructional day that's slightly longer than what we typically would have just simply by 10 minutes and that is time that we bank so say for instance if we have an the inclement weather event where we have to miss a couple of days of school superintendent can make the decision that we're not going to have to make up that day just simply because we have a bank we've banked that additional time so we do this to ensure that we're in liance with calendar law thank you yes ma'am all right uh is there a motion to approve
305the calendars as presented for 2022 2023 so moved thank you Mr bullier second second thank you Mr wildor any additional discussion all those in favor say I I I all those opposed thank you and I would be remiss if not a special thank you to Cherry Smith who actually creates all of these calendars she's not here thank you okay next item on the agenda policies for first reading Mr Buller Madam chair this is for information purposes only before you you see the policies for first reading uh absent any questions um again they are on for first reading and they will be available on our website uh for the next 30 or so days until our next meeting all right thank you very much Mr Boer chair have a question are there any of these policies
306do you think we should spay special ition to there was nothing that jumped out to me no thank you all right the item of the evening that I most excited for election of board chairperson and vice chair I will now pass the gavel to Dr F to conduct the election for board chair in a moment I will call for nominations for the office of chair of the New Hanover County Board of Elections nominations do not require a second if more than one person is nominated the board will vote on nominees in the order of nominations the first person to receive a majority of board members present is elected chair nominations are in order for the office of board chair are there any nominations Stephanie Walker chair okay thank you and I would like to nominate
307Stephanie kill for chair good for are there any other nominations if not nominations for the office of board chair are closed we will now vote on nominees in order of nomination those in favor of Stephanie Walker as chair say I I I we want to do a roll call okay we can do a Miss bu I'm sorry can we do a roll call Miss Adams no Mr Boer no Miss Justice yes Miss crille no Mr mcmanis no Miss Walker yes and Mr wildor no those in favor of Stephanie cray vote I those oppos say no Miss Adams I Mr Buller I miss Justice no Miss kill yes Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker no and Mr wildbore no Stephanie crille is elected Chair by a vote of five to two three deor said no oh I'm
308sorry count can he do that four to three yeah can he say no to both nominees yes okay sorry I need to correct that four to three oh no I'll pass the gavel to Stephanie crille congratulations thank you congratulations thank you can I have the script oh sorry thank you okay so now nominations are in order for the office of Vice chair are there any nominations I'll nominate Stephanie Walker are there others all right hearing none the nominations for the office of Vice chair are closed um so all those in favor of Stephanie Walker as Vice chair please say I according to the roll call Miss kryo oh I why am I going first Miss Adams hi Mr Boer hi Miss Justice hi Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes and Mr wbore yes congratulations okay
309yeah congratul so the vote was 7 to zero um congratulations Miss W thank you Miss c um oh that's me now okay so moving on to the um the next section we um have the superintendent report oh do we want to take a break actually a we're close to the end why are we going to break audit the audit that's why saying yeah let's do a quick break yeah okay take quick break Madam chair all right thank you madam ex-chair yes former chair yes grooving um board members can we make it back to our seats please Nita are we are we good okay okay um welcome back let's go we'll continue on in the agenda to item number no 16 superintendent's report information audit presentation M do what oh I'm sorry sorry messing up already
310of course number the um no yeah nobody's here well yes everybody's here is important so um yes so um number um item 15 information the 2021 audit presentation oh my God that's like thank you you just didn't want to hear anymore very important no we do we do want to hear because we know it's be awesome um in just a moment I'm going to introduce our speaker but I did want to mention to you at your at your place is our um annual comprehensive financial report for this past year um so if you have any questions about it feel free to call me um our audit partner um April Adams is on zoom and she is going to present um the results of the audit and then either of us at the end can answer
311any questions you have so April thank you you guys hear me okay oh yeah there you go awesome well good evening um I I am excited to be here to deliver the results of the 2021 audit let's go on to the next slide um so what I'd like to cover with you tonight is just to briefly remind you what the role of the external auditor is um I'd like to tell you what we do when it comes to internal controls uh identify the significant audit areas um identify which programs be deemed to be the major programs related to single audit which is the federal and state Grant dollars um that you guys have spent a lot of time talking about tonight uh and then I'll cover uh just the key highlights which is basically the
312results of the audit and then I'll be glad to I'll do a quick summary and then um take any questions all right let's go to the next slide so the role of the external auditor we perform your audit in accordance with the generally accepted auditing standards of the United States as well as the governmental auditing standards um and so both of those standards require that we plan and perform procedures to obtain reasonable assurance that your financial statements are free from Material misstatement um and what that means basically is that we perform a risk based audit and um that we are focusing in our procedures on where those uh where your financial statements are uh most susceptable to being being materially misstated and therefore we're not testing every single transaction that that flowed through the organization
313throughout the year once we've performed all of our procedures we are required to express opinions uh we actually Express four separate opinions for the school board one for each set of auditing standards that we um are performing the audits under as well as one uh two different compliance opinions one for federal and one for the state Grant dollars that test uh the audit sceners also require us to communicate certain things to you as the board and we do that in a couple ways one tonight is the presentation and the other way is through uh a letter that accompanies your financial statement the types of things that we're required to communicate with you are um you know that we maintained our independence um if there were significant changes in accounting policies that occurred throughout the year
314um we identify if any Journal enturies were uh identified during the audit and um it also identifies what the sign significant estimates are within your financial statements all right let's go to the next slide so for internal controls we don't actually Pine on your internal controls but we are required under those audit standards to do quite a bit of work or related to internal controls and then report to you if we find any deficiencies related to um what we went through and so what we do is we identify significant transaction cycles and as you can imagine that's how does you know cash get dispersed throughout the year how does cash get received throughout the year how does payroll get paid um and then finally the financial close which basically means how does the information get
315out of that Financial system and into those statements that you have in front of you um so we look at all the controls around that and what we do is we get all the policies to procedures and we walk through those key controls a test of one and then from there we decide if we actually want to test any controls um related to those significant transaction Cycles as um as a way to gain additional Assurance on looking we're we're testing audit areas for um Assurance on those whether they're materially stated correctly or not um audit senors also require us to do certain things for journal entries and so we get what we call a data dump of all the journal entries that happen throughout the year um and then we mine that using um a
316system looking for unusual transactions and then from there we'll pull those trans those journal entries and look for the supporting documentation the business case the accounts used um and then you know obviously if they're um properly approved or not and then finally the audit signat requires to do things for it controls so um basically we're looking at the system and is it protected and is it um secured and backed up appropriately in order to to maintain all the financial information um should anything uh happen to the system in some way all right let's go to the next slide okay so uh as I mentioned we do a risk based audit and so that means that we're we're in our judgment determining what the significant audit areas are where we think the financial statements are most
317susceptable to being materially misstated and and most of the time that's going to be the bigger dollar amounts you see um in your financial statements because you've got to get to that material material number um and so I've listed in the first two columns here what we deem to be significant audit areas and what that means is that we are testing those substantively so we are using a combination of either confirming with a third party uh we could be looking at the analytics of the numbers looking comparing current year to Prior year or comparing Things based on what we know um that's occurred throughout the year or if we have have to we can do a test to details where we're pulling a a sample and actually pulling all the supporting documentation and reviewing that
318so part of our assurance and then I listed these other items because I don't want you to think we don't look at things like Capital assets or debt um but uh they're just not tested um at to the extent that these other items are all right so single audit this is a major portion of the work that we do uh this is where the the school board is administering these these federal and state programs um these are the ones that we deem to be met major federal and state programs there's seven of them um the cross cutting cross cuts across a lot of the requirements for those federal funds and so that's what that means but so if you were to count there's actually eight but the cross cutting is a part of all the
319testing for those other four Federal programs um and what we're doing is there's 14 compliance requirements and we're testing the controls for each of those um as well as the requirements for each of those that are deemed direct material to the program R move on to the next slide please so key highlights here's what everybody really wants to know uh the results of the audit so as I mentioned we issue those four opinions all four opinions are what we call unmodified opinion or clean opinion um that's that's the results that you want um that's the best results you can get that is our Assurance that's the highest level of assurance that we can give you that your financial statements are free from all those material M statements we were looking for um as well as
320in compliance so you're in comp compliance of administering all those Federal State dollars as well um as far as internal controls as I mentioned we don't app on them but we do not have any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses to report to you as a result of our review of all those internal controls and for single audit uh we did report one finding related to single audit it's related to the the North Carolina pre kindergarten program um for eligibility it's it the finding is deemed to be a non-material non-compliance it was one instance um from the sample that we selected where a health assessment wasn't filed um within the 30 days of when the child entered the program and so we're just required to report that um we had that finding um and then as
321for adjustments so during the audit noj adjusting journal entries um came about as a result of our procedures and so um that means that there are again good internal controls of processes in place to properly capture all the financial activity of the school board throughout the year let's go to the next slide so in summary here's what you should take away from tonight's presentation clean opinions that there were no misstatements identified um there was the one compliance finding no uh issues with internal control so no significant deficiencies or mature weaknesses and this is just my chance to thank management for um all their cooperation as you can imagine it's testing all those State and Grant dollars um state and federal Grant dollars it's a lot of information that we ask and it's it's a little
322Rel relent list that goes from uh we start in in April or May and it goes all the way through to the end of October and sometimes into November so uh we just appreciate them um continuing to give us all the documentation that we need and last slide and that's just open for questions yes Mr Boer yes uh I asked two questions uh after every audit U and you know just approximately how many organizations do you audit each year me personally or the firm the firm uh it's probably somewhere around I'm going to say 1,500 okay yeah thank you uh and you know in your opinion how would you assess the Financial Health of new Handover County Schools I would uh I would say that it's healthy I mean I'm sure as you know this
323the school board is unique in in the fact that um you're you're given your school facilities from the county and you're heavily relying on the federal and state dollars and dollars that come from the county to operate and so um given that I think that the organization is is healthy as they're you know using those dollars um as budgeted thank you very much and as always a small thank you very much for your leadership of our financial system thank our staff that did all the work all this information and working with April's team um especially Karen McCall who was instrumental in putting this document together and um the rest of our team so any other questions Miss Justice yeah um this is required by law or do we do this because we want to make
324sure our organization's healthy it it is required by law okay and it is set it is required well still good to know we're healthy um how much that's how much does that usually cost per year for an audit like this I'm not going to remember off the top of my head it's probably in the $60 to $70,000 rate range um April you probably know exactly how much we paid you it's been a while since we did that contract as as it gets more more complex it I I do believe that you're correct it's in that $60,000 range I believe or less yeah okay and I guess I'll just follow up with question so um this is a standardized process usually and and how you go about it and your outcomes like you're reporting to us
325now correct certified and the government says this is the way it needs to be done is that correct yeah uh the LGC which is the local government commission out of the state treasurers offic is what require has the law that requires um the audit be conducted during the year you know within the it's within four months of the year end um it's required and there's a 30-day grace period so really five months um and and we follow the audit standards as I mentioned the governmental auditing governmental auditing standards and the auditing standards of the Jal accepted in the United States and so those tell tell us how how to audit the organization okay thank you and I would just mention in addition to to this audit um the federal programs working through DPI also come
326and audit us throughout the year okay um thank you Mary Hazel and April um appreciate your time and effort to um make sure that we have good clean books my pleasure good night good night good night was late okay all right so now we're moving on to item number 16 the superintendent's report 14 can I not read right what am I do okay she is it 16 after three years we finally have a budget I want to thank Mary Hazel and her team for work and dedication that they have been doing over the past months to ensure that our staff receiv receives their bonuses and ret from pay with the state budget we now look forward to making additional improvements across the district um a start to this will be with the compensation study currently
327being done uh within our our district led by Dr Barnes and the Human Resources Division the study is expected to be completed in February at which time we will have to decide the prioritization of the data collected members of the classified advisory committee attended the compensation study firm last week to express their concerns and priorities next week our high school students will begin the end of course and CTE final exams I wish them all the best the communications division will be promoting good testing habits and how to handle test anxiety across our social media accounts and to the students throughout this week and next last week we held last year we held a districtwide spirit week during the last week before winter break during the week of December 13th we will do the same details
328and themes will be released on Friday in the inside nhcs last year we raised 3,000 pounds of peanut butter and jelly for nourish andc for families in need around our community this year I challenge our district to raise 4,000 pounds also I um want us to take a look at our TA who have fouryear degrees and work with through our um human resources to see if they are eligible for lateral entry if they're interested in teaching um last week or starting last week members of senior staff have been covering lunch duties for elementary schools across the district this past Friday I covered lunch duty at Rachel Freeman and any chance um I get or well I think not only did I get any chances but um because I think I was outperformed by um HR
329he had more students around him than I did at the table um so any chance I get to spend time with students we definitely do enjoy it so we will have we have a schedule and we'll be going out to other elementary schools and it was just great to be out at Rachel Freeman last Friday and give their teachers a break and the unique part was that the teachers did not want to leave their students like we' got them and they kept confirming are you sure and iach it's like I am a certain teacher like I can so we um there were um it was Josh Chris uh Dawn and myself um were out there at free Rich Freeman on last week and so the next schedule the others will will go so we'll definitely
330be giving updates and sharing the fun and I'm sure there'll be pictures to follow thank you can you add the board members on to that cover and lunch I think I think we could probably handle it maybe sure sure okay thank you for that all right so um next on our agenda is the board chairs report and um so yay this is my first one thank you um first of all my my first statement is I we need to just um take a moment to wish board member Mr mcmanis a very happy birthday tomorrow birthday here he told me I'd have to kill me if I told you how old he was but um he's older than me old he's much more mature than me so um so first of all I I have some
331thank yous that I'd like to say um first of all to my board of education colleagues for having the confidence in me you know to lead us this year um to Stephanie Adams for your leadership and service over the past year and a half um as our board chair and then also to Stephanie Walker for her desire and willingness to um serve and Lead um in any capacity and so she was elected as our board Vice chair and I'm very happy to have her as my partner second I look forward to working with each and every one of you guys um and leading us in a collaborative way so that we can focus on the work of um what's best for students and um I'm I'm Feeling Good Vibes already I know that we as
332a board um are going to disagree and we're going to have to debate issues before making decisions and setting policy but I don't want us to be disagreeable as we do that so um I'm going to work really hard and um Stephanie's going to work really hard with me um to do that so that we can be professional and supportive of each other um knowing that we have the opportunity now and the responsibility to model good behavior that's um for our students and our staff and our community so um it will be a challenge but we we are up for it um and I want every member of our community to feel that they um that and and our school system employees that they all have a voice and that voice matters to us so
333tonight we've heard a lot you know about um the emerging set of plans for our strategic plan and the priorities that we need to do so I I would encourage you know everybody who is a um member of our community and a member of our school district to um take the surveys because now is your opportunity and you know the emails are good but if we can Co all the data together then we could really appreciate you know your input and I just want to reiterate that I'm I'm committed to making sure that we have opportunities um for us to listen with respect and empathy and to have meaningful two-way conversations and communication um with open and honest discussion which um I know we can do and I know we want to do so again
334I look forward to Leading this board with the assistance and support of Stephanie Walker um and all of you um and we have challenges ahead of us we do but I think by working together um and collaboratively on focusing on our students then um we're going to find the solutions that we need so um thank you very much for that okay so now the um Nelson I'm reading off the updated one so um for the numbers so the um we are on to 18 committee reports um does anybody have any committee reports that um they need to share with us from board committees Madam chair the only thing I just wanted to mention I don't have the the DAT dates in front of me I did give on Miss Adams a copy my only copy
335that um Dr Smith gave me but our EDI meetings are going to be quarterly now and our next one is going to be January and I don't have the exact date on that but um we have done a restructuring this year and Dr Smith has done a wonderful job with that and so um there going to be some exciting things happening in the EDI realm coming up in the next year so I just wanted to go ahead and mention that our meetings are changed so some people have questions by we we cancel December okay thank you all right so correspondence does um does anybody have any of that you received anything that you noteworthy that we need just talk about okay then um call the audience we're not doing we already combined um under announcements
336um the following board related meetings will be held during the month of December so first EDI will not be held in the month of December so we're going to go ahead and use start off with that um policy committee will meet on Tuesday December 14th at 9:00 a.m. in the Board of Education Center um but we we do it via Zoom you know so you can you know tune in to watch that um the via the new H County Schools tv YouTube channel the family Communications committee will meet on Thursday December the 16th at 5:00 pm for a Roundtable discussion um in Via Zoom that we will um do that the audience well the audience seating capacity is 70 but we're not going to be here so the um the general public will again have
337the opportunity to watch that on new har County Schools tv YouTube channel um the title 9 committee will also not meet in the month of December so um next on the agenda is um a second close session um pursuant to state statute 143-30570 consider Personnel matters and maintain the confidentiality of personnel records and consult with the board's attorney and do I do a motion to do that okay um do I have a motion to take us into close session so move um thank you Mr Boer um is there a second second second Miss Adams thank you um all those do we just say all in favor do we vote on that or just all in favor I okay any opposed okay we are officially in closed session session okay the last thing on our agenda
338Tonight is the last thing on our agenda tonight is adjournment um hearing no opposition to adjourning I am going to adjourn the [Applause] meeting