NHCS Board of Ed. Regular Meeting | Oct. 5

001all right I would like to call this meeting to order this is the October regular board meeting of the new Haner County Board of Education Miss buoy could you please call the role good afternoon Stephanie Adams here Nelson Boer here Judy Justice here Stephanie crille here he mcmanis here Stephanie Walker here and Pete wildbore thank you we have a quum and we will continue uh before we get started just a reminder for those of you that are here uh in the Boe Center please remember that we are requesting masks on all uh individuals that are in the building this evening that means a mask must need to be over your nose and under your chin um if you do not want to wear a mask this evening we ask that um you please leave the

002premises and this meeting is being streamed live um on YouTube so you are able to watch it um in the comfort of your home thank you all right the first item on this evening's agenda is a work session uh head start training and I believe we are going to invite Miss Shannon smiles to the microphone to get us started good evening board members and thank you so much for this important information um I'm Shannon Smiles director of early childhood education and this is my colleague um I'm Patricia berer I'm here to um assist she in this presentation so um Patricia presents Statewide and nationally so um she um and I have been working together for over 20 years so thank you for coming with me um so quickly um we are going to be going

003over Head Start 101 which is required we're going to talk a little bit about policy Council and shared governance which are board members and then policy Council elected parents um so then we'll look a closer look at our department across the district not just head start funding and we'll take a peek at Federal reviews and what that looks like and we will be having one in January come up soon and then open up to questions and answers so um Patricia take it away all right thank you and thank you all again for your time and attention this afternoon um just as Shannon mentioned she just went over agenda of glance we're going to be talking about headst start and for many of you many of you know that it is a federally funded preschool program

004for lower income children and their families um the focus for Head Start is not just Early Education though a strong emphasis is placed on Health Nutrition mental health family services and disability services and here in New Hanover County you serve children who are three and four years old for Head Start there's an application process and children must qualify the two the two things that determine eligibility for Head Start are age and income um 10% of your enrollment must include children with individualized education plans or children with special needs here looking at the North Carolina landscape um North Carolina serves about 22,000 children through its Head Start program there are 53 grantees in the state of North Carolina 15 are leas I.E school districts like yourself we're all regulated by Head Start program performance standards and

005we're audited by the office of Head Start and all components so that is a federal perspective to look at head start Beyond North Carolina um there are more than 1,700 Head Start programs across the United States um Head Start exists in all 50 states as well as the US um territories of Guam the US Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the federal um funding for his start is more than12 billion tonight we're going to really be focusing on your responsibilities as a board of education or board of directors and how you share governance with your policy Council um when we say the term Shar governance of course it's a term used to describe the process of shared decision making between bodies at oversee a program and it is requirement as relates to

006the federal expectations for any grantee um serving Head Start children as you know you're the board of directors you're the group with the legal and financial responsibility for the entire School System including his start um a lot of times you'll see that we refer to board of directors you know that's you as a board of educ here in New Handover County this is directly from the federal performance standards that regulate again those 1700 programs I mentioned across the country the board has to be composed of a member with a background and expertise in financial management or accounting a member of a board shall be an attorney and a member shall have a background and expertise in early childhood development however the office of Head Start Start Grants exceptions to school board grantees and governmental en

007entities because you have elected officials right so we know that you don't have to necessarily meet these thresholds though I believe in a lot of instances you do um because you're an elected board of directors the policy Council which is a group that you work with is comprised of parent representatives from Johnson prek and Community reps the community reps cannot exceed the number parents u in representation and um there's also a school board liaison a member of your board of education here Mr um Nelson is your liaison and in addition school um School Employees are not eligible to serve on this Council because it would be a conflict of interest the main reason the Federal Regulations um have this policy Council concept is to make sure that parents have a say in the Head Start

008program I apologize for keep doing this with my mask this is a new mask I just got so I apologize thank you the board liaison role um his role is to ensure and facilitate communication between the governing body which is you the board of directors and the head St policy Council and he works really really hard to share to facilitate the shared governance process and he brings monthly information from the board to the policy Council and vice versa the shared responsibilities include the board you as the Board of Education have to approve procedures at def find the way that you will work with the policy Council and share decision making this is again this is directly from Federal Regulations you have to administer and oversee the Head Start program of course Safeguard federal funds and

009participate fully in the development planning and evaluation of the Head Start program and of course ensure program compliance you also must approve service plans annually and approve the selection criteria for children to be enrolled in the program again the two things that determine eligibility are age and income but there are other criterias that we look at to make sure that the children with the greatest need are served first you also have to approve all funding and refunding applications for federal headst start funds and also approve uh human resource reports for headstar staff you will probably recognize that you receive a lot of information from Miss miles um about Head Start and the reason is real really clear two reasons really want to make sure that you're informed as a board of directors again with that

010legal and financial responsibility but also because it is a federal requirement you're required to receive monthly financial statements you're required to receive monthly program information summaries also monthly enrollment reports including attendance and for your information as many of you may know that we are required to have 85% average daily attendance of students in the Head Start program if not explanation has to be given to the office of Head Start you are also um required to meet your funded enrollment you're receiving you're funding on a cost per child basis and so that is a reason why the program enrollment and attendance reports are so important you're also to receive monthly reports of meals and snacks and hence tonight training on your roles and responsibilities all right we'll take a closer look at your and complete Early

011Education Program now so um thank you Patricia I I I get this super fun part so we're going to take a closer look at what we do at a district level so the early childhood education we serve 918 students across the district we have 56 classrooms we have seven Public School sites and we have 10 private sites and that is you guys this is the work that we are doing together and you have to celebrate this because early intervention and the work that we do is critical to trans transitioning into kindergarten and the development at a very young age um we also act as the Head Start Grant which you know um but we are the contract Agency for the state and we have a partnership with the county so this allows us to provide

012the community with these comprehensive services with three and foury olds we are curriculum driven we're required to follow an Evidence Bas curriculum this year we're very grateful for enhanced curriculums to help us with our math and literacy we follow a North Carolina state standard course of study so there's some road maps there that we have to follow social emotional learning is critical especially coming out of a pandemic we have to learn how to play with one another again we have to learn how to self-regulate we have to adapt routines so that's so critical to the child development in our three and four yearold classrooms we do formative assessment we have data that tells a story of our growth we measure progressions we do checkpoints beginning of the year middle of the year end of the

013year and we measure that growth and we we do staff patterns based on the data that we report on we do professional development based on that data we're family focused and that's very important we do home visits we build these relationships at a very very young age with our families and we provide parent engagement night and we do family conferences not only parent conferences family conferences health is very important Dental mobile partnership we do screening and exams on our students that's that preventive care that is very necessary to get healthy before we learn when we look into our classrooms it's important to know we do three and foury olds in this Lea District a lot of school systems only serve four year-olds with our comprehensive program we get the ability to serve three-year-olds and hopefully

014have have these children for 2 years we have currently housed our Head Start children at Johnson prek the largest prek Center in our district we have BK licensed teachers we have a teacher and teacher assistant in every classroom low ratios suspension and expulsions are not allowed in any of our funding sources so looking more closely at Head Start is our department ECE EC is housed under instruction and academic accountability so sometimes that looks different for leas and we feel like it's a great fit for us um and it talks a little bit about our budget that you know um but I want you to know that a high percentage of this budget goes towards salaries in our classrooms um which is very important when when we get audited and go through those critical processes um

015very little in admin we're direct service Grant we're not like Title One it comes Direct ly to us so we get those direct Head Start continued um Wanted just to show you specialized services that we do do we do bus safety we have our teacher assistants ride our buses we do Heights and weights to see um where the children are if they're obese or underweight then we get them on a specialized plan again early intervention and prevention um we do mental health observations for those who are referred um and then look looking at New Hanover County Board liaison so we do report the liaison report through the email and we do do this monthly and it requires us to report on our expenditures um and we're looking a little bit different this year we are

016going to report quarterly on districtwide data and information on all of our students so that our community and board members are aware of the the whole picture of the services that we do across the district within our seven public and 10 private sites so I think that's going to look a little bit different but for the good for the betterment so Federal mon monitoring process um thought it would be very helpful to share this with you class is mandated and that's a tool that we use or required to score a certain score on in order to continue our funding and want you to know in previous years we scored very high outstanding numbers um of course we go through en environmental health and safety physical Integrity we've got the best team we do Ursa which

017is enrollment and eligibility to make sure that these kiddos qualify and it's just not Aunt Aunt Betty's kiddos and then Management systems and governance which is us tonight and management system within our districtwide with those Department leads designation renewal system is the DRS list um and that is something that is looked at at the end of your five-year program and we will be finishing up our five-year program in 2023 so I put my email there in case there are any further questions or answers in the best interest of our time and being out of respectfulness um but we really wanted to thank your services and support for this Head Start Grant and the continued support for the expansion of early childhood education as we do know the importance of this work that we do we

018are having November 4th and we will put it in our monthly report next week we are having a follow-up training for our parents and policy councils that are going to be newly elected this year so any questions if we want to show up at Johnson at 5:30 on November 4th you are more than welcome um and please I do work for the community and for the board so please reach out if you have any questions and thank you again for your attention Thank you very mil uh any questions or comments from the board I'd like to just thank uh Miss miles and her whole staff for an outstanding job so thank you very much thank you Mr wi debor Madam chair yeah I just wanted to add my thanks Miss Smiles um I've had the

019privilege of working with you uh these past two and a half years and uh you know speaking before I think we mentioned that this is the most impactful moment in a child's life this is when we can do the most good get the most bang for buck in terms of efficacy with our dollars spent and so I'm just looking forward to see the direction that you take it the next two and a half years and Beyond because great work is happening with these kids and uh I know that you guys will be at your best as we emerge from this pandemic so thank you very much thank you for allowing us to take the lead in the state thank you very much thank you all right you weren't kidding you guys rocked through that that

020was amazing all right moving along Mr mcmanis let you make you you happy we rolling all right uh next item on the agenda um is our invocation and I would like to invite Pastor Alberto Raa from igia Roa to provide our in ocation for this evening everyone if you could please stand thank you everybody for invitation okay close your as in Hispanic okay [Music] in for contr GL God bless you America amen amen thank you so much please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for 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 uh do I hear

021a motion or any changes yes I um have a change I'd like to offer for the agenda um could we please move the um information item um what is it number 11 b um Legal Services up to um right after the recognition call the audience sure and the the reason for that is that that's legal services for our attorney to speak to the to the board um okay so you are is are you making a you're making a motion I'm making a motion to um add that to the agenda or make that change to the agenda so move Legal Services um in see 11 old business B so 11 B to before call to the audience yes all right is there a second I'll second thank you Mr Buller any discussion all right uh all

022those in favor say oh sorry Mr MCM sorry okay uh all those in favor say I I all those opposed all right that item will be moved in front call to the audience any other yes Mr mcmanis i' like motion the agenda I think we need to discuss and possibly V on school climate survey School think we need to hear the of individual so you would like to add an item uh any particular place any what under what area are you looking to add that item new business new business wouldn't it yeah new business under new business business all right so the motion is to add an item uh climate survey under new business is there a second second thank you Mr wior any discussion um I think it's a great idea but I'm more

023concerned I think there's a wider concern across the district and I think this is a great first step but I think we need to move faster from what I'm hearing in the schools um and I would like to amend that to also have a special session to discuss not just the climate but the morale in our schools uh as soon as possible um not wait for a survey to come out and be sent but actually have that discussion before we send the climate survey out or is that an amendment to the agenda to discuss a a meeting uh to dis just have a special meeting to discuss the situation with morale and climate in our schools point of order mad Amendment the discussion is on the amendment um if this was an amendment to that

024Amendment that's one thing but otherwise we have to vote on this amendment one second I can't hear you wa hold on and let's let's take a quick recess until this calms down out here please and we we'll take five minutes masks are required in this building over your nose and under your chin if you do not do that you are going to be asked to leave so please make sure your masks are fitted properly and ma'am are you you do not do you have a face shield on you okay all right I couldn't see it's kind of see-through so got it thank you down all right we are going to continue we were in the middle of a Amendment um to have an additional meeting I believe but this is an amendment for the agenda

025so the request was to um add an item about a climate survey there was a second um Miss Justice when we I feel like there may be a time that we can discuss the additional meeting um let's see what our looking at the agenda where that conversation could maybe be added into as it relates to some of the things that we're talking about this evening I think that we can have that conversation if it's assured that it will happen I've had people I'm sorry ma'am thank you excuse me you are not to be speaking during this portion of the meeting you will be asked to leave thank you put your mask above your nose thank you all right so not an amendment for the meeting but we'll be able to discuss it as the evening

026goes on tonight okay so the motion is for a climate survey we have a second is there any other discussion I I think it's a great idea we've got some issues and at this point the district deserves to understand what's happening because our staff St deserves a better situation they're very stressed all right so this would be item h under new business climate survey uh all those in favor say I I I all those opposed all right climate survey has been added under new business item H uh any other items for the agenda uh Madam chair yes uh just request that we move item 13A Head Start start 2020 2021 program information report uh into our consensus agenda as item number L all right so the motion is to move Head Start into consensus items

027because it is an action item this evening is there a second second thank you Miss Walker any discussion all right all those in favor say I oh sorry I'm looking at some sorry I wrote something else down my apologies all right uh so so approval of the agenda with the Amendments as presented uh is there a motion moved thank you Mr bullier is there a second second thank you Mr wildbore uh any other discussion right all those in favor say I I all those opposed agenda is approved next item on the agenda is a closed session pursuant to North Carolina General statutes 14331 18.11 a13 and 8 to consider Personnel matters and to maintain the confidentiality of personnel records under North Carolina General statutes 115 C- 319 and- 321 to consult with the board's attorney

028to preserve attorney client privilege information including in the case caption John do V New Hanover County Board of Education at Al New Hanover County Superior Court case number 19- cbs-2052e Improvement plans do I hear a motion move for close session pursuant to the statutes thank you Mr Buller is there a second second uh we'll go with Mr wior uh any other discussion right all those in favor say I I all those opposed we are in closed session thank you e we're good all right welcome back thank you for your patience through that prolonged closed session uh our next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes and these are minutes for the September regular board meeting and the September interim board meeting do I hear a motion so moved thank you Mr Buller is

029there a second thank you Mr mcmanis any discussion all those in favor say I I all those opposed minutes are approved next item on the agenda always a high point the recognitions and achievements uh Mr Josh Smith if you would like to come to the microphone please Madame chair board members Dr F colleagues and guests good evening first up we have Noble Middle School Noble Middle School under the leadership of Dr Anita Brown is committed to creating an environment that Embraces and encourages all students they embody the Sandy Hook promise not just during one week of the year throughout the entire year their efforts have not gone unnoticed the school's save promise Club is the recipient of the youth encouragement award from the Sandy Hook promise organization the club has achieved recognition on the Sandy

030Hook promises National website and social media channels and was awarded $250 we applaud the students and staff dedicated to working toward the future where children are free from acts of violence in their schools homes and communities so please [Applause] thank you so much [Applause] next up we have Miss Amy Steelman for the past three years Star news and the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce 40 under 40 have been recognizing the Trailblazers within our community new han County Schools is pleased to have had a District staff member on that list each of those years tonight we recognize Amy Stillman e8th grade teacher at M Murray middle school for her recognition and induction into the 40 under 40 class of [Applause] thank you m [Applause] dman next up we have Mr Brian Hickman the North Carolina space education

031ambassadors program is building a Statewide network of Master Teachers Who deliver NASA educational content to their local students schools and communities the program partners with NASA to provide Educators with intensive professional development in current NASA NextGen stem 13 teachers across the entire state were selected as ambassadors and the district is pleased to recognize Brian Hickman Ashley high school math department chair and teacher as one of those individuals additionally Mr Hickman will be attending a trip to NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton Virginia with his Ambassador cohorts to tour the facilities and learn from NASA scientists engineers and education specialists in person the trip is scheduled for summer 2022 Mr [Applause] Hickman and lastly I just want to briefly acknowledge Miss Rachel Norfleet a secondy year beginning teacher at rful Beach Elementary she will represent the

032district at the North Carolina Center for the advancement of teaching beginning teacher of the year State Awards thank you very much thank you very much congratulations to all of our recognitions this evening you make new han County Schools extremely proud all right the next item on the agenda um is the uh amended item for legal services and I believe that we have Mr uh Rick sharpless on zoom and he is going to share with us um his role uh as one of our legal Consultants Mr sharpless I'm going to pass this to you this was an item that was requested uh by board member Justice uh regarding your role with us in the board oops sound oh you're muted sir how's that thank you perfect great uh thank you Miss Adams thank you members of

033the board for inviting me um yes I'm Rick sharpless I'm an attorney I practice law based in greensb North Carolina and uh throughout my career I've been advising indid IND individuals and uh institutions who find themselves involved in significant litigation uh some of that has involved uh issues of insurance coverage some of it has uh been independent of insurance coverage uh in any event I was asked to consult by the with the north with the new uh Hanover County Board of Education in this matter because uh in the underlying case brought by John do 1-13 there uh had been a bit of an impass reached with the board's liability insurance company the board had purchased and paid for liability insurance through Liberty Mutual insurance company and some of its constituents it have paid significant premiums

034for this coverage and uh the board I'm sure believed at the time that it was purchasing protection for itself and for those who might be injured um by purchasing this insurance when the John do case came along and for those who uh may be wondering what I'm referring to it's the case that involves Mr Kelly's victims um who alleged various acts of molestation and other improper behavior um when that case came along Liberty uh took a very hard position that there would be only $4 million of insurance coverage made available I was initially asked to evaluate the merits of Liberty's position on that I disagreed with that position I believe that there is significantly more coverage available than that and in Open Session I probably shouldn't go into the the every detail of that but

035suffice it to say that Liberty takes the position that of insurance policy IES that were purchased through a number of years that only one of those policies will be applicable and only one of the coverage agreements in that policy would apply it's our opinion that multiple policies and multiple coverage agreements apply and therefore there's far more insurance coverage available this has made it very very difficult for the board to uh address the lawsuit brought by the John do there's been a mediation in that lawsuit and the John do through their attorney have made it very clear that they also disagree with Liberty mutual's position and that they are disinclined this time to resolve their case for $4 million or some lesser amount Mr sharpless thank you for that can you please address particularly why you

036were why you were hired um as as an additional legal counsel for the board please certainly uh the uh of course Liberty has paid for defense Council thanington Smith um in the lawsuit but when you're a defense attorney in North Carolina and in Most states you can fully represent your client and in the case of thanington Smith their client is you in defending the underlying lawsuit and there's no restriction on what you can do to defend them in the lawsuit except for one thing which you cannot um become involved if you're being paid by the insurance company you cannot become involved in a dispute between your client that's new Handover and the insurance company that's Liberty Mutual that would be you in a conflict of interest if if you tried to get involved in that

037dispute you're not in a conflict of interest to defend the underlying lawsuit but you are as far as a dispute between the Board of Education and Liberty Mutual and for that reason when it became apparent the new Handover disagreed with Liberty mutual's position and would it would need separate Council to evaluate that position and to make whatever recommendations and take whatever steps needed to be taken from that point forward perfect thank you very much for that clarification uh Mr Shares are there any additional questions from the board no I'm so glad he made it clear though because a lot of people were asking why it was we were hiring and we were supposed to legally were bound to explain that to the public and he's been hired now for a couple months so this you

038know in the future I hope we do faster explanations to the public quicker that's where we want to put it anyone else if not Mr sharpless thank you so much for your time tonight we appreciate you and we will look forward to speaking with you again soon thank you have a nice evening all right moving along with our agenda uh we are moving on to call to the audience m yes is it okay if I is it approprate to make a motion to combine the both the call audiences so we can fit it in with the hour so the agenda and non agenda items into one item for do them all now okay is that that's a second for Mr w deore m Mr sh just a double check are we good with that um

039to combine the the call to the audiences if we change the agenda at this point then we need to have a 2third vote not just simple majority okay is that that's correct cor okay all right so the motion on the floor is to combine the agenda and non-agenda items into the first call to the audience there is a second any discussion right all those in favor say I I all those opposed okay motion passes um we will go with list as listed all right um per board policy 2310 the board will allow up to 1 hour of public comment for call to the audience community members May sign up to speak online beginning Monday October 4th at 8:00 a.m. the sign up list will be full at 30 participants in addition community members May sign

040up to speak 1 hour prior to the board meeting in person five slots will be available those that sign up in person will be eligible to speak based on the remaining time available please be reminded that messages that contain profanity or other derogatory language will not be permitted and the participant may be removed um again just a reminder about the mask mask must remain above your nose and under your chin um while you are doing call to the audience this evening um and this is not a time to answer questions um so as I call your name you may come to the microphone and you have two minutes first excuse me ma'am this is not your time to speak ma'am you're out of order this is your warning if you do not stop speaking I'm

041going to ask you to leave thank you you ask I'm not asking her to leave she is as long as she stops talking if she continues yes I will need her to leave okay can you please remove her deputies thank you first person for call to the audience is Miss Veronica mlen Brown Veronica mcen Brown please good evening why is 4300 discipline policy bad for students it codifies behavior that harms students 18 years ago I chatted with a board member about the harmful effects of suspensions on students they don't care were the last words I heard the question today is do you care I'm beginning to think you don't care about the harmful effects of suspensions on students just as our predecessors didn't care about the harmful impact of sex sexual predators on our children

042school policy should protect children from harm regardless of what is causing the harm second reason policy 43 is just bad it establishes a low threshold for professional Educators 5-year-old babies are thrown out of school for miny infraction such as insubordination a low threshold for suspending students has existed in this school system for 50 years raised the threshold for suspending ages 4 through seven students now third reason 4300 is a bad policy there's a huge discrepancy in the application of the policy each School interprets the policy as they choose the fact was highlighted during the January 12th 2021 policy committee meeting quotes from the policy meeting we got people getting punished or having consequences that don't match the crimes we have such ambig ambiguity in this whole them I have a lot of issues with our

043short-term suspension members numbers over the years those are your words not mine your most important job is to adopt good policy do your job thank you Mercier Christina Mercier good evening teachers are not all right the support staff are not all right in New Hanover County teachers are buying masks for students with their own money in order to keep everyone safe because the ones from the state are so ill-fitting there are schools in this County that are so overcrowded teachers are trying to teach in cafeterias media centers and hallways teachers rarely have planning or prep time due to schools being understaffed and colleagues being sick I'm hearing experienced Educators good professional experienced Educators saying they are done they are not passively but actively looking for careers outside of education teachers have too many demands do

044you know there are still schools in New Hanover County who are telling their teachers they have to do after school tutoring no one volunteered so the teachers were volunt told teachers feel this is too much but teachers are scared of retaliation and that's sad add in prescriptive curriculums that take the originality out of instruction and there's no reason to continue staying I heard this comment recently I don't know what we're doing anymore but it's not teaching and I have even begun to talk about the support staff who are doing all the above accept planning but for less money I went through the Taco Bell drive-thru and saw that they were hiring for up to $18 an hour how does that make a college educated instructional assistant who's assisting a child knowing that child is making

045more at his part-time job than she is as in her career it's shameful it's shameful all around ta's bus drivers cafeteria workers and teachers because when we break it down teachers also are doing that extra work please help improve morale lighten the workload let teachers teach the way they see fit let them build relationships with the kids stop the over testing and fund what they need to do during the school day please give them support without fear of retaliation because if something doesn't change very soon there's not going to be anybody left to teach thank you Peter roit tonight I'll speak about ending suspensions for four five six and seveny old children there was an excellent presentation at last month's NAACP meeting Julie varnum and Susan Cole shared elementary school suspension data they also gave

046an update on their behavior training program here is some of what they shared black students represented 18% of the elementary population but 61% of the out of school suspensions children in kindergarten first in second grade made up 40% of the out of school suspensions those those are five six and seven-year-old children Miss Cole said numbers like this demand action after three full days of training in August they reported that the teams from the 11 participating schools had written or revised a schoolwide behavior plan and had written a plan for office referrals additional all day training sessions have been scheduled for this this week and in November and January also there will be ongoing coaching and site-based problem solving with these teams and their larger staff the school administration is doing their job it's time for

047the Board of Education to do its job revise discipline policy 4300 set high standards for all 26 elementary schools and suspensions of four five six and seveny old children except for guns drugs or a violent assault keep our kids in school thank you Miss yon Denise yanon she will be followed by Mark whad I am a child advocate and retired learning disability specialist who proudly serves differently abled children spoiler alert this CTA is not sexy it's not a headline Grabber or trending on Facebook it won't be the topic of a Saturday Night Live skit many people in this room won't care one bit because this isn't a hidden agenda or a hot button issue it's not about their kids but we only need folks with a heart and a vote to make a real difference

048in real children's lives the sexy topic is the teachers pay increase in all the newly hired teachers the headline Grabber is that new hanur County teachers are the highest paid in North Carolina there is no news coverage or discussion about the critical lack of teach teachers of exceptional children or speech language therapists teachers of a visually impaired teacher assistants and certified long-term substitute teachers for differently abled students we don't talk about the critical shortage of personnel which creates a failure to address the needs of our most vulnerable students but for some that's okay because many EC kids are hidden from view there aren't enough teacher assistant so children with an IEP cannot be part of a regular education experience they don't get to do the things that other children do they don't make the teams

049and the teams don't want them anyway their needs go andm their potential unfulfilled and their Spirits crushed this is the unsexy problem no one wants to discuss can I get an amen and a second to add the topic of Staffing to the agenda so the critical shortage of EC teachers support staff and substitute teachers throughout the school district can be fully investigated and resolved thank [Applause] you Mark Whitehead and Mr Whitehead will be followed by Tasha Thomas uh Dr F members of the boards parents and fellow Educators I am the veteran teacher who sit here in the spring and told you the three reasons for huge failure last fall to refresh they were one the students didn't do any work number two you keep lowering standards for them but giving us more to do that's

050ridiculous I also told you you allow dangerous criminals to roam our hallways that's actually based on an email we got a year and a half ago in the summer about lowering suspensions lastly last Fall's miserable failure right can be attributed to the fact that there was no road map for us when we got to school in August there was nothing for us to do so somebody in central office or some people not everyone I'm saying some people dro the ball very badly there's been no discussion of that however I'm going to talk to you about something different tonight here is Eva MTZ CEO of the success Academy charter schools a cluster of originally all girls charter schools in Harlem they have a 90 plus% articulation rate they consistently score on par with the elite public

051schools in nearby Westchester County where I graduated high school from you may also know that the highest Achievers on the SAT are first generation Asian students with each succeeding generation the scores dip until by the fourth generation the students have scores that rank average among the demographics what does this tell you it tells you that achievement is embedded in culture not race Johnny Ken okay they his family migrated to Los Angeles and opened up a liquor store his father was abusive and ended up being shot by the police in his attic after graduation he went into the Navy articulated into the Seal program went from there to UCLA graduated sumacum Ludi in Premed and then went to Harvard Med School he is currently an astronaut tell me what his privilege was please okay what's the

052point of all this we need to focus on achievement from the students not race ating and excuse making we need to go back to the basics and give these kids discipline and a sense of achievement instead of lowering the bar and giving them a false hope thank you very [Music] much andha Thomas will be followed by Justin Keeny Tasha Thomas right we'll come back to her uh Justin KY back there uh George vasset and Mr vasset will be followed by Barbara [Music] G members of the board Dr fa members of the audience my name is George vasset and I am the first vice president of the NAACP here in town and also a retired public school teacher I'm here today to urge that you keep the mask mandate in place but first I want to

053express our appreciation for your services to our students and our community you have held steadfast to your duties under very trying circumstances and for that you deserve our appreciation please keep up the good work despite the noise of a vocal minority the mass mandate you currently have in place is working it is clear is clearly helping to keep the spread of covid among our students and staff down since the current surge of covid has affected school age individuals in greater numbers than previous surges protecting youth also protects the community as a whole and keeping the mask mandate now hastens the day when we will all no longer need to wear them for those who argue that requiring masks is an infringement on their freedom let me offer the following in the 7 to2 ruling handed

054down by the US Supreme Court in 190 5 in the case of a mandated smallpox vaccination The Honorable judges declared that one man's Liberty cannot deprive his neighbors of their own liberty in this case by allowing the spread of disease writing for the majority Justice Harland noted that real Liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own regardless of the injury it may have done to others in other words a child does not have the right to be maskless if it puts another child's life in danger thank you Barbara Garo Loretta Stackhouse and after Miss stack house it will be Rocky Jeter Webb policy code 1010 defines the authority and duties of the Board of Education the board has General

055control and supervision of matters pertaining to Public Schools it establishes general policies in the school system and formulates goals and objectives especially in defining and setting academic standards for Student Success how is Student Success measured by the percentage of students accomplishing the end of grade test the percentage of students reading on grade level completed when you look at third graders 8-y olds not reading on third grade level do you wonder how many of these students were part of the previous three to four years suspension of four five six and seven year olds do you look at the scores do you think what can we do to improve the results students must be in school to be successful success requires good foundation Foundation starts in Pre and grows suspension of four five 6 and 7even year

056olds does harm longterm harm amend the policy now keep four five six and seven year olds in school see the benefit of the change in the success of the third graders thank you Rocky Peter web Rocky Jeter web and following uh will be Pat Bradford Mr web I'm sorry can you put your mask back on I'm sorry we we've had everyone keep their masks on while they've been up here I I can't speak or breathing this thing but my speak please I I'm sorry I had someone removed because they had their mask off and I'm sorry can you put it back on I can't speak speak but this thing I've got I've got I have to keep order order I have to keep consistent um the the comment I asked her to put her mask

057on and she and I had I had her removed so I need to stay consistent I'm removing mine when I get up there okay I can be respectful Please Mr sh can you weigh in on the excuse me ma'am you ma'am this is not your time to speak Mr shive can you can you please discuss the the law for the mask we can we can acquire speaker excuse me I I can't hear Mr shive we can set our our own requirements for our meetings and we can require that mask be worn um by all individuals in the building and we that can extend to Wi there um when they're speaking as well you're okay well I ma'am I apologize the reason that I had to remove that woman earlier was because she I I said

058we're going to wear our masks and she declined that statement so I will going with our policies I understand that Mr Smith had taken his off too during his speech so you may speak without your mask thank you sorry for the sorry for the misunderstanding okay yes good evening board I stand before before you this evening to ask you what science says that children are at risk for covid if you did the actual re research you would show it would show that masks do not do not protect children or anybody body from this uh Co from this co co if you did the actual research resarch you would know that children are more likely to be struck by lightning than they are of catching Co these masks do not work and we also have found

059out that they are they impl pause one second please pause the everyone has their right to be up here during call to the audience if you disagree what they have to say please keep it to yourself everyone has their First Amendment right to come up here and speak so please keep your comments to yourself please continue thank you okay if you did the actual re research reseearch and not the BS that fouchy is on TV spewing every week you would know that they do not work work so if in the history of our country when have mask ever stopped any type of sickness or illness to that I say have you never read a medical book have you never read a history book or are you just an elect official bureaucrat hungry for power we

060have to to do the actual research on our own that is the only way how we will get through this this okay we cannot rely on the mainstream on the mainstream Media or Dr fouchy or whoever we have to do our own research research and we know that you are implementing critical racek theory into the public schools which is wrong okay it is racist it is a lie and is every bit as racist as the clansmen and white sheets it's a brainwashing racist Marxist theory this has to change okay now either you straighten up get your act together and you listen to the people or we make sure that you lose your seats in the next election election please listen to the people hear what we have to say say and listen to us when

061we tell you we have the knowledge and we have the facts and we have the receipts listen to what we have to say say that is all we ask of you now either listen to us or be prepared to lose your seats in the next election and take the mask off of our children Pat Bradford Pat Bradford and following Miss Bradford will be Katie Gates good evening I'm Pat Bradford I'd like to talk to you about liability you had a gentleman on the screen I was outside looking at it on my phone because I wasn't allowed in and he talked to you about liability you've got insurance and you've got liability but are each one of you each individual person are you prepared to defend yourself in court for the things you do on this

062board will it be worth it to you did you know that just recently Robert Kennedy Jr who is the chairman of the Children's Health defense spoke to ruter University and he talked about the liability and the mandates that the school was making did you know that the first sentence in the nberg code adopted internationally in 1947 on permissible medical experiments point one States the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential you're doing things that people don't agree with you're violating their health rights are you prepared to defend yourself in a court of law you individually not the board because your insurance isn't going to cover you are you prepared to do that Kennedy Warren ruers the liability for forced participation in a medical experiment not to mention the injury from such coerced medical

063intervention may be absolutely off the chart and the expense to the individual person this board has enough legal problems now you individually should consider your liabilities with these mandates standing before a court of law are you prepared to say I didn't know or I was just following the governor's order or the chairperson's order or the superintendent's order are you prepared to do that cuz it won't hold up in court so think about it I don't want any of you to have to go through that good [Applause] night Gates will be followed by Natasha too good evening board my name is Katie Gates and I just wanted to speak to you um about making masks optional I realize that's a monthly choice that you vote on and you probably received hundreds of Articles um government uh

064private and publicly funded ones about mask ineffectiveness I don't want to go there now um I just want to appeal to your Humanity a little bit I did email you all um earlier in the week I have two kids who are in high school here in New Hanover County and they want to be in school they are really excited to be in school but they're suffering because of it um these are pictures of my daughter's ear she's had to wear a mask mask and she's had a rub her back of her ear rubbed raw and it's gotten a fungus on it and it's growing into her hair and down into her face and she didn't tell me about it because she wants to go to school she wants to participate so she has to wear

065the mask well She's suffering we can't even solve it we've been treating it for 21 days and it's still there we have to wait till December 8th to see a dermatologist I just asked you all to think about what it's doing to the kids like that we asked uh the staff at the high school what are her options we have a medical exemption he's like well honestly um we have a medical exemption you know accommodation for you but it involves your child wearing no mask in the corner of the room with six foot distancing but honestly in most of our classrooms that's a physical impossibility and she wouldn't be able to go into the hallways in the passing periods and so therefore option is she would have to go home but there's no online education

066right now unless you're in Virtual Academy so she has no option but to wear the mask and have this creepy fungus on her face and I just don't agree with it it's it's hurting my kid do we do you know I mean I don't know how many other kids suffer with this and don't tell their parents so anyway I appeal to your humanity and I pray that you all make a wise decision thank you Natasha to Natasha to and um miss two will be followed by Sandra is good evening my name is Natasha T and I am the mother of a new han County freshman athlete at Ashley high school thank you for allowing me to speak today to find myself in today's situation would have been incomprehensible to me just two years ago but

067last Friday I learned that my child had been questioned by a School Authority regarding her vaccination status and then was urged to get the vaccine after this teacher accused my daughter of killing people because her mask was not over her mouth and her nose this is nonsense it's highly inappropriate entirely false absolutely unacceptable and possibly even illegal I would say it's t amount to child abuse as a result of this unfortunate but completely avoidable interaction with with this teacher my daughter felt threatened and unsafe not wanting to remain on the school campus the rest of the day for any kid to feel unsafe on a school campus that's unacceptable this teacher clearly violated Hippa law and then the North Carolina General statute of 90-8 by practicing medicine without a medical license then using her position

068of authority this teacher ordered my daughter to just go home not once but twice twice she demanded my child leave school campus without denying her right of Education without having any authority to do so as if all this was not enough to make any parent upset I also learned that Keana has been made to sit in the back of the classroom regularly because she fidgets with her mask because she has a difficult time breathing and all she wants to do is get fresh air this has resulted in her ability lack of ability to focus and learn resulting in a sign ific drop in her grades this isolates her singles her out and this is discrimination these masks are currently recommended for use by the FDA of an emergency use authorization by that very definition this

069intervention is experimental thus requiring the right to refuse and I will say this I demand the right I want the name of that teacher I want the name of that teacher next up is Miss Sandra Isles and Miss Sandra Isles will be followed by Miss Angela key and I would just like to remind the audience during your time you would like respect and a quiet background to speak your comments please do the same for others okay please do all right missiles our teachers are not okay our children are not not okay our teachers and children are in crisis where is your sense of urgency tonight you will view test scores in the new han County School data report yet our most pressing issue is school safety because when our schools are safe student Improvement student

070performance improves safety means empathy safety means adequately staffed schools safety means absence of fear it means our teachers feel valued and appreciated that expectations are achieve achievable that there is no fear fear of retaliation when concerns are shared or fear of being attacked doxed or accused of indoctrinating our children safety means free exchange of ideas without fear of harm teachers teach best in the absence of fear students learn best when they are connected with their peers and teachers when they feel safe making mistakes and give room to grow and learn when expectations are achievable when challenging behaviors do not result in criminalization suspensions or being locked in rooms safety for children means their teachers have time and resources to support them we are losing teachers and administrators because of our toxic Culture of Fear intimidation

071and retaliation we are losing children to violence bully and Su and suicide when is enough enough how much more data and training do you need to know we are in crisis how much we know what to do we we do not need secret meetings to know adequate adequately staffed schools are the foundation to improve student performance and school safety tonight T you can request that Dr Fel create a proactive plan that will put a TA in every classroom a counselor in every school and will increase EC staff districtwide we have the funding to do this this will improve test scores this will retain teachers this will keep students safe thank you Angela kany and Miss key will be followed by Josephine uh barnhard as you prepare to pass policy 4700 Student Records I wonder if

072it even matters what the policy states if it's not going to be upheld why are parents still trying to obtain their child's records for a sexual assault and or rape that happened seven years ago on school grounds due to negligence why are parents that reported bullying of their son on four occasions result resulting in violence on school grounds still being denied access and why are the parents of a child who was choked and physically assaulted by a staff member last week after attempting to force him to eat food from the trash still being silence and bullied no call to parents no parent present when any of child Witnesses were interrogated in statements taken no video footage provided when their child blacked out during the assault and no copies of the incident report except for the

073SA conveniently fabricated to create a file that the school somehow believes will justify why on Earth it would ever be okay for a staff member to place their hands on a student in this file there's an incident report two hours after the assault for disrespect an incident report for refusing to give statements without his parent present but no report provided explaining the child abuse and simple assault charges on the teacher for the incident priorities what do all three cases have in common all are situations that could have been prevented if a staff did their job all have their safety compromised all denied access to incident reports video and their student file all minority children two of which are special needs all out of compliance with policies including Title Nine and Ida each one the public

074should be watching for accountability one would be under Markley's Reign but the last two were on your watch Dr F and each of you as well let's just clarify the Michael Kelly cases he was con icted that's not alleged every time you say that you disrespect victims of sexual assault so just stop and perhaps you might spend more time listening to us instead of watching that time clock and you could get rid of that litigation and PR teamart and she will be followed by U Mr Dorian kardi good evening tonight I come here again for our kids first I want to talk to you about our babies okay I have a book here for the North Carolina foundations of Early Learning and Development and let me read the number one priority for the program in

075the state of North Carolina we should be promoting the development of the whole child including physical emotional social language cognitive development and learning characteristic to be frank that can't happen in one of these for our babies tonight I'm asking you to have a separate vote for our prek mask and choice because our point of the program is to Target kids that are already at risk they are shown to have deficiencies and if we do not have early intervention they're at more risk to be starting in the school year um we know that kids need facial expressions to play to learn to reason I'm asking you to allow that for these kids now on to our kindergarten through 12th graders I want to address quarantines first pre-co we called a child who missed more than two

076weeks of school truant now postco we are sentencing them to quarantines some upwards of 20 days last year from October to June the data from our district had 1,864 in quarantine only 26 got covid that is a 1.4% spread meaning 98.6% unnecessary learning loss for these students we did not have an access to a vaccine last year thankfully we do this year and at large kids are still not adversely affected per CDC data it is less than a tenth of a percent of child to die of covid under 18 and I'm grateful for that last month an update was provided about academic growth in our district who do you think is most negatively affected by preemptively quarantining it's those kids who are already behind who is that going to fall on it's going to fall

077on our teachers who are already trying to make up the learning loss from last year I'm asking that you put the put parental rights back into place about quarantine exposures the health department needs to identify to the families and the families decide the path forward because quite frankly between the suicide and the shooting from recent events in our County some kids are more at R being out of school your time is up Miss Thank You by dinina so Dorian Kar followed by Gina dashbo so tonight I just want to speak about what basically everyone before me spoke about is the fact that a lot of our children in our school system have amputated Spirits all of them I mean all of them seem to be suffering from some type of amputation of their spirit and

078a lot of these problems that are in our school system are not new problems they're just problems that previous people before you have kicked down the road and now we're here today with even more problems I mean there are kids with IEPs who are just continually slipping through the cracks and those of you that do visit schools know this and some of you don't know this but what I'm saying is that the kids that are in the school system now they're going to be doctors they're going to be lawyers they're going to be teachers but they won't be any of that if their Spirits are continually amputated over and over again I mean some of them their spirits are amputated by suspension some of them is because of the Mask some of them it's because

079they don't have food some of them because of No Lack of clothes but all this could be fixed but y'all just have to be willing to work together and do the work you have to do the work you have to do the work arguing and bickering with each other over small petty stuff is just festering the problem it's just getting bigger and I'm getting tired of going to schools and seeing these kids with amputated spirits and the problem is here just do the work Beat the Streets I mean even if you have to spend the night at a kid's house to understand his lifestyle do it I do it it's not that hard and if anyone says it's hard they just don't want to do the work thank [Music] you Gina joshb followed by Leslie

080posie hi I'd like to thank the board for your approach to masking in our schools and here in these meetings I appreciate it at last month's meeting Miss Adams also issued a reminder for all to wear masks in this building and that accommodations were made to watch the meeting via live stream a large group refused to comply to the Mandate and minutes later miss Adams called on Lieutenant Brown to escort them off the property a second time she adamantly instructed to please remove them from the grounds after three Stern requests they were finally removed the meeting continued and after an hour or so I needed to leave I exited the building behind a man who had just finished speaking before we were even through the glass doors we were verbally and viciously assaulted by that

081antias group that I had believed had left the property one member of the group aggressively antagonized the man how does it feel to be a slave because that's what you are a slave he screamed at Tim Joiner a black man the abuser compared wearing a mask to keeping our for wearing a mask meant to keep our community safe to that of owning a human if there actually was such a thing as critical race Theory being taught in our schools I think he and his friend would gracely greatly benefit for nearly 4 minutes things escalated I recorded all of it I have the video in it you'll see a man being threatened and taunted while a group of people watched but I want you to know who else watched from the safety inside six sheriff's deputies

082officers from the very same Sheriff's Office that employ and train the sro's that are in our schools with my new Handover daughter and my son who will attend Noble next year last month not one officer came out to deescalate the situation I want to thank you for putting the officers outside of the building today but last last month they watched a very agitated man jump over railings and lunge at us spitting and spewing hate your thank you Leslie posy and following Miss posie Gil major under the Robes of the spirit of Christmas present Scrooge saw two small figures Spirit are they yours Scrooge could say no more they are man's said the spirit the boy is ignorance the girl is want beware them both but most of all beware the boy for on his brow

083I see Doom Charles Dickens was right even now 178 years later want and ignorance threaten our society and ignorance is accentuated by need need rules our schools and our society our children need to be safe at school our children need to be fully educated to accomplish this our children need a teacher assistant in every classroom our children need the recommended two to three social workers and counselors in every school our children need all staff to be trained in how to correctly deal with mental health issues our children need teachers who are not overworked and underappreciated having the highest pay in the state isn't enough teachers shouldn't be afraid of their working conditions our children do not need more police officers our children do not need to be restrained or secluded our children do not need

084a school board or superintendent who are more concerned with the face they present or their relationship with the County Commissioners than they are with doing their job you are the key to solving these problems use that $350 million to hire more teachers assistants counselors social workers nurses and support staff show that you care and are willing to do what you are elected and hired to do earn our [Applause] trust major and Miss major followed by uh Deborah AEL our condolences to the young student who committed suicide a few weeks ago uh the culture of the school is usually defined by your mission statement and your vision statement you've failed both you failed both so that tells everyone you're a failing school the mission is you collaborate with parents and the community nope the other one

085is high quality education nope as I trained to be an administrator that was the first thing we studied time and time and wrote about that's the culture but I'm talking politically today I grew up in politics my father was a fire chief for 16 years four elected four-year term so when I was 12 all to 22 I was raised a Democrat the Democrats that did care right they did like the government to help people I got into HR I realized we're abusing we're abusing the government gentleman cut off his finger on purpose I was in charge of first aid in HR so he could get the money with that said um in March the curriculum committee meets and discussed the Joseph rry Foundation if you remember that at whatever meeting I was in that to

086me is the pivotal thing that told me as a research person for a child to know that he is cared for and she is cared for this tells me that that is indoctrinating indoctrinating children Joseph Round Tree was a polit they want one politics that's not red that's not blue I think I'm hearing purple somewhere so let's think about purple have you seen that so we get the politics the left is on and so are we your time is up we're together Miss major your time is up thank you Miss Deborah AEL followed by Chris Sutton good evening my name is Debbie AEL I'm a retired teacher who taught for 34 years here in New Haner County and even though I've only been out of the classroom for 2 years I can't begin to tell

087you what's going on in the classrooms now in those schools however I have been listening to my friends that are still in the buildings and other teachers who've reached out and you know what I've heard they're not okay if you'd listen to them talk to them without having them having to go through a chain of command these are some of the thoughts they might share with you we need to increase the number of teacher assistants and don't pull them in 50 directions this job Pace workload and the Public's vitriol is getting is killing us here's a jeans day some ers and how you can manage your time better here's some more PD these do not make me feel valued and supported principles are stretched beyond their capacity with Staffing concerns trying to fill gaps and

088holes the obligation to be all things is fierce and it's taking its toll one teacher said I cried today I cry most days I may have cried in my ap's office before the students arrived I have someone to cover my class to go to my colleagues funeral no sub involved less than half a day and I'm being charged in hourly rate our children are grieving so many things now too they're not okay our government and school systems those with power to do clearly aren't taking necessary steps to support them grief isn't just the death of those in our lives for students it can be friendships that have ended losing your community feeling lost and unanchored losing Traditions you love without a lifetime of experience to fall back on our kids are lashing out physically and

089verbally or they withdrawing Inward and are involved in self harm what's my ask do I think you have a magic wand and you can heal our precious students and Educators no but you can make choices that relieve some of their burden admit to yourself and to them that they are operating in a trauma affected Community how much would it cost to release a staff member to go to a colleague's funeral at no charge that simple gesture would go a long way disable your time is up it doesn't cost anything to be kind Chris Sutton and following Mr Sutton Barbara Anderson so the time finally came we finally heard the truth that there was a conflict of interest we talked about this seven months ago Miss Adams seven months ago I brought this up to y'all

090we had multiple board members that they voted to place it on the agenda you use your power to put it off for 7even months we still haven't even had that discussion still let's move on because honestly we we know what you're about Dr fa let me tell you you are supposed to be the one to investigate matters complaints criticisms and concerns it's in your contract you failed us what you did is led us for seven months down the line with board members and members of the community coming forward saying hey we have a problem you didn't use your power as superintendent to reach out and get another legal advice legal counsel to be like hey you're right or wrong Mr sharpless just let it be known there's an impasse that y'all just hit that basically

091that man's good at litigation work that y'all are about to have to fight the insurance company I told you the fiduciary duties were different but I'm not even as much upset as you as I am at Miss Crable Miss krabble let me tell you yeah it's funny to you but let me tell you let me quote a couple things that you wrote to me in your email July 28th there is no conflict of interest with our current legal counsel from thanington Smith then you go on to state we do not need to explain to the community why we need and seek specific expertise that is a lie there's a contractor they you have to speak to us this is part of it this is why we have these meetings everything you do you keep working

092against us July 28th you already had the meeting with Mr sharpless you knew that they got caught in in a conflict and that they didn't discuss it with the board and that we were correct and that these board members that were pushing for a conversation to occur were correct shame on you we deserve better have a good day Barbara Anderson Barbara Anderson um followed by shamaine Mack good evening I'm Barbara Anderson retired educator and past president of ncae here in New hanor County and I hear from a lot of teachers lately I still hear from many of them and they are not okay they are exhausted overworked and afraid to speak out about how they feel with the recent gun violence on high school campus and reported fights on campuses between students increased covid cases

093quarantines it is evident that our students aren't okay either kids are back in school and we're trying to be normal teachers are trying to teach if they're there and the district Fortress appears to be operating as normal so if we're back to normal then why is there so much angst in our schools and it's because we are not back to normal and we need to admit that maybe it's because we have focused so much attention on getting back to normal getting back to raising those literacy and math proficiencies which apparently were better than the state averages but instead the district should have put more emphasis on accepting that there is to be a shift in what defines normal today maybe students and staff wouldn't feel so stressed and anxious if the district had spent and

094been focused more on mental well-being and of their stakeholders than on the curriculum maybe the district should have anticipated the anxiety of students returning to school and how Aces affects behaviors the state of California's Department of educate education did just this they did anticipate that there would be an uptick in Behavior responses by students released and new discipline guidelines were released to schools to navigate as their students returned back to in school learning they did anticipate and recommended more counseling to address the mental health challenges of students they did anticipate that anxiety and depression responses by students would result in an increase in behavior issues the state of California recognized that students could not learn if they were not in school they revised their suspensions and their seclusions maybe if the district had spent more

095time anticipating and preparing for increased misbehavior due to anxiety we wouldn't have so much a Shain Mack shamaine Mack George pots George pots Aaron kogan Aaron kogan uh Christie Miller Jesus Christ sitting so long um my name is Christy Miller I'm a retired uh nuclear engineer retired Westinghouse and then retired um GE um and I know better than anybody what doors a good education will open for you and I would really like for my grandson who lives with me to have the exper experience of opening those doors so I have nothing written I only have a truth and on the the first couple of weeks of school I knew something was wrong but I finally got him to talk to me he was being threatened cursed and bullied by two very very large young men

096they're not Kids 6 foot tall football players don't know why they're in middle school and so on um on the uh 13th of octo of September I went up and talked to the principal he said he'd handle it he said he already had me on uh he was going to call me before so on the Tuesday it got worse Wednesday one of the boys erupted cursed the teacher and the TA back into the wall uh went after my grandson the sheriff's deputy came and got him out they took him away brought him back to the next class he went berserk went after my grandson um uh the principal got between him he and the boy threatened to bring a bomb bring guns and kill whoever the bomb didn't kill specifically kill my grandson kill the

097teacher kill the TA two day suspension my grandson is not in school we're doing school from home we have to wait to get the Virtual Academy until he has an IEP we have waited all this time for the IEP it's Thursday FAL law all right I will just go back and just um call one more time those that were not here Tasha Thomas Justin key Barbara Garo shamaine Mack and George pots and Aaron kogan thank you that concludes our call to the audience for this evening our next item on the agenda are consensus items um are there is do I hear a motion moved thank you Mr Buller is there a second thank you Mr wior any discussion all right all those in favor of approval of the consensus items a through L uh please

098say I I all those opposed and Dr Barnes if you would like to come up to make a a recommendation for the Personnel report that we just approved good evening we are excited about all of our new employees at new han County Schools we want to highlight a couple of specific people um the assistant principal at Ashley High School Drew hackit and the approval for the assistant director of Child Nutrition Miss Ashley Rosy welcome to both of them and the best of luck in their new positions thank you very much and welcome you Dr Barnes to the New Hanover County Schools Team all right moving along does anybody need a break or we good take a five minute yeah all right go ahead and take a f minute break uh we will we will reconvene

099at 8:10 good wait are you going to mention we're good all right welcome back thank you for obliging that brief break we are moving right along here to Old business and the first item under old business is one toone computer order I believe we have Miss Brinson on Zoom welcome um thank you very much I'm excited to let you know that we are ready to place the first order for our one: one devices for our first year for um New Hanover and Laney students and teachers so um the um once the order is placed the devic is um coming in and also the vendor getting them ready for us so that we're ready to issue them to the students should take approximately 13 weeks for the device to come in from the manufactur as well

100as getting it ready for us doing the um Professional Services so we are hope I'm hoping to be able to you know at the latest you know when we come back from Christmas break get these devices out I would like to try and get them out a little bit before um it just depends on how fast um the vendor can get them ready but we will be doing a test pilot of that here in the next couple of weeks to see if we can speed up that process so I request that you approve this order um with applied data all right you have heard the recommendation is there a motion so moved thank you Mr Buller is there a second thank you Mr mcmanis any discussion just wonder how what the clost oh it's right

101here okay I just found it I'm sorry any other questions or comments right all those in favor say I I all those opposed all right motion passes this is very exciting Miss Brinson thank you very much look forward to getting to one to one for all of our students over the next couple years thank you okay next item on the agenda we're going to Legal Services RFQ and so Miss Mary Hazel small welcome you to the microphone and the floor is yours thank you good evening um tonight I'm requesting your consideration of a of a format for um a request for qualification for Legal Services um with a a schedule to that we would release um the the RFQ in on October the 15th with responses due November 15th um my recommended selection committee but

102of course that's up to the board would be the superintendent and two appointed board members for to review the um qualifications that are submitted and proposals submitted and then make a recommit bring a recommendation back to the board for consideration at your December board meeting so I've listed the scope of services um and certainly you know it's up for discussion if the board wants to make any changes um but this it's a pretty you know standard format um the the qualifications would be evaluated based on the information provided and then a recommendation brought to the board so question thank thank you very much so the recommendation for this evening would be to appoint two board members to serve on that committee um but there is no vote we need to vote on moving forward with

103the RFP is that correct yeah just to move forward yes just okay all right so um I based on this um I I know that as a board we need to come up with who would be um of good suggestions for the evaluation I would like to propose U Miss Walker and Miss kill um I think that they've both been invested in this conversation and could bring a lot to the evaluation process I also think it would be important to have bipartisan um uh discussion uh to support Dr fa in this and so that is my initial recommendation I'd like to hear from oh okay I wasn't not making a motion but I can make a motion so the motion would be to is it the Motions to appoint Miss cradle and Miss Walker um

104are you first off are you agreeable to that sure okay um to the evaluation committee for the RFQ process for Legal Services Mr mcmanis you have seconded yes um any other discussion yeah I just had a question um Dr f one of the um memos that you had given us were you listed the different categories um so I was trying to match the categories up to what was on here and what was on the presentation right now is not quite as specific as what you had will is it my understanding that we will will be looking for these kinds of things when we're doing the evaluation of the proposals so this week goope work that's in that'll be in the RFQ gotcha okay any other discussion uh now you're talking now about the nominations correct

105I'm sorry yes about the specifically about the recommendations for the evaluation committee yes yeah okay great all right all those in favor of Miss kille and Miss Walker serving as um evaluation team for the RFQ process say I I all those opposed all right thank you very much ladies for your service um the second part of this is to move ahead with the RFQ process to begin that so I would like to ask a motion to yes well I thought we might have some discussion I I think these are all really good points but um I believe previously I had asked if and they you said you were still in the process of putting the RFP together but is there any way to put a um explanation um on there or have you searched in

106other school districts uh different ways of having people bid on this process in Parts a whole you know we can do this we can do that are you looking for one person do you are you asking are we looking for another attorney on a staff attorney as we've had in the past I guess that's what I'm asking does this say when we do this does this mean we're looking to hire a staff attorney I think that's what the RFQ process is going to help us determine as we bring in options and who would be interested in working with us and see what our options are to then make that determination so we could have a further discussion after we get the options I would like to just qualify the way that this is proposed and

107it could certainly be changed is for a firm to to bid on this process it's not an employee situation yeah that's what I was wanted to clarify that it's staff right and but see and M and this is what I had brought up before is that I know that different parts of the state don't have firms they have different people do different parts of this proposal uh like they bid on we'll do this we'll do this instead of having somebody as attorney on staff or having a firm do it they have a couple local maybe uh people that do different parts um like say they specialize in EC I'm just using this an example EC and then we'd hire them for those particular parts that's what I'm asking Mr bler M chair M justice has

108mentioned this several times and I admit each time to some deep confusion uh and I've asked many times Miss Justice if you could just give us some specific examples of districts who hire certain people to do do certain things uh I think this district is one of the largest in the state we have a lot of complexity and I like the services provided by a law firm so I'm not really sure what you're asking for I just gave an example that people might want to bid on certain parts of it or what district groups attorneys maybe a small firm I'm just saying is there a different does it have to be a firm in itself to handle everything or can we have different expertise areas attorneys in certain areas that want to handle certain which

109is actually what the majority of the boards across the state do and we are large but we're far from the largest what Districts The Districts yeah what districts what examples please provide me an example use Durham how's that for an example okay they do something a very large distance it's larger than ours and I know that one of the things that they do is they have different attorneys from different firms handle different areas that their experties in or they were at least back in earlier part of you know the odds I haven't checked on it in a long time but they were doing it that way that's just one example because there are different permutations across the states and different ways of handling handling how you provide Legal Services the question at hand um miss

110m is if a one individual attorney has a firm of their own are they able to apply under any any attorney or or you know I just I thought you were discussing an employee relationship so that too that you clarified that when said that's not what you wanted to have a one person covers all like we had previously on staff this particular format and certainly you know we looked at several you know um would be that um to try to to locate the the school board attorney you know and the primary services but it doesn't preclude the board from hiring for a special situation an an additional firm to do to do some sort of service so it's not the only firm that could work with the school board board going forward it would be

111for these Services listed so there may be other services that come up a unique situation where you might have a you know um some sort of in the past even when we had an in-house Schoolboard attorney sometimes we went outside for a specific situation that we were researching so um the way it's listed and certainly it could be changed would would be to provide the scope of services listed here yeah because it does look like that the way it is put together it would be a large firm with the experts that we have a the for example th course there's other ones there definitely are um and I'm just saying is there other opportunities that not necessarily stick adhere to that type of format like some say a firm could bid one or an attorney

112could bid on certain things one thing that we I know that education is extremely specialized area but then we do have people in the region that specialize in certain parts of Education as opposed to a firm so I'm just asking is there other way it would it be part of the bid to explain that you know you could possibly bid on these things just to look at the overall variety a bigger variety that you get offered to do these Services um well the the qualifications are required to be submitted for for any firm and so you know it's possible that one firm might have more qualifications in one area than the other but it would be ultimately up to the board to to determine which firm they feel like is the most qualified to enter

113into a contract with to be the school board attorney so I'm not sure that I'm answering your geared a firm you're looking for a firm um but it it it was written to be one a single contract that's if the board wants something else that's what I've been trying to find out and understand and I had asked previously can you word it in such a way so it doesn't have to be that so that so so that appears to be what it is that that we are going to be having a bids on or from one firm for all of this Madam chair yes ma'am so um if I'm understanding understanding correctly um should we decide as a board that we we will accept bids from anyone that wants to or because I I don't

114read this language as saying that we are only looking for one firm um and I don't I definitely don't read it to believe that we want an in-house employee council um so I think I just want to make sure that we're all clear that we're agreeing on the same thing that we're not hiring an employee we are hiring a a legal council and that legal council can be as big or as small as we deem appropriate and we hire extras if we need them like we did with Mr sharpless we hired him because we needed extra legal expertise um so yeah so I just want to make sure that we're all clear before the rfps go out I didn't read any of that into that and that's what I was trying to say but you

115said it better that this was to award a single contract but it wouldn't preclude the board from addition contracts in the future if there was a reason that you wanted to do but but what I'm saying is does it have to be a single you're saying that's the only way this is I it's written but it could be changed at the board's Direction this was a dra yes Mr could I ask uh and and it's up to the board I guess but um you know something of this magnitude I think it would make sense that just like we did with the uh the you know the uh I can't think the name of it the um other project we just got done with our started um our our strategic plan there you go um they

116actually came in with three proposal three different proposals so instead of you know and it's not that I don't trust you two cuz you three but I think it would make sense it's something of this magnitude for maybe you guys to narrow down to the top three and bring it back to the whole board to make the decision and instead instead of having just one you know one person yeah I'm I'm comfortable with that how does everyone else feel about that right and actually that would give us more control at least our understanding as a board about what's going on uh since it does appear that it's being written for a firm so it'll probably be a firm that bids that that we all get a picture of what's going on as opposed not that

117I don't look like him I trust you guys too but this way we could all be responsible for the decision how's that could we update the recommended RFQ process for recommendation for board consideration on December 7th 2021 of three candidates of three potential options and then the final vote could be at the interim meeting um certainly we can I'm just trying to to think about the timeline um okay you know we we the idea was to bring back a contract for approval in December so if if if you're GNA add a step to to have discussion in December then maybe we'd be bringing back a contract in January it might it might there's nothing wrong with that um we currently have services on a month-to-month basis anyway so um if if that is your pleasure

118and you want to to spread the process out a little bit so that the board has more time to discuss it that that's certainly fine m uh just to we'll change that in the way through just just always with my eye on the calendar committee uh we typically have not had uh meetings held when school is not in session and it will not be in session on the 21st of December so what you're saying is we probably will not we probably will not have an in meeting okay so that keeping that in mind on the December 7th meeting is the recommendation for three candidates brought and the final vote is January does that work for everyone and suppos we don't have three but I mean I mean suppose people don't want to come work for

119us that's totally possible and if that's the case then um then we will look at the top two or one that applies and and just to be clear we're not not using farington Smith in the meantime that we are continuing as business as usual until we decide to change business if we do decide to change business 30 days yes Mr mcmanis 30 days just curious M Miss small what's the specificity for this attorney we're looking for exactly repeat it one more time what's the specificity what exactly will they be doing but I'm not sure I understand the question so are you asking the scope or we getting a new person who has not represented us before or we just open it up which we have we're opening it up why to to it will advertise

120it to whoever wants to apply um and then the it it's the reason it's an RFQ is so it's it's an evaluation of qualifications um and then of course you know fees as well but qualifications as part of what will be evaluated in this which is Norm for Professional Services that's a that's a very common thing Madam chair yes M I just want to remind you I think uh the superintendent s Us in his packet like a probably a few weeks ago the list that was more extensive than what's here oh you have it right there okay maybe we'll just share it again and if you would prefer that list to be um the scope of Services versus the the way I had worded it here certainly can make that change and we have it

121word it'll be worded under the qualification we have scope of scope of work and then we have qualifications and the qualifications that are in there are must have Board General experience in the practice of law preferable in contracts employment law and criminal law must be knowledgeable and I'm giving out the RSQ as I'm reading this so we try not to do that but what you have is um what in there for their qualifications yeah I was just I was just reminding Mr MCM that that you had sent that that's all just to give give a frame of reference for what we were talking about all right so with that in mind um with the change to the RFQ process date so really the recommendation for final selection will be January the January board meeting um

122with that additional step of two we'll say three if we have them three top candidates um for a selection in January uh is there a motion to move forward with the RFQ process moved thank you Mr bullier is there a second Mr wior any other discussion I just have one all right suppose um well after we pick the after we bring the RFQ candidates to the meeting in January do we vote in January to accept this person or this Cates come in December and then the vote would be in January for the and then the that person that law firm that entity will give us a present a in June um because that's what our policy says we have to have a report from legal counsil in June so would we get a report from

123thanington Smith and a new company or new entity should we choose a new entity is that how that works definitely a discussion that we can have at a later date I don't know if we can answer that no and where I was going with the questioning was um why would we pick somebody new in January um if we're going to have to just review them again in June because we've started this process and we may as well finish it we should finish it okay uh so uh there's a motion to uh generate the RFQ process as written there is a second we've had discussion all those in favor say I all those posed right thank you very much and thank you for the work that went into this I know that it is tedious and

124we appreciate all that you have done to get this prepared for us thank you and we look forward to those that apply all right next item on the agenda Co testing and vaccine options for new hanur County Schools students and staff Miss Julie varnum welcome to the microphone for the first time this evening good evening so I just want to provide you a quick update on work that is going on between new han County schools New Hanover uh County Health and Human Services in coastal Horizons uh Coastal Horizons as a reminder is the provider that um facilitates our Wilmington Health Access for teens um clinics within our Traditional High Schools but also supports a clinic here in town for our students who are not enrolled in Traditional High Schools um in line with um the

125strong schools NC toolkit and additional um information as more Public Health Data accumulate and more is learned North Carolina Department of Health Human Services is continuing to update guidance as a reference for schools and districts including leas charter schools and other Independent Schools in consultation with local Health departments School leaders are asked to determine our local approaches to administering co9 tests at our discretion and again that discretion is with the guidance from our local Health Department uh the goal of covid-19 response in the school settings is of course to keep students and staff healthy and in the class classroom testing is not going to be used alone but in combination with other prevention strategies to reduce the risk of transmission in schools and when we Implement a testing um sit system combined with prevention strategies

126we can detect new cases to prevent outbreaks reduce risk of further transmission and then further protect students teachers and staff from covid-19 at this point um we have determined um B based on our metrics within our community that diagnostic testing would be the best option as opposed to routine testing and again testing would only be conducted at the specific um permission um and approval of parent or Guardian um and we also determined that we wanted to use this within the Wilmington Health Access for teens clinics in our schools because we also partnered with those what clinics um to support vaccine um dispersement and education so we partnered with them to receive additional funding from North Carolina department of health health and human services for vaccines again vaccines only with specific parental permission uh and that

127is not the traditional what Clinic permission it is a specific permission for a covid-19 vaccine but given that we are utilizing our what clinics for that type of support for the majority of our high schoolers and then our other high schoolers and uh can go to the other Clinic uh we wanted to make sure that the testing opportunity was within that same program so that that education has even more mileage um So within our what clinics we would have availability to our staff and students and then um we have also received uh communication from North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services through the health department that additional funding will go to the health department Department to support a liaison position um so while the testing kits will come to us um at no cost

128to the district or to our families um the health department will have an additional staff member to work as a liaison to support testing needs that might happen in our elementary and middle schools that are certainly don't have the what clinics on site and at this time we are still uh managing the ongoing efforts to coordinate all of this so I don't have a specific timeline but wanted you to be aware before communication went any further so I don't know if you have any questions thank you very much all right so any questions from the board Madam chair yes Mr Buller uh just one comment and one question I do want all the teachers in new Hover County to be aware that under the CDC guidelines they are available or they are um they can

129they're eligible rather for a booster shot um teachers fall into that category and they are El eligible to get that shot uh the only question I had though though was um with regards to Hippa and just making sure that if we identify even if it's with parental consent we identify a child uh who has been diagnosed with covid-19 after we test What mechanisms are we going to have in place to make sure that that information stays within the confines of the school system right so um as with any lab results of a covid-19 test those are reported to the health department those are required to be reported to the health department um and we have been working in concert with um Coastal Horizons who runs Wilmington Health Access for teens and the health department in

130determining that communication plan but how those labs would um basically stay within there's already a memorandum of understanding between the what clinics and the health department specifically with administration of medication and also confidential information good thank you thank you mam chair any else yes Miss Walker I'm sorry I won't keep you I just you may not know this um I know you said they're diagnostic so they're probably tests that are turned around in what 24 hours they're not the rapid test they're not rapid um right and so they would be they would be um lab reported like Diagnostics anything else this is wonderful so now you need it says recommended to support partnership you need a motion and a vote for this um it's not specifically required um but just wanted to make sure that

131I provided this to you but wanted to make sure that you had the information from me as a presentation thank you very much for making this an opportunity in our schools Miss baram I know that this has been you know should be working for the health department at this stage man' been doing it all so thank you very much thank you thanks for sharing thank you thank you all right next item uh the state required vote regarding masks in schools uh board members as you know for Senate Bill 654 section 10 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 uh the recommendation um I would like to make a motion

132or would anyone like to make a motion for masks um yes Mr I'm going to get back on my my Soap Box again but fellow Board of Education members please remember that last month I read you an insert uh from a mask uh proclaiming that a a warning that most of cloth masks in schools are not personal protective equipment and should not be used as such uh we received a a memo from Dr fa dated September 9th about n95 Mass to summarize new han County Health Department says that uh n95 Mas require a professional fitting quick question for Thought uh after hearing that uh I checked with my son who was in medical school what the process involves uh and if our nurses can check for vision and scoliosis and train others to work with

133our diabetic students can they not train the teachers we don't want to put any more on teachers but can they not do that themselves secondly Dr F set us a quote from the CDC and even they start with the statement that cloth masks are more suitable option for Community when medical masks are unavailable so again that key Point uh when medical masks and that's from the CDC when medical masks are unavailable so an effort to to dissuade us from trying to protect our students as best we can the CDC clearly states that n95 mths are a better and safer choice for our students so uh if we're going to do it as I said last month let's keep our students safe let's do it right thank you thank you very much Mr will deore yes

134M crille the um to answer your question um Mr rore um as a safety professional in order to have a fitted mask you have to have a respiratory protection program that um require special fitting and that um you have to go through training on how to do that fitting um to do that and so we really do need to be a little more conscious on calling things PPE versus protective face coverings because these masks are not you know if you were talking to an oia inspector these aren't PPE these are protective face coverings so um yeah so I just wanted to bring that up Mr loer you know handles all that for us um we would have to have definitely a um a respiratory Protection Program you know for our school system in order to

135require n95s Madam chair yes yeah uh I do just want to reiterate once again that new Hover County is operating under the health department guidelines that require masking in all indoor buildings regardless of vaccination status and so at this time I think it would not be appropriate to go against our County Health Partners I mean we're not doctors having said that at some point you know I and again I'm not a health professional but I can guarantee you as a historian that a this pandemic will become endemic and that B having our health department here to have questions and conversations uh maybe next month I think would be beneficial because I think it go a long way to give people an idea of when we might be able to take this off and how this

136might look um I think we need as a board to create a safe space for all people who you know just because somebody's complaining and asking questions and saying this is a problem for my kid it doesn't make them a bad person or anti-science there are legitimate questions and I think our health department and maybe the science collaborative um can speak to some of those in the future so I'd really like to see them here you know maybe next month yes Mr bore and just to to reiterate I I've currently wear I'm wearing an m95 mask that I actually purchased at Walmart did not have it fitted and it it's working you know just fine so but there is a difference between commercial please can I finish Please Mr crille thank you uh yeah I

137totally understand that uh you know to to do it properly there is a fitting process uh but uh again a little bit is better than nothing all right so I'd like to put it to the board yes Miss Justice are you making a motion or comment no well I just before you put it to if everybody else um I think we've been very successful up till now our schools are probably the safest place around for our kids and what we have been doing and it hasn't been easy and I do respect and appreciate people that do not agree with our statements but uh I think as a whole we've done right by our kids I know that our staff feels that way too I do believe not all of them of course nobody's all 100%

138so I'm I'm glad to see that even though we revisit this every month that we're still thinking thoughtfully about doing the right thing number one by our kids right yes Mr mcmanis I'll move we vote thank you okay what are we voting for Mr mcmanis would you like to make a motion for to continue masks is that or yes okay so the motion on the table is to continue second M Justice is a second I don't think there's any need for additional discussion uh all those in favor say I all those opposed no all right uh motion passes 621 next item on the agenda are policies for second reading Mr Boer Madam chair thank you very much uh members of the board before you our policies 4700 Student Records 5015 School volunteers 5210 distribution and

139display of non-school materials collection and solicitations advertising in the schools goals of student transportation services safety and student transportation services School Bus idling School Bus idling procedures organization of student transportation services drivers use of student transportation services bus routes Student Assignment to buses parking areas for students insurance for student transportation services transportation service and vehicle contracts and I have not yet heard from a board member who wishes to have further fur discussion on one of these policies for second reading and so with that I will entertain or I would ask for a motion to pass the policies unanimously I make a motion we pass all these policies thank you Mr wior is there a second second thank you Miss Walker any discussion all those in favor say I I all those opposed policies I can't

140say this through this but the list is approved thank you very much Mr buer right moving along to new business uh you're going to take this one for us sir also the North Carolina School boards Association county commissioner of the Year nomination uh I know I am listed with this but Mr Buller I'm going to let you take the lead thank you madam chair um I received a invitation to the North Carolina School boards association annual conference in Greensboro November 11th to 13th and with that came several nominations uh for awards that the North Carolina Schoolboard Association gives out every year and one of those was an award to the County commissioners of the year to the County Commissioners that have stood by their school system that have used their considerable resources to benefit their

141school system and given all that our school system has asked of the Commissioners over this past year and it's it's been a big ask uh I thought it was highly fitting that our County Commissioners received that nomination and so I have asked that the board approve that nomination all right so for this evening uh we need to approve the application process for uh submission of the new hver County County Commissioners to the ncsba award for County commissioners of the Year yes Miss Justice uh when you sent this out she said that the deadline had already passed and that you had sent an addendum to the application saying or asking them the to wait because or I I don't know how you would put it pending pending board approval right okay have you heard back from

142them no I'm just wondering if at this point that's going to be I'm just wondering you know that's not usually their procedure I don't know really and I was just W if we'd heard back from them no we have not heard anything from them yet so all right uh is there the recommendation is to approve the submission is there a motion I'd like to move that we approve it all right thank you Mr Buller is there a second second thank thank you Mr mcmanis uh any other discussion um I'd like to thank Mr buer for bringing this forward um I missed that when I was looking at the invitation for the uh convention so I think it's a very fitting nomination our County Commissioners have been phenomenal Partners this year and thank you Dr fa

143for continuing to build that relationship that has allowed um so many Fantastic projects to be able to move forward so um all those in favor say I I all those opposed all right submission uh Mr Smith if you could please let them know board approved so thank you next item on the agenda proposed board committees um as you know we've spent um a few of our work sessions discussing committees and in that conversation um there have been some suggestions for board committees to be moved to the policy committee uh Miss kill would you like to take this discussion to intro it or did I do a good job yeah no you did fine um I I just think that this is probably um somebody had asked for for us to have one more go round

144at um what we want to send if anything to the policy committee so um if we could just on the the on the form if we could just start at the bottom you at the legislative committee um and because yours is probably the the easiest and the most self-explanatory so the idea would you like to you're saying let's not approve these as a group to go to policy you're saying let's vote on individually I would say vote on them individually on whether we want them to go to policy or not okay all right uh so the legislative committee as I said it's about making recommendations and and you know have building that relationship with the state legislators um working with the ncsba uh to you know inform them of what our issues are and how

145they can possibly support our issues at the state level um and just working with our legislators overall um so I guess I would like a motion to approve uh to send the legislative committee to the policy committee for consideration moved thank you is there a second second all right thank you any discussion right all those in favor say I I I all right legislative committee will be moved to policy thank you uh go ahead next sorry okay so um M roore you're you titled your committee um new han County Schools Advisory Board and and um so I just put in here what you had sent so if you want to go ahead and and make your pitch yeah I got I got a couple more notes Here uh review and make recommendations to the Board

146of Education uh monthly reports um things like we talked about today with the suspension policy you know where exactly are we with that it'd be great to be able to capitalize that bring that back to the board in a shortterm situation uh you know if you look at today as an example uh you know we repeatedly have very very very long meetings uh and we of call uh called on to make extremely important uh decisions at 11:00 or later um we agreed that about having a second meeting to try to make the meetings more reasonable uh it really hasn't worked all that great um Miss Crill figured I think six hours and something for today's meeting so this this committee would allow for more communication with our stakeholders enable them to be heard and the

147committee can uh Foster those recommendations bring them together in a concise manner and bring them to the whole Board of course the whole board would be the ultimate decision maker as they always are but it would be it would give us that opportunity to hear from hear from a lot of folks bring it together and bring you know bring recommendations not just you know channel that to to the to the board but discuss it uh the seven member uh team and then we could bring recommendations to the board so you are asking for a motion to Tois Comm to policy right you have a motion and a second any other discussion um I'm just going to reiterate what Mr Wilder boor said the community obviously wants to have a voice and they have a right

148they're our bosses they're the ones that put us here and there's so much going on in this District as somebody mentioned earlier we're a very large District um we get a lot of communications from the public but it' probably be this would be one other group that would be our eyes our ears our um our perspective to give us the ability to make better decisions uh sometimes focus groups get active and you hear one thing but you don't really hear the broad spectrum of what it is the Public's interested in and I think this would be a a a group that could possibly give us better you know information we always should communication is huge and always a challenge in any school district especially one this size and the community really needs to have a

149voice so we can make good decisions uh let's go Mr McMahon and then to miss Crill um question Mr webo who decides what's the process for the two board members and the five at large members as far as picking the board members is that what you're saying yeah who would how what's the process for the two board members selected and then I believe that that would fall back to the board chairman at this time so that the board chairman would give us those two folks um I thought about that uh Miss crra actually uh called me yesterday and said make sure you have all this together so um you know I think that one year appointments um we I think we need one we need to hear a voice from the students so I think

150uh at least one high school student I think also one or more uh School level educator and notice I didn't say necessarily administrator but I said educator so I think having that person on the committee and then we'd have the rest at at large I think that the two board members would be able to uh fill out the the rest of the group and again as I put in the original thing it it's very crucial that it's nonpartisan I don't think it needs to be you know if if I'm the chair say I I don't fill it up with all Republicans or if say Miss Walker was a chairman then she wouldn't fill it up with all Democrats I think it's very very important that we hear from everyone so well I certainly applaud the

151student involvement but I think that the uh the new student group that we have in process EDI that be good too is going to take take care of that a matter of fact that might be the edi's first recommendation um one of hopefully more to come I I have problems with creating another layer above these seven [Music] we had 27 people who voiced their opinion tonight they have a right we're going to do it oh yeah well I don't mean to cat you off but I I wouldn't disuade any of those folks but I think if if if a group you know we've heard a lot of the same thing from a lot of people on it's month after month if they if they had a voice and we had some way to be able

152to to bring that to us instead of hearing 12 people say it if if the committee were able to come in and say this is a very important thing this is our recommendation after hearing the folks I think that might go a long way and I like I say I don't want is that me I'm sorry I don't want to disuade anyone from speaking but I mean this would as Miss Justice said I think it would give us another layer another way for them to be able to communicate we do have a limited number of folks we can hear from here um so this would give another opportunity that during a political election Arena which is right here upon us that this could become a political group that can influence a lot of of decisions

153and what I've been proud of most about this board as a group is that I think we've done for the most part we've tried to do its best for students and still have things that we need to consider that are best for students I just don't have a good feeling about it it's another layer on top of us we're elected we are responsible we take the hit or the congratulations or a combination well again this this group would be underneath us it wouldn't be above us it wouldn't they're just giving advice to it's another layer that all right if if we could go Miss crille and then miss Justice Mr Mr oh sorry did you have your hand up too well okay M yeah the um so I kind of well I am echoing the

154sentiments of um Mr mcmanis the um I just don't think we need another layer I mean that is what our job is I mean people can email us they can call us we have a board referral system we have policy 2122 that talks to us about handling how board members handle complaints and I just um and and Dr fa also has his um has his his multi- committees where advisory committees from students and staff certified staff teacher staff um don't know how they're working yet because we really haven't gotten into the school year but I think with you know if if if we're concerned about not hearing reports then perhaps you know we can handle some of that by him giving us up updates on key things he's hearing from his advisories um with that

155so I'm I'm just concerned that we're adding another layer unnecessarily and then and and if if complaints go to this one committee and they don't somehow um Bubble Up to the surface for all of us to hear then we're back into that same sort of category that we don't all get to hear everything it's the same thing about not wanting us to um have an RFQ committee because you want all of us to hear so you know as a board member I want to hear all of the complaints not the one that a committee deems as important enough um to thoroughly research and discuss so that's just my thoughts on that Miss Justice uh yes um I want to answer Mr mcmanus' Question at least one of them and maybe uh if you notice that

156there's three different committees offered here and uh oh sorry thank you uh three different committees offered here and one of them was a uh the selection committee advisory the committee chair committee members and advisory members selection committee and so that would be how you would go about and Mr wildbore laid out his ideas of how you could go about it but this would solidy it this would have more of a standardized how to select people so it wouldn't be political and as far as I mean I would hope it wouldn't be and that's what we would make sure it wasn't as as you know as the select committee try to be as objective as possible also so the idea is for this group to have more of an opportunity to go more in depth to

157look at some issues instead of just talking up here let's say talking about the suspensions and the great information people have received they could sit there and and and Tool it out and and bring more of a community and depth to it and then just bring it to us it's not that they're going to stop any information it's just the community wants to have more input and more in depth to share with us we would not they're not above us would just be another form of getting good Community input that's all that I was receiving okay Mr buer yeah Madam chair thank you uh you know I think a lot of times when we try to please everyone we end up angering everyone U pleasing nobody uh I I just don't see how this adds

158any value to what the board as an entity already does we're a group of seven we hear complaints we talk every month about something that was brought up from the community we you know we meet with our individual constituents and then doing a deep dive looking into something I mean I think that's what our Administration does I know Miss Farnum did that recently as was mentioned during the call to the audience I think that's what our Administration does we're not supposed to really go in there and do the Deep dive we're not detectives we're supposed to rely on the people who do the work of the school system so that's my thought let me go to Mr Miss Walker oh thank you so um I take your point when you're saying like we shouldn't have

159to do deep Dives necessarily oh wait for H music to finish sorry but anything that helps us communicate with a community a lot better I'm in favor of because I I there are often times that I email you guys and I get I get no answers and I feel like there are some issues that do Bubble Up and are serious issues that I wish we had the opportunity I mean not everyone's going to hear from the same people all the time but you know I feel like if it's an issue that is constant and it's it's it's coming up all the time I feel like we have an obligation to look at it as a board and if this committee helps with that and it brings us to our attention and they've done the work

160then you know then we can have further discussion and that way that's another connection with the community I think that's really needed communication was a big thing I know a theme for us so all right Mr bore you will bring us home on this and then we'll move to the vote okay well just I just want to reiterate like for example the k u K2 pre2 suspension situation if great if we had uh number one recommendations we could bring forth but also we could come and say here's where we're at you know we've done this far you know this far in training we're going on you know whatever's going on um it's not all about time you know but again I think from day one we we're making decisions at 11:30 at night that we

161shouldn't be making 11:30 at night um so if we can do something to make it better for everyone still have that clear communication have that you know that group that we can advise you know and again just bringing recommendations not not that they're binding it's a situation that we bring forth recommendations like every other committee is supposed to be doing bringing forth recommendations why do we have committees it says in State Statute we have committees to advise so you know it just makes perfect sense to have an advisory committee to help with communication all right so there's a motion in a second we've had discussion I think we're going to have a split vote on this one um so miss buy if you could call the role the motion is to move the advisory committee

162to policy Miss Adams no Mr Buller no Miss Justice yes Miss kill no Mr mcmanis no Miss Walker yes and Mr wildor yes all right motion fails four to three uh the final committee on here is the committee chairs committee members advisory member selection committee Miss Justice would you like to share any thoughts on that before like to move I guess we move and then we discuss yes I would move that we create a committee to decide on um the committee members and advisory members or other boards um for for committee uh POS positions okay so the motion is to create a selection committee to move it to uh policy is there a second sorry repeat that the motion is to create a selection committee to move the selection committee to policy right there second

163I'll second thank you Miss Walker any discussion Madam chair yes Mr Boer and then we'll go to miss Justice yeah I just think that you know come December we have an opportunity to once again vote for board leadership and feel like that's why we have board leadership that's why that vote in December is critical um and I hope everybody takes it very seriously and I don't see a need for this committee I think the power of the chair exists for a reason and I want to maintain it Miss Justice I have seen that power misused I think the whole Community has and I'm not going to I'm it's not just here it's been going on for decades this needs to be done objectively and not for political or personal reasons when people are appointed to

164committees they need to be the best people for those committees that idea of being a on a committee appointment should not be used as some kind of cudle to uh punish somebody because you don't agree with them it should not be used for political appointments uh and you put people on I've seen people put on committees that were not the best were the least experienced and yet were put there because of profession for personal preference because of factors that had nothing to do with was best for our community and as I said this isn't just recent it's been going on for decades probably and so it's time we moved into 2021 tried to be objective and put the best people on committees who's to say who's going to be elected chair next time um we

165don't know but that's a lot of power in one hand that can be misused and has been misused it's time we started doing this in objective Fair Way put's best for our community best for the Committees so that we can get our business done to the best of our abilities anyone else Miss Crill yeah I just wanted to weigh in on that just a little bit is that um any organization has elections for president vice president secretary chair and each of them have um roles and responsibilities that are assigned and that is either in your bylaws or in your policies or whatever um whatever the group uses so I don't see any reason to add again another layer of picking um on how we how we do that it would it would just take a

166long time and I just don't think that it's necessary to add that layer in when we all know what the board chair job is and roles and responsibilities and one of them just happens to be putting people on committees any other Miss Walker well i' just like to say I I would rather make it less political as well I just feel like there are different strengths with our board members and some would probably be more suited for certain things and I just personally feel like you know I understand the role of the chair and I think that's that's fine I just I like the idea of really looking into who would be best for the positions and I I I agree with that you know I feel like I've had my own amount of pain

167over it this year and I just want to make that point that it it it it shouldn't we don't know who's going to be chair but I I we really like to make sure that we just pick the best person the job and it's not about who's somebody's favorite or vice versa thank you all right uh if there's no further discussion in case we are split on this one also miss buoy would you mind calling the role uh the motion is to move the selection committee to policy Miss Adams no Mr Buller no Miss Justice yes Miss Kel no Mr mcmanis no Miss Walker yes and Mr bore yes all right motion fails 4 to3 okay next item on the agenda is board member communication Miss Justice this was your item so I am going

168to send it to you to lead this discussion um we have a reporting system that's online it doesn't seem to be the most effective and hasn't been since we've been using it I know there have been some Kinks and Miss U Brinson has brought up before that they're working on some things but it just is not effective uh we get so much communication from the public and board email is also sent to the superintendent so he has access to it I know that in the past past we had an extra administrative assistance to work with the board and now miss buoy is really working herself to death um but I think there should be another way possibly having somebody do specialize in doing the complaints not just online but why do we have to get

169redundant I have to have this program on one computer because I can't put it it's got to be a special computer I can't put it on the computer I use all the time so when I get complaints I have to move over to the other one and copy and paced if I want to do it that way if I explain it myself then I have to go in my own words then I'm not sure when I'm going to get back what's going on a lot of times you know it's very nebulous about the results I'm not even sure if it was effective we just get some wording saying it's taken care of and then over here might be a more complete suggestion I guess this depends who P set to or not but it really

170is very unsatisfactory as far as handling complaints and I know that that frustrates the public because ultimately we're the ones that get looked at and we're not not it's not just it's not being done in an effective manner so we need to look at this and and change it and I think possibly instead of putting everything on a computer and having this redundancy and this problem with extra work on our part um and I know at least a couple of the board members work really hard trying to do it and I appreciate you doing that but then another T thing is that sometimes we all put the same thing in and it's already been sent to us via email so I mean this is just not practical it causes us extra work it doesn't come

171out with solutions that are satisfactory for a lot of people and um and as I said it's not just it's a lot of redundancy so I would like to see this system us think of another way of doing it besides a present one or figure out a way to tweak it I would like to have it on one computer to begin with and I really dislike the fact that if one person emails us either seven of us can say we've got this on the complaint system or nobody will cuz nobody knows what's going on half the time I know you say you can look at it but people do it at different times too so the purpose of the referral system is just that so that all seven of you can get the information at

172one time so if one person puts it in then we have up to 10 days to get the response it's not just as soon as you put the information in there's someone who is right there who can do it there's some research that actually comes what happens is someone will put the information in and then the other someone is calling the office so then when they call the office they get one of the senior leadership team members the senior team leadership member has then answered the person's call and so it's like they hadn't put it in so then the information has been stalled because the person who was who put the information in didn't follow the process they picked up the telephone they called and then they got the information so then the the leader

173senior leadership team person didn't go back in and update it so if the process the process work works if you give us time to work the system okay if you're talking directly to me at this point that's that's very minor from what I'm seeing is called I just said a whole lot of other things besides that all right M crille would like to make a comment yeah um thank you for recognizing me um to talk when it's thank you um anyway so this board referral system um we have tweaked a little bit you know since it's been working um since we we've been starting it and um we have been given the information that we can share information from the ticket with people um once it's in there um which is up to whoever wants

174to to reply to that person back um with that and there are glitches yes there are but you the it's in in the world that we're in in in the data collection it is so much easier to have some of these complaints and these are this is what a that board committee that we just didn't think we needed could easily resolve um I I personally and this um I personally just don't think it's it's um good governance on our part to say that a system is a waste of time and I don't want to go back and look at my other computer when we were issued these computers for the very purpose of conducting School business on so um that's just that's just my two cents it it's it's a system that is new and

175I think that we just need to do a couple more tweaks um to do that so you know people send let's send our tweaks to Dr f i I know I have and I've sent them to you know Miss Brunson and she has fixed some of them and um it gives us an opportunity you know for the people who are responsible for these areas to really do some in-depth research and I appreciate the the emails that the the responses that we're getting back in this um from them so it's it's um maybe our timely responses could be you know worked on a little bit more but the overall the system is is doing what it was designed to do we just have to use it with Fidelity you know us and say them you know

176the staff that you have assigned to do that especially if you've asked us you know to you know funnel everything through you this is a way to funnel it through you but still get an answer Miss Walker I would say that I have not always got answers and M cra's being very kind but I know that she's had issues as well and I know there's Kinks um but to say this point that it's like just new it's not new I know in the very beginning I was using it like crazy and I just it just wasn't working out and so I changed my mode and that's that's how I had you know that's the opportunity I had to get the answers that I needed even sometimes I don't um I know I know he's using

177a lot more now I've seen the closed tickets but you know it's like you know we're getting the some of the similar same stuff multiple times in different places I know I've not gotten answers so I I I would just disagree strongly disagree that it's been working yes Mr mcmanis I understand the genuine of the process so it it it it it deals with our us as a group and the access and the sharing it needs to be tweaked somehow I think it's a little bit difficult sometimes to open the tickets mhm um and the responses I realized I'm not about to criticize if they take an extra day or two to resolve it cuz I can't imagine it only goes to either Miss Jerry M buoy and then I guess they assign it from

178there but I have to admit it could use some tweaking so would it be the will of the board as we move forward as we talk about communication improvements or Comm as we're looking at communication as a district this could be something that Dr F you and your team could look at as as an option of how we could improve the system providing us the what's not not working on your side the specific pain points right so board members if you could provide specific pain points of what are the issues you feel like you're not getting information soon enough it's the technology isome whatever it is but if you could send specific requests of the the tweaks to Dr F on that's something they can work on right could I suggest that we maybe send

179them to you so that you can send him one so he's not getting like 10 like well not 10 seven so that we can just get it all handled at one time instead of you know fix this one fix this one fix this abely you can send them to me and I will put them all into one list and send them to Dr fa all right moving right along uh the new han County School's fee schedule Mary Hazel small again um every year we um I guess last year was probably the first year we um the state required we publish all of our fees in one location on our website and so this is our update to our fee schedule for this year we um ideally we'd bring this before um the beginning of the

180school year but we weren't making any changes to fees at the school level we were just awaiting the board policy that was going to implement a fee um for certain public information request you know over four hours and so once that policy was considered by the board at your last meeting we're bringing the fee schedule for approval um there's a couple of policy reference that change changed in the um other areas but the fees are the same and then the under the public records request paragraph basically um some of the same language from the policy to just explain it and to let folks know that we will estimate fees based on average cost or if we know who's actually going to be working on it we could do actual cost but the the um charges

181would be based on actual cost as required by the law so these the rates that are shown are just for informational purposes for for um readers to estimate um but depending on who's working on it it it would be the actual charges per hour so that's an average for our clerical staff at the level that we think would probably be working on these requests as well as um an administrative staff member all right so uh do I hear a motion to approve the fee schedule as listed we'll come back for discussion I wanted to ask a question yes okay during the meeting where we talked about this originally you said if I remember right it was at the four hours were free and after the four hours greater than four hours is what I the

182the fees will be charged after 4 hours okay I don't know why for some reason when I read this I can't get that clear in my head um can't see it right from here so um I thought I pulled the language from the policy but if it isn't clear we certainly can can modify that to make it clear that it's greater than four hours yeah because that's what it says say it justice about halfway down I said for the purposes of the policy considers 4 hours or more to be extensive so so the first four if it would if you could clarify the language of the first four hours there is no free correct and if you state that language needs to be clarified here you know if y'all um direct me to do that

183I can certainly do that I'm just trying clarification do other board members feel that that needs to be cleared up I I think I think it's I think I I I can understand it do you think it's going to be confusing for others board I could just put in parentheses you know great than four hours if that helped you okay yes okay uh also 25 I'm going to have problems with this no matter what $25 an hour to me is excessive because the taxpayers are paying these people's salaries I know that one of the biggest problems we're having right now is what's going on the last couple years in this district has called for all the people to feel like they desire to go back and look at our public records because Justice not to

184cut you off but that's not what's being debated this policy has already been approved what we are approving right now is the fee schedule to be released so do I hear a motion to approve the fee schedule is released moved thank you Mr bullers there a second second thank you Miss Crill any discussion yes Miss Justice sorry right as I said we are already paying the taxpayers I mean taxpayers are paying for our clerical work and I really do believe that this is very situational involving what's going on in Miss justice as I said we had this conversation when we talked about the policy that is not what we're voting on and that is not what the discussion needs discussion is whether we're going to approve this or not the fee schedule as a whole

185the policy dictating the schedule has already been established so any other discussion the discussion was on the $25 an hour all those in favor say I I I I all those opposed uh I'm opposed all right so um let's just go through if you could just do a quick roll call just to make sure miss buoy Miss Adams I Mr bullier hi Miss Justice no Miss crille hi Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes and Mr wildbore hi all right motion uh passes fee schedule's approved 6 to one I believe you are staying up here miss small for the budget amendments thank you um tonight I'm bringing for your um recommendation an appropriation of fund balance in our um local fund or general fund to um appropriate an additional $4 million um you may remember during

186the budget process it was um the board's desire to reduce our available fund balance to um 10 million that was available for appropriation so after we closed out the year um and and realized the add the actual savings after audit rules and all those things um we have an additional 4 million to to budget at this time um we are still at that we need to budget it now because we'll be publishing financial statement soon but the um I am recommending that a portion of it be um put in 2.2 million of it be put in salary Reserve depending on what happens with the state budget um they may P pay more or less of our budgeted um raises for our classified staff and so um if we don't need it for salaries we'll bring

187bring it back to you to repurpose for another another reason um and then all the other items that were listed included um carryover for our purchase orders that we didn't um finish last year um money for after school tutoring um some additional money for school supplies and um reserves for our Erp system and a million dollars in a repair project reserve for the new hanor um gy FL all right so you have heard the recommendation I'm sorry yes could you say that last word you said again I'm I didn't hear it I'm sorry say again million dollars for what I'm sorry the um sorry I was talking too fast the rep a repair reserve for the New Hanover gim floor um we don't have Mr Anderson can address this I'm not sure we have the

188actual cost yet but we expect to pay for part out of it out of deferred capital projects um but once again depending on what we need for for raises we may be able to add a little bit more you know from local so right now I was comfortable recommending a million in that Reserve with the rest to be paid out of capital outlay once we know the actual cost I I was just TR you know we're having fun talking fun talking through these masks all right so is there a motion to approve the budget amendments as presented moved thank you Mr boier is there a second second thank you miss crille any other discussion all those in favor say I I all those opposed budget amendments pass 7 to Z thank you very much yes

189sir nothing bad I promise just for the sake of those who may be watching or referenced what affects our budget how long since the general assembly started to approve the budget we're in what year 3/4 two years and a and and a quarter so so much of what we decide with scales and then what they say they're going to offer from the house the Senate finally they agree on what they will offer we're still waiting two and two years or something and lucky for you in about 15 more minutes I'm going to come back up here why you do it while you're here go through that again but um yes I'm going to remind everyone of the timeline as well as um our estimates for salary so thank you so so much money salary mone's

190designated depend on the legislature Bing they final budget yep thank you thank you all right next item on the agenda Transportation update Mr Anderson you came running up here you are so excited to get up here we're excited to see you I've been eagerly waiting all evening good evening and uh I am glad to talk to you about Transportation give you an update on some of the uh issues that we've been faced with the challenges and uh most importantly uh talk to you about some solutions uh quick update um prior to the covid pandemic we had 137 bus drivers we're currently uh operating with a hundred drivers um transportation the good news this year we hired seven new drivers uh unfortunately the bad news is we lost six um however and I I say that

191jokingly because um the truth is the things that we have done and the things that you have uh approved and allowed us to do uh is helping um I can say that this year or last year we hired more bus drivers than we did in the previous three years combined this year we're going to beat that so um and some of the things that we're doing job fairs hiring uh have have worked um we had a good turnout for the uh bus driver Fair we had a good turnout in working with HR uh for the districtwide uh job fair um the hiring and uh recruitment bonus that uh you all approved uh has been a tremendous success uh just as a reminder our new drivers will uh receive $1,000 bonus and if you're an existing

192bus driver or employee it doesn't mean you know it could be any new hanur County School employee if you were refer someone that applies and successfully completes the training and becomes a bus driver you're also eligible for $1,000 referral bonus okay we have a CDL Class starting next week okay I'm in she'll keep it really sa promise you yeah I I think um something else that uh that you all have recognized and uh have have addressed uh the hourly pay rate uh currently our bus drivers are paid at $14 an hour but in the budget at your request um and hopefully uh approved very soon uh the hourly rate for bus drivers will be increased to $15 an hour um so that's just a quick update about our drivers and uh challenges we're facing uh

193some of the specifics that uh happening this year we have over 11,000 students assigned bus routes um that's pretty close to preco conditions uh we're running 110 buses daily doing 511 routes and driving 9,00 364 miles a day so I mean it's it's a tremendous operation and they do a great job um I know this is not the um not what most of not what the community wants to to see and I hope that we can improve on this but I will say community stops are a necessity you we're down 37 drivers um and I and I want to I want to point out you community stops the longest distance from a house to the bus stop is 0.9 miles 910 of a mile um the average distance is17 we have far few stops that

194are more than a half mile from a person's house far fewer stops so we're really not talking about a long distance there's a one mile walk radius around every school um we're not required to provide transportation and we don't unless there's a safety concern you know obviously there are certain streets that we don't want our students Crossing and when we look at Community stops we look at them in the same way um we try to make sure that Community stops are located in a you know a safe area and there safe uh walk uh or route to walk to that stop we've made adjustments you know we put all the information in Tims and the computer spits out these routes and it's really good at it um but it doesn't know all of the safety

195issues and we review those as much as we can we make changes before the routes are published um at the beginning of the school year if we get a call or a complaint uh we'll look at it and um I'd say the majority of the time you know we've been able to adjust those routes and we've been able to accommodate uh the request there is a some a positive side to community stops um it does improve our efficiency rating um you remember the state funds Transportation based on that efficiency rating so if we're eligible for a million dollars in state funding and our efficient efficiency rating is 60% we're only going to get 600,000 of that our efficiency rating is 94 % so transportation is doing an excellent job in making sure that our routes

196are efficient uh they're timely and that we have um you as many students as we can we're close to that capacity of the bus um it does provide uh for ontime arrival last week we were 92% on time uh we had 12 buses late with and they were late in average of 5 minut minutes um that is morning times afternoon I didn't I didn't include the afternoon times in there and um but we're uh I can get that for you um they do allow students to be at school and engaged in instruction you know this is 92% on time and that's really been our focus in the morning because in previous years we weren't close to 92% um so we've made a lot of improvements there uh shorter bus routes do limit exposure to covid

197and uh the the covid concerns as we're not social distancing on buses right now and U that really brings me to the next point I think when um I've heard over and over again buses are overcrowded buses are overcrowded I can stand here and assure you that we do not transport students when those buses uh are over capacity and I think the misconception is we've spent the past 18 months uh with social distancing we it wasn't that long ago we had one student to a seat you know and then we started slowly coming back with more and more students um our bus capacity for elementary students is three to a seat 72 students on a bus and uh and we get pretty close to that uh Middle School is 60 High School is 48 uh

198we run a lot of combined routes for so most most of our secondary routes are um are at 48 um there is no requirement for social distancing on the bus uh I think that the overcrowding is a concern that we're returning to full capacity and um uh we do require mask on the bus and if a student doesn't have a mask then the bus driver has masks and we provide those to students had a couple of complaints um and and if for whatever reason the driver didn't have mask we make sure that they have them um one of the biggest challenges we've had is since the beginning of the school year we really struggled to gather good information or good data on student transportation request and I think this um you know when you get

199in a rhythm of year to year to year to year you've got good data that carries forward Co erased all that um you know we we had four databases running at one time when we were AABB schedule um so right now what we've what we've realized is we have far more students that have uh that are assigned to a bus than are actually riding a bus um Miss Barnum gave me some information from scribbles and um there was a difference of 2500 students from scribbles to power school and we expect there to be a difference there that's that would be from the beginning of school year enrollment data and then current data so we know power school is going to be more but not 2500 the good thing about that is that that has allowed

200us to identify which schools have the largest discrepancy and then really go and attack those schools and and fix the problem there just recently we did that at tras and um and we we notified parent hey this is what we're doing this week if your child's affected you're going to get a bus pass and it'll give you the new bus assignment the new stop location the time whatever changed um if you do not get a bus pass then you continue doing what you're doing um the next week uh we had tremendous improvements in our route efficiency in our times um so we are now looking at doing this at the other schools and just going one at a time and uh and knocking these out and I'm not saying these are all the issues um

201certainly not these are some of the biggest ones we've talked about um but I I really I really would like to get and I've talked to uh some of the principles and assistant principles uh principles and APS are typically assigned to uh to work bus Duty and uh work very closely with us um they're very familiar with uh Transportation they're very familiar with the daily operations so I've talked to Mr Clawson and we're going to be putting together a focused group of principles to really look at um you know what what are the overall issues and I think that'll be the easy part we can identify those quickly but more importantly with their understanding and and working in it daily what are the solutions you know help us brainstorm and bring forward Solutions and and

202some of these we may be able to implement immediately you know some of these we may be able to implement next year some of these we may be coming back to the board with a recommendation and it uh would require your approval um but I think that that would be a really good group to put together so we've um we've already started that process and even if we don't come back for your approval I'd be glad to come back and tell you what we found and you know some of the things and outcomes uh some of the things were discussed and the outcomes from that meeting so um that's a quick update I'd be glad to answer any questions if you have any any questions from the board Mr mcmanis this is not a question

203this this is a thank you I've flipped at least four tickets about bus issues I think two were really safety the other two were being counted tardy and you responded directly to that parent I appreciate that that that and I think I thanked you right behind it because that thank you cuz you got a heck of a job though you did thank you like you Mr Buller and then miss Justin yeah Mr Anderson this is a a criticism my daughter now gets home 15 minutes earlier I was really enjoying that time but uh the first PML I've had like no I I I'll go Mr mcmanes we we really appreciate you operating through these struggles and we're we're very thankful for what you do so thank you very much thank you Miss Justice okay um

204and I do appreciate you are working within the parameters of what you've get to work with we're down 37 drivers you said that the community routes have made a huge difference in efficiency can I ask you a question about when it was that the the legislature the state legislature decided to base money given to school districts because you've been here a while uh on the amount of u efficiency that they were doing on their routes do you know turn to when when did that happen oh they've been doing that for 20 years 20 years okay I'm just trying to find out information okay um here's my concern those Community routes and I my kids go to them and I get all kinds of communications about the problems it varies from Community to community literally some

205are safer than others to get there some PE some kids do walk a half a mile some kids is right down the block uh there's a lot of variety but the situation is is that those Community uh the stops can be a problem with certain communities uh there is overcrowding on the buses uh you've got three you know you got three fifth graders sitting in one seat and they the kids are big size I mean they there's I'm getting complaints about how crowded the buses is and it's probably right to a certain extent it might be perception from last year but you know there's buses have got some Maximum amounts of kids on them and it does seem very cred and I agree we do I don't think they're they're not overpopulated we do have

206the maximum amount of kids on right um I'm more concerned about the fact we need Community routes are nice but I think we I don't think that's the answer for our situation or probably anybody if you believe in public transportation for our school students we've got you said 11,000 students using the buses we've got 26,000 kids in our district some of them do walk because of the perimeter you said a mile and and then sometimes because of safety reasons you know they are put on the buses but then that means that we have got 15,000 students being let's say half of that 7,000 students being driven to school every day I can't even and I I know my grandson goes to goes to u l Laney and I know that's a huge problem with the

207transportation the driving situation and it's not just Lany there's so many schools like that I've watched parents line up in the afternoon say for an elementary school that uh lets the kids out at 2:30 or 2:4 I've seen them line up before 2:00 to get ready to pick their kids up this is happening all across the district and the reason is is because of our perception it's not just a perception it's the fact of how our public bus our transportation works now I said you are do great with what you're given but we should be giving more and right now there seems to be a real safety issue in our communities and we've got kids walking incredible distances in some of these communities that aren't necessarily safe and gathering in spots at strange times of

208day or night and you know we were given all this money to come up with solutions for safety concerns and I've raised this and yet I mean it seems to me valid that this is the kind of monies that we can get to improve our bus system to bring efficiency and safety to our district uh you said that we're going to get up to $15 an hour I think it's enlo County one County over they start they're PID $16 to $18 an hour now they're recruiting bus drivers 44,000 I think it's $4,000 bonus all across the state they're getting very creative we are very lucky in this District in a sense because we got this extra money from the hospital sale we're talking about safety these are the kinds of things excuse me these are

209the kinds of things that has anybody brought this up or discuss that you're talking about Solutions about possibly using some of this money to recruit more bus drivers and add more buses maybe even put teachers as I mean bus monitors does anybody talk to you about this or money from the hospital sale believe it or not this is where the $350 million is coming from for our education sa I have not asked anybody so nobody's talked about it any anything I have not asked I don't know if anyone's talking about it okay that money is not ours that is the the county manager has responsibility for that money that's not ours to spend as we see fit the county is going to determine what is the best way to do that to promote anybody brought

210these kinds of safety factors about our transportation system that would be a great way to spend some of this money Madam chair just a just a question Miss Justice have you called the County Commissioners what did they say what did they say when you called and said can we have money for buses I would love to talk to them but at this point uh I'm just bringing it up now because I've requested this discussion but it's it's their money excuse me it's our money it's our taxpayers money why do you keep saying it's our we do not have access to $350 million our leadership has conversations and this is one way you're part of that leadership Miss Justice please call the County Commissioners this is one this is you know this is the kind of

211thing that Friday that we missed because of the training that could have come up in that conversation Mr mcmanis andou comments for sake of time I think we need to move on yes Mr MC couple quick comments on first to any County that has a federal any army navy Air Force any base gets impact monies from the federal government a lot and so that that's I'm sure Dr like to have a lot of that but and this is a national phenomenon MH it is I mean except maybe in a rural area where a lot of people don't have more job opportunities extensive travel to get to a job opportunity they're going to drive buses um it's it's unfortunate I'm not sure $15 will do it but I know it is a national issue we don't

212own that issue and I don't want to own it I just want to continue to talk about it and do the best we can I would um I would say two things about the $15 an hour um I think that that works as a uh retention effort if you want to use pay as a recruitment effort it's going to need to be 20 $25 an hour and the problem that we're already seeing is that we have custodians and Child Nutrition and maintenance workers and other non certif cied staff that see we're paying our bus drivers more and are asking why when we have the same staffing issues in those areas so I I mean personally I believe they all need to be making more money and we gave all the money good point well thank

213you very much for this presentation Mr Anderson we appreciate it no m krael is it a question or is it a comment it's a comment to add to his that um and then we'll close the we have people that are here to present from the district and out of respect I'll wait till family the family commit all right thank you next item policies for first reading Mr Buller if you would like to briefly give an overview for this this is for information only chair there are six policies before the board I have not heard any questions uh regarding these policies so if there are none at this time I'd encourage board members to prepare for second reading all right thank you very much uh next item on the agenda under information proposed local salary structure

214and I believe we're going to welcome up U Miss Mary Hazel small again Madam chair we moved Head Start there's a climate survey there was an added oh shoot I'm sorry I apologize my apologies I did not I didn't have that in front of me okay uh item H climate survey Mr mcmanis this is your item well as I said earlier this evening I think it's time for us to surve surve the needs the issues are is the top% botom 8% middle andely gives us an idea of our school system and so what resonates across the school system what by individual schools communities populations B thank you thank you Chase but so again individual School puls community puls that helps us any successful policies and decisions should be based on data and that part of

215datadriven information that I think we need and I think our teachers are crying out to have an opportunity I don't think they're all going to be negative but there's some things that we need to address and it's not anyone's fault it's just the nature of so much that we've dealt with for two years and continue to deal but they need to be heard and I think that that information individually and collectively can help this board make much much much better decisions financially and policy wise Madam chairman yes Mr Man are you talking like a basically a teacher working condition survey type idea yes okay you said idea PS absolutely great idea so they're available Madam chair yes uh yeah I think it's a great idea and I thank you for bringing this you before us

216Mr mcus I would urge I wouldn't say teacher I think all staff well staff I think all staff and um I think a good Next Step would be to ask the administration to find a contractor to you know begin you know that we could work with who could do this climate survey Miss Justice okay and I brought it up earlier and you said this would be the time I think that we need to do more now now um our staff morale is so low because of conditions starting with the pandemic and things have just escalated um the stress is unreal the way that um their expectations of on our staff not just teachers is uh just such so burdensome at this point we are literally losing people that we can't afford to lose they're taking

217literally taking the joy out of teaching and working with children uh we have been getting the emails there's something going on that we need to address immediately uh I think the climate Sur it would be a great way to get information but that's going to take time I think that we need to form some form of a committee or a special meeting uh where we bring in some people from the all different people from our the administration to explain what's going on and we as a board need to look at this and examine what's going on and help make decisions to try to turn some of this around because it's not working right now and it shouldn't it's our job we are in charge they are asking us for help and so we need to

218give some help to our staff because right now there's you know the climate survey is only one of several things we can do we need to understand what's going on I would like to know what it is in these schools and I'm hearing plenty that is so burdensome to the point where we're we're losing good people daily I heard of one school last week that lost three teachers I believe it was and that's just one out of 46 we cannot continue this our kids can't we're going to end up I don't know what you can combining classes we've got people teachers don't even have planning periods anymore Subs won't sub and it's not just a pandemic at this point there's a lot going on we need to know what's going on so both Mr mcmanis

219and Miss Justice are you asking for something today what are you what is the action that you're you're requesting of the board I think go ahead go ahead go ahead I think there are two distinct differences one is open discussions which you talked about but one is given every single individual staff member an opportunity to respond to what they like or what they don't or what an issue in their particular Community is or their school or decisions that we've made whatever and there are 14 zon of these things available it doesn't take a long time you don't have to a contractor half the people out here can access multiples if you want to finesse it if you want to change a little bit to adapt maybe more for elementary but I think that again that's

220two separate issues yeah but everybody should have a chance what are you asking for them Mr mcmanis tonight for the administration to research the vendors and bring them what I did when I made my change to the agenda right so um do we need a vote for that or just a consensus I think it's just are we good with that Dr F could you okay a vote to um go ahead and research uh vendors for climate surveys um by when as soon as possible inter I say before Christmas how about before the interim I don't know that's only two weeks I think that's that's prob P it for you um yeah how about next month we got to do this fast at the at the November meeting yep please okay all right um can share

221that with his commit to have the the person selected or vendor opport options yes okay vendor options and I'll suggest you share it with your Committee of teachers that you meet with so ahead of time if they have any comments um what is there are you making that motion well so we have non-certified certified students um NC Papa and so I just don't want us to hit one group because so we would go out and just look for vend who does the climate survey and then bring it back to the board and let you cu okay yeah it's thank you so so I second that so second okay so first by Mr mcmanis second by Miss Justice any other discussion all those in favor say I I all those opposed all right thank you very

222much and then the second issue Miss Justice what are you asking for I move I move that we have a special meeting of board members and staff to discuss how we can discuss what's going on to schools that's causing so much um that's causing the problems that the staff is fa is morale at this point I'm not quite sure how to word this but we need to have a special meeting to discuss the problems going on to school that's um challenging our teachers to the point where they're quitting and they're stressed out we need to find out what's going on when is this special meeting being held who is writing the agenda and who is responsible for pulling the people I would be more well actually when you I was about to say normally Administration

223would do that but I mean I would be more than happy to do that what couldn't we just have administration because they are addressing this issue they are talking about it themselves could they report back to us we don't have time to be waiting if we go ahead and vote for it yeah they could report back to us at the interim about how to set something like this up but I really don't we're talking about putting stuff off and every day it's just worse and worse Madam chair let me go to m Crill first and then Mr Boer do I what's the priority list yeah the all right so I am um I am too discouraged that we have so many people that are upset you know with their jobs and as are many people

224in our country I mean I think some people are just everybody's just burned out and tired and I don't know I don't not want to address it but I think we have systems in place um I'm just kind of getting the feeling that that that you're thinking that our central office folks and our principes are just not caring about what's going on and that they aren't trying to address this I mean we've got you know um Jackie and Al out there every single day in the schools we've got you know um Dr Coker looking at you know working with our EAP oh and now Dr Barnes working you know to get EAP information to people I it's hard and it's stressful but um I I'm just not certain that we need to impose another layer

225because if we add another layer onto Dr fa and his team then now we've stressed out another group we're just taking that balloon and pushing the air around so I think that if we just get this climate survey out there and we just have to trust that Dr fa is going to have meetings with his advisory teams and we already asked him and he already said he would report back to us you can come to okay and also too like like what's our priority you know we've got all I mean we've just laid like five things out here you know that aren't even in the goal package that we that can I make a motion so we can discuss it proper I'm still talking parliamentary procedure says I get to finish I I could have

226made my motion I was trying to do that before you start finish and thence for the motion all right all right Miss Justice yes I would like to make a motion that we have a special meeting uh with our administrative team and um other experts to discuss the the problem with teacher morale or staff morale it's not just teachers staff morale is there a second I'll go ahead and second it thank you Miss Walker um Mr Bull your discussion yeah um thank you Miss krael for for your remarks U look there's not a single person up here who doesn't discuss this every single day with teachers staff everywhere we're in schools we're answering emails we're already discussing it I think the last thing this community wants is for us to sit up here and talk

227for 40 minutes with absolutely no objective the climate survey will inform our next decisions I absolutely agree it's a priority but my God how much talking are we going to do up here to figure everything out it doesn't work that way thank you Miss Walker well after that I would like to just say that you know we we're getting communication all the time and it is a desperate and I would have to say that when I send an email out to you guys and I get no answers I worry that we're just not having the conversations we should be having and I just think it's very important that you know since the buck is supposed to stop somewhere and it usually stops with us we've heard that tonight and you know I just think that

228I really do worry that the struggle is it's it's just so real and I just feel like I know talking is not everything but it's something and I think for some people it is very important that we are addressing it and and at least having the conversation about maybe what we can do Mr Vore you know we we are sitting up here in the Das like you know making big decisions which is very important sorry uh we are sitting up here making very important decisions but I think having a round table with some of the stakeholders would make a lot of sense to me you know yes we're sitting here we've had people present we've had teachers come up here and present that they're struggling we've had a lot lot of folks talk about struggling

229and I think the climate survey is going to be huge but unfortunately that's not going to happen for the in the near future you know hopefully it'll happen you know but we're talking about a month away or yeah how many more teachers are we going to lose in a month how many more other folks are we going to lose in a month you know um you know I I I'm all about communicating and I'm all about coming up with Solutions and I don't know waiting two weeks or waiting a month or you know if we get a climate survey out in a month then talking about another 2 3 weeks after that to get the information the data back and we're talking about another two weeks after that to to be able to implement any

230strategies so we're talking about two or three month you know we're talking about January probably by the time we get anything moving and you know from what I'm hearing from a lot of folks you know we need to do something sooner than that so that's my opinion yes M so we we do have a system in place called School Improvement teams that perhaps they can in the interim while we're waiting for a survey that you know principles and um the school Improvement team chairs can be you know talking about these kinds of things and be ready when it's their turn to present I mean that's it's it's that's another tool that we already have that maybe we just need to remind folks to go back to Madam chair i' like Miss Justice um and then

231we'll go to a vote okay we can't wait I think Hugh's I mean Mr mcm's idea of a survey is great it is right now it is happening School Improvement teams are I've worked on them I've been part of them for years that is not fast enough literally either you're talking you're talking about 46 individual schools we're getting call we're getting emails and calls and Word of Mouth from all over this District we don't have time to wait it's a great idea to have experts and teachers staff other staff sit down let's discuss this out loud let's see what's going on there's definitely problems that can be addressed but we got to know what they are all of us we are responsible we're the ones they're coming to asking for help we're the ones that

232can help them if we don't help them that's on you guys I'm going to help the staff I'm going to help the teachers um I'm going to take this to the vote but I'm going to close this conversation with this our job is a governance team the superintendent job is the management and there absolutely need to be stakeholder conversations about morale in our schools it's not just education Healthcare is getting Bamboozled everybody is burn out across the board we see it we know it we're trying to address it I trust in this team I trust that everybody that is sitting here as part of the senior staff is working with our schools to help develop plans to raise morale us sitting at a table saying what our opinions are when we are not in the

233schools every day yes we are out there and yes we talk to people but what we see is different as board members versus what you see as staff I disagree that we should have a meeting about this I believe that the superintendent and his team should be working collaboratively with the schools and that is going to be my last comment on this um I would like to go for a vote on Miss Justice's motion to hold a special meeting was seconded by Miss Walker Miss buoy if you could please call the role for this one miss Adams no Mr Buller no Miss Justice yes Miss Crill no Mr M Manis no Miss Walker yes and Mr wbore yes right motion fails 423 uh next item on the agenda for real this time is information proposed

234salary schedules Mary Hazel small thank you um tonight I want to review um salary schedules we we brought some of these to you for consider consideration in April as we were um building our our budget plan for the year and um let see if I have this the just as a reminder of where we are in the budget process before we get into the salary schedules um so the goal of our local schedule some of our salary schedules are approved by the state and others are local so the state approves all the certified teacher pay and principal pay schedules um we have supp schedule to supplement those State salary schedules for for teachers and principes which the board already approved um in the with the July budget at this point um we're waiting on the

235state budget to make some decisions um which are bulleted um in that third section with the what changes they're going to make to the the teacher and um principal base pay um what changes they'll they'll make in terms of Step increases for those folks on those schedule percent in percentage increases for non-certified staff um the state approves ranges for them but not salary schedules so that's why we have local salary schedules for the non-certified staff and also um the state in the proposed budget that we um back in August I brought to you um sort of the the comparison between the house and the Senate and the conference budget that we're waiting on will be somewhere in between and both of those include bonuses for for most of those employees so um hopefully by the

236end of next week we'll know what all that looks like and um we can bring back the schedules to you for approval um part of the reason we need to wait is because so many of our employees um are paid from um from state so many of our non-certified employees are paid from State and two years ago um we made the decision to go ahead with our first you know part of our phase in Improvement for our non-certified staff in hopes that state would approve a budget and then they did so a big bulk of that ended up being a local cost and at this point we really need the state funding to to implement it for everyone so hopefully we will have great news next week um I'm very very optimistic after two and

237almost two and a half years um the next steps will be today to review the the salary schedules and then as soon as the state um votes um to approve we will bring back to you for approval um and at this point I want to just go through and and look at the remind you of what's in the schedules and and talk about some highlights also attached to this agenda where the actual schedules there 22 pages so we're not going to go through all that but you'll get the idea of how they're formatted and what the changes are so first we're going to look at the non-certified salary schedule which is what most if you're not on those certified or licensed teacher and school administrator pay scales you're either on the non-certified salary schedule we

238have a couple of um separate schedules that we'll talk about in a minute and then we have a central office administrative pay schedule so those are that most people fall under this one um whether your salary or Al Aller um the non-certified there's several different grades and those are sort of State defined grades with ranges and then each Lea determines what their scale looks like within that range and then the state will come along and say what what amount of percent or dollar amount they want to do they they typically do it different every year but the the proposals for this year are for percent increases and um what is new this year is a Min a $13 minimum wage which this board did two years ago to get to a $13 minimum wage for

239this schedule if the state does the $13 minimum wage when before it was like seven that gives us the funding to get to 14 because we already have if that makes sense it sort of allows us to go further than than what we had done in the past so $14 minimum wage um it there will still be some some compressed um steps and what that means is if we take every if we started with 14 and then went up it would been more than we thought we could afford in the budget so in the the bottom two grades which is the 55 and 57 grade the first few steps are compressed the goal is over the next couple years we get to the point where there wouldn't be any compressed steps so that someone could

240move with step increase every year and get a raise um we do expect the state the state's goal is to get to to get to a $15 minimum wage so and we're we're a little bit ahead of that so we should be able to get there um ahead of time so we this scale is set up to be 14 um I don't know why I said 14 $14 minimum wage 31% steps so right now um as we have tried to recover our pay scales from the recession over 10 years ago um we had uneven steps and so this gets us back to having 1% steps with with between each and and consistent through throughout the scale it also um would be an average increase of 7% so clearly the folks at the bottom are going

241to get the bigger rise because they're going up to a new minimum but it it will vary as we stabilize the steps um some because the step increases were different some folks will get more of an increase than others but there would be a minimum increase of 2% um local costs would be partially offset by the state increases which is why we've been waiting and um so this is just a sample format but as I said the the complete scales are attached um any questions on this particular um non-certified pay schedule in the format okay next um are the other pay scales for non-certified staff the bus driver has their own scale um and it only has 15 Steps what that means is you get to the top of the State Range faster with a

24230 step scale you know you um it it looks like there's not as much of an increase but they're starting higher and ending higher um we there was some discussion earlier in your in your discussion about transportation that some counties are going um you know above $20 the state we can only use State money if we stay within their range but that doesn't mean you couldn't use local money if that was your choice but with um this particular scale that we had been proposing was within the state range because that's always been the parameter that we've looked at clearly circumstances are different um our goal for bus drivers was to get higher um prior to to get that minimum wage up higher than everyone else with eventually everybody getting to to the 15 B minimum

243wage so um the board could consider doing something different next year you know to go to go even higher or to change this format um so this is a $15 minimum wage for drivers 14 for bus AIDS but the bus AIDS are also on this 15 Step scale um it's a twostep in and I didn't mention that on the last scale which is really important um and it applies to this one too we did not do a step increase last year because we never had a budget so what we're recommending with with this is the employees if they had two years of experience and they were with us the last two years they'll get two steps on the scale not just one and that applies for bus drivers as as well as the the folks

244on the non-certified scale um let's see one 1% step increases to reach the top of the State schedule step 15 and also to increase sub pay from 1275 to 1315 there there's a there's a schedule and a couple of slides on subay different types of subay but this one specifically related to bus driers so I listed it for you for Child Nutrition um we do have a lot of Child Nutrition employees that are um on the non-certified pay scale but we also have this group of um part-time they're not considered permanent state employees they work less than 20 hours a week and they're on this schedule which starts would be currently starts at a minimum of 12 and it was going to go to 13 um which would be the the new state base we

245hope um and then it every five years there is a step increase for those um up until about five years ago we we just had a flat rate for for them so we've have sort of been building a schedule for these part-time folks to give them a little bit higher and help recruit so and also a two-step increase catch up a step for them so any questions on these two schedules okay for central office administrator this is slightly different than what we talked about before because we have um tried to to to balance the um ability to recruit into central office you know from school positions and have Equity between principal scale and central office Al scale um and so we um what is different from the the last time you saw this is we

246um inserted director was at sa5 which is the I guess the fifth column of numbers over and then um we had executive director and then I guess um the the sa7 was contracted senior staff um and then most of those are by contract so um or non-contract yourself so we added prek director to this because prek directors are not technically principles we we have paid them as principles but they are um the state doesn't recognize them as principles and so we um we're going to put them on as a as a its own category on the scale and then um shift director up and executive director and above at A7 um so the 30 step scale with a a slightly shifted um categories still 1% step to get to the state Max average increase is

24714% um and this is trying to provide Equity so that we are able to fill these positions um because if if not people would um in positions that would normally be promotions you would make more if you went back to a school um let's see so anything any questions on this before I go to the subject yeah so could you please just um I have two questions one I am unclear about why a prek director is not a principal and not paid as such um the the state is never could you can have prek at a school you know and then there's principal of school and so we have always paid our we've called them principales and we paid them out of local funds because the state the state doesn't even give School numbers to

248our pre centers it's it's allowable it's a center it's just not a state recognized school and therefore you don't get a state principal for that and so we decided to put them um and Dr F may want to help me with this but to to put them on this schedule because they're not a state recognized principle so the accountability measures aren't there for so as a principal the state gives you accountability measures so for instance um they at the end of the year if there's a ranking they get um meets expect expectation or exceeds expectation there is a growth mechanism where principles get a payout for it so with this there's no accountability measure but we were still giving them the same holding them to the same standard as the uh K5 principle without the

249actual same standards set by the state so this um provides uh I believe more equity for prek versus um your uh Elementary principle there are no State Standards not State Standards State accountability measures for prek Center where we have at the the principal level so even with the push at the state level to have more emphasis on prek they still don't recognize that our prek principles are equal to a regular principle no okay and so this this salary measure right here is an attempt to make them whole so that we don't like lose them too like why would anybody want to go to be a prek director principal if they're not going to get paid as a principal well part of it is well you think about it they have less students there okay so

250they may have um what's on maybe two 300 kids or less than 300 kids where at an elementary school at a larger you may have 800 um so they're going to their responsibilities their duties are going to be I mean you're still responsible for students but you don't have as many students okay and so I guess that's along the same lines is then why a prek director isn't the same as a director director like are that that there's a significant difference in pay because and is again because the number of people that they supervise or manage right so this could be yes be director of Transportation director of um facilities maintenance okay so so thank you for that the second question is um with lead teachers um don't they didn't they used to get a

251an additional supplement for being a lead teacher so that um we have like people get you know um get rewarded for being a good teacher and moving out of the teacher you know into the Lead Teacher arena is not how it work um I'll start with that if you want to add so so um they do it's a 12 month position so there's two more months of employment and the um they're still paid on this the teacher pay scale as lead teachers but they um they aren't and so they have the higher supplement but they don't have an additional supplement beyond that so they're making more than they did before but they're um you know with the new teacher pay scale but then there's two more months of employment than they would have if they

252were in a 10m position so that is that is the the I guess the extra but it is not considered um to be at a higher pay grade anymore um in so is it possible that a lead teacher would make less money than a teacher teacher like a classroom teacher A Lead Teacher is a classroom teacher no they're not talking about the ones in central office there's different titles in different places cuz they're not a supervisor they're because there's a difference between supervisor and Lead Teacher too right yes title okay okay but yeah they are paid on the the teacher pay scale if that if that they have 12 months versus 10 months okay thank you so for hourly and daily pay rates this is our subs and our um and our tutors and um

253folks that are hired in the position of tutor not an after school teacher so um first for the instructional substitutes um the state kind of gives us a range for which we can pay them kind of up to beginning teacher pay and so we are recommending some increases um and I did not bring the current scale but this is this is a bit higher I think it was around 103 um before and so we we are having struggles to be able to recruit sub so we want to go up to 135 for a license sub create a new category of an out of state license that we verify where they're not licensed in North Carolina but they do have a teaching license um of 111 100 for a an unlicensed um sub for a teacher

254also the same for if you're subbing for a TA and the reason um we also even though this is a a daily rate it still has to meet the minimum wage and so that would be $98 a day so we just went slightly higher and rounded it to 100 for their 7 and a half hour day um if a if we have a long-term sub they're actually paid on a monthly basis but the state rate for a long-term sub is $19 um dollars a day um if a TA is subbing for their teacher and this isn't new this is what it always meant it's going to be based on beginning teacher pay based on the the 10mth scale 21 and a half days a month which is a strange thing but that's how how it

255works out um of $162 and. 79 cents a day so that isn't new if the beginning um teacher pay goes up up in the state budget these two rates that have that are starred there so the long-term subs and and ta subbing would also go up um certified non-certified tutors is currently um 133 we recommend going to 14 certified tutors is 21 we recommend going to 22 which is just slightly higher than beginning teacher pay without a supplement um the bus driver Subs 1350 as I mentioned before but also bringing up all of the other subs bus AIDS Child Nutrition and custodial Subs to the new what we believe to be the new state minimum of 13 but we'll we'll know soon any questions about the scale yay for the subs um the proposed there's

256also a new proposal for um School support bonus and I am going to try to summarize it but we'll welcome Dr f um if he wants to add anything to this this is a would be a one-time bonus to be paid um with erer funds um our our federal funds to promote and the retention and recognize the service of those employees who work during the pandemic so um it's not every non-certified employee we'll talk about the employee groups um and of course we would um once this if this was approved by the board we would then have to submit it and get it approved as through the Esser um program but we know it's an allowable expenditure in Esser so we don't think there'd be any problem with that um eligible employee categories are um

257school-based non-certified including clerical inst structural support so not um not every um school-based position that's the non-certified in those two categories of clerical and structural support So structal support would be ta tutor um par educator you know anyone working in the classroom with students interpreter any of those folks um the the employee group that isn't listed here would be those technical positions that are already paid at a higher rate that might be working in the schools they're they're not part of this um also there's no central office clerical there's no those those higher paid positions are not not part of this inst structural support so these are going to be positions that work in the schools or work systemwide supporting the schools every day so that's going to be your bus drivers your AIDS the

258Child Nutrition workers custodians um skill trades which be bus mechanics dispatchers maintenance trades Warehouse staff anyone who is out um working in the schools every day and providing direct service to the schools so that is the school support bonus that is being proposed that we will also bring back to you with the salary schedules for consideration at your next meeting hopefully at your next meeting at the very latest I think it would be um November but we are optimistic it would be the inter meeting and so that is it I'm be glad to answer any questions you have additional questions all right thank you oh sorry Walker so you're optimistic is that that based on hoping we'll get the state budget sorry I should talk into here yeah uh what happens when we don't what

259happens if we don't if we don't get the state budget passed oh my god um I don't know we that I think that we would we would come back with a modified version of this that we could afford right without the state budget and we'd still will make progress in these areas it just wouldn't be as good as this is well that's the reality of because because it is budgeted that State's going to have to pay for a portion of this because most of these PLS are stay paid right okay so yeah um so the Thousand bonus that's coming from the Esser funds I remember I had sent you a message asking you what was the status of our essr funds and I know there's a timeline on those right because I think they got

260approved by the Congress in March does it start when we get the funds does it start when they approve them I actually brought information because I knew you going to ask that and I left it if you would give me just a moment to go and grab that piece of paper I'll answer your question thank you thank you I appreciate it I think that the reason mainly reason I'm asking is if we you know I I personally we've been having discussions today about what's going on in our district and you know I feel like you know these essr funds or these funds that you know for the Corona virus there's three of them now right there's the SR one and two and then the Recovery Act money yeah there's three different um Federal Acts that

261gave us Sr one two and three um the first was cares I forget the the acronym for the second one and then American Rec recovery plan was Sr 3 but they're all um we referred to the ones that are Sr or the ones that are um directly allocated to schools and um there's also so 90% of the money the state got came straight to schools in these three categories and um the T the timeline is you know the um we'll have the erer 3 through September of 24 S 2 through September of 23 and and the cares act through September of 22 so we're trying to spend them in that order um and so that was the plan that we brought to the board I think in May of last year possibly even June to

262to final I think I think it went it was in May because we had to submit it to the state in May and so we do have a plan it you know we may change it over time as we identify different needs but we did have to submit a plan for the whole thing um it totaled um 88.8 million now we will also get additional Sesser grants out of the state's 10% as they decide the legislature will decide part of How It's spent like um you may remember Sumer Knight which was the portion of this the legis there was um a law that was passed to tell us exactly how to spit it even though it was alloted to us we knew what we had to do in the summer program so um most that's

263probably the only time that's going to happen with this this money most of the other Esser grants we might get will be here's 200,000 to do this thing for and so we'll bring reports back to the board as we receive that that money but of this 88 um. eight million that we have over the next several years we had a a plan that we budgeted that the board approved for the next three years a big portion of it was technology we also added a lot of Physicians mental health workers um counselors social workers um additional instructional coaches um and then repurpose Elementary instructional coaches here to kind of help us um sort of focus the changes in the the the um instructional leadership in the in the schools as it relates to the recovery and

264so that's really our budget plan but we will have savings like we didn't spend as much on summer night as we thought we wood and so there'll be savings from that to date we have spent since the beginning of it which we received um last year we have spent 12 um 3 million or 14% of the total but we expect by the end of this year to have Sesser one and Sr 2 spent and then we will be spending Sr three over um I'm looking at this like it's the timeline and it isn't it's just the budget for the three I'm trying to read something that isn't here but um the the goal is the positions that we paid for out of Sr 2 this year we would continue with S three the next two

265years so part of it's one time we' bought a lot of curriculum those kinds of things but um the majority is people serving students in the schools so I I can continue to bring uh uh reports to the board if that's helpful um we um the this one as is that I I grabbed just cuz I know you were going to ask this was just these direct eser grants but we will as we have other recovery money that comes to us um we'll probably end up um with you know 10 or 15 more grants that are smaller we'll also bring that as well do and the reason I asked was I feel like if um you know these are obviously funds that were because of the Corona virus and you know all the things in

266the changes we had to make but I feel like um you know when I was reading the kind of list of the use of the funds it seems to be a a little bit on the broader side when it comes to I don't know I feel like the the shortage that we're having for Subs especially might might be something we might want to spend or could spend these funds on if we had to really like get help to teachers um but I don't know I mean reading it it looks like that would be covered under that but yep I mean you've told me it goes over three years I'm trying to like write it down but I don't know exactly by third year will we have we won't know right well well I think you

267know there's so many what ifs but once we know what the salary schedules are we'll know exact we have estimates in here we'll know exactly what things cost at least this year and that will let us know if we have some savings that could be repurposed to another priority clearly we know we have the S some savings from summer school that can be repurposed we may actually not fill maybe we'll have vacancy savings for those positions that we thought we needed maybe won won't need as many next year or the year after okay and that could be repurposed so I think there'll be opportunity to make changes but for for the most part the majority of this is already you know obligated with the exception of the savings okay I don't know if that okay

268yeah and you're going to give us an update next month you said on the schedu we could how in whatever format the board would like to thought I'd ask all right thank you very much Mary Hazel for that report um I know we've got readlead succeed presentation I'm excited you guys are bringing the energy we are going to do a quick five minute break it was just requested and then we will get to do it so you guys can get jazzed up and excited we will be right back Dr Smith I saw you you were ready to run up there missing oh there we go got two okay all right um our next item on the agenda is one we're very excited about the read lead succeed reading initiative Dr Smith welcome to the microphone

269well thank you I'm not doing the presentation tonight um we have representatives from our Communications division as well as our instructional Services um division but I did want to just emphasize we know that reading is the most important academic skill that we can teach our children our children have to be able to read um to be able to to to read to excuse me sorry it must be the late hour um we know that children must learn to read in order to be able to read to learn that's what I wanted to be able to say and so tonight you'll hear our presentation around our literacy campaign read lead and succeed um because we want to do everything that we can as a district to ensure that our readers all students are proficient readers um

270by third grade so with that um I'll turn it over to um my [Music] colleagues good evening um my name is Moren Hill I am the K8 Ela Lead Teacher and um this is a true collaboration between instruction and Communications yeah I'm Christina be I'm the marketing specialist in our communication and Outreach Division and we are like Dr Smith said we are so excited to share our literacy campaign that kicked off last month read lead succeed um it is truly a way for us to share the story of literacy and also offer support to our families to better connect with them along the way and um it is really grounded in our belief as a district that being a reader is powerful we believe that when you're a reader it changes your life and um

271if you have spoken to Dr fa about literacy you know that it's a passion of his and he has given our district the initiative of um 80% of our students reaching proficiency by the end of third grade and we believe that we can do that in our district um we know that there are amazing things happening in our classrooms every single day because our dedicated staff and because of our families and our Community Partnerships as well and as Dr Smith said it really goes beyond just literacy that when our students are equipped with those skills as good readers that um it extends it beyond our content areas so we know that when we equip our students with those skills as good readers that they're going to excel in other areas and they're also going to

272be able to explore their own natural Curiosities and we want to empower our students to do that and I think it's important for for us to share too that through this campaign we want all of our students prek through 12th grade to know the value of of reading that when you're literate the doors of your life are so much more open and so we want we know that every child that walks in our schools might not love to read and that's okay right it might not be the thing that they decide to do in their free time but we want them to know that when you are a reader that you can then go on and live a very rich and meaningful life and so um but we know that we can't do this work

273alone that we need the support of our families and our community and I think when we reflect on the past two years years with Co we can say a lot of things that made education complicated for um for us that Co complicated education for us but I also think that we can say that one of the biggest benefits was the partnership that we formed with our families our families really stepped up when school moved home and so we are so thankful for the work that they've done over the last two years and we want to honor that and then we want to continue to invest in it and so we really want to leverage that partnership that we have right now and continue to support our families so that the work that's happening in our

274schools and in our classrooms can continue at home and that our families can continue to Foster that love for learning um it might seem a little bit strange to talk about marketing the idea of literacy but um marketing to me in a school district means connecting our families and our communities with what we are doing in our schools and really bringing them into the full of the work that we're doing through good communication and it also means like sharing out the stories of like Marine said the incredible work that's going on behind our classroom doors that many of our own families um aren't even fully aware of and um sharing sort of the work that we do to serve the full spectrum of students in our district and to serve them equitably and the work

275that we're doing to recognize and support our excellent Educators and the work that we're doing to be good stewards of our resources and to make sure that we're living up to what we say are our values as an organization and this campaign really ticks all of those boxes um some of the most important work that we do in the district is around literacy because it ripples out and impacts Student Success in every other discipline so from an Institutional standpoint and in order to really get that buy in and engagement and investment from our families it really makes sense for us to be sharing and cele ating the work that we're doing around literacy I'm going to very briefly go through the elements of the campaign because uh brevity is our friend at this hour but

276um our web page is uh uh just nhcs.net literacy and it's sort of the The Hub of all the materials that we'll have for this year-long uh districtwide campaign I'm really excited about this piece um we developed a mobile friendly newsletter the idea behind it was you know I'm a parent of three I don't always look in the kids Friday folders and backpacks so we get stuffed with all of those papers and this is something that's we're pushing out directly to families through email and text and it's formatted to be viewed on the phone because we do know that most of our families um regardless of socioeconomic status have access to a smartphone and this is a way to sort of reach them in an engaging um in an engaging format so you can flip

277through it and it's just really brief um sort of of Articles and features um for the families so in every month's newsletter we'll include book recommendations um from four different age groups kindergarten through 12th grade and um so you can see one of those on the left that's a middle schooler so I go out to the schools and actually like interview the kids and talk about the books that they're really excited about and um make them feel sort of celebrated and uplifted for being proud to be a reader um we feature one of our Community Partners who's supporting us in our literacy efforts so last month we um did an article about the Cape Fear Literacy Council and the work that they're doing to help some of our own families um become more literate and

278support their students in that process um we do a peak into the classroom so sort of like giving um letting families know really what literacy instruction looks like because it it's changed a lot since certainly since parents were um were learning to read themselves and then um we interview a teacher and get like a teacher tip so talking about how to take what they're doing in the classroom and build on it at home and reinforce what we're doing in the classroom at home and then after this um first issue went out we got really great feedback from families who were really excited about it and I actually got a lot of emails from families who said I want to be featured and I want to be part of this which is such an exciting um

279such an exciting idea so I'm going to be adding a feature of um a family each month and asking them sort of how you build a space at home in terms of um the values that you place as a family or the physical spaces that you have um or the habits that you form as a family to support literacy um and then we also have some really fun printed materials just to sort of increase the um visibility of this campaign in our schools we have posters um we have parent Communications we have a punch card that can be sent out at the um classroom level for kids who are trying to reach a a a reading goal we have um stickers and little recognition cards for kids who are caught reading at school and we're

280working towards some maybe um screen printed things like t-shirts and book bags and other fun stickers yeah so we are just so excited to share this because we truly believe it's just the beginning of this campaign as you as Christina said it's morphed already because of the feedback that we've had from our families and from our teachers and to work decided to expand it in the coming year um and truly it is more than this campaign it's really um supporting our goals and initiatives as a district you know um we want our families to know what it looks like in the classroom so we want to um Foster that uh relationship with our families and we also want to continue to build our Community Partnerships because we know that um when we invest our students

281our community as a whole is going to be much better and stronger but also when our community invests in our schools our schools are better as well so we want to continue to Foster those um because ultimately the goal is for proficiency for our students and we know that for that lofty goal and and that we think is so achievable um for 80% of our students to re reach proficiency we all need to come together and support that for our students so that they can go on and live very full and productive lives so that's it unless you guys have questions fantastic presentation thank you all right can I open it up to board members questions or comments none no this is awesome can we clone them Mr mcis yes I said can we clone

282them yeah to bring that energy at 10:45 at night talking about reading is so exciting so thank you I I actually you know my son I got one of the Flyers coming at home and I was so excited I was like this is great just you know to to Really build energy around literacy um you know I think there's some great ideas in here I'm obsessed with the app I think we have so many busy parents and that's really going to be really cool for them to be able to scan during the day so and I was just gonna say I think that this might even like help us in our sub recruiting Because more parents might feel more comfortable with what's going on in the classroom you know seeing this kind of stuff and

283doing some practice at home so you there's lots of you know Outreach for this but I just think this is awesome thank you so much for for take you know taking the energy and putting it on the phone Mr mcmanis a cute bar I was on a visiting an elementary school and they had every one of these stickers yeah and I went in I went in the boy's bathroom and they had them on all the bathroom doors on the mirror I don't know how I feel about that you know any promotion is good right just don't tell Mr Anderson and I just one the last thing that I just want to point out is that you know we've talked a lot about silos over the years and it's fantastic to see two departments so different

284you know from from instruction and communication working together because as you said The more we work together as a community the better off our students are going to be so really excited to see that occurring too so thank you I just like to say we do have fun yes we do a lot of fun we work hard um and just to thank you for the team it's like um they know I'm a Visionary and so it's like okay what can we do with this and so just seeing them in the building sometimes we cross paths in classrooms um or we're walking classrooms together or we're down the hall talking about um the media and and how to make things better and marketing into the school so it's just a a cross um it's cross teamwork

285and so that's one of the things that we really truly do it's like being able to laugh and get the work done um we' we've mastered that awesome well thank you for hanging in late tonight appreciate it and look forward to the efforts what comes out of this thank you by bye all right next item on the agenda 2020 21 new Hover County School data report Dr Smith you bringing the energy too yes yes yes so I'm actually reminded of Amaya Angelo quote and it goes um we can't know where we're going unless we know where we've been and so how appropriate it would be for us to kind of close our night out taking a look at our outcomes for the 2021 um school year and so we have Dr Murray he's going to

286provide a presentation and what this will do and what it has done for us is really to map out our path toward excellence and so we're using this data so that we know the things we need to do very specifically and very intentionally so that we can increase um student achievement for all of our students so without any additional delay I'll bring up Dr Murray welcome to the microphone phone good evening um it it's appropriate to come uh after uh the last presentation I don't know that I have the same energy level they do but um I just really am excited about the goal that maren shared of 80% of our third graders being proficient by the end of third grade and that is exactly the importance of the data that I will share this

287evening um just as a reminder in um 1920 the the school year 1920 you know everything came to a halt in March and the federal government as well as the state um gave us waivers and those waivers for the 1920 school year obviously included that we did not administer end of grade assessments moving into the 2021 school year last school year we again had state and federal waivers but they included that we would administer assessments and it's very important I know we had lots of questions about why are we going to um give these assessments to our students however there is some good that comes from from this data um in the school accountability waivers for 2021 the data will not be used to assign school performance grades the data will not be used to

288um place any new sanctions to identify any schools so publicly we are stuck with our 1819 data that's where we we are however the 2021 data has given us an opportunity to see exactly where we are now very similar to what Dr Smith just said we can't move forward unless we know what the impact has been so as we think about this data we want to think about the appropriate use of the 2021 data it is not to be used as comparative data we cannot compare to the progress we were steadily making in 1819 for instance I'll share based on Marine's presentation our third graders in 1819 we were about 62% proficient so we were well on our way to that goal of 80% um at the end of the 2021 school year we're about

28952% proficient um so again it's just letting us know where we are what the impact has been and we need to view the data in the context of the learning disruptions that have taken place um and certainly we want to use this data to plan for moving forward to plan for learning recovery along with acceleration so as we move into this data um new Hanner County schools has always had higher proficiency ratings than this than the state average and and it's still true for the 2021 school year um you can see the comparisons there but what is important to note about this is that across the state in the left column um you'll see kind of the impact to proficiency data in terms of percentage points so the the left column is the decrease in

290proficiency at the state level and and as a comparison New Hanover County Schools very similar in in most areas we had a slightly greater decrease in our proficiency um however there are some bright spots to note we had some increases in several areas but again this is just to make us aware of where we are now and to plan for how we're going to move forward um we often like to think about how we compare across the state and in different settings um one that we often look at new County Schools is about the 12 largest District in the state and so this is very similar to data we have seen in the past we are always very competitive with Wake County um Union County those those schools so we're we're holding our own there

291they experienced very much the same loss that we experienced our most impacted areas were fifth grade reading we lost about 16 percentage points in fifth grade reading eighth grade math we lost about 26 percentage points in 8th grade math and for those of you that have had middle schoolers in the last I'll say five years middle school math is what we took as algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 in high school it's very different um so we know that's going to have an impact for us moving into high school math and then um math one again at the high school level we we saw a significant um decrease um upwards of 16 percentage points but we did have some areas of gains and we do want to celebrate those gains um we had an increase

292in our graduation rate the comparison here is actually to 1819 however we had an increase even from 1920 to 2021 uh we had some opportunities to get some students back into our school system who had dropped out they took advantage of some of the online learning opportunities some of the summer opportunities we had 17 summer graduates this past summer which was awesome um work keys work keys is our um Federal measure of career Readiness this is outstanding data we are seeing 77% of our career concentrators earning credentials that will allow them to enter the workforce you know possibly at an above beginner level or earning a higher rate math three we saw an increase and we we kind of know how this happened in 1819 math 3 which most students take around the 10th or

29311th grade um was a new end of course assessment for us and so when new end of course assessments come out we we never quite know what to expect but this is an example of we focused on that we had our teacher groups together with our leads and we're seeing the positive results of that and then finally English too we saw a bit of an uptick just to highlight our graduation rate again um you know we just like to really show off when when new han County's line continues to Trend upward and what we saw last year is a small uptick for us however the state um actually overall lost ground last year and then finally as Dr Smith was saying the implications of this data for us we know that our we have a

294large percentage over 50% of fifth graders now in sixth grade who left Elementary School not proficient so we're working um with teachers and and putting different curriculum in place to address these things we want to understand the impact that the significant decrease in the math 8 proficiency is going to have moving forward we saw that decrease in math 8 we saw the similar decrease in math one so we are very much aware of that um math one has instituted um some new curriculum materials this year that's different for new hver County Schools um and then to investigate the areas where we had gains to understand what practices um were and strategies we used that helped to lead to those gains because those are important those are important lessons to take away from a pandemic so

295moving forward we can continue those kinds of of opportunities that's all I have for you this evening but again um one one point that I did not put that I do want to share is we had over 95 % participation rate in our end of grade and end of course assessments last year and that's important because parents students the public families knew that we were not going to be held accountable for our data however they also recognized the importance of having this data how important it was going to be for their students moving forward so you know just a a huge shout out to our our families and parents and Educators that saw the importance of this data and and made it happen any questions thank you very much Dr Murray any questions from the

296board yes Mr will the board wondering I think it's very very valuable you know 12 how do we stack up with our neighbors um with our neighbors overall we are second just behind Pender County schools by about 3/10 of a percentage point MH anything else Miss Justice did you just say Pender County Schools Pender yes thank you I was hearing it I was I was loud enough thank you so much for sharing that information and we look forward to continuous Gathering of data and using it to improve appreciate it all right moving along next item on the agenda is the superintendent report Dr fa on Friday I'll attend the second safe school I'm sorry SCH I need my glasses sorry it's late I'll attend the second school safety meeting hosted by the county attendees will

297include School District employees parents County and City staff and law enforcement officials a meeting between New Hanover County school board and the board of Comm is forthcoming in November the issue of school safety continues to be top of our mind for our families and the Bro Community the meeting that we have had so far have been collaborative and productive and I feel encouraged that we're making progress towards our schools being safe and inclusive for all students and staff remote learning and virtual instruction on October 1st new Haner County Schools filed our remote and virtual instructional plan with with the Department of Public Instruction as required by the North Senate Bill 654 if we need to shift to Virtual or remote instruction because of weather or emergencies including a covid outbreak these instructions these instruction plans

298give the district the flexibility to do so temporarily we remain focused on maintaining a full in-person school year to extend possible and now to the extent possible and can now adapt and adjust as necessary based on individual schools or classroom circumstances teacher advisory committee tomorrow is the first meeting of the year with the teacher advisory committee I'm excited to get back feedback and insight from our teachers and allow them the opportunity to play an enhanced and impactful role in our district I've already met with our students principles and classified staff advisory committees and I'm energized to um have feedback and actually provide other feedback that has been given every member of our school Community brings a unique perspective to what we are doing well and where we can make improvements as we move forward in

299our strategic planning process we want every voice to be heard I look forward to Future conversations throughout the school year and to the ideas they will generate beginning teacher of the year last Friday um I was part of the team that surprised and congratulated our beginning teacher of the year here Rachel Norfleet Miss Norfleet is a special education teacher at rightful Beach Elementary and she will be our District representative for the North Carolina Center of advancement of teaching we con congratulate Miss Norfleet and we know she will do a phenomenal job representing New Hanover County Schools green strides I will be returning to rightful Beach Elementary School later this month along with representatives from the US Department of Education to recognize and celebrate the school for receiving the green ribbon School award to receive this

300national award rights will Beach Elementary demonstrated leadership in the following three pillars reduce environmental impact and cost including waste water energy use and alternative transportation two they had to improve the health and wellness of students and staff including Environmental Health Nutrition and fitness and third provide effective sustainability education including robust Environmental Education and that engages stem Civic skills and green career Pathways this concludes my report thank you very much all right a board chairperson's report I do not have one this evening uh next up is committee reports and I've had two requests um one for the EDI and one for family Communications due to the late hour how would you feel about doing those committee reports at the interim meeting mine's going to be really brief really brief really brief okay go forward all I

301wanted to do is just kind of give you guys a heads up that EDI will be bringing our first recommendation out of committee um at the November board meeting to recommend that the board um charges superintendent with studying and um establishing a chief Equity officer and I know we've spoken about this stanie and I think there is hopefully support out there between the equity audit that just came out that did recommend that we have a counterpart with the county as well and I just think it's a natural progression so we're going to be bringing that out of committee caress I'm just name dropping caress right now but we talked about it at the meeting so that's it thank you m crell um yes ma'am I have um two one from um Title Nine and one

302from the family communication um so Title Nine um I just wanted to give everybody an update um on the survey that we um have been that we've already you know gotten approved and we've worked on so at our last meeting um we we talked about the date we're going to be rolling this out in November um more than likely like the third week in November um to give us just a little bit more time um we the the committee members beta tested the survey so that we could look for glitches and you know try different Avenues on if we pressed this and what happened there um we um started developing a communication plan to parents so that they would know um that the that the survey was coming out out um give them about two

303weeks notice you know to opt out and to learn more about the survey and we're also developing um scripts and videos um for the students getting ready to take the test and test um to take the survey and for the um Proctors in the classroom that will do that so um and we had planned on using some students in helping us in the videos so that it would be students talking to students you know about um taking the survey so we're we're excited we're we're moving along and then second um Family communication um committee um we are taking just a little bit of um a different approach going forward for just the next couple meetings while we're still working on our board committees um set up and so um I know this isn't until next

304until a couple weeks out um on the 21st but if I told you about it on the 19th then you you might not have a chance to mark it on your calendar but we are working on a um town hall with the Communications Department where we um will be using half of our time to get input from the community stakeholders for the Strategic plan that's one of the last things that we need to do and then um to throw this um this is what I was going to say when Mr um Anderson was up but to use part of our time to use the town hall to get some Transportation you know input I mean he gets it daily but um people will have another opportunity to do that so I just wanted to let

305people know that we were working on engaging the community as best that we could thank you very much for those updates Miss Walker and Miss kill all right next item is correspondence does anyone have any correspondence that they would like to share this evening um this is an odd correspondence but somebody let me know that the just to clarify with the teachers as far as the boosters go that because the county uh provided them with madna um That vaccine originally uh when they we got the shots here in mass that because the um booster comes from fizer that they won't be so don't go down there and thinking you're going to be able to get the booster yet just because this you can't do can't mix and match is that the word for it yeah

306I just wanted to clarify that so nobody goes running down there to get a booster and finds out that they can't do it thank you okay anyone else no all right we have no more call to the audience announcements uh the 2022 2023 school calendar committee will meet Thursday October 7th at uh 4 pm in the Board of Education Center the audience seating capacity will be 170 and the general public will have the option to view remotely on Newan on nhcs tv YouTube policy committee will meet on Tuesday October 12th at 9:00 a.m. at the Board of Education Center the general public will have the option to view remotely on nhcs TV the title 9 committee will meet on Monday October 18th at 3 p.m. at the board of education center the general public will

307have the option to view remotely also on nhcs TV the October interim board meeting will be held on Tuesday October 19th at 5:00 pm at the Board of Education Center the audience seating capacity will be 170 and the general public will have the option to view remotely on nhcs TV the family Communications committee will meet October 21st at 5:00 pm for a Roundtable discussion the general public will have the option to view on nhcs TV right uh next it item on the agenda is a closed session uh pursuant to North Carolina General statutes 14331 18.11 a13 and8 to consider Personnel matters and to maintain the confidentiality of personnel records under North Carolina General statutes 115 C- 319 and- 321 to consult with the board's attorney to preserve attorney client privilege information including in the case

308caption John do V new hanor County of Education a Al new Haner County Superior Court case number 19- CVS 2745 and to formulate plans relating to to emergency response to incidents of school violence and safety components of school Improvement plans do I hear a motion mve thank you Mr Boer is there second second thank you m gille any discussion all those in favor say I I all those opposed we are in Clos session e Anita are we live all right welcome back thank you very much uh the final uh agenda item we have this evening is adjournment I believe my my computer turned off got a a first from Mr Buller second for Mr wildbore any discussion no all those in favor say I I all those opposed we are jured thank you to all

309of you for staying so late we appreciate hate you sorry about the late hour