NHCS Board of Education Regular Board Meeting | July 20, 2021

001he SCH board members Anderson first I wish to thank you w Sund school year we all agree that iners learning is best practice that be to be done safely and children 12 can be vaccinated I am as St by the americ I'm I 202 we call from first reading tonight and back to what happen and are in not referenced in policy 5120 with appropriate link thank for the reference to the me memorandum of understanding between the district and law enforcement which is the just not accessible to the public it should be linked to the policy 5120 in fact all M should be referenced in the appropriately appropriate policies that they align with and a link attached I do not think these policies are ready for first reading and until the seual abuse cases are publicly

002resolved there must be full transparency and clarification of all expectations and processes parents need to know the public needs to know it is our right to know thank you for your time greetings school board members this is bar my name is Amanda Krug I have three children currently enrolled in the nhcs I here to express my opposition to the mass mandates in public schools it is likely the decision making on future mandates will transition to the local level soon as recommended by the new CDC guidelines and the fact that Governor Cooper's mandate expires at the end of the month as soon as his power is in your hands I urge you to end the mask mandate immediately masks should be optional and up to the parents some of the many reasons children should not be

003forced to wear masks include that all teachers and staff have had the opportunity to be vaccinated and therefore are no longer at risk that kids under 12 are less likely to get sick and less likely to S open Studies have known the survival rate to be 99 99.995% the vast majority of children who died of Co had underlined serious illnesses so the children are not at significant risk either however the risk of prolonged maske wearing includes the Journal of the American Medical Association study found that CO2 levels found in children wearing masks were three times the safe limit a study out of Singapore found similar results young children have trouble reading faces and learning unspoken Behavior with masks on a New York study found that after Ming experience imp break when child with not remove

004his matw off at schol and was to put a new on while he waited for me to pick him up masks are not protecting our children they do not need protection from the virus they tolerate extremely well are not protecting teachers and staff they also don't need to be protected because they have all had the opportunity to be vaccinated so what purpose do the masks serve except to physically and emotionally harm our children when the power is in your hands do the right thing and make masks optional thank you our next call to the audience will be Chris Sutton hey my name is Chris Sutton I'm calling in well for this call to audience period I believe we can all agree that what just occurred at this last board me meeting and the meeting before

005is not what's best for this community it's not what's best for our kids and it has turned into a side circus unfortunately we have to start we really have to start implementing true rules of Decor we have nothing written same thing with the policies we have very broad ambiguous policies that leave people guessing as to what is allowed and what should be allowed it's unfortunate but we need to change things now I honestly I don't think that meeting should have been uh switched to a zoom I believe that it shows the community that you just don't want to deal with them and that honestly if it we've reached the point that leadership is scared to be in front of the community that they represent then it's time for y'all to step down now honestly I

006think it should have went to a board vote I think that there's board members that would have would have preferred this to be in in person and basically just actually lead actually you know pound the gavel and have people removed if they get to the point that they're making a mockery of everything you know we really do deserve better um if there's a vote today regarding Miss stagner and darington Smith then I am requesting that due to the violations of policy 212 that Stephanie Adams and Nelson bolier both refuse himself from the vote it takes following policy and that's something that a lot of people keep talking about of abiding by the policy if you willfully and knowingly break that policy and you violate it the neutrality Clause inside of there then you need to

007recuse yourself because there's no way that we we should have had that Outburst leading up to this now I don't expect y'all to do it but at the same time I had to at least request it um again I don't even know if a vote's going to happen today with darson Smith but truth be told it should because she has blindsided these board members multiple times she hasn't fulfilled her duties you know even with the inquiries and discussions you know multiple times now we've had board members get straight up blindsided through this and it's just wrong I really hope youall have a good day and I hope that this next board meaning that's done in person is a lot more civilized because we truly do deserve better than what just happened next week so next

008we have Stephanie fortunado hi my name is Stephanie fortunado and I wanted to record my uh comments regarding um transparency and accountability and the um overall system along with the social creating social study standards um transparency and accountability equals safety and Excellence you get what you inspect parents know best and must be included in in the process when schools and teachers plan I love the idea of the transparency committee that is been proposed by Pete wi deore um I wholeheartedly support it to take place in each and every school in the um New Hover County uh region I'm wondering isn't that what ptas are supposed to be but I actually found out that parents don't really have a voice in any of those I hope that that is what this proposition is when we're talking

009about that because the US Supreme Court has determined that parents have a fundamental right to direct and the upbringing and education of their children in Myer V state of Nebraska 262 us 390 and that was in 1923 moving forward there recently was a petition signed by close to 650 people parents and concerned citizens here in New Hanover County asking the board to consider their voice especially regarding what happened last week we're hoping that Robert rules of orders will be implemented and that we will no longer be tormented from behind the room by the radicals that come in to disrupt um we hope that you will help create standards especially when it comes to our children being behind because of last year's situation so that they can compete globally obviously that's going to require some solid

010facts and we hope that the social study standard will either be paused or based on historic facts which was um what was hopefully something that was brought to the attention by probably a whole lot of other people so I'm not going to dwell on it too much we also are wondering why our um New Hanover County Schools uh Personnel are not all fingerprinted and checked against the national sex offender registry and also for radical political Behavior arrests for Destruction and and for things like that uh we also wonder why our superintendent isn't leading the way and setting the example of accountability um by having included in his Clause that he's not accountable to the elected officials of New Hanover County mainly the Board of Ed members um we don't understand why um we continue to

011have a lawyer for the Board of Ed who has conflict of interest and is not giving Justice for any of the children um who had suffered sexual abuse who may now even be adults talking about uh having highest pay in the air in the state um we think that Merit pay is equal to Performance that teachers you're not going to necessarily get good teachers just because you're throwing more money at the situation and that should be parents should be part of the review in the next we have Frank fortunado hello this is Frank fortunado at the June Board of Ed meeting the board chair stated that CRT is not taught in New Hanover County Schools however on its website under the equity diversity and inclusion link I see problematic language describing the EDI committee's function

012describing the Equitable opportunities Equitable culture and Equity work that it does this term equity which amounts to equality of outcomes should be removed and not used in any way shape or form I will quote the great Thomas soul who said if there is not equality of outcomes among people born to the same parents and raised under the same roof why should equality of outcomes be expected or assumed when conditions are not nearly so comparable I don't want to assign motives but as I see it there are two options number one members of the board are ignorant of the true Origins and purposes of CRT and the language used by it or number two the school system is purposely engaging in indoctrination and Marxist teaching of our children there is always much talk about separation of

013church and state but I submit to you that this Marxist language utilized in the schools is in and of itself its own Godless leftist religion and has no business in our schools I will end with quoting Thomas Soul once again ours may become the first civilization destroyed not by the power of our enemies but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children in an age of artificial intelligence they are creating artificial stupidity thank you very much our next call to the audience will be Joshua Barber hello my name is Joshua Barber and I am a student here in New County and I want to start off by explaining a couple of the definitions and meanings of critical race perod critical critical race per means marginalization racism gender identity

014class oppression of others and a social construction of a racist systematic America ethnic groups scal history and its movement basically the lgbq movement and N mind culture and I'm sure you know the stateboard of Education recently passed doc unpacking document for the State's new social studies curriculum standards the impack the unpacking documents and standards include things like racism exm phobia nativism extremism and marginal group ex groups the lgbq movement V suppression gender identity social justice and construction of a racist systematic America and you know what this sounds so familiar you know what it exactly sounds like critical race fa and as a student here in New County I know it isn't happening us widely it's being brought and said but it has been brought by countless time for Li teachers and this gives them the

015exact excuse to bring it as wide as it is being said right now as a student I ask you please do the right thing follow Brunswick County Board of Education and reject these standards do not allow them to be implemented send them back to the state thank you save our children our next speaker is De Deborah Abel good evening my name is Deborah AEL a retired new Haner County teacher and Community member wow I had to rewrite this after last week first thank you to those who voted for policy 3620 last month what a positive move to stand for all of our students Dr F thank you for responding to my email regarding adding policy 2310 to the agenda however our response more than two hours before the meeting would have been more helpful I

016guess technically you met policy expectations I appreciate the changes made to policy 5120 having theou reference to clarify exactly when investigations move from school administration to law enforcement control is helpful however making sure our students have a parent or guardian or other neutral child advocate with them when being questioned or asked to sign statements with Administration or SRO needs to be addressed students should not be expected to ask those in authority to validate their rights it should be part of the policy that parents guardians or a neutral Advocate be present to support the student I would ask that this policy go back to committee to strengthen the protections of our students rights when questioned by Administration and by law enforcement thank you for protecting all of our students we now have Angie kany is very

017real a paradig time exist where marginalized and EC students are targeted at school securing them a place in a courtroom followed by a jail cell we have special needs and students of color being handcuffed and ending up in the ER with injuries as a result students disclose incidents of sexual assault only to revoke those when intimidated by adults during the interview process and we have students who are facing serious charges that will alter the rest of their lives based on a minor incident simply because children are not expected to know legal termin ology and demand their rights before speaking with adults that should be trustworthy policy 5120 defines the relationship between law enforcement and new anifer County Schools this policy clearly violates due process laws and prohibit students from having their parents present for interrogation

018search seizure written statements and disciplinary action unless they request it making their participation involuntary and invalid how many children do you know who are brave enough to ask for a parent when intimidated by by a police officer with a badge and a gun the data shows the negative impacts of poorly written policy which Target our children of color trans and EC students we actually witnessed something similar during last week's unruly board meeting in a room filled with chaos the false narrative presented was that a black man and a trans woman spoke out of turn and were not compliant did my eyes and ears deceive me because the reality was that repeated racist and transphobic slurs lack of leadership and Order prompted them to attempt to use their first amendment rights which were denied with the

019entire room then completely out of order the only person who left in handcuffs was a black man he was released once outside when law enforcement realized the real threat was inside and that he had indeed not broken any rules not that there were any this is a glimpse of what we see regularly happen in our schools without a policy to protect all children and insure their rights this policy must change immediately next up we have Chad Hill hello my name is Chad Hill my topic is social study standards more popularly known as just in justifiably called a part of critical race theory if anyone would do even a cursory research on this subject they would discover it was never intended to be taught to grade schoolers middle schoolers or even high schoolers this topic because

020for college students to discover the effects certain laws have had on people with various racial back LS our young students are more concerned about pimples and braces not the color of One skins listen they already know there's no difference between skin color until they're taught that there is teach them how great they are teach them about hard work teach them about persistence teach them not to quit teach them to dream never confuse child's value with their performance or their race it only leads to a lower self-image every day the new standard Demands a half hour dedicated teaching there's a difference in people because of the color of their skin or their nationality and that those characteristics decide success or failure both in the past and the future that's preposterous it's nonsense the new standards was

021gr was given a grade of f by the for forom institute a nonpar group where student where school systems submit their standards for review and F using this standard is ten them out to passing a failing fifth grader onto the sixth grade what do we tell our children who have one parent that is white other one that is of color look s your mom is white she's inherently racist so don't listen to her that's crazy you should all read the proposed House Bill 3:24 which states Public Schools shall not promote one sex or race is inherently Superior to another sex race sex or race they shall not promote that an individual solely by virtue of his race or sex is inherently racist sexist or oppressive and that an individual should not receive adverse treatment because

022of their race or sex unfort our next speaker is Loretta GPI Loretta gesi and as a parent I must speak out for my children my children and many others I know have spent the last year suffering from acne nasal and sinus infections staff infections on the face cysts on the face rashes on the face and bodies from stress and headaches and unknown psychological Trauma from these mask mandates the masks are harming our children our doctors know the masks are causing these conditions but cannot speak out for fear of losing their license and being attacked at the beginning of this school year my child was completely panicked about wearing a mask I called my doctor and he said put ho poke holes in the mask in front of him so he knows he'll be able to

023breathe children rarely get infected with or spread the virus I cannot give you a note because the CDC will not will come after me the cdc's own website reports the estimated fatality rate of covid for children 1 to 19 years old is 0.003% that's a statistically zero risk of death yet you have them living in fear of losing their lives and harming others many other states are mask optional for schools yet and yet North Carolina is not our children need to be able to breathe and to be comfortable so they can learn this school year has been a disaster with many kids failing core subjects students and teachers alike need to be heard and understood so our children do not fall further behind in schoolwork The Masks the testing and the vaccines are all experimental

024they fall under the emergency youth authorization the federal Food Drug and cosmetic act that governs the issuing of eua by the FDA specifically States the individuals to whom the product in this case of cloth face mask is administered to are informed of the option of accept or refuse administration of said products I'm here to tell you that we do not accept these masks this is my it is my right to make medical decision our next speaker is Laura T my name is Laura T um I ask you to reject the State's new social studies standards for our County the incivility being seen across the nation and Among Us last Tuesday evening is evidence that there's been a Devolution of Civic behavior is this an outpouring of what we've been allowing to seep into our educational

025system are these new standards just the latest manifestation of this regrettable trend we are at a Crossroads a time for choosing what you choose to promote through curricular changes will impact us all we are educating Future Leaders and governing officials do we choose tyranny or do we choose Freedom do we choose Anarchy or rule of law do we choose chaos or order you hold the balance in your hands your legacy will be to either further destroy the republic or reverse course to preserve it even with all that is being called wrong about this country it is still the place to where foreigners and Aliens risk their lives to come what we teach our students is vitally important for an ordered Civil Society American values that direct people towards service and away from selfishness towards kindness

026and away from violence towards respect and away from ruin we should reject these proposed standards that try to reinforce the idea that we can address discrimination of any kind by creating protected identity classes this only serves to divide us and our students it is unamerican let's find and develop standards that help future generations of children see the Grandeur and Glory that is America thank you our next speaker is George Potts hello my name is George pots and I'm an humble US Navy veteran Corman and I'm a second generation post Jim K and I grew up in a minority majority High School 71st High School Fable North Carolina and I've been in a military Community by entire life including serving and I'm out now for medical reasons helping others and I have learned and I knew

027R A away to judge from the inside not the outside to love thy neighbor as thyself as well as that we are all made male and female in God's image in fact we are all shades of brown next I ask and encourage you all to only pass curriculum which will positively help students and not compromise our US History both bad and good as any other country by teaching Grace relations training and help as such can be found at answersingenesis.org answers in genesis. org moreover it does not violate separation of church and state because it is not a state religion however the practices are solid next and for the record do not pass any race content CRT or hate mongering coursework this is of the Antichrist and one is Hellbound for teaching such nonetheless if you

028want proof go to 1 Corinthians 6:9 and10 and you will see for yourself next I respect you all as teachers and administrators and I want and you all have earned your positions moreover I want you all to succeed as a team and to have winning principles which can never be crushed after all we are one team one fight and we need each other stay positive call anytime for motivation and I mean this be well take care thank you very much bye now our next call to the audience is Marcus James Abraham my name is Marcus Abraham instead of rescheduling the meeting to be face to face with the people of Wilmington so you can not only hear their frustrations and concerns but also see their frustrations and concerns you take the Cowardly approach and have

029the people just leave you a message while you all sit around the speaker and hopefully listen how do you expect people to have hope and faith in you all and you can't even look them in the eyes while they explain their concerns and issues with new Hover County School System we have seven core values in the Army loyalty Duty respect self diservice honor integrity and personal courage I've only been to one school board meeting the previous show that we had and I can confidently tell that you all lack these values which means there is also no leadership within the ranks you all Focus is more on your positions and seats than you do the school system this is that language is out of order we're going to have to cut that message thank you our

030next call to the audience is Aaron kougan my name is Erin kogan I'm of the opinion that New Hanover County Schools should keep personal political religious and medical beliefs out of the schools when you push your political agenda onto our kids this itself is a form of harassment intimidation and bullying for those who have differing political or religious values students are encouraged to talk to a trusted teacher or counselor when they feel intimidated by another student I fear that students who feel intimidated by these extremely biased messages in the new social study standards would not feel comfortable speaking up about a person who has authority over them the role of our schools is to provide education Reading Writing math science historical facts certainly make the list however the mechanism New Hanover County Schools want to

031implement is only creating division not Unity at a time like this when test scores are plummeting I would think academics should take Center Stage not politics another thing I would like to address is the forced masking of our children and teachers the US Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for non-surgical face masks to be worn by the general public the law that governs the granting of euas is the federal food drug and cosmetic act 21 us code subsection 360 bbb- 3- authorization for medical products in use in emergencies the law specifically states that individuals to whom the product in this case non-surgical face Mas is administered or informed of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product the bottom line is mandating emergency use authorization product violate state and federal

032laws the nurmberg code applies my body my choice my children my choice I know of parents teachers doctors nurse practitioners who feel the same but they won't speak up for fear of Retribution do the right thing Bor our next call to the audience will be Ben Hal Howell ladies and gentlemen of the board first I have to say how disappointed I am that you cannot control the board meeting last Tuesday to silence voices then and now require them to be recorded here subverts the power of public speaking for those individuals frankly I'm disgusted second I have done independent due diligence with respect to masking and policymaking when it comes to your role in the education of my two children in noan County Schools the masking information that I compiled was put into a letter that

033I sent all seven of you before the last meeting of which only two of you gave me a response thank you Mr Boer and Mr McMahon Mr boer's response told me that you as a board must follow the governor's executive orders well my research has shown me that you have to do no such thing of order is not law it is a proclamation from the governor to government agencies and has no Authority on actual citizens hear me again no authority over citizens while we as Citizens are typically affected by executive orders we do not have to be also during my research I found other interesting information I found policy code 2120 in the policy manual for this board for those listening that are unfamiliar this is the code of ethics for the board members I

034was interested to find that board members are expected to quote render all decisions based on the available facts and independent judgment end quote and that facts and arguments are to be quote considered fairly and without biased so if the board is intending on blindly following the governor's order I can only assume it is for one of two reasons either you are neglecting your duties to find available facts due to laziness or bias or you are neglecting your duties to independently judge based on the facts available and in my previous letter in order to hide behind the governor's order when voters do not like the outcome I know that previous statement is quite the jab so please hear this of nothing else I know each of you took a oath for your off office and want

035only the best for our children in their education in the public schools I do not envy you for having to make decisions on such an issue that is now devolved into a political wedge I am now recording this to ask you to uphold your oath to do what is right for our children to maintain the code of ethics to remove bias and to look at the facts and to ultimately remove the mask from our children next up we have Kaylee peer hi my name is Kaylee peir I am a middle school social studies teacher in new Handover County I just wanted to say that I am appalled but honestly not surprised by the misinformation I've been hearing about the new social studies standards and the way we teach history I'm a national board certified teacher

036in social studies I have a master's in history teaching history is my passion it's really what I believe I was meant to do but I can't teach history especially the history of this nation without talking about race when my students look around they see race whether I talk about it or not they see their black peers disproportionately suspended black folks incarcerated at five times the rate of white folks they see segregated neighborhoods and schools all around them some uh anti-crt folks have said that by teaching about race we're going to create a victim mindset in students of color I disagree we have to teach our students about the systems that created the conditions I just described if I don't teach about the history of race in our nation I'm leaving students to assume that the

037disparities in our system are a result of some people white people working harder being better than others and that's not true the reality is that America is built on a system intentionally designed to keep black folks down so that the white working class won't realize they're also being robbed by the wealthy when I talk about these hard truths I don't feel bad about my whiteness I feel more connected to my fellow citizens I understand why my white ancestors acted the way they did and I understand how I can do better so uh just please listen to teachers listen to those of us who know history and know how to teach in next we have Dorian kardi hello my name is Dorian cardi I would like just to take a moment of your time to speak

038on some things that I was going to speak on at the last meeting and I would just like to say that I would like to see the board do more to unify the community to make better outcomes for our children to make sure that all children get the same opportunity to make sure that Equity is in all of our schools across the county to uh make more information available to parents and teachers and administrators to make sure that everyone has a clear understanding of what's going on in our community to also remember that policy does not supersede the laws of the United States of America and I think that you know we as a community as a whole should do more to listen to each other and come to a common ground on issues to

039work together for better solutions for our kids because this is about the children of new H County in their future so a lot is at stake here and we don't have a lot of time to make changes and we can't waste that time fighting with each other thank you for listening thank you for your time have a great day bye yeah I believe that is our final uh call to the audience I'd like to thank everyone that called in and left a message um due to the technical difficulties at the beginning of call to the audience um my for my statements at the beginning and our first two callers were not heard on our YouTube stream so I'm going to go ahead and um say my statements again and then we will listen to those

040first two callers as well to make sure that they are heard um I'm saying a few words about last Tuesday uh first I wanted to thank the new hanor County Sheriff's Department we appreciate your partnership and support we recognize your dedication to Excellence and law enforcement and we are grateful for your commit commitment to the safety of new hover County's students staff and our community as a whole and we thank you for your support especially last week we have an incredibly passionate Community which is a good thing however passion cannot disrupt governmental processes citizens absolutely have the right to speak to the board and we want to hear from you however we will not allow disruptions to prevent the board from conducting business moving forward Behavior demonstrated on July 13th will not be tolerated if

041meeting attendees choose to engage in disruptive behaviors they will be removed po per North Carolina General statutes do7 to progress as a district we must strive to keep conversations focused on the well-being and academic achievement of our students we appreciate your engagement and we welcome respectful and productive dialogue okay we could play uh callers one and two please again so our first call to the audience was by Barbara Anderson greetings school board members this is Barbara Anderson first I wish to thank you for posting your reopening plans for the upcoming school year we all agree that inperson learning is best practice but we want the reopening to be done safely until children under 12 can be vaccinated I am asking that you continue mask wearing and social distancing as stated by the American Academy of

042Pediatrics I'm also asking that you provide remote learning option for the agage group as well be proactive not reactive I am also asking that policy 5120 and policy 5020 be pulled from first reading tonight and sent back to the policy committee for greater clarification even though langu language was changed prior to the last board meeting regarding parental notification this policy is still unclear as to what happens and to which age groups IT addresses for instance where the policy says taken into custody does this mean the student was arrested or they restrained with handcuffs even elementary students are students provided Miranda rights do they even understand their rights when they're in elementary is a parent present when a student is arrested why is policy 4340 and policy 4341 not referenced in policy 5120 with appropriate links

043thank you for the reference to the me memorandum of understanding between the district and law enforcement which is the Justice partnership agreement however it's not accessible to the public it should be linked to the policy 5120 in fact allus should be referenced in the appropriately appropriate policies that they aligned with and a link attached I do not think these policies are ready for first reading and until the sexual abuse cases are publicly resolved there must be full transparency and clarification of all expectations and processes parents need to know the public needs to know it is our right to know thank you for your time our second call to the audience was by Amanda Krug hi my name is Amanda Krug I have three children currently enrolled in the nhcs I am here to express my

044opposition to the mask mandates in public schools it is likely the decision making on future mandates will transition to the local level soon as recommended by the new CDC guidelines and the fact that Governor Cooper's mandate expires at the end of the month as soon as this power is in your hands I urge you to end the mask mandate immediately masks should be optional and up to the parents some of the many reasons children should not be forced to wear masks include that all teachers and staff have had the opportunity to be vaccinated and therefore are no longer at risk that kids under 12 are less likely to get sick and less likely to spread covid Studies have shown the survival rate to be 99.995% the vast majority of children who died of covid had

045underlying serious illnesses so the children are not at significant risk e either however the risk of prolonged maske wearing include the Journal of the American Medical Association study found that CO2 levels found in children wearing masks were three times the safe limit a study out of Singapore found similar results young children have trouble reading faces and learning unspoken Behavior with masks on a New York study found that after prolonged maske wearing children experienced adverse effects including headaches nausea rashes impaired cognition and tissue breakdown in fact on several occasions each of my children had similar experiences of headaches many face rashes fatigue and vomiting in fact one CH child was not allowed to remove his mask threw up at school and was forced to put a new one on while he waited for me to pick

046him up masks are not protecting our children they do not need protection from a virus they tolerate extremely well masks are not protecting teachers and staff they also don't need to be protected because they have all had the opportunity to be vaccinated so what purpose do the masks serve except to physically and emotionally harm our children when the power is in your hands do the right thing and make masks optional thank you okay thank you to all of our callers that concludes uh this evening's call to the audience our next item on the agenda are the census items do I hear a motion to approve I'll make the motion to approve thank you Miss Walker is there a second is there a board member that's on [Music] Zoom W Mr wior second thank you Mr

047wior is there any discussion right all those in favor say I I sorry we're do we're going to do roll call sorry my apologies Miss Adams hi Mr bullier hi Miss Justice hi Miss Crill I Mr mcmanis hi Miss Walker yes and Mr WI deore yes all right consensus items are approved thank you very much next item on the agenda uh is old business and we will start with legal services uh there are a few conversations to have here um I believe the first one U Miss crille if you would like to um bring forward a conversation Miss kille you're muted we can't hear you miss crille I know but shouting at me doesn't make me get unmuted any faster but thank you all right so let me get to um it's hard to move

048around this page here all right so sorry about that um so in um wait a minute where I thought we just did the the um okay sorry sorry old business legal I see it yes ma'am sorry sorry all right so I would um as part of Legal Services um in accordance with policy 2610 um board attorney I would like to make a motion to retain attorney Frederick sharpless to advise the board regarding its insurance coverage all right is there a second second second um thank you Miss Walker uh any discussion um yes uh we need the information that he can provide us with and he is somebody we're bringing in uh to do that that's an expert and so I think it's very needed considering uh the importance of what it is uh that we

049need to be informed about from somebody from the outside all right thank you Miss Justice any other discussion right Miss buoy if you could please call the role Miss Adams I Mr Buller hi Miss Justice hi Miss Crill hi Mr mcmanis hi Miss Walker yes and Mr wildbore yes all right motion passes 7 to zero uh the next item for Legal Services um is to discuss and review the legal services contract provided by farington Smith and I would like to open the floor to whoever would like to start that dialogue I would like to start that dial all right go ahead Miss Justice okay Thon Smith um is currently under contract to us I was part of the board last spring when um they were brought on board at the time we were it seems

050like it's like one emergency after another at the time we were still if you want to say reeling from all the events that had gone on that had led up to our in-house attorney Mr Bullard leaving we had an interim superintendent adale Burns who suggested we go with Eric Smith only because of the circumstances because at that time we needed somebody and he was familiar with the attorney that uh that that he suggested because he' worked with her in another District now that that contract was for 30 day well it was for month to month and it's 30-day notice if we wanted to change it we never have had a conversation about what type of legal representation we want since Mr Bullard to resign and this was an issue to me even before when Mr

051Bullard was our in-house attorney because the vast majority of literally Across the Nation school districts don't have in-house attorneys they hire as needed basis um and there's a lot of reasons for that but one of the main reasons related from different school school Schoolboard associations and even superintendent associations is the fact it raises conflict of interest often um sometimes people complain about the cost involved it goes NE direction if you have an in-house attorney often there's a lot of uh cost like benefits and things like that then makeing the long run it not that cost-saving now the situation to me that's most Cru crucial uh by the way in the state too like 70% of this of the school boards in the state don't have it don't have turn in-house attorneys and that's basically what

052Thon Smith has become over the last year um the the main concern to me is the fact that barington is also representing the insurance company that is having legal relationships there actually working for this insurance company in our current lawsuit against a a group of uh of Cl claimants and so they have that concern of course they're going to try to save the insurance company money that's that's a given but on the other hand we our main role as a board for this district is to represent our students in our schools not an insurance company and to me that is a conflict because we've already discovered that this is one of the reasons we just hired this other attorney there are things that we have difficulty making decisions on because of the various legal advises

053that we're getting and when we're getting it from the sington representative and I'm not saying that there's anything underhanded about it but this is a business situation I'm not sure that I feel that it is free of a certain amount of conflict of interest I don't know what else to say and it would be a good idea if we could bring somebody in if possibly even locally um we haven't done any searches for any other representation um as I said if the majority of the school districts in this country and in the state don't do that out of advice from very wise people and we're in the situation where we've got darington working for both the insurance company and us uh I just see this discussion needs to happen so that's why I'm starting off

054the discussion anybody else would like to put in how they're feel go right ahead but that's how I'm starting off this discuss Madam chair Mr Buller yes go ahead so I think it's important to clarify a few things first of all Miss stagner or Arington Smith is not our in-house attorney they are contracted to serve the district so that's that's not the same situation as our previous attorney was in they are not an in-house attorney that's correct similar very similar not much difference there is much cont by County SCH all right um Miss Karin oh sorry Mr bu are you still I'm sorry um no my uh that's was that was one point of clarification that I really wanted to make uh the other is that the Board of Education of new Handover county is

055the responsible party as I understand it for settling all legal disputes uh civil criminal um the board of education is it is parted to a lawsuit is responsible for making determinations as to what is in its own best interest so I'm not really sure how an attorney's advice you know we we can take the advice we can leave the advice uh but that's my understanding so I just really don't see a conflict and I did want to point out once again that missner DT Smith no lawyer from that firm is serving as in-house Council to new Hover County Schools they are contractor Miss Crill um yes I'd like to just reiterate that fact that um farington Smith is not our in-house Council they are who we retra who we retain on contract um and I

056also want to just clarify my understanding that um Miss stagner is not representing us uh she's not representing Us in the insurance coverage that she is named as the liaison between the insurance company and us the Board of Education um so that they the insurance company asked her to be dayson to make sure we get back accurate information thus the reason that I made the um the motion to hire a separate Council to advise us on the our insurance how we play that out going forward so I just wanted to make sure that um that the public knew that and if I am mistaken then somebody please um other than Miss Justice correct Me Maybe um um Mr shive can can in and let us know um if I have represented that correctly um and

057and before he jumps in I would like to also just say that I don't think that switching um insurance companies at this juncture in um what is going on would be prudent for our organization if we were to change their contract right now we wouldn't even have time to um pull together an RFP to find somebody new um within 30 days so I'm I'm just worried about the whole discussion of changing our legal Council so and but I would like to hear from um Mr shy about um the statement that I made to make sure that I'm right um and if I'm not right I will stand corrected all right I would like to introduce Colin shy from thanington Smith thank you um so just to kind of explain a little bit the representation of

058the various parties Miss stagner and my firm been retained by the insurance company um to represent the insurance company and the Board of Education and the pending litigation um and that that type of um arrangement in which we are also providing the Board of Education advice on ongoing basis is very common um and occurs regularly um by by any type of um Municipal Board of Education attorney around the state um in the event uh of a coverage dispute insurance coverage dispute uh in that type of situation uh outside Council would need to be to come man um to uh adise the board and represent the board with respect to that coverage dispute that um that does happen occasionally it's happened uh sometimes in other cases that I've been involved in um and and every time

059that has happened then an outside firm was was hired to come in and and represent the board with respect to that coverage dispute I hope that answers your question thank you very much um so if I could oh Mr if I could jump in um yes thank you uh I was trying to get a word in Wise um my concern I'll be honest uh and I shared this with several people including Miss stagner um we had asked her to bring uh important information to us uh at the last Pol the last policy meeting that actually chaired uh when I was when I asked that question whether that was ready for us uh she had had a month to prepare it uh I was told no unfortunately or that that very important information um actually uh

060what impacted a vote later that day uh I did express my concerns to she responded that she could have a paralal prepare that in uh inside of a week for us uh so I don't know why it wasn't done uh she said she was busy um so but that's concerning to me that we don't have a attorney that we can all count on uh to get important information I think that it was extremely important information so uh all right okay Miss Walker thank you um I just want to be clear from the outset that this is not personal um our policy 26 SS that we have to evaluate every year and we this is what we're doing um I want to um agree with a lot of what um some of our the members have

061said regarding um you know having to it's a perceived conflict even if it isn't a legal conflict it feels like it is because we can't get all the advice that we really need from this current attorney and it is not personal so I just want to say that but I also want to um add that you know a lot of the advice that we need is procedural and I feel like we have not been getting the best procedural advice um I know I haven't I haven't felt that sometimes the decisions are clear or that me as a board member um has gotten the advice as as as much as maybe leadership has gotten um and you know I really think we do need to look at costs I think we need to look at you

062know what we can do um maybe with an attorney that's closer but I also um you know I I feel like um having the attorney around all the time it feels like an in-house attorney so I'm trying to use my words carefully here it even though we are not it's not like a Wayne Bullard an in-house attorney the attorney's around all the time and I feel like we're over relying on it and it kind of conflicts with our governance role I at least I feel that way about it and it doesn't mean we have to get rid of miss you know barington in the next 30 days but it is important I think that we a board maybe in a work session have um a greater discussion on this thank you um I would like

063to bring forward an option um that for us to consider you know I've actually been very pleased with the services that darington Smith has provided both miss dagner Mr shive and and all of the other attorneys that have been working on our behalf in Raleigh um on on a multitude of issues um and so I have been very pleased with their services and very grateful uh for the services that they have provided that being said said I you know to to miss Justice's point and to miss Walker's Point it is good to review and um I that we put forth an RFP to see what we get back I don't believe that we should be canceling any contracts right now but I'd be interested to see what other options are out there there is nothing

064wrong with learning about who would be interested in working with us darington Smith is one of the top three firms in North Carolina um and so you know maybe there are other options maybe there aren't but if we were to uh as a board decide to put out an RFP to see what our options are I I think that may be a good compromise for some of the conversations we're having how do how do you feel about that well miss Jus is speaking here yes um that's beginning but there is more than just a large firm that we can contract with other districts do it there's multiple ways we do need to research what would be the best way to do it the contract with Thon Smith is for 30 days it doesn't mean we

065have to do it this month but we could start I get I sort of get tired of committees but we need to figure out some way to find out what our options are uh look at other districts how they do it and how it well Works effectively I would like to see more people locally being engaged we have an attorney on on already on uh on site in a sense with our Title 9 UM U director um Jerel and Lewis and he he could maybe be part of while we're searching and how to do this uh we need we need attorneys that can specialize in things like EC but we could contract with that I me there's a lot of different ways to do it and other districts do so this is a good beginning

066but I you know this going with these large firms um it's almost like a monopoly on the legal system here when things get done and we're supposed to be representing the kids and it's almost like the the law is more focused on these large and now this is my opinion on on the on these in these situations than actually the the students and the school district itself but that's what they're supposed to do their businesses they have you know that's why they're successful but I think we need to have an opportunity to have more understanding what our options are uh if it isn't a large firm that we want to go with look at other large firms too uh but just you know at this point we need to explore it and that's that's what

067I have to say at this point Mr mcmanis Madam chair I I think I've said this a couple of meetings back uh well let me ask a question first if I may uh is May is the attorney at Liberty to let us know when mediation begins is that a fair question or is that not um Mr shive yes so I'm actually not involved in that case um and I don't want to divulge anything um without having spoken with Miss stagner or the other attorneys in our firm who are working on it and and frankly my knowledge of it is is quite limited okay um as I've repeated once and I think it's very important if we want to look if we want to venture we want to see we want to see who might be

068interested that's all okay that's that's all fair competitiveness but we are in the midst and it sounds like very close to resolve and I don't think this is the time to change attorneys um I think Judy said it that have to happen now so if that's something needs to be discussed I have no problem with it being discussed at all but I don't think this moment and probably for the next few months that we need to look at a new attorney that would delay I would think and create all types of legal issues in the midst of changing when right now we've been waiting so long so Mr mcmanis are you saying you would not be interested in doing an RFP at this time even though there's no timeline on it that's fine I'm understand

069that all of that is okay but I have a feeling that we want to do this immediately and I don't think that this oh no no no that's that's suggesting I'm glad you I appreciate it yeah and the mediation is supposed to start pretty quick I mean we've got all that information in fact ladies and gentlemen we're talking about Legal Services let's keep our conversation to the legal services that we are to be discussing as Walker thank you um Madam chair I I would like to say that I I do like the idea of doing an RFP not now and I agree with um Mr Manis that you know obviously this is not the perfect time but it is something we should definitely do in the next you know few months okay sounds good then

070Madam chair yes Mr Buller yeah I have absolutely no problem with doing an RFP but I do think um you know I think given where we are I would prefer waiting um until I don't know um October 1st okay that's the start of the fourth quarter uh I I just don't see a reason to rush into doing an RFP um so I agree with what Mr all right well on that note we will move along to our next item oh yes Miss crille yeah I just wanted to toss in there that um I don't think that this needs to be a committee an ad hoc committee or anything like that um and I also want to make sure that anybody who's making decisions about what lawyers we use um have not had any prior experience

071um with these law firms um either in a working capacity or or actually not even a working capacity in a defense um or in a defense capacity I would like to go ahead and be recognized also yes Miss Justice okay um I'm not sure why why why the October date was put out there and I'm not sure why one case should dictate our whole legal that's the problem this is what I'm saying it's conflict almost our whole legal uh responsibility we have so many things going on in the district so I would like to move ahead not rapidly but get started now uh Dr fa um this is part of this would be his advice also because he he you know he's the expert in many things that from his past experience and one of

072the reasons we hired him and possibly he could come in and and help us put this together I know I believe it was part of his group that helped us come together with this other attorney uh recently so these are the kinds of things we need to start doing as soon as possible because it will take some time I don't want to put it off until October that's just and I hate to say this but we really do kick things down the road the can down the road way too of well in the spirit of not kicking things down the road I'll make a motion to start the RFP process regarding regarding Legal Services is there a second Justice any other discussion yes Miss crille starting starting the process um does that mean that if

073we get bids we have to take them um I am not familiar with it that closely but we will begin the process with guidance from our superintendent and Senior staff but just to get the ball rolling I don't believe there's a timeline necessarily that we have to adhere to as far as selection this will just give us the opportunity to start collecting options and start reviewing options so would the RFP go out to um Fairington Smith again so that they have the opportunity to um rebid on our work it's my understanding that any law firm attorney that would be interested in in submitting would have that opportunity is that correct Mr shave you can scope the r FP however you like and so you've got some discretion in how you do that um you know

074if you are interested in in-house Council you can specify your interested in-house counsil if you're not you can say that you want to work with a law firm you can say that you want to work with firms within a particular geographical area and you can also put um uh different kinds of you know timelines on it you can put it out for 60 days or or or however long um so not you know hard and fast rules about how you do that uh there are some resources that you could look to um is is sample rfps you can reach out to the North Count school boards Association um for some assistance with that as well okay great thank you all right any other discussion yeah Madam chair just for clarification are we having a a

075committee because I think if we decide to do that anybody who serves on that needs to disclose whether or not they've had any prior interaction uh outside of the Board of Education and their role as a member um with lington Smith I think that would be due to the fact that this is providing legal services for the board my expectation would be that we would all serve on it and so this may be a work session conversation moving forward I think all of our voices need to be part of this conversation as well as our superintendent's voice I agree I would concur okay I agree also all right great well if there's no more discussion uh Miss buoy if you could call the role please miss Miss Adams I Mr Boer I miss Justice I

076miss crille hi Mr mcmanis hi Miss Walker yes and Mr wior I all right motion passes 7 to zero that we will begin the RFP process for Legal Services thank you very much uh next item on the agenda agenda is the superintendent evaluation tool um we have gone back and forth in this um as a board a few months ago we made the decision to adopt the state um superintendent evaluation tool um training unfortunately did not go the direction that we needed it to and um we will be utilizing the superintendent evaluation tool for 2122 uh but in order to properly evaluate Dr fa for this first year um the discussion has come up to utilize our old tool um and so this just simply is a motion to approve the former tool for this

077first year do I hear a motion I like to make a motion to accept the the old superintendent's performance evaluation tool thank you Miss Walker do I second I will second thank you Miss Justice I think said it first is there any other discussion Miss buoy could you please call the role oh yes yes I was muted I was m yes I can't see myself um yes so I um read through the in that was posted in assembly the evaluation tool that we were supposed to use and um there were three of us four of us that were around when this surve when this tool was um used last so I think we need to have some training on that and then I started looking at the um our board policies and right now we

078have not reviewed the and adopted the North Carolina state school board's Association policy 7420 which speaks directly to the superintendent's evaluation so we are being held to the old policy of 1402 2020 and 6 6110 is is that your understanding with u making this motion please explain those pardon me would you please EXC yes hold on a second explain what you are those those are a bunch of numbers we need to understand what you're referring okay hold on let me go back to my to my notes oh okay the um so policy 1402 is relations with the Board of Education and the superintendent policy 2020 is the superintendent of schools and policy 6110 is employment status so um and then so the the new policy would be 74 um 20 but we have not had

079a chance as a policy committee to review that um so I'm just wondering which policy we're we're we are going to be following and are we going to get training on how to use this um old tool um it's it's not old to three of you um but it is um new and old to four of us and I just want to make sure that we are clear on what the intent of this is and I was reading through it I want to make sure that we have the actual um correct goals and things to um hold him accountable to with our training on August that is scheduled for August 6th with Mr Tom Benton from the North Carolina School boards Association about the superintendent evaluation there is going to be a portion that is

080dedicated to the former tool as well as the full training for the updated for the state tool okay that's great thank you so much no problem policy I'm sorry uh yeah I would like to bring up she just told us about the policies uh we haven't got to the 7,000 series yet and so we will be looking at that and that's the application that you're concerned about in the future but obviously are and I'm not going to go into investigate it right off the top of my head but if these other policies 1402 2020 uh 6110 were in place when they were using the other uh tool evaluation tool then they would and if they still there then they would still be applicable to what it is that we are currently going to be using

081as an evaluation tool that's that's what just what I want to say no and and I understand that Miss Justice I just wanted to make sure that um for folks who don't go back and look at the policy and the correlation table um on a regular basis like the policy committee does every month um I was just looking in the correlation table and those were that's how I found those so I'm just using documents that we already have at our disposal um to make sure that we know as board members where we can go to find out more information on our own that's that's my only Point thank you very much all right uh Miss buoy if you could please call the role Miss Adams I Mr Buller I miss Justice yes Miss kille yes

082Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes and Mr wildbore I okay motion motion passes 7 to zero thank you very much the next item on our agenda is the 2021 22 school year protocols I would like to welcome assistant superintendent of student Support Services Miss Julie Barnum to the microphone please good evening cherson Adams members of the board Dr F Community um I wanted to give you an update on where we are at this time um Public School units remain under the governor's executive 220 and the North Carolina strong schools toolkit dated July 9th of 2021 currently those um the order and the toolkit require physical distancing protocols to minimize exposure and that mainly is concerned with marking and reminding students to keep distancing cloth face coverings and that's consistent use of face coverings for all

083student staff and visitors and that's over age five unless there's an exception the next is protecting vulnerable populations those who are at higher risk or could become severely ill if exposed to covid-19 in addition coping and resilience cleaning and hygiene continued monitoring for symptoms and that would be ongoing self-monitoring for symptoms and then monitoring any uh diagnoses or timelines for quarantine the next is handling suspected presumptive or confirmed cases and that includes maintaining an isolation area within the schools communication and combating misinformation so providing all of the updated information as we receive it and then um maintaining consistent use of face covering physical distancing and cleaning and hygiene protocols for transportation while we anticipate up updates to the toolkit we have not at this time been provided a preview of any changes to be made

084based on updated guidance from the CDC okay great thank you very much before you go anywhere let me just turn this over are there any board members that have any questions or points of clarification um Stephanie does whenever it's my turn yes Miss Crill so um am I correct in understanding that um we are staying with the executive order at this point in time um until we hear more on July 31st yes either on or before that date okay and then do we have um I we heard in several call to the audiences and we've seen emails and press releases that other districts um feel like they do not have to follow the governor's um executive order are we allowed to do that or are we um are we allowed to do that for one

085and um if so where does that put us you know in in the dangling participle category in in conversation with our uh local public health department and in um the language of the toolkit and the governor's order I do not see any room for amending Our obligation um I don't know if um if we want a response from legal I would agree with with Miss baram's interpretation um I would not recommend uh going against uh those uh guides documents thank you okay any other questions or points of clarification all right so are are we allowed if we are given any latitude to have different policies different procedures for our elementary school students and our 6 through 12 um students at this time there's no differentiation in the um preventive measures or precautions based on Elementary

086versus secondary students thank you appreciate it all right anyone else I just had one last question are we um The District's going to be putting out pretty regular updates for the community just so they know what's happening because I know we get a lot of emails but of course we don't always know what you know because you you're the expert so are is there like a a dashboard or something that where there's regular updates for what what the protocols are yes so we do have this information on our web page and I believe um our um Mr Smith our chief Communications officer sent information toward the end of last week so we will keep watch on any updates while we don't usually get a heads up that there will be any we actually anticipate a

087change coming sometime soon so we'll make sure we get that out as soon as it's available thank you the community would be very appreciative thank you and thank you as always miss maram on all your work keeping us up to date and in compliance all right moving along next next item on our agenda is the renaming of Laney High School stadium uh as you know we um pulled a name off of the stadium a few months ago uh in in a vote and um went to the public to share their thoughts and um and we are based on policy 5400 our role is to select the next name for the Lany High School stadium so I will open the floor for discussion if I could start with this one please uh Madam chairman Pete wior

088um I I I've said the same thing several times and I think it's very important that if we do reach out to the public and ask them their opinion we need to at least listen very intently to that opinion um in this case um my my rough math uh looking at all the responses uh gave me a 52% response rate that named one person um and then I know one of the other uh big uh names uh that we had all thought about uh received about 12% um so I think it's really really important that if we ask the question we need to listen to the answer uh and um you know the name that I saw at 52% was uh Mr uh coach Larry Toto I know Mr Toto I know coach Toto very

089well uh I can't say anything but great things about Mr Toto um so that's that's uh my my two cents to begin this conversation all right thank you Mr wior anyone else yes Miss Crill I think you're on mute again okay sorry about that um I just wanted to read again so that we all are 400 says any new or renamed school will be named for a G for geographic terms related to the area of the county serve new or renamed facilities may only be named for geographic terms or with words or terms that have significant meaning for a school um so I I don't doubt that um Mr Toto has um his name has has significant meaning to those who who offered his name but I am very um hesitant to name a school

090after um or any of our facilities after a person um I would think that we would want to do um a thorough background check um of Mr Toto and and perhaps his school record I don't know you know what that looks like because I only met the man several times he's very nice I don't think we're calling that into question at all um but again I am going to um it doesn't say no name but it does say everything else around it so um in talking with people um that are current people who at the school um even though though they received a lesser amount of votes um Bucktown Stadium or Buccaneer Stadium or Laney Stadium um seemed to be more um popular with the people who are currently there and also a a more

091a a a safer route to go so that we don't have to um really delve into Mr Toto's background which um I'm sorry that that that it has sort of like come out to that but the um it is nice to hear what our public has to say about that but you we we aren't obligated to name it what our public is suggesting if it's going counter to what we believe to be um the intent of our policy Madam chair yes Mr buer yeah um I agree with what M was saying H I think to say that Larry and Toto are two names uh with special meaning is is a little bit disingenuous I would actually just request that you wave policy 5400 and name it after a person um but thing about working on

092behalf of New Hanover County Schools is that we know we all know as we sit up here that incredible people Grace each school every single day uh they've done it for decades I have every confidence that they'll do it for decades to come and the problem I have with naming any Stadium uh or any facility after individual is that what happens next uh you know we just honored Landy wrestling um and we have a very young coach there winning state titles and you know he does that for 30 years and what happens when the facility we want to name after him is already named so I definitely support uh wall of fames I definitely support Halls of Honor um I think it's important to recognize each school's history and there are exceptions uh I think

093there are inevitable exceptions to naming a facility after a person but by and large in principle I just really think it's important that we you know look at Laney High School for all time from its Inception until you know until it's no longer Ling high school I just that's kind of where I come out on this and if we do this I just prefer we weigh policy 5400 I think that would be better okay thank you very much Mr Buller Miss Walker yes ma'am um I um I do agree with Mr wildbore and the fact that 52% of the vote went to a c particular guy I know that 5400 says that we should not be naming after people but it does kind of leave it ambiguous towards the end um I am in agree

094with Miss krabble regarding you know um probably desire to name it after the school but there's got to be a way to honor this gentleman not necessarily maybe the stadium itself I don't know if the Field's available for a name if we can compromise in that regard I know that's not necessarily on the table right now but I think it's worth the discussion thank you could I please say something here yes Miss Justice okay um I'm a unique individual setting on this group I actually worked with Larry Toto uh I was there when he was football coach um I was there when it was the buccaneer stadium and he's an amazing coach he's done a great job by our students and for the community um I think that there is room for compromise I like

095what Miss Walker said we do have the football field and um at this point since it's a field I don't think we should have to go through the 60 days if we were to consider naming the football field after him and the facility itself the the buccaneer Stadium which it was when I was there and which has probably been more the buccaneer field was probably half and half since the other name was ated and I know that a lot of local people up here feel very um I guess you say attached to to that that name and so that was pretty much the second that came in anyway after although it was only 12% after um coach Toto so if we could discuss and possibly decide to do that Maybe not maybe but name named

096the football field itself after coach Toto and the stadium itself uh the Buccaneers stadium and the reason for that is there's an awful lot of other things that go on in that Stadium besides football you got soccer you got track uh a lot of events that happened so um it's more of a neutral and something that people attach to that stadium and have already and they did for the first I guess it was 20 years before this happened point of order Madam chair yes sir yeah I I do believe that renaming the field or naming the field um tonight would violate policy as we are supposed to put that out for 60 days yeah I I agree with that is would anyone again our role as board is to um decide on facility names so

097is there anyone that would like to make a motion for a name for the stadium yes Miss Crill I would like to make a motion that we name um the Laney High School stadium Bucktown Stadium all right is there a second second Mr Buller all right thank you Mr Buller any other discussion uh yes uh the M the when you looked at that survey it was the buccaneer Stadium more than Bucktown if you want to go to that we do need to listen to the people uh Buck Town's cool I mean we were talking about that when I was there I mean we called it all kinds of things but the buccaneer stadium was the name of it um and I if we're g if we're I I I just don't think that Bucktown as

098far as the amount of people that were voting on that was the number one after Larry Toto it was Buccaneer Stadium if it's a I guess you could say something attached to the building that wasn't name after someone so if we do buck Town that's still not satisfying what the people were were asking for I agree with Miss Justice I think I prefer Buccaneer Stadium over Bucktown um so I will be voting against Bucktown but would be open to a motion for Buccaneer Stadium can I amend the motion would you like to amend the motion the motion that we have on SEC um well can I amend the motion just to um make it Buccaneer instead of Bucktown or no I don't want to amend the motion I want to vote on my motion and

099then we move next Miss Walker could make a motion to amend the currently pending motion yeah okay Miss Walker what would you like to amend I would like to amend the motion to not Bucktown but Buccaneer because that's the most votes that we got Beyond Larry Toto so the the amended motion on the table is to name the stadium bucaneer Stadium all right I second any other discussion okay well we ended up have discussion first but so so now we're you vote on the motion to amend the okay you can have discussion around that all right so any um any discussion excuse me any other discussion on the vote to amend repeat the motion please ex the this is this is the motion to amend Miss kill's motion from Bucktown to Buccaneer Stadium not not

100the name of the stadium yet this is to amend the motion right Miss buoy could you please call the role Miss Adams I Mr Buller I miss Justice yes Miss Crill no Mr McManus yes Miss Walker yes and Mr wildbore yes all right motion passes 6 to one so now the motion that is on the table is to name l Stadium Buccaneer Stadium Miss buoy or is there any other discussion before we vote Yes Yes M Justice ahead is there some way that we can amend that the mention Amendment we just made to uh actually start the process of rename of naming the football field Larry or coach Larry Toto I think that would be a separate motion motion Madam chair yes Mr Boer I think I think yes I believe that would be a

101separate motion yes that would be a separate motion so let's continue with this motion Mr wero did you have a comment um I was just I was going to make that same just what she said what they said so thank okay you said what I was going to say all right Miss buoy could you please call the role on the motion to name uh Laney Stadium Buccaneer Stadium Miss Adams hi Mr Buller hi Miss Justice yes yes Miss Crill yes Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes and Mr wildbore yes okay thank you very much and the um I believe there was a next item um an was there a motion that wanted to come forward in regards to the field yes I would like yeah I would like to go ahead and that we propose

102that we start the process of uh well first I guess we have to vote if we do want to do it uh do we want to go ahead and start the process of naming the football field itself after coach Larry Toto Madam chair again point of yes Mr Mr mcmanis and then Mr Buller I had my hand up several times probably didn't see me I didn't know my hand was I small now but anyhow um I have to say this as a as a principal with I knew Larry when when he first came to new han County it does a finer gentleman in in our County with reflection of his relationship with students and parents and being a team player and always doing what is right I don't know them and I know a lot

103of great people deserve some type of recognition I really believe he is that high on the peak so I had to say it mam yes if I if I could jump in like let's let Mr Buller make his comment and then we'll come back to you yeah okay thank you yeah Madam chair again point of order I believe that changing the name of the field constitutes a facility name and I believe we should practice our policy and follow 5400 to the letter which and again we're in the middle of a recessed meeting so I'm not sure that you can add anything to the agenda without a five to vote um so I I I don't know how we can add this to the agenda because it's not part of renaming Lany Stadium let's vote well

104actually let let me get a point of clarification from Mr shive because it is ENC cased in the stadium but can you clarify well your policy provides a very detailed prescriptive process for the renaming of a facility which includes a field um and it states that if the superintendent at least two board members approve of a proposal then it should be placed on the board's meeting agenda as an information item and that uh thereafter um it can be placed on a board's meeting agenda for Action no sooner than 60 days from the date it was published as an information item on the board's meeting agenda so if there um if the superintendent or at least two board members want to move forward with this proposal then I think it could be placed on as an

105information item at the board's next meeting in August yes okay all right uh do we have at least two board members that would like to bring this forward at the August meeting yes we do Walker and Mr wior all right thank you very much um Miss buoy if you could just take note this will be an item for information at the August meeting all right thank you very much and congratulation L High School to Buccaneer Stadium yes Miss crille so I I just want to go back to the point it on 5400 that Mr shive made that our policy says that not only buildings it refers to all fac all facilities um on the campus so I I would like for us to consider the fact that we would be waving a policy again um

106if we vote to name something with something within the school that the school is is certainly able to honor anybody that they want but and it's it we're not here to debate the the wonderful attributes of Mr Toto you know we are here to enforce our policy and I I say that at every meeting that this is one of our only responsibilities we don't we don't have that many responsibilities and it is to um hire the superintendent um set an enforce policy um and adopt an oversee a budget those are our three primary things and we continue to wave our policies at every single meeting then you know why do we even have policy committee and why do and what what are we doing so I just want us we don't have to debate it

107tonight but I just wanted to go on record to say that that we we really need to pay attention to our policies before we bring new things before the board and um and drag our community around as if we don't know what we're doing so that is what um and again this is not like Miss Walker had said before this is not a personal issue about Mr Toto he is a fine man and we have heard so many wonderful things about him okay thank you we are going to move on to our next item and um we will address that at the August meeting next item on the agenda is board policy 2330 board meetings um so I'm actually going to ask Mr Buller if you would like to guide this discussion uh based on

108the fact that you're part of the ad hoc committee but you're also the uh policy committee chair if you wouldn't mind um starting this discussion uh regarding the review of what was brought forth to the policy committee sure Madam chair um this Justice was the chair of that committee I'm happy to start the discussion but I think it'd be appropriate to to bring her in after that um I think back in February or March we talked about how to streamline our meeting process and to uh make our meetings uh run more efficiently uh run run smoothly and uh to that end we created a board ad hoc committee to address uh the agenda and uh Miss Justice brought some items forward the policy committee um sort of looked at the suggestions and uh made a

109motion or you know we passed in our policy committee meeting on July 13th some changes to uh how we do business and um I'll let m this discuss that and then I'll let Miss Prill discuss the policy committee changes because she was really driving force behind a lot of that so all right Miss Justice any comments about the ad hoc recommendations absolutely we brought forth a pretty detailed plan to change the meeting situation we have now and I have looked and I don't have I've had several things sent to me uh the only and and Miss crra we'll speak on that the only thing that they changed was basically having a work session um during our regular meetings from the old policy this is asking for a change in policy this is why we had

110this meeting um if you look at what our recommendations were um and I can read it again this is probably the third or fourth time I've read it uh we're asking to have two meetings a month currently we have an interim and we would have the expectations that we would have the interim unless it shows that we don't need to have one so that would be the two meetings a month um okay now see which all right a work session from 4 to 5 that was mentioned uh I believe in the update on the policy as I said for I saw that was the only change and then um we would have a closed session from 5: to 6 and that a lot of that has to do with the fact that we've got Personnel

111issues often legal things that we have to take care of and then our formal meeting was to start following at 6 pm. now here's a sample of proposed uh agenda structure under the recommendations uh we were having first for the work session call to order uh then a roll call now here's one thing that I believe that that had been added by when we had this discussion before it went to policy that then we were going to uh have an approval of the agenda of of the work session um and then we were going to do the Head Start report they wanted to leave the Head Start report in the way it is now in the second part or but not the second part the way it was regularly set up during our meetings now

112we're trying to streamline this this is why it's good to have this work session agenda or structure uh then we'd have things like information budget new programs facilities uh that would this is a lot of work that we can get done starting at 4 getting it done and then and the Public's more than invited to watch uh via Facebook uh hookup I know I think it's YouTube or whatever that format is or they can come and they can sit there and watch us while we're doing it uh then we' have the things like um the committee reports often the the public doesn't want to or we too we don't want to be there until 8 or nine at night continuing this process on let this get done between the four and five work session and

113then any correspondence might might occur then the Clos session uh now the agenda we were calling for for the regular session was the call to order invocation Pledge of Allegiance National ad um NA national anthem and the posting of the col in approval of the agenda uh I said this is not the first time I have gone over this approval of the minutes then our recognition section call to the audience um and according to state law we only have to have call to the audience at one meeting and we could talk more about that you only have to do it once a month if you would like to do it once twice a month during the interim two or just that that is something we could discuss and these are the things I thought they

114were going to be discussing during policy I did not go back and look at that video to see how they did it but it I mean it seems to have really veered off of what the suggestions of the ad hoc committee were um then we'd have the consent items the old business those may be action items new business sometimes that turns into action items uh superintendent report board board chairperson's report board members report announcements and adjournment and the goal would be if we start at 4 get this done uh do it to this process we can get out of there by8 or 9 hopefully the way that it was actually suggested by uh I think it was gentleman from uh that came in on a training and said he he had been a Schoolboard member

115and some of his more effective uh suggestions plus I you know not just me other people on the ad hoc committee researched across the state about how other school districts did it and this is closer to the ones that are I I would say the public and uh School boards themselves are happiest with because they start early to get the work done uh the stuff that that's the meat and potatoes later after you know our closed session so is there anybody that once more has any questions about what I just proposed so uh yes M go ahead and you can tell it to us from the policy perspective I wanted to just clarify some of the points that Miss Justice made so what we're looking at on the screen right now where it says the

116work session starts from 4:00 to 5:00 pm we did take that to the board um policy committee and we did discuss it and we talked at that point um and we did get we it is recorded in the minutes and um I have a copy that I'm sitting here looking at right now that um the the policy committee wanted to move the work session from 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock and um just move everything back one hour and we also talked at length about um two meetings a month would be fine but we didn't want to mandate it because we already have set aside in our policy on board meetings that if we were to have an interim meeting it would already be set for t for the third Tuesday of the month at the

117same time so we did talk about that we brought that back to the board um the entire board um we we talked about it again um and and it was sent back to policy again so then we again we talked about it at the last board at the last policy meeting um and it was a three Z vote um Nelson Pete and I voted to um not do any of those changes that to move just add a work session and that is one of the other attachments that we have to look at if you could bring that up is that just to add a work session um in in front of all of our meetings so that we could have a chance to um discuss things openly and um we also talked extensively about not

118um having anything in a work session that we would not be voting on anything we talked about in a work session until the following meeting so if we had a work session at the regular board meeting on the first Tuesday we would talk about it we'd ask our questions we'd have another two weeks to do research um and talk with Dr fa and his team about how this was going to work and then if we if we then needed to make a motion then it would be done at the following meeting the same process would happen if the work session was at interim we would do it in the following time um we also we didn't talk about this at our meeting but I would like to call the attention to the board that Head

119Start we are the board um for Head Start so we need to be having our board meeting their the Head Start board meeting in a regular board meeting so um I just wanted to make sure that that that's why we had that in there so that's what we talked about um and what we also talked about was there are ways to streamline our meetings without having to change the agenda all the way around we can make motions upfront so that everybody knows about it so we're not making surprise motions um we can do voting online with sbly which I'll talk to you about later um we can really streamline um our agenda review process so that we are putting agenda items on our agenda that match with our strategic plan there are all kinds of

120way administrative ways that we can make our meeting more efficient without having to move things around so that is what we talked about at our last board meeting and that will be reflected in the policy committee notes um when we get back together in August but you can you can review all of that on the YouTube channel so this is uh yes who is speaking um Mr Buller yes Mr buer yeah just to piggyback off of some of that we really looked extensively at the recommendations from that ad committee um talked about them and also tried to incorporate uh the purpose your purpose behind coming up with this committee which my understanding um and I think the understanding of the policy committee although I won't speak for them was we wanted to make our meetings

121more efficient we can't have six seven hour meetings and we felt that this was the best way to accomplish that directive um you know I think the ad hoc committee came up with a lot of great suggestions it just didn't seem to meet your directive it seemed to just sort of move pieces around and so um you know in that Committee in the policy committee looked at both the recommendations the directive and came up with the idea of adding that work session so and I do thank uh Mr willor certain Miss crao um and and you know all of our Administration for their recommendations all right well thank you very much for all the work that went into these recommendations so is the motion to move to move this to a first reading since this

122is policy's recommendation to have a first reading it's all it's already a committee so we can vote on it right now if that's what um my impression is so maybe so would someone like to make a motion to approve the updated policy 2330 I make a motion move to approve all right thank thank you Mr Buller is there a second Stephanie Crill yes thank you Miss Crill any other discussion yes yes M Justice okay the whole purpose of the iHot committee was to make it more efficient uh they did a good job they were very they had very similar to what our present um policy is but it was more detailed and broke down in ways that made it more effective according to other districts across the state and and that kind of information we're

123sticking by what we already have um and I would like to see it less I would like to go forward and do something more effective and I I think just by adding a work session an extra half an hour um that is not necessarily going to change a whole lot unless we know for sure that we are definitely going to be meeting two two times a month and it looks like we will be for from some of the things I'm already seeing and uh you want to leave it the to term interim I don't necessarily think that you know that's such a good idea but that's okay if we need to call it off because suddenly we don't need to have work done which W to me will never happen but before o'clock is a

124very good idea the Head Start that first part of the meeting the work session that we defined it as the word work session whatever these terms are being used um that's still part of the meeting that's Head Starts that's we're meeting as a board so I'm a little surprised that all this effort's gone into trying to change and it looks like even further try to Define what we've got going on when we were just suggesting a way to start as soon as possible having more effective meetings that didn't drag on for hours um I do have some questions about some of the things that Miss krabill suggested uh just because it's seems like it just it just it seems like it's not necessarily resp uh responding to the desires of the public to have their

125their requests on agendas and situations like that or ours um taken care of without being possibly moved around or put off we've already got enough problems with things being put down the line this was something that we were trying to resolve that problem with and um I myself if you want to just go ahead and change the current policy to add a work session um and start at five did you even was it five o'clock in there yes I didn't see that okay um start at five you might want to go right ahead and do that but uh I'm I'm slightly disappointed because there was a lot of work from a lot of people that went into this and this could have been brought up just let's I had a work session and just move

126it to five to begin with and not all of this uh effort for so many people checking with other districts to see what was the most effect all right thank you Miss Justice is there anyone else that has any comments about this before we move to a vote I would like to yes Walker Miss Walker and then Mr wbore um I I guess I'm confused because the AOG committee was supposed to bring a recommendation and I would thought we would vote on that and for some reason it's gone to policy committee and I'm I'm looking at the the both months and I I guess I'm just missing where that sheet is because I have not had a chance to look at the the new recommended sheet um I have this copy this is from the

127ad hoc committee though I'm just confused though because I really I agree we were supposed to be streamlining our meetings and I just don't know that this one that was put forth by the policy committee is something that is going to help do that I mean it's like half hour so all right thank you Mr wildbore and and um you know I was part I'm part of the policy committee so I did listen we we talked about this one thing that that does continue to make makes some sense to me is to if we're going to have this work session you know I I just don't think we do great work at 11:30 at night and that's what we going in time and time again so um I don't see a huge problem if we're

128going to have a work session to to start doing work and start that at 4 o'clock and then you know move everything up so then maybe it's it's only 10:30 important decision 11:30 anything we can do to help that make sense to me thank you very much Madam chair yes Mr ear and then we will vote yeah I agree um to an extent I think I I hope that the work sessions allow us to get out of earlier uh but starting a as a working man somebody with a job and a boss starting a meeting at 400m is not fair to the public in my opinion uh and so 5 o' is 5 is problematic um so I I I do want to be cognizant of the Public's time um I think it's important that

129we start meetings as late but as practical as possible and that was we we talked about all of the U we talked about all of the implications of every decision and this is where the committee came out I think this is the best way to streamline our meetings because I didn't feel I don't think the committee felt that the ad hoc committee recommendations really would streamline it they would just lengthen it but make ear keep make all right thank you Mr Buller the motion on the table is to approve uh board policy 2330 board meetings as it is updated Miss buoy could you please call the role Miss Adams I Mr Buller I miss Justice no Miss Crill yes Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker no and Mr wildbore no okay uh board policy 2300 is

130approved to3 next item on the agenda are policies for second reading uh Mr Buller would you like to walk us through the recommendations absolutely Madam chair um I have not received any questions about the policies for second raing um and so with that I would like to ask for a motion to pass the policies as list no can I bring up a question now after the second Miss Justice we'll have a in discussion is there a second yes Stephanie Crill second thank you Miss Crill for a second and any discussion Miss Justice uh yes uh School volunteers when I was looking over that that's 505 uh there was a section on um that school volunteers need background checks but there was also part of that said that it was up to the individual schools to

131decide who would pay for that whether it would be the individuals themselves that were volunteering or if there was another I guess the school district would pay for it I would like to have that clarified and uh because it appears to me if you're having oh it wasn't excuse me I put down I said 505 I meant 5020 um 5020 5020 visit oh I'm where is it oh school it is 505 sorry 5015 my screen's a little messed up here um what we who decide it says that it's I I think it was the principles it says that they are the individual schools that's what it said it decides if they have to pay or not and I'm wondering can we make that districtwide that we pay for it because that's going to be a

132discrepancy then if some schools the volunteers aren't uh don't have the socioeconomic means to pay for things and so they won't be able to volunteer I mean um M Justice I think that's a discussion for another day a background check cost $20 and so when you multiply that by the amount of people that volunteer within our district that is a pretty large budget line item it's definitely something that I think I believe maybe student services or our finance department could look into um but as far as the policy goes right now is there anything in the policies for second reading that need have a need for discussion well that's what I was like to yes so I would like to comment on what Miss Jed um her concern and that was my concern as well

133and so I um am going to have to ask um either um someone from the HR department or someone from Communications or whoever handles this is that we talked about that extensively at the school board I mean at the policy meeting that um we did the level one people do not have to pay um for a background check but level two people do but we did talk about that extensively about um we are putting a certain member we are we could be putting some of our population um in a position not to be able to volunteer in the capacity want to so I um am going to ask is there somebody I'm not certain who we ask but we did talk about that and I don't see and I'm I'm reading it closely and maybe

134I just I was looking at my notes um and not the actual thing that was posted but um please help me out somebody who was at that meeting and we talked about that we pull this policy and look at it further that sounds like that would be probably a good idea um so why don't we pull policy 515 um out of the consensus vote for the approval of the policies that are listed can Mr I second that all right you'll second that so the motion is to I don't believe we need a motion and a second Madam chair I think that we could motion to pass all of the policies for second reading with the exception of policy 5015 so we still need to amend the vote though we still need to amend the motion

135no it's not the amend the motion yeah yes you do all right so um the the motion would be to amend uh the motion of approving the uh 5,000 series as as stated here for um second reading with the exception of policy 5015 uh may do we have a second Mr will deore that was you that was me yes Mr other discussion and this is simply a vote to amend this piece of the policy right now the the I think wasn't the motion to amend that we're going to adopt all of the policies for second reading except for the one except for 5015 yes what the motion is the motion is to the motion is to amend the motion to approve all the policies in the 5,000 series by removing this particular policy um individually

136and then once if that passes then the motion would be to approve the remainder of the policies yes thank you okay all right Miss buoy could you call the role please miss Adams I Mr Boer hi Miss Justice hi Miss Crill I Mr mcmanis I miss Walker yes and Mr wildbore I motion passes 7 to zero so now um to go back to U Mr buller's motion um I I would like to motion to pass the uh policies for second reading with the exception of policy 5015 is there a second second thank you Mr wbore wior any other discussion all right Miss buoy Miss Adams hi Mr Boer hi Miss Justice hi Miss crra I Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes and Mr wildbore I all right policies have been adopted um I would like

137to call for a motion that the policies below be rescinded uh these are replaced being replaced by policies or actually let me ask the question do any of are they impacted by 505 do we need to hold the resending until we have cross referenced yeah I'm I'm trying to look up the in in the policy um correlation table real quick but I don't know if we want to wait for that or if maybe Mr um shive is aware of that quickly can we scroll down up a little bit oh yeah go to the bottom we can see the referen but you know I'm going to tell you what when we talk at policy I ask all the time for um policies to be cross referenced and I'm told that we have too many things in

138the cross reference so um this might be one of those cases there's there's a lot of policies cross referenced in here um so why don't we hold off the re ending of the policies until next month I'm good with that is that okay Mr shive if we can identify the previous School volunteer policy I don't I don't want to hold us up but I don't want us to have two policies in place that conflict with one another otherwise all right so um if if Mr shive the um if if someone could go to the board page um for board policies and look look on the correlation table um reverse reference and type in 5015 and you will find the policies that um go along with that and that we need to resend so if you

139okay click on the um correlation Madam chair I do not believe that these policies uh the ones that we're asking to resend conflict in any way with policy 5015 I I would like to double check 5015 in the new policies let's see which one it references so we know clearly which one that we can't resend I believe it's policy 9022 yeah 9022 and 9023 so the board could move to resend those policies are not up foring I'm sorry Mr sh go ahead those policies are not up for resending is that right that is correct okay then I then there's no issue so we can go ahead and resend all right do I hear a motion to resend the policies uh to be replaced from the old new hver County Schools policy manual so moved Mr

140Mr wildor mov there a second second thank you Mr bullier any other discuss Miss buoy if you could call the role Miss Adams hi Mr Buller hi Miss Justice hi Miss Crill hi Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes and Mr wbore yes all right thank you very much policies are resed moving along in the agenda we are moving into new business business our first item under new business is fiscal year 2122 budget resolution and I believe Mary Hazel small uh we have her online to present this item um um good evening everyone and I would like to present for your approval tonight the um budget resolution for the current year totaling 398.62 in function by each fund on the attachment there's just a narrative here that's shown but there's an attachment if you want to

141if y'all like to open that um the budget reflects total funding for 3,762 um full-time equivalent positions and the revenue estimates were based on our actual County allotment because the county budget's approved our state and federal planning allotments because we are still waiting on um state budget approval and and finalization of our federal federal grants for the current year and um the smaller grants that we received was based on current year until they're adjusted so we will certainly um if you approve tonight bring back amendments throughout the year as we normally do the local um current expense reflects increase for the new supplement schedule but all other state and local salary schedules remain on hold um until the state budget is approved we do have some reserves for um the local portion of that included

142in this budget but we won't finalize any of those salary changes until we have a state budget um last week I also shared with the board um copies of the detailed budget book um that sort of supports the a little bit more about every program and it has um an executive summary that describes the process we went through in developing this budget as well as um position summaries and expenditure summaries that that hopefully you'll find helpful so at this time I request the board's all right you have heard the recommendation is there a motion I'll move here thank you Mr mcmanis is there a second second Mr Buller thank you uh we'll go with Mr bullier any other discussion yes Miss Crill yes Miss Crill okay um I have just a first of all Mary

143Hazel that booklet was amazing and I have never read the whole thing from start to finish um um in any previous years that I did do it this year because I you know am responsible sort of so I had a couple questions that I'd like to just um clarify with you um and and it's not necessarily about the numbers and how they directly play out but so when you're talking about your full-time um equivalent some of them have decimal places and I was I understand what like a 6 7.5 full-time equivalent is but how do you get like a 0.007 and A3 yeah I will say that the person who put together the budget book is very detailed so um it wasn't me but um a combinations of part-time positions could total more than one

144so you know you have 40% a 60% you know sometimes in for example Child Nutrition you might have several part-time positions that don't they're not 5050 which would equal one but you know it could be 60% and then 50% and that's where those percentages come out um we probably should round that for for the budget presentation but um that's okay all that that's what I was thinking but I just didn't know if I was just missing out on some new full-time equivalent calculation that you're exactly right okay so the next thing is um if our state budget passes um with teacher raises um will this affect um our teacher Lead Teacher signature program leaders um any of their supplements or their stiens that they're currently getting um for being in those roles so if I

145understand your question correctly the state budget um the state budget will include approval of State salary schedule which are base salary schedules not supplemental pay right supplemental pays all approved locally included in this budget and is effective as of July one based on your approval of those supplement schedules um in June but are there are there anything in the current um things that we've always done like different stiens for our signature programs or our leades or our mentors or um having national board certification are any of those extra P affected in this budget so in the not well they're reflected in the budget but the salary schedules that were approved back in MA in June I believe it's your June 1 June meeting um included the new supplement schedule and they also included some small

146changes to some of the other schedules so the extra Duty um supplement schedule you mentioned had some minor adjustments to it we did replace some of the other local supplement schedules like um for example the the locally paid national board that those are replaced by the new salary the new supplement schedules so um certainly I don't have those with me tonight but I could um bring those back if you had further questions at an additional meeting but those are all posted on the page of the finance website and there are tabs for every different type of supplement that we have so I can I can answer part of that she may be referring to lead teachers who work at the district office who were receiving national board certification pay according to national board certification you

147can only receive that supplement if you are teaching in the certification that you received your national board certification in that's the standard by the national board certification that's not a district thing so we had to rename their um their supplement um because we couldn't I'll be honest with you I am by the books saying everyone is knowing that if you're not teaching that that you can't can't get that that's and I said that's illegal um for because it states that in national board certification every teacher who receives national board certification knows that if I'm a kindergarten teacher and I get my certification in I guess it's in early early whatever and if I go to Middle School you don't get paid for that certification it's just what the PO and the and the the goal

148behind that for um national board certification is honestly to keep teachers in um into those in those classrooms That's What It ultimately was to do and you know we are definitely proud of our district and the teachers who have see we're like number one um we have a high um uh group of teachers or percentage of teachers who have received national board certification and we definitely want to make sure that we have those um teachers and we're paying them but we did not take anything away from them okay that yeah I'm just I was just I made a note to myself just wondering nobody's going to lose any money um by any of the reorganizations that we're doing if the increase in the in the the base well the the local teacher supplement was not

149enough to cover it then we will hold them harmless to that prior supplement okay does anyone else have any questions specific to the budget resolution that we are approving I do um on page two and on also page 76 we talk about scholarships are we referring to scholarships that teachers can apply for for um their furthering their um education or are we referring to these scholarships that we are giving to um our students who are going on to college to further their education as a teacher the latter one was referred to in the budget book okay gotcha and then the last thing was just wanted to make sure that I'm not reading this incorrectly on page 10 our py graph I think we mislabeled one of the pies so if this is going anywhere you

150might want to check on that I don't have a copy with me what does it say it it on on the pie graph let me get my book out on the pie graph you have you you just have one of the pies two of the pie pieces are labeled um incorrectly where it says the amount of money Revenue by Source it's on page 10 where it says 43% of the money from the state comes from the state 30% of the money comes from new han County and 10% comes from federal but if you look at the picture it doesn't it doesn't show that I can tell you those are last year's rates and that was probably not updated the the picture was but probably not the labels and um because I remember those rates and

151they're very different now Federal is a much larger percentage of our budget we will correct that it will be cor you had a draft version which I'm glad you reviewed it so carefully so thank you um it will be corrected um and then we will post it on the website and get the board new copy so thank you for that no thank you I the budget looks amazing and thank you for all the work that went into that it was so detailed you know I had to stop a couple times okay thank you for that discussion uh Miss buoy can you call the role on the motion to approve the fiscal year 2122 budget resolution Miss oh I'm sorry Miss Justice you had a con question question is there any determination our idea guess what's

152going on with the legislature and the approval of the budget yet the timeline possibly I can tell you what I've heard Dr F might have heard more but I know that you know the Senate budget has is publicized um the house budget supposed to be released at the end of July or the beginning of August we think the beginning of August is more likely and then after that hopefully it will move pretty quickly thank you that's why I was just trying to thank all right Miss buoy can you call the role please yes Miss Adams hi Mr booer Mr booer un mute you're on mute Mr Buller hi Miss Justice yes Miss Crill yes Mr mcmanis yes Miss Walker yes and Mr wbore Mr wior did you say yes uh yes oh yes thank you

153budget resolution is approved 7 to Zer thank you very much thank you Miss small all right next item on the agenda are the policies for first reading uh policy committee chair Mr booer thank you madam chair I am uh not aware of any major issues with any of these policies I do know there's been quite a bit of discussion around policy 5120 so if a board member would like to address address that I would be happy to respond our remind board members that no action is required at this time these policies are scheduled be p in August at the August board meeting but if anybody has any questions about 5120 relationship with law enforcement I'd be happy to uh to address that I would like to Miss Walker yes thank you I know we have

154had um a lot of people contact us about this policy and call to audience as well and then the Press is obviously interested in this topic I think there was a copy of the policy that had not been updated online and where there was some red on there and now now it's just referring to theou but when you go to the mlu um I think that there are questions about just questioning um underage children you know students without their parents and I think that's the biggest concern I don't know if Mr Boer or anybody on the policy committee wants to address that yeah uh absolutely um I'm pulling up the mou so the you see are here hold on one second we'll find that here policy 5120 is updated in simply from what I can

155see it is now but I think there was um there were trouble with the the community be able to see the updated one and I they had old copy so um if I could um how uh the mou um dictating the relationship between New County schools and the new headover County Sheriff's Office sro's uh was passed unanimously in June and IT addresses all of these issues very very clearly uh if you go to page four and look at investigations and arrest it it outlines everything that sro's must do and I can read from the policy or from the M here uh SRO will be conducted in accordance with all applicable legal requirements including all applicable laws regulations and policies governing the use of force interrogations searches and arrests the SRO shall promptly notify appropriate School

156authorities whenever an SRO asks a student questions of an investigative nature or takes any direct law enforcement action against the student however notification may be withheld until deemed appropriate by by the SRO if such notification would endanger a student or any other person or compromise an ongoing criminal investigation um when it comes to interrogations specifically if you look in subsection C in cases where the parents or Guardian cannot be reached and any questioning of a student is conducted without parental notification the school principal or design must be present during questioning unless the SRO directs otherwise for safety or investig of reasons presence of the principal or designate does not in any way impact the sr's duty if applicable in the situation to comply with the students's Miranda or juvenile rights at no time shall the

157SRO request that any new H County School's employee act as an agent of the SRO or law enforcement in any interrogation and since this policy was passed unanimously at our June meeting I have no problem since this is on for first reading going back and adding language that says all Sr activity will be done in accordance with the memorandum of agreement between the school system and the sheriff's office I mean I know everybody read this and looked at this a problem with this language it's pretty comprehensive um and I think the reason for getting rid of the language within the policy is it seems problematic to have the school system say that another organization will do XY or Z within its own policy because that's out of our control the memorandum of understanding is perfectly

158within our control and I think that was the reason for the change so in the meantime um this is for information only and so if the public is interested in weighing in on this policy or board members are interested in weighing in on this policy or any of the others that have been presented um they should send you an email as policy chair to bring forth absolutely I would say they should send the entire board an email but I would encourage them and and you I hope we all copies of the mou and make sure that everybody reads that because it's very comprehensive and really um addresses these concerns right thank you very much any other questions or discussion can can we just bring up policy 55070 I'm going to ask the policy committee about

159that because it's a new paragraph in there about fees for public records requests and I think it's um I mean some of it's a little bit is not as clear as it could be I know they talk about um paper copies being $25 sent per page but I I don't know whether it's better to have an actual cost I mean just kind of made it more clear I just felt like it could be more clear with the wording I don't know if anybody else has any um input on that on the board well I myself I I I'm concerned also at 25 cents a page we're charging the public and yet the Public's paying the school district with their taxes so I'm a little confused as to why we're adding extra cost to something they're

160already paying for that's my take on it I think it should be provided free of cost since they're the ones paying for the people that put it together paper and everything else already Mr Justice I believe that one request um has total over 400,000 um emails um and that would be $100,000 uh to the school syst well and that's just one question does it have to be paper can it be digital but you're still dealing with the time that our attorney reviews our Communications Department is reviewing and and the time that it's taking away from their jobs um to do public records requests are part of the responsibility but when it becomes all-encompassing um that I I do agree that there needs to be some sort of fee um if it's taking over a larger

161percentage of a job responsibility so in other words you you are using this as a way to try to discourage the public from requesting information not at all simply saying a lot of people that could limit it if we're expecting if we're expecting someone that's hired to do a job and maybe it's you know one of our media people or our social media people and part of their job is public records requests they still have a job to complete if they're spending 75% of their day completing public records requests than their job that they have been hired for in addition I understand at some point to me to me it looks like a way of trying to curtail the Public's request and that's you know it's sad that the public feels that way but they

162still they're right they are paying for those employees can I ask a question I make a comment Madam chair one second Miss Kel Miss Walker is gonna make one and then we'll come right to you Walker it's um it says the school system will provi an estimate any such service charge before making the records available and will give the requestor the option of paying the charge or narrating the scope I just I I don't know what happens when perhaps they feel I mean the communication just should be there I feel like if um if there if they give a a really large amount of money um they'll have the choice to to change it but then you're G you might get into the situation where they're just going to ask for more smaller I mean

163I don't know I just I feel like um the options for narrowing the scope of the request or it's just not as clear that's what I'm saying I feel like the wording could be a little bit better and perhaps we could um you know give some suggestions like to have them revisit that's all I'm saying okay Miss crille yes ma'am yes we we talked about that at the policy committee meeting um a while ago and the suggestion was actually brought forth um by um our legal council on behalf of the ncsba that there are many other school systems across our state that are charging um for that um and not and and they don't have anywhere near the large number of requests that we have and so um she she said that it was in

164keeping with what others were doing so our our policy committee can easily go back and look that and do some of that verification again ourselves but um that is what we were is what we were told was happening um around so we can easily make that request to see what yes Mr Bullard here yeah and thank you m CR I think that's a really good point to opportunity to highlight you know this is not the policy committee is not Nelson buer and Pete bore and Stephanie kille coming up with policies and writing policies you know we've contracted with North Carolina School boards Association um their legal team looks at all of the policies that they bring us they review them they study them you know they're experts in education and then our experts here in

165New H County our Administration look at all of them they go over them and then by the time they get to us that's what we're looking at so these aren't things that we're pulling out of thin air we're like hey this would be a cool idea um these you know are the recommendations of the North Carolina School boards Association and thank you very much Mr buer yes Miss Justice yes and uh thank you for bringing that up because this has been an issue across the state for years this is not the first time I have been concerned about situations like this in other districts too the public has questioned the same thing is this a way to Tamper down on their right to information be putting dollar amounts behind it so if you say other

166districts are doing it and other districts have been questioned too and other districts haven't because they were questioned so I mean that that in itself is part of the information you're Gathering if you want to please do present it to us but it's something we need to look at and consider and I'm really sorry about what's going on with this District right now as far as all the requests Boya public records requests a lot of it has to do with the circumstances of the last couple years I would hope that at some point in the future we will return to more of a normal situation and at that time then this wouldn't be such an burdensome burdensome situation for our employees I actually do feel for them but we the public does pay all of

167this upfront with taxes so that's what my concern is thank you very much are there any other comments about any of the policies listed if not I would like to um take a quick five minute break before we move on with the agenda um for those that those of us that are here at the Boe Center and um so we will come back at 8:05 to continue uh with our next item Head Start thank you oh right because this is the old one I had all right ladies and gentlemen we are going to come back to order thank you for obliging that quick break uh let me just double check that we have all of our board members back online see we're still missing Mr will deor miss Justice um and I misspoke the next

168item on our agenda I apologize I hadn't refreshed my page the next item on our agenda is actually the transparency committee um if you'll remember at um Tuesday's meeting this was an additional item uh that Mr wbore brought forward um to add as a discussion item and it passed and so Mr wildbore I am going to turn this conversation over to you are you online with us can you hear me all right yes sir all right well so the discuss uh is on the transparency committee four out um out of four of the newer I'm not going call us new anymore the newer Board of Education members ran pillar of transparency the idea of this committee is to question and or or inquire any type of student indoctrination from anywhere or any side we need

169to focus our it's my humble feeling we need to focus our U efforts on the education of our students in math reading science and the Arts physical education and factual history and I think we've seen that through all the the uh call to the audience or at least the majority of the call to the audience um our cry is we are not but uh as we heard from several of the people that were in the call of the audience we do teach the same standards as say for instance Brunswick County so I raised a question on why did Brunswick County Board of Education unanimously pass a revised employee policy on June 10th 2020 uh 21 about this very thing take a moment to do research on the ncdpi culturally relevant teaching a training offer to

170our teachers during a 9 week intensive training edir nc.org March 2021 what I'm suggesting here folks and and again we won't be voting on this this evening but I would like to bring it to a vote uh you know next month is a bipartisan committee that will seek the TR simply that seek the truth be transparent hence the name of the transparency committee listen to concerns and channel those concerns but not quit until we get answers so uh as you saw today in the last two uh meetings we've had uh well over 50 people sign up to speak which you know again as brought out we we violated our own policy by letting them all speak why not let this Avenue let this let the you know people speak to this committee and share their

171concerns with this committee to quote our lieutenant governor we want to make sure that our children understand the greatness of our nation now I will I'll agree with him 100% we have we live in the best nation in the world is it perfect no but it is the best nation in the world that's that's what I feel wholeheartedly uh benefits of this committee will allow for more access and for the constituents to be heard like like like I say we started a week ago we're still hearing folks tonight and even in even in hearing them probably a good third of them didn't um weren't heard because they didn't choose to to you know record that time um hopefully we've talked about trying to shorten the Board of Education meetings and not to because we don't

172want to hear people but it is we know when we're making and and I I'm going to keep going back to making huge important decisions even at 10:30 at night 11 o'clock at night we we've actually been into the next day making very important decisions so something's got to give on that um so a lot of things could be discussed by this committee and brought to the board but you know it's not that this committee would not have the power to make any decisions but it in a streamlined for format bring that uh that important information to the board and again one of the other things that we need to work on I think as a whole is building Community Trust by moving um to be more accessible and transparent and getting answers working with

173the administration so that's my thought on this uh I'm not so um you know um blinded that I'm like well this and this is going to fix everything it's obviously not but I think this is a good first step to be able to get more you know to let the community feel that we are trans more transparent we want to hear what they have to say I mean I think that's why we've you know for the last two months voted to listen to 50 people because we want to hear what they have to say um but I think we can do this and this this would almost be like a a filtering system because you know if we have a whole bunch of folks saying a lot of the same things we can say we

174can bring numbers back that 24 people said you know whatever that that might that might be if they had a concern about this um so we can bring hard facts you know at least on the number of people that have those concerns that have expressed them to us so anyway again tonight is just a um an opportunity to um to you know start the conversation about this um I think it's really important it's a bipartisan committee uh so it's not you know a republican committee or a democra committee or an independent committee I think it needs to have all the above as part of that uh group so we can actually um kind of roll up our sleeves obviously working hand in hand with the uh Administration not trying to supersede in any form or

175fashion any of the administration but working with them to try to get to you know to a clear understanding on all these these topics so mror I have seen I think three hands go up I Believe Miss krael Miss Justice and Mr mcmanis have all would like to either ask oh sorry Mr Buller as well uh would like to ask a question so let's start from the right of my screen that I can see Mr mcmanis and then let's go to miss Justice then miss Crill then Mr Buller thank you U couple of three questions maybe one how many would you want on this committee two how would they be selected and three what could a committee of four or five do better than the entire board which to me is responsible for the transparency

176we can all I would think get the same information why do we limit it why do we have to have another layer which we already have difficulties dealing with each other with the original where we are now okay um great questions thank you for those I would say probably about five people um what how would they be selected I think that the I would say a minimum of two and hopefully three board members to serve on it with two uh two or three at large folks to join in from the educational Community um and again like I said I think this would give us an opportunity to filter out if if we have I'm going to say whatever topic it is you know if we have 25 people that want to come and speak why

177not try to let them speak to this group obviously they can still speak to the board but I think if they speak to this group we can come back and say we've had you know it would be almost like a filtering system but also you know like we we've heard so many different things about you know uh indoctrination let's go ahead and be able to present to the board not this person's opinion this person's opinion this bipartisan uh group's opinion that works hand inand with uh with the school board uh the school system excuse me not the school board um and and does the research you know and then brings that back and you know can can share it with the with the committee as a whole I mean reaching out to brunswood County I

178asked the question why did brunso County do that what was their feeling let's reach out to them and bring it back to the board but this committee could do that um I think and and hopefully take some some of the pressure off of the the entire board um you know so that's my thought on that one did I answer all your questions yeah I I wondered about the the last one you know I love you but still remains with the entire board well you know why do we I I would ask this question back to you why do we have any committees that the entire board has the final say on everything why would why would we have you know a title line you know you the um you know the the board has the

179power the the the control over the whole title line things so it it's a it's a committee that meets to discuss an important topic and bring that back to just like any of the other committees you know our policy committee what what is what are we charged to do to make policies why do we have a policy committee same question well you know because they can do some work before and bring it yeah we can do some work before and bring it to the whole board that's what I'm thinking what this this committee could also do is do some some of that ground workor and bring it to the the entire board all right Miss Justice you next um yes um this is in many ways this is a good idea but I'm we're coming

180at it from different angles but I think the same goal I honestly don't believe that indoctrination is a problem I've been a teacher too long and taught history and other subjects too long I think a problem is lack of in the community's ability to give us input on important matters and discuss the different aspects of it um we're getting too minute bits here and there um and I I think part of this committee structure could also be made up of uh more than four or five I think seven or nine would be more appropriate people out of the community a couple of us board members maybe a couple people from staff and then the rest made up of community members and people bring topics to it they can research they can discuss it and then

181just have a presentation on maybe one or two of the topics the public has brought to me it's more of an Advisory board with the public letting us know how they feel and why and the committee doing it together and maybe even come up with some answers that they can present to us that reflect good advice so to me it's just another method of the community um uh discuss Well Community giving us input to make good decisions because I'm sure that some of the topics are going to be talked about are definitely going to be coming before the board and uh it's it's more than just us it it's more than just people calling us on the phone and emailing us like crazy or St up there for two minutes it's also a broad community

182and this would give us a chance to get even more depth input and less you're right less political because actually what's been going on lately is way too political and that's not helping this the kids as we say that the kids in the students in the classroom the staff that works with them it's made it a huge distraction look how much trouble we had last week even getting to the point where we're now talking about important things so I look at as more of an Advisory Board and an Advisory Board would be transparent parent but I think that would be a better approach to it from for my angle um from the people I've talked to because we do need to know what the community is feeling what's going on what different U reasons for

183people's feeling the way they do and also that would give that group a chance to discuss ideas back and forth and they can learn from each other and then they could bring it to us it's just another way of being transparent a way of knowing what the community is is concerned about and Advising us on what's going on when we make so many different important decisions so that that to me is why I think it would be a very good group of people to have out there giving us feedback so we can make some good better decisions I'm always about better decisions thank you Miss Justice Miss Crill Madam chair oh yes can just Chim in real quick I hate to interrupt but I just want to point the board to its policy on committees

184um which is policy 2230 and just to help kind of guide the discussion um that policy lays out a couple different types of committees um standing committees and advisory committees and I know Miss Justice just referenced perhaps us being an advisory committee um which uh there's a set list of advisory committees there in your policy and states the board chairperson appoints one board member to each committee um and that there can be other you know members of the community or uh employees of the school system would be on those committees um so we just want to perhaps to help guide the discussion think about where within the policy this committee would fit and whether or not it would require a revision to board policy in order for this committee to be created thank you m

185crel yes thank you Mr shy that was a very nice segue to one of the things that I wanted to bring up um policy 2230 just definitely says that a chairperson of each standing committee and the board members on that committee will be named by the chairperson of the board on an annual basis the assignment of individual board members to these committees will be published each year the board chairman will be an exofficio member of that committee so we would definitely need to have um a a policy change in 2230 if we going and the um letter number B in not number b letter B says exactly what our advisory boards are so we definitely um can't take any action on this without changing that policy um second of all if we um would go

186back and look into the superintendent Employment contract in item number two and this is on the on the first page item number 2B where it describes the dep the duties of the superintendent it says the superintendent shall have charge of the administration of the schools under the direction of the board and in compliance with the policies of the board he shall be the chief executive officer of the board shall serve as secretary to the board direct and assign teachers and employees of the schools under his supervision organize reorganize arrange administrative and supervisory staff as best served new han County schools and it lists you know there's so many more He suggests from time to time regulations rules and um orderly Administration the district acts as liaison there's all kinds of things in his contract that

187says that he is the one um who has to carry out some of those things so my my thoughts were if we feel like we or the community feels like we are not doing right then perhaps we need another system um for doing that um people can call us we can call people we can have more opportunities to hear from our constituents in the two minutes or three minutes that they get to talk to us um they can email us we can email them back um we can set up private meetings um we can set up meetings with Dr fa which has already been done um at least by me once I don't know if anybody else has either but there are other ways that that we can come about this one thing that concerns

188me most of all in not looking at our policies and our super intendent contract is the fact that um the transparency committee proposal was not shared with our whole entire board and it has some things in there that really just are going against my grain where it says this advisory committee would review vet and document legitimate concerns of P parents and Educators prior to being bought brought before the Board of Education when that is our whole job is we don't need somebody to be vetting on our behalf um later on down it talks about a a teaching lesson that was not used appropriately many people in the community have been advised that if they find um situations that are not um appropriate then they were asked to bring them to Dr spouse and yet in

189this in this proposal it says that this could have been handled by this this committee closer to the origin and given a report to the board when our own policy says that it is up to us we don't get to handle problems we are supposed to summarize those and give those to the intendent um and handle it as close as possible so close as possible to the origin would not be a board committee it would be the principal and then it would be the director of instruction and then it would be the deputy superintendent and then it would be Dr F so we have a very clear um already pecking order where this these kinds of things and if that's not working then we need to address the policy the procedures that are in place

190it also goes on to say that the committee would hear and vet concerns independent of political party affiliation or political view in order to consider all sides of so social cultural and political Spectrum it is not our job to to represent our parties here on this board it is our job to represent the the rights and the um and the the best interest of the students and the staff so that that concerns me and then it talks about the operations of the committee the committee would meet monthly ahead of BOE meetings they would bring their researched embedded evidence of biased or political teaching to the board um a week before General meetings so I again I am just I'm talking really fast and I'm talking really loud but this is just speaking to I don't

191know what it's speaking to it's speaking to a committee that we do not need and it's already violating several of the things that we have and if you haven't heard me say it enough we our job is to make sure that we have appropriate policies in place and that we follow them with Fidelity and we are not so that is my ke thank you Miss crille uh next Mr buer yeah thank you first I'd like to associate myself with Miss cr's remarks honestly I couldn't agree more um Second and words are important uh Mr wildor stated that we violated our policy no that is not what happened we waved policy four board members voted to wave policy we did not violate policy So when you say that at a board meeting that is really problematic

192and I think we should be transparent mind of the old joke um where somebody's watching a parade go by he says look there go my people I have to find out where they're going so I can lead them if we want to be transparent let's say the truth and the truth is that this District does not teach the things that are being alleged that every single member of this board every single member all seven of us have said that we want Equity based education all of us have said that and that we are doing every single thing that we can to make sure that all of our students receive a nonbiased educational experience in our classrooms and that's how you're transparent you know nobody's going to listen to that coming from me but from other

193people they certainly might and from seven of us who say that together that would do a lot more to quiet down people's anger and outrage than any committee if seven of us stand up and say what we know to be true that we don't teach these things that we are fair that we do everything we can to instill the best education possible in our students boy is that going to go a long way I think that's going to go a lot further than a committee thank you Mr Buller um I I would like to make just a suggestion Mr wior there's obviously a lot of discussion around this um suggestion I I I think you know you mentioned maybe bringing it forward in August I I think that it would probably be a good idea

194to prepare a more a presentation or a proposal that all the board can review between now and then um and and have some dialogue around maybe clarifying the goals because it seems to be there's some confusion um and and board members feel very passionately about some of the things that have been said um so I think that for for now this conversation um should probably be tempered for the night and I would recommend um that you create something that's a little bit more concrete for us to be able to better understand um what you're asking for does that work that sounds fine okay thank you sir all right moving on to the next item Head Start Mr Buller this is you sir thank you madam chair um as you all know for the last two

195and a half years I come before the board I usually go down on the podium and I speak about uh the Head Start liaison report um I've had several conversations with Miss miles over the past several months and you know the fact is that the head the head start the Aon report can easily be communicated to the board um via the consensus item so we can look at it beforehand and we can go ahead and approve it I apologize my my internet connection is unstable but we can go ahead and do those things and I can report the 260 students that we have in Head Start um and we can you know make sure that we're satisfying our federal obligations under Head Start um through that round and and I think it's time to do

196that because when we talk about 260 students uh I feel we end up minimizing the impact and importance of the nearly 1,000 students that Miss miles and her team service and so over the next several months what we would like to do is transition the Head Start liaison into an early childhood education liaison uh you will be getting the Head Start numbers as I deliver them um via email and we will be doing quarterly reports on early childhood education in new Handover County because it is incredibly impactful and it's a lot bigger than 260 students um working with Miss SM and her team and I was lucky enough to go to the early childhood education uh Center there on College Road Miss miles has just moved with her team and uh I encourage every single

197board member please reach out to her please go walk their new facility uh it's it's years in the making and we're very excited that they're there but uh there is a lot more that goes into early childhood education in new han County than those 260 students and so we're going to continue to update you on them as required and we're going to send you those uh emails but miss Smiles I'd love for you to jump in and add any any thoughts that you have about this this transition well you did an excellent job sir so what we discussed Mr bullier and myself was capturing the um the services across the district in our New Hanover County School family so um the focus would shift from not only Head Start Federal funding with our 260 enrollment

198account but it would shift to the 928 students that we serve across the district in seven Public School sites so we would reporting out quarterly we see that being in like a later fall a mid winter and then that in towards the end of the year and you're exactly right we'd like to see the Head Start items be moved to the consent agendum agenda items if there are any voting items for those uh for the head start funding source um and then also the Head Start lays on monthly demographics and Reporting out of numbers would be in an email via what whatever Avenue the board Cho chooses to to use so so locally we are able to do that with our head start funding source um and we're very excited to tell the story um

199to the community about all of the services for all of our children in early care not just the focus being on head starts yeah thank you Miss miles it's it's it's a great story to tell because it really is foundational it sets up the work that we do for the rest of the K12 experience we want to give credit we want to give credit to and recognize all of those other services absolutely absolutely cor all right well thank you that sounds like a very exciting transition and we look forward to learning more about our smallest Learners our youngest Learners in the district so thank you both all right Mr Buller do you need to report out on the Johnson prek Head Start child outcomes report as well uh Madam CH these are informational Dr SMI

200yeah mad these are informational the board has these and if there are any questions uh myself or Miss miles we absolutely have an answer okay any questions or comments from board members okay thank you very much Mr Buller for your service uh to Head Start and thank you Miss Smiles for your leadership all right next item on the agenda uh will be for information and we would like to welcome Deputy superintendent Dr Smith uh to discuss the North Carolina Social Studies standards welcome thank you Works a little bit better when there's a little power to it so um good evening to to everyone those folks who are here with us at the Board of Education Center as well as those folks who are um at home viewing from home I'm waiting for the PowerPoint to

201to load but um I'm really excited to talk to you about the North Carolina Social Studies standards they've been a really a long time coming and um there are hundreds of pages that are associated with these standards there are not only the standardss which we um have to adopt um because these are the standards that are provided by the state of North Carolina to every District within this the the the state um where we have the flexibility is actually in the curriculum that we use but not necessarily in the but not in the standards but again as I said there are hundreds of pages that are associated with these standards um not only are there just the standards themselves and the standards have have um been adopted for K12 but there's also the unpacking documents

202which really support our teachers and deeply understanding how this can look in their classroom and then the state also provided to us and just released maybe about a week and a half ago the crosswalk so if folks are interested in understanding the Old standard the 2010 standard and what it now looks like in 2021 then they can go to those crosswalk documents and so the state of North Carolina specifically the Department of Public Instruction has done a really good job of providing teachers with the resources to implement these standards in our classrooms effectively and then also um there's a glossery of terms because you know in many things that we've talked about before it's really important for us to have um the same understanding so that that we are speaking a Common Language so there's

203not any misunderstanding about what the definitions are so again just to frontload that before I begin the presentation there's a lot of support for our teachers that are coming from the Department of Public Instruction and I'd be really remiss if I didn't also bring to light uh and bring inoculate to Travis Matthews he was our K12 social studies Lead Teacher for the district he has worked tirelessly to support our teachers and understanding these standards and so we're really excited about bringing this opportunity to our children um and in our classrooms so here what you see um again as I said these standards are brand new for this year we weren't completely sure that they were going to be approved by the State Board of Education in time um but they were and so we've done

204our due diligence and preparing um to implement these in our classrooms one big change with the standards is the inclusion of an inquiry based standard at the front of each of the standards so we've got our kindergarten standards first grade standards or second grade standard so forth and so on and there has been the addition of an inquiry based standard and what that does is it really helps teachers to understand how to teach our children to be critical thinkers so we don't want them just to be accepting of information we want them to be able to ask compelling questions we want them to be able to for to form arguments we want them to be able to offer claims and then to be able to use primary and secondary sources to justify their thinking so

205really it is about building the capacity of our children to think and so we see this in our Ela classrooms we see this in our math classrooms in our science classrooms and now we're seeing this even more in our social study standards through social studies classrooms through the implementation of these standards these inquiry based standards and so we're again very excited about that another major change is in the underrepresented voices so we're going to know more about the impact of our history on women their voices are going to be represented more so people of color indigenous populations and so that's also very exciting for us and so those two really represent the major changes that you're going to see in the standards and I apologize for um the missing text in that very last box

206um know it looks one way on your computer but it looks very different on that screen but if we were to change the color of the font what that is is just a hyperlink to the standards so we were to click on that it just simply takes us to the standards where you could go through and overview each of those standards but to save you a little bit of that trouble this evening what I'll do is just kind of capture what we're doing Elementary Middle School and in high school and so with Elementary the big change in elementary and when I'm talking Elementary it's K5 is just that shift in second grade so we're moving from more of a global Focus to more of a foundational Focus around American history um and then in fourth

207and fifth grade um we've just added a lot more content there's more that we want our children to know and understand about their history and then again as I said at the beginning of the presentation not knowing whether or not the state of North Carolina was going to have um these guidance documents ready for our teachers we began the work of creating our own Curriculum maps we wanted to make sure that our teachers were prepared so we've had teachers working on this this summer and then finally we're piloting within our classrooms um the resource that you see on the screen which is the um Social Studies Weekly so every school in our district will have access access to that as a piece of their common curriculum in Middle grades not much has changed so we're

208still doing in sixth grade ancient history eighth grade is still about North Carolina um and US history but what we're doing primarily with sixth grade is providing again continuity of resources so we're purchasing history alive for all of our social studies teachers so they have that foundational test to build out their curriculum along with all those other pieces that we've provided in terms of our Curriculum maps now earlier I referenced the um inquiry based um curriculum excuse me in standard and so this is just an example for the for the middle school so you can see here again we're asking students as a part of that standard to be able to ask good questions compelling questions we're asking them to be able to support um and defend their positions um we're asking them to be

209able to gather information so really digging in and and understanding what's a good source and maybe what's not such a reliable source understanding the difference between primary and secondary um Source documents and then also being able to understand that they can impact their community so taking that informed action and so in front of every um grade level sixth grade seventh grade eighth grade you're going to see these standards embedded on the on the front end of those social study standards so again that really represents the major shift with our Middle grades so with high school what you're seeing here um world history um start starts at 1200 Common Era so that's um I believe an much earlier start for us um we've also moveed from American history being two courses to now just being one

210and the driver for that is probably for the last two years we've come to realize that our children need a lot more support when it comes to financial literacy I don't think there's probably too many parents that would disagree with that so we have now included um as required course in North Carolina not only Civics and economics but also personal finance and so it had to go somewhere so what happened as a result was that American history was now collapsed into one course and you know there's some folks especially American history teachers I would offer to you that probably aren't really happy with that but I think we all can agree that personal finance economics and personal finance is really critical for our young people to know and understand and again we've done the work

211around Curriculum maps and we're also providing our secondary teachers with access to um the history alive curriculum as well thank you glad to answer any questions you might have thank you very much Dr Smith all right I'll open the door I would just love to make a comment I love that they that that has been added in the high school the finance and personal finance that is a huge thing for for kids I mean I had to learn it all on my own and I wasn't that greated so I think the the the early we learned about credit scores and keeping you know balance checkbook and all that that that's going to be so helpful for our kids yes love it great all right I see Miss Justice's hand and then we'll go to miss

212crra I I'm lucky enough to be on the curriculum committee so I've heard this presentation before and I'm also lucky enough to have taught social studies for many years uh both the economic US History especially Civics um I am very excited about the inquiry based there's a lot of misinformation out there people need to understand how important this is to match up with the way kids actually learn just giving Kids facts is not enough that actually sort of puts them to sleep often but when you get into the inquiry base and there's actual a lot of it's group work and you know researching sources and things like it gets kids excited they talk about it uh they apply it to what they know amongst each other and also to what the teachers present so this

213to me is a step forward in actually fitting with how kids learn with the actual content itself and there was more information presented at the curriculum committee about how they're going to do that um if you want to I believe that's probably on YouTube you can look at look at it to get more information but I am actually very excited about this because as I said this is how kids learn and this is the best way to learn thank you Miss crille yes I I wanted to reiterate what it just said about the inquiry based learning is you know kind of where it's at you know um I'm a very touchy feely learner you know if I get my hands on it and I get a chance to participate I I do much better but

214um one of the things that I've been hearing um from people in the general population wondering um do we have to adopt these social studies standards um and um you know like do we do we have the option to say no we don't want to do it um and if we did say no we don't want to do it what would the ramifications be for our students and student performance so this is my professional opinion I can surely research and provide you with the primary source but districts do not have the flexibility to create their own standards we have the flexibility to develop our own curriculum based upon that standards um in terms of the impact um essentially any assessment that um might be developed at the state level um would be aligned with these

215standards um our colleges and universities I am sure pay very close attention to um the standards that are taught within um the state of North Carolina um I think it places our students at a disadvantage if they don't have the benefit um of high quality instruction that's aligned with the state um adopted standards thank you Dr Madam chair uh yes Mr Buller I'm sorry I believe Mr mcmanis was about to speak I can speak after him go ahead Mr Buller I will be very brief I just wanted to say from the Collegiate level inquiry based education thematically based history instruction is where we've been headed for quite some time now and I always begin each semester uh by telling my students that history is not a set of facts to be memorized it's a series

216of questions to be explored I'm just very grateful that the state of North Carolina has adopted that vision and that understanding a solid historical education really is so I'm I'm I'm jazzed about them all right Mr mcmanis somebody's got to asked this question so and I don't mind being the one there are some references there were I think in the DPI Workshop this past summer with the president summer for all product purposes um that relate uh to the CRT and uh I I guess my question is how are we addressing the CRT related materials in the standard of study as an individual system because I think that uh it's there at least the wording some of it I'm by no means an authority but enough information out there that it is we have we addressed

217that at all with our teachers or our staff or by our director I mean I mean it's not going away we need to talk about it we need to at least realize it's there and how we're going to address it or not so what I would need to probably answer that question really really well would be some more specific information information um I do have with me the crosswalks so you know I can talk to you about any standard that we're asking our students to learn as a part of this 2021 curriculum and crosswalk it back to any standard that we were previously teaching um in 2010 um I think to take a word um in isolation um I I think there has to be some context to it um so for me to to

218answer that well I would really need to know um a little more specifically what you're referencing so you're saying that in your professional opinion what you have read in the standard course of study there are no suggestions or standards or teaching that relates to CRT such as a press Earth sorry I can't answer in tra is also on the on the call too um CRT what we know as of it and what the media is putting out is the wrong definition is there um reference of slavery in history yes is there reference of um injustices in the history books yes are we teaching critical race Theory as it's written um at the collegate level and in the um uh at at the when you're getting your JD no so what has happened is individuals have

219has has chosen have chosen to put everything into critical race Theory that's not and call it a name it's not critical race Theory um however I've asked for individuals when they see that give me the um subject give me the course give me the lesson plan and we will investigate it because that's what's happening is individuals are making what we call those blanket statements and it leads us down a rabbit hole of trying to find where it is that they're saying and we have no idea what they're talking about um but does it talk about slavery it does and has history always talk about slavery yes um do we talk about it at kindergarten no we don't talk about that they talk about family they talk about the community they talk that that curriculum at

220the um Elementary level is totally different than that in US history um at the high school level where they start to talk about Civil War and they talk about those in those things but are we indoctrinating anyone no I don't think we have the capacity to indoctrinate anyone into anything this isn't um our belief we're writing what um or we're teaching the standards and honestly I stand by that and again if anyone can show me tell me where it is we will investigate it we will inves it thank you that's all I wanted to hear thank you well and if I could just throw in I'm looking at several emails that we've received recently um is let me ask these questions in the glossery um for our standards are you know are there the words

221gender identity racism systematic racism privilege marginalized social justice and and different kind of stereotypes are they there or are they not so I can actually provide you with a copy of the glossery um if you like so in the glosser it does give terms um those terms are initially Broken Out by K2 bands um and they start off just giving the the um terms and phrases that students need to understand such as compelling questions inform formed actions and then it transitions to um spefic specific terms that students might encounter in um within the curriculum and so those words are words such as absolute location adversarial American um educational ISM American identity artistic expression bias um comp competing narratives um the word racism is present and where the word racism is present that's the the term

222is racism and that was present in our previous standards as well but then in the definition um that's given there they do give examples and the word does appear in the definition not the word itself so the term is not present um I know did I'll give you example um let's see we talk about what indigenous means we talk about what Injustice means we talk about privilege um privilege is a special right or advantage of a person or group it gives the reference here to the Cambridge Dictionary and the off Oxford Advanced Learners dictionary with racism it says racism is the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called races and then it goes through that and it also gives references for that information and then later on it gives

223um the definition of in of structural uh systemic racism but that is not the term itself so those things do appear in the glossery but those are not the terms that appear in within the standard all right are there any other questions or comments all right did we lose everybody Dr Smith I appreciate that presentation and and looking forward to the roll out of uh the new North Carolina social study standards this year yes thank you all right I believe are we keeping you up here for the next time all right you're not going far will be sharing with us information about e-learning Academy and online learning options so yes again very excited to share with you what the district is doing in regards to online um learning so new H County for probably about

224the last six or seven years has been offering an online option for six through 12 grade students just waiting for that to kind of load up take your time all right wonderful thank you all right there we go so as a part of that work we use four primary sources to deliver this curriculum so we have the North Carolina virtual Public Schools um system which we have been a part of for a very long time I want to say within the first or second year of its Inception and actually New Hanover County Schools um based on our capacity is one of the largest consumers of this our children really take advantage of these online courses they allow students to accelerate and then also for certain students we it allows them to um do credit recovery

225so it really has been a great benefit to our children I me giving them flexibility within their schedule we realize very quickly on that um our teachers could actually do the same work so we also offer locally taught courses so the these are courses taught by new hry County Schools teachers because the ncvps teachers a lot of those were our teachers anyway and then we brought in uity as a resource to support our sixth through eighth grade students and then the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics offers some really unique opportunities and courses for our students as well and we take advantage of that um with our students so again ncvps it was create created by the Department of Public Instruction these are North Carolina licensed teachers and there are over 150 course offerings

226available to our students so imagine you have taken German one and German 2 with us and there's not an opportunity for you to continue with that language through ncvps maybe there's the option for German 3 or and German 4 so it really has been advantageous for for our students um with our locally taught courses you notice the cost is much less to the district than ncvps and right now we have 16 course offerings that we make available to our our students within the district and just extremely proud of the work that our teachers in new han County Schools do they design these courses sometimes we use release shells from the state but the teachers really put them together and are really invested in these courses and our students do extremely well and then as I

227said before with uity we brought this to be because we were trying to really pull back to to the school system families who had made the choice that they wanted to homeschool their students or maybe their students to attend private schools and so we said hey you can be a part of New Hanover County schools and still remain at home and so we've seen a lot of success with this now it cost a little bit more per pupil but but that's because we're paying for a teacher along with the course and so it's an a teacher that's provided to us um by uity and we've had a lot of success with this now this is a very different model than our remote learning model but one we're really proud of because we want to serve

228all of our community and that includes our students who families have chosen to homeschool and then finally as I said this North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics developed some really unique and um just great opportunities there's limited access because they offer these courses across the state but we've actually had the opportunity for them to create a cohort for our students at Laney High School and that's zero cost to the district so this is a service that the state provides um and these courses most often I believe are actually um synchronous courses so students go to class with other students across the state of North Carolina and they're in synchronous sessions with them and so just a snapshot of e Academy we've got some images of some young folks there um we've had a student

229who graduated while traveling abroad in London um we've had a young man who was a professional Surfer and so we really want to cater to families for whom this is a best fit um we we've also used this to support um families who um might have um had um some um specific needs that did not um allow them to attend face Toof face but we really designed this to be to offer greater flexibility to our families We Believe very much in Choice um and we want to make sure that we're meeting the needs of all the students um within our district um and so that is how e Academy um launched um we also recognize that online learning you know it just sits differently than that face-to-face learning so we have folks employed within our

230district that we call them vax for you know for everyone else they're Virtual Academy coordinators and they provide support to these students so they monitor the students they um help them with technical issues you know just because of child is enrolled in the online course and they have an online teacher that doesn't absolve us as a district of our responsibility to ensure that child's success so we take it very very seriously and then the link that's embedded within the PowerPoint if you have the chance to to click on that just takes you to our annual report now we did not have one for last year because we all know last year looked very very different um but we have really incredible Pass rates um with our students students who choose online learning um as an

231option and again happy to answer any questions you might have all right thank you Dr Smith are there any board members that have questions or comments yes Miss crel does Miss Crill start us off okay so um Dr Smith that was awesome and um I I I'm glad that we had that opportunity for our 6 through 12 um students and I've had the opportunity to sit in on a class you know with the co-taught with the School of Math and Science and um learned a lot about forensics with that class but what I what my my point was um do we have the capability um and and the staff and and the knowhow to bring this down into our elementary schools um for all the same reasons that you described that they were wonderful for

232our 6 through 12 um I'm just thinking there are a lot of the same reasons that our young folks um also need to have those services so I am just curious about where we are in our thinking with that so we do not currently have um an eacademy model for elementary age students um now that doesn't mean that we are precluded from thinking about how that might work but at this point we do not have um the eacademy model um and Elementary School yes and I recognize that so I guess I didn't phrased my question right um what would it take for us to get oursel ready to offer that um curriculum delivery um option for our younger students I think that would require quite a bit of planning um we are um currently set

233up for our elementary students to return of course in a 100% face-to-face model um and so I would say we' probably need to put together um a committee to research that um and then um to bring forth um a design okay thank you just just throw it out there thank you all right Miss Justice yeah I I know a lot of uh probably miss cille's question possibly came from the fact that we get a lot of uh lot of inquiries from parents in elementary right now because of the covid situation and uh their possibly immune compromised or situations like that so we are getting a lot of inquiry about the lower grades but normally and this is this is just a good question in my mind is there a need and has there been a

234call in the past outside of the covid situation for this kind of uh opportunity for students for other reasons as Miss crell said possibly the sixth through SE uh 12th grade reasons to have this kind of program for the lower grades I'm just asking if we have had that kind of discussion in the past about this so I can actually jump in on that one and miss vnam and I have had that that conversation actually at the senior level we've talked about it and in the event that there is someone who has the the health needs and they are unable to attend we've asked them to reach out to our student services and we will um provide some type of access to them if there is a a student with special needs that we it's

235on an individual basis but we do uh current even before covid if there was an issue where student could not come to school we had Provisions for them yes and and I understand those Provisions like at home teaching and a situation like that I was just asking if there had been any what kind of need was out there um so you don't see at this point you have not seen any in the past enough to to consider this kind of opportunity for the lower grades we have not seen it for for our lower grades um other than for those who um need a homebound assistance that that is that type but not for um a traditional student I shouldn't say the traditional student a student who does not have um uh health issues and also

236in addition our Middle grades numbers are very very small so um you know we see a lot more online learning um at the high school and we see a lot more with students who want to accelerate um their um pathway through high school but the middle school program it's very very small and as Dr f um shared we've not received any request um that I'm aware of for um the eacademy model for elementary age children all right thank you very much any other comments don't think I see any other hands all right Dr Smith thank you very much appreciate that great presentation all right next up for information under safety and hiring practices uh Dr Allison Coker our assistant superintendent of Human Resources will'll be sharing some information about safety and hiring practices welcome thank

237you good evening Madame chair board members community members um I am going to share information with you on hiring practices safety protocols and I want to make sure that okay there we go okay so tonight I'll be presenting information to you regarding our current safety protocols regarding our hiring practices and also sharing information with you on fingerprinting as well I don't think I'm moving forward Anita there is you got it oh my goodness what's happening oh my goodness sorry not sure what's happened I don't think you did that you did not do I didn't do that oh good that's good to know there we go oh technology I think we're good yep got it okay I'm going to go back to the beginning okay so we'll start here um so I'm going to share with

238you information about our hiring practices and I'm going to go through the entire process and then um we'll give you an opportunity to ask any questions that you may have so right now our applicants to our district complete an application as a part of that application they complete a disclosure statement this gives them an opportunity to disclose to us any information in their background that um would comply with some of the questions that we ask them we also do reference checks three reference checks are required and then we have applicants complete a release of information document and that authorizes us to complete a criminal background check on them the criminal zoom's going a little crazy this evening the technology is uh oh okay there can we direct a camera to the screen we're good we're

239good okay okay okay the criminal background check is based based on an address history trace and that's done through the background Bureau Investigation um service and what they do is they look at a seven-year address history trace and they look at Statewide criminal searches within North Carolina they also look at multicounty searches so if applicants have lived outside of the state of North Carolina they look at the counties where those applicants have lived and they do a background search in those those counties as well they do an auto AKA name addition so if there are names that people may have assumed they use the social security number the birth date and they use that to find aliases that people may have used and they um do searches on those as well they search a criminal

240record database their database is a search of over 400 million unique criminal records um that's put together from different governmental and proprietary sources there's also a sex offender registry um check that's done that's a comprehensive realtime search of registered sex offenders um sex offender Registries in all 50 states plus Washington DC um Puerto Rico Guam and Native American Travel Registries there's also a security watch list check that's done and so that's a database search of information obtained from over 30 Global agencies um including interpole and the US Department of Justice so that's the criminal background check that is done on all of the employees who the applicants who appli to become employees with us next slide I'm afraid to touch anything okay in addition to that for our prek um applicants they complete a fingerprinting

241process and this is a federal this is because of federal legislation and that began in 2019 so they complete the application process they go through the criminal black background check that I just described and in addition to that they are fingerprinted and the fingerprinting process is done through the Department of Health and Human Services child care criminal background division it's a federal background check that is completed um they complete an application online and then they are fingerprinted through a local agency um most often our employees are fingerprinted through the Sheriff's Department or the Carolina beach um Sheriff's Department police department employees currently are reimbursed for the cost of the online application and the fingerprinting process right now um that's about 4650 per person the background check is about 2650 and then to be fingerprinted at

242a local agency can cost between $5 and $20 in addition to that we have a guardian system in place and so all of our employees are entered into this Guardian system and what that does is it monitors and alerts us if an employee has a has incurred a criminal charge inth Carolina so there's a charge that comes up on any of our employees we get notice of that of course the policy requires employees to notify us if there are criminal charges as well so our background check and criminal history check in our hiring process includes the applicant disclosure it includes reference checks it includes a licensure check with the North Carolina State Department of Instruction and there we can determine if um licenses have been suspended or revoked or any adverse action has been taken

243on a license it includes the address history trace it includes that background check includes non fingerprintable offenses as well as fingerprintable offenses and I make that distinction because I'm going to share some additional information with you um for your consideration it is based on a history check an address history check though so it's based on residents um the prek we do the fingerprinting we search Federal databases um um that is based on fingerprintable offenses so if there are offenses that were not fingerprintable it would not be included in that background check um and then we have the guardian system which is an ongoing system of checking for criminal charges so I Shar this information with you um so that you can consider whether you know our current practices whether we continue our current practices whether

244we supplement our current practices and then there's some other decisions that we'll have to talk about as you think about how we'd like to move forward including partnering with the local agency as we've done for the prek fingerprinting process to have applicants fingerprint it or purchasing our own fingerprinting system and being able to submit those directly um to the SBI um through a vendor to the SBI so that what's currently in place um I heard someone mention earlier that we um a caller said we don't do a sex offender registry um check we absolutely do a sex offender registry check so I wanted to make sure um that you have that information okay thank you very much Dr Coker i' open the floor to board members for any questions or points of clarification I do

245do yes Mr mcmanis oh sor sorry is it Mr wildor oh thank you um just a quick question in in that one slide you made when a person is is charged you get notif or when they are convicted the guardian system when do you get notified is it a charge or an infraction I guess or we get no we get notified of charges so there don't have to be convictions we get notified of charges great thank you yes sir um Mrs crille the um what would be an example or two of a fingerprintable versus non fingerprintable um offense that's a great question um and I'm sure Ashley my investigator just stood up to walk over here because she thinks she's going to have to help me with that but I think I might have one

246um so a non- fingerprintable offense might be a traffic citation maybe citations and fractions are non fingerprintable she brought me a lesson these are fingerprintable offenses so in essence um citations may be non- fingerprintable correct but like a DUI is fingerprintable yes ma'am uh to clarify you're your all felonies are fingerprintable uh misdemeanor certain misdemeanors anything that's going to be violent such as homicide rape assault burglar robbery lenry fraud embezzlement bribery perjury those are all fingerprintable if you would like a a full list look at North Carolina General statutes 115 Charlie d332 again that's ncgs 115c d332 thank you appreciate it I'm just looking at maybe like a a disorderly conduct you know kind of thing you know um I'll look it up thank you um yes I have a question yes Miss Justice um

247the you said a background Bureau runs this different information through these different systems uh do we contract with the company to do that we do pay for those Services yes we pay approximately um 14,700 a year for our applicants to uh for our new hires um for that system for that background check system for all of them for all of our new hires and uh what is the name of that company background investigation Bureau thank you you're welcome Adam yes Miss Walker you um um thank you Dr CER this is a your um these are the considerations to partner with local approved agencies or contract with a vendor have you had a chance to look at prices for that or what what it might cost the district yes so right now we pay approximately $14,000

248a year for our criminal background check system um and then we pay an additional $2,000 a year for the guardian system that system that keeps all of our employees in it that runs around so if we looked at and I'm going to use the number of 700 new hires for the whole year that's the that's the number I'm basing it on so if we looked at hiring 700 new hires or paying for 700 new employees um we could do the fingerprinting in one of two ways we could um work with local law enforcement and that's assuming they have the capacity to handle the number of employees that we would need to have fingerprinted so the background check through the FBI would cost about $35 and then for them to go be fingerprinted at a local

249agency would a cost would cost approximately $20 so $55 per person and then so if we did that for you know 700 employees we'd be looking at around um and then if we purchased our own machine and we didn't do that through the a local law enforcement agency then that would be around 245 the cost of the machine would cost about 10,000 and so if we just got one machine it would cost around 10,000 that's just for fingerprinting um you could add on say that 14,000 if we continue to do the same criminal background check but what I would like to do is May is do more research to see um if that price if we could get that price down a bit so because you you could decide to do only the criminal background

250check or you could decide to do you could decide to do only fingerprinting or you could decide to do a combination of both and I do think they complement each other um so I I think that's a strong consideration and that's why I pointed out that the address history Trace is based on your past residences and it's based on on the last seven years of where you lived so there's you know some limitation there the fingerprinting is based on those offenses that were fingerprinted and those that were not you may not get those so I think we would need to cons or I think one possibility is to consider um a combination of finger printing and the criminal background check so what I'm hearing is this is an ongoing investigation for you you're you're looking

251at cost and looking at options yes at what point do you think you'd be able to bring back a full presentation for that to the board if that's if that's something that this board is interested in in looking at and learning more about if that's something that this board is interested in and and knowing and wanting to see what each um option would be um we could bring that back at at your pleasure okay great any other questions or comments I see Mr wildbore yes May I'll mute myself I think it's a great idea for doing the research you've done uh ask to and get that I think any way we can keep our students safe um our fa other faculty members safe I think that's Paramount so I I thank you for that be

252a great idea to go as far as we can to keep everybody safe anyone else all right thank you very much Dr Coker thank you and I would like to mention for these three information items the social studies standards e-learning Academy and the safety and hiring practices um these were requests that we received from the public and we appreciate uh senior staff pulling together this information to share with us because this is information that's very important uh to our families and so thank you very much for bringing all that forward and educating the board and the community all right next item on the agenda is the superintendent report Dr fa I'm happy to announce that the numbers are and 584 students from the class of 2021 nearly one-third of the graduates were designated North Carolina

253scholars in total our class of 2021 received more than $16 million in scholarships as we've stated before um we're also excited for the upcoming regular school year as we resume full in-person learning 5 days a week um on August 23rd the school plan for management of student Behavior policy presented to the board during the May regular session will be Revisited next month during our regular board meeting as previously announced um I'd also like to reiterate that the starting this school year um North New Hanover County Schools will have the highest paid teachers in the state of North Carolina thanks to the salary supplement passed by the new Handover County School uh new Handover County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education with the $9,000 annual supplement on average additionally our salary schedule is currently at

254the state budget and I hope to increase salaries um for all new han County School Employees so we're still waiting and as soon as that budget passes um all employees will will have um um we'll be able to come back and let you know what the salary schedules are as you noted um Mary Hazel stated she would um you'd have to vote on those salary schedules so we'll have those again as soon as that state salary is um as soon as the um salary schedule is approved at the state level our Human Resources Division is currently recruiting um for hardto fill positions including School psychologists and speech pathologists another thing that has been I guess a Hot Topic along with um CRT is Seal which is uh social emotional learning um social emotional learning is

255also in the federal budget in our local budget and there were mandates actually from the the feds and actually from the state level that we had to provide um social emotional learning um and counselors for our students just for ignite we had to put that in there so it's not something that is indoctrinating anyone this is actually for help and support for those students that need it um and so I just want to let you know that we've also received federal and state funding for our social social emotional learning programs and continue to hire positions to fulfill the state and federal requirements as you know we put in multiple positions in our um counselors um social workers those positions were filled through that eter eter 2 s or3 um new H County Schools is dedicated

256to providing the most comprehensive social and otal learning environment possible to all students um and so some recognitions I'd like to re um from last um or last Tuesday finally I'd like to reiterate the recognitions and achievement of our finance Communications divisions by external professional organizations and we're just so happy and pleased um to be able to celebrate with our Communications Department um for getting inspra Awards and also for our finance for getting that great award from um for finance our administrative staff also works diligently to provide the best support possible for our principals teachers counselors bus drivers and every other employee that um works with us in New Hanover County we are nhcs and we're we're um um coining that phrase as team in HCS um I want to share of course the enthusiasm

257with our staff and our teachers and welcome our students back for an eventful 21 22 school year I'm so excited and can't wait for our school year to start and I know that um we're going to do great things and you're going to hear great things and we're going to talk a lot about curriculum instruction data um and how we're improving our school district and how we can celebrate too so we look forward to that in the the coming months thank you thank you Dr fa I'm fired up after that one all right here we go 2021 22 it's coming all right board chairperson's report um just just two really really quick items I just want to announce that the board will be participating in uh masterboard training superintendent evaluation on August 6th with the

258North Carolina state boards Association and ooc August 10th will be participating in parliamentary procedures training um and I just would like to say thank you to our new Haner County staff um you all have been through a very interesting week and you have handled it with Grace and um we just appreciate you for all that you have done for our students and keeping the focus on our students always so thank you very much and thank you Dr fa for your leadership Madam chair you MCM next item oh yes Mr mcmanis you have a comment just I was going to ask Dr F if he could update us on the new han of a high school gym situation there seem to be a lot about where they going to play ball or where they aren't going

259to play ball and the cost of the floor Etc yes I will have to have um Eddie Anderson come to to the to the podium um I want to say that um there's been so many presentations on that but there some more work so Eddie will be able to give you a brief indepth um uh conversation about that and he does a great he does a much better job because he works with the the engineers um more than I do so Eddie I'm ready to take over because I am struggling I know you're bored Eddie just sitting there I I'm just glad to get the opportunity to talk welcome Mr Anderson I wish it was a I wish it was a better subject um I I tell it in all my time I I don't

260think I've ever seen anything quite like this um you know where of what we we think is a fairly uh simple U project turned into such a complex problem and uh solution just to I think I had shared in um shared with the board a pretty indepth kind of U timeline and and what's going on but um in summary it really boils down to two issues um initially there was a depression in the floor after investigating that um that is a a rais slab and it's um it's on pylons and we could tell that the pylons were actually sinking um and this is been you know not over a week um not over a year it's been you know over 20 years 50 years it's uh it's it's you know we've had as much of

261you know a 4 inch depression over 20 years so uh but in doing that investigation uh because of you know this is a this is a gym gym floor inside of a a utilized building um getting equipment in there and uh and coming up with a solution that we could literally um you know work with inside a building was uh quite difficult uh we had a lot of Engineers scratching their heads I assure you but um we think we've got a good solution um with from the structural engineer and our our uh testing agency and um we're ready to start design on that um the other issue in in looking at this we also observed that the uh slab itself doesn't really doesn't conform to our standards today and um so we're going to take

262not only the gym floor out we're going to take the slab out we're going to fix the foundation and uh put in a new slab that is U you know built structurally uh for today's standards um we're in the process now obviously this uh this turned into a a fair a very large project a very large scope of work quickly uh so we we did have to back up we're uh in the process of getting the architect uh design team on board as well as um getting a construction manager on board I think that uh having a construction manager on board uh for this project it will be particularly helpful and uh that they can go out and do some testing for us and better lead our design efforts um the budget trans that was

263approved tonight uh gets that process started our preliminary cost estimates for the fix is uh approximately $2 million um our plan is to come back to uh the Board of Education and the County Commissioners uh they asked for an update as well uh our plan is to come back in September and uh and give you that update uh final cost estimates and a Funding Solution where will they play ball I mean what do there's several different um yeah we there are currently the New Hanover is working with Cape feir Community College to secure the sort Center for all basketball and volleyball games and then we're looking at a combination of utilizing some of our own facilities um Williston Gregory DC ver or well DC Virgo we're working with UNCW on that as well as Snipes

264in The Princess Place gym as as you know um we're also adding air conditioning into Princess Place gym to to make that a better facility um and we're doing that in a way so it's not just a temporary fix we're doing it a way that that's going to provide a long-term solution for that facility as well okay thank you I have a question Mr Anderson um I know we had some questions about concessions and I know since the gym games have to move around is there a way um for they're losing a lot of money you know for their booster clubs so is there a way to kind of help with that yes I'll um I'll verify but um um I may I'm making the assumption but I think it's correct and that u in

265using the swort center there'll be the opportunity for concessions there as well good all right thank you very much for for jumping in there Mr Anderson that was not exactly a planned conversation but we appreciate the information and we look forward to follow up as we move forward in future months so thank you very much thank you all right the next item on the agenda is uh excuse me yes Miss Justice yes uh I wanted to ask Dr f a question uh I know that there has been some concern about online material not being and this was I thought this was going to be brought up in your presentation because some I I was told somehow the other it was um but uh online material not being posted in a timely manner before our board

266meetings for the public to have an opportunity to uh to look well I you know we've had some problems with board members getting it in timely manner but the public really would like to have that in a more timely manner so they can look at it and uh formulate whatever their concerns are before we have our meetings have uh you been able to address some of those concerns The public's had in that question that was I thought was addressed in the um last Tuesday that's a policy change we're following policy um so the the policy states that we give it to the um board members um I think it's I have to have help with the the number of dates before and make it available for the board members okay I remember some some of

267a discussion but there is I thought that there was going to be some uh I guess your presentation about the public get I don't I'm trying to remember because it has been a crazy week to but uh so the discussion or the in situation in the policy is just for the board members and not about the public policy I'll have to go in and I Crystal can you pull the policy um and we can examine the policy of how it reads but it does not read and and then one of the things that you have to understand is that there we have to give the board in time because it is a board meeting um we have to give board members enough time to ruse it look at the information be able to ask questions

268before we are allowing it to be vetted to the public and so if the public is asking questions and then they may be coming to you saying hey I don't understand why you're doing this you're saying well I don't know what that means we haven't had an opportunity to talk with the board because those presentations go up in a in a um uh in the the agenda review we're putting things together then we put the agenda together then we um come together at for our information and then it's posted uh for for the board members I think it may be the Friday or Friday before I think that's when it's when it's posted days I believe it is and so once that's posted then you have the opportunity to ask us questions so um yes

269policy 2335 states that at least 5 days prior to each regular board meeting or special board meeting the superintendent shall provide the following materials to each board member the proposed agenda minutes of previous me um meetings that have not been adopted and any supporting information or material that would assist board members to become informed on issues proposed for board consideration so it does not stay in there your policy does not tell us to do it for the public so that would have to be a board a policy change that would be something need to go on the agenda to discuss in order to do that in a pre a future meeting that's Justice I would suggest if that's something that you would like to if you would like to bring forward um that can definitely

270be an agenda item For an upcoming meeting um if you would like to just send me the email um and can get a second um we can definitely that thank you very much for clarifying that thank you all right moving on to committee reports um we only have one committee report on the agenda right now and it is um the family Communications committee so miss Crill who is the committee chair uh I will give you the mic okay um thank you madam chair um fellow board members At Last At Last Tuesday's meeting um I spoke about two upcoming opportunities for the community dialogue with Dr Board of Education um I received considerable feedback um push back actually from several board members about the August 11th work session um where board members uh where it was

271proposed that board members would sit down and talk with the community in a small round table setting um so that that con that is concerning to me that we had the push back because I thought we were all on board with um trying to talk with our public more and to meet on some common ground um for the better interest of our community and and our students so um with with with that said I am going to um change change course of thought and I wanted to um ask Dr fa this um since the the board doesn't feel like they need to um meet on the 11th to in that format is that something that you could do um as a back to school meet and greet um something that you weren't able to do

272last year um because you started you started after our school year started so um is that something that you can do and then the board would not have to host this work session that could be something that you and your departments could could host absolutely we can work on on um um dates that we can host um just speaking with u our folks earlier today I was um telling that I want us to do a a re-entry of the superintendent and getting to know and meet and greets for the superintendent so we can definitely that would be a great opportunity for us to um step in and and do senior staff meet and greets also okay so um since I did kind of make the announcement that we were going to have this on a

273August 7th do you think that that date would still be good or should um well actually it's not the board's going to do it anymore but do you think that's something that um I should just retract and say that we're gonna have a different date or then you'll come out with something for that because I don't want there to be any confusion um with the public ask them to save the date for that date yes so we'll come up with some dates and we will um we'll put we'll publish those dates okay um so then the um the the second event that I had spoken about the back to School PTA Council event is still a go um for Wednesday August the 11th um the um and that is going to be held at the

274spener building in the the old boardroom and um Dr fa will be in attendance at that meeting and he will do a 30 minute um question and answer Town Hall Forum setting for our PTA our PTO our other parent support organization leaders and a representative from each school that does not have um a parent support organization so we the the PTA council is looking forward from that to that and Bernice Johnson who is the president of the council will be getting um out in touch with with all of those leaders so that's all I had from family Communications thank you for allowing me to um clarify what I said before thank you very much Miss Kel appreciate it appreciate your work uh all right correspondence is yes Miss Justice yes um I have a question

275that just came up when she was going through her is um presentation the family Communications committee is the PTA PTO part of that they are okay uh and I understand that you are serving currently as a temporary Vice chair of the PT uh of the district's PTA you understand correctly but I am about to be voted off because we are having elections and I won't be that that role anymore and I was that role before I was elected yeah I'm just trying to because all this information's coming from and so it is part of the family communication group okay um and well thank you very much you welcome all right next item on the agenda is correspondence does anyone have any correspondence they need to share or would like to share right I don't see

276any hands I don't think all right uh next item is the call to the audience non-agenda items that uh we do not we can skip over because there is no more call to the available uh next our announcements uh in let's see was it June Miss Crill uh Miss Crill attended the North Carolina School boards Association summer Institute and uh very appreciative the spots filled up incredibly fast I I tried to get in and register as well but they had a a minimal uh uh group that they could bring in due to covid restrictions and Miss krael was able to get in and be able to represent for New Hanover County schools and she's going to take a few minutes to tell us a little bit about the summer Institute and some of her takeaways

277uh Miss Crill uh yes uh thank you the um I I know we're going on five hours now so I really will be um brief so um a couple of the thing the the com it was held in Carolina Beach and it was a 5-day Workshop three days for the summer Leadership in Institute and two days for policy um some of the major things that we talked about um first of all I thought it was a great opportunity to network with Schoolboard members from across the state and what I found just really um the really enlightening is that many school boards came together you know had several of their members came and several of them brought their superintendent with them so we got a lot of good um information from all different sides and and

278how um boards work well with their superintendent um I got some good feedback on different sort of evaluation tools that they Ed I got some sample um goals that I will um bring with me on Friday to share with you all just you know in case we need you know that but some of the things that they they encouraged us to do is to participate in those conversations that they offer um ac across the state we have a an Eastern a middle and a western um I know I've attended those Pete has attended those and I'm not sure if anybody else has either um but and then they also just encouraged us you know boards to work together as a board and not as individuals um in order to um fulfill the mission of of

279our schools they talked a lot about the summer programs and they were very excited about that and cautioned us about not calling it summer learning law not calling it learning loss and and recovery but to focus more on the acceleration aspect that every student you know that that came to summer school came in different places but their learning and be ready to start the school in the fall so I I I liked the positive um attitude that um the the DPI what was pulling forward and I really felt strongly that our summer night program was mirroring that and and was very proud to give examples um to the rest of the state about what we were doing um they talked about the movement between public private Charter and homeschool students during the pandemic and and

280how the money was flowing and how it was um districts were just you know trying to be creative and getting more kids back into our school systems um they talked about Leandro and the um recent ruling that occurred on June the 8 and um encourage boards to um work with their state leg with with their legislators and their um school districts to figure out um how we are going to approach that so I I would like to see that as a work session you know coming up um so and they also talked to us about cyber security apparently during the pandemic there were several school systems that were that were haed and um with ransomware and so they were actually down for weeks at a time where they couldn't do anything um trying to figure

281out um if their insurance was going to pay um how to do that and that was really kind of frightening because our employee and student data was on the line not ours not not ours um different boards across the state um so they encouraged us all to take a look at our technology um programs and our cyber security so that we can lessen the likelihood that it would happen to our our system and um reduce the impact should it actually get through there um and I'm sure you know Miss Brinson and her team is already on that but that was um a topic that I really hadn't given much thought to um he also encouraged us to make sure that you know that our systems were were robust and and tight you know so that

282didn't happen to us um we talked about school safety and um making sure that our threat our threat assessments were up to date um and talked about you know different avenues that we can help Ensure the safety of our students things like the say something um app which we are using um save clubs um students against violence everywhere and we do have several safe clubs operating in our school system right now so I wanted to you know give a shout out to any of those um um Club advisers that are listening thank you for your work there um they talked about making sure that we're clear on our SRO role so it looks like we are you know we're getting back to look at that in in 5120 um and wanted and cautioned us the

283the the guy that was doing our present presentation was a former law enforcement agent or um law enforcement officer and he said that everybody just needs to be clear that in subordination of a student does not directly correlate disorderly conduct and a charge and that they are not that is not their role in the schools is to be doing that um so then in in the policy part we we talked about um that they as part of the um house the Senate Bill 476 which required the that school mental health school based health programs be put into place um including you know training of you know people at all levels of the school system and having a suicide referral protocol that um that we look to make sure that our our social workers and our

284counselors and our psychologists were also receiving um supplements that our teachers were receiving um so that they um were really on par with with everybody's working together as a unified system um one thing that I was also happy to hear about was they they made the connection between um physical activity to mental health and you know that that kids that are more active tend to be less stressed as as do adults and um prior to um the pandemic we the school system was used was um through the PTA was working on action-based learning programs and um I just wanted to remind folks though a little shout out that the ptas have like $113,000 ready to um do many grants to schools that are interested in including that in their um social emotional learning plans um

285so I thought that was great so um the the next week that happened after that I attended assembly conference which was free and I have all of the the links that I can share with you all there are so many good things that we can be using with simbly um we're only a year into it so we probably didn't get good training um on you know all the things that we could do but some of the things that really stuck out at me was um the sticky note option that we can use sticky notes um on our um on our board agenda so you can make notes and be ready to you know jump into the conversation we can use QR codes that people can just scan and go right to um the board agendas

286and different parts of the agenda um one of the things that I really liked was um voting option that we can actually vote um for on on motions and different things um using a assembly voting process where we just vote Yes we all vote simultaneously you know Crystal would um compile that and then and give that report right back to the board chair um I think those kind of those little kind of things would would help you increase our um efficiency at our meetings the um two things that that when I asked a question about you know can we um can we put motions into how do we how do how can we put our motions on the screen before we vote so people are really clear so that we're not going could you repeat

287that motion and you know like four people jumped in and said what do you mean that you don't have your motions already presented Ed you know um is as part of your agenda so that might be something I know a lot of us um have have coined the new phrase Blindside but this could keep a lot of the blindsiding out if we if we chose to um try and use that option to get our motions up up ahead of time and then I mentioned it earlier the um a lot of districts um and companies that are using assembly the um they try and align their agenda items with their goals you know from their strategic plan and not as a tracking tool but just as a way to make sure that we are covering the

288right things um at the right time so um that that was it in a nutshell um I encourage you guys you know just to um you know attend any of these kind of things you can because it's helpful and I got put in touch with um some of our counterparts at in Brunswick County so I've got a lot of good information to share with you that is accurate on what they are actually doing and some of the reasons um that they are putting certain things into play all right thank you so much Miss krael if any board members uh have follow-up dialogue please I encourage you to reach out she got a lot of wonderful information uh from attending those conferences we appreciate you okay last item on the agenda for the evening is adjournment

289do I hear a motion I make motion to Miss Walker is there a second Mr Buller thank you Mr Buller any discussion Miss buoy could you call the role please miss Adams hi Mr Buller hi Miss Justice hi Miss crille hi Mr mcmanis hi Miss Walker yes and Mr wildor yes motion passes we are adjourned thank you everyone have a good evening you