001this meeting to order it is 5 30 on april 20th welcome to the new hanover county board of education interim meeting uh we will start with our invocation and i would like to welcome pastor ethan welch from the bridge church to the microphone to provide our invocation the bridge church is located at 2101 market street wilmington north carolina pastor welch thank you so much for being here i could have everyone please stay it's a it's a great privilege to be with you this evening in person and i just want to say that each of you are loved tonight valued and we're so grateful for you and for the work that you do for thousands of students and families in our county and so we're grateful for you as i tell our our church people are
002the mission so students our mission as we pray let's take a moment of reflection for the loss of one of our educators in the most these past few days as we remember jessica let's take a moment and just reflect father it's in moments like these where we recognize the the brevity of life and our existence and we're grateful for this opportunity to live and to be here and what i believe is a great county and a great place and father tonight in in jesus name i just ask that you would grant these leaders those who govern this great county and that play a tremendous role in seeing that our students are valued and cherished and equipped and educated father i ask in in jesus name for great wisdom and discernment for for each of them
003father people are the mission students are the mission so let us do as best we can to make sure that children are safe that children are valued that there is equity that there's great opportunity as best we can for every student in this great county father we ask that you would comfort this county as well and the loss of our our dear friend and servant i pray that you would comfort those who are closest to her family and friends and school students administration all those who interacted with her on such a daily basis thank you for her great service and the way that she gave of her energy her life her vocation her career for the sake of others and so father we we thank you thank you for this this moment we ask for
004your blessing your direction um for your help um tonight in jesus name amen please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all may be seated thank you thank you very much pastor welch for those comments um i would to also like to make a brief comment about miss jessica embry orchestra teacher at ashley um this has been a really hard week um for our for our new hanover county schools family and the loss of miss embry i did not have the i did not have the opportunity to know her but i've been doing a lot of reading from people that knew her best and the word that keeps
005coming up is hero she was a hero to our students she was a hero to the two children that she pulled from the water on sunday um and we just appreciate her service so just a moment of silence for miss embry and the ashley family thank you next item on the agenda crystal if you could please call the roll stephanie adams here nelson bullier here judy justice here stephanie crayville here he mcmanus here stephanie walker here and peter wildeboard president all right thank you very much next item is the approval of the agenda do i hear a motion move to approve thank you mr bullier is there second second thank you mr wildebore any discussion all right uh all those in favor say aye all right old is opposed agenda is approved as written next
006item on the agenda is closed session uh pursuant to north carolina general statutes 143-318-118183 and a6 to consider personnel matters and to maintain the confidentiality of personnel records under north carolina general statutes 115 c 319 and dash 321 and to consult with the board's attorney to preserve attorney-client privileged information do i hear a motion move to approve thank you to the statutes thank you mr bullier is our second second thank you miss crabill any discussion all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed we are in closed session i remember that it was fresh in here all right chase are we good to go i have to use my pants for a napkin all right we will go ahead and go with our next item and make sure mr will deboer will be joining
007us in a moment uh the next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes for the work session on march 12 2021 and the minutes for the march interim meeting on march 16 2021. do i hear a motion so moved thank you mr bullier is there a second second thank you miss crabill any discussion all right all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed minutes are approved six to zero next item on the agenda consensus items personnel report dr allison coker would like to welcome you to the microphone fees good evening madam chair board members tonight i come to you requesting approval of the personnel report that has been presented to you okay all right you have heard the recommendation is there a motion move to approve thank you is there
008a second second thank you miss walker any discussion all right all those in favor to approve the personnel report as listed all say opposed personal report is approved seven to zero thank you thank you very much all right old business on the agenda of the superintendent evaluation process a quick update for the board i heard back from dr simmons from dpi yesterday and she has uploaded the superintendent evaluation training and has sent it to me with the password to be distributed to the board i'm going to send it to you to watch on your own time what we need to establish tonight is the date for when we will do a training q a with her so she asked for us to determine two to three options early may so if everyone could take a
009look at their calendars and see if we could come up with a few dates that we can submit to her it would be a zoom session and it would be a public meeting work session for the q a opportunity but if everyone had an opportunity to pull out their calendars that would be great how long was this did you say it's going to last two hours um i would think the session with her i believe the training is an hour and so the session with her i would think we should probably schedule it for 60 minutes um for any questions that are remaining after the fact and you said i'm sorry yes justice uh in may yes she's in early may so obviously we've got a our meeting on may 4th but beyond that uh
010what dates would work for everyone let's get like two to three options we've got a chair uh fairly flexible we i mean i could do the fifth i could do the seventh i could also do it an hour before the meeting if we wanted to cram it all into one day i'm flexible uh i'd prefer not to do that before meeting i agree yeah i don't wanna i don't know if i wanna add that to time to a i'm fairly open and would prefer mornings mornings mr wildebord madam charles is going to say either the fifth or seventh or maybe the tenth given that we give us give her several options the fifth the seventh or the tenth uh can we do just a poll on that raise your hand if those dates work across
011the board mr mcmanus is still thinking okay and is your preference for morning afternoon or evening if we could just go down the line i'd rather do morning morning mornings good morning good morning okay uh morning mr mcmanus i have a dodge appointment on the 10th at 10 30. so no morning on the still so the tenth would have to either be afternoon or early evening okay um miss justice uh well if we do in the morning i'd like to do it at nine just because i have the grandkids to get off all right aren't those school days pardon me aren't they school days like they'll be in school in the morning i have to make sure they get to school in case believe me in the morning i need to get them to school
012and then drive out here okay so could we do it after school starts when you drop them off well that's what i just said nine o'clock okay so i'll offer her i'll offer her the fifth the seventh the tenth and either a 9 a.m or 10 a.m and we'll and i will get back to you as soon as possible uh with what works for you i'm sorry i believe mr mcmanus can't do the time i'm sorry sorry sorry the 10th not the morning but yes afternoon um and evening only for that one so all for the fifth and the seventh for nine a.m and 10 a.m if the tenth is her only available day is the majority i can try to change don't worry about it we'll start with the first two and see how
013we do um now the other piece of this um the expectation will be i will forward the training to you um this aft this evening after we finish the meeting um the password isn't embedded in it okay um so it will just be every board member's responsibility to have previewed the training prior to this meeting okay very good um yes manager is there any documentation that we have actually taken that training and do we need to have this training in order to participate in the evaluation i would i don't as far as documentation goes i don't believe it is checking if we've done it um but i think this would be an honor system being that it's not the type of thing where you're going it's literally a presentation that's been sent to us like
014a webinar so it's not going to click something off that this email address has done it um so i it's going to be on the honor system okay i guess i was just asking mainly for the fact that i thought we had agreed or that at least dr faust had asked that we all are trained on because it's a pretty complicated and long tool so if we haven't been to the training then we shouldn't be able to participate correct okay what i would assume everyone would i wouldn't know what we were all adults i'm just saying just checking i will send those dates to dr simmons tomorrow and send the training to the board this evening and whatever date is selected just make sure you've had the training completed by the time we meet with
015her for the q a sound good yep all right great moving right along next item on the agenda is our strategic plan and i believe our nhp partners are waiting patiently on zoom to provide a proposed strategic planning timeline and i will who is presenting this evening are they in the room crystal or have they not come in yet yeah they may not have thought that we were going to be done with moving through so quickly well that's probably because they've watched some of our other meetings in the in the meantime if board members just want the presentation is uploaded into uh in the assembly right now if you'd like to just preview it as we wait for them to come on is yet but may 14th is i guess are we going to do
016like a virtual meeting with them all in one day it's the they're going to be reaching out to set up an appointment yeah they just that's their deadline that they they want to complete certain things by yeah there's nancy we changed so much welcome nancy thank you good evening good evening sorry we are we are like moving through the agenda at warp speed tonight which is very unusual for us so we are excited to be at the strategic planning agenda item and we thank you for being here this evening and we look forward to the presentation and the proposed agenda okay great and pamela pollan will be joining us also i'll try to keep going at warp speed if possible what we want to present to you is just a quick overview of what we're
017looking at for the strategic planning timeline we are really excited about getting started on this and i think it's going to be a wonderful process for everybody to be involved with um next slide please um just a quick review of what the process consists there are basically five phases the first one is really the assessment phase which is critical to figuring out you know where you are and what your vision is those things um and then the second phase is where we come together to actually look at all the data that's assembled during the assessment and to come up with the major goal the direction you want to go following that phase three is to actually build out the specific strategies of where you're going and how you're gonna get there faith four will bring
018back a recommended plan and then that will be an opportunity to get additional feedback and fine-tune it phase five is when we actually finalize the plan set up the accountability and metrics for you and implementation begins so next slide what we've done is to try to set up a preliminary timeline and um i don't want to walk you through too much detail other than to show you what we're looking at just in phase one for the assessment what we're hoping to do is to be able to set up interviews with key stakeholders including top staff and board and then to be able to do some either interviews focus groups or surveys with other staff hopefully we can get to that by the end of may because i'm understanding that the end of may is a
019time when staff will begin to be less available so what we would suggest there is if you want in-person interviews we would like to set up a two to three day time where we could set up appointments with folks in about one hour blocks over that time period and get through a number of those in-person interviews at the same time on the other hand if you would prefer them to be done by zoom we can do those at a more leisurely schedule or we can also try to set that up in a quick process schedule but whatever we do we want to do it as soon as we can so that we can access the staff as soon as we can for full availability following that we'll turn to external stakeholders who will get depending
020on what we learn in our original phase we'll either be going to them with surveys or with interviews or possibly with focus groups again depending on what we get from our initial phase we also will be during that time gathering other data of research data such as your previous plan and the other documents that you would like us to examine those types of things and when we get all that together hopefully no later than august we will be able to analyze all that data uh and pull it together so that we can go into phase two by the first of september next slide so when we get all that data we would like to set up a time that would be a planning retreat where we can present that data in a structured way and
021help facilitate an analysis that would result in a really strong vision mission and sense of direction so that by the end of that strategic planning retreat we would have been able to identify the major goals that you want to pursue for that plan and those goals again remember are what you see as the key ways that you would move from where we identify you are now with strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats and where you see yourself going in your vision and then those goals will be those major foundational stepping stones to get you from here to there um we would love to do that by early september moving on to the next slide the phase after that would be the development of really detailed framework to go around that the specific strategies the action step
022this is a phase we would want to engage the key staff leadership because we would anticipate they will be the ones responsible for carrying out much of the work so with their input and their knowledge of the weeds and the nuts and bolts we would build the strategies and action steps out and then in phase four to the next slide we would bring those recommendations back to you for your review your further discussion further input and takes on what those recommendations are then after that we'll move into the very last phase which is the next slide and that is finalizing the plan taking the input that we get from you and fine-tuning and finalizing the plan which would include the assessment metrics so that you'll have a way of establishing your accountability on each one
023of these goals once that's all established and done we'll turn the plan over to you and it will be up to you for your staff to implement and we will be available as i think we mentioned in the previous meeting that we will be available after we turn the plan over for at least two more meetings or discussions if you would like to talk about how the implementation is going so um if we can go to the last slide next last slide uh pamela are you on i'm not seeing her on here so i will um go ahead and move through this the key role that we want the board to play in this whole process is a governance role to oversee the process not you don't have to get down and run the process
024but to oversee it so we'll keep coming back to you with updates on where we are how things are going the other thing we'll need is for you to be very engaged in the assessment providing your knowledge your insights all the background that you're aware of that will help us define what are some key challenges and opportunities you'll also need to be engaged in the strategic planning retreat either through a task force or some other setup so that while we honor the open meetings law we also want to be able to have a very um informal conversation there when we do that review so we'll work around that but you will need to be involved in looking at the analysis of data and setting goals and then again once the details of strategy are worked
025out around the goals that you set we will bring those details back and you'll need to review discuss give us your further input and then once the plan is yours it will be up to you to govern its implementation and to oversee the staff as they perform the actions that we said would need to be performed to move you toward your goals so do you all have questions about this process all right board members any questions about the timeline or the process yes mr abel thank you um so are you will we be able to know who your focus groups are um especially with the extended i mean the external partners um so that we could maybe suggest others for consideration and not demand but you know suggest yes um one of the things that
026we'll want to do in those early interviews that i talked about those very first meetings that we'll set up with you all is to be sure we've got the right stakeholders also because this is a transparent process when we finalize the plan we'll indicate in our final report who was a participant in the process now if we do something depending on the way we go with the stakeholders if it's identified to do something like a town hall meeting with parents we may not name every individual parent but we would certainly name for example the parent association or or other um indicators of who's there but also particularly with the key stakeholders the external stakeholders we will be looking to you for your input as to who should be a part of that process okay and
027i had one other follow-up um and how about um when you are doing the focus group of staff are we doing all levels of our staff you know teachers principals um on up through central office and um other educators um again we can customize that based on the input from our initial interviews with you all and um with the superintendent but we um what usually would happen in an organization your size is that we would probably go to only select groups for an actual focus group and try to get uh surveys done of other staff but again we do want to customize it to your needs so if you see a place where you feel a focused group of particular staff members would be helpful we certainly would want to build that into the process
028but then as you move down from the upper level staff you may want to go more towards surveys with the line staff just because of the you know large number of people there okay yeah i forgot about the survey part that that makes sense thank you other questions um nancy would it be possible to i we have a very engaged board um that is excited to be part of this process and being that the first thing that's listed on there after the meeting with the superintendent is interviews with board members um would it be possible and i'd open this up to the board you know the option was there for in person would you prefer an in-person opportunity to interview with our partners or would you prefer the zoom option um we're really very open
029either way um it's really up to you i think pamela and i both are vaccinated and able to travel and we're happy to come and you know do in-person interviews um if some of your um members or partners would feel more comfortable with the zoom that's fine too um occasionally i've had stakeholders that are going to be you know out of state for an extended period and end up doing a phone call with them for that reason but otherwise um you know we would be happy to come and again i think if we do want to do the in-person um which is great i love in-person work if we do that it would be best i think the best use of our time if we can find a set of two or three days where
030we can come and talk to a whole lot of people at one time and not try to go back and forth back and forth but that that would be a great thing if you all are open to it we would be happy to do in person can we just go down the board and just what what's your preference in person or zoom and i agree i like the idea of i've been person so everything you just said i was going to say so there we go yeah so mr wildeboard does that mean in person all right i'm good in person all right yeah in person for me too yes yes all right you have a board that would love to meet with you in person so we will get with crystal to work on some
031dates um and additionally you know i'm sure we'll put dr faust in at that time and other stakeholders that he identifies um you know to get the the biggest bang for the buck during those that that time that you're here okay that sounds great okay yes that's crable do we um meet as a board or do we meet independently one-on-one with your team i believe it'd be individual issues is that correct yes these are individual interviews we would love to spend um probably won't take more than 30 to 45 minutes but i would love to slate an hour to just sit down either i or pamela palmer will sit down with each of you individually to get your detailed feedback i and i also will want to talk to you as a whole board too
032but this this first assessment interview we really want to go in depth with each person individually thank you all right any other questions comments concerns before we let nancy go back to her evening all right we look forward to seeing you in person very soon and crystal will reach out with some date options in either late april early may wait thank you so much i appreciate your time looking forward to working with you thank you for being here again this evening thank you madam chair before we move on to the next topic um do we need to extend our current um strategic plan that is set to expire on june 30th to november 30th perhaps yes that will have to be an agenda item coming up at an upcoming meeting because right now i believe
033we voted to extend through june 30th yes we can't do that tonight uh it's not on the agenda okay all right next item on the agenda is new business uh the removal of the name from hogwarts high volleyball court uh is there a motion move to remove the name thank you mr bullier is there a second second thank you miss walker any discussion all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion passes name will be removed thank you next item on the agenda uh head start mr boyer the floor is yours thank you madam chair uh just very briefly as you all know it is early childhood education month and uh unfortunately miss smiles could not be here with us tonight but i did want to recognize the work that her and her
034team put forward every single month every single day every single minute when you're working with three and four-year-olds they're just such a special group and uh you know we are so lucky to have them with us and also just briefly like to say thank you to our entire county commission for their support of early childhood education in new hanover county it is a real team effort for this month's report it is straightforward we do have one action item we are asking to put the cola increases toward our fringe benefits as those costs are going up but first our numbers are the same as they've been i did want to point out we have 670 applications received for the 21-22 school year there's still some time to get yours in if you haven't we have 85
035percent of our slots filled so we are doing good things we are moving forward this month's expenditure report thank you very much and just a reminder our fiscal year is from may through april new hanover counties is from july through june so it always looks a little different plus we're a month in the rears next month may will be the end or this month april is the end of our fiscal year so in june you'll see our expenditure report completed it's like i said it's a month back are there any questions about anything with enrollment or expenditures i just had a question you said yeah sure 670 applications and how many spots are there uh we are enrollment spots for 260 okay for a head start now there's more early childhood education students in our
036system it's just the head start numbers any other questions from board okay moving on to our second item this evening the cola increases i just need a motion to approve this from the board if there are no questions so moved thank you mr wildeboard thank you mr mcmanus any discussion all those in favor say aye all right all those opposed is approved thank you very much members of the board thank you madam chair and i appreciate it all right moving right along mr bully if you wanted to stay down there you could because i believe this is yours too our next item on the agenda are policies for first reading mr boyer okay policies for first reading this month um we don't have too many um i know that there has been a lot of
037discussion around policy 3620 so if we could begin there i don't believe and before we begin i'll inquire with the rest of the board was there any other policy a board member wish to discuss i hadn't heard anything okay so our policy discussion tonight will focus on 3620 extracurricular activities and student organizations and i know mr world war you had asked for this policy to be put on so please the floor is yours well thank you i just have some concerns i've talked to several people i've actually spent the day talking to other counties about how they interpret this policy how they're fulfilling this policy especially the part that is highlighted in red about middle school athletics i did did not get a response from brunswick county but i did get a response from pender
038county they followed the high school federation uh guidelines so at the middle school if i could finish thank you um so what what they do is they take the same policy that the students would have to fulfill at the high school level and bring it down to the middle school level so that um we're not saying you know one thing at one level and then having to change it at a different level so i just wanted to clarify for this people um i don't know if everybody can see that um the part highlighted and read in policy 3620 is a student participating in middle school athletics can participate on the team consistent with their gender identity but i just wanted to make sure thank you that clarification and again the high school has a policy
039they i've also talked to the high school federation about it they said that they do leave it to the uh local boards to make decisions on that but um they have a they you know they don't exclude anyone they just have a policy or a procedure that students need to go through to be able to play on um this these a sport that they are not um you know that they were not born on that i don't have that right but anyway you know what i'm saying the um so mr voter board did in your talking with um pender county about that um how did they get specific on how they did those approvals um because i would like to after we hear from what you learned to have mr lewis weigh in on that
040and his recommendation um i couldn't understand your beginning of your statement hello there you go um speak indirect now speak directly into the microphone um in your conversations today with um the gentleman i guess you said you spoke with the athletic director uh he's actually the secondary director but athletics it's the same as mr o'brien same as mr brown okay um did they did he give you any indication of the process that they used because the high school athletic association process is very detailed and it's also conducted by an independent third party it's not conducted by school system elliot the lea people so i'm just interested in what they said on how they could do that what he shared with me was that they have not had to go through that approach that subject yet
041but they said that they were going to do the same thing in-house that the state did in the third with the third party so but they hadn't developed it yet they have no they have developed it it's in play it's in place they haven't had you know they haven't had a student athlete that came forward to try to go through that either at the you know junior high or middle school level or at the high school level so it would now be an appropriate time to ask mr lewis to explain to us what that process looks like because it's very extensive mr lewis are you in the room here please i am here with the zone could everyone hear me yes sir yes sir okay thank you for having me so yeah so the north
042carolina high school athletic association uh rule 1.24 does allow uh transgender athletes if they meet certain requirements um the requirements do require a athlete that is requesting to participate based on their gender identity they must request send the gender identity request form to the north carolina high school athletic association so once the form is completed the north carolina high school athletic association has a committee called the gender identity committee that they use to consider the request the committee will approve the request if it finds that the student genuinely identifies as the gender indicated in the request form the process for the north carolina high school athletic association includes a committee that consists of one a current member of the board of directors two lea or school administrator three a physician with experience in gender identity
043health care and or world professional association of transgender health standards of care for a psychiatrist psychologist or licensed mental health professional familiar with the standards of the world professional association of transgender health the standards of care and so the committee will also require that the member school has verified that the student is eligible in all other aspects as well so that is the process of the north carolina high school athletic association that would require us to get some pieces in place and i'm not honestly not sure if we have those individuals available locally for us to incorporate into our process i've spoken with mr al o'brien uh a bit about this as well um who's of course the district athletic director and i think we both agree that the the process if we adopt the
044high school process for middle school it would be a bit more cumbersome than i think our district could handle nor if we want to have discussions of getting into the topic of deciding that that's a whole other discussion but those are some of the considerations that we discussed which is why the policy that's currently before you had that line of just for middle school students allow students to participate based on their gender identity i do think based on my experience as timeline coordinator that there are community members that definitely want to know and answer and i think the students do deserve an answer as well so they can understand what they are able to do and so that's why i recommended having it inserted into the extracurricular policy so that i my everyday role could
045have a better understanding of how we were moving forward and it was also in line with federal government binding administrations um they kind of tipped their hand with executive orders and things such as that for example on march 8th president biden released an executive order on guaranteeing an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex which specifically included or sexual orientation or gender identity and so um that's why i believe it was best to have the uh line inserted for middle school students instead of being silent on that particular subject thank you very much mr lewis and thank you for being here tonight uh to provide that clarification in those comments um other board members questions comments yes mr mcmanus coming from a past as a high school principal and junior high which
046is all but sixth grade i don't see it in the policy so i sure else maybe can answer i know that in middle school they try out for athletics so they have to try out my question that i think is not addressed in the policy at this point if they're not selected by a coach what are the repercussions that could happen to that coach this is a very very considerable push for a coach so if i say no and that coach pursued can the district be sued um if i take the child and the child does not play as much i'm just i dealt with this all my life and this was the norm um kind of student in three or four weeks into a sport change their mind and say i'm going back to
047the girls sport how do we handle that is that a no no is that okay i'm just saying what the school administration and the staff at both levels will have to deal with um i know that the state of general assembly has presented a bill to block i know the federal government i don't know if that's a trump being trumping the president's state-led consideration and or it's a recommendation but i would like those answers possibly to be in the policy somehow so that everybody knows what the ramifications or repercussions for the safety of everyone invite plus if you change your mind you want to go back to another sport can you madam chair yes if my two years in this chair has taught me anything it has taught me this do not make policy based
048on what raleigh might do only make it based on what it has done i don't think that bill was going anywhere i think it would face a certain veto but more importantly just for me personally i think these are valid concerns but you know i think there comes a time when we're talking about policy you know that we and we could play it out and we could try to figure out every eventuality i trust my coaches and i trust these students i don't i don't see this as being problematic i think students are going to play based on what they feel is appropriate when they feel it's appropriate and they choose to stop playing i trust them to make those determinations last question so a student is allowed to play in middle school they automatically
049have to go through the process when they get to high school yes is that fair is that fair if they're allowed to play in middle school they enter high school with a whole different arena of circumstances i don't i don't like that the high school athletic association has that rule myself but i i can't control that the um so i can add in and jarrell you can correct me um the i've i've asked all these questions of jarrell you know throughout the the process as part of the title ix committee and um the state legislator has give legislature has given the high school association that authority you know to do that i did bring up in policy committee about i would like some line in there that says just because you're approved to play in
050middle school does not guarantee your approval to play in high school um that was voted down so that's that's how we have it right here um but if you if you um maybe you didn't understand kind of what jerrell was talking about the extensive process that you have that you have to go through um including you know interviews with um you know family teachers community members you know church goers that you can't you have to really prove that in the high school level you have to prove that you are really identifying as another gender so to switch in three weeks is not really um that's not going to happen that's not going to be allowed you know because you really haven't shown that like if you tried out for a boys team and you made
051the team and then decided oh now i'm really i'm really identifying more as a female so now i want to play on the female it would never happen in the same season because we wouldn't even have a chance to go through a process but so yeah all your points are valid and then also too if a student feels like they have had any of their rights violated they would file an ethics 360 complaint and then it would come back to jarrell and he would work with the coaches and um determine if the person was given a fair tryout process and um so yeah so jerrell if i have not summarized that correctly would you help me out no i think that's uh accurate and the question about a person claiming unfairness or inherent bias in
052the process of trying out or participating on a team with minutes oh i actually have already dealt with that issue when it comes to football and essentially the complaint was that a person did not receive a fair process because of their gender um not that they were transgender but they're just their gender in gender in general and ultimately i investigated that investigated it from a climate perspective to see if they're at the school in general had a climate that was discriminatory and i also investigated to determine if that student had a particular experience directed to them where they had an unfair discriminatory process and that's what that's the expectation that i would have if there were future complaints from transgender students about the process i would look at the climate and look at particular interactions
053of that student that received the uh or that's making the report or the complaint to determine if there's um hints or evidence of some type of discriminatory intent or desperate impact and so that's how we would ultimately resolve that situation moving forward uh and when it comes to the process as a whole i ultimately do think that you know there are questions out there from the community members that want to know the answer which is why i asked for that to be put in the policy we have talked to other districts al as well and most of them are stating that they will rely on the high school process but i am not sure if they actually and know what that process entails or um because you kind of do have to prove that you
054actually do identify that's a um you actually do identify with the gender that you're claiming and so for middle school i think i definitely think the process would be easier with a simplified process um and moving forward from middle school to high school when those students transition mr o'brien and i definitely agreed that we would make it very clear to middle school students once they transition to high school that the process is completely different that decision is not made from new hanover county schools so participating in middle school doesn't necessarily guarantee that you would participate in high school but i do think it could be a positive once they get to high school level and they are submitting the request of north carolina high school athletic association and that they would have had teammates coaches
055that could attest to their gender identity once it's being reviewed um by the committee at the north carolina high school association and um yeah so that's ultimately everything we touched on i think miss cravo i think you touch on everything pretty well there can i just make sure i heard you correctly you said the majority of the folks you spoke to other districts all are following what pender's doing our neighbor which is following the high school federation rules for middle school is that correct right so brunswick counties uh according to my information has no official plans or stamps but they indicated that they would follow the north carolina high school athletic association process onslow county no official stance but they indicate that they would likely follow north carolina high school athletic association process pender county
056um wake as well they intend to follow the north carolina high school athletic process chapel hill carrboro they were spoken to last academic year but they said that they would actually honor the family's choice which means that they would allow the student to participate based on their gender identity but that north carolina high school athletic association rule was put into place in 2019 so al and myself are not sure how familiar those athletic directors those school districts are with what they're actually stating they are going to do i'm not sure how informed they are not saying they're not informed i'm not sure how informed they are about the high school athletic association's rule particularly when it comes to the expertise that's going to be required uh for the committee that makes a consideration for the
057request by the by the player the student oh let's go miss justice and then mr bullier okay so what you're saying mr lewis is that it was only this process that the high school athletic association has has recommended that the schools are following just went into place in 2019 which was basically last year and then we had a really confusing system season this year anyway so it really hasn't had a chance to uh be fully i guess followed and implemented on a regular basis yet right okay thank you uh mr world war mr mcmanus um i'm absolutely i mean speaking for me personally i i'm comfortable with the policy if there is some language that we can add to make you satisfied i'm absolutely happy to have the policy committee look at that you know
058it would be up to the committee the policy committee as a whole to determine whether or not we wanted to strike that language but i can you know let me just state for the record that i will not be in favor of striking that language but i'm absolutely happy to have a conversation to see if we can come up with a better language or a better policy if that is the will of the majority of the board i'm happy to do that i would i would ask you to if at all possible i think we should go back to the policy committee for further review i think we need to have input from uh you know from everybody from uh you know pro transgender folks uh other folks girl sports i mean i talked to
059a long time coach in our county today about this this very topic and he said it's you know we've done so much in title ix for women's athletics i actually did one of my major papers at uncw uh showing the difference between the baseball team at laney at the time um you know and the softball team you know the baseball team had this wonderful uh facility they you know just gorgeous and the girls were getting changed in their cars because they didn't have those things anyway that was a long time ago many many years ago but you know the the coach that i shared that i talked to today said you know we've got come so long so far in you know women's athletics girls athletics and it's just you know he just felt like
060it was a shame that we would um even think about something like this but that's that was his opinion so i feel this has been quite a robust discussion um what i'd like to see to let's keep us moving here these policies are just for first reading um if you do have feedback on the specific policy please make sure that you're sharing that with mr bullier um and he will bring it to the policy committee ms krabill would you like to leave a final comment yeah i just needed to say that um we have discussed this um at the title ix committee level and took a a straw poll of our group yesterday at our meeting and the the the committee wanted me to bring forth their recommendation was to allow middle school students to
061participate on the team of the gender with which they identify without the qualifier of um following all the processes of the high school athletic association so on behalf of the committee um and the amount excuse me work that we've done i just wanted to um have that go on for the record thank you very much just a quick note about these policies they will not be on for second reading until the june board meeting we wanted to give the public sufficient time to comment on those yeah the background here so some policies were approved this past policy meeting and so the timeline has been shorter and so instead of because the this month's been funny with the spring break meeting we pushed it out our interim meetings a little bit backed up so in order
062for the public to have ample time to be able to review these uh publicly online they will be uh on for second reading in june thank you for that reminder mr boyer mr mcmanus i would suggest openly that you reconsider go back to committee on the fact that the students understand they cannot this does not guarantee high school approval please you can definitely go ahead and share those comments with mr boyer and he will bring that back to the house we take a lot of key because we accept so much responsibility and i just think they need to know that we need to know that now if that's what the policy is i think we need to put it in a policy please thank you all right uh so we have policies for first reads
063reading for approval uh or sorry do we need we don't need to this is just for review never mind we're not even voting on it all right moving right along uh next item is items in under items brought forward by board members far uv we are going to welcome mr wildebore to the microphone um thank you thank you for this time um i hope you all had an opportunity to look through the two powerpoints that were provided for you this has been we've discussed this for several months and i thought at this point we should bring it to a vote we are looking at instead of system-wide possibly doing a pilot at one school so it would be a smaller thing to see just please do remember that you know far uv is is a
064is a safe um as it shows there in multiple studies it's safe for our students it actually protects our students from various viruses um and uh so it's not something that would just be for the you know for sars or covid it also could be for or would be for the flu and other sicknesses so at this time i'd like to make a motion to pilot far uv on one schools buses i've made an example of trash middle school for example to see the effectiveness of the far uv to limit or eliminate the passing of infections such as covid flu and other airborne illnesses further uh than to take it out for you know to send it out for bid i'll second this okay there's a first and a second uh discussion uh yes now
065the most pro middle school elementary schools where these viruses are most prevalent that aren't right now i mean we're doing such a great job with the vaccinations um the rates are decreasing to a certain extent so this would be something we'd have to do we'd be doing most likely next year anyway which is where covert wouldn't be such a factor as just general viruses which are rampant in elementary schools so i mean i would suggest that possibly we do it with one elementary school and not just on the buses i it's really hard to tell i mean how how would we because the school itself would be the kids will be mingling a lot most half the kids in some elementary schools or more ride ride cars so i don't know buses would be a
066good uh i guess a place to use them as an example for the whole school i'm just throwing stuff out there okay what's your input mr anders i'll ask the podium so you're asking about this on buses that that's what that's what mr um wildermore was suggesting right well and we have we have met with the manufacturer and as i understand it they're in the process of getting approval to do that we can't install anything on our buses until the manufacturer gives that okay to the state and when we inquired about this they said they had not received the manufacturer's approval and that we wouldn't be allowed to do proceed with this until they had the manufacturer's approval so monroe um they did actually they did actually speak to one of the manufacturers and what
067they were told as long as it's not permanently fixed that that you would not need that so basically their idea is that you would use like super what they call super tape put it up and then you would not need because it would not be you know if you once you drill a hole you need that yeah so that's really the uh you know that just needs to be finalized i mean the manufacturer manufacturers going to have to um you know state you know what requirements would need to be met before they uh would permit something uh like this it's kind of like if you went and bought a brand new car and went home and modified the engine or modified the electronics or modified something then the manufacturer is not going to stand behind
068that warranty they're going to tell you that you have to do it in a certain way not to void any warranties and avoid the manufacturer's liability so the bus manufacturers are the same way they're going to have to review this provide the state with some guidelines as to uh if it's installed you know to meet these requirements then we would allow it and then the state would have to give us permission to move forward are are you aware of any other districts in north carolina currently utilizing this technology i am not but there are three districts now in south carolina but they obviously have different rules so we would be the pilot i guess the power for the pilot i just had a quick question when you said trask i was just curious what would
069happen i mean as i would probably just as a parent would want to have some input about whether or not something like this went into my child's school would you if this were to pass would you ask parents if they were comfortable with this technology near their children or i think that would be yeah i think that'd be fine i think you know that obviously we'd have we would need to have a meeting with the parents to let parents or in some form or fashion let the parents know that these were going to be installed show them you know hopefully they would have uh the opportunity to view probably even meet with whatever company it is because we can't even say this is one company that's giving us some information but whichever you know because
070we would have to put it out on bid so madam chair yes that's great um so we're working on the budget so if we were to entertain this even at mr anderson's um non-suggestion your non-support um how much would this cost so that we could budget for it appropriately well um he actually asked for the exact numbers it's about two thousand dollars and some change per bus so uh and how many buses we have like 33 buses yes oh well but we're talking about a pilot that's why i mentioned traffic and trask has missed gravel live uh as i was saying uh trask has five buses so if we did a pilot at trask you you know you take that times five not times 100 somehow buses oh uh you're mr mcmanus and the miss
071justice sir so a yes vote would be dependent upon the approval that you spoke about with buses i think i think to vote to approve this you need to identify the funding source which you know we could go back and look at and bring back a recommendation um or you could if you're going to vote to proceed with five buses at a particular school you should have a funding source identified for that uh otherwise you could just direct us to um you know to look at this and bring back a recommendation at the next meeting i'd like to amend my my proposal i think that'd be great if we could ask you to do that all right miss justice i'm still concerned first of all as i said tracks is a lot bigger than some
072of our elementary schools so it would be practical doing elementary school if you use the money costs or there's going to be always money and and i'm still is this a is this a quantitative data study uh because as i said if you got a bunch of kids that are riding cars kids riding buses or all over the school together how are we going to be able to determine whether these uh these particular uh prevention methods on buses are going to be able to apply whether or not it's really useful and it's such a big population in such big areas together it the only way it seems like it would be valid would be if you did it school that school individually wide in classrooms and cafeterias too i'm just concerned about how as far
073as a study goes how useful or prac you know how reliable the data would be if we could even gather data on something like this we'd have to identify what the outcome that you're searching for and and then get better parameters i i've got a lot of data crunching in my time so uh any you know that's just a concern to me i would love to know whether this will be helpful but it's just really hard to see how you could do it in that environment and make it actually valid that's all well like i said we could definitely you know look at it and and i could ask that company to come back a second time to you know present and maybe ask you know i'm probably not the person to answer nearly as
074well as they would be able to share so i could reach out to them again and maybe if we could get you know some of the numbers crunched we could you know you know hold off for another month and you know mr voterboard just to clarify you're you're pulling back your motion to to move to vote on it and you're asking that um eddie and his team find a budge a funding source to see if it's possible to even do why don't we do that that sounds good does that sound good that sounds like a plan okay oh okay and when you talk to them ask them to what the parameters would be for a valid uh i guess validated this experiment we're about to go into uh and by the way it would be
075wonderful it's just like the mass cutting down on these viruses i think with the kids would be amazing in many ways this is a great year because a lot of the kids they haven't been catching colds and stuff when they're around each other because things are a lot safer so you know this is another method thank you very much thank you and thank you mr anderson for jumping up here to help out with that appreciate it yes ms craig i'm sorry to um but in but i was going through my sticky notes and i realized that i didn't bring up a question about um the survey policy um 4720 and what is what is going to be coming forward to the board from a title ix committee recommendation shortly we'll depend on that one being
076um passed so if we don't pass it until june then we might have to pass it in may and waive the first reading okay so that definitely that's fine we can talk about that i can do that we can we can bring any policy forward at the meeting it was just the for the bulk one yeah i know i i just didn't realize i didn't know what our process was great all right next item on the agenda is correspondence do any board members have any correspondence they would like to share all right next item announcements the new hanover county board of education will participate in the following upcoming meetings the equity diversity and inclusion committee will meet on may 3rd at 5 pm in the boe center the may regular board meeting will be held
077on tuesday may 4th 2021 at 5 30 p.m in the boe center and the policy meeting for those two meetings for the equity diversity and inclusion and the may regular board meeting to ensure adequate social distancing audience attendance will be strictly limited to no more than 50 people and the general public will have the option to view remotely on nhcs tv youtube the policy committee will meet on tuesday may 11th at 9 00 a.m in the boe center and the general public will have the option to view remotely only on nhcs tv youtube all right are we allowed to add any more because the title nine committee gets left off every time yes when would you it is may the 19th i mean may the 17th okay um three to four thirty and it is
078run out of this building but it's usually remote okay all right thank you very much all right final item on the agenda is adjournment is there a motion moved thank you mr bullier is there a second thank you mr mcmanus any discussion all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed we are adjourned you