001that's awesome all right good evening everyone and welcome to the regular meeting of the new Haner County Board of Education uh I'd like to call this meeting to order we are going to have a moment of reflection and this evening our invocation um will be from Reverend Dr Patricia Freeman pastor of St Philip African Methodist Episcopal Church at 8:15 North 8th Street Wilmington North Carolina so if everyone could please stand for the invocation this time loving and gracious God we are indeed The Giver of all good gifts and we are thankful for all your blessings and for the success of the outcome of this school board meeting we ask that you bless this board Lord and may they continue to seek your wisdom your guidance your courage and your strength be with them in their
002deliberations and help them to be wise and their decisions for the good of all those who have placed their trust their confidence and their leadership give them the insight to lead with Integrity that their decisions May reflect what is right and good help them to make decisions that are for the good of all we thank you God for granting this prayer and the humility to always seek your will in all that we do and say in the glory of your son Jesus name we pray amen amen may the Lord bless your meeting and may it be productive in all that you do and say thank you thank you very much Dr frean all right please remain standing over the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of Al to the flag the United States of America to
003for it stands na indivisible Justice thank you you may be seated and thank you again Dr Freeman for being here with us and sharing those words all right Miss buoy would you please do the roll call good evening Stephanie Adams here Nelson Boer here Judy Justice here Stephanie kille here he mcmanis here Stephanie Walker here and Peter wildor thank you very much second item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve make a motion yes ma'am approve oh thank you is there a second thank you Mr wildor any discussion to amend yes Madam chair I would like to amend the agenda to to have the policy 4300 moved to Second reading it was on for first reading last month thank you for bringing them up Mr Buller I
004that was my mistake I should have caught that in the agenda review um it was meant for second reading not first reading um so the motion is to amend the agenda to move 4300 to Second reading not first is there a second second thank you Miss Crill all right uh all those in favor of the amended agenda say I uh all those opposed agenda is approved thank you very much next item on the agenda is a Clos session pursuant to North Carolina General statutes 143-30570 attorney client privileged information including in the case captioned John Doe versus new hanor County Board of Education at Al new Haner County Superior Court case number 17- cbs- 2745 and janeo versus New Hanover County Board of Education adal New Hanover County Superior Court case number 20- cbs- 1395 and
005to maintain the confidentiality of Student Records under the family educ educational rights and Privacy Act 20 USC 1232g is there a motion move for closed session pursuant to the statutes thank you Mr bullier is there a second second thank you miss krael all those in favor say I I opposed we are in closed session we are back the next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes these were regular meeting or excuse me January special board meeting minutes from January 13th and the February regular board meeting minutes from February 2nd do I have a motion move to approve the minutes thank you very much Mr buer is there a second thank you Mr wi deore all those in favor say I I oh sorry hold on let me back that up is there any
006discussion care if any of our speakers names were spelled wrong in the minutes um Miss barnhart's name was spelled wrong Miss buoy can you correct that please I don't know if it's a big issue or not but some people would like to have their name spelled right sure if you could just make a note of that thank any other discussion all right so is there an a motion and a second to approve the meeting minutes with the exception of correcting Miss barnhart's name all those in favor say I I I any opposed all right thank you very much next item on the agenda is the recognition of achievement and I believe we are welcoming Miss cres CLE to the microphone good evening Miss C good evening board chair Vice chair members of the Board of
007Education it is a pleasure tonight to be able to bring you the recognition of achievements we will be starting off with tras middle school as our School showcase followed by uh recognitions from our nhcs rookie of the year Abby Emerson at Carolina Beach Elementary School we will then be congratulating our women's and men's Lacross I'm sorry cross country Runners at hogardt high school this evening we will also like to recognize Dr Stephanie Willis at Snipes Academy of Arts and Design followed by recognizing our new H County Schools teachers who have earned their national board certifications so thank you and enjoy the video thank you very much [Music] in walls the stories that I explain the Story Of My Life I take a d on night to keep a warm time [Music] ISO these [Music] are
008[Music] world and you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] feel [Music] may you have auspiciousness and causes of success may you have the confidence to always do your best may you take no effort in you're being generous sharing what you can nothing more nothing less may you know the meaning of the word happiness may you always lead from the beating in your chest may you be treated like an esteem guest May you get to rest may you catch your breath you count me I'll be there and I know I it I count on you like 4 3 you'll be there cuz that's whats are to do yeah these are the days will [Music] remember these are the times [Music] Flames if what I am is what's in me then I'll stay strong that's be and I will
009always be the best me that I can be there's only one me I Amit have a dream it's up to [Music] me going toing me down never going stop got to go I know I'll keep [Music] [Applause] [Music] stronger going best day [Music] wonderful video thank you very much tras Middle School good evening board chair Vice chair members of the new han County Board of Education I am here this evening with our March second board recognitions first up we would like to recognize our 2021 nhcs rookie of the year new H County schools in collaboration with the Wilmington Rotary Club held the annual rookie of the Year's celebration at Carolina Beach Elementary School to recognize first grade teacher Abby Emerson congratulations to Abby em Emerson for being named our 2021 new han County Schools Rookie
010of the Year next up we would like to congratulate the cross country teams at John T hogardt High School congratulations to the Vikings cross country Runners the Viking ladies are backtack cross country state 4 a Champions job well done the women's team is coached by coach Rhonda Shelli teammates are Sloan Fleming hickey Shay hofacker Aaron Johnson Savannah Moore Molly Parker Paige Phillips and Ashley Summers alternate Annie Mulligan congratulations again ladies additionally we would like to congratulate the men's cross country team at hoger they are State 4A Runners UPS the team is coached by coach Billy Mason congratulations to all of these dedicated student athletes our next recognition comes from Snipes Academy of Arts and Designs congratulations to Dr Stephanie Willis Dr Willis is officially a doctor of Education earning her degree from the University of
011North Carolina at Wilmington this past winter congratulations Dr Willis way to lead the way our final recognitions of the evening will be for our new H County Schools teachers who have achieved national board certification or who have renewed their national board certification this year we have 13 new H County School Educators who have achieved national board certification congratulations to them all from hogard high school Jennifer College Austin additionally from hogardt high school Blair Dean from Ashley High School Margaret gambino from New Hanover High School Chad goens from Forest Hills Global Elementary School Amanda Hope from Bradley Creek Elementary School Kristen Kelly from Mary C Williams Elementary School Megan Marc from rville Beach Elementary School Lynn McGary from New Hanover High School Abby Lynn Nobles from rville Beach Elementary Sandra Robert from Pine Valley Elementary School
012Julia snodas from Ashley High School Lauren Thompson and from Parsley Elementary School Christopher Walters congratulations to all these Educators on their national boards we would like to congratulate all our board recognitions we are incred incredibly proud of the work they are doing and their initiative to lead the way in our district please give these Educators and students a round of applause thank you very much great next item on the agenda is our call to the audience um our call to the audience each speaker is allowed three minutes and so I will be calling your name U when your name is called please come up to the microphone and please share your thoughts and comments with the board first up we have Miss Debra Maxwell Dr Foss Madam chair and members of the board I am
013here today to request again what my predecessor Mr Harold batty did with your predecessors and to seek Justice for the children of New Hanover County by working together to End Elementary School suspensions which disproportionately impact children of color addressing this is critical to dismantling the systemic racism that the board has spoken out out against it is my sincere hope that this board can agree now to address this inequity in order to accomplish this it is necessary for the principls to have the support of central office and for the teacher to have the appropriate training and tools in his or her toolkit only then when this is provided can we as a school system provide genuine equity for all students which includes at the end the mission of the New Hanover County schools in collaboration with
014our parents and the community is to strive to provide all children with an opportunity for Superior education in a safe and positive learning environment where they are prepared with skills to succeed thank you board members Dr F and board chair thank you Miss Maxwell thank you m Maxwell Mr George blet members of the board and Dr fa I'm here today to speak you as the vice president and education chair of the new han County branch of the NAACP but I'm also here to I'm sorry I can't and they're gonna fog up but I'll try um as a lifelong educator Who has fought for equity and excellence in education throughout my 57-year career today we are asking the board to eliminate one policy that is a major deterrent to both equity and excellence in our schools
015the elimination of the use of suspensions is a racial justice issue it is also good educational policy put simply suspensions are not the solution they're the problem since we began this campaign I have heard from a number I've heard a number of objections objection number one teachers need suspensions in order to maintain control in the classroom the problem with this argument is that suspensions don't work so using them does not contribute to better classroom management I have to wonder was the same objection raised when the school system eliminated corporal punishment probably objection number two no other school districts in North Carolina have eliminated suspensions in the Elementary grades while technically true Charlotte mecklinburg has recently moved in that direction but more to the point when our board adopted the inter agency agreement several years ago
016we were the first to do so since then many other districts had followed our lead objection number three we'd love to do it but we don't have the resources to utilize the alternatives to suspension the problem is that we will never have the resources until you prioritize making this change when when the decision was made to have SRO in the schools did someone say can't do that don't have the resources no they found the resources objection four it will take time to put everything in place in order to implement the policy chains like this no doubt it will but unless the process is put in motion now this simply becomes an excuse for kicking the can down the road so we have modified our ask uh we ask that you change the policy uh in
017the lower grades prek through three effective at the beginning of the fall of 2021 work on training and securing resources for teachers and administrators during the following year so that the policy can be extended to grades four and 5 beginning in the fall of 2022 change is never easy but unless you address this now you will be condemning another generation of students particularly students of color to a system which has shown conclusively to lead to the school to prison pipeline I'm certain you do not want to do that I have a petition with signatures uh where should I leave it Missy please right there on the corner thank you very much thank you Mr than you right next up Miss meban Boyd good evening Dr F members of the board of education on behalf of
018the new Handover resiliency task force I speak to support the naacp's petition to end suspensions for children fifth grade and under the goals of the task force are one prevent Aces adverse child childhood experiences and adverse Community environments two respond to existing trauma with knowledge empathy and compassion and three create opportunities to form meaningful healthy connections the request from the new hover NAACP does all of these many students who have been away from the physical School environment due to covid will arrive with significant need some having experienced Untold trauma during the past 12 months the safety net of school teachers and counselors has been much farther away and some are likely to show negative behaviors and in some cases violent outbursts when they return in person full-time this can be normal neurological reactions to trauma
019science tells us that what these students need more than anything is to feel loved and accepted safe and competent pushing them away by suspending them does not accomplish this in fact it causes the opposite it fueling feelings of rejection and increasing the behaviors we don't want to see yet we also know that interacting with students with such high needs is taxing and traumatic for teachers from whom we are asking too much already we would like to see the suspension policy change but also partner with the schools to support teachers providing them with good alternatives to suspension additional supports are needed also for families parents and school administrators to Ure Ure that classrooms can be safe for everyone for example securing additional social workers for high need schools was something we proposed to the board over
020a year ago when redistricting continued to leave some schools with disproportionate numbers of children living in poverty we do want to commend the strong efforts being made by the new han County School student Support Services team through implementation of Second Step curriculum Sanford Harmony curriculum and tireless e efforts by several trauma trauma sensitive schools Pilots thank you for your consideration of both this proposed policy and increased supports for teachers and staff to handle the trauma that walks through the doors every day so students don't have to feel banished or rejected thank you than thank M boy Mr Peter RIT thank you tonight I'm going to talk about systemic racism on May 25th 2020 George Floyd was murdered on A Street in Minneapolis his death was followed by mass demonstrations in the streets across the country
021including Wilmington less than a month later the New Hanover County School District released a statement on ending systemic racism which can be found on the district website it says that the district worked for two years to identify disparities and gaps within our education system and had undertaken the task of creating Equitable educational practices within our schools however based on the 201829 racial Equity report card from the southern Coalition of racial Justice black students were 7.9 times more likely to be suspended from school than white students a stark and unjustifiable disparity black students make up 18% of the student body but experienced 59% of the suspensions the district's statement on ending systemic racism goes on to say that its policies procedures and an overall environment of schools will reflect its commitment to ensure that we celebrate
022our diverse Community by cultivating an environment that Embraces inclusion provides Equitable opportunities and AFF firms our Humanity you have an opportunity tonight to end this disparity affirm our common humanity and extinguish this Ember of systemic racism we're calling upon you tonight to cast your votes to end the use of disciplinary suspensions in our prek and elementary schools this first step will be a concrete demonstration of your commitment to end thepit treatment of our children on the basis of race thank you thank you Mr Serv Miss Veronica mclen Brown good evening Dr fs and board members I'm I have 34 years of experience as an educator in New Hanover County Schools my career in New Hanover County began at Roland GCE in 1973 my African-American colleagues and I chatted about excessive suspension of black students and
023systemic racism almost every day around 305 five days a week you heard the names of mostly African-American boys being called to the office for suspension letters and today 2021 a third generation of African-American children is suffering the negative consequences of out of school suspensions I'm naming it now student abuse why because re research in informs us of the large negative impacts of suspensions on students poor attendance dropping out of school less lik to pass class and state assignments State assessments the school to prison poip line there are many alternatives to out of school suspensions that teach and heal students rather than abuse them P mediation restorative justice instruction in conflict resolution contracts home visit counseling these Alternatives plus many others were accessible to Educators when I retired almost a decade and a half ago a
024paradigm shift is needed to eliminate the culture in our school system and the county that Embraces and promotes out of school suspensions the time is now for the school system to train all of our Educators in the methods that support students rather than punish them the time is now for our Educators to acquire the knowledge and skill s to successfully Implement alternatives to suspensions the time is now for a non-negotiable zero tolerance policy for all the adults to master the pedagogical skills of our profession and demonstrate excellence in our school system stop the student abuse in the oppressive practice of student susp suspensions in our school system and our County a policy that has its roots in a culture of histo historical and systemic racism suspensions are like the knee on the necks of our
025children suffocating them killing their hopes and opportunities thank you you thank you thank you very much right miss Helen gos did she leave okay uh so then how about Miss Amanda white I know that you swapped out your spot for her so um and we were gonna have miss Helen gloss GLS um speak and so hopefully she'll be able to speak at the next board meeting to talk to y'all um and hopefully we can get her the first person to speak but um I did want to speak to y'all today as the president of the new han County Association we in uh we formally officially uh endorsed the NAACP new H chapter um petition so uh we would like to give our two cents on how we can help the district um get teachers training
026uh but I did actually want to present to y'all a couple of things one of them being a book um but I think everybody in this room can acknowledge the suspensions disproportionately affect black students in New Hanover County and if you review very public suspension data you'll see then 201819 year 59% of 2 over two uh 2,900 suspensions were of black students and this year of the 45 suspensions 57% of them have been of black students so even in a pandemic these stats don't change reducing suspensions will probably not result in equal equalizing uh suspensions because of the implicit bias that still remains in our system but suspensions because suspensions are a systematic issue a systemic issue um that needs to be corrected through policy so it can be prioritized through training and implementation and
027as an educator who speaks with many Educators and administrators I can confidently say that this issue can be fixed even though it will be hard but it will have positive effects on all students so with that I want to quickly introduce a book called Hood feminism and I think if we better understand the students and the cultures that come into our schools we can better understand the students themselves and work with them on um in and disciplinary ways that will get them to um really us to be able to reach them and grow them in the classroom without removing them so I want to share with you a couple of quotes from Mickey Kendall uh the most common form of teacher discrimination manifests in classroom expectations and disciplinary referrals so this sort of sounds like
028implicit bias do you agree uh another quote whatever you may think of kids you see on those videos of misconduct in school you should ask why are they loud why are they angry and where is their safe space and finally when you are forced out of a class or having just even the wrong color on your shoes and the adults are you teach you that they value your obedience over your education and if they don't value you or your future then why should you so my two cents is if you're going to pass this policy as is then you're not really doing anything to contribute to the systemic issue but if you will add what the nap of the new County chapter is wanting you to add I think that that will be a step
029in the right direction and educators will adap Dept thank you thank you miss m thank you Hazel Isles good evening you may or may not remember me my name is Hazel Al and I spoke here about I spoke here about last year asking you to keep us safe I'm asking you again to keep us safe I am now 13 years old and yet Co is hard but is not the worst thing I've experienced or will experience I miss my friends but I have found ways to con to con to connect with them it sucks that I that I can't be with them but I've learned to overcome that disappointment many people are saying that we are depressed and are having trouble with our mental health that is true but we were struggling before Co many
030of my peers struggle with this but our school is not addressing these issues and it makes us feel like outcasts and that there is something wrong with us the programs in our schools are not working and attending school school Under plan a will not solve that I am afraid for my sister to go to school Under plan a my family and I have worked hard to stay safe but other families haven't that makes me feel unsafe in school I wish you would go to each school and understand how difficult it is to socially distance I want my sister to be safe when I go to school I tend to feel nervous especially during lunch when everyone has their mask off it is hard for me to deal with it and I can't imagine how hard
031it would be for an 8-y old you don't have a plan for plan a how will we stay safe on a bus or during lunch we all want to go to school but we need to do it safely Mr mcmanis I trusted you to keep us safe and you let me down most of the board has let us down you have a responsibility to keep us safe and you haven't please please keep us safe thank you thank you Miss thank you and Sandy is Miss Sandy Isles good evening um before I begin I hope the board recognizes the theme spoken of safety and well-being for our students um tonight the board will voting on a policy regarding rules for seclusion and restraint last month my concerns about this policy were ignored while the district and
032board attorney defended this dangerously vague policy this policy does not require trained Personnel when restraining a child which means a substitute teacher would be permitted to restrain children this policy also allows for mechanical restraint which is defined as any device or material attached or adjacent to a student's body that restricts freedom of movement this policy also says mechanical restraint can be used as reasonably needed for self-defense so under this policy a substitute teacher could duct tape a kindergarten or to- a chair for a minor infraction such as throwing a pencil if that substitute felt it was reasonable for self-defense this policy is inhumane I've read the law but we know laws are not always just for the protection of staff and students and frankly the school district this policy must be clear no person without
033proper training should ever restrain a child as improper use of restraint can injure or Worse kill a child I also want to discuss my disappointment in our board's decision to reject the updated CDC guidance Miss Adams it's shameful that as a board chair you did not call a meeting to discuss all safety data to protect our children should we now expect the board to reject Federal guidance if our district experiences a future menitis outbreak is that the negligent precedent your setting and Mr wior you quoted scripture from from Esther yet unlike Esther you failed to protect your people 26,000 students and staff three weeks ago our board brushed sa all safety sorry 3 weeks ago our board brushed all safety concerns aside and voted for the most dangerous option for our children lack of planning
034and Leadership is also resulting in our schools being ill equipped to meet our students social and emotional and educational needs lack of districtwide planning is why some middle school students have over 100 children in their Zoom classes how do teachers teach effectively with 100 students at a time and why are we expecting our children to learn in that environment many families do not even know who their child's teacher will be starting this Monday that's not okay if I sound angry I am and I should be angry when politics are more important than our children's safety we can respectfully disagree on many issues but I cannot agree with morally reprehensible decisions that sacrifice child safety when you have safer Alternatives you did not even try to implement plan plan a safely thank you thank you Miss
035Miss Kaylee peir hi um as a teacher and a member of the New Hanover County Association of Educators I first want to thank the board for their efforts and working with the health department to ensure that many of our teachers were able to get vaccinated uh this past week although vaccines are not the only step we must take toward a safe reopening they are an important one we have spent a a lot of time talking about covid and how to safely reopen schools and well I do hope that the board will continue to look for ways to increase social distancing um I like many others am ready to look forward um and start talking about some of the other important issues that face our schools when we reopen schools I believe that they must be
036not only physically safe for our students but also create a welcoming environment for all students that is why I urge the board to amend the discipline policy to forbid suspension of our youngest students in fact if it were up to me I think that we should be talking about seriously reducing suspensions for prek through 8th grade students in my six years as a middle school teacher I cannot think of a single time that suspending a student for misbehavior has solved the problem s when students are suspended they do not magically return with better Behavior the only lesson our students learn from suspension is that they are not welcome at school that the classroom is not a place where they belong instead of suspension I urge you to consider embracing a philosophy of restorative justice instead
037of kicking students out of school give them the space and tools to learn how to process their emotions understand any harm they've caused make amends and learn from their mistakes of course this will take some hard work we need time and resources to implement restorative justice in a meaningful way we need counselors who have time to mediate conflicts with students and staff we need training for all staff members to help us learn new ways of thinking about discipline but I know that ending suspensions and embracing restorative justice would would be a worthwhile investment our most vulnerable students including our students of color who are suspended at astonishing rates compared to their white peers are counting on us so when it's safe to fully reopen and fill our class rooms with students let's welcome them show
038them they belong and keep them in the classroom thank you Miss Josie barnhard good evening last month I came to you to speak on behalf of our elementary students who were wanting to engage in plan a and I appreciate you for allowing that decision to happen tonight I'd like to talk about the secondary students who would like that same opportunity of daily instruction I understand it's a different demographic because our governor has only allowed Plan B to occur which really the only difference is maintaining that distance um please know um as you've engaged in dialogue with me many of you know this is my first year in the district my daughter's a kindergartener um but please make no mistake when I say that just because I'm new doesn't mean I care less and I bet
039you Dr F would say the same thing being new to the district as well um prior to me birthing my three biological children I had hundreds of my babies that were secondary kids that I taught and they knew that I cared for and was going to push beyond a shadow of a doubt to make them be successful in the meeting the comment that really just pushed me over the edge to be here tonight was why not why not just wait the year's almost over this is deal with it next year and that's when I knew that I had to say something for these secondary kids because when somebody notified me two weekends ago a brunwick County student took their life that's why I don't want to wait for something bad to happen to one of
040these kids or Worse to happen because we're just trying to get by we have adjusted and adapted our plan B from the beginning we initially talked about every three weeks they were going to go to school then we said let's do it two days a week because that's better than every three weeks good we got our elll kids our IEP kids our special me kids acceptances to do four days a week that's awesome we expanded that when we saw the failing rate of kids and said we will allow this kids to petition to go to four days a week as well as supporting our staff and saying their students their children can also go four days a week I appreciate that and I value that our leadership team made a mass vaccination event last Wednesday
041and tomorrow to get 1,200 of our staff last week and hopefully the 1500 tomorrow to get that vaccine thank you for that please allow this leadership team to do their part if you allow them the opportunity to have secondary students petition for a daily in-person learning experience they can address the needs and con safety concerns including safety mitigations of distance transportation to make that happen but you have to allow it it can be done and implemented if you so choose by mum M uh minimum nine weeks after spring break which would give almost four and a half weeks of daily instruction to these kids that have been missing out for so long I would implore you to do that tonight thank you so much thank you Mr Dorian kardi Mr kardi I think I saw
042him uh Miss Angela Keeny good evening Miss krabble recently compared the call to audience to failing plans to reopen new H County Schools to quote there is no plan B it's plan a you come or plan C you email us I guess that lets us know how our remote Learners became a last priority as Plan B students never were of value to our board we all know the failing rates for quarter 1 so I'm interested to hear those numbers for Quarter Two and quarter three I'm also wondering what would be the point in emailing this board my colleague emailed months before the Peter Frank's case of sexual assault came to light Mr blo responded that he didn't have enough information to protect children nor did he want the liability this resulted in a multitude of
043other children being victimized by the same Predator as a result of the board's failure to investigate after the call to audience we were silenced again to keep the public from hearing about the unresolved case of sexual assault at Bradley Creek and the missing paperwork that details that abuse and possibly a rape I emailed every single board member sitting before me the superintendent I emailed the title n director with the specifics of that case so you could no longer claim ignorance only one of you responded one of nine no one reached out to the victim there's no mention of this case even on your agenda or anything related to Title 9 in fact less than two days later you quickly and quietly again moved that assistant principal responsible to an undisclosed location where I can only
044guess she continues to draw a paycheck and there remains zero accountability for this family I have followed your advice Miss Crable long before you ever even placed your name on a ballot and I email I call and I show up at every meeting still you fail to respond I'll again reference the article in Port City Daily where Miss Crable stated that she would just follow the majority of her constituents with regards to taking away the remote option in The Voice to the public she stated that it wasn't necessarily worth falling on your sword for and I'm wondering if the board feels the same way about sexual assault are yall blindly following the leadership of the chair and the vice chair who've already proven that they do not care about protecting children through their previous vote
045on this issue is that not worth falling on the sword for either we know the safety of the public isn't worth it to the board so is the safety of our children not as well I'm also curious how Mr Blue claims to truly care about mental health issues he references as if that's just a political agenda because as of now it's been two years and many victim and the many victims of sexual assault have received nothing in terms of mental health for the trauma that they've endured in fact it's this leadership that's responsible for revictimized them over and over again with one deposition after another and telling their stories of a pedophile that's already confessed and been convicted of his crimes against children actually worry about the mental health of this governing body and their
046decision making and abuse of power and ours if we do nothing and let it happen thank you thank you missy thank you Mr Richard Wilkins thank you for the invitation um I got involved with Mark Robinson recently can you keep your mask up thank you all right I really you got involved with Mark Robinson and he suggested that we all get more involved with the activities of the Board of Education to help and to assist and to learn I'm going a quandry here with 45 to 60 am I correct policies are being reviewed where would we find as the public where these policies are a b the status of them like can we have public comment on them where would we make public comment how would we initiate and then finally when the the policies
047do get accepted I spent um 25 years here coaching lacrosse refereeing Etc how do you take it down to the level of implementation is a policy going to take a month when you do your policies do you have a time frame in which you intend to have it good a promation and in action and finally where is the form in which the community from what I understand right now cannot participate they cannot call in understand prior to this the YouTube was not working for anyone to see this on the outside so we talk a lot right now about transparency we talk a lot about communication in the community I think the Board needs to have a little more transparency to let us know and finally just reading something recently that one of your members thought
048the pace of these policies or new policies should slow down you removed her from the policy board and I'd like an explanation of that thank you thank you Mr lson Excuse me Mr ma good afternoon good afternoon I'm here concerning the high rate of our black kids in our community being suspended I feel that there should be other methods set in place besides just putting our kids out of school especially our younger kids and IEP kids they really don't have the real understanding of what's going on some infractions are minor and our kids are still being suspended off of minor situations I understand fully if the kids were older and had more serious infractions then I would agree with the suspension fully sorry suspending kids period should be our last result thank you for your
049time thank you thank you very much Miss M thank you all right and that concludes our call to the audience thank you to everyone that spoke all right moving along next item on the agenda are our uh items for information and first up is our covid-19 update I believe that we are going to welcome Miss Julie vnum uh to the podium thank you madam chair members of the board Dr fa so I'll start with our um plan a preparedness information and um on Zoom I have Miss Carla Turner joining me it can't be the Julie and Carla show without Carla showing up and um and then other members of our uh leadership team will um Step In to share their updates so um want to make sure we have Miss Turner there so again I'm
050here okay perfect um first we want to mention uh or speak a little bit about the CDC recommendations of late versus the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and local Health Department requirements so miss Turner do you want to start with that sure I would I would I'd first start off by just sharing that you know the CPC comes out with their recommendations and the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the North Carolina dep Department of construction of public construction works with those recommendations and that information to put together guidelines for the school systems to follow as well as information and guidance for local Health to follow um they use the information that the CDC has been putting out for months now to develop the strong School toolkit and they
051have updated that as needed as new information comes out so once we get that guidance from the state the health department takes that guidance and shares it um works with the school system on how to best Implement those things um the CDC did recently put out some operational strategies uh I think it was about four days ago for K through2 it's for K through2 schools run we're talking about kp5 and I will say that um I know there's been a talk about um with plan a the the the concern of many folks is the the physical distancing and so what the CDC says is that um six feet is best but if there are uh if in the school physical distancing of at least six feet among students teachers and staff within a class cohort
052or pot is not possible at all times the schools should work to ensure that distancing can be met between classes cohorts and pods so if you can't get it amongst individual children you at least with the pods you can distance them so but that's how we come up with our guidance we work with what the CDC puts out how the state takes that interprets that works with other uh State Partners pushes that down to us and then we take that and work with the school system to help Implement and put those practices into place okay thank you Miss Turner next I want to review the current risk metrics for new County schools and give you a quick reminder of the uh risk M Matrix indicators of moderate elevated and high moderate of course suggests that
053we have a lower risk of the covid-19 spread in our schools and uh really may consider inperson instruction as long as we're able to implement the required health and safety measures elevated shares that or suggest that we have an increased risk of covid-19 spread and might need to consider hybrid instructional models as ways to reduce the number of people in the schools and the classrooms at any one given time the high risk suggests there's a higher risk of covid-19 spread and that inperson or increasing inperson instruction is not advisable I'll move on into our secondary Transmissions data this can be found on our website alongside the dashboard information we have not had any additional Transmissions over the past week uh we are still at 19 and we see here where those Fall Out Among elementary
054middle school and high school students and then that transmission of staff to staff versus student to staff student to student and then staff to student next our overall covid positives and quarantines for the past uh 14 days ending on Friday the [Music] 26 is that right um Elementary at 49 41 of those are students middle at 28 27 of those being being students high school 20 17 being students and then our quarantines at a total of 135 and you see that breakdown of 76 at elementary where 67 are students 29 at middle all are students and at high school 30 were 19 our students in addition um analysis of cluster is identified as five or more positive cases within a 14-day period that are connect connected by transmission within the past 28 days we did
055have one cluster uh as determined by North Carolina um Department of Health and Human Services through information from the new Haner County Public Health Department Holly Shelter with one staff and six students and that takes us to our current risk identification as moderate um if you uh see your um Elementary Middle versus high school break down from the uh Matrix indicators our information regarding elementary schools is lower than our secondary schools of course and our data um as of last Friday compared to our February report shows um improvements in less transmission less number of cases and less quarantines so one of our resources that comes through our authoritative source which is that um strong schools toolkit that Miss Turner was referencing a reminder uh from the Department of Health and Human Services is that lower
056rates of transmission in schools they in the community suggest schools can be a protective environment because of monitoring and adherence to the prevention measures again that might not be present in the community here's a link to our dashboard for the more upto-date broad breakout of covid positives and covid quarantines by school and by by date and now I'll move into our preparedness for plan a so as a part of our preparedness we moved further into enrollment you'll get a little bit more information in a little while um a presentation from scribbles and our director Kristen Jackson on online online enrollment launch and choice registration in addition data collection dissemination and transparency with schools in public enhancing our partnership with our local Health Department providing our covid-19 risk Matrix dashboard and training videos and then in
057addition our vaccine clinics uh one from last week and one that's happening tomorrow preparation additionally includes social and emotional needs of our students and staff um as a part of our preparedness we have um over the entire time of the pandemic or our covid-19 closures implemented Universal social emotional learning in elementary and middle schools provided additional Mental Health First Aid training to staff and then Incorporated press Pauls for wellness as a resilience effort with our staff additional preparedness includes social distancing preparation within our schools pandemic safety drills that would include the social distancing needs um as a part of fire drills tornado drills and earthquake um drill responses assisted schools individually with direct alignment to the strong schools toolkit of course coordinated with our local health department and our schools to delegate our School nurses
058as the authoritative Source within the building regarding covid-19 quarantines and contact tracing and then worked alongside other divisions in our district in the acquisition of PPE with our new han County Emergency Management and schools additional pandemic related equipment for our specialized services such as occupational Physical Therapy were provided um we were able to work alongside our itinerant staff especially our teachers of students with special needs and increase their staff student case loads since most of those were being provided virtually and then support them in scheduling those our school counseling staff and social workers have been uh working diligently on the identification and location of students who haven't been uh engaging in their online learning or remote learning opportunities and then we've worked to establish safe home visit protocols so that we can have visits to
059ensure the safety of our students if we haven't had uh responsiveness from them the student numbers for plan a are as shown here our total enrollment 11,241 number of students in face tace um 9582 I don't know if Dr Smith also want this what fell into this one so okay I want to make sure Dr Smith has an opportunity to come and share this um which 85.2% of our students are identified to be face Toof face with the number of remote students at 1,479 and then Virtual Academy at 161 okay and I will turn it over to miss Don Brenson for technology and digital learning you want me good okay in the area of technology and digital learning um we have done a lot to help prepare our teachers for this this change in instruction
060so in training we have provided instructional resources for teachers in creating modules and um slides and presentations for them as well as being at the school site and allowing teachers to come and meet with our digital digital teaching and learning Specialists to help them prepare and create lessons um ensure resources so in the area of instructional um instructional resources we covered the resources we've also done a lot of online training for teachers both in um teaching with their remote environment as well as resources for them to use in their class classrooms with the students as they come back for face to face device distribution we have distributed over 13,000 devices to students at all levels as well as over 1500 hotspots we continue to distribute devices as the requests are there as long as students
061are asking for we will make sure that they have a device for them to use at home um Wi-Fi we have worked with Partners from the community and from the county to provide 28 drive up up hotspot locations across the county where you can drive up and get students can get internet access um as well as 10 um Community child care facilities for students um who have been going to child care facilities because they've been not been able to come to school every day so they've had increased bandwidth and internet at those Child Care Facilities provided by the Community Partners in the county and then lastly book distribution the public library has donated some books to us then our media specialist had worked um during plan C as well as Plan B um when parents
062have done drive up breakfast and lunch pickup Distributing books as well as taking books out into neighborhoods and distributing books to students and we distributed over 700 books that way all right next so in looking at the preparedness of the Operations Division I'd like to go back to the same three areas that we've discussed before Transportation facilities and um Child Nutrition in transportation we're successfully operating bus routes right now with 47 fewer drivers than uh we' had prior to co uh Community bus stops have uh addressed driver shortage in reduced bus and and our reduced bus capacities uh right now we're 99.3% on time uh morning arrivals so I think the transportation department is doing a great job and in looking and preparing for plan a I mentioned before uh we are on target for
063fewer than 10% of our buses under plan a to have 48 students or more um and I do believe that in that first two weeks when we're comparing uh request for transportation versus versus actual ridership we will uh reduce that uh even further and get closer and closer to our goal of no bus with uh with 48 students or more and um in the facilities area uh we have provided enhanced training on procedures and products and Equipment uh for disinfecting our schools uh facilities and Equipment um we're also using electrostatic sprayers in all of our schools and on our school buses we've increased our building uh ventilation and uh and air filtration operating our systems at the most optimal level to provide uh a refresh of air within the building as as often as possible
064and most importantly I think is we're uh continuing to provide that preventive maintenance and uh and monitoring of those systems so that we make sure that we continue that um and I will add to that we have been visiting several schools um myself and uh and many of my team and even when the schools have called and said hey we're having problems setting up we're just concerned that we're not achieving our goal of three-foot Separation uh By the time we've left every one of those schools we've achieved that so I can't say for certain that every classroom and every school but every classroom and every school that I've been to and members of my team have been into we have been able to meet meet that threefoot uh goal and um lastly in looking at
065Child Nutrition um We are continuing to operate our curbside crab and go meal service under plan EA that will be reduced um but the summer food service program continues uh we'll be providing free meals for all children 18 years of age and younger and to date the student or Child Nutrition division has actually served over 1.6 million meals um so we uh and we're planning already for uh for the summer so uh I know that um you know we will be expanding that uh operation again this summer and look forward to uh serving more meals in our communities thank you um can I actually let's just m Justice let's hold all questions until the end what we're doing this at the end yep once everybody goes what we can come back and ask questions uh
066does that mean Miss I guess Miss Butler is that her name Turner Turner Miss Turner yes she's still on there okay yeah go ahead Dr C good evening um from the human resources perspective we have um been working to increase the number of substitute teachers who are available to serve so we have um increased the number of active substitutes from 174 to 214 um we have launch a substitute teacher campaign so we're hoping to increase that number more significantly as we move forward additionally we work collaboratively with our principles to fill um some existing vacancies hiring 106 new employees since the beginning of January good evening um just to follow up on with with Finance um our purchasing um group has distributed 1.2 million to date in ppee cleaning supplies and equipment and currently they
067have 228,000 um in in additional supplies available for distribution if schools ask for it so we have that in the warehouse and we have another 300,000 budgeted for future needs so we we feel very prepared in terms of that um we have over 13 million in relief funds that we've already received um from State mostly Federal but state federal and we've spent over half of that we'll have those funds available aailable through September of 22 so therefore for this year and next year we're also anticipating another 25 million in additional Federal funding which will be used for the next two years to um provide techn technology Staffing stabilization and additional student program so with that I um the next slide is just questions for for any of us so all right to keep this thank
068you very much to all of you for that presentation to keep this somewhat organized since you don't have mic phones at your seats why don't we go in the order of the presenters um so if we can start with Miss Barnum and Miss Turner if there are any questions for her we'll then move on to Dr Smith if there's any questions and then I believe it was Brinson right so that'll be our first three so if anyone from the board has some questions from Miss vnum or Miss Turner I do have just two quick questions the hallway shelter outbreak uh was that sports related the Holly Shelter cluster yes that was sports related okay thank you and I guess the other question question is I and I'm sure we'll talk about it later but I
069just want to know how you guys uh made a miracle happen with those vaccines so I'm sure we can deal with it at some point but uh I just wanted to say thanks to to miss Turner and to you because uh we asked the impossible and you did what was possible and we'll never forget it thank you thank you all right anyone else m i and and maybe I was spacing out and listening but one of my questions about the CDC versus the the um toolkits differences the um I didn't think I heard any comparisons I mean um Carla did a good job of telling where they came from and how we worked together but I think that the biggest issue is the six feet um and so how how are we reconciling that or
070um well I guess I just wanted folks to know that we are following the the toolkit and um because that's what governor Cooper has asked us to do and so are we compelled to follow the CDC guideline um or are we compelled to follow the toolkit guidelin when there's differences okay so um I'll be glad for um Miss Turner to speak in as well I do want to to clarify something um the CDC recommendations are just that recommendations the um stronger schools toolkit is a requirement of the governor um so one says 6 feet one says as close to 6 feet as you can get yes so we follow and that's the toolkits one yes so we follow the and could you explain just briefly why plan a does not require six feet or close
071to six feet but Plan B does so that that is that is the very difference between plan a and plan B is that social distancing component um Miss Turner do you want to add anything to my comment about the CDC versus the toolkit sure um yes like we were saying the the latest guidance for the CDC does say that um you want to try to maintain six fet but it does put the caveat in that if you cannot maintain six feet you do um the best that you can and with the toolkit if I don't have it in front of me but if I'm remembering plan a appropriately it says again you maintain as as much distance as you possibly can understanding that in most instances it is not going to be the six Fe
072but that you do the best you can to keep physical distancing as as uh as distant as as you can even though it won't be the six feed so and and and exactly you know the CDC are the are the recommendations and then like like Miss V was saying then you're going to follow what the what DPI puts together um and pushes down to the local school systems yes and the latest CDC operational strategy for K12 schools the statement on um and Miss Turner this is the document you shared with me um the statement for mitigation strategies to reduce the transmission of SARS Co 2 in schools um of course um regardless of level of community transmission the mitigations have to be layered the mitigation efforts and the first mitigation effort would be um Universal
073and correct use of masks should be required next physical distancing at least six feet should be maximized to the greatest extent possible and that that's on the CDC language for schools and that does match the toolkit language um but the exact difference between plan A and B is that 6 feet requirement versus recommendation yeah and I just wanted you to sort of explain to our our community why it seems counterintuitive that you would when you're getting more people you would lessen the the distance but it's because that's just the way that the the science falls out is that how we explain it right the goal isn't to lessen the distancing the goal is to increase the number of students for face Toof face learning right right and it it's at a cost okay and and
074the cost would be whether you can maintain that 6 feet or whether you maintain it to the maximum extent possible so that's just part of our risk assessment and the the risk that we take okay thank Justice you got a question uh well yes um the CDC guidelines came out they changed two weeks ago I think it's been two or three weeks since the current Administration brought them up and their first statement was that the absolute safest was 6 feet maintained now what Miss Turner just had well you just read that Miss Turner shared with you is a little different than that cuz I didn't see that part when she they first came out a couple weeks ago has that been changed Miss Turner since that time yet yes ma'am Miss justice has this this
075information came out four days ago from the CDC the suggestion um and that also sort of I guess you could say says that there's a problem with the toolkit too it's the same thing they haven't been updated not that they necessarily would now since it sounds like it's sort of almost a GoBack than what they were doing uh two weeks ago and now it fits more closely with the toolkit which still hadn't been updated from the two weeks ago I I don't know if you followed what I just said I think I followed you and the toolkit I believe the latest update to the toolkit is still February 2nd unless it has happened since Friday I've been watching it Mr mcmanis J I want to make sure I understand Plan B virtual and remote and
076the combination and 11,241 students with plan a 9,582 which is about 85% are going to plan a person to person yes that's astounding and Dr Smith do you have anything you want to add to that can I just ask one question please yes Miss Walker um does um Mr Turner know what their Community spread rate is right now I know it's kind of not the same as in schools but I'm curious I heard it did come down but I just would like to hear what yes ma'am yeah yes I I do I can tell you our percent positive right now uh just for the state's website newford County's percent positive is 5.5% which is phenomenal compared to the fact that we were over 9% about four weeks ago the state's percent positive is 5.7% so
077we're a couple T of a percentage point below the state um you know and then this could be a any number of fact factors We Believe were past that Christmas new year surge um we are pushing out vaccinations and uh we are continue to encourage you know 3w wearing washing and waiting um six feet apart so yes it's the the numbers are um encouraging do you anticipate anything to do with the variance and I'm only asking because I feel like that's what the topic of discussion is now with the new variants and that might might lead to plateaus or even a little bump in the numbers do you know anything about new Handover um what I what I have what I actually read today on on some credible websites um we're talking about the variant
078were that we do and actually on the state local Health Department call that we have every Tuesday it was shared that um we will begin seeing variants in North Carolina I don't think there's any way we can avoid that um and because some of them are a little more transmissible then we may see some some increases like you say some little bumps um but we need to continue to be vigilant push out vaccines um continue to push you know waiting six feet apart washing your hands and wearing your masks just not letting our guards down um and that's something we want to emphasize if I can speak real quickly to vaccines to Mr Boer you are welcome I cannot thank your senior staff and and your schools enough for the amazing cooperation they have given
079us over the last week to to put these things in place um we did vaccinate at the two sites that public health uh oversaw last Wednesday we vaccinated 1,100 uh public school private school and Child Care staff which was phenomenal and the hospital had capacity to do just over a thousand as well I don't have their numbers but that was that was great and as of right now I just checked our information uh the two sites public health is running tomorrow we already we have 723 appointments again that's public school private private and chared schools and childcare centers um with the capacity to do even more we're at about 70% for having our appointments build at the HHS building and about a little over 60% at TR middle school so we're going to continue taking
080appointments from staff um tomorrow so we are very excited about that but I do want to continue to emphasize just because we put vaccines out there this is CommunityWide just because we're vaccinated doesn't mean we can stop wearing our masks and stop being um diligent and vent with what Vigilant with what we're doing and that's very important for people to remember that message anyone else have a question from Miss V Miss Turner I would like to add that Walgreens is doing it now I've heard teachers are doing that yes McManus is anyone gonna address the summer school the state summer school which following behind plan a really gives an opportunity and an arena to try to recapture I believe we'll be talking about that at another time it's not on the agenda for this evening
081um and could I could I ask M Turner um M Turner how long does it take um I guess you could say because right now we've got the two different mon Manda and fiser vaccines how long does it take from the first uh inoculation uh then through the second and then how long do it take from the first to I guess you could stay say establish the maximum protection of the vaccine well okay with madna after your first dose of madna you have uh right around I don't quote me it's either 82 80% 86% immunity after the first dose and then with the second dose which you can call booster dose then you move up to the 94.5% immunity about two weeks after the second dose with fiser after the first dose you have roughly
082I want to say between 55 and 60% immunity um after the first dose and then with the second dose which caus three weeks apart two weeks after that you're up to 95% immunity so both of them are two weeks past your um you have maximum immunity two weeks past your second dose did you repeat to Madar I one again did you say 80% the first shot yes ma'am you get you get after the first dose you have about the information on their um the emergency use authorization their fact sheets says um you get about just over 80% immunity with the first dose and then with the second dose it boost you up to 94.5% immunity from from the clinical trials that's what they found thank you and M Miss Turner just um just one thing
083I want to say I know you just addressed how many You' vaccinated just want to say thank you again um the organization of which the vaccine roll out occurred last week and for what's coming tomorrow I have not heard of any other school system and County Health Department that have worked together and partnered the way that new han county has so thank you to our team here that has been working around the clock and thank you to Public Health Carla you and your team have just been amazing so just hats off to you for all that you've done and I know that our Educators and we are incredibly thankful for all of the work so thank you very much yes thank you is it possible for I I know that you don't have a plan
084yet but um to just assure everybody that you're working on a plan for the second round because that has where I've gotten like a a bunch of emails people are concerned about the second round and like oh my God what do I do we do have a plan yeah I'm sure you do I just want definit definitely plan and I will just say it's um the schedules are not exactly the same as they have been last weekend tomorrow but there is a plan okay that's I want I want everybody to hear that that we were not just flying by yeah all right we have Mr Anderson and Miss Brinson up here are there any questions for operations or for technology question about um the buses um where would you say the most concerning area is
085buses it schools is it where is it um well I think you know the buses um in both areas we're cleaning and disinfecting we're doing a little more in our school buildings in terms of ventilation and filtration than we're able to do on our buses are we riding with the windows open on will we be riding with windows open on the buses or when weather permits we certainly are okay anyone else I've watched the bus drivers do some cleaning and they are doing some good stuff yeah I had I had another question for Eddie uh Anderson Mr Anderson um you said you've been in a number of schools and that you have seen in every school you've been in that you see that they're able to have at least three feet separation is that what
086you had said that's correct and um you wherever we've been we've worked with the we've worked with the classroom teacher to achieve that three-foot Separation The Only Exception would be if uh students are uh seated together at a table but we're providing the plastic tabletop dividers in those cases okay and how many schools would you say you've been in um probably just fewer than half okay but and that's because we uh most of our schools are able to to get their classrooms set up without our assistance we extended that offer to all schools and um we only went to those schools that requested assistance if they did not feel they were able to achieve that threefoot uh goal it's a there's no requirement but that we kind of established that as our goal and now
087the buses too what is the maximum we don't know until we do do do a until we go into a but what would be the maximum amount of kids so far it looks like might be on some buses um we don't think we'll have any buses we know we won't have any buses that are at capacity was 72 passengers um you know we're we're looking at somewhere around you know 55 at a a very Max but uh we're trying to we're trying to get down below that goal of uh 48 students per bus and how many students per seed if it was 48 that would be two per seed so anything above 48 three three kids on the seat yes ma'am okay thank you anything else Mr Anderson oh no not for Mr Anderson all
088right Miss Bron come on up thank you Mr Anderson I I have a question please um I was I've been hearing um some teachers or sorry some parents say that they kids are having trouble losing work when they try and turn in Virtual things I and and I can get more specific I guess when I um I can dig into it but I'm kids are losing work when they try and put it in but then they have to redo the assignment over and over do have you had any feedback about that or know why that would be happening there there have been a couple of instances we have um and we've we've kind of helped them when we've been able to it's it's kind of hard when it's not happening um we do have a
089student help desk number so if you could you know guide them to call the student help desk we will gladly you know walk them through helping them um make sure they get their stuff turned in okay so just to just call the hotline and if not I guess there there someone else and and your I will have it for you before the end of the meeting I'd have to look it up but there is a student help desk number and we advertise that and then we definitely will help them are is that advertised districtwide in every school to all these kids yes it is and it's also on on the website with all the other Co information that we've got with technology all right anything else for Miss Brinson all right thank you very much
090Dr Coker waiting in the wings all right any questions regarding HR issues I just have a very basic question Dr Koker are you confident that we are ready to cover any and all eventualities I mean well that's a big re are are you are you confident that we have the substitute coverage to make sure that we are good to go for K5 so what I can say to that is we are increasing the number of substitutes that we have and principes and have done an incredible job of making sure that they have coverage and that coverage is in place they really have um but we're reaching out to principles and working with them um to make sure we have coverage and looking at the upcoming fill rates we're in good shape thank you very much
091um yes M Justice U now you said that we have 214 as of now Subs that we have that are active um and you had last meeting you said you had a Ser of standing where it is that's pretty much standing where it is we're assuming that the folks that we're hiring now who are saying yes I'm going to sub I'm going to report that they're going to be active so that would increase the number of people who are saying um you know that they're ready to serve okay um and also the um you you made the comment that the principles are doing a great job does this mean that they're finding people within the building to cover when you can't find Subs is that what you're referring to or in some cases they've done
092that and they're also helping us to recruit additional subs for the class rooms all right thank you very much absolutely anything else for HR all right you're good thank you Miss small thank you thank you Dr Coker anything for finance I have one question yes Miss Walker do you um I know they're going to be hopefully passing this Bill in Congress for the schools and I don't know if you read up on that or do you know that's not including any of this money you're talking about right that you already have allotted so I mentioned some pending funding that we don't have yet that is is um it's not that's already approved what they're talking about would be more than would be an addition to that so the 25 million is already um allocated to
093the state just has not been allocated to the districts what they're doing in Congress now would be even addition how do you normally get the federal funds does it have to funnel through the state for that or do you have to apply for it like if they approved it in Congress like it's allotted to us and then we have to develop a plan and submit the plan and have it approved okay and is that discretionary I mean can you go for anything or does it have to be specifically it has to be um well I won't I don't have the the guidelines on the new money but I think it'll be very similar to our um our cares act funding that we have now the the larger one six Mill 6 million and it can
094be used for anything that we can already use title funds for in terms of you know supplemental education and additional funds but it also is expanded to anything related to safety and and um you know anything on the custodial side to keep the building safe as well as um stabilization meaning if we lose funding from state or um or local sources we can we can move expenses there okay so those are the the three big areas okay good and of course technology because budget budget's coming so I was wondering Mr W I have a question actually um and I'm not exactly sure who this question should go to was my understanding that as we move to plan a that teachers would either teach in person or remotely but not both but it's come to my
095attention that we may have some that are still being asked to do both I just wanted to if that's Dr Smith or Dr F so I did send a memo out to the board to address that um principles came to us asking us if they um would be able to have teachers um teach remote and in person because they had teachers who were saying we want to do this so they were given that option we didn't give them any directive or anything so that was a consensus at whatever the school whoever the schools were that they wanted to do that okay thank you could I have I was going to ask you a question sure um now you said that $25 million was allowed to the state is that for this District No now the
09625 million is is the pending allotment to our school system from from this additional Federal funding so it hasn't been I guess the legislator is deciding at this point exactly you know what the rules are around it but um at this point it's on dpi's website is it's a pending allotment it's a little over 25 million um but I would expect that we'll have it within about a month so it um as soon as we do I'll I'll let you know the details and so that's for this District that's for district and the 15 million's already been approved the what the 15 million has already been approved in here didn't you say there was well yeah that was a combination of lots of different so it was cares funding as well as um the state
097also got cares funding so the governor gave us part of their so there was there was almost um I don't remember the exact number but like 12 12 different allotments that total all total all total that that number and um part of it was State funding that we got really early you know after the the initial emergency and then other funds continue to come okay U now I don't know if you can this money you were saying some of the uses for like possibly for uh filteration systems and things like that for the classrooms what about can we use that potentially for possible staff supplements uh beyond what the state offers because we're there's a we're going to have some issues once all this is said and done there's people that have left and people
098threatening to leave and all across the board not just the teaching I mean I'm talking about you couldn't use it for supplements for for salaries unless the person was paid in federal so if you had a federally paid teacher you could pay their supplement as we can now oh so it's um but but you couldn't just say we're going to give all our teachers a supplement and fund it from that that it wouldn't be allowable the person the person has to be paid from from Federal in order to use that okay thank you that was interesting all right we have far exceeded our covid-19 update time so I'm going to close this thank you very much to all of our presenters for a very informative uh presentation um it has been requested that we take
099a quick five minute break um so let's come back at 8:12 please let's be expedient with our steps we will come back at 8:12 all right welcome back thank you for entertaining that quick break our next item on the agenda are policies for first reading and I'm going to turn it over to policy committee chair Mr Nelson Boer Madam chair thank you very much uh at its policy committee meeting the board discussed policy 3445 student scholarships policy 4040 staff student relations uh policy 4110 immunization and health requirements for school admission policy 4115 Behavior standards for transfer students and policy 4120 domicile or residents requests requirements I have not heard from any board members about any discussion for these policies so unless there is something yes um the I had just emailed you today because the
100on um or texted you today about policy 4040 which is the staff student relations the um when I when I when we had our Title Nine committee meeting um I was just reviewing that with Jerell because in section c number two where it says reporting by students and it says in there that um you know a student should report the situation immediately to a principal school counselor or the title n coordinator and um in talking with Jerel that he suggested that we put in the same wording that we have in our Title 9 committee I mean our Title 9 policy which is that we are a student can report to any School employee including but not limited to the principal counselor teacher you know just to make it clear that that a teacher was allowed
101and and really any School employee was was a reporting entity so I just wanted to um ask the board if they would be okay with that sure we can we can have that we can talk to jell and have that done I did I mean I talked to him today sure and and he couldn't come today because I asked him could he show up well this this is just for first reading so okay I'm sorry no we can definitely put on because it's just for first reading okay we can make those we can make those changes okay sorry absolutely um is there any other policy discussion uh from the board uh I would like to you know once again make sure that people are aware first of all all of our policy committee meetings are
102public um anybody can attend any policy committee meeting um I know many of you have so I just want to make sure that that I know somebody brought that up and call it the audience also the policy are on the agenda and will remain there um for the duration of the month anybody can email uh on any policy and make sure that they give feedback as many of you have done on 4,300 so I just did want to make that clarification very briefly other than that I have nothing else for these policies Madam chair all right and they will be brought back for second reing reading next month all right thank you very much next item on the agenda is the sopic solutions presentation and equity centered approach I'm going to ask Dr Lesean Smith
103to come to the podium please to introduce good evening good evening evening evening um Madam chair um Mr Vice chair members of the board Dr F I am extremely excited to introduce to you m Stephanie Smith and Dr Rodney excuse me Stephanie Smith I apologize and Dr Rodney Smith from sofic solutions they bring with them 40 years of experience um working with districts Across the Nation um and they're going to be working with new H County Schools to help us to move to the Le next level of our work um in the district around the topic of equity diversity and in inclusion and so without any further delay I present to you um our representatives from sopic Solutions thank you so much um Dr Smith and um greetings to the entire uh New Hanover County
104School school board um and to all the guests we would love to share our screen with you um will we be able to do that great yes yes ma'am thank you I'm getting I'm getting a thumbs up from the from the tech folks so I think yes awesome uh and and first of all thank you all for your service uh and the commitment that you're showing we've been with you um for a bit and so we appreciate um all the diligence that is a due diligence that is happening ensuring that our children and families are safe so thank you all so much so you should be able to see our screen yes ma'am until black scen is that correct yes okay all right thank you um so so here we are hi Rie hi good
105evening uh a little bit about us as you can see all those things that describe us and who we are um all and in addition to the fact that we are indeed uh life partners with marriage that's right and we are quarantining properly so we're Quan we don't have our mask because we live together right so and then we we we also a parents and we have two wonderful children together as well so give you a little bit about us and background and I must say I'm a Carolina boy as well I grew up in South Carolina so uh I am uh so pleased to be talking to my my my home folk that's right uh and as uh Dr uh Smith shared in our brief bio and we um also invite each of you
106to visit our website to learn a little bit more about our background um and ryy can share more about his uh but you know my background is Ste in um social work uh and Social Services for years I've been able to serve as a social worker and not only in uh direct practice but also in Community Practice um many of those um Years also um poured into non for-profit um work and so I was able to uh lead non for-profits into um really what what I call uh equity in action and so as we move into engagement with you all and we'll lay out our approach to this work which we think is so important for you all to get a understanding we'll be um really excited to safely visit uh you um all of
107you all in the uh Wilmington Community as we'll um be taking flight and joining you all um but this equity in action and being able to operationalize equity um is not only an important component it is an actual viable way to create sustainable change and so we're really excited uh to bring um that expertise so coming to you with a social work background um as a parent um and then also um as a community member who um always wants to seek positive change yeah my background as an educator I've been in particularly higher education for the past close to 30 years um in my current role I serve as vice president for Access and engagement at William Jewel College we um a small private school in the suburbs of Kansas City we live here in
108Kansas City Missouri um and prior to that I I've also spend quite a bit of time in the classroom um teaching and facilitating discussions relative to this very topic diversity Equity inclusion um race and racism so I'd like to believe I bring a scholarly lens to the conversation an academic lens of the conversation and recognizing that there is a robust body of research out there that talks about these things and uh I I like to bring those into conversation because recognizing that we do have uh feelings and opinions about this topic as we should but I'd like to also bring facts into the conversation that couples with our feelings and opinions absolutely and so um for us you know sopic Solutions is a change management firm we help organizations um school districts and other learning
109communities Alik navigate change through an equity lens and so that becomes um extremely important um because when we talk about change change happens in all sorts of ways but we if we're not intentional about how we actually navigate change then we end up really producing some of the um same disperate outcomes that um that face us today and so um we won't spend much time as we know that uh you all uh have been uh spending a good portion of your evening and still maybe have some other agenda items but we do think it's important um as we all um establish relationship and get to know each other to understand what are our guiding principles and so for for some that may be familiar with Brian Stevenson's work either through just Mercy or through all
110his various projects and the Innocence Network um these may look familiar and so as we engage um throughout our time together you'll hear us reference these right um and we'll even build upon them um and so uh this with not for is extremely important um because we're not coming in to supplant um all of the uh efforts and even the Brain Trust that is within not only the will CH Community um but also specifically within the the the new um Handover Community School Community um but really coming in to walk with and work in tandem um and we'll also be able to demonstrate this because one of the key pieces that we'll be working on will be be the equity audit and so really being able to join in and that second one getting proximate
111to the problem um for us and for me specifically what I love about this principle it it reminds us that people are not the problem people experience problems but people are not the problem and so what happens when we do the work to get proximate so we'll be able to do that through the individual interviews and also the focus groups and of course as we uh join in and get to know um all the various stakeholders I IDE the students and the families as well yeah you know while all of these principles are extremely important I think the two that I'll highlight this evening is this notion of being willing to be uncomfortable recognizing that again this conversation often makes us uncomfortable we've been historically uncomfortable why because it's a taboo subject we've made it
112a taboo Topic in our society and we just we are just not accustomed to having the conversation it's not that we don't want better it's just that we have not been practicing these conversations especially in a public way but you know I think in the last really in the last 9 to 12 months uh as a nation we've been having more dialogue which is a really good thing um and so I think in some regards many of us have become comfortable with this idea of being uncomfortable and so again you know I highlight that principle that this work acknowledging that we're not accustomed to you know having these conversations but I think think um we have to again become comfortable with being uncomfortable because you know Justice is on the other end of our discomfort
113um and being able to talk about these conversations and I'll conclude with what seems like it's at the bottom of the list but I would suggest that it's supporting the rest of the list this notion of Hope um in the face of brutal facts um you know again and I we we position hope as not this Whimsical thing but we position hope as this thing that um you know it it's steep in action that that we understand that hopeful people or people understand that there are barriers there are challenges that we be we we will be confronted with but we have what it takes to get on the other side of those challenges you know Stephenie and I we like to consider ourselves and even you people like yourselves who are leaning into these kinds
114of conversations we consider us you um hope mongers yeah um we talk about hate mongers a lot in our society and not enough about hope I think it's far more hope moners than they are hate MERS in our society and so again hope is supporting all this work so we'll continue to um uh highlight and um amplify some of these key principles and even encourage and learn how you all are already perhaps a doctors of many of these maybe in your own way um and so um look for uh these pieces as we continue to move forward uh so I I mentioned this term operational iing equity and we'll talk about this as we move um forward in it but as we begin to think about ourselves each of us and each of our respective
115roles as being practitioners of equity many of us who are privileged to be able to have a phys a family position um in our network uh because it is indeed a privilege not everyone has access to it um but we we I get delighted because my physician is practicing medicine that means that they are still very much in the learner seat you talk about uh being open and you know some of our principles of equity talk about being open in new information uh and so we uh will support uh each of of those within the school district to really be thoughtful about what does being a practition of equity look like within your respective seat in your role because we all have a role and so our approach to this work is at a four-part
116analysis we call the four Ps um and so pedagogy and it's easy for us and we might be even familiar with with talking about pedagogy in the form of curricula but we know and in this case it is so much more we're talking about not only what we teach but how we move and what drives of Senate so really asking ourselves what are our guiding principles to guide us and move us um through this word and then our second p is policy and that is where we will explore how has Equity been codified within a new Handover and in and and I think it's just as important to add how has inequity been codified so we'll be able to review um with you all um what that looks like and then our thirdly practice you
117know how are we implementing those policies if you will um because you a lot of times we can find again to Stephen's Point inequity in our practices even if our policies are Equitable um we can perhaps find um some instances of inequity being practiced in our in our and then you know in our in our work environments and then the last P of course is people you know what does our culture uphold um you know because a lot of times we can have good policies and even great strategies and if our and if our culture is not ready to absorb those strategies then those strategies are will not that's why we say things you know kind of leisurly that you know culture a strategy for breakfast right because a lot of times we can have
118these wonderful strategies but if the culture will not withstand that strategy um then again they're not productive and so that's why we have to examine the culture we have to examine the people um within an organization and the the equity a will really be helpful in that and getting our various stakeholder voices um and understanding once again getting proximate to what that experience has been and so what really guides this and drives us throughout um this is this framework that is really steeped in understanding that diversity simply just is it's a fact it's a fact that we all hold dimensions of diversity often times when we talk about diversity we've even begin to euphemize and say I'm looking for a diverse candidate or different things like that but the truth is is that we all
119hold diversity and so how can we be clear about what is it um that we um are really lacking within our spaces and if it's representation especially specific identity represent ation how can we be clear about that right so doing the work and practicing acknowledging things so that we can adequately address it and then of course belonging really being U the outcome it is it is it is the outcome of of what all of this work uh come comes together um to um produce inclusion is our practice it's how we get there um Equity being a clear choice right and knowing the difference between equity and inequality and then of course all of this being lifted up by Justice and so we believe what takes um um what helps us navigate um this road is
120a Common Language and a shared perspective and that helps drive us toward um Collective impact so really closing the gap on what we say and what we do by being clear about what we believe right and what that means and so our Equity audit will help us get closer into being able to identify what perhaps are the various perspectives and then provide a pathway for understanding how we can create a shared perspective so that we can have more sustainable um impact and then this uh I love this because it looks so neat and clean this linear you know graph that shows that we go from one to another but as you all know in real life it is never this clean let me prepare you for it but it is clear that learning learning and
121engagement is a important component and so we have been really encouraged by learning about all the training yeah the training yes uh many uh I think one partner or so that we even work with yes um here in in in our within our region and so um being able to be get really clear and leverage that common language that has already been established and of course strengthen it uh where it it makes sense to do so um but also you see this Gathering materials materials and understanding introductions to the team and stakeholders we are so excited to engage and meet with the families and with the caregivers uh and caregivers I mean I'm I'm I'm talking about the teachers the faculty and staff right um of the school district and and really beginning to work
122together and then as you can see we move into this assessment and review which is where the equity audit is really being able to establish a Baseline and um really being able to understand what is going on we have a lot of qualitative quantitative excuse me we have a lot of quantitative information and so how can we allow this qualitative approach to give context to what Quan that's right to be able to tell that story in a way because we know numbers don't do it alone but there's Humanity within those numbers and so how can we capture that and then that moves us to operationalizing etiv and so what is that mean what existing or new work groups can be established so that we can who who knows best how to really navigate uh you
123know the way forward it is those that is actually in the midst of it it is our very own faculty and staff members our families our students um and then of course um you being able to be part of this process and so um we um are are all are we have great excitement in being able to help support and navigate that uh critical reflection um as we uh move forward and really begin to uh create what we refer will refer to as a chart of work this chart of work that will help us in um our various ways really um produce Equity yeah and then ongoing reporting being able to share out what you can expect um from the equity audit report will not only be our observations um that will come in the
124form of uh unnamed them comments um but also recommendations we'll uh synthesize the information um and transcribe it and we'll put it in and and um present it in the form of emergent themes right um and then also we will provide recommendations and then of course work with um community and the working groups to actually begin to bring it um together to operationalize um the equity approach and then of course this sustainability and impact um we believe the great things happened where interest and capacity intersect and so in some cases there's a lot of interest and we need to build the capacity in some cases there is the capacity but there has to be a raising a rising of the interest to really truly understand what is happening so our goal will be to have
125that Nexus to create that Nexus that intersection of interest and capacity um so that it can actually be um delivered or or man ested within the behaviors of our various um um faculty and staff members that are within the district all in the effort to make an impact all in an effort to change outcomes so we just shared a lot of information not only do we need some pause and breathe but we also want to create space I'm G to stop sharing the screen if that's okay um um so that we can um respond questions if you have our emotional Outburst thank you thank you for sharing that presentation we appreciate it we're just we're we're all in all right now that's what it is all right can I open it up to the board
126any questions or comments Madam chair yes Dr Buller is about Dr bu all right Mr bullier I I just wanted to thank you guys for this presentation I particularly liked where you said um you know this is there's no quick fix uh because you know this isn't a problem that is insolvable I just think it's a problem that has to continuously be solved so even when we get there even when we're done there's more to do um and I just really appreciate your approach to this uh I certainly am hopeful that this type of approach can can meet the moment because we are in a moment and I think um this board has has focused a lot of effort on diversity over the last several years and I appreciate all the work that Dr Smith
127has done that our chair has done um and that everybody on the board has done to to make this happen so thank you very much for your presentation tonight well thank you so much yeah you no I was gonna say can you repeat your name for me oh my name uh Mr Buller B bolier I get that a lot think of it like B with a Yer at the end and you'll be fine Dr Bo I wanted to call your name because you speaking my language I mean that is the language that we speak that this notion that there is there are no quick fixes to this work that's right and it actually is something that we do in perpetuity it's akin to uh our health assessment you know making sure our cholesterol levels are
128in order all the time you know we can get them in order but we have to keep them in order so I I I I I use use that analogy to to to you know to to to help me understand that this is ongoing work is imper so thank you sir I appreciate the understanding because often times if we don't um have that then we can sometimes want to put a programmatic solution on a systemic issue being able to understand where systems change is important and then also how programmatic um offerings can can work in tandem with that I think will be key so thank you so much I believe Mr wildor I'd also like to to uh Echo that thank you very much for your uh presentation this evening um I'm I'm wondering when
129you know timeline what's you know what's what is on the horizon I guess my question a great question and so um what we wanted to do is be able to really hear you all's um questions and comments Dr Smith and I uh will be meeting next week uh to further further outline uh the engagement um with that what that will entail is identifying um our various uh stakeholder groups of course we'll come with a framework um but it's also important for us to be able to come in and listen and understand um what is and what has been um so that we can um get some clarity on that so we'll um put out a a timeline that will include the engagement for the um individual and focus group discussions um like I said for
130this school year we will make our way up to further um actually physically on site um and follow all um Health Protocols of course um in further understanding and getting proximate to some of the documentation and information um that is happening and also gives us a chance um to um engage in community and see and connect and feel um which is such an important component of being able to hear people's story um from that we will um once all of the or as the um the focus groups and interviews are taking place we'll be transcribing as we go um and then we'll move into our actual writing um phase where we will put together as I stated um and identify the emergent things that we've heard other observations um and put it in the form
131of recommendations so that we can have that um to you all um and our hope um is that by summer and I don't want to missp speake um as Dr Smith the other Dr Smith not this Dr Smith but this Dr Smith will be a part of it uh but how Dr Smith um and her team and our team will get together to put that outline but I am thinking um that uh we should be able to have um a report at least the first phase of the phasing of the report um by summertime and since I said it out loud then then you all hold us accountable to it absolutely that answer your question though I want to make sure that I'm yes thank you Miss Justice oh yeah um Hello thank you very
132much for this presentation um how much background wise uh do you come onto into the school system um your knowledge base when you first enter into this relationship where you start conducting your I guess you could say your information search how much do you have ahead of time are you asking how much information we have about New Handover yes yes absolutely yes so it's a uh of course our own uh research but that's why the engagement is so important because we can um read and get all the the data that is available uh that is publicly sourced um data as we can but what we know is really important is what it feels like and what the interactions and what those other pieces are the very same things that your faculty and staff across uh
133the the County Schools um and then also your students experience every day and so when we talked about how belonging is the outcome we see belonging and also what data research tells us is that belonging is a lubricant for Learning and so being able to really um get the impression belonging and what that feels like and how that impacts is extremely important so we'll come in with their own um uh you know research and data we've had the privilege of being able to interact uh with Dr fa um and Dr Smith but we know that there um is an expanded community that we want to make sure that we connect we find it as a um as a privilege and an opportunity to be able to come in um with a third person view um
134and not necessarily um be mired by um the history but in inclined to it meaning open to understanding how what has happened um has is impacting what is and so that's an extremely important component and then also create room for community members to also be the writers of what can be and so that's what we are excited for and looking forward to um throughout the conversations but it'll be a mixture of what we understand and bring and then of course what the interactions will be that has given us really great opportunity in some of our previous engagements and relationships who we um refer to our um clients but as partners because that's really how we see this is being in Partnership Ronney did you want to add yeah in addition to you know hopefully getting
135getting a chance to examine some of your quantitative data as well um you know to examine for for p perhaps you know look at your academic outcomes looking at your suspension rates looking at who has uh historically been identified for your gifted education programs things things of that nature will also um fuel our our findings as well and I think more importantly that how do those outcomes come to be I'm sorry go ahead yes yes uh now you know you can we can go online and we can research the background of your company I know that you said you had a social worker uh Miss Smith uh social worker background Dr Smith you said that you were a professor at a a small private university what what is president of William Jewel college but then
136also I teach at I still have a adun professorship at UMKC the University of Missouri Kansas City where I teach specifically in the school of education um where I specialize in courses again relative to this notion of diversity Equity inclusion then I also teach some leadership and supervision type classes so my background has been in uh education Administration and supervision leadership now uh we were lucky enough to have Dr F he was in Kansas City Kansas did you get a chance to meet him when you were there oh absolutely absolutely did yes um well so this is basically you're coming in and you're going to be writing a type of strategic plan after you gather tons of information from all the different areas that you've described using your expertise I mean is that just sort
137of a thumbnail and then help implement it well only because words matter I'll I'll make a revision to your statement um not a strategic plan but an equity audit that can be leveraged as a tool to determine what the next steps uh may be and so part of our discussed um um um support to the district is uh Equity audit um that will also be a company and we're really excited about how faculty and staff and Community can pull together and will support a scorecard um so some some key tools to be able to move us forward so I'll just adjust the language from strategic plan to an equity audit and then of course um um operationalizing Equity so that ongoing support um so that uh that the recommendations and other pieces can be supported
138in brought to flaring about how many school system have you worked with so far so we have worked with three school districts one independent school which is a private um school and then um as far as in Partnership uh but of course on the volunteer basis uh not only does Rodney serve um as chair um of a of a charter school um but I also support um in the um Foundation actually both support in the foundation education um support of two school districts that are here regionally um within this area okay thank you very much for all those answers all right we are very quickly approaching our time limit I actually think we have approached our time limit um for this item and um I just want to say um is it Stephanie stepanie St
139Stephanie stepanie Stephanie so we've got four sorry we've got three Stephanies on our board so that's fantastic so we'll just we'll all Stephanie it out here dealer glad I'm so we thank you so much for your time we're excited to work with you and I'm very excited to see the roll out and the equity audit that comes out of this is as our district moves forward with this very important topic so well thank you so much appreciate you all thank you good evening um Madam chair can I ask the question I didn't want to ask it of them this was more for Dr Dr Smith and perhaps um our Equity committee so I was just um wondering is this um something that the was developed out of the equity committee or was it that you've
140been working on this for a long time and now it's just your your time um to go so um what I'll say in regards to the equity audit that is something that we've had um multiple conversations about but again um it really is about doing doing the right work at the right time with the right people um um as Dr F has come into our district he has brought with him just a plethora of knowledge and so he has been able to connect us with the right people to do this work and I think that it is the time right now especially that we need to engage in an equity audit and develop that Equity scorecard for our school so it um has been somewhat linear in its progression um but not completely okay so
141it's it's kind of a joint effort with the equity committee um is or is it so it's all in related so if we go back to our very early documents um there is reference to an equity audit okay but again right time right people right resources and Dr F has um brought that to us and so is there a way that that um on on assembly when I was looking it up you know to try to follow along all I got was um a lot of words and the letter to you I didn't get a chance to see their um PowerPoint and I was and or The Guiding principles and I was trying to scribble it all down is that something that you could share with us so if you would like to I can
142make that request yes yeah I mean I and I can email you separately as a reminder if you want me to but I just thought it was interesting and wanted to read it and there and a lot of that's on their website too okay but I didn't know I didn't know if it was personalized to us or not so I was just scribbling you know as they were going um and then that book Jess Mercy is that a a book club kind of thing you guys are doing or I mean like how come they put that up there because I was going to download it and listen to it while I walk so I've I've read the book personally um I've watched the movie Personally um but that is not a book study that we've
143done within the district but if you go back to our um overarching documents in terms of our district strategy we have aligned ourselves with the work of Brian Stevenson okay um in terms of getting proximate to the problem um in other things that were mentioned so it's not unique to new han County and I would say it's also not unique to to them it is um underg ging and work around equity and you know I could talk for a very long time about Brian Stevenson but I won't but it's a good book for us to I as a just I would recommend it to you highly yes uh Dr Smith has thank you uh theity committee was this a discussion among the the equity committee or is this new information for them uh we all
144so we have um the equity committee we have the equity work group and again as I've said we've not talked explicitly about this proposal but we have previously and again bringing back to our very earliest work with this talked about the need for an equity audit um has it been a part of a recent discussion no um but it very much aligns with our work um in in some that will continue to move us forward um and bringing greater equable opportunities for all students sounds great yeah all right thank you very much Dr Smith thank you next item up for information is scribbles records management and I believe that we are going to invite oh looks like Miss Jackson's coming up not miss Barum welcome Miss Kristen Jackson good evening Dr F Madam chair at
145the um Board of Education great story last June we realized that we probably were not going back to school face to face and I got the directive to find a company that can get all of our enrollment online in three weeks and so tonight I'd like to introduce you to a company called scribbles they're going to give you a brief presentation um of what we're doing to be more effective and efficient in our student enrollment our re-enrollment process um Choice applications Student Records management and our historical transcripts and Records um we're doing this is time for us to digitize our process and this will allow the community to get better access to all of our services and also it is in many different languages so it makes the enrollment process much easier for our families
146tonight I have Ron Christensen and Mike fitzg with me and they are from scribbles and they're going to give you a brief overview of what we've already implemented this year and services we're looking at as we move forward hi Ron and Mike hey how guys uh first of all thank you very much uh Dr fous and members of the board appreciate the time um feel free to ask any questions as you go through can I also share my screen is that okay I've got a little presentation in here let's see let's share my screen can everybody see my screen okay we can see you with the scribbles logo behind you okay can you see my screen can you see the presentation what up everybody see that okay yep we're you are not in presentation mode
147right now you're in slide mode there you go how was that are we good yeah wonderful well thank you uh so I I look like the background the background looks like my presentation so there we go again thank you very much for your time today um you know we started off this this journey scribbles and it's interesting at your Equitable uh equity and Equitable access a lot and but that's our Mantra really is to enhance family experience through Equitable access to school district resources that's that's what our motto is for our company and we do that through what we call student life cycle Solutions you know and when you look at scribbles just a quick background for those of you who don't know who we are we're based in uh Pineville uh we have you
148know uh employees all over the country but we now have 115 people in the state of North Carolina serving uh almost 90 laas so we have a massive commitment uh to the state of North Carolina working with DPI very closely on the Technologies to that that provide that Equitable access that we continue to talk about all of our applications um um when we talk about Equity they're sass so there's no there's no um there's no need for your it really to get involved when it comes to supporting these applications we do all the support ourselves out of our office in Pine bille um we serve a lot of school just across the country so we we we focus a lot of the experiences that we see uh Kansas City were just interesting there that was
149a very interesting uh presentation by the Smith family um that we sered Kansas City schools um right in their backyard and all over the country working with with families to engage uh school districts when we look at um scribbles again about that Equitable access um we know that boy during Co everybody needed Flex ability and one of the things that we saw certainly in North Carolina when when there were shutdowns um the school districts that you know we served and even some that we didn't at the time uh really needed to go online right there was no way to actually get applications to people there's no way to get records to people there's nobody there to process the work that alone to have the families drop off enrollment applications and things of that nature so
150let's get back to normal a little bit and and fast forward even a year from now what does that really mean we still need to focus in focus our energies on modernizing school districts because it's good for good for the students it it's good for the families it's good for the children as they progress from kindergarten all the way through postgraduation so one thing we know is families your families require flexibility and we know that through our applications because even pre pandemic 80% of the applications were completed after 5:00 on a smartphone so what that tells us is we have a lot of single families Working Families dual Working Families where people can't come into the school and take that hour or two or three that it takes to complete an enrollment process for example
151to complete their application so we wanted to create 100% online enrollment for for the school districts we serve and in doing so we have to do things like language translation you have a number of languages not just English Spanish a lot of different languages that are are being spoken your in your um County school we we serve 109 different languages today and like as I just spoke to the mobile phone uh friendly applications is also a key component of that but along with that is okay equital access that's fantastic but it still has to we still have to be concerned with security um of the information the students information the family information as well as the quality so we run through rigorous testing through a sock 2 audit where fura pled organization and we comply
152with all the different rules and regulations within the United States government so when we think about you know the experience and the family experience um enhancing that experience through an equitable process um it's really about remote touchless access right so an example I give a lot of times is I'm a father of four and when we do an enrollment process and some of my kids are older way out of college when we did that process early on we had to fill out paper forms and then they would go to kindergarten and then they would give the kindergartener 10 forms that they bring home to Mom and Dad for them to fill out and then they had to bring it back home to them right well today that should be a thing of the pastor school
153districts we can do all this online you can use your phone you can make things very efficient effective for them and that's what scribbles is is providing to new Handover right so the whole IDE is all those manual paper intensive processes that are in the school district we want to automate them for you and your families we call it student like cycle Solutions and you're already doing this today um we started with enrollment during the pandemic and the enrollment is becoming 100% online this year it will be with the adoption of our electronic forms and getting all the forms and the things that need to be signed by the parents uploading the documents automatically through the enrollment application is a big part of it your proof of domicile your residency information birth certificates getting all
154that information loaded into the application um online is very important right then also we do know that school choice is running around the Carolinas in a very big way so whether it's a dual language immersion program or a steam program stem program we do know that parents want options and we would like for all the school districts we serve to have their students stay within the public school system in their counties not going to different counties because they offer maybe a better stem program or they offer a fine Focus program we do know that the the choice is something that parents are looking for today so we're automating that process for you as well the next piece of what we're talking about here is really a records component right so the top part is really
155about family Engagement online enrollment school choice options for families completing forms online getting the family experience done and making it online the next piece that we really talk about is that we're moving to with you is the record side of it okay so once we have a student let's say a student moves within your District right so the student would have records and those records today would be carded throughout the district manually we do this all now electronically whether they're within the district or going outside of the district we can do all of this electronically today and we should be doing electronically today we do this through a record request application that way a student if they need a copy of their transcript to go to UNC or Duke or NC State whatever Your Allegiance
156is you can send that transcript electronically automatically whether you're 18 years old or you're a 42 year-olds wanting to go back to school to a community college everything can be done electronically and should be done electronically furthermore we're using technology called blockchain and what blockchain does is it'll provide the ability for your graduates to have co-ownership of their own record so you could in fact optionally and you don't have to do this but you could in fact give your student a virtual wallet with their own record so that way if they go to get a job or go to the military or want to apply to college they don't need to ask you for that record they have their own record intact Right medical Field's been doing this now for many years we used to
157have to go back and asking for our medical records now we can have our own medical records at our at our fingertips the student record can be the same way we believe that's the future so when we look at the record request and the document management being the core of it today we're managing about 80% of the former student records in the state of North Carolina predominantly because we have Cumberland and wake and Charlotte mecklinburg and Guilford we have a lot of very very large school districts we've taken paperless we're going to do the same thing and our goal is to do the same exact thing repeating what we've done at Union and the others for um new Handover schools right and the whole idea here is if it's a piece of paper let's create
158it electronic and never make it a piece of paper Pap again you right if a student is enrolling let's not print off the information if it's born electronic let's keep it electronic secure it and make it a part of their electronic Cuma to file as they go through their educational Journey so the thing about scrub online is it was designed and developed specifically for school districts so we're going to manage the students but we're also going to manage your HR records and your Finance records making everything in a paperless world okay furthermore we're we're a um scanning company as well so we offer conversion Services where we come in we pick up your records not only with the software company but we do the work for you as well so we'll come in and box
159up and pick up all your records from your schools so that way all the former students for example might be um stored electronically outside of the school we'll pick them up we'll scan them in and protect those records automatically for you so we're not just software company we're also providing the service to taking paps okay so from our perspective it's about family engagement providing Equitable access and enhancing student service right so from enhancing the family experience providing a self-service to those families making it easy and instant for them to be able to do things without having a printer using their mobile phone a lot of people don't have computers today they're using their smartphones to do things online right it saves a lot of time and frustration over paper based processes and it's very secure
160and organized so we we talk about you know spending less time on paperwork and spending more time uh supporting your families thank you for your time any questions fantastic thank you open it up to the board oh wait all right on M AG before why don't you start I'm older and beautiful so I'll go first sorry the all right so my my question was um how the this is a great system and I'm all for it how would um a a student or parent go about um disputing something that might be in their in their report like your FICO score if you see something in there that you don't think to be accurate I mean obviously you can't change it because you're not allowed but is does that have some sort of component in about
161that well yeah so they could because they're going to have access to the record right there would be a there would be a way to vet that back to the school be that at the school itself or um to the central office right so yeah there's certainly a component of that for sure okay all right M Justin well I was I worked in schools for decades it's about time I wish it hadn't taken a pandemic to do this but this is so current and needed so thank you very much and those that found this group thank you did is it your question you're just saying just a comment I'm just happy to see this I've been when I was in schools and this was decades ago I was thinking we need something like this this
162is back in the 90s and yeah whatever great all right Mr here I certainly agree I'm sitting here thinking oh man this is cool I must be getting nerdy in my old age um I just had a question about the transferability of Records to a digital platform how are you able to maintain the confidentiality of those records while you're transforming them right so there's a couple of things number one um you know we were in essential business during the pandemic too so we're also have all the level of C certification we go through a sack 2 report and we have background checks in all of our employees right so one of the things we do when we box up all the records if there if there's sensitive information in those records we'll have a subset
163of te a team that will work on those records and digitize those once they've been digitized they then move to a safe secure location or they returned back to you so there's very it's either going to come from your Warehouse within ours it's going to be back at our work especially since you're in North Carolina right so the security of those and the transport of those is going to be a secured method right obviously we're going to If It's Paper we're going to come pick them up right if it's electronic record we would do everything we could in terms of uh security we use as 256 bit encryption for example uh that's a department defense standard for um for document encryption um so we have we have the most rigorous standards that imagine for um
164both both scanning and process and and the people that we're vetting as well as the technology that under rdes it thank you I have a question yes please I have a question about so there going to be is there a backup or do you have any issues that you foresee for hacking or anything like that um I know some systems they have a problem with that yeah that's a very good question um yes so we have because of our sack 2 audit we work with a company at R third party auditing firm called oh boy I'm G to forget I I'll provide that information Lazarus yeah Lazard Lazard okay very good um they they're the ones who actually do the audits for us so when we look at that information but yes we always have
165full five full backups of your data in three different Geographic locations so if there was a catastrophe happen one area you're always going to have a full backup somewhere else we'll even provide you a backup you can have a hard drive of your information as well should you wish so yeah from a backup perspective that's certainly the case we also have I always tell people you know we put processes in play so that way bad things don't happen right but you got to have um you know a plan in place in case something does and we have for example a breach plan right if something were to happen where there's a breach we have a whole policy around how you manage your breach fortunately we've never had one right but those things can happen right
166and then when all those fails you have to make sure you have insurance per occurrence to make sure that when one and two fail that you're covering the school district as well as ourselves um to make sure that you know if there's punitive damages they're paid out okay this we don't like to talk about insurance though but we we have five million of incurrent each incurrence is $5 million ofur yeah so this would be a contract for x amount of years and do you update data like every year or every month or I mean is there like where your information is directly sent to you it's all put in your system straight away right yeah so it is so it comes in a bright different there's there's different types of information right we got pieces
167of paper that have to be scanned in but there's also information in power school for example that we can extrapolate out of power school and autoload into the system that's done real time we have a partnership with DPI where ultimately we'll be feeding the operational data store with within North Carolina DPI as opposed to just feeding power school we'll be working with the data score okay so yes the answered question it's it's it's a secured method we do everything like you said with this aes256 with encryption it's at bre and in transit I have a question and I have a feeling it's probably for Miss Jackson um rather than scribbles um obviously this is this is functioning under the assumption that everyone has access to a computer or cell phone but that's not necessarily the
168case and we also have some families that may not be technologically savvy what are we doing for them for like the enrollment form I know we're getting rid of the Green Sheet which is amazing but what are we going to do for the families that use that green sheet and our paper based people right we all love the Green Sheet um so we have put a lot of thought into that and we have trained everybody in the front offices on how to help parents through that process so you can still present in person to to register your child for for school but instead of handing you the packet we're going to hand you an iPad and walk you through that process um in addition we are we are planning within the next month to have
169a drive-thru enrollment here in the parking lot where parents who want to come by on a Saturday and enroll their children in kindergarten or prek can come through and we'll have tables set up and they can do it right from their car take them the iPad and walk them right through it the best part one great thing about this is we always have trouble um Gathering documents from parents this allows the parent to actually just take a picture of the birth certificate or the immunizations and it uploads right into the program so not only is it um more effective for us the parents like it because it's much easier for them than coming to the school I mean they do have to take work off a lot of times to come and enroll their kids
170so um you know we' we've really brainstormed ways to still make families feel welcome of course we'll still have open houses and all those sorts of things but how can we in this time electronically or through the mail or through packets or postcards um keep families engaged while they're enrolling their kids in school um and let them know that we're happy to have them and we're ready to serve their kids great thank you the technolog is fantastic and I applaud the district for for getting us there this is going to be fantastic all right any other questions before we move on had we ever thought about um maybe even enrolling at some of our pre- centers you know for to for kindergarten like as a parent night or something come and we do we do
171they uh prek enrolls in kindergarten um and actually prek started the scribbles before kindergarten this year so prek has already processed 500 applications online through scribbles in the last month fantastic great thank you ulations that's good job Fant all right well thank you so much for your time tonight we know it's a late evening to be here presenting so we appreciate you and uh we look forward to utilizing the software all right next item up is head start our Head Start board liaison report Mr Bullard Madam chair uh members of the board good evening um I think uh Miss miles and I were discussing the possibility of moving this to a consensus item for our next agenda as much as I know that you love to see me every month um this information is required
172to be presented by law but you have it before the board meeting um so I would like to ask you guys if you have any questions about the data that we present every month please ask me uh I would like to briefly mention that uh prek is taking the lead on this uh um with with scribbles all of our applications are filtered through scribbles um and with that I'll just briefly discuss some of the highlights unless there are questions about our monthly financial reporting okay um let's see we've had healthy snack bags provided to students to take home bags included snacks provided by nourish and SE and a cutout of the food pyramid with healthy snacks snack ideas in the back uh we had our pre a vertical team collaborative on 224 facilitated by Johnson
173prek in collaboration with Snipes Sunset Park mostley Gregory Freeman and how reading centers are ready for guest readers teachers are scheduling and preparing for conferences with parents on February 18th and 19th conferences will be done in different ways such as through Zoom outside the building or outside the parents home keeping in mind everybody's safety of course is a priority School principal was notified of a grant awarded by team first book to provide two books to keep for all students School submitted all paperwork to obtain funds and we'll begin the purchasing process uh 82% of our program slots are filled and we are currently enrolling students for the 2021 2022 uh school year if there are no questions this will conclude my liaison Report with my thanks as always to miss smild all right any questions
174comments all right thank you Mr thank you madam chair next item on the agenda is the superintendent report Dr fa new Handover County Schools celebrated African-American history month uh throughout February with numerous activities that included members of the community who participated in the Middle School black history quiz Bowl classroom meetings classroom readings career panel discussions and other events honoring African-American history month I had the opportunity to participate in many of the activities and I was quite pleased with how schools had found creative ways to two and for students to engage in African-American history month the district is making great progress in partnership with New Hanover County Public Health and New Hanover Regional Medical Center with our employees receiving the covid-19 vaccine the first vaccine clinic for the initial dose was last Wednesday another clinic will
175be held tomorrow with an anticipated um with anticipating we are anticipating over, 1600 employees to receive their first shots the vaccines are available for all employee groups including substitute teachers the Rookie of the Year celebration was held on February 12th and the district honored Carolina Beach Elementary first grade teacher Abby Emerson who received ,000 award by the Wilmington Rotary Club congratulations again to miss Emerson keep up the great work as we enter into the final grading period for the 2021 school year our pre centers in elementary schools will roll out plan a on March 8th offering face to-face instruction 5 days a week also encourage all students and staff to stay on course and finish strong during these last nine weeks a lot of successful creative work is being accomplished in all of our schools
176and lastly a reminder that the district Springs break will be April 5th through the 9th thank you all right thank you very much Dr Bon next item on the agenda is board chairperson's report um I feel like a broken record but I again just want to thank the partnership between the County Health Department our County Commissioners and the central office staff with student support that has worked around the clock to make vaccines a possibility for our teachers um it's been an incredible couple weeks to see so thank you for that secondly I just would like to share that the student scholarship ship for future teachers is open uh the application right now uh the board Awards four scholarships a year for possible future teachers in new Handover County schools and it is uh $7,000 a
177year for a total of $28,000 for the scholarship we are currently accepting applications through March 15th if you are interested in applying please uh speak with your counselor um to learn about that and it is also on our website under the Board of Education page under the tab for student scholarships for future teachers we want to keep the best here in New Handover County so if you are considering a career in education please take a look for our high school seniors next item on the agenda committee reports and uh we are going to turn to miss uh Judy Justice to give us an update on the board agenda ad hoc committee Miss Justice okay yes and we know that this is needed look at the time now uh the purpose of the committee is to
178revise a current meeting schedule and format so it better meets the needs of our community and I saw that in policies we're going to be looking at it a little bit later um we did discuss we met and we discussed the the number and types of meetings some of them that we discussed were two having two general meetings a month and I do believe in fact that's what we discussed mainly we should have two meetings a month because of all the business we have in fact very few governmental bodies at this point across State don't um now the the thing is to find the best way to designate how that's going to work and where the focus is going to go uh there's been a suggestion to also look at the agenda item meetings which
179is something the County Commissioners do here they have two meetings a month and then about two days they have an agenda item meeting two days before their meeting where they have all the people that are needed not just the County Commissioners but all the people that from their staff that needs put input and then they meet together during the day and then they have the two meetings of the month and that's something that we're looking at also and trying to figure out how to arrange that if we do decide to do that um one of the decisions or discussions that we have and this is probably something that's just as important as how long these meetings go is the problem that we've had with having our meeting the same night as the in this case
180it's the city council meeting which also actually takes place also on Tuesdays um um and then according to State Statute if we meet we're supposed to be meeting on Monday nights unless there's a reason we can't and right now the reason we're not meeting on Monday nights is because the County Commissioners are meeting so there is a discussion about figuring out some way either Shifting the weeks the we've already pretty much eliminated trying to change the days of changing it in such a way that it works with the general office staff who also need to be present to answer questions and help both with the agenda meeting and these meetings and um what we're doing now so that's work we're going to be looking into and that's why unfortunately we could not make any decisions
181right away this is that was uh I guess our first meeting um that was our first meeting that we had but we did Cover a lot um as I said policy is also part of this uh but policy actually will come about and this is the way it's decided from Schoolboard decisions so we're trying to gather all the information we can to present to you so uh you can access what is best for the district and then make a decision and from there the policy even though we're looking at something tonight might even change further down the line in the next I would hope in the next couple months because we need to do this as fast as possible right now we have four people on the committee myself Mr uh bolair uh Dr Smith
182thank you very much Dr Smith and uh Dorian uh karti who is actually a member of our community and is very involved uh with the schools and so we're we're trying to get all kinds of voices without making it too big um that we can't get something done rapidly we do want to do this pretty fast so and by the way any of you other board members you've already said a lot about the meetings being hopefully long you've heard what I just said and you've thought about this too we're going to talk about it later in policy because we will be changing the format and that will probably roll into what we end up doing but think of what you think would be the best way we do this I want your input too CU
183you're the guys that are going to be in this also okay and and you know you don't have to come to the meeting to give it to us just give it to us and then you know individually and then we can talk about it or you can come to meetings the meetings are open to the public um they're going to be do done Zoom so please come and view it and if you have any input please let us know because this is a very important decision so we can make good decisions because about this time of night now if we have to make any heavy decisions I dare say it's probably not the best because of the length of the day and all you know everybody has had a full day already okay uh yes
184was is there any questions I saw your hand up there uh yeah uh Mr Justice when's your next meeting pardon when is the next meeting oh I had it written down it is let me see if I have the sheet of paper I have you happen to have it Dr Smith yeah because I notice the piece of paper I have with me isn't the one I wrote it down on sorry about that she she did make notes of it though 10 11 thank you very much so please if you'd like to view and you give input um but we you know we want to work on this and focus on this and get it done because I know everybody here would benefit from the a different uh format than we have now okay so any
185other questions right thanks okay thank you very much M Justice next item on the agenda consensus items Personnel report Dr Coker good evening Madam chair board members um I would like to present to you the Personnel report for your approval the period covering January 26th 2021 to February 25th 2021 all right is there a motion to approve the Personnel report Mr boier is there second thank you Mr mcmanis I think one any discussion all right all those in favor say I I opposed all right personel report is approved thank you very much next up on the agenda in Old business policies for second reading policy committee chair Mr Boer Madam chair thank you very much um we have several policies on the agenda I know we discussed many of them during first reading um just
186to call the board's attention to policy 4316 uh a new student dress code but I know everybody would probably like to begin with a discussion of policy 4300 and to that end um Miss krael and I have asked Miss vum to um draft some different language to uh amend policy 4300 so um if you could pull that up and we will discuss and I believe the same exact language will be added to policy 4351 as well right side about four thata what's that need was let's see M Crill did you see did we put it in there we the um I know we added it did we actually add it we didn't add it yeah can you pull up the email do you have it I can pull up the email uh sure uh yeah
187that' be great okay so let me find Julie okay so um in this with the where we would change we would add additional wording um everything else that you see in the policy online in assembly stands as um stands but if you go to it's on page three um section D consequences for violations number one under minor violations actually yeah and in paragraph two right the the first sentence says um violations of the code of student conduct may result in disciplinary measures or responses up to and including short-term suspension and after that we would add the words teachers and students deserve School environments that are safe supportive and conducive to learning creating a supportive School in climate and decreasing suspensions requires close CL attention to the social emotional and behavioral needs of all students School
188administrators will utilize Positive Behavior Support alternatives to suspensions and only use out of school suspensions as a last resort thank you Miss krael and I'll just briefly Begin by thanking Mr wbore thanking our attorney Miss stagner thanking M krael um when these policies come to us they have been vetted by the North Carolina School boards Association they have been been vetted by their legal team they've been vetted by our Administration and what you see what we see and the policy committee is our first look at them um so we're not just throwing these together um I want to publicly associate myself with every remark uh that some of our speakers have made with regards to a huge problem with equity in terms of short-term suspensions uh that being said I I do not believe in
189any blanket policy and I think it's important I think there are moments where it is actually beneficial to a student uh to have a day have two days and Mr wildbore added language to make sure that when that student comes back that we have processes in place to bring them back and reintroduce them have a good conversation um I I definitely share the concerns I I don't believe that the best solution in this case is a blanket policy so um with that you know I'm open to any discussion on policy 43000 and that added language I would like to just speak to you know that part that I that I did ask to be added in that you know to to suspend a child and then just to bring them back to a classroom just
190doesn't make a lot of sense but bring them back to to support them to find out you know to obviously I think we want to be pre uh proactive on the front end and be able to come up with another solution and that's why I think that the wording is it makes a lot of sense to say as a you know a total Last Resort but I think it is also important that on those those few occasions when that has to happen that um that we are able to support that child upon re-entry and in the families too you know maybe bring the families in and talk through those situations Miss Justice well I agree that a blanket statement is not at this point useful just because we don't have systems in place to make
191that statement be able to be carried out in a effective way it's we need a lot in this District as far as training understandings uh systems in place so that from you can even go back to the pre centers from the time kids enter School the teachers the staff the students the families they need to all be working together in the same goal and one thing is definitely not to have kids out of school but there's so many different things that we're not implementing that are known some of them have some people have talked about it today we received received emails about it there's an awful lot that we could be doing that we're not doing and there was a awful lot that was known in this district for many decades and was not implemented
192when I was here in the 90s uh we were doing some of the similar training that was just talked about tonight um after an election I think after I left things went away um a lot of it is sadly politics and I don't want that to be here because we're not you know I don't think we're here for political reasons we're here for the kids we do need to we do need to uh I mean right now we revisit policy but this is something that we need to put on our radar right now and keep on our radar we need to have all these different um understandings of how to effectively work with kids of all Races and we need to look at who our teachers are who our schools are what our culture is
193what we're implementing now what we need to be implementing how we're working with the community how we're working with the kids that's very complex it isn't easy so a blanket statement isn't going to answer the problem the problem is complex I would say let's get a committee together we already have one it's the equity committee to a certain extent but we need a commitment from this board to do this right we need a commitment from everybody in this District to do this right and that's what these people were asking for tonight we need to start doing this right by all of our kids because we haven't been those statistics scream and it's a problem across the country it it really is this is not just new han County that's got this this problem and it
194it's you know part of it is race but there's also socio economic factors cultural factors so um you know as I said a blanket statement you can't implement it if you don't have the tools to do it right I agree but we do need to definitely revisit this and I think maybe the best people right now to take it up is the equity committee but you need to you know we from this whole board we need a commitment to do what's right by our kids per I I support the statement that Miss kble shared this evening and I would like to see that added into the policy yes Madam chair I believe we will also add it into 4351 as well um right and then and she showed us where that would be we can
195show them if people want to look at that but one thing I wanted to mention too that also came from um this discussion is that this has is a priority um from Dr fa and um Julie Gnam in her department and LeSean Smith in her Department it's it's a priority for everybody but we um we we can't have at this point in in my opinion we can't have a no suspension policy at this point in time no suspension at all without any programming and training to do that because if we were to start it tomorrow what would we do with a child that um might be suspended for you know um personal for personal safety reasons um we might unint intentionally be putting a child right into the prison to school pipeline school to prison
196pipeline that we're trying so hard to work our way out of with the um Justice partnership so um you know Dr fa has had meetings with you know community members with the NAACP every um teachers you there's there's lots of training that needs to go and every comment that was made by the folks from the audience tonight has also been discussed from my standing in central office work teams with Dr fa with the community so your comments are all spoton and we recognize that but um like Miss Justice said we can come back and change the wording perhaps when we have some plans that we can do something positive everything you said was noted it's already on the radar so that is kind of where the policy committee was because we discussed that you know
197in the policy and we've discussed it outside the policy Equity committee has discussed it um so but I did also want to sort of reiterate that we there's two different suspension issues that we're dealing with in the middle of this no suspension policy we're dealing with the process of suspending any kid but we're also compounded with the um the kids who are suspended there is a disproportionate amount of minority students being suspended so that's a it's it's not a separate issue but it's an issue within an issue so there's lots of different things that we have to put in place and um I don't feel like anybody in this room at this table at those tables in the community disputes any of that so that's why the statement for right now and and no suspension
198is being offered to the board for consideration well if there's no other discussion thank you very much Miss crel Dr F Miss waram thank you very much for your leadership and for taking all those meetings this past week um I will entertain a motion at this time to adopt policy 4300 4351 and the remaining policies up for second reading as amended right you've heard the recommendation is there a motion moved yeah second second all right any other discussion Miss curious is I think the discussion the centers around I know there's a lot of good work and time you guys have put into this with the wording and I think that's really well noted I just I feel like I don't know um it's it's definitely not set in stone policies are things that we can
199change and craft later on especially as we get to our strategic planning we get the work done with the equity audit and the groups that we're working with and then I say we revisit this probably by summer maybe even when we have some of more information and some more things that we can get from the community input wise and um we can revisit it if we need to and also all the different different programs so we've talked about bringing in to train to understand to deliver support Health all those things need to be included in this so I agree with Stephan about you talk to the stakeholders and teachers yeah and also just so folks know that um we we talked about this last time but we couldn't approve any of the 4,300 series um
200without having 4,300 because every one of them referenced 4300 and um we are required by State Statute to have a discipline policy so we are working hard to get that discipline policy P which is you know 4,300 and then all of those kinds of things go into a student handbook um code of conduct whatever we call it and that is required to be available to every student and family at the beginning of the school year so we we have everything is sort of the wheels are all rolling so we've got to do that and we we did take a hard look at all the other policies um as far as and and they are they're just dealing with behaviors in general um so that and they all link back to 4,300 so just so folks
201know that we did um two different times look through the 4300 series the central office looked at it first policy committee looked at it second with the guidance of central office then um and then we brought it for first reading and then we went back and we looked again based on convers St so these have been looked at several different times so we're not hastily going through and saying let's just broad strr these we we've looked at them we've had you know Deborah look at them we've had McKenna from the North Carolina School boards Association um so we are in line with what we're doing right now and it's sort of given us our guidepost on where we need to go with with training so just so folks know that so if I can just
202clarify because there are multiple policies that are listed here as part of this motion this is the 4,000 series is that correct it's um policies from January 12th February 2nd and then additional policies from December 8th and February 2nd and January 5th that's correct all right first and the second clarification yes didn't you say 4,300 that was your motion or did you say all of them and the additional all of in addition is there another one we can talk about or is this which one would you like to discuss well I know one was brought up about the restraint and um seclusion and restraint I didn't know if we need to have I would go I mean I'm happy to have that discussion I didn't feel a need and I don't think there was an
203appetite among a policy committee to change it um you somebody said you guys are going or mentioned that we were going fast I can promise you and if anybody who watch anybody who watches our board meetings would totally believe that we are going excruciatingly slow through these policies we are being extremely detailed so when we bring them forward to you I mean definitely ask the question but we we were very comfortable with what we saw there but I I you know I appreciate the concern but we were comfortable well maybe this is a good time to have a discussion about restraints and and we can absolutely have that discussion um but please lead it I wasn't prepared for that nobody asked me to pull that policy for discussion the number is so I can look
204it up for our discussion 4302 d r okay yeah let's look it up for discussion I won't really have much to add to it well restraints can be under the wrong hands used by the wrong people extremely dangerous I know I've seen it done and I've seen kids hurt um and I'm also very concerned about these restraint rooms uh this is the first district I ever worked in and I've worked in many other districts and I've talked to other people that has these restraint rooms they're left over from the past um I just have a a lot of concern about our our Behavior around restraints so that was let's see here say that again yes m dagner I I would just say that the policy that is uh been presented tracks the legal requirements for
205seclusion and restraint in North Carolina and that law was adopted to address some of the um abuses that that were occurring that got a lot of publicity Nationwide um several years ago the state adopted this statute uh to address different types of restraint and seclusion and our the policy that's been presented really tracks that statute um so you know I can I've got the statute here if there are any questions but I and and I think probably someone like Miss vnum could could address the substance of it she would um are our principles trained in Restraint in passive restraints oh yeah go ahead go yeah because I I do want to know more about this believe it or not this sort of became an area I found out a lot about over my career yes
206so we have teams at each school that are trained and most often it does include administrators um at least one administrator in the building um and then also other student support staff and the training happens annually through Crisis Prevention Institute all right but not all of our our principles are trained in restrain capacity safety right so I can't necessarily tell you that every single principal and every single assistant principal are trained it might be the case in most schools but at least one of them is but we do make sure that every school has administrators and student support staff trained they have a team of of trained folks in every building okay uh one one of the parents did bring up something about possible tie downs with students is that something that we do um
207we do not use mechanical restraint um did you say tie down or some kind of okay so I think what was what was spoken about was mechanical restraint we do not use mechanical restraint as a um seclusion and restraint technique um technically a student that is in an assisted chair that might have a physical disability is in a mechanical restraint but it's not to restrain them it's to support them but we don't use mechanical restraint as far as um discipline is concerned and these are really um anytime a seclusion or restraint is used um we train our staff to do that of course as a last resort but only when there is danger of or imminent danger of um self harm or harm to others and you try absolutely to find the people that are
208the experts in this area before you allow people the other staff members to touch a child in such a way yes our training process in the district is you utilize one of the trained team members it it's not up for anybody just to utilize um seclusion or restraint on their own and and do we have seclusion rooms we do how many do we have and uh I wouldn't have that number right off hand not every school has them but but most do and how often are they used I'm curious I wouldn't be able to answer that for you either we do um keep a record of the uses of the seclusion rooms though I'm I'm going to look at that more I'm sorry I didn't hear I I'm I'm just I see this is this
209is something that I would like that like to look more into because as I said this is the only District I've ever worked in that use seclusion rooms except in certain conditions where you had exceptional children identified as I think in this case though this is the policy around seclusion and restraint in schools and those are questions that would be good for policy committee meetings not necessarily here with the board so well Justice if you would like to vote separately on this policy I can absolutely have all the other policies adopted and then pull this out separately for a separate vote uh M Bar straightened out some of my information the information I wanted mainly about who's doing it and you know under what conditions you know the way it says we could suggest if
210you read 4302 and then make markups then we know exactly what you're having questions about right well she was very helpful thank you all right so we have a motion in a second to approve the uh 4,000 series as posted on the agenda um is there any additional well I think we've had enough discussion all those in favor say but did that motion include taking off 43 we do that separately okay but it it did include the answer if she got answer I'm sorry no she's she said she got her answers didn't she yeah I got my answers but but it should include the amendments to 4300 and 435 oh I'm sorry so we need to amend the motion to add the um verbage that Miss Crill shared into 4300 so is there 4351 and
2114351 that was my motion that the included that that was my motion so that is the motion is there a second second thank you Mr wildbore uh all those in favor say I I I I any opposed all right policies 4,000 series is approved now I'm going to make sure not to forget this Miss stagner I know you're looking at me we are going we need to uh resend the policies from 1,000 down um the ones listed at the bottom of the agenda it goes through 9600 U because these are uh with the updates we no longer need to keep these on the policies so is there a motion to resend thank you Mr mcmanis thank you Mr Buller with the second any discussion about rescinded policies all right all those in favor say I
212I any opposed say nay all right policies are rescinded next item on the agenda for old business is policy revision 2330 board meeting agenda and I will give this also again to Mr Boer Madam chair thank you very much um this changes the format of our agenda to allow for consensus items to be moved up uh right after call to the audience these would include old business and new business so for instance our discussion tonight about um calendars would probably be something we keep out of the consent agenda since it's uh information that the public has a lot of concern about or interest in but budget amendments procurement plan for Child Nutrition etc etc would be placed into a consent agenda item to be passed quickly after call to the audience this is a way
213to uh speed up our times also there will be two call to the audiences under this adopted uh agenda format call to the audience based on non-agenda items will be moved till after correspondence right before the end of the meeting this is consistent with other uh governmental bodies within new Hover County right so call to the audience the first call to the audience the beginning of the meeting would be agenda items that we are voting on so that the Community would have the opportunity to share their thoughts prior to the vote and then if it's something that is not related to the things that are on the agenda for that evening they will be moved to the end of the meeting that's correct Madam chair any discussion I would like to discuss I I I
214understand that part of it because I feel like if we're limiting to 60 minutes anyway I mean unless there's big controversial things on the agenda I don't see why we couldn't just order the things that are agenda first instead of waiting making people wait all the way to the end of the meeting for to their chance to speak I guess my answer to that would be that our staff is sitting here at 9:48 and so if there's any way we can get them out of here a bit early they don't have to stay for the second call to the audience uh and they will you know when we free them up after this consent agenda perhaps Mr Anderson won't need to be here perhaps Miss Hazel has something that consent agenda and they can get
215on with their evenings rather than being stuck here that's not I appreciate that cuz I've been trying to get that since first time uh and that's one of the things that we we will be doing when we're looking at the new format and the agenda because it is really rough in general for everybody on the other hand if we can set the meetings up in such a way that that wouldn't even have to be a consideration anymore that would help an awful lot you know know that the meetings would end at 8 or 9ine instead of ending every night well whatever again I would just add that this is in um keeping with other governmental bodies within the county system so I mean so we're not considering a work session which is open to the
216public and then a regular board that's what we're considering at the same the ad hoc committee is still discussing those options but this is for our current policy for the agenda as it stands now so the recommendation is for board approval with these edits uh from the policy committee is there a motion moved all right thank you Mr Boer thank M kille for a second thank you very much any other additional discussion I still don't understand this called audience agenda I just worry that I mean unless we change the format of meetings to make them shorter this is going to end up making people stay here for hours perhaps that's part of what we're doing in the and feel like that's coming this is coming before this even happened yet well and that's why I
217was a little you know I was wondering why we didn't wait until after we had more tonight was less than 60 minutes I believe and included both agenda and non-agenda items and I don't know I guess I just worry I mean I know we were talking about staff and everything but we haven't had a chance to really even discuss this and the implications of it I guess that's what we're doing well and as I said I was I was a little wondering why this because we know I know we talked about it during our our adoc committee meeting that we were going to be changing everything in many ways anything that came out of the committee meeting would have to have a consent agenda so we wanted to put it in there yeah and the
218consent agendas that's the one thing that we were agreeing on I have no problem that's the only thing that I feel like I have an issue with I mean it's just um the call to audience is such an important part part of it at the beginning and I feel like um throwing things to the end like that it just I think it's going to put people out that come well there's still the call to the audience it's just you got agenda items here M but what do we have like two things that's on the agenda or three things to discuss but then there's like three people that want to have to stay all the way to the end I mean if we've got 60 Minutes why can't we just use that 60 Minutes or however
219much 60 minutes we have but 60 Minutes is only our limit it's we don't have to go 60 minutes exactly that's what I'm saying then we don't have to have the second one if we have everybody to speak at the beginning I guess I'm just maybe I'm not understanding I think what we can do is um if that is the case if there's five people and two have non-agenda items I'm pretty sure Mr dagner you can correct this wrong I'm pretty sure we can make a motion to move the non-agenda items up to the regular call to the audience yes when you approve your agenda you could make any changes at that time well I say as long as that's okay with you guys and we're not like making people wait all the way to
220I don't have any problem with that all right so we have a motion and a second we what are we changing we're we're not changing anything we're still voting on The we V voting on the recommendation as presented all right all those in favor say I I all those opposed say nay new agenda or board meeting agenda policy 2330 is approved all right next item on the agenda superintendent evaluation instrument so I know we've been talking about this for for the last couple months and last month I asked for an extension on this discussion because we needed to gather additional information um the backstory is that new han County schools has been utilizing an in-house uh superintendent evaluation instrument for an extended period of time there is a state tool that is available to us
221that aligns with the evaluation tool that are utilized with central office principales and teachers and it is around um the North Carolina um standards and the discussion for tonight is to decide if our board believes that we would like to use the in-house superintendent evaluation or the state tool I've spoken with um a representative at DPI they are currently we the question was we didn't know if we had to do training and there is no mandated training for districts but there is a training that is being created right now um the video will be available April 1st and DPI has offered that after we have had an opportunity to view that training they would come to a work session and we could ask as many questions as we like to learn about the standards to
222learn about the process um and so open the board for discussion Madam chair I'd like to uh you know make the recommendation we use the state U instrument I think it has a lot more to it it's there's just so much more depth in it it gives us a lot more abilities to describe exactly uh what we think is going on so I think that that's just a a much better tool I'm in complete agreement with Mr is that a motion that is a motion all right that is a motion is there a second all right M Justice we have a second any additional discussion just one question Madam chair is our policy still in keeping with a timeline of May for the superintendent evaluation and do we need to go ahead and amend that
223in our next meeting could you move closer to your microphone s all right yeah is our policy still in keeping with I believe our policy still stipulates a May timeline for the superintendent's valuation so I'll just we need to go ahead and get that um I think we're going to need to change that to a different time one I will let Miss stagner weigh in on that conversation I agree that you will need to um either wave or amend the policy on the superintendent evaluation timeline U because there are steps as far as a self- evaluation and then the board's evaluation so those things I wouldn't imagine can be done by May um so one option would be to have that policy at the policy committee meeting and move that out of order order to
224go ahead and get that in place that would be fun that would be great and just one other item I believe Dr F your contract allows you to weigh in on this discussion as well and so I'd like to know what are your thoughts on this tool versus our in-house tool so I would definitely ask will highly recommend that in order to use the state one everyone has to be trained on how to use this one um because it's just not a check box um there's artifacts that take place and it's rather extensive versus one that the board has used in the past so um yeah I I definitely if if we're going to do it then we've got to give the and I'll say the Equitable side that you can't just jump to this
225more difficult one where in the past you used a really blanket easy one that was used so I definitely want us to sit down and talk about and look at the goals and make sure that um we as a unit understand what the goals are and that that aligns the conversation that I had with Dr Simmons at CP at DPI um you know she said this really should be a partnership especially in the beginning because it is new to us and it's going to be extensive and so you know with uh Dr fa doing the self- evaluation then sitting down as a group to go through it together um to move through it so I I think that's great so we have a motion and a second well U and I'd like to add this
226too luckily there's several of us on here that's worked with a similar instrument in the past and been trained on and I'm more than happy to be trained on this one too but that just that's going to help when we go through the process so it's not unknown to quite a few of us here yeah that other one isn't a lie I mean oh we're not talk I'm not talking about the other it's outdated so we'll definitely it's it's I promise you it's different and there's no room for comment so you explain why you just pulled a number out absolutely all right we have a motion and a second to select the uh North Carolina State superintendent evaluation tool uh all those in favor say I I those oppose say nay all right new tool
227has been adopted thank you very much new business 2021 2022 school calendars Dr Smith people are very excited to find out these dates yes good evening um again to all of you um it is my pleasure to bring before you um the recommendation of the school calendar committee um for the adoption of the 2021 excuse me 2021 2022 school calendars um as you know the district has seven calendars that we bring before the board um typically annually um and I'll just highlight these and then I'll give a little space and and place for Mr Boer to to share as well um the Traditional School calendar will begin on August 23rd um it opens the year with nine teacher work days we've talked quite a bit about the need for teacher training um this def definitely
228makes um that opportunity available to teachers um I will also say that these calendars are not with they're they're definitely not perfect um so there aren't there so they're not without some sacrifices um it was very much prioritized that we would end the first semester prior to going home for the winter break um so with that we tried to get as many student days as we could prior to Le um in December for the winter break um that causes an imbalance in our in our semesters but our teachers and our members of our um committee were well aware of that um we also with our traditional calendar will be able to end that first um year or the school year um prior to the Memorial Day holiday um the calendar consists of 23 teacher work
229days this is probably more teacher work days than we we've ever had and again it provides that opportunity for teacher training we want our teachers to um have the opportunity to develop their skill set to build out their toolkit so that they're in the best position they can to meet the needs of our our students however they present themselves and so this calendar definitely takes that into um account um with our yearr round calendar we start the year school year for students on July 4 14 and we end on junee 9th that very much mirrors that calendar as it was prior to covid-19 um with restart again we have two schools that have that flexibility within our district they begin on August 3rd they end on June 9th and then we have the calendar for
230Isaac bear Early College High School begins on August 3rd ends on May 18th and then we have the calendars for wex and ctec and they begin on August 5th and end on May 20th um happy to answer any questions that you have and definitely Mr Buller any comments that you'd like to share Dr Smith have done this three years now and if there's one thing I've learned serving with you and your wonderful team on the calendar committee it that time is valuable and precious and in that vein I will withhold any further comment and just add my thanks all right any other discussion by members of the board I can't believe we have so many calendars but I mean I I know we need them we used to have none I know I know this
231is this improv consolidate it yes yes it's gotten better so you've heard the recommendation to approve the 2021 2022 school calendars is there a motion move thank you Mr Bullard second with Mr wior any other discussion thank you for your work Dr Smith and calendar committee all those in favor say I I those opposed say nay all right calendars are approved thank you very much thank you thank you next item on the agenda are the budget amendments Mary Hazel small thank you um tonight I'm presenting three amendments um state general fund and other restricted Revenue funds the state revisions include um well net to a decrease of $36 ,36 um along with transfers that are between several different purposes for the Corona virus Relief Fund grants um we had an opportunity to transfer some funds
232to um make sure that we avoided reversion and to use all those dollars because um during that period of time they kept changing the rules on what we could use it for so we we tried to to make sure those dollars were maximized also um general fund was just a net um increase of $7,150 which was a combination of a carrier correction and FMA proceeds um the hurricane earlier in the year and then um also had um transfers which were pretty substantial of over a million dollars um with the which resulted from a redistribution of our County appropriation because our enrollment went down Charters went up so we had to kind of realign that that budget and then finally we received a $115,000 donation from Duke Energy giving foundation for student iPads any question any
233discussion from board members or question back you said Charters went up say Charters went up yes charterers went up not as much as we went down um but they I can't remember the exact number but they went up over 350 students I think and we went down over a th000 students so um the redistribution of County funding had to be done I should have done earlier but we got to it um but we have been a a appropriating funds to them during the year at the appropriate level so the recommendation is for the budget amendments submitted to be approved is there a motion moved thank you Mr Buller is there a second second thank you Miss Walker any other discussion right all those in favor say I I I opposed thank you all right budget
234amendments are approved thank you next up procurement plan for Child Nutrition program Mr Eddie Anderson thank you um tonight we're asking for your approval of a updated procurement plan for Child Nutrition this was uh initiated by North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and our Child Nutrition audit uh summary of The U revisions is on the first page and um we said tonight we ask for your approval all right you have heard the recommendation is there a motion so moved all right thank you Mr bullier is there a second second thank you Mr wildbore any other discussion right all those in favor say I I I oppose say n all right procurement plan is approved thank you thank you sir and you're not going anywhere so I guess you're you've got the next item too don't
235you all right Waterstone Drive dedication of right away Mr Eddie Anderson thank you uh tonight we're asking for the board to approve a RightWay dedication along uh Waterstone Drive adjacent to Porters Neck Elementary School um this dedication will allow the U state department of public transportation to accept the road into the state system and assume uh maintenance responsibilities awesome that's Fant all right uh you we have a motion to to approve Mr mcmanis all right is there a second second okayy Miss Justice thank you very much any other disc session Yeah well yeah um looking at Porter's Neck where exactly is this road I'm curious cuz sure over there um Porter's Neck was actually constructed before uh started construction before water stone so if you're facing Porter's Neck with your back to uh Edgewater um
236it's on the right hand side and so that road um the school system built uh over an easement that was uh part of our purchase agreement okay so that road does serve both water stone and the school system uh we built that road in do standards so that at the end of the warranty period it could be uh dedicated okay well thank you I was picturing it all right uh so we have a first and a second we've had discussion all those in favor say I I all those opposed say nay all right recommendation is approved thank you sir next up memorandum of understanding with new Haner County Community Justice Services Department Miss Julie Barnum thank you um and I also want to recognize um director Chris Preston he's been with us all evening thank
237you for waiting for your waiting for um for our to be discussed and I also see our assistant County Manager with him Mr Bradley is well for being here that's commitment fix so this umou outlines our relationship with um Community Justice Services um they provide an array of clinical prevention and intervention programs and services targeted at um preventing and reducing crime for at risk um diverted and and offender populations within our school um system room within the county um and specifically we're working with them on Youth Empowerment Services team who serve um that population of students who are at risk delinquent or adjudicated and uh we work with them in um referring but also want them to be able to support our students one-on-one within our school setting and then also provide prevention programs within
238our school all right so thank you very much you your recommendations for approval correct all right is there a motion to approve the okay second I'm sorry who was the first sorry Mr wior all right Mr wior with a second from Mr Buller is there any discussion it's great we appreciate the partnership and thank you very much for the services provided for our students in our district all right all those in favor say I I any opposed it is approved thank you thank you very much partners with the county thank you all right next item memorandum of understanding with Coastal Horizons and you see a lot ofus we have with Coastal Horizons um this one is coming um maybe at an odd time of the year but we will get this on a different cycle
239this mou outlines our relationship with Coastal Horizons for the um provision of our day Treatment Services um that occur on the campus of Lake Forest which is right here behind you for students in kindergarten through 8th grade this is a service that we've been providing for quite some time um we're just um fine-tuning our mou um with more up toate standards per our um relationship with darington Smith All right so you've heard the recommendation is there a motion moved thank you Mr bullier second second thank you Miss Walker any discussion right we appreciate our Partnerships with Coastal Horizons as well all right all those in favor say I all those opposed mou is approved thank you thank you all right final agenda on new business is the April regular board meeting uh so our April
240regular board meeting is currently scheduled during the week of Spring Break um when many of our uh Educators staff will possibly be taking a well-deserved break so um it has been suggested and we've done this in previous years of moving the board meeting one week um to schedule it for Tuesday April 13th um so that is the recommendation is there a motion motion I think she had firsty Miss Judy Justice with the motion and with a second second all right Mr wildbore any discussion sounds good all those in favor say I I those oppose say nay all right April board meeting has been moved until Tuesday April 13th thank you very much next item is correspondence does anyone have any correspondence they would like to share this evening just like to tell my wife that
241I will probably be home before she gets to sleep tonight I got a lot of questions go for it Mr MCM all right next item on the agenda announcements the following are upcoming meetings in which board members are participating Equity diversity and inclusion committee meeting on Monday March 1st at 5:00 p.m. and Monday March 15th at 5 p.m yes I think we've struck the second meeting in the eied committee thank you very much Miss buoy if you could note that please in our announcements thank you uh the board has a work session scheduled for Friday March 5th at 10:00 a.m. policy committee meeting will be held on Tuesday March 9th at 9:00 a.m. joint meeting with the new Haner County Board of Commissioners will be held on Wednesday March 10th at 400 p.m. board Master
242training will be held on Friday March 12th at 11:00 a.m. Title 9 committee meeting will be on Monday March 15th at 3 p.m. and our interim board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday March 16th at 5:30 p.m. I do not believe that we have any need for a closed session did you want to mention um we've already said it once tonight but the ad hoc committee that Miss Justice oh is on March the 10th and 11 all right March 10th and 11 is going to be the ad hoc committee for the board processes and Madam chairman I'll I'll be a part of the uh Parks and Rec committee meeting tomorrow at 8: a.m. oh fantastic can't wait to hear about it that's that's another reason to change these late meetings that's right I used to be
243on that I liked it so we have no use for a closed session I believe move to adjourn all right final final item move to adjourn we have a motion is there a second second thank you Miss Walker any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed everyone enjoy your evening thank you very much