001all right I'd like to call this meeting back to order and we will begin with under item number nine information item D equity diversity inclusion appendix s dr. Smith yes good evening community as well with an update on the work that we've done in the district as you may recall we present it an initial articulated scope of work in March of 2019 and this is just to provide you with where we are in that process I've placed the information and more of a document form than the previous slide presentations that I've done because we want to be able to share this publicly with the community once the board has had a chance to review so I won't read all of this to you of course but if you just follow along the highlighted items the
002first being the implicit bias training for principals you can see that we've met that expectation and we actually have now partnered with Meehan of a Regional Medical Center to provide ongoing monthly trainings face to face which is going to be facilitated by their staff the next item is the implicit bias training and we are launching that actually this month the first training is Saturday and you say training on a Saturday we are partnering with the organization called leading equity and for the first part of the training there will be 20 opportunities for teachers to take advantage of that so we have evening training online opportunities we have Saturday online opportunities we have them varied throughout the schedule because we want to make sure that this is accessible to our teachers because we believe that is
003truly truly important additionally we engaged our principals and a book study despite best intentions and this was more of a self-study on the part of our principals and the also our work group participated in this book study as well when it the additional books study culturally responsive teaching and the brain book study is the one that we're doing with mr. James Ford that is a year-long book study and as a part of that not only our principals meeting online with him once a month but they but he is also facilitating on-site three days in our schools so he will facilitate either teacher focus groups or student focus groups in in our middle and elementary well in high school that will be the student focus group in our middle and elementary it'll be the teacher focus
004group as well as observations and debriefing sessions around the work that we're doing with this particular book in the one thing that I've heard from principals in terms of how much they appreciate this work is because it's very very practical this is something that is applicable to what they're doing in schools and in their classrooms many of you encounter sessions if you'd like to sit in on one of those Oh could you please yeah let us know yes and I can share with you all the training the online training for implicit bias you're definitely welcome to attend that also the face to face sessions with the hospital we can share those dates with you as well when regards to ground water training I know you guys are very familiar with that you heard me describe
005it before right now we have about a hundred and sixty people trained within our district and within our community based on the trainings that New Hanover County Schools has provided we also have two trainings scheduled to occur on February 20th we again hope to train another 160 folks within our community and one of those trainings is actually being Co funded and sponsored by our partnership with New Hanover Regional Medical Center and I'll say this the either through the organization or folks associate it with the so through the new Hera Regional Medical Center Live Oak bank be the bridge community conversations and Cape Fear collective and step up Wilmington and so we had a partner meeting I sent out a following survey I follow up survey and these are the folks that responded some indicated that
006they could offer financial support to this some indicated that maybe they couldn't offer financial support but they wanted to support the effort and in other ways and I actually have a virtual call online call scheduled for this Friday with those folks so that we can talk about how to invite participants from their organizations who they'd like to see part of the Train because again is you remember our strategy is about community engagement it's not just about the work resting within the school system but the rest the work being done in collaboration with the community in addition we are yes ma'am okay the groundwater training I had a conflict as scheduled never got to attend the second one the second day of the training in groundwater is it a way to send out that schedule so
007people like me they could only attend one day the first time could attended a second I was actually ecwid that was the phase 1 train because ground waters one day no I did two days I did the one day and then I you know what I'm saying yes face one trainee and Julie the same session as me it was phase one I went through two sessions you may have attended ground water but then you attended the first day of phase one but not the second that's what we think so yes and actually that's the next item I'm getting ready to hear so we are also sponsoring an additional phase one training in the district with the first one we were able to Train I want to say about 30 of our principals so we want
008to make sure that we provide the opportunity to have all of them trained we're also inviting our members of our equity diversity and inclusion committee as well as our work group and then key members from our community this is again a much smaller training and the training dates are March 19th in the 20th so if you would like to attend that second day you are more than welcome thank you yes yes it's just and then also in terms of training opportunities probably and this is not really training but for those folks who are phase one trained we are engaging and continue to engage in racial equity that our racial equity discussion series and essentially these are community conversations for folks in the community who are phase one trained we meet monthly want to say huge
009thank you to Kate for Community College for allowing us to use their space we have different folks who are facilitating Maria Black was supposed to facilitate this December unfortunately there was a scheduling area where a era were rescheduling her but we'd had Francis Williams to facilitate a session Jean Bynum to facilitate a session this really is a community a community engagement strategy and for the meeting that's coming up on January 27th we have Mead Van Pelt the executive director of the Houseman Center who will be facilitating that session so we're extremely proud of that work in regards to cultural competency we've not done anything specific to that because in talking to our experts and the consultants that we're working with cultural competency really sits very nicely and what we're doing around implicit bias and also
010the work that mr. Ford is doing so we've not done anything in addition to that and then also we shared with you that we would be doing monthly principal touch points related to school improvement and of course equity and so we have continued with that in separate September we looked at culturally diverse literature in October we watched a video that was in time entitled the sound of silence in November the focus was on whether or not our teachers or talent scouts versus see versus efficiency detectives in December we talked about the opportunity myth and in that myth assumes that students have consistent opportunities to work on great appropriate also the myth talks around whether or not students are being engaged deeply in in the learning so there are a lot of myths around learning that
011exist and so we're educating our principals to be aware of that and then in January the presentation which the others have primarily been led by mr. Thoreau is going to be talking about defensive pessimism which essentially comes from deficit thinking and it's a strategy that can be used with dependent learners when when when folks want to explain or predict their lack of achievement or outcome so we want to make sure that we're educating their principals so we're using every month that our principal meetings as opportunities to do that so that they then take that back to their schools and make sure that we're responding to children in an appropriate way just a little bit of an update on the equity work group the work group is continuing to meet we meet monthly we have thirty
012members of school staff that are a part of that group and our current parties right now are on our student student engagement strategy so how can we engage students in this work the equity diversity and inclusion board committee right now we're meeting most often twice a month but in January were just going to be meeting once that committee consists of 18 members of school staff and the committee and our current parties are around policy procedures SMART goals and metrics in school culture and community inclusivity and then also we are working now to continue to develop our partnerships I mentioned to you our work with step-up Wilmington you had a Regional Medical Center also I would be remiss and mentioned and not mentioning the bridge Church who is actually donating there's their meeting space for us
013for our phase 1 training as well as our ground water training so they are a partner with us in this work as well also with the EDI Committee if you will go to the board website and go under committees each month we are posting a video summary a videocast and they are incredible I have to admit I've not done one that's why they're incredible that anyway but they are incredible in capturing what's happening at our meetings and you know I was just talking to mrs. Lisa miss Estep and she was saying you know we've got to meet and talk about what we you know what we met about said you've got to see the video the video explains it so much better than I could so there is such incredible work coming from a group
014of really dedicated folks around the the issue of equity diversity and inclusion in our district and then what we're looking as a projected scope of work for the 2020 2021 school year its creation of school teams equity coaches to support and sustain implementation and we're not talking about new positions and then also looking at curriculum equity audit and that is just a very brief summary but I'm glad to answer any questions you might have doing a good job [Laughter] item F exemptions from formal qualification appendix L mr. Anderson the qualification based selection for professional services that would include architectural architecture engineering surveying these include projects only when the professional fee for the project is estimated to be less than $50,000 we are not permitted to exempt projects where the fee is estimated to be over
015that there are six projects that are listed for you this is presented for information only but I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have are there any questions moving on to change order summary report Appendix A mr. Anderson yes thank you this is a annual report of all change orders on our construction contracts when the contracts are awarded within the North Carolina General Statutes 143 - 128 for formal construction and approved by the Board of Education all of these contracts along with The Associated change orders are within the project budgets again this is presented for information only as required but I'd be glad to answer any questions that you may have no questions thank you thank you item 10 superintendents report I have three quick things first is fifth and eighth grade privilege
016according to policy if if you move students and the number is below five percent of the total students moved our recent redistricting exceeds that number so I need board permission to allow for fifteen eighth grade privilege for the students next year that would be providing their own transportation and it would be for that one year only miss Barnum for students who are fifth and eighth graders but then based on our additional privilege of sibling privilege it could be upwards of 1,600 to 2,000 students our general policy has been to send one student you allow them to send both but what I would say that would be a one-year wanted to make that one-year sibling privilege while the fifth or eighth grader maintains at the school then that will probably need to be noted in the
017approval so do you all want to take this separately or together but with a max of 1500 if you include siblings so 530 are elementary or basically fifth graders 324 are eighth graders but I can break down a little bit more of it won't necessarily include all of those because the parents need to request that number right five that they can request privilege and can you separate the eight from the fifth-graders I mean you can choose you can choose to do one grade say you only if you think it's important for middle school and not elementary just you're going to do one I think it's important for both I mean this is something we've traditionally done as a district we've offered an eighth grade privilege we've all from fifth grade privilege these are kids you
018have been with their friends and I'm sure they can adjust and I'm sure they're gonna be fine I'm equally sure they're gonna be heartbroken I'm and it's why this full of that that's what I'm trying though it's one year it's a lot of students I'd like to see how it impacts are we districting how many students are we moving all together so mr. Anderson and I talked about this earlier today we're moving some we we know we're moving more than three thousand students but maybe closer to four thousand and this could potentially impact maybe not quite half that but then we also have to consider that those are the ones that could apply we also have to consider that of those numbers of the five hundred and thirty elementary for example we know that 76
019of those students are assigned to school under open choice employee benefit or employee hardship those generally won't change we know that thirty five of those students are mckinney-vento status which means they are identified as being homeless so they're their status has reassessed annually eighty percent of the elementary students are identified as having special education services and some of those would not move because their service delivery is appropriate at the school that they're they're in eighty eight ninety eighty percent eighty students of the five hundred and thirty know if it was eighty percent we have another problem and so of the middle school again we've got you know 48 under open choice or employee benefit 18 McKinney Vento and 104 are special education students so we've gotten numbers to back out but again we're still pulling
020victims on how many students we're looking at we're just saying at most you could be looking at 1,600 to 2,000 kids that's a guess because we can't identify how many siblings these kids right that's assuming that every possible privilege case is requested and and they all have one or two siblings so it's highly unlikely that that's the case but even if that many mr. Anderson and I were talking earlier and we don't anticipate an overwhelming negative impact to compacta capacity so it's really about really meeting the the parents where you know they're requesting the main maintenance and the stability of keeping their kid their final year in elementary their final year in middle school and so we don't know that it we don't have and I want him to speak more about that we don't
021know that there is a specific negative impact of capacity that is a stipulation of the privilege so they're there in our student assignment plan there's an exception and the exception is if there's an already established bus route and that is approved at the district level so that's always something that can be considered but if there's not an already established route and that wouldn't be that wouldn't be something that could be considered and some of the routes will change with all the numbers of students moving so we won't know that for a while right the first couple of weeks we would be able to determine if there's space on the bus add anise and there's an already established route so that would come much later what is the benefit of the privilege because it's did we
022do it the last time I don't recall it we did we did not do it for high school yeah okay it was during my time and we did not it was redistricting and that was that we did not honor at the elementary level and that was fun I think we did since I've been on the board but they were bigger than the small ones it's a major ones we did not I mean the kids are moving with their friends a lot of their friends are meeting with them this is the impact and should mitigate the requests Ben I would think neighborhoods going right yeah I mean the purpose of redistricting is you read district and when you start chipping away at all these different and then you have the priviledge part to OB and just
023gets very confused you know it's one year kids have been with their friends since fifth grade if they want to stay at that school with the teachers and staff that nurtured them I just feel like that's a question I know it's not fair everybody should be able to do that I wish it's not it's not the schools and I don't disagree with you it's the after-school activities that you're involved with I've become so huge to a student I mean for me I would support that one year so they can finish out their their school career at the elementary and middle with that but I think the sibling privilege is going to create more numbers than we can accommodate so you know it's not again you've said we don't anticipate any major if you have a
024parent and if you every kid in high school and middle school you're dealing with a similar situation when your kids are going to two to three yeah and you know I love children we need to treat children practically this coddling I hate to say this but kids move schools along who have no choice their families have no choice and it actually gives them an opportunity to meet new people make new relationships and when I said that our schools are good as nurturing that is just as valid as the fact that they develop relationships so it's 5050 to me one or the other they're both good options but it's it's good to to move people and to learn that you can adjust and change as a part of life I don't disagree in the macro sense
025in the micro sense I can tell you and you know that I said eighth grade is more concerning because it is much different than elementary so that to me would be something we could talk about but I also think that that is if we can make it a parental decision about whether or not they are coddling or not coddling that would be great rather than our decision to say these these children are being coddled we're not preparing them for the real world and it's what my concern is my concern is the mental health of the kids and the mental health can be enhanced by moving to other schools it's 50/50 eighth grade students I care about that makes sense because I've taught in all these different grades and that's a very that is a particularly
026change time for your development with all the different brain changes so that is something definitely to look at because they are more insecure at that age and they're about to go to high school so is there a motion on the floor or someone going to make a motion well let's just start with the eighth grade okay I move that we allow privileges for the eighth grade rising eighth grade students to remain at their school for I hope just we're here okay yeah that's that one's much more practical and I can see why from working with different age levels on that one will chip away so there's the most in the second to allow eighth grade privilege all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved let's work on fifth grade privilege and then
027we'll conquer the sibling school we do not have an idea right now on the number of siblings for those but of those 530 we've got roughly a hundred and eighty-five that fall into either open choice employee benefit mckinney-vento or special education so miss Danny Anderson those remaining students are they dispersed enough that it's not going to impact any particular school that number broken down per school but I can tell you just you know based on the overall percentages I don't see a problem with what this would do is essentially phase in redistricting over two years and I think what we've out laid is a an absolute worst-case scenario I think the actual numbers would be far less I wouldn't anticipate a problem at all all right so is there a motion to approve fifth grade
028privilege move to proof there a second I will second okay discussion time all right all those in favor say aye we have a discussion I'm very concerning about the kids that have parents that can drive them in the kids Academy is that fair and and honestly part of life is having the opportunity to have change and to learn positives from it so to me the eighth grade there's a lot more having worked with kids now this is my professional opinion and those of you that have work with kids know I'm talking about the eighth grades more of a I guess you could say difficult time fifth grade they're much more malleable and it's actually they're gonna be North appears anyway because of the neighborhoods when we're moving them and they're gonna be going to middle
029school next year anyway with their friends and they'll be making the friends that they'll be going to middle school with when they move into the fifth grade with a new school so to me it's not near as the same issue as the eighth grade again the next year you're all going to anyway go to middle school at least I'll be with their friends they're gonna have to make the new friends in the sixth grade or the fifth grade might as well do it in the fifth any further discussion I would point out yet that mr. Anderson has noted this does not really affect our redistricting and I agree with you miss Johnson it is not fair it is absolutely not fair that everybody can do it I don't want to hurt some kids out of
030the principal now why are you saying this is hurting you no I think that's your assumption I work I work with many kids and I don't feel that this is the main pluses as negatives you do so I'm sure you've seen that some people very are concerned I'm concerned about them terms I'm saying they're gonna be moving to sixth grade and they're gonna be going to middle school the news fifth grade they're moving to they're moving with the kids a lot of them with the kids in their neighborhoods and then they're gonna be making new friends and the same friends they'll be moving to middle school with so I'm not sure that it's such a tragic thing for this age group in fact I City the 50-50 I think it's just as good as it's
031bad that's my take on well based on what mr. Anderson has told us if we don't do sibling privileges I don't have a problems with the fifth graders remaining that's how I feel any further discussion hearing none all those in favor favor of fifth grade privilege say aye all those opposed posed right all right moving on to sibling privilege sibling privilege for eighth grade discussion we want to do that first and you discussion on that the difference between middle school and elementary school over the course of elementary school you've got six years span so you're going to have multiple siblings it's possible to have siblings that a greater you know far further away from each other at the middle school level you could potentially have a seventh and eighth grader going into school so they're
032gonna have to make that decision the next year anyway I don't know which potentially doing is creating a double privilege for seventh credit cuz of a sibling so then becomes an eighth grader who's allowed to finish out the year given the volatility of the age and there will be fewer siblings that close so given that I I just feel like it's the right thing to do oh well why are we redistricting I don't know it's hard it's hard to say sibling privilege for one and not the other no that's not why we're talking about now we're getting into numbers that could be scary and also there's a there here we're going in with the word privilege I like that certain people are going to be able to do this very easily they can get the
033car line with everybody else know about the kids they can agree I can't fix those problems if I could oh then yes you can in a sense why are we doing something that is going to negate the redistricting that you said you work so hard is there a motion to approve sibling privilege for eighth grade move is there a second I will second is there any further discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed no those opposed all right so it's two to three sibling per village for fifth grade move for approval we approved the fifth grade the sibling privilege but not I didn't hear that I'm sorry sibling privilege okay I will second all those in favor say aye two to three okay so you've got fifth grade
034privilege for the students only not siblings alright that'll go out when we send out the reassignment letters at the end of the month that'll be include will include those as part of the other sibling letter means part of the two other things from the superintendent reports we instituted a bus change at Holly's shelter a 15-minute time change and so far the feedback and that has been very positive mr. Andres anything you want to add that was I'm thinking about the kids I had a child who missed a bus because he hadn't hadn't remembered that's his fault this doesn't prevent a late bus it enhances our ability to respond to that and we had eight drivers out in Northern Division last Friday we were actually able to take the first two buses that returned to trash
035and into Holly shelter and split that final route what got the students home a lot earlier so it's definitely working and and we're taking advantage of it thank you yeah trans guys one of the more compacted districts so they usually finish up their routes faster all right I love happy reports C Tech has actually had its first graduate moving to Singapore and this semester Jordan Murphy and his degree was in sports management along with his high school diploma board chair persons report you have ten minutes but I don't have anything on there so it's actually zero minutes I'm 12 committee reports I'm a family Communications Committee miss Adams I'm not gonna use 15 minutes either I just would like to note the family Communications Committee has had two roundtable discussions over the past four months
036and the first one was new to New Hanover County Schools so families that were new to the district whether it was new as a kindergartner or middle school or high school or just moved new to the area the second roundtable discussion was for multicultural language families for both of those roundtable discussions we had over 30 participants from the community come we had students we had parents we had aunts and uncles and it was a really great discussion and so the purpose of these roundtables are to hear from the students that are being served and their families within our community how do we improve how do we get better are you getting the information that you need so I just wanted to say a big thank you we've got 14 members of the family communications committee
037that represent the district as well from all walks of life and and that's been having our parents and family members from the community has been super helpful too because they bring some insights that I think sometimes inside the system we don't see so to hear it from them directly in the meetings has been fantastic as well as the family members that have come in for the roundtables the thanks to Miss klegg and miss Adams they have handled the logistical pieces for the roundtables and they are fabulous and just thank you to all the families that have attended we've gotten some really great insights and we look forward to doing more of these we hold them every other month so if this month we'll be a family Communications Committee meeting but we will have another round
038table discussion in February I would like to add and it's on the agenda but I spoke with mr. jor-el Lewis who has taken over the title 9 has assumed the title 9 position and is leading that committee and the next meeting was supposed to be on the 20th which is a holiday and so we he is we talked and he wants to move that we agreed that we could move the meeting hopefully move the meeting to the 21st so that hasn't been officially announced because he couldn't get a hold of Miss Billy but miss Adams if you could take care of that that would be great at 3 it would be 3:30 right here in the Board of Ed center as long as that the room is not already reserved so that is the tentative
039date and tentative time if that needs to be updated we will certainly update every one item 13 consensus items item a personnel the pen extend dr. well MERS okay any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed it is approved item 14 old business item a immersion at porters neck elementary school appendix e dr. Smith yes I'm going to be presenting an item for the board's approval for the partnership agreement for expansion of immersion at Porter tank but prior to that we do have miss Jethro who's going to talk to you and share information in regards to the timeline for implementation as you all know miss Jethro is also the director for elementary education for the district typically this would be the role of the principal but in lieu of that
040position being filled Miss Jeff dr. excuse me dr. Jethro is taking the lead with porters neck thank you so to start the process and the timeline with porters Neck elementary school we are going to to announce the opening of the Mandarin immersion program and really we would like to to have the interest of at least two kindergarten classes with 25 children each so that we are able to start that program strong I have been on the phone this week as a matter of fact with participate to talk to them about what is next and so this is how we're going to proceed and since this was prepared for you in time for the due date for you all to receive your board materials we actually have even more information session 1 in terms of a
041parent information session is actually going to be on January 29th and we're gonna hold that at College Park elementary school because of its central location but it still mirrors that that design of porters neck working a host information session number two actually at porters Neck elementary school and that is going to be on February the 13th and both of those will be from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. and I'll definitely share that information with Miss Adams so I will facilitate that participate is willing to join us and share information I've also spoken to to Miss Lampley is the principal of Gregory because if parents have specific questions about how the kindergartners at Gregory adjusted to having a program like that she would certainly be able to speak to that as well and then to move forward
042with selecting a principal if by perhaps February and the board meeting a principal would be able to be recommended then maybe we could look toward March and I would work with them and transition this information over to them and they could pick up the next steps but still as an elementary school I'm very excited about being able to work with them and dissipate typical ten-day posting and then we would interview third or fourth week in January first and second rounds to bring you a name in February the state will fund the principal position for a brand new school in March so they can have time to plan and get the school up and running when would we have to sign a contract with participate so what we're asking for tonight is the signing of the
043service agreement so that obligates us to a commitment for Mandarin immersion at Porter's net that then allows for them to come and support us in providing us with support in the curriculum materials also hosting our recruitment they've got a recruitment tool kit that they use and then their services in building capacity around this and so they've done some preliminary work but as an organization they work with a multitude of school districts and so they can only support so many programs across the state and so by agreeing to the service contract then that obligates them to support a program expansion here in New Hanover County um yes ma'am well are there other groups who do this or is this the only to the organization that works with immersion programs so there are other groups that that
044do this participate based on my knowledge and understanding it's probably the more established in North Carolina they have a very they have a proven track record with us here in New Hanover they have a proven track record across the state there are mic experience in talking with other organizations that do this work typically there are folks who have at some point work for participate which used to be known as vif they then break off and create their their own organization but if we want to go and have support from someone who has proven himself in this history industry then then this would be the the leading vendor for this type of service in in the in the state I'd like to apologize because up to this point I had not really been that focused on
045demand during program at porters neck but I have received emails and calls and parents and concerned citizens over the last couple weeks and I did not realize that it to me that it is of a concern because of its location at porters neck that there are schools very much like Gregory not the only ones they could benefit from my magnet program that could possibly help with some of the issues we're having with the high poverty levels and those schools Porter's and it does not have that issue at all when it does finally open it's not gonna have even a free and reduced lunch probably of 30 percent you know from what we didn't even talked about tonight so you know the opportunities for magnet programs just like it is Gregory should be used wisely and
046and to help the district as a whole so at this point I know that you have talked about porters neck and in fact we planned on Porter's neck but is it would it be impractical to maybe step back a little and look at other school locations possibly place this program that would be very useful in bringing in higher income parents into schools that are struggling with doing that because Porter Tech does not have that issue I won't have that issue and in fact it actually has one of the reasons to put an important reporters neck is to attract just the opposite of what's there I'm afraid if I put it in a school near Gregory then I'm gonna detract from the program it's that Gregory about Sunset Park again location wise that's pretty close to
047Gregory and my concern is if I put a program there am I going to take students out of a out of Gregory which is already by putting it up reporters neck and providing transportation to those students I'm trying to find a way to deal with some of those we talk about getting students to go to those schools to help with some of the issues that it's not free we just like here's a way to open up a program to folks outside of the porters Neck district and with that school well I don't know how much that's gonna have an impact on the students that need to be exposed to these opportunities there needless to say be most likely the students up there and students that have that whose parents are not so tied down daily
048challenges that we'll be able to do that with their kids is it going to be transporte do they have to provide their own transportation well in and I can cheer that we did have some additional conversations with other schools about immersion not specifically Mandarin and part of the concerns were if you started at an existing school you will actually have to displace teachers and students and that was a really hard lesson that we learned with Gregory and even though we worked through attrition we did displace kindergarten teachers at Gregory and so by beginning at a new school then this becomes a part of the culture of that school and different from Gregory you would have the non immersion track as well as the immersion track so so so we did consider and again not specifically
049Mandarin but additional immersion programs but there we're concerns about displacing students and then also displacing teachers and employees as well what about preferences is there some way that we can build in a preference for for these for these more challenged students yeah we can we can wait a lottery in the neighborhoods like was outside the controversial part and and that is one of the other reasons about signing the agreement now if you know if possible because I believe this is the third time that we've had some discussion at the board level in regards to it but with that then we would have the resources of participate to help us move into the community so that we could begin to actively recruit very intentionally recruit I surely could see us connecting with how and Johnson and
050you know having those early conversations with those families about the opportunities that learning a second language would provide to their children restrictions so if you look at Gregory we we recruit we we we want eighty four eighty kids a year to come into Gregory as a as a kidney garden class and that's a twenty kids per class well we actually had more than eighty last year and we so we averaged 22 in the class and class size restrictions for non-emergent classes is capped at eighteen it's a hard time eighteen so you can do that and then also with Gregory even you know if we had gone with classes caps who would have had a waiting list of sixteen and then also a principal Lampley shared with me that after the school year started she had
051even more families approached her so you know we we intentionally try to mitigate the waiting list because we understand how incredible an opportunity this is for children and so if parents want it for their child if we can't accommodate we tried to in and be as inclusive and actually avoid the lottery quicken your question yes their curriculum question I noticed when you were going through the first slide this is gonna be a 90/10 model and that's originally what Gregory started as and it's changed so learning magic isn't very different than learning Spanish I just yeah yeah so most programs are either 90 10 or 85 15 and then they continue throughout and then what happens in second grade is you actually bring on in an English ela period so they'll still get Mandarin they'll still
052get ela in Mandarin but then they'll also get ela in English and again that's one of the benefits of working with an organization that has done this successfully in a lot of different places because they've done the research they've you know we're planning to go visits you know in in for our school visits we want to bring parents who are interested parents who are skeptical parents who never thought that this would be you know something that they might consider for their for their children and so they have access to schools in Cumberland County and other places that are doing this and we have access to those principals and so you know it helps us to implement this effectively from year one as opposed to kind of finding our way of way along the way so
053what's the middle school plan then well you know I would love to be able to initiate the kindergarten plan but it surely could dovetail into two of our high schools I'm gonna completely skip middle school how about that so definitely could dovetail into two of our high schools because we do have well we well we've got our program at a Hager with that IB that has a track for Mandarin and then we have what we're doing at New Hanover high school now that of course would have to change tremendously to be responsive to these children but I surely could see these children either matriculating back to Willis - well - Gregory and we would we could make that middle school program much much more robust because right now it's not immersion it is language acquisition
054but because those children have come through immersion you know when they get to the high school they are fluent in Mandarin just after three years of language instruction but there's also the consideration for middle school program and I think we are wide open as a district in terms of where that that could be because the Mandarin that Gregory was kind of a it was an organic process - the parents had gotten when you were gonna build out the KA and so we initially when the other thing he was going to be k-8 Spanish all the way but those payments when they got that when they got there said my kids kind of burnt out on Spanish and with like a different language so that's when we brought in the Mandarin piece and that came that
055was an outgrowth of the parents at the school and what they did and to be honest it was not something we originally thought but it's been a great success well you know I also say that our williston students not our gregory students but our williston students who have been able to take advantage of manager have really enjoyed that but as Gregory continues to build it's gonna eliminate those opportunities so we surely could look at expanding possibly you know language acquisition still being at Gregory but immersion being at Wilson and I don't want to start any rumors about what's good thing but well what and what I would say in response is if you commit to kindergarten by the time your child's in third grade I would give you I will provide to you a very
056well articulated program because it helps us to see what our numbers are what our attrition is and how sustainable it is I have some of the same concerns as Mr Justice I don't and it's not the site per se it's that I honestly haven't been convinced that Mandarin is something that we need not virgin in general what I'm not saying no I'm saying I really haven't been convinced and two of our board members out with some of the concerns I have about the viability the continued viability of the program at Williston and Gregory I I would ask to table this until we have a full board I just I think we're we're moving very fast I understand the desire to do it I just haven't been convinced that Mandarin is the right language what I
057would say is I believe that if we table it then that eliminates our opportunities to do anything in terms of engaging parents in the conversation prior to that recruitment window if we if this was something that we wanted to do this year and so then if we did it the following year then we would find ourselves displacing folks so again you know we we were very immersed in training I'm sorry in terms of the time of this issue this is not a new issue this is something that when we that we've talked about it's been multiple board agendas and it it's an idea that I've floated out there well over a year ago this is probably one of the one of the longest-running thoughts that we've had in terms of knowing this what this was
058coming so this is not something that's a new issue per se I know I've addressed the concern that knowing whether or not we actually have the interest in the in in those and knowing that we have the numbers for those class sizes you know I've spoken about that and one of the continuing concerns I've heard voiced speaking about the IB program is the numbers inside the program are much less than the numbers outside the program because you just you you have attrition you have kids that say they're going to sign up and then don't and so there's a resource inequity and I I don't want to see that develop here if we're you know we're signing a contract for $50,000 before we know we actually have the interest and I am I am concerned about
059that I get the timeline but the timeline and we're being asked to sign this before we know we have any interest whatsoever so we're committing to it so I'm I'm I'm concerned about that and then I want to make sure that we also answer the questions that that have been raised by the Gregory parents that they are concerned that that you know it seems like maybe resources are going to be they perhaps siphoned from from Gregory or questions not addressed by Gregory so I want to I want to reassure them but I also want to make sure that we are going to be able to fill those classes if we're gonna commit to this we got to have we got to have the students could you clarify how the decision how did this decision come
060to Mannering well we we already have a Spanish program and so to compete with what we're offering at Gregory because it is building into a very successful program and so I don't want a language that's going to compete with them so it's got I wanted a language that was different but a language also that has value to somebody who has that skill when you think about the world at large what's the number what's the most spoken language in the world and it's Mandarin Chinese and in terms of business and the ability to give a student a skill that's going to give them a leg up Mandarin and Spanish are the two languages that do that and that's the two also thinking about sustainability across this the state there are other successful programs across the state
061and then also the success existing Mandarin services at Gregory as well so those were definitely factors to help inform the decision that went into selecting this so we surely could have looked at far seas or other languages but those resources and that sustainability just as it's not as established in in North Carolina so we would be definitely a little more on the cutting edge and we would be really treading new ground if we were to choose one of one of one of those existing permits but I mean we surely could have looked at Fringe we could have looked at Battalion but again there were those programs have not been evidenced in the work that I've done the schools that I visited across the state so that's again what helped us to inform and land on
062on mandarin what about interest though you're right how much interest is there we don't how we know I just want I mean if you're using Gregory as an example well almost like apples and oranges since this is such a different language in a different location I would hate to be using resources when we have so much need in our district already in other areas I think all your concerns and questions are valid I again you know we're not going to be able just what backing up just a little bit thinking about Gregory you know if you were part of those conversations a part of those meetings whether you know you were on the board or a community or just folks sharing their concerns and you know comments with you the turning point really for Gregory
063from my perspective was when we were able to take some of the folks who had the greatest concerns who are going to be most impacted by what was happening in terms of the transition from Forest Hills to Gregory with emergent to schools in Fayetteville so where parents could see children that look like their children speaking Spanish interacting in a classroom where the that was the only language that they that they spoke that was really a turning point so what I would say is in being able to really answer the question about interest it's going to be really hard to do until we're able to connect with families and start doing some of these site visits bringing some of the resources to the district so that we can engage them in this conversation in a very
064informed way so yes I agree with the rationale for Mandarin I know that it is a business language I think it's gonna be very helpful I think though this is the cart before the horse because you don't know what the porters Neck parents are going to feel about this as a district attorney I mean I I think it's a great language I think it's a great option but we have no idea how they're gonna feel about this option that's my only concern that there's a little I think it's very valid really we have so much need in other areas in this district if it doesn't start off very successful and we have put all this energy and money resources into it that's not going to help our situation with in the future if we've got
065something that will be more you know that you can tell will be practical on what work being able to convince people so I'm very mixed about this normally we don't vote on anything in a work session but because we are missing two board members who may have comments or concerns or need more could we table this for it and add it to our work session agenda getting more information that you didn't have a chance to give to us the time we email survey phone survey from the parents that are gonna be there next year you know something and just to the general district would you be interested for you don't have well you won't want part of doing this is to get beyond just the established districts who will have to survey beyond there may
066be some idea on how to address the concerns at Gregory just to reassure the parents there that this will not this will not take away from what is it going on in their schools well and I've spoken with the principal and I know she spoke specifically with one parent and I also spoke with that one parent and and that's the only parent that I've heard from directly so yeah but yeah but but you know our intention is not to take any to take any resources from Gregory in order to support this and I would tell you I'm I I'm an advocate of teaching languages to as many of our students as possible absolutely as young as possible and as soon as possible I would personally love an immersion program in every school see that's another
067thing that these resources could be used for because up to a couple years ago the state of North Carolina for good reason because of all the studies that show the students can can learn languages so much once you're 12 or 13 your brain wiring changes and we were doing that the state was even paying for the Spanish teachers and it was Spanish was the language and we've you know the state cut it and we haven't but we could be using possibly resources to give kids opportunities to have exposure to it and learn some of those so at the good age so you know saying doing this with a handful of kids as opposed to district-wide using those research to me these resources who you know I'm looking at hidden as many kids as possible giving
068them opportunities all right so it sounds like we have decided to table the boat to the work session is that what I'm hearing the consensus thank you thank you very much moving on to new business item a Microsoft enrollment for education solutions appendix of miss Princeton subscription it is a three year subscription this year the cost is two hundred and seventeen thousand fifty seven dollars in eighteen cents we basically pay on a full-time equivalents employee so that number does fluctuate over the three years but not by much move to proof second any discussion all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved item B amendment to the application for public school building capital fund North Carolina educational lottery and C Tech High School phase three innovations appendix P mr. Andersen fiscal year were
069approved by the board this past August and they included phase three renovations at sea-tac high school since then we've been able to complete phase one in Phase two and we've realized a total savings of 265 thousand a little over two hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars what we would like to do is take that savings from the previous C tech phases roll them into this current phase three there were some things that do to the construction market and the volatility and just an unknown cost that we did not take and did not include in those phases to make sure that our construction bud but bids came in under budget and that our schedule wasn't affected this would allow us to add those back into the project in this in this third phase so we asked for
070your approval tonight of this revised lottery application if the board approves this we will then carry it forward to the county commissioners in the state okay thank you is there a motion to approve appendix P move for approval second any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye I'm seeing high school closed circuit cooler appendix Q mr. Anderson thank you this projects also funded in the education lottery or through the education lottery and included in the 2019 20 capital budget it's to add an additional cooling tower at Laney high school bids were received on December 17th and the project is within budget we recommend tonight awarded the contract for construction to Harrelson mechanical contractors in the amount of five hundred and thirty two thousand six hundred dollars is there a motion to approve appendix
071Q second any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved thank you mr. Anderson item D surplus appendix our miss small thank you I request the board's approval to disperse to dispose of surplus property and necessary or desirable for public school purposes to be disposed of in accordance with public school law and if approved the auction has been scheduled for January 25th at 10 o'clock is there a motion to approve item D pendeks or prove there a second sir although any discussion all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved thank you mr. ball moving on to item II sexual abuse and sex trafficking training program appendix you miss Farnum and mr. Bullard madam chair I'd like to give the background on this if I may the
072North Carolina legislature enacted a statute in November called an actor to protect children from sexual abuse and to strengthen and modernize sexual assault laws and it made several changes to the laws but one of the things was it mandated that la A's adopt a training program for sexual trafficking and sexual abuse awareness awareness among students the student support services division had already picked out a program called darkness to light which Miss Varnum is going to talk about in a minute but the statute did require the board to approve the training program and because the training program could change right now I believe we're getting it for free but it's possible that may not continue forever and we may have to end up purchasing a similar program from a vendor I'm asking that the board delegate
073to the superintendent the authority to to select the vendor that complies with the requirements of the statute the request is to the board to the board is to approve a motion as follows for the board to authorize superintendent to adopt and implement a child sexual abuse and sexual trafficking training program that includes all the components required by statute 115 C - 375 point 20 the training program will include best practices from the field of prevention the grooming process of sexual predators warning signs of sexual abuse and sex trafficking how to intervene when sexual abuse or sex trafficking is suspected or disclosed legal responsibilities for reporting sexual abuse or sex trafficking and available resources for assistance and at this time I'll let miss Barnum describe the program that was selected called darkness to light Thank You
074mr. Bullard and thank you madam chair and board members so much of this information was just shared in the request for approval but basically the training program on child sexual abuse and sex trafficking per session law to 2019 - 245 is is asking as mr. Bullard shared for the name of the product or the type of product or the type of training that we'll be completing and we actually began we had formal training in October we actually began having training of our staff in August of 2019 so we're ahead of the legislation but we need to definitely name the the source we're using as mr. Bullard said the training program per session law has to require all of these pieces and you have all this information you also have a full-page flier of the stewards
075of children document in your packet but then also linked here in the darkness to light stewards of children link there's a quick video a minute and 40 seconds it's just really an overview we can we can show it if you're interested you can look at it you know at your leisure however you want to do that it really doesn't get into the details but it gives a little bit of commentary on on why it's something that meaningful to not only school staff but anybody that works with kids to date we have nearly 400 staff that have already been trained in darkness to light including all of our principals our assistant principals our all of our fall athletic coaches have been trained and we are set to train our our next phase our next season of
076coaches in addition all of our counselors and social workers are being trained on February 21st so and one of the one of the trainers that we use in the district of course is our own lead counselor Tanya Jordan and she participates with the Carousel Center as we know it carousel Center is a highly beneficial and highly utilized resource community agency in our community that works with children who have been sexually abused or sexually offended and they don't just provide the resources for the family the child in the family they provided resources to the community and we weren't very closely with them so the delivery methods for the training can certainly be the face to face which is what our nearly 400 staff have experienced has been the face to face with carousel center staff and
077with Tanya Jordan there are other options that we identified along the way I think darkness to light or stewards of children is the specific training has realized that there's a lot of interest in their materials and so they have created online modules so I went ahead and purchase the bulk for myself to go through all of their training series and I really wanted to see if I could endorse you know the online self-paced modules and they're really good I had my director Kristin Jackson the director for student support go through that with me and she's gone through the face to face and you know we did kind of a pro/con of having you know the the self-paced online modules versus the face-to-face training we found they were both highly beneficial and they can both meet
078a different different staff need debate you know based on scheduling and that kind of the key steps that are emphasized in the program are teaching our staff which wouldn't just be classroom teachers it would be instructional assistants it would be bus drivers it would be cafeteria staff anybody that works directly with children which is really kind of hard in the school system to find people that don't work directly with children because if you interact with kids on a daily basis in the office or through custodial services I mean you're gonna you work with kids learning the facts minimizing opportunities for sexual abuse or trafficking really learning how to talk about it you know without rearch remote izing recognizing signs and then being able to react responsibly so these areas like I've mentioned these areas with
079our community partners we've already found those beneficial and then with the legislation we know that it's meaningful just to continue the Equality program that we're using so with local trainers so we've already invested in having one of our own staff trained in the program because of the training is limited to ten dollars per participant and it's to pay for the cost of the manual but then our partnership with the Carousel Center allows us to have these manuals provided at at no cost to us because they have they have received grants or completed fundraising for that in in the future in the future we are we we have already reached out to the Department of Public Instruction because part of the alert of the legislation said that the Department of Public Instruction would give us some
080type of list or resource list so we quickly were communicating with them and saying okay wait a minute we're using this is this something you plan on a dent you know you putting on your list stewards of children and they said well we're not actually gonna create a list we're gonna give you resources to help you find your your tool and then they said but it's great that you're using stewards of children and in fact the North Carolina school training center at ECU has purchased thousands of online licenses because they had grant money that was going to run out and so I think it's first-come first-serve go get them so of course we jump right on that too so we are asking for as many online licenses that the North Carolina School Health Training Center
081will provide to us and knowing that having the North Carolina school health training center purchasing thousands I think they purchased like 16,000 of these online licenses we know it's a good product we we we felt that but we actually know it now but then to ensure that the funds are available because this is a legislated demand we will be including any possible costs in the budget process soon and that's it you have any questions I just want to save it just give a shout out to Amy fief and the carousel center because the reason that some of this started that the partnership started was through some of the conversations for the title 9 committee Amy and Tania Jordan got together and that's where this kind of organically started was was that converse you know those
082conversations in that and that committee and and so they you know Amy and and the carousel Center offered to partner with New Hanover County Schools and so all this began and and you know I appreciate all the work that was done to get this going and and the training started and so yeah it's it's been great they are a huge benefit to our community absolutely and the work Amy Amy does was you know just the collaboration with all of our partners and so in student support but also in every individual school and it's it's beyond amazing all right so we need a motion to approve item e second any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye it is approved thank you thank you correspondence is there any correspondence that any board member would
083like to share just a quick update on this April 1st this census day dr. mark we we talked about doing a connect five call or perhaps to leading up to census day maybe doing something or exploring doing something stickers home for kids or something or a census project in class but anything we can do as a board or as a school system to raise awareness of this very very important issue you thought about $1,700 per person in federal aid based off of the census and it's really important to our community and we found one of the best ways to engage the community is through the kids it takes something home and there is usually some sort of substantial reaction from parents especially in areas where we expect low low participation when the census actually provides
084us with data about where this will be thank you item 18 announcements the regular next regular meeting of the New Hanover County Board of Education will be held on Tuesday February 4 2020 at 5:30 p.m. and the Board of Ed Center and that's the only announcement so we will move on to closed session is there a motion to go into closed session 4 so into mr. Bullard it's going to be regarding personnel which is 143 - 318 point 11 a six and I guess also attorney-client privilege which would be some section three any discussion all those in favor say aye [Music] you