Board of Education Meeting- April 2, 2019- Part 2

001I'd like to call this meeting back to order in the interest of everyone in the audience I think who would be interested in this information I'd like to ask the board's permission to move item number 10 board chair persons report to the next to the next item do what you do I hear a motion to approve so moved happen all those in favor say aye any opposed all right item number 10 board chair persons report item a a quick equity committee adopted by the board I was asked by Francis Williams who currently sits on the equity committee she and I met a couple weeks ago to talk about the equity committee which has been in existence for about a year I was just talking to mr. O'Brien the equity actually equity committee itself grew rather

002organically from a committee of two to a current committee of where is mr. O'Brien I believe he said it there about 24 individuals 20 and they felt like it was about time that they approached the board and asked if they could become a board level committee and I am in full support of that what that would mean is that would have to go through is that if it was a standing committee if it's an ad-hoc committee it does not need to go any further I could I could do that as a chairperson I believe it needs to be a standing committee and that means I would have to go before the policy committee to be approved but what I would like to ask is if anyone has any interest in serving in that liaison role

003if you can let me know right now you can email me okay thank you but would like I'd like to ask the policy chair woman if that is in fact the correct person at work okay how many board members would you indicate indicate you shouldn't be on there because normally I find one to two to three so I think that would be up to the will of the policy committee to determine but I'm fine with either one or two depending on the interest level and again depending on if it's a committee of twenty that's a fairly large committee already so I'm thinking probably well and if I would suggest let's go ahead and form the committee out we can draft some Paula some outlines on that but because the way the board works sometimes you

004don't meet very regularly as group I think is still going to meet more often than a board committee would and so that's almost like a day-to-day grew if that becomes something that reports to the equity committee as well as some of the other work then it probably makes it doesn't slow down what they're doing we've also got other work that we've got that we can roll into that and I'd ask dr. Smith to talk a little bit about the work we're doing equity committee itself first so okay so I guess so if mr. Bryant when they address that if you or some representatives from the committee can make sure to ship to to attend that policy committee meeting so that you can help form you know what it's going to look like if that's events

005in dr. Mark Lee and mr. Bryant can give us a draft of what they would like for the policy to go from there as a committee and we've done this with committees in the past you can have outside representation as part of that committee yeah and what that will do is it will allow for a monthly committee report under you know item number eleven we have these committee reports now that we reinstituted just a couple of months ago so it would allow for that that monthly accountability to be given so those monthly reports would be coming back to the board and that presented at board meetings so so it does give that that accountability so now I'm dr. Smith if you can also speak to the other other things that we are planning and are

006doing if you could give us an update yes thank you we are principals that will be required training for all principals we are we have confirmed the date of June 26 specifically for that training we are working right now with our trainer to make sure that we're designing training that we believe will be impactful and aligned with the boards of the align with the goals of the board and the desired outcomes we're working to articulate that we are also planning implicit bias training for all teachers and that will be required that is still being fleshed out because we want to make sure and it's also been mentioned by folks tonight that that is done in such a way that is sustainable it is not a one-time event we do not believe that teachers are attending

007training for an hour two hours or even three hours it's going to be enough as a one-time event so we're looking to how can we build that in a state sustainable way it was also mentioned tonight that there is a book study that were that we're planning and I'll just pull that up this book specifically the title is culturally responsive teaching and the brain promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students and this specifically is about classroom practice so how do we change what's happening in the classroom so that it is culturally relevant for all students so this is a book study that is going to be required for all principles and the principles are going to take this back to their buildings and work with their faculties and staff in the

008implementation of this and this which shows specifically because it does involve the brain and how children learn and it also does involve our curriculum so we want to ensure that we're being responsive the other required book study is despite best intentions and this was a book that was recommended by members of the equity team who have gone to and I've shared this information as well two different state trainings throughout North Carolina and this was one of the books that was recommended as a part of that and this book he talks specifically about the title is despite the best intentions how racially racial inequality thrives in good schools so how can we have schools that have really good outcomes but within that school we have disparity between different groups of students and so we want to

009understand that we want to be able to respond to that and have principals acknowledge what's happening in their building and be able to offer different opportunities for our neck wa tub Ilana T's for all children this also is this specifically is a book study that we're working with a consultant to help support the facilitation of this because we want to ensure that it's done very very well and then the other things that we're planning on specifically I don't know if you know the term but ground water training and that's through the racial equity Institute out of Raleigh and just a brief description I'll just read to you ground water is a three-hour introduction to race equity it is a participatory presentation in which the REI organizers who use stories and data to present a perspective

010that racism is fundamentally structural in nature by examining characteristics of modern-day racial inequity the presentation induces introduces participants to an analysis is that most fun immediately helpful irrelevant the groundwater presentation dovetails with arias phase 1 training so for this we're going to make this available to as large a group as we can and then from that we're wanting to build out more intensive opportunities for for training for folks as well we're looking to take advantage of the race equity phase 1 training and we've got some tentative dates on the calendar and what we'd like to do with this is we'd like to make this not only be a school personnel a group event and group but also have community members be a part of this if we're able to as well and that would be

011training on May 16th through the 17th that would take place and Raleigh and again be done through the racial equity Institute and that training is described as moving the focus from the individual bigotry and bias the RTI phase one workshop presents a historical cultural structural and institutional analysis rei believes that organization often often work for equity with multiple understandings of racism that rely more on personal feelings and popular opinions so that will serve as a foundation and then following that what we would do is we're looking to institute monthly rate what we're looking to institute a racial equity discussion series which would be a monthly face-to-face conversations for people who have gone through the phase one training so that we can continue that training and that would involve reading articles coming together around specific issues

012but we don't want this to again be you go to the trainings so what or you go to the training now what and then finally and I think this was referenced specifically by dr. camo we would to a touch point in our monthly principals meeting relate it to school improvement so we would tie directly what we're asking principals to do to their their school improvement and then the cultural competency training I know that our HR department is working on that for as a part of the initiation for new teachers but that would be embedded throughout as well so we've got a lot of pieces that we're still working on identifying some dates and then we have already scheduled I think our follow up equity team meeting where we hope to be able to confirm this

013information and be able to send out dates to principal get materials ordered and register for the events and then also share information with the community it's so that they can be involved as well speaking with my IEP mind and going back to some of the things that some of the community members talked about is the the idea of measurables yes so how are you in a building the the measurables to all that we are transitioning this year to a district-wide school improvement system in seastar previously we use that with just a limited number of our schools and so what we're going district-wide this year and within that there are specific indicators that are being added to the system connected to equity and so with that that makes it very tangible and connected to school improvements

014so when schools meet for their school improvement team meetings they will be talking about equity they will have equity goes associated with that additionally as a part of our equity team we would like to have a conversation about having some equity targets for the district we haven't gotten that far in the conversation but we are very interested and that and then schools with benchmark themselves against those equity targets as well and then in terms of participation with the training you know we could maintain rosters folks who were missing you know mister training for valid reason or regardless of the reason we would make sure that we've got a sustainability plan so that we could circle back around that to them as well um a couple other things and I apologize we're not mentioning these who

015we're also working on a developing partnership when you hand over a Regional Medical Center we made contact with the gentleman today who does this work for them so we're working with them we've also had an extension from county government to engage in this work with them as well and then also something mentioned tonight that we are already in the works of planning is a curriculum equity audit we've had some conversations about you know how does a child feel when they don't see themselves reflected in the curriculum that's put in front of them day after day after day so we want to make sure that our curriculum reflects the children that we serve and so those are just a few other things that that we're working on as well [Applause] for members you'll get a copy

016of both the books they've already been it's Julie ASCII gonna be a part of that curriculum audit the discussion as well oh very much actually we were together just this last last week yeah Lots and we were in two training sessions on equity and access and I mean it we were pinging and pawing I would say so yes she will definitely be a part of this as well as part of the bringing the equity committee up to board level is that just like the title nine committee they would have a the goal is to as we roll out the new website and web pages they would have their own web page so that would give you a list of everyone who is on that committee and give you the dates give you the anything that

017they are doing as part of their their Charter and then that was that was it that actually comes next on on my report and in terms of governance but it would give you all the activity that they are doing so that is another level of accountability that they would have their own webpage that you can go to you can click on and click on any links any resources and materials that would all be readily available so the new website which we cannot wait for 15 policy meeting I was just looking it's April twinky whatever the 23rd at 3 o'clock here in the board Center but just I don't Anna general consensus I don't hear any any issues with taking it up to a four level committee I am number B Standing Committee on governance I

018know dr. marçal you asked me to kind of flesh this out but I actually didn't get around to it yet so I'm going and I will probably uh I'm gonna shove this for next time but in general I would like to have I would like to everyone consider the possibility of having another Committee on governance I'm just to talk about governance issues possibly recommending charters for all of the Standing Committee so that everyone knows what these committees are supposed to be doing what they are charged with doing I'm looking at the over nog overall governance structure of the board what we were supposed to be doing that kind of thing so think about what a Governance Committee could and should look like and what they should look into and then decide if that is something

019that you think the board should should have so that's all I'll say for that now bring it up again next month because actually I are you you envisioning a just a board member only Governance Committee or one that's open to outside the input so you know whatever y'all think about we had also talked about a curriculum committee but I don't know that honestly we need that right now with the work that dr. Smith is doing I don't want to interfere with anything that they were working on so governance was kind of just a thing I was sort of thinking about can you describe more what you what you mean by Governance Committee it's sort of broad I'm trying to I serve on the State Board of community colleges and we have a governance and hoc

020committee that is exploring it looks at the different charters for the different standing committees as well as the ad hoc committees and it helps to make sure that the the charters are in alignment with what the the stated purpose of the board is is doing and the the functions are clearly stated so and and we and also that the purposes are being served like is the board doing what they are charged with doing are they eating enough are they are they are they doing what they're supposed to be doing so it kind of looks at a lot of different things so I just was kind of rattling around in my head so I know Community College have a description of theirs Governance Committee it's a State Board and yeah I can get one I'll be

021heading up there tomorrow morning okay IMC board retreat I would like to schedule a board retreat I think that would be a great thing for all of us and I think we tabatha sent a date out and the date was April 20 so it would be just me okay so the 27th is out - does anyone have a date that would work anyone want to throw a day out is that just a bad weekend for everyone I could make I can make 27th I already said I could I can make it work okay make it maple all right how about May 4th is the next Saturday yeah may May 4th after just making after about a little day so we could go run and then I mean it can last as long as we we

022choose for to us it's usually a half day all right so do you want to try to do May 4th 11 o'clock we'll try to secure a location we usually do it an off-site location in the past we've done that at the airport we've done that at the Chamber's building downtown the aquarium we've done it here I mean just sometimes nice to have different view we've done it at 301 I just prefer that we don't have to pay I have a retreat oh yeah and the Chamber's always been a good partner the airport's a good partner in terms of that handle block we have that's a all right great thank you all very much for considering that and we will work on that all right moving back to item number 6 administrative personnel none at

023this time seven head start on a head start liaison report Appendix A Nelson Boyer tonight we have two members of our head start family the Johnson pre-k center to come and talk about some of the work that they're doing they're just gonna go ahead and breach you guys for a quick four or five minutes and you know highlight some of the wonderful successes that are coming out of our pre-k program obviously we have our other room thank you very much we have our usual numbers thank you very much yeah we have our numbers as you can see here for enrollment same as last month any questions on our enrollment numbers for pre-k our three and four-year-olds no okay we have our in-kind budget this year or this month our monthly in kind that's the contribution

024that you guys ran for office so we all know what an in-kind contribution is in this case for federal reporting purposes we have to show you that you know the space that the county general generously allows us to use is an in-kind contribution and we have to by law have a report on that a quarterly report on that so that's what that is for junk to see but going back to appendix B you can see our monthly expenditure report in a second and we are still on target one area where where low supplies and materials if you have any questions about it I will let Shannon handle those but we're looking at making some snack purchases or doing what we need to do to get those up there we have some flexibility we're not too

025worried about it right now everything else we are certainly on target to meet our goal of 83% our expenditure goal of 83% but I said we have to do something I think with supplies and materials won't be too big a deal Shannon do you want to add anything on that we're good to go I love that and now unless you guys are there any questions from board today no but we are entering our grant year five starting May 1 and I'm expecting a program governance and management audit to be the first one on our list as early as October and I'm excited to announce that we will be doing our brief training next week so we'll get you covered Head Start training should be informative should be brief which is the best kind of training

026military days but right now I will turn it over to Johnson family pre-k hello my name is Justine Dannemora I'm one of the family specialists at Johnson pre-k Center Michael Ivy Taylor I'm also a family source little Johnson I believe we have a PowerPoint maybe the last time was this quiet in here so we're gonna be I'm speaking a little bit about the head start performance standards regarding health services and family engagement and how we meet those requirements at our site so the Head Start program focuses on the whole family so we we refer to that as a two or sometimes three generation approach so the philosophy the program recognizes that parents are the first and primary teachers of students that they follow them throughout their lives and that's you know we have oh kids

027and I our program for for one maybe two years and so the goal is to make the greatest impact so we work with the families able to achieve that okay so what is this like at johnston pre-k so the first point of contact with families after seeing our acceptance letters is conducting a home business teachers and family specialists visit families in the home at least two times a year and we also have at least two in-school conferences with parents at school so sometimes when we go visit parents they might save so why is this being done as a home visit why do you want to come to my house so we explained to parents you know children are most comfortable in their own environment especially when you're trying to first get to know them we

028found that it eases the first day of school transitions and it also is a really great way to start building that connection with parents which we know how how important that can be when you're working as a team another requirement in our program is family assessments we at Johnson we usually do this about two times a year so this year was a little bit different we had hurricane Florence so we actually did an extra family assessment we have families rate their strengths and needs in all the categories you can see right there and this allows us to be able to prioritize the way we direct our resources know what families what community agencies we need to be working with and referrals to be sending them and also let's just have data on how our families

029overall have our situations has changed all the year so with Florence this year we realized that there was a lot more need so we directed the resources we had and we also decided that we needed to have an event so we did have an emergence of working in Florence relief party I think we caught it so that that's what the pictures you can see there from when we did that after after the hurricane once families basic needs are met we find that a lot of times they are in a position where they can think about the big picture think about long-term aspects of their children's futures and their futures at the first in-school conference our teachers and family specialists work together with parents to create a family goal this is also a headstart requirement which

030is something kind of unique we provide resources advice and we check in with parents to see if there's anything we can help them do to complete whatever goal they selected they vary a lot by the parents interests it could be anything as varying such as establishing a healthy afternoon or nighttime reading routine it could be things like creating a more financial stability seeking employment going back to school things like that and we found out how our teachers have a lot of expertise and if they had that good strong relationship with the parents there's a lot that they can do working as a team to improve the situation okay and also we use we have a lot of we gear our our parent Knights a lot to appear in education so the photos that you can

031see here on the right those are from our block fest which we did in conjunction with smart start this year and I think last year was the first year we did it that's an event we have where we model different types of block play and as we know at the ages of three and four children primarily learn through play and so this is a great opportunity for teachers to model some of those different types of play that parents can use at home on the Left we have some of our other events we have our field day we have our Fall Festival and we take the opportunity of those events to invite our community partners so we have the health department we have nourish and see and they come and they share information about health healthy

032nutrition things like that so in our headstart program we have a huge focus on health and that's health of the whole child so as you can see in those the last pictures we do provide several opportunities throughout the year for families to engage in activities in which we encourage and kind of try to promote healthy habits and exercise fun things for the family to participate in together but in addition to those fun activities we also have quite a few Head Start health requirements and these are requirements from the local state and federal levels so you can see on this slide and an example of our health assessment report we have this here because this really demonstrates the different requirements that we do have for the students Head Start requires that all students by the 30th

033day of school they need to have a physical they need to have lead in hemoglobin raise screening result they need to have developmental screenings they need to have hearing and vision tests and they also need to have height and weight in addition to dental exams and mental health observations so a lot of people ask us so why do you use this form and not the normal North Carolina general health assessment form and the reason we use this one is because it really helps us kind of collect all the data that we need in one form our headstart program it does feel very heavy sometimes in the health requirements but it's really a great thing that we have that because it gives us the opportunity to kind of evaluate the whole child's health and see what

034are the areas that they may need support in provide early intervention so that the health issues are not a problem from them in learning later on because we all know that if a student can't see what's on the board they can't hear what their teachers or their peers are say are saying or if they have so much pain and their teeth from cavities that they just can't focus on what's going on they're not going to be successful in in academics and so our goal is to really try to alleviate some of those issues early on so that when they get to kindergarten it's not going to be a problem so as you can see here these are some pictures of our kiddos practicing their dental practices during the day so our program is really unique

035in that we all of our students are required to have a dental exam so we bring in the New Hanover County mobile dental unit to our school once a year for a few weeks to provide dental services for students for families who may choose to have their children seen there instead of at a private dentist that's in addition to hearing and vision exams that we also provide at the school through prevent blindness and the school system for each one of our students during the school day in our program it is unique with the dental the dental requirements as I was saying that during the day each student in the classrooms they brush their teeth so it really gives a good opportunity for the teachers to reinforce the habits that parents are teaching at home so

036it really brings all of those skills kind of full circle for these for these students so that they can develop these healthy habits that can last through hopefully through their lives and so the reason why we do all of these things why we engage families so much why we have all of these health requirements is because through the through our interactions and our relationships with the families through our providing resources and through our making sure that the children are receiving health care we're really setting them up for success later in life we want to make sure that the whole child is kind of looked at and made sure that anything that we can do to help them out in the future is done and so that's kind of our hope that we can give them

037a head start so to say for kindergarten and ambient any questions occasionally we do find some and we provide follow-up follow-up services for that and really any of the health services if we find concerns as far as high lead levels unusual other screenings or exams we are always providing follow-up to make sure that the families are taking their kids to the doctor for follow-up or if they need resources as far as where to go that we're providing that as well so it is occasional but it's not very common that we find the unusual lead screening you can always change certain thing you have in doing so is right where you're doing it and I'm grateful and just thank you again Shannon I just enjoy serving in this role I love seeing the work you guys

038do and I think the community should celebrate it so thank you very much number eight information item a policies for first reading these nickels we have three policies for first reading the first two 6002 civil kinda and 1710 non-discrimination and non retaliation and these policy are in place but we've made some additions that you've had copies of but I want you to listen closely because mister bull that's going to explain and then I'm gonna ask you to waive first reading so we'll make sure we understand thank you thank you miss Nichols there are two policies that we are proposing revisions to the civil conduct policy and the non-discrimination and non retaliation policy as a results of some suggestions by the Office of Civil Rights they looked at our policies and determined that we needed more

039specificity on how to deal with situations when parents or members of the public interact with our staff in a manner that may not be civil or appropriate so they wanted us to clarify and what what the remedies would be in that situation and to make sure that the parents had other modes of communication if their access to the school was blocked for inappropriate conduct or that their or if their communications were were blocked for for in appropriate language the the changes would make sure that they still have avenues of communication to to communicate with the school and then OCR also wanted us to just reiterate in our non-discrimination policy which is 1710 that we do not retaliate against people for exercising their rights under federal or state civil rights laws so those are the propose

040changes if you have any questions I'll be glad to answer them no CR did want us to go ahead and get these in place as soon as possible so that is the reason for asking for the board to waive first reading which complaint it was a complaint by a parent about three or four years ago regarding her particular student I can't really go into the details in an open meeting but I can certainly fill you in in closed session but it is not one that you've received public comment on I can say that excuse me they ruled how long ago on this OCR ruled over a year ago on this and they asked us to make some proposed changes which we did and then it took them a long time to look at our proposed

041changes and determine whether they were acceptable or not now that they've approved the changes we are presenting them to the board for consideration all right so I ask for a motion to approve motion to approve or waive first reading yes okay to waive first reading for policy number 1602 and 1710 so moved second second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed I'm sorry I did I need to also and that same motion say consider for approval or was that sufficient you can make a separate motion for that now I make a motion to consider for approval policy 1602 civil conduct in policy 1710 non-discrimination on the retaliation so moved there a second second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the next policy for first reading is 8125 establishing domicile for

042purpose of school assignments and ask its gonna do that one for us thank you just a clarification of language its cleaning up the language and correcting the school names for those schools that have changed names as written here also for removing the Virgo as one of our schools so again there are no substantive changes that's really just cleaning out of the language and we have provided a link for the student assignment plan so that when parents go to this website for this then they can quickly click on to the assignment plan so which is very long and in detail but it this is a big help for them so this is for first reading so if you'll read very carefully and go through the school assignment plan that'll help you also with the district and

043we are requesting home oh I did not know that okay well there aren't any changes other than as you said really they're just cosmetic changes making sure that we've got all the school's name correctly and there's no policy changing at all absolutely that's correct okay so madam chair if you will conduct that part please all right so I will call for a waiver of first reading and consideration for approval of policy number ad 125 establishing domicile for purposes of school assignment moved there a second second any discussion all those in favor say aye all right any opposed it is approved thank you madam chairwoman moving on to item B elementary and middle school redistricting appendix F Eddie Anderson thank you madam chair as the board knows we're nearing the actually nearing the completion of our

044current bond program and as part of that bond program we'll be opening up not only a new school and porters neck but some expand expanded capacity at the elementary level and so we had planned a Elementary in redistricting they would go on effect for 2020 and during discussions at the last board meeting the board expressed interest in looking at potential service provider for redistricting specifically cropper GIS consulting so tonight Matt cropper is here to give to give us a presentation of his company and the process that he's is for redistricting madam chair members of the board dr. mark Lee thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight as mr. Anderson said I'm here is just first introduction to to the school district and we do this kind of work all over the United States

045and I'm just here to share some set of case studies and some give you some concepts and some ideas of how other districts in North Carolina have done it give you an overview of the process that we typically go through to for redistricting and a conceptual timeline that I've put together that for you to consider and to discuss them you just to to look at and react to as at first glance so we are proper GIS Consulting we're based out of Ohio but we do this kind of work all over the United States our specialty is school redistricting we also do population enrollment forecasting school facility planning and things like that but most of the work that we do is is related to school redistricting we've worked with districts everywhere from two thousand and two

046hundred thousand students all over the United States we're just finishing up a process in Cabarrus County North Carolina the board I think they're working to approve that sometime this month I believe and we've finished the process in Union County Public Schools a year ago that was very successful and so we bring to the table technology and the geographic information systems and being able to work with complex data and a lot of a lot of data and make it easy to understand for the members of the public and also staff and a school board and all stakeholders but we also bring experience and what has and what hasn't worked in school districts across the country we also do work with the US Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights and I help provide consultation to them

047as an expert on federal desegregation cases that are that exists all over the United States and so I have a lot of experience in school redistricting from many different angles and and honored to do this kind of work and help communities out through this process the first I put these slides up first just to give you kind of a background on some of the school districts that we've done more recently in the in this state and Cabarrus County is the is one that's nearing completion they did a comprehensive redistricting study elementary middle and high school in this process we actually formulated a committee to work with work through the the discovery process of developing options and working with the committee making sure that everything is transparent and open and so that the public can also

048participate they can observe all the meetings and we really value transparent in this process and we've done it many different ways but the most important key to success for redistricting is to have it be open and transparent so that members of the public can view what's going on and the work that's being done and they can also react and provide feedback from the start so this process is took about nine months to complete or longer it's a committee based a committee based process yeah how many students does Cabarrus County have Cabarrus County has about thirty to thirty three thousand students so they're pretty big district I think they're a little bit larger than this district of Cabarrus and Union belong to what's called a large digital consortium with us they're 23 both 20,000 plus districts

049yes sir and so in the process went really well you know a lot of the the contentious nature of redistricting a lot of that occurred during committee meetings and at public information sessions just just informing the public and educating the public and when we got to the board process there was 13 people that came to the public hearing 2 to speak about the redistricting and and so we see that as a success that all those that all the the communication and all that the discussion occurs leading up to the board process and by the time we get to the board a lot of those a lot of that discussion and those considerations have been worked out and and even though if public members may not like the result of the redistricting for their community they

050can all agree that this is that the process ensures that it's the best plan that meets the needs of all students in the district not just one student one school or one neighborhood and so Union County was another one that we did we did elementary middle and high school redistricting here they put forth a committee for us to work with and the school board assigned committee members to sit on a committee and we worked with them and this also took about nine month process in working with them through this is comprehensive the same thing committee meetings public engagement sessions and then that led to a school board approval of a redistricting plan and that was done effective this school year and things are going very well in Union County and the implementation of the plan

051is going as we had estimated so I want to talk about the process in this or the approach to the project we look at things in sort of different phases to make up this process we collect the data and information we put all the stuff and information into GIS and mapping systems so that we can analyze data and make informed and accurate decisions a big part of this is something that that every district needs to consider and needs to have is some framework for redistricting one of those components are criteria and so these are basically the rules to follow when a district decides or when a committee or anybody who's who's charged with this decides should we move align one way or the other does it best adhere to these criteria and I'll look I'm

052gonna share with you the Cabarrus County criteria which are very common similar to the Union County criteria and I think mister Anderson has provided you some samples of other districts that that you could see that you see a lot of commonalities and the criteria but they do vary and differ based on what the what the community feels is important to them yeah I'm just wondering with the phrase community driven is how that is used how that's referred to where it says that you have been if I'd the five phases of a community driven redistricting project yes how that's sort of a nebulous term almost community driven well it's driven it's it is driven by the community because in in in our process we have it it's open and transparent so we enable the public to

053provide feedback at any time so we're constantly monitoring input from the public as well as other stakeholders if it's up if it's a community-based committee that certainly is another component sometimes we do redistricting where we don't have a community-based committee but we work with more of an internal planning team we're doing that actually starting that with Wayne County North Carolina here soon and we're doing that in Frederick County Maryland right now it's it's an effective effective way to do it as well it's but in it also it the the benefit of not having a committee based of public based committee is that you can do it in short amount of time and so but anyway you do it in enabling the public to participate in the process and provide input and hearing out what the

054public's concerns are and trying to make changes if it brings us closer to adhering to that criteria that's really the the the nature of a process a community driven process and that we're listening the public we're not just taking a plan forth to you and saying here is a plan that we recommend without any kind of public input thank you yes ma'am I'm new to all this I'm just curious how do you communicate with the public how do you maintain that transparency that's so critical to this process well what's most important is when we start working with committees whether it's an internal planning group or or a committee made up of the public we like to put all the materials online and we make all the materials available so we we build a web page

055that's dedicated to the process we we open up the process and I have a timeline and I'll talk through that in the timeline but we open up the process with the public information session and we invite the public to come listen to a presentation on what's coming up and how how are we doing this why or why do we need to redistricting so we we have public in for engagement sessions embedded throughout the process as well as sharing all the materials that are being considered by the committee once as soon as they are released to the come to this committee we also build a general feedback form that the public can can provide input at any time when they see the materials that's when you start to get comments and input and and if it's

056in the way I always say this we want to make as many people as happy as possible and and make sure that we're listening to the concerns of the other communities but you have to do it only if it brings you closer to adhering to that criteria you can't do things to make people happy if it's going to deviate you from your objectives and your focus on that criteria thank you yes sir and I'll talk a little more about how we how we engage the public through in the timeline as well but criteria is a big part of it and that's something that I always recommend before you get started to have the school district establish some criteria sometimes that's that's actually developed by the school board sometimes the superintendent brings it correct or the

057staff bring a criteria to the board you know just saying this is the criteria that I recommend and then the board approves that criteria but it's always a good part of the process to have some good foundation to the to it and some rules to follow when you consider redistricting we start the process with what we call baseline options and that's basically some we creates and some options to give to the committee and also for the public to to react to and to solicit feedback from them to hear what what does and doesn't work in these baseline options that kind of helps the committee or the planning team and the public hit the ground running to understand how many different ways can the boundaries be configured and what would the results be as it relates

058to statistics and the maps and things like that so the options are basically done in in in advance of working with the different stakeholders whether it's a planning team or committee and then the public and then school board as well we as it relates to data collection we like to collect information from the school district obviously your student database information is very useful we map out all the students so that we know where every student lives in the district and then we can count how many kids live on each street in a neighborhood so that we understand what the impact would be of moving an area one way or the other the county governments have a lot of GIS information for mapping for property mapping and things addresses and municipality lines and all the other

059features geographic features that are that exist in a community that we collect and use as well so we take all that information and if it's not in GIS format we put it in GIS format so we take different different all these pieces of data and embed it into our mapping system so that we can make accurate and inform decisions this is something that that we use in in every process that we do and this is a map of Henrico County Schools in Virginia and you see these small little they call them they call them census tracts I refer to them as planning blocks so these are small building blocks for redistricting and the district may have something like this in place and if they do we would start with that and maybe modify them if

060we need to make them more granular for the purpose of redistricting but basically what these are are small think them as pieces of a puzzle that what we do is we with once we have these cut out we start to assign a planning block ID so members of the public can tell us what planning block they live in and we also give other information on these such as how many students live inside each planning block so that when we start to generate options you'll have this overlay of the planning blocks you know how many kids live in each of these planning blocks public members can also be informed as well as the planning team well if this option doesn't work good why can't we just move this area instead of this area they could look

061at this map and they can see well there's a hundred kids in this planning block but maybe only 20 in this planning block and that kind of helps inform people who don't have GIS expertise to understand what the impact would be of moving areas one way or the other so planning blocks are a very effective tool in in in providing empowering the public to use some of the tools that we use as mapping spirts you see that we did we create maps and generate statistics that shows the each attendance area and we like to see how many kids are living in coming into a school from out of zone and how many students are leaving us an intense intense area for particular reasons one of the things we like to factor is looking at where

062the programs are and we and how we estimate enrollment and that we make sure that we don't compromise any programs if half of a school's enrollments coming from say a magnet program or if it's a partial magnet or they have some sort of specialty program there we don't want to fill that school up with students living in the zone and compromise the the the nature of the program that allows students to come from all over the county so those are things that we factor in and make sure that we estimate when we do our start estimating enrollment for options so the guidelines and the criteria are something that um that that as I said are very important and a something that needs to be in place before you start into redistricting and it's basically the

063ultimate question at the end of it is when a recommendation is being brought forth to you is that does this plan best meet the criteria and guidelines established by the school board so so I have some examples and I'm what I'm going to do is talk about Cabarrus County I think you have some other examples and it's up to you to determine what how you want to proceed with developing criteria I don't think you have to do it tonight but it's something that that you should just know that it's good to have a criteria in place prior to getting into homes prior to starting to look at options so these are the criteria that Cabarrus uses and criteria that we that we work with and districts all over the country so these include balanced school

064facility utilization so looking at making sure there's equitable amount of space and all the schools and also accounting for future growth so not only look knowing how many students live in the areas as we're modeling them now but being proactive and where there's growth or where there may a decline forecasted across the county close proximity so also trying to assign students as close to their home as possible parents want to make sure that their kids are on a bus as little as little time as possible and they get home as quickly as they can so looking at the proximity of the students to the schools is an important factor that that school districts have as part of their their criteria it also helps enable transparence transportation efficiency and and it makes things more cost-effective for

065school districts as well and that touches on maximizing bus efficiencies and transportation of students so if students are assigned in an efficient manner close to their school if possible that makes the transportation efficient costs cost effective establish clear feeder patterns and continuity so that's looking at the progression from elementary to middle and middle to high for a school and trying to see how much of an elementary school gets split when it goes to middle school and what's the percentage of that elementary that gets split is it was it five percent of an elementary going to a middle school and ninety five percent of the rest of the element you're going to another that's not as ideal as if you have to split a school splitting it half of a school going one way and then

066half the other half going to another thinking of it as you know children making friends growing up in elementary and when they go to the middle school it's a scary time for them that they have some familiar faces and friends and people that they know when they move to that next level and the same goes from middle to high school so we look at feeder patterns if it's part of the criteria for the current state of the district and then we also model it to understand the impact on feeder patterns moving forward in any option grandfathering this is something that is a always a question that's asked in every process that we do this isn't really I always see it in the criteria but it's really more of a school district policy and an how

067you want to how much grandfathering you want to allow both Cabarrus and Union did allow of grandfathering and most common thing I see is that the rising the rising school year like the rise in fifth grade would be eligible to stay at their school if they're impacted or the rising eighth grader that that terminal year those students are eligible to finish out their school year high school as well usually rising seniors and sometimes the groups are more lenient with a high school but and I don't know if you have read just grandfathering policy in place but that's something to consider that it is a question that always arises when you start talking about moving communities and students minimize the impact on students so we quantify how many students are impacted in any particular option so

068that we can understand how many kids are being moved and where they're being moved to and understand that what that impact is and see if we can try to keep that as minimal as possible by while still accomplishing our objectives and then consider economic cultural and ethnic diversity so looking at the demographics of the students and the schools and seeing what they are currently versus what they are in any particular option making sure that we don't adversely affect any in any school and make it in make create a greater imbalance in demographics of a school we look at a lot a lot of times we'll look at socio economics as a big part of this in that socioeconomic what the what the free reduced lunch percentages of the schools currently versus any option and that's

069something that typically we'd have to work with the school district to get that information because it's sensitive data and it's something that that it's not in every district we're not able to obtain that so but we would work with you and in talking with mr. Anderson that's something that you've done in the past to get some of those socio-economic data for the options as we create them so that's that's looking at the impact on demographics is a and thing that we as part of the criteria try to establish contiguous zones so try not to have a satellite zone a zone that's disconnected from the main zone and I know that you guys have a couple of these that exist in your high school and your middle schools and I think he may even have one

070or two and your elementary schools and we know we if they exist in the district that sometimes they exist for various reasons and things like that and what we try to do is we try not to create anymore if they if there are there are satellite areas we evaluate those and see is there a way that we can consider to make it better without sacrificing the other elements of the criteria and then using major roads and natural boundaries whenever feasible to define attendance zones and that ensures an efficient an efficient boundary for transportation and also maximizes safety of the students so that minimize the time they have to walk across major roads and things like that it's important to note that what we normally do with school districts is is say that all these criteria

071in no particular order or priority utilization is always kind of it's usually an objective and a criteria so utilization is one that kind of rises to the top but if you focus on only one element of these criteria you start to deviate from all of the others so I think it's it's it's important to understand that no boundary plan no redistricting plan is going to be perfect and there are going to be pros and cons with any plan but the best plan is going to be one that best adheres to these criteria as a whole and if you focus on one element you start to draw further away from others and so you have to kind of just evaluate them all as a whole and and understand that that no plans going to be perfect

072so we start the process with when we start engaging the public and also in the planning teams we start to build some scenarios options for them to start with and the school district or the staff the committee planning team or whoever they were working we can take those and modify them they can scrap them they can create new ones it's basically just helps the helps kick-start the brain to see how can they be how can that boundaries be modeled and and because it can be a pretty arduous task sometimes the the all the options are developed with the with the criteria in mind and and the group who's working through it can can usually improve the options I usually take an option or two and build on it and maybe sometimes you like an option

073that's option one is good for the north an option three is better for the south and we'll make hybrid options and take bits and pieces of them make like what I call a Frankenstein option and put them together to make it even stronger so those are the kind of things that have that happened with the with the committee and that we end up sharing with the public we create a background document called a background report and this kind of helps the the planning team focus on data and statistics and information that's that's consistent and accurate as well as we share this with the public so the members of the public can see the same information so everyone knows what the capacities of the schools are what are the objectives and what are the criteria and

074some of the maps and things like that that come into this this report this is a we we started off with the background report but at every meeting this expands more materials get provided and built as as we hear from the public and also the the planning group and as I said it's important the most important thing is to keep things open and making sure that the public is informed and understands what's going on and we've done a lot of things in Frederick Maryland we started to do Facebook live presentations which were really effective there's a lot of people that couldn't make it to meetings but we'll record them on YouTube and Facebook and that actually allows a large segment of the public who couldn't make it to meetings actually see the presentation and follow

075the process and things like that so it's a really effective way the one in Frederick we did I think it's has over 5,000 views so far we did that about three weeks ago and so so different things like that ways to just try to engage the public and make sure that people are informed is really the goal focus of this process we'd like to do the bottom-up planning approach so if if it's elementary and middle schools we would focus on elementary and middle schools and we would plan them together trying to maximize that Peter pattern concept so and that's just starting with elementary boundaries when we create options we look at elementary and then we try to build those Elementary's and group them into middle schools to try to balance that feeder pattern continuity if

076at all possible this is a timeline that I that I've drafted for you and you could see that this this is an option that takes you through looks at getting a presentation the recommendations by December of this year so it's it's a process that that we're doing in Wayne County public schools right now that we were just starting and they're actually following a very similar timeline to this that we're doing with Wayne you see the green bars or where we have public engagement sessions so we that the first one is where we just inform the public on the process and let them know how they can participate how they can be involved and how the process is going to mature over time we have a series of meetings that we have with the planning team

077or committee and work through developing options and then the real focus of those first three meetings is to build some options maybe three or four options I'd say no more than four options to take to the public and that's and this timeline is September of this year and that's where the public can you invite the public to come to a usually a high school sometimes we'll do this at several locations and I'm back-to-back nights and we have a presentation and then we have large maps that are up on walls like taped to the walls and it's kind of a gallery walk format so the public can come look at the maps and talk with the planning team and consultants and staff around the maps and ask questions we also put a an online survey out

078to accompany this the second public information session where we where we asked the public to give us input as it relates to the criteria then we take that information and go back to the planning team through a couple more meetings and look at what the public input is and it should be noted that in the first three meetings as we're generating options and and sharing information with the public there's feedback and being received and studied as well so so that's all that that occurs once when the process kicks off at the first public information session but after the second public info session we have the pub the planning team meets a couple more times to finalize options and make changes to the options and then that's when finalize a recommendation that's presented to the Board

079of Education Cabarrus and Union I think they did eight meetings there were eight total meetings and we I think we had three public information sessions in those processes but those extended the timeline extended further so and it really depends on what the districts what the district prefers this is an effective way to do it and with districts of this size that we've done across the country as well mr. Anson does this conform to our needed timeline based on where we are building wise it does to implement but if the redistricting was going to be implemented in the school year twenty twenty twenty-one those student assignments would go out in February a year prior so we're we would be shooting for February of 2020 to get that out so the presentation would come in December and

080then the board would would deliberate on that you probably have a public hearing and things like that too to invite the public to come talk to you and then make them make a vote either January or February January or February depending on the timing of what you feel comfortable with so where I see this going board wise is you can see April and May is would be data collection so that may retreat become where you would have that discussion about your expectations as a board for the committee so they could be doing the background work in preparation of that and then wants to have all the data they can take the board guidelines that are established and roll into that process the 27th is what you're referring to so that's where we could establish those

081board guidelines but he could already be putting data in anticipation them once he has those he can run it then he rolls right into the public information pieces yes sir a lot of the information it's that's needed and then that time can be developed and it won't the timing of the criteria won't hinder that process this time line you said you said that you had really two timelines based on the type of planning meeting planning team you had would this be regardless of which type well this is actually this is built more with an internal based group - for doing the the options development and preparation of options to share with the public so this is this this process actually does not have a community based committee in that process we would need about three

082or four more months to do that community based committee because with the community based committee what we normally do is we'll we'll put an application together and solicit public members to apply and then we review that that takes about a month alone to put a committee together so but this is an internal based group but we work with a planning staff at the school district we can even invite county planners and other people who are stakeholders in the community to come give input and things like that around this at this table here I would have four that is art when we did this process for the high schools it was similar to this but there wasn't a board portion on that committee there would need to be one or two board members on that planning

083committee in order to maintain this timeline do we have to make a decision on this right now you could make we would need what I we need tonight is permission to contract start giving him the data and then at our main retreat we can determine the planning committee and the board guidelines but we need to start inputting data into their systems so that once we get weekends so when we get done with our retreat and we say here's our guidelines here's our committee we can roll yes is there any way you can get referrals or recommendations from some of these other counties certainly I've spoken to both superintendents in Cabarrus and Union County both speak very highly of the process my question would be what sets you apart from other companies that are out doing

084the same service for school districts um I think it's it's a lot of it is though our expertise and our experience and doing this all over the United States in our use of technology and how we how we integrate technology with the sort of the people process of this you can have people come up who are whiz-bang technology people who can give you a program to do this but they're not they're not good at building consensus with groups in in educating the public and in an understanding of all the the technicalities of redistricting and what's important with it and so in our experience across the board has sets us above you know anybody else in my opinion in the country correct me if I'm wrong doesn't the the other half of this team or yeah

085to add to that you know I think the process as as Matt presented it sounds and looks pretty similar to what we've what we've done in the past you know whether it's you know criteria or planning or guiding principles planning segments or study areas we we use a very we use a similar process the information that that Matt needs to get started on this process we could readily provide and he also works very closely with McKibben demographics and mckimmon has done our demographics and has done demographics in Brunswick County for for several years and I think they bring a very unique understanding of the region so they I think there's there's some efficiency there and in what they bring dr. McKibben has worked with us on on all the other processes here in North Carolina

086and across the country and as mr. Anderson said he does have a lot of historical knowledge of the district and the demography and forecasted enrollment and things like that so that certainly helps the only other comment that I would want to make is I know public input is very important in public involvement and this again it looks very similar to what we've done before but I would like to reiterate what what was said in the presentation it's a very fluid process for public input from the beginning to the end they set up a website and and the public can go on and view what's what the committee is doing each day the public input process that we had was not that fluid I mean we would post things after meetings and we would have public

087input sessions but this is a much more transparent and more fluid public input process so even even they were where this seems to limit some of the public input sessions those are the more formal sessions I think in informal public input is from day one I'm correct in assuming we can always add as a board an extra public input session or two Matt one more question that you you've studied our County I assume do you see any unique challenges that New Hanover County presents to your group well I'm I'm stumped Newton County I've studied a little bit and doing work with dr. McKibben because we helped provide him data for his forecast and so I'm aware of of the boundaries and some of the demographics of the of the county you know I I think

088that every school district is unique in every in every single school district there's always challenges and I mean and I haven't I don't really know the status of the district in terms of utilization and capacity so it's hard for me to really give you a good answer on that but but I do I know that every single district that I've dealt with there's a lot of similarities but then there are a lot of unique nuances of a district and so we just have to balance those out and and it's it's most important to know that there's going to be parts of a plan any option that's going to give people heartburn that they're not gonna like that's not I wish we could make this better or this better but if you know if the alternative

089would be worse and in many cases and so yeah that's that's the best I can do for now until I start looking at some more in-depth data have you worked with Wake County I have not worked with Wake County okay your company your group has no no man we have something in some literature somewhere no ma'am we haven't worked with wait we're working with Wayne we're working with Wayne right now we're actually I'm meeting with them next week to talk about criteria very similar they're kind of in this very similar path as you are in this process this is my first introduction to the district and with you guys and so I think that the next step for me would be to give mr. Anderson a more formal proposal for the work that's in that's

090entail that I've expressed to you tonight and go from there you wouldn't you were presentation you said that you had advised the Justice Department well I've been I've been working with the DOJ since 2005 okay and I've worked on over a dozen cases with them some of them I've testified in it's on many of them we've they settled before they get to a federal judge or they all go through a federal judge but before we have to get to like a testimony a trial kind of situation cases were you usually I'm sorry I got a cold I'm trying to get a what kind of cases were you usually advising them on they are all I mean I'm a subject matter expert in regards to student assignment so I helped them with desegregation of segregation desegregation

091cases that have been going on since the 60s most of these and they've been you know over times I think they kind of fell through the cracks or they weren't being studied as heavily and so in so they engaged me to help out with some of the larger districts to help figure out do much of what I'm doing now but working with administrators and the Department of just around the same table try to almost a moderator in a sense of looking at boundaries and working with the group thank you all right so I think what we need to do now is we would need to approve moving forward the superintendent that you'd like me to move forward most likely the proposal will come in under the amount that's required for board approval but once I

092see the form of opposed I will share that out with anyone in case there are particular questions so I'm just asking from for permission to move forward at this point we definitely need outside help because we have the new members and it would take us a while to go back and learn what we've done and what we should not have done in the past so this is wonderful to hook are you gonna be back with us from time to time you'll I will be the I'll be the person facilitating the entire process you know and I'll also be there to help the board guide the board through the recommendation and make sure that you understand the ins and outs of the recommendation once it does come to you what I will need from the board

093when we go to our retreat we'll need to develop those criteria so please bring those with you in terms of what you want and that that'll that's always a very entertaining discussion second piece is planning committee ideas for what that committee should look like because we'll need to leave the forum formalize that there so that we can get that committee up and running all right so we have a motion in a second all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved its mr. Crawford how long before we see the formal I put that together I'll have it to mr. Anderson by no later than next Tuesday look I'll make sure you see it no later than the end of the week yes sir number nine superintendents report charter schools with four new board

094members I thought it was just a good time to have discussion about what constitutes a charter school and what the impact is on our County this is not a good or bad report on charter schools it's not what I'm really wanting to do tonight so this is primarily some some good information particularly as we head into budget season because it impacts our budget so what's a charter school they are tuition free public schools exempt from most of the rules from regulation there is a an advisory council that's approved by and charter schools are approved by the State Board of Education that charter Advisory Council has gone through several iterations I actually served on the second iteration of that council probably six years ago charter schools are funded with taxpayer dollars and they're governed by both

095private and non by private non-profit organizations now going a little more detail on each of these and at any point please stop and I'll try to give you more clarification North Carolina legislation they were first ratified in 1996 and at that time there was a cap of 100 schools and by the early 2000s that number had leveled off around 90 schools and it stayed there for a while but in August of 2011 Senate bill 8 removed the cap on charter schools so that by January of 17 there were 100 sixty-eight charter schools operating in North Carolina including two virtual charter schools and then there are approximately 91 thousand students almost ninety two thousand two dates enrolled statewide and charter schools what makes them different charter schools do participate in the state's testing program so when

096you see as a school score they have a school score that's the same kind as ours both proficiency and growth one thing that's different is they are not governed by elected officials the board's sort of create themselves there are no curriculum requirements in the charter school charter schools unlike public schools can modify their school calendars there are no class size restrictions for charter schools so the k3 legislation that we live with does not apply to charter schools only 50% of teachers need to be certified in the charter school they are not required to hold teacher workdays they are not required to provide transportation or to provide lunch and they're exempt from bidding laws so yes the certified teachers is there a requirement for a college degree generally no this law basically reason only 50 percent

097have to meet certification requirements and there's some pluses to that if you're doing an art school and do you have a somebody who is professional dancer at the New York ballet and you wanted to use them as an instructor in your school then that makes sense and it's a flexibility I wish that we had in our schools when you have an executive and I've seen this happen multiple times that retires from a corporation that wants to give back to the community they may have worked in the K and they chemical plant way and want to teach science we make them come back and jump through lots of Hoops to be teachers but a charter school could hired that person directly those second career folks I mean I would like to see us do things to

098bring some of those kinds of folks back into our schools here are the area charter schools charter days across the river it's not actually NARS but that's probably the one out of County school that we send students to tapir senator inquires probably the oldest one who's that's in the county they see snip I think you were on that founding board watch I was I was I was the treasurer yep coastal prep that's the one up near Pangaea it's been in seventeen Glo sixteen Aleman sorry thirteen the woman prep has been in existence of 2007 and you can see what their current enrollments are you can see their demographic data so when you look at it and you pair of dark I'll show you a couple of slides on this as we roll through it most

099of these schools are generally elementary or k-8 I will tell you it's easier to start a k-8 school simply because you have one teacher for the class high schools are a little more difficult because you've got to get into the different class structures athletics play a role in high school that may not that may be a little difficult for some school so most charter schools are ka you can see it by percentages always where we are and then where the other schools compare this is for students with disability and those OB education disadvantage yes the students with disability for most charter schools would be on the milder side of that most of them do not with very few exceptions do not deal with severe disabilities so autism extreme behavior extreme cognitive issues and others are

100generally going to be our students most of these are going to be probably mild mild reading or issues and this is the enrollment data for the schools special populations by school again IES will be economically disadvantaged free and reduced lunch typically we do provide a lunch service to two schools Douglas Academy and glare they contract through our food nutrition department you can do that charter schools can access federal programs if they have students who qualify so they could some schools could apply for title one funds or apply for meal reimbursements on child nutrition we actually have a private school downtown st. Mary's who participates in some of our title one aid programs this isn't a data that we collect internally it's probably the data that frustrates me the most sometimes and that's what I call

101the return rate from charter schools charter schools will start the year and then there are some of those students will come back to us typically charter schools aren't adding students as the year it goes along I do have concerns about when some of these students come back they seem to come back right after the census for the school that they send to the state or right before testing so you can see those return rates school performance you can see where the schools ranked like I said charter day is not ours most of their students are Brunswick but that's the one we send we do send some across the river and you can see Moses most of them are seeing D schools none of the schools would rank top ten in our district or probably top

102fifteen where do you get that it's public data they have to their their data is online just like our report card data is Karen green and our testing Department put this together for me on the testing data percentage of District students attending and you can see we've got about five percent of our students attending charter schools that's with six charter schools that's about typical for a district our size Brunswick County has nine percent of their students that's a fairly large percentage Durham probably has the is the district that has the largest percentage of students who are tender schools they've got lots of charter schools there that's about the same percentage as you would see if you looked at home school and a little little more than what you would see in private schools if you

103think of us as a as a piece of the pie our public schools make up about eighty-five percent of all students in New Hanover County and then charter schools private schools home school make up the other percentages home schools actually the fastest-growing group and that's that's a trend statewide similar data you can see it just the enrollment just of the nice pie graph in the enrollment analysis you can see where they are over time slightly slightly larger growth heading into eight 17 18 18 19 and that corresponds with the opening of a couple of schools which would make sense charter school funding this is the question you get a lot the state funds are allocated directly to charter schools and they get the it's based on the ADM in each county so that's for us

104it is 54:19 per pupil if it's a student with disabilities that's an additional forty six sixty four funding increases is due to growth beyond the state's allotment and it's pulled back from our eliezer at mid-year explain that one the the state assumes that if a charter school increases enrollment beyond what the state had estimated for them that all those students came from the county the charter school resides in this may or may not be true it all works itself out the following year but in that year we will have a reduction of our funding in order to increase their funding the way it would work between le.a is that just statewide they would look at who's growing and who's you know going down and adjust funding appropriately up or down but with charters it just

105automatically the reduction to us even if some of those students came from home schools or another County and talk about how the impact of that student who comes back to us after after a certain date yeah so so one of the things that we're required to do is have a consistent date on which we allocate fun town t funding or any local funding to the charter school and so we have determined to use our first month or twentieth day enrollment and if a child withdrawals after that date we will continue to pay the charter for the entire year for that funding just as if one of our students withdrew you know we would we would be able to keep the local money as well so that there's a magic date after which we have the

106students but they have the money and it's a little tricky and there was this has been sort of throughout several different lawsuits across the state including ours we it was determined that we had to have that set date that didn't change as we said before charter schools can apply for federal funding through dpi and that's typically some title one funding for some schools and child nutrition reimbursements but they're not required to provide lunch and as I said only two of those charter schools here access they're free reduced lunch County operates other appropriations are in fun too so the county per pupil is about twenty eight hundred dollars almost twenty eight fifty any other revenues about four dollars per pupil and that's what we sent to the charter schools that's distributed on a monthly basis using

107that first twenty day ATM charter schools currently are not eligible for County capital outlay appropriations there's a couple pieces of legislation floating around this year that would change that so we'll keep you up on that and that's just really a quick overview on charter schools the charter schools that are here and then some of the rules that relate to those questions as I say this wasn't meant to be a good or bad just simply give you and understanding of those thank you yes New Hanover County Schools takes great pride in its partnerships with various groups and organizations that work to enhance the learning opportunities for students and tonight we will have Jacqui booth who is our arts education supervisor update us regarding our partnership with the Hanna Block Committee folks to give you a little

108bit of context the Hanna block committee is a committee of interested citizens and appointees like myself who tried to aid the faily and Association community theater who are the managers of that building in bringing members of the community into the building in diverse and interesting ways in order to utilize that facility for the community and get as many folks through there as possible some of the things that we've done in my time on the committee is to increase our partnership with the Italian Association theater group Balian Association children's theatre or tact as I'll call them to kind of shorten this up a little bit they do a season of shows every year that are grant funded in the past couple of years we have partnered with them as a school system to add to their

109grants free field trip shows to our title one elementary schools so every show that they produce they do a number of daytime shows that are also have cast members that are our students as well in them and those are provided free to our title one schools so schools that have been involved in the past couple years have been Bellamy International School at Gregory Snipes and Frey chill Freeman and we are looking to expand that number next year and in the seasons coming up we cannot provide transportation costs so sometimes schools are not able principals are able to do that but we do provide that free opportunity in the past couple of years we have also partnered with the ICI department and tact has been able to create at least one a season sensory friendly show

110for our exceptional children a lot of exceptional children are not comfortable in a theatrical environment because there are a lot of sights and sounds and noises and things that trigger them or make them uncomfortable so we are providing a show at least one show a year where we are able to bring our exceptional children and have a performance that is comforting and not disturbing to them on the other side of that we are also educating those actors and performers in how to do that and what some triggers are for our exceptional community members so that's really nice and again a lot of those cast members are our students also we are bringing a new all-district arts event this year as many of you know we have an annual mall Art Show that displays our K

111through 12 art but what that doesn't allow is for us to show some of the exceptional ceramics work that occurs in our County because it's not safe at the mall so the Hana block uso has allowed us free access to their space to create this show during the same weeks when the mall arts show will be occurring and also in coordination with tax production of Footloose this year so that we will be having lots of community members coming through and seeing this we have also asked our friends at the Azalea festival to keep the student art contest show up in the building at the same time so that we're gonna have a lot of art for audience members and community members who come through the building throughout the day to see what our students are

112capable of so that's going to be really nice and show just a different amount of art than we've been able to in the past and that's been a really great connection and we are continuing to create new and interesting ways that we can use this building and our partnerships with these community organizations to bring more arts and more diversity this is my first time like a board retreat absolutely we would be able to set that up absolutely so if you would like to speak with me you know email me about that I can get you in contact with the managers of the building and we could set that up had been at the mall so has that been a problem we have a limited amount of ceramics that we can put at them all so

113sometimes we can do the elementary the very small pieces that are less likely to get broken or touched and we do put signs on them but things do get broken and occasionally we are able to get an empty storefront to put some of that ceramics in but some of the work that our high schools are creating throwing pots larger pieces that really we don't have room for in the mall and that are so precious that we don't want to put them in that space they're going to be looked they'll be watched over in a much closer fashion at the Hanna block USO they will also have a better way of being displayed the Orange Street Potter's who work out of the Hanna block USO are helping our teachers in setting that up in a safe

114environment and that way there they're just going to be a lot safer and we're gonna get to see a lot more art from our students that generally don't get to show those pieces at all other than in community events like first for instance the orange street arts festival that is held right outside the ana block uso each year can I mention something about the retreat the parking there is issue I just brought it up because I've had a lot of I love I love that Center and I frequent a lot of things that go on and but that's they even do it 24/7 it's crazy the parkings I just saw at and at one of our last meetings Miss Justice we have been discussing that and they have been utilizing some of the funding they

115have to add extra lighting to those areas and discussing you know how to better get more parking and safer parking because I know there's been a history of unsafe parking scenarios at that building as well so they have been putting fun city funds and fundraising funds into adding you know one streetlight at a time that we can afford and things like that that are trying to make that scenario yeah it's great I grew up there I grew up going to rehearsals there so I'm really happy to be a part of this committee and help out with that space but I grew up even before then we had the military coming in and I played basketball there we had our high school dances there so wonderful memories of a community center and we're so very glad

116that the community has taken the time over the years to really it reinvest in that site and not you know let it fall apart like it was at one point a couple years ago we have really reinvested in that site and there are a lot of historical artifacts there that you can go visit and there are juried you know exhibits of World War two artifacts and information there that are really a vital part of our community's history well hopefully it's if Wilmington does get designated a World War two City then that will that will become more in the public eye today absolutely we're hoping that it is not listed under committee reports because I failed to turn in a a summary to miss Adams but I do want to briefly mention that the title 9

117committee did meet last week and we had a very productive meeting I felt we have broken into three subcommittees the subcommittee's are policy and procedures which is led by amber receipt are from UNCW education which is led by Kristin Jackson from New Hanover County Schools and then resources which is being led by Amy feith from the carrousel Center so we we didn't have we had such a great whole group discussion around data and and some of the education that is is taking place in the school system but we didn't have a lot of time for the subcommittees to meet but we will meet longer during our next meeting but but I think a really good discussion we have a lot of interested parties involved about I think 24 and those individuals are listed on our

118website so thanks to miss Brinson for for that work on that and so yeah really good information going really good discussion going on so J anything to add mr. brillier no I just echo that we're really making some wonderful progress on that committee and a really good group and I expect great things going forward great any other committee reports for anyone else number 12 consensus items item a personnel appendix 8 dr. well nurse here second second all those in favor say aye all right any opposed they aren't approved thank you dr. welders moving on to item B budget amendment number 7 appendix I'm areas will small thank you madam chair I request the board's approval of budget amendment number 7 as submitted all right is there a motion there a second Doug any discussion hearing

119none all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved thank you item C change of school assignments appendix J you see dr. Holliday so it will be miss askew yes this is release for to students in Brunswick County due to their parents employment there so there's a motion in a second any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye it is approved thank you thank you item 13 old business item a policies for second reading and miss Nichols we discussed them in depth at the last meeting I'd like for dr. Wilmers if he would review those from his division please yes ma'am I'll be glad to we're looking at policy 62 35 which covers teacher contracts that's a new policy establishes teacher contracts between one two and four years has the criteria

120the teacher must mean in order to gained up to a four year contract it runs pretty much consumed as number 62 36 which is teachers without career status the to match up sets the bar higher for teachers to meet the career sentence after giving several years to both receive help professional development and encouragement to get where they need to be to have the career the licensure met and the contract met so the two policies basically mirror each other in that regard it does set the bar higher for our teachers we expect more from the teachers and frankly typically they're giving us that let's see then the policy 6510 is the leave policy the change is there particularly are discussing the employees use of leave before specific times during the year the beginning of the year

121the end of the year the first days day before a holiday the day before a vacation day the general statutes and the north carolina employee benefits man you'll both say that an employee cannot use that day for personal leave now sick leave is still a matter of what's going on with the employee on that day we hope they don't call in two months ahead of time and say I'm gonna be sick the day before we go out on vacation but we do have that happen every now and then it's amazing how they can can diagnose themselves that well but but this policy basically says that they cannot do it is its meaning state statute and that the principal has to approve in only specific cases but barring those days that the that are named the

122employee cannot use professional leave on those days that's the main change in that policy and while this paragraph has comes from the state's a handbook personnel handbook we have this information in our personnel handbook locally yes ma'am but it's hard to find well and it's on page 71 if you won't look at it so that's why I thought we need to bring it here so when you're looking on them out for lis policy there it is so it's clear for the administrators because we have so many new ones it's clear for the teachers and the parents yes ma'am I'm concerned about the amount of phone they can see some days does this mean that it's a state policy and we have no choice right that's actually correct the state there's an issue in the state

123statute basically says that except for these days and those days are the days before the vacation the first day of school the last day of school today before testing and it says you can't is accept you know the principal cannot make a decision on those days but in policy I mean in the state employees manual when you read it it's very gray because when you read it the way it's put together it says the principal may approve these days and then it says if it is requested five days before the principal has to approve what that statement leaves out is the statute law that says before these days and we have asked the state to go back and include that state and the state employees manual because we've had that as the statement here and

124I think as long as I've been here but they have yet to do it it's not clear in the state employees manual it's not clear and there have been some training with teachers that say if you get this in five days before that day saved the day before spring break since we're headed to spring break then the principal has to approve it but that is not statute in statute it is that day cannot be a personal leave does so we have to fall statue on we have Thomas - my understanding in the statue or my understanding of the reading was that and it says they're pretty clear right above it local authorities can grant exemptions to some of these policies and my recommendation of course was that one be granted I just think that you

125know if it's my inner conservative but the personal responsibility you know I think acquires some trust and I personally trust our teachers to make the determination of when they should be at work and when they should one day that was last year's spring break we've had high numbers this year - this year's a little bit of an anomaly because of Florence what it's done to teachers I think stress wise - about everybody stress wise but but we are I think miss Nichols is right this is a way to to basically say you know you are not saying you can't be sick that day if you're sick that day but you cannot use that day as a personal lead I think you can still take a sick day you can take a sick day yeah we

126do allow employees to that's their call that they call in and say I'm sick they're sick I think if they say they're sick ten days in a row then we request if they get a doctor's note you know then they're really sick well I have the same set our attitude is Nelson does in a sense I think that our teachers are professionals and I don't think they give enough credit for being professionals that's just the reality of our society on the other hand at the state statutes what you're saying and I guess mr. Bullard would you say we should be following the state statute absolutely you have to follow the statute and then when there's a conflict between the statute and the state's employment manual the statute overrides no manual and so the policy presented

127here complies with the statute which is what you are required by law to follow you see on TV according to the policy what I wrote was that the superintendent or the principal is entitled to ask for documentation or proof of illness but they can't ask the principal or the sir I'm sorry it's only the superintendent who's entitled to ask for verification of illness that's right in our handbook it states that if if the employee has more than ten days then we're at we're asking them to get enough I mean get something from your doctor or and it and sometimes it's a child I mean you know teachers have kids and the kids can catch the flu and we see a pattern as we move through the year on this and but if they go over

128ten we do for another ten consecutive or just ten days period we have done both if what we've looked for in the ten days through the year as a pattern for some reason you missed every Friday for the last three months we're going to ask for know if it's you know all in and out principal saying is their son has had a recurring case of the flu which has occurred this year what they need to take care of their son number one so it we do take this on an individual basis when we need to and I would tell you 95 plus percent of our teachers there they do what they what they need to do you write policy sometimes for the five percent and this is one of those policies that that is really

129what I is that five percent or policy that the folks that want that you got to have something in place for them the collegues that are our teachers they're committed to what they're doing but every once in while like I said there's a small percentage that sometimes you got a right policies to for that small percentage I would be curious if you could send after this policy goes into effect if you could send me next year the numbers on you want me to send them now for the numbers for next year I'm going to get a lottery number well we certainly don't want anyone to come to work if they are sick and contagious but I remember when I first came back to Wilmington they were giving out t-shirts to teachers for a hunt for

130a hundred percent attendance for the whole school year and I thought wonder how many drugs themselves to work and that's kids do that perfect attendance awards they're they're really cool for twelve years but you wonder was he a little too sick to come in one day it might have been in the seventies this policy was in place yeah this has been on the books a long time it has it was when I came to North Carolina this was on the books and which was different than Virginia and so I I started doing this one but it's it's been on the books it has been known by teachers for a long time it's it's not that we're trying to penalize we're just trying to educate as they are trying to educate what's wrong thank you so

131let's see how far along did you get doctor I did my theory I think thank you so the next series comes from dr. Smith's division yes we have four policies for review policy seventy four forty two second language proficiency simply adds additional language in the policy that updates it to reflect our students that are moving through our k-8 immersion program policy 7410 grading system it is adding additional language to bring it in compliance with state board policy regarding more specific information about credit recovery we were offering credit recovery previously but it looked different at different high schools so this policy just clarifies that for the district policy 74-47 and graduation ceremonies as the ability for students who are active duty military to where their their dress uniform to that graduation seller ceremony we want to

132be able to honor recognize and celebrate those students so by allowing them to wear their dress uniform and then policy student attendance and though it is in the Student Support Services Division we are recommending a change to this policy that removes language in regards to a student having an attendance failure and specifically what that is is we were having students who were passing the course but because of so many absences they were losing that credit and we were losing hundreds of credits during the course of a semester and we do believe that that was contributing to or we do believe that that could be a factor that would contribute to a student's more being more likely to drop out of high school do we want to take these as a group or take them individually

133I think we can take them as a group since we've heard all and had an opportunity to ask questions or give comments if that's okay with the board all right so I would ask for approval for policy number sixty two thirty five sixty two thirty six 6510 74 1070 442 and 74 47 and AD 212 do I hear a motion I'm fine with the other policies but like to vote on sixty five ten separately in favor say aye any opposed they are approved now for policy 6510 leave policy during here motion hello you're here second look any discussion all those in favor say aye any opposed no one all right the policy is approved I'm number B you had every kind of you schools fee schedule the leader do you know how long about how

134long this would take to discuss because we can we can if it's the world if it's okay to the board we can table this given the time everyone okay with tabeling this till next time once already have a month no matter we'll put it at the top of the old business for next month a change order to CMR agreement for Noble middle school renovations appendix and many Anderson thank you madam chair this is a change order to the construction management at risk agreement for noble middle school this this project is part of the 2014 bond the construction manager has received all bids and we're presenting this change order in the amount one hundred and fifty three thousand three hundred and thirty dollars to establish the guaranteed maximum price or the GMP to six million two

135hundred ninety two thousand seven hundred and five dollars and will authorize the construction manager who is Monteith construction corporation to proceed with the project or ask for your approval so moved to here second second any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye all right any opposed it is approved item B easement and conveyance agreement with Cape Fear public utility authority for the new Blair Elementary School appendix and Andy Anderson thank you this is a easement and conveyance agreement its associated with Blair Elementary School for Cape feare utility authority it allows them the necessary easement and access to maintain domestic water fire and sanitary sewer lines that were installed as part of the new construction project so we're asking for your approval do I hear a motion you'll hear second second any discussion hearing

136none all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved I'm see using agreement with the city of Wilmington for the new Blair elementary school appendix Oh Eddie Anderson thank you this is for Blair elementary school again that this easement agreement is actually for two things one it is for public access to the sidewalk that stems it extends along the front of the property and allows for the city of Wilmington to maintain that sidewalk and then two it also provides a public drainage easement that occurs between the sidewalk and the rode right away and allows the city to also maintain drainage along that road we're asking for your approval tonight moved during your second second any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved thank you mr. Anderson

137item D commitment to fund new school appendix G dr. Marc Lee not last a board chair and mr. Boyer to chip in because they were both thinking that initial discussion and he's talked about it we're coming to the end of the current bond cycle we've started talking about projects that we would need for our next bond cycle and one of the one of the ones that have been at the forefront has been discussion of a middle school we have the site for the middle school so it's not a case of having to go out and purchase land we would like to just work with the county similar to what we did at Porter's neck and start that process early where they would front the money they've looked at their long-term debt schedule it works for

138them so even if the bond were to fail we can move forward with this project so you have a draft letter mr. Aniston has helped with the with the numbers on that why a middle school a couple of reasons if you look at projection numbers middle schools the is the area where currently the most over capacity as a district and our current projection next year places us almost 500 over it also has a secondary impact of helping their high schools or larger high school by population is laney track we would convert the current trask into a ninth grade center to break up that school and to help with spacing there we think it fits long range in terms of where we want to go I know there are other important projects out there to include

139Mercy Williams in Pine Valley we're not we're not forgetting those projects but are the ones that we could get started on the quickest this is one that we could mr. eNOS anything you'd like to add to that too expand a little more when she said in terms of capacity you know this new middle school would be built at the sid barry site and would then become trash middle school which would give us a 300 students expansion in the middle school but the existing facility becoming part of Laney high school gives us a little over a 500 increase in capacity at the high school level we're doing this as the board has discussed in the past you know the you could build to middle schools for the price of one high school and you know this

140keeps this is a less less expensive more efficient way to keep up with that secondary growth that we're experiencing if we started if we had the funding to go three and a half four years right you also you want to lock in as much current pricing as opposed to inflation yeah that's huge now I will say that I have had feedback from some board folks they're concerned about why this one first there are some other things you can do but in the larger scope of things it's not a case of not doing other things but when you got an opportunity to do one thing first this one seems to be the one we can get moving the fastest and some renovations in the same one what we're trying what we've done with this like you

141did with porters neck is to get that new building up and running we're looking at two potential balls a state bond which would garner us probably about 18 to 19 million and then a district bond that would be closer to the two hundred million dollar range which would give us a school and yeah down the road looking looking at what would be in a bond replacing Merisi Williams replacing Pine Valley those are the two next schools on the list major renovations at a lot of our schools there's plans for a new Hanover there are some other plans [Music] the river lights Elementary we should be the Mary C Williams replacement so there are a lot of things and then we go back and doing a lot of those internal things oftentimes we do technology upgrades

142with bond security upgrades so Eddie doesn't Eddie's not lacking for things to put in a bomb I have plenty to do for the next several years is it possible to put this into the conversation with redistricting if we know it's coming like as far as options go or is that gonna have to happen again when the new buildings as I mentioned before I think that the new cropper GSA GIS has because of their partnership with McKibben demographics they have the unique opportunity to do exactly that they're very familiar you know demo McKibbon did the demographics and enrollment projections for us that we're currently using and so and one of the the criteria that he had put up on the screen was recommending was was looking at that future growth so I think we will definitely

143take that into consideration from a parent perspective if I have a child going into elementary school and that's what I'm selecting my neighborhood on I'd like to know if I'm going to be removed into the new middle school area when when my child gets to that point absolutely breakfast I know the county commissioners there was twenty eight billion dollar bond or twenty eight billion dollar bond don't want to throw them under the bus further but you know it's important to recognize good work when it happens in our county commissioners I've really given this this board a partnership over the years I think the last ten years they were throwing out some of the numbers they have been funding our schools they have been stepping up and this is just another example of that and I

144think you know it's important to show that appreciation too bad nobody's here to see it but I definitely appreciate it on TV yeah I'm Nielsen numbers to the roof right now so I guess we we need to yes so do I need a motion to approve the the yes the letter is written we'll make some minor adjustments and get it to you for for signature okay so do I have a motion to approve the letter as written with minor adjustments so moved second all right all those in favor say aye any opposed it is approved so I'll ask mr. Anderson and the Wayne to just give it one last look over and finalize it okay I'm 15 does anyone have any correspondence they wish to share just two small things one I got an email

145from a gentleman there actually was at the Board of Ed building Oakland Carolina Beach Road gentleman they my crease has a program called bikes for free and they give bikes for free to children and they want to target 75 to 100 of our most at-risk students the students write an essay and they are awarded bikes and not most of the students who go don't know if they're getting the bike or not but they've done this in a number other counties they did it in Guilford it looks like a really special program I've asked Mike to drop off some packets for the board to the Tabatha tomorrow so hopefully we get those by Thursday or at least next week but this is definitely something I'd like him to come and present on and I'd like the

146board to consider if we can get three bikes 75 of our most at-risk students I think that would just be a blast and it's a wonderful opportunity and then the science won't be a director I can't remember the gentleman's name but we just had science won't give for my daughter schools I would really like at the next board meeting to get these these guys some recognition they give up to full Saturdays and they have these kids pumped about science they do such a wonderful job and I'd really like them to be recognized for it they don't get paid anything extra it's just they love science they love working with our students and I don't know how how we would do that I like to recognize good work when I see you talk to miss quad

147Obama as we do our recognitions would be happy to science olympiad is one that we would be happy to come in and talk a little bit about we have those kinds of suggestions she would be the person we need to speak to that section that does the recognition just just remember folks it's 10 o'clock now and I would caution the bike program I've seen the I've seen in taking a quick look at it it looks good but just be careful there were a lot of folks who want to become in front of our students because we have a captive audience and not every one of those programs is once you dig into it it is something that's good for kids so just be careful about committing us because you end up in that all-or-nothing category

148sometimes where you have to let everybody have access or let nobody have access so just look at those programs real carefully we find them the same thing with for example cherry we have a lot of folks who want to do fundraisers and they see schools as a captive audience so we as a district at district level we do two fundraisers we do unite away because it contributes to multiple groups across in the area and we do I think it's Relay for Life in the spring and then our schools have some of their own individual ones but don't but don't be surprised as folks will come forward because we have that captive audience of adults and students sometimes to try to just look at all those programs very carefully 16 16 the New Hanover County Board

149of Education will participate in Head Start program governance training on Tuesday April 9th 2019 at 3:30 p.m. and the Board of Ed Center the New Hanover County Board of Education before will hold a budget work session on Tuesday April 9th 2019 and April 23rd at 4:00 p.m. right here at the Board of Ed Center policy committee will meet on Tuesday April 23rd at 3 p.m. at the Board of Ed Center and the next regular meeting of the New Hanover County Board of Education is scheduled for Tuesday May 7 2019 at 5:30 p.m. right here at the Board of Ed Center I would now ask for a motion for us to go into closed session pursuant to North Carolina General statute number one for 3-3 1811 a36 well I mean the items that we've got to

150cover are fairly quick I've you know if you wanted to do them after the budget work session on Tuesday we can do if you want to postpone until Tuesday and do that or we can do it now either way one's a very I can update you and two on to personnel issues and then Wayne's got one just quick legal update you do it now or then either way it's fine you now or you mind if I rented it yes so moved so for those are waiting for you will not take action coming out of this you