ACS Board of Education Meeting May 11, 2021

001system now they're ready okay at this time i'll call to order the may 11 2021 regular meeting of the alexander county board of education to order and as always if you would please join me in a moment of silence thank you this time i'll recognize mr marti laument for our pledge of allegiance attention salute pledge i pledge allegiance to the fire of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mr louderman board members you've had the opportunity to approve to review the agenda uh what's the pleasure of the board and if you would please as you make motions in seconds please tell your name move to approve scott bowman okay do we have a second bridgette run

002okay any discussion all those in favor of approving the agenda please say aye anyone opposed please say no motion carries okay now we're to public comment by general statute 115 c-51 do we have anyone signed up okay okay i'll read the rules for um for the rules for public comment each person signed up to speak will have three minutes to make his or her remark each person signed up to speak will only be entitled to the time allotted to them and time may not be relinquished to another speaker only one spokesperson will be allowed to speak for a group of individuals wishing to address the board on the same issue speakers will be acknowledged by the board chairman in the order of which their names appear on the sign up sheet speakers will address the

003board from the front of the room and begin their remarks by stating their names comments that are deemed obscene profane or personal attacks on a board member or school employee will be calls for ending of a particular speaker's time as determined by the board chairperson persistence in such remarks by an individual shall terminate that person's privilege to address the board the public comment to the board period is not intended to require the board to answer impromptu questions speaker will address all comments to the board as a whole and not one individual member of the board discussion between speakers and members of the audience will not be allowed speakers will refrain from discussion of any of the following items items which are considered closed session matters including but not limited to the attorney-client privilege anticipated or

004pending litigation property acquisition or liquidation or complaints about specific employees and students an open session this is in accordance with the general statute 115 c 321 and the open meetings law which protects students and employees records speaker will be courteous in their language and in their presentation thank you okay so we have signed up mr scott hines and his topic is uh refusal of school administration to allow the girls junior softball league to play on alexander county school facilities it's american legion sponsored and mr hines if you will and we'll start your time when you begin speaking okay i'm scott hines and i'm the registered deeds in the county and as importantly i'm a 20-year veteran and commander of the local post 170 american legion and i just wanted to come to you today to

005tell you that you know we were discontented by the refusal of the school administration to allow us to have a girls softball program use the school facilities which we've done many times in the past i also wanted to start it off with saying that may is military appreciation month and we didn't feel too appreciated in that sense but i do recognize that you had a military appreciation day at the high school recognized earl boston one of our veterans and we thank you for that and so but on to the topic is we were told that we couldn't use the school soft or the the facilities of the school which we had done many times in the past because they said we were outsiders american legion was an outside organization and we've partnered probably 30 plus

006years or more for with the school system so we didn't understand how we were outsiders and we've had we've bought things for the the school programs the athletic programs we've bought bleachers for the stadium we've we've taken care of the facilities when we've used them so we've had a good working relationship up until now and i just want to try to you know make things better when i interacted with the public information officer renee meade she um used the words you people to kind of uh identify us and that felt like a divisive statement and kind of inflammatory and i was very upset about that so a lot of our veterans are wanting to take this to the local paper and media to tell them how discontent we are with how we were treated by

007the school board and we feel we've been treated unfairly so and then other outside organizations the 24-hour race was just held recently and that's an outside organization it was sponsored by the local government however they did use it a lot of people that aren't students of alexander central which all of our students were members of alexander central and their parents were taxpayers that paid for the facilities that they can't use that's what we're upset about um so the real losers in this are the girls um and they don't get to have a summer league to play in which we were ready to sponsor so we just wanted to let you know we were discontent with the with the response from the school and what we want we'd like an apology we would like that this

008wouldn't happen again we'd like to be seen as a partner with the school system as we have been many for many many years and we just don't want this to drive a wedge between us the american legion and the school system thank you okay okay that ends our public comment that we had the one person signed up so that ends that but i am going to take the liberty to address a couple of things and board members if you feel free to to speak up with information or or against what information i have just however but we we greatly value the partnership that we've had with the legion over the years we understand the importance of it our community is better by our school systems better buy it our sports programs are better by it

009but where our hands are tied is governor's mandate and the cdc's mandate says that we have to abide by the social distancing aspect and we also have to to abide by a reduced occupancy for our facilities and the only way we have of recourse for uh you know to to monitor that is with a school employee being involved and that would solve the whole issue if there was a school employee involved with that and i'll read some sessions of the north carolina guidebook for reopening public schools says ceasing all activities involving outside government groups organizations until an evaluation is made to adjust and we think that re-evaluation is coming june 1st but we don't know and and you got to think about how many things this is affecting we don't know if we can have

010a graduation with full capacity yet our hands are tied at this point we don't know we don't know if we have to have reduced occupancy but until that that next decision is made we don't know and let's see some other sections consider adopting local policies to limit or halt the use of facilities for non-educational related activities as in renting facilities after hours and on the weekends in accordance in accordance to reduce the possibility of the spread of covet 19 and so on so on and then another section says discontinue activities that involve bringing together large groups of people or activities that do not allow for physical distancing including assemblies in person field trips large groups using playground equipment and etc and also minimize opportunities for sustained exposure of 15 minutes or more within six seat

011distances with students teachers staff visitors in our areas and you know when also when you say that you hope that we could have a good partnership in the future we see this as a one-time event that what's what we've had to do here but we don't know another option to it because we still have to operate under the governor's mandate and the cdc's mandate and at this point i don't see that we've done anything wrong i would personally apologize to it if you took it that way but i don't see a recourse for us at this point and board members if anyone else has anything else to say mr chairman i would just like to add that um you know covered 19 we've made had to live through a lot of things and make decisions

012that none of us like to make and um i hope we never have to do anything like this again i know that these rules have been in place since march of last year and um it's just we're trying to get to the end of it and i hope that with with the new legislation coming if if it comes june 1st or when it comes i hope that we can get past all of these requirements and get kind of back to normal life but i i hate that it's happened of course we all kovids affected all of us in so many different ways and and changed our lives in so many different ways and so you know i just hope that we can get back to normal i hope that the kids can get back to

013normal with their sports and go on with life anyone else i understand the part of having the employee there uh to ensure that the guidance is followed are we currently starting to rent out facilities in a way that we was prior to coveted in general i can answer that the only facilities that have been rented have been the auditorium for some competitions and that is only because randy parsons and jeff cockrell are both school system employees and they are here during those events there's there's no travel teams though i know we used to have a few travel teams that utilize some of our facilities there's none of them currently that i am aware of uh renee mead is she monitors the fmx facility use are they using they're not are they no none that have

014been approved through the central office any others okay moving along board members you let's see my make sure we're not jumping ahead of myself okay yeah uh board members you've had the opportunity to uh review the consent agenda uh what's the pleasure of the board bridget ryan move to approve do we'll have a second ramy robinson second okay we have a motion and a second any discussion everyone in favor please say hi uh anyone opposed please say no motion carries okay all right moving on to reports we have mr charles draper principal of hiddenite elementary for an update [Music] i think i'm situated now thank you dr hefner and board members for having me today um i want to say that i'm excited to be able to talk about hidden elementary school and some of

015the exciting things that we've been doing this school year and some of the things that we've achieved this school year so this first picture here this is uh this is this picture is up in our school office and i look at it every day as i come in and at the beginning of the school year i tasked our staff with coming up with one word for their school year and as we came into the school year we knew that it was going to be a tough school year we had already talked about virtual school ab schedules wednesdays for cleaning but i want to point out that some of the words that are that are in this picture and some of the one words that our staff came up with for the year determined thankful joy

016patience grace and discipline and i have to just give our staff at hiddenite the staff members in alexander county the board members and everybody in public education a huge shout out because this year we have had to pivot a lot each week each day has represented has brought new challenges and new obstacles and um i can honestly say that the staff at hiddenite has taken each one head-on and and our board has and our school teachers have as well and so it's just a good reminder um for what we stand about in public education and um so just i wanted to start with that because it does mean a lot to me it also has our new hidden night phantom logo on it which we love and we have enjoyed the school year as well

017so just just a huge shout out to our staff our teacher assistants our teachers they have had to create bus routes they have had to you know monitor buses screen kids as they come in and out of the building teachers have been quarantined students have been quarantined our tas have subbed had we've had to have substitutes in and out of our classrooms but we have continued to keep on and continue to press forward to educate kids and then on top of all that educating children as well and doing a great job with it so so that is our staff one word that i'd like to share with you guys the next slide talks a little bit about professional excellence and our title 1 funds this year we have trained several teachers in our third fourth

018and fifth grade classes in orton get in orton gillingham it is a multi-sensory approach to phonics we use title one funds for that we also purchased a simple k-12 pd program that allows our staff to have differentiated pd so we know that all staff members they all might not need the same professional development so they could go on here and there's so many different courses where teachers can select from pd with classroom management how to flip your classrooms different tech tools and whatnot so our staff has they've really gleaned a lot from that program we purchased more library books for our media center just to continue to engage kids in reading we've had parent help sessions for kindergarten through second grade and third fourth and fifth grade parents as they have had to navigate the

019remote learning and the virtual learning to try to coach them and teach them how to walk through that this school year we purchased books for our engage ela curriculum in our upper grades we also in our title one funds we purchase a reading specialist to help our students that might have gaps in their reading also to collaborate with our teachers we purchased several teacher assistants out of our title one funds and then we've held several professional developments throughout the school year and i've highlighted a few of those on effective questioning plc's near pod vocabulary learning focus and then our simple k-12 so lots of great things are continuing to happen even during a pandemic year the next slide this is probably one of my favorite slides you've already heard me talk about how we've had

020to pivot a lot this school year our math reading and science nights typically we have nights where parents community members come into the building it's a big night but this year it's had to look different we have had to flip that and our teachers have done an outstanding job with that as well so we've had math reading and science nights at home where teachers have sent home fun engaging games that kids can participate in with their parents with their family members dice games for math night different sorts there's one student on here that has a fiction and non-fiction sort where they had to cut out books out of a scholastic and talk about the fiction and non-fiction books with their with their family and then on science night we sent home kits for students to

021create a stem balloon car in our kindergarten first and second grade classes and then also a catapult in the upper grades so just a fun way for us to still have our math reading and science night but also to get that family involvement and family engagement a couple other highlights from the school year our battle of the books team they did an outstanding job they came in first place throughout the district for the elementary battle of the books dr sherry hudson and miss jenna buff helped lead that team so we're super proud of them in our media center we had a coding focus and a stem focus in our media center our media coordinator she um she taught our students how to code there's a coding program that they work through and we had several

022students that have coded over 2500 lines of code this year and it was exciting too because once she finished up that unit our students are continuing to code continuing to do it at home and they're excited about it as well as just the stem activities that she's engaging our kids in the hands-on activities in the media center we have been awarded two outdoor classroom grants that for a total of twenty three thousand dollars and you see a picture there where we have porter concrete slab we have a gazebo we have some outdoor seating we also have some other flexible outdoor seating some storage bins and then also we're working to get our our sun shades up as well and miss buff and miss mundy they were instrumental in that grant we had another teacher miss

023simpson who was awarded the patterson partnership grant for 500 for her classroom library so she was able to purchase 500 worth of books from scholastics the next bullet there talks about our blue ticket reward system we noticed that students were struggling to complete their wednesday remote work so we started working we worked with our school improvement team how can we motivate our kids and we had a lot of kids that were working hard to just acknowledge them so um at the end of each week students that complete their remote work and and know working hard on their work throughout the week they get their name written on a blue ticket and we we do a drawing for each grade level for students to be recognized and it's amazing what a little incentive like that can

024do for kids to get them motivated we also had a read-a-thon which was uh which was a wonderful success that our media coordinator put on as well and if you haven't heard of a read-a-thon it is a simple way to get kids motivated about reading and family members can make donations to the school so our students logged over 86 000 minutes of reading over two weeks and then we also raised two thousand dollars for our school so a lot of excitement around that and then on this slide show we talk about our phantom shout outs all the time staff members can give phantom shout outs for students that are doing outstanding things in the building that are going above and beyond and this school year we have given 238 phantom shout outs we announce the

025students name over the intercom talk about what they're doing well and we also give them a certificate so just a few highlights there of great things going on at hidden night elementary school we talked about staff members and our staff they are the hardest working individuals that i have ever met but we also talk about staff wellness and staff morale our pe coach started a wellness wednesday workout where we've had anywhere from five to ten staff members each week show up and they have a workout at the end of the day on wednesdays we've continued with our owner book study which is a district initiative which has been great for our staff to work through our pto has been super supportive of our staff they brought in cherry pops and provided ice cream on wednesdays

026chick-fil-a lunch breakfast and coffee so they have been an awesome support of our staff and then also the district support of the food truck there's a picture of that on there we thank you guys for that support and the signs that you put up at the school and then we have our make someone's day wall and i enjoy walking by this bulletin board every day because this is a way that our staff members can give one another shout outs if they see somebody that's doing something great throughout the building that's a staff member they just want to give somebody a pick-me-up uh they post it on this wall and um it's just a great way whenever you walk past that board and you see your name up there and somebody saying hey thank you for

027doing this way to go keep up the great work i just it is always great to be acknowledged we all like to be acknowledged and especially whenever good things are happening and then the last part of my presentation today is just talk about community partners we are blessed to work in a county in alexander county where everybody is willing and ready to help our school system so to start off with this school year we had churches that provided school supplies for all of our students this school year our students didn't need to bring anything but a backpack and a lunch box if if they chose to bring their lunch but sulphur springs baptist head night baptist church and fairfield baptist church all provided those school supplies and helped to purchase those for our school and

028we still have school supplies that we're able to give students and that was a huge support to our families also berea baptist and third creek missionary baptist church also donated supplies for student needs this school year we had a few more community partners i wanted to talk about as well taylor's rotary club they provided 700 to purchase christmas for seven of our students exxon mobil education alliance program they donated 500 towards our math and science programs at our school the local wendy's here in town they we host wendy's earning for learning nights every tuesday where percentage of all sales come back to our school and they also donated coupons for adriana roll students for free frosties we just received a grant from true value for painting brighter future and so we will be freshening up

029our building with some fresh coats of paint on our walls over the summer sipes lumber they partnered with us us with materials for our grant we've received tokens from ride with pride car wash for our staff as well as kodo's walmart and giovanni's have also donated gift cards for our staff so lots of great things happen at hiddenite even in the face of adversity even with obstacles we have learned to pivot this school year and to just just just to keep on and i have to say i'm excited to be at hid tonight i thank you guys for the support that you give us and uh for allowing me to to spend another year at hidden elementary school any questions or great job we appreciate your leadership thank you guys board members do we have

030any uh committee reports um our report will brief from the foundation we met last week the education foundation and we are gonna based on things opening up we will proceed with our sports hall of fame induction ceremony in november so the details are not worked out but there will be more to come any other committee reports okay at this time i'll recognize melinda glenn for a virtual academy she's our virtual academy coordinator for an update thank you dr hefner and board members for allowing me to present a second time this year for an update for virtual academy to show you how we've grown this year virtual academy has been a true place of learning this year for students families and teachers we've learned to be successful virtual students effective virtual teachers and to work with

031our families as a team to support our students in a virtual environment currently we have 167 students in our elementary school and 110 students currently enrolled in the middle school we've had a lot of reasons to celebrate our students this year each and every one really deserves an award this year for just persevering and learning so many new things but we have some who've won real awards through county competitions so brianna jemison is one of our middle middle schoolers in eighth grade and she not only won the district spelling bee but the regional spelling bee and continues in that competition we're very proud of her we also had students who participated in the soul and water competition this year and we had district winners at every grade level 5th through 8th grade next slide we

032knew that we had a lot to learn this year about teaching and learning virtually so after christmas after we had students and families who had participated for a while and kind of knew what had gone well and might have suggestions for us we sent home a survey and asked all families to participate the number one response to what went well truly was everything parents were so grateful for everything that that families were doing that the county had provided for them in order to be safe at home and to have consistency in their schedule the second most popular response for what went well were our teachers and the relationships they had with students at the beginning of the year i think everybody kind of had a question in their mind how can you develop a relationship

033through a computer screen but you can if you had the opportunity to sit in on any of our virtual classrooms you can see those kindergartners through second graders or fifth graders interacting with their teachers just like they do in the classroom sharing their pets sharing their hopes being upset and talking to their teachers through all the same things that they would in a classroom the biggest surprise for us relationship wise was the relationship that our teachers developed with families since the teacher is actually in the home multiple times a day they not only developed a strong relationship with the student but with the whole family and that has just been a blessing but as we knew we had a lot of areas that we could improve number one was socialization our parents really missed and

034felt their students missed the opportunity to socialize that truly was not a virtual academy problem it was coveted it was a coveted response they also wanted more hands-on opportunities for their students and felt like their students needed more one-on-one time with the teacher in person so we used the survey information as we started planning for next year this year ava was truly a response to the pandemic but next year we plan to be more we want to be an additional schooling option for families in alexander county and we are currently accepting applications for next year until may 30th so we're still in that process of seeing what our numbers will be to be a virtual academy student next year students have to have remained in good academic stand standing through participating and working hard to

035be a successful learner so that might be students who are participating in line or online sorry or in in the virtual school or in person or in a hybrid mix we know that that attendance to class in whatever setting is the number one number one key to academic success for any student so next year during teacher work days students and parents will attend an in-person orientation and they will also sign a contract stating that they understand what it takes and are willing to do what it takes to be a successful student during the first week of school teachers will assess students evaluate needs and customize their learning schedule based on the needs of the students who are actually in their class so what does this look like for the elementary school kindergarten's kindergarten through fourth

036grade would have approximately one to one and a half hours each day four days a week monday tuesday thursday and friday following the county pacing and programs so that students can reintegrate easily into traditional school if and when they choose science and social studies would be one class a week with personalized independent instruction instruction for the rest of the week the only change for our fifth graders is that science increases to one hour of zoom instruction four days a week since that is a tested area for our fifth graders and we want to make sure that every student has every chance to be successful in all the assessments that they have to take through the state our middle school instructional program is very similar one hour each day for the core areas with two hours

037for the content areas of science and social studies and then eighth grade changes again since that's a tested area so that they have four days of instruction for science so you noticed we have zoom instruction four days a week monday tuesday thursday friday what about wednesdays well our parents were very um sorry they were very insistent that their students needed more opportunities for socialization and enrichment activities and one-on-one tutoring time so that's what wednesdays will be for three wednesdays a month will be in pers will be opportunities for students to have when time what i need so that might be a student who needs one-on-one intervention for their students or for their for their learning for tutoring or it could be an enrichment opportunity for students who are above beyond grade level every student will

038have the opportunity to sign up for virtual clubs that will happen those three wednesdays a month and then those wednesdays will also be saved for in-person district and state testing the last wednesday a month will be set aside for steam opportunities science technology engineering arts and mathematics this year we starting in december we took one one evening a month and did something hands-on with families so we had a math night we had a reading night in with science we took really the whole month of april and we worked with the north carolina science festival and packed hands-on experiments for every student k-8 sent those home and our students did an entire or teachers did an entire week of science activities with their students and you can see miss sizemore one of our second grade teachers

039and her students who were engaged in a garden in a glove activity this was the highlight of our year parents loved it students loved it teachers loved it so we are really going to emphasize that next year and have one steam in-person day per month where we focus on a grade level standard and bring all of our students in for leveled activities around geology for fourth grade or electricity for a different grade level that wednesday also gives us a chance to do field trips both virtual and in person with our students on the next slide this year we worked intensively with jessica esposito for a lot of professional development she is our county instructional technology person and next year she's going to work with us on those steam days to integrate coding and hands-on activities

040for our students using some of the technology tools that you see like the bee bots the spike legos merge cubes and other things so we're really excited about all these opportunities or all the opportunities that next year holds thank you for allowing us to think about education in a new and different way you have any questions so the deadline's the 30th of may yes having peaked in there kind of seeing what it's looking like i'm sorry number wise you hadn't kind of peeked to see kind of what you're looking like well of course i have and what do you what do you look like currently we are sitting at about 50. um we've had three informational sessions for parents and um every time that we've had an informational session it has has risen i've talked

041to a lot of families who haven't signed up yet but seem really interested so we're just going to kind of have to see where our numbers go between now and the 30th we have sent out letters and emails to every home school family in our community which is 536 registered state home schools so we're hoping to be partners with them as well this year and is that that 50 is just k-8 as you presented it is k-8 yes now the virtual in the high school level will that still be an option next year as i've had people contact me with interest in the high school and i have have had several the high school is planning on continuing their virtual learning they are handling that again next year on their own and all the information

042is actually currently on the website so their application is still open as students registered this year they had the opportunity to sign up for virtual classes and we'll continue to do so and uh you know you know i think i think virtual is one of the good things that's going to come out of coving i i i think we should have had this you know i don't say uh you know it's something people was jumping on prior to covet and uh you know you know we had to jump cause of coping and you know and it's good to see you taking the feedback uh you know my kids started here in virtual and me and you talked a couple times and i'm glad to see that stay in there because i think that's an option

043some of our families maybe have desired that hasn't been there uh you know with the current enrollment so forth just kind of thinking you know position stuff are you still planning to house the teachers that here and there at different schools or if the number permits would would you like to do a central location there's been a lot of discussion about that so far i know there's it really will depend on what our numbers look like best of all worlds we would have our own building and all be together but there's also a lot of glory in having the teachers housed at different schools and having the students remain in their base schools just because of the the amazing staff that we have in alexander county who have all worked so hard together this year

044to make sure that our students are successful you know every social worker every counselor every principal every assistant principal knows who our virtual academy students are and they are in contact with me constantly have you heard from so-and-so how so-and-so doing and so i don't know really what next year looks like until after may 30th when our numbers come together and that decision will be made but i can see great things about both both directions i have one more because because you know i started this year with my kids you absolutely so you know the four day a week thing and i see i see what you're doing i'm all for the steam you know i i think we need more of that you know i think uh board member cooks he alluded to that

045when he's discussing calendar if there was a way to incorporate that something similar i think to kind of even ease and give our elementary teachers a time a common planning or plc type time i think that's reasonably kind of eluding but with that four day a week what if a kid doesn't choose to or or is that going to be required if they take part in the club if that kid's on track if that kid's on track is it optional for them to take part in that club on those three days or they just kind of left independent work that day if the child is academically on track then the things that we offer on wednesdays will be optional because we do know that a lot of our homeschool families enjoy that time to push

046students in in areas of interest to their family and in different ways than the traditional school system has supplied that's why they chose to homeschool a lot of them in the first place so we're trying to give to to work with them and give a little bit of that leeway if a child is not academically on track then it will not be an option for them to remain in virtual academy they will need to attend those sessions and get that one-on-one time that they need interesting thing though from a parent meeting we had several current students who attended those meetings and when i was talking about the wednesdays one of the moms interrupted me very politely but she said she said miss glenn she said my daughter wants to know if she can come in

047on wednesdays because she wants that time with her teacher she's academically on track she's right where she needs to be or above so i think we'll have a lot of parents and students who will choose to come just to have that time with their teacher thank you miss glenn yes i don't have a question but i just have a comment i don't think any of us maybe knew what this was going to look like at the first of the year but i appreciate this presentation and it has shown a lot and where you've taken this to and the teachers have taken it it it just seems real wonderful and the families that that need this virtual or want the virtual i think it's a great thing for you thank you thank you it is not

048the right choice for every student but it is a choice that a lot of families truly enjoy and that some really need right so um one one question i have is i i try hard to keep up with the general assembly with uh mandates but the virtual virtual aspect has been one of the most confusing ones to keep up with and yes it has it's right up there with summer learning program do we we still don't really have guidance there yet do we as far as a number or you mean as far as requiring it be a separate school well we have two bills introduced we have one from the senate and one from the house and they have some commonalities but they also have differences so one requires that a principal be hired the

049other one does not and we'll see what all shakes out when they vote those bills into law and try to do what we've been doing for more than a year and that is to figure out what we're supposed to do what we're supposed to report and how we're supposed to do it so um more to come thank you at this time i'll recognize dr betsy curry associate superintendent of curriculum instruction for the summer learning program good evening um chairman schrum dr hefner members of the board thank you for having me to talk to you about the summer learning program like dr hefner said a lot of what we've done this year has been a moving target every time we turn around not only are we getting different legislation but we're also getting different interpretations of

050the legislation from different departments at dpi so we have gone back and forth back and forth on the summer learning plan and i think we're really getting into some solid ground as we have met with the federal programs director and and just want to share with you a little bit about what this will look like i know you've all been very concerned about learning loss in this past year so the summer learning plan requirements are listed in the bullets above we must have 30 days or 150 hours and this does not include time for lunch recess or transition times reading camp is to operate simultaneously and that reading camp has to be for k3 students for first through third students i apologize for 72 hours of reading instruction embedded within the 150 hours of the

051summer learning camp in k2 we are required to offer reading math enrichment and social emotional learning and 3-8 we're required to offer reading math science enrichment and social emotional learning and at the high school it's designed just a little differently we have credit recovery a minimum of one elective and support in our eoc subjects outcomes and attendance are going to be tightly monitored by the state we must provide transportation and meals and there is a required 1200 signing bonus for some certified staff and the legislation reads for those that have reached achieved a bonus in the past or those that are nationally board certified would get that 1200 bonus and parents have the option to opt out of the summer learning program but we must offer it for six weeks except at the high school

052level that there's a little more flexibility with the calendar there our dates for our summer learning program we're operating in four day weeks and the dates are up above or on your presentation and it is the last three weeks in june with a break over the july 4th holiday for that next week and then the last two weeks in july we've asked parents to commit to five or six weeks because we did not want to take a slot from a child that might need that we were very very worried about staffing but that's kind of come around and we're doing okay now okay next slide please this is the criteria for the invitation and a wait list has been established for kindergarten and first grade student we're looking at kiddos who are in the 24th

05325th percentile or lower in reading and math by i ready diagnostics middle of the year and we'll look again at the end of the year which we should be finishing up this week we'll also take a look at eog we of course had to notify parents at the middle of the year mark in march to let them know that their child was a candidate for this summer learning program but we also were sure to tell them that if their child all of a sudden just kind of really catches on and crosses that developmental hump that they will not be they may be uninvited so we can make room for the children that are in the next tier of need in second through eighth grade students we began looking at those students who were two grade

054levels or more according to the middle of the year and end of year i ready data and the eog scores and then 9th through 12th grade we looked at those children who were not on chat on track for graduation they had class failures and they qualify for two tiers of credit recovery due to a credit deficit we have the traditional credit recovery which we offered for those students who were in the about a 50 a grade of 50 and they didn't have a whole lot to recover but now we're offering a different tier which includes face-to-face instruction with our classroom teachers in content areas where they have scored less than a 50 so we'll continue with the online credit recovery for those that are 50 to 60. every school is going to operate their own

055we had in the past done our summer reading camps at one or two sites but what we found is in staffing people want to teach their own students or potentially their own students we were really worried about getting staff to commit to six weeks after the year that we've had and you saw some of the work from mr draper's and ms glenn that our teachers have engaged in so it was a real struggle and i think teachers have as usual and as always just risen to the occasion and i think that we will be fully staffed at this point the high schools will operate at aec or achs depending on the needs of the student there might be some flexibility there these are the number of eligible students at each school at middle of the

056year so you can see those numbers across the board and these are kiddos that were in the 25th percentile or lower in k1 and those kiddos that were two grade levels behind or more it's a significant number of children but i'm happy to say that the end of your data is proving to be probably closer to half of that i have four schools that are completely done with their middle of the year data and i've been tracking those numbers when they get to 90 95 completion rate i go in and look at how many kids that is and i'm actually pretty pleasantly surprised with our results in this second semester middle schools for some reason are just rocking it despite just being two days a week they're doing a fantastic job this year really high

057median growth scores okay next slide please we originally tried to staff elementary teacher to student ratios at one to ten and elementary classified staff to student ratio at one to twenty and by classified staff those folks would be filling in as teacher assistants or bus drivers and secondary teacher to student ratio is one to fifteen and classified staff to student ratio is one to thirty a little harder to determine with the high school folks because it's really based on credit recovery and you can have a teacher who is not licensed in an area be the teacher of record for credit recovery so we really just kind of have to wait and see who shows up with that the staffing may decrease if the funding is not or if the students just don't support needing that

058many staff because it is a it is a major expense so we also wanted to share with you the staffing compensation which there has been a lot of converse conversation and different interpretation from attorneys and from the office of early learning who manages the reading summer camp and from the federal programs people and from the finance people so we finally got everybody in the same room but we are required as i spoke of earlier to pay a twelve hundred dollar bonus to anybody who is nationally board certified or who has received that bonus so what we did is we're requiring people to work three weeks or more if they want to receive that full bonus because we just feel like that's the most appropriate thing prior to having that clarity and the understanding that we

059could do that we really were feeling as though that wasn't really fair because really people were having trouble to staff or trouble staffing and we have a lot of teachers that maybe didn't pursue national board certification or that are very young or maybe aren't even eligible for one of the bonuses because they didn't teach in a bonus area for example our k2 teachers are not eligible for a bonus because they're just not in the criteria that fits that no matter how well they do so we decided we were going to offer a 1200 bonus to all certified 10 or 11 month employee who works the six weeks and we would prorate it in three week increments we considered prorating it by week but that would just be way too much for our finance department to

060keep up with so we said you work three weeks you get the six hundred dollars if you work twelve weeks you get the twelve hundred dollars if you work less than three weeks you get nothing and if you work less than 12 weeks then you get 600 six weeks you're saying 12 weeks six weeks i'm thinking about a lot of three days sixes and twelves and all that yes there are and i'm going 25 miles per hour so no bonus to anybody who works less than three weeks with the local bonus so classified staff are our staff that are certainly very very deserving and sometimes on the lower end of the pay scale we also wanted to offer a bonus to all classified staff who work the entire six weeks and who work full-time hours

061they will get a six hundred dollar bonus and a three hundred dollar bonus to all classified staff who work the three weeks and who work full-time hours for those three weeks a six hundred dollar bonus to any bus driver who drives am and pm routes and works ninety percent of the days or more and a three hundred dollar bonus to any bus driver who drives am or pm route 90 of the days or more zero bonus to anyone who works less than three weeks so you can see how the record keeping is going to be very very difficult to keep up with but we've got spreadsheets that were changing on a daily level i think tara and sharon about ready to strangle me because i keep saying oh we need a daily rate of pay

062for so-and-so but we um also have tried to get this out there through communication a letter was sent in spanish and english on 423 it's linked to your presentation and alert now message or phone message was sent to parents to expect the letter parents had the option to opt in and indicate if the student would be attending for five or six weeks parents also had the opportunity to indicate if transportation was needed parents will have until may 1 to return the letter and then we will begin making phone calls which has passed and we did and we'll also be posting the returning to learn return to learning plan on our website and social media upon approval we will present to the board of education tonight and share with local media outlets on may 11th and

063that presentation has been prepared and is ready to go when we we leave here this evening assuming that that all of these pay scales are fall into the chart of accounts on f's or funds yes sir they do and and probably some reading funds also we've we've received several pots of money for the summer learning okay good deal thank you and you said that the data was looking good for in your opinion i mean not better yes what we look at in the i ready we of course don't have our eogs or standardized assessments yet but in the i ready we're looking for a median score at the end of the year of 100 in growth and what that actually means is that the median of growth for our kiddos is a hundred percent so

064at mid-year we'd expect it to be fifty percent so what that tells us in in our middle schools are well over a hundred even despite the the lack of days that they had in their education um and still looking at those results but we're also looking at end of year results as in who i ready predicts to be proficient at the end of the year and in the four schools that are completely or nearly done over 29 completion rate i'm seeing a loss of maybe three to four percentage points which is really pretty phenomenal because i compared that to where they were in 2019 at the end of the year because of course we didn't have that data at the end of the year last year so for example i think bethlehem was at 63

065percent proficient and in 2019 they were at 59 at this time of year so there's and it could be plus or minus three to four percentage points so and of course our elementary students have been back in four days a week for quite a while and the class sizes have been very very small because we were held harmless on class size allotments and so teachers feel as though having smaller groups of children and then just being the two days a week initially really gave them time to work one-on-one and in really small groups with kids to target their individual needs how much how much on the average time on the side ready would you say i know we got phone call other sunday make sure your kid comes chromebook fully charged how much time do

066we actually spend to do that i ready assessments i ready it's a progress monitoring and a universal screener which is required that we use one of those by stay for mtss so we have a beginning of the year diagnostic a middle of the year diagnostic and an end-of-year diagnostic we have a window that is three weeks long but typically schools can finish in two weeks and they don't do all the grade levels at the same time it's really a little more lenient with how we do that than we would do like an eog where everything shuts down for a day so kiddos might spend depending on the grade kindergarten first grade students might spend 20 minutes a day when they do it but then there's progress monitoring checks too and those are designed for kids

067who are below grade level and who are part of the mtss process to make sure that they're responding to the interventions that we're providing for them and so we can take kids that may be in process for some type of referral for further assistance and see if they're responding to the differentiation we're doing in the classroom and with our win groups i just you know you hear testing questions a lot and you know i i hear my kids talk about i ready all the time you know i you know all the time and i was just curious i knew they had to take it i was just curious what the average kid spent when it was time to do that big assessment on it or whatever you know kind of what time that diagnostic i

068would say it's anywhere i wouldn't expect it would be more than two hours and broken apart for little ones mr draper and ms glenn and miss mundy can probably is that a good estimate do you think 111 minutes it's a couple hours say so yeah yeah three times a year yep and of course the better they do on it it kind of progresses and puts them at a higher level so they could spend more time or less time if they really struggle we have found that buy-in and kids being excited about it has really increased at the middle school level when they started tracking their own growth and their individual goal areas like when they knew where they had to work i think that's part of the reason we've seen such growth at our middle

069schools is students are really owning that data and they they want to show how they've improved in this little probe or this little area and they don't want to come to summer school either so that might have been some of the incentive for the end of year jump they tried really hard anyone else okay thank you very much thank you thank you thank you do we need to approve that we don't have to prove that no it was just information at this time i'll recognize dr jennifer heffner for her superintendent's report thank you chairman trump you can also find this attached in your agenda i wanted you all to know that head start will receive an additional 119 650 dollars for covid related activities and purchases macy jones submitted the grant last week and this

070amount is in addition to the thirty thousand ninety seven dollars that she reported at the last meeting mrs jones will ask the policy council for permission to use the money to operate the summer program for rising kindergarten students at this time we have 38 preschool children interested in attending and enough employees to staff two classrooms and run two bus routes some children will also be placed on a waiting list for the summer learning secondly attached to your agenda you're going to find the budget letter that was submitted to rick french for our 2021-2022 budget request from the commissioners and due to the receiving of coveted funds the budget committee agreed that we would not ask for an increase in our local allocation for the upcoming year bullet number three i wanted to remind everyone of

071the honor graduate ceremony that's scheduled for sunday afternoon beginning at three here in the auditorium and i would just ask that you let me know if you plan to attend this event so that i can let the high school folks know to be looking for you on sunday also speaking of ceremonies the graduation ceremony for alexander's early college is scheduled for saturday may 22nd beginning at 10 30 here at the auditorium again if you would let me know if you're planning to attend the event we can make plans for you to sit on the stage for the graduation since we are not going to have another board meeting prior to the high school's graduation on june 4th i want you to know the details of the event and i'm not going to read all of

072those but i have listed it in my report the main thing that i want you to to understand and if this is in red in the report you were asked to arrive by six o'clock on the fourth that's on a friday evening and report to the media center as far as parking you are going to park in the bus lot and that's behind this building if you know where the greenhouse is that's where we will park along with the achs staff and there are some other details about graduation but that's the the most important thing that you need to know at this point i would let uh would like for the board to know that the july board meeting you don't have a date yet but you can go ahead and mark your calendars i've

073talked to chairman shrum and we are going to schedule that meeting for july 20th due to my vacation plans that's one week later than we would normally schedule a board meeting so i would ask you to mark your summer calendar for july 20th and then the last bullet summer work hours which that involves four 10-hour days each week for staff members that begins the week of june 7th and will conclude the week of august 2nd on fridays the buildings will be closed with instructions for anybody who comes to the building as far as hours of operation and how to contact someone in the school's office do you have any questions okay thank you okay at this time i'll recognize ms sharon mahaffey chief financial officer for proposed board of education policy revisions okay this month

074we have four policies up for first reading and um i will um uh request some input on those policies and bring them back for next month okay and if you would uh carry on with the resolution authorizing increase and micro purchase threshold okay i have a chart that i think may help uh explain this a little better but our our state purchase our policy our school board of policy reflects the state purchasing guidelines so up until thirty thousand dollars you're not required to do a bid federal purchasing guidelines at this time it's the column that says ug uniform guidance up there the micro purchase requirement is ten thousand dollars and this can be confusing so new regulations have allowed us to raise our micro purchase federal micro purchase to match the state purchase of thirty

075thousand dollars and that's what this resolution does tonight if anybody has any questions i'll be happy to answer them okay and is this an action item yes you need to adopt the resolution okay you've heard the recommendation do we have a motion in a second i'll move to approve our second bridge run okay any discussion the motion was made by board member laramel yes i'm sorry yes okay thank you any discussion okay we have a motion in a second to um to authorize the resolution to increase in micro purchasing threshold that's a lot to say um anyhow so all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed please say no motion carries thank you very much thank you thank you at this time the board will enter into closed session discuss personnel per north

076carolina general statute 143-318-point a6 do we have a motion raymie robertson make a motion in a second bridget ryan ii any discussion all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed please say no motion carries thank you