BOE Regular recurrent meeting

001okay i'd like to call this meeting kevin campbell of education to order i'd like to welcome our guests here tonight and also those on dr carter thank you please campaign [Music] thank you we need approval of the minutes of october 11 um [Music] is there any discussion or comments yes i said you have one change that i recommend to the agenda and that is under new business school calendar [Music] agenda [Music] to approve the agenda with the new item number two under new business any discussion questions all in favor aye all right you can propose the same as the same yes i have a few announcements uh first i'd like to say congratulations to the great nancy senior high school volleyball team they're now in their second round the second one is that we have

002several grants that our staff has uh have written and they haven't received so i'd like to share with the board of the public all the different brands that we have have received in the district and i would just like to say that even though we are you know we use our own wisely and are very happy with what we do we are very appreciative of these extra things that come into our district because they just add that extra learning opportunity for ourselves the teachers and staff that write these dollars and it goes to nl dillard middle school and that would help them in the program itself but also to compete in february so again congratulations to uh mr frosty and also to amanda also to [Music] session [Music] [Applause] [Music] and then kelly smith the

003instructional coach at north elementary received a 1 1 370 elementary students will receive a grant for handy handy bails by their teacher music teacher julia fair for two thousand dollars and then brian moretz the pe teacher at north received a 1500 bright ideas grant and told everyone gets a heart rate monitor and then last but certainly not least the principal dr murray received a one thousand dollar grant entitled diversity to all so i am very appreciative of all the grants that were written and those that were received by our students and uh teachers and then um in addition to the grants i'd like to uh share that as we all know today was the first day of our students most of the students going into the new building at bartley nc senior high school and

004i was able to spend the morning over there walking around and i have never seen such couldn't see the faces but i could see it in their eyes they were happy and teachers were happy and it's just uh there's certainly a learning curve with everything but the common phrase was we get to be here uh and that says a lot right there that uh you know they're they're valued they feel valued and appreciated and they certainly deserve such a wonderful facility so i just wanted to share that as well and then regarding the uh the first phase of the high school we do have open house scheduled for the community on november on sunday afternoon november the 7th from 2 30 until 4 30. at that time it is for those who have not had

005a chance to go into the school we will be uh providing guided tours uh and we're certainly going to uh have small group tours and and abide by kobe guidelines and math but uh we'll have multiple tours going on at the same time and you you'll see a short video of the progression of building the school and to where it is now but i would like to say it is under the phase one we're not through with the with the complete project so there's still a punch list for phase one so we won't have everything in place like some of the fabric from some of the furniture is not quite here yet so there's some things that aren't in place but just know that we had a lot of curiosity about the wonderful school and

006so we're trying to open it up for a tour as soon as we possibly could for the community so i hope everyone can come out and see it that day hope it's a pretty day and that's all i have public comments uh the total time allotted to public comments not to exceed 15 minutes those wishing to speak must sign up before the meeting giving full name address and topic each person will be allowed no more than three minutes spoke person spokespersons representing a group of eight or more will present and be given five minutes the board will hear comments but no action will be taken tonight unless the item is already on the agenda concerns of sufficient interest may be placed on the agenda at future meetings concerns covered by law requiring confidentiality may not

007be addressed in open meetings we have three people tonight mrs bernado good evening so my name is park drive in ridgeway virginia but i have been a seventh grade ela teacher at dillard for seven or eight years now for a while at home um i just wanted to come to the board tonight to share with you some thoughts and concerns and some possible solutions um that we have heard in discussions with co-workers and and response to questions from ccae so i'd like to begin by thanking my co-workers for responding to the surveys or taking just a minute passing the hall to let me know what their concerns were how they feel about some of the things that are going on um we all care very deeply for our students and the community and figuring out

008how best to serve both can often be a struggle um we know we know that just as well even though we're in the building and not here trying to figure out how to make all the different pieces work together um throughout the trials of the past year and a half um without regard to anyone's political affiliation or views on vaccines or masks or anything all any of us yourselves included have fought for is the best way to provide the best education we possibly could for our students here at castle county and my biggest concern is that we all realize that we must continue that fight it's not ready to end yet this crisis isn't over and we have many things that still need to be addressed and many things that we need to look to

009improve and to do better with as we go forward um some of the things are problems that we've all dealt with in the past working with the school system but there's never been a solution for some of these stuff such as never having enough substitutes available never having enough bus drivers being unable to protect or compensate for teachers planning time but these things that are part of the the school woes normally have become sort of massive obstacles that we have to overcome they are affecting the daily operations of the school they are affecting our students education and we need to find ways to work these problems out although each school has that special group of go-to subs that are always willing to help they're always um there when we need them right now under the

010current conditions they simply aren't enough there's often an unacknowledged or unspoken competition between teachers or even with admin to get some booked before someone else could steal them out from under you the problem is that even in an unacknowledged competition someone loses and when there aren't enough are not enough teachers or subs in the building it's our students who live and we excuse me to always remember that the students and their needs are ultimately the goal that we are working to meet um teacher empty rooms are then built by guiding staff or support staff along with a rotating stream of teachers who give up their planning time to make sure that every classroom has supervising adults at all times the disruption that this causes to daily operations student learning and teachers need to have dedicated

011time to work and plan ultimately means that students are not getting the education they deserve every single day the intention is not 100 focus where it needs to be this sub would not accept jobs from individual teachers rather they would be at that school every day to step into a room whose teacher couldn't find coverage also due to the current safety needs as well as a marked dearth of drivers students who ride the bus are getting on the bus earlier than ever some at just after 5am they're spending more time traveling up to two hours for some of the routes and they're losing first block class time to the long bus rides students are missing at both dillard and dui first class first period classes every day today one student excuse me one bus finally

012brought students to school at 10 45 in the morning uh sometimes students sit in the cafeteria until between five and six in the evening waiting for a bus to come back and take them home uh the ongoing lack of bus drivers has gone from being a daily headache for the office personnel and administration to being an issue that is directly affecting students learning recently the administration took steps to rearrange the schedules of students whose buses have chronically hazardous arriving after 9 a.m meaning they were missing that first class often math or ela every single day and thanks to that rearranging of some of the schedules that was necessary to keep students from falling further buying and poor classes this these changes will definitely help these students resume their learning without further chronic absence in those

013core subject areas but this is not a solution to the problem itself these students are still coming to school after 9am each day but the classes that they're missing have changed uh the board has already begun taking steps to entice new drivers to help lighten the load uh the pay increase is 17 an hour we are so hopeful that that will entice many vacancies to be filled quickly however an increase to a living wage solely for the bus drivers is not enough we are losing key support personnel as well the wage increase should be expended excuse me extended to include anyone on hourly pay further inducement bonuses designed to retain our teachers should immediately be considered and approved finally we come to the issue of teachers losing part or all of their training time to

014cover when substitutes cannot be found when teachers cannot depend on protected time during the day to work we have no options but to work at home which means losing time with our families losing time to fulfill those necessary life activities that we all must do and losing time for the self-care that we're all constantly reminded to practice while dedicated and staunchly protected planning time is what teachers truly need we realize that under the current circumstances that may not be possible therefore we are asking that all teachers from every school in the district who must use their planning time to cover other classes be fairly compensated for the additional duties and resultant need to work very non-salaried hours teacher stress is at an all-time high and morale is at an all-time low dedicated experienced teachers are

015leaving our classrooms and is getting more and more difficult to replace them we are here because we care about our students and staff and implore you to do the right thing by them as you have so often done in the past thank you for your time i have a question for you thank you i mean this is something that happened that we weren't when you said change schedules what exactly give me an example like sixth grade seventh and eighth grade they start out with his core subjects and you know like nine o'clock start out with four subjects sixth grade starts with after betty block they go yeah give me an example of how they scheduled two students of mine um who were previously in my first block class but who consistently missed first block were

016switched into my second block class so they're resuming their english instructions and they're now going to i believe it's social studies and first block thank you mr pinkleton thank you um [Music] issues at dillard this afternoon so um [Music] also a math teacher first period i have um my ocs math one kid and uh intro to math kids and then her um so i am just worried i wanted to um work on the problem of teacher retention by kind of walking around and talking to people and taking some time to figure out what are the things that you know we could do to hang on the teachers and i was going to take time to do that and as i went around and kind of talked to more people i got alarmed at this stress

017level that i'm that i'm seeing and teachers and staff this year and i know i know everybody tosses around the unprecedented word but but it is unprecedented we are really dealing with situations that have you know not existed before in public education at least to my knowledge um and so as i'm going around and kind of talk to people it became really obvious to me that we wanted to put together a survey and approach this in a pretty data-driven pretty scientific way to find out what are the biggest concerns what do people have um when people have suggestions as to how we could remedy some of these things please share those and so that is you know what what we've been doing is we've been trying to talk with teachers trying to talk with staff

018generally and um find out what their top concerns were and then sort of put together what everybody came up with in terms of possible solutions because we don't want to come here and just say you know boy stress levels are really high with educators you probably know that you know you probably have an inkling that that is true but it is it's always true to some extent everywhere and i know you know statewide there are teacher shortages a lot of people are living in the profession but you know i'm concerned about us this is my my county and so i really wanted to approach it um in a way that was really um goal-oriented and solution-driven so what we came up with that um were the things that people were most concerned about were supervision

019of students and that's really what it boiled down to was more boots on the ground that's that is really what we need so even um if we did not you know we're not able to find certified staff to fill some positions could we have some classified staff stepping up or you know doing more hours um to fill some of these needs for supervision and one thing that i saw over and over again on the surveys that i got was um that people were concerned safety we are having to spend a lot of time supervising um and then i saw a lot of concerns about safety and concerns about i'm doing a lot of supervising and covering classes and i'm not getting my own work done my work done in terms of my planning in terms

020of my grade and heard from lots of bulks you know i'm having to work till one person said i had to do my work till 11 30 last night and i mean that's just really to me that's really late i know i'm an old person but that sounded really long to me that sounded like a long day um i know that we are trying to just be you know everything to our students but you know you reach a point where you just you that was a really big one um protecting our time and you know these things you all kind of feed in together um so our our planning time is you know lots of times from our planning to cover classes and i don't you know people are actually have been sick there have

021been people with um and i think probably our level of absenteeism is just much higher this year so our need for subs and our needs for that additional step is greater than it's probably been in the past or been in a typical year um as you know you know we've got a shortage of bus drivers other classified staff um i myself have students who are missing their math class every day i think for a while they were on a single route bus that they were getting there and now they're back to that later on [Applause] um not sure what to do about that and i i don't want to sound like i'm complaining because i know you're trying but you know i also think that we have to share what what the reality is that

022is what it is um we are feeling like we are on the front lines and we do feel people are and i don't want to use the word scared but i know that people are nervous and people are concerned because of hobits i think that we just want that acknowledgement that we are basically front line and it is it's dangerous it's risky you know it's risky uh definitely you know bolts have been out for weeks very very sick but with this um so what we came up with we kind of tried to put all this together and it feels like what it boils down to is a shortage of staff um and i know that we've had a shortage of teachers and then every time somebody leaves it's harder on the people that are left

023and that's harder on the students and you know we kind of try to fill in the best we can but then you know for the kids it is you know it's tough um but i knew that we were doing things to try to attract and retain teachers i know that we're offering really generous supplements and thank you so much um for doing that um but some four things that we came up with that we thought would be hopefully doable um and then you know this is something that you guys will have to figure out if ultimately how doable it is but we do ask for the dedicated subs at our sites um what our feeling is is that it would be easier to find a person if it was put out there as a full-time

024job and not just that maybe i'm working on maybe not and so you're gonna get a different kind of applicant for a job like that um so that was one thing uh we probably need to bump up our substitute pay rate as well um we need to have more staff more classified staff to cover just general supervisory duties that don't really require certified stuff and again so these are things like bus drivers and um other classified staff and so we're asking for classified staff to earn a living wage and to have a increase in wage hopefully attracts some more people teacher time we are asking to return to one protected work day for nine week grading period and to that we ask that this year's staff professional development be kept to a minimum and that

025we're required to do um professional development that's required by the state um and keep really that local the local stuff and certainly the school-based up to a minimum this year um and then we are asking for as a bonus and i mean i know you guys are giving us this nice 10 um supplement but i think it's it's something that would help you know i think that if we could just have that in people's pockets however you wanted to split it up or whatever call it a retention bonus as opposed you know as a one-time thing just think about that let's see you know we're trying to you know just trying to come up with how can we keep everybody without you know how can we keep everybody how can we keep from losing everybody

026these dire words to you but it just felt too important for me to sit on it i mean i think we'll lose people i think i think people are going to go work at starbucks you know honestly because it's that it's a really tough year it's it's a stressful occupation on a good day and this is just you know it's tough so anyway i think everybody's got a copy of this and thank you so much you guys have consistently really looked out for us and i know that you did your survey go to all staff for just ccae members it went to everybody it was email to everybody we did go round with paper copies um at b y and dillard we did not get as how many did you get back we got 60

027okay so there are a few electronics that [Music] something like that but that kind of return you know it's not perfect but it was pretty it was a pretty good sample from the standpoint of seeing that there were really common threads from person to person to person and that the student said the safety the supervising of students the as well last question you mentioned the last thing you said was retention bonus are you aware of the protection bonus given this month i thought that was the supplement no just two different things yeah that's two different things [Music] okay in october so i know certified staff we're called a supplement but it's it is a that's a recurrent thing the supplement is recurring from year to year the retention bonus is a one-time this year i

028think that's for classified stuff no no no no no super certified as well that don't work directly with students right okay [Music] um [Music] perspective and also from a professional i wanted to personally offer my heartfelt thank you for allowing me and i want to thank you for uh allowing dude in september 2017 to initiate the facility study that he [Music] in a very short you think about the calendar the facility study that was completed in january of 2018. this board then made recommendations to the board of commissioners from there community meetings were held with the public and talk about the needs and the scope of the project commissioners then placed a referendum on the ballot for the voters to express their opinion on the project and then in october of 2018 in response to

029your grant applications the state awarded 15 million dollars for the project and then in november of 2018 the voters overwhelmingly showed their support then you must have followed if you work with the board of commissioners shortly as we begin into modular that and build a permanent facility that could serve initially classes and this could ultimately be converted to fieldhouse that project was completed in the spring of 2020 and has been occupied ever since also in a time frame visual received bits will receive well under budget and c.t wilson will be building a contract within flash forward to today the students began occupying the building one of them and i [Music] uh i just want to thank you for the vision that you set forth it relates to this project we still have a lot of

030work to do uh but everything i want to thank dr carter and her entire staff i want to thank c.p wilson mr tom and thank you mr dr carter unfinished business he's going i have a question because i think we need to have some clarification on the public comments i was always told that on the public comments that you don't ask questions can you clarify that to you we're not supposed to ask questions mr chair i disagree with that you can ask questions for clarification clarification yes and that's exactly what i did all right questions for clarification that's carter reason i've been asking uh connie we just received word that there's a tornado warning in danville i know somebody said they lived in danville but right now there's just um what was the update and

031just want to give an update to the board okay so severe thunderstorms but just if you get texts about a tornado it's a warning it's something currently thank you don't finish business dr carter um i would uh recommend removing from the table for second read uh policies that you have before you heard the superintendent's recommendation do i have a motion so moved mr garland makes a motion is there a second second this huts in seconds of motion motion's been made and seconded to remove from the table for the second reading policy 1710 1720 17 25 17 26 17 30 and 17 50. is there any discussion or comments all in favor indicate by raising your hand i suppose the same motion carries unanimously i'd like to recommend approval of those policies superintendent has made recommendation

032to approve the policies to have a motion question the stanley makes the motion is there a second is barely seconds of motion to approve policies number 17 10 17 20 17 25 17 26 17 30 and 1750. is there any discussion or comments all in favor indicate by raising your hand opposed the same motion carries unanimously based upon the approval of those policies i'd like to recommend rescinding the policies that those replace including policy 11 111 452 454 454a 454b and 725. i've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion i'll make the notion the stanley's made the motion is there a second this has been the second submission is there any discussion or comments all in favor of rescinding policies 111 4 52 454 454a 454b and 725. raise your hand oppose the same

033motion carries unanimously yes um as you know we have school improvement plans for you to uh review over the next few weeks we have two tonight that we have the principles because of where they live and the weather prediction that they're presenting virtually under uh this is under new business we have uh in el dillard middle school and then stoney creek elementary school and just wanted to share that um we have a schedule for the improvement plan presentations as i said tonight will be those two and the reason those two were first is because two years ago they were being blow performing and i we all felt very confident they were on the cusp of getting out of that and then coveted hit and then you keep the same rec you know keep the same

034status because there were no tests at the end of last year but they still have to follow the procedures for that also uh then at the next meeting on november the 8th you'll hear school improvement plans for north elementary and south elementary and then according to general statute 115c 105.27 c1 you must review all the close and closed session all the safety components of each school so in the next meeting you'll look in closed session at all the schools safety plans and only after that can you approve a school improvement plan and so on november the 5th the last meeting in november you will hear school improvement plans from oakwood and by and then hopefully you'll vote on all the plans at that time and that will meet the timeline we have to submit it

035to the state board in december so just wanted to share with you that timeline and so uh before you hear the from the principals about their plans i wanted to turn it over to miss bo so she can share uh a little bit about the format with nc star so miss mr good evening us what they call the nc star platform for school improvement planning the purpose of that platform is for school plans to be live living documents um and that provide research-based action steps the premise is we are we are all looking at that we're all looking at it consistently and constantly but the indicators and action steps require schools to push onto what the state says is the other side of that data into what are they going to do about the needs

036that they find they provide wise ways indicators which are larger overarching goals and and then we the schools create action steps that are research-based that should help to improve that the practice of that indicator um tbi says the deeper we dig into our practices and create those concrete action steps then that will help us see the increased student performance the nc star system does chronicle and progress or chronicle our actions and even our progress over time um after you can continue to add action steps as you maybe you fulfill one most all of our schools or all of our schools now have regular plcs for data analysis um that is ongoing but there are things like that that you can maybe when your school starts you can add them to the plan and you can

037continue them or you can say okay we have completed this and we have this as a good standing practice now so let's add some more actions here um and they want to continue to chronicle all of those actions so they can see where they started where they came from and where they're going our school admin and school teams and all the school staff at the at the schools work hard to try and implement those action steps i know you've noticed that you can delegate different people that are in charge of the different action steps which helps to spread the knowledge throughout the whole and it helps to share that collective action of everybody working together to accomplish the goals but the schools have done a really good job even through the pandemic of talking to

038what are our new priorities now that they've come back into the school um looking at what's happening with the students with student learning with unfinished learning with everything and trying to add those into their plans for this year so i hope you'll be able to see that over the next six weeks thank you and so it at this time i believe we have um ms golick who is online and you have a copy of the school improvement plan these plans will be posted on the school website uh tomorrow morning so that the public can have access to them as well um bose is here too to help with anything but i believe miss gullick is now uh can take off your there you go i think you can uh walk the board through your school

039improvement plan ms gullit all right uh good evening i'm glad to see everyone i'm sorry i'm not able to be there because of leather uh but in front of you you have the school improvement plan for stony creek elementary on the first page of this plan um you can see it shows the overall grade level proficiency starting from to 2021 of course which was notwithstanding below that it shows the grade the school performance grade starting from 2016-17 which was a c uh 2017-18 d 2018-19 d and of course 2021 notwithstanding here i would like to say that our goal ultimate goal of course is to become a c school so that is the ultimate goal for this year uh the next page is the 2021 nc star school improvement plan and with that plan these

040are the school improvement team members uh that are listed here on this page so myself as principal uh miss whitfield the curriculum coach pam bodley fourth grade teacher uh mrs d who is our guidance counselor uh janice mclaughlin teacher assistant laura campbell fifth grade teacher michelle purnell media amanda minton our ec teacher and parent sarah sandra lindsey with that our priority goal indicators for nc star uh the first indicator is a 3.08 online programs generate accessible and actionable student data about their use performance and also progress the strategies that we are using and we'll continue to use throughout the year our teachers will receive and they did receive our station amplify and equip professional development starting at the beginning of the year and they will continue throughout the year as well uh teachers will ensure

041students receive interactive online instruction based on our station assessments tier 2 and tier 3 students will participate in re-teaching lessons and teachers are given instant reports to monitor students progress and differentiate instruction teachers are looking at this data on a weekly basis in order to improve and or change their lesson plans for me so i can see how they are differentiating instruction i stand prior to reports will provide teachers with specific skill based small group lessons and targeted interventions to be utilized during remediation and instruction so those are your small group those kids who are pulled out uh for different small group instructions so that data is used with them uh our station will be used to progress monitor students in reading and math throughout the year that is currently being done and of course

042will also continue uh eureka math equip is an adaptive it's a diagnostic tool where teachers can identify those learning gaps in students and it helps teachers to address those gaps and also differentiate the instruction as well uh amplify doubles eight screening measures provide information about student reading skills and allow student teachers to provide differentiated uh instruction based on data so as you can see we have several tools that teachers can use to see where kids are and also to make improvements in their instruction and also pull outs when necessary the nc star early learning inventory of course also helps teachers with ongoing understanding of the strengths and needs of kindergarten students in order to meet their specific learning goals and of course we have kindergarten's kindergarteners who have come into school or of course a

043different a wide variety of learning needs the next page is nc style priority indicator number two uh a 4.01 the school implements a tiered instructional system that allows teachers to deliver evidence-based instruction aligned with individual needs of students across all tiers and so we are are in the mtss process we are currently going through uh training our team and we just completed a training last friday to look at mtss goals uh setting up guidelines to look at student progress so we have 16 minute members who coordinate with the instructional coach we assist teachers with the creation and implementation of interventions using mtss uh intervention plan uh the mtss team will help the teacher monitor student interventions and make modifications as needed and that's the most important making those modifications but also documenting what's being used

044with those particular students review instructional practices in reading and math based on data for student improvement universal screening of students in reading and math skills using i station and amplify uh also ncdpis providing monthly training on mtss and again that's what i spoke of earlier that we are participating in uh the nc star priority indicator number three c201 uh the lea school regularly looks at school performance data and aggregated classroom observation data and uses that data to make decisions about school improvement and professional development needs uh the strategies that go along with this that we are doing are our instructional coach meets weekly in the pocs with teachers on each grade levels to focus on research research-based best practices i conduct informal walk-throughs along with myself and also an instructional coach using district google doc

045to provide immediate and clear constructive feedback via email but also in person because i talk with teachers each week about lesson plans what works well what doesn't work well what changes need to be made the instructional coach will lead many professional development sessions at monthly faculty meetings focused on best practices grade level teachers will highlight effective teaching strategies and activities that they are using and that are working that they can share out to other teachers as well based on student performance data student need support with phonemic awareness become proficient readers stony creek teachers receive phonemic awareness professional development the hegerty phonemic awareness program will be utilized in daily instruction engage in grades k-3 as an intervention uh in grades 4-5 so teachers went through this training at the beginning of the year the eureka equip

046will provide pre-assessments to determine unfinished learning and highlight data showing specific skills in areas where remediation is needed teachers have received eureka uh equipped professional development uh they received that right when school started and they are currently using the data as well uh additional information strategies programs progress all classrooms are using eureka math a lesson plan feedback is provided to all teachers every week uh our station amplified and equipped data is used to inform uh and develop skill groups for small groups uh progress monitoring uh has been completed using our station amplify lessons will be used in conjunction with the mtss interventions weekly collaborations with teachers concerning instruction and data is discussed in poc meetings weekly rocks or walk through data is discussed with our teachers during plc's every week uh parent virtual academy will

047be held again this year this year it will be monthly and will provide different topics for parents uh some topics you see here will include the google classroom enrique math social emotional needs etc we will continue with the yellow tulip project for the social and emotional needs to meet our students so we were dealing with positive mental health strategies literacy and writing we will have the yellow two garden again this year we will continue also in helping students by providing the panther pals to promote positive peer relationships as well as social and emotional support across grade levels so students have the opportunity to write letters to each other and share their thoughts and the kids uh really enjoyed that so we're proud to offer that to them again as well so our staff also is

048looking at the data of absences uh and trying to help to reduce those absences uh that has been a struggle at this point because from day to day we don't know how many kids will be in a particular classroom uh because of quarantining but that is being followed uh again the parent involvement piece is a big piece that we're going to continue to work with also community involvement as well we would like to increase our eog performance by 10 and sub groups by 3 of course this is a a working document that we are trying to implement each and every day um we would love for all kids to be in our building each and every day right now we are not able to have that well having to work with students that we have

049on a day-to-day basis and then teachers are re-teaching having to re-teach those students who are out for quarantine to make sure that they are caught up with instruction so uh thank you for listening to me this evening and if you have questions i'm here to answer them for you the first one where it says the early age school regularly looks at the true performance based upon this previous school year we had the testing but you don't have to where you have data that's not official so what are you looking at when you're saying school performance data we're looking we're looking at proficiency levels of students in reading and math those students who are following way below the 50th percentile to make sure that those students are receiving the proper services for instruction that they need

050in order to grow those particular students so those students may be in small groups each day to receive that small level uh group instruction in reading and or math um make sure that we are with those kids focusing on content vocabulary as well so comprehension is a big piece as well so those kids are getting small group instruction okay yeah i'm sorry mr battle i could barely understand understand what you were saying um [Music] mr battle's question was what are you actually using currently to progress monitor the students ms bose was just sharing the eye station is your progress monitoring where you're using that ongoing and you look at students scores and how they're progressing because it shows a lot of data a lot of reports that come from that on a daily basis yes

051ma'am probably yes ma'am we're using that and the reason i brought that up because even though we did test it you had data but it's not what i call country data the state didn't well they didn't recognize it first say so no letter grade forgiven that's the point i'm making you know i don't want parents to think we're not testing the kids you know what they did right that that's correct go ahead ms scott i was going to say to him as well you know i look at the state the state data we took a look at that even though of course you know it didn't count but we're able to look at across the school how the school the students perform and when we look at across schools they did not do well and

052that's because we did not have kids in schools a lot of kids missed a lot of instruction uh students are behind and they're still behind when it comes to different concepts uh with math and or reading they're behind so those are the things we looked at and then looking at different skills um where kids are so low and having to build on that so by using the eye station each week uh to progress monitor and to have those conversations about what's working with a kid in this class and what and what isn't working those are the most important things we can take and grow on and then also in conjunction with that is also looking at if a child is in kindergarten what should they know in first grade and are we able right now

053to get them there and if not why what is it that we need to do or to change in order to make sure the kids are receiving um the instruction and we're providing the recess resources and or strategies in order to make them be any other successful ms blackwell mr how many uh students have you had out of school for being quarantined you said that that had been a problem i'm i'm going to say between 50 to 75 students what's your current enrollment right now we have 141 that has been a high number there has been a high number and as i said you know today for example you know you go to school i get kids out of cars we get kids off the buses but we never know within the day who's going

054to have to turn around and make that exit back out um that is the difficulty and then of course along the lines of that we're making sure that those students who have been quarantined are receiving the proper work that they need and getting it back has been a struggle uh getting work turned in of course we understand uh that kids who are who have been quarantined may be sick and those who are really sick the parents are letting us know and the teachers are giving leeway to that and then we have some cases but that isn't the case the students are just not doing the work uh so that's a big piece and then getting those kids back in because they're behind and teachers again having to re-teach the concepts that those students have missed

055now that is a large percentage yes it is any other questions all right thank you thank you miss colic you're welcome thank you guys have a great evening next we have miss gant and miss gant is like also uh sharing this remotely that this game has access you have a copyright plan that she also has the ability to share her screen and so she's going to talk from the shared screen so all right good evening everyone sorry my voice is a little uh slightly hoarse good evening uh mr chair uh members of the board and dr carter uh thank you for your time this evening as we talk about dillard's school improvement plan uh for the 2021 and 2022 school school year i'm going to progress through this presentation i believe you have the same

056presentation that is printed out for you um so if we're looking at our goals from the past um dillard has consistently um well let me say consistently stayed the same letter grade um as a school performance grade as a d from 2016-17 to 2017-18 and then my first year there was 2018-19 and we were still a d as well um so you know absent of the data from the year that we did not test um and this year speaking just as uh ms gullick did there were several uncontrollable factors and barriers that we were not able to completely mitigate um when we were out for covet and we were in virtue in a virtual learning environment so some of those things provided barriers to learning that typically are not there um and there's all kind

057of challenges i could speak about with covic um and so you know the data was not as great as we wanted to be i will say um for our school we dropped eight percentage points um from our last year of testing in 2018-19 to our 2021-2022 school year um but we still we while that does not sound terrible thinking about all the different people that we've been comparing ourselves to as far as other districts that have schools with similar similar demographics we still do not see that as a point of pride and we are working very diligently to make sure that we can make up for some of those losses that have occurred in the last couple of years i want to add a little bit of perspective to that just quickly um if you

058think about it the last year that my eighth grade students had a full year of in school learning was in the fifth grade my seventh graders their last year of full in school learning for a whole year was fourth grade and if i look at my sixth graders it would be third grade so i think that provides some perspective as to the challenges that schools are facing um when we think about what we are doing in covic to make up for the learning loss um the page that i'm currently presenting right now are my school improvement team members i'm not going to read them all to you but we have everyone represented from administration to student services with my school counselors to our instructional coaches to every department in the building so doesn't matter what

059department or grade level we have everyone represented um we even have two parents um currently on our school improvement team and we are um getting ready to induct a different parent as one parent will cycle off um and we'll have a new parent that will come on as well um so um you know these are our members um we take school improvement quite seriously we meet twice a month um and we actually meet more than that in small groups to discuss our indicators but we meet twice a month at a minimum to discuss our indicators and to discuss things along the lines of uh new things that we see within the building that need attention so that we can continue to provide an optimal learning environment for all of our students priority indicator number one

060for me um and in l at middle school is that the principal spends at least 50 percent of his or her time working directly with teachers to improve instruction including classroom observations so what does that look like for us at dillard uh that would be me and my admin team rotating weekly on a walk-through schedule uh to provide weekly feedback to all of our teachers uh the principals and assistant principals will conduct observations according to the caswell county schools established uh pre-established observation cycle the my admin team will attend plc meetings to focus on the data and the sharing of best practices and as ms gullick said those are research-based best practices the principal and assistant principals will attend mtss meetings to aid in supporting multi-tier interventions for identified students and the principal and assistant

061principal will attend and host department meetings to lead vertical alignment and the sharing of best practices um when we think about what teachers are facing this year rather than what they face in the past when it comes to improving instruction um i can just say this dylan was dillard is a school in which we were already working on our core instruction um that has been something consistently we we have strived to improve each and every year um you know everybody slid back next year last year um with uh proficiency overall but when i think about the things that teachers are having to do they are having they are having an enormous task of filling gaps and meeting the needs of what we call leveled classrooms at dillard so if you think about within let's say

062miss granado was one of my teachers that spoke at the meeting today she's an ela teacher in seventh grade ms granado has it she has one inclusion class i believe she has one or two ela plus classes and then she has a mid-range ela class if i remember off the top of my head correctly within each one of those level groups so you probably have about three levels of students that you're trying to serve in each of those individual groups where maybe in the past the gaps were not as we're not as large and we're not as defined so what i'm finding that in spending my time i'm having to spend a lot of time with teachers talking about how can we appropriately spiral down into other standards without losing the pacing of staying on

063current content standards i'm seeing quite a bit of um teachers using a lot of time to try to fill in the gaps because if you think about things like ela or math um especially math where you have those prereq skills that come in other great levels um i could think about right now got teachers that are teaching um inequalities and how important integers and uh numbers are in teaching inequalities well i've seen teachers spiral all the way back back down into those standards that would be sixth grade standards for the seventh grade teacher that i'm thinking about um but we then have to kind of talk with teachers about the pacing of how much spiraling we can do um because i'm gonna tell you um you know i really i'm in a principal network that's

064larger um it's the north carolina principles i can't remember network but i meet with principals across the state at least twice a month um and in these meetings you know dillard is not alone caswell county schools is not alone i think this is more of what we're seeing as a trend growing with schools but other principles have very similar concerns about the balance of current standards and curriculum that we are tasked with serving students but also meeting the needs of all of those other standards that students may not have ascertained in covit or even that first year we went out when we had a couple of months of coding so um i mean we made this one of the priority indicators because it was just very important to be in the room and to give

065teachers immediate feedback um teachers really desire feedback and they really would like to see us in the room every day all day but we realize that this is probably the biggest bang for our buck that we are going to get when it comes to altering or aiding the core and providing that optimum optimal learning environment that i spoke about earlier uh for nc star priority indicator number two the school implements a tiered instructional system that allows teachers to deliver evidence-based instruction in line with the individual needs across all tiers where you're going to hear something very similar to me than you heard from ms gullick um we are going through the revamp of mtss along with the state so that is a state initiative that we are a part of as well as all the

066other schools in caswell county schools and schools across the state um i'm really thankful that the state decided to revamp mtss and to really um provide a laser-like focus on mtss and what we could do with it and how we're defining teams how we're communicating with one another what jargon do we have a common language um i could go on and on and on about the things that we're learning about an mtss in the professional development um and thank you mr showalter for um organizing that as well but we are working very hard on making sure that we are delivering a quality core that then will allow us to truly define who our tier two and tier three students are in the years of covet tier two and tier three almost could be every student

067at the school in some way shape or form um there is no student that i would say has mastered every single standard um in the year past or the year prior to that so when you think about it we all have gaps that we need to feel but in filling those gaps we need to make sure that when we're identifying students to go through the mtss process we're identifying if we're seeing a bulk of students in a certain grade level in a certain core area then that draws my attention immediately to the need to make sure that that core is strengthened which speaks back to priority number one um the first indicator where i talk about the principle being in the classroom so what are some of the strategies that we're doing within ntss uh

068nlg middle school will restructure the mtss structure according to the nc dpi guidance and professional development dillard will continue monthly monitoring of mtss interventions through grade level meetings and mtss leadership team meetings so every month we meet with teams looking at students that either have been um referred to through the mtss process or students that may be on the cusp of being referred or students that are already potentially maybe exiting the mtss process um so we also have meetings with the mtss leadership team that meets outside of meeting with our grade level teams being that we are a middle school you know we have teams that serve each grade level so currently i have two great levels per team so that would be a meeting with one team in one week a meeting with another

069team on the other week um and then in the meantime the mtss team is gathering more data and coming up with solutions to aid the teachers and what interventions would be most optimal for those students uh nlg middle school will provide professional development in the area of mtss for new faculty and staff members uh that is currently going on and develo and in process um mcss is not something that is easily taught and i have a thunderstorm or a warning going off at my house so just in case my power glitches i'm just letting you know um ncss is something that is not easily that is not something that you easily get um so when we are working with new teachers we have to first introduce them to the whole framework of mtss then we

070have to talk about what type of students that we're looking for we talk about ncss in conjunction with identifying students for ec um and you know ec is a whole new world for any new teacher or news new teacher to dillard so in thinking about all of that the professional development piece is huge um and thinking about what the what the ncae representative said today you know there has been somewhat of a pushback and i understand this i know teachers are tired um they are feeling overworked and underpaid um i don't know anybody in the new world of education that does not feel that way um but i will say that i do know that this is a professional development that we have made a priority and we will make sure to do it because

071it gets down to the business of creating that environment for our students so that everyone has a chance at success nl villain middle school will continue to use iready as a key tool for diagnostic and personalization on all tiers so as they use ice station in the elementary school in elderly middle school to speak to questions that were raised earlier for miss gullit um i can go ahead and tell you right now already is what we use for progress monitoring and for a diagnostic it's our most hot data that we have that is comprehensive data other than the pre-assessment the benchmark and the post assessment that we will give to all students in conjunction with the i ready monitoring so already the students will take a diagnostic or will take um a benchmark on the

072diagnostic twice this year so they've already taken the screener the universal screener for all students um and then we will continue with progress monitoring it and it gives us like i said our most hot set of data the data from last year as mr battle has already spoken about is data that um is not solid data um that data is um on shaky ground to due to all of those barriers that i talked about that we were unable to mitigate being that students were in home environments and we do understand how diverse those home environments can be um so our ready has been proven each year to be a tool that is very useful for us um and we're expanding the use of ireti and some of their tools that they offer um and it

073is really i can tell you this i've had teachers to really talk about the user friendliness of the tools in which they're using an already and what they feel as though they are prepared to do for their students due to the fact that they do have eye ready um at their disposal um once again it will probably be just finding the time to make sure that they can use all of those tools as often as they really need to being that i am sure that the tool usage is at an all-time high this year due to the needs that need to be met um and on this one inhaled middle school will incorporate groups meant to build inclusiveness and to address shared behavior concerns so when we think about mtss we also need to think

074about um there's an academic side and there's a behavioral intervention side of it as well um and what we're noticing this year is i'm a firm believer and i've talked about this with several other principles across the state that in schools right now schools have been de-socialized for so long that we are essentially re-socializing students within a school environment so if you think about all those norms that go along every day in school and how we cooperate how we respect one another how we treat each other with fairness and equity a lot of those things are things that we are strongly having to re-teach as we have a um intervention period of every day called betty block betty stands for bull's eye targeted intervention within betty block students work on one i ready every single

075day um monday through thursday and coming up starting this this week coming in the first week of november we start our clubs rotation so what we're trying to build is a sense of belongingness which we know is very crucial in middle school years where students really do not feel as though they fit anywhere um and we're hoping to curb some of the um accelerated behaviors that we're seeing right now uh due to the reacclamation and hoping that some of that time spent with in a social environment that is um geared toward inclusivity we're hoping that it is going to be one of our interventions that will be a tier one intervention so this is something all students will receive and it will allow students to feel inclusive and allow them to feel as though they

076belong we also have some small groups going on that are facilitated by our social worker and some that are going to start when we talk about um that are going to start through our school counseling department as well um i met with my counselors today just today for we have a quarterly counseling review where we kind of review how things have been going for the quarter and we look at everything from attendance to um what are the needs we're seeing in the counseling department as far as what are students needing at this time so we talk a lot about about academic performance but i a firm believer of a holistic approach to looking at students and thinking about how we um teach students in school and in middle school it is gravely important that we

077make sure that we focus on one the sel and the wellness of our students as they're at a pivotal time where the wellness can be something that even in a non-coveted existence could be something that could be um of concern and so with the concerns of kovic piled on top of that you just really have a true lens into many of the struggles that we see our students dealing with on a regular basis uh my last priority indicator is going to be priority number three which is 83.09 all teachers differentiate assignments to provide the right balance of challenge and sustain and attainability for each student all right here we go once again so we are looking at the ability to look and really zoom in on a student and provide a personalized approach to learning

078um and that is something that regardless of where you fall um within the spectrum of abilities that is something that we owe each and every student well how do we do that once again with looking with i ready so when a student does a diagnostic on i ready it literally gears each question based off the previous question and how they answered it so they answered the a high level question and they answered it correctly it goes up to another higher level question if they answer it incorrect then it drops down to a lower level question constantly restructuring itself to figure out exactly where the student is at that point um so using already will allow teachers to differentiate and provide that balance um so plcs will meet to differentiate lessons based upon data from teacher

079assignments assessments i ready ieps and other formal data points teachers will use the accommodations wheel to provide differentiated instruction from the beginning of the lesson through the assessment so this year um well it last year with some of my title one money instructional supplies i bought things that teachers had been talking about that they wanted for quite some time so differentiation is not something that i find is easy to do unless you are unless you are an ec teacher and you have been thoroughly trained on how to adequately differentiate and provide a personalized learning experience for each child um so we not only have had our ec department to provide pd um this year mr showalter came and did a uh a pd at the beginning of the year when we had breakout sessions for

080our teachers on strengthening the core and some of that had a little bit to do with differentiation in it as well but um i love this company called think up and mentoring minds and they have these easily accessible wheels that you can use that allow teachers to define the part in their lesson that they are trying to differentiate and what could be some easy ways in which i could differentiate this lesson so i think that when we can find things especially in this stressful environment that um everyone is working through and working well through might i add um to try to do everything that we can to make sure that we strengthen opportunities for students i find that those easy to use tools are things that are major game changers for my faculty and staff

081which will only yield to be a game changer for my students as well uh teachers will work with specialists to gain support and differentiation initiatives um so that would be uh ec teachers and aig staff teachers will facilitate small groups to work with students with shared needs i've seen that going on in plenty of my classes already um that is i tell everybody elementary um best practices are normally best practices for all um and what i'm seeing is that we are trying to incorporate many of those as we always have but now there's such a large need to make sure that we do it with fidelity and we do it throughout the building with pervasiveness teachers will follow all state local and building requirements and laws in regards to serving diverse populations so that is

082simply keeping up with your caseload making sure that we are current making sure that we are serving students based upon their identified needs in either an iep or a dep or a pep for one of our regular students that may not fit into a specific group that defines them with a plan and teachers will receive feedback from administrators as to their performance on standard four of the north carolina evaluation educator evaluation system tool um so standard four is all about instruction differentiation um standards align critical thinking um if you think about the teachers how teachers actually teach their pedagogy that is really the heart of standard four and so they will receive a lot of feedback on standard four um in this area to provide assistance with differentiation so what things are we doing in

083addition at dillard um so i've talked to you already i didn't put this in the spring but i taught you already about club fridays um in our betty block after school tutoring on tuesdays and thursdays will aid in closing academic gaps um currently we are tutoring in pockets and we're getting ready to open that up to everyone um a lot of my tutors were coaches and they just couldn't tutor and coach at the same time so we're getting ready to um really go full throttle with tutoring uh starting in november um we also have created a badge system that will increase teacher efficacy which yields higher effectiveness and aid in retention so what we have done at nldilly middle school i have worked with um dr dodson dr hilary dodson uh along with my school

084media specialist slash instructional technology facilitator to create a system of badges where we award teachers for doing different things um and it's kind of like when we were in elementary school and you got the gold star on your chart and how that brought a real sense of pride to you and you really wanted to do better because you wanted to see more gold stars on the chart equate that to what we're doing with the badge system teachers can get badges from anything from attending a sporting event and showing school spirit they can get a badge for um hosting a club teachers can get badges for increased growth teachers can get badges for attending certain professional developments um dr dodson along with my instructional technology facilitator hosts tech tuesdays once a month where teachers have the

085option to the opportunity to earn ceus but also to learn about something else new within technology use within the classroom for instruction that they could easily apply within a classroom those tech tuesdays normally lasts about an hour um my teachers have an hour and 30 minutes of planning each day and might i add i would like to say that at dillard middle school we have done a um i think we've done a great job of really trying to protect teacher time and teacher planning um you know we are we are fortunate and i'm not gonna say that every school has this opportunity but you know i have been using resources of things such as my uh student services staff so in other words i pull from everybody else before i pull a teacher um but

086that is probably going to change just because the my vacancies are changing things are changing and there's just going to be a need for to use some teachers from time to time but we have really tried to protect teacher time and we definitely always protect plc days which are tuesdays and thursdays um a critical thinking book study will be initiated for initiated for second semester aimed at increasing rigor in classrooms and addressing tier one of the mtss pyramid we had planned on doing that book study at the beginning of the year well with everything being a reflective practitioner and thinking about you know my staff and um just where their needs lie right now thinking about my students thinking about the amount of time that we have to do things thinking about the loads of

087things that people have to do i decided to push my critical thinking book study at least to the second semester i will re-evaluate almost like uh you as the board re-evaluate masking every month i will reevaluate that decision at the winter break and then see if i think it's a good time to add that in that critical thing in book study is not going to be something that is very light um it is going to be fairly intense um because it really will be aimed at seeing people exhibit the practices that are outlined within the um book that we are going to be reading um so that is something that like i said we will reevaluate if needed uh virtual college college tours for students will be provided this year and have already been provided

088um that will expose students to opportunities beyond high school so at dillard we make a we make a um firm commitment to high school and beyond whether that is career or college as a former cte teacher i think it's very important to talk to students about career readiness and not only college readiness we would like as many students to go to college as we can but i think that we don't want to miss a group of students by pushing everyone to college and negating that career readiness so what we have done is um miss diggs um and miss pruitt my um two school counselors have worked along with people from pcc and other colleges um to attend virtual tours since we cannot go on the tours that we used to actually take our students to

089i think that field trips and exposure are life altering experiences for students especially in a rural area that may not be exposed to these things outside of their local surroundings so those college tours actually give us that opportunity um miss diggs also partnered with cfnc this year to get students um enrolled in cfnc which will last throughout their high school career as well um so we are really trying to put a focus on we definitely need to focus on now but now leads to something later on so let's make sure that we are preparing you for what later on could look like and also to help strengthen the um vertical alignment within the secondary tier of schools within caswell county schools title one paradise will expose and educate students and parents and guardians to curriculum

090and to um and ways to aid their students with academic achievement and behavior expectations we have a title one coming title one night coming up um i believe the second week in november and it will be from our counseling department and it will be with um we've had a real uptick in the use of counselors lately um which we kind of predicted but it is a huge uptick in the use of counselors so with that being said you know we're talking to several parents we've spoken to several parents about the need to um potentially for that child to seek extra counseling services potentially outside of school but also we're also looking at different ways in which we can help parents with things that could just be conversation starters at home we have a wonderful set

091of newsletters that we subscribe to that are aimed at middle school students in particular we send those newsletters home they will start going home once again by paper in hand now that we are back in school they um the first one should have already gone home in october but we have a new one that we're sending home in november um and there will be one to follow every single month um and those will also be posted online for people to read online should the newsletter not make it home um we have a teacher miss leslie garris who um who got the living to serve grant for twelve hundred dollars from the national future farmers of america organization the grant provides middle school middle school and high school ffa chapters with up to 1200 per semester

092to implement service learning projects in their community and for one semester ms garris has focused on um beautification of the school um looking at the uh cleanliness thinking of you know cleaning up around the school when it comes to maybe paper that might be outside it's all they're also looking into ways to conserve energy at the school um so she has been doing a lot of things she's creating we have several garden beds that are up now looking at sustainability through uh raising your own food from farm to table um and teaching students about that process so i think that ms garris is going to do an outstanding job with that living to serve grant um we also have the amazon future engineering program off to a great start we got a lot of students

093that are very interested in that program um miss miner my media specialist currently teaches that program we have started it in sixth grade only and then each year we will try to implement a grade level um that will do the amazon future engineering program might i add that everything that that is provided by this program is totally free of service free of charge to us um but it is an amazing program as i've seen students create games create uh moving billboards um they're learning to code in this program and they are using scratch which is a coding platform so we have seen such great thinking and i'm just going to tell you i think it's been very interesting just to see the amazing resilience of students um they have come back in to school and

094they have come into this class and they're like yeah i'm going to tackle this coding class no problem lady and they have done such an outstanding job it's one of my favorite classes to drop in on um only because it is new and is different and the students are always very highly engaged um and they are always learning something that is for the jobs of the future which many of us can't even predict what those jobs will be but we know that coding will have something to do with it um there's an eighty thousand dollar dpi grant for the drone simulation embedded into business courses now so we will have more drone simulation coming to dillard we worked with that over the summer and it was a huge success i'm thinking about once again coding

095and learning code um and so that ties right on in with what we're already doing with the amazon future engineering program and also with that pathway toward the high school um and then speaking of which new business courses in grades six through eight students have an opportunity to take exploratory business courses which will be offered throughout the year and in their elective periods now the new course will help prepare students for the pathway of business finance and information technology courses offered at the high school in grades 9 through 12. so we are busy doing a lot of wonderful things at nl dillard middle school i take pride in still being the leader of nl dillon middle school to work with a phenomenal faculty and staff of hardworking individuals um and i just hope that we

096can continue to provide the experience for students that they need and grow our practices through these indicators that i've outlined to you today uh if you have any questions i am more than willing to answer any questions that you may have at this time hey miss again i got a question how does the think-up mentoring minds how does it roll over to the hospital how does think-up mentoring minds roll over to the high school um i think that was miss stanley miss stanley i'm just gonna be honest with you i'm not quite sure so with think up and mentoring minds that is something that i had been aware of um in working with them in their resources um for years i've used their tools and resources for years so what we have done is that

097when i went to iste no nc ties which is the north carolina technology and education conference the year we got out for covet um i went to nc ties and i went to their booth and visited them and sat there for hours um looking at some new tools that they had so i don't think it would be any problem for it to roll over to the high school but it is something that i have purchased um with title one funds for teachers at my school because i saw through observation data that there was a true need to provide some immediate access to differentiation strategies so we not only have a tool for differentiation um ms stanley and other board members we have a tool for also critical thinking so when we think about revised bloom's

098taxonomy and the type of task we're giving students the type of questions we're asking students the type of products that we're looking for out of students we have made sure to give teachers no reason to say that they could not provide a rigorous experience for those students so really ms stanley is something that i picked up going to conferences and using at other schools um where i had worked prior and they are just easily accessible teacher-friendly tools that i believe are huge game changers yeah the reason i ask is because i was looking it up and it's talking about english and math and how they teach it so i just wondered how it went it would roll over to the high school you know just dropped off they weren't taught that way anymore or how

099it worked yes ma'am so it is definitely something and so i'll tell you this too uh mr stanley um mentoring minds goes together with already so they're really the same they're under curriculum associates umbrella so we use a lot of their tools um and their stuff has been proven to work um and so i found that the use of those tools incorporating them with our already the curriculum that we have is really i think giving teachers the boost that they needed with those tools now we are still providing professional development on those two just because you give somebody something does not mean they automatically know how to use it um so you know we're not just throwing a tool at somebody and saying hey go out there and change the world um so we are

100definitely providing professional development on those tools as a matter of fact we have one coming up this week we will have a professional development and it will be on the differentiation tool um but this is something that teachers have asked for for years since i've been there you know what kind of quick guide can i have that helps me to learn to differentiate because i don't have all the knowledge of an ec teacher nor do i know everything about critical thinking so we tried to find some things that could be useful and like easy to use for teachers right now it's not easy to use i'm just going to tell you i don't see a lot of people doing things that are not going to be accessible and easy for them to use um just

101due to the nature of the world that we're currently working in this new normal let's get on to after school tutoring is just a volunteer thing by the teachers on the page and the second part of that our kids recommended or they come on their own so right now so mr battle um thank you for that question in the past we have done it by parental requests or teacher recommendation and it's always been paid mr battle so it is always paid um you know right now i just saw a teacher the other day she's had students after school for the past three to four days i said hey are you tutoring those students and she said well i'm working with them after school i said well you know you can get paid to do that

102i said so you know we're working on getting her enrolled as a tutor so that she can then do that um but yes those we will we we will open it up once again for parents to suggest students that need tutoring but also tutoring is an intervention that we use in mtss so we do identify students that are need in need of extra assistance such as tutoring because for many of those students they don't need an intervention beyond that tutoring could really help to immediately fill that gap that the student is experienced with current standards mrs blackwell um first miss again i want to thank you for continuing your report even though you had that warning up on your screen so thank you for doing that and i had a question about the amazon's future

103engineering program what grade level is that and does everyone get an opportunity to participate thank you for that question mrs blackwell so that opportunity is currently for sixth grade so we started it in like a rollout fashion you know we're starting with sixth grade and seeing how that goes next year we'll offer it to sixth and seventh and the following year we'll incorporate eighth grade um really it boiled down to staffing it as well so my instructional technology facilitator my current media specialist staff she's my staff for that position so she also has duties outside of teaching those classes she also helps she also operates the media center um all students have the opportunity to request the course but that does not mean that we can fit all students in the course so currently uh

104ms blackbull we have two sections of uh the coding course there's about 18 to 20 students in each section um and we hope to grow that program over years and thinking about the drone technology that will be coming to dillard we are really looking to see you know potentially if this could be a position at builder in the future that will deal with coding so that we could have someone that could teach these drone courses and also potentially teach um the courses when we think about the amazon future engineering we will regardless of how long i know that we have this at least for three years that is funded through amazon but regardless of how long it's funded through amazon we will still have access to the platforms of scratch um that is something that

105they will allow us to have for years to come um and then we'll have all of the lessons my teacher has every single lesson uh for the whole program uh so it will really give students an opportunity i mean it is just amazing i mean you go into that class and those kids are like little light bulbs just zing zing zing zing just going back and forth um it's been a really beautiful thing to see um and it also really brings in some science concepts that maybe students didn't realize were science and now they're kind of like oh so this could be science as well um so we've really i think piqued some interest at the school when it comes to the amazon future engineering course and i hope it can last for years and

106years to come and yes ma'am we do plan to incorporate all great levels any other questions this game just a housekeeping item under a203 down into strategies the last strategy is the principal and assistant principles did spell check didn't catch it was the wrong principles oh i'm sorry and i'm a big stickler on pals and not pools i will correct that thank you very much any other questions or comments thank you ms dan it's my pleasure as always thank you all for listening have a good evening um [Music] i'm good to go the next item on the calendar is the re on the new businesses item number two the revised calendar i have a recommendation to bring to the board and you have a copy of a draft proposal it's it's basically the current academic

107calendar that we have in place that you voted on but it does change one date in november and i'd just like to start by just saying over the past year and a half it has been a stressful time for our students our families and also the staff of castle county schools and it has taken a toll uh the bonus and supplements the board has approved has been very appreciative by the staff but the emotional stress of teaching and learning during a pandemic is still very strong with that being said i am recommending that the board that the board allow us to revise the current school calendar to change friday october the 12th as to a non-instructional day for students november i i'm sorry yes um but thank you i've typed it wrong on my calendar

108uh november 12th is a non-instructional day for students and a remote learning day for caswell county school staff so if a staff member has previously been allowed to work on a teacher work day then they would be continued to be allowed to work on this remote day on november the 12th november 12th would allow our staff to work remotely to catch up on what their needs are it could be participate in virtual pd it could be reviewing safety manuals and updates it could be grading or just reflecting and planning for the upcoming school year uh i truly believe this time is needed for our staff um and i do believe it's needed for our students and just to again support the the needs of our staff emotionally and for the stressful time so i am

109recommending that november 12th be changed to a student non-instructional day and a staff remote workday i would like to also share there are several counties that are doing this as well i know wake cumberland hope and i i believe there's going to be quite a few more you know and several i haven't heard of yet as well you've heard the superintendent's recommendation you'll have a motion mr battle makes a motion is there a second miss that's in seconds of motion is there any discussion or comments um you mentioned dr hart or something about staff development if there is staff development on that day i would hope that it would be only what the teacher chose to do it would be required staff development absolutely thank you for bringing that up it's nothing new it's that

110that day is meant to allow staff to catch up because they all feel uh whether you are whatever your your position is everybody's feeling overwhelmed due to the pandemic and this is allowing them to catch up i know there's some safety modules from the state that's due this year that allows them the time to work on that if they so choose it really just depends on what each individual needs very good very good any other questions or comments we have a motion in the second that friday november the 12th be changed to a non-instructional day for students and a remote working day staff all in favor indicate by raising your hand oppose the same motion carries unanimously yes i just want to thank the board for your support of our staff and that unanimous vote

111was definitely another huge step that you have taken for the support of the the staff of castle county schools and uh they have certainly been appreciative for my understanding of everything that you've done from the bonuses to uh the staying with us bonus to the 10 for you know the certified staff to the child nutrition allow them to take annual leave days and that's something they could take that day um and i would like to just share um we found out today that there is an esther grant that is available for child nutrition and this men said she is going to apply for it and if that's the case it's only for child nutrition retention retention is so she's applying for it by november the 15th and hopefully they'll get money to pay to the

112staff for retaining and working for child nutrition so good things are coming down the pike and of course the increase for drivers uh you know and monitors was huge as well so i just want to say thank you for all that you're doing to keep the school running and i think we're still under a weather advisory update i just have a couple quick things um under i just wanted to again share about the tour uh we're uh we have gotten a lot of interest about the tour not just from the aesthetic point but from the safety features because everyone knows that there's a lot of good safety features that you can't see and we're going meeting tomorrow to have those written down so whoever's guiding the tours on that sunday will be able to talk

113about the things that you can't see as well so i just wanted to share that it's going to be very informative that day also the financial auditor will be here on november 8th and i just wanted to share publicly even though he's going to share it on november the 8th there were no findings which was an absolute wonderful audit for us but i just wanted to go ahead and tell you that as well and the census data we know that the census data is out and you have an obligation to look at the lines i have been in touch with uh jessie day from piedmont triad regional council they are the ones who are working with the commissioners on their data as well and they are uh to have some uh proposals based upon the

114guidelines for percentages in the districts available to you but they cannot have them until november the 3rd now you have an obligation to have this um by the middle of november but we've also got to make sure that we get it to the uh you know elections uh department before you know any changes are made if there are any may decide there's no changes to be needed uh but november the third is afternoon is the earliest he could have it to me and he could present um if you so choose at a special call meeting on the next day um if you wanted to and then be able to vote on it on november the 8th if there are any changes i just think you need more than one regular board meeting to look at

115the data and preferably a work session ahead of that to be able to sit back and just look carefully at it and they will present to you with i believe an interactive map as well during that time so we would need to miss black i was going to ask a question so you're saying someone will come to us virtually virtually on november 3rd 4th on november 4th if you choose that day they could choose other you can choose another day too i just said what is the earliest you could do and he said he could have it to us by the afternoon or evening on the third and so the earliest would be the fourth i would think we need to listen to to that as soon as possible maybe fourth of november thursday uh

116at nine o'clock that morning and my reasoning is that if we're going to make changes we need to have a public hearing and we'll have to get that in and get all of it taken care of and photo v8 so uh we're gonna have to move on that question is i understand but the nearest actually gonna be in march but based upon this data but we did this maybe 15 years ago uh we had a gentleman a joint meet at the civics and no changes were made commissioners billboard had fans and the problem i got with this is i need i want to know what the percentage of census data will return a lot of people didn't even get this data didn't even participate i hope he has that information i can double check but

117he's gonna have all the data he has one day what he has is what he received and they had that problem before because a lot of people don't even do the senses so the data is not always what i say hacker and uh i don't need to bring that because i got a conflict on the floor but you won't you won't have anything to vote on if you did it until the 22 election which will be in march you follow yeah which is taking place in march but when did those i'm just asking when did they file for satellites yes not in december so i mean there's still time and that's not really going to bring it up because i got a conflict on the floor i have a question yes so when you said

118that november the 8th uh i guess my question is were you saying that they said that we had to have something in by november the 8th or that's no november 8th is the next board meeting and the next board meeting following that is the end of november and so uh i was reading the uh the same statute that applies to the commissioners i believe apply for us from my understanding and uh when i was looking at the the notes from the county presentation uh they said that the board of elections takes about uh two weeks to put everything in place in order to have it ready for an election and uh i think they have it has to be in place by november the 17th so if you back up from that we're really pushing

119it and probably you know are stretching that even less time than what they would want so does that mean that this information that we have with this sentence need to be a part of this election that's coming up if that's what i'm saying if the if the district is just if anything changes or changed and they would file into uh november 1st of december right but people would need to know right and the public needs to know and we got to be able to read it and understand it and see what you know see the lines and all of that that's like a four-day turnaround even if it is on november the fourth right i don't even have my can we set it up for that friday morning at nine o'clock november 5th texting right

120and now does that mean we're still we're trying to be making a decision for november the 8th once we get the information for november the 5th well if when we get it on the fifth we'll look at it if we see that we're gonna have to make changes in the district then we will have to have set up a public hearing and then make a decision after the public hearing but we'll have an idea as to whether or not we're going to need to change okay so friday november the 12th a fifth at 9 00 am here they if if they can i've text and as soon as i find out if they can i'll verify okay and i guess if they can't friday we might just have to be the monday eighth meeting he'll

121let us know okay okay and reports and updates that takes care of that i need a motion that the casual county board of public education go into closed session for the purpose of considering a personnel action that involves an officer or employee of this board nc general statutes 143-318-1186 and for the purpose of discussing information that is privileged confidential or not public record nc general statute 143-318-1181 and to confer with attorneys mr battle has made the motion as hudson's second any discussion all in favor indicate by raising your hand