001[Music] n [Music] he [Music] n [Music] yeah [Music] e [Music] n [Music] the [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] same way we did I now call the September 14th 2021 meeting of the Charlotte meinberg Board of Education to order and I will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda so move second motion from Miss Byers Bailey second from Miss ship um all those in favor of the motion please raise your hands do we have any opposed and that passes unanimously I'm now going to call on board member Jennifer de laara to introduce tonight's pledge leader who is joining us via remote because unfortunately the government center has shut down to the public due to covid restrictions so miss deara if you could make the introduction and then if our Zoom Wizards could
002get us set up with the pledge leader thank you madam chair tonight's pledge leader is Drake Lynn and um Drake if you could turn your camera on there you go very good Drake as a seventh grader at Carmel Middle he is an active Boy Scout and is working to earn his second class rank in troop 11 earlier this year Drake was recognized by the meinberg County Scout council as the top Camp car fundraiser after he sold 210 cards Drake is interested in technology and is currently learning JavaScript Drake is also part of a large family his mother Ming Chi Father David Lynn a brother Nathan two sisters iara and Margaret and one very special family member Emanuel Amari Emanuel is an exchange student from Ghana and the lens are his host family Drake will lead
003us in the pledge and then talk about this month's character trait which is Hope Drake take it away I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all go ahead Drake you can share your statement hello my name is Drake Clint and I'm a seven grader at Carell Middle School in a Tenderfoot with Scout Troop 11 last weekend we remembered the lives that were lost on 911 long before I was born while it was a sad day it shows us that we as a country can work together even when times are tough and despite our differences I hope that between now and future remembrance days we can listen and better understand each other without letting our
004differences get in the way I'm full of hope that now we are back in school in person even if we still have to wear a mask I hope we do what we all need to do in order to end this pandemic so we can see each other's full faces again I like to say thank you to everyone who gives me hope including my family teachers Scout leaders cafeteria workers security officers custodians bus drivers and school leaders I'm full of Hope and appreciation that I go to a great school a great City in a great state in a amazing country thank [Applause] you I needed that I don't know about you guys thank you so much for sharing your essay with us and for leading the pledge great job all right guys I'm now going to
005turn to board member Lenora ship chair of the policy committee for first reading of policies BSA and Bea members of the board the item before us tonight is the first reading of the proposed policy BSA student advisor if approved this new policy will outline the selection process and the roles and responsibilities of the board's student advisor the policy committee discussed the student advisory policy at the August 31st 20 20 excuse me 2021 committee meeting the version before you tonight was approved by the committee on a 30 vote at that meeting this new policy will have a public hearing at our September 28th 2021 board meeting and our October 12th 2021 board meeting the board will consider approving this policy at our October 12th 2021 meeting with that Madam chair I conclude the first reading of
006BSA student advisor thank you our next Bea Board of Education meeting policy I first read members of the board the item before us tonight is the first reading of the proposed changes to bylaw Bea Board of Education meetings if approved these changes will modify remote meeting participation by board members and to restructure our meeting agenda as part of our ongoing student outcomes Focus governance work the policy committee discussed bylaw Bea at the August 31st 2021 committee meeting the version before you tonight was a approved by the committee on a 30 vote at that meeting this new policy will have a public hearing at our September 28th 2021 board meeting and our October 12th 2021 board meeting the board will consider approving this policy at our October 12th 2021 meeting with that Madam chair I conclude
007the first reading of bylaw Bea Board of Education meeting all right thank you um so colleagues we have one public hearing tonight on proposed policy GBS about social media and the rules for this hearing are as follows each speaker will be called to speak one at a time each speaker will have a maximum of three minutes to address the board each speaker may only talk about the topic that is the subject of the public hearing individual student matters matters or specific Personnel matters may not be discussed and personal attacks will not be allowed finally profanity or other inappropriate language will not be allowed and the board reserves the right to mute any speaker who violates these rules and with that I call the our first Speaker let me find my list here speaker for the
008hearings is Stevens listed on the agenda okay okay got it here right so okay Glenn Stevens if you could come forth sorry I just don't have that good evening my name is Glenn Stevens on December 12th 2020 I reported to an area school district a comment by a building level employee threatening to vandalize the cars of supporter of in-person learning written on the Facebook page of an outspoken proponent of full remote learning and mandatory mitigation strategies for all CMS students on February 3rd 2021 I reported a CMS building level employee who insinuated on a private membersonly Pro CMS and pro public education Facebook group that I was exploiting my own son after I gave an interview to a local news Outlet advocating the end of CMS mandatory full remote learning a Blog written by a
009CMS employee routinely lashes out a community members and Leaders with whom he disagrees the author allows favorable comments to pass through moderation however differing opinions are censored preventing the exchange of ideas or perhaps even constructive criticism the above occurrences are examples of the most egregious fitri all which has dominated the language coming from or involving CMS employees during discussions related related to how best to serve our students during the covid-19 scare while it is unfortunate that our community has arrived at the place of requesting that the CMS Board of Education take policy action to require CMS staff to conduct themselves in a manner which is indicative of their profession here we are CMS staff have felt it appropriate allowed or even condoned to speak of community members and leaders on social media using language which
010is hateful derogatory or even violent from their own social media accounts and private membersonly face groups unfortunately the time has come for the CMS Board of Education to provide policy guidance to CMS regarding how and when interaction with the community is to occur on social media I urge members to support policy GBS social media thank you all right thank you um and thank you thank you madam clerk did we receive any emails relating to this public hearing on policy GBS Madam chair we did not receive any emails all right thank you then I now declare this public hearing closed and we will move on to requests from the public and the rules are similar but I will read them um each speaker will be called in to speak one at a time unless you are
011part of a group each speaker will have a maximum of two minutes to address the board and groups will have seven minutes each speaker may speak on any topic of their choice except for individual student matters or specific Personnel matters personal attacks will not be allowed profanity or other inappropriate language will not be allowed and the board reserves the right to mute any speaker who violates these rules and with that I would if we could bring the first three speakers into to um the room um the zoom room the first speakers are Alexis Shapiro Brook Weiss and Brian Weiss Madam chair I also ask that our speakers rename themselves if they have not done so already so that we can identify You by name okay thank you yeah so please do that if you could
012so we make sure we bring the right people into the zoom room with us and um and Ms Shapiro if you want to go ahead um you're up thank you I will begin Equity education based entirely in critical race Theory or CRT holds that the US has is and will always be racist so we're all supposed to become what ibram Henry Rogers AKA ibram kendi has recently coined as anti-racists and he's making a fortune pedling this including our taxpayer dollars which CMS paid out to him as a recent keynote speaker but make no mistake being a so-called anti-racist does not mean equal treatment for all people oh no according to Kendy and his devotees some of whom sit on this board this means that all white people children and adults must accept that they're implicitly
013Andor explicitly racist and if white people say but I'm not racist aha they have been they are they're so racist that they don't even know it or if this ugly accusation upsets them then that's proof of their quote unquote right white fragility according to kendi there is no not racist there's only racist and anti-racist and if you don't tow the party line you're guilty of silence is violence or enjoying residual benefits of so-called white supremacy so what does this all boil down to you don't absolutely comply with kendi himself and his father followers you're a racist if you believe in meritocracy and equal opportunity you're a racist so what to do again according to kendi and the tenants of CRT quote the only remedy to racist discrimination is racist discrimination the only remedy to past
014discrimination is present discrimination what in God's name is this the bunch of toxic crap has no place in schools or with children it is Revenge RIT large and aims towards degradation and utter chaos the fallacy of equity education that all children are either oppressors or victims is pure and outright child thank you very much um next we have and just no I'm going to be real tight on the time limit here we've got uh 45 speakers um so we need to give everyone a chance so next we have Brooke whis followed by Brian whis and then I just got one name name here dvo and M whis go right ahead just need to unmute yourself okay sorry there before my time starts I want to let you know that my husband is the next speaker
015and he's going to use this same link our house flooded and we don't have a computer so we're working off of a laptop my my name is Brooke Weiss and I'm the chapter chair of moms for Liberty mecklinburg and I want to talk about a few things right now um first of all yesterday I received a phone call that unvaccinated teachers are going to be subjected to weekly testing I submitted a foia uh public records request asking for the contract and who authorized this decision and my Foya has been denied that's completely unacceptable this was approved this is this was a decision that was made without board voting on it and um Ernest Winston he doesn't re over us he should have to go through the board to make decisions like this so I think
016the board should demand U an explanation next thing is over a month ago I sent an email to representative strain and to all of the at large members as Chapter Chair of moms for Liberty I want to find common ground and work with the entire board we need your votes and there's quite a lot of common ground the only person uh the only two people that I heard for were of course Mr strain and Miss sa Miss Sanders gave me uh very graciously an hour of her time I never heard from from board member delara or from um having a mind blank right now the other at large member and that's completely unacceptable I should have equal time I wanted to talk about a resolu olution that one of our board members drafted that it's
017an anti-discrimination re resolution and it should be common ground for all of thank you that's that's your three minutes if you want to bring your husband up I mean two minutes sorry that was your two minutes and Mr whis if you could unmute yourself you're up unmute you need to unmute there you go oh you just REM muted yourself you there you go you're good can you get can you'all hear me now yes okay I'm I'm gonna be real brief and short and just you know I know some some people when we were having the meetings would uh kind of yell and and mess with everybody when they brought up a Martin Luther King quote which I didn't understand because he was a great man and Martin Luther King basically all he wanted to push
018for is people to be judged not by their race their sex their religion just their content and how they are and that's what we should be doing here everybody in this country should be looking at people's content and and the way the parents have their children growing up and so I have a real problem with some of the things that are going on it doesn't matter what you call CRT or you call whatever it is but when you take a certain group and just because they are a certain group you go ahead and make negative inference uh negative information about them and teach our kids this that's a problem so what I want us all to do is come together and try to judge people by their content and not judge somebody I don't judge
019anybody because they're a board member negatively I don't judge somebody because they're who whatever the president of the United States to a a doctor lawyer Indian chief everybody should judge for themselves nobody knows who I am I don't know y'all and what y'all been through so let's go ahead and try to teach our kids to be good to each other and not judge each other because of their sex their race their color and that's that's what I'm trying to push forward and I'm hoping that you as board members also believe this and let's do the right thing thank you very much thank you so next up we have the single name dvo followed by Bill Fountain and then Laura forner and dvo is up we can all do the dvo dance while we wait so
020we don't have dvo do we have [Music] dvo well we Madam chair I do not see dvo I do see someone with the phone number do we know who that is nor do I see Laura forner all right do we have Bill fountain I believe so and and just a reminder to those in the waiting room um if you could if if you know how to change your name in uh in Zoom please do so so that we can identify you and bring you in when your name is called all right Mr Fountain you are up um Mr Fountain I think you may need to unmute yourself all right can you hear me now we do hear you you're up thank you thank youe the test results announced on the 1st of September were dismal
021with learning loss being the defining characteristics of course this severe disruption to public education was blamed on the pandemic and notown deficiencies in student learning or teachers ability to teach remember this failure was self-inflicted for private religious and home schools met face to face and fared well yes our governor County Commissioners CMS and this board bear the responsibility for this learning loss through your Nanny State mentality plus your focus on indoctrination versus Reading Writing and math it's your chain wreck own up to it you must catch up what our students lost during this virtual training unan state folks say you care for students and parents but in practice it denies them their free choice it's real goal is control how do I know that easy you don't follow the science and when you say you
022do it's pseudo science with cherry statistics we are a free people and will continue to demand that students make the choice whether their child wears a mask or is vaccinated likewise we have the right to see what their child is being taught we don't know what's don't we know what's contained in the things we buy yes we see the ingredients even warning labels so be so show us then be transparent show us what the teach students are being taught thank you thank you so do we have Laura forner yet if not let's bring up the next three which would be Nicole Ria Jennifer Thompson and Carol gray Adler so if Laura forner is not there yet then Nicole Ria is up and please go right ahead Miss Ria can you hear me yes ma'am we
023hear you according to the CDC during the month of August 41 children were hospitalized for covid related symptoms only seven were in ICU none of which were put on ventilators this is for the entire country not just meinberg County 41 out of 74 million children covid is not a threat to our children do you know what is a threat to every single child in this County right now your extreme covid mandates for Mass vaccines and illegal quarantines I said this the first time I ever addressed this board and I'm going to say it again all but one of you are complicit in committing and perpetrating child abuse child abuse is defined as actions resulting in harm potential of harm or threat of harm to a child the policies that you are implementing will have lasting
024negative effects on our our children and are considered both emotionally abusive and neglectful both of which are considered child's abuse we have spent months educating you on the dangers of wearing masks and you continue to require them instead of seeding the decision to parents who are the rightful decision makers for their own kids what are the long-term effects of these mass and illegal quarantines and where is your proof that you're not committing child abuse can you guarantee that masking our kids is not hurting them I've asked you before and have heard nothing but silence if you are unable to prove that masks are not hurting them emotionally and physically then you have no right to require them stop projecting your own fears onto our children they're not yours the teachers unions and the boards have
025continued to set policies and make decisions that override parental rights they have taken liberties with our children's education and health and they have no right these are our babies we need to fight for them parents you have rights you have a voice and now now is your time to use them all right thank you very much um so now we have Jennifer Thompson followed by Carol gray Adler good evening for the past few months I've come before this board and shared concrete evidence of discrimination divisive teaching and anti-American teachings in our classrooms what I haven't done is shared why I care so much about this topic due to a background in both Child Development and adverse childhood experiences I'm deep concerned for our future Generations in colleges and universities around the nation young adults are
026struggling with cognitive distortions such as generalization black and white thinking and letting their feelings guide their interpretation of reality but most importantly young adults are walking around behaving like victims of an evil society and re reacting to even the most minor offense with hysteria and violence if you don't believe me just Google Evergreen State College riots or 2017 Berkeley protest this is a rapidly growing problem in our nation and introducing ideas that our nation is deeply flawed and founded on evil as well as Concepts like identity politics which involves labeling people or people groups into the K through 12 classrooms is only going to make it worse many claim that this is not occurring in our school district but that is false additionally having the adults in our school district participate in ongoing anti-racism professional
027development will trickle down into the classroom as well we already have CMS teachers proudly proclaiming that they are embracing what they have learned and passing it along to their students as adults it's our responsibility to help shape our children into well-rounded individuals this is not what is occurring instead we are hiding behind claims of tolerance or inclusion in order to help students feel good about themselves but hate others we have kicked Jesus out of our classrooms and instead ushered and Satan all in the name of progression I don't have a specific goal for this month's speech only to say How concerned I and many other parents are and to say that our children and our nation deserve better all right thank you next we have Carol gray Adler following followed by molini Kumar and then
028Rita Smith good evening I'm a resident of Charlotte District 5 a longtime CMS volunteer and a member of race CLT an anti-racist advocacy group I'm speaking tonight in support of the board's Equity initiatives recently I have heard speakers support factual teaching olding to denounce teaching our racial history and inequity it has systemically caused we must teach our entire history including uncomfortable truths that still impact us today there are many examples of systemic racism and white backlash against Equity racial Equity that have not been included in history lessons for instance in North Carolina in 1898 threatened by the the success of the fusion party and the election of black officials White Citizens staged the Wilmington coup they burned the city killed 60 people and forced black officials to resign at gunpoint no one was ever prosecuted
029two years later North Carolina voters approved the suffrage amendment which added voting literacy tests pole taxes and a grandfather clause effectively allowing illiterate white men to vote while preventing black men from voting in the 1930s and 40s several beneficial National laws were enacted that were racially exclusive the federal Housing Authority financed the growth of the suburbs but prohibited loans to black people the Social Security Act when it was initially passed excluded occupations where most black people worked and the GI Bill prohibited black veterans from receiving loans my family benefited from all of these laws contributing to the wealth Gap we see today equity and education is no exception it was 1954 when racial segregation in schools was ruled unconstitutional yet even even today few schools in CMS have racially balanced student populations and higher minority
030schools have fewer and lower quality resources to paraphrase cherylyn Eiffel We As Americans accept not only citizenship privileges but its responsibilities to correct wrongs that we did not commit it was government that helped segregate American neighborhoods it is our you thank you Dr grey Adler okay Miss Grey Adler um next we have molini Kumar followed by Rita Smith and then Lisa O'Brien and Miss Kumar you're up you hear me can you hear me this is Malin yes we hear you Malin sorry malan that that's okay yeah okay um I want to talk about the mask mandate and I think it should be optional for children um it's been nearly two years that we've had this pandemic it's no longer the novel Corona virus it's been around for two years and I think that now with
031treatments available vaccines for those who wish to have it um you should let parents um make the choice on whether you know their kids should be masked up or not and I think you guys doing this one size fits all and basically overriding parental choice is wrong and frankly offensive um so I think you should make it optional um I also think that it's really backwards that parents come here trying to justify and explain to you why masks don't work I think now the onus is on you guys to prove to us why you think masks work and here's how I think you should do it school has been open for about 3 weeks you've got data since all the classes all the schools and CMS of which there's like 180 so you've got probably
032about close to 200,000 kids at a minimum as your population everyone's apparently masked up every day so you can see with these masks is co still spreading across the schools you can compare that to schools in other states where masks are optional I believe there's certain schools in Georgia as an example you can research others where masks are optional you can compare the numbers and see if by wearing the masks it's significantly different in terms of the spread of covid I don't believe it is but you can see it for yourself and you should come and prove that to us hire a stat statistician if you need to I'm sure you got funds for that or maybe someone here can volunteer thank you Miss Kumar next we have Rita Smith followed by Lisa O'Brien and
033then Arthur Griffin Miss Smith do not I do not see a Rita Smith uh we do have Lisa in the audience but I cannot determine if that is Lisa O'Brien okay and we don't have Laura forner yet either no Madam chair okay all right um Miss O'Brien if you would like to go right ahead okay last year you chose to ignore science in favor of keeping our schools closed and the results of that experiment are more than alarming the percentage of non-proficient students in math one nearly doubled failure rates in English and science tripled there were substantial drops in every subject every grade level and every racial group but particularly within the black and brown communities these failures are not due to covid but rather your response to covid one definition of insanity is repeatedly
034doing the same thing expecting different results 18 months into this and you're still allowing fear and hysteria to drive your decisions rather than critical thinking and by doing so you are not protecting children or the community from Co you are causing irreparable long-term harm to them never in our history have we forced healthy asymptomatic teachers or children to wear a mask for 7 hours or to get tested for the flu Which is far more deadly to Children than covid and we certainly never forced healthy students into house arrest while denying their education what meaningful data are you providing to Warrant any of these abusive policies the answer is none because none exists the data and risk benefit analysis from other states and districts doesn't support masking testing contact tracing or quarantining healthy asymptomatic people so
035how many more children will have to suffer to put an end to the charade if failure rates aren't enough will it take more children dying from school violence like we've seen over the last 3 weeks more adolescent suicides instead of spending money on a nonsensical covid testing program how about directing those resources toward restoring normaly educating our children thank you Miss O'Brien um okay next we have Arthur Griffin followed by Stacy Stags and then gayen Morgan and Arthur Griffin otherwise known as Papa's iPad or potentially Leah Howard there he is Mr Griffin Papa if you can unmute yourself the floor is yours and you're still there you go okay can you seear okay all right good evening uh Madam chair members of the school board superintendent Winston on July 13th you guys voted to suspend
036the academic eligibility requ Departments of policy JJJ principally to address the imminent start of football practice the following week you made this decision to lower the academic standards without any student achievement data you made a student achievement decision without student achievement data two quick points obviously you believe that your education athletic education pipeline has holes in unfortunately without the data you don't know where the holes are where student athletes are falling through those cracks and therefore you don't know where and how to plug up the holes that athletes are falling through anadol you heard that there were several high schools that may not be able to fill a team three of the teams mentioned or schools mentioned were all Ty one schools perhaps you could have used Federal Tyler $1s to hire tutor for the
037football team however without the data you don't know if the problems at one high school or 17 high schools with holes in the athletic educ ation pipeline your vote violates the principles of good governance and especially student outcomes focused governance Point are still a minimum 2.3 GPA in specific High School core courses anyone check to see if the suspension of policy JJJ would jeopardize NCAA eligibility I called NCAA to verify and their standards still are 2. three minimum GPA right now you don't know how many student athletes could be hurting I hope that you don't make the same error this spring when this comes up for review again thank you madam thank you Mr Griffin next we have Stacy Stags then gayen Mor Morgan and then Glenn Stevens good evening my name is Stacy Stags
038I'm coming to you as a CMS EC parent and one who is incredibly grateful to be part of the Charlotte mberg School District I join my fellow non-credentialed scientists in reviewing the data that has been put forth by CMS through their covid dashboard I do wish there's more information available and I commend the district for the work they've done so far last year we were privy to weekly walkthroughs of the covid dashboard and since that is not continuing for this year I've gone ahead to pick up that task because I think the information is valuable I also want to thank the CMS board for their 8 to one vote in favor of mask required as well as launching this testing this surveillance testing program um while it is true that covid is spreading within all
039of our buildings all of our districts all of our counties it is not true that we're powerless to stop it there are things that we can do despite what our neighbors to the South have shared Mas optional is not safe failure to contact trace and failure to uh quarantine exposed individuals is not safe my daughter has already been pulled from a life-changing procedure this fall because pediatric hospitals not just adult hospitals but kids are being hospitalized locally Statewide and across the country I'd like to ask Nicole Ria to share or update her sources I'd also like to share that while all of this is going on parents and families sit in the in the midst thank you sorry we ran out of time there miss dad next we have gayen Morgan then Glenn Stevens then
040Megan carani hi good evening uh my name is galon Morgan and I'm a parent of a middle schooler who goes to um sale and I just wanted to know if the board was going to reinstate the symptom screener um last week my son had to quarantine for three days because he was exposed to a chot on the first and he his PCR test didn't come back in time for him to go back to school for the rest of the week so I wanted to know if you were going to start holding parents accountable for their children that might have symptoms or might have been around a family member or a friend that has been uh tested positive for covid and if you're going to bring the S the symptom screen screener back also I wanted
041to know if you had anything in place or going to do anything for the students that do have to quarantine that have been exposed to children that tested posit positive um or are they going to just be sitting at home and emailing their teachers because they're really missing um a lot of the school planning and I know my son last year uh did not do well with virtual um so I just wanted to know if the board was going to address this or um do anything about uh the symptom screener and then if there was a plan for children at home quarantining thank you have a good evening thank you uh now we have Glenn Stevens then Megan carani and then Jacob marnett Mr Stevens go right ahead good evening my name is Glenn Stevens
042perhaps no three titles are more important to me than those of husband of 18 years to my wife Emily bereaved father of our special needs son Gabriel and adoptive parent via foster care to our black 8-year-old son with special needs John AJ Crill has rightly stated School quote school systems exist for one reason and one reason only to improve student outcomes if this is truly the case the data released this month demonstrates that CMS not only failed my son this past year but it has been failing students for years in 2021 only 27.9% of black third graders were grade level proficient in reading only 17.9% were career in college ready in 2021 only 13.8% of students with disabilities were grade level proficient and only 8.2% of students with disabilities were career and college ready we
043can go back further than this in 2015 only 46.1% of black students were grade level proficient in third grade reading and only 32.5% were career in college ready only 19.9% of students with disabilities were grade level proficient in third grade reading and only 14.5% were career in college ready this data pains CMS as a school system unable unwilling or both to put the growth needs of our students before the agendas of individual Board of Education members career aspirations of senior District level staff or the social political agenda of professional associations your community stands ready and willing to assist in any way possible our students need better our students deserve better our students have the right to better from those who claim at least to have their best educational interest at heart thank you thank you
044all right now we have Megan carani then Jacob Barnett and then Keith Fifer hi I'm Megan carani I've been watching the debacle in Union County in horror and dismay the ucps Boe has made every anti-science anti-s safety decision they can and many of their residents cheer them on the rest of us in the region continue to work toward a state level solution but in the meantime CMS has a decision to make knowing that Union County has dissolved quarantine returned 6,000 students to their classrooms just in time for their day20 headcount snapshot for funding and halted contact tracing efforts effective immediately they pose increased risk and danger to themselves and their surrounding communities meinberg and Union Counties have a number of cross-county engagements with sports and extracurricular activities I call on CMS to temporarily stop engaging
045in these activities studies confirm that sports like football soccer basketball extracurriculars like band choir theater are efficient covid spreaders nobody wants this we know how important these activities are for students physical development future prospects and mental health all of that becomes a moood point if they contract covid and are among the 10 to 30% of survivors who develop debilitating long Co symptoms or experience life limiting organ damage from an infection the UCP PS Boe finds their sense CMS cannot safely engage with their students that's the bottom line Thank you thank you next we have Jacob Barnett and then Keith Pier then Vernon Barry Mr Barnett unmute looks like you're mute still there you go there my name is [Music] Jake uh oh I wish I could be in the people's house today speaking but you
046all fear the public so you this house what the hell what your language you are unmuted right now freezing it's very clear that the public school experiment has failed is more concerned with IND doctora children and educating according to WBT you're mut no you're not muted you're not muted I mean you it's just a bad signal yeah you I think you've got a low you've got a poor signal but what you might try to do is unmute yourself but keep your screen off that will give you a stronger signal and we'll be able to hear your voice more steadily want to go ahead and try to unmute yourself again all right well while we wait for Mr Barnett to get his technical difficulties worked out let's move on to Keith pyer if you could unmute
047yourself Mr Piper all right testing you're working sound loud and clear thank you you know it makes me somber when I think about how many people still aren't awake to the truth of what's really happening try to view this through your in lens for 2 minutes whether it's due to cognitive dissonance indoctrination by ideological subversion ignorance or just plain indifference I simply want people to see and understand how so much corruption and Discord in our great country is directly connected to and perpetuated by big government control and suppression of Freedom they want to control every aspect of our lives and they don't even try to hide it anymore once you realize it it becomes so plain and obvious that I promise you can never unsee it it becomes your new paradigm I rack my brain
048about about how I want to approach these speeches in order to prompt action will change for the better in part I want to get through the audience listening but I espe through to you as the board members I pray that you truthfully see and understand fully these Barb spokes in the big wheel that is evil machine of totalitarian government control or maybe you already see it maybe you're comfortable with the false sense of security or The Lure of financial subsidies and payments or maybe it's the age-old prisoners dilemma and you're terrified to be the first to stand up and make a difference by challenging entr trenched perspectives but just maybe and I believe very likely many others are thinking similarly but are also intimidated to make the first move to do what they know in
049their hearts is morally right well understand this Freedom loving parents are everywhere fighting with each breath to protect our children's Futures our values in god-given rights if you as the board stands up for us I promise that we will stand up with you but if you refuse and instead choose to be directly responsible for the decay of all that we hold dear then I highly suggest you step aside and start atoning now so I asked everyone an honest question should your children be raised by you parents who know what's best for them no matter what you decide the best is in their lives or should someone incompetent strangers with Deep Pockets and zero accountability should make blind decisions for the masses and demand nod and look the other way my calls to action please be
050heroic and put an end to the mask mandate thank you Mr Piper Mr Barnett you want to give it another try so we can see you we just need to unmute and if you have an unstable signal keep your try keeping your screen off but your microphone on or go for both if you have a good signal go right ahead is it is it my turn to speak sorry it is your turn to speak it is my name is Jacob Barnett I wish I could be in the people's house today speaking but you all feared the public so you blocked us out it's very clear that the public school experiment has failed CMS is more concerned with IND doctora children than educating according to WBTV who is not on our side over a thousand teachers
051leave CMS every year CMS can't keep teachers and children are suffering our society needs teachers they're one of the most important professions needed for our community to thrive most teachers get into this profession because they have a special comp it takes a righteous person to teach children the right way there's no doubts a well-rounded loving and passionate teacher is priceless teachers and parents it's important for us to come collectively and accept that we've been lied to we've been put into a box and programmed to believe that the educational system must be the government's way and the government's way only no one no questions asked here's some other truths each child is a Divine Creation with a special purpose the government doesn't view children in this way instead children are numbers and dollar signs in my
052opinion the only way to fix CMS is to accept that CMS has failed and develop a new system created by the people we the people have the power to do that and the future of education is in our hands I encourage all teachers who have been divinely called into this profession to challenge the system and think outside the box that they have been placed in and leave CMS our community needs a new and improved education system be creative nothing is is impossible teachers don't need CMS CMS needs teachers we have the power and the future of our children is in our hands we can't let them down all right thank you next we have Vernon Barry and it looks like I've got Carol grey Adler here twice so I'm assuming she has already spoken so
053Vernon Barry and then Luke ranky and then Todd Fuller and that's is Vernon Barry and Vernell Berry the same are they that the same person actually it's Bernell Barry oh okay it looks like my my list is spelled wrong I apologize for that Mr Barry if no it's okay okay we'll go right ahead okay thank you uh good afternoon to all of my Charlotte mberg School family I say family because we all share the same interest and that is the education and keeping our children safe my name is Bernell Barry and I am a proud father of three CMS girls two that have graduated and one senior I am also the founder of an organization called One Love established in 2014 right here in Charlotte North Carolina we are all about building up lives spiritually
054and mentally developing moral character respect honor amongst Our Youth and those in need my topic tonight is gun safety awareness as many of you know our city state and country is dealing with a severe case of teen violence I'm here tonight to ask all of my CMS family to come out on September 26 between 11:00 a.m. and 300 p.m. at 24:25 bis for Road and that is across from the public library on the corner for a free gun lot provided by SE Char meinberg Police Department it is so important that we keep our Firearms safe and out of the hands of misuse please don't leave your firearms in the nightstand or in a shoe box in the closet with easy access our children are very smart and they know exactly where Dad and Mom keep
055their firearms so imagine if your child was afraid for their life because they have been picked on bullied or felt fear to return to school the next day but they know exactly where you keep your gun at home with no lock on it in your mind what do you think they would do I have an idea they would go home sneak that gun out of wherever it thank you Mr Barry all right um next we have Luke ranky then Todd Fuller and then Nick Holt Mr ranky you are up good good evening thanks for the opportunity for public input I'm a parent of two Elementary schoolers in a CMS school and a member of race CLT and anti-racist advocacy group I've appreciated the opportunity to listen over the past couple months of board meetings that
056different folks have shared their concerns and I want to address two of those concerns tonight first I've heard parents worry that discussing racism in schools might make students feel uncomfortable and second I've heard worries that the Topic's divisive first it's clear our racial history and our present are not not comfortable but we and students must learn to talk about racism openly so we can get through that discomfort and understand the negative impact and move towards Solutions and I hope my boys have teachers who are prepared to responsibly support their students to learn about these difficult topics just like I hope they have teachers who can help when they have difficulty in math or reading I don't think it's right that we shy away from talking about race or racism just because it's difficult and I
057appreciate the district's efforts to provide the development opportunities for our teachers so that they can be ready to teach factually second I think learning about our history of race and racism and looking for ways that current policies perpetuate that history will not divide Us in my experience learning about racism and then working against it helps to bring white folks and people of color together The Divide actually widens when we avoid talking about race and racism and pretend like everything's okay I think some of us white folks especially might not be aware of the divide in these cases but that doesn't mean it's not there I hope my white sons are given the opport opportunity to learn with their peers of color the ways racism and other forms of Oppression function in our society to create
058an unlevel playing field so that they're all prepared to work together to bring about Equity I'm not asking you to teach the academic framework of CRT but I do hope that topics like systemic racism sexism and other forms of Oppression are acknowledged and discussed in developmentally appropriate ways in classrooms thanks very much thank you next we have Todd f Fuller and then I understand Nick Nick Hol has cancelled so after Todd Fuller will be Stephanie Sneed Mr Fuller go right ahead thank you good evening board thank you that I can speak to you about covid-19 pediatric risk Charlotte resident Todd Fuller data scientist with one of the world's largest banks four licenses and analytics dad to three CMS kids all five folders Co survivors 21 534,906 [Music] 254 that's what the state's demographer through the
059Office of Management and budget budget says are the estimated number of kids living in the same 11 County area and the last number zero the number of pediatric deaths over many weeks not just the last week in the most recent week 21 kids out of over 535,000 about half of those right here in meinberg at this same rate assuming the hospital data reported is accurate it's their data it would take over 254 weeks for just one out of 100 kids to be admitted to the hospital 5 years 5 years assuming if kids already affected infected in the past can be infected again as any kid who has not the families of these 21 deserve our thoughts and prayers as do the families of the kids lost in recent shootings and families of those CMS kids
060lost this spring to driving but this question remains what problem are we trying trying to solve by masking kids or by quarantining those not sick thank you for your time thank you now we have Stephanie Sneed then Caitlyn Reed and then Mark Jensen Miss Sneed go right ahead good evening my name is Stephanie Sneed and this is my second address to you on behalf of the black political caucus I'm here to continue to shine and light on the longstanding unacceptable performance outcomes of CMS students particularly those that look like me as I have prly stated one of the biggest emergencies in Charlotte are the disturbing districtwide performance gaps now more than ever we are fully aware of the trajectory of the students that have long-term unfavorable performance while a part of the school system we
061intend to continue to highlight these education gaps prior to co a snapshot into the 20189 school year provides that only 39.4% of black students were College and Career Readiness um that were in English too only 11.5% of black students in math one exhibited College and Career Readiness only 19% of black students in math 3 exhibited College and Career reades while only 15 to 19% of students met UNCC minimum composite score of 17 for the act of course as we know there have been no improvements in these gaps post Co these outcomes are not only attached to economically disadvantaged families and The Narrative of poor outcomes being only associated with poor income must be changed it is understood that the board is undergoing important governance training and CMS has released its strategic Playbook the bpc looks
062forward to further discussion on how this work translates to outcome at our September 21st Forum with you the bpc can no longer remain silent on these issues and we look forward to talking to you soon thank you very much okay Caitlyn Reed then Mark Jensen and then Brooke summerow M Reed hi can you hear me yes ma'am we can hear you all right awesome good evening I'm speaking tonight because I'm appalled and angered at this board and superintendent last night's email sent to CMS staff infuriated me for those who are aware the email and attached letter stated that beginning the week of September the 20th CMS staff will be required to show proof of full vaccination status and if it is not provided staff will be required to subject themselves to weekly covid tests this
063was not brought to a vote or even discussed in a public forum CMS made the decision to do this behind closed doors in a sneaky and underhanded manner what you have decided is illegal CMS is violating the nberg code as well as everyone's Ninth Amendment rights for those of you you on the board who do not know what is covered in the n9th amendment and individual's medical rights are protected you are choosing to violate them I urge everyone to stand up and fight back CMS has no right to force any individual to do anything that goes against the best interest of their own Medical Health tell them no stand up for your rights tonight I'm saying no I am standing up for my rights thank you thank you now Mark Jensen Brooke summerow and then
064Ivon bidd and Mr Jensen you're up good evening superintendent Winston and CS board my name is Mark Jensen I'm a resident of Charlotte's university area and I'm also an ally of cherry Community you may wonder why a County resident living so far north of cherry would be allied with this neighborhood well I believe preserving the rich history of mecklinburg County should be a shared responsibility of everyone in this County and the history of cherry community in Morgan school is as Rich As It Gets I've been involved in Cherry struggled to reclaim Morgan school ever since I first learned of the historic significance of Morgan what this school means to Cherry and Cherry's decades long fight to purchase Morgan School the professional inspection of Morgan school was conducted over a two-day period this past week one
065of the professionals was an urban designer by the name of Charles Kain Mr Kane evaluated the urban intrusion into Cherry over the past several years and he concluded that Morgan school is the emotional heart of the Cherry community and if Morgan school has not returned to Cherry as a functioning part of the community the Cherry neighborhood cannot be sustained in my opinion this will become a slow motion version of the same destruction that decimated the Brooklyn neighborhood in the 60s an action the city and the county have very recently vowed to never let happen again if properties and historic African-American neighborhoods end up in the hands of outside concerns or are sold to another Suitor eraser of these black neighborhoods will happen again and they will continue to happen if Morgan school is moved to
066a for sale Des and CMS ends up the seller and you will have two options you can sell to Cherry and see an historic neighborhood continue to serve its residence or you can sell to an outside concern and see Cherry begin to disappear thank you thank you Mr Jens lost far too many of these historic communities already thank you next we have Brook summerow then Ivon Biddle and then Virginia bham thank you for saying my name correctly did I I'm good I'm glad I did it's a hard name um thank you for allowing me to speak I grew up here in Charlotte I graduated from Vance High School now known as Julius Chambers and I am UNC Char alumni I am here to stand with the Cherry Community there is history in this community they
067have a right to hold on to their history history is important to the black culture of this city stories are told by generations of the Cherry um Cherry residents these stories should be tangible and this is the Morgan school I encourage you not to erase this history and allow future generations to know where they come from to get where you want to go you need to know where you start the chair Community started with Morgan and they have the right to continue their history thank you for your time thank you now we have Ivon Biddle then Virginia bham and then d Dennis do we have Ivan Biddle with us just one moment Madam chair okay Madam chair we have several several of our upcoming speakers are using the same machine so I think we have
068the person invited now okay so I see Stephanie Gardner and perhaps what you're saying is several of the speakers are on Stephanie Gardner's Zoom excuse me they're on Sylvia Biddle Paton computer can you invite Sylvia bidle Patton all right I see Dr bid Patton's Zoom screen and if so if Ivon bid is with you if you could go ahead and give give her the mic okay thank you my name is yvon D I have been a resident of cherry for 62 years I am the last surviving founding member of the charity Community organization and Cherry will always be home for me and my family I know that the Morgan school was built in this community and even before we started CCO we have been trying to reclaim Morgan school for char promise have been made
069Time After Time and our promise have been denied we have been patient long enough we have worked for years and burned the midnight all for our community it has been our time all these years but we were patient we will wait no more I am 80 years old and will continue to fight for Morgan School the organization who wants to come into Morgan school can go anywhere else in the city and we will fight for charity and we will not let them take Morgan scho away from us thank you for standing with us in this fight thank you thank you and then I understand our next uh speaker is Virginia bham is she using the same computer yes she is okay [Music] Virg hello my name is Virginia bam I live in Cherry I've been
070here for years am keep ask questions keep more thank you thank you thank you thank you and I just I wanted to say that we had a hard time hearing Miss bam so if she would like to follow up if with an email or if someone could send an email on her behalf we'll um we can also read what she had to say after the fact thank you so much okay and now um Doris Dennis yes good afternoon my name is Doris Dennis I've been in Char all of my Life 77 years and I stand with Morgan on the first through the sixth grade as a child Morgan we need Morgan school we need y'all to stand with us we need y'all to help us keep Morgan school because Cherry is on fire for Morgan
071school so please think about the generation to come and the people had the ones that's gone on and the ones still here fighting for children we will fight on and we would like for you to help us keep M School may God bless you and thank you thank you next we have Barbara Rainey and then myON Patton good evening CMS board I bar rainy a 71-year cherry resident vice president of the Cherry Community organization and a graduate of Morgan Elementary School in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 starting at verse one it says to everything there is a season a time to be born and a time to die a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted and it continues to verse eight for those who may not Embrace religion I'll give examples of
072everyday situations a time to save and a time to spend a time to work and a time to play a time to sleep and a time to awake a time to give and a time to receive school board members it's time for you to make a very important decision it's time for Morgan school to be put into the hands of those who attended love and continues to to fight for Morgan school it's time for charity to reclaim what rightfully belongs to our community Morgan Elementary School is our time is our season thank you thank you okay next we have myON Patton followed by and I hope I'm pronouncing it right milon Patton uh good evening superintendent and members of the Charlotte mecklinburg Board of Education my name is myON Patton I am a native charlatan
073a third generation Cherry resident a member of the Cherry Community organization and a proud did I say proud a proud member of the Morgan School alone we're asking you to put Morgan school back into into the hands where it belongs cheering tonight I will provide you with a few examples of others who are standing with us including the Charlotte Community benefits Coalition the Morgan School alumni association the Cheery neighborhood association touching lives totally Incorporated uh Dr Phyllis gray Ray of Florida ANM University who recognizes the importance of the preservation of africanamerican History Pleasant Hill Baptist Church which is right there uh in the Cherry neighborhood uh the housing Justice Coalition and also the Greer Heights economic Foundation again in the interest of time these are just a few of those who are standing with us
074we're asking you to stand with us also thank you for your time and consideration thank you and then the second Mr Patton thank you and good evening everyone my name is milin Patton I'm a native charlan a fourth generation Cherry resident and a proud supporter of the fight to reclaim Morgan School the decision you think on and make over these next few weeks will be one that has a profound impact on the city I see Cherry changing and I see Charlotte changing change is inevitable and change is often good what Charlotte must recognize is that though change is good loss is not we speak so much about the people who are coming in but what about the people who have been here why do conversations about our future leave out the significance of our past
075and present the gospel of Matthew talks about the broad Road versus the narrow road what will history note as the road that you took will you take the broad Road the path of an organization with dollars cents and an enduring sense of entitlement or will you take the narrow but right road the road that goes against the ground of national gentrification displacement and eras of black history the road that leads to charity I ask you to understand our 40 plus year fight for our home I ask you to take that narrow road and allow our community to appreciate our past prepare in our present and dictate our future I'm grateful to the board for listening to our story over these past few weeks and this is truly a a time for choosing I thank you
076for giving Cherry a chance thank you thank you now we have Stephanie Gardner and then Caprice wilborne and then we have a group good evening superintendent Winston and Madam chair Madame Vice chair and Board of Education members thank you for allowing me to speak my name is Stephanie Gardner and I am a resident of cherry and an ally to the greater Cherry Community including displaced families I'm also the managing director of lamb Investment Company which makes private Equity Investments and Angel Investments focusing on African-American and female entrepreneurs in anticipation of your recommendation that the school that Morgan school be preserved and placed on the national register of historic places and operated as a Community Learning Center and Heritage tourism site we have a working proor a document going forward 10 years for the restoration maintenance
077and operating activities prepared in collaboration with an auditor from a major bank and a CPA accountant accounting director who is also on the board of a local 21st century Community Learning Center the Heritage Center will be outward facing and has the potential for significant tourism Revenue memberships a gift shop and educational events and experiences including tours of the building and cherries pending historic district are all expected to generate Revenue the Community Learning Center will be inward facing and as such it will truly serve the community while we do anticipate revenue from these programs the primary value of what will be created for the community will be immeasurable we will continue to remain fiscally responsible as we look forward to operating the programs memberships and events when the building is been rehabilitated and is open for
078business the proforma takes into account an educational program fees memberships Event Rentals studio and workspace leasing fundraising events the sale of historic tax credits and grants as Revenue news as well as the expenses associated with each of these and that any surplus will be used to further the mission of the Center thank you for your time and for helping Cherry realize the vision they have had for Morgan school for nearly half a century thank you next we have Caprice wilbourne and then we're going to have a group that is made up of David Hill step Grant and Greg Jacobs can you hear me yes we can hear you thank you members of the school board my name is Caprice wilbourne I've long worked to make a difference raising over $30 million for important Community projects
079I've had the great Fortune to work on Education Health Care cultural and Heritage projects with local Regional and national leaders boards nonprofits and Foundations across the country with everyone from the chairman of Morgan Stanley to the Cherry Community I've done this work because my family taught me to treat others the way that I wish to be treated the strengths of our communities here in the South are uniquely woven with a rich history of Heritage and culture much like a tapestry Central to the history here in Charlotte is one of its guiding structures the historic Morgan School in the Cherry Community its first African-American community and almost unheard of story of equity education racial awareness and inclusion dating back to its origins in 1891 and the Morgan School deed of 1919 which was a gift to
080and specifically for the benefit of the Cherry Community from one of Charlotte's wealthiest the Myers's family at a time in 1919 when racial Injustice rioting and lynchings were happening across the southeast and the country the Morgan School served as a Guiding Light in Charlotte the nation and the world world the Cherry Community organization was founded in the 1970s a nonprofit operating for over 40 years founded by a group of Trailblazers this community cares for its elderly honors its Heritage Champions its Youth and has never stopped seeing Morgan's school as The Guiding Light the heart in their Community it's much more than just their school most of us don't understand this because our thank you okay and um before the next group begins um if we could call in the the second group which will be
081Berlin D Tolbert Carolyn Copa and Dr Sylvia bidd Patton but the first group is David Hill Steven Grant and Greg Jacobs and the three of you have seven minutes and if you could go ahead and start good evening I just before I start you should have gotten a packet of about 20 pages and I'll be referring to that by page number as will Stephen and Greg and I just want to make sure you've got that um because we're gonna move pretty quickly yeah I believe we'll get that after the meeting we don't have that right now but we'll study it afterwards okay I'll leave all all the turn to page twos and Page threes then um yeah yeah actually I don't think we have any packet we did not receive a packet okay all right
082well we'll get started here I'm David Hill I've got Stephen and Greg with me and we are part of the team that's been studying Morgan for CCO we have a lot of experience and we bring that here to the the the Morgan school project someone would say you walk into Morgan and it really just needs a can of paint a broom a mop a dumpster and it certainly needs those things but far beyond that in three days we saw again and again sort of the beginning of the end for that school building there were failed systems failed materials failling waterproofing doesn't have to be the end but the proper repairs and ongoing maintenance need to be done our team has connections through Charleston Savannah and Charlotte also uh we've done over 250 pres preservation projects
083over the years and we looked at this site from many perspectives one was urban planning we took a look at the historic patterns and we brought it into today and looked at some of the development pressures that have been that have been pushing on the Cherry neighborhood uh we looked at landscape architectural issues not just the plants but accessibility issues drainage issues which are starting to damage the building we looked at a design analysis inside and outside Form and Function uh it seems like it will work well for the built for the intended uses we've also taken into account certain other elements that will need to be uh added like an elevator for example Steve thank you David um continuing on with u addressing systems um you're going to hear this theme is deferred maintenance
084uh it's a 100 year old building it's in relatively decent shape but uh we don't want to lose that we've got mechanical systems that can potentially be reused um but have a useful life of two to five years the electrical system that's in a similar Condition it's reusable but there will be upkeep necessary um Plumbing Systems that that are going to need to be uh completely revitalized fire alarm system that needs to be updated the sprinks that need to be added um structurally you're looking at um exterior masonry that needs to be on it needs ongoing maintenance uh and repointing you need uh replacement of lentils um in interior there's several floors that are reflecting again you're looking at a 100- year old building that's not necessarily in terrible shape it just has maintenance needs
085that have been deferred and have become repairs um the same is true of the building in envelope in the roof um there's evidence of water intrusion already and those things are going to continue and again a lot of that's caused by clog drainage on the roof uh again maintenance issues that are becoming repairs Greg that's back to me uh our finally our other hazardous materials consultant looked at The Usual Suspects as bestus mold lead paint uh we found some hot areas but they'll have to be tested and in all we gave the building a a b minus your school board um I think you can relate to that I but here's the problem if if preventative maintenance and restorative repairs are not done it won't remain as a B minus and ultimately in older buildings
086if you don't do that work you lose the building ultimately Greg all right I'm Greg Jacobs with Landmark preservation and as was uh stated um we've been involved with uh hundreds and hundreds of historic preservation projects over the course of of my 25-year career and not just individual buildings but individual buildings and how they relate to their surroundings uh the Morgan School in the simplest of terms has two basic needs one the Deferred maintenance needs to be addressed there's no question about it and secondly uh reprogramming to meet a re rehabilitated use as a community center uh is going to be a major and significant part of the program um we've produced a budget that assumes um Rehabilitation costs in the $2.1 million uh range and have projected forward uh 10 years of preventative maintenance
087to include replacement of hbac systems and projected lifespans of Roof System uh to be replaced in that time frame as well um and all this work would be done according to the Secretary of interior standards for preservation which is the standards we use in this country um and and the community group is certainly and ready to do that um so that's the that's the technical side of this the reality is this like every other preservation project 50% of the challenge is the building itself uh but probably the more important part is how that building relates to the its surroundings and and the part it takes in uh preserving a sense of place and there's no question it was mentioned earlier that Morgan school is the heart of the neighborhood and that can't be denied that
088simply cannot be denied and the outward face of this building relates to this neighborhood and that deep history and there's a choice to be made here and that choice will determine the fate of this building and arguably the the direction of the community and that is does this building as the heart of the neighborhood remain uh the focus of the neighborhood or does it become parled out to an outside organization for the sake of preservation without question the right answer answer is to keep it within the community and I have consulted with and worked with countless Community groups wanting to turn a building into a community center and I can in all honesty tell you I have not come across one that was better prepared had a better plan and were very well aware and
089cognizant of of the ongoing challenges and maintenance that are involved as well this is poised and Prime to become an overwhelmingly contributing Community Center for the Cherry neighborhood no doubt about it thank you very much for your time thank you and is that does that conclude this group okay so before we go on to the next group I just want to clarify it has been brought to my attention that one of our board members does have the package that you referred to um we did not realize that and it is I just receiv okay so we we're making photo copies for the rest of us so we will have copies to for everyone who needs to see that so thank you um okay so next we have berinda Tolbert Carolyn Copa and Dr Sylvia Biddle
090Patton and your group also has seven minutes and if you want to go right ahead um can you hear me yes we can okay thank you so much first and foremost I don't think you can see me though can you um oh wait a second I did something wrong um um all right here we go thank you so much first and foremost I want to say the growth of our city does not require leaving people in their history and Heritage behind your children's children and my own who will be more enlightened than us will one day ask why did you throw this history and culture away and they will go about correcting the problem but I'm going to suggest we need not wait for our children's children to teach this lesson we can handle and
091correct this now and I say this because when the board members had the willingness to come to Cherry to get to know the organization and listen to what was really at stake here you demonstrated that you very aware what has happened here in Charlotte those 10 15 communities that serve the African-American people of Charlotte you know they no longer exist and that the black people that were a part of that landscape have no presence you know cities around the country are saving protecting and value valuing the African-American story uh their accounts of their lives lived and experienced and only the way that these people can tell their own stories these accounts bring better understanding between cultures allows us to see how far we've grown as a country and then gauge how much closer we're moving
092to True Equity you may not know this but I my life began in the city of Charlotte and the community of cherry my education was at Morgan my high school was at second ward I've gone on to have a professional career for over 40 years uh in the Performing Arts that of an actress and my career has taken me around the globe my work has helped to change American culture and race relations and Cherry CMS Charlotte they've supported me and made an investment in me and I never will forget it and you've stuck with me all the way all along the way and just as those in Charlotte have stuck stuck with me I plan to stick with 130 year old Cherry I plan to help make Cherry's voice loud crystal clear it is a
093voice which my life reflects because I am Jerry I am Charlotte and I am Morgan school I'm berinda Tober thank you Carol good evening I am Carolyn Copa and historic preservationist I regularly manage 20 to 30 preservation projects out a Time across multiple States giving me broad experience and perspective many of these properties tell the story African American experiences when Cherry Community organization has control of Morgan school I will nominate the school and the Cherry neighborhood to the National register of historic places the focus of my career is the preservation of cultural heritage to preserve cultural heritage we must weave the Lost forgotten and ugly experiences of our history into one true narrative preservationists have come to embrace a belief in the healing power of knowing the truth we have just passed the Grim 20th
094anniversary of 911 people ask how we can ensure that America never forgets yet we routinely forget the failure of reconstruction opened the gates to usher in the Jim Crow era from 1877 to 1964 oppressive policies in the South led to the Great Migration starting in 1915 but also during this era the Myers family established the Cherry neighborhood and set aside land to be used as a school for the children of cherry the Myers family fostered opportunities of home ownership and education otherwise denied to blacks As Americans we have done a very poor job teaching about slavery reconstruction and the Jim Crow era and that is because they are painful periods in our past that we wish to forget and because we have not confronted this difficult history we are indeed repeating it the 1900 disenfranchisement
095Amendment stripped blacks of their rights to vote we are now witnessing white leaders in southern states decide who should vote and African-Americans are not on their list I challenge all of us to be better Educators I believe we should teach history in the places where history happened Envision Morgan school and Cherry a story where history is taught through the experience of place let's share Cherry's history so it is remembered so that these sites are interpreted with the web of relationships of power that created them in the case of Morgan school only the Cherry Community organization can provide this context your actions today are tomorrow's history stand on the right side of History thank you good evening I'm Dr Sylvia ble Patton and I'm here on behalf of the Cherry Community organization in support of our
096efforts to reclaim Morgan school for Cherry our request is simple and one steeped in equity return Morgan school to the community for which it was built Cherry you have heard from the community some of our partners allies funders and friends at every turn there has been another demand and we have met the demand we have done our due diligence we have engaged and partnered with others and are supporting ourselves and others in this effort including the following national state and local historical PR preservationists have conducted on-site tours of the school a Consulting team was assembled to conduct a condition assessment of every aspect of the building and the grounds we partnered with the preservation organization to ensure the preservation and restoration of Morgan School in perpetuity as permitted by the North Carolina General statutes our
097proforma Rehabilitation and maintenance schedules have been developed and reflect projections throughout a 10-year time period we have demonstrated our ability to purchase Morgan school and submitted a letter of intent to purchase we have developed a new vision for Morgan school which includes our plans for a comprehensive programming that will meet the needs of the community while thank you thank you all right thank you to this group Next we have Zariah Hooper and I hope I've pronounced your name right and then after Miss Hooper we have another group which will be Pastor Jordan Boyd Reverend Dr Dennis Williams and Dr Ricky Woods Miss Hooper you are up okay hi my name is lauia Hooper and I go to Myers Park High School my topic today will be mask and the saf staff and students at the
098first football game for Myers Park barely anyone had on mask in the crowd including the cheerleaders and everyone in the crowd was shoulder toos shoulder go on Myers Park Instagram and Facebook page and you'll see what I'm talking about my issue is y'all are so strict on mass at school but what happens at football games or any sport games I know I know what will happen Co cases me and my peers were having a discussion and I realized a lot of people wants to stay in person school because they miss their friend they perform better on work get better grades don't stress as much they're not having mental breakdowns every day about how much work they have to do along with their other activities outside of school and the list goes on a lot of
099students will be disappointed if we have to go back to a virtual school because of people not being responsible and wearing their masks so I ask that y'all would take into consideration a different plan about social distancing and mask at football games or any sports for the sake of staff and student safeties please thank you thank you and then we have our final group although we've got four speakers after this group but the final Group which is Pastor Boyd Reverend Dr Williams and Dr Woods Madam chair we do not see Ricky Woods okay do you um Pastor Boyd and Dr Williams would you like to go ahead or I am do do you know are we expecting uh Dr Wood I'm I'm here if that's okay Madam chair okay then we'll we'll go with the
100two of you thank you thank you uh good evening members of the board chairwoman dashu superintendent Winston I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the African-American Faith Alliance and I'm speaking as also a parent of two graduates of CMS and uh also a junior who is currently enrolled in one of our local CMS schools and although he's doing well many of his teammates of which he participates in sports and classmates in which he attends class 40 to 60% are achieving below grade level in the core courses required to attain College of career Readiness I would like for the board to share with the public what specific actions not processes but measurable actions that are taking place at Independent School levels that reflect the sense of urgency around the failing rates in 42 failing schools and around
10170% of black and brown children Across The District board continues to lower standards for teachers lowering standards for students while telling the public to have high expectations superintendent and the board knew before the recent numbers detailing the Dismal regression among all student classes would be lower yet we started the school year doing the exact same thing congratulations Madame chairwoman congratulations Mr superintendent Winston on having the distinction of being the largest perpetuators of poverty the large perpetuators of a permanent underclass and the largest perpetuators of the African-American male prison pipeline your inaction the urgency of now concerning the dire plight of so many speaks to the lack of courage and commitment to the change needed for so many please we can do better thank you thank you madam chair school board members and superintendent Winston for
102allowing us to have a little time to share with you our hearts about what we see happening with black and brown students throughout the district um we do want to thank you for your labor of love your hard work for all students in CMS uh but I'm here tonight to talk on behalf of the students who are graduating every single year who are not College ready or career ready uh I'm here to plead their case because no one is speaking for them every year thousands and thousands of black and brown kids are dumped into the society with no real option and as I've said to some of our key leaders in this um uh great mecklinburg County these kids fall in love these kids have babies these kids will find a way to make it
103in society often times uh in ways that are not good for society so it's incredibly important that we move with a sense of urgency uh you have said yourself that the academic failures are drastic so I joined my colleague in asking what drastic measures are in place right now for these kids who are in 42 low performing schools what are we doing today I I do agree with the student outcomes governance model that you're looking at seems to be something that's really really good but it's a long-term strategy what's different in the school Improvement plans what percentage of the kids are on an intervention plan we need to do something now I'm afraid I don't know but I'm afraid with just you know rearranging the chairs on the Titantic this slide has been going on
104for years we need action we need action now thank you all right thank you I'm sorry Dr Woods could join us um so next we have mcke Allen followed by Suter Conrad and then Christy Wade and do we have mcke Allen there you are you all hear me yep we hear you go right ahead good evening I'm here tonight to talk about my strong opposition to the mandates for our children and any return to remote learning not going to take up a lot of time to re reiterate d that you already heard barely choose to ignore this as you craft your POC policies towards our children uh I do want to bring your attention to though uh the Atlantic article that just came out yesterday uh that did talk about the rate of hospitalization for
105children if you do have time I would hope that you agre that I'm well aware that this public forum is a formality for you I'm also well aware that you are not going to do what people say and what we ask of you I do though want to make sure that you are aware that the vast majority of the speakers tonight have talked about their opposition to mask mandates forc vaccinations and any potential return to remote learning most people don't take the time to come to these meetings they're too busy with their families trying to earn money paying the taxes living their lives so most people don't take the time to come down here and do this but we do talk to these people that are out and about in town and we represent a
106vast majority of people tens of thousands of people who stand in opposition to these policies that you're creating I've heard a lot of these people tonight talk about equity and education about how these policies are affecting black and brown children how is this Equity this is disproportionately affecting those same students of color what is the plan here there are so many failures at the school level at the student level and this is happening under your watch what what are you all doing what for real like what what's the plan here what are we doing we demand the right to keep our children safe to educate them in the right way and we demand that you do this for us because we will remember come election time thank you okay then we have Suter Conrad then
107Christy Wade and last but not least Dr Monro Richardson Miss Conrad go right ahead good evening yesterday staff and families received an email about requiring unvaccinated staff um weekly covid tests starting the week of s of September 27th Elementary School staff who are not vaccinated will be required to take weekly covid tests how did this program become a policy when the board is in the meeting right now isn't the board responsible for making policies that affect all of CMS this was never brought to anyone's attention before the email was sent CMS states that they are against discrimination and want to provide education that is Equitable to all students and staff how is only testing unve vaccinated staff Equitable when this is discriminates against the unvaccinated I know the counterpoints to this question and what has
108been spread across Main Street Media even with our Health Care Systems and the sitting president calling it the pandemic of the unvaccinated however vaccinated people have been proven to also be able to contract and spread the virus does it make sense to only test the unvaccinated when even the CDC and FDA are saying that the only benefit to the vaccine is to lessen the Simpson symptoms and hopefully prevent hospitalization this is also a violation of our rights to choose what is best for us medly I would like you to take a moment to think about these statistics according to the NC DHHS website only 54% of residents of meinberg County are fully vaccinated I would assume the percentage of fully vaccinated staff for CMS would be about the same as of 4 p.m. today there
109are 219 vacant instructional positions 20 vacant bus driver positions and 188 vacant positions for support staff that is 427 empty positions that directly affect students lives every day thank you Christy Wade and then Dr Richardson do we have Christy Wade all right let's go straight to Monroe Richardson you are up good evening my name is Monroe Richardson I'm the executive director of re Charlotte the pandemic has gutted early literacy state test scores released two weeks ago showed that no racial group socioeconomic group are part of our community was spared over 75% of economically disadvantaged third grade students scored at not proficient on the third grade reading EOG half of non-economically disadvantaged third graders scored at not proficient two a similar story unfortunately has played out for reading in grades 4 to8 as well there are
110thousands of children struggling with reading right now in CMS classrooms as you consider the district's policy response to this incredible challenge I implore you to consider three things first work with others the district received an incredible infusion of capital a total of 528 million in Co relief funds according to dpi's website more than ever we need for CMS the County city of Charlotte towns in the county funders and Community leaders to come together to leverage these one-time resources to make the biggest impact for children second invest in tutoring Harvard Professor Jimmy Kim who the district has worked with in the past said to me last week if I could wave a magic wand to come up with a solution to the problem I'd say tutoring everyone knows that that's the solution there is nothing that
111is robust as tutoring nothing finally invest in families families are our biggest underutilized resource in our community we need to respectfully treat our families as the valuable partners that they are and thoughtfully and intentionally equip them with the tools skills and resources so that they are prepared to support their children's reading development at home the board and staff of Reed Charlotte stands ready to help for the sake of our children we need to work together like never before thank you thank you and it looks like we do have Christy Wade with us yes I am here can you all hear me we can hear you okay apologies I had to switch to my phone doing bedtime routines now with the kids um but thank you for the opportunity for me to speak to you all
112tonight um and address the board on an important issue um my name is Christy Wade I'm a mother resident of meberg County and also a member of moms for Liberty um tonight I just wanted to urge all the members of the board to vote in favor of the resolution to ensure dignity and non-discrimination in Charlotte meberg Schools that will hopefully be uh addressed after we um after the public speaks so no child should ever be automatically labeled a racist or an oppressor based solely on the color of their skin clearly based on the reactions of a number of individuals on this call tonight as well as previous meetings this year there are many of us that echoed these same sentiments and we're not going to sit idly by and allow our children to be subject
113to such anti-American propaganda um there is no room for these kinds of discriminat practices in our school um therefore the board should elect to vote for this resolution thank you very much okay thank you madam clerk did we receive any public comments by email Madam chair we have one email could you please go ahead and read that into the record thank you with the Marriot of issues facing the community currently it is our our desire to bring the following items to your attention for consideration and action the rate of positiv positivity in the community is well above the 5% threshold the board previously used as a guideline for implementation of more virtual options now that is allowed by state law please reinstate an optional full remote Academy across the district for all grade levels students
114are self- policing mask wearing that this board has mandated buses are among the worst examples of this at a minimum please require the bus Windows be opened on our routes resend the cell phone policies for students especially in middle and high school and strongly suggest suggest the use of ncdhhs tracking app this would greatly free up resources and provide far more con contract tracing than currently being seen provide a clear and concise update of the title 9 task force students were not offered the ability to apply and to my knowledge the students who are asked to be involved still have have yet to have a meeting for an initiative that is supposed to deliver a report within 45 days appoint a similar student Centric task force to update the AR arcadic Artic aric sexist and
115hypersexualized dress codes across the district that currently disproportionately Target girls and people people of color or allow the dress code to be opt out of just like maske wearing and bullying and sexual responsibility lessons can lessons can be learned respectfully Stephanie bar baroli sorry the parent and Sophie okay thank you very much so that concludes our uh request from the public and next we will move on to our consent agenda is there a motion that the board approve the consent agenda items move second motion from Miss Byers Bailey second from Miss Sawyer before we move to a vote does any board member wish to pull any part of this item for individual consideration all right hearing none um um all those in favor of the motion please raise your hands and say yes yes any
116opposed all right Madame clerk our consent agenda is approved by unanimously right we're all here 9 to zero okay so yes I I have a speaker but I just wanted to mention okay yes um so Mr superintendent um believe you may have a Personnel appointment to share yes thank you madam chair members of the board thank you for the opportunity to uh introduce our next principal of Rocky River High School uh Mr quame Stith uh who is no stranger uh to the home of the Ravens uh he is currently an assistant principal at Rocky River High School where he has served since 2015 prior to that he served as the dean of students at C Cochran Collegiate Academy and he previously taught at Hopewell High School uh Mr Stith uh also uh is a graduate
117of the um School of executive uh Leadership Academy at uh Queens University of Charlotte and I'm excited again to announce Mr Stith as the new principal at Rocky River high school thank you madam chair all right thank you congratulations Mr stiff um okay now we're going to do um some Roberts rules of orders uh slightly different um process than what we do in our typical meetings um so first uh we're going to do a quasi Committee of the whole so I'm going to ask if there is a motion that proposed policy CFC universal face coverings be considered as if in a committee of the whole that was Miss Sawyer motion from Miss Sawyer is there a second second from Miss deara all those in favor of this motion please raise your hands and say yes
118yes okay so we are now in commit committee and we will convene this committee for no more than 30 minutes we're not giving individual board members time limits but as a whole we're in this committee for 30 minutes so just um be mindful of time and Mr Jeter our policy administrator is going to facilitate our discussion of this policy so Mr Jeter is at the podium and you have the floor sir Madam chair uh members of the board Charles Jr policy administrator for Charlotte mcber Schools um this is functionally the policy committee all nine of y'all are members now congratulations um earlier y'all were sent a copy of policy CFC universal face coverings um you should have gotten that in your email if you do not have a copy um Miss Kelly has a paper
119copy she can hand to you um the reason we are taking this up just in case anybody wants to know is that uh North Carolina session law 2021-topcon in at home the documents are attached on to the Facebook live Fe feed you can go to the agenda and they're there as well so everyone can see them um Universal indoor face coverings are required for all students staff volunteers and visitors inside CMS facilities and buses for the 2021 2022 school year face coverings are optional outside CMS facilities face covering shall be worned by all individuals inside CMS facilities and buses unless the individual meets an exception as set forth in the center Centers for Disease Control or North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services guidelines including the strong schools North Carolina toolkit as set forth
120by North Carolina session law 202113 the Board of Education shall vote at least once a month on whether this policy should be modified so I would remind yall the language and this is the superintendent's recommendation is structurally identical to what this board approved at your July 30th meeting once again the reason um this is before you is because of a change in state laws subsequent um to that July 30th meeting so with that Madam chair um that is the item before you that is the superintendent's recommendation we're happy to take any questions this is treating this like a policy committee little bit more informal than the normal standard meeting process so is there any does anyone have any questions thoughts hopes fears dreams quick process question is someone keeping track of our 30 minutes you
121are and you'll let us know when we got a I'm going give you the warning I got you okay does anybody have any questions concerns comments so Mr trank yeah so Mr Jeter as you know as you've distributed here there have already been some proposed language U to be added to that which we approved on July 30th there are two sections um here that have been proposed one is around a monthly report that would identify two separate data points to be considered as we meet regularly as required by law one is the level of community spread in meinberg County a metric that's currently tracked and the other is the number of hospitalizations within mecklinburg County per age group and and actually it was hosp the idea there was Hospital Iz ations of mecklinburg County residents
122because obviously mecklinburg County um has some great Hospital systems and we draw from other counties as well so actually Point number two was really focused on the hospitalizations of meinberg County residents per age group and then the second piece uh to to be discussed separately was uh to establish thresholds by which we may consider um whether the the um policy here would need to change now the policy with regards to face coverings being mandatory is requ required anyway because the meinberg County Board of County Commissioners acted as our local Board of Health and we are currently under a face covering mandate so that's not something that we could change anyway which leads to that second section in the absence of of a superseding rule regarding face coverings for example the local Board of Health requiring
123face coverings in all public buildings the board shall consider a modification of the policy if and then those two there are thresholds for those two separate metrics so there were two items that were proposed to be amended to this the first for discussion was the level of or the metrics number one the level of community spread and number two the hospitalizations of meinberg County residents due to covid and then the second uh proposed change was actually establishing thresholds to those so how would you like to handle those uh changes as if we were sitting in the policy committee and working on a policy as we do Mr Jeter I think you're facilitating how how can we change that is that your question Mr Str I mean how would you like to facilitate so yes I
124mean as you can see I just want to highlight to the members of the committee um you'll notice that the language it that was presented to y'all earlier this afternoon was Mr strange concept that language all it does is add the language in blue below however subsequent to Mr strain and I's conversations earlier today we did make a couple changes as he said highlighted on page one line 26 and then again on line 29 30 and 31 that language is represented in green I just wanted y'all to see that there was a difference from what was sent to y'all earlier today versus what is before you the purpose of those those differences as as our Mr strain said what if there's a meinberg county or state rule or a federal rule that requires mass then
125obviously that decision is taken out of your hand and the second one is there's two Community use or Community spread charts um we went from one to the other but the premise is the same Miss Miss Sawyer um I would like the policy to um read as presented by staff um I do not wish to include thresholds or required reports in the policy the reports we already receive um we don't receive hospitalizations but we do receive Community spread and a lot of other data um I I don't want to in include thresholds um in part because what's listed here is not created in cons consultation with our Public Health um experts they're not in the room here and um I would rather allow this process to unfold as we see what happens um so I
126I would prefer that the policy just end at l line 17 as that's written Miss Marshall um I I have you as we've gone through this we know that we've had a lot of extensive work on metrics and we and we publish that Weekly so some of this is is already there in terms of community spread and I think we all have been paying attention to that I I I don't know um again I would I am not opposed at the moment to having symetric conversation but I do not think we've got the folks that I I don't we we have not seen hospitalization reported in our region or across the region on a real consistent basis so I'm not sure um in terms of gathering that I would really like to confer with our
127local Health authorities as well before we would decide anything so you know this we're going to be be talking about this monthly we're going to be we're going to be reviewing our data monthly so uh this isn't a one and done I I just believe I'm not I don't have the information right now and I would like for meinberg County help to weigh in on that M Chek thank you well I want us to definitely establish when we get to take the masks off as a policy I know right now we don't have that option because of what the meinberg County Board of Commissioners has done but I do want us to have that availability so I do like the direction that this goes my concern as well is are these the two metrics that
128should be the ones that we're using um I definitely think Community spread I'm not sure about hospitalizations um so I think that that's kind of where I'm still not 100% sure I would like to hear from our um Health person Miss Damian and and um Miss Harris possibly from the county Health Department as to what she thinks the best metrics that we can use I mean I think were my biggest concern while I I definitely follow hospitalizations in the role that I have as a a case manager nurse case manager in meinberg County um and surrounding counties actually I I'm very in tune with hospitalizations I could probably recite most of them in our region to you um I'm not sure that that's the metric um that we need I I'm just not 100% sure
129what the metric is and I don't want to Adventure as as lay persons that we all are on this board to to determine that so I do want us to determine what the right metrics are um and I definitely want that to be included I just don't know what the right metrics are Miss Bor Sorry Miss ship I agree that I agree that we do need some metrics to consider and um so when I read this I was like yes if we're going to be looking at this monthly we do need to be talking about what are the metrics what are we assessing and what are we considering each month but I do agree we may need and I guess my question would be do we have that time or are we adopting this tonight
130as it as what we want it to be going forward so that would be my question do we are we going to be given that time to do what we're saying we need as far as meeting with the meinberg health department and looking at CDC so Mish I I think I I I I do believe it's time sensitive that yall adopt a policy under Rec session law 2021 130 um certainly um as the law states and and I misspoke I think I called it a universal face covering policy that's because of how we've entitled the policy it's actually a policy regarding the use of face coverings by employees and students is the actual language in the law so I apologize if I confused yall there um so I do believe it's time sensitive y all
131adopt a policy the the statute as well requires you to um reconsider the policy at least once a month so how you know how y'all want to handle that is is is solely y'all's decision and so that was my question to to make sure are we is this what we want to look at and be able to put in place tonight or do we have time to do some of the things my board members have brought up to ensure that this is what we want to have in the policy you know the the only thing I would say re reiterate to that is um superintendent and his staff has has recommended the policy before y'all that y'all adopted on June 30th Mr strin recommending some metrics if if y'all want to get into a a
132metrics discussion um and Miss Balor I'm coming directly to you um then I think as we go down and I try to land This Plane the first question I think you'll have to decide is do you really want to attach metrics to this motion that's a go noo decision and then if you make a go no go decision there then you've got to decide what metrics you want to attach to the process so I'd ask everyone to think about that Miss fer real quickly not real quickly I'm sorry you can talk it's oh no thank you Mr Charles I was just agreeing with you that's I was noing my head perfect never mind you're good that's good I think that looking at metrics is very important however the universal face coverings we can see through
133neighboring counties how how important Universal face coverings are however I do think metrics are important I do not think that should be the end all be all to whether or not we should agree to this policy however it does need to be um approved monthly due to State legislation um I think there should not be a hesitancy in us um agreeing to this policy since all of us have voiced our concerns about our students and our staff wearing masks and remaining safe the what we want to do is keep our students in school in person for inperson Learning and if Universal face coverings will do so and keep our students in school like they have been now then I don't understand the debacle perfect before we go back for double dips U Miss buyers Bailey
134miss miss deart missar I'm sorry you had your hand raised oh oh certainly um just briefly I I agree that we should um first speak with our County Partners in meinberg County Public Health to determine what the best course of action here and and I'll just I'll say briefly say I'm a little concerned about um the hospitalization um As the metric I mean that could be looked at but I'd like to get their input you know there other factors such as long haul Co and other you know secondary Factor factors that may want to be considered I'm not suggesting that is it but there are multiple factors if we're trying to determine severity of Co so I wouldn't just want to narrow in only on hospitalization Miss Bailey Dr Jones what any one you like
135M Miss bars Bailey thank you um my sense of this is that uh we're going to be reviewing this every month that's correct we have to be by Statute we have to so at when we determine what the metric are after we've had a cons uh a presentation on which ones are more reliable we can pull in any a month coming up we can add the metrics at that time is that not correct you may reconsider the policy and you are required to reconsider the policy from any modifications at least once a month so yes ma'am you will have that opportunity for the rest of this Academic School year thank you Dr Jones did you want to no Mr strain um I'm Sorry Miss dasy thank you um so yeah just to help you lean
136the plane I help me help us all in the plane just want be clear so by state law so we have a we have essentially a mask policy we didn't call it a policy but we had a a mask requirement Now by law we have to make that a policy that's what we're doing here today we do not have to include metrics in the policy but we could we can change it which is what has been proposed this is a change that has been proposed we do get metrics once a week I just want to remind my colleagues these are not we we get some a pretty exhaustive set of metrics once a week those metrics were determined by medical experts perhaps the metrics we look at need to be updated and refreshed 18 months
137later or a year later um so I'm going to compartmentalize that set that aside regardless once a month we will be reconsidering do we still want to require masks or not um and so that is you know this is we don't I don't know that we have to go through another Committee of the whole process to change the I mean maybe we do but it may be that there will be a time where Miss ad Damian and and Miss Harris at the county um and Mr Mr Winston will come to and say you know what we think we're good let's take off The Masks um I just don't know necessarily that we need to lock in that metric number right now so I support the um original policy that ends at line 17 M Mr
138Str I want to give you a chance since it's your concept to say something if you if you have any rebutt or anything you want to say all raise my hand when I'm ready okay I apologize um and so with that Miss Chek I'm sorry so I would Echo Miss dashew for two reasons right now we can't take our masks off because the county says we can't our Board of County Commissioners what I want to get clarity on is if the County Commissioners meet next Tuesday and decide that we can take masks off and they lift the mask mandate could we then we don't have to wait a month we could do this we could change our policy at any point is that correct the statute requires you to consider at least one atast I
139wanted to get that point out to the public so should the board of County Commissioners change their mask policy which basically is forcing our hand at this moment then we could very quickly act upon this so what I would like to propose is that we ask our health experts to help us develop metrics U Mr Winston to help us develop the metrics of which we would consider mask removal um and and and I that could be part of the metrics that we currently have because I definitely I I support Mr strain's concept here I think we may be early for it but I think that it's something that I think this this tells me we need to adopt the policy up to line whatever 17 but we need to make the the the steps now
140in preparation for the day that the masks come off because I want that to happen so um Mr Winson if you could if I think my colleagues are in agreement from what I'm hearing is that they want us to develop what that looks like and how that happens in the event that number one the county changes their policy and number two the metrics make a change and I'm I'm I'm very optimistic that by the end of September we're going to see changing metrics Miss Sawyer yeah I think as regards to the policy I don't feel that this policy needs to reference metrics at all since by definition we are reviewing and our superintendent is in regular communication and staff with County Health so I think for the same reason we didn't set a hard metric
141about when schools would be remote or not last year that we didn't have a one fixed you know you cross this threshold and you're consider it's it's consider and so I trust that our health department and STA and CMS staff are in constant communication about um this but I I don't want to pin them down to when you know this this number ticks the zero over then masks come on or masks go back off I think it's it's looking at a whole constellation and this policy I think just needs to meet the state mandate and I think it does that at line 17 and I'm ready to move on so mam Mr stren thank you Mr Jeter so the reason that metrics were proposed here was because we don't have metrics to to facilitate this
142discussion and so if we don't Define a set of metrics as we did a year and a bit ago we said all of these metrics will be considered for whether schools are in person or not and we agreed those metrics that were proposed we discussed them we agreed them similarly here I believe it's appropriate to include a set of metrics fully understand and agree that this was put together in the last 48 hours and we didn't have sufficient time to consult with our County Health Partners to to set up that set of metrics but for example nobody can tell me right now how many 0 to 17 year olds 0 to 17y Old mecklinburg County residents are hospitalized due to co nobody can tell me that nobody will be able to tell me that in
1433 weeks when I ask the question again unless we say that is information we want and need to make this decision that's why metrics are included um so that that's why I proposed a couple of metrics here who which are actually material to identifying and confirming the risk that we are trying to mitigate through uh a masking policy so Madam chair members of the committee we have eight minutes left in our time together here this evening uh for this part of your meeting at least um and so I from where I sit I think I hear four people who've expressed um a desire to stick with the policy as recommended by the superintendent which ends on page one line 17 I know Mr strain has his proposal in front of y'all um so I don't
144know if there's any more discussion or debate that needs to occur or certainly we have seven and a half minutes left if there is no more discussion or debate M ashy Mr Winston thank you Mr Jeter and I wanted to acknowledge all of the feedback from board members and I certainly understand all of the comments and um want to acknowledge Mr strain um and the desire to include metrics is part of the motion um our district Response Team uh which meets weekly um and certainly meets frequently with our partners at the meber County Public Health uh was actually in the process of uh preparing to meet and recommend a set of metrics uh for this very purpose that uh we would bring back to the board for consideration at the next board meeting um I
145I would not uh be in favor of including metrics as part of the motion but I do believe um that there ought to be a set of metrics to help the board uh as part of its decision-making process um as a reminder and I think some board members have acknowledged that we currently have two sets of met metcs um that we track and share uh on a weekly basis uh with our members of our public and those two metrics are the case rate as well as the test positivity percentage um so those are the two metrics that we currently capture that help us determine uh what the community transmission uh rate looks like um so that that's my thinking is to be able to allow the district response team to meet and certainly consult with
146our partners at meinberg County Public Health and bring back a recommendation for board consideration thank you Mr Winston um you'all heard the discussion uh and debate thus far um if somebody was inclined to make a motion Miss Sawyer I move we accept the draft policy CFC uh through line 17 as presented um she would like to amend that to make sure that she says it's version F yes the original so uh to accept version 91422 version F correct of the policy CFC m i I'm sorry I was still in discussion I still had a question I wanted to go back to what Mr Winston had said I'm sorry and we went on to if you could hold that for just one second we do have a motion we do not have a second we do
147now have a second now it's a matter for Madam chair this now gets into debate or discussion on the motion Miss ship yeah I just wanted to go back to what Mr uh superintendent Winston was saying that when we come up at monthly you will make sure that we have information to look at to make determinations or metrics to hear from as we come up to talk about this monthly is that what you're yes Miss ship that is correct yeah cuz I wanted that piece to be clear as to why we might we would stop at 17 that's so is there any more discussion or debate on the motion if not Madam chair you have a valid Motion in a second by Mr de laara Miss Clark to approve do you want to throw back
148to me yeah at this point I'd ask for you to call the vote Madam chair all right if there's no further discussion or debate um all those in favor of the motion on the table please let it be known by a show of hands any opposed and that passes 8 to one so now now we're going on to our action items so we're coming out of committee welcome back to the regular board meeting um so our first action item is a recommendation for approval of policy CFC and I'm going to turn to board member Lenora ship who is chair of the policy committee to make the motion for its adoption since this is an item reported out of committee which was the committee of the whole it does not require a second so miss ship
149if you could read your motion okay um the passage into law of North Carolina session law 2021-topcon by the committee committee of the whole I move that the Board of Education approve policy CFC as presented all right any F any debate or discussion before we move to a vote we do not need a second all right it's been thoroughly debated the plane has just about landed thanks to Mr Jeter's piloting um all those in favor of the motion let it be known by a show of hands any opposed and that passes 7 to2 all right thank you very much uh our next action item is to consider granting the superintendent authority to transition students from in-person instruction to remote instruction for covid-19 emergencies and before the board acts on this I'm going to turn to
150the superintendent for a recommendation and then we'll move to questions and answers and then move to a motion thank you madam chair I will be brief The Authority that I am seeking uh this evening uh would allow me to uh transition parts of or or an entire School into uh remote learning uh consistent with the new state law as a reminder uh this Authority is similar to The Authority that the board previously has gred granted uh both uh most recently in January and prior to that in November of 2020 okay any questions yes well actually I just I just want to make a an comment for the public this is um again this is for a limited use it's for um um small groups of students or classroom or a school or a hall this
151is not to put the whole District in uh remote learning so I think that that everybody needs to understand that we're going to have to act quickly and that that will be communicated to families and parents hopefully we won't have to use this but um otherwise to be able to maneuver quickly and then and and then get back to folks being in person so um this is to be used judiciously and it's probably hard for for us to I know we may have some discussion about this on what constitutes that um and so I don't know Mr Stant if you have some things you'd like to share with us in terms of sort of how you get to that decision thank you Miss Marshall yes and thank you for echoing the fact that this would
152allow staff the flexibility to act quickly uh if there is a situation uh that is deemed to be um unsafe or unhealthy I should say uh and one of the criteria we would look at is having insufficient staff uh particularly as it relates to uh staff having to quarantine uh if we do not have a sufficient number of Staff members U to be able to safely um provide a learning experience for students uh another uh example or criteria would be um if we are directed uh by our partners those are some of the things that we would look at in terms of making that decision thank you any other questions all right um well then I'm going to turn to Dr Ruby Jones to make this motion thank you chair is per by North Carolina
153session per by North Carolina session law one one second can I get your mic on I'm sorry as permitted by North Carolina session law 221-1130 a move to Grant the superintendent the authority to shift individual schools or individual classrooms from in-person instruction to Temporary remote instruction is necessary due to co 19 exposures that result in insufficient School Personnel or required student quarantines on a daytoday basis the superintendent shall report any shift by school or classroom from inperson to Temporary remote instruction to the Department of Public Instruction within 72 hours of the shift the superintendent shall direct a return to inperson instruction as soon as personel are available or the required quarantines are complete this Authority shall ask for the duration of the 2022 school year all right do we have a second second motion from
154Dr Jones second from Miss Sawyer does anybody have a need to discuss or debate this motion Mr strain Mr superintendent I'd like to again understand um really the question it was just asked in terms of making a decision to shift our students to remote instruction particularly at a school level I'm I'm trying to think through a scenario where we'd take an entire school not a classroom because there was a cluster identified in the classroom but this would give you the authority um to on your own shift an entire school and and I'm having been at this now for 18 months I'm trying to figure out why we do that at a school level you know when you've if there's a a cluster you've got demonstrated transmission you know in a classroom I could understand taking
155a classroom out break Done Right obviously Elementary School you could see that more so than high school where you switching classes and middle school as well but um to take a whole school out I'm not sure why you would need that Authority well thank you for that question Mr strain The Authority uh that is being uh recommended uh would allow uh me a superintendent uh to make a determination based on Staffing Readiness uh an example would be if we have a situation uh where we do not have enough uh adequate staff in a particular School building to be able to safely provide uh instruction then instead of coming back to the Border or asking for uh a special meeting to be able to take a school um into remote uh learning then this would allow
156that flexibility to do that um there's also uh the possibility that um you know as the board approved back in January that um as one of the criteria that mecklinburg County Public Health could direct uh that a classroom or a part of an individual School reasons um you know so when the District staff in collab collaboration uh with mechur County Public Health uh believe that uh remote learning is necessary uh for health or safety reasons uh we would like that uh flexibility to be able to make that decision with the board approval I I can certainly understand that decision being made by yourself and your staff at a classroom level I really struggle with the school level and I would want to be part of that conversation if you're going to take an entire School
157out um I I would certainly want to be part of that conversation and that's not an everyday you know I would imagine that those should be few and far between and certainly I share Miss cheek's hope that we've actually hit another Peak and we're going to see the numbers improving um that being said I'd like to be part of that conversation if you are recommending we take an entire School offline I think the way we the way we handled it last year last school year is that I consulted uh with board leadership um to make that decision collaboratively and then communicated it with the entire school board so if if that is amable uh if if everyone is agreeable to that um for consistency sake uh I would like to continue with that uh protocol
158Miss Chief thank you and Mr strain you raised the question that I really had is taken an entire School offline as you know the county to the north of me up in Davidson I live about a half mile from that county in iale they took five schools offline but it was done in conjunction with the board I absolutely want you to have the authority to take a classroom out or a two grade you know grade level um if if there's a big outbreak in a school but if there's something that is significant enough for us to take an entire School offline I want an emergency board meeting called and for us to have a discussion question about that um I I trust our board leadership kind of um and it's not that I don't respect
159and and and and all that but I think that especially if it was in my district and we took a school offline without my input I would struggle with that with my my constituents and so I do think that out of respect to each board member and the the role that we play if a an entire school is to be taken offline and to go remote I think an emergency board meeting needs to be called and I think for two reasons that ra really raises awareness to the public so they understand why and what we are doing and what the reason behind that is and number two I think that tells our constituents that we've given careful thought and consideration to that decision prior to making it so those are the reasons that I can't
160support the this as it is although I would be happy to make a substitute motion to this policy that would say if in the event that a school an entire School building needed to be taken to remote the entire board would be consulted with an emergency board meeting I can I don't know what would need to happen with that so before I go to miss Sawyer and Miss ship um let me just ask a point of clarification if I could about the statute that we're complying with here my understanding is that any decision to take a portion of a school or an entire School remote due to covid related reasons has to be Revisited daily is that correct and so if we um if if we amend the motion and I'm not weighing in either
161side here but I just want to understand if we were to amend this motion or sub do a substitute motion that says that the superintendent does not have the authority to make that decision then that would be and in the event that we that a high school had to go remote that would mean daily board meetings until the high the school was ready to go back is that is he meeting daily has he been meeting daily with you was if the in the event would you know that's I guess that's what I'm saying that's what I was going to say too that was Da board meetings where we convene and yep like by Zoom that notice and right just want to be clear I'm not saying one way or the other I'm just being clear
162what it would mean because I wanted I haven't read you know I just had to refresh myself Miss Sawyer Miss ship and then miss Marshall um I I am happy to endorse the superintendent's recommendation I find it kind of ironic that last year the debate was the exact opposite where the the authority was granted to close entire schools and the superintendent didn't at first have the ability to close part of a school or a grade level and we had to go back and add that so it's it's kind of interesting that now we've sort of shifted some people have reversed course um I think that so rude it is important on an emergency basis for the superintendent to be able to make this call this is exactly what we hired him to do um not
163all of our schools have thousands of kids we have some very small schools in our district and we can't we don't want to have to put um we don't want to have to have an emergency board meeting if the superintendent finds out at 10:00 at night that you know 10 or 12 staff members are going to be out the next day and he needs to notify schools that you know the buses are not running tomorrow because there are no teachers there at a school it it doesn't make sense for us to have to have an emergency board meeting at midnight to make that call um or if the public health director says that there is a problem at a school that we need to address that is schoolwide giving someone the authority doesn't suggest that
164he do this on a whim it just an emergency Authority I would trust that it would only be used in a true emergency and I don't think nine of us weighing in at 11:00 at night the day before school um to say no we we think you know we can find enough subs or we think the health director is wrong I mean that doesn't seem productive to me so I mean this is an operations decision the superintendent knows what Staffing levels are needed to operate a school safely and if he determines that we cannot meet that threshold um that's exactly why we hired him so thank you okay so I've got Miss ship Miss Marshall and then Dr Jones well Authority I understand but I also think the board being informed and knowing so that
165we don't get that flood of calls or emails that something like this let's say it is a big high school that's being closed we need to know that so that we can respond appropriately to constituents to the public to parents that may be calling so I don't know if we're talking about so much the authority to do it but also when he mentioned well I'm going to talk to the the chair and the vice chair I'm like well then all of us it's almost like when we had had the we went to remote for weather situations and we had this blow up about we didn't all know and we should have known exactly what was going to happen and I think it is important that we serve as the governing body all nine of us
166so we should be informed and know what's going to happen even when you are making and we trust you to make those decisions based on the information you have but should we know and be involved in that so so that we can be able to respond appropriate to the community to our constituents I think we should U Miss Marshall let me go back to the um the and and Mr Jeter may have to help me here in terms of again what the statute talks about um it is it is a daytoday decision so if we if we delegate Authority I'm just trying to get this clear too if we delegate authority to the to the superintendent the superintendent is going to have to announce that daily to the families affected um I'm I'm assuming they
167would say you know this this class or these fifth grade or whatever is CLO is is on remote for a week or two weeks they would have to announce that um but but in terms of if we are involved in the decision making and we are the ones making the decision then we have to vote daily for this so the Miss Marshall the the statute reads um as follows it says that um a public school unit shall have the authority to make daytoday decisions for the 21 uh 22 school year concerning whether shifting individual schools or individual classrooms that are providing inperson instruction to Temporary remote instruction um is necessary due to covid-19 exposures that result in insufficient School Personnel or required student quarantines so in only those two circumstances where there is INS efficient
168Personnel or where where there are required student quarantines the general assembly is saying that um the school district ha shall have that Authority uh schoolwide uh I mean well yeah schoolwide or individual classroom wide and so and that it is a day-to-day decision that must be then reported it to DPI are you done Miss Marshall you want to ponder that I'm P I'm pondering I'm pondering pondering okay I'm GNA go to Dr Jones then Miss Fowler and then miss deara and when you're done pondering raise your hand again thank I I think uh we all want students in school and so the the emergency is the key word here because we want students in school now when we talk about trying to convene us and and getting our opinions in the meantime as the leader
169of the school district has to be doing those operational notifications to the to the families of the particular school to the staff persons uh bus bus transportation any number of decision making that has to take place so I would think that yes I agree notification we are the governing body but we have to realize that we are in an emergency State and we have to trust the people closest to the knitting to look after that all encompassing word safety safety and I say that just about everything um and because that's bottom line what parents appreciate okay thank you Miss Fowler and then miss Deora and then I have and then I'll come back to you Miss thank you I feel like we're all saying the same thing here we want to be in involved and
170we want to be informed in order to let the public know what's going on and for us to know how to um have further discussions with the public if they come to us with questions however I do agree that we should allow our trust to be in the superintendent to do his role and to partake in his activities however I do agree that we should be informed on what is happening so I think my proposal in order to um mediate here would be for the superintendent to have his role in order to have the authority to transition students to remote instruction and then have an emergency meeting right after he makes that role or decision in order for the board to know the public to know and for him to do his job correctly if
171we want the superintend tenant to have that Authority and to have that role we have to trust him in order to allow him to properly do it however I do agree that the Board needs to know so the emergency meeting should occur after directly after so like you said at 10:00 at night there's an outbreak at Philip oerry high school and the nursing or what do they call it the Adobe program needs to get shut down he shuts down the Adobe program because it's an emergency and needs to get done the following day at 10:00 a.m. we have an emergency meeting he alerts the board why he did the decision where the decision is going to be located how many cases there was the metrics for the manor we ask our questions we have the
172little debate however the decision is already made we're just being informed about it so that's what I think that we should do and I think we should Grant the superintendent the authority to transition student students to remote instruction because if we have an emergency meeting we're going to be pondering for a while and it's an emergency and needs to get done and I think that we should Grant superintendent Winston the authority to do so thank you um Madam chair yes ma' just um the plain meaning of the statute is that there shall be Authority for both situations in terms of um shifting individual schools or individual classrooms the the question is who is going to have that Authority especially if it's made on a day-to-day basis which is why um again from a practical standpoint
173if you decide not to delegate that authority to the superintendent I I think the plain meaning of the statute is you delegate all of of it or none of it because it's a day-to-day decision and so the I think the general assembly is contemplating that that be done by that be done by the superintendent because it does not say board it actually says um the Public School unit and when the general assembly is directing is saying specifically board it will say uh the local governing board but um I do believe that you as the board have the authority which is why we're here to delegate this to the superintendent in and I think it should be all or none that this is a different issue from notification because the statute says shall have the authority
174to make day-to-day decisions into two and it says shifting individual schools or individual classrooms that are providing imperson instruction so um if you going to delegate that authority to the superintendent the pl meaning of the statute to me is that you delegate The Authority for both the um individual schools or individual classrooms and and and not separate those two out um because it is decisions that have to be made on a day-to-day basis thank you for that clarification it is it's a new new law that we've got to wrap our brains around and understand so thank you um before I go to miss deara and back to miss Marshall I just wanted to turn to you Mr superintendent so we've heard this decision is about delegation but we've also heard a lot of concerns about
175wanting to be informed so could you talk through the the information flow or information process that you have in mind absolutely Madam chair thank you for the opportunity and I have heard uh board members loud and clear that you want to be informed and just as I did last year when decisions were made uh of this nature I will recommit to uh quickly informing the board um of any individual classroom or entire school closures uh that would need to uh occur and so I do not uh although I I certainly understand and I respect the spirit in which Miss Fowler shared her comments about holding an emergency Merc meeting after the decision is made um I would um submit that I can share that information with the board quickly uh electronically as I have in
176the past um Miss Tara thank you I I didn't get to share before you um spoke superintendent um my view on this but I guess I'll still say it um I fully support you having the authority to do this um I think you need the authority I I know that you are not going to make that decision uh lightly and it I don't really want to have the conversation I me if you if you're telling me that 30% of this of the teaching staff or education staff has to be quarantined for whatever reason and you that and that to you means that the school can't run properly and you need to do that I'm going to trust that I'm not going to sit there and question because I know you wouldn't take that lightly I
177was going to suggest not making a motion that it be required in any means but um that you no notify the chair and vice chair and the District representative where the school is located I personally don't need to find out because I actually do trust that you're going going to make that decision lightly but if you notify the whole board that's fine too based off of what you just said I think there's ways that we can make sure that that happens but I fully support delegating The Authority I don't want to be making those day-to-day decisions that I know are going to come up hopefully infrequently um and after a lot of thought and input based off of school level decisions um that constitute an emergency so I say we move forward okay M Marshall
178and then miss ch um I I feel like we we've gotten to a to a better place here um and and I just want to remind everybody that based on our experience thus far this year um we certainly have had situations where we've had staff out and we certainly have situations where we have students out but it has not been to the level that we've seen in other counties frankly and we've been able to um keep kids in school and keep staff in school and I think that's we we' you we started in a very difficult place and we're and we're doing okay so I really don't think this is going to be a major problem I sure hope it's not I think this is again a tool for the toolkit but I think that
179um Madame chair it may be that we um amend this motion to add that the superintendent informs the board prior to inform ing the community and that that could just be a very quick thing which I think frankly you you pretty much did last year I'm trying to remember the the Cadence of the information that we got when you were in you know when we have closed the classroom so so maybe we could amend the motion to add some language about the superintendent informing the board prior to informing the community of a classroom or a school closure Miss Chek and then miss Sawyer and I appreciate what Miss fer who stepped out Miss valer I appreciate you trying to mediate between um I think people that just care a lot about kids being in school
180contrary to what someone said earlier I've been pretty consistent in the last 18 months about keeping kids in the classroom and that's not been something that I think anybody should be questioning especially from the Das and and I do not app appreciate those comments that being said I think my biggest thing was if I get a text from you at 650 that there's been a bus accident I surely should be able to get a text or a message communicating that there's an emergency at a school that needs to be closed so I think it's about communication I do trust you your decision in that but what I I don't want it to be blind I don't want 8:00 to come along and my inbox is full of questions from parents about why did the school
181get closed or what's going on so it's and it that's the case on all kinds of issues even things that have happened in the last two weeks in our schools just to make sure that board members because our community definitely looks at us as board members to be a conduit of information and to to have knowledge about what's going on so um I definitely support Miss Marshall's Mo um suggestion to include that board members are in communication prior to it becoming a media and public discussion um about these kind of situations so I would like to do that because my main priority is to keep kids in class Madam chair there's actually a motion I Believe Miss Marshall made a motion to I'll second it it was Dr Jones who made the motion oh but
182so you're saying this is an official an amend motion to amend a motion to amend a motion communication to the board to the public I didn't hear that as the official St Miss Marshall's motion to include Public Communication to the board prior to the public do we need to be very clear on the line um and where it goes oh was say Let me let me just get the motion cleared up and then I'll come to you I would like to see the motion in writing before I mean we I'm not comfortable voting on an amendment that's just chattered about okay so we're going to pause get this amended motion drafted and printed out I was just I was just gonna say I agree with with that and I think it definitely needs to be
183I agree with the amendment of the motion cuz that's all we were asking for right I just I want to like do this in order right here have discussion between the first and second paragraph well what M Marshall has has is proposing and what Miss CH has seconded is to write this into the policy so we haven't yet debated the amended motion or voted on the amended motion but we're about to do that it's not a policy but we've had a request to get it in writing first it's an action item it's not a policy I do have the spot I do have it I'm sorry poliy I'm ready to to tell you're ready to read it but I've heard a request that it be is is an email okay you get it in an
184email electronic just say electronic made a a a motion Miss Marshall has made a motion has been properly second for if you all are seeking Clarity in terms of what her exact motion is absolutely that can occur and then there can be discussion about the U motion to amend okay so miss Marshall yes you're ready if you could read your amended motion and then if that could also be emailed to the board um no so it is not an amended motion yet miss Marshall has made a motion to amend and it has been St and if that could be read to us certainly then we can discuss it okay so so the first paragraph that um I'm going to I want to repeat that and then I'll then I will uh add this language and
185then I'll go to the second paragraph so you can sort of see the order here okay um I moveed to Grant the superintendent Madam chair is permitted by North Carolina session law 2021 130 I move to Grant the superintendent the authority to shift individual schools or individual classrooms from in-person instruction to Temporary remote instruction as necessary due to covid-19 exposures that result in insufficient School Personnel or required student quarantine on a day-to-day basis the superintendent shall notify the board of any shift prior of it says of any shift prior uh to any public notification the superintendent shall report any shift by a school or classroom from inperson to Temporary remote instruction to the Department of Public Instruction within 72 hours of the shift the superintendent shall direct a return to inperson instruction as soon as
186Personnel are available or the required quarantines are complete and this Authority shall ask for the duration of the 2021 22 school year so what is going to happen if just let me speak to that if you don't mind um the decision is made by the superintendent to put students in remote the superintendent then notifies the board prior to any uh public notification then the superintendent shall report the shift to uh the Department of Public Instruction Within 72 hours of the shift so that's the Cadence of notification okay and if you could or if Mr Jeter could email that to the board and then now I I imagine there will be some discussion about this amended motion only one before we vote on the amended motion so miss ship yeah I was the only one making
187oh excuse me I think I was the one making discussion and I was just saying that I was that's exactly what I was saying earlier that we needed to have the information given to the board before um you know it went to the community so I'm like I'm in agree with with that and I think that needs to be there good Madam chair U Miss deara um I mean I always like to be communicated with but I I just don't think this is necessary I think we've going down a path of you know in a time where we're doing the student governance focused um outcome I'm just sure I just botched that but you know what I'm saying they governance work um and trying to decide what is board work and what is um operation
188superint tenant work you know I've been working really hard with my constituents to separate that out and to explain back and take time to explain to the the constituents this is a superintendent decision or a staff decision so that they're not looking to us to continue to make decisions and I understand that we're a conduit for communication that's always a good thing but it then flips it where then folks are looking for us to make the decisions which essentially it's not and so I just I'm that's where I'm having trouble with that because I feel like we've been making great progress of getting out in the community and setting those boundaries and so I'm not in favor of this amendment Dr Joe I totally agree with mrar because let's say that he contacts representative Ruby
189Jones and I want to yada yada yada uh against a major decision that has to be made in a very timely manner um yes we need expeditiously to be informed but I go back to the begin of this with those uh preschool classes if you remember it seems so long ago now when all of this was going on um I received the information and it was made based on good decisions but if we are attentive we received that information um I think all of us did so I I think we are are trying TR to to be particularly um picky if you will about something that I I I I think we have to trust the decision making and the Timeless of getting things out to us but sometimes things as I said before require
190right there decision making with his team of people who are giving the information and um so so we have to respect that and understand that um I don't think I don't I don't really get why we are having this long long extended debate about it is what I'm trying to get to I think the the amendment is unnecessary I think the superintendent knows that we value hearing about issues expeditiously and I don't think we need to change a an action item to reflect that M sh I was just going to say I did not want it to be as if we're saying we're getting in the weeds in terms of the authority of the superintendent I don't think that's what was intended here because like you said safety and supervision comes first and then miss
191delar what you're saying it's true you have to separate the two but in a school situation where you got a lot down and I've had to do that and you have to do things first I still had to notify as soon as possible parents in the community is even though my first thing is to quickly do what's necessary from the school level right and that's lock down those children make sure everybody's safe but I still was given direction to notify as soon as possible my parents and the community needed to know that had happened because that information was going to get to them so I think in one way that's what we're saying we're not saying that the authority is not always with the superintendent in terms of making these crucial decisions in an urgent
192manner but notification should not be an issue either now whether we need to write it in the policy or not that may be a question but I don't think notifying us should be a problem I really don't like and you've been you've done this before so I'm not sure where are we going with this are we saying we don't need it in the policy and that's too much or are we saying we don't need to be notified that's something different anybody else so I I'll just say um I do think we need to be notified I don't think it needs to be in the policy I'm sitting here trying to because if I vote again this not a policy this is board action not a board not a board policy thank you thank you for
193that well it do okay it does so yeah cuz I've been sitting here trying to figure out where do I land on this because I don't want to make it seem as though I don't want the board to be informed um so all that is to say you just help me figure that [Laughter] out um any further email okay the email you should all have it if you need to read language is in green if you need to review this before I call the vote on the amended motion do you want to take a minute to read it chair dashu is it this is a vote on the amendment amendment to amended motion okay correct are we do you need to review it okay so all those in favor favor of the amendment to the
194motion let it be known by a show of hands and that is one two three four five and I'll go ahead and call the rest of it those opposed and that is 1 2 3 4 and so the amended the amendment to the motion passes and now we will that is now the motion on the floor do we have any further debate on the amended motion Miss Fowler would you like to share your feedback I have like a quick question can we just like clarify to the public what just happened okay yeah perhaps it would help if Ms Marshall rereads the amended motion which is now the motion on the floor so for the public we had a motion it has now been changed a sentence has been added and that's what we're about to
195vote on okay uh Madam chair permitted by North Carolina session law 20 130 I move to Grant the superintendent the authority to shift individual schools or individual classrooms from inperson in instruction to Temporary remote instruction as necessary due to covid-19 exposures that result in insufficient School Personnel or required quarantines on a day-to-day basis the superintendent shall notify the board of any shift to remote learning prior to any public notification the superintendent shall report any shift by a school or classroom from in-person to Temporary remote instruction to the Department of Public Instruction with within 72 hours of the shift the superintendent shall direct a return to in-person instruction as soon as Personnel are available or the required quarantines are complete this Authority shall ask for the duration of the 2021 2022 school year all right before
196I call for the vote question all right exactly the time for that prior to is that a hot minute before or what I mean so we send it out electronically uh as operationally that's what generally has taken place right so it's information only and we get it so I'm I'm just trying to understand that makes sense for to me because operationally that's the way these this is happening prior to so I was just wondering what we are strongly debating um in in terms of procedural due process of carrying out um his duties okay thank you any other points of clarification or debate Mr strange Ju Just a point um Madam general counsel I appreciate as ever your advice and Council um I however disagree that this board is in a position to to delegate All
197or Nothing of its Authority as such uh I cannot support the delegation of Authority for a full school I think that is a very significant step uh taking an entire School offline and I can't support it without an affirmative vote of this board anybody else okay Miss oh wait I miss fer and then I'll come back to Dr Jones Dr Jones okay so I I'm trying to process this operationally we don't want to take the whole school off but certain class rooms very well maybe um the motion that we're debating right now is the one that M Marshall just read so we don't have enough another amendment to consider okay Miss Fowler did I did you have your hand up or did I imagine that no you didn't you didn't imagine it um but it's
198okay for sorry it's okay okay all right I'll come back to you if if you need me to anybody else okay I'm gonna go ahead and call for the vote then all those in favor of the amendment Ed motion please let it be known by a show of hands read the amended motion I just I just Marshall just did I want to clear my head you want hear it again can you read it but not too fast okay Madam chair as permitted by North Carolina session law 2021 130 I move to Grant the superintendent the authority to shift individual schools or individual classrooms from inperson instruction to Temporary remote instruction as necessary due to covid-19 exposures that result in insufficient School Personnel or required student quarantines on a day-to-day basis the superintendent shall notify the
199board of any shift to remote learning prior to any public notification the superintendent shall report any shift by a school or classroom from inperson to temporary remoted instruction to the Department of Public Instruction within 72 hours of the shift the superintendent shall direct a return to inperson instruction as soon as Personnel are available or the required quarantines are complete this Authority shall ask for the duration of the 2021 22 school year all right all those in favor of the motion let it be known by a show of hands and opposed so that passes 7 to2 and as Miss Marshall said earlier that's another tool in the school district's tool chest and I pray that we won't have to use it okay back to our next action item final action item is to consider approving that
200certain property be declared Surplus before the board acts I'm going to turn to the superintendent to introduce this item and to make a recommendation thank you madam chair tonight per board policy we will be sharing the properties to be declared Surplus for this year we will also be providing an update on the status of properties which were declared surplused last year part of the presentation will re uh outline our revised process to sell or lease these Surplus properties and to provide for this uh context for this report and the action item associated with it I think it is important for the public to understand that all real estate is actually owned by the Charlotte meinberg Board of Education therefore any real estate transactions recommend ended by staff must ultimately be approved by the school board
201um there are also a number of state and local laws and activities that guide and frame these transactions and that table setting is where the presentation will start with that I will turn things over to Dennis Laria to give the report and to take your questions thank you Mr superintendent Madam chair members of the board can everybody hear me all right all right good deal so the agenda and I will be brief here uh will take us through the applicable statutes policies for Real Estate the implications of our real estate activities on our operating and capital budgets how the Board of Education buys sells and leases real estate uh an update to our lease and sale process that brings it in line with our current policy recommendations for the properties to be declared Surplus for
202this year and an update on the parcels that were declared Surplus last year and then the action items and next steps related to these processes so I'm not going to go into this at depth given the hour and the fact that we have another agenda item this this is just a sampling of the uh statutes and State uh Constitution sections that apply to the way that school boards have to handle real estate we are in a unique position in the state of North Carolina School Board can only acquire property for school purposes and there are uh specific rules and regulations around the way that property is disposed of so whenever we buy real estate it impacts the capital budget the mecklinburg County Commission actually approves the capital ordinance annually based on a CIP the most
203recent CIP is based on the bond that was passed uh in uh7 that we're still working off of and so annually that that that uh ordinance is revised based on our anticipated spend our capital budget also builds our schools and it maintains the Schools administrative spaces that we have and anytime we actually sell a property the proceeds for that also have to go back into the capital outlay so that that becomes a feedback loop to the capital budget so whenever we um acquire or dispose by lease those OP those those impacts are more to the operating budget we generally avoid trying to be a tenant in somebody else's building because the operating budget supports those leases and that's the same money that we used to pay our school staff and and our other employees so
204we we don't like to dilute that by spending operating dollars on buildings leasing to others has been our practice typically of disposing of uh assets that we're not currently operating because it moves the cost to operate and maintain those things off of our everye operating budget and makes them the responsibility of the tenant and then any revenues that we generate above and beyond the cost avoidance has to go back into local capital outl budget so whenever we buy real estate we generally try to do it with an agreement with a willing seller a contract that's negotiated um whenever we're buying we have to have an independent appraisal and the acquisition must be in line with that appraised value there's a comprehensive due diligence process that we undertake including a phase one environmental survey that's something
205that's very important knowing the status of the of the site or the building that we're acquiring um anytime we're looking to acquire property we are more than happy to have a broker bring us an opportunity we will protect a broker in a deal but we do not typically engage a broker directly whenever we're buying real estate there are local actions that we have to take as well there's a process uh called mandatory referral which involves laps through the joint use task force which is a group of city and county agencies and departments including the Housing Authority Park and rack the Department of Transportation Department the Charlotte water utilities uh libraries who CPCC who meet to discuss prop proper transactions and seek opportunity to cooperate when everybody whenever anybody is trying to buy real estate we
206also have to take a lap through the Planning Commission to make sure that they agree that our use is suitable for the acquisition and then anything that we have to do to actually accomplish the project whether we have to rezone the piece of land the permits that we have to get to build the school all of that is separate and apart from this acquisition process also our Acquisitions need approval by the meinberg uh County Board of Commissioners so you know it can take you know as quick as 60 days but typically much longer for us to go from contract to close because of those requirements I'll do this going the other way all right so right now our primary real estate acquisition Target we have everyone's attention is a relief site for Community House middle
207school so we are open for business and ideas on any of that we we are chasing some leads but nothing is solid and so we're we're actively searching for that the rest of the properties that we need to identify will be identified through the uh Capital planning process as we move through that um we dispose of real estate through sale and Lease so what's key to remember is anytime that we provide an easement we sell a property we lease a property it's treated as a disposition so that's the classification whenever we're selling real estate we have to by the by State Statute by practice in the Constitution and by Supreme Court state supreme court action recognize fair market value for any property that we sell um this is again because the boards of Education are
208limited in the purposes for which and the processes by which they can buy and sell real estate we will have an independent appraisal done prior to any sale we sometimes make exceptions in a case of in easement for example where there's a direct benefit to the Board of Education property we are conveying a connection to park and wreck for a Greenway connection or to the Charlotte Department of Transportation for a sidewalk project so it's getting our kids to school safely so there's a direct benefit to to us for that um generally when we sell we're doing it by three methods intergovernmental transfer that's where we're cooperating with the city or the county um exchange where we're swapping a thing a for thing B and then the upset bid process we cannot we cannot we cannot
209we cannot give property away for any reason to anybody regardless of how how well-intentioned they are how aligned we are with their actions or activities how much we support what what they're doing and it's not a matter of you know gee we'd kind of like to it's the law so whenever we sell real estate we're subject to local activity as well we still have to go back through the mandatory referral process The Joint use task force and there again there's the opportunity to before we sell the property to somebody else for the library to say no we'd really like to have that and we want that to be a library site or parking Rec to say oh we've always wanted that to be a park we don't want you to sell that directly so there
210are opportunities for you our partners at city and county and other local entities to stop us if you will along the way and say before that goes we'd really like to get in and then anytime we're selling real estate we also have a statutory right of first refusal that has to be exercised by the board of County Commission so again we have to go back through the County Commission and say we we've been through all of these other processes we've got a contract we have somebody that we vetted and they're they're going to be able to perform when we sell this property we've been through the joint use task force and and nobody else wanted it so now our last stop is with you do you want to buy it under the terms that we've
211negotiated and the County Commission can say yes we absolutely do want to or no we don't go ahead and close that transaction so they have a decision point every time we bring a disposition through them I also want to mention that as I hit on the intergovernmental transfer piece there's nothing that stops our partners at the city or the county or one of the towns from reaching out to us directly prior to us even marketing a property and saying hey we would really like to acquire X or preserve y would you work with us on that and of course we do so those opportunities present all the time the reason we're in this building in fact is because the county was assembling the real estate for Brooklyn Village and they said we'd really like to
212buy that head Center and while you're at it Walton Plaza looks kind of nice too so those things happen without us initiating any activity at all I apologize for having to switch to the mouse so we can acquire and dispose of property by lease our historic preferences have been to acquire real estate through purchase not least because of the impact of the operating budget and conversely our preference has been to dispose of surplus real estate through the lease and not sale because it allows us to preserve the asset for our use later or for exchange if we have something specific in mind but there are there are um there always exceptions to that but that has generally been the way that we've operated uh leases are subject to specific terms if we go over 10
213years 10 literally the day we hit 10 years so 9 years 365 days or one day over it's treated as a sale and has to proceed under the Sal statutes and we typically when we're leasing a property ask the entity that's taking it on to make a capital investment in the property as well as committing to maintaining and operating the property in a way that we can inspect and ensure dispositions by lease are subject to those same local actions we take the laps through and say to everybody else we're going to go ahead and do what we're doing with these with these um with these leases um we again have to go back through the meinberg County Board of Commissioners and say we've got this contract to lease this building to this entity or lease
214this property this entity do you want to exercise your right and and be the entity to lease this property instead if they say yes then we're into consummating that relationship with the and that transaction with the board of County Commissioners they say no then we're free to go ahead and finalize the lease terms with the other entity the other uh sort of caveat that's baked into our leases is whenever we have a surplus property and a charter school shows up to lease the building we are obligated by Statute so going over the status of the properties that were declared Surplus last year we declared these properties as Surplus for sale or lease there was a portion of the daa school at North Graham we have received an offer and we will be going through the
215upset bid and statutory disposal process there there's a portion of uh Dorothy jvon Elementary School which had been the site of the principal's house we have received an offer for that we'll be moving through the upset bid and statutory disposal process we declared the Downs Road a portion of the Downs Road Transportation site it does orphan by a creek we've declared that as Surplus for sale we have a contract negotiated the buyer is in his due diligence phase so there will be more on that but we are looking to to be able to complete that transaction we also declared Surplus for Le last year a portion of Hickory Grove Elementary School annex which is the Old Hickory Grove Elementary School we leased that to Charlotte bilingual prek for classrooms and multi-purpose space they um I
216have actually uh collapsed back into smaller space and tonight's action the board amended um their existing lease on consent agenda then we had declared these property Surplus for lease as well a portion of John Taylor Williams monor there is an orphan parcel across Tipton that uh we got valid leases um in from somebody that's looking to put a billboard there they're having to rezone that parcel in such a way that it does not make sense for us to continue to try and own the under underlying real estate so we are recommending revising that Declaration of surplus for sale and moving to consummate the sale of that that portion and then the Old Morgan school we had a lease negotiate with Arts plus with all conditions proceed and accomplished including the waiver of the right of
217first refusal by The mackenberg Bard of County Commissioners however we've also received multiple offers to purchase the facility and so staff is also recommending revising that declaration to Surplus for sale going back to touch on um the way that we did the uh lease and sale processes historically and this was last really updated um this process itself was last updated during at the tail end of the the comprehensive review of CMS and there has since been new new board policy adopted so we wanted to bring things in line but we actually used a weighted rubric to score the proposals that we received now we're we're looking to modify that if you will to look at three primary aspects as we're dealing with prospective tenants and buyers you know obviously we want to make sure that
218the proposed use is legal because we don't want the Board of Education selling something that doesn't make sense or leasing to an entity it doesn't make sense we don't want somebody to be the highest bidder for our lease for a building and they want to sell used cars out of our building that sort of thing so we want to be mindful of the uses so so the legality and the purpose the financial terms of the deal we want to make sure that we're in the best position both current and long-term especially in the case of a lease where we're looking for somebody to hold on to if you will take care of an asset for us that we're certain that it's going to come back in in same if not better condition I condition then
219they're taking it and then the strength of the tenant we want to privilege organizations and entities that have a long track record and can demonstrate that they've been successful over time rather than somebody who just you know Incorporated yesterday and throws in an offer not to say that we wouldn't entertain that but we do want to be mindful of longevity as being one of the one of the characteristics so regardless of whether we're declaring a property Surplus for lease sale or either this will be the process that we will follow we will start a period for receipts of expressions of Interest we're announcing that tonight we will publish that in the Observer very shortly we'll also post this on the CMS website at two places and we will have a quick link on the front
220page of the website that will get you to this information that we're sharing this evening we are looking for expressions of interest to be received by entities who wish to buy or lease a property from us by the close of business on 13 December December 2021 so we want everybody's responses in ahead of the end of the year the holiday time that that period that's 90 days and that's uh pretty consistent um and and a good practice and it balances going too quickly and also you know giving people enough time to to really put together their their best thinking on a particular uh parcel or building we will do walkthroughs for folks once we once we've received their expressions of Interest we'll start calendar during walkthroughs we've done this previously so that uh entities organizations
221individuals can can come kick the tires if you will and and see the facility in an organized manner uh in order for us to consider an expression of Interest it must include at a minimum the following items that you see here this will be on our website and I will be happy to to answer questions make sure that people understand all of this but we're looking to hear who will ultimately be possessing The Entity we don't want you know there are times where lawyers contact us Brokers contact us we want to know who the end user is and and so we we want full transparency on that um we want history and overview of the organization or company or entity that's that's in engaging us their stated proposed use of the of the building or
222the real estate their financial terms and we're asking basically to set it up a this best offer because we have some leeway relative to the way that we we will select and and bid things so we want to make sure that the people are giving us their best offer not looking at this as a negotiation process but starting with their their their their best and final if you will if a lease were looking for them to be clear about the duration of the term that they're seeking and the amount of the capital investment that they're willing to make in the building we'll be looking for C Current financial statements which could include uh profit or loss or or whatever they use for their current accounting we'll be looking for historical financial statements whether those are
223tax returns audited financial statements for the prior three years so we can actually see that the entity is capable of Performing and we'll want to see active Articles of Incorporation and filings to include the list of corporate officials and the board of and the the board of director membership of any nonprofits or other organizations such similarly constituted so that we we are certain again of who we're dealing with so then once we have uh those expressions of interest for sale we will um we will start the appraisal process on each one of these Parcels that each one of these parcels and properties that are that are um being listed for sale upon the conclusion of the period designated no further expressions of interest will be received unless we get to 13 December and we don't
224have any any takers for one of the properties in which case we may say well you know another 2 weeks or another month on this particular property just because we had no interest just to make sure somebody didn't miss something that would be the only instance so otherwise you know if we've got one or more expression of interest in by by by 13 December on on a property we'll we'll consider that we've we've done our our due diligence to that point and so at the end of that phase so this gives us 13 December those things come in that gives us a month basically to process all of the expressions of interest that we've received and then come back to the board in January the second meeting in January right now is what we're targeting
225for an update on on that phase and where we are and what recommendations would be for next steps so the properties that we would be looking to declare Surplus for sale for this year it's a portion of pedmont IB it's a parking lot directly adjacent this is in meso restaurant and then another uh lot directly behind where the trees are so there's two areas there that have been orphaned from pedmont IB one is actually leased for parking by intereso currently um we have two entities that have already sent us um sent us offers if you will so we would um we would take that listed any others knowing what we have and we would again look to this one to be um upset bid and statutory disposal uh depending on you know the other outcomes
226but there's nothing there's nothing here no worthy besides some asphalt here um we are looking to declare Surplus for sale the Wilmore facility we are not able to operate and maintain that thing and there is not um there is not currently any plan for an investment in that building right now now so given that we would look to uh offer the 4 428 West Boulevard which is a little bit more than 3 acres in total we have received a preliminary offer from a representative of a firm going back to my point that we want to know who we're dealing with um at $13.5 million so we would sus that out I I know that won't be the only offer I don't know whether that will be the highest offer but that is what we have
227on the table right now we are talking about declaring for Surplus for sale a portion of the Smith Middle School site so the the area that's actually occupied by the former Smith Middle Smith junior high building um it's about 8 to 8 and a half acres depending on where the lines are drawn we would make demolition of the building a condition of the sale whether that's whether we would demolish it or the buyer would demolish it remains to be seen But the building will not trade so that will be part of the negotiation and something we would look for the prospective buyer to tell us whether it was something that they were making an offer with with the land being cleared or they were taking the responsibility to demolish the building so going to lease
228for the 2021 202 22 school year uh Plaza Road that facility has been leased the tenant is reaching the end of the the initial term there we would not renew that lease so we've got interest already from multiple parties about leasing the property and um some of the entities are are interested in keeping the current tenant on as a as a sub so there's there are a couple paths forward there for that tenant but um we need somebody who can operate and maintain that building um fully so we we would be going out to lease for that and the lake view site there is not only the former elementary school but there is a prek building that was ground leased at that site and the The Entity that operated the pre kindergarten we have been
229told is dissolving and so at that point that property would revert to us as well and we have no budget to operate that building no plans to operate that building it's basically a modular that's sitting in the parking lot of the former Lake View building so we would again look for an entity or entities to operate one or both of those buildings in conjunction um on on that site it is it is a site that we do think longterm makes sense for a relief school so trying to maintain the maintain the site is important to us and then we are looking for a couple of parcels to be declared available for either sale or lease so we would entertain expressions of interest on both of these there's a portion of the old Freedom driving range
230we have there are about 50 acres over there this was something that was used for driver's ed when I was in high school you went here before you went out on on the road um or you went out to Piney Grove believe it or not and so there there was there was asphalt out here and and in a mobile with a control tower sort of thing where where they ran kids through the through the paces over they put out on the street we have laid out the replacement for Allenbrook Elementary School on this site because this is where it would go we don't have enough room on Allen Brook to replace Allen Brook and we know that you know out of those 5050 Acres we have about 20 or so that we believe could be
231made available to use by others that would have no long-term use for us the other needs that we have in the area we're certain we can replace Wilson on site we're C we know what we're doing with Allen Brook so we're we're we're comfortable with putting a portion of this back on the tax rols and then the former collinswood site um if we do sell the building much like Smith the condition would be that the building comes down if this trades we would want demolition to happen if somebody wants to lease to make the capital investment operate in the the building we'll we'll entertain that you know we we would we would prefer um we would prefer to uh to devest but you know maintaining that asset for a period of time is is not
232is not the worst outcome either so the action items we have before you tonight are to um endorse our updated approach to disposal by lease or sale and then approve the Declarations of the properties as Surplus for sale lease or either per this presentation and then the next steps would be we will publish the properties that have been declared Surplus for sale or lease or either initiate the inspection period and expressions of Interest phase immediately accomplish those appraisals where appropriate right we're not going to appraise something that we said was just for lease we're not going to spend the dollars to do that and then return to the board you know hopefully you know nothing else is is um more pressing relative to you know you know our environmental factors in the rest of the
233world so we can get back here on 25 January 2022 for a process and property update and with that I will uh take questions and comments Miss Sawyer and Dr Jones you have a sum turn on your mic Mike uh do you have a summary slide of all the properties that you're looking because I they went by and I'm not sure I caught them all sure so I okay yeah I apologize we don't have a a summary slide um we we have the Su we have a summation but we do not have a summary slide because we were trying to to deal with things in tranches um but again we're switching what we're recommending is JT Williams and Morgan to Surplus for sale and then for sale we would be looking at the the parking
234lot at at pedman be at inzo basically Wilmore facility a portion of Smith and then leasing Plaza Road and the properties at Lake View and then leasing or selling the old Freedom driving range and the former Collins would say okay two two of those properties are designated as local historic landmarks um I would like to um see if we can uh build in preservation covenants for both of those sites that would be both Wilmore and uh Morgan absolutely and that's a good point so we would be getting the appraisals for those two facilities because of their historic involvement not just as highest and best use although make no mistake we will be getting a highest and best use appraisal so we know what what it could be if we were to sell the property without
235the building or anything else encumbering it and another one with those preservation covenants just so that the board understands the Delta between between those two numbers and you know it may not be very big but we do need to understand the both of those factors as we're making our final determination on which way we're going to go but we absolutely would intend you know especially in the instance of Morgan to make sure the preservation is is is is a is a factor Wim more I think we we're going to have a harder conversation about just because of the quite frankly the condition so it's it's bad could you go back to the slide of what's expected of um folks to submit and is that what they submit by that December and this is for all
236the properties in this Clump yes are any interested parties need to submit these following things by December by the middle of December December 13th we wanted to be 90 days and we're trying to be quick but also not so fast that it it it takes too long to move things forward okay thank you um before I go to you Dr Jones I just want to clarify one more thing and that's about the JT Williams slide yes if you could just go back to that and um I just don't want JT Williams parents and teachers to read this and think that their school's being sold right no absolutely we not we are not harming anything that anyone would actually recognize as belonging to JT Williams it's actually a cross from a right of way for a
237stub Street you would not even know it's not contiguous to the to the campus so you wouldn't even know it was part of JT Williams it's hard against the interstate and really about the only thing it's suitable for is a billboard which is what these folks are proposing and because they have to get an ey Zoning for this it just makes no sense for us to continue to to operate and and own this parcel so divesting it allowing them to do what they need to do the billboard going on there it's not going to harm JT Williams in any way has no impact we've already looked at it through the lens of the capital project so good good catch there thank you for thank you I just wanted you to clarify that before the email
238started pouring in Dr Jones well I declare um you touched on the JT Williams question I had and uh Miss laer uh the Morgan school one so my questions have been answered all right Miss de laara and then miss ship so on this slide right here we have Surplus for sale um for both the JT Williams school and the Morgan I'm sorry not the school not the school I'm sorry yes the what you just described I'm sorry to further further confuse the public um and then the Morgan School below being declared Surplus for sale but then miss um sawer just mentioned about intent to put covenants you know on the property so wouldn't that be then uh a possible declare Surplus for um preservation sale because we discussed that um before like a preservation for
239sale so it's not just Surplus for sale cor so it's still for sale but it's subject to certain conditions so it it's simply conditioning the sell 's no there's no there's no specific um classification of sale for preservation we have the ability to to do you know private negotiations for the purposes of preservation but that's that's a that's a disposal methodology not a declaration so we're simply saying we're moving it from the least so there's nothing in the statute that gives that as a particular option it it it is an option but it's it's one of several options but we're not declaring the option by which we're disposing of a property we're simply shifting it from making it available to others for lease to selling it and then we will as we move through this
240process identify the the path forward for the for the ultimate disposal of these or not at all which I think is another important point to make there is absolutely nothing about any of this that obligates the board to do anything so we may get to the end and everybody may say you know what changed our minds we don't want to sell will more and that's fine there we're under no obligation to to finalize any transaction as a result of undertaking this process but to to your point M LR we're we're simply moving from for lease to for sale and then the the method by which that disposal happens will be outlined as we move through the process and so then why would we go about what what what's the reasoning for going about getting looking
241at that Delta or or having doing it in that methodology in the way that you're describing well we there's uh there are um again sort of strict statutes and also not wanting to stray too far into the legal side of things because I'm the business guy the fiduciary responsibility that the the district has the school board has to uh to you know act in in good faith relative to maintaining The Ledger I mean you you heard that earlier where we've got you know $100 when we sell a piece of property we should still have $100 so we have to understand what that Delta is when we're making a decision to go from $100 to 99 we have to we have to know that so we we we do need to get the appraisal for the
242full value even if we're not intending to sell it that way we'll get the appraisal done both ways so that we can have a conversation about the delta in that and we would do that on we would do that that has nothing to do right with with any particular property it's simply because of the fact that we have a historic nature involved here and at Wilmore that we would want to understand those things so that we we are being clear out about the protections that we're putting on the property and the way that's impacting the value because by putting those restrictions on we are necessarily depressing the value so you know as we talk through this you know the appraisal is sort of setting the floor if you will and then when we go to
243the market that's when we actually test the market value so we have an appraised value we've set a floor nobody even meets it that means the Market's not interested in the property and we're not going to do anything we're going to pull it back and we're going to wait for the market to come around and say okay that's actually a place that that makes sense for that property to trade now um you know we we put it out there and we say you know the the the the market value is X the the value with these covenants is x -1 and we have somebody who comes up up and says I can pay X and I'll do the preservation piece now I'm not even looking for the discount to xus one I'll pay X and
244I'll preserve it so we need to we need to understand all of that as we're moving through this process and then just one last question because you said something interesting earlier about um intergovernmental sale um and I understand from previous conversations that the county can offer can the city also come in at any time and make an offer on a building and regardless if it's declared for lease for sale however we have it is that an approach they can take absolutely and even if it's not declared again you know we we did not have the Ed Center marketed for sale we were in the building we were in Walton Plaza and the county called us and said hey we we we want to put this deal together so there's nothing that stops any of the
245towns the city the county from reaching out to us on a piece of property that's not even listed and and and these conversations have all the time although not not so grandiose it's we need to expand our Park we'd like to put some tennis courts behind your school so it it's it's very simple and granular even but those conversations happen all the time and that they're initiated by those entities because they have a need and they think our real estate can help them just like as we're walking through and we look for a site and we say we need a school over here in meberg County he's got a park I mean that's what happened with the Windsor Park Redmond Park was exactly where we needed it to be we were looking at avoiding some
246real estate our first call was to the county and say hey can we put our elementary school in your Park so so those things happen all the time regardless there was no for sale sign in Redmond Park they didn't have a broker you know sign for that it was us reaching out staff to staff to say we've got an interest okay thanks for clarifying that um I know Mr strain wanted to speak but miss ship you did too or I just didn't want to skip you thought I had you on the list you did and I think and about so I think I'm clear on that as we at but I did have a question about did I hear about alen Brook replaced you were doing something with the Allen Brook from the old Freedom
247Drive range so we we have studied you know we're we're working through the capital planning process um behind the curtain a lot but but that work is ongoing and so we we recognize that the replacement of Allenbrook should be a pretty high priority I mean we we there the rubric is not done so there's no finger on a scale but we recognize the needs for that school and we recognize that replacing that school gives us capacity as well as significant condition improvements we cannot replace that building on its current site and meet all of the requirements that our friends at the city put on us when we permit a school or the state so we we have identified long ago the the freedom driving range as the site for the relocated albrook and we have
248actually undertaken a a study to lay that out so we could understand what that looked like and we also did a study at Wilson to make sure that we did not need to move Wilson over there so we know even with Allen Brook we'll still have another 10 to 20 acres in addition to the 20 that we're able to Surplus so we're we're comfortable that there's a portion there and it may help us if we have a veler come first and they're able to move along our lines and we say you know this is where our road connection needs to be this is how we want our driveways to behave they may even be able to do some of that horizontal work and have you know a a a circulation Street done before we even
249get there so there there is some advantage to potentially moving first here and and and putting this back on the tax roles thank you cuz that was new to hear about that Mr strain thank you Dennis can you flip back to the JT Williams slide again yes sir so uh at the top of this slide it talks about JT Williams the reason I want to point this out is it's 2.86 I think Acres um so one of the things when we went through a whole lot of this a couple of years ago there was all this Surplus land and I'm going well I'm a big fan of outdoor classrooms I think that they add a tremendous amount particularly to Elementary and middle schools in terms of the opportunity to to go and and learn outdoors
250and take advantage of that space in science classes Etc I've been involved in building a number of outdoor classrooms and our schools and and so I just want to make sure as we go through this when we've got 2.86 Acres we're saying well we don't it's it's not applicable in that case because to your point we can't use it it's not it's not accept accessible right so we've got other property that we've talked about prior where we literally had no way to access the property so I'm not sure about this I'm asking about this one and any others on here which is Surplus we're declaring Surplus but there's not an opportunity to use it for things like an outdoor classroom and that that's a great point and that is a lens that we that we
251did take on this and for example you know at at at JT we're we're currently in the design and planning phase for that Capital project and an outdoor classroom nestled in between the four buildings is actually part of the Civil package we're evaluating right now so I we we endorse that same sort of you know environment and trying to create those wherever we can and we have we have a lot of sight work to do out there so it's a very elegant opportunity and then it sort of Nestles it in almost as a quad rather than to your point having it orphaned across a stub street right on the other side of the campus so right okay so certainly not applicable in this case right and nowhere else in this list currently would there be
252opportunities like that to leverage the property we we we don't believe so not not for not for an operating school no yeah I can remember having the conversation about menhill middle right when there was lots of interest in that land and not only were we talking about Outdoor Classroom space But ultimately we're building an elementary school there right so okay thanks and so for Morgan um so I I I think in your list you had we could post Surplus for lease Surplus for sale or or either so can you talk me through the I mean obviously Surplus for lease we are declaring we want to retain the the uh property and we're putting it up for lease and we're entertaining lease obviously for sale we're no longer interested in retaining the property and we're putting
253it up for sale what's the what's the either option look like um with regards to this process so the the either option is basically where we're sort of agnostic if you will on the final disposition right I mean collinswood is a is a good example I mean the buildings failed we replaced it there should be no reason for human beings and especially not our students to be in that building for any reason how however you know it's only going to appreciate over time and if somebody else has a use for that and they say you know we'll lease it for 10 years we'll fix it up and it'll be you know as good or better when we're done than than it was the last couple years that you had kids in it we may say
254okay that's worth it and we'll we'll wait it out in 10 years from now we'll sell it um conversely it's a challenge site topographically there's a lot of water there there's there's literally flood plane designed into the back part of that site so it presents as 15 Acres you can probably build about on nine and you know based on our current requirements at AK and what we're dealing with 17 Acres isn't enough so we have to have some really sobering conversations with our friends at the city and the North Carolina Department transportation about all of the requirements that're they're putting on us to meet because we're we're in an urban environment and and they don't recognize that so we would not look to this as being a site where we would say we can put
255a Baseline elementary school because I can't I can't promise that right now it's absurd it shouldn't be like that but but that's the world that we're living in from a regulatory environment so you know in that instance again somebody wants to lease it we have it maybe we have those fights out we can figure out a path forward for a different school or you know you know 10 years from now we get it back and it's worth even more we can sell it somebody wants to buy it and take the building down and put it back on the tax rolls and do something great there you know fantastic we're we're we're okay either way so that's that's the sort of mentality there and then we'll we'll literally just evaluate and see what the most attractive
256offer is going to be to us and make the decision accordingly so I'm glad you went to collinswood for this because that's one of the one of the areas of discussion right around this to say look you know what what is our Capital plan going to look like in 20 years and do we want to get rid of property now that in 20 years we could be having an Urban Design and could take advantage of that property and if we release that property now and sell that property now then 20 years down the road we're trying to figure out how we're going to get how we're going to get that property as as we discuss with every one of these capital projects just about so that's one of the challenges I think with regards to
257selling some of these properties um now that being said obviously you know we've got a fiduciary responsibility to not just keep them on the rolls and let buildings deteriorate and all that sort of stuff so thus the challenge I think if we go back to uh the Morgan school I I think that that is a significant challenge we've got you know you you talk about you know a bird in the hand and two in the bush we've got a burden to hand there we've got a a partner who wants to come in and invest in that property and start to restore that property right in in terms of Arts plus and so that thus thus the challenge there I just wonder as we what's our if you could go to that slide please with uh
258JT Williams and um and the Morgan school so we've got the lease all negotiated presumably we could sign in a short time frame if that was a route that we chose to go down all of that work is done is that right that's correct and and so if we choose to go a different route now with this then we're signing up to several more months Arts plus may or may not be there at the end of those several more months of due diligence and and other activity um presumably Arts plus I I I'm not I'm not sure I can go down that road um in this forum but I I'm trying to to picture what what we've got in hand and and what what needs to be done what responsibilities we have to the building
259to the community our fiduciary responsibilities Etc when Arts plus has committed to doing those things as you outlined with all of our leases that those organizations with whom we lease our property have a commitment in writing to to those you know the upkeep and investment in those properties so I'm trying to understand here whether the for sale or lease is the right answer for this one given given where we are I don't I don't know how long our plus is going to wait for us to make a decision but I also recognize that there's other offers on the table that would need to go through a due diligence process um as you outlined uh which is which is going to take several months to get there to even consider whether we've got a a buyer
260right um so we we heard a lot about it uh tonight we all have over the last several weeks and months it is there is there a reason that we wouldn't say for sale or lease the same way as we have the others and keep Arts Plus in the picture given the fact that again it's a burden of hand on this so I think speaking for myself the challenge there is it's just as hard to say we've reached this point with Arts plus and we're going to go back through a lease or sale so you have to resubmit your lease so subject to anybody else who may want to submit your lease with again no guarantee of an outcom m so there's that determination piece that that that you know it's a judgment call but
261part of it is just do you know do we say do over right and and then and then invite them back in under the terms of a do over which doesn't feel great right because you know you know relative to you know them they've done what they what they needed to do so it it doesn't feel good to to necessarily do that um so this sets everybody on sort of a Level Playing Field and the other piece was you know we had been um concerned about making sure that that building continued to stand and that's one of the reasons why we had leased that building was because we we were not in a position to maintain our operate we were not in a position to use it you know if the charter school hadn't failed
262it would still be in there and we wouldn't even be having a conversation about another use but I believe we've gotten to the point where things have matured and we do have folks that are actually interested in stepping up and preserving the asset which is which is our goal I mean that was our fundamental goal because we weren't looking at it through a lens of we were ever going to put kids back into it we were looking at it in the lens of we need to preserve this what's been empty for 3 years now and it it's time for somebody else to step up if you will and and and take on the onus of preserving that asset for for the future and it shouldn't be us because we we need to we need to
263teach kids and so everything that we're doing that's going into a building like that is being diverted away from kids so that that's my perspective and as it stands art Arts plus is prepared to come in and do exactly what you said in terms of preserving that building for whatever the future use is when their lease is up under the terms of a yes n 9year 364 day lease so again not not a permanent disposition but under the terms of a of a lease where somebody else steps in is and is the steward of that facility okay okay Miss CH thank you so you mentioned that a charter school had been in that particular facility and I know we've had them in other facilities are there any statutes that are govern that we haven't discussed
264them publicly but I I'm asking that because privately I do know there are and I would like for the public to be aware of that absolutely and if I did not hit that hard enough uh it's in here somewhere there you go that bottom box North Carolina General statute 115 Charlie 21835 it says shall so any one of our buildings that we're not in today whether it's been declared Surplus or not if a charter school shows up and says we'd like to lease it we shall lease it and how much do we charge them in that lease we charge them zero okay under the terms of the legislation they're responsible for 100% of the cost to operate and maintain but they don't pay us a rental rate they're also in charge of their own upfitting
265and anything that they would want to anything El they building right and that would maintain that would stay with the building obviously if there's improvements that are made to the building that would stay stay with us um reverted back so that was one of my questions I just wanted to be clear about that because there have been some questions about properties being used by charter schools that were in our Surplus so historically we've always least properties that were Surplus because until we could figure out the highest and best use maybe that would benefit us as a district and how we serve our students from a capital perspective or staff and um I think there's some examples of that that we're in ongoing right now of of buildings that we hung on to and and they
266were leased and different options were used and now with the market being what the market is we've been able to um work out some pretty nice real estate deals that benefit us as a district which in turn benefit our students so I say that because I do have a little trepidation about things being listed for sale um are we letting go or potentially putting assets on the market right now that we could benefit from in the future and um so I am concerned about that my gut is always to lease um that being said I did support a couple years ago a long-term lease that we'd had with the adaah jenin center in Davidson um and they they raised the capital to purchase it um that building had continued to deteriorate and was probably um
267and it was also in an area that had very tight zoning so could had a lot of limited really limited use um so I guess that that would be where I am as as far as a concern of a lease versus a sale um because I think that everybody's Grandpa told them at one time they don't make more land it's what we got is what we got um so I do have some concerns about that but that would be the kind of that that's really just my comments that's that's kind of where I am on that I'm really sitting on the big fence on this recommendation because I don't like the sale part and and it's totally valid and and I I share that I mean we we we you know long range planning is
268what I do so we're trying to you know look at things for for the long range but part of that is also looking at things through you know the the reality of the current situation and I mean you know Huntersville gave us some pretty significant Grace with the complex of schools that we have on 115 yeah the city of Charlotte would no way permit two functioning schools on the Smith site like that's just not ever going to happen because of the the traffic congestion there's not an ability to widen tyol the road I mean the traffic's the traffic's a thing already so you know there there is no opportunity to build another school here on on the Smith campus so you know divesting of that and and makes good sort of sense relative to to
269the fiduciary and also sort of the long-term play because we're just never going to have two schools operating on that site and collinswood if it doesn't trade that's fine it'll be worth more later if it does trade and we're able to pick up something else that we need somewhere else then that's that's fine so we we really you know Wilmore I could not in good conscience lease that to anybody even though and this is another sort of important point that I want to make sure that the board and the public here everything we do is as is where is we're not making any representations or warranties I'm not going to tell you this HVAC system works great you know the little old lady only drove it to church every other Sunday we're not going to
270have those conversations so we expect any buyer or prospective tenant to do their own due diligence and understand that it's as is where is we're not making any improvements we're not modifying it we're not changing it we're not painting it it is what it is and therefore you know I would not really be comfortable offering willm more for lease I I just can't see a circumstance one other thing so yeah I I live in a part of the county where we have multiple schools on multiple side by side on multiple roads it's kind of the thing up in my part of the county um when if someone were to lease a building that has historic designation and I I realize that historic designation can devalue a property because then you're very restricted about what you
271can do so if you did have a lease and they made modifications to fit their programming or the upfitting would it still have to fall in line with um historic preservation standards it would nothing that we have is on the national register register they locally registered properties but there are things like the facade when the renovation of the the Morgan school was done for you know in Cherry they had to get uh special Windows made that didn't even have window screen Ledges because there were no screens on Windows when the building was built so there are things that you have to do to keep with the historical character but then beyond that you know if you run running the new HVAC Ducks even though you know historically there was no HVAC well the building needs
272HVAC so you run the HVAC Ducks so there there are things that can be done and things that have to be done historically and appropriate Manner and things that can't be done when you're dealing with that but that's actually something that happens through that that permitting process so again we would be looking for the entity who is looking to take that building on subject to those preservation uh covenants to know that they could do what they wanted to do with that building subject to all those restrictions because they don't get the if if they call us back and say we can't we can't then we're taking the building back it's coming back to us by reverter they're not getting their money back and we all go down the road so that would be the case
273with a Lessie or a purchaser right with a building with preservation um covenants on it whether it's leased to someone or whether it is sold they have to abide within those covenants or the property can be reverted back to us correct for the sale absolutely for the lease we actually when we negotiate leases with others as our tenants we basically include aoto that says we can kick you out at any time and you know we we vary the notice based on their investment the length of the term of the lease they're looking for but we always reserve the right to where're we're leasing something we have a situation and we need that building back you have to go and they cannot do any upfitting any any work in the building that's not within the preservation
274covenants and guidelines that's correct that's I just wanted to kind of clarify that because you know people may think that there's a difference if you're leasing it that you can do different things to a building m deara one more quick question in looking at this slide for example and thinking about Mr strain's comment about um you know building in the future and and I believe you touched on you know us being an urban area would you ever see a need for say this this facility where we would want to demolish it and build like a I don't know if high-rise is the right word or certainly a midrise high school that would have a different model than the 70 Acres needed for a traditional High School just because I imagine land in general of that
275size is running short and as we change the the design of our facilities I mean would that be an option I don't know that sitting right there on tylla road is the best place for high school but I'm just sort of tossing that out there is like and thinking to even 10 years from now are we going to need to look to build up instead of out and maybe not have the same sporting facilities and things like that well the the building up and not out is absolutely going to be part of the conversation we have with the board around the capital plan that that's not coming 10 years from now that's coming in the next referendum we have to be prepared for that but even even still any number of students here and the
276traffic study that we would undertake the city would say there's no way we're permitting that on divola road so it really just comes down to the use and having the critical mass and the transportation then if you tell me we're going to have high schoolers that are going to drive there and the traffic that's associated with that there there's no way to improve Tyvola Road without buying up a whole bunch of people's houses so it's going to look like this for a 100 years and so there's there's not opportunities to mitigate traffic impacts here like like there are in other parts of town okay anybody else okay thank you I just um before we go to the motion um I just want to say that everything we do needs to be fair we need to
277have a clear and fair process um I think we always have but what you've done tonight by bringing this back to the public is to clarify what the process is um and I think you've um with the uh updated uh rubric I think you've made made it more clear um and so I thank you for your recommendations um bottom line we all have a huge obligation to do the right thing for the students of today and the students of Tomorrow you talked about long-term planning um so while honoring the community that we live in and that we're a part of um Miss Sawyer would you please read the motion I move to accept the Surplus property report as presented including the recommenda recommended changes to individual property designations as to availability for sale or lease
278thank you do we have a second second we've got a motion for from Miss Sawyer second from Miss buers Bailey would you like to speak to your motion um I think um Mr Laria gave a overview of of what's in there I think um there are properties that um I don't see that CMS has the wherewithal to maintain in communities in ways that honor the communities that they're in we just don't have the resources to invest and we also don't have um a need for those properties um in general you know the properties that we're selling are too small for any use that would be um um appropriate for CMS so um I support this motion okay any further discussion or debate all those in favor of Miss Sawyer's motion please let it be known
279by a show of hands any opposed all right that passes seven to two thank you Mr Laria thank you finally we're going to report and I will turn to the superintendent for a report on the district's covid-19 testing program thank you madam chair um as our Chief Human Resources officer Miss Christine p uh prepares uh to update us on Charlotte mecklinburg school's participation in covid testing programs provided by the North Carolina uh Department of Health and Human Services um I do want to just uh briefly mention that um the program and Miss P will touch on this during her presentation but uh these programs that she will talk about are designed to help keep our schools open for in-person instruction and to keep our community safe um I know she will also mention this but
280I want to emphasize that our plan includes optional testing for students we will provide access to testing but in order to participate families must opt in their students uh testing for staff uh will be mandatory for those who do not provide documentation um that they are vaccinated thus the op out of testing for CMS staff is to get vaccin inated which we continue to encourage uh everyone who is eligible to do so um with that I'm going to toss it over to miss thank you Mr superintendent and good evening board members it's my pleasure this evening if I can figure out the clicker or the mouse pad oh there we go um to provide a high level overview of the testing program certainly there are a lot of details and Logistics that went into um
281the work behind the scenes in order to stand up something of this magnitude um but again this will be a highle overview so our vendor um for the public to understand is concentric by Ginko bioworks now this is not a partner that CMS contracted with we've been getting a lot of questions um asking about that contract um North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has contracted with the vendors who are providing programs throughout the state of North Carolina to school districts we um by virtue of opting into a state testing program are able to take advantage of this tool for our district and it is at no cost to our district so this is funded um through um funds coming from the state um through this partnership with ncdhhs and the uh vendor partner
282our model um for CMS is essentially comprised of two parts we will have pulled surveillance testing of unvaccinated staff on a weekly basis um what that looks like is essentially is that vendor staff um so Geno staff would be coming into our school buildings um and our work sites um with nursing staff and facilitating adults in the building who are unvaccinated doing their own tests so um the test won't be performed on an employee the employee performs the test themselves on themselves it's a nose swab test and then that pool um well each person's test in a pool goes into one sample and then that's sent off to a local lab to be tested if there's a positive identified in any of those pools that are taken then the goo team will come back on
283the third day so say the first test was on a Monday the pool test they would come back on a Wednesday and test everyone in any pool where there was a positive to quickly identify who tested positive for um covid um the second the follow-up test is a rapid test so we would know right away so then we can um effectuate the proper quarantining protocols the second component would be an opt-in process for students and it's diagnostic testing so we would make available to all students who opt in um the ability to take a diagnostic test either um because they are symptomatic and want to essentially rule out covid or if for whatever reason they were quarantined say they were a close contact they were not wearing a mask at the time um and they
284had to quarantine for a certain amount of days they can have access to this test get tested if they test negative they can come back to school in person earlier than than the length of time they typically would have to stay out on quarantine um so we felt that this was a very meaningful tangible um benefit that we could offer all of our students districtwide um this is something that CMS staff would be responsible for facilitating um using the vendor Reporting System students again with self- swab it does not involve someone doing a test on a student rather staff would help students facilitate their own tests on themselves um this the samples again get shipped out to a lab um and again the consent forms are required they're going to be available in multiple languages
285and they can be accessed digitally um our timeline summary essentially high level and we'll have a detailed timeline at the end of the slide um presentation tonight is phase in testing of unvaccinated Staff beginning with elementary schools the week of 9 27 so coming up here shortly um student access to diagnostic testing we have an anticipated launch date of mid October so October 11th and there's some Logistics involved in that to make sure that we're prepared to offer that districtwide for students wrong way thank you so some implications and considerations um CMS staff capacity is is Big because we are a very large District in order to stand up a program of this size actually I think I yeah I skipped one sorry about that so in order to facilitate this program we need to
286understand which one of our staff who of our staff are vaccinated and who are not so we have engaged um our partner qualtrix this is a relationship between CMS and qualtrix qualtrix was the same um vendor that provided our symptom screening tool um that we had used last school year those the funds for this program are going to be coming out of the American Rescue plan funding um so we would be approved to use that funding um for this purpose the model um looks uh as follows so all staff will receive an email with a link to answer questions about their vaccine status um so that's going to be a mass distributed email to all CMS employees um employees can also access the questions using a um QR code and then they would put in
287their unique credentials in order to answer the question questions and that's important because when when we initially roll this out we're certainly going to get we have a we have a tight turnaround and we're going to ask that all employees fill this out within a quick period of time however we understand and part of the reason that we're doing this is to also incentivize and encourage our employees to get vaccinated so this will be an ongoing process where employees will be able to go in and um Mark if they've been vaccinated since since the initiation of the program um vaccinated staff will will be asked to upload pictures of the vaccine card to confirm that they're vaccinated so we have a team of individuals at the district who are going to be verifying um the
288credentials that are submitted um it's very easy to do so we've tested it it can be done from a mobile device in fact it's easier to do from a cell phone um but people can also take the option of scanning the cards emailing it to themselves and using their computers um administrators and authorized Personnel at each site will have access to a dashboard this way this will be streamlined at the ground l for school-based administrators um and work site administrators to quickly understand and determine which one of their staff are vaccinated and who are not so that they can establish pools for the testing um and again unvaccinated staff will be required to participate in weekly pool testing so back to the considerations um CMS staff capacity is one of them really capacity across the
289board but let's talk about CMS first we have taken steps to um insert additional staff to be able to support our covid-19 response protocols the first being having six Regional Regional support coordinators um that can really be on the ground in the regions um assisting by answering questions assisting with contact tracing and assisting um with matters related to the testing program vaccine attestation you name it um they are in the process of being hired now they will actually be CMS employees um funded using ARP funding um we are also um seeking additional nurse extenders and we are very fortunate for the partnership that we have with meinberg County Health we have been meeting with them regularly um and very successfully um by virtue of our district opting into the State Testing program our district has
290been allotted $16 million in funding for additional Staffing support now this Staffing support must be provided by the our County Health partner because they are the partner that employs our School nurses we don't employ our School nurses the county does so this would be similar to that so the county um has worked with us to um identify staff they are actually called unlicensed assistant Personnel uaps so that we can have a UAP at every School site a minimum of one UAP at every School site to be able to assist with contact tracing and supporting the testing program particularly the side of the testing program that involves the diagnostic testing of students um I didn't go into length about the diagnostic testing but essentially in order for us to facilitate that we have to order um
291supplies that get shipped out to every school they're they're probably similar to what you would call a home test kit um but they come with a box pre-shipping label all the materials that we need to conduct the test so so this these uaps can help us greatly in facilitating that process and making sure the samples are shipped out timely and that we keep track of that um that record uh let's see here another concern that we have is lab capacity um you know it's no question that more people are getting tested in the community um also with the recent directive by the president um we can anticipate that more employers across our region those that are 100 or more um with 100 or more employees are going to also now be participating in testing so
292this certainly places increased demand upon the labs um that type of capacity concern could result in delays with our program so for example um testing time frames could expand and we get the results back longer um than when we had anticipated getting them in the first place um vendor capacity the vendor is currently in the process of hiring teams to support support our pooled testing because again that is going to be Geno staff who are coming on site to be able to support the testing of the unvaccinated uh staff in the buildings um we also need to to think and review um carefully um our relationship with contractors and whether or not we can include them in our testing program when I say contracted employees those are employees that do not work for CMS so
293we don't have Direct Control um over their work and such that there we don't have that employer employee relationship so we have to have discussions with those providers to see if we can include that um going forward and then finally last but certainly not least staff and culture considerations we understand that this is different I mean this is a big change um never before have our employees been um been expected to participate in something along these lines so we understand that and are very cognizant of that and are going to do what we can to support by way of um answering questions as to the why helping make the make the process as streamlined as it can be um and that concl well let me go to the timeline there we go there's a lot
294on this slide but essentially we've highlighted some of the areas that are key uh dates so week of 9:20 we expect to launch the employee attestation um we are initially going to provide three days so that's a very quick turnaround time and the reason why we are asking for such a quick turnaround time is in order to launch that testing the week of 927 that small team of people that I that I referred to is going to have to go through upwards of 8 to 9,000 potentially verifications just in a matter of days in order to make sure that we get the dashboards up and running for school-based staff now we're hoping that we can prioritize looking at Elementary staff first as we um process those attestations um but again there's a lot of work
295to be done in the background in order to make this happen and many kudos to the team I don't know if they're watching at this hour but they they are working um around the clock to be able to make this happen um week of 927 launch the testing program for unvaccinated staff at roughly half of our elementary schools um that's why we talk about capacity earlier on we're not in a situation where we can just launch this districtwide on the first day we're just tooo big for that and we need to make sure that we have enough staff in order to do the program with Fidelity um so that means week of 10:4 we're going to expand the testing to the remaining elementary schools um and then you can see the other work that's being
296done to gear up for what's coming next in the timeline so fast forward to week of 1011 we expand testing into middle and K8 schools um and then that is the same um week that we are targeting to launch diagnostic testing of students again that's an opin based on consent forms it will require a consent form and then if you go down to the bottom of the page it shows how we continue and we'll be able to wrap up with high schools the week of 10:25 so the good news is we can get through this all of the the school locations um by the end of October we do have to also make sure that we um capture our transportation staff our itinerant staff really the priority is to focus on student facing Staff first
297so that's why the last bullet or the second to last bullet here talks about non- student facing central office staff are essentially going to be the last phase after all of those student facing staff are Incorporated um and again the as is just to say that the ramp up for Diagnostic testing we are we are working towards that rapidly um but it is going to be heavily driven by the timeline that it takes to get those uaps in place at the schools to be able to fully support the program so even if we do launch on 1011 and make those kits available it may not be to the extent that we'd like to see it available or even on a daily basis until we can get that support staff inserted to to have the program
298run up and running full-fledged and that concludes the presentation thank you and thank you I hope your I hope your hardworking team is not watching this I hope they're sound asleep right now I hope we can get you home tun soon too Miss de laara Miss Sawyer Miss Marshall Che I'll try to be quick hope I'm not biased against you guys my head went that way first um so we're working with genko and I'm just wondering how is their hiring coming along because I know they were also having to hire to be able to go out to the schools are we getting good information back about where they are yeah we don't have a lot of specific information except they have um reiterated that they are confident based on this model and carving out the
299elementary schools over two weeks that they can support the Staffing as of a couple of weeks ago they had already begun the process of hiring staff and now it's incumbent upon us to share the rest of our details in terms of which schools are going to be first so they can make sure that they schedule and set their routes accordingly so um we've been in communication with them daily and as of today um things are looking good and we didn't we didn't they did not express any hesitation in terms of this timeline you mentioned the concern about the lab capacity and I guess what what is Plan B if we discover that the labs are overwhelmed I mean will will we pause the program because they just can't keep up with capacity I mean potentially
300I think that would probably be one of the most um drastic measures uh I think more um commonly what would happen is that we we'll start to see a delay in getting the test results back so it's just that we're not going to see the expediency that we would like in order to then you know effectuate the necessary quarantining protocols if there are positives so I think it's more of a um this is taking a little bit longer than we thought rather than ultimately having to pause but I mean I you know I wish I wish we had that forecast I don't know that could potentially be something that we're looking at in the future yeah it's just the downside of that is then if we find out you know they're delayed 3 days and
301there was a positive you know child in the room then that's it's just I'm just worried about how that's going to play out you know as you know somehow our failure you know to not notify properly when it may have just been the delay so I'm just sort of saying that out loud because we want to make sure our communication around what is issue and and there might be delays uh and be clear to the public so that doesn't get sort of misrepresented um I'm sorry my thing turned off um I I just quick comment about the diagnostic piece I'm really excited I mean I know that's coming later but um just as sort of a public service you know announcement also you know that actually happened to me with my son uh where he
302had some cold-like symptoms over the weekend and because he's 15 and vaccinated honestly and it was very mild in my head I wasn't even thinking over the weekend he was okay and then I sat there on a Sunday night and thought I can't send him to school tomorrow morning I just there's no way I could do that and so I took him to get a rapid test but it occurred to me in that moment I mean how fortunate I was to be able to do that at 8:00 in the morning not do anything else and take him to get that test and then it was confirmed he was negative and I could send him but just the sort of um um burden if you will that that will put on all families to have to
303make that choice um and you know and hopefully most you know all families would be able to do that but it's difficult to find a place and so I'm just saying that I'm glad that we're going to try to move in that direction because I think that will be very convenient you know for families to know if there you know a child does have a cold or what or some symptom that the diagnostic testing would be available there on site and so I'm very grateful for that I think that's going to keep us all safer because it's a lot it's a lot for family students for everyone to have to do that um but they should we all should do that um and then lastly just a quick question um have we identified like what
304a consequence is for an unvaccinated staff member who just says I'm not going to fill out the attestation I'm just I mean is that how is that going to be handled I I just want to make sure we're think thinking through and um you know how we're going to I I I don't think that would be many but I just don't want us to be naive and to think that we may have some particular employees who just refuse to to participate yeah well we would we would hope that that could be handled at the site level first through a conversation right with the supervisor and the employee I mean repeated failures to adhere to these policies um would result in being you know considered an employee relations issues and then that would be handled appropriately
305and an employee I mean penalties for that could be all the way up through termination so this is a mandate um this is an expectation that our employees follow um uh but again it's also incumbent upon us to make employees feel comfortable and do what we can to answer their questions and help them understand it and and to understand that we're doing this to keep uh students and sta staff as safe as possible and healthy as possible okay thank you um let's see I've got Miss Sawyer then miss Marshall then miss cheek a couple questions just to clarify when you say elementary schools identify test pools that's just staff that's not students yes that's correct so so the all the testing through the first four boxes there are all CMS staff members yes and the
306student testing piece doesn't come until there is no there is no screening testing for students just diagnostic um how would this I'm I'm a little concerned I don't want parents to think well my kid's not feeling well I'll send him to school and he'll be tested um that's not what we're trying to have happen here that's right and I mean in fact if it if if a child is Si if a staff member is sick if a student is sick they should stay home and so in the event that a child is at school and begins to develop symptoms and let's say we already have a consent form on file then we would have the ability to help that child self- administer a a test and then the parents would get that result within 24
307to 48 hours but that child or the family would still be expected to come and pick up the child who is not feeling well at school right so so kids parents shouldn't put a kid not feeling well on the bus thinking well they'll be tested at school that's right that should not happen I mean if if I'm a parent and my kid wakes up not feeling well could I at this point come to the school to have my child tested even if I didn't put them on the bus just to come specifically to be tested would that be considered part of the protocol I think that's something that we should consider we're we're not that far through into the logistics but certainly that's something that we want to make available because the whole intent was
308to provide access to all of our CMS Community to get these tests and have them readily available to them and we've even heard from some principles that they've heard from their families that they didn't know where to go to take a test or they couldn't get to take a test so yes we would we would think that that would be a benefit for us to be able to offer if we can yeah I just I just don't want parents thinking oh that they'll get tested at school no problem send them yeah okay I'm so glad we're doing this and um you know I'm grateful that we have the $16 million from Co funds through the county to to support this and can't happen fast enough so wonderful thank you Miss Marshall and then miss cheek
309um I know that I've started hearing from some some concern staff about um certainly this is a quick time turnaround and we understand that and I think you've said it's just it's a we're we're trying to implement this and it's a big thing and it's a new thing and we're all going to work together so let's let's just put our best foot forward in that but I know I've heard some concerns from folks about privacy in terms of the data being collected and then what might happen at a school site so can you address those things yeah absolutely um we're certainly going to um streamline the system so that only those who are on a a need to know basis would for example with who's vaccinated and who's unvaccinated um certainly we have to have
310um Personnel at the school site to know that so that those pools can be established and that we can know who to potentially pull out of a pool if they've been vaccinated so that dashboard is private it's not not it's not for um uh public consumption with names to show somebody's health status um we don't ask questions so if if someone is not vaccinated um we've we going to be um reiterating with our supervisors that it's not appropriate to ask for example an employee why they're not vaccinated we simply need to just identify whether they are vaccinated or they're not vaccinated um and and really it ends at that um so it's going to be handled very discreetly as possible that's not to say that people aren't going to observe and see what's happening um
311but again we're not going to push employees or try to try to pull out more information um it's simply in order to help facilitate this test this is not a vaccine mandate um by any means I know that there had been some concerns about that um employees essentially we understand and our cogniz of the fact there are employees that have exemptions from being having to get the vaccine but for the most part many of our employees have a choice they can choose to get vaccinated or they can choose to submit to the weekly testing um so that's essentially how it's going to work in terms of the cards being uploaded and that sort of thing that are going to happen in the next few days that data let's talk about the security of that data
312as well yeah so that's stored um through the system through the vendor um which has I I'm certainly not the the techie person but they're they are required to keep that information safe on a server that's secure um so we we have a small team mostly made up of HR folks who are already used to working with benefits and leaves and understand the nature of confidentiality um who are just reviewing to make sure that the cards are accurate and essentially what we're reviewing is that somebody just either did not submit a documentation or they submitted a document that's just not acceptable so we've worked closely with County Health to understand um what all of the different cards look like and and that's the level of verification that's that's being handled and and I want it
313to address too I I will say that that folks have said this happen so suddenly and but we've been talking about testing since January we I'm chair of the intergovernmental Relations Committee and on our legislative agenda we pushed for testing so this is something that we have wanted for a long time to keep our students and our staff safe and testing has sort of evolved over the past nine months in terms of what people are looking for what capacities are there so um you know I wish I wish I could have given you all the big crystal ball picture in January I could not we're going to but but we also have been um um have have gotten some bad press that we didn't have this ready fast enough so you know again a third
314of the People Want it one way a third of the People Want it the other a third of the people are right in the middle going okay well let's just let's get moving so I am of the opinion that let's get moving I'm supportive of supportive of this I'm thrilled about the diagnostic ability in schools I think this is a great thing and I just really hope that parents look at this as a as a help to them a help to their Community a help to their students a help to their school and and and really a timesaver so that's what this is about and and I think that um until everybody has an opportunity to get vaccinated in terms of our elementary students this is the place to start this is the highest risk
315I wish frankly we could test everybody every week but we do not have the capacity to do that so we're going to have to go to where the highest risk is and I think I think the broad swath of people in the community would agree with that but I understand and I appreciate our employees working with us because I know this is big and it is different but um we we'll we'll start slow and ramp from there thank you Miss ch thank you so a year ago I was moving my child back out of the dorm at Chapel Hill because they went to college at Chapel Hill with no testing no nothing they just showed up and I a lot of kids got covid a lot of people know that I've been a fan of
316that other school right down the road from Chapel Hill called Duke and Duke had mandatory testing for all kids and they stayed on campus all semester whereas Chapel Hill sent the kids home so fast forward this year mandatory testing is ongoing at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill unless you're vaccinated twice weekly for students that live on campus once a week for everybody else including all the staff all the support staff all the ladies and gentlemen that work keeping the buildings up and and providing all the food and all that so this is not something that is not being done in other entities in other education entities in North Carolina and I don't know how much you're communicating with the HR people at some of those large educational institutions but they're they're doing this kind
317of asymptomatic unvaccinated testing at most of the universities in North Carolina the state colleges what I understand so are you guys kind of talking with them to get the ideas from them of what has been a problem what has worked what you know troubleshoot with them at all in advance so most of our discussions have been with mecklinburg County Public Health because they um even though County Health employees are required to be vaccinated the County employees at large are also going through a similar um testing program so in terms of what works what doesn't work um and frankly it's been so quick the ramp up time for this so certainly we want to continue to reach out to our partners in the community to find out about that and it's interesting um Miss Marshall you
318alluded to the fact or you remarked that it you know this is changing this has been at rapid pace and even with President Biden's recent directive to OSHA all of this would will end up being a requirement for us regardless so it it really is something that's not that we're not only seeing at the local level but we we've already seen it at our own state level and now we're seeing it Federal you know Nationwide so a lot of the questions came up that all we're doing is trying to force unvaccinated people to be vaccinated and now we're outing them all their fellow employees will know because they'll be the ones lining up with their test kits um I know that you guys are working on messaging and how to communicate that in the best
319way possible um I just want to make sure that everybody knows that that's not the that the purpose of this is to make sure that we are trying to keep kids in school right and we we I have seen a lot of this questions floating around about why not everyone why not just vaccinated and really there's a essentially there's really I broke that up into four different reasons right so unvaccinated are more likely to become infected unvaccinated are more likely to experience symptoms and therefore more likely to transmit the virus um unvaccinated are more likely to develop severe illness and then um ultimately hospitalization and unfortunately death and then really um last but not least our own County Health director has recommended specifically that we test unvaccinated staff so this is this is this is
320squarely aligned with the with our experts recommendations from the county in terms of how we're proceeding with this testing program I just I'm um I'm glad that you're phasing it in my biggest concern would be you know having a 5-day delay on test results because then it's pretty much useless so um I'll be very curious to see how things go I'm going to use this little moment to please ask parents and you know if if your child has never had Fall allergies and they're having allergy symptoms right now let's not call it Fall allergies if they've never had allergies let's just try to be mindful of of when you're going to school when you're sending your kids to school when you're not um I had a teacher that posted that she's a actually teacher in
321Rowan County and she said if your kid has never had allergies and you're telling me that you sent him to school today with just an allergy that you just sent your kid to school possibly to infect me with covid so I just want people to be mindful of that there is a lot of transmission going on right now the um the rate of hospitalization not for children but for all you know um citizens in North Carolina is as high right now as it was at its peak in January and um and the the hospital resources are much different than they were in January they're much less Staffing is very bad right now um Staffing is bad a lot of nurses have left local hospitals because they can make $100 an hour literally to go to
322work in Texas on a covid unit um for short-term assignment so it's just a a really rough time so I just I'm I'm hopeful for this I think that it's a good thing um have you guys discussed if the you know will there be any parameters or any time that you would say we're going to end the testing program because Community infection rates are so low or that kind of thing I mean has that been discussed um like I guess an end I I I always like to know is there a plan to for what's you know when things change so the highest level answer to that I think is we're going to continue to follow the guidance so the district response team is going to continue to meet with um County Health officials it
323remains to be seen what's going to happen with the directive as well so if we have a directive that comes through Osha bya Osha regulation we're going to have to comply and so um depending upon what expiration date might be set forth in those rules that's that remains to be seen so I think there there are this is still a very fluid situation that we're going to continue have to watch closely and I don't even think that we have enough facts at this point to be able to establish an end time for the testing program okay thank you Mr strain and then miss ship thank you madam chair um I like to try to start with the end game in mind and the endgame for this I think is defining the objective I think the
324objective is to reduce in school transmission and so we've got three tools we have vaccines we have masks and we have testing so with regards to testing as Miss Marshall said we've been talking about this for nine months um I remember having early conversations with this particular company about about their program um and at the time it was probably very early in the um vaccination program so it was it was still very difficult to get vaccines at that point for for the general public now they're readily available um which changes a bit right so so now you've got readily available vaccines you've got um at least in our district due to C certain well due to our action and the action of the the local Public Health Board um masking and so with regards to
325reducing in school transmission one of the things that I've been trying to wrap my head around is yes uh certainly the vaccines reduce the likelihood of contraction of the disease they reduce the likelihood of serious illness which isn't really part of this conversation because this isn't about illness it's about identifying an infected individual and it reduces the transmission rate so that's that's what the vaccine does but vaccinated individuals are still Contracting the disease and are still transmitting the disease so my question very long-winded question is why not test the vaccinated individuals as well because we're seeing transmission if if the objective is to identify sources of transmission and pull them out of the population because the masking is not sufficient to reduce the likelihood of transmission right that's that's why we're testing and masking and
326vaccin then what's the difference why why Target only the unvaccinated when we know that we're seeing transmission of vaccinated individuals as well if the objective is identify infected individuals and pull them out of the population to reduce the in in school transmission so the simple answer is to prioritize the area that are the highest risk and that would be among unvaccinated individuals um certainly there are people who have tested positive even though they've been vaccinated yet um those individuals when compared with the unvaccinated population and Mr Damian you can jump in or correct me if I'm wrong here have a higher um rate of transmission just because there could be um there's probably more evidence of symptoms or more severe symptoms and the way even in which the viruses spread through respiratory drug droplets it's
327much more of a chance or highly probable chance that someone who is unvaccinated would transmit that virus to others and then when you think about capacity you think of our size and then you even um scale that to our whole Community it is important it is important for us to think about things like lab capacity and other things when we Implement a program of this scale so I think symptomatic we can take off the table because we're hoping and praying that we're not having symptomatic particularly staff coming to work right so we said okay symptomatic unvax or vax please stay home and then you get to asymptomatic and I'm not sure there is a tremendous amount of difference between the asymptomatic spread of vax versus unvaxxed and when we're doing pool testing there's not a
328big difference in terms of test capacity either because we're doing the pool testing so if all the sixth grade teachers all the teachers in the sixth grade Hall swab and throw their swabs in a in a um bag for for testing or or in a testkit for for a pool test then I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of difference in terms of whether that includes the vaxed or unvaxxed I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to ascertain given the end objective which is let's identify who is currently carriers of the disease why would we distinguish between them given the fact that we know they're pretty much asymptomatic cuz symptomatic we wouldn't want in a school anyway and we know that there's a risk presumably a fair risk of um even vaccinated individuals being asymptomatic
329carriers the big the the big advantage of being vaccinated is you reduce your personal risk now you do reduce the chance of getting it and the chance of transmitting it as well but I'm just wondering what that differential looks like as to why we would just Target the unvaccinated and not go ahead and target with our pool testing all of our staff so respectfully it's really the same answer it's it's we're not intending to capture every single positive we don't we're not going out we're not setting out to say that this is going to be be the be all end all it's one tool in the toolkit and one that we can reasonably um be able to implement effectively um by targeting I don't even want to say targeting um by concentrating on our unvaccinated
330staff because they are at a higher risk for transmitting theas Ian it really is a simple as that I and it's also based on the guidance that our health experts are sharing now we don't have our our health our our our licensed Health experts with us here tonight um to be able to have further Dialogue on that but that is the guidance that we' received from them that is the same um thing that our County um employees at large um again not the County Public Health Department but the County employees are doing they're they're testing unvaccinated staff um that is the same guidance that's come out at the federal level um that's the same guidance I believe that's come out at the CDC and every independent Authority um or widely recognized Authority such as the
331ones that I've named so I'll let Mr Damien add to that please I think the only thing I was going to say is our intent is to increase vaccinated staff we want more staff vaccinated the more staff the more vaccinated individuals we have in our community the less viral load in the community in general so this is a step as Miss P said a step other tools just like you mentioned the masking and testing are all tools in line with vaccination yeah so you're everyone's aware of my position on vaccinations so um I think all of our staff should be vaccinated but you know that that's not that's not the primary objective of testing program right so that's what I that's what I was trying to get to the only other question I would have
332is that why distinguish between a vaccinated individual and somebody who had covid last month because with regards to the antibody response right they would have the antibodies the characteristics in terms of their likelihood of Contracting the disease having a serious illness and also passing it on would be very similar that to to someone who's been vaccinated right and I think tons of studies say that so from that perspective why are we distinguishing between somebody who has had a positive PCR test in the last 6 months and somebody who has a vax card that could be 8 months old which it it's it's unclear right now exactly how much protection that's worth anymore yeah because that because it waines right correct we are looking at the um sorry my shoes falling off we're looking at those
333other uh opportunities with someone who's been tested positive within 3 months you're absolutely right they would be um they would not be required to quarantine and they um they do have some immunity and so there is a possibility that we could research those we would need documentation of a positive test and provide some sort of time frame for them to be Exempted from that but right now we're we're still working through our process of just getting the data on the vaccination cards so for consistency's sake that would be consistent with for example the the toolkit that's driving quarantine policy and implementing a policy that recognized somebody who had been who had a positive PCR in the last X number of month whatever the toolkit says that would be consistent with regards to quarantine policy and
334our testing policy then correct okay so that's something that is being considered yes we're still looking at all of all the data that we need to collect yeah it's absolutely being considered and we can understand that um perspective however we also have to in that consideration process we have to understand whether or not we have the capability to automate um systems that can be able to quickly um ascertain when someone's time limit so to speak is up so say they tested positive on a certain date and we get past that three months that person would then have to go back into the unvaccinated pools so with the district our size it's very important for us to make sure that we have the capabilities to support that where we're not overburdening schools and making sure that
335schools continue continue to focus on our core mission of educating students so that's why it's a potential it's under consideration but we can't commit today to saying that that's something that we can apply as an exception well I I would add as well that at some point there's going to be the conversation about waning immunity from the vaccines as well and so same thing we're going to have to go back and say Well when is what's the date on that vax card does it have a you know a booster shot when was the full vaccination date all that sort of stuff so I'm not sure that this is a problem for us to solve it's more for genko to solve it seems because it's their testing program that that we're utilizing and so it seems
336to me that this is not something we need to this has to be solved across the entire testing program right at certainly the state and even the national level in terms of this problem statement of who do you test why do you test them when when do they come out of that pool that says no we're not going to H we're not going to test you even though you know you certainly have the potential of being a carrier as well so thank you Mr yeah um I thank you for bringing this I think as some have mentioned before we've been talking about this testing since last year and how important it was to have testing on site so I think this is really good I'm glad we're doing it nend of course we wanted it
337earlier um I see the need to do this and when you talk about the end result for me it is keeping kids in school and ensuring that everybody is safe safe in the building and especially our children so what why are we doing this because we need our teachers and staff especially to be there to teach our children so we need them to be safe we need them we need to know who has covid and who doesn't and I also think really the end result is vac vaccinations you know being vaccinated and I I really do but again this is one way maybe to get there to you know push the needle a little bit to say at the end of the day and it's coming all the way from the top down is that
338we need to be vaccinated and um and even though you know we're not mandating that I think that's where this is really should be leading because do you want to be you know when you talk about privacy and being swab is that what you want to have happen every week I mean I've had that done it's not a good feeling and um so I think that's really the end result so that we know you know we talked so much about this idea of our academic achievement and our children learning well we need our schools to run and run safely and effectively in person so I think at the end of the day all of this is for that is for our children at the end of the day so that's why I think this is
339good we need to do it and I think that we can we can talk to staff when you talk about staff culture that's what they need to hear I think is that this is about being able to keep our children in school for teaching and learning to take place in an environment we know we can improve student achievement so I think that's what we have to look at more so than are we going to test this person that person and there is something to be said for antibodies and they say go talk to your doctor about that and if you still need the shot even though you have antibodies so and I have a jous in the medical field so I get to hear a lot about this thank you all right anybody else um
340really quick um let me just say I too am excited that we're moving forward I see this as a very aggressive timeline thank you for tackling that in the midst of everything else that's going on it is a high priority to um keep keep you know be as safe as we can be um um also want to acknowledge that it was many months ago that we requested to be a testing school and that in North Carolina you don't just go out and do it yourself there was a system where you had to apply to the state and it was the week before school started that we finally got matched with the vendor so this is a real fast turnaround time um I appreciate what you both have done to make this happen as fast as
341it has um really quick I want to bring up the last lab capacity thing again and so um I know when you talk about we are concerned about capacity I understand I know you guys meet weekly with the county the county health department has a real good sense of local lab testing capacity so when we do a test it's got to get sent to a lab somebody has to ascertain whether it's positive or negative and get the word back has there been any concern about bringing online like once once we've got all of our if if we were to have all of our students tested and all of our employees vaccinated or not that would be close to 160,000 new tests has there been any concern about like shocking the the labs with that new
342number yes um so um there have been lots of questions raised um on the meetings that we have with the vendor and raised independently by um mecklinburg County Health officials asking questions um like that like for example are is the vendor using local Labs um can they guarantee turnaround times um all in the vein of really expressing concern over what the county health is seeing in terms of the number of people and the the number of people wanting to go out and get tested now and the number of people who are actually getting tested and now um we expect more employers um to start to also participate in the testing so that is huge so that that is part of the reasoning why um unvaccinated adults um was part of that recommendation and I certainly
343do not want to and I I won't speak on behalf of our County Health director but I do know from our meetings that um for example if we were to go in and just immediately test all students that is a large pool that certainly would put a strain on um the local Labs um in our area did you have anything to add so it's aggressive but phased in to be feasible for the ecosystem that we're a part of that's right okay thank you and the last thing this is more of a a comment it it I don't think it's a question that you can answer unless you have a really good crystal ball which those have been lacking I wish I could find one um but what crossed my mind when the announcement came out
344last week about OSHA and pretty soon all school districts and all businesses of a 100 or more are going to have to do something similar to this um I actually had like a moment of panic thinking about the Staffing Supply and the supply chain um issues for vac vaccinating and testing and if somehow school districts like ours are going to fall to the bottom of the priority list with all these business businesses all over the place you know get so soaking up those resources I'm not saying that's going to happen um but I I just have that in my mind as a possibility just as we've seen with HVAC you know there's there's all this talk locally and at the federal government about how schools um with the president's you know set priorities he wants
345schools to be a centerpiece of of Co m ation and that includes ventilation and yet school districts like ours and all over the nation are struggling to recruit and retain hbac staff because all the Private Industry is also upgrading their HVAC and they can afford to pay you know so anyways I don't need to belabor that it's just a little thing I'm worried about far down the road hopefully I don't have to be worried about it there's nothing you guys can do about it but um thank you for all that you do and thank you for being here so late and we shall release you to get your rest so you can be ready to battle again tomorrow thank you for your support thank you and with that I'm going to turn to the superintendent
346for his report thank you madam chair thank the team again for their report um as you know this is our first regular board meeting of the month of September and I want to briefly mention something significant about this month September is Hispanic Heritage Month and I want to make sure that all in our community take time to recognize the contributions of our fellow community members of Hispanic heritage our staff has joined and will join members of various Community Partners throughout the month for activities and events celebrating the contributions of our Hispanic community CMS Communications has developed uh and is sharing via various platforms content that shows support for Hispanic heritage in Charlotte and throughout mecklinburg County I want to thank uh you all who represent uh Hispanic heritage for what you contribute to our schools
347and our community the last topic that I want to uh talk about is School safety uh we are pleased to have started uh this school year in person and to have seen our schools so far operate overwhelmingly with success but we must acknowledge some very significant and serious Community challenges that have impacted a number of our schools gun violence must stop our community recently lost an innocent three-year-old child whose life had just begun CMS has lost students to senseless violence and my heart breaks for those families I want our listening audience to know that we are committed to keeping our schools a safe places to learn we have reinstated random safety checks in our schools we have increased security presence at schools where such presence has been needed and we are working with local law
348enforcement we also are discussing intervention programs with members of the community and soon we'll share details of these programs We Believe will help stop acts of violence before they occur CMS will do everything possible to protect students and staff during the time they are in our care and we call on everyone in the community to seek ways to be a part of the solution one more shooting at a house at a mall or anywhere is one too many and I issue the same challenge to everyone in this area that I do to our students and staff if you see something if you hear something say something because that action may end up saving lives thank you madam chair all right thank you Mr Superintendent at this time I will recognize any board member who wishes
349to make a report Dr Jones yes um I'd like to recognize a person who has been very important to us as board members um she is stepping down from her position as board ad ministrator but lucky for us she is not leaving the CMS family um Nicole Kelly our board administrator has served nine diverse board members in an extraordinary manner she recognized right off for example my deficit in in technology and graciously make sure that I'm set up all the time so um and importantly too with the many calls from constituents she has been a closer she has been a person that relates to constituents families and make certain that um appropriate uh contacts are made to resolve and bring uh to bring resolution to sometimes some very thorny uh issues and concerns so I
350will selfishly miss her in this position but I truly wish her the best in the new position and I want to thank you Nicole [Applause] Kelly all right my turn Miss Chek and then miss deara we've had a a rocky beginning of our school year we're still facing a teenage suicide situation in our community and it's a really an an e an epidemic it's been going on for many years and and a few of our schools have an incredible program called sources of strength um the Huff family lost another student this week and I've gotten to know a lot more about the program and what you just said Mr Winston about if you see something or hear something do something that that goes for students that you think are struggling with mental illness and with
351emotional issues if you see something say something um the motto is break the silence and spread the hope and the only way to do that is with a comprehensive support mechanism I want to commend our staff um at the district level and at the schoolhouse level for the awareness that they're creating for the the safe landing zone for students that they have created and the incredible amount of strength and um community support that has come in um and then I would also just like to thank Nicole nobody ever has kept taken care of me quite as well as you have um I always know that what the food is going to be because she knows I'm really picky about what I eat um but just always being there with a smile and um it it
352means a lot to us I I don't really think that you should leave but I know that your family would probably prefer you not working till 11:30 at night on week night so I get that part of it and um I I'm happy for your family I'm sad for this family of your board family that you're leaving us but we wish you all the best in your new role Miss deara thank you um sort of starting off I just want to piggy back off of what the superintendent said about um some of the recent gun violence um that has happened in the community and one of the speakers tonight during public comment mentioned an activity on um Saturday the 26th um and I actually just reached out to him quickly the beauty of social media
353and made a connection and asked him to send me that um address and the date and information again and I just want to start off by repeating it it's sponsored by one love um in collaboration with cmpd and it's September 26 um between 11: and 3: at 2425 bat sport Road they're partnering with cmpd to give away free gun lock which I do think is so important um because we do know that many guns are taken by children from their their home or cars and you know sometimes they're stolen but sometimes they're right there in the home and so I just um appreciate that message of sharing the importance of gun safety as um something that we all in our community um can do if we own guns um also um I just want to
354reiterate and I think Mr superintendent I had sent you an email about this a couple of days ago u in response to a report we got about where we were with some of our ARP funding and how and when some of those initiatives that have been identified or looks like we're moving in that direction are you know going to start to be rolled out based off of the multiple Community feedback I just I'm sort of anxious about getting some you know new new programming you know in place or new positions in place and I know tonight it was suggested um that um tutors are needed and and certainly they are I'd really like for us to maybe even consider targeting some of our you know partner organizations that do um because there are volunteers and
355volunteers are great in our community but maybe those volunteers would like to come into the school building and work like 3 hours a day every day as a temporary employee for 6 months I don't know what type of option could be made but we all know yes that um we have lost our teaching assistance over the years and never recovered back from that and we know that students are four to 10 times more likely um to have significant academic um gains in K3 um English language arts and their reading um if they do have that 20 to 30 minutes of small group time and instruction and so I do think having those extra tutors that can do that or the tutors to help cover the class classroom so that the teacher can have the time
356to meet in the small group so I just I don't know what all those options are yet of what we're looking at what we're able to do and how we're able to employ our own ARP funding to that end but I am looking forward to finding out a little bit more about how we might be able to start some of that programming and um sort of on a similar note I guess I would just ask I'm really concerned about our um bus driver shortage which is not just a CMS issue it's a national issue it's a Statewide issue I keep seeing reports popping up on my news feed of you know Winston Salem schools and Greensboro schools and you know Wake County Schools it's everywhere and I don't know what kind of creativity we can
357continue to employ there I'm glad that we were able to um provide that small bonus um you know again we have to just like Alisa chair Dash you said earlier nothing happens quickly in the school systems and we have to wait wait for approval often times for those things to happen but I would just ask us knowing that that's the process to be creative and how we might be able to continue to incentivize um to help you know solve for some of those issues in creative ways I don't have the answer uh but I'm just asking for us to do everything that we can and then lastly I'll just send my best wishes to Miss Kelly as well I'll miss you so much thank you Mr Str and then miss ship so I'll start with
358thanking Nicole for such a fantastic job you've done supporting us the service you've provided as our board clerk um you know I'm the lucky one because whilst you're leaving you're also coming home to the southeast so I appreciate that and uh and so we'll we'll certainly welcome you out there um I I just want to make some quick remarks you know we've been challenged through a process to think about our core mission to think about how how much time we're spending working on that core Mission discussing student outcomes um we're going on six hours here in in uh in Open Session two hours before in closed session and uh I'm probably responsible for 12 or 13 minutes of that myself but um you know of the six hours right more more but be real I
359don't know there was much more than that but I I can I can probably put together 10 minutes that were actually discussed during that six-hour period where people did discuss student outcomes you know Arthur Griffin Stephanie sne Glenn Stevens and probably a couple of others those are the first three that come to mind that actually talked about it and we didn't so I look forward to getting back to our core Mission um and hopefully we can get there soon thanks um ship I want to first of all thank it's been what a couple of weeks we've been back in school and I want to thank I don't know if we have the hard work of all of the staff for what we're going through right now and all that they're doing it takes an incredible
360staff to give the best to our children in times especially like these so I want to say thank you to the staffs throughout all the school the teachers the teacher assistants the principals the support staff those counselors those social workers and importantly we mentioned the bus drivers because they get the kids to school so I want to say thank you to those bus drivers who have doubled routes tripled routes and even acting as Subs on top of being a bus driver normally and I know what that really looks like so I want to thank them and our cafeteria workers and Mr elar you mentioned about what can we do more and I think one of it is they need more pay in terms of they don't I don't know if you know they don't get
36140 hour weeks many of the bus drivers are not even working a 40 hour week nor the cafeteria workers and this is where the root of it is you can't compete with cats and other agencies when you're not paying people for a full you know 40 hour week so I think that's something we need to look at so that we can keep our drivers and we can also employ more drivers so it has to be competitive so and I just thank the staff for what they're doing even without this pay they're still coming so we need to say thank you to that group uh and then I want to end with Nicole Kelly thank you so much I've been on the board less than two years and you have been incredible in ensuring that I
362knew what was going on what I'm doing and how to start start this work of being a a board board leader and so I thank you you have been I'm going to miss you you my go-to person and I understand that because I had an administrative secretary and you've been like that to me I can pick up the phone and you've been able to support and all of us and with nine different styles of wearing all these hats thank you so much okay Miss bars Bly thank you I hadn't intended to say anything tonight because it's so late and I usually go on about one of my schools but I could not let the evening in without saying thank you to Nicole uh she has I've been on this board quite a while and I've
363had at least two or three other clerks that have served us as but nobody has done it the way Nicole has nobody has taken care of us and you know each of us think it's personal to us but if you go around this table you can see we were all personal we all got personals service from you and we truly truly appreciate you Don okay anybody else okay I'll be quick Nicole we love you Elma happy birthday thank you um you'll notice it was yesterday actually literally yesterday it's all month don't even remember M Fowler as you notice had to leave because she has school at 7:15 in the morning yeah um and she works very hard as our student adviser to keep us grounded in what students are um perceiving in their schools and
364what advice and feedback they have for us and she did gather some of that so I told her that I would share her report so this is now uh briana's voice this is not my voice but I'm going to read her report for you um she said she wanted to tell us that the student advisory Council met last night to talk about some different issues and what's working in different high schools then she had a few bullets that she wanted me to share one was need an awareness campaign about masking and how to wear a mask properly the rules need to be enforced consistently at every school need to be much more strict at extracurriculars and football games teachers have been great overall students are pleased with how CMS is handling this issue especially compared
365to other districts near Charlotte she also said mental health issues continue to be a concern this is a hard year with increased workloads going back in person has added stress and anxiety for many students she shared that the new grading system is helping struggling students some students need more info about it um she also said concerns about gun violence and safety issues coming in from the community good um she said good that they well this this might not be accurate so there might be a factual mistake in that one I'm not going to read that one we'll come back to that um she shared the black student union at Olympic High School is student Le and fosters discussions about race CMS should expand this to other schools she said at Myers Park each subject has
366a test day so all of your tests aren't on the same day this could be expanded to other schools and then there's two more here CMS needs more counselors and needs more continuity with them would be helpful to assign counselors to students all four years and then the final feedback from the students in the student advisory committee was be Innovative like last year and having one asynchronous day per week was great I'm not sure if we've got that ability to do that but passing that along from the students so now back to my voice this is just my final message before we adjourn very simple just want to call on all of us here and out there to keep our loved ones safe pretty simple whether safe in terms of physical health safe from illness
367safe in terms of emotional health and mental health and safe from violence and just remember that every single member of this community is somebody's loved one and so with that I will entertain a motion to adjourn all those in favor show of hands and we are adjourned thank you we're going to make [Music] you [Music] a