CMS Board of Education Meeting, August 10, 2021 (6pm)

001[Music] for [Music] good evening I now call the August 10th 2021 meeting of the Charlotte meinberg Board of Education to order and I will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda so move second okay motion from FMA buyers Bailey second from Carol Sawyer all those in favor of the motion will you please raise your hands do we have any opposed all right Madam clerk the agenda is adopted by a vote of 8 to zero um our pledge leader this evening is our very own student adviser Briana Fowler so Briana please lead us i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all all right so we are pleased um to begin the meeting with a um one-hour workshop on

002student outcomes focused governance um very happy to have AJ crille with us to continue this ongoing work and he's with us in person tonight um rather than on Zoom so that's good to have you here Mr cray bill um and the floor is all yours excellent thank you madam chair it's a pleasure to get to be with you and as you've noticed in person this evening you've embarked on a journey toward focusing more of your time and attention to the matter of whether or not students are growing and what it is that they know and are able to do that sounds like an easy and obvious Journey but I assure you it is not and this evening is one of the more difficult steps along that path it's made difficult in part because you wear

003two different hats that this evening I'm going to challenge you to bring into collision and start the process of making decisions around which hat will bring more dominance to this deis on one side you have the role of elected officials your task is to convince the community that you can best represent their vision and values and and through such actually managed to get elected having served two terms of my local school board I I know a little bit of something about that uh I loved being elected official I loved the process of engaging with my community and and listening for their vision and values and and and trying to be driven by that simultaneously you wear a different hat that is a hat of a Schoolboard member the role of the school board member is

004similar and that the task is no longer to convince people that you will represent their vision and values but to actually do the job of representing their vision and values often these two hats these two rolls move in perfect Confluence but entirely too often they do not and it becomes the task of the body to determine where will our Focus be on convincing people that we're doing the job or on doing the job that is the nature of the conversation that we come to this evening our task is to look at your agendas to identify where opportunities uh to keep practices that are aligned with the vision and values that you represent to modify practices that are largely line but perhaps could be conducted in a more efficient manner or that could benefit from some

005enhanced alignment or to delete items from agendas items that while they probably have a tremendous amount of value May disrupt your ability to be as focused on the outcomes of your student students as you desire to be this evening we won't make any decisions this is not the time for making a hard and fast decision this is the time for starting a conversation about what changes are you going to make because if you've heard us say over and over student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change tonight starting with you so the nature of our task this evening uh which you all have had some amount of preparation for is to go through your a recent one of your agendas and to begin to try to identify to what extent does that represent an alignment

006with the vision and values of the community as you've described it so that requires two different things both of which you have at your desk on one hand it requires that you have access to the goals and guardrails that you've developed these are the rough drafts these are not final we don't pretend they are this is why I said we're certainly not making any decisions this evening but with these Draft before you what we'll do is we'll take the other document that you have which which is the agenda in the minutes from your June 22nd board meeting it begin to compare and contrast these so on one hand there the things that you have said represent the vision of this community the goals that are most important for you to focus on as part of

007your strategic planning and the alignment of adult Behavior throughout the school system as well as the guard rails that describe the values of this community that you believe most need to be protected and have to be honored on the journey to accomplishing the goals and so what we will do is step by step go through your June 22nd agenda to try to figure out where do these align fully something that we want to keep where do these not align perfectly so perhaps we want to modify it in some way where do they not align at all and we could find some other way to accomplish it in which case we may make the CH choice to delete it one ground rule just to set everyone's um Minds at rest before we begin the activity anytime

008you make the decision to modify or delete in this activity what you doing is making commitment that we are going to have to find another venue for that so there is nothing that can be discarded it can be deleted from the board's agenda but it nothing can be discarded it simply means that we're going to find another way to accomplish that just not in the context of a Schoolboard meeting uh one final note everybody wants to have priorities nobody wants to actually prioritize the nature of this evening's activity is certainly about sacrifice what are things that we are willing to do differently so that we can more fully lift up what's possible for our students that's the nature of the work but be clear it does not come without sacrifice and often the nature of

009that sacrifice then brings into conflict the two hats that you wear that of the elected official and that of the school board member with that as our Preamble let's dive into the work so what you have before you are the uh is the agenda from the June 22nd meeting you want to have that in front of you and again you want to have your draft goals and guard rails these are not adopted these are just the working draft that we have and what I want you to do is go to the very first item on my sheet it says adoption of agenda item 1A and what I want you to do is as you come to that first item uh I want you to write either a yes or a no next to that we're

010going to write a yes or no next to most of the things on here you'll write a yes if as you look at that item that as a result of that item you received additional data that describes the extent to which students have grown relative to the goals that you've identified so what you'll do is you'll look at this item adoption of agenda and you'll look at the draft goals one about early literacy one about secondary math proficiency one about post-secondary readiness one about student growth and you'll ask yourself as a result of this item do we of a board have more data more clarity around the extent to which students have grown relative to one of our goals so just to do this first one together this very first item 1A adoption of agenda

011is this item focused on student outcomes yes or no and why somebody talk to me no no no oh why do you say no it's a procedural thing it really has nothing to do with outcomes yeah it's a procedural thing and so all you do for this first round is that you would just indicate no next to it and then you go on to the next item um I would for the sake of this activity I would go through every single item uh every line on here and put a yes or a no next to each item from the June 22nd agenda if you need assistance with the instructions by the way the instructions for this entire activity are in this this document labeled completing a board agenda evaluation so the exact instruction I just

012gave you are also at your desk as well so take a moment and go through the June 22nd agenda and for each item just indicate yes or no as a result of this item this item is student outcomes focused yes or no it is not and in order to say yes to that what we mean by that is as a result of this item the board received additional data that described the extent to which students had grown relative to the goals of the board set for each item write a yes or a no give you a few moments to work including the individual consent agenda it absolutely do we have to the whole thing's no this will go very quickly it should shouldn't take you more than about a minute said no right yeah it's

013pretty easy activity working on expedience no to one through a n yeah cheat code here folks F if it takes you more than about 2 minutes to do this you're probably doing it wrong statutory this is more of a czy calendar we're done and give the board members a few more moments to work while I do so I recognize that uh not everyone in the gallery is up to speed one of the things that the board is doing is taking their strategic plan and just driving more intention more focus into it uh there's some evidence to suggest as boards behave this way uh they create greater alignment throughout the organization which increases the likelihood that is the board drives more intentional into student performance that that there's a greater likelihood the organization responds in in

014kind that the things that the board focuses on give rise to the things that the system as a whole focuses on and so your board has taken the incredibly responsible approach of saying how can we constantly grow like if this is a learning organization and we're challenging others to learn um let's demonstrate that let's lead by example by showing what it is to constantly learning grow ourselves and so um this is not usual you see a lot of elected officials Dodge an opportunity to you kind of publicly show their own growth process uh it's to be applauded that your board do not demonstrate that same cowardice all right so you've had a little bit of time to reflect on this um so we identified one a the answer to that was no U adoption agenda

015surprise surprise it didn't reveal any specific data for you um let's jump to uh the punchline on this for the sake of time uh who will give me uh uh who will give the first example of an item for which the answer to this question was yes uh who will give me one of these items that was focused on student outcomes it as a result of this item the board received additional information that describes the extent to which students are actually growing relative to your goals uh who will be the first to share which which one of these items uh did you put yes for we already identified at least one when you said no which which one of these items did you say yes for yeah th um I said or E might is

016a maybe I don't recall what was in the report but I think the report talked about what the students learned yeah I love how people always trying to color outside the lines on this one so was it a yes or no you put out a maybe got it so is you're trying to reflect on what was in that you're trying to remember was there specific data in there about student growth relative to your goals all right uh anybody else want to help out uh was there anybody else recall U receiving specific data about student growth and learning relative to your goals Rhonda uh so I had no for everything on the entire agenda from June 22nd okay no for everything why know for everything because we did not discuss those specific goals we did learn

017some we did statutory requirements which we have to do no matter what the report on community and student engagement was enlightening and was very informative on best practice but it really did not say because we got more families to come to our PTA meeting or our whatever student night that we're going to increase math Proficiency in our ninth graders there was nothing that identified specifically for me that said what we were doing it was it was very enlightening and it was I'm so thankful that we heard that presentation but as far as student outcome I don't believe in my opinion it wasn't but I'd love for my colleagues to convince me otherwise Rhonda offers a key insight and the Insight is that there is a very real distinction between conversations about what the adults are

018doing the adult inputs there's a very strong distinction between conversations about the adult inputs and student outcomes what it is that students actually know are able to do understand the school boards Across the Nation get drunk with conversations about what the adults are doing and never get around to the critical question did any of this make a bit of difference for our students in terms of what they know are able to do uh and so what I hear you describing is yes we got some really good information about the adult inputs but absent the context of its impact on student outcomes you'd indicate you'd suggest that no it was not actually student outcomes Focus got it uh Sean yeah thanks AJ just on 4E there are questions raised um perhaps by myself in terms of

019what students knew or were able to do both at the start of of Camp CMS and Midway through Camp CMS we just didn't have any answers at that point that's the closest we got to talk the closest we got so I heard you say that as I was receiving that report I was curious not only about the adult inputs but about the student outcomes but that was not inherent in the presentation we received nor did we as a result of the inquiry actually receive that at all we had some very preliminary data very very preliminary very preliminary uh marget and and I think that you know I I I'm I'm struggling as we are going through this and to the to the gallery we've been working on on what what the data means and when

020we get it and how we can do this when we don't have the data yet so so part of this I believe was the discussion of what those measurements are going to be and I do think that that's part of how we get our mindset there because then that is that is out in the community as to what we're looking for yeah I completely agree the time spent either monitoring ing progress uh relative to your goals or time spent actually setting your goals and your int metrics both would qualify as time really uh that's invested U into student outcomes and so to the extent that that is what you did I I would say that time spent setting your goals and time spent monitoring your goals both would qualify that being said because the nature

021of your goals tend to be 3 to 5 years uh in term generally speaking you only do goal setting once every 3 to five years and the rest of the time the primary activity that we refer to when we're asking is this really student outcomes focused is actually monitoring progress so yeah I think you'll get a one-time bump here in these next few months as you're setting but then over the next several years that goes away and either you were digging into the work of monitoring did something in reality change for children or not or you'd have to put a no next to everything and obviously like this this this we basically stood up I think it was the ninth largest school system in the state in a matter of weeks which is what camp

022CMS was so a new thing a new goal you these are things we have not really wrestled with before so a oneoff so to speak but I think it was sort of a good lesson in what we want a very short term what we want to see and then we know in a few weeks we're going to get that information and this was a report three weeks into right two weeks into into that so so I've heard a bunch of NOS maybe are there any hard yeses do we have any anybody want to go against the grain do we have any hard yeses that this item was clearly focused on student outcomes in June 22nd it had elements that were oh which one it it had elements that were I mean I wouldn't say if

023it was an hourlong report that one hour of that was about student outcomes let's quantify it um how much time was spent in this meeting on the 22nd just in the public session not any privileged sessions how much time did you all spend oh gosh I don't remember two and a half hours maybe two and a half hours maybe does it have time stamps on that uh two and a half hours we adjourned at 8:48 so that would be 2 hours and 48 minutes um was any of that time uh is that with or without public comment without without okay good so I when you're doing these activities don't count public comment uh that is kind of sacred and set apart uh that's in you don't actually have a choice relative to that that is

024fulfillment of State Statute we're really focusing on what are the things that you have a say about and so about uh 2 hours and 48 minutes um and so right now this is the key takeaway for the first time that we're doing this and this will become a habit that I encourage you to engage in at least once per quarter right now consider that for this particular board meeting the percentage of the time that was clearly invested in monitoring progress relative to what is it that students know and are able to do um in the areas of our goals sounds like it was somewhere almost certainly less than 5% potentially 0% the challenge before you is to show that these are your priorities by prioritizing your time around them generally speaking we encourage boards that

025want to demonstrate an intense Focus on student outcomes to try to spend upwards of half of their time really monitoring progress identifying to what extent are all of the things we're doing the money the community we are spending the community's money we are spending the children's time our encouragement to spend at least half of your time into inquiring into the question is any of it actually making a difference in the lives of the students that we serve and that that behavior really more than almost anything else that you do together as a board at this day begins to create the culture of alignment and focus around the things that you say matter most said differently as a member of the staff this agenda tells me what you think my job should be and right now

026the message that would be very easy for staff to take away is as long as I'm doing all the right adult input stuff then the board's going to be okay with that that's that's the message that I fear uh is sent your way of solving for that then is to begin to modify and adjust how you spend time to put forward more focus on student outcomes to accomplish that though we're going to have to modify this because the answer of getting to 50% Focus isn't let's have a meeting that's twice six hours folks let's have a six-h hour long meeting that is the answer that's the solution that is not what I offer you imagine that you're spending 3 hours in meetings right now my challenge to you is to continue spending 3 hours or

027less in meetings but then to dedicate at least half of that to are we actually getting it done for our students so to get to that part you're going to have to decide which things to keep which things to delete and which things to modify keep delete modify here's the next part of the activity so you've put a y or an a yes or a no next to every item on here now what I want you to do is I want you to go back through and next each of those yeses and NOS put either a keep which means we're going to keep it exactly the way it is whether it's focused on student outcomes or not some things you just want to keep even though they're not focused that's fine if we're talking about

028spending half of your time on student outcomes that means we're still going to spend half of our time on a bunch of other things and so there's perfectly reasonable to keep a lot of stuff but you can only keep about half of it so your next task is next to every yes or no put either keep it delete it or modify it keep delete or modify I'll give you a few moments to work what if it statutorily required that then you'll have to decide if you want to keep it delete or to modify yes I'll just keep and why keep I do not endorse jail time yes ma'am and I don't mean to dump the gun um if you're going to speak at all about guard rails I mean I know specifically you didn't just

029mention those now but it does appear to me and thinking about that meeting that a lot of the things we discussed did touch on guard rails but of course that's not goals you you are quite uh perceptive the thing that matters most school systems don't exist right uh to accomplish the guard rails school systems exist to accomplish the goals while they are doing that they have to honor the guard rails the intention here is to spend half of our time really diving into are we making a difference in terms of what students know and able to do and then the other half of the time what are all the other things we have to do which is includes being sure that we are honoring the values of the community in the process and so that

030has to be part of that other 50% um but how much of that it is that's that's a y'all decision the first step is to figure out what do we going to keep delete or modify in this June 22nd just as an obal lesson what would we keep delete or modify for each item take a few more minutes and then we'll we'll dive into it keep whether it's student outcomes focused or not delete it which doesn't mean that it goes away it just means it it moves into a different form outside of the board meeting so maybe maybe you're getting a presentation on you know how sharp the pencils are this week and instead of doing that at a board meeting maybe we can do that as an email gets sent to you so we're

031we're not nothing is abolished is just moved to a different form it's deleted off of this agenda keep it deleted or modified maybe there's something that we're doing that takes 15 minutes we can get it done in five and we can save that extra 10 minutes to actually focus in on are we getting work done for children in reality rather than just being mesmerized by all the shiny things adults have been doing lately focus it more on go that's what yeah keep delete modify I can't see modify and that would be the modification that we change what's actually reported I don't think so we have to actually specifically mention and we should ask that myter give you another minute keep it delete it modify it one of the things you'll want to do as you're

032going through this activity is just keep it running tly did I suggest enough deletions or modifications to free up at least half of the time to focus on student outcomes if you didn't maybe you want to go back through and be a little bit more aggressive with deletions and modifications if we're going to be focused on what's possible for our students that requires sacrificing some of what we currently do to begin behaving in a new way student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change keep delete or modify all right so let us start with item 1 a because it's always easy to start with easy ones so um last time I heard us say that there that this was not aligned uh it was not student outcomes focused as a result of adopting the agenda

033we didn't get more data about how students are actually doing in reality so now the question is we've clarified it's not student outcomes focused so now the question is do you want to keep it deleted or modified what say you keep keep uh J why keep um because it's it's required we have to adopt it agenda at the beginning of the meeting got it uh how long does it usually take 30 seconds 30 seconds mhm got it uh anybody else we've got to keep anybody else keep the leader modify anybody have a different answer I agree all right um not because I'm making a recommendation but just to give you some examples uh when I I had another board that ran through this activity this keep delete modify um and they got real serious like

034and we got to we got to grab like every 15sec chunk of time that we possibly can preserve so that we can you know drive a focus on stud outcomes and so they came to this exact same item adoption of agenda they said is there any way we could modify this you know so that we're spending even less time on it like you know what could we possibly do um and what they want up doing is you know the board chair totally legit uh what would happen and the meeting starts up she look around the Dan all right is there anyone opposed to or plan to abstain from the agenda adoption none all right agenda is adopted next item they went from like 30 seconds down to like 15 seconds it it seems like a

035tiny thing it's not what I'm recommending to you but I'm just putting it out there as an example of you want to get really really stingy about every single moment that you can invest in what is happening in the lives of your students and so don't underestimate the power of 1530 you know second savings over the course of a three-hour meeting they will in fact add up uh let's go to uh let's how long do you spend on the consent agenda again it's just like 20 seconds unless someone pulls an item for individual consideration interesting oh and then the superintendent also pulls Personnel appointments so that he can recognize publicly Personnel appointments right after it usually I would say that it takes five minutes all right so consent agendas ranging from 20 seconds to 5

036minutes we have some variation here shows you my sense of time yeah so this this is interesting uh so again not making recommendations but giving you some insight into what other boards before you have done traveling the same Journey um uh one particular board that I'm thinking of they made the decision that we don't want to spend any more than 20 seconds on our consent agenda uh but they trying to figure out how how will we accomplish that their uh their way of accomplishing that was they simply modified how their board operat and they said here's what we're going to do board members are going to get all the materials 10 to 14 days in advance and then they're going to have time to ask questions of the superintendent superintendent will gather them all you

037know send back answers for all those and then three days before the board meeting board members if there's anything they want pulled from consent at that time they do so uh if anything is not pulled doesn't get pulled at the night we don't make any changes to consent agenda at the day uh what happens happens what doesn't happen doesn't happen uh but we're putting an onus on board members doing their homework before the board meeting that's one one board did and it did it reduced what for them was very similar they'd spend 20 minutes or so on a consent agenda down to very consistently it's about a 10-second consent agenda U but that was a modification they didn't delete um but they modified they said let's change our practices it's going to put more onus

038on us to take personal responsibility in advance of meetings but that allows us to dedicate more time for students during meetings that's an example of somebody taking the same IDE sent agenda item and doing a modification uh that created some consistency around how long do these items take now obviously in their case they weighed the pros and cons the con is if you didn't do your homework well then you're kind of up a creek uh the con is if there are last minute items the board simply said we don't do last minute items superintendent you need to be organized in your work and bring it to us next month but we're not going to do this last minute items shown up on the agenda if we didn't have it 10 days in advance when not

039contemplating it U so there were pros and cons uh you know that created some more static nature of the administration's work they had less flexibility but they decided that was more important to go that route rather than to have board meetings continue in ways that weren't really lifting up what's possible for students and so that's an example of what one board did to modify so just consider even in something as static as a consent agenda be explicit about how do we focus every possible moment uh let's jump past that down to report we'll do I think one or two more here uh report on budget amendment 4A uh keep delete modify what' you come up with keep as it statutorily required and that's one where it's it's literally I just say now we will do

040return report on budget amendments for May 2021 I'll return to the superintendent for this report and he says as presented and then we're done we're on to the next one it's uploaded into board documents for the public to see we have to present both of those ISS and I believe Mr Jeter we do have to present those two budget amendments separately for statutory requirements correct May 2021 vers and June 20 like I'm not the attorney I think it's important to separate them you you I don't know that that's stat 30 seconds but yeah and so normally how much time do you spend on those 30 seconds yeah and so U again even in situations like that what I'd be looking for is what can we do that can maximize the amount of transparency and accountability

041we're bringing to these statutorily required items but in ways that don't necessarily add to uh time spent in board meetings and so if there are ways to provide more information for the community more detail but then to provide that in advance of board meetings uh then that helps make it easier for you not to feel as if you have to dive into those during board meetings U that could be a modification uh let's jump down to academic calendar process presentation of 4C what did you come up with keep delete modify delete Carol did was that you saying delete why delete um because I I think um it was the presentation it doesn't reflect our goals and it um I think it I think there are other ways we could present that information that would be

042um as impactful and take and not take board time gotcha so we could still get the information we could still have the impact of it uh but in a way that doesn't necessarily require a lot of board time got it anyone else keep delete modify what do you think I think it should be modified why modify I think it should be modified because for example one of our goals State we want to increase our math one EOC yeah and if we look at the calendar for example we were talking with some of the superintendent staff it's shown that if we have finals before winter break then our students are more proficient before if I mean if we have our finals after winter break so if we discuss some things like that when we're looking at

043the calendar and we look at specific dates I think think that would show our student outcomes and changing what we're originally doing but I do not think that it should be as long as it was so that's how long was it by the way it's been a long we spent a long time on it I mean because the board asked a whole bunch of questions all right so that is a key right there yeah so you said that about consent agenda we get the consent agenda the week before we do yeah yet we of us many like to pontificate about items on the consent agenda and pull them elected officials pontificate have never this is new to me shocking I know it's shocking but they like to pull items especially to highlight things to their

044particular constituents like a HVAC repair at one of the schools that's been having complaints so they like to highlight that so the public knows that that's in the agenda or we will pull and find out what the percentage of minority and business owned what women-owned businesses are on the contracts we tend to do that a lot all right so so here here's the agreement that I told you we were going to make at the beginning of this nothing simply goes away but if we're going to make modifications to something or we're going to delete it then we still have to capture the value of that elsewhere so what are other ways that we could approach this that would still allow for that value that board members are experiencing but with without taking up so much

045time of the board meeting time that could be devoted to our students actually learning yeah Marg what do you think well I think one of the things we do when and we've got a lot of folks in the gallery tonight that we're going to recognize later because they've got some new new jobs um out a bunch of them yay we send out a press release about that um and so I would think that some of these things we could send out that as a press release in terms of a board update a board update a very Qui and be ready to do that as as as an EV and put this on the consent agenda so then then that hits then but then it's triggered to um have an announcement and probably have a little

046more context within that announcement as to the issues there and we've already we've raised those we and and hopefully through this process our questions can be documented in some way so that the public can see that as well because I keep it transparent absolutely be transparent we want people to understand while we're asking things because often times they send us questions and then we're we're using those questions to ask of staff so again there are ways to do that and I appreciate that I think we'll have to be one of those things could be a press release some of these things could be voted on in consent the The public's going to have to be working with us to get the information in a different way but I think they can do that I like

047this there's no reason the calendar presentation couldn't have been an as presented right yeah and then the executive summaries popped into board documents that you can link from our agenda page so the viewing public can pull it up and look at the calendar presentation and how the calendar was developed we have a lot of things frankly that I like the executive summaries I'm not the 14 page 27 page you know slide deck person so we have a lot of stuff that the executive summaries could be as presented and loaded into board docs to streamline but then what that necessitates for my colleagues is a website that's very user friendly intuitive and and accessible and transparent all the good things that a website has to be that is not what ours is now I I I

048appreciate um the ideas that are being lifted up and I'm hoping they're resonating across the day since I I mean we've all been to that meeting where at the end of it you like this could have been an email y'all um and so what I hear you saying we we got this presentation this could have been a press release um U something I saw another District do um and if I haven't offended any of you yet this is one of my best opportunities to do so um is they had this Pomp and Circumstance kind of routine that they did uh where they kind of trotted you know students down in front of the deas and said look this you know this is a student in my region and you know here's all the great things

049they've done and so on and so forth um and when the board actually reflected on it they realized they weren't actually glorifying the students so much as is really glorifying the work that the board member did and that if this if they were really trying to create a cont text in where the student felt lifted up here's the Insight they had if we really wanted this student to experience being lifted up and acknowledged where would we do that at their school at their school like no shade on y'all but students for the most part probably aren't seeking your approval as much as they are the approval of their peers and and I would say often it's the same case with teachers and principles like I'm sure they adore you all infinitely I could be wrong

050but in the event that I'm correct then it could be more powerful if what you're really wanting is that people have the experience of being honored take it away from your des and go to their house you know um you know take it to their school um and so there are ways to modify things that are happening here that still hold the value we really want to lift students up but that don't kind of tokenize and turn students into props you know for uh elected official benefit but they really lift them up and honor them in ways that really resonate for the person receiving the honoring I would distinguish that from if what you wanted to do was monitor third grade literacy and as part of that report you wanted to you brought out hey

051here are the 10 third graders in the district who show the most growth we want to recognize them but we also want to get a chance to hear from them hey kind what worked for you that you grew more than all the other third graders in CMS you know this past month and let them share a little bit like that starts to feel actually aligned to the goals but more more often than not a lot of the a lot of the dog and pony show isn't aligned to your work as board members as much as it's aligned to your work as elected officials and and I would just submit yeah do it find ways to get the value of that but just find ways to do it outside of a board meeting let this be

052the place for lifting up what's possible for students you know not what looks great for adults uh any other thoughts keep delete modify on this item about the calendar any other thoughts on that before we move on uh what item did you spend the most time on we'll do one more which item did you spend the most time on June 22nd possibly either D or E I don't remember either D or E uhhuh either the community family and Community engagement report or the camp CMS report all right did anybody have um a very firm not a maybe but a really firm yes on either of those items all right so the these were either NOS or maybe so first let's think about modify um I'm I'm actually going to make the push for a potential

053delete on these but let's stick with it for a second and talk about modify what's a way you could modify these that either would leave them in their current form but just take less time or would modify them from the current form to actually be focused on the outcomes of your students what's a way that you could modify either of these items that would actually either free up time for focus on student outcomes or that would cause the item itself to be more focused on student outcomes what I did do you have perhaps we could talk about what students know and can do yeah that that' be a breakthrough that'd be a breakthrough uh and so particularly um I don't know what that looks like for 4D but yeah for 4E I think you could

054absolutely um have it and and often what happens is folks you're just looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope instead of looking at it from here are all the adult behaviors oh and by the way we hope the children will benefit from them start with here are the outcomes we expect for students and here are the things we did and uh and based on the data that we have here's what worked and didn't work and and that's an entirely appropriate conversation to have but it's because the grounding the foundation for it is in what is happening in reality for students and as detail to help bring context of that we talk about what the adults are doing as opposed to conversations that are all about here's what the adults are doing and

055by the way we you know surmise that it may have some impact at some point down the road and so you know what Sean lifts up is is absolutely the pivot if I was going to try to modify 4E I would say what are our goals we have a goal around early literacy and secondary math proficiency and I'd start there where are we at with these issues right now what's the data say about this uh for our students who and then for our students who participated in Camp CMS what difference did we actually see made for them relative to our goal for ear literacy and our goal for secondary math proficiency notice how different what I just described what Sean alluded to and what I described notice how different that is from what you actually

056wind up doing um but that difference is the difference in the culture that you create either you are telling people that we reward adults for doing stuff or the rewards in this system the the accolades that the board has to offer the attention that the board gives is really reserved for did we move the needle and what students know are able to do the difference in how you position those conversation matters either it's focused on student outcomes first and then the things adult did are the secondary concept or it's what I suspect this item was all about here's what the adults did yeah Carol I think one of the modifications that we would need to make for for 4E the Camp CMS report is is when that report is presented because it was presented before

057we had data so it was a you know this is what's going to happen this is what we've started to do rather than an end yeah this this is a really important note is that for the board to really have its role fulfilled you actually have to have some data about what's working and not working for students and so instead of having this conversation kind of at the very beginning or early on when you don't have data it does suggest absolutely that the timing of this would be near the end of it or after it's over entirely when we actually have data that describes either this worked to move the needle on our goals or it didn't what would be the value of the board having the conversation after Camp's entirely over what would be

058why would that still be valuable if we if it's after the Camp's over how to do it better next year this starts to inform long-term planning and that is truly the function of governance as governance is always future focused is what is the benefit for our community that we're trying to create going forward uh the job of management is to really be looking at the Here and Now what's happening right now What emergencies right now what fire do you have to put out right now but the job of you as a governing team is really to be future focused what difference are we trying to create for students and we accomplish that in part by looking backwards and figure out what did we do that actually worked and didn't work and let that inform superintendent

059says hey look uh we loved Camp CMS our staff loved it it was great but as we look at the data it didn't actually move the needle for any of our children we can't do this again right now I don't think you know the answer to that I think it's very possible the camp CMS made no difference whatsoever for children you have no idea whether that's true next year you could be presented with Camp CMS because the adults loved it having no insight into the reality that it didn't change anything for children at all that's the situation you put yourselves in when you're focused on the adult inputs rather than student student outcomes I'm certainly I hope that camp CMS was as amazing as our students needed it to be what I'm saying is I

060don't know that and neither do you and that's a problem that's a problem yeah Carol I mean in in defense of the report we were told what the goals were what the expectations would be for students to achieve during Camp CMS we just didn't have outcomes data um at that point and we won't have that data for a few more weeks I think yeah here's why that's not as valuable as it sounds cuz you've already told you you're in the process of telling your Administration what the goals are so you should never need a pre-report to tell you what the goals are your job is to tell the administration what the goals are and then their job is to go figure out how to get it done and so don't be persuaded by the idea

061that let's get a let's get a report in advance to tell us what the goals are if the goals are anything other than the goals that you adopted your superintendent is not doing the job um and so what you really need is either something in the middle that shows progress or something at the end that tells you what the results were um and so pivoting this instead of receiving it in June maybe receiving it in August uh you know in the future makes more sense after you've got the data back and then your superintendent's in a better position to say this really worked we're doing it again next year this worked in some areas failed in others here's the transition we're making and here's what we're going to do differently next year like that is

062that is a more powerful conversation for you to have in your governance role yeah Elise in terms of the um report D the family and Community engagement yeah it so could that have be modified to say okay here are these goals from the Strategic plan and here are the family engagement actions that we're taking or Investments that we're making that we believe will impact those goals not really um what you really want to do is focus focus focus on the goal as a lens for the work uh not the adult actions as a lens for the work so I hear where you're coming it's and that honest to be fair that would be a superior modification that that would be moving you in the right direction but if you really want to go the full

063distance I I I would say no don't stop at the halfway point I would figure out a way to modify it into minimalism or something else entirely um that that allows your focus to be more on what are we actually in or if you've if you've actually already spent an hour and a half on monitoring student outcomes maybe this is one of those things that you do spend the other hour and a half on and you say hey we want to keep this exactly as it is we just can't let it be more important in our use of time than whether our children are actually learning that's all and so there are some things like that you may say this is so important we're going to keep it and we know it's going to take

064up half an hour um but we've know we've got a hour and a half to burn so we're going to burn half an hour of that into this and we're still going to protect that hour and a half to talk about student performance and growth uh and so that that there isn't like one this is the only right answer uh but it is a matter of putting the big rocks in the jar first you're monitoring your student outcomes the performance of what students don't are able to do and then sprinkling in all the other smaller rocks and the sand and the water after that all right so we have gone through uh an agenda evaluation we've talked through is it focus on student outcomes yes or no uh we talked through do you want to

065keep it deleted or modified uh what's one this work is going to be what I start working with your board leadership team on for board meeting agendas that you're going to start setting you'll really won't have all of your goals and guardrails and metrics in place for a few more months but you can start the process now of making minor changes to current agendas that start to move you in that direction and so as kind of your exit ticket for this conversation if there is one one change that you'd be open to being made between now and January because we probably won't make the big change until uh the beginning of the new year uh but if there's one change that you'd be open to making something you'd be open to deleting or modifying uh

066between now and January to get you already on the path to being more focused on student outcomes what would that change be and we'll just uh let's just start over here with Ronda let's just go around you know the days hear some thoughts and then uh we'll include our time if you were going to make one change or one modification uh that you'd be comfortable making between now and January to the agendas to try to get more focused what might that one change or modification be adult outcome reports will be presented as an executive summary and uploaded into the agenda for the public to read yeah so things that talking about adult inputs and outputs we're going to have those available um in a way that's available for the public and for board to ask

067questions but we're but they're going to be for information only not going to spend a ton of time on them got it if you're going to delete or modify one thing Jen what would it be mine is similar um and I'm struggling a little bit because I do enjoy the presentations and I use them to I'll cut bits and pieces of them and and send them out to my constituents when they have questions about what's going on with this or that I'm like well as a matter of fact last night we spent an hour on this you know to give them more information and so I do enjoy that however this morning I had opportunity on a call there was a question about our High School uh new High School curriculum implementation in our board

068update we had been given two videos one on our math and one on our new Ela presentation and I cut and pasted that in the chat on the zoom call the point being instead of spending time developing the report for this maybe that time could be spent in doing the video like for our new High School curriculum and I could still do that to get information in the hands of constituents because people want that they want details they want information and sometimes we use our board meetings to provide that which I think is a good thing but it could be done in a different way different way got it so similar but yes I like that Miss Jones oh I was out I didn't complete this okay Margaret i i in terms of of ordering

069some things I really want our monitoring to be very front and center first thing we do uh at the top of the agenda so I i' move monitoring to the top of the agenda love that love that that's where I'm going F I think I would like for our the things that we are required to do by law to be condensed um if if there are an action item then uh we should review it prior to the meeting and just vote on it but not delay it debate it argue about it explain it allowd that's part of the requirement for public meetings to allow board members to discuss and deliberate when you are making I mean that's Robert's Rules of Order Andrea I can't hear yeah so so one of the things that sounds like

070it's important is just to make sure that items that require uh the board to uh meet and confer deliberate on them uh that that is still preserved within the agenda is am I understanding that correctly that's correct yeah and so look for any modifications that we can that condense the time in ways that don't have us wearing orange jumpsuits next week got it Elise um I I'm comfortable with um reports being emailed um and moving um monitoring reports to the top of the agenda and you know any way that we can you know save 30 seconds here 30 seconds there if there are any of those tactics we can roll in I'm comfortable with that too arest any ades yes I would uh make sure that each agenda item corresponds to one of the board

071goals and I would have that reflected on the agenda to show alignment yeah demonstrate alignment in our agenda items got it got I would maintain the topic of interest at the time and one reinforce um staying on topic for our board members and then two that was not shade and then two um maybe having a time time limit of how long you speak so then we can convin our board meeting time I have to do that she said break out the clock y'all fing time limits got it uh by the way a number of other boards have done that say hey let's uh everybody take two minutes Max on this and then we'll decide as a body if we want to do a second round of two minutes and so there are a lot of

072different ways the boards have done that so it's not entirely uh not entirely outside the realm of possibility shot so we need to focus on monitoring we've talked about that and um the extent to which we can get that as close to when the data is available yes because um there's there's State timelines for data availability we've got data ahead of when it's formally published by the state but then it's embargoed but we need to get that data into our monitoring process as soon as possible to advise our decisions got it thank you Carol um I I liked your idea of making the consent agenda uh truly a consent agenda and and not allowing items to be pulled except for well in advance um and I think there are ways to communicate the some of

073the good news items in consent with a press release or other other uh Avenue uh well I appreciate you taking the time to walk through this uh conversation uh as I say at the top of our time together student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change starting with the school board thank you for your time thank you AJ thank you all right that was efficient thank everybody thank thank you to everyone for for joining us for that exercise um we're now going to move to requests from the public and the rules are as follows 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

074matters 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 cut off any speaker who violates these rules and I'm going to call some individuals down we've got podiums on either side I'll call a few names at a time so you can come down and be ready first up we have Stacy Stags who's already in position because she knows the drill and then we've got Nicole Ria and then we've got a group of Jennifer Thompson Lisa O'Brien and Laura Isel so miss dags you have the floor thank you parental rights have never included biot terrorism sending unknowingly infected and contagious people to mingle and infect others is biot Terrorism it was the exact plot of the terrorist in season

075one of Jack Ryan great show so you all sound ridiculous is that that's where I'm going I want to thank the board for your 8 to one vote to require masks current CDC guidelines state that masks must be worn appropriately and consistently but removing the mask for lunch means nobody would meet that criteria following the guidelines with Fidelity means skyrocketing quarantine numbers Union Academy has 50 52 covid positive cases and 600 in quarantine that's a third of their student population this April niage director testified to Congress that long covid symptoms are showing at about 10 to 15% of kids who've survived the acute infection in mecklinburg County alone there have been 12878 kids and that's the floor we know the number is at least that high which means between 1,200 and 2,000 kids are already

076affected with long Co symptoms Alysa Simons Alysa Simons was a rising sophomore at North Mech high school and among the 4,000 not neg negligible cases of misc before she passed away this summer at age 15 Alyssa assignments was not eligible for the vaccine yet long-term impacts are going to change the landscape of everything this year thank you thank you okay Nicole Ria and then we've got the group of Miss Thompson Miss O'Brien and Miss eel thank you so this board voted to make Mass mandatory in CMS last last week your decision is highly unethical I'm here to hold you accountable for for that mask use for viral transmission pre prevention is authorized for emergency use only if the board or members of the community watching do not know what this means please look it up

077in short emergency use authorization by the FDA means the products are investigational and experimental only let me repeat the FDA has deemed mask as production from covid is experimental that's because they can't prove that they are effective now I know what you're thinking but the science says the data says the media says any statistician will tell you that the data can be manipulated to show you anything you want what is important to know is where is that data coming from and whether the studies were conducted with control groups without control groups you can't prove your hypothesis for example the study that the CDC is using to publish their recommendation for Mass wearing in schools is fundamentally flawed mainly there is no control group the study relied on self-reporting and admittedly has low response rates and

078missing information for everyone who keeps saying to follow this sence science I suggest you do just that we are following the science While others just follow the media the right to refuse experimental products is the basis basic right of Being Human and is determined under the nurmberg code the nurmberg code is a standard Physicians must conform Mis conform to for carrying out experiments on humans I suggest you Google it for more information it's very informative because of this code the emergency use authorization of mass is strictly voluntary for each person the use of experimental products mass and vaccines cannot be forced upon the principle of voluntary informed consent is that it's the right of the individual to control his own body it is not the government's right or yours to force your control and fear

079over my child's body for any reason thank you all right so now we have Jennifer Thompson Lisa O'Brien and Laura EO and then after them the next speaker will be Megan carlani and then Michelle Moore every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum currently our District's goal is not reflecting a majority of its constituents morals and values if it were we would not be here each month having long tense board meetings this school year curriculum with radical views about racism privilege and power have been introduced from Top down and are resonating into our classrooms Mr Winston you recently made claims that our district isn't teaching or promoting critical race Theory principles that left us really confused at Ru Kel and other high schools last spring there

080was just shy of 20 social justice lessons presented during social emotional learning that were full of principles such as white privilege oppression inherit bias and systemic racism these lessons were created by your counselors and psychologists employed by CMS we'd really like to understand why these lessons were not considered in your statement you've also stated that you will continue to educate your teachers and staff about these topics we were very curious how this has been trickling down into our schools and it didn't take us long to find an example this February one high school school Improvement team discussed how to make the distribution of AP courses more Equitable by limiting the number of courses overachieving students can take so that other less represented students can take them specifically African-American boys if critical race Theory principles are

081not currently being promoted in our school district why not discuss hiring more AP teachers so that all the students can take the desired number of courses it seems very clear that this situation represents one in which race was determined to be the sole reason for unequal outcomes and it is exactly what critical race theory in education looks like it is our understanding that our high schools will be using seven mindsets for for social emotional learning this year their seal Equity curriculum is very similar to the one mentioned earlier and contains lessons specifically centered around racial Injustice and activism our children are still trying to understand their own identities as well as their political and economic surroundings using social justice lessons to encourage them to march protest and resist political issues perfectly aligns with ibra X

082ky's definition of an anti-racist or one who is actively fighting racism through social justice activism it also goes directly against the CMS political activity policy we're advocating today for the exclusive use of curriculum that unifies our students and emphasizes our common Humanity one that is not undeniably tied to a political party's platform this includes not only third party curriculum and District created lessons but also the instructional Direction This District takes when striving to meet its goals it has has become clear to us that your constituents are not in agreement over the instructional Direction occurring right now rather than continue to stand up here at board meetings and argue our position we'd really like to propose a solution curriculum that serves the public should never be solely determined by one individual nor by handpicked employees with

083only a board vote it should contain input from the community it serves therefore we'd like to propose the creation of an academic advisory committee the purpose of this committee would be to review and analyze the instructional Direction the district takes review new curriculum and instructional programs ensure that we are in alignment with state and federal legislation and provide recommendations as appropriate to the board the committee should contain community members from all districts as well as board members and or CMS staff many school districts around the nation have successfully implemented similar committees to ensure alignment with its constituent morals and values we sincerely hope that you will take this proposal seriously and we will be contacting each of you over the next few weeks to set up a time to discuss in more detail good evening

084our family moved here two years ago and we chose this school district because of the top rate at high school we now regret that decision this spring we moved our Rising eighth grader out of CMS at that time at that time we decided to keep our Rising 10th grader in CMS with the hopes that he would finally get to have a normal high school experience yesterday Illustrated the total dichotomy between my son's two schools we picked up our younger son from a new student event where kids were engaging with each other laughing having a good time just being kids and not a single one was wearing a mask last night I attended attended a CMS parent athlete meeting at our high school where the mood was somber everyone's face was hidden behind a mask and

085there were more questions than answers as to whether Sports would even be taking place what should have been an evening of making new connections and being excited about a new opportunity for my son was a heartbreaking realization that it will be another year in which my son will be robbed of a normal high school experience I have one son enrolled in a school where I can confidently say that they are 1,000 commit per committed to keeping students in person which They Se successfully did all last year and they are equally committed to giving students as much normaly as possible they are giving parents the freedom to make critical medical decisions for our children and have a detailed plan on how to manage covid in stark contrast I have zero trust and there is is zero

086transparency in CMS we are essentially being forced to play a game where the goalpost is continually moving and it's a lose lose situation for our kids this school board has decided they know how to parent better than we do and the district has become a dictatorship so parents get involved to know what's happening in your schools hold this board accountable for its decisions and demand better for our children children thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you all right so now we have Nidan carolini uh sorry carlani and then Michelle Moore and then Bob Stein hi I'm Megan carani um I'm going to go off script here for a second just in response I want to say thank you guys thank you very much for requiring masks Senor schools I

087run an organization called lone covid families it's an advocacy group for families with children with long Co I'm also part of long covid Alliance which again is an advocacy group for people with long Co no masks huh I know children that were a personally know children and work with children that were athletes that are now using Walkers they had no underlying conditions I know children who now have seizures who had no underlying conditions I get phone calls from mothers devastated because their child is now disabled and they need to be guided through how do I contact the school to get accommodations this is all new to me these are conversations I have day in and day out because we're talking thousands 10 to 15% of children look at the co number of children right now

088and all around the country the adults are doing nothing in so many places so I thank you for requiring masks but I do want to bring to your attention that I am really worried about the lunchroom and what to do about the lunchroom because the most likely place for a child to contr track the virus is when eating a meal with another Co is Airborne it can travel from one end of the room to the other social distancing does not matter it's the ventilation and the air flow that's going to dictate where that virus goes the virus can stay in the air for 4 hours with the new viral load of the Delta variant what used to take 15 minutes research now shows you can get the virus contract the virus within one second all

089right Michelle Moore and then Bob steans and then Ryan Elkins thank [Applause] you go right ahead my name is Michelle Moore I'm speaking on behalf of fair the foundation against intolerance and racism racism is real Prejudice is real but we urge you to reject the divisive and racialist curriculum that CMS is now in rcing this intolerant ideology is damaging to our children's academic psychological and emotional development by implementing this regressive ideology with no proof the concept is effective you will instead move us backwards towards division instead of forwards towards a greater understanding of fairness within our community I'm a graduate of Independence High School class of 89 I loved my experience at CMS and I L the diversity of my classmates for that I chose to keep my four children in this public school system

090because I believed it was the best way to prepare them for their Futures now our educational system is facing a crisis that demands courage on behalf of this board to fight against the activist forces who are pushing radical agendas this isn't a conflict about teaching I believe in providing a fair and balanced accounting of History I also believe in providing our children with a sense of hope hope and optimism by teaching our children that the most important thing about them is their skin color you're stealing the the ability for children to be curious about each other curiosity directly aligns with continuous learning if we want to create a truly inclusive and nurturing learning environment for all we should focus on what we have in common so we can transcend these differences and create bonds of

091trust and understanding as we continue to Grapple with the difficult issues in our community thank you for your time uh Bob steans then Ryan Elkins and then Christy Wade yeah thank you um so I just did an observation like I did the last two meetings I noticed two of you walked in without your mask and then put your mask on as if Co was waiting for the meeting to start um three months three months now we've been preaching to you guys sending you information explaining the science showing you the facts about masks I think it's very clear they don't work so all you people here wearing a mask sorry to inform you that but they don't protect you um regarding covid um typically the children are not the ones that get it or spread it

092and they're not going to spread it to Grandma and Grandpa either um any healthy child basically that were to get Co would basically have a 0% chance of dying from Co um we know that it affects mainly the elderly and those that are have Co morbility you might want to Lo know that in Alberta Canada there's a recent Canadian patriot who was um in court and he uh required the prosecution to prove that Co actually exists and actually provide an isolation of Co and they could not do it so um everything is completely now wide open in Alberta Canada thanks to the fact that uh they can't prove that we are dealing with something here that supposedly exists there's plenty of studies the German study at 25,000 kids reported U ma showed masks wearing for

093four and a half hours where the kids had headaches and dizziness and drowsiness and lack of concentration well ironically there's a leading European neurologist who who actually uh had mentioned that this creates oxygen deficit and carbon dioxide and uh some of the uh warning signs are those headaches and dizziness and drowsiness and reduced concentration that the German study had already said Thank you a Ryan Elkins Christy Wade and Megan oo do we have Ryan Elkins no Ryan Elkins okay Christy Wade and then after Christy Wade we have Megan oconnell and then Alex shapira go ahead Miss Wade oconnell oh you're o Connell okay do we have Christy Wade okay we don't so go ahead Miss oono I think we can all agree our goal is to inspire Empower and set our kids up to be

094successful people recognizing that regardless of how much debate we have we're all going to disagree on some level on how issues are taught but we also have to recognize that our teachings have to be rooted in facts historical accuracy and most importantly taught in an age appropriate manner I don't think anyone here disagrees with developing a curriculum that dives deeper into uncomfortable truths of of American history Native Americans African-Americans Japanese Americans during World War II they all faced horrific oppression and these lessons should never be forgotten developing a curriculum rooted in facts and historical accuracy that high Rel Ates many Untold Stories of how African-Americans changed our country would enrich our children's lives what is not based on facts or theories behind what is called CRT whatever the intentions are in this teaching we should

095recognize that it could lead to feelings of guilt shame and an oppressor vers victim mentality these kids come from incredibly diverse backgrounds of beliefs and cultures it is impossible to fit this social construct into a lesson plan that will help this broad range of students I'd like to leave you with a few very important questions can you as the school board members spe specifically Define what and how it is being taught have you considered the possible negative impact on our kids and how this will be addressed will teachers be held accountable if they stray from facts and push their misconstrued opinions on our children can you as a board clearly articulate how this instructional method is going to close the achievement gaps and at what cost you failed to proactively address the these questions and

096concerns which is creating an immense distrust in the relationship between parents and schools your passive approach demonstrates your lack of leadership and short-sighted eagerness to conform to the current social Trend let me be clear your silence is deafening and we expect more thank you all right now we have Alex shapira followed by the group of Melanie Holland Jason Conrad and sud Conrad good evening CMS board members we the parents are here to remind you of something that you have clearly forgotten you do not own the moral or the intellectual High Ground you do not know better than the rest of us you have overstepped your place against us as parents with regard to our children and the intellectual and character values that we seek to impart to them as well as the health decisions that

097are best for us as families and individuals and that are based in facts not politicized Hysteria you have overstepped your place against us as the electorate and the taxpayers nearly half of all property taxes go to funding local education and no one wants that to include an ideologically driven curriculum that is divisive and abusive of both students and teachers you have overstepped your place against teachers who know bullying when they encounter it and will not participate in being victims of it or allow students to be subjected to it either especially in the form of so-called inclusion diversity and Equity education there are many teachers capable of teaching factual US history and they know the difference between teaching for the purpose of empowering students with true critical thinking skills versus indoctrination in ideology that does not

098seek redress and aspirational progress but instead Revenge degradation and Chaos many teachers also recognize the inappropriateness and outright harm done to little ones and inherent and supposed gender fluidity sadly you have lost sight of what it is to actually serve the children the families and the communities of CMS you have made yourselves the Willing tools of political actors race swindlers imbalanced gender ideologues and party to actual authoritarianism you would do better to listen to us your constituency we the parents who can clearly see the divisive and abusive Ive nature of the policies and curriculum that you're currently enacting we are letting you know stop we do not accept this all right thank you so next we have Melanie Holland Jason Conrad and sud Conrad followed by Keith fer and then we have another group with

099another Holland so if Miss Holland and Mr and Mrs Conrad would go right ahead so I'm sudor Conrad and um I'm here today to oppose indoctrination in our schools the idea that America is founded on white supremacy and oppression and that they are still at the root of society today is running rampant in our district these ideas reduce individuals to the color of their skin and it doesn't emphasize the importance of individual stories and histories this creates a radical divide in America and allows for false teaching of history in our great nation this biggest lie or the biggest lie being told right now is that America was founded to perpetuate slavery and racism the truth is the United States was founded on the desire of religious freedom no place in America's founding documents are race

100and gender even mentioned in fact the founding documents rejected anything based on race or gender America had slaves yes of all Races but abolished slavery after the Civil War since then every generation has made s significant progress to rectify and improve race relations the teaching of systemic racism destroys this progress like I said at the last meeting educators are agents of the government we all are by allowing these ideas to be taught in schools this is a direct attack on the children from the government I'm here to challenge this board to prioritize character and academic Excellence within our schools this will in turn Inspire children from all backgrounds to achieve their potential thank you hi again um before I begin I want to let you know that I uh gave Nicole a packet to give

101to you guys so it'll be in your inbox um and I I'll start with the with what Mr krabill said about student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change and that's for certain um President Obama did a fantastic Father's Day speech on this who talked about the importance of having fathers in the home and how not having fathers in the home greatly impacts the education that our students get um more than anything else more than the best teachers more than the best curriculum anything so you've also got a copy of that speech in there as well but I'd like to take a look at the wrapping declining um student performance that we're facing you'll notice that um we've got a decline since 2019 I don't know what happened in 2019 but it has progressively gotten

102worse since then um year after year there's a 350% increase in FS um so they failed core classes we've also got instances of students failing core classes this last year and being passed on to the next grade I've requested to know exactly how many students there are that that qualify but I'm still waiting on that data I'm wondering how long it's going to take because that seems like it's a pretty big deal the students who have failed are continuing to pass on since that greatly impacts their future progress but I have to ask you what is the board doing about it what training are you providing to help all students what books are you offering to help educate your leaders and education Educators on how to increase these scores and what is your benchmark to

103know that these scores have been these goals have been obtained I thought I knew but after reviewing this Summer's leadership and teaching training after reviewing the curriculum looking at your recommend Ed reading list for leaders and Educators how to be an anti-racist and white fragility I'm not so sure I know what your plan is what I do know is you have one goal in mind as was stated multiple times during the welcome back for the teachers training as well as the Leadership Summit you want Equitable outcomes specifically for our black and brown students although as Thomas Soul stated if there is not equality of outcomes among people born to the same family born under the same roof why should equality of outcomes be expected or assumed when conditions aren't nearly as comparable so when I

104considered the rapper decline of our students performance and your desire to produce Equitable outcomes I expected to possibly see an an interview or a training from the superintendent in Alabama who Alabama of all states happens to have the highest graduation rate between blacks and whites and it's only off by 3% so I would have assumed that that would would be somebody you'd want to speak to because they would be for one thing $225,000 cheaper than the speaker that you did have but also to be able to tell you what their strong leadership has done to help with the outcomes of their students specifically their black and brown students which we know is your main concern right now but instead you had the self-proclaimed Mr KY who has admitted that he is considered and called the

105father of critical race Theory I expected to see book studies from any number of Thomas Soul books here's one here's another one these are great books this is a man who knows what he's talking about he lived during the time that that we stay we say still exists he spoke on the Dunbar High School and Elite all black school in DC from 1870 to 1955 these students surpassed all white students during the toughest time in our history these students were not overcome by obstacles they had strong leaders they went on to Ivy League colleges many of whom not even needing to take entrance exams because of their reputation during a time that we're claiming still exists they managed to find a way around the system but through these findings I heard I looked at all

106your training and I looked at all the videos and and I heard things and I'm going to quote here um systems are in place that feed oppression dismantling the system systemic and social injustice Equity of outcome systemic racism white supremacy White Privilege there it is stop white supremacy just to name a few and a recommended book studies what I just mentioned I also heard things about focusing on disrupting the system that are is impacting African-American students you've got classes on White Privilege that students are supposed to talk about and I want to look at um the the harassment policy I need to be sure that you as a board understand and your legal team is on notice that you're violating the harassment policy and also the employees policy on not having political issues during work

107hours or encouraging and supporting and coercing such individuals to support these issues which is what you've done the harassment policy in particular states that we will not have verbal conduct that denigrates or shows hostility or aversion towards an individual because of his or her race we will not have negative stereotyping or threatening or intimidating of that are up thank you so now we have Keith [Applause] fer and then after Keith feifer we have Mr Holland with Madison Cox and Abby doy pardon okay go right ahead Mr Fifer peer okayer good evening my name is Keith I'm here to discuss a fundamentally important topic concerning our livelihoods and our children it encompasses everything that we live by and should embody all that we stand for I'm talking about freedom and liberty which we understand are god-given

108rights that must be preserved to safeguard the values and privileges we all hold so dear but in today's societal constructs we must stay unflinchingly vigilant about what's at stake if we venture down a path of least resistance and simply conform to authoritarian rule I challenge all of you listening to step outside your comfort zone and shift your thinking to consider New Perspectives and to the board members as elected officials I urge you to hold true to your oath to be the voice of your constituents and never waver in doing what's best for our children as the Board of Education not Health mandatory masking of our children in schools is vehemently wrong and unconstitutional and we will not tolerate it such a decree directly contradicts a parents freedom to choose what is best and independent thinkers

109recognize that an untrustworthy and self-serving government along with deceitful three-letter organizations should never deem what's best for our children we decide that and we demand the freedom to choose whil there is zero scientific basis regarding benefits of masking children there is overwhelming evidence and true scientific literature albeit highly supressed that substantiates the adverse effects and damage to our children when forced to breathe CO2 excessively all day without belaboring facts linked to respiratory issues cognitive trauma and severe psychological distress I challenge Skeptics and critics to question boldly what mediums deliver you factual information and content I wish for each of you to be free and independent thinkers right now to venture outside of what's comfortable and consider the possibility that those in control of false narratives are not out for your best interest but instead for

110their benefactors and Elites alike who stand to gain the most while we lose the most by conceding our freedoms to politically charged fear campaigns we are the leaders we've been waiting for and it's on us to be the Catalyst for Change and if this board or others refuse to follow the will of the people then they must face legal consequences and be removed from their posts if we don't end this tyranny now it will continue to corrupt absolutely please I implore you wake up and stand up with me to take back our freedoms for our children and their future thank you and God bless all right now we have Mike Colin Madison Cox and Abby doy followed by Rebecca ivanof and then Aiden finnel right ahead hello my name is Madison Cox today I want

111to talk about the issue of bullying I think this is an issue we can all agree as hateful and unjustified no matter the reason correct luckily CMS has a harassment policy for both employees and students it states harassment may include but is not limited to verbal or physical conduct that denigrates or shows hostility or aversion towards an individual also it states insults jokes slurs negative stereotyping and threatening intimidating or hostile acts now let's review what bullying which is a form of harassment means it is the use of force coercion hurtful teasing or threat to abuse aggressively dominate or intimidate it includes actions such as making threats and attacking someone verbally I know what these types of behaviors feel like in junior high I was bullied daily by a group of seventh grade girls they threatened

112me name calleded me started rumors and eventually ganged up for a whole party dedicated to hating me unfortunately many children are at the hands of other children and sometimes adults go through these harmful situ ations every school year while bullying in the schools is very tragic what is more tragic is the example that some adults in this District are setting for our students as seen during the board meeting on July 13th which I was a key with was this wasn't done by seventh grade girls but by grown adults some of them were CMS teachers there are many examples to choose from as it relates to bullying Behavior at last month's meeting but I'll just use the most hateful quote as an example a CMS mom who spoke while allowed to do so by the board

113says and now you've let in the snakes moms for racist nonsense I mean moms for white supremacy what are they called the worst part was the clapping and cheering from this from some of the audience which again included CMS teachers this is our example just in that one hateful example alone this adult used the term snakes racist white supremacy to try and intimidate a group of people who they did not agree with what's worse two of three CMS teachers from one of your schools your teachers flipped off and did a Cutthroat threat gesture to another teacher and another parent as they walked by you know this since you've seen the video of it these same teachers stood at the podium for seven minutes while talking about a co-worker's ignorant opinion all the while staring up

114at her in the bleachers as she gave her speech I'd say that according to your own policy this clearly violates your harassment policy this is who we're supposed to trust to have open and safe and respectful class discussion around bias Prejudice racism and privilege this is who we are supposed to trust to teach all students black white and in between that anyone any race is capable of racism bias and Prejudice and when a student someone who has zero power in that Dynamic has a differing opinion will they too be threatened and intimidated will they be called out and stared at as the teachers make a hateful passive aggressive comment will they be will they be threatened with violent gestures as well if they do this in a room full of people and cameras how can

115we trust that they will not bully behind closed doors and if they do act as bullies in this way are we supposed to trust this leadership will do something about it and take it seriously when you did nothing about this type of behavior when you saw it with your own eyes things trickle down from the top if this leadership allows this type of behavior it's no wonder we saw this the behavior that we did all because people had differing opinions how do we expect our students to stand up for what they believe in when adults outright disrespect other adults that disagree I understand that not all will agree this meeting and the meetings before have proven that we have different opinions from one another and that's okay that's the beauty of a free country but

116with examples like this can we really trust that some of your staff will be teaching our students the importance of free thinking without the worry of what others will say or do will they be honored and respected or will they be intimidated call called names and shut down my hope is that this Administration will do better at sticking to your own policies and holding these teachers and speakers accountable for their actions we are the example of these young students Stop The Bullying stop the hatred towards one another learn to stand up for what you believe in without tearing each other down and please follow these policies that you agree to these actions should not be swept aside thank you good evening thank you I'm just going to pick up where my wife left off um

117with the limited time so um based on everything that was mentioned before I'm not sure you could have said after the last Board of meeting that our school does not teach teach and does not promote a doctrine of critical race Theory because you're clearly doing just that you can dress up a horse as a unicorn but it's still a horse so the question is why are you hiding from it just own up to it it's what you're teaching in that case there are a lot more confusion so let me share something from an article by Brett Jensen of WBT and I quote in an interview with the North State Journal North Carolina superintendent kather and Truitt said that CRT hijacks education terms such as equity in order to make it look legitimate and has issues

118with the fact that CRT believes that racism is inherent and I spoke to this at the last board meeting as well I also quote it's important to Define what equity and education mean because we're starting to lose our way in this battle of ideologies Tru it said to the nsj equity and education mean providing every child what they need at the time that they need it it does not mean ensuring equal outcomes and so I want to finally just remind you a couple of things that it all goes back to this so the superintendent is is responsible for the management of the schools and their personnel as well as implementing and upholding our vision core beliefs and policies is accountable to the board the board's role takes that a step further you are responsible for

119implementing and upholding those same beliefs and policies and are responsible for overseeing the superintendent and setting a standard of how he or she must follow all that should align with the vision and policies and it's ironic the the workshop that was above there that that started before this with the aligning with the visions and goals of CMS luckily the board's job is not to continue to support someone that they like as this is not a popularity contest but to ensure we have the right person for the job so when or if the superintendent isn't adhering to the vision or policies which it's not it's the board's job to do something about it the tail should not be wagging the dog to be clear do we believe that all facets of History should be taught that

120our black and brown students and all students history should be forgotten or ignored of course not It's always important to know where you've come from and what your ancestors had to endure in order to give you the life that you have now do we think all students all Races should be taught about racism Prejudice biasness while also being taught that all races are capable of having any of those same character flaws absolutely thank you all right thank you so now we have Rebecca Ivanov followed by Aiden finnel and then Jacob Barnett in 2020 I believe rgal principal David schwitzer was suspended with pay then reassigned after allegations of racist comments we heard at last month's board meeting in regards to principal Mark go Mark Bosco's accusations of improperly handling and covering up of student reports

121of rape in the woods behind Meers Park as far back as 2014 we need leadership and we didn't get it why on Earth were these two at a minimum not treated the same immediate suspension with pay do an investigation why did the high schoolers have to come up make me personally cry in tears in the stadium in the stands you have protests outside and still weeks and nothing nothing that is a lack of leadership from the top St and it has to stop two please do not pass or make an exception for larger kindergarten class sizes after almost a year of our closed schools there is there are rumors that our kindergarten classrooms have the potential to be very crowded that several parents may have delayed their kids entering so we as the taxpayers would

122like to say that in terms of Equitable outcomes in terms of all these things we're talking about how do we measure how do we close the gaps that have been created and exacerbated by our closing from covid the last thing that we need to do is take one of our very vulnerable group of brand new students and pass an exception add the trailers to the schools add the teaching assistance but please stop overcrowding the classrooms in regards to Equitable last but not least I look forward to hearing everything that we're talking about and I don't work for CMS but I am in the education field I'd love to hear even BAS principal reports in elementary what are foundational baselines how are kids doing with their times test for adding and subtracting for math the literary

123mclass that's going to be rolled out not just the once a year standardized test great easy measurements thank you now we have Aiden finnel and then Jacob Barnett and then Nikki wo okay um is there a coward is here in the air tonight if so it is not from the victims of sexual violence here since June there's been an ongoing discussion surrounding Title 9 Myers Park High School and the Board of Education recently victims have been denied a voice and future students have lost their safety 100% of 20 Anonymous current and former Myers Park High School teachers said they found leadership unresponsive and that they violated both code of conduct and Title 9 procedures over 50% rated your title 9 training in curriculum a one out of five 100% said they felt their students were

124treated differently due to their race and 40% said did not feel safe on campus finally all said that the administration tried to cover up allegations of sexual assault and rape and would not take these victims seriously if this is an honest reflection of the culture at one of cms's biggest high schools imagine how the rest of your schools are suffering victims are not being met with prop proper resources or support students are not being taught their rights from the get-go and various administrators have stigmatized reporting harassment and rape to maintain a name and reputation that has never belonged to them you came to you claim to be listening congratulations you have taken the first step the next is to include survivors in the conversation let those your system have failed have a say in the

125policies that could have protected them and supported them isolation and victim blaming are not permanent Solutions thank you and then n rro goad Mr [Applause] Barnett my name is Jacob Barnett I'm a resident Mecklenberg County I do not have any children enrolled in your government institution but I am a new father with a beautiful baby boy the reason why I'm here today is because I care about the future generations to be blunt I'm sick and tired of arrogant dictators thinking they have the power to control how children breathe we live in unprecedented times and the truth is very important for our society to function in the fullest potential the truth will set you free but most people can't handle the truth the way our lives have changed this past half year and a half is

126tragic it's all by Design with censorship it's nearly impossible to get the truth no one will spoon feed it to you one must be curious question everything and be self- motivated to find it the resources and news outlets that one used to trust are actually the enemy of the people and I've been lying and brainwashing masses forever if you're still using mainstream media for the news you will forever be under a spell of ignorance this planemic was orchestrated to take away our god-given liberties if you believe me open your eyes my son was born into a world where someone can control how he breathes and if he doesn't comply he's put down as a selfish individual who doesn't care about others if his mom doesn't get the inoculation then she will be fired from her

127job for making a personal medical decision this is the only the beginning of the destruction of humanity if I was to give you the responsibility of teaching my son after those 13 years he'd be with you he'd be be completely brainwashed his mind would be mush and his soul would be destroyed but you will never have the chance if anything should be defunded CMS should be the first on the list CMS has played a large role in the destruction of America by abusing dumbing down our youth and it is time for parents to stand up and not take it anymore I urge all children and parents not to comply with the tyrannical musling order we need unified non-compliance do not listen to these [Applause] [Music] [Applause] people um all right Nikki juwell then Joy Poe

128then Diana levit they were waving at us like he was all the time my name is Nikki onewell when I was 15 years old a fellow student raped me in the Woods by mys Park High School after claiming he had brought a gun to school when I reported what had happened to the school resource officer he told me it wasn't rape without conducting any investigation into the incident when I reported the incident to the principal I was threatened that if I filed a formal investigation and my rapist was found not guilty that I could be disciplined for having had sex on campus I was scared and confused and ultimately did not pursue charges I was forced to see my perpetrator at school until I graduated as he was never arrested expelled or even suspended this

129principal has recently been suspended with pay I want to thank the school board for this import important first step toward justice but ask that they not stop here today I'm calling for an external unbiased investigator to be hired to conduct an investigation into the mys park administration's handling of Title 9 I'm also asking for county level changes to CMS recordkeeping of sexual misconduct reports CMS records claim there have only been two rapes in the entire County in the past decade why because they are the only two that result in any discipline this does not include my rape or any of the other survivors who have come forward from Myers Park the board even stated on Facebook that what happened to me was not a rape there also seems to be no Central record keeping of

130reports with vastly different numbers coming from different sources it is important that the school keep track of all allegations even those that do not result in discipline this is vital if the victim decides to pursue Justice later in life or if the perpetrator is a repeat offender myself and the other survivors would love love to assist the school board and the newly formed Title Nine task force in any way we can to implement these changes and more however the board is refusing to meet with survivors like myself and even canceled a meeting last minute rather than allowing students with past or potential claims against the district to attend this is nonsensical since I have already waved all my claims to settle a title 9 lawsuit please listen to survivors and include us moving forward thank

131you thank you very much so we have Joy Co we need to hear Miss Co thank you Joy Co then Diana levit then David olon go ahead Miss Co I will keep my remark short since I have said what I needed to say at the last meeting first I wanted to thank you for be for beginning to take action against Myers Park Administration as well as implementing the title 9 task force this is a great start to writing the wrongs of the past but there is unfortunately more to be done students need to be taught in their health classes about Title 9 policy consent how to report their rapes to the school and police as well as how to handle things if a someone they know has been sexually assaulted another reason I did not

132report my case was because I thought rape could only be committed if an adult HT a child call me naive but I was 14 and I didn't know any better I don't want another student to ever feel like that ever again second the recent reporting on the lack of recordkeeping of reports is not only shocking but downright unacceptable this record keeping is of extreme importance when it comes to pressing charges especially when it comes to repeat repeat offenders my rapist was a repeat offender I've heard of women who he raped before me and after me I have lived with an un Indescribable amount of guilt for not reporting my case because I thought I could have spared these women pain but now I know that my story would not have even been kept on file

133there is no such thing as not being able to keep track of reports only a lack of willingness to do so I'm not here to be angry at you but I want you to know that students are watching how you respond while I appreciate the comments given at the end of the last meeting saying we are strong and we are heard I ask that you do not say that unless you intend to act on it I didn't come here to be complimented I shouldn't have to be strong and brave do the right thing so most more students don't have to come up here and relive trauma thank you for your [Applause] time all right Diana levit then David Olen then Bill gger go right ahead Miss levit my name is Diana levit and as an

134adolescent trauma therapist I will be the first to recognize sex crimes happen however I can no longer allow the adults who have disregarded their vocation legal obligations to remain in positions of power at the expense of students well-being research has shown a direct correlation in how a survivor's case was handled to the severity of their PTSD because of cms's negligence students have endured unnecessary additional trauma that will impact them the rest of their lives in reviewing cms's Title 9 online training webinars there are a multitude of inconsistencies that I have printed out for you and provided to you first prior to 2220 Title 9 did not require a formal complaint however in Jill Rose's case she told two school counselors the resource officer and principal bosow before he asked her if she would like to

135make a formal complaint second trainers state to avoid a conflict of interest the title 9 coordinator should be an independent full-time employee that reports the superintendent every CMS school has their their assistant principal as their Title Nine coordinator finally CMS does not F follow Title 9 regulations of stop prevent and remedy the instructor in your trainings reviews numerous accommodations that should be put into place immediately after a report is is made yet not only were these not provided to the students they were denied to these students outside of federal mandates there are also State mandates that I have printed out and provided to you that hold not only principal bosow but hold the social worker the resource officer the superintendent and this board legally obligated to have followed through with what needed to happen in

136regards to these reports instead of deflecting responsibility oh sorry your time is up thank you thank you [Applause] okay now we have Javid Olen then Bill guer and then Melissa Easley hello um first thing my name is David Olsen I uh graduated early from uh Stanford University with an engineering degree and I played football there um and professionally I would like to let all the parents know that are listening um that I was homeschooled uh through elementary school and you should absolutely homeschool your children or find alternative schooling than in CMS um if you want this District to change in any regards there's only one man up there standing up for some of the things that you're wanting and if you want them to change you have to hit them in their pocketbooks it's $122,000

137per student pulled out so you have to pull out your students in order to make change if you care about your children you will Implement tough love in this situation on the school board and on the community and find a way to make it work this school board will not act in the best interest to protect your children or look out for your or the community's best interest they don't know and don't bother how to read data correctly or act logically and we are in a time of great Peril if you're interested in more covid science look up Dr Dan Stockton who spoke at a city council meeting in Indiana if you're interested in racial economic education I recommend starting with Thomas Soul as was mentioned earlier this board's attempt to close the achievement Gap

138through focusing on CRT um let me just say I looked up the data and charter schools in Charlotte with the highest level of free or reduced lunch are massively outperforming the CMS schools with the same demographics it has nothing to do with race or poverty it's how they're teaching and what they're teaching lastly everyone should be aware that the greatest threat to us right now is the Chinese Communist Party they're launching bioweapons if covid they've infiltrated our media our schools and I just want you to be aware that that's what we're facing and these people don't even know it thank you all [Applause] right and then Melissa Easley evening my name is Bill gerer I'm a Charlotte resident District 5 thank you for this opportunity to speak tonight and thank you for your public service

139and for your leadership I'm also a member of race Charlotte and I'm sharing both a personal and group perspective race Charlotte is a collective of anti-racist Advocates that works to create a more Equitable Community as a former public Middle School social studies and US history teacher I support CMS continuing to develop policies practices and solutions to reduce the predictable horrific racialized outcome of students reading and math levels tests achievement scores graduation rates College and Career Readiness let's be clear no K12 school curriculum teaches critical race Theory because it's a law school framework for evaluating the outcome of laws we can learn from the YWCA Evanston Northshore in Illinois and I quote data on educational outcomes continues to show that there is much work to do to better support Black and Hispanic Latino students and all

140students to reach their full potential acknowledgement of the history of racism in our education systems as well as other institutions is critical to understanding and dismantling the multiple ways that racism is embedded throughout our community but this is an opportunity to decide on the community that we want to be it's an opportunity for our community to come together support our individual institutions and our Collective community and our efforts to become an anti-racist community and to be a community where all our children can Thrive the larger issue is facing the truth the power we give to our young people when we tell them the whole story of our history about what structural racism and oppression have done and continue to do in our community and across the country we stand stand steadfast in support of CMS

141students famili staff and leadership as you continue your important work thank you thank you Mr gger Melissa Easley then Steve rovic and then Bill Fountain good evening Madam chair dashu members of the super board and superintendent Winston my name is Melissa Easley and I speak tonight as a former CMS teacher and a current parent of two teachers or two student children I do want to mention that these parents here do not speak for all parents I do want to know that because we appreciate what you have done and the conversations that you have had as a 14-year social studies teacher I always taught with the belief that no matter no matter the color background or zip code uh we want all students to have an education that teaches the truth his of our history integrity

142and how to be a productive compassionate citizen of society we currently teach that enslaved people were part of our American history what we want to teach is that this C this country was built on enslave labor and these laborers were the beginning of the Revolution for the equal Freedom that we try to enjoy today we teach that indigenous people were killed and that's why black slaves were brought over from Africa what we want to teach is that the indigenous population was intentionally wiped out by genocide by where Europeans wanting power and land we want to teach this country was built on racist principles in order to show students how far we have come in the last 200 years new laws and policies have been created and passed to start the change of culture of racism

143that has been instilled in the American System since the birth of this country part of teaching history is we also want to show that we have a long way to go to make America a truly equal Society no matter if you call it systematic racism or social racism the two are intertwined and one affects the other in order to grow our nation we need to know and understand our true past just because some of these facts makes us uncomfortable doesn't mean we should not teach what really happened all of these Concepts exist in the new social study standards along with the new social study standards CMS is program of equality and inclusion throughout the content content delivery for students and personal development of Educators it is working it is leading to great teaching and great

144student health I implore you to keep pushing and not let politicians or parents sensor teachers to stop kids from learning our full history and share stories ofing Justice thank you all right Mr arvic and then we're going to have Bill Fountain and then Lily Russell Pinson as we prepare to head back classrooms there are some questions that need answered distancing how will schools at full capacity be instructed to facilitate distancing how will lunch work short exposure time while unmask can lead to infection that data comes from studies on the original Alpha variant as Delta is far more contagious we need solid information and guidance moving forward please strictly enforce the masking guidelines and opt out form denying that we have a responsibility to others around us is shameful and deceit ful please make sure that

145the school-based leadership is the line of defense everyone needs them to be teaching pacing guides and scripted lessons should be implemented in a Jack Sparrow type fashion more like guidelines than hard rules interim superintendent Francis Hathcock work with stack years ago to help undo the CMS Mandate of strictly following pacing guides where teachers need to be on the same lesson at the same place at the same time across the district yet we are moving this way again which is why we need to study our educational history programs brought in under the previous superintendent and chief academic officer were supposedly purchased to provide resources in reality that's not exactly the end of it I know the former cao's response of there are places where teachers can personalize lessons I hope teachers are allowed to do so

146for the betterment of the students in front of them this is equity if you are truly interested in equity one allow teachers to teach and two find Outside data that supports the efficacy of the programs as we use them and that they ensure Equity because history tells us one size fits all is not Equitable flexibility is a must students may be quarantined and Miss time respecting the teacher and their craft is a must just as I should have never had to speak to you last year begging to keep students and teachers safe I should not be asking today to allow teachers to teach but I guess this is why we learn our history so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past thank you all right Mr Fountain then M Russell Pinson and then our

147final speaker is Mary Nadler hi I'm Bill Fountain a concerned taxpayer and former High School teacher from my viewpoint the board is falling short of its own theory of action namely to foster a performance culture and unleash innovation in teaching learning and school school operations the first example is by allowing students to play sports with less than a 2.0 grade point average certainly does not Foster a performance culture you well know that a teacher must set expectations with in stretching Distance by lowering the criteria to play sports CMS is robbing the very students who need to help the most setting performance standards is not being strict or micromanaging it's quite the opposite the goal is to create a classroom performance culture of hard work self-belief and CMS appears to be advocating just the reverse the

148second example is indoctrinating our children with the latest social justice fad be it racism sexual disorientation fictitious history or wealth Envy these misguided Notions are beating down our students selfworth furthermore undermining the value of God family and patriotism the foundation of the once freest and F and wealthiest Nation on Earth why are you championing disruptive policies and activities counter to your own theories of action your path leads to endangering our children's will intellect and memory yes their souls thank you Russell kinson and then M Mary Nadler hello my name is Lily Russell penson and I'm a senior at Myers Park High School today I'd like to discuss the administration of Myers Park High School recently the suspension of the Myers Park principal has been making local headlines I'd like to thank the board for taking

149a step in the right direction in the investigation of the events that happened at mphs by removing this administrator and appointing a veteran inum principal many students who my peers and I have talked to were uncomfortable returning to a school where the principal was turning a blind eye to assault and was utterly disregarding victims many female students I talked to were also afraid that people were of who were of the mind to attempt assault and rape against students would be emboldened by the lack of actions by the administration and commit heinous acts because they did not feel Rec percussions however a staff turnover will help show students teachers and administrat that CMS is cracking down on this Behavior combined with increased focus on title n training for teachers and administrators Mars Park High School can

150once again be a safe place for students to learn and for teachers to teach while it action on the part of the board is a great beginning in the reform of mys Park and CMS it needs to be just that a beginning the work needing to be done with Myers Park and CMS goes deeper than a single issue a single administrator or single perpetrator we the students of mys Park High School will not stop demanding change until we receive the school environment we deserve and we hope that you will continue to walk with us on the path to a brighter future of CMS therefore our question to you is what action are you going to take to help continue this challenge thank you thank [Applause] you as a mom who was engaged in her children's

151education I was here a month ago at the last Schoolboard meeting and I want to thank all the teachers who were here both those who spoke and those who supported cuz I was worried that the fact and administration would not be open to my concerns or dignity as a parent and thank you you all Prov me right I heard teachers state that they know better for my kids than I do I heard if you don't like it there's the door I heard a lot of gas lighting but what concerned me the most was what I saw in the seats teachers moaning at MLK quotes teachers sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance teachers Ching parents as stupid racist and evil teachers flipping off and making a threatening gesture toward a fellow teacher who simply disagrees the

152parents who show up here are the ones who are active and engaged and care they are the ones that would volunteer if they could they are the ones who would buy your teachers as many school supplies as they need but the message was clear your teachers at CMS despise these parents your teachers think we are evil your teachers hate us and those who don't are afraid to say otherwise because of the mean girls who never left High School all the teachers who showed such profane contempt for parents should be ashamed of themselves and every one of you should be embarrassed I will be taking my child $122,000 enrollment in high test scores out of C the CMS system and as for the eight teachers who sat through the Pledge of Allegiance as I left there

153were demonstrators marching for free Cuba they were carrying with them Cuban and American flags the American Flag represents freedom freedom to earn freedom to love freedom of thought many people have sacrificed their very lives to taste it maybe you should start being grateful for your American privilege thank you thank [Applause] you okay all right we have one more speaker and that's Stephanie sne good evening my name is Stephanie sne of the black political caucus Charlotte I'm here because there is state of emergency in Charlotte homelessness affordable housing and of course covid are all emergencies but I'm here to continue to shine China light on a long-standing emergency that infiltrates every aspect of development of the St City and that is the unacceptable performance outcomes of CMS students particularly those that look like me you acknowledged

154in your 201617 CMS breaking the link report that there were significant educational gaps between white and black students yet even prior to co there has been no improvement in closing these gaps and no improvements on the College and Career Readiness of African-American students representing 25% of the district there are 42 low performing schools that are also majority minority approximately 70% of black students grades 3 through 8 are not reading at a college or career Readiness levels and all of these students are entitled to a multi-tier systems of support yet only 3.2% have verified mtss plans I could go on but this is just a snapshot of how there is a disservice occurring with our students family in our city it is understood that the board is undergoing important governance training um in this work it

155is imperative that the that it results in CMS having bold intentional and transformative acts to change the trajectory of those entrusted to its care in the meantime the bpc is specifically asking that this transformation began by having a laser focus on the 42 lowest performing Schools starting by using ARP dollars at those schools for reading Specialists after school tutoring programs online tutoring hours technology specialized teacher development and training gears towards changing outcomes hiring of experienced Personnel for development of school Improvement plans and for developing mtss plans we can no longer remain silent on this issue and remain steadfast to this cause until there is bold actions and Transformations the bpc looks forward to further discussions with you about your efforts thank you all right colleagues we're now going to move on to our consent agenda

156is there a motion that the board approved the consent agenda items so moved second okay 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 all those in favor of the motion please raise your hands we have any opposed so the motion passes 6-2 um Mr superintend attendant would you like to share the Personnel news with us I would thank you madam chair and thank you board members now I would like to share several Personnel appointments nine to be exact and I will start with moper Christ Mr Christopher Bernard who is now the new and proud principal of James Martin Middle School uh Mr Bernard uh previously served as the principal of University Meadows Elementary School uh where he

157has been in that role since 2014 he has also served as a dean of instruction at Druid Hills Academy as well as a resident principal uh with the new leaders program Ed Druid Hills and he has taught in Charlotte mecklinburg Schools both at bronze Avenue as well as Hidden Valley Elementary School it gives me great pleasure to again announce Mr Bernard as the new principal at uh James Martin Middle School uh Mr Bernard uh if you would like to for a brief second just share some remarks um I would invite you to do so thank you Mr superintendent Madam chair board members I appreciate the honor of meeting James Martin and appreciate your approval who loses me and gains me me I appreciate your support through this process uh my family at home who's watching

158thank you for uh supporting me in the transition from being Elementary School to Middle School which is a whole new world my wife tells me and assures me so I'm excited about that to my Meadows family thank you 57 years of growth together they've been for world to me and this is a choice where I moved to James Martin to inherit my fifth graders who are feeding into that middle school and so I'm really um excited about this opportunity to the new Martin family we're going to do great things family so I appreciate you look forward to meeting everybody so thank you thank you Mr [Applause] Bernard next I would like to recognize Mr Casmir bundrick as the new principal of West mecklinburg High School Mr bundrick previously served as an assistant principal at West

159mecklinburg as well as an AP at Highland Renaissance Academy and garinger high school prior to that he served as the dean of students at Harding University high as well as an acting Dean administrative intern and social studies teacher all at Harding University High Mr bundrick would you please stand and provide uh any brief remarks that you would like to uh first of all just thank you to the bo super the opp I'm blessed to be at Leber it's truly an opportunity where you are where you're supposed to be I'm blessed to have the leadership uh in front of me of the Northwest learning community and most importantly to my uh support to my right my wife I just could not be here without her without them and certainly without you uh West Mecha is a

160special place uh it's been six years for me uh and going on hopefully many many more but um it's really really a great thing and and and most importantly to uh Mr Casey Jones who is transition to Olympic to continue his efforts and work because it's been so impactful to the students of the community uh it's big shoes to fill but uh just a great opportunity for me to step into so thank you everybody thank you Mr BNG next up I would like to introduce Dr Nathan curri as the new principal of Bruns Avenue Elementary School Dr Curry is currently the principal at Cumberland academy uh with Cumberland County Schools prior to that he was head of schools for the North Carolina cyber Academy and also served as an assistant superintendent of administration for Rowan

161Salsbury school system he's also served as a principal there in Rowan Salsbury as well as the Director of middle schools uh for dupan County Schools did I get that correctly got it right excellent thank you uh as well as an assistant principal at North Rowan Middle School um I am excited uh to again announce Dr Curry as the new principal of Bruns Avenue Elementary School I don't think Dr C Dr Curry is with us thank you for making that journey I would also like to invite you to share a few brief remarks thank you so much [Laughter] a [Applause] thank you Mr Curry next up and I see him in the back of the room uh Mr Travaris Hicks I am pleased to announce him as the next principal principal of Tua C Elementary School

162currently Mr Hicks is the assistant un assistant principal at North meinberg High School he has also served as an AP at East Way Middle as well as a dean of students Advance uh or what was formerly known as Vance now Julius Chambers high school he also served as a teacher and principal intern at North Ridge Middle as well as a teacher at Lebanon Road Elementary Mr Hicks congrat congatulations I'd invite you to share some brief remarks wow thank you to the this entire process I appreciate my learning community my new learning community thank you for your support throughout this long process and to my family I wouldn't be here without you today um I appreciate you all keeping me humble and you all keeping me you know intentional about the task of giving back making

163changes in the lives of our students to my new family at Tu C I'm excited and I'm ecstatic about the opportunity to serve I can't wait to get to work let's make [Applause] history thank you Mr Hicks we cannot wait either next up Miss Kimberly King I am honored to announce her as the new principal the first principal of Charlotte virtual Elementary School Miss King previously served as director of virtual learning and Media Services an assistant principal at Montclair Elementary School as well as an academic facilitator data coach and Technology facilitator at Pinewood Elementary School in addition she served as a principal intern at Pinewood and a teacher at Forest View Elementary School in Durham Public Schools Miss King congratulations and I would invite you to stand and give brief remarks superintendent Winston and members

164of the board I'm so honored to take this position I want to say thank you to terara Sullivan and Leah Davis for allowing me to join Central 2 Learning Community um I want to also thank the amazing leaders including Trish seon Brandy Nelson and the amazing mentors that I've been so fortunate to have in CMS thank my husband for being here to support me and my family my children um who are watching at home right now um and to the families of the brand new virtual Elementary School we are going to have an amazing year and I cannot wait to meet you thank [Applause] you next up I would like to introduce Miss Sarah Lang as the new principal of Charlotte East Language Academy Miss Lang has served at Charlotte East Language Academy since its

165opening in 2018 as an assistant principal she's also served as as an AP at Sterling Elementary a principal intern at albamar Road Elementary as well as a principal intern at Julius L Chambers high school she has also uh served as a sheltered instruction observation protocol specialist and coach for uh El services as well as a teacher at albamar Road and Thomasboro Academy Miss Lane congratulations and please stand and if you would like provide brief remarks thank you superintendent Winston and members of the board I especially want to thank Carol Sawyer for your steadfast support of Charlotte East um since our Inception I would love to express thanks to my husband who has to be at work get up for work at 2:00 in the morning and my children who go to the best school in

166CMS Charlotte East Language Academy um and my dean of students general for more for being here to support me tonight I especially want to say thank you to our founding principal kmen concepion for her guidance and Leadership I'm really looking forward to building on the foundation the great Foundation she started at Charlotte East and bringing us to be that Deacon School in the East Charlotte Community thank you thank you Miss Lan next up is Dr Laura Rosenbach Dr Rosenbach who I had the pleasure of working with uh at uh Julius hell Chambers high school is going to become one of the executive directors in the central one Learning Community currently Dr Rosenbach serves as the principal of Huff High School she's also been a principal at Francis Bradley middle school as well as an interim

167principal at Maller Creek High School an assistant principal at malet Creek and assistant principal and intern at Julius L Chambers high school she also taught at juliia C Chambers high school and Dr Rosenbach it is my pleasure uh to announce you as one of two executive directors in the central one Learning Community would invite you to share some remarks if you'd like thank you so much super 11 years I am super excited for this opportunity to serve Central one and want to thank Aqua Edmond Aaron and all the mentors EXC thank you Dr Rosenbach last but not least it gives me great pleasure to welcome Brian Schultz back home to Charlotte meinberg Schools as our new chief operations officer currently Mr Schultz serves as Acting interum Superintendent for cabis County schools and he has also

168served as a deputy superint endent uh for administrative Services as well as assistant superintendent for auxiliary Services all in cabis County Schools prior to that he served as a chief academic officer in Guilford County Schools and he was Chief academic officer in Charlotte mecklinburg Schools he's been a learning community executive director for the Northeast Learning Community uh in particular and he has also served as principal of torn Creek Elementary as well as the Director of Elementary education and a principal as well as an assistant principal of instruction uh all for cabis County Schools Mr Schultz I would invite you to give uh some brief remarks if you'd like to yeah thank you uh that that list makes me feel really old uh Madam chair uh members of the board superintendent Lon thank you so much

169I'm really really humbled and honored to be here I'd like to introduce the most important person in my life my wife she's amazing support uh Network to me and um and as you see the chief academic officer experience and the principal experience uh I know full well what students need uh for their learning environments on the way to school during school and after school and I look forward to supporting that through the chief off Chief uh the chief oper officer Ro here in Charlotte Charlotte mg schools I look forward to reacquainting with my former uh colleagues and current friends and I look forward to meeting many many more colleagues in this process so thank you humble thank you thank you Mr and I think I got a little ahead of myself when I said uh

170last but not least we have one more um Dr an white who is now our associate superintendent of student services Dr White previously served as assistant superintendent for exceptional children's programs prior of that she served uh as an executive director of the north Learning Community principal of Hickory High School for Hickory Public Schools director of curriculum and instruction for Hickory Public Schools director of accountability as well well as a principal um at the elementary level at two different schools in Hickory and she began her career as a teacher in Hickory Public Schools Dr White excited to have you in this new role and I would also like to invite you to stand and provide uh brief remarks if you would like thank you so much I'm just so honored to have the position um thank

171you to the Lord and thank you Matt and I'm just thrilled to be on the team and thank you Dr White Madam chair that concludes uh our Personnel appointments for this evening thank you there were a lot of them tonight so congratulations to everybody all right we're going to move on to our reports and information items first we've got a report on budget amendments for June 20121 I turn to the superintendent for this report as presented all right next we've got report on Capital project ordinances for June 2021 turning to you for this report as present it all right next we are going to hear a report on the opening of schools for the 2021 to the 2022 Academic Year um I'm about to turn to the superintendent for this report but first let me

172just let board members know that we're going to it's a pretty lengthy report so we're going to pause halfway through after they finish up the academic section and then we'll each get to ask um like each get up to five minutes to ask questions so you'll get your five minute turn you don't have to fill it up but we'll each get questions and we'll keep track of the time then at the end you'll get another round of questions when the report is finished with five minutes each and with that I Turn to You Mr superintendent good evening again Madam chair and members of the board I will keep my remarks brief as the team assembles U at the podium um and the reason I'm going to keep my remarks brief is because I know that

173there is much interest in the report um of our district leaders uh who will present um over the next several minutes it is a great time of the year with the calendar turning to August and with Camp CMS now complete our full attention is on the opening of schools for the 2021 2022 school year and as we have stated we plan to open and operate schools as close to normal as possible we must remain Vigilant as the Delta variant has led to increases in covid cases and hospitalizations at rates not seen since the start of this calendar year but we believe we are prepared to open schools and keep them open our one factor that leads to our confidence is the availability of effective vaccines I will repeat our encouragement that all eligible staff and

174students please get vaccinated Public Health experts locally Statewide and Across the Nation say this is the best way for us to regain some control over the virus speaking of vaccines there will be a vaccine clinic at our education center in early uh September we hope that those who haven't been vaccinated will take the opportunity to do so immediately but the clinic will be available for those who need it before turning things over to our staff to present on the opening of schools I want to offer some Assurance to staff and families you might have heard earlier some of our principal and staff appointments that involve transferring leaders from one assignment to another all principles moving to new roles will remain in their current principal roles at their current schools for the first several weeks of

175the school year we want to make sure schools open as smoothly as possible possible and we believe uh that we have current principles um who will help us do that I will also mention that there will be some information about Camp CMS presented uh in this report but a deeper dive into that summer program and its impact on students will happen at an upcoming board meeting at this time I want to turn things over to our leadership team and I want to thank our team I want to to thank our team because I'm excited that the start of the school year is just around the corner with staff reporting next week and students on Wednesday August 25th some staff and students will start school in brand new buildings um at exactly three new uh schools

176and one replacement School many elementary and middle school students also will start in a new school albeit virtual as we open virtualems for grades 3 through 5 and 6 through 8 for the first time we are looking forward to a successful school year with teaching and learning in person with that I am going to toss it over to Dr Matt Hayes our Deputy superintendent of academics thank you superintendent Winston Madam chair and board we're excited this evening to come uh to you to share our Readiness uh in receiving students in only 14 days it's very important for us to remember the summer has flown by for all of us very quickly uh but a lot of work has gone into preparing not only for this evening but also preparing to receive students back into our

177school houses uh and first of all I want to thank all of our team for doing that I also want to thank all of our building leaders that are out there and especially all of our teachers for all the hard work that they've done in preparation to receive students in this upcoming year and for all the work that they did over the last 17 months um as they received students in various uh modalities of learning and just want to say thank you to all of them this evening in our agenda we have both houses of the both uh uh sides of the house that will be here uh to present to you uh we have the academics team and we'll be able to speak about Camp CNS CMS uh the accountability Department equity and uh

178school performance Department we have learning and teaching to be able to presentent to us this evening and also student services we will pause after an academic section uh to take brief questions then we will open up with operations we a will discuss facilities operations staff safety and health and safety uh we will then uh return to superintendent Winston for any closing remarks and final questions for that second group our Focus this evening which is key to all of us is around continuous Improvement continuous Improvement is key as we come off of our 17 months uh over the past 17 months and it's key to us to really be able to highlight the lessons learned over those 17 months in the pandemic um and where we've been able to grow redesigning practices to better meet the

179needs of our students throughout CMS not some students but all students we are committed in this upcoming year to upholding our commitment to our students across CMS all students continuing to provide a high quality instruction and professional development opportunities that respond to students outcomes in our six Focus areas that have been outlined by our superintendent they're aligned directly with the Strategic plan that's been outlined by by our board we're implementing changes with Fidelity and we need to just make sure that everyone understands that with Fidelity also comes the opportunity for multi-year uh efforts this is not a flip of the switch uh coming out of 17 months uh of where we've been uh with the work that needs to be done it will take us a multi-year effort to get this create uh get this

180corrected in understanding that we are not out of the entire grasp of a pandemic our pandemic still is at a is still at our doorstep and we understand that uh we are ready to provide a safe environment for our students as they return into our school buildings uh and also to our athletic fields and our extracurricular activities and you'll hear more about that this evening as well so at this point in time to launch us into our presentation past this point and to give us some more information on Camp CMS I'm going to turn it over to Dr Tangela Williams good evening board chair board members superintendent Winston um as Dr Hayes alluded to um we are coming out out of 17 months of a pandemic and we are going to talk a little bit

181tonight um on a topic that we're pretty much familiar with Camp CMS because we've talked about it for the last two board meetings uh but as Dr Hayes um said the last 17 months we've been in a pandemic and CMS has utilized Camp CMS as our first implementation of a strategy um to help prepare our students for the 2122 school year so on this slide we are just reminded of the components of Camp CMS um and the content the courses that were offered at each grade level each grade Span in addition we are reminded on this slide of the services that are that were provided to our special populations and of the curricular resources that were utilized throughout the 6 weeks a reminder again of Camp cms's objective which was to increase student mastery and

182deepen understanding of high priority grade level standards by providing students with time instruction and opportunities to access grade level content um at the end of the day we want our students to be um more proficient and more able to say that they have mastered the standards but in addition to mastering standards we know also that camp CMS um served additional benefits and additional benefits to students and served additional purposes two of those purposes were um that our students will experience less summer learning loss the students that did participate in Camp CMS and also the students that participated um benefit from a consistent in-person School experience through re acclamation to the physical and social School environment ironment this slide reminds us well tells us the registration and attendance information that we have so far and I

183will say that the these data are preliminary data for attendance um for Camp CMS um overall we did have 3,432 students enrolled in our camp CMS portal 19575 of those students were deemed at risk and the chart there um shows the weekly attendance average for each of the six weeks of Camp CMS I will not read the numbers to you but you can see that there was a steady decline in attendance over the 6 weeks of the camp um whereas we didn't get um the attendance that we hoped for over the 6 weeks we are grateful for the students that did attend and we are confident that the students that did attend for the six weeks consistently um will um will experience benefits in the positive um from Camp CMS a topic of interest for

184this evening is our measures of Student Success so this slide does remind us of the four measures that we are going to present on um as superintendent Winston alluded to at a subsequent board meeting um those measures of success are we are looking for 100% of students in grades K through 2 to move through four or more microphases microphase Cycles um over the six week camp we are looking for 80% of our students in grades K through 7 who have mastered or made progress towards Mastery of the taught and tested standards that were taught during Camp CMS we are also looking for 80% of students in grades 9 through 12 who previously failed a course to have earned credit for that course um over our summer program and we also o were required by the

185state um to administer what is called a um a comprehensive um assessment and the assessment that we used for that was map and we will um have recommendations given to us by nwaa um as to what our growth goals should be um for that map assessment over the six weeks this report is based on um our Readiness to open school um and so we do have some lessons learned as Dr Hayes alluded to that we need to pay attention to as we move into the 2122 school year so when we look at what happened during Camp CMS on the teaching and learning side um there are lots of lessons learned that we know that know would be a good benefit to our students and our staff should we continue um those practices into the 2122

186school year some of those practices are to continue to provide core instruction that's focused on high leverage grade level standard instruction c um also to regularly assess and monitor progress towards those standards that are taught we also want to ensure that we utilize assessment and progress monitoring data to inform daily small group instru instruction um small group instruction was one thing that was mandated um by the state to be implemented during Camp CMS and that's something that happened every day um in our k through eight classrooms for sure um and that is definitely a best practice to continue into the 2122 school year so that students can get that one-on-one direct instruction in addition we want to continue to provide highquality research-based instructional resources and materials to teachers as were provided during the camp and

187we want to make sure we ensure that teachers and students engage in that face-to-face direct instruction inclusive of verbal interaction and collaboration um of course this reduces the screen time and enlists Technology as a strategy or a tool to enhance instruction not as the main tool to provide instruction and finally to incorporate opportunities for students to participate in high interest enrichment opportunities and elective activities that integrate academic standards and content and that was something certainly that we tried to do through Camp CMS with our themed weeks um to keep kids engaged and interested in what they were learning and with that I will toss it to Dr Frank Barnes for the accountability portion uh thank you Dr Williams on September 1st Charlotte meinberg Schools along with other school districts across the state as well as

188the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction will be able to present both an accurate and thorough review of the impact of the pandemic on our academic outcomes we have some of those data elements now although we have others that we're still awaiting but I want to to let you know that in our internal review of those preliminary results the impacts of the pandemic on academic performance have been deep and wide ranging and we need to be acknowledged and be prepared to support students based on those results it is humbling and it's consistent with what we're hearing anecdotally from our peers across the country and so I think as we discuss the opening of school and the first quarter and the quarter after that we're going to prepare ourselves for a multi year effort to to

189repeat what Dr Hayes repeated that in order to get back to where we were and to gain the ground that was lost it will take a multi-year effort and we'll have to work both with the community and other sectors of government to be able to do that in an effective way Camp CMS is Dr Williams outline was the first step of that process and we look forward to bringing you a thorough accounting of the impact of that effort in the weeks to come as we get ready for school and the release of those data on September 1st after we have a thorough and accurate view of our 2021 results we'll be able to come to you make some recommendations for targets for this year and the subsequent years uh they let you in your appropriate

190role governance say here's what our goals will be and we'll get after them quickly and readily we have six student outcome priorities for this year which are align aligned with our existing strategic plan 2024 those six I won't bother to read them to you because they are Ed in our strategic plan but these will be the things that will be our governing light posts to say what are we going after this school year this review of these student outcome priorities will be pursued through an itative continuous improvement process this process this planning doing checking and acting will be something we'll come back to you come back to our community and work under the leadership of Mr Winston to make sure we're continually pushing ourselves to get better recognizing that where we start can't be where

191we finish this this process is planning doing checking and acting will be governed by a set of different system components will be outcomes focused being grounded in set of leading indicators when I say leading indicators what we mean is as we look at these lagging indicators here these are telling us looking backwards how did we do at the end of the game if you will leading indicators help us look forward how are we likely to do on these set of indicators and we've identified a set of indicators that either research or field knowledge let us know that they are correlated with performance and those lag indicators and we'll be using those and even modifying them or adding to them as appropriate we'll be data informed using specifics at Mark metrics targets and data to inform

192our actions we'll work to be timely making sure we're working based on an established Cadence of coming to you coming to our community and working internally to make sure that we're making continuous Improvement we'll be action oriented making sure that we're having robust conversations that drive action and Foster Improvement or sustain the current trajectory when it's unmarked with where we want to go and where we want to be and we'll be both collaborative and supportive but having problem solving conversations to remove barriers this is the work that we'll be doing in both sides of the house markedly in the academic side under the leadership of Dr hay is to make sure we continue to make improvements and with that I want to hand things over to my colleague Dr condra rley Who I must say

193is one of the strongest equity and school performance officers that we have in the country and I'm glad to have as our colleague here in Charlotte meinberg Schools thank you Frank good evening The Continuous Improvement model that Dr Barnes just shared would also be held um applied at the school level as well and that will be done through school Improvement planning so what you see before you on the left side are five School Improvement plan indicators that are outlined in our NC Star um format which is the school Improvement plan management system all schools will at minimum establish goals that are aligned to the indicators that you see above which as you see are standards aligned units of instruction tiered in instructional systems that are aligned with individual needs of students attentive being attentive to

194student emotional states and providing supports and interventions making sure that the principal is monitoring curriculum and classroom instruction regularly and regularly communicating with parents and Guardians about what can be done at home to help support their children's learning but more importantly how we can partner with them in doing so different this year is a cross crosswalk do document that you see on the right side it is small as it is a snapshot however it is a hyperlink as well so you can click on it and see the larger version and that crosswalk is a walk between our district Focus areas which are aligned to this strategic plan as well as those NC Star indicators which are aligned to strategic plan so that snap it provides a snapshot of where all of those areas connect or

195intersect also this year we'll have an increased focus on tight alignment of school Improvement plans to the Strategic plan goals and that will guide our district level progress monitoring efforts on specific student achievement outcomes you also saw those outlined in Dr Barn slides as well finally the learning community and Equity teams will review the school Improvement plans but not just from a compliance standpoint such as the makeup of the school Improvement team that will be done as well but additionally from a strategic standpoint to ensure that the strategies and actions outlined in plans actually lead to goal the equity and school performance leaders will utilize instructional monitoring tools that's also shared with principles and District leaders to develop next step step actions Based on data that data will be collected um on a regular basis

196throughout the year and the office of equity and school performance remains committed to include leader development as well as collaborating with District teams as you see some here tonight and hold schools accountable for as we support them with disrupting practices that perpetuate inequities at this point in time I'll turn it over to our chief academic officer Miss Nancy Brightwell thank you and good evening I'd like to take a quick moment to thank Beth Thompson for being up here with me since taking on the new role of cioo recently she's been an invaluable support guide and thought partner to me and um just a great great person to work with and it's just been an honor so she's here to help answer questions as they may arise afterward so where are we going amidst all of

197the challenges in terms of teaching and learning going forward into next year we've implemented new Core Curriculum in math and Ela as we know in grades kindergarten through 8th grade over the past few years this year we'll continue with our implementation phase in those grade levels and we'll be adding on additionally um new curriculum for math one and English one so I'd like to just share some of the implementation um process with regard to Bringing on a new curriculum such as the English one curriculum so in this example this um slide just shares with you some of the many places where internal and external um voices were a part of and at the table um as we um began to vet potential curricular um resource vendors um looked at um pacing guides looked at um

198whether or not um they um they fit the feedback um related to our strategic plan whether or not the program aligned well to our existing um e curriculum and so through that process um we were able to land on springboard for our English one math one um was a slightly different process because as you may know we are one of the few states that has a traditional math curriculum and we did not find in fact a curricular resource um vendor um who was very standard aligned and so in the case of math one curriculum design we chose to um to go through an interview process to find candidates who were very strong in their um deep curriculum knowledge and their ability to help us to rate that curriculum ourselves and we're quite pleased with the

199products that have occurred through that and so this slide just shows you at a very broad level the uh the basic phases that we're gone through um as we began to um um go through the um curriculum adoption and implementation process and so we really really want to focus as we go into um this upcoming school year with really paying attention to our mindsets values and beliefs around utilizing this Core Curriculum to ensure that all students are able to master grade level standards including unfinished learning and instruction having the curriculum however is not enough we know that a huge Focus for us going into next year needs to be focused on our um professional development and so this um helps us to um um explain that any of our professional development going into next year

200will first and foremost start with um an opportunity for teachers to reflect on their own internal mindsets beliefs um that might influence their practices and then grounded in that um all professional development will be centered around three specific learning targets belonging in Partnership monitoring Student Success and strong instruction and uh as well um the instructional leaders will have that same additional Focus that teachers will have so the professional development will mirror that with the additional component of ensuring that our instructional leaders have a strong um skill set and capacity and their effectiveness and ability to lead effective planning sessions coaching teachers and engaging teachers and teacher teams and data analysis to monitor successful implementation of our curricula and so this is just a reminder to us that um while we have some internal professional development

201that is planned and scoped out for this year um you'll see um strong emphasis on our Mastery connect our new assessment learning uh platform that will support our continuous monitoring of student progress toward our um specific goals but highlighted in the columns in purple are um professional development experiences that will be that are mandated by the state so our for example our prek through fifth grade teachers will be engaged in uh a year-long focus with um letters curriculum obviously we have a new diagnostic tool with mclass that our uh Elementary folks will be learning more about and have already started and then of course our um state required um early literacy inventory that um happens for kindergarten as well as of course the ongoing um training that will be happening for our middle and high

202school students uh teachers and instructional leaders who are getting new curriculum so let's take a look at the teacher experience of course the teacher is at the center of this model uh and all arrows pointing outward share learning experiences that our teachers will have um in a continuous learning process throughout the year the green arrows indicate learning that will be delivered by the district level staff and the purple areas uh arrows indicate learning that will take place in an ongoing way at the school level the district will be providing OnDemand um learning uh on demand learning platform aligned to District goals um to provide flexibility with space and time as well as to support um ncdpi required professional de development secondly consultation and access to content and area special ists will support further um professional

203development and job embedded um training for our teachers similarly as we look at the service delivery model for our instructional leaders um we will um you'll notice that the arrows um pointing out um on the orange side show the district level support that will be provided for our instructional leaders to equip them with the skill sets and competence to be able to support strong instruction in our schools and in our classrooms and the purple arrows um reflect the um School level um professional development that will be occurring and so just in summary the Cadence of our professional development which will be a huge Focus for us going into the 2122 school year um emphasizes that all CMS teachers will be provided with with extensive professional development um and that that will happen during all of

204our required teacher work days and they will also have access to two self-paced Pathways one each semester for continued professional development that would include of course the new social studies curriculum coming on board this year as well um the teacher teachers implementing math one and uh English one will of course have intensive um professional development to support the first year of implementation and in addition we know we have some teachers who came on board with the new curriculum during the pandemic so we'll be offering some additional highlevel um professional development um as an optional um uh additional support um at the district level and then our instructional leaders we're looking forward to engaging them with half a learning experiences well where they will be doing learning walks looking for those core actions that Dr ratley

205referred to um and collecting data on effectiveness of this professional development and to what degree is it showing up and improved teacher practices and student outcomes and then on our early release days um School leadership teams will have an opportunity to designate professional development that's aligned to their specific goals and of course aligned to our strategic plan as well and with that I will turn it over to Dr White to share with you about student services thank you so my comments on the following slides will focus on the impact of the pandemic on the whole child and how student services will be responding we are all coming back different than we left in March 2020 some of our students will have increased needs in the areas of Health wellness and the ability to access instruction

206in terms of health we know that students may be coming back with new health concerns and and to that end we'll be providing accommodations and services on health related plans that limit risk for exposure for students with special Health Care needs through IEPs through 504s and through individualized healthare plans we'll also be providing ongoing access to nurse extender services in the schools as well as you've already heard about hosting school-based vaccine clinics to support the health and wellness of students and staff we know that students are coming back having experienced varying degrees of trauma related to the impact of covid on them and their families to support them we will provide support from school counsellors social workers School psychologists school-based mental health therapist for students with mental health needs and including providing Direct Services as

207well as assistance in developing plans for students as an aside the school-based mental health program is offered in approximately 130 schools this program is a partnership between CMS and Community Mental Health Partners and we're really excited to use funds to broaden the availability of funded services for underinsured and uninsured students we'll also provide support which will include districtwide usage of Panorama social emotional screening data to identify and respond to student needs staff will use this to help develop individualized plans for students high school students will also have the benefit of a newly adopted 9 through 12 social emotional learning curriculum and Ka students will continue to receive the seal curriculum previously launched um will be providing professional development to school staff through the mental health Improvement plan um on a variety of topics including um

208how to refer students for support how to report abuse the CM a suicide risk assessment protocol we're also providing for core Behavior Specialists who have been placed into the learning communities with Dr ratley the focus of these staff members is to support teachers with professional development in the area of core Behavior Equity restorative practices and the resiliency model and we also know that students are coming back um with a host of learning needs and challenges that might prevent them from fully accessing their learning and to address these concerns we'll have increased access to primary language supports via interpreters to increase student access to emotional behavioral and academic support from staff wraparound support for newly enrolled language minority students through the International Center expanded use of before and after school activities for homeless students through the

209provision of enhanced transportation services individualize considerations for students with specialized learning needs like students with disabilities who need accommodations modifications or specially designed instruction as well as tapping into curricular resources for English language Learners connected to the Core Curriculum and language development standards so Madam chair at this point in time we'll turn it back over to you for questions all right so that was the academics portion of our opening of schools report and um Dr Jones you have five minutes worth of questions you can go first first of all great report this is about outcomes this is about what's important you as a staff you work hard long people don't realize the uous task is probably the heaviest lift this time of the year to get schools open and ready I wish that you all

210could have been first when that audience was up there to hear to know the commitment that CMS staff and principls and uh central office and just everyone working toward that goal now we have this dedicated group here who's about good teaching High expect patients they're still here but it's late late that we would put the most important thing at the end thank you very much um I'm especially happy to hear that we are lessening this chromati era that uh we had been in for so long and we are doing active engaging instruction this makes me feel good I I mean I'm I'm really emotional about this um we are focusing on students and instruction we are doing what the board of County Commissioners criticized us about they said they wanted quote I wrote it down

211specific actionable strategies that's what's happening that's what I hear I no good schooling when I when I hear it 50 years into the business this Board needs to be concerned with what we say we want to H have happen improving outcomes I thank you I probably have Miss saying some things but you really helped my blood pressure this all right who else any other questions misser yeah um appreciate the report can you um tell me what additional resources we Human Resources we may be deploying to support this um with our uh various covid funds um are we providing additional coaches are we providing additional shortterm um staff to to allow more small group instruction how are we implementing resources in our academic plan right now what we're doing is we're focusing on three areas the

212reopening our schools the re-entry of our students and their re-engagement we're in the process of identifying a set of leads since we've last talked with you around our American Recovery plan act we've met with six to seven additional groups uh to be able to get their input on some of the things some of the things they mentioned here at this Le turn to be able to identify those Investments our first priority human capital wise there's one operational that we'll let you talk about in a few minutes but also to make sure that we're having highly qualified as many highly effective teachers in front of our students but what we be looking at is we need more interventionists what's in some districts they call interventionist intervention I'm sorry interventionist I'm sorry and we're looking to stand

213up different types of efforts which can be things like after school weekend programs those are things we're we're looking at based on the feedback we're getting to make larger American Recovery plan plans based on that input from constituents I'll just add that we're also maximizing on the talent that we currently have while all of those pieces that Dr Barnes mentioned actually comes to fruition and so what I mean by that is that we have a number of Specialists from our student Support Services teams as well as our academics team and we're already collaborating to help ensure that those those individuals in the school meaning the adults in the school are getting the additional supports that they need so that they can be freed up in order to do those extra practices such as the small

214group instruction effective PLC planning and all of those pieces thank you that's it okay um I've got Miss FS Bailey and then miss Jahara and then miss Marshall I'm excited this is awesome I'm I just I listened to it I I read it uh I'm impressed now only a couple of questions I have first of all what's a learning walk a learning walk learning walk it was on page 30 and 31 what is it Havey I'll start off and then I'll uh pass it over to Dr ratley if she wants to add anything to that so when you talk about a learning walk it's uh where we have our District staff it's also what um our principles do in the schools any the leadership in the school and what they do is a Walkin classrooms

215we have what are called core actions and in those core actions we're looking for specific things inside the classroom one of those is standard align right teaching and learning that's taking place and opportunities for students to be able to uh share that learning and apply that learning uh with inside the the classroom please understand it's a snapshot of what happens but then over time with the regularity of those being done and a pattern then you're able to start putting things together we're able to start uh uh providing supports to those schools based off of specific things that we see that may not be specifically aligned to standards and support of our students yes ma'am okay I'll be more than happy to send you a copy of what that core action walkthr tool looks like so

216you can take a peek at it I'm look I'm thinking is that something I need to go walk or we we would we you know and and I hate but we actually were working on that as as Co came into Place uh and we actually were were looking forward uh in March and April of the year that Co when Co hit was to take all of you on one of those learning walks so we will definitely uh provide that opportunity to you uh in the ne in in the future here to be able to walk with us and and go through one of those learning opportunities it's a it's it's just great to see the kids and the great teaching that's happening without the throughout the district I look forward to it um the other

217question I had was um I'm I'm a by the fact that we had we got the enVision Math for K5 we got opened up for 68 but then we had to write our own curriculum for 912 so math one math that's a math one want to talk a little bit more about that sure we in North Carolina have integrated math standards which is different from most states that are across the country for that reason there was not a curriculum that was going to be complet completely aligned to uh North Carolina Standards so our option was to either seek to purchase a curriculum curriculum that is not aligned and then have to make it aligned ourselves or to partner with national experts through student achievement Partners to actually write our our own that would be based

218off of deep National research and support to have a curricula that is actually all the way aligned and I will say that we have just finished two weeks with our high school English and math teachers three-day institutes and I believe the stats today were that we had upwards in the 90s 90% of our high school teachers who um G gave us really great feedback and reviews regarding both the curriculum and the professional experience in which they're getting started okay um I I guess I'm curious about what it is you all are going to be teaching to nobody else is doing but North Carolina so I don't and I'm not sure how you answer that question other than just let me watch it or something I'm not I don't know yes we could totally provide you

219with those standards but in essence instead of the standards being broken up probably how we learned such as algebra 1 or geometry there are standards within Algebra 1 geometry calculus Etc that spiral throughout the years of high school math so that if perhaps you struggled in one Math course then you have opportunities in a subsequent Math course to be able to continue to learn and develop Mastery in other words reducing a one shot at getting it but in instead giving students opportunities to continue to learn it over the course of time okay so it's going to spiral through trigonometry and all of that you got it math 1 2 3 and four okay and that's five minutes thank you all right um Miss deara actually Thompson because I was going to ask about the math

220but I'll that was the majority of my question but I'll just sort of wrap it up with this because do you have any idea round about how many man hours went in to developing that it it was an incredible amount of men and woman hours who thank you for correting who worked really hard to develop that I think the really um what what I think is one of the best parts about this process and there have been many is that it was not done by other people in isolation but we have actually worked with CMS teachers so again with the consultation of people who are deep have deep knowledge of math uh standards across our country um but they have worked with school-based uh and teacher teams to be able to support us in um

221this not being a curriculum that has been created and is being done to High School Math teachers but has been developed in collaboration with high school math teachers and it has been really powerful to watch that work unfold and then to see what the experience with teachers has been over the last two weeks as we Orient to those materials yeah that is great I um um for explain thank you for taking the time to explain the people hours maybe I'll use that term moving forward but I the reason I wanted to point this out is I know as of late we've received some criticism from people who who talk about funding very in very specific terms they want funding to be to be directly related related to um at teachers themselves or maybe teacher assistants

222but schools um student facing staff and um that's unfortunate because central office staff is also important because we need that central office staff and it needs to be properly funded so that we can support the development of curriculum so that we can support the development of professional development and I just sort of wanted to make that point because uh while I respect all of the work that our um student facing Ed ators do do we also need to be a professional organization that um has other professionals that are supporting the entirety of the organization so I'm glad that we were able to highlight that and I just wanted to make that to make that point to our funding Partners um across the board and then I'm sorry if you uh we talked about Co funding

223I know Miss saw had a question and I I don't know if this was included in the answer um am I correct that the Chrissa funding that second round of funding is is also available next summer access to it for also potentially another Camp CMS I don't know if legislatively if that will happen but I guess my question is is in anticipating that are we going to be looking at this Camp CMS data when we do get it and already trying to make decisions about how to invest maybe differently or more or less Etc um in in future programs maybe even for next summer with that a process that we're developing M dear I have to confirm whether chrisad dollars will be available next summer that's something I get back to you but I will

224say definitively that the the lessons that we get quantitatively and qualitatively about Camp CMS will inform future Improvement efforts uh supplementary efforts whether those be in school year efforts or whether those be out of school year efforts okay yeah I think that will be important that's all my questions thank you okay um Miss Marshall and Mr strange um thank you all I wanted to just follow up a little bit more on on our and actually I think cresa cresa 2 we can utilize until 2023 so we should be able it's a multi-year thing in terms of the extra bodies that we're looking at um adding I think the uh interventionalist sort of uh folks or and actually interventions too that we're going to be adding um I know we're our our goal is to start

225back and see who comes how they come and what they need and I and I think that's worthy but I know that we we don't have a lot of time once we determine that do you all have a timeline of when you think some of these extra things will'll start we will start to see that um and and not obviously not all roll out at the same time have you got a timeline on that I think particularly for our um lower performing schools too because I know that's going to be an intensive effort and and really would like to make sure we highlight that continue to talk about that yes ma'am uh as we stated earlier coming out of 17 months and and various learning modalities and going to one learning modality of of uh

226students in our school you know forward facing teachers uh is critical right so we know that we know that our students have been impacted by the pandemic to what degree we don't know with the c that we would like to at this point in time so that you're exactly correct as students come back into a building that's what we will be assessing at a fast pace not only just basically knowing the information we do of where they left us but you know just what's happened with them over the summer uh and then providing those support so we'll get that as fast as possible then we'll also be turning around and looking at what does our plan what does our three-year plan look like and how will we build to that looking at it outcome backward

227mapping towards those goals in that period of time uh a rough rough rough estimate and please don't hold me to this but I mean we're going to we're probably having something solid to bring to the board at the quarterly review which is part of the continuous Improvement that I know has been shared with you guys uh on the Cadence that you're working on at this point in time so we'll be able to provide that at that point in time as well just to kind of also align ourselves to the goals and and things that we need to focus on as we work in next year but like I said is this is not a flip the switch right come back we flip the switch we go back to to teaching and and students are learning

228and we recoup everything at a Fast Pace uh this is going to be a deliberate action that's going to have to take place by our teachers our leadership building the capacity as you see here in the presentation building the capacity of our leadership in central office to be able to deliver on the models that we need to and you will hear me say continuously as we get started patience and Grace we need patience and Grace we need to get the students back to where they were and a key piece to that is being able to assess them on where they are currently and then be begin to build that road map to get them to where we need them to be at the end okay um one quick thing I'm happy to see the uh

229what did I want to call it the um the document in in terms of school Improvement plan um the crosswalk the cross is that it the crosswalk I'm going to I'm going to blow that up so I can actually see it and that's thank you for that and I think that that's going to be so important I really really really want to see our school based folks be able to to site our goals trap inverse and that be and that be the focus in the alignment and all conversations keep coming back to that I mean obviously that's the basic we want to do more but I'm I'm thrilled to see that and want to make sure that schools really with Fidelity do that thank you okay um Mr strin thank you madam chair I've got

230a couple of questions I'm not sure where some of them land but um we talked about additional resources several of my colleagues have mentioned it do we have a view now of our registration numbers particularly relative to the ADM to which we are funded because we know that we were held harmless last year we had projected registration numbers rebounding to an extent not to where it was do we know where those registration numbers sit now relative to the ADM to which we're funded Mr strain I would ask um Akisha Craven how uh to come forward uh to share what those numers look like at this point we do have plans to come back at our August 24th board meeting and to be able to share a little bit more data around that thanks good evening

231thank you superintendent Winston um we had projected enrollment this year just under 143,00 students as of yesterday our our current enrollment is tracking about 1500 students below um that projection however we do continue to um enroll students daily um in fact we've enrolled over 400 students since this time last week um in terms of grade level Trends we're seeing um increased enrollment in n9th and 10th grades well over uh projected enrollment in those grades um and we're seeing enrollment below projection in kindergarten but you may remember that that was a grade where we um intentionally increased our projection um anticipating that there were some students who due to public health conditions of the past year um set out in kindergarten in first grade and might be returning to those grades this year um that's also

232um typically as a grade level we'll receive lots of late um enrollment and so um my office is collaborating with our Communications team over the next couple of weeks to have just some um media pushes and Community specific pushes just to encourage um families to go ahead and enroll if they intend to uh be a part of CMS next year and does anybody know by chance what the ADM number is that we're funded for um I I believe that the state um is funding us at the ADM level of what they were projecting us at for this year which was higher than what we were projecting um as a district but I would want to confirm that um with our CFO before I committed to that response yeah if you can get back to me

233for that I mean we've we're still under an ADM hold harmless position right now yes and so I'd like to understand what that number is the gap of which is is additional resources that were funded for that that we can apply to the problem statement that we're talking about so the the second question I have is around um a topic we've discussed before it's uh it's with regards to students who were not able to master content last year to the extent to which they needed to to pass courses and so do we have a read on who and how many students failed two or more core courses but were promoted and as such the reason my focus is in this area is because they're not now in the next uh grade level having been promoted

234having not mastered or at least not been able to demonstrate the Mastery for the previous year's um curriculum Mr string we do have an analysis both for those students who received hybrid instruction as well as those who stayed in full remote for the entire year by grade span and subgroup how many students um failed two or more specifically English language arts and Mathematics we can give that to you right away we do need to run that around how many were promoted we didn't include that in that analysis so we can bring that to you that'd be great to know I appreciate it I think that feeds into my next question around the assessment that we've talked about a number of my colleagues have also mentioned this I appreciate you all calling that out you know

235critically we've got to start with an assessment of where the students are we don't currently have a good view of exactly where that is certainly not that we can share I know that we've got some internal metrics around that and and it would be helpful to to share those I trust that you're working off of those uh but with regards to that one of the things that I was looking for was a strategy around meeting kids where they are we will have gaps tragically we know that our kids are further behind as we stand here today than they have been in decades That's The Tragic Truth right and then the question becomes the strategy around assessing and ensuring that we're meeting their needs and one of the things that has been discussed in the past

236is ability grouping and making sure that we focus the needs of the students and the ability for a teacher to meet those needs as effectively as as possible as opposed to asking every one of our very diligent and capable teachers to meet the entire needs of kids that are many years ahead and many years behind I'm wondering if that is a strategy that you're planning to employ this year um with regards to meeting the needs of our kids sure oh sorry no I was just going to ask for you to speak to some of the PD that some of our teachers have had the opportunity to engage in and we'll have the opportunity to engage in thank you sure uh all of our professional development will be moving from implementation with Fidelity which would mean

237literally using the curriculum as it's written to moving with Integrity which means using the curriculum to accommodate and meet the needs of the students that are in front of them both at a school level and at a district level the way that shows up would be for example saying when we use El education and we have students who have limited English Proficiency in a classroom how do you use that curriculum enable them to continue to interact with grade level standards and not allow language to be a barrier so that will be the fundamental core tenant of the work we do around curriculum implementation we call that core for all but along an implementation science process that would be moving from just doing it to doing it well for all students and really being able to

238both provide the professional development and the resources for teachers to be able to do that um just last week in our direct to teacher communication on Monday we were able to distribute to teachers um revised resources that go deeper in how we use the curriculum to support students who are um in our Advanced Studies program in Talent Development similarly we're we're continuing to iterate and make better based off of feedback those same resources for students with disabilities for our English language Learners and for students with unfinished instruction which happens all years but is particularly poignant this year we're continuing to get feedback from teacher groups to then say how can we get better at doing this and providing what you need to be able to me the needs meet the needs of students that's on

239a philosophical level on a narrow level by content area it would take me all night I would do it I would do it in heartbe but I'm I'm G get hamstr strong but I um but an example would be third grade so for we have what's called an all block it moves from skills block reading Foundation skills to a little bit more of reading comprehension in third grade at the start of this year that time period is going to continue to be focused on skills block for all students across Charlotte meinberg school still with those resources for students who are above grade level who are needing additional supports for English language Learners Etc but we're making an intentional decision to start with ensuring that students are solid in Reading foundational skills for the first quarter

240before we move anybody on on uh we don't want to make any assumptions and associated with that will be the mclass reading diagnostic that we'll be able to pair with that to make sure we have both the curricular resources to support that and diagnose what what needs students have and then differentiate instruction during that all PL um for quarters two three and four I hope that helps so I I appreciate that that's a tremendous amount of detail that frankly I couldn't follow but I really appreciate but I didn't understand whether we have a district strategy around things like ability grouping or not is is there a district district strategy around um reducing the span of which individual teachers have to cover or is there a district strategy to not do that and intentionally have a

241wide span and we've passed your five minutes so right but it was a follow-up question that they didn't answer U Mr sh we'll be happy to break down what all she said and get that to you packaged and we'll get it to you that's not PR sir thank you okay anybody else um well I just want to acknowledge before we go on the next half of the report just as I was hearing this report I was thinking this isn't like the usual opening of schools report that I'm used to hearing um and so um I just I see that you're continuing with this pretty intense work of changing up our curriculum intensifying our professional development um I'm glad to hear that that you're really beefing up um oversight and support for um School Improvement teams

242and school Improvement plans um so at the same time that we are doing all the regular first day of school things and after however many you know a year and a half of Co so just I want to acknowledge how much you are doing and um and thank you for blazing ahead um and not letting any of these obstacles stop you um because we can't our kids can't afford to have us slow down um with that would you like to carry on with the next part of the report superintendent Winston Madam chair and board at this point in time I'd like to invite uh Miss Sean Turner um and her group and various others individuals in the second part of operations to step forward thank you good evening we want to begin this section um

243regarding our facilities and one of the things that we want to talk about first and foremost is what procedures are in place to confirm Readiness of our facilities um to receive our students when they come back on August 25th so our custodians um they are in the schools every day daily um they're looking around they're cleaning the facility of course to get ready to receive the students but often they are the ones that are providing the initial reports to us regarding items of concern as it relates to health or safety or any other item that would keep a school from opening and so um they are participating in that process to ensure that our schools are ready to receive students in addition to that our environmental health and safety team developed a 10-point inspection protocol

244to check all mobile classrooms and yes they checked all 12,00 12 to 1300 of them so yes they did and what they're doing during these last two weeks they will be going um to some of what they call our hotpots to make sure that we don't have any other issues in buildings going back double-checking some of these things to ensure that again our schools are ready to receive our students in addition to that our mobile classroom project managers have assisted with checking out our facility on the outside of the facilities to ensure that the grass has been maintained and that the facilities are looking good outside and then finally our opening of schools committee um recently implemented the big rocks report and they're working diligently to ensure that all safety issues and other any other

245issue that might keep a school from opening is being addressed and so I'll start with um one of the things that we wanted to share share with you today is that of course we're opening three new schools one replacement school and we're opening a virtual elementary and middle school and so thank thank you thank you um so we're opening the North Academy of world languages a Ka located at the former JM Alexander site we're also opening the South Academy of international languages AKA located at the former Nations Road uh Nations Ford Road Site we're opening southpine Academy which is an elementary school that we built to relieve nation's Ford Sterling and still Creek and then we're opening briwood elementary school it's a replacement school for our um older school that was built in 1956 all

246four of these schools were were constructed with the 2017 bond funds in addition we also had a classroom Edition and a cafeteria Edition at Sharon Elementary School as well as a new gymnasium at West mecklinburg High School these also were funded from the 2017 Bond and then finally our two virtual schools the elementary and middle will open in August at our e yell site I wanted to also share with you some of the other activities that we've been doing to get schools ready for um our students we had a number of projects around 60 with various uh types of construction such as Roofing p saving modified classrooms track and Tennis Court repairs along with various HVAC projects that we um did during the summer to get our schools ready for occupancy we also install 188

247bottle fillers across the district we were trying to ensure that each school had at least two bottle fillers at every location and then finally we wanted to um just bring you up to to dat regarding um our continuing HVAC quality initiatives um we know that that is a ongoing concern um from parents students falculty and so we wanted you to be aware that we are continuing our hbac quality initiatives which some of which are running our systems on extended schedules um continuing with the upgrade of our filters from MV 8 to MV 10 correcting the functionality of our replacement Andor replacement of our exhaust systems HVAC optimization and these are just a few of those things but in addition to that um one of the things that we talked about quite a bit last year

248was the installation of needle point bipolar ionization at the 39 schools with with that did not have outside air supply so I want to bring you up to date on where we stand with that project as many of you know we removed the old briwood um location from that list because that school was demolished but the new school did include um the installation of these devices um we have 22 that are currently or 22 schools where we currently install the devices and um of those 22 two are complete with all electrical and mechanic iCal inspections we have seven that are underway and we anticipate that they will be completed by opening of the schools on August 25th that leaves nine remaining seven of which are schools two our admin sites and um they will begin

249in September and should be complete by the end of September we anticipate that by October 22nd all of our schools will be complete within terms um or in terms of electrical and mechanical inspections because once they've been installed we have to have someone from building standards come by and do the inspections to ensure everything is operating as it should and then I want to also go over some of our upcoming projects um many of you know that we have talked about um in Pre previous board meetings that we would be receiving some sr2 funds or chrysa funds and much of that focus is on our indoor air quality and so we are planning to do a variety of different projects um we would continue with some of the same ones that we've done over the

250last year that would be air optimization um which is HVAC air system cleaning using the national duck Association standards we would also be recommissioning our HVAC equipment and controls for schools that have building automation systems we would replace some of the pneumatic and Legacy controls um to meet our current standard at some of our older schools um we are prioritizing the sustainment of our exhaust fans we would continue with the installation of needle point bipolar ionization at our schools across the district we're we're also looking at additional air purification equipment for higher risk rooms such as isolation rooms Health rooms band rooms and and that kind of thing and so um we also just finally we want to make you aware that um as a part of what's been going on with Co it's created

251a number of supply chain issues um if you recall during the last year there was reduced manufacturing capacity um the winter storms the shutdown of chemical plants during the pandemic has caused some issues in the supply chain and um it's created uh many items that are on back orders delays in shipping and certain items that we're finding it difficult to obtain and we just wanted you to be aware that that is impact ing our service delivery as well as some of the service delivery of some of our contractors and so please bear with us as that um begins to straighten itself out over the next 6 months to a year and with that I will turn it over to miss Tara Sullivan who is our Learning Community superintendent for Central 2 and Mr David Switzer

252who is our executive director of logistics and uh continuous Improvement they will go over operations and our opening of schools committee good evening superintendent winon and board members with my colleague and co-presenter David Switzer as uh Miss Turner shared we are going to discuss the operations and I want to take a minute because we do have representatives from our operations team from transportation to facilities who are also here with with us tonight and want to thank them for joining with us Mr Switzer and I with two of The Learning Community executive directors Leah Davis and Aon Joplin have the opportunity to lead and facilitate this year's opening of schools team the goal of this team it's a cross functional cross- Department team our goal is to ensure that the essential tasks of each department as

253well as that the big rocks within the schools are completed and taken care of and so that we can have a very smooth safe and efficient opening of schools and we want to make sure it is safe and efficient for the return of students um on August 25th the representation of this Depart of this team encompasses all departments everywhere we keep adding team members as we realize we want to keep making sure we have make it as efficient as possible from operations academics Learning Community Human Resources technology Transportation on and on the team meets weekly and each week the building principles their team submit Big Rocks Our learning d The Learning Community executive directors review what their big rock items are and those that cannot be addressed by our Learning Community team are elevated to

254our opening of schools team our opening of schools team facilitated with Mr Switzer we review those big rock items and we problem solve and the team from particularly with our uh facilities team with Bessie Harvey and team they go about getting them resolved so that school can operate and be efficient at the start of the year for our students additionally they review their different deliverable tasks to ensure and support a safe opening of schools one of the Departments that I'll talk with you about is our school nutrition team our schooled nutrition service professionals they're committed to ensuring that we're providing quality nutritious appealing meals in support of student academic success this year for the 2122 school year the USDA has granted a waiver to schools which allows for one lunch and one breakfast to be

255provided daily at no charge to students as the recovery from the pandemic continues we're calling this the no charge for student meals and it is just for this right now 2122 school year students and school-based staff will be provided a barcoded ID card that's going to be scanned when receiving whether it's a breakfast lunch or purchasing additional items in the cafeteria additionally our Equity OSP team or EOS eosp team uh head by Dr ratley uh we are working with our principles right now um to help troubleshoot and support plans um so that we can ensure breakfast and lunch you know is provided while we are also meeting the safety protocols that we need to follow within with what we have right now for the county and with that I'm going to turn it over to

256Mr Switzer so good evening uh so two years ago in an acronym world we would have never known what PP is but yet today you know we we wearing it we live it we breathe it and so just want to one is give a big shout out uh you know it kind of reminded me a year ago in July we had 150 pallets of PPE at the hopus warehouse with a mission to get the uh PP to schools for staff and students within 3 weeks and pretty daunting task reminded me of 2003 when we got dropped in the desert literally and we're expected in 3 weeks to operate Airfield operations and so you can't do any of this work without people uh so I want to give a big shout out to all the people

257at Craig warehouse at the Hovis warehouse at Stafford Drive so all those guys I think we put Amazon to shame uh because we were able to deliver so much of the product and they did such a phenomenal job in the world and really they're the heroes that were able to kind of risk everything to go out there so it was really great so I'll share some of the pp U all the schools and departments have a PP contact so they have someone there that helps organize swort distribute and everything for their schools and their departments uh they all get week weekly emails for myself uh try to send out nice positive message and just updates and reminders to them uh so we try to do one or two I don't want to uh idate their

258inbox too much so we usually give one or two emails just highlighting some of the procedures that we're going to do and what expected uh to provide to the students and staff and so as you can see in the B third bullet we've given everything out since the cloth uh reable face masks you've seen probably some of people wearing the Han masks all the way through to uh sanitizer to wipes to gloves uh a plethora of pp is out there matter of fact a lot of our schools are telling us they have too much uh which is a good problem to have because it's better to have and not need than to need and not have and so we're really proud of all those guys that were able to get the PPE out to everybody

259um so our expectation over the next couple weeks again depending on guidelines as they continue to change but we will uh anything the schools ask for if we don't have it on hand Sean Turner's been great in her role uh to be able to order it procure it uh and again as she said with the supply chain it's been really tough to get stuff but we were able to to have things on hand and really get it to everybody to keep them safe so our next one um as a former principal you can't teach and learn without students and so our Transportation uh division everything is truly important and crucial to what we do day in and day out I I want to give a strong uh you know accolades to Adam Johnson has done

260a phenomenal job I mean again when we talked about Camp CMS they then had to go and get all the routes for Camp CMS and kind of just really redirect a lot of resources doing this in a time where uh again they're going to talk about as far as vacancies and that but we're not we're we're a little below what other people are paying and we're struggling to try to compete with all the outside vendors so uh we operate 950 bus is traveling an estimate 103,000 uh miles each day if you ever drive from Huff to wingit park it takes you about an hour and a half uh it does it's our district is huge and they do a phenomenal job of getting students on time uh we have about 87,000 as you can see

261assigned to buses by the first day of the school and every day uh they accept a new act uh uh as far as request for bus service which entail with all the uh spacing and all the other regulations that continue to change is a pretty daunting task that again Adam and his team do phenomenal with so uh we anticipate hiring additional 33 drivers I believe they're in training right now uh we're hoping that they finish the training they take the training and they actually stay with CMS uh and then that leaves us some again potential vacancies that I know the HR is going to speak about uh kind of the uh incentives and stuff that we're going to be doing for that so again this number all these numbers keep changing obviously every day but

262again the goal is to get students to school on time and then depart and get them to home safe and sound so uh the next area we like to talk about is again when you talk about safe and clean and orderly schools and hats off to custodians who do a job that they cover the amount of square feet that is way above what the guidelines probably offer you know and so we're talking about personel Staffing uh really again uh Phil Burman as the executive director Rick Camp Robin Slade and all the operational supervisors all the way to the schools the head custodians do a phenomenal job they've cleaned all the existing schools they've cleaned the virtual schools they've cleaned the new sites are there and they're about 80% with a uh track record to be

263uh ready to go and everybody finished by the end of this week uh at this time they're focusing on all the 80 Camp CMS sites so they weren't able able to kind of clean while the students are there so obviously deep cleaning and doing that uh supplemental cleaning this summer included window cleaning high dusting and pressure washing what we've been reminded a lot is uh as our news colleagues are around here anytime that they could take a picture of a event with a a bunch of dust on it or something then that's going to make the news and so uh these guys have gone out they've done what they need to do we've we've hired out outside vendors to be able to support the supplemental cleaning on that uh Jim and stage four sanding they

264got about 30 out of the 50 schools are complete again as you can see by the end of the week uh they're expecting the rest of them to be finished up and again the last bullet ever changing this the CDC guidelines are changing constantly every time whether it's clean this clean that we got to do this everything else so the uh the custodial staff and everybody that's out there has done a phenomenal job and continues to keep updated on all the protocols and then just make sure that everything's safe clean and orderly so with that I pass on to my wonderful colleague kall for technology thank you David I'm delighted to be able to share with you this evening the busy summer that technology Services has had we had to think out of the box

265and be creative about how we would deploy over 500 laptops for new teachers so we set up a drive-thru access at our information and information systems and support location on alagan street we deployed those 500 laptops over the last two weeks to get teachers into PD and ready for the opening of the new school year we are currently deploying 45,000 new student Chromebooks to replace aging Chromebooks we are on a five-year life cycle with those and these 45,000 will be decommissioned this year technology infrastructure including audio video phones devices are installed and ready for students and staff at the new Brierwood the West Mech Jim South Academy of international languages South Pine Academy and North Academy of world languages this summer we've repaired over 3,800 devices in our CMS Tech Depot and with that there

266was a triage of 12,000 devices that needed repair we anticipate we'll have an influx of devices in need of repair when students re return we've upgraded 23 School wireless networks as part of our FCC rate program this program allows us about $5 million a year for the refresh of our Hardware following the opening of school we'll launch the district teacher laptop refresh those reaching 5 years will be refreshed this fall and in addition we will upgrade the interactive projection systems in over 1900 classrooms and with that I'll transition to our chro Christine Pou thanks K good evening certainly an incredible component um to opening of schools and one that is certainly critical is Staffing um so I'm going to briefly go over our current vacancy update and again I put a note down at the

267bottom of the page that these numbers are fluid and that's very important to remember because even the numbers that I'm sharing as of tonight teachers for example at 123 vacancies that's already down from around 20 or so more that we had as of Saturday um so this is a very fluid process this is something that we monitor daily um we have applicants and we have positions being um filled daily and applicants being processed through the system so as far as teachers go we have a 123 vacancies across our entire District um clearly that's less than one per school if we looked at it districtwide but we know that we can't just look at it districtwide so I wanted to provide some additional context for you in that area we have six schools across our entire

268District that have three or more vacancies and of those schools five of them have three um there is one school that has six so that has the most vacancies that any one school in particular has um so we are working incredibly hard um the team HR along with the principles to be able to get those positions filled of all of the vacancies our biggest content area that we're looking to fill as exceptional um education teachers so that is something that we're concentrating specifically and and rallying around in terms of drivers I have listed here roughly 77 vacancies and you may ask why that was slightly different than the number that was shared even just a few slides ago and that is because when we look at vacancies we look at actual um bodies that need

269to be filled in order to get kids to school so we include in our count and must consider um drivers who are currently on an extended leave like we can't count them as being available so when we look at the actual numbers we're looking at around 77 we do have an upcoming class later this month where we expect to fill more positions and we're actively looking to have more classes and um Mr Johnson has and his team have done an incredible job in terms of um doing community outreach Outreach working with Community organizations such as the Goodwill the Latin Community or um Coalition and other organizations to hold targeted job fairs and events to attract and and you know more drivers for our pool um nurses we are currently sitting at around 35 vacancies and

270of course um that is some a program that has run through our County Partners so and that is something that's going to be incredibly important especially with our um covid-19 response um in addition to the nurses we have approximately 24 nurse extenders that are at the ready um to also be dispersed among schools to be able to help support um those services so what are we doing creatively to address these vacancies um this is hot off the press so for the first time many of our employees and and hopefully prospective applicants are going to be seeing this information but what I have to caution that is what I'm about to share is pending approval to use um our American Rescue plan funding for this purpose we have already submitted application for approval for these initiatives

271that I'm about to go over so again that is why it's pending approval and I want to I want to caution everyone that we're while we're very excited and we don't see any reason why um these are not going to be supported initiatives based on the criteria we've submitted um we are still proceeding with caution and hope to be able to announce the campaign soon um so first off would be bus drive drivers we have proposed and applied for um the funds to be able to apply a $11,000 recruitment bonus for any new drivers for the 21 22 school year we would also apply a retention bonus to all existing drivers within CMS and we are handling you'll see retention is specifically around bus drivers and that is because that is the group that we're

272seeing the most significant turnover with so that certainly supports not only doing the the recruitment incentive but also a retention incentive to recognize our incredible staff who are already in our Fleet um also HVAC is incredibly important um it's a challenge um to find skilled um people in this area especially because of the high needs throughout our community in response to covid so installing the upgraded systems and ensuring that we have that excellent indoor air quality is something that not only CMS but other organizations are seeking to find those skilled trades to be able to support um again our exceptional education teachers we are we have applied for um funding to be able to provide a $2500 recruitment incentive um we feel this is going to be incredibly important to attract more um qualified exceptional

273Ed teachers into our program we have also um expanded our teaching Residency program to add exceptional education teachers as well so that we can continue to hopefully grow our own pool of exceptional Ed teachers and finally instructional substitutes um I'll share on a later slide more information about our new program this school year um but we are looking to provide a $250 recruitment incentive so that we can make our substitute pool more robust so that we can support that continuity of Education in the classrooms in the event that teachers um are out for example due to quarantining related to covid we expect to see some type of an increase or I should say decrease in attendance due to reasons such as covid so um with that said our instructional substitute program is really getting a

274revamp this year so for the last several years we've had a bifurcated system wherein um Kelly support educational servic as a vendor provided our substitute management for all of our Title One schools whereas CMS ran the substitute program for non-title one schools so um we uh are in a place now where we can provide a districtwide program we understand what the needs of our schools are across the district and in places where that needs to be differentiated um So currently we have a pool of over 1, 1600 substitutes at the ready to be able to take assignments um once the need arises we also are working to staff a dedicated team that will support substitutes we just um were able to start to make those expenditures and build that team late in the summer so

275that's why we are still looking to um fill a couple of those positions on that team but we have existing staff right now working to support this initiative um we also were able to approve the use of Grant funds for a title one salary difference differential so substitutes who go to Title One schools to work a daily job will earn $20 more per day when they take this assignments in Title One schools as opposed to other schools throughout our district um so that concludes the Staffing portion of our update and I'm happy to turn things over to Chief Mangum to discuss safety sorry good evening tonight I'm going to be providing an overview of our safety measures school should be a safe place for teaching and learning to that end the CMS Police Department is

276dedicated to keeping schools safe and continuously strengthening our security measures our current security measures are Lobby guard system our lock down drills our school safety plans electronic access controls and locked exterior doors our video surveillance Panic buttons and of course our random safety screams our department includes nearly 150 team members made of police officers detectives drug and gun detection can Security Associates communication staff alarm technicians and a safe school coordinator there are eight CMS police officers that serve as school resource officers in our middle K8 and high school there are six CMS police officers that provide service to our elementary schools in partnership with our local police department CMS contracts with these agencies to provide school resource officers for the remaining middle Ka and high schools the Charlotte meinberg Police Department provides 50 school resource

277officers the Huntersville Police Department provides five the Cornelius and Matthews Police Department provide two school resource officers each and Davidson Police Department provides one as a safety incentive CMS police successfully implemented the safety screening process in randomly selected high schools during the 2018 2019 school year and in the middle and K8 schools in 2019 and 20120 the safety screenings will be deployed again this new school year our safety screenings are designed to deter students from bringing weapons illegal drugs and other prohibited items to school our Department's goal is to keep weapons and drugs out of our schools by utilizing metal detection devices and bag inspections by our drug and gun detection canines and a specially trained team of Security Associates now I'm going to outline the steps involved in our safety screening process our schools

278are selected randomly from all middle ka8 and high schools the principal and the Learning Community superintendents are advised the afternoon before the morning of the screening our safety screen team safety screening team arrives before the first block Bell secures a non-instructional location to set up our portable metal detectors our team consists of myself our drug detection canine our gun detection canine and their handlers detectives security associate supervisor for security associate leads six Security Associates and our safe school coordinator students are provided an explanation and the instructions for the process referencing the student code of conduct students are requested to self-report any prohibited items they may be in possession of school administrators are present also to assist in this process the students with their teachers are led to the screening location and instructed how to walk

279through the metal detectors each K9 is separately led into the classroom by their Handler and the screening of the student's property is conducted if prohibited items are detected by the canines it is collected as evidence and a school administrator accompanied by a security associate removes the student that possess the prohibited item to a private location where they can be searched to ensure that they have no other prohibited items on their person if the prohibited item is determined to be a criminal offense appropriate law enforcement action is taken the school administration investigates and determines if disciplinary action is required students are returned to the classroom immediately following the canine search of the students possessions our average time of safety screening process per classroom is 10 minutes that's minimizing instructional time disruption our active survival training is

280another safety measure implemented during the 2018 2019 year to dat we have trained over 12,000 High School Middle K8 and CMS Department Personnel the instruction and training are delivered by a CMS Police Department specialized instructor the active survival training will continue to evolve every year and we will instruct the training to ensure that all of our school staff and CMS employees have been trained we are prepared to welcome our students back and committed to providing a safe place for their learning thank you and back to Miss Christine I thank you so last but certainly not least um I'm here to share with uh the board in our public this evening our covid-19 response protocols which are going to be incredibly important this coming school year so first off just um a reminder that um to

281all that we have instituted Universal face covering requirements across the board for everyone in doors at CMS facilities again everyone means all staff students visitors volunteers um it also applies to athletic programs so indoor athletic sports and extracurriculars um masks are still encouraged outdoors in areas that are crowded spaces um but they are optional um as opposed to indoors where they are mandatory um we also have released a revised student face covering exemption form that requires um or actually that has a section where the student's medical provider attests to the student having a developmental um de um Behavioral or medical condition that substantially interferes with the student's ability to wear a mask during the day um so in addition to the medical provider section there is also a parent Guardian section to be completed and

282this is different from last year that did not have um we did not have a form that required the medical um provider signature um that form has been distributed it's available in multiple language um it's also uh been made available on our website um we have revised quarantine protocols or rather um I wanted to take the opportunity to share what the quar Protocols are um some of them were actually revised at the end of last year um and all of these are based on information and guidance that's shared in the North Carolina department Health and Human Services strong schools toolkit um students who test positive are required to quarantine for 10 days um that is something that was updated towards the end of last school year um so that is just a requirement that we

283have to follow students who are close contacts however um in School setting with somebody who tests positive are no longer required to quarantine if they are masked and they are symptom free um so that is a significant change and um one of the pieces of information that I believe helped this help inform this board on the recent ruling to require Universal masking um most close contact situations do involve 10 days of quarantine however um if a student tests negative after 5 days and remains symptom free that's student is allowed to return to school after 7 days only if they are able to follow all protocols so it's important to note that those protocols include face covering so if a student for whatever reason or for one of the qualified reasons I should say has an

284exemption that student would be required to stay out um for the full 10 days because they are not able to follow the protocols of masking um when they return um we also um have a district response team that I'm I'm re really here tonight representing um this team meets weekly and has met weekly for the last several months and will continue to do so um it's the team responsible for reviewing um the health metrics that our district continues to monitor in collaboration with County Health officials um those metrics are are going to be uh published and continue to be published on the district's website um Health metrics such as our positivity rate in the community um our case rate per 100,000 those are some of the metrics that you'll recall that we looked at um

285weekly during live briefings on Facebook live um last year uh this team also reviews and makes recommendations to the superintendent and Inter to this board on covid related protocols um for example um The Mask mandate um we closely monitor guidance at the local state and federal levels and again we collaborate often with our local County Health officials um what's to come so we um have opted in as a district to a Statewide test program the state has um designated two different vendors one of which is has been assigned to CMS um to create a custom design program that best suits the needs of our students and staff um we have a kickoff meeting this week um with the vendor we just found out late last week actually who our vendor was that we were assigned

286to so we were eagerly anticipating that announcement and the ability to connect and start planning um so once we have that meeting we'll be able to soon make recommendations of what a testing program could look like um testing program can involve either diagnostic testing which is something very specific to an individual so for example if a student if we have this availability and we and we have already talked about planning um for testing sites to be available at school so that a student who does want to come back earlier and not have to be out the entire 10 days can opt in to test um at a school site test negative is able to come back in seven days so that's one example of diagnostic testing surveillance testing is more of a a you think

287about it as random screening so a really good example for that and something that we've discussed preliminarily would be a surveillance testing program for staff and it would impact our um it could be designed to impact and be applicable to unvaccinated staff so in other words all staff would be subject to weekly testing for covid-19 unless they presented documentation that they were fully vaccinated so that has many benefits I mean to us it gets us in a better place to understand how many of our staff are fully vaccinated against covid-19 um and it's also a way to encourage vaccination because certainly um we expect that many employees rather than having to go through weekly testing would much prefer to go get the vaccine and be done with it um so that's those are just some

288examples that we've already discussed with our local Health Partners and what we plan to discuss at the kickoff meeting this week um we of course are also promoting on-site vaccine clinics throughout the district our next one is going to be um right around the corner on August 17th at our CMS education center this is not just open to to folks who work at Central um this is for anyone age 12 and older older part of our community who is eligible to take the vaccine um so we encourage people to come to that event on a walk-in basis um we're also going to be sharing Flyers that allow um individuals to make an appointment in addition to the That vaccine clinic we have several schools I believe it's up to around five or six at this

289point who are going to be hosting on-site clinics for vaccinations um during their open houses when they're welcoming back families so that will be a great opportunity for families to take advantage of getting their covid-19 vaccination um finally we are in the process of finalizing our updated employee resource guide that is essentially going to include many of the updates that I just shared this evening make sure that we get that information out fresh again to all of our staff in preparedness for the upcoming school year and we expect to release later this week and with that I will turn it back over to superintendent Winston for closing remarks or questions thank you Miss p and thank you to the entire team uh this evening um I know there are many other individuals who help support

290this effort uh and they are not here but want to thank them too I also want to particularly call out uh Tara suiv there you go Tara and David Switzer thank you all for co-leading are opening the schools uh Team I know it is a herculan effort and while I know that a lot of the information um that was shared with you all tonight uh is not traditionally a part of our opening of schools report um but I hope you had a chance to see the depth of the work that the team is doing to prepare for opening of schools it's not always um glamorous um but it is the work um and it is um work Dr Jones that certainly was not intended to raise your blood pressure um but we thought it was

291L it lowered or lowered your well I thought I thought you got excited and it just should have happened up front U because this is what school is about understood understood but we thought it was important to share with you board members as well as our listening public and those who are in attendance the the uh depth of the work that is being conducted so thank you to the team with that Madam chair we'll turn it back over to you we're happy to entertain any questions all right and then and just to be clear that it's the five minutes includes um the response so I see Rhonda and Dr Jones five minutes that would be all you would need how do you know what I mostely I don't I didn't speak the last time so

292I'm just going to take five I'm going to take just a minute uh this is great information a lot about all the stuff that all the adults are doing hopefully soon our agendas will be full of what kids are doing and how they're performing um Dr Jones I agree with you this should have been done first and I know that um there's a group of us meeting to discuss agendas right now and one of the things is that the reports should be at the very beginning of the meeting before public comment or anything else so hopefully that will happen in the future um it's something that we're going to be working real hard towards so I thank you for for everything um and that's all I don't have any comments because this was an awful

293lot of information it is 10:20 and this was a lot so thank you for all the the adult work that's been going on and hopefully it translates into really good things for students and our staff okay Dr Jones um I do have several questions um we talked about safety I remember Barry heill Barry heill is an old school um the windows don't open uh H how much have we looked into making schools safe just by having uh appropriate ventilation that's one question uh teacher shortage 123 vacancies um what grade levels uh how do we anticipate um uh servicing students will it be larger class sizes and what the implications of that um the garinger football team I I don't know if it's true or not they have uh they are not going to have a

294football team this school year I was recently told I don't know whether it's due to covid are the 2.0 average um I'm interested in that the EC Autistic Program concerns me um from the level of uh we have student students in uh that are autistic that need space um but we put them in the same classroom where Ruby is an autistic student doesn't know the space so I'm uh we we need to look at from an EC standpoint how we um service children and service means how we place them in classrooms based on their needs um um and I have something about collaborative so you'll be happy to know that um um uh that's a whole another thing so it'll take five minutes to um explain talk about the garinger thing the U be Hill

295is an example of old schools where the windows don't open drywood I think um it's new and that's a good thing cuz that would be a health hazard but um I'm sure there are other schools and how much have we looked at those such as be Hill which is still there and it's it's it's pathetic the building out there um and the teacher shortages specific what is the plan so so Dr Jones if I could start with your first question about air quality and I know Phil bman from our Building Services team has joined Shan Turner at the podium will you all address that particular question first what's the question Dr Jones will you repeat the question one more time the first question you wanted to ask ventilation Hill ventilation at bar Hill Elementary School

296it's you know that's an old school is it's you know I'm shamefully still a part of CMS in terms of the condition of that facility um so what do we know about safety and ensuring safety in terms of student and staff's health out there yeah what what we what we're basically doing is we we're trying to do everything we can to get the ventilation working as close to the original design as we can with many of the older schools that's difficult because we you know we have not funded preventive maintenance I've been here over 20 years through nine superintendents and so you know that part of what we have a generational opportunity with these Carissa and the AR American Rescue plan funds and part of you know what we what we had adapted as an

297approach and this this go really goes back to last year back in March April we knew there was going to be Federal money and we we developed a a program of tiered strategies and it's interesting because today that is exactly what ashray and CDC are recommending and I think Sean mentioned cleaning all our ducks is important but an important part of our strategy is to recommit recommission the the the Building Systems now what that really means is a building system has equipment and our schools are not like your home or your home would be called residential equipment our schools are commercial equipment and there's all let me say there's all types of different systems 40% of our schools were built before 1970 20% were built between 19 70 in 1999 and 40% since we have

298a plethora of different types of systems two pipes four pipes rooftops or we have eight different Control Systems breeds of control systems that be like alleron automatic logic so part of what we're going to do with the with this Federal money is we're going to re recommissioning a system means you're making sure all the equipment actuators dampers the things which give you the ventilation you're going to make sure that all works but you can't even if the equipment works if your controls don't work you don't have an operating system Mr bman I know you know that's basically you know the approach we're taking thank you for that comprehensive response I know there's a lot packed in there I do want to give uh Miss P an opportunity to address the Staffing question that Dr Jones

299raised yes thank you superintendent Winston um Dr Jones of the six schools that have three or more vacancies that can be broken down specifically to three elementary schools one middle school and two high schools and you'll recall that I mentioned five of those schools actually have three vacancies one of the high schools is the one that has six vacancies so we are specifically working with those schools to be able to close the gap some of the strategies that we're employing besides the the one that's going to be the big one and that's essentially putting money behind it in terms of recruitment incentives would be relying on placement of our remaining CMS teaching residents that are still looking for assignments so we would qualif we would match them based upon their area of um lure essentially

300we also have additional candidates that we can place through Teach for America we also have applicants that we are calling that our our recruitment team is going through so when teachers apply for jobs they apply for a specific School site to work at so may not have applied at other schools that have similar openings for the same lure areas so what our team does is goes through those applicants who have not been picked up for certain jobs at certain schools so that we can send candidates over to principals for consideration and do whatever we need to if we need to add them to the requisitions to be considered for those jobs that's what we do and then of course we're trying to build our substitute pool even more up over the current 1600 that we

301have so that we can support in areas where we have shortages a significant number of those subs are also certified teachers so it's another effectively another Pool of teachers that we can look at who are qualified above and beyond the minimum requirements that it would take to be a substitute so those are just some of the things that we're working on okay I would ask that you take a look at Eastway because the teachers uh preco have talked about whatever that you call where you can't get teacher um substitute teachers and so they Crow the kids in together and that's going to be a particularly big problem and so I know that teachers are start confiding and many uh uh if conditions of if they preco were bad no understood and and that was one

302of the strategies where in in essence around half our schools had their hands tied because they were not able to use a TA and pay them accordingly to be able to cover for classes but now that we are managing the substitute program districtwide we have that opportunity available to all of our Tas across the district in the event that classes need to be dispersed or we need to use a TA to help cover a class and I think that's going to be welcome news to many of our Tas but uh teacher assistants with that program get to choose what schools they go to so you know that's a that's a problem there we appreciate your feedback and are certainly rallying around it and guys I just want to apologize for being inconsistent because I stuck

303to the five minute rule with one board member and I didn't with the other so I'm going to try to go back to the five minute rule here um okay um let's see I've got Miss Sawyer and then miss delara hey thank you uh Miss F don't don't go away um I'm very glad that we're we have a vendor now for testing um do we have will we have the opportunity to do screening testing for students participating in extra in co-curricular activities whether they're um Athletics or other things yes so in fact when we were looking forward to launching a pilot in the summer because we had actually our district opted in to participate in the summer we just didn't get the information from the state we had identified targeting extracurriculars in athletics um to

304start with because we also are unclear about the capacity that the vendor is going to be able to provide to us so that is one of the main questions that we have going in so if it's a situation where we're limited that is certainly going to be one of the areas that we want to Target first because of the higher nature the higher risk associated with that so we but we don't know what how many tests we'll get and that kind of thing yeah we don't we we did we were asked whether or not we want a type of program where we would have staff inserted into our schools and we said yes because we we are I believe we are the largest at this point that I'm aware of that has opted into the

305program okay and then I'm getting lots of questions about um safety during lunch periods and we talked about different quarantine periods whether you're masked or unmasked if we have students eating lunch together in a room how do we count that in terms of contact tracing for quarantine period based based on not masked at that point because we don't know what time of day a student was exposed if it's an entire classroom understood and and the way that lunchroom looks is a lot dependent upon the numbers of students and how it works on a school by school basis and I know that I have some academic colleagues who are prepared to address that question that we anticipated coming this evening and we also have Monica Damian here that can address the specific questions with respect to

306contact tracing and the quarantining in the context of cafeteria okay and and while she's coming down I have one other question a real quick thing I'm getting all the uh teacher wish lists um things that teachers want us to buy and and support our schools and a lot of them are posting that they need sanitizing wipes do we have enough of those that we don't have to ask our teachers to go begging for those yes we do we purchased um a couple of truck loads of um Lysol wipes so we okay great so teachers quit asking for those yeah they just need to talk to the PPE contact at their school so they can talk to David thank you and going back to the question about the cafeterias as Christine said all the schools are

307very different and their opportunities to go outside are different um we're working with principles to be as creative as possible to figure out spaces where they can spread out because if they can spread out at least 6 fet apart without their masks on they would not have to quarantine during during that time thank you okay Miss deara thank you um Miss saer asked my questions about surveillance testing and lunch so I'm going to go with uh just kind of ask all mine together because I think they all correspond first I just want to thank um the superintendent and staff for strengthening the opt out form and requiring a um signature by a medical provider I think that is really important and I'm glad that we have done that um other questions that I have here

308are lunch okay I know that you know hybrid learning is not an option at this point but for students who are um on quarantine will they have the opportunity to upload assignments even if it's not during regular school hours I mean is that an opportunity to use the technology that they may have oh I was going to well go ahead and answer that and then I'll just have one more go ahead no thank you so um all the information that we had that was loaded on canvas that we've used while the students have been under the pandemic is still uh able to be used uh by our by our teachers I just want to be clear though that these These are support systems that we have for students they are not in any way used

309in a remote fashion for that data count as attendance but they are there in order to support if students have to take a longer time out we also have other things that are in place districtwide that have always been in place and have been able to be used uh when we have students that for a long period of time or hospitalized or have to be out of uh out of the school system but there's a process and procedures that the school can help walk them through if that happens okay great and then for I mean there's so many people that send specific questions and I try to forward them on and certainly we were going to give a presentation tonight with more information but if there are the listening audience who still has more questions

310who's the best person to contact is it the principal that they should reach out to at this point what should we do yes ma'am that is correct it would be the uh the principal and then for some reason if there's not enough Clarity that's provided there each of that they can then reach out to the Learning Community Superintendent at that time okay thank you any other questions Miss fer oh and Miss fer and Miss Marshall so my only questions are in regards of covid-19 safety protocols that we're going to have at the school one in regards of mask and two in regards of Chromebooks are all of our students going to be able to have their own personal Chromebook to limit the amount of sharing that we may have um that may lead to contact

311tracing that may be difficult if we're sharing Chromebooks and then with the in regards of mask in the cafeteria will our high schoolers be given the outside option I know for example Myers Park has an outdoor option to eat outside which could help in regards of the uh covid-19 transactions whatever so has happened right so yes and yes students will have access to their individual um Chromebooks and yes it's my understanding and I don't know if my academic colleagues want to add to that but it's my understanding that outdoor use would be um we would use that to the fullest extent that it's available I'm seeing a yes and will we create more lunches so then we can reduce the amount of students that are in the lunchroom at each time just so then the

312public can know what we're doing so we know that the cafeteria will be a hot spot for covid-19 so right now we are working with each from the eosp team each of us are working with our school teams to really troubleshoot and problem solve looking at do we need to have another lunch do we need to what are the spaces that we need to to make sure that we are also having the appropriate physical distance and so every school is very different based on number size you know composition so we we're bringing sing and troubleshooting and then we would have the schools communicate those procedures out with their students and their Community okay thank you M Marshall I am really glad that we talked about safety in terms of our protocol s um about screen

313for weapons because that that's so important and and I I this has got to be a very clear message to students from the very first day that that is a non-negotiable so I appreciate that and I would encourage that that that our random screenings begin immediately we don't want to mess around with that so I I really appreciate that um also glad to hear about this mobile classroom initiative because I know that's always been a question and I'm glad that that was highlighted in the Forefront um the bipolar um needle point um installation a little bit later than I had hoped I had hoped everything would be done by beginning of school um is there any way to speed that up yes so the vendor is working with us weekly and updating US Weekly um

314if they're making greater progress than what is projected so there is a chance um we will know you know each week we'll get an update and if they can progress they're starting to work overtime they're focusing on the camp CMS sites that um they missed they started with the other sites first and now they're working on those sites right now so we're hoping that they can get as many as possible as I indicated the seven that are underway they believe very firmly that they can get those done by 825 if for some reason they're able to speed that progress up there are nine remaining schools that they would be able to get um hopefully installed by that time but we'll get another update probably this Friday okay great thank you and then uh in terms

315of testing I know you just had your meeting yesterday do we think we're going to have is it possible we roll out the beginning of school that we're able to go day one I know I'm asking The Impossible on that one but s yeah kickoff is actually Thursday morning and then we have a follow-up meeting with the county so um the likelihood of getting that kicked off in time seems like that would not be we could certainly have a plan by then but actual implementation likely not given the fact that we don't understand Yet the full scope of the resources that are going to be available to us and really the size and scope of what we're going to be able to pull off and when but we are going to aggressively follow it and

316do what we can when we can um um and hopefully we'll be able to at least share a report of what that plan will look like very soon okay thank you Mr strain thank you I got a a couple questions one's around quarantine protocols and other around the exceptional ed teacher Recruitment and the last about protecting our staff so the first one is around the quarantine protocols there was a report of one of our athletic teams and I'd like to know more about Ginger's football team as well um that Dr Jones asked about but there was an athletic team that one of the players was reported to have a close contact and the team stopped practicing and they stopped training because one of the players had a close contact not a confirmed case close contact

317I haven't been able to confirm that but does that sound like any sort of protocol we have no I I'm not aware of a situation like that if a team is practicing and someone tests positive obviously if other players are in close contact they may have to quarantine and that's led to teams stopping practice but just a close contact that does we can follow up if you find thank you um with regards to exceptional Ed teachers a $2,500 recruitment are we doing anything around retention I mean that was the that was the the largest recruitment bonus offered I'm concerned that we're offering recruitment bonuses but but not the retention side then absolutely the biggest component related to retention we look at turnover and the data did not demonstrate a significant variance in terms of turnover

318related to EC teachers rather there was a need to recruit more um as as compared to for example the bus drivers where we're seeing a very high rate of turnover especially in recent months so those are some of the factors that come into play in terms of the amount and one of the basic things that we look at is salary and what people earn what their average earning is in that position to establish what an appropriate amount would be for a recruitment incentive understood thank you the last is with regards to protecting our staff I appreciate the briefing with regards to PPE um obviously critical particularly if we were having this conversation a year ago big part of our strategy but I've got notes superintendent you said earlier the best way to control this pandemic

319um the uh uh County Health director said the answer is the vaccine and and the resulting antibodies and the backup is masks and so whilst I appreciate all of the investment in in PPE Etc um you know clearly positive covid antibodies are the best thing that we can have that our staff can have to fight this um both in terms of protecting our staff and in terms of protecting our students so from from that perspective what is the current do we have a current vax or antibody status of our staff and Mr superintendent if this is best why has mandatory vac vaccination policy not been adopted so do we have a view first of all as to our staff and the VAC or or antibody status um so we don't have that information as of

320right now but through the testing program that we hope to soon Implement that would give us the information and the better insight to understand which of our staff are vaccinated and those who are not and that could then help inform decisions on whether or not we take we need to take next steps or how we would prepare or encourage our staff um on awareness around getting the vaccine and providing support in that area so I'm I'm understanding we don't know who and who has not been vaccinated or has the antibodies from having successfully fought the disease previously I'm not aware that we have that information no she said we didn't what about the assessment with regards to um actually implementing the best thing we've all said this is the best thing to protect our staff

321we do believe vaccines uh are extremely important and the approach that we have taken to date is to strongly encourage uh recommend that uh all staff and students who are eligible at this point uh to get vaccinated that they do so um and that's one of the reasons why we can continue to host the vaccination clinics we have one coming up on August the 17th from 10: to 2: p.m. at the education center uh We've also um uh with the help of Miss Damian um working with our schools as part of their open houses to host uh vaccination clinics as well um I I I do think it's important to state that that is our Approach at this time um we have no current plan um we have had no serious discussions about requiring staff

322to become vaccinated um I do think it's important to to also uh note that uh no other District uh to my knowledge in North Carolina has taken that particular approach around requiring staff to be vaccinated um that's not to say that at some point um that won't Garner additional conversation but at this particular Point that's not the approach uh that we're taking all right I hope you look at it all right well thank you everybody and I I think all the questions have been asked that um that I would have asked so thank you for the thorough report and good luck okay um I have been asked by some board members to take a five minute recess um so we're going to do that then come back and we've got one more report um and

323one more thing that we have to do more rep yeah but but truly you guys should have done two hours ago we should have done setting my timer yeah two hours ago a recess was the right time and okay so guys before we go on to our last report um it's come to my attention that the um consent agenda um was there was one item on the consent agenda that had no documentation attached to it that was item o and so we're going I'm going to call for a motion to reconsider the consent agenda without item o item o so move Madam chair yes without item o any so motion from Miss Marshall second from Miss deara so yes item o had no documentation so we should not have it should not have been on

324the consent agenda so we now have a motion to reconsider the consent agenda without item o and we have a second any further debate or discussion before I call for the vote okay all those in favor of the motion let it be known by a show of hands and any opposed and that is 6-2 all right our final report I'm sorry but you now you have to vote on the oh so that was just on the motion oh that was that was the motion the vote to reconsider the motion thank you it's late well okay all right just so just call for a motion now the motion the consent agenda without I move that we adopt the consent agenda without item o second all right ready to vote all those in favor let it be

325known by a show of hands and then opposed and that's six to2 are we good okay so let's 5 to two 5 to two no 6 to I'm sorry it's late sorry okay okay um I'm going to turn to the superintendent now for a report from Air Title 9 Department thank you madam chair and board members I am going to uh turn the floor over momentarily to Laura French our executive director of employer relations uh who will introduce uh Stephanie mckenny um our director of uh Title 9 who will present on on a very very important topic and for those who are not familiar Title 9 is a federal civil rights statute that was passed as part of the education Amendments of 1972 among its Provisions are uh prohibitions um of sex and gender-based discrimination

326in any school or other education program that receives federal funds um Miss mckenny will discuss uh the statute and our District's implementation of related policies and Provisions uh but before she does I want to make it very clear that all CMS Personnel regardless of assignment have the responsibility to understand Title Nine and our role in following the statute without fail last month we met with our principles and executive staff to reiterate that point and to share that there there is zero tolerance for violating any component of Title 9 trainings with all staff are ongoing uh and will be completed before uh the beginning of the school year I believe those trainings began this week Miss mckenny during the opening weeks of school students will receive training on their rights and responsibilities and Miss mckenny will

327provide additional details toward that end but there is a districtwide effort to make sure that all students and staff know the policy and the proper procedures for reporting misconduct uh supporting students families and staff is a priority in CMS and to that end we announced on Friday the creation of a task force whose purpose is to review current reporting and support procedures to ensure that we are responding promptly and effectively to claims of uh that include harassment assault or other violations of Title 9 uh we will share more details in the uh coming days about the task force but at this time I will turn the floor over to uh Miss French um the floor is yours thank you superintendent Winston uh tonight the title n department has been asked to provide an in-depth overview

328on how the title n Department support support students and staff and helping to ensure that title 9 protections are appropriately implemented this report couldn't be more timely as we've been listening to our students tonight and over the past few weeks share their personal experiences on matters that fall squarely within title n given these conversations we welcome this opportunity to share with you and the community more insight into the work of this department and our commit commment to ensuring that all students have a safe learning environment one of the major responsibilities of our title non department is to ensure that students know how to report incidents of sexual harassment and assault but in addition to reporting the department is also responsible for ensuring that all CMS staff know how to respond and how to respond appropriately

329when they receive such a report while Stephanie's presentation tonight will touch on several goals and strategies I do want to highlight that on August the 13th every CMS school website will publish a link on their homepage with information on how and to whom students and parents can report sexual misconduct at their school Stephanie mckenny the district's title n director is here to discuss the work of her Department with you in more detail Miss mckenny was appointed as the district's title not administrator in 2016 te and I'm really pleased to share that she and her team have join recently joined the human resources department thank you Laura thank you superintendent Madam chair so um this afternoon or tonight we're going to share just an overview of um the work that we're doing in the title n

330Department um as L um as Laura has said that we are now house under the human resources department and superintendent Winston says that Title 9 has been around since 1972 and the law is small it says no no person in the United States shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program um or activities that's receiving Federal funding um assistance and so we know that is pretty much everything that we do in our district and you think about Title Nine Title Nine is a is is is huge in a sense because it covers discrimination and it also covers sexual harassment when you think about discrimination you're thought you're thinking about sex gender gender identity um misconduct when you think

331about program Equity it can be anything in that school building from scheduling to programs that's offered to sports and then we look at it from a harassment standpoint um and those three elements that you see um on the uh screen captures that sexual harassment piece of that title n arm and so when you think about keeping students and staff safe it's not just one Department it really is a strategic and intentional collaboration amongst many um departments and within CMS and also in the community as you can see on that Matrix when something happens when we make a response it may take a collaboration of of departments in order to respond to that particular incident including CMS uh the P CMS PD and our sro's which may end up being cmpd so what happens at the

332school level schools have an obligation to respond to every report of misconduct and I'll say that again they have a a responsibility to respond every report of misconduct um anytime a school gets a report that administrator needs to say um what do I need to do to repair harm what do I need need to do to respond and they need to do that very quickly as possible effectively and equitably um and they must respond um to every allegation and and their response must end that discrimination prevent its reoccurrence PR Provide support for those students that's that's involved not just the complainant but also the respondant as well and in doing so everyone is required to have some type of record keeping system no matter if you are a K12 institution or a collegate institution and

333in CMS we developed a tracking system in 2016 to house all of our investigations so when a report is made at the school level it starts in this platform the investigation does um the the response what people did about it who was involved what supports the school put in place the outcome letters at the end that as sent to the parents all of that lives in this platform now because something is reported one way does it mean that after the investigation that that's what that particular thing is going to be so for example if somebody uh reported that they were inappropriately touched Johnny touched Susie on the butt it might be rule 27 which is our that we have a Prohibition against um inappropriate touching but through the investigation if they found that yes that

334happened but the touch on the butt was a result of somebody running down the hall running into somebody and it was accidental it would not um result in a violation of rule 27b because it really wasn't offensive touching in that nature if that makes sense and so you try to match the behavior to whatever the offense was it might be tracked in power school under a different rule violation because it really was it that somebody intentionally touched someone inappropriately if that makes sense so every incident is reported in here but every incident may not make it one to one into Power School what makes it into Power School is whatever was actually founded okay so and I'll show you that on a different slide now so what what we say our best practices are that

335all students and staff must receive title n training there's an annual overview training that all of our staff get is asynchronous and it just gives them the basic knowledge around Title Nine students get a lesson that's prepared by the district to make them aware of how to report who to report and how to recognize and it's age appropriate so in the lower grades it might start out about you know your um bathing suit areas and being about bullying and then by the time you get up into the high school you're having some more um uh intense lessons around sexual harassment so was age appropriate and we want to also makes people aware that students and staff know how to find the CMS grievance procedure to help them understand how to take advantage of an opportunity

336to report and what it what would happen after a report is made um and so those are located on the CMS website as well so the best practices is everybody knowing where items are in order for them to access their opportunities so how are we doing in that front when we look at our data over time so we started using our tracking system October 2016 the first year of our um data we had 116 reported um incidents of sexual misconduct and as you can see as we've used it over time the more people knew how to report the more schools took action on those reports that was made by year 201819 it was well over 1,600 reports that schools took action on okay over the last school year when we were in remote we had

337215 reports of uh misconduct of those 215 130 were actually found to be a violation of um our code of conduct around misconduct sexual [Music] misconduct and another thing that we like to do as we are trying to unpack how our students are experience in school we administer a student engagement survey in that student engagement survey there's 31 questions that covers five different um groupings one of those groupings is harassment and bullying and I'm just going to show you a couple of questions that came out of that survey to kind of give you a flavor of how students say they are experienced in their school I'm look we're looking at the district overall every school who participated has their own um individual dat data that they should be looking at to see how people at

338their school are experiencing school um and and what kids are saying that their experiences is are in their building so in this particular one um this question was asked to all three grade bands the the survey is as is asked from to from fifth graders up to grade 13 but everybody doesn't get all the questions there's some that everyone gets there's some that only middle and high school get there's some that only high school students get so you'll see an example of of all three of those gray bands um in our presentation so this particular question is asked about Boolean it gives the overall um District overall average but then it also puts the um Equity lends on it and it lets you see by race and gender how are people experiencing bulling in that

339building then it also lets you see it by poverty level so is it that kids are having having different experiences based on their gender based on their socioeconomic status and it may tell the school a different story schools should use this data we encourage schools to use their data in their school Improvement teams to try to um do problems of practice around situations that may arise when they're looking at their data to say hey my female students may be experiencing something different than my male students or my um Asian students might be experienced something different than my Caucasian student so it kind of helps the school really pinpoint down into how students individually are experiencing School in their building so another question about sexual harassment and you'll see that this question was only asked to

340middle school and high school students and again the same concept students may have you may see the the bigger number that looks one way but when you start look at underneath underneath the number you can start seeing how students experience um based on their social economics gender race and then the last question was just one we asked the high school about gender identity same concept so looking forward how do we make sure that our students know how to report to whom to report how do we know how our staff know how to report and to whom to report we have we're starting an awareness campaign you may have already seen it in place um as uh Laura mentioned the websites have already been updated they was updated um yesterday if you click on the link

341uh the school's website it has the campus title n liaison link it replace where the health screening link used to be when you click on it you'll see the CMS commitment to education and safety and it also identifies who that campus liaison is so if a person a student a staff Community member needs to report something at that school they don't know who their person is they they can click there and contact that person immediately also in the schools we have um reprinted um posters that um tells people how and to whom to report if they have um incidents that they would like to report to their school those will be going out to the school by the end of the first week of school and then also a parents will be receiving something called

342the CMS commitment letter and that commitment letter is a commitment to education and safety and they'll be receiving that in their first day of school packet as well so we're trying to say it in a lot of different ways in a lot of areas to ensure that people know how to report what good is a system if people don't know how to use it and access it so our goal is to make sure we're saying it loud and getting it into every area that we can and on the screen you can see what those resources might look like and then also we think about training so as the superintendent said August 3rd training began for our staff the asynchronous window opened up for the online overview annual title n training on Monday the face to

343phase training started for our administrative staff for investigations and documentation and then you see there's a training for students high school students the first 10 days of school they'll get their training if the parents don't opt out because parents can opt out if they don't want their children to participate um middle and high school will get their training the first 20 days of school and then every staff member um has already got their link to do their annual um title I mean sorry annual training which has a component of sexual harassment in it as well and so our what is our goals going forward so we have heard from our students um and we are actively um engaging in looking at our high school lessons that we give a high school training so we'll be

344through this school year looking at revamping revisiting those lessons to make them more relevant for our students and once they are um develop then they'll be implemented for the 22 23 school year uh also we'll continue to work with our Communications Department on awareness and also we'll be supporting the superintendent on the superintendent's task force moving forward and so with that if you have any questions Dr Jones um in one of your earlier slides you talked about um once you have settled you uh will send an outcome letter yes ma'am um I would suggest that you make sure that a sign that parents sign that um because otherwise we can't be for certain we know on our end that it was sent but we'd like to know that they received it um you're okay so

345yes when the outcome letters go out um they it's after the investigation has happened the school has had their close out meeting with the parent to tell them what the outcome of the investigation is at that point whether it's that right if they have it ready right then they usually can give it to them then it can be emailed or it can be sent in US mail I think it should be formal because because this is very important and you want to have some confirmation that's hard copy that says that they they received it that's just my suggestion having worked many years in exceptional children uh what you think and what you say uh has been done and parents say they didn't get it they didn't receive it they didn't understand it so um I'm

346just suggesting that get that kind of of confirmation okay thank you um Miss Sawyer and then miss Marshall yes uh thank you um this really helpful report how are you communicating um the concept of Title 9 which I know what Title 9 means but I would Hazard that most of our families do not know what that means um so that um families know where to look look if they experience um if their child experiences harassment um because right now it if you don't know what Title 9 is you don't know where to look how are we solving that problem and including U making sure that our language is accessible for non-english speakers thank you so the the poster that we talked about um the the updated posters have in the poster if uh how to

347report um you could report to your principal or any administrator or staff in your building or they can report to the district as well um so we we're that's why we updated that uh posters that go that's going out to schools to make it an additional way for people to know and and like the link on the website will name will change so that it doesn't just say Title Nine on it that's right it says campus uh I think it says um campus liaison I believe can uh I think that's what it say it says title n liaison contact information if I don't know that I need a title 9 contact so what you're saying is Title 9 is is jargon unless you know what it means so I as a parent I wouldn't know

348I need to click on the Title Nine button like bullying if it's a button that says that that I I know what bullying is I don't know what title what that is yeah um and so what if an individual reports misconduct and is not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation is there an appeal process what happens then yes um if there if the investigation happens at the school level and um the parents aren't pleased with the outcome they can appeal that that that investigation and then the title n department will go back and review um that investigation um to see if there was anything that was done incorrectly if there was things that need to be changed it would be changed in that but otherwise you know if it if the investigation was sound

349um then we would have to report that as well and again an outcome letter would communicate that as well thank you um Miss Marshall um Miss mckenny can you walk us through the process of what it looks like for a student to report misconduct and kind of sort of beginning to the end can you can you go through those steps with us sure so a student would report to someone in their building that person we we we tell um the administrators to ensure that everybody in your building knows how and to whom to report so if a student reports to the custodian the custodian should know to report that to an administrator so once the uh the school gets a report then the administrator the assigned administrator will look look into that um claim they

350will contact who needs to be contacted um parents uh SRO depends on what the allegation is then they'll put supports in place to to support the students they'll look into the um claim to see if there was violation of our code of conduct and um then at the end of the investigation they will make their bonding and then they will um implement the remedy sanction or support supportive measures that needed to happen in order to resolve that incident and to repair harm for the students involved is there a time frame that folks could expect for that yes use on on average historically since 2016 on average most um investigations take 3 to 5 days on on on average okay there are times that they'll take longer than that if they're more detailed or it's more

351nuanced it can take longer than that but if you're asking on average 3 to 5 days has been what it usually takes I I want to clarify something too about your reporting um or your tracking system so when that report is made that enters the tracking system that's right but if a finding is that no code of conduct violation occurred it's not going into power school that's correct and then at that point and you you indicated that you meet with the parents personally or on or some yeah if if the school they have some type of closeout meeting so however the school does that meeting I can't say you know that but they'll say they'll meet with that parent somehow and let them know what the outcome of that investigation is okay okay and and

352not and not email she says okay and so then as we said there is an appeal process at that point if the outcome letter is not what the family thought it might be then they can appeal that and then another investigation occurs right a review of that investigation so if so if a parent or student gets an outcome in that close out meeting you're finding out that the school is finding it one way right didn't happen as alleged and the parent does not agree with that outcome they can say I want to appeal that and then we will will review that investigation in the title 9 department and if there's any um changes then we will recommend that change otherwise it might just say the investigation was sound and there was nothing to to change

353okay what just another just a general comment on the student um um training I know we're going to do the training that we've had in place and that will be done within 10 days of each High schooler's entry into school if this task force comes up and I imagine they're going to come up with some probably pretty creative and maybe little more interesting ways than than uh not that it's not interesting but but you know I would imagine there'll be some some AUD some V video type things could we get that back to students this year I'd love to see if there are any updates and things that that we were ready to roll out and we were ready to roll them out by the end of the year I'd love to see that happen

354I think anytime time we can talk about this it's not just a beginning of the year problem I want it to be front of mine um so if we have new things that we need to tell students I'd love to do that this year I'm just going to put that in the space thank you Miss deara and then miss Chek um I'm wondering if what the guidance is um when out when a claim is made around age appropriate uh response or what the out suggested outcome would be I can only imagine that you know a 10th grader using a derogatory term it's very different than say a a first grader that maybe just repeated a word they heard elsewhere and so I'm just wondering like who who provides that guidance is that set forth very

355directly in the title 9 documentation is there some subjectivity around that to help make a decision like how how does that happen on what the suggested outcome for the situation would be yeah yes and and that's a good question yes it is age appropriate because a response a five year 5-year-old would have is different than what even if a 5-year-old pulled his pants down is that be prohibited Behavior yes but is it age appropriate behavior yes and so a school would take that into consideration okay and so I mean are they given guidance like all of these specific examples and then there may be others that come up that aren't on the list but they're given specific guidance already there's there's not a magic list because it's situation by situation but if if uh schools

356have questions they can always reach out and we can problem solve yes and you okay all right just making sure and in your report you mentioned that there's um continued training going on and that you would be updating it and making it more relevant like what what do you think might come from that what do you mean by more relevant yes so we've heard from our high school um students over time that they feel like the lessons are kind of outdate is really not getting to what is the now kind of thing um so so we know that um and so it's Our intention to process around that and try to make our um because we don't want the content of the lesson to be the thing that people get hung up on we want

357them to have the concept but but the bigger thing is when how to recognize it how to report it and to whom to report it to so we don't want those other barriers to get into way and you're not listening to to the how to so that so we know that that's something we've heard that before for the last couple of years from our high school that you know these lessons and these lessons so we're going to take a concerted effort at really trying to make those lessons more relevant okay thank you um just to add something there I think with the lesson even with an enhanced lesson that's more relevant we have to depend on our staff to deliver it in a way that's engaging and that it's delivered in such a way that

358it is presented as a big deal and I know we talked to our staff about that but that's something that that we're going to put more emphasis on as well is that when the lesson is delivered whatever that content is it needs to be delivered in a way that's meaningful and that students understand it's meaningful thank you and that is another point that those lessons at the school level are delivered by the classroom teacher okay um in high school we we asked for the first 10 days of school because we want it to be grade level appropriate so all ninth graders get whatever that content is all 10th grade or so by the time they moved through High School it they would have built upon what they have learned not that we're going to do

359it through first period where you have a hodgepodge of grades so that's why we say the first 10 days of school it's while you're doing it during a home room or an advisory period where you have that pure grade level thank you m CH and yes I two two questions one so when you said that there's a number of cases that might be reported to you and and into your system and then the outcome based on that may be a different number of cases that end up in power school would that be why if we've had some instances of late where people have asked for how many cases we've got and there's a different number that's coming out is that where that's coming from and also is what you're asking for right so um if

360you look at our student code of conduct and um and and and power schools kind of mirrors this too so our student code of conduct under misconduct is under rule 27 under rule 27 there are six different layers to rule 27 from 27A which is consenual sexual activity all the way up to 27f which is rape okay so if you're just asking for sexual assault and rape you're just getting those two data points so if somebody else asks for all sexual misconduct then they're going to get all six or seven data points you follow what I'm saying so it's really about what you're asking for um when it comes to how power school is pulling the data out um so um so that's how if one person asks they'll get one number another person asks

361they'll get another number it would be great if the media would kind of get their act together and all ask for the same data points all the time so and then and then if you're asking how many reports was made which is is different than the outcomes of right and then that's why you'll see 1,600 in that one school year where that might not have been represented somewhere else but again just because the report is made we have to take action on the report absolutely but the but the investigation may or may not pan out to be a violation of a sexual misconduct thank you for that point of clarity so the other thing too is I've heard from a lot of parents not just about the re relevance of the lessons I'm hearing that

362some of the kids don't take the survey very seriously actually I got somebody texted me right while we were here that says my kids don't take that seriously and I and that makes me sad because of the the girls or different people that we've heard you know talking to us about please listen to us we're giving people a venue to express themselves with that survey and it it feels like maybe they're not understanding the relevance of it or the need for to really honestly answer it and and not maybe just rush through and push buttons and and so I don't know if there's any way to make people understand why that that survey on the student voice would be so important I know Brian you probably have experienced that as well but I'm literally having

363parents tell me their kids kind of blow it off and then that's not giving us good data so when we don't have good data we can't be very responsive and so with that um usually the surveys come out second semester so that would give us some time to kind of do some campaigning around that survey for this administration of it um to kind of like lead up some some lead up information about why we're asking you for the information so so we we will have time to take action on making sure straight talk I think that you know the teenagers need straight talk they get straight talk on social media and everywhere else but anything that we can do utilizing our social media platforms to enhance our survey you know responsiveness would be helpful too

364I think the big picture is we know know we're saying it we know we're saying report it but it's they're not they're not we're not saying it in a way that everybody understands and hears that um whether it be through the lessons or through the information on the poster or the verbiage on the website exactly we need to make it language that we that students and parents understand and and the parent part is a biggie too so and then the other one that that leads to one other thing is so if um a parent or student is not satisfied with the outcome of their investigation does the parent have have to request a review or can a student request a review um his we've never had it come from a student we've always had a

365parent but I'm not saying that if you're a student in a high school and you feel like you need a review um I don't I don't see why you can't but usually we've never had it come from a student it's always a parent that's um asking for that appeal thank you Miss Fowler oops are you ready sorry yes hold on you right love you busy yeah thank you so my question is my major concern is that when we're in the elementary school level in the Middle School level we really preach to our students the importance of going to the counselor if you ever feel uncomfortable and usually that's like bullying and it's really confidential so you can fill out a pink paper I remember fill out the pink paper and you give it to the

366counselor's office and it's like they don't really know that it's you I mean like it's really disree but then when we get to the middle school level and you say okay you can you can talk to me if something happens that's uncomfortable if it's like sexual assault or something like that but a lot of our students don't even realize that what he just did to you was wrong wrong or what she just did to you was wrong and in elementary school I feel like that happens all the time and that happens in middle school and high school so my question is we I feel like we need to have an honest conversation with our students if he touches you on your butt and you feel uncomfortable and you said no and he kept on going

367then you need to go go to Miss Sarah and tell Miss Sarah that you feel uncomfortable or if you are comfortable enough you can fill this out on this paper and you can talk to me but the same way that we go for bullying and all I've been in counselor's office for so such little things that was counted as bullying but I feel like we don't we don't have the same kind of measures for when is sexual assault and rape but then again that's because of the definitions like some of the students honestly just don't know so my question is what are we going to do for the students that just do not know for example the woman that spoke here tonight she said when she was in my grade she felt like it was

368her fault like she was in the wrong and I feel like that's just because of the definitions so what are we going to do in order to prohibit those same same things from happening to current students so it's I would say is a continued awareness right um so we know that the definitions are can be thick um in our grievance process we tried to include the definitions what they might look like um but I do understand when a student is experiencing it they may not know that that was sexual harassment they may have participated in something but just when they come back and think about it they was coerced into doing something so that takes it from being consensual to not um and I think it's just an ongoing learning and an ongoing process of

369us making them aware of what that looks like you spoke it I think staff has a big start in that too I think the counselor that's that's there at the school the other teachers that are there um they're using that data we want them to use the data that we get from the survey as much as possible so we can pinpoint what the problems are there but I mean those are the those are the staff that they see and that they trust and so I think that's that's a cultural thing too for the school yes um so I think that's I think that just needs to be talked about we need to make it more I think we need to keep doing what we're doing right now which is talking about it I also another

370thing one one one more thing to add too even when we're looking in the platform right and we see a school that has no reports that's not a good thing M because it might mean that people don't know how to report or they don't trust reporting so you know so those are things too that we're talking with our principles about know what's what's in the climate at your school that you might need to tease out to make sure that everybody feels comfortable in reporting um at your school I think another thing we could do is for example I'm just spitballing here we could put out in order to be discreet because no student wants to say I'm I'm going to tell on somebody for sexual assault or rape so perhaps we can put discret forms

371outside of the counselor's office because most students passed by the counselor's office so you can just grab one and go and then just slip it under the counselor's um desk when they're not there or we can have a QR code outside the counselor's office so the student can just take a picture and then fill it out on their phone and it could be really discreet so my thing is discretion defin and accountability if you said Lil Tommy was he was just in the wrong place wrong time and he was accused but it was just incorrect but if his name keeps on coming up five six times then we should know that maybe we need to invest further in this so discretion definitions accountability that's just my thing with this title n task force thank you

372all for all the hard work that you're doing but those are the three things I really want to focus on that's why we need youth voice at the center of this conversation that voice that's it right there um any other questions before I go Mr strain no um just couple of questions from the parents perspective so I know with the the lessons that you're talking about and and also the the candid conversations that bana brought up there are parents who don't want want their kids having those kinds of lessons at school and I know that parents have the ability to opt their children out for the day that that for the time that that lesson is taught do you have a sense of how many that is or percentage and if you don't that's okay

373I'm bringing that question on you um okay we can figure that out later um and then also when you're doing a a title n investigation what what do you do if a parent says don't talk to us leave us alone we don't want to have anything to do with you how do you resolve that so it depends on what the in the incident is right um because if you're being a reluctant participant if there if that person reported something um something that happened we're still going to look into it it'll just be that that person may not be part of the conversation we'll we'll find if there was Witnesses if we'll look if there was videos or other ways for us to know um so yeah so we and that happens sometimes you have students

374that are reluctant don't want to participate and we still have to continue okay um and then I I'll just reiterate for us all that Title Nine covers a lot it's so it's anything about gender discrimination or sex discrimination anything from that to harassment to assault you know it it it covers the gamut um and I have to remind myself of that sometimes so I just want to thank you for as has as my colleagues have done thank you and your team for all that you do to train staff and support staff um and train students on their rights and their responsibilities um I mean I think it's it's on all of us as a community to to um to have these conversations and to educate one another um and and I hope it is clear

375from this board that that that it it is it is a commitment that um it is a commitment that all of our um students absolutely need to be abundantly aware of how to report and what will happen when they report what supports to expect what the consequences are for infractions um that's very important to all of us so thank you for the work that you do to make that happen you're welcome and with that um I guess it will turn it's time for reports from the superintendent and then reports from board members this will be the shortest report I've ever for given Madam chair thank you Miss mckenny thank you Miss French that concludes my report Dr Jones I'm I'm ready to go too but I feel strong about this so I'm going to forge

376ahead um so I finally read kend's book how to be an anti-racist I kept reading and reading to see what all the Hooper was about then it struck me it's just the title how to be an anti-racist kend deposits truths he cites um uh sources that are credible leading thinkers political leaders past and present to develop his thesis he simply defines anti-racist quote on page 24 one who is expressing the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity in other words he is not blaming or saying that it's confined to one particular race it could be any race in our diverse CMS reflective of our diverse School District reflective of our diverse Nation kend's book is scholarly discourse I can only believe that either people

377have not read the book or if they have read the book he has struck a sensitive nerve um that gives me c pause for reflection for self analysis I in reading the book disagree with him on some points but how else does one grow except by knowing analyzing and evaluating different perspectives as an aside just up to coming on this board at Central Pont College I taught argumentative discourse and it was about just such uh issues so I say thank you CMS leaders for broadening the mindset of our Educators who must understand all children um is it's still to this day a um a remembrance of some things that happened in my childhood that even happens today that I could connect with so it it helps readers to know there are others out there um

378so thoughtful books can open one's P up one's perspective I I think we should not just use a title to shut that mental door um so uh please I would encourage people who are all up in the air and all of this CRT and all of this uh it's that's not in there uh and I'm quite convinced that persons who want to to uh have all the Cur fuffle around it uh haven't really read it so thank thank you Miss deara thank you Dr Jones missar Thank you and um Dr Jones um we were on the same wavelength tonight I've Incorporated some anti-racist racism comments into my comments um but first um before I start that I do want to um just thank um County Commissioner Susan Rodriguez McDow who called on the public health

379director last week to start reporting pediatric uh the number of pediatric cases of covid cases by type of school categorizing them um by um traditional public private Charter homeschool and then maybe a category for unreachable I had called on the County Health Department to do that earlier in 2000 of this year so that there was greater transparency we know from chief deputy secretary Susan Perry from the North Carolina department of human health services that transmission of Co this past year was happening at higher rates Statewide at private schools but because our health department was not reporting them categorized there was great confusion in our community when they looked at say there was a th pediatric cases um but only 250 of them were being reported by CMS so um I think that having this more

380accurate data is good for public knowledge as we enter this new phase of the pandemic in particular and I appreciate commissioner Rodriguez McDow bringing this up it's just one way to show how good things can come from our two bodies working in collaboration um I also want to speak um for a few minutes about our society's culture I touched briefly on this during our board reports during our July 13th meeting I think it's prudent for all of us um board members the superintendent um key staff over here to my left although I think most have gone for tonight's maybe some are still watching but for all of us to consider this um these thoughts as we begin the new school year obviously there are two topics that have been top of Mind as of late

381centering around cms's anti-racism efforts and sexual misconduct allegations I actually think that they are connected and who we are as a collective people and I'd like to take several minutes to explain um please forgive me for the length of this I know we're so tired but I put this together so I want to forge on as Dr Jones had what I'd like for us all to consider as we head into this fall is this simple truth racism sexism and allegations of sexual assault are real they do happen it's that simple these things are woven into our culture it's a simple statement really that these things actually exist but a statement of trth thetic nights for whatever reason instant emotion and push back and sometimes even denial among the best of people so what I'm asking

382our staff this year from the top you know all through Administration and the various employees at individual School sites is to believe it when people tell you that they are experiencing discrimination and bigotry or sexism or even being ignored when they make claims of inappropriate advances in criminal activity I think if we work first from a place of acceptance then we can lead indeed our whole community and the ways and how we respond to allegations I'm not speaking about any particular school but rather about all of our schools and really our community as what shows up in our schools is really just a microcosm of what exists in our society at large we have seen just this past week credible allegations against the governor of New York who just resigned and we all watched our

383nation 5 years ago collectively lift up a man to the highest office in the land who openly bragged about sexually assaulting women where we start is acceptance that is it is who we are collectively as a society and then we commit that no one will be blown off dismissed or have their story responded to with well he probably didn't mean it or maybe you misunderstood it's humiliating for individuals to gather the strength to share their pain whether they be on the receiving end of racism sexism or verbal or physical sexual advances when we dismiss their courage it demeans their very spirit and I fear this happens in our society more frequently than we're willing to admit did you know that humans are the only species that often ignore warning signs or try to explain away

384human behavior other animals have a certain Instinct that lets them know to stay away from certain animals even certain people animals tend to believe it when people show them who who they are humans on the other hand often play mental gymnastics in their heads to justify what must have happened surely she didn't mean that but he's so nice but he has black friends or he has a sister who is gay so surely he didn't really mean fill in the blank yes it's quite possible he did mean fill in the blank what I'm asking us all to do is when you hear someone say something that makes you uncomfortable whether it's a fellow student or a teacher or administrator say something as a staff member when a student or colleague shares with you their concern believe

385them sure you can get more information but start from a place of believing that this is real people are tired of hearing the excuses that so and so is just such a good person otherwise this is not about being good or bad in fact I'm completely uninterested in wholly naming people on that binary there are not good people and bad people we all have good moments and good behavior and we as humans have bad moments and bad behavior when we simply look to dismiss bad behavior against a resume of what constitutes a good person we Overlook the reality of what have may have just transpired we can no longer dismiss allegations of racial insensitivity and incompetency or sexism and sexual allegations with but she's just a good person he goes to church they donate to

386the XYZ charity and let those individual good behaviors Cloud our judgment that this person may also be capable of committing bad behaviors or using hateful rhetoric I find that we do this all too often in our society we seek to name people as simply good or bad and in doing so we systematically shut down nuance and context and then sometimes reality I'll give a personal example quickly to relate to bring this point home it's related to a person in my family who many would refer to in memorium as a good person he certainly was good to me I have no doubt he was kind loving and peaceful to me but I also know that in his youth he struggled with alcohol exhibited violent behaviors toward other family members used the nword regularly and used to

387take his roosters up into the mountains for illegal fighting competitions where they mutilated animals for fun maybe people still do that I don't know the question is is do these behaviors show that he was simply a good person what if I then um told you that he went to church and was the kind of neighbor who would mow your lawn for you and a person who would stop to help stranded motorist is he now back on the good side who gets to Define good now I'm not bringing this up just to throw off on a family member of mine whom remember was absolutely good to me what I'm trying to say is that all humans are complex myself included and that's how I want us to grow culturally in this year by starting to accept

388this truth and that we can become sophisticated enough as an organization to be able to recognize the completeness of humanity and then respond accordingly so that when someone does come to us as adults and and says that someone used a derogatory term or committed an act of sexual violence we don't dismiss them and think but so and so is such a good person that couldn't possibly be but rather we embrace the possibility knowing that we all function on a spectrum of good behavior good rhetoric and bad behavior bad rhetoric and that's what I also love about our anti-racism work that we were doing in CMS and why I'm mentioning it here alongside with talking about sexism and sexual assault allegations because I think there's a lot we can learn from Dr keny's message anti-racism doesn't

389seek to name someone as a completely racist or anti-racist person but rather looks to see what type of policies and rhetoric individuals support if those are racist or anti-racist because those policies and rhetoric either seek to produce more equality and accord or the policies and rhetoric support more inequality and Discord we all have an opportunity to make different decisions at different times and to move along that Continuum let's learn from our mistakes and seek to be an organization that is unafraid to name them and rectify them racism sexism and allegations of sexual assault are real let's accept that first so that we can respond accordingly as an organization as we begin the 20212 22 school year thank you thank you Miss deara do we have any other reports from board members okay I'll entertain a

390motion to adjourn so move second a second second all those in favor of the motion show of hands we are returned