001Good evening everyone. I would love to call this wonderful meeting to order. bring sad news and but we're all going to fight for one and that's our students and the teachers because Gates County is truly blessed to have the staff of teachers and other staff members because if you look at other counties across the state of North Carolina they truly are not as blessed as we are and I have seen that because I have been across the state of North Carolina. >> Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry >> but I hope everybody heard me. Good evening. Thank you for coming out. Um board members, you have before you an agenda and um there is there before you. Have you had an opportunity to review it? >> Do I have a motion to approve it? >>
002We have a motion. Do we have a second? >> I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Okay. Um before every board meeting um from now on we've been reading a statement of ethics statements and it reads board members are reminded that it it is our duty to avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest as we handle the work of this board. Does any member of this board tonight know of any conflict of interest or any appearance or conflict with respect to any matters coming before us at this meeting tonight? If so, please state them for the record. If during the uh course of the meeting you become aware of an actual or apparent conflict of interest, please bring it to my attention.
003It will then be your duty to abstain from participating in discussion on the matter and from voting on the matter. This meeting um tonight is really anformational meeting and um we're here to um bring you um and educate about the consolidation process that would have to take place across um Gates County. And um Dr. Williams's team have worked very hard to get these figures and I know Mr. Green is working on some additional um figures for us but we don't have them quite ready yet and I just want to let you know that the process tonight will be that um Dr. Williams and his team will come forward and give you a narrative of the consolidation study and then um we will have a brief break and then we will turn it back over um
004to the principal and then public comments. Uh is the public comment still out? >> Yes, >> it is. >> If you have not signed up for the public comments, please do so at the break. Um we there is no limitation of people that we will hear tonight but there is a 3minut time limit uh based on your time. Her policy states different but this board has agreed to listen to everyone and have the floor open to everyone. Okay. So, basically, it's just going to be um a sit and wait um concern and then we're going to open up the floor at the end because this board wants to hear your concerns. We would like to welcome you to Gates County Consolidation Study. Um and Dr. Williams and his team are here tonight to share with
005your information gathered at this point. More importantly, we are here tonight to hear from you and the school and the community to get your views of consolidation studies. Now, Miss Riddick has written some remarks that she would like to share with you. And keep in mind that Miss Riddick has shared all of the information um that she is about to state tonight in her remarks with the board members and the board members are in agreements with her remarks. Now, I'm going to turn it over to Miss U. Riddick. As Mr. Baron stated, this is um these are are my words that um I compiled and the [clears throat] the board has agreed and approved of such. The decision to explore consolidation of Gates County's three elementary schools is one of finances. Not just saving funds,
006but to be able to better utilize the funds provided by the state, local, and federal sources. There is absolutely no personal agenda in this consolidation process. What a lot of people do not understand is how our funding comes to us. The state is our large is the largest contributor to our school systems budget. We are allotted funding based on district enrollment numbers. For example, we are allotted salaries for first grade teachers based on the number of first grade students in the whole district, not the number of students at a particular school. So, hypothetically, you can have one school that has 25 students in first grade and another school has 23 students and the third school has 36 students in the first grade. This is a total of 84 students in the first grade and all
007of Gates County. The state would say to us, okay, you get five teachers. You need five teachers. The classroom numbers are not to hypothetically exceed 18. We're going to get funding for five teachers from the state, but if we need six teachers