001e e e good afternoon I'd like to welcome all of you to our board meeting to those that are viewing on tonight we welcome you to our meeting hope all have had a great weekend and month of March has come in with a little wind but we thank God that we are able to just be here tonight uh we're going to begin our agenda our all of our board members are present let the record reflect that all board members are present tonight our pledge will be led by our board member Mary Mosby and she will lead us in a moment of silence following that Mary stand I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice
002for all now let us observe a moment of silence please thank you thank you mayor thank you are there any adjustments to our agenda motion to approve the agenda motion second any discussion all in favor receiv receiving all agenda lady be ONN by to raise up your right hand motion Carri at this time we will Spotlight teaching and learning M be offers will come good evening chair trip board members Dr Lasser and those that are in attendance this evening watching online and in in um in the room we have a very very special guest with us tonight this is our District spelling bee winner and he is not only our spelling be winner this year but he has won for three consecutive years [Applause] I would like to turn this over to Miss Williams our
003principal at Creekside that will introduce our student good evening good evening it is a honor and um privilege to stand before you to recognize kayen Greer um as she said this is his third consecutive year winning the district level spelling be um it began on the classroom level then he won on the school level and won on the district level three consecutive years year one he um went to Panthers stadium and he scored in the top 25 out of 60 Regional students ranging from elementary and middle school students and then last year he ranged in the top 13 out of 60 students again from elementary and middle school he will be competing on March 9th again in charlot at Panthers stadium and we wish him well [Applause] so we want to give you this certificate
004for excellence in the East is this your third one have you got okay so I'm not the Storyteller on the board but I will tell when I was in the third grade the hardest word we had to spell was panum what's the hardest word you've had to spell um probably the first one that I got out on in the first year that I got to the what was that word choreographer choreographer now what's the word you spell that you're the most proud of monopolize monop well I'm so proud of you and thank you for being here with us today you keep doing what you're doing and you have an excellent principal and an excellent team of teachers and who's here to support you today that's how we get done [Applause] congratulations yeah get the parents
005in there Mom Mom right there [Laughter] [Music] conratulations [Applause] we are so fortunate to have AMX Ken as one of our valued partners with pit County schools and tonight we have Mr havia Roco paralta and he is here and he would like to talk a little bit about one of our counselors with pit County Schools each year a meican gives out exemplary Community leadership awards and this year they chose Nikki silver the counselor at welcome middle school and so Mr havia would like to come up and share a few words about Nikki and why they selected him this year for this award hello everybody thank you for inviting us to be here with you and um one of the greatest things that we do is in the organization uh the association of Mexicans s North
006carolana has been in this community for the past 24 years so the for the past 13 years uh we've been recognizing individuals from the community uh either Community Partners uh education health advocacy and Leadership so in 2024 we select a group of individuals to be recognized uh for the Excellence work that they do in this case education Mr Silver when reach out to Aman I've been known here for 11 years uh through other work that I have done in in the community but also to having the partnership and collaboration with the pit County schools has been great across the board with different schools bbo welo norp high school and the the list goes on uh welcome mle school is great for the work that we do in the asso a and one of the pillars
007that we do in the association offer mentorship to our students so Mr Silver when he reached out to to me or I saw him at the welome mdle school one day he said I need some help I need to help some of these students the highrisk students and so what can the organization do so through our program is what we call lead leaders of the future which is a program that has be developed by the Association for over 15 years through partnership and collaboration with the East Carolina University uh Le leaders of the future are students from ECU that they volunteer in do services for the association and the community so one of the pillars is offering tourm programs to students in pit cany and other areas so these students go out in partner with
008our schools and offer t or twice a week so Mr Silver reach out to us and he want our students to go over there and help him he dedication is going Beyond to what a counselor really can do and and picking up the phone and say I need some help and that's what we want to hear from people when the CH our children need some help we need to help him and if the community partner can do so we are there so Mr CRA thank you so much for for what you do for the school system what you do for welcome M schools and this is one of the reasons we select you as uh Community leadership award and give it to you on behalf of the association [Applause] exina Mr on behalf of the
009board of education on behalf of thank you for everything that you're doing those students thank you for what you're doing in the community look forward to doing other things thank you so much I know the TR is happen would you like to say anything no I think my my work he's fast [Applause] at this time our assistant superintendent for school leadership Dr Taylor matkins will introduce our next incredibly deserving leadership award good evening board uh tonight I want to share with the board a recent accomplishment of one of our PCS employees Dr Seth Brown was recently honored with a distinguished educator award for his outstanding contributions to curriculum and instruction at the North Carolina Association for supervision and curriculum development conference the distinguished educator award is presented to a member of the association who has
010made significant contributions in the area of curriculum and instruction as a teacher or administrator by attest as attested by a an Innovative program initi initiation B improved or increased achievement or performance of students and see a dis demonstrated increase in the efficacy and Effectiveness with fiscal human and or physical resources are used we are proud of the accomplishments of Dr Brown and how he has represented our district at the Board of Education our superintendent thank you for everything that you're doing and we looking for even greater work yes sir how about thank you um it's been I think I met I knew Chief trip a long time ago at a middle um it's been about 12 years here in this office and just the opportunity to innovate to work for staff and students has been
011really neat and this the team behind us that's really key um so thank you very very much [Applause] music is good for the heart and it's good for the soul and I have to tell you this is music in our school's month but it's also music therapy month and we are so incredibly fortunate to have Amanda who is our pck County School's music therapist she if we could clone her and put her in every school it would be amazing the lives that we could change and we could touch um Amanda and I go way back back to our school days our College school days and so I've known Amanda for a really long time and she is remarkable at what she does she can just write a song and meet the needs of whatever child
012she has in front of her so she has a tremendous gift and she shares it with our children and our schools I'd like to introduce do um Dr Don Hester I'm GNA give her a little chance there um Don Hester is our director of exceptional children I'm sure she has a little bit more to add about Amanda Ellis you got okay okay good evening thank you guys for having us here this evening in 1987 Ronald Reagan recognized March as devel velmental uh disabilities awareness month to increase the opportunities for students with disabilities well pit County School's exceptional children's Department supports this through our amazing music therapy program and it just so happens that March is also music therapy month Amanda Ellis is our PCS music therapist and she has been a part of the PCS
013family for 14 years that's saying a lot right there she recently um met the requirements and renewed her board certification as a music therapist one of the ways that she just one of the many ways that she demonstrates her commitment to the profession and to our students of pit County Schools um Amanda serves over 50 extended content standards classrooms serving over 400 students with disabilities she integrates the unique Learning System curriculum to each of her lessons and collaborates with our teachers really implementing our Collective e efficacy initiative um in pit County Schools we have a couple of examples that we wanted to share with you about music therapy and the benefits of music therapy within pit County Schools our first one you got me okay our first one is a student at Aiden Griffon high
014school and this is going to show the benefits of just three weeks of what music therapy benefits our students um increasing their communication skills their social skills and their confidence so we go can you make it bigger Carol so that was at the beginning of the month and then in three weeks amazing in three weeks time that really worked on his growth and his communication skills his socialization his confidence that is what music therapy does for our students um and then we have one other example that Miss Ellis is going to talk about so first I would like to say any success I have with these students is due to the fact that there's a lot of collaboration with teachers and our most important PA professionals so with 50 classrooms it's a lot um the
015next video you're going to see is a performance that actually occurred at AG Cox on Valentine's Day this year and it was their winter drumming and art show that they had they invited me to do an activity with the children so we used uh rhythm sticks and we did a song with a lot of patterns so our goals for that activity were focus and attention staying with the group eye contact and bilateral coordination which is whenever you ask them to use both sides of their body to work together in a very controlled way so there's six directions in the song it seems easy to an adult but for them to perform this at their level it actually is very awesome and it's to the amazing respect song sung by Rea Franklin for Black History [Music]
016Month M oh I got my sticks here got my trusty ribon sticks all right oh did you want to say something about the peer helpers in the CL oh the peer helper program is a great program throughout the county different classrooms different schools a lot of them have a peer helper program this one is extensive at AG Cox because there are peer helpers in every period of the day and they do this as a class for a grade so they get to learn these students they learn how to help them how not to help them they actually are friends around the school it's an inclusive environment and the peer helpers in the music class actually are with them every week in World drumming class so it's very helpful it's inclusion at the max it's very
017awesome um and this is just a couple of our examples of our Collective commitment to all of our students in pit County Schools um so please help me guys celebrate um music therapy month and Amanda Alis [Applause] thank you man action got more videos of the board superintend thank you for all that you do everybody can't do what you do no they can come try they can try I at our church when I try to sing they tell me it's stick and preaching so I don't know what that me my good can thank you thank you very much want to stand thank you and lastly our Avid District director has an award for you good evening everybody and thank you so much for allowing me to come and celebrate you this is a little late
018coming as um this was for January and February but we would love to celebrate you all year long so we'll do that uh tonight here in March um Avid would love to recognize the dedication and the hard work of all of our school board members your contributions to Student Success and educational Excellence strengthen our community as a whole and your work exemplifies the power of collective agency ensuring that every student has the opportunity to thrive and we and specifically me but also our schools and all of our children that are impacted are deeply grateful for your unwavering support and your Vision Which shapes not only the future of PCS but creates excellence in the East which you recognize here every month so on behalf of avid CEO Twan win Dr Lasser and all of my
019support people and I I would like to recognize you with this Board of Trustees appreciation plaque um and you can see um all the things that you do to help support rigorous academic preparedness opportunity for our students and build student agency so thank you so much thank you you [Applause] the cra and one quick thing if for those that have attended our PCS Collective commitment listening tour sessions we thank you for being there we have had an outstanding turnout for every one of our sessions we do have two more sessions left one is on March 25th at JH Rose High School and the other is on April 8th at Farmville Central High School and we hope that you will join us for one of those sessions if you are watching this um board meeting this
020evening thank you so much thank you be you at this time we did not have any public Expressions I do want to say it's wonderful working and serving with such a wonderful board and I want to give the board another hand at this time we'll go to our consent items board meeting minutes the 25 26 Early College High School academic calendar 2024 25 budget number one it's 2024 summer retake plan painting contractors modular unit lease from modular technologies and confidential items motion to approve second then move and second any discussion all in favor of the motion let it be known by the raise right hand thank you motion Carri new business have we don't have that Wonder well now Dr Lasser it is your time to have comments thank you Mr chair uh first and
021foremost the past couple of weeks uh as you know we've had a lot of inclement weather and I want to thank our operations team for their work and dedication with getting our schools prepared and ready to go uh that takes a lot of time over the weekend uh so I want to thank our Personnel our school leaders just everyone uh our senior staff team um as well as our board for uh working to make sure that our schools were ready and back online for our students um after having a couple of spells of of of inclement weather also I want to say uh for the spotlights I'm very proud of Kaden Greer for winning the spelling be for three consecutive years uh we probably will see him on Jeopardy someday so I'm very proud and
022excited and uh as people say um sometimes when people say something positive they'll say well it's music to my ears so music therapy has a powerful and positive effect on our students so I'm really pleased and excited to see the progress of that student um and that's actually um symbolic that our public schools are doing well and that we're making sure that our students all of our students are successful by any means necessary so it was really pleased to see that Miss opers mentioned um our listening tour uh we're down to the final two so we invite you to come out to uh JH Rose as well as Farmville Central High School attendance areas because we're we've had a great time at those listen sessions and uh thankful to our board members who've been able
023to be an active part of that uh thankful for our board members and the board retreat that we had today um was a great session of learning a great time of learning a great time to continue to think about uh the road ahead for all of our students in pit County Schools um and finally we have a special guest today in the audience uh we have uh Miss Tracy Cole who is the uh principal former principal now the executive director newly named of the EC Community School um and she is a partner to us here in pit County Schools those fifth graders come back to us and so we are great partners and we welcome you and thank you for joining us tonight miss Cole Mr chair that concludes my comments right board comments we'll
024start with Mary thank you chairman I would just like to um Echo the congratulation to kayen on this evening and to all who was recognized and a special thank you to Beth and her team um for the recognition to the board thank you amen oh wow we're all keeping it short so um same thing here I just love to see um young children like that just growing and growing and just keep winning and it's awesome to know that he was also against middle school children as well it just shows you um how much he's learning so it's really great to see that and congratulations to all the other awards that we had tonight and of course Seth Brown who well deserved for his accomplishments and um thank you to Beth whereever she where did she
025go okay um for the recognition to the board that was very thoughtful and kind to um you know we don't do that for the recognition but we appreciate it when we do get recognized so it is very nice to hear um and we've had a long day so I'm going to keep this short so go for it all right I'm going to Echo everything she just said and congratulate Kaden on his three time winnings um I don't know if I guess he'll get to do it again next year in sixth grade hopefully he'll win again uh congratulations to Nikki silver and Amanda Ellis um um music can dictate the mood you're in as well as heal the mind when you're in a bad state so I think that it's uh what she's doing is amazing
026and it's going to play a huge part in those kids um thank you to Beth and Miss Avery for the recognition and the nice words and that concludes my comments all right thank you Jennifer great sure um you know when I listened to the conversation about Mr silver it makes me remember like how many Heroes we have in our schools um people who are willing to go the extra mile like our music therapy and Don Hester and her entire team of people who work tirelessly to reach the potential of every child and I think when people ask us like we were asked today what makes pit County Schools a great place to learn that's exactly what it is is that we work hard to reach and see every single child and I am so proud
027of what we provide to our children we can always do better and I think the influence of Our Community Partnerships can only make us stronger you don't have to have kids in our schools to care about our schools these are the Future Health Care Providers business owners um employees and so anybody who wants to support our pit County Schools we welcome the Partnerships we welcome their investment we welcome their positive energy and our kids Thrive and benefit because of that so whether you know it's our CTE whether it's our you know um healthc care potential Healthcare aspiring Healthcare Science Academy kids I mean we couldn't do this without all of you so for as strong as our board is for as strong as our teachers our principles and our students are our community is one
028of those important pillars so just wanted to thank our community thank you Jim Kelly yeah so speaking of Heroes in our schools this is um School Social Work week and so I um thank you Sarah for the team that you lead and um Kim Anderson and all the social workers that are in our schools um they truly are heroes I saw them there um La just before the snow with things that have happened at Elmhurst that I'm sure that you have heard about and how our schools um and our staff immediately supported all of the students and staff there I saw I saw Miss Anderson there that morning and and then how our community's also rallied around our teachers and students that have been dealing with hard things whether it's at our schools or out
029in the community um so it was a great segue to continue to think about our heroes that are in our schools that we often don't um get to recognize they're the ones that are there doing that hard work every day um so thank you Sarah um and Kim and Mr bar follow you and um Emily Templeton and all of our social workers um so my also uh Battle of the books was last week and if y'all have ever had any any conversation with me you know that that is like my favorite thing um and seeing it was elementary and so seeing our students work together as a team and be so excited about these stories and seeing themselves in these books and having conversations it's just it's so special and so wonderful um and it
030is my favorite thing Middle School's come in high schools are coming um you know reading really is the foundation for learning and having a a love of reading and seeing themselves in these stories it's just so important important um for our educational Journeys for our students so um so congratulations to our elementary Battle of the books they've got more work to do um but that is so fun and if y'all want to join me please come because I will be there um and then music in our schools month um thinking about so we were um have all our all count uh chorus orchestra band um events coming up soon um this month um with music in our schools which is very timely um and you know these students work so hard and being the best
031in the county and and going on to the district um because many of them will it's so important to support them um but it's also um like you were saying Justin it's healing to to hear the music and be there and and recognize how our students are um serve us with with the music that they provide as well so um please join us with that and um and get ready go to the the library for spring break so that you can go read um and be ready for battle the books or just read for fun because it's the best so anyway thanks amen um so again I just want to Echo the congratulations kayen three years wow um that's amazing um to our Educators and counselors uh thank you all for all that you do
032um one thing that I just wanted to share I don't want to keep us long either um but uh you know obviously right now uh I know the board uh the school board and pit County Schools team is dealing with a lot of new things that they have not dealt with before and it's definitely making some people some of our parents feel anxious and so I just wanted to share an anecdote from the listening session from South Central last week because this is a great example I think of um our team led by Dr Lasser uh a parent uh was very concerned that their child may not receive um their IEP uh because of certain mandates that have happened and Dr ler who I think went off script at this point um turned to the
033audience and he said who are the teachers here and they were we're the teachers and he said if your students need an accom I'm I'm paraphrasing this is not is exact words if your students need an accommodation are you going to make sure they get it and those teachers said yes and he said are you going to cater are you going to take care of every student and they said yes and so that gives me a lot of Faith and Hope knowing that no matter what is happening out there um these people are going to take care of your children so um that just it really totally it gave me so much peace in my heart so thank you and that's it thank you V thank you Mr chairman for those in the audience some
034of you may know and some of you may not I'll board has been here today since 12:30 we had a great Retreat it was wonderful but one thing that I know right now is that I'm tired and do you know what that made me think made me think that every day yes this faculty staff teachers the support they do this every day but I want to thank you especially because it brought back the days and reminded me what it is when the rubber hits the road and I want to thank each and every one of you for the job you do every day because you might be tired but it's a good kind of tired and then the second thing and lastly I guess is that at the last for Bureau meeting I had the
035opportunity to witness the pit County for Bureau who who puts their money word of mouth is daughter ler and for over a decade now we've taken full sponsorship of the teacher of the year and the principal of the year and employee of the year for pit County schools and we gave a great big check for $8,000 to Miss kein Jones and and her Representatives that were representing pit County schools and it's just wonderful to know that all our communities you know pck County a lot of times we think that it's the medical community or it's the industrial Community but a lot of times we forget about the agricultural Community all our communities have bought into this system because it's an excellent system and I'll say it till the day I'm I'll die which going to
036be a long time for me it's an excellent system because we have excellent people and that's what education in pit county is all about thank you B benj you won't tired of nothing [Laughter] let me just say I know that uh pck County Schools as well as many districts we all have an issue that we have to deal with and one of them is not finding enough qualified teachers and I've had some people within the community talk to me about that especially you know when we have a university uh within our County and I would request uh through uh Dr ler if he would ask the dean of the College of Education at ECU to come speak to the board about and I think that's good for both uh to speak to us in regards
037to what are the hard areas difficult areas to find teachers I know math and science and EC are very difficult but what are they doing to help get these numbers up because when you look at the graduation uh rate and numbers from each department the largest is Elementary a and then these other uh areas they're very low numbers but just I think that would help us a lot both both of us good idea and also I'd like to thank Dr lass and his staff for the decision that they have made in regards to the inclement weather cuz I know you can't satisfy everybody out there and but you've got to look at what's best for those students and those bus drivers it's different driving a car on the road than driving a bus on the
038road and hit a a slick spot so appreciate the safety aspect of that and with that I'm through thank you thank you again all for coming out on tonight and those who are viewing uh want to say we've had a long day but it's been a very uh good day very educational uh day and a good time for the board to be together I do want to say on behalf of Stokes Elementary that the PTA re recently collaborated with teachers to see what the needs were in their classroom the teachers applied for many Grant to the uh Stokes PTA PTA was able to award $2,500 in Grants to classrooms that support stud across all grade levels really thank them for doing that also I look forward to seeing you to our next two listening sessions
039which are going great I encourage all that are concerned about the future of pit County schools and what has to take place within the next five to 10 years please come out Take A Part in these meetings uh to hear what is actually is on the plans for the next few years we believe and we believe in the road ahead we believe that our superintendent is doing an outstanding job we are in 100 support of him his staff and all that they're doing and I think pit County across all the pit County parents ought to be proud of what pit County schools are doing to educate our children that is my final words on tonight at this time we get a motion to adjourn Mr chair I move we journ and I second that very
040second any questions all in favor unanimous we are now closed