001okay I call the J jary 8th 2024 meeting of the pit County Board of Education to order um car please know that all board members are present at this time we invite the members of CH 25 of Farmville um to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance so if y'all would come forward please 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 for all thank you for being with us this evening we will now have the moment of silence Heavenly Father we thank you for bringing us together today to discuss the future of our schools we ask that you guide us in our discussions and help us to make decisions that will benefit our students and community
002and all those who have placed their trust and confidence in our leadership we pray that you give us the wisdom to make the right choices and the courage to stand by them give us the insight to lead with integrity and keep us from shortsightedness help us to always put the needs of our children first in your name we pray amen amen is there a motion to adopt the agenda as presented motion to approve second any discussion okay hearing none has been moved by sorry who moved it okay thank you all in favor please raise your right hand any opposed pass 8 Z okay at this time I invite Miss alers to present the spotlight on teaching and [Applause] learning good evening and happy New Year chair Cole board members Dr Linker and those in attendance
003this is Board of Education appreciation month and I would like to begin by expressing our sincere appreciation to each of you for your service Warren G Bennis once said leadership is the capacity to trans form Vision into reality thank you for your leadership for asking questions providing suggestions and guidance holding us accountable and most importantly for being engaged in our schools with our students staff families and Community serving on the board of education is a tremendous responsibility and we are so fortunate to have you helping us transform our PC s Vision into reality chair Cole I would also like to take a moment and congratulate Dr Linker on being selected as the 2023 Greenville pit Chamber of Commerce citizen of the year he is most deserving now the community partner of the month tonight our
004community partner of the month is near and dear to my heart the pit County Educational Foundation last year in a board work session we had the opportunity to share some information and data about the Educational Foundation and tonight we are taking a moment to feature them as our community partner of the month the pck County Educational Foundation was established in 1987 with Betty spear as the first executive director and Kenneth Jews as the first chairman of the board Francis young was later hired by chairman Larry seagler to serve as the second ex executive director and held that role for a remarkable 29 years until she retired in 2020 I am incredibly blessed to be the third executive director of the pit County Educational Foundation our board of directors are Public School advocate all stars of
005Greenville as you take a look at the list you're going to see some familiar names and they are true advocates for public education our current chair is Tom Kowski and vice here is Van Smith Unfortunately they were unable to be with us tonight because of other engagements with me tonight we do have Francis young Ernest Lee assistant vice president Outreach Community engagement at pit Community College and Pat Clark who is a past PCS principal she is actually the principal that started Hope Middle School a little bit about the Educational Foundation our mission our mission is to transform our community Through excellence and public public education our vision is to broaden community support for making pit County Schools a model for public education where students Thrive families engage Educators and professional support staff Excel and educational
006outcomes continuously improve the Educational Foundation supports students and teachers through scholarship programs professional development and a multitude of programs and resources last year we awarded 77,000 in scholarship to pick County Schools graduating seniors one of our longest standing programs has been the minig grant program for teachers to implement Innovative and creative classroom projects in their classrooms this year we extended our Min grant program to students last year we funded 44,000 with 93 grants this year we are able to award over $50,000 to teachers and students across our district another long-standing program has been the teacher executive Institute that was established 35 years ago with Francis and Larry seedler and they partnered the Educational Foundation with local businesses and industries to build leadership capacity and a cohort of competitively selected teacher leaders lastly the Educational Foundation
007was instrumental in the development of our wonderful Kathy Taff Center for excellence in leadership and education and we'll hear quite a bit from Tom Feller Seth Brown this evening we are so thankful for their work but we were excited that we were able to be in the Grassroots and the foundation of that wonderful professional development center for our district at this time I ask Mr Lee Miss Clark and Miss Young to come forth so we can present you with a certificate would you like to say anything Fran would like she's a little lady but I had big shoes to F do not be do not be on behalf of the two of us and I want to thank those members who were in the past who are in the present and who will be in
008the future because the pit County Educational Foundation has just been an absolute wonderful opportunity for me to be a part of and now part on the board and if it's the board that does the work and does the um the the good things that go on so I thank them and those who are not able to be here tonight thank you on behalf of the count Board of Education presentent you with this award and I too want to say thank you for all the amazing work you guys do for especially as a teacher myself it touches my heart to see all the stuff that you guys do for our so very much [Applause] appreciate oh yeah C Garner JH Rose High School business teacher Kurt Garner was named the North Carolina Center for advancement of
009teaching incap 20123 Career and Technical education teacher of the year in a special ceremony in October of 2023 he has been so incredibly busy that we are thrilled to finally have him in attendance this evening the 2023 2024 school school year marks his sixth year at the JH Rose staff and his 17th year in p County Schools Garner's appointment at JH Rose in August of 2018 includes instruction and computer engineering programming and Microsoft Office followed 11 years from DH Conley High School where he taught in a similar capacity beginning in 2007 in addition to a selection as PCS teacher of the year in 2011 Kurt Garner was honored as the North Carolina future Business Leaders of America advisor of the year in 2016 he currently serves as the organization's State executive board director he's also
010an adviser for the National Technical Honor Society and has held membership in the National Business Education Association since 2005 I'm gonna ask you to join me Mr Garner we have with us this evening Mr Garner we have Dr Karen summer Deputy executive director and Dr Brock wble executive director of incat and we have Katie Morris a JH Ro student who is serving um as the district president is that correct of f Eastern region vice president Easter Eastern region vice president so we've got some celebrities in the room she's going to share some remarks about Mr Garner and then we're going to hear some remarks from in good evening my name is Katie Morris I am a senior at J high school and the co-president of future Business Leaders of America or FBA at Rose the
011CTE based organization to which Kurt Garner devotes a significant amount of time I know that Mr Garner is here being recognized as the nccat CTE teacher of the year but I've never actually had him as a teacher in the classroom I met Mr Garner through fbaa I joined my freshman year as a shy timid and quiet kid as I got more involved in fpla I saw how fun and engaging the club was so I decided to apply to be an officer and was appointed as the secretary I came into the position with ideas for programs to better the organization and absolutely no previous leadership experience or any idea on how to actually achieve my goals despite this Mr Garner took a chance on me he let me come in early and stay after school and
012took time out of his very busy day to help me make my ideas a reality he never gave up on me when I failed but instead help me move past the challenges and become a better leader I never had Mr gar as a teacher yet he has influenced my life and taught me more than any other teacher I've had my confidence has grown so much from what it was as a freshman he pushed me to take opportunities that I didn't think I was up for which in the long run made me a better person he also gave me the opportunity to work on a team and be the leader of a team I am now acting as the co-president of fpla in this position Mr Garner has taught me how to hold my fellow officers
013accountable and how to set an expectation for standards for work I've started using the skills that Mr Garner has taught me in other extracurriculars and I am positive that I will use them in my career I've watched Mr Garner influenced students outside of the classroom in so many ways since my junior year I watched him prepare students for interviews that lead them to prestigious scholarships and job opportunities he teaches the fbaa officer team work ethic self motivation and accountability and although I haven't been in his class I watch him teach his students not only the content of the curriculum but also teamwork and life skills that they will carry with them through their careers and my personal favorite I watch him keep his soccer players in line I can't think of anyone more deserving of
014this award thank [Applause] you y'all I don't need to say anything if you have any doubts about whether you have the North Carolina career in technical education teacher of the year those comments speak volumes so so thank you I will try to follow and give you a little additional information um but that is so beautiful um greetings from the North Carolina Center for the advancement of teaching our Statewide organization provides professional development for North Carolina Educators at our Ki and okra Co campuses in addition to online and school-based professional development we were here this evening to celebrate a very special individual Kurt Garner is the 2023 incat Career and Technical education teacher of the year at incat we are proud to honor teachers and the teaching profession and the celebration of great CTE teachers is
015something Dr Brock wble our executive director is passionate about we are here tonight celebrating Kurt Garner thanks to his vision and belief in the importance of this recognition I'd now like to share some highlights for Mr Garner's impressive port portfolio Kurt Garner is a consumate community Builder and leader he encourages students to earn credentials help develop a local articulation agreement with pit Community College and serves as a mentor to other CTE teachers both locally and across the state Mr Garner developed a reference guide for counselors to help them understand the various CTE coures offered and has written grants to purchase equipment for his programs he has served as an FBA chapter adviser for 16 years taking two schools to the largest membership in the state respectively he has had many state and National winners at
016competitions served on the North Carolina FBLA executive board works with the local pre-apprenticeship program and has brought new CTE courses to his school Mr Garner helped develop rise and led the work to transition the FBA state conference to a virtual platform during the pandemic we're not talking like well ahead of time I think it was like oh yeah yeah that's that's impressive his leadership and expertise in this work led to the national office using his guidelines and procedures for the national leadership conference for the past five years Garner's fbaa chapter has earned the Helen Reagan North Carolina chapter of the Year award his teams have won the highest distinctions the champion chapter competitions and have been designated gold seal chapters Mr Garner regularly mentors other CT teachers both veteran and new he created a ctso
017boot camp and works with a new teacher Institute to help beginning teachers develop their own programs colleagues describe Mr Garner as an instrumental leader on the North Carolina fbaa Board admired for his leadership and dedication as an educator he leads by example and is always poised polished and professional Garner students love him because he is genuine relatable and cares about them a former student noted Mr Garner showed her what leadership looks like and instilled in her a drive to make every life around her a little bit better and taught her How To Succeed in Business and the real world we are pleased to honor Kurt Garner this evening for his dedication to his students to his program and to the community thank you for all you do I know how to follow up [Applause] get
018Katie get Katie yeah Brock you need to get in there Brock you get in there thank you very much thank you congratulations Kurt you gonna say something come on up here gracious R I'm still in all that I won um even when I hear all this stuff I I really can't imagine that I've done all of it um because it really is for one reason and one reason alone and it's for it's for the students um just like Katie um the the only reason I wake up and going to a building every day is to just make their lives just a little bit better um but also to give them a skill that they can immediately put into place um that day um or in their future and so um it it's great that that
019incat is doing this particularly for CTE teachers um for so long we felt like the the redheaded stepchildren of Education um and so we have have promised to use our platform all of the finalists um to just bring awareness to CTE and what we actually do for our students um that no other area can do um um and so I'm I'm so appreciative of that um and I've got a year of of advocacy going forward so I'm I'm pleased um and many of us have already chatted about different things so um thank you um you all have my email address so if you have any questions feel free to to reach out to me thank you madam chair if I may Kurt I've known you a long time followed your career everywhere you go Excellence
020follows I even thought about this you know Tracy gave you Excellence from the East certificate tonight maybe in the future pit County Schools ought to think about calling it in your honor the KK Garner excellence in the East because you are an excellent example I don't know I hope you have a long healthy life and year and live for decades but when that time comes for you to meet the good Lord up above I hope they do an autopsy of you because I want to find out what makes you tick because there's no one in pck County Schools or the state of North Carolina that's a finer example of excellence in teaching than Kirk [Applause] Garner stop paying for a recently two pck high schools were awarded Blue Ribbon Schools of excellent Jennifer Johnson principal
021at Hope Middle and Dr Paul Briney principal at Wintergreen primary and Wintergreen intermediate are here to share information regarding this distinguished award we're so proud of you and we're glad that you could bring it to the board this evening where's the mouse is it moving I can't I can't see the mouse you click on your title I can't see there there we go yeah there why am I such an idiot there hold on I'm moving it too fast it's too sensitive okay good evening everyone good evening trying to figure out how to use a mouse around here um as Miss aler said I'm Jennifer John I'm the principal at Hope Middle School um and Dr BR is with me um we had the um Joy of going to um Orlando in November to um receive
022our Lighthouse Awards so you're probably wondering what does it mean to be a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence um Blue Ribbon School of Excellence is a nonprofit organization that started assessing schools in 2001 um modeled after the National Blue Ribbon School program um from the Department of educ and um it gives feedback to schools in nine different performance areas um these are all listed here and um when the assessors come to visit us these are the areas that they look at and again good evening everybody happy New Year and happy Monday so so throughout the assessment process it is a two-day process where we had two assessors come in um from from the Blue Ribbon Schools and and when they're looking at those nine indicators they have criteria that we have to meet as a
023school as well um so whatever fit into our master schedule we had to have surveys surveys were completed from our staff from our students from our parents um from Administration as well and then they took the results from their surveys and at the end of our visit we compiled everything and had had a meeting and broke everything down but on top of the surveys we also had to have informal um surveys and within focus groups so we had small group interviews um within that small group interviews it was a group of students it was a group of parents it was a group of our administrators um and then also as well as our small group of Staff classified staff and then as well as certified staff and then on top of that they came in
024knowing pretty much every nook and cranny of our school every data piece that we had over the years um which was somewhat surprising that they knew our schools as well as they did so they did their homework became before they came to visit us and we had conversations we had conversations about the data from previous years we had conversations regarding the data during the co years and then the data moving forward on what we expect out of our students and out of our staff and from our parents and then the last piece was they visited every classroom within our school so I'm not sure what it looks like at Hope at far or excuse me at Wintergreen we're looking at 72 classrooms you know so 72 classrooms that they visited from 3 to 5 minutes
025I'm collecting informal data and then formal data that they share with us as well and again all that information went into a big report that they put in um and then we met on the second day that they came in the afternoon and spent a couple hours with them as we debriefed and took a look at everything regarding the data collection um things that we're working well within our school and then of course when when you're in a school you don't want to become complacent you always always want to go ahead and make sure you're making Improvement and making gains and they had those conversations with us where they saw where there's areas for some improvement as well all right so in those nine indicators um as we were assessed both schools um needed to
026um reach a score of 80% or higher um in order to be named a lighthouse school and both of us um did meet that threshold so we both earned the lighthouse School award so so so I know when when we were looking at this award we had this conversation with Dr Linker and we wanted to you know as a as a parent of my own children who went through winter green to one at Hope right now I I had the privilege of being able to see that you know great instruction taking place at both schools and then as also as a school leader I'm getting to collaborate with Miss Johnson and then being able to be within the four walls at Wintergreen just seeing all the great things taking place so when we had those
027conversations with Dr Linker is how how can we get our schools uh nationally recognized how can we let everybody know what's going on at these two schools and the great things taking place and this is one thing that we looked at so we want to thank the board for the opportunity we want to thank Dr Linker of course and his team for the opportunity for all the support that you give us throughout the years um and just more good things to come with with both of our schools we can promise you that and our last picture we um both received these um beautiful very heavy um Crystal um Awards and a great big flag but it was too big to bring in so thank you thank you congratulations we could get a picture of the
028four of you thank you for all that you do my children went to Winter green and to Hope Middle School I taught at Wintergreen for 23 years and they are special schools so thank you for keeping up the Excellence you think I need to go here we'll just do it this way this is a feature program you have that separately for Tom and Seth different presentation our featured program this evening focuses on the collaborative work of Dr Seth Brown and Dr Tom Feller Tom and Seth are an educational leadership Powerhouse they're original and unique vision for developing and empowering teachers is transformative their multifaceted leadership development model Fosters a culture of collaboration and teaching Excellence creating a learning environment where all students can reach their Highest Potential and success in a rapidly changing World lastly
029they were both recently awarded the UNC Chapel Hill College of Education distinguished alumni award for their impactful and Innovative contribution to public education in North Carolina please welcome Dr Tom Feller and Dr Seth [Applause] Brown good evening even you always it uh makes you feel good when Beth introduces you I guess no matter what so uh thank you for that for sure it's our honor to talk to you not only about um our Advanced role program R3 recruit retain reward uh this is a program we've been doing for seven and a half years in pit um really for the grants and even longer than that since 2014 so almost 10 years if you include all the pipeline programs we first created so really now this is uh about the impacts what is it what does
030it mean what are the the actual impacts of this how does it impact our students our teachers our test scores and that's what we're going to be able to go through today all right good evening everyone um just to to give you a quick update here on some of the stuff that's going on so the data you're going to see today comes from two evaluation reports one that was done uh for us by measurement Inc which is our third party evaluator and then also you'll see some data from the Friday Institute which is doing the state level evaluation we pulled that in here so right here we just wanted to point out the number of Educators this was impacted in the last year directly by the work of R3 and the ATR RS um so
031you'll see there when we add it all up there is some duplication but we tried to remove most of the duplication um but over, 1300 Educators we've been working with over the last year which is I think right around 60% of the school system this next slide is one that was featured by the Friday Institute at the last state school board meeting uh the actually the the section in Gray was featured because that's uh the student test score data they were looking at scale scores for students for eoc's and eogs and meeting Math and Science and what they featured at the state school board meeting was what's in gray one of the things they asked is before that meeting was to be able to feature and study what's going on in pit because the data
032was impactful um and they wanted that and so we're going to engage in another partnership with them now Dr Linker said two things yes we'll partner with you and number two tell everybody that good things are going on in pit County Schools so the impressive thing here is if you look at the from the the advanced role districts in the state compared to pit and blue and if you look in science it's doubled if you look in math it's doubled and that the math one is actually statistically significant to the point of it's 99.9% attributed to that so that that's the highest level of significance is is pretty impressive there and then even an Ela which is the lowest of the the scores partly because of testing partly because of the way the scale scores
033are but it's three times what the state state does so all three areas are pretty impactful the little thing in the bottom is highlighted here says that the math effect size is equivalent to approximately 1.6 months of extra learning based on what we're going we're doing here so this is pretty impactful work that we're seeing uh and this comes from the Friday Institute that wor NC State so that part we're pretty proud of just to say what our teachers are doing what our coaches are doing and how things are impacting our kids the next report comes from measurement uh Inc and so this looks at teacher retention so this one looks back in 2016 and 17 before the grant started uh pit County Schools was 1.5% points above the state average um in teacher retention
034and so afterwards in 2122 were actually 2.1 percentage points below what measurement Inc did is they wanted to find two other districts that were similar size and also two other districts that started in a similar teacher retention point so looking at at where those two other districts looked at started and where they are now so there's again a a great impact on keeping our teachers all of our teachers and most importantly in other reports we have keeping our best teachers our Advanced role teachers those are the ones we can't lose so the next thing is all right so what does this mean we keep more teachers what it means is it saves money if we don't have to replace teachers this report one of the things that highlights is approximately $2.8 million was saved across
035all the years if you look at the cost of replacing the teacher in 201617 the number of teachers compared to 2122 across all the years approximately $2.8 million was saved across all the years all those years so that's a physical impact of how are these how are these programs impacting our teachers our students and everything we're doing so to just kind of pull that all together this was the U evaluator statement they said the R3 program succeeded increasing the number of effective teachers in the highest need need schools and what's more the office delivered ongoing highquality professional development and support learning opportunities that were instrumental in preparing teachers for their leadership responsibilities one of the things we wanted them to answer or at least get some data for us on was not only what were
036the impacts we have but what was it that caused those impacts um what set us apart from other districts um and so the the PD that and the support were the things that kept rising up to the top um in both of these reports as differences we were offering here in pck County versus in other districts so that's the first objective really about expanding the advanced roles the second objective is about creating a culture of coaching primarily with our school administrators and there are two things one is to provide coaching for principles and the other is to provide training to allow principles to coach others the idea is coaching is not something to fix other people it's in the business world is actually reserved for your highest performers your Executives your CEOs your seet people
037get the executive high quality coaching so what we've been able to do is to provide coaching for principles and assistant principles and through the trainings and programs we have some of the programs like the academy that we have for assisted principles some through the training that we do approximately 77% of our principles and assisted principles have been enrolled in the program of actually engaging in coaching some of the programs we actually uh contract with a third party it's actually an Executive coaching company out of Portland they coach companies like Nike and Chick-fil-A and damler truck and Kohl's those Executives they're able to get art that those same coaches are able to coach some of our our our highest performing principles as well the second piece is a training called becoming a coach and leader so
038the idea here is how do we make sure our principles not only are coaches because they're not coaches they're leaders so how are they coaches that also impact results and this program is one that's been very impactful so we have approximately 77 uh of our assistant principls and principles have participated in this some of those people have gone over the last couple years in the central office and other roles uh but by the time the grant is over we'll have 100% of our principles and we'll have all of our assistant principles who started with the grant we only have I think four more left um and then we'll have a lot of our new people as well that we're going to continue to grow as well so this is a a way that really impact
039how are we constantly improving all the time and one of the ways is through feedback and coaching through this objective objective two all right so then the third goal and when we talk about these these three goals we've actually have five of them these are all tied back to this most recent Grant we have um when we did The Proposal with the feds we set out to to address five goals um so the first one was to expand the career Pathways the ATR positions and that's what we were talking about there Seth just addressed the the culture of coaching amongst in four School Executives uh so then the third goal with uh this this most recent Grant is to address professional learning partly because it came up as such a strength in the previous Grant
040and in these previous reports and so we partnered with a a group called learning for uh learning forward learning yes yes uh they're a National Organization they came in and worked with uh a whole bunch of us to help develop a vision for what we call a comprehensive professional learning plan to look at for the district um in that we identified five goals around professional learning um we won't share all those here but we just want to let you know um you'll be getting a copy of what that looks like uh but as part of that we also administered a survey to everyone in the district and we had um a a fairly High resp response rate for that I think almost 800 or 900 Educators responded um and and right at 80% uh we
041wanted to highlight one question here responded uh in the positive to the question how effective is the professional learning program in pic County schools at helping you fulfill your potential as an educator um and so we found that encouraging and that is something we're we're going to continue working at um to increase that um and then of the five goals one that we wanted to highlight here was that we realized um over our work that while we're doing a lot lot of professional learning for our certified staff our classified staff doesn't get um the advantage of it so we do have a goal moving forward um to work with how can we provide professional learning opportunities for classified staff um in fact we've got someone in our office working on um doing a special program
042this summer to get some some additional stuff for that um and then we'll also be creating a uh onboarding process for all new staff uh to identify what are the trainings that uh we expect of teachers when they begin uh then the fourth goal goal is to look at this idea of continuous Improvement uh we're using a model out of uh from the Carnegie Institute uh on networked Improvement science and we're partnering with Chapel Hill we've got a professor there that we're working with and here we've uh really developed nine what we call focused inquiry teams these are teams of principles assistant principles instructional coaches uh school counselors um I think we've got some social workers on these various teams and they're looking at at the school level what are some large uh like difficult
043problems that they've always faced student attendance um you know how do we get the kids in school uh things like that teacher attendance and um and then we're taking them through this networked Improvement cycle so we've got nine of them currently working on that um and so by the end of this year we'll actually have some data on the impact they're having um what we've seen so far is is pretty pretty incredible um and we did want to mention that we will have two teams presenting at the national Carnegie Improvement Summit that'll be in San Diego this coming month month uh this coming March um on the Improvement model that we've developed and the work and the results that we've seen so that'll be uh presented at the national stage which is really pretty exciting
044this objective for me is one of the the interesting ones because it'll help us continue to learn and grow throughout uh throughout the the rest of the time so this is one that's really neat that how we expanding this throughout everything we do goal five is about meeting the needs of all students and staff really it's about every kid every day um we have our Equity partners that act similar to our facilitating teachers if you're familiar with that um that role so in other words they look at examining data in different ways to add address gaps to identify them the training we look at awareness is about the content what do our staff need to be aware of we're partnering with cvy uh for unconscious bias training about the content and really the next thing
045is about the process how do we have these difficult conversations and harvest in diversity has provided as some good content there so we're really looking at how do we make sure we take care of kids whether you're at pack tol us whether you're in Farmville or whether you're you know South in Aiden area W Grifton wherever it is how do we make sure every student is taken care of every single day no matter where you come from when you walk in our doors we're going to take care of you so that that fifth objective is meeting meeting that goal as well so to pull us all together we wanted to highlight just remind ourselves a couple things number one the ATR program has helped us retain our best teachers we know that from the reports
046um they're also estimated to save us just shy of $ million what I do want to add about that we Seth and I were talking about this so that estimate is based off of um some national research that says it costs on average um about $1,000 to replace a teacher uh I was actually reading some more recent research last week that estimated um based off of new numbers in the last couple years that it costs about $223,000 um so it's actually double um so we're going with a conservative number here um of about 2.8 million over the last several years that have been saved but using um some of the more recent numbers it would it could be significantly higher uh also based off of Friday institute's data uh pic County Schools um particularly our
047ATR positions our MCTS FTE they're outperforming other districts in the state um in all those in all those subjects um and that was pretty significant when they called us and shared that um actually their comment was it's you're so much higher we really want to come in and study you we got to figure out what you guys are doing that other people are not what's setting your part because we need to replicate this um the based off of you know feedback we've received from administrators the coaching training that we've been doing for them becoming a coaching leader and the coaching that they're getting um they're saying it's transforming the way that they're looking at how do they support their teacher leaders that was one of the goals of the grant um additionally continuous Improvement this
048idea of how do we look at problems that we don't know how to fix and research them and figure out what's causing them and then come up with strategies um that's starting to become the way we do business and much of the program that we're offering um and based off of all of what we've learned we're learning again and just being reinforced that ongoing coaching and highquality professional learning are critical for the success of these ATR positions so this final quote uh sort of summarize is what we're looking at and really this is a testament to the the teacher leaders we've been working with for about 10 years um Testament to the principles and support they have the senior staff and um really our coaches as well that make this happen it's really this is
049an ambitious set of priorities um one of the things that measurement ain't found um and I think the idea is that it's informed by research and best practices so these are things that are proven feel like cubba good and Junior a little bit show me the money well here's the data here's the practices here's what's going on and we see this finally because through covid we didn't have a lot of test score data to see um the this information from Frid Institute really gets us sort of excited about what's what's going on and how the future Partnerships are going to work for advanced roles in pit County and across the state of North Carolina so as far as the measurement um Inc report we just this afternoon got the final copy um in PDF format
050so we'll forward that to Carol um so you guys can have the full report on all that data um we'll also get you a copy of the comprehensive professional learning plan um because that's that's been finalized so well thank you very much I got a question I have a question um I think the public needs to know how the funding how how we're getting the funding to do this and be successful at this program uh and you've written grants of course and um how much were those Grants awarded and over what time period so are you asking the question of of how much so the the first set of Grants we received was right around $20 million spread over 5 years um this most recent Grant was uh just shy of $5 million over three
051years um and we've receed some continuing stuff from the state um every year um we just got an appropriation today was on the phone with Dr Linker uh trying to figure that one out and um right now the state we've submitted some numbers from them because they're trying to move atrs into um a sustainment um and so we're we've submitted numbers for them we're expecting a significant allotment of that but um yeah to your point yes a lot of it's been Grant sustained and and that's the point that I wanted to bring out because where there's the wheel there's a way and if you see something that's worthwhile you many times you can find a way to get the funds to help get that program off the ground and of course the first part of
052it was 20 million I mean and y'all you did a excellent uh job during that time period uh selling it to the uh teachers as well as the principles because that was a big part of it huge yeah it it it really is a team effort and I think that's one of the key things is the term widespread use was one of the things the first year we went to the conference is we had to have widespread use or otherwise everything would die right and the thing every other District in the state of North Carolina doesn't have access to the grant funds I take that back several do now they've gotten grants um and and one of the things is is that gave us a huge benefit a huge jump start and every other state
053every other District now actually funds this through other funds so it's reoccurring so it doesn't have to go away it does mean there are judgments that we have to make Based on data and we can continue this in the future especially the things that work very very well correct we got to keep those things going it's also been enough that the the state is not looking at and say that's they're doing it right we need to follow along and see what they're doing what are you doing right yes sir you know I never thought of this before do do those that get that participate in the program get renewal credit yes sir train yes sir okay yes sir that's that and that's I think one of the highlights from what we do differently is that
054our people are trained so we can continue the training because our own people are certified to do the training so it doesn't cost us thousands of dollars to bring in Consultants we can now it t takes an investment up front but now we can do it just for the price of a learning guide so it's a lot more sustainable to do that high quality training for years and years to come right and that's that's been key that's good and we're able to bring up districts in and say come here they pay a fee right so it's not much but they pay a fee but come and then then that way we have Partners as well if we can be a clearing house for other districts to help provide renewal credit and in service training that's
055another further and I cap think about yeah and that the Education Foundation was just featured and I remember we were talking about the Kathy Taff Center that was the vision right to be a regional Hub so everyone in the state come and we're doing that there there State meetings there all the time and so that could be a place to house all these and make sure we take care of it and we especially in the Northeast right we can be that Hub because a lot of other districts just don't have we they need it and we can deliver it let's do it let's partner right on yes sir thank you sir thank you very much thank you very much you good with get okay thanks to miss alers and everyone for sharing all the positive
056and outstanding things occurring in our school system and congratulations again to everyone who got Awards tonight always great to see at this time we're going to do our public expression we have one individual who has registered and I'm going to turn over to Vice chair Weaver who will provide some reminders regarding our rules for um public expression this evening we have one individual offering public expression public expression is an opportunity to share issues of concern that are relevant to the business of the board the board will listen to your comments respectfully and our chair may offer some direction if our rules are not followed but the board will not respond to your comments only speakers who have signed up for the public expression May address the board when a speaker's time expires you must end
057your remarks and step away from the podium if a speaker is not present when his or her name is called the opportunity to speak will be considered waved during this time period you may hear someone share a Viewpoint with the board that you do not agree with we do not censor speech by Viewpoint and we do not permit our audience topr exess approval or disapproval for a Viewpoint expressed this time is for the individual speaking to address the full board the board does not censor comments by viewpoint but it will not permit speakers to name a staff member or student when offering Praises or criticisms we also do not consider attacking a person for something in their personal life to be relevant to the business of our board and will not permit remarks of this
058nature during public comment finally discussion of the family members of board members is not relevant to our business and will not be permitted again the board members will listen to your comments respectfully and our chair may offer some direction if our rules are not followed but we will not respond to your comments at this time we will hear from our first speaker um Juniper Royal Juniper you have three minutes um good evening my legal name is McKenzie but my preferred name that I go by at school is Juniper I'm here to discuss my grievances with the North Carolina Senate bill number 49 named the parents Bill of Rights this law limits the ability of students to express their gender identity and results in the legal guardian having just about complete control over their child's gender
059ID identity and how they present themselves for most students school is a safe environment to present how they please without having to come out if they're if they are not ready to this bill puts many gender queer people who are in the closet in a difficult spot that leaves them with three options one to never bring the situation up and constantly be dead named in what is supposed to be a safe place two the one that seems like the easiest way out forging your parent signature which can lead to even even bigger problems and the possibility of getting in legal trouble lastly the third and most dreaded option coming out to your parents about something that could change the way they look at you for the rest of your life approaching your legal guardian to
060sign a form to be referred to as your preferred name and pronouns can be difficult as this may result in a student coming out when they if they are not ready for example a friend of mine had to go back to using their legal name due to the fact that they can't come out to their parents overall this law infringes on the students autonomy and does not give the student a lot of say in how they want to be recognized thank you for [Applause] listening thank you at this time we are moving on to our consent items all right okay honor consent items we have the following for approval the minutes from the December 4 2023 board meeting um the minutes from the December 4th um Clos session and the Personnel report for January 8th
061is there a motion to approve the items on the cassette agenda second okay hearing none or sorry there is a second is there any discussion no okay hearing none it has been moved by Jennifer and seconded by Don is that right okay thank you all in favor please raise your right hand okay passes unanimously 8 Z all right at this time we're going to move on to our new business so I ask Miss Hodson Miss Harington and Mr Ericson to provide update to the board regarding the jewel litigation thank you chair Cole so we have had our first settlement distribution paid in December of 20123 uh the amount that came in was close to $230,000 um we anticipate that there will be additional payments or distributions coming from the settlement um over the next few
062December through 2027 uh that is based on how the settlement agreement was structured and as a reminder um we also have funds coming to us from all as well who was the co-defendant in the litigation and that's going to be around 127,000 the net on that will be around $127,000 so we do anticipate receiving some additional funds um at some point in early 2020 in early this year so uh I just want to make you aware of that um you may recall that settlement proceeds are to be used uh in a compens for to provide compensatory restitution or remediation to address the problem of Youth vaping and nicotine addiction um and so at this point we are looking at um a variety of options for the use of settlement proceeds uh Miss Harrington and Mr
063Ericson may be able to speak further to this but of course vaping detectors for restrooms uh potentially for our middle and high schools those do come with um while there is an upfront cost for those there is also a subscription cost as well to pay for the software that operates those vaping detectors which we are looking at longterm as part of a strategic plan because there is a finite amount of funds uh not an infinite one uh we are also looking into options for prevention education as well as cessation and substance abuse counseling programs for students uh the truth campaign actually offers a cessation program which we think is promising has been highly successful for around 600,000 students and adults at a fairly low cost um so we are exploring options at this time um
064and we'll Hope to come to you with a strategy and package in the coming months anybody have any questions house question I want to ask um not Laker the um metal detectors or whatever do they pick up those Vapes or not depends how we have it set but yes but it can the sensitivity can be set so that it would correct okay I have a kind of a follow-up question too I don't know if maybe Aaron can answer this I'm not real sure but I know we have them installed in barnville right correct in the bathrooms The Vaping or how is that working yeah we did a pilot site at Farmville Middle School um with What's called the Triton brand of VAP protectors it's been um very good solid product and is definitely the lead
065Contender for our bid currently going out to do we have any data on that or how it's working they know um I can get you exact data um all we get back from the sro's staff is that it's definitely made a big difference I know on our side from a maintenance standpoint they are not flushing them anymore we are not going out to respond to clog in the sewer system so and you may recall that our part of the reason we did join this lawsuit for many reasons but what one of the the really primary instigating events was a complaint that we had had to basically repair to do some very serious plumbing repairs at that middle school so as a result of blushing GPS thank you Aaron what's the difference between a vapor detective
066for the restrooms and the ones that we've got that picks up those picks up the vaping the metal yeah um so the metal detectors to answer your question in in a little bit greater detail would be that they can pick up everything from a large scale weapon all the way down if they're set high enough in sensitivity down to a paperclip on a person um so they can pick up anything depending on how we have them set that day the biggest difference would be metal detectors will pick it up coming in the building but if it was to happen to get by depending on how it's set that day at the school um then the use of it The Vape detector will actually pick up them using it in the building so it picks up
067the the use of the use of it it's in the same category as a smoke detector in terms of how Okay okay so they're not as expensive no no not at all um average price is about $1,000 a detector per per installation location one per bathroom one per bathroom so the farmal middle was eight so that's 8,000 install and then it was $400 annual fee per device for the software act any other questions or comments thank you very much at this time I ask Dr R to provide an update to the board regarding feedback on the proposed calendar for the 2024 2025 school year good evening I'm back again to talk about the calendar um when we last talked we talked about internally some of our uh calendar committee um folks gave us some feedback
068and gave us some information now we've had an opportunity to share that information with the school Community including parents and and I wanted to share some of those updates with you as a reminder um the calendar in which I present to you and make a recommendation for eventually comes from the North Carolina school calendar legislation um in that legislation there are quite a few things that talks about what we can and cannot do with the calendar um just to highlight a few of them the earliest day must be a Monday that is closest to August the 26th and the end of the uh school year can be no later than the Friday closest to June 11th the calendar must cover at least nine calendar months and there must be a minimum of 18 185 student
069days or 1,25 instructional hours and if you can recall when we last spoke we talked about the calend the calendar committee's comments um some of the comments that came from this committee was uh stating that they were requesting six professional days for new employees that still need the letters training for next year they also said to take in consideration a full work day in the month of October because teachers need that break and that High School uh teachers would like to see at least one if not two extra days between the semesters because they needed time to build schedules and also get students enrolled midy year just recently we submitted a survey out to the school Community um December 20th is when the survey went out with the help of um Beth alers and her
070team um and that survey is still out and we've asked everyone to participate in that survey before January the 19th of this school year the questions that we as asked the school Community were what's your role of course in the school Community what is your calendar preference and then we did have those calendars posted for them draft calendars for them to take a look at we wanted to hear their feedback on each of those options with the understanding that the graduations will be held on either June the 6th for option one 6th and 7th for option one and graduation will be held on June the 13th and 14th for option to we also wanted to just to hear their comments on early start if you recall last year we did POS that question to um
071our community and they shared their thoughts and their comments on that and we wanted to see if the comments were the same or if they've changed and asked them to provide any additional comments that we may not have asked them but they think it's important for us to know with that being said this is just a snapshot of when I pulled um the survey responses on Friday evening um as of this afternoon those responses have increased so on Friday there was about 185 we're close to over 400 right now as of this afternoon um majority of the responses are coming from the parents and community members so far most of the community members are uh opting for option one which is um the proposed calendar that ends on June the 10th with a um graduation
072date of June 6th and 7th okay now with that being said there's there are some feedback that's coming back um from the comments from the community and I wanted to share with you so far what that feedback is so far the feedback for Option One calendar the committee members excuse me the community is saying that they appreciate that the August has work days for teachers and for staff to prepare for the school year they also stated that they prefer to have early release days on Fridays and Mondays instead of in the middle of the week students should end the semester before the winter break and end the school year before the Memorial Day and that they prefer spring break to align with the Easter holiday because it does impact child care for some um parents
073the feedback for option number two which was the June 13th end date um with a graduation of June 13th and 14th was uh to this was too late in the school year um to End School for most community members they also said that there was not enough work days in the month of August for teachers to prepare for the school year they also mentioned that students should end the semester before the winter break and that they were concerned about the short s Summers if an early start calendar was adopted for next year this would impact the sports and vacation well the early start calendar is not was not an option but I think this was just um some type of Avenue in which people could express their concerns and thoughts about early start when given
074the opportunity to talk about early start um some of the comments were that they did prefer the calendar they felt like the early start calendar was an ideal option for high school students um they did say also that they would wish that the dates of our calendars school calendars would align with ecu's calendars now that it is more aligned with pcc's calendar and of course uh like I mentioned before some families were still concerned about the short Summers when at given the opportunity to add any additional feedback that may that should be considered that was probably not mentioned um some of the things that the Community member said was that the um ending the early releases and having full work days um they felt that the early releases was um not only time constraint but
075also a money constraint for some families who had to make arrangements for their child to leave school early and to find child care for them um some families felt that there would they needed more work days at the end of each marking period for teachers um one comment well several comments were made about PCS should apply for a waiver to start school year early or add a few more minutes to the instructional day to end the semester before the winter break another comment was made about shortening the winter break and extending the Thanksgiving break and then aligning our current calendars with other religious holidays I wanted to mention something about the waiver just to make sure that we're on the same page I I'm starting to see more and more comments about PCS should request
076a waiver with the state to try to start to school early um one of the things I want to mention is that PCS cannot request a waiver okay unless the district has been closed for a number of days quite frankly it's eight days that the school has to be the district has to be closed during the school year over the last 10 years in order to be considered and those reasons for the district to be closed have to fall into the categories of severe weather energy shortages or power failures something of the nature so to apply for a waiver because we want the school year to start early is not an option so here are our next steps I will continue to collect the feedback up until January the 19th I will share with you
077um an updated feedback from the community based off of the feedback I will then um bring the information to the work session and hopefully be able to make some recommendations to be placed on the consent agenda for next year's school calendar any questions yeah I got a couple of questions okay Dr Ro I know what you said about the waiver thing yes sir have we applied for one before not that I'm aware of okay um explain that again in slow motion okay all right you've got to be closed for eight days m one year out of 10 four times out of the last 10 years four times out the last 10 years you have to have been closed for eight days for one of those reasons based mostly on inclement weather inclement weather yeah the
078pandemic come it did not mention the pandemic well I think we ought to explore every Avenue I don't but the pandemic was for one year uhhuh right so we would have to have been closed four times within that 10year time frame so if we were to consider the pandemic that would have been one year that we would have been outed and would have had had three more times that we were out for eight consecutive days who does the uh waiver go to when you do submit one I am I'm assuming DPI accountability um I'm I'm not sure exactly and just as a point of clarification Dr the State Board of Education grants those waivers that is statutory and that is that is that is written into the calendar law I do believe the board did
079seek through our local legislative delegation a local Bill to exempt us from the calendar law that is not part of the state calendar statute we did seek that local Bill those local bills have gone nowhere as well in our general assembly um although we do appreciate the efforts of our local legislative delegation to secure that to secure an exemption for us to to walk well the main thing is we need the public to understand that we have done everything we can under the legal aspects of the law to look at everything to try to make a calendar that would end the semester at Christmas holidays and and and we going to continue to do all that we can and that means that we're going to continue to work with our general assembly we're going to
080continue to work with our partners we're going to continue to work with our community to try to make that happen and you think we can in 2026 school year is that did I see a calendar or where it showed that maybe in another couple of years we might be able to do something like that well it really depend on General Assembly and the passing made making those decisions so um locally all right we can't but the general assembly can pass some type of legislation that would allow that to happen right I I just because I'm getting a lot of calls are y'all yeah I se um response today about the C right right and we need our public to understand we hear them and we're in their Corner yes and we want it to happen
081and we're going to continue to do everything we can that is a high priority for pit County Schools okay I understand Kelly Jenifer Don um I I um am wondering as you know we've kind of gone we've gone in the circle we've talked about the calendar a lot um and I think we've got to get really creative and how we can serve our students and so I saw an a comment that was mentioned and I've also been reached out to by some teachers about adding minutes to the instructional day and I I just wonder what that might would look like for our students um and how that may affect the calendar can you help us understand um what what that might do or what kind of option that might be for our calendar I heard
082the same thing and so I did a little bit of research and here's what I've discovered um Craven County is um right now have a few calendars posted on their website um that allows that option to happen they will start on time according to the calendar law but they have um considered adding 20 minutes to the instructional day um so that it will fall under the student day or the instructional hours they will have a total of 1,59 instructional hours um to meet the calendar expectation of um of instructional days for students so this will be their first time doing that but before they did that they did a whole lot of research CH with other counties um Cumberland and Brunswick are two counties that have been doing that for quite some time and they
083also reached out to their teacher leaders within the district and started those discussions in small groups with the teachers and then with the administrators and they talked through that for about a year on what could possibly uh what could it possibly look like if we were to add minutes to the instructional day so they went back and forth on um designs and creative ways of that happening and then once they've found something that could possibly happened they sent that information out to they sent it to the board and then they sent the information out to parents to say what are your thoughts on this they got the feedback from the parents got the feedback from the board they came back to the round table and did some more tweaking and now they have three calendars
084to present to the community based off of that work with would that adding time to the to the school day even starting in um alignment with the law end the semester prior to the Christmas or to the winter holiday yes it does end the first semester prior to the winter holiday and it ends the school year before Memorial Day thank you jennif so that is actually something I had um reached out to Dr Linker about because I had um somebody from the community ask me about that so can you possibly go just a little bit further with that and then say why that couldn't be an option for us this year let me first say I didn't I would not say that it could not be an option because it could be something that we
085could explore if you want to do that but um what I discovered is um adding minutes to the instructional day impacts the district um the entire District not just classroom you have to think about classified you have to think about um child Child Nutrition you have to think about um buses and transportation so we had a lengthy discussion on how will that impact the entire District when you do that and she shared some things with me on that one of the things that you have to take in consideration is the staggered stop start and stop time so they're going to have to go back and adjust some times uh along each grade span for that to happen um um what also allowed them to do this is they have independent bus drivers so 30% of
086their um Tas are bus drivers and the rest are independent so they have that flexibility to to have that um another thing to take in consideration is um uh meals for Child Nutrition so there's going to be some lost days um for students and so there may be some increases in the prices of meals to compensate for the revenue that might be lost on that um another thing that she talked about was um how are the classes the length of classes the time in classes how will that impact um students in high school so they took a look at how many minutes um will each block have so that students have a fair chance of being prepared for their eoc's so we talk through what a what a first period would look like what a
087second period would look like and who would have yearl classes and who would have semester classes and what data will you use to determine who falls who gets scheduled a year loan class or a semester loan class um and I I think think for the most part those are some of the things that we talk through how how does it impact the entire district and those are the subcommittee conversations that they were having so as um as one topic came up they had to come back to the drawing table and add two or three more people to talk that through to see if it's going to be a significant impact on that department or that area within the district so if that was something that our parents and teachers wanted to pursue it sounds like
088it would need to involve a lot of committee support there would not be need to be some time to be able to put that together okay so that was one thing and I'm glad you spoke because I several people asked me about that and then I'm wondering all of these things that you've shared is there at FAQ something that we're able to then post somewhere so people understand with their feedback sort of a response that we can put underneath that because I think sometimes when people give their feedback they're not sure what happens to it yes like why wasn't the idea okay or accepted or and there could be lots of really complex reasons on um you know like you were just saying about the adding the time is there something that we can put
089out so that we're all getting the same message to the people who contact us about somebody's ideas it would just be I know it's work and I'm I'm sorry to have to ask but this would be something I think that would help unify the messaging a little bit and then potentially encourage you know more conversation and I just turned around and look at Beth so yes we can kind of pull some of the trending comments perfect um from the survey and then create an FAQ and try to answer some of those so that everyone can hear the same message that would help thank you Don and then Melinda it's got a con against adding to 20 minutes to the day you are basically at high school you probably would be there several options you could
090do like add five minutes a period full period day maybe add an extra period in there uh to be a class period but but the bottom line you're basically take still taking days of instruction away because I would tell you adding five minutes adding 10 minutes here there you you you going you you can't do with so in a class period at an hour and a half and you you just give out of time so I understand taking his ANS for Christmas I'd love to as the form of accountability right I tell you that's a big Advantage so just kind of my two cents were let's add that as a con there okay uh as far as the calendar about the vacation in sports if the legislator uh allows us to have a early start
091calendar I think this boy would be ready to say in whenever it happens we're going to go early calendar so they'd have you know the legislative meets in May June July whatever they let us know by August we can say beginning the school next year we're going early start the following year the foll Year you got a whole year for vacation Sports I'm not kind of sure where that comes from cuz the former coach when we used to start at school early it is a huge advantage to coaches to parents to players if you start school those kids are on that campus already starting July 31st or 30th depending on when fall Sports starts if you can start school August 5th those School those teach students are not there for 3 weeks or four weeks
092prior to school starting those coaches are not going there they already on a payroll they already on campus it is a huge Advantage for for for my as far as I'm concerned for fall uh fall Sports by starting school early Melinda I was just going to piggy back on what Don was saying whenever you make that switch if you were to it's a onetime deal as long as you you know you don't go back and and it's going to happen sometime um I had a my oldest child went to edcom county for three years and so when we left pck County and we finished school here in June they started the first week in August so he basically had very little summer to adjust to a new surrounding but the bonus was when we moved
093back to pit County he was done second week of May and he didn't start till you know the end of August so it was like an extra long thing but when you graduate as a senior in June most universities start the beginning of August so you're it's going to you're going to get short changed somewhere along the line and as long as it's just a one time thing I think it's the benefits way outweigh the the negatives so I hope they change that but I agree it would be a whole year we'd let him know Kelly and I want to piggy back also Don off what you said I think it's worth acknowledging that though it may be convenient to have an extra long summer for your family it might not be for All Families
094we're thinking about things like um not only the revenue that Child Nutrition loses but the children that AR might not have that meal that day and um and how we can make sure like um Dr Brown and Dr Feller mentioned that we're about every student every every day and recognizing that sometimes um having more school days will be more beneficial for our entire Community um and just considering that in our conversation as we're considering what a what the C which best calendar serves our all of our children here any other comments thank you Dr R okay thank you I will be back for a third conversation okay at this time we'll have closing comments so following Dr linker's closing comments I will call on individual board members to give closing comments and you will each
095be allowed three minutes um Dr Linker thank you uh just first it's always good to have uh Francis young come back into the building and part of the Education Foundation uh a great great group of community leaders that support pit County schools at a super high level also Mr Forest you said uh said about Mr Garner I mean both of my kids had Mr Garner they were in fbaa excelled because of the program at at that time it was at Conley um just amazing job and and lastly just working with uh Aaron Erikson he's over there I believe somewhere he shared with us a list of like 20 things that his team yeah got completed over the winter holidays when most of us we're probably just spend all of our time with family and friends
096and eating too much and everything else but his team managed to knock off a lot of things off of the list that needed to get done so Aaron does a great job leading that department we're certainly lucky to have him there and and again he did a wonderful job so thank you Mr Ericson thank you m' let's start with Tracy okay um I just want to say Happy New Year to everyone I hope everybody had a nice safe and healthy enjoyable holiday with um family loved ones um I just want to reiterate a special congratulations to Dr Linker for the 2023 Sy of the year um and thank you to Jennifer for her public expression I'm always very appreciative of um especially our students coming in to to speak it's not an easy thing to
097do it's very nerve-racking um and um I appreciate and I hear you okay um and of course congr congratulations to Mr Garner and our Blue Ribbon Schools thank you so much for the partnership with pit County Educational Foundation you are always um doing so much for our schools and it's very appreciated James congratulations again to Dr Lincoln and I do want to encourage our parents to continue to engage in your students uh education attending the school functions and being a part of your child's education is so important engaging to help guide and direct the growth of your children I have a concern of the families that lost a loved one 14 year old and then another 14 year old that that committed that uh serious tragedy it has grieved my heart to know the families
098that were involved and I think it's something that the community should be concerned about and I would like to talk to some people who really want to help our young people to stir away from some of the activity that they in and when I say that I'm not talking about people that want to be in front of a camera but I'm talking about people that really are concerned about our youth and what's happening to them in the community and those that are losing their lives and those who are ending up in the prison system because they haven't had some guidance of Direction and it involves parents and family and community so that's been a big concern and I'm asking all parents anyone that would like to call me to discuss this i' be glad to
099hear from them because it is a great concern in our communities congratulations to all those who received uh what you did on tonight I'm again still happy to know that pit County Schools is one of the leading districts in this state and proud to serve on the board where you have so many employees doing such an outstanding job and happy New Year to everybody looking forward to a better half year this year thank you Don once again I like to thank to pit County Educational Foundation for all they do for our teachers and staff if you're looking something to honor someone by maybe a loved one that's passed away or you want to honor a teacher that's doing a great job for your student consider a donation in their in their name to the uh
100P County educ ation Foundation I know they'd greatly accept that um also the earlier today I was reading about the flu and Co going around especially the flu there's a lot of flu going around now I've know a lot of people to be sick so please be careful if your child or yourself got any flu light symptoms please stay home uh cuz it's spreading fast um thank you for the Boy Scouts tonight from f for coming doing our pledge allegiance and appreciate you staying and hope you learned something by staying this long meeting um and da Linker congratulations and I I do understand that what comes with that award is for more ears oh that okay thank you thank you Jennifer um so James thank you for mentioning that because I I definitely wanted to
101um reach out to the Langley family and all the families who are really struggling I've had several people um contact me about things that they want to try to do in the community and so I do think that this board deeply cares about its Community if there are ideas and things that we can bring some energy to and support to we we definitely are here to hear and to do what we can so there's been a few things few people that have stepped up and I want to talk to James about that too um and I'm really you know looking forward to doing what we can to support that so but my heart goes out to all those families and and I think we're all deeply deeply concerned about about the losses that we've continued
102to experience so we we have an emergency and we have to begin to really address this as a community um I do want to also give my deepest respect to Dr Linker I think that there are lots of reasons why this is deserved but I don't know that people really understand just how incredibly responsive you are no matter what the situation is um what time of the day when we reach out you're always there and I don't think it's just because it's us I think it's because that's just who you are um so thank you for everything you give day and night to this job and into our community and then the pck County Education Foundation has a special place in my heart um my you know of a childhood benefit we do have a
103ball game start dancing who who's winning Michigan 7 nothing time to go home my son benefits from the robotic support that you offer but um I also had lost a love one recently and my plan was to um try to donate in in his honor towards the music program and I think people don't realize that perhaps that is a way that you can honor somebody for a passion that they held to inspire passion in the Next Generation so continue to try to pour into that Foundation is really important and helpful and then hope and winter green just outstanding just amazing outstanding schools we are so privileged to have such great schools and want to see all our schools rise so and if there are any parents out there who are interested in becoming part or
104forming a PTA PTO boosters please talk to Beth alers talk to me um we have support that we can offer if your f figuring out how do I start this how do I get we have got a road map for you and we've got a PCS engaged group that's willing to get behind you so please reach out um we want to help thank you I want continue to gra congratulate the pit County Education Foundation and I know you mentioned Beth that uh the first teacher executive in or the teacher executive Institute has been what 30 35 years I was in the first group for the teacher executive he must been very young they've improved it a lot since then I but I tell you what it it really was beneficial and as a teacher you
105get to see all of the industry and um it was the medical aspect of it and then you were able to bring that back to your classroom and share it with other teachers but that is a a beneficial uh program again congratulate uh I want to congratulate Kurt Garner and all he um has done and the uh again with the calendar I just think is so important that parents understand and that's what we tried to get across that they understand that our hands are tight we would love to accommodate many of those um requests that they want to make but we cannot do that cuz we would be breaking the law as a board and uh so uh another thing um I think the schools have done a great job because you've dealt with several
106difficult situations that start in the community and then come to the school I know as a principal red flags went up on me every Monday because I didn't know what would be brought to that school that day if I could get past Monday I felt like they be better and the second thing was athletic events CU you have different groups of people that get together and I think the principals and staff and our resource officers have been doing a good job in that because I mean folks one little incident can take place and it can just blow up tremendously uh in the in the uh community and I think our schools done systems done a great job with that um and I would request you know I I agree with James Community leaders as well
107as parents need to get involved uh pastors need to get involved I mean that's one place that they can get a message out um about this because it impacts our children and I know that our Lord would want safety for our kids and so uh and congratulations to you I want to get that in before buer went off thank you Melinda thank you gosh everybody has like gone over everything first I want to say we started out recognizing the board and I'd like to recognize my my peers here because it's been um you know I want to congratulate everybody here around the table it's been great working with everyone not that I'm going anywhere anytime soon but you know I'm glad that people are getting recognized because it means a lot to work with each
108and every one of you congratulations to the fell at the head of the table there amazing um it makes this job so much easier to have somebody like that at the at the hel leading us um the Educational Foundation I'm glad that Don mentioned you know it's uh not even you know recognition like birthdays you know after you you know when you say what can I get somebody there's people that have everything but gifts like that are amazing and I and and I know that there's no amount that's too little to donate that will make a difference and what's important to me uh when I give money to organizations is I want to be sure that the money's used wisely and I know that it is so strongly recommend that Mr Garner is amazing he's
109always been amazing since I've met the man and so I just um feel like P count is very fortunate to have him as one of our um leaders in the county congratulations to Hope and Wintergreen and to Tom and Seth I mean there's just so many great things in pit County we're not only becoming you know recognized in the state but to be recognized nationally I just feel like it's about time people know that we do great things here and last but not least in case you didn't know innovation has been getting pictures for cap and gown so that means that graduations right around the corner TR so won't be long till we'll be talking about graduation yeah thank you thank you Benji okay first of all I want to thank the chairman worth did
110you realize tonight we got three minutes in our closing comments instead of two I was hoping that you realized it I do we got an extra minute tonight because of the executive decision that Amy Cole made Amy we appreciate that shows your leadership and uh run in your own tight ship uh secondly uh Dr Linker citizen of the year I don't think you got hardly enough room left on the wall to hold all of your accomplishments but I'm sure you can kind of figure out somewhere to put that one one more award to the table so congratulations to you on that uh I do want to get serious again for just a minute y'all heard Dr Ro tonight and you've heard the board tonight and we're serious and committed and passionate about fixing a calendar
111that will adjust to the end of the semester being the being at the holiday season Christmas season and the new year because I'll tell you something Don you said a mouthful about one thing the unintended consequences of adding minutes and those kinds of things you really need to consider because one thing we don't want to do is we don't want to give up student performance you know in light of all of that but in general when you've got a calendar that ends at Christmas and they already finished with their exams and everything else my best bet is most educators will tell you that will make student performance better than if you wait till after Christmas and they have to readjust and and you know ratchet up everything to to get those into course Tes in
112and all those other kinds of things so anything that we can do and I want this to be emphasized legally to make that happen we're certainly going to do that and we've got friends in the general assembly and they understand and appreciate and sympathize with us sometimes sometimes politics is a slow wave and hopefully we can get that done also uh Dr Linker I want to thank you for your advice today you know you gave me some good advice good we were supposed to have over 110 people at the Pig Palace down at chicag tomorrow night and uh we're going to be honoring our FFA and our FFA alumni and that would be our annual meeting and we would have FFA members from the schools from all over good gracious County but there's going to
113be inclement weather on the way and so we postpone that until the 13th of February thank you benj Kelly the the start of an New Year is always um such a hopeful time for me and thinking about all the opportunity that is ahead for us and with our new um chair and the leadership um decisions that you're making and the conversations that we're having even as we've seen tonight I think it gives me a lot of hope that this board um in conjunction with our community and our students are really going to be able to come up with some creative um and effective ways of serving our students and I think that um that's really um encouraging for me seeing how um hard some of these past few years have been for our students and
114getting back in the groove and in the classroom and taking tests and um you know navigating all the the the things in the community that our students are navigating and then also academically um just I have a lot of Hope um and I think part of what gives me that hope also is all of the incredible leaders that we have um from our student leaders like Katie Morris that was here to share um about Mr Garner and her clear leadership at Rose um our teacher leaders in the classrooms our MCTS FTS um arts and how they are are serving our students and supporting each other our principles our assistant principles um the uh leadership that um Dr Brown and Dr Feller are really facilitating the leadership we have from our citizen of the year and
115um number one uh superintendent um that it's encouraging for me and it makes makes me feel like things will continue to improve for our students and our um our students will be able to be successful because we have such strong leadership um across all of the areas that are touching our students um and I appreciate the national recognition our FBLA students and our um Blue Ribbon Schools and um our Statewide recognitions with our teachers of the year and you know it when we're able to sit down together and talk about all of this it's really is um really is powerful to recognize that our students are able to access so much and what it all comes back to for me is what Dr Dr Brown said is that it's about every student every day and
116I think that we've got to as long as we keep that in mind um that that we're going to be okay um and being creative and and moving with what we've got is it's it's an encouraging time and I'm excited so thank you I'm not going to repeat what everyone says as I always say but one of the things that I the highest form of flattery is when you have other counties coming to you and wanting to know what you're doing and I speak I think that speaks volumes to what we do here in pit County and I think there's always room for improvement there's always ways to grow and learn no one is ever perfect but it's great to hear the things we are doing right and I think it's really important to stress
117those things in our communities so I thank you for everyone who came out today and thank you for all those who got Awards and I really wanted to um just kind of recognize that we're trying to have more students involved know if you notice we had of course the Boy Scouts doing the pledge and I like to try to get more students doing that and also the student introduction for Mr Gardner so if you have students that are coming out to do um that would like to come out and do those types of presentations if they have teachers in their school that are getting Awards that's a great way for them to get some public speaking skills and just to get more involved because that's what we're here for we're here for the students and
118I think it's time that they get more involved as well and thank you to the student that came out and spoke um during public expression again I know that's a that takes a lot of guts to come in front of a bunch of adults and speak how you feel so thank you again um happy board appreciation month to all my fellow colleagues I was going to go off what Melinda was saying it's a pleasure to work with each and every one of you and I thank you so much for giving me this role and putting your trust and faith in me I really do appreciate it and then um congratulations again to Dr lanker he's awesome we love him to death and then happy early birthday to miss Carol over there she is our right
119hand we could not do any of what we do without Carol she is always here for us and we love her so much so thank you very much okay is there a motion to adjourn wait minute wait a minute okay you thank you all right is there any discussion then okay meetings a journ we got a vote oh you got to vote sorry all all vot in favor all right me what score now [Laughter] Don I think