001then welcome to all of you to the first board meeting of this school year good evening to dr linker our vice chair mr don rose to our board staff and to all of you who come to be a part of our first meeting i hope that all of you have had a great summer and good vacation tonight we the board and staff are here to take care of business on behalf of pitt county schools and i now call this meeting to order let the minutes reflect that all of our board members are present at this time we will have our pledge and our moment of silence by don rose please join me in the president i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands
002one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all let us pray heavy father as we gather today open our hearts and our minds to your guidance and wisdom in seeking ways to support the mission of our system and the success of our schools we ask for your blessings that we do as a board benefit school staff and students as the challenges of education persists please continue to strengthen and protect our students faculty administrators and staff amen amen at this time are there any adjustments to our agenda motion to accept our agenda exactly any discussion all in favor let it be known by raising of your right hand motion care this time we have our spotlights on teaching and learning miss beth good to see you good evening and welcome to august it's that
003one date that it rolls over on the counters of teachers and they i think their heart starts racing a little bit but do not be misguided when you look and you don't see a list of teachers and students on the list tonight for spotlight on teaching and learning because we've had several teachers and several students and our administrators doing wonderful things throughout the summer but we want them to enjoy their last few days of their summer break so they will come in september and beyond in the school year but we do want to try something new this year we would like to have a spotlight on community partners because you know as well as everyone that's listening right now that we could not do all the wonderful things that we do in our schools without
004the help of our community and so tonight we're going to kick that off with an incredible community partner they're one of our most valued community partners the united way of pitt county so i'd like to tell you a little bit about who's here tonight and what they have done for pitt county schools over the years so i'd like for joanne cooper who is the president of united way to come forward robin daley who is here she is the past pitt county schools principal but she is the program and family engagement coordinator we have angie edgerton who is here she is a past media coordinator at ridgewood elementary in other schools and she's a national board certified teacher and she is the director of the early grade student successive program we have nikki whaley and she
005is here with her principal and assistant principal megan newman and would you like to come up yes nikki whaley is one of our outstanding teacher assistants i'd like to tell you a little bit about them so united way of pitt county early grade student success academy the united way of pitt county has been supporting pitt county schools since robin daly began writing grants for the student success academy in 2006 which began with middle school grades since 2016 united way of pitt county has received grants totaling five million five hundred and ninety four thousand and thirty two dollars and they have served over 3927 students they currently are running four federal grants serving students in 15 pitt county schools last year in addition to integrated third grade support and with the integrated third grade support they
006hired retired third grade teachers to push in during instructional time to help give support to our students in need but in addition to the integrated third grade support students received 67 143 hours of instructional programming during after-school programs at nine different schools north carolina department of public instruction has even been so impressed with this model that they have had ms edgerton present at state meetings to share our collaboration plan and model with other 21st cclc grant programs across the state now we had to bring one of our superstars tonight this is miss nikki whaley nikki whaley is at grifton school she is a teacher assistant she's been a teacher assistant for 28 years with pitt county schools she is a ta with early grade student success academy after school program and has been with programs
007since 2017 she on her own time develops steam lessons for implementation in all of our 21st century programs for all the programs across the district she has them in a google folder for all of them to use they can just pull those those lessons and they're ready for use she taught face-to-face and virtually during the pandemic while she was teaching during the pandemic if she had children that were at home and that could not be face to face in her own time she went and delivered resources and snacks to the children that were at home in the grifton area she goes above and beyond every day with all that she does and you can see she is a ray of sunshine and she absolutely loves her students so we wanted to recognize them this evening
008for being a fantastic community partner [Applause] [Laughter] just like the children follow directions there my scoop [Laughter] [Applause] and we are excited to say that we will have after-school programs in all of our k-5 k-8 schools this school year all right thank you so much this time we have a public expressions and again we ask that you be aware of the time that you have for individuals three minutes for group is five minutes and at this time we're going to call miss maggie king and you have three minutes thank you good evening my name is maggie king and i'm a parent of a rising fifth grader at wintergreen ella king you might remember ella's name as ella came out publicly last year on witn as non-binary during the reports about the bathroom bill ella is
009your normal everyday kid they love school kpop reading video games they think kissing is icky and plot for ways not to go to bed on time they hate vegetables love cartoons they don't identify as a girl or a boy rather their gender is in between all ella wants us to be recognized for with their they them their pronouns and not to be bullied for it with those humble yet courageous goals we hit the school year last year rolling with a meeting with ella's teachers and the guidance counselor for what we refer to as ella's non-binary iep this proved to be so helpful and we were so incredibly lucky to have amazing teachers that were open and willing to honor ella's non-binary gender and pronouns however this did not protect ella from bullying in the schools
010statement statements like why are you wearing a dress if you're a boy or being hitted being repeatedly hit in the face by a student whose father is a gpd police officer without consequence from the coach all on camera nonetheless luckily we have an amazing mature steadfast child that is able to calmly handle these situations with a resolve that i don't think any of us here at that age would have been able to do we have been in touch with a few of the board members about ella's experience with a very fr after a very frustrating year of a very little response or action from administration to protect ella they have let me know that lgbtqia training has been offered and with some of the county's staff volunteering to attend we are happy to hear that
011recently even wintergreen's principal has requested for further training for staff i am asking that's training for staff be implemented county-wide acknowledging and honoring our rainbow kids is not something that should be a luck of the draw our rainbow kids county-wide should feel supported and appreciated there should be support groups for kids from elementary to high school ages that assist them navigating life school and family 45 percent of lgbtqia youth contemplated suicide last year that's nearly half we need more support for these kids in the place that they spend the majority of their time this has come with this has to come with training for staff that may not have ever had exposure or experience with an lgbtqia student some of our staff may be lost as to even how to help them or support them
012while some are not from environments that lends to open conductive conversations of what the differences are in the lgbtqia community this is also why title ix is so important for our schools in closing we need training for staff on how to support our rainbow kids we need support groups in the schools for our kids to be able to process their mental health in an environment where kids can be very cruel we need to educate our students i only had one sentence but we just need to educate our students on how to be kind always to every one of their peers and have real consequences if not this will set our students up not only for success but for being able to just survive childhood thank you thank you dr frank fleming can you state what
013group you're representing concerned citizens of pitt county uh part of the uh tea party in the past year i've asked your feelings about the issue of sexualization of k-3 children in elementary curriculum and the government's intrusion into parental and family rights regarding morality religious and reproductive education now the problem of gender dysphoria has been known for a long time but is increasing now up to maybe 2.1 percent of people in generation z this is due to social media academic indoctrination and universities and teacher colleges and entertainment pornography etc grammar and middle schools exert great course of power over children who are uniquely susceptible and vulnerable because they want to emulate their teachers and peer pressure this starts early the left wants to indoctrinate even pre-k and k-3 kids with a rainbow coalition of prancing drug
014drag queens in new jersey movies like 10 years on testosterone in virginia transvestites named sarah are reading about transgender teens and in wake county north carolina a preschool teacher using lgbt flash cards to teach colors includes one with a pregnant man and the harvard lgt group affirms and tells us yes gender can change from day to day based on individual feelings are you confused well i am and how about a little five-year-old this issue reached a fever pitch during this summer teachers unions want to remove the terms mother and father in order to be politically correct our president himself declared an international transgender day of visibility in march and by june gave an executive order to redefine title ix in the civil rights section of the department of education this redefinition expands sex to include
015sexual orientation and gender this means we must allow males who claim to be females to access female private spaces showers bathrooms sleeping areas and furthermore classmates are punished if they use the wrong incorrect pronoun or legal name of a transgender child biological males can compete in previously all-female team sports despite anatomical and physiological advantages or disadvantages our president has even suggested maybe we should withhold federal lunch money from any states that oppose him the ludicrous unfairness of this doctrine distorts common sense and leads us to the point of not being able to define a woman or to confirm the athletic physiological differences between two sexes the debate concerning gender affirming medical care has divided medicine and does not have any strong peer-reviewed scientific support but depends on bias pharma support from companies that sell hormone
016blockers all of this compassion affirming care which may include mastectomy or medical castration may lead to more not less suicidal thoughts and family disruption this is especially true if legal liberal teachers and counselors surreptitiously promote children to join transgender groups without even notifying parents why is this obscenity some say the term grooming even happening does the left really believe that five to eight-year-old kids have maturity and life-transforming self-authority to compel society to affirm and celebrate their human rights well if this is true that little boys in greenville who want to become pirates should insist that they have their eye stitched closed and they have leg stump amputation that would be a real pirate gender fluidity though should never be indoctrinated into developing brains that that believe in the tooth fairy or the great pumpkin i
017really cannot understand the point of view of any adults whether straight or lgbtq or families who wish to promote sexual exploitation and indoctrination in their age group take through k-3 we should adopt a position like the florida law and thereby affirm that certain topics are simply not age appropriate in our curriculum furthermore the pit board declared support for this principle if any of you members disagree then i challenge you to speak up and tell the voters of our county that you have progressive ideas not like conservative people finally i call upon parents and conservatives people watching this show to send emails a protest to the united states department of education against the new proposal for changing title ix education amendments and the handout i handed you is the website and any people here tonight who
018wants to know that website i have other handouts available thank you for your attention thank you at this time we'll move to our consent agenda for approval we get a motion items a through c second second any questions all in favor let him be known by the people of the right hand motion carry all right we're now going to our new business call miss deborah back good evening the first item on the agenda is um increasing the teacher supplement to seven percent as you are aware you did include that in the budget request to the county commissioners in the spring and that was included in their um funding for the current year and so at this time we're just asking requesting official approval of changing teacher supplement to seven percent you entertain a motion yes
019mr chairman i move that we uh increase the teacher supplement from what its current rate is to seven percent i second it any discussion all in favor later been on by the raising the right hand motion care okay and then the second item i believe carol has a list here of um items we're requesting approval for purchase of software using sr2 funds and so you can see the list here the um software itself the vendors it's all sr2 and then the cost any questions all in favor to say emotion that had been known by the raising of the right hand motion care thank you thank you miss back this time operations matt johnson good evening um back in march we brought before the board the facility needs grant applications which we applied for seven schools
020basically to deal with our hb 90 classroom size problem with renovation and construction at these schools we were notified two weeks ago that the grant application for the facility needs survey will open today and it did we got the documents brought in today we sat through a women a webinar on wednesday of last week to get more information about the next grant as we did not receive any funding from the previous grant we applied for what we found out on that grant was the previous grant was approximately 360 million dollars and it was spread out through mainly tier one schools but a few got through there that were tier two and tier three except for us we also found out that there were some some projects through this grant that were funded at approximately 80
021percent of the actual ask then they moved into what the grant is going to be for the 2022 requests and we found that it was approximately 490 million dollars which would seem to be more money for this this year's grant compared to last year's we also found out that approximately 200 million dollars of that grant funding was going to go to fund the other projects that were only funded at 80 in the 2021 grant awarded so that brings us down to a 290 million dollar grant base approximate that is there when we thought this was going to be more money for the second round well with all that being said we're still going to submit projects for this grant as we do need a lot of needs in our facilities which you have seen as
022we have brought for before you in the past we are going to submit the same seven schools as we did last time which would be aiden creekside eastern elmhurst ridgewood robinson and wintergreen primary and all of these will be dealing with the hb 90 classroom size compliance if we are awarded these grants we are also going to add to this list belvoir elementary add an office edition at elmhurst and add south greenville renovation to this list now this new grant application will total eighty seven million five hundred thousand dollars compared to the 52 million that we previously applied for this will also require the same 15 percent match from local funds whether our funds and the county funds to do this which is 13 million dollars from the last grant we have 7.996 million that
023was awarded to us if you will from the county as our grant or our match for this grant for the previous this is going to require us to go back to the county and ask for an additional 5 million to go in this for a 13.129 million dollar match now i feel confident about going back to the county to do this because i do not feel really confident that we're going to receive 87 million dollars worth of funding from this grant based on the information that we have currently so what i would like tell them the amount of money that was requested from all the districts 2.3 yeah it was what was it 2.3 billion was requested from the 115 districts in the state and they awarded um 360 million of that and then are
024taking some of this to fund the ones that only got funded at 80 percent so we feel fairly comp we feel really confident that the 87 million total will not be funded so we feel confident about going to the county and saying hey we're going to put this out there we'll match it at 13 and hope that we get to match it with one two three four five somewhere in there to get something out of this deal now we did find out from our webinar that the most likely scenario for us will be the funding towards the wintergreen primary with the hb 90 classroom size compliance because it touches the most students the adm is highest at wintergreen and that is one of their highest levels of of grading towards these grants that they use
025so i don't know that that's necessarily fair but that's the way that dpi and the state has put this thing together so if we do get anything i think it'll start there and then trickle back through any of these other ones so tonight board i'm asking for the approval for us to submit these these new nine projects to into the grant system and go back to the county and ask them for an additional potentially 5 million if we were able to get these 9 at that 87 million dollars will the chair entertain a motion yeah yeah i move that we approve the grant application project description as presented to us tonight second discussion all in favor of said motion that'll be done by the right hand care thank you thank you you're doing an architect
026and good evening as part of our um esther founder coveted money we have eight million dollars currently allotted towards hvc improvement projects because we're over half a million dollars we will have to involve an architect and engineer in the design team and because it's federal dollars we have to bid that out we've completed the bid out process and we received two responses one from a team led by height associates and another from a team led by atlantic engineers um this this would be to oversee the design and the construction of um replacement hvac systems in three tiers as long as funding allows one would be for aid in grifton high school and farmville central high school the entire schools both those schools have hvc systems that are roughly 52 years old tier 2 would be
027eba [ __ ] middle school gym and cafeteria units and the 300 wing at faulkland and then if funding remains we would move on to the 300 wings at both conley and north pitt high schools so based on the bid results that were received we would be seeking approval for from the board to contract with atlantic engineers to oversee the design and construction of this work and we have worked with atlantec in the past they did design the transportation complex for us so just want to make everyone aware of that any questions okay a promotion that we follow recommendations and use atlanta melinda zachary tracy in the discussion question yes benjamin then thank you erin with all the escher funds that we've had and one of the targets being hvac yes when they all run out are
028our hvac systems in all our schools going to be up to date of them up to date now they are up to date now no no no no no no they are not up to date now um this will put us these are especially the tier one the two high schools are the two largest schools that we have that have the oldest equipment um and then we're moving on to at measure where through three or four years we've done hvac partial areas at eba [ __ ] all that remains are the gym and cafeteria which would finish that school falkland has been well taken care of it's a smaller school smaller spaces lower cost so it's easier to find those funds but the 300 wing is the one wing of that school that's not been done but
029then as far as like conley north pit those will address the 300 wings there are still some needs that will exist in the 100 200 there are needs at other schools some several middle schools that would need additions or hvc replacements sorry that currently it does not appear that we'll have the funding for just because the rising cost of equipment so and the timeline you say the rising cost of the equipment has been you're talking about inflation i am talking about inflation yes what would you estimate it to be as far as that equipment was concerned when esther funds first came out from when it first came out to now it's including install it's in the neighborhood of 35 to 50 depending on depending on where we're at so the funds that were received in
0302020 will nest will not go as far as they were intended just simply because of inflation uh thank you you mentioned um the tier one schools and grifton and formal central eight hvacs are 53 years old just unbelievable um do you have an idea of how old the hvacs are at ebay [ __ ] fall clinton conley in north pitt that you have listed here roughly they are all original to when they were constructed so for the eba [ __ ] that would be the same age as the two high schools 1970. falklands 300 wing was built around 1990 but it is what i'd consider a basic air conditioning system similar to the split system that you have at your house it's not a it's not necessarily it's a commercial grade system but it is not the same size
031units as the larger high schools and then conley and north pitt's 300 wings were both built in the mid 80s and they are all original wow unbelievable that they've been able to continue working um piece together however you guys have been able to do it duct tape and bailing wire and chewing gum sorry state of affairs just a comment 50 years ago it was made out of good stuff wouldn't it it was they don't i don't think they're made like that anymore so yeah any other discussion ready to vote all in favor let it be known by the raising of the right hand motion care thank you thank you sir miss emma huss yes so good evening board members at the start of a new school year dr kate and i are going to share
032some information with you regarding vaping among pitt county school students and also some information regarding multi-district litigation involving the maker and the domestic maker of most e-cigarettes jewel so at the outset of this presentation i will note that in our schools i think if you ask any high school or even middle school and even some of our unfortunately our k-5 and k-8 principals as well that there is a high use of e-cigarettes among our student body unfortunately this is just the case and so we see a vaping epidemic in america that is that is very young and unfortunately involving a lot of our students uh jewell who is the target of multi-district litigation is as i noted one of the leading man is the leading manufacturer of e-cigarettes in this country um and of course
033as we all know as board members are likely aware uh unlike traditional cigarettes e-cigarettes are delivering a significantly higher dose of nicotine to our students we have seen in recent years statistically on a national scale in our own schools a surge in vaping among our teenage and elementary high school and middle school students uh mostly in fifth grade for elementary but uh do you want to note that there was a time when nicotine use among teens was on a rapid decline and then when e-cigarettes came on the market initially marketed as a smoking cessation device they began the use of nicotine containing products among teens began to skyrocket once again and so and that that continues to increase year after year again this is the source of this is new england journal of medicine so
034as you can see there's just continued increase nationally and i would say locally as well why teens unfortunately early on yes these were marketed as smoking cessation devices but they were marketed other places too they were marketed on marketed on television networks and in publications that targeted children cartoon network nickelodeon websites that were educational in nature as well as 17 magazines so these very sleek e-cigarettes were marketed to kids they're easy to hide in a jacket pocket and a sweatshirt and a hoodie dr caton probably has a dozen colorful places you know that have been you know where kids hide them whether it's a backpack or or elsewhere but they are very small they are easy to hide it's very easy i'm sure they probably put them in a lunchbox very easy to evade detection
035so and also they were made in flavors that were appealing to children fruit flavors candy flavors dessert flavors so the use among youth became very prevalent and as you can see um as these products came on the market uh after some marketing to teens their sales increased by seven hundred percent joule sales alone increased by seven hundred percent uh their their revenues jumped into the billions within a few years of operation and then nearly doubled thereafter so they have made quite a fortune on the teen market and as litigation has shown as they have stopped making the dessert flavors their market share has declined significantly so we do note that for your for your consideration as previously noted we have i mean we have seen students overdose in our schools on nicotine containing products as
036we know it is a highly addictive substance unfortunately it can harm the adolescent brain development and can affect mood learning ability and impulse control recent studies show that adolescents using e-cigarettes are four times more likely to also smoke traditional cigarettes which as unfor you know also as we know have caused a lot of long-term health issues in this country and we note that one joule pod is about the equivalent of 20 to 40 cigarettes so really significant dosage of nicotine delivered by these devices so as i noted and we'll get into this a little bit more there is multi-district litigation against jewel and um one of the things that um has occurred states have gone after them the state of north carolina did settle claims against jewel for around uh 40 million dollars for school
037districts and we'll get into more of the why who may want to individually also bring claims that money will be shared and and how that money is shared will be directed by by the state by local governments they may they may not those funds may not be directly coming to school systems so i want to talk a little bit about what we see in our schools and i'm going to let dr cayton also come up and talk about this but just one one salient thing that has occurred in the last year we have had to replace or shut down multiple restroom facilities in some of our schools throughout the year because what we find in our plumbing system are the cartridges from the e-cigarettes so we know that children are using these we know that
038they are flushing them and unfortunately they do cause a lot of impact on our physical plant but not only are they impacting our physical plant they are also very terribly impacting our students and i'll let dr cayton step in here and talk good evening so um since i've been a principal um in grifton we have seen a tremendous rise in our students who are vaping i do want to say that students who vape it's not one particular race it's not one particular gender it is not one particular socioeconomic it's all students what we have also found is that students who are vaping often times are provided vapes by their parents we have had to have our sro talk to parents to tell them that charges can be filed against them we have had numerous times
039parents come back and ask them ask us for the vapes back because they say they're expensive and so oftentimes i don't know if parents really understand the impact that these e-cigarettes can have on our students i have had students to have seizures because of i guess you would say overdosing on the nicotine we have had we've had to call rescue for students before because of this so it is a tremendous thing like emma was saying is that when they take that hit off of the jewel they are pretty much smoking 20 you know cigarettes at one time and that's one thing that they don't understand and the students are doing everything they can to hide it you will see sometimes students carry water bottles with them and oftentimes you know that that is them actually
040trying to maybe smoke it within the classroom and blow the smoke in the bottle they'll do they will try to do that as well to hide it so there are lots of things that we see as issues with the jewels within our building thank you so we do want to note here that parents are a partner in this process and we would ask that no matter what the parents also take a take a look into this with their children uh just given the prevalence of these devices the fact that they really are used most universally there is no one particular demographic group in our schools using them we also though as a school system recognize the impact that this has had for our principals and our and our support staff who are working um tirelessly
041to promote smoking cessation efforts to promote abatement efforts with our students um there is a cost of course for any program that we as a school system try to implement and so going back to why litigation at this time just to give you a little bit of background there are multiple school systems suing jewel as individual plaintiffs we had originally looked at possibly getting involved in this in the early stages decided that we did not necessarily want to participate in the full breadth of discovery however we have reached a phase now in the litigation where jewel with the what they call the bellwether plaintiffs the plaintiffs that actually really just they devoted significant amounts of staff time have reached the stage where there will be trials in this litigation and at this point joule is
042looking to settle as a school system we have the opportunity to potentially with minimal staff time get involved in that the return on this may not be we're not talking multi-millions of dollars what we are talking about though is probably some significant funding relatively to the amount of effort we will have to put in to obtain some funds that would help support our work to help our students get the help they need and to support our staff with smoking cessation programming for students as well and potentially to remedy some damage as well to our physical plant so for those reasons we would actually recommend the board consider taking a stand in in one form which is becoming involved in litigation as well in addition to the stand we take in our school system i will
043note that we would be represented in that by a law firm janet ward black's law firm the black law group they perform the work on a contingency fee whatever we if we collect they would take a fee at that time if we don't collect there is really no risk to us um as noted it is a fairly minimal investment of our time karen harrington and i have looked at what we would have to submit to participate in the litigation and we believe that we'll be able to do so fairly quickly and we do believe that we may be able to provide some interventions now with additional funds to support our work that may lead to reduction of use among students as well as helping students in the long term achieve a positive net health benefit
044we think that this also alleviates some taxpayer burdens of course our resources are eliminated limited and so to the extent we can we can obtain funding from one of the sort main sources of harm that has targeted our students we think that it would be good for the board to have funding in from that source this is just some information again as i noted uh there is a team of lawyers working on this the multi-district litigation is in california so rather than having like the ceo of jewel get deposed 100 times because there's 100 lawsuits he gets deposed once and all the lawyers that are participating in the litigation would participate in that deposition so there are common issues around discovery that are resolved in that courtroom and then but most the litigation if we're
045to come back for trial would happen here in north carolina which is why we would be represented by north carolina firm but there's a team of lawyers working on this our primary entry point though is with warden black which is janet's firm so they would be our lawyers and janet has a little there's some information as well on the slides about miss black's background as a plaintiff's lawyer she is of course respected in the state and very successful what questions might you have how many school systems in north carolina besides wake county have signed up for my understanding is that robson county is participating and i believe there are few there aren't a ton of school systems participating at this stage however notably vaping use in north carolina is two times higher than among among
046teens vaping use in north carolina is two times higher than it is on the bellwether plain of districts which are mostly on the west coast dr linker i'm sure may i mr chair yeah good i'm sure the superintendents get together and talk and that kind of thing uh will we see a group of systems probably joining this suit i think more will for sure because i know um is charlotte come along yet i don't believe so not at this stage but more will i mean this additional information just came out in the last which is why we're bringing you now that we just got what two three weeks ago two weeks ago yes which is why we're bringing it now because we just saw the opportunity was there for us to to get involved in
047this plus you know i talked to the you know the principals and what they're seeing in their schools just as as dr caton just said is is a real challenge and it's it's a health challenge as well as education challenge and everything else yeah i hear teachers complain about it all the time yeah just just a comment um on shaq on the when we've met we've been talking about this for a while and one of the questions i had for them a couple years ago actually before the pandemic was i noticed we were getting a lot of notifications of students having seizures and that's not normal and so i was asking like why are all these kids having seizures i mean i mean i know that there's some children have medical problems and that's exactly
048what it was it was being notified of kids having seizures because of they were vaping in the schools so it's a real it's a real issue and i think educating if nothing else this will help maybe bro bring attention and and try to re-educate or push forward that people understand that this isn't a safe thing just because it doesn't smell like cigarette smoke doesn't mean it doesn't harm your lungs so i care about her well i'm ready to make a motion but if there are questions yes any other comment all right caroline yes i'd like to move that we join pitt county schools joins the multi-district litigation against jewel as it has been described by our attorney tonight zach either one of us tracy tracy got to it all right discussion all in favor say
049emotions that have been on by the reading of the right hand motion thank you at this time we have reading about policies ms tracy everett lynch who is the chair of our policy committee mr chair on behalf of the policy committee i'm presenting proposed amendments to policies 3200 selection of instructional materials 3210 parental inspection of an objection to instructional materials and 3440 recognizing excellence for first reading for board members not on the committee i would ask that they review the proposed amendments and notify emma hudson of any questions or concerns any questions at this time we begin with our closing comments from our superintendent i would just like to say it's been a busy summer here in pitt county schools i'd like to thank if you've driven by any of our schools you've seen summer
050school going on you've seen matt and erin's team on top of about every school fixing a roof somewhere so they're doing a lot of work there or either that or hvac as we've heard and eight million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to go there mr forrest so um but um plus you know you see our leadership teams working on a professional development you come by the central office well after the closing of 5 30 you'll see the finance team the hr team um working on things the curriculum team getting things ready we have our administrative retreat tomorrow uh getting ready with our principals looking forward to that and just i was talking with dr lasseter today and it feels like we're at a place where we can get some good things done
051that's as i told steve today i really feel good about what we're laying out for next year a lot because of the people sitting on that back row back there of all the work they do and the quality of principles assistant principles and just the staff we have in pitt county schools so it's just been a great summer and we're ready to get back at it thank you all right we begin with our board members beginning with mr rose we actually observed the time that it's been allotted this one says about that time again for our students and staff i know some administrators and staff been working on all summer just like hopefully we can continue at this point with a regular school year i'll continue to have that in my prayers and hope each
052and every one of you do also and good luck to all our students and staff this school year caroline i'd just like to say um thank you so much for choosing to highlight community partners and starting with the united way was a great place to start pitt county schools couldn't do what we do without the support from our community partners and and many times leadership robin daly and angie edgerton have been at this a long time they are the true consummate experts we could not have any better people leading that effort as evidenced by that four hundred thousand dollars just year after year after year and i'm glad the rest of north carolina is looking at what pitt county schools does here because we really are leading the way in after school and then in
053pushing in to make our classroom sizes smaller for reading and math or that special instruction just incredibly proud of what what we're able to accomplish with our partners we do have an excellent united way here and it's just fantastic that we're able to partner with them um also just want to say how happy i am to see the progress at eba [ __ ] i walk it's in my neighborhood i walk through there and um look at the the progress matt's team and their and the contractors you know it's slow going it takes a long time to do anything these are big campuses and big buildings and they have to deal with the weather and the heat and all that stuff it is impressive um what we're able to continue to do and um it just hats
054off to that whole team for for facility services um being able to tackle the giant projects that we have and lastly i just have to say my stomach turns when i hear about 213 billion dollars in requests we're the richest country in the world we're a rich state we have school districts that are begging for 200 over 200 billion dollars in construction projects where are our priorities as a society thank you miss melinda forgotten um just a few things first of all i'd like to thank those that were working hard with our summer school programs as teachers that were teaching and and those in the back row that are getting ready for those to come back and not too long from now uh i hope everybody enjoys the few weeks we have left before school
055starts i feel like school doesn't start for a for a long time i mean it'll be like right before our next meeting but i know we're ready and if you're out there in the public and you see a teacher's wish list it'd be nice if you can afford that you would purchase or lots of things in the community where they're doing school supply drives so i encourage you to participate you know even if you a box of pencils will go a long way so anyways thank you very much thank you vengeforce thank you mr chair just a couple of things first of all i want to congratulate our graduates our recent graduates again uh on making it through our school system and i look forward to hearing about many many wonderful success stories that they
056will continue to have as they further their education and go into the workforce itself then i only have one other thing and i had the privilege i guess to serve as a state judge on the state ffa at state ffa convention this year and extemporaneous public speaking one of the things that impressed me other than the quality of the young people that are developing the leadership skills we're seeing four ffa chapters from pitt county schools working in unison together and that's amazing to me i've used to be a part of that as you know as a career and there's a lot of competition in that but to watch our four ffa chapters in this county and soon to be five watch them work together in unison and in cooperation of spirit was a wonderful thing
057to see and i just wanted to to make sure that our board understood and knew that okay thank you good to hear tracy um i just wanted to say welcome back to our staff and students i think this pit start this week thursday thursday and um innovation starts monday so we've already had staff back hard at work and our students are quickly coming back at our early colleges and um of course uh you know welcome back to all of our traditional schools that's coming very soon i'm about 16 teachers and 29th for the students so it's coming quickly hope everyone had a really healthy and safe summer i hope that our staff at work all summer got a chance to have some relaxation and go on a vacation somewhere and just do a mental reset
058and just lastly i just want to say thank you for a partnership with united way for all the dedication and what they help bring to the table for our students is much appreciated thank you amy she stole my thunder over here i was scared i was here i say the same thing about the early colleges starting back this week because they have open house tomorrow night well the pcc early college's open house tomorrow night and then they start by thursday and my son is not happy at all um so especially with his brother that doesn't go back to the end of the month so it's a lot of us but you got out early so you have to remember there's pros and cons but anyway so welcome back to all the teachers and the students
059i hope everyone has a wonderful semester i hope we get through with no hiccups and have a normal school year as normal as we can say normal um so just wish everybody the best of luck all right annabeth um it's good to see all my fellow board members again um it was nice to have a break but hopefully we've come back renewed and ready to do wonderful things in our school system i want to say a special thanks to our senior staff who has worked through the summer i hope you've enjoyed your fridays sorry when you have to see your next one in the outcome but just always know that your hard work does not go unnoticed um your dedication is is so humbling so i am just um wishing for a wonderful school year
060and an opportunity to help challenge and grow and make all of our students from whatever their backgrounds feel valued and nurtured and supported thank you we're full i'd also like to say something about summer school i did you know hear from people in regards as well as some parents and they were real pleased with our summer school program um there were some that needed probably to participate that didn't but at least we were offering it and i think it was very beneficial it wasn't a waste of time another thing i i do believe our board is sticking to the commitment of continuing to raise teacher supplements and you know we we said that we would continue to do it as funds were available and keep getting closer to some of these other uh areas of
061counties and in regards to their teachers supplements also i think it'll be it's going to be important this year that we continue to funnel those funds to improve education and continue to improve student uh learning uh and those uh those funds really especially the ones that we have access to now that we may not later on but still use them appropriately and to get the bit full benefit of them because that's what we're here for is to educate those students another thing i hope that there is a review of the educational programs that we use this past year and the previous year that i can't believe but anyway that we review those educational programs and those that based on our scores or whatever that we look at those and those that we get good benefits
062out of them we keep and we expand on them and those that do not work but yet maybe some educators within our system love them but if they don't work they don't produce we need to get rid of them thank you thank you all for coming out tonight those of you that are viewing and listening to us tonight we really appreciate you being a part of our meeting it has been a wonderful summer it's been a hot summer but we're looking forward to a wonderful school year we encourage all of our principals and teachers and students to get fired up and get ready for this school year i know we're gonna have a great time in our schools i'm looking for some positive things to come out of our schools i do want to announce
063that on april the 16th at our life center at our church at 7 55 porter road we're going to be having a back-to-school event we have invited people from the community there are like six different businesses that will be there we'll also be offering vaccines boosters free food back-to-school supplies a lot of things will be going on in the afternoon that our superintendent and others uh we'll be coming we are looking at all the schools north of the river including benji uh pactolis we're inviting all of the parents out trying to get more parent involvement and we want the parents to be able to talk with the superintendent we're asking all of the principals from the schools to come and be at this event because we want it to be a community event and we
064wanted to get our community our parents back involved in our schools and so this is going to happen on the 16th of this month starting at 6 30. there will also be a bouncy house and other things for our children so come on out and let's have a good time together i'll send this flyer to all of our board members so that you are invited to come and be a part of it we might even get a dunking booth to put vengeance worth in i'm sure half of pig kind of would be out there but hell it's hot down i'm volunteering thank you for that i got the first two dollars we're excited about it looking forward to it again thank you for being here tonight uh anything else coming for us if not we
065ask for a motion to adjourn move that we adjourn second any questions comments all in favor let it be known by the right hand amen let us consider ourselves adjourned thank you and have a good