001good afternoon everyone i'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for coming out to our meeting on tonight we'd like to welcome you to our meeting we are thankful that we have all of our board members present on tonight and we have several guests several presentations that are taking place tonight and we just ask that we continue to do things as we've been doing in order and at this time i'd like to call the meeting to order and i'd like to show that all the board members are present at this time we're going to ask you to stand for our players tracy every lens give us our pleasure moment of south of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty
002and justice for all everyone will join me in a moment of silence thank you at this time are there any adjustments to our agenda that's right i move that we with the agenda and where's second all in favor say aye aye any opposed spotlight on teaching and learning with beth i think you're going pretty quick tom can you see if that's out there she was just staying here she was just here she likes to make an entrance [Laughter] good evening we have made it to may and this is such an exciting week because we are celebrating our outstanding teachers this week this is teacher appreciation week and you're going to get to see several students that have gotten awards across the state but none of that would be possible without our outstanding teachers so we
003have a banner for them and we hope that each school is going to recognize our awesome teachers this week our first students are with the north carolina state career and technical student organizations and beth and trueblood will come up and call those students names good evening i would like to introduce tabitha hudson with dh conley deca to introduce her winners this year good evening so i'm going to actually introduce these students twice because they just we just got back on wednesday from our international deca competition so these actually there's one more that couldn't be here tonight but jody this is jody coggins and she was fourth place in business services marketing at state competition duncan robertson delaney hudson and landon elks were second place in the state in their community service project and then emily
004and her partner isn't here but this is emily fleming and her partner is asa thurnau and they were second place in hospitality operations research event so these four actually worked on a project all semester and presented it in november i mean worked on it through november and presented it in february at state competition and jody's event was a test and two role plays so these students qualified to go to international competition in atlanta last week where they competed both of the research events competed with over 300 other teams or members with deca and they were also competing against students from about 20 other countries so they they had a lot of comp a lot of stiff competition and this is my 29th year doing deca my 29th year at dh conley i've never had a
005state i mean a nash international winner and this is my first time having and they were first place so they got first place so landon delaney and duncan were first place in their event and then emily and asa were top 20 finalists in their event so they i am so proud of all of these students they worked hard and they really represented pitt county schools d.h conley very well so we're very proud of them thank you [Applause] awesome and y'all are going to look right here at me one two three amazing one more round of applause may i have a just a minute of personal privilege may i take a picture with that group and with the teacher i sure would appreciate that because a lot of them in my sunday school class i feel
006like i'm part of the group mr forrest always all right one two three amazing [Applause] okay and also from d.h conley fbla i have scott haddock who's going to introduce his students who place at stake all right so i'm just going to announce some of our winners i'm scott haddock the advisor at dhconley um and i'm just going to list out our students and then talk about a couple of our students who have uh certain things they were awarded while at the conference so uh just to start off caleb dudley came in fourth place in business calculations andrew hollinger came in fourth place in insurance risk management meredith rupp came in fourth place in introduction to business concepts meredith philia came in fourth place for introduction to event planning ebby purvis also came in fourth
007place for uh introduction event planning they were grouped together alexis doe and linda zoo came in uh third for introduction to social media strategy uh cooper markham came in fourth place for journalism uh kean dow came in second place for marketing tyler zibiozi and david yoon also were in that team and came in second place for marketing landon elks who was just in here for deca also placed third or second for public speaking jay yoon and matthew taylor and jonathan jackson jackson came in uh second for sports and entertainment uh marketing and then brendan gregory alexia vakani kavon evans all came and placed in ux design brendan coming in third alexia coming in second and then cavan coming in fourth caleb dudley won a scholarship for the professional division scholarship and he is right here
008david malanson right next to him has served as our eastern region vice president for all of north carolina for two years he will be graduating and now david yoon won the election for the president of all of north carolina for fbla so those are our students and we're very proud of them [Laughter] well done good good job guys i told y'all i'd be back with a lot of students i told you last minute i'm so excited so now i'm going to introduce hosa which is our health science student organization rachel hudson could not be here but tabitha hudson is going to introduce our hostess um finalist from d.h conley and i did forget to mention duncan robertson won a 1500 scholarship for state dec at state deck as well too so congratulations to duncan so
009these are our host estate winners michelle song jasmine panda alexa alexia vicani and sayon june third place in public health and then linda is not here right linda zoo won fourth place in research poster so congratulations [Applause] take the pictures okay next from jh rose high school i have a really long list of future business leaders of america fbla and the advisor that's going to introduce everyone is mr kirk garner good evening i'm here representing fbla from jh rose high school uh we had 104 finalists which i've been doing this for 15 years now and that's the the most that we've had 21 first 14 seconds 16th third and 8th fourth for the fourth year in a row we were chapter of the year which is the highest award a chapter can receive in the
010state of north carolina there's also the gold seal chapter which is given to the top 15 percent in the state so let me first start with brene galland who will receive first in fbla who's who which is the top student award for an fbla member and she'll be recognized at the national office during the parade of states she also won first in local chapter annual business report first in web banner design and second and future business leader all right bear with me i'm going to get through this quick abby rashadi and anisha sadlee first in american enterprise will delonzo keller fraley dawson mccarthy first in business financial plan thomas wall first in cyber security wade johnson first in database design casey sears first in e-business carson fraley and celine kulas introduction to social media strategy
011will becker keller fraley first in local chapter annual business report carson fraley the n-c-a-c-t-e-b-e broy hill scholarship alex and alexis and samantha desafi first in publication design ben swaggarty first in spread spirit t-shirt design maya zambardino's first in spreadsheet ava alger and peyton cowen first in website design our second place winners clara fultz tanuli gunarathenay and cali latham second in business management james greenleaf and henry walter second in business plan sloane carlson second in computer applications anisha sadly second in data analysis nikita sadly second in journalism anisha sadly second in ncbea outstanding student will becker and trayvon smith second in public service announcement elec alex morton second in sales presentation lucci porter second in spreadsheet application billy miller william mullen and hannah sprague third in banking and financial systems mac mccall and hunter nelson third
012in data analysis andrew rick's third in database design campbell collins lake williams third and digital video production reagan carson lauren morris third in graphic design muhammad abdel salaam third in human resource management ian reiling third in insurance and risk management blythe bacon third in political science mary hutchinson sarah scarborough and kimura oola third in sales presentation sawyer alexander zander fourth in accounting two grant worthington fourth in digital video production paulina bolin abigail or shoddy fourth in international business emmy ingles lane mills avery simpson fourth and social media strategies and sophia jones fourth in word processing wow i'd also like to recognize i'm our outgoing state president berna golland again i've been doing this for 15 years and i think she's accomplished more than any of our previous presidents combined has done she's brought us back
013from a pandemic got her membership back up from 900 state statewide to over 2 500. so she did an awesome job so we're definitely going to miss her at the state level and i'd like her to announce our incoming officer selected from jh rose good evening gosh i just love our school um first of all thank you for all you do happy happy teacher appreciation week i hope you know that you're very very loved very very thankful for all that you do for us my name is brenna galland i currently serve as the jh rose fba chapter president as well as the director of public relations for national fbla and then i just finished my term serving as the state president for north carolina fbla something that words cannot discuss or just sum up how
014grateful i am to have done that over this past year i'm very very excited to announce that our eastern region vice president is coming from jhr's this year keller fraley um we're excited to see what a great job he's going to do and just again thank you so much for everything that you do for us [Applause] wow awesome guys [Applause] awesome we probably have about 60 some going to nationals this year so um it's it's a great representation of all the hard work that our teachers do and that our students do last we have j.h rose hoza which miss beasley kendall beasley will come in in just a moment and announce those winners good good evening my name is kendall beasley i'm a host advisor at jh rose high school i'm absolutely thrilled to introduce
015to you our host of president this year miss blythe bacon blythe is also the recipient of the nc hosa scholarship she will be attending clemson university next year where she will be double majoring in pre-med in business and wyatt is going to share with you our winners hello thank you for having me uh first of all while i have your attention i'd also like to thank pitt county schools for their support of just j trust hosa in general at the regional leadership conference we had 36 competitors from our school 34 out of 36 placed in the top 10 four fourteen were first place winners ten were second place winners and four were third place winners at the regional level after that we went to the state leaders leadership conference where we had 20 attendees and
016eight which placed in the top ten top 10 placers include jiwoo lee for biomedical laboratory science abraham ahmad for medical reading our top four placers include daniel aknock matteo lorenzo sanjay tripitor andrew knight hyatt for hosable and we also have glee as our first place medical terminology winner at the state leadership conference we also had many members recognized for the barber jam service award for their dedication to service of our community we had nine winners which include hannah spragg alex knight hyatt olivia perry life bacon andrew knight hyatt sanjay trippiter amaya dozer gili and g wooly at the conference also keep in mind this was our first in-person conference back since covet so we had a great turnout from our high school rose was recognized for the second year in a row as a gold
017star chapter which means that we're like one of the top role model chapters in our region and advisor angie byrne was recognized as a gold star advisor and we would like to take a moment to recognize physician east as a partner with us at hosa physician east has done many things for us for many many years we can give this award to them every single year since this year is recognized at the state level so dr haskins thank you so much for all that you guys do for us at physicians thank you so much [Applause] okay last but certainly not least we have aiden middle school who have winners in tsa which is our technology which is our stem student organization and i have jason wade who is going to come up here in just
018a minute this is his first year taking students and he actually is taking 10 students to nationals in june to dallas texas so but half of his his group is at a softball baseball game so mr wade good evening ward just want to thank you guys in pitt county schools for recognizing us my name is jason wade i'm the stem teacher and technology students association advisor at ayden middle school this was the first year we were have ever actually been to a state competition before and we walked away with several awards i'm going to list those awards in the winners right now construction challenge we came in first team two was john fields devin mcaulid of mason paramore slater persinger and mason sutton second place in construction challenge team one aaron baxter riley harrison randy
019keith bateman longhorn children's stories came in third place olivia baker aaron baxter sarah suggs who's standing with me now dragsters third place keller guthrie's essays on technology was first place olivia baker flight we had second place slater persinger and third mason paramore inventions in innovation second aaron baxter randy keith bailey mclawhorn junior solar sprint uh third place team two was bailey mclonghorn and sarah suggs mechanical engineering team one olivia baker and kindly guthrie mechanical engineering second place team two kaylee oligar and sarah suggs medical technology third place kenley guthrie rainey keith cayley olgar design first place olivia baker kenley guthrie randy keith kelly olivia and sarah sugg promotional marketing first place raleigh tiddle structural engineering first place team two kaylee oligar and sarah suggs second place team three devin mcaulida mikado and slater persinger and
020third place team four john fields and mason sutton so sarah entered five competitions and won placed in all of them so like like um mr blood said most of my team is playing softball or baseball at chicago unable to be here but um we were blessed enough to find out a couple weeks ago that we got invited i i had no idea we would be able to go to afford to be able to go but 10 students are going to be going to dallas texas for the national competition june 22nd to the 30th so we're excited about that [Applause] miss harrison's gonna get in that picture because she supports them so much she loves the camera [Laughter] congratulations we have one more student organization that has not done states yet and that is ffa so
021we hope that after that competition we'll bring in more award winners in august maybe in august or september for ffa so we have a we have a great student organization and our teachers are fabulous so i appreciate everything that they do and the support you guys give us in career and technical education thank you let's give all those students [Applause] in addition to celebrating our outstanding teachers we also have some incredible school nurses in our schools and as you are well aware they have had a tremendous amount of responsibility over the past two years karen harrington our director of student services is going to come up and give you some information about our school nurse week celebration so i'm going to be joined by nurse reed and two of our nurses that we're spotlighting so
022for the first time and at least since i've been in this position um school or nurse week is actually next week it's not coinciding with teacher appreciation so they get their own week this week usually we're celebrating nurses and teachers and principals and everyone at the same time school nurse day is next wednesday and i just wanted to highlight um this was a report that nurse reed shared with the team for march i believe just some of the things you know we've been so focused on covid and nurses doing covid and luckily we've all gotten a break from being you know entrenched and coveted but also to highlight that school nurses do not put band-aids on and give out medication that they are really there for some chronic needs and these were just just in
023the month of march and almost all of these had behind them the words multiple cases so just things that our school nurses have helped support our students through you know threats of suicide threats of homicide diabetic situations neglect absences vision you know severe chronic health needs diabetes someone returning to school from some significant medical conditions and so just wanted to share the work that they do they have really under nurse read been you know collaborating and sharing at their last meeting that i attended just shared some stories of how they collaborate and we're just going to use that for some of our beginning of the year but i'm just you know in the last year i got to know the nurses better than ever um you know and i miss talking to them day you
024know on a daily basis i'm glad that we're not talking about kovid but i do miss talking to them but we wanted to highlight just two but i will say and nursery will probably share this as well you know these accomplishments that these two nurses have just all of our nurses should be recognized for just like all of our teachers so i'm going to turn that over to lori thank you karen we should nominate karen to actually be an honorary school nurse honestly after what she's been through over the last year she's learned a lot and been such a support to the school health program so thank you so much karen for all that you do as well um so today i actually have the honor of talking with you a little bit about and
025highlighting a couple of our school nurses who've just had some really recent accomplishments that we wanted to share with you and as karen um highlighted you know the school health program we have 26 amazing nurses that serve our schools right now and you know i'm just really proud of all of them but today i do want to just highlight a couple of special accomplishments of these nurses that are here with us tonight and the first one is rachel and um rachel has recently received her national certification as a school nurse um this was not a small accomplishment um to achieve while tr while working tirelessly through the covet 19 pandemic um generally our school nurses have about three years to obtain their national certification and that's three years of working in a regular school nurse
026environment well unfortunately our new school nurses have really not been able to experience what it's like to be a school nurse in a traditional school year because of the pandemic so it's really exemplary that rachel was able to take the time and dedicate the time to really prepare and and receive her certification board certification in school nursing is highly valued and provides formal recognition of school nurse knowledge and competence the nationally certified school nurse credential is a personal commitment to higher standards that inspire credibility and confidence rachel's been a school nurse since april of 2019 and has served eastern elementary welcome middle school and most recently northwest elementary schools she's a compassionate and knowledgeable nurse who is always willing to go above and beyond to help others she's quickly become a mentor and leader within
027the school health program and we're so fortunate to have her expertise with us thank you so much [Applause] and the second nurse that i just wanted to spotlight tonight is kara kara serves our jh rose high school population and that's where she's been since she joined the school health program several years ago i'm sorry i don't know your exact date that you joined us but cara has actually had a couple really um recent accomplishments that i wanted to highlight tonight and one of them is that cara was nominated for a daisy award daisy is is a national recognition um that that recognizes nurses who do the right things for patients and families daisy award nominees must demonstrate compassion teamwork persistent patient advocacy community awareness timely informative and therapeutic communication and consistent adherence to the highest
028clinical and ethical standards of the nursing profession and i just wanted to read for you tonight the actual nomination that was turned in for kara because i just think it exemplifies so well the role that she has had in her school and it also really exemplifies just the role of all the school nurses in their schools over the last couple years so i just want to kind of read this to all of you this was the nomination that was filled out i'm a former health sciences teacher registered nurse in the school supplemental covet contact i have worked with cara for five years at this location and she is an exceptional case manager however this year her dedication to the school student faculty staff and the community have been extraordinary we often hear and rightfully so
029about the nurses working on the front lines with coveted patients however i also think this year should be dubbed year of the school nurse cara has worked tirelessly and non-stop since before the beginning of the school year to maintain the safety of students staff and this community her work days turn into work evenings and nights as she consistent is constantly investigating documenting fielding phone calls and following on up on actual and potential coveted cases exposures quarantines testing and clearing i will not even attempt to address the sports team situations she has maintained open lines of communication throughout this unprecedented school year and she always does it with grace respect and kindness whether it is with worried parents students or colleagues while this nomination may be a bit unconventional i feel cara deserves recognition for her
030role in handling this health crisis as a fellow nurse i understand what she is doing and the positive impact she has on our school community so i want to thank cara for that and again you know i would just like to say thank you to the school nurses because i really feel like every one of them in collaboration with you know a wonderful school team covid contacts and our student services program and just the leadership that we've had in pitt county you know it's just been a real collaborative effort so one other thing i did want to highlight about cara is that she's also was selected to participate in the aspiring nurse leader program at vidant the aspiring nurse leader program gives first-hand experience in and exposure to the knowledge skills and professional relationship needed
031to develop as leaders candidates are bsn prepared have been a part of the vident health system for at least 12 months and by application deadline demonstrate leadership potential and a desire to become leaders completion of the aspiring nurse leader program will unlock and develop the leader within and prepare participants to lead more effectively in their current role as well as to prepare them for future roles so kara's going to start that adventure this spring right so we're really looking forward to her you know finding out what she has to learn through this program and just really proud of her for her selection for this program at vidin thanks so much [Applause] [Laughter] thank you again one last thing while i'm up here is just also may started mental health awareness month and so i just
032wanted to make sure that we remind our community members of the supports that we have available in the school system in terms of your student services team your counselor your social worker but we also have school-based mental health available at schools for any families that would need to access that they can contact their school counselor social worker and just some other resources that are across our state and just wanted to remind families and we will try to be sharing mental health information throughout the month just so that families can access that for their students for their family members and we'll remind our staff of that as well so thank you so much thank you [Applause] all right our school nutrition workers are there to our team play a vital part in our schools they start
033the day off for these children giving them a hot breakfast in the mornings and many of those kids come off the bus and they might be a little upset and they have smiles on their faces and so they do so much more than just offering them a nice hot lunch they serve them breakfast they serve them lunch they dress up for spirit days and they even provide snacks for our after school programs so gretchen wilson is going to come talk to you about school lunch hero day oh my silly picture up there i hope you enjoy looking at that one um that's our office team um we're here celebrating our school lunch hero day information coming up for the end of the week our week is um this whole week but we celebrate on friday
034is our big day for all of our team members here in pitt county schools and throughout the united states that are school nutrition staff members but um this is what i wanted to say to y'all today so nutritious meals at the school are essential part of the school day and the staff at the district school mill nutrition services department are committed to providing healthful nutritious meals to the district's children and the men and women who prepare and serve these meals help nurture our children through their daily interaction support which beth said i was like she could just you know i could have just let her read this while ago for me so i just wanted to show my full heart to my staff members on their dedication to the school nutrition program the meals that
035we offer to pitt county schools which are breakfast lunch fresh fruit and vegetable program the after school snap program summer feeding which we're gung-ho working on right now and we also cater daily um every day of the year i don't know if y'all know this um to jdc to juvenile detention center so we ride breakfast and lunch and dinner to them so we have a lot of different activities that all of our staff members and school nutrition do to support our students throughout pitt county and i'm just very grateful to be a part of their team and just hopefully you'll come out and visit those schools again we'd love to have you out there and if you would like to come and work in the kitchens like if you all have we'll love to have
036you give me a call or if you just want to visit the kids in the serving line it will brighten your day if you're ever in a sad mood so come out and join some lunch or some breakfast out there with them but uh thank you for the visits you had made this year and please welcome and come out and visit with them again all right thank you [Applause] at this time we're going to recognize four published leaders in our county we have tom feller who's the director of continuous improvement and professional learning we have seth brown who is the director of educator support and leadership development ashley smith and elizabeth myers are career path specialists and they spend their day in this space every day at the kathy taft center teaching teachers to be
037teacher leaders and so they have recently been published and they're going to share a little bit about their publications good evening everyone good evening good to see you thanks for letting us come for just a few minutes and share what we've been doing uh seth's here you know seth and then um uh elizabeth and ashley as well so uh we have been working for a while i'm trying to share what we've been doing here um through the tiff grant and through the different programs and i know you know we've shared it with you guys and so uh this year we were able to get a couple articles published the first was published in professional learning the professional learning journal which is from learning forward and that was one that i wrote with ashley and elizabeth
038focused on the fit excuse me on the cop model with our fts and our cts and how they look at um you know doing continuous improvement and the particular angle we took on that was how the strategies and the protocols and the skills that the teachers are developing have really allowed them to have conversations around sometimes some difficult topics the theme for the the week or for the for the month was how do you have conversations in a divided world right so when you've got differences of opinions and perspectives and so we went out and actually talked with a bunch of the teachers and just interviewed them and says what are some of these strategies you're using what have you been able to apply and that's what we wrote up which was it was really
039exciting to have them uh have them publish that and then the second one was in principle leadership this was one seth and i did together and it really focused on the academy that we've created for assistant principals and the focus of that academy is to help prepare them for the first year of the principalship and to be successful so i'm going to turn this over to seth to talk a little bit more about that one so that one was neat uh literally in the process we went through with dr linker and and the staff of really looking at for that article about how do we prepare first-year principles the idea being that a first-year principle requires slightly different skills than someone who is experienced so going through that process i think the neatest thing from
040the whole experience was looking at the connections that we made through both these articles the idea that that nc papa reached out and connected with us based on the article we wrote about first year principles because they have a similar program there are different universities we're reaching out to right now and setting up conversations with about the whole practice of advanced teaching roles and so the idea is we're publishing the studies what we've looked at and done and they're really making connections for pitt county schools so that that's the fun part i think with all this so thank you i believe you've got copies of both of the articles um so if there's any um further information you need or you're interested in just let us know afterwards and we'll get you whatever thank you
041everyone thank you thank you [Applause] that should be the last one yeah last one at this time we'll have public expressions and again those that are representing individuals get three minutes those that are representing groups get five minutes we ask you to identify yourself as individual and as the group to identify your group if your group is present please let us know if your group is present and again we ask that we be mindful of what we say before the board and before all those that are listening and watch we begin with thomas remington you have three minutes hi thank you board members for being here and for listening to me and letting me speak um i just want to start out by saying kind of some of the benefits about our early college i'm
042a junior at the early college i've had the pleasure of meeting some of you at our renaissance fair which is very fun the early college is a unique program we have a lot of opportunities to interact with our staff and our educators in different ways we have we just have opportunities to get close with them that a lot of bigger schools don't i consider our staff my family in a way whereas i feel like you have one select person at other schools at our school it's everybody whether you like it or not it's everybody and i feel like that we need to find a way to get that into every school i know that it's hard because there are hundreds of kids at conley and rose and possibly even thousands at this point i don't
043know but we need to find a way to make everybody feel welcomed and accepted in their community which is their school because when you're not working a full-time job as an adult school is your job school is your life and you need to be accepted in your life and i want to talk about student representation because i feel like a lot of students would not be up here doing what i'm doing right now i'm nervous doing it um but i just wanted to say that i think that students need to be listened to i feel like we hear a lot about parents and a lot about educators and those are valuable opinions but the education that we talk about when we talk about the concerns is the students and the students need to feel as
044though that they can rise up at a school board meeting and talk about these concerns because it is their education that will lead them to sit on this board in every one of your chairs in the next couple decades and i'm not sure if anybody has plans but i think that it's important that our students have a chance to voice their opinions not even just to the school board but to their administrators to their teachers to their principals to their lunch workers whoever they want and my school has a great way of getting that done my school has a great way of letting students voice their opinions that i feel like some schools may lack and i don't think that's due to any policy or any political talking point or any really any teacher any
045individual i just think that every school is different and i feel like that if we can find a way to make a uniform type of decision to get our students represented and to make sure that they have a voice in everything that goes on then we're going to be a better county for every generation coming thank you thank you emily klanden we have five minutes i'm emily kleindenst and this is sarah clynect and we have the non-profit the face of pitt county and i said to you guys last month that we were going to be giving out teacher grants just as this is mental health month we know that mental health is very important for our staff for our educators if we're going to provide for the mental health of our students so we have
046with us tonight we have renee lee bryan who was nominated by her administrator sarah ambrose miss lee bryan serves as the social worker for gr whitfield pactolis and stokes despite the enormity of this task she strives to provide individualized support to the families and students of stokes the this includes meeting with parents about attendance issues delivering food and providing a full range of support for students well-being in addition they've implemented a new club called the kindness club which she has sponsored and along with all of her other duties she meets with students during their weekly friday meetings she's also organized a service project for students and they collected items for the humane society miss lee bryan advocates for her students success daily and definitely demonstrates a heart of gold so thank you and we have
047um we're giving them a certificate and a um gift card visa card that we hope you will spend on yourself massage facial nails take your family out to dinner whatever makes you feel better um and then our second one is mr matt daniel from hb sugg he was nominated by his administrator miss setzer and she said that mr daniel builds strong relationships with his students because he leads and teaches with his whole heart he is often attending his students outside events to support them outside the classroom and he has made connections with ecu and seeks opportunities for the lady pirate basketball team to visit his class or he takes a group on his own time on sundays so we'd also like to recognize mr matt daniel [Applause] can we use a minute to take a
048picture i'm okay [Applause] diane see that's correct yep three minutes i mean five minutes i'm sorry i won't need that um hello board members hello i'm representing the group coalition for public education we are already five months into the new year and already it is riddled with political and ideological drama the people charged with leading this country have dug in their ideological heels literally shutting down our nation as a means to advance their political agendas sadly their agenda now affects our children i can't help but remember what migraine used to say to my mother comes meaning how are the children with this favorite italian greeting family greeting the appropriate response was always meaning well unfortunately i believe today that we cannot honestly give that this reply as someone who took education seriously as someone who
049taught high school for several years and now as an advocate for sound and basic education i am very much aware of how unwell our children have become as a function of our current public education system i am both saddened and frustrated to learn how education has given away to indoctrination and political and social progressivism the truth is that our current public education system is failing to provide the proper educational springboard for young people to succeed a report titled opportunity myth which gives a glimpse into the state of the nation's classrooms makes this clear thousands of students across north carolina and millions of students across the country are working hard to get through school only to find themselves ill prepared for college and frankly ill prepare to say live the lives that they hope for they're
050planning their futures on the belief that by doing well in school creates opportunities that showing up doing the work and meeting their teachers expectations will provide them what they need for what's next they believe that for good reason because we've been telling them so you've been telling them so their diplomas tell them so each year i struggle to understand with all the non-value-added k-12 programs and curriculum doctrines how our children are being effectively prepared for our college education and for a skilled workforce by their teachers in classrooms every day as students are leaving high school and heading to college data shows that one in four will need at least one remedial class to catch up on learning that they should have gotten prior to high school graduation the data also shows us that students who
051start college needing remediation often do not earn a degree so as we lift the dream of college access for better economic opportunity many students will leave college saddled with their share of the nation's one point trillion dollar student loan debt without ever completing a bachelor's program as parents students and community members we should take this seriously take the questions seriously how are the children and beginning and to begin to get to the root of college and career readiness although we may not solve all the problems in our education system overnight there are some clear takeaways from this report the opportunity myth that can improve the lives and futures of millions of students and families right now children have big dreams for their contributions to society and to the workforce and if we prioritize quality grade
052appropriate instruction and stick to the basics of education reading writing grammar math science history social studies and throughout all the progressive garbage and perhaps even include an opportunity for students to attend a vocational school to learn a trade we can create engaging environments that will equip our students to meet their dreams and their goals as parents family members teachers school leaders community members and board of education members we must all work together and be committed to ensuring that our children have access to an excellent education system and access to the resources they need to succeed and to benefit our community and to benefit our great state thank you thank you dr franklin frank fleming yeah five minutes let us reexamine the whole issue of sexual and gender education for our k-3 children your board policies
053do not confirm any age specific limitations for k-3 curriculum but they leave the details of sexual education up to the discretion of the teachers most of the new teachers have been taught to choose their own preferred pronouns for themselves and they may wave rainbow flags that to teach diversity for their future activists some teachers have never had their own children but yet they would like to groom more lgbtq kids to their point of view parents are dismissed as too conservative or too stupid or too prejudiced to understand the new woke ideology teachers however have great leeway in modifying the sex gender messages to our youngest students and there is no prohibition against broaching these topics for ages five to eight the way it stands right now by your policies parents are told that health head
054material should be reviewed yearly after all there are new truths and word definitions for human sexuality that come along changing all the time freedom in curriculum is for teachers but obstruction is for parents your policy 3540 needs to be rewritten perhaps in line with the sentiment of the recent florida law concerning parental rights and education please read the florida law it has wide support there is no mention of the words gay or trans and no statement that besmirches the lgbtq community this law counters mandates for more progressive states which may insist on showing amaze.com cartoons look it up about reproductive acts for third graders or affirm that k-y excuse me k-x-y males may have a baby just like the brand-new pregnant male emoji i hope you understand these are insults to your intelligence and common
055sense in the past 10 years the number of trans children nationwide has quadrupled due to several factors including the effects of progressive academic medicine pharmaceutical promotions as well as popular trends in social media and public education for baby boomers like myself gender dysphoria was a rare less than one percent happening but for the new x generation and z generation support has grown to over 20 to 25 percent for transpositive approval pediatricians and psychologists are not unanimous but they're divided in their professional opinions about whether this is a healthy trend many doctors including the head of psychiatry at johns hopkins and even some transition psychologists such as erica anderson in los angeles are opposing such trends in gender dysphoria treatment some uk student studies on hormonal suppression of puberty have found increased depression and suicidal ideation
056as well as bone density decrease and drops in iq the earlier the gender grooming than the greater number of children will follow with mental health problems for comparison take bulemia and eating disorders if a child is painfully thinned but wants to vomit fast and weight loss to produce a better appearance and psychosocial well-being than how many of you parents and doctors would come forward in favor more diet pills iv nutrition or severe fasting as a matter of affirmative care for this minority progressive educators do not want critical oversight from parents and they generally have been opposed to any idea about a parent's bill of rights they don't want any proscription of materials but leave it up to the 20 something new teachers who themselves have been grown groomed into support of leftist propaganda think back
057to our recent debates about the science of mask mandates and how there was a minority of doctors who told the truth about the poor efficacy and false science of cloth barriers or they fought against the lie that vaccination can prevent infection or transmission of covid in a similar vein there are a lot of noise but no convincing science that a rush to sexual and gender education from k-3 is either healthy or appropriate for the government to promote what has happened to common sense pursuit of academic achievements and respect for the rights of families to follow their own beliefs about religion and sexual instruction we must show courage and have a resolute backbone to fight against the secular non-biological distortion do not be afraid of the elites who will shame you but be resolved we can
058start our battle for education with this first step beginning at k-3 curriculum thank you thank you mario blanchett five minutes all right good evening i'm here representing pitt county association of educators i am the president so i'm also here representing the interests of lots of different individuals because i don't just fit inside of a box so as a result i have spoken to quite a few of those individuals to make sure what i say tonight is going to come across the way i intended to as a teacher i find it insulting that there are those individuals in the public who think our entire agenda is to turn each and every student into a cog of the woke mob my agenda personally is to go ahead and teach the standards of whatever math course that i
059am teaching and i try to do that to the best of my ability each and every day i would like to think that the vast majority of my colleagues do the same when we have when i have discussions with other teachers i can promise you turning a young person that you care about into a uh into an anthem kneeling pronoun insisting cross-dressing radical is far down our list we have a hard enough time as it is making sure our students understand the content that we are required to teach for a variety of reasons we have students in our classrooms that have vastly different home lives for example i grew up in the two-parent home and it took some getting used to for me for how some of my students because some of them have different
060last names from their parents so that was uh when i first got into education that was just something i had to get used to we have students with vastly different household incomes and along with the obvious differences in racial backgrounds we also have differences who are uh different students who are unsure about their sexuality but because we have these differences when all of our students are together in the classroom it is important that all students are treated kindly and with respect being treated with dignity is not something that should be debated every parent who sends their child off to school has an expectation that their child will be well taken care of until that child gets back home it is flat out wrong to mistreat children because of any perceived differences i'm here speaking tonight
061because i fear that they're individuals who think that we are that us teachers are radicalizing their kids nothing could be further from the truth as a high school teacher i at most have 90 students today with your child and with anywhere from 20 to 30 students in my classes that's not a whole lot of time to indoctrinate any child into making them do anything that i want them to do i would like to think a parent would have more influence in the child's life than the teacher and i do feel that us teachers have an influence on how our children turn out but not as much of an influence as a parent it is our job as teachers to establish safe and welcoming environments where all students in the class have the opportunity to grow
062and flourish so this includes students from all sorts of backgrounds carrying all sorts of baggage so they can become the best version of themselves thanks thank you [Applause] don cavallini r lee adams you have five minutes would you please identify your group yes certainly i'm don cavallini resident of pitt county i actually paid taxes on two homes so i'm hoping that my county taxes are well spent many school board members know me certainly mr holloman and mr forbes uh and some of you have been on the board a bit a bit uh i'm the co-chair of the coalition against racism we have previously advocated and do presently advocate better working conditions and pay for school employees as well as excellence and fairness for all students dr lenker and others know that i have and the
063organization has advocated at the county commission meetings when we've asked to add to supplemental pay for teachers over and beyond what the state guidelines call for and provide to the counties we were in raleigh lobbying the state legislature wearing the same red t-shirts that school personnel were wearing and we pressured the lawmakers to do the right thing but i come tonight to also say there's a troubling situation in how school bus drivers are being treated and it's probably been there for longer than six months i'm accompanied by a few school bus drivers tonight i urge each and every member of this school board to personally investigate for themselves just what is happening at the school bus garage during the height of the pandemic even as school children were learning from home school bus drivers delivered
064food to them that's the meaning of essential workers they took risks and have not been appropriately appreciated sometimes such devotion to a job is rewarded with hazard pay or some other manner of acknowledging just how essential they are the one dollar an hour increase which was announced at the end of 2021 barely comes close to the rise in inflation at this very moment the wake county board of commissioners is considering a proposed budget for next year one notable item which has yet to be voted on is a minimum starting salary of 16 an hour for all auxiliary personnel including school bus drivers not only are the pitt county school bus drivers not receiving a livable wage some have been unjustly fired many drivers themselves are working in what can only be described as a hostile
065work environment that's since joey retired last year please look into this dr linker please look into this school board thank you that ends our public expression this time i'll present consent items for approval get a motion to approve our consent items so moved uh moved by caroline second second bye amy sorry in the discussion all in favor say aye all right any opposed closing comment oh sir sorry yes um just um obviously we want to just take a second to um to say thanks to all of our teachers you know this is uh i remember when i was a principal was always one of the best weeks of the school year um getting everybody together also our nurses uh child nutrition staff got a couple principals here as well assistant principals uh appreciate everything that
066they're doing i also want to take just a second to to introduce um we've kind of reorganized everyone knows that jennifer johnson our former pio we retired and or not retired resigned and moved to a somewhere else yes but um i just want to take a second to how we have reorganized our communication team we now have beth offers our director of outreach and public relations and we've replaced jennifer with tom mccullen our new pio we're certainly glad to have him and zach zack's out there zach will be our digital media specialist and he will stay on board with our team we're certainly glad to have all of them we will be announcing that well probably while we're sitting here the media it may have gone out so um but um certainly glad to have
067all three of them on the team and helping us out thank you thank you start with our board members tracy um wow there has been so much recognition i'm a little overwhelmed but i do want to just first and foremost say happy teacher appreciation week i am working on teacher gifts um probably tonight when i get home and try to get them out tomorrow um i know we had principal appreciation day yesterday so thank you to all the principals i see a few of them out here you do so much to contribute to keeping our schools running and keeping them running safely and productively so thank you and of course i can't overlook the school nurses they just do so much in our schools i work alongside some really great nurses in my county and
068i just know how invaluable they are to our staff and and our students in lots of ways i did want to say a special thank you to miss hilliard miss harrison dr caton and miss newman amy and i were able to go do some school tours of all the aiden schools and grifton about a week or two ago and i was just really impressed with everything going on um including some of the stem recognition we kind of knew about that i was like i hope you're going to come to the school board because i really want to see y'all get recognized there's so many good things going on at our schools and just a big congratulations to all the high schools and aide middle for all the awards tonight i'm really just blown away by
069all the good things that are going on in our county so we need to take time to celebrate our students thank you workforce i would just like to say also uh in regards to the spotlight on on teaching and learning all those students that were represented as well as school nurses and the lunch hero day recognition and all the others but i especially like to mention the students how well-dressed and how nice they looked tonight when they came out somebody's setting an example for them i believe and i think their teachers are not you [Laughter] but uh and neither am i but anyway i i really would like to thank uh those teachers for sending it you know those students coming well-dressed it really uh impressed me tonight also when tabitha presented uh her winners
070now she did have three world champions is that right i don't think she mentioned it as a world champion but there were three of those students that were world champions and i think that's something great to uh for pitt county um one other thing um mental health month i think that's something that we as a school system we can always do better at trying to help those kids that come to us with problems and i think we're having more and more of those situations that are happening and one other thing i got 27 seconds the discipline we had a disciplined presentation at our board workshop and you know from what i saw it seems as though the schools are trying to get a hold on that discipline and i don't think anyone has been told
071that they couldn't suspend or whatever when it came to a student that needed that type of offense but i would still say that we as a board support our teachers and a safe learning environment for our students thank you amy cole i'm going to ditto a lot of what tracy said since we went together last week but i just again want to say thank you to uh missile or miss harrison dr caton and ms newman for welcoming us into their schools it really was a great day we had a really good time just seeing all the students and talking with them and we actually had um which school was it that we had the grifton uh miss newman she had her students guide the tour so they were um they're her eighth grade student so
072they were showing us all around and it was very very good so i really enjoyed it and i'm gonna pick on my student in the back over there i just really appreciate thomas for coming in he is one of my students this semester and well actually and last semester he decided to take me twice um for two different classes by the way [Laughter] but he is a great young man i'm very proud of him for coming out here and speaking tonight and for all of the award winners today we had just so many i mean they were going through that list so fast i'm like just congratulations to everybody and it's so so good to see good things happening again after these past two years and this past couple months and our in our meetings
073we've been able to recognize a lot of good things happening and that's been so missed the past couple years so i really appreciate everyone coming out and sharing what's going on thank you anna bear um i echo the the gratitude for all the accomplishment and the excitement about that i also want to add to that um gratitude to tom and seth and ashley and elizabeth for their publication um putting you know keeping pitt county on the map in terms of being an innovative um place to to work an innovative place to to be educated and i appreciate all the the extra work that goes into having to being published um would love to just say happy teacher appreciation week to our teachers who are here you guys are our heroes i know it's been tough
074and um you guys have an impact beyond probably what you'll ever even realize so thank you for that and then to thomas thank you for coming to speak to us i had the opportunity along with amy and melinda to attend the renaissance fair at the pcc early college and it was really not only was it just a great fun event but i had students coming up and and wanting to engage on some very real topics and and as student by president we have here as well um wanting to to tell us you know what students are needing what they see that the teachers are needing what they observe and so much so that when i had my 14 year old with me we got in the car and she looked at me and she said
075they are so impressive so thank you for bringing your voice tonight continue to reach out you guys are an invaluable resource um and are your best advocates um so thank you for that um i think i think that's it all right finger forest thank you mr chairman first of all i think everybody in here understands and knows that i am an advocate f for career technical education it's in my heart it's in my my blood but this was exceptionally great this evening to see all of the excellence one of the things that uh gets missed out i think with career technical education is that we teach people how to do things the applied learning skills there's no question about that the other thing that i think you saw tonight is the leadership skills that i
076don't think no organization or no no program area teaches any better than career technical education program areas do and you saw that this evening they've done many studies of of young people that have been a part of the career technical student organizations the graduation rates higher their grade point averages are higher the discipline is less as far as negative discipline is less career technical education student organizations need to continue to be a tremendously high priority for our school system and i'm glad it is i'm glad we've got a superintendent that believes in it and a community that yearns for it to continue to to blossom and to grow i want to say how much i appreciate the teachers every week not just teacher appreciation week you're down in the trenches we've asked you to do
077so many things and it's been a tough two years but you persevered through that and you continue to do excellent things for our students in pitt county and the only regret that i have at this time is that my time has expired [Laughter] carolina caroline dawg thank you um i will echo mr forest sentiment um teachers are is that what you're asking me to do teachers are the backbone um frankly not just of our schools in our community but our society uh the influence that teachers have on our country on the hearts and minds of our students cannot be overstated um just think back about how many teachers still live in your head from when you were in kindergarten through high school or however far you went and the things that they taught you they
078like our pastors make permanent improvements on who we are and who we become and how we live in our society so um so so thankful for all of you teachers who are here tonight who give so much of yourselves to us to our students um i wanted to congratulate of course all the winners deca fbla hosa stem d.h cowley jh rose aiden middle oh my goodness i mean what just a a stellar parade of um just um lori reed i mean what a nurse leader to uh highlight nurse parkerson and nurse stocks um so proud of their efforts um and the fact that we can recognize them when they go above and beyond um i wanted to update the um board about pit pirates they did place 26 out of 72 teams in their division
079in houston last month so again pitt county schools being represented at the international level and so incredibly pleased to see that pitt county schools is being recognized in peer-reviewed journals for the groundbreaking work that we are doing to improve skills retain quality staff and improve student outcomes thank you oh and i wanted to thank the chair for accommodating my compromised immune system and i appreciate the staff for helping me to try to stay as safe as i can until i get through the treatments i'm dealing with thank you don rhode good evening i want to thank all the parents the teachers the students that came out tonight i'd like to thank our principals that yesterday was national principals day remember two years ago they had to adapt on the fly and go to virtual schooling
080and as well as our teachers which of course teach appreciation week last year our principals had to run two schools an a b school and a virtual school and then all of a sudden after christmas we eventually went to a four day wheat school we still had students on virtually you know those teachers and those principals did an outstanding job making that happen it wasn't ideal but but i appreciate the time they've done this year our teachers and principals had to readjust to all the things of normal school they've had to readjust some academics with the students behind and also some discipline issues because students had to readjust to being this so that's that's been one of my issues but i hear that's doing a lot better i'd also like to thank our vocational staff
081for the things they're doing uh we we talked about we needed more vocationals and i agree with that 100 percent but i am gracious for once again i commented before about the internships about our relationships with pitt community college with eight back hvac program the carpentry etc auto mechanics that's a great great thing going on i like appreciate our child nutrition one of my favorite things to do as principal is to walk in the lunchroom and tell our lunchroom staff that cook is broke and i also would like to remind our parents that the state law requires parental notice and gives parents the ability to opt out of sex education and it cannot be taught prior to middle school so i'd like to advise our parents of that thank you miss melinda forgone bless your
082heart saving the best for last right yes ma'am okay um thank you um i'm sitting here looking at thomas thinking where do i know him from and then when i got i was like that's where i knew him from when we went out to early college and i've tried to get back into the schools that was my first my first rodeo of getting back into things and visiting it was an awesome time and i truly appreciated getting to meet you as well as many many students and getting on campus and i guess i kind of want to kind of tie this together i recently went on a tour at j.h rose high school with a family that had never been in a public school in pitt county before although they've lived in pitt county for
083many years and i will tell you what when we left that school they were blown away and they were blown away because of students like this that were standing up here actually two of the students that led the tour the things that they talked about was they couldn't believe the leadership which i'll take you to any school and you're going to see it doesn't matter it's not just rose the leadership that those students had as well as the teachers because the teachers came out in the hall met the group as we went along could not believe and what that means to me is there's a perception out there that's not true what people perceive you need to put away and you need to come into our schools and see what we have because i think
084tonight was a very very very good example of what's going on in pitt county schools and it's awesome and it's all over the county just amazing leaders amazing teachers and again any school in pitt county i'll take you there and we'll see it now high schools are going to be closed for two weeks because we've got ap exams that started today so good luck to those students that are taking ap exams and last but not least i'd like to say good luck to um the girls lacrosse team at jh rose they are in champ they're playing in the um playoffs and they gotta buy the first round and they play thursday night so good luck thank you again thank you all for coming out on tonight we really appreciate all the students and all that
085is happening in our school we're so proud of what we're hearing happening in our schools it makes us proud to be on the board to see so many wonderful things happening with our students i do want to to let you know that this board do look at issues that are brought before us we take in consideration of things that are brought before us and we're always trying to make an improvement because we want pitt county schools to be the best schools in the eastern part of north carolina and i think that was an example of that tonight what we saw tonight we're very proud of what is happening in our pitt county schools and i ditto everything that was said especially to our teachers some say they couldn't the profession i had they couldn't do
086what i did and i say to the teachers i don't know how you do what you do but i really appreciate what the teachers do thank you again for coming on tonight at this time we ask for a motion to adjourn some of the second don caroline in the discussion y'all sure you're ready to go all in favor and aye names can stay i can't yeah