001good evening we'd like to welcome all of you to our meeting on this evening we are thankful that you're here to be with us on this evening and we uh again ask that we continue to conduct ourselves in a manner that we will all be pleased with that we conduct ourselves because we are conducting business on behalf of pitt county schools and we just ask that everyone conduct themselves in the proper manner at this time we'll call the meeting to order roll call amy cole present auntie bear smear present benjamin here caroline daugherty here james tripp president melinda wagondas here tracy everett lynch here we're fools here don roose president all presents at this time melinda but thanks for gandas gonna lead us in our pledge and pray everybody i pledge allegiance to the flag
002of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with individuals during our moment of silence i'd ask for everyone to remember the two families that were affected by loss in pitt county schools the first is the family and friends of mrs cindy weirich who passed away on february 26 she was the cafeteria manager at farmville middle and then miss angela suggs who was the administrator assistant at the alpha center and she passed away on march the first and i'd also like for those to remember the things that are not only going on in our community in our country but to remember those people that are in ukraine my heart really hurts for those people like i don't think i've felt since probably the vietnam war
003for me being an older person so just please keep them in your thoughts and prayers at this time we'll take a moment of silence thank you at this time are there any adjustments to the agenda mr chair i move that we approve the agenda as written second move by hannah barrett and second by foreign forest amy cole yes and a bear smith yes been deforest yes caroline daughter caroline daugherty yes john rose yes james tripp melinda wakanda yes tracy man yes we're at forbes yes [Music] at this time we have this spotlight on teaching and learning good evening chairman tripp and our school board members and everyone that's watching tonight we welcome you and as always we have some incredible people to introduce to you this evening there's great things going on in classrooms and
004across the state we have outstanding students and staff members our first recognition is going to be of students that participated in the health policy for high schools program dr jennifer stahls our k-12 science specialist and district stem coordinator will announce the students good evening everyone i'm honored to share a little bit about a program that our high schoolers have been participating in some of our high schoolers have been participating in called health policy for high schoolers this is a collaboration with duke mit harvard princeton and stanford and our representative is a student from duke university our students had to apply for this program and were accepted and committed to meet virtually on a weekly basis basis in the evening they complete a health policy curriculum they have to research and write together as a group
005a 30 to 50 page policy brief based on their research findings and they are doing all of this while balancing driver's ed and their coursework and part-time jobs and all of their extracurriculars we have had representation from all of our high schools in pitt county and i'm so proud of these students and the commitment that they have made to this program and i'm also very thankful for their families for their support as well so i'm honored to recognize all of these wonderful students tonight starting with aiden grifton high school jenna griffin and then at d h conley high school we have michelle song youssef susan jasmine pangia great thank you i think there's several of us maybe and jerry barajas at farmville central high school we have abigail perry she was unable to join us
006tonight innovation early college high school we have jacqueline beltran and kennedy roach at jh rose high school we have gia le g woo lee mac mccall olivia perry and andrea castillo at north pitt high school we have anya carmack heath and kailasia johnson and at the pitt county early college high school we have madeline lewis ariana latimer xavier moy and shadi deroshe please join me in congratulating our amazing scholars i'm gonna grab a picture really fast yeah let's slide together a little bit more and maybe a row in the front too you want to step out front here and you slide in there we go is [Laughter] good job one two three awesome thank you guys thank you [Applause] there's too many too many steps in that operation next we will recognize two jh rose
007high school students for winning our state swimming championship and they are multi-year champion state champions which is incredible and we were afraid they weren't going to be here on time they literally just got out of the pool so please welcome madeline smith madeline won first place in the 100 and 200 freestyle emma hastings won first place in the 500 freestyle and second place in the 200 freestyle and again they are multi-year state champions and we need to give them a huge round of applause [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and this particular recognition if you've been to any of the march meetings for the past four years you know this is a personal um they are involved at their school doing all kinds of service work i think the editor-in-chief of the paper um they just are extraordinary
008extraordinary young women and you know i'm passionate about [Laughter] do what they um and so i'm just incredibly proud madeline is a four-time state champion in the 200.00 so they'll actually get to see each other quite frequently and i'm really pleased about that it's been an honor for you since they were this guys vlogged a lot of hours with their parents on the cold hard bleachers and i'm really sad to see them go but i'm super proud of you all and for the honor to bring to pitt county not only in the water but out of it as well [Applause] and i would like to recognize their coach andrew pierce because with um with athletes we have great coaches that um play a vital role in that process so let's give a round of applause
009to andrew pierce [Applause] raheem jones is a student at north pitt high school and he we're going to congratulate him for winning the second wrestling state championship in school history for north pitt this season raheem competed in the 182 pound class and if you have been on facebook and if you saw the post of him running over and hugging his coach it would have melted your heart because it was probably the sweetest most genuine moment in wrestling history congratulations raheem [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] seems like there's a lot of that going around these days huh all in the right i'll stay in athlete and he goes out and wins the state championship that night that's a heck of a day [Applause] next we will recognize amanda ellis pcs music therapist and jeremy drawn pcs school psychologist
010they are the co-recipients of the 2021 exceptional children educator of excellence award and if you've ever seen those people in front of children it's just magical to see them working with kids and they are here there's a lot of excitement with the wrestling again this is amanda ellis and jeremy drawn good evening everyone good evening it's good to see everyone it gives me great honor and a great privilege to identify two staff that are part of our ecu ecu yeah that too right east carolina family and well as pitt county schools this evening i'd like to recognize the two co-recipients of the educator excellence award this is a state award across the entire state of north carolina within the exceptional children's division these staff represent uh staff that are some of our most high tier
011staff in terms of what they do every day not just at their schools but what they do district wise they serve on many committees and they're considered and respected very much by their peers first i have amanda ellis who is a music therapist for students with special needs especially our students that are non-verbal have multiple disabilities she takes the state's standards and curricula and writes music you can go to our website and hear her playing her guitar and hear her singing some of the songs that many of the in fact all of them all of our district special education teachers access uh of course or what she does so please give her a hand of applause and of course for our children next i'd like to also recognize mr jeremy drone he's one of our
012school psychologists uh he's a psychologist that truly uh provides comprehensive psychological services for students with disabilities students with 504 plans or students without disabilities he is again as as i said about amanda he's very well respected by his colleagues other psychologists with within our division it is actually very to our fellow psychologists aka board member it's very uh uh sometimes challenging to get some of our support staff the recognition that they provide to students and the school district and jeremy surely exemplifies that he's an he's also a supervisor for our school psychology practicum students as well as interns we are very fortunate to have him as a part of our family within the ec department and more than as an employee for pitt county schools so again please give these two staff a round of
013applause [Applause] he's a gentle giant he's we call him our uh what do you call him your jeer pear he's our jeff bear okay jeremy dear bear you get that have a good evening thank you all yeah [Laughter] congratulations [Applause] at our last board meeting we recognize our school counselors this month we are going to recognize our outstanding school social workers and they are truly the unsung heroes in our schools they are a vital piece to making sure our children are in schools and that they achieve academic success karen harrington i believe is right behind me and she will announce our social workers that are here good evening ladies you can come up we just have a few of our team here to celebrate with us tonight this the month of march is actually social
014work month so we can recognize all of our colleagues in social work throughout the month and then this week is school social worker week and it's just very interesting i don't know how the the logos got developed this year but the theme is time to shine and they have used the sunflower which i just think is very i have a feeling it's a god wink kind of thing um for this month or for this week but our school social workers um do more than um you know sometimes people think of social work and that that scares our parents but our social workers do so much and they really help to make sure that our schools are whole child focused they they provide resources strategies to help eliminate barriers that our students would face and there's
015just some statistics that we you know are always keeping data of course of just the number of referrals that they did in the first half of the year you know over 3000 referrals 1200 school visits 1100 home visits 1600 almost 1700 student contacts 4 600 parent contacts it just goes on and on you know in particular this year is just their recognition of mental health needs and helping families connect with those carol if you'll go to the next slide this just shows our school social work team we have 17 current school school social workers with one more to be hired that will start with us in april 10 of our 17 school social workers currently have their masters in addition to the bachelor that's required for the school system and four of those are licensed
016clinical social workers in addition so again the wealth of experience that they bring and again i have with me just a small representation but i have um to my left anita mills who is a school social worker at farmville central high school and pitt academy the alternative program sandy cutler who is in our aiden school she serves aiden elementary ada middle and aiden grifton renee lee bryan serves pactolis stokes and g.r whitfield and then kim anderson as as people were entering today we're just remarking kim anderson took over as lead school social worker this year she still is serving south central and creekside in addition to helping lead the program she also serves as our mckinney-vento homeless liaison and she has just taken the program and just really supported our ladies and one gentleman this
017year and just really um it's just enhancing everything that we do and really is gonna you're gonna hear more from the social work team in the la in the next couple of years kim i did not see you do you want to say anything all right thank you thank you hmm if you are here in person or watching the live stream please take a moment this week to give a shout out to our social workers send them a note take them a goodie because they certainly do they're worth their weight in gold next we have zach pomeroy and zach is going to announce our north carolina school public relations association awards hello how are y'all doing this evening good so um for those of you that don't know i'm zach pomeroy i was working with
018jennifer johnson as a communications specialist in over the past few years and each year we submit different things that we have done throughout the year to the north carolina public relations or north carolina schools public relations association it's a mouthful um but last year we were like hoping because we did the tv show we were like you know we're gonna win best of the best and in eight categories each category gets one best of the best winner this year we focused on trying to get best of the best and so we submitted a lot less submissions and so as you can see here we have five submissions and if you don't know we accomplished a lot over the past year and when jennifer johnson and i were sitting down talking about everything and submitting these
019we designed a custom-built website from scratch with the help of board members i remember coming and presenting to you guys with the help of blackboard we um created this website for the school and we won a gold award in that in the digital media engagement category um we worked on an early college recruitment video and we won a silver award for that in the electronic media category profile the learner in the image and graphic design category we won a gold award and as well as the new district logo and re branding we won a gold award and then finally the strategic plan um in the publication print and electronic we won a gold award for and the really exciting news is that we did not come home with just one best of the best award
020we came home with two so out of the state eight people were recognized eight school districts were recognized for best of the best and we got two of them the first one being the image and graphic design category with our new logo which as many of you know there was a lot of input from multiple people we had some incredible graphic designers working on that ebony walton and becky rooks and finally the third the second piece that we came away with a best of the best award was with the publication um in the print and electronic category with the strategic plan and again as many of you know that was an effort to from so many people from the community to the board to teachers to dr linker and dr lasseter and so it just
021shows how we can communicate so much with graphic design and well-designed pieces and so we are just really excited i remember sitting and we were watching this virtual event and i was sitting there with jennifer johnson and she started texting me and she was like oh my gosh i'm crying because if she could do anything she was gonna get a best of the best award and um not only did we get one we took away two so um thank you guys for um believing in us as a team um and thank you for supporting us we appreciate it so awesome [Applause] at this time we're going to be hearing our public expressions uh the individuals that will be speaking will have three minutes if there are any groups they'll receive five minutes at this time
022we're going to call trudy brooks she has three minutes good evening thank you for the opportunity um three weeks ago my granddaughter who is a middle schooler at farmville middle school was jumped from behind um in the hall in between class periods she was um thrown up against the cineblock wall and afterwards taken to the hospital and received a third degree concussion in talking to my granddaughter she said that there are several fights every week um this is concerning and you know in the schools there's mostly concrete so if these kids keep throwing each other around and keep fighting like this someone is going to get seriously injured or worse i know on instagram that the farmville middle school they have three pages where someone constantly uploads fights that you can see in the bathrooms
023in the halls on the buses in the classrooms out in the yard i'm i feel like we need tougher punishments for fighting because i mean it literally when you're looking at the social media it looks like a war zone not not a school and with pitt county schools supposedly having a zero tolerance for bullying with all of this fighting there's got to be some bullying happening as well so um i just wanted to bring that to the board's attention and um we need to make our schools safer thank you thank you man chris tomlin he has three minutes good evening um i've been here before i've discussed many subjects i wasn't able to come to the last board meeting because of a death in the family but i'll come up here and you know i'll
024step away from pride a little bit i had an issue a few months ago my child has an iep packet at sadie salter i sent out a beautiful email to the school board and uh was quickly prompted by dr linker and miss anna barrett and i thank both of you all for your prompt actions and that um and the situation was handled um even though that district is amy's um thank you for uh for doing nothing as usual but tonight i i i kind of want to come up here and ask like how do y'all feel i mean the the mass situation is gone um obviously we're not scared anymore uh so so i want to know how how how you feel um because to me i continue to feel that my children were used
025as a pawn for the past two years science has never been followed by this obviously because as soon as the governor wipes his hands of it then all of a sudden it's not a big issue and throughout those two years the educational experience of children has been completely decimated there are more children in counseling for for attended suicide and for extra learning because of falling behind because of the separation that we've had the masking that we've had that has caused the utmost depression and so many other things and there's reasons that i know this stuff that i can't mention that that miss anna can can very much so back me on but how do you feel about that how do you feel in knowing that you had a part of the complete destruction of a
026generation because that is what i see and i know so many have wiped your hands clean of it you're not worried about it mask or gone do what you want to do and we're good but that that is not there are parents who have missed so many opportunities because of of this this power grab that each of you have taken into hand and run across our children there is there are there are parents that will never get experiences because of the situations that you have put in front of them and i want to truly know how do you feel about that how do you sleep at night knowing that the blood is on your hands of the suicides that have taken place because children are going through depression not only at home but at school
027how do you feel about that how do you sleep at night yes i'ma come up here every dog on meeting i don't care if matt's never come back and this is to you parents disobey this is it you can see it's a role play you can see his government stated get away from at this time mr fleming do you have yes and he will have three minutes good evening ladies and gentlemen i've been here before and i had a prepared remark which i did not hand to you because you probably wouldn't read it but i will hand it to you next time when i have 12 copies ready okay i thought i'd take my little bit of time to give you a commercial about a book that everyone should read it's called the coddling of
028the american mind and the subtitle is how good intentions and bad ideas are setting us up for a generation for failure if you want to know where we've gone wrong for the last five to ten years and how do we come down this rabbit hole that is public education please read this by the way it is by two democrats and two social psychologists though we're not talking about right-wing extremists so please this is a good educational resource and maybe you as board members would like to know more about how do we get here at this point in time the second thing i'm going to say which was not prepared but it's on the website of our lieutenant governor mark robinson and mark robinson has a series of reports in which he put online over 500
029complaints from teachers students and administrators many of whom were too embarrassed to put their names on it but they give specific examples of what's going on in north carolina it may not be going on in pitt county i don't know i don't have children here now but so much of what i've been against like crt may be coming out in other phrases subrosa presentations of this and that and the other teachers have learned to suppress what they really feel and go down this way or that way without saying exactly we're against white privilege we're against white racist i guess at my age with my gray hair i must be a white racist i don't know how many in the school board of white racist or black racist i will end by saying this anti-racism as
030it's being permitted promoted is really racism in sheep's clothing we've gotten it backwards so figure out where we're going and let's look for the future thank you for paying attention and learning about education in america thank you i want to make sure we did not miss anyone i think that we just had three we're correct all right thank you at this time we will ask for a motion for our consent items items a through eight somebody moved by dawn gonna get a second all right at this time we will vote amy cole yes anna barrett yes benjamin yes caroline daughter does carolina vote yes don roose yes melinda gandra yes tracy lynn yes word force yeah motion carrier this time we will now go into our new business turn this over to dr lincoln according
031to state law the school board needs to vote on the masked optional policy not a whole more i can't say much more about them state law there you go mr chair i move we continue with the mask optional a second been moved by uh benjamin forest second by melinda in the discussion again we'll call your names for the vote if you're in favor of it amy cove yes anna bear yes benjamin farris yes caroline daughter you're on doherty vote yes don rose yes melinda for gonda yes tracy everett lynch yes wherefore yes motion carry yes okay aaron good evening tonight i would like to request the approval of two different purchase orders related to assert funds one is for floor scrubbing machines and the other is for the pads that they that those machines will
032use it is a total of 37 machines and through this purchase every school will have at least one some of our larger schools will have two we currently have roughly 12 machines in the county and most of them are in the five to eight year old bracket so this would mean that when we're done every school will have at least one and the oldest machine would be about three years old so we are seeking approval of these of this purchase with safel who won the bid for two hundred twenty eight thousand one hundred thirty seven and 38 cents and this is with the federal lesser funds and then we're also seeking approval um to purchase the pads with veritiv was low bid for 9 423 and 20 cents these pads there's two types one is
033used when you are stripping and waxing the floor in the summer and the other is a much milder abrasive pad much not not nearly as abrasive as the one was summer used for general cleaning throughout the school year any questions on those items at this time we're obtaining a motion i have a question this is carol um hey carol yes ma'am can you hear me yes thank you um how long do these uh floor scrubber machines usually last what's their expected useful life um i'm sure assuming floor pads wear out regularly second question is about um is there covid funds right so i just want to understand the link to these that these are coveted funds they will allow us to get the floors cleaner than we currently can just using mops and other things
034right now the machines themselves have roughly a 10 to 12 year life span they do require periodic maintenance which my staff does at the facilities office and but they do roughly go in the 10 to 12 year bracket well thank you thank you i moved it we approved the purchase orders in regards to the uh scrub second to motion moved and sec moved by word for second by benji any further discussion we prepared a vote those in favor amy co yes and a bear samia yes benjamin farris yes caroline daughter carolyn dougherty yes don rose yes melinda for gondas yes tracy every lens yes red four yeah motion path thank you this time we have our closing comments beginning with our superintendent well while aaron is still in the room just uh thanks to aaron
035and matt for the work they've done recently on our school grants that we submitted that this board just approved and while i'm sitting here i got a text that the county commissioners just approved it as well so that information will be sent to the state and fingers crossed maybe we can get some support for some of our schools so congratulations to them we appreciate what they do thank you we begin with the board members with melinda thank you chair um well first of all i want to say if my calendar is right tomorrow morning is the beginning about all the books starting with middle school so if you're not doing anything you might want to go watch that and then after spring break there'll be the high school as well as the elementary and i've
036always enjoyed those those students because they work a lot they read a lot and i think they deserve for people to show up and support them second i would like to say thank you to all the social workers that are not only here tonight that are in our schools as well as out in the community my job could not be done effectively if i didn't have social worker working with my patients as well as i thought about the musical therapist because we have music therapy sometimes with our patients and it does wonders for for children so um congratulations and thank you so much for all that you do i hope that next week with spring break coming around that everybody takes some time to you know reset and rejuvenate but be safe so that we
037can come back the the following week and and finish out this semester i'm really looking forward to things going forward getting better and better in terms of covet and i'm very very excited about graduation in june and that's all i'm going to say except for if you're eastern elementary eating breakfast i'll be there serving you on wednesday morning at 7 30. all right thank you benji forest yes thank you mr chair first of all i want to also congratulate everyone that was present this evening that received certificates for all of the excellence that they continue to provide as ambassadors for pitt county schools uh very appreciative of all their efforts as well as all the teachers and staff of pitt county schools we thank them very very much again i appreciate my colleagues as we
038continue to approve the mass optional i think that's a tremendous tremendous advancement of where we are and where we have been i also like to continue to thank the parents for their engagement it's been remarkable to see how the parents have been involved in our school system particularly over the last several months and it's very noticed and it's very appreciated i want to thank you very very much for that i would even encourage maybe the organization parents for public schools i would even encourage them to maybe some of these priorities some of these issues that we've dealt with maybe they would take them on as a priority and to embrace some of the things that have occurred because of parent engagement we're a better school system because of parent engagement yeah thank you that's called
039a dramatic pose trace i want to just kind of reiterate to please keep the families of angela suggs and cindy work in your thoughts and please continue to support them as they breathe their losses i'm really very overwhelmed by all the spotlight on teaching and learning tonight it just never ceases to blow my mind all the things that are going on athletically within our exceptional children's department of course i want to just reiterate happy national school social worker week they are so invaluable um the last time i asked for help from one was today you know it takes a true team to try to address all children's needs so i'm always very appreciative of all the things that social workers do and just congratulations to pitt county schools for all of our public relations awards
040and as always thank you for your public expression i always try to listen to those carefully and understand the sentiment of our community so i always appreciate that amy well everything is always get said about having me around but i same thing i'm keeping those families in my prayers and for all the wonderful spotlight teaching and learning it's amazing to see and i'm really impressed with the health policy program the fact that i have to come up with a 30 to 50 page policy and that's not just a paper it's like a policy that's amazing that these kids are doing that i actually have one of one of those in that list who was not here tonight is one of my students currently so i'm going to make sure i tell her congratulations tomorrow when
041i see her so that's very exciting so it's always good to see that and all the wonderful things going on again thank you to the social workers um of course our public relations department always getting awards it's really great to see and then um all the people of course it was very short tonight but all the public expression that we get again whether people believe it or not we do listen and we do think about everything that gets said and even though things that may not seem like we're doing something on the surface there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that the public doesn't know about so i thank you for all that information as well thank you annabelle i echo the the appreciation for all those who showed up tonight and who
042shared their thoughts with us um school safety and safety of our kids at school is very important to me i know it is to my fellow board members as well so you can trust that that is at the forefront of our minds and we'll continue to be as well i'm super proud of all of our students who just are going above and beyond and have pushed through a couple really difficult years and continue to absolutely exceed expectation and then i i'm just going to close by saying you know as as board members it is it is fair and it is um healthy for the public to keep us accountable for our decisions and i have no trouble being held accountable for things that people like and things that people don't and i'm always eager to
043engage with people when they're willing to so thank you to those of you who've been willing to engage but i i'm troubled when unfair shots are taken at my fellow board members that are undeserved and while amy does not need my my defense of her the reason that i responded to a particular issue is because it was aimed at me it was i was named um and and i was happy to as amy would have been happy to and has dealt with a lot of things when she's asked to so to to say that she did nothing as usual is incredibly out of bounds and unfair amy works incredibly hard as do all my other board members and whether we agree or disagree this is this is a difficult job and there is a lot
044going on that people don't know so continue to hold us accountable for our decisions that is completely the right thing to do um but i'm proud to serve with these folks and i i am particularly saddened when things are accusations are hurled that are unjust thank you ray ford yeah i would like to request that at our next board workshop that we get a report on school discipline at our next board workshop if we if we can because i recently i've been hearing uh where there are beginning to be a whole lot more fights in school i'm not responding to anyone tonight you know speaker or anything but i'm here there's more fights in school we've had uptick in weapons in school i'm getting a lot of checks i get texts where resource officers have
045been involved and all of that's concerning to me because i mean if we got a fight in a school when i had fights in school those kids were out and you may say well you're putting a kid out out of school but i'm also looking at kids that are coming to school every day and wanting to learn and many of those kids once you begin to give them a consistent discipline that they know is going to happen they pull back from fights in fact if if we're consistent in what we do given a tough discipline all that discipline will go down and we'll have less fights in school i know it works because i i have been involved in it as a principal and i just think we as a board we need a presentation
046on it you know i know at the end of the year we're always concerned about out of school suspensions and and numbers and so forth i think we we're pushing and beginning to focus on numbers more than we are safety and the good learning that we can promote with in good safe environments with within our schools so that's what i would request thank you don roose i concur with mr ford's comments at one inception the uh i've never been concerned about out-of-school suspension numbers if it makes the school safe so just to tell y'all my points on that i've been there with mr forrest before i'd like to congratulate all award winners tonight i know the the following two items have not been officially announced but i've got friends that have where noah mcconney is
047senior d.h connolly has been awarded the ec scholar at east carolina university which means she has early assurance into her school of choice which is nursing program and she's also short after she graduates a spot in the phd program in nursing so that's a great ec scholar if you know much about east carolina in the honors program you need to learn about it also judge marvin blunt and his wife rebecca's daughter eleanor blunt was selected for morehead kane scholarship at the university of north carolina that is a prestigious scholarship congratulations to those two young ladies ellen attends j.h rose high school and finally former central high school boys and girls both will be back in the state championship for the fourth consecutive year the boys will be going for their fourth straight championship the girls
048two out of the last four so best of luck to the jaguars on saturday thank you caroline daughter thank you caroline i do miss being there with you all i hope that i can be back sometime soon um i do want to extend my deepest condolences to the work and subs families and to the staff and students at farmville middle and the alpha center really thankful for all their years and contributions to our students and our schools that i know they'll be sorely missed really proud of our swimmers and wrestlers from two different high schools who won state championships and represented pitt county schools so very well and also so proud of all the health policy scholars i think this is the first year for that that represented all the high schools really need more
049young folks involved with health policy development and i hope that many of them will go on to pursue this as a major in college and maybe even on to state and national elective office to write policy that helps families right here in pitt county with regard to their health i also like to do a shout out for the school social workers they really are the glue that helps our students and their families make school work um in my field we have we have something called social determinants of health well social determinants can get in the way of effective education as well and school social workers are our front line professionals who help overcome many of those issues that impact a student's ability to learn very very grateful for them especially being one myself so thank
050you and my hat's off to them that's all thank you again thank you to all of you that come out to be in our meetings on tonight we thank those for your public expressions and i do agree with with anna barrett and i believe the board agrees that this board works very well together they work very hard to make sure things ran well the pitt county schools working with the superintendent and his staff and they do not deserve ones coming up calling them out like that making accusations of things that are not true we are going to be looking at that and if that's the only reason that some want to come for public expression we decided to stay home these people are dedicating their time and their services to the students and staff of
051pitt county schools and it takes a lot of work it takes a lot of time there's not a week go by that i don't talk with dr linker and other employees of pitt county schools and this board this board do work well together we're trying to make decisions on the best interests of all of our students and as i said before we should care about all of our schools every school that is in pitt county we want to make it so that every child that attends that school is proud of their school when they're graduating from their high school we want them proud of their high schools these are some of the things that we're working towards that pitt county high school pitt county schools all the pitt county schools will be some of the
052best schools in the eastern part of north carolina things said about mass whether we vote to approve mass or disapprove math this does not just happen in pitt county it's all over the nation everybody had to make those decisions we're not the only board that have had to make those decisions these have not been easy decisions these have been times that none of us expected two years ago that will come our way and everybody including all of you had to readjust our schedules we had to readjust our lives because of this pandemic a lot of lives been lost a lot of people have been sick and still sick from the virus and so we take our votes serious when it comes to discussions about mass whether wearing masks and all of that and so it
053is not good to make fun of decisions like that that the boy has to make if the shoe was on the other foot i wonder how some of you will decide what is best for the students and staff of pitt county and so as we continue to go forward and work together i appreciate all of you that come out i appreciate the communities that are supporting our athletes going to some of the basketball games to see the community come out see the families come out and support these teams they're very encouraging again let us go forward and let us remember all of us have feelings all of us are humans regardless of what area the county we live and so we should treat everybody with respect if you want to be respected then respect somebody
054else and so i that's all i ask that when you do come show some respect you can get things done and don't have to use profanity you don't have to maliciously call people out and still get things done i tell dr lincoln sometimes i don't know how he does it this man works hard and his phone i know rings all the time and so again let us move forward and work it together thank you again for being out tonight at this time we're going to close session we're turning over to mr don road i make a motion to go in closed session pursuant to general status 143.318. for the following purposes under subsection a3 to consult with our attorney to preserve the attorney-client privilege and to consider and give instructions concerning judicial actions titled gay
055versus waffett 21 cvs 3617 coleman versus pitt county board of education 21 cbs 1080 and haddock versus pitt county board education we have not closed 71 21 cbs 3653 you just stuck in it this is caroline carolyn caroline ii don all right we will begin amy cole yes annaberry samia yes benjamin forest yes caroline daughter carolyn dougherty yes don rhodes yes melinda forgot for gondor yes tracer lens yes where forward motion pack we are in closed session on what