001i'd like to call the pitt county board of education august meeting to order i'd like to welcome all those that are out there watching online um thank you for joining tuning in to watch us tonight this is an exciting time we first time in a long time we have an open meeting where people can attend so i thank you for attending um it's kind of different set up around here it's kind of kind of nice and i will go ahead and state right now that i am wearing a mask because we're in a room with a large number of people and i need to get on a plane thursday and not be infected so i'm just trying to protect myself so that i can fly to indiana to move my son back to college so
002it has nothing to do with anything anybody might be here to speak about tonight um but i just wanted to make that kind of clear up front okay and at this time i will ask carol and donorty to please stand and get the pledge of allegiance please rise of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and now we'll have a moment of silence okay thank you caroline we're going to move on to our routine business is there any adjustments to the agenda hearing none have a motion to approve the agenda i mean that we've approved the agenda as well second second by worth all in favor please is there any
003discussion all in favor raise your right hand please passes unanimously thank you very much and we will move on to public expression just so everyone knows public expression up until now after the pandemic started we were doing it online this is our first meeting where we're opening it up to the true public to come in and express how we're going to follow is that individuals will be given three minutes to address the board if you're here to represent a group you'll have five minutes and during that time i believe carol will the timer be on the screen so she will have an uh countdown so you can look and judge you know the time when you're speaking and when the time is up um you'll be asked to to quit speaking if you're not done
004with your talk we also as a board do not respond to what you're saying it doesn't mean we're not hearing you we just that it that's our policy we listen to what you say and and process it so please don't be offended if we don't respond to you okay and we're gonna start off with our first one df fleming jr md who is going to represent it says a group are you a grouper yes ma'am okay because okay this is concerned citizens of eastern north carolina you have five minutes is this on now yes okay as a now retired medical educator and retired physician for 40 years in pitt county i've become increasingly concerned about the declining curriculum and the test scores in primary secondary and higher education getting away from basic instruction in science
005math and history towards a new progressivism and its insult assault on conservative values including emphasis on rational thinking universal values objective knowledge meritocracy and acknowledged support of the enlightenment and western judeo-christian culture within the past few weeks our own united states department of education tried to formulate a plan to include critical race theory crt and the 1619 project as a requirement for receiving certain u.s grant money but unfortunately this has been pushed back at least for the time being by conservative senators in congress the concerned citizens of eastern north carolina group at our recent july meeting wants to gain information from the board about the revised north carolina dpi curriculum especially for history and social service studies number one do these new standards obtain or contain any elements of crt even if not named as
006such opponents to crt claim that this is the case now number two which members of this board have actually read through all these standards number three for those who have read the standards have they found any hint of crt teaching number four for those who have read the standards can they assure and will they assure and confirm to the pitt county parents that crt is absolutely not being taught in our public schools number five if the board members have not read these standards then how can board members honestly and ethically reassure us parents that crt is not being integrated now or in the near future in pitt schools number six if any teacher should because of flawed reading of these standards or political persuasion or progressive social motivation or some personal agenda if they happen
007to teach crt elements in the classroom what recourse would follow either at the individual school level or the superintendent or the board of education number seven what is the board's policy if any teacher gives specific instruction to a student or class that any lesson class assignment or homework project be concealed or falsely identified to the parents in some areas of this country such deliberate secrecy is now being carried out we believe strongly that crt is divisive inappropriate for elementary and middle grades and questionable for most high school students so let us promise to better educate and never just indoctrinate our children our group will be watching so thanks very much for your attention thank you very much and i apologize if i read your pronounce your name wrong alex [Music] and your individual representation that's
008correct okay so you'll have three minutes yes ma'am thank you you're welcome members of the pcs board thank you for opening up the floor this evening i come before you tonight to ask that you vote to not enforce a mask mandate in the classrooms for the 2021-2022 school year although i'm not a medical doctor i am able to research efficiently and am highly proficient with statistics i understand how numbers can be manipulated and how they can tell the truth 98 of face masks being worn by the population are akin to cutting the sleeve off your t-shirt and wearing it over your face the cd's cdc's website states a single layer cloth mask has the ability to block particles in the 10 to 20 micron range the coven 19 virus itself is one tenth of a
009micron the virus is typically expelled while attached to other particles in the 8 10 to 1 micron size this is a long shot from the 10 to 20 microns that a typical cloth mask protects against we currently also have no long-term research on the effects of children breathing in damp expelled air for eight hours at a time as a father of three it would be wrong and downright negligent of me to stand here in front of you and persuade you to vote for something that would harm my children i think everyone in the room that's a parent would agree with that i've watched children suffer this past year not being able to see their friends faces not being able to watch them laugh and not learning about emotional behavior through facial expressions some of these
010children don't even know what their classmates truly look like because the only time they've seen their faces they have a mask on we've already put these children through enough during the 2020 2021 school year on the way to school last year i had a conversation with my son he asked about how his mother and i got married and during that conversation he asked me daddy will i have to wear a mask when i get married will i have to wear a mask forever we have brainwashed our children into thinking this is normal behavior children are the least impacted age group when it comes to coveted infections and the least likely to have serious complications these kids have been at summer camps swim team playing baseball and join time with their friends all summer long while
011not wearing masks through july 31st north carolina has reported that the age group 5-17 had the lowest percentage of coveted infections outside of zero to four all while doing all the same activities without masks this summer according to the survey put out by pcs sixty percent of the parents voted to not enforce the mass mandate also according to pcs data eighty percent of the faculty has been vaccinated everyone that wants to get the vaccine has now had an opportunity to do so including children ages 12 and older at this point i ask you to vote no for the mass mandate for the 2021 school year excuse me 2021 2022 i've also seen photos on facebook of pcs summer workshops where there are no masks being worn and not social distance how can we expect our
012children wear masks in the classroom when their summer workshops with no masks being worn by faculty don't put our children through another year of emotional anguish and isolation by mandating masks thank you thank you very much and kirsten bean and you're representing a group is that correct okay so um you will have five minutes okay thank you you're welcome good evening ladies and gentlemen i am parenting three children through the public school system and i'm here to voice concern and frustration i have as our 2021 2022 school year is upon us i want to be heard on the first challenge i face as a parent awaiting the decision to mandate masks or to allow freedom of choice citing the recent pcs survey where the public school community's input on the wearing of masks was sought
013a clear majority of the respondents 60 advocated for optional only masking of children this fall at the specially called meeting of july 28th we expected the board to honor that concise and clear feedback by voting to make mask wearing optional rather this board delayed the decision until august 16th citing that the survey was not a vote by parents nor an informed discussion due to an abrupt change in the directives given by our governor and our state public health authorities i believe an illegitimate and misinformed agenda is guiding the situation this board says it is committed to the safety of all children teachers and staff in public schools the board says it is committed to transparency with the public in the making of controversial decisions the board says it strictly seeks medical expertise for input when
014making decisions about masks however i challenge the guidelines you're following i question your transparency and i distrust who and what is influencing your decision on this issue i ask that it be the public which pcs serves that guides the board's decision about mask wearing i ask that the overwhelming majority voice of respondents be heard respected and represented my children need to return to classrooms freely with choice and that their rights as individuals are honored thank you adam chair what was the name of the group if you don't mind saying that when they add advocates pardon me is that correct ed at advocates and next we have the first gentleman's name madam chair was alex what the second spell okay thank you i'm sorry up next we have miss diane taylor and this is individual so
015you have three minutes thank you my name is diane taylor and i'm the mother of two children i have a 10 year old who attends eastern elementary and i also have a middle schooler who attends cmes i've been a public advocate for public schools my whole life and especially as a parent most of you are aware of that but yet this is the first time that i find the need to actually come and address you all about a specific issue and that is in regards to the mass mandate which i am in favor of because my son who is 10 does not have the option of being vaccinated he's also the class president of his school and he's very active last year my children were virtual the entire year it was painful not just for
016us but for them not to see their friends however our house has been safe from covet i'm not here as the board of trustees providing i'm here as a mom i'm here as a mom of a child who's scared of being in school with his friends who may catch covet as a business owner i can also remind you of how many calls we received last year saying that school was interrupted because there were students that were in the classroom that were exposed to covit that causes a lot of issues for parents at the last minute who then find themselves scurrying for child care it causes a lot of issues with schools interrupting instruction i'm asking for a mass mandate not for me and not for my vaccinated 12 year old who decided on her own
017but for my son who is 10 and the only person in our house who's unvaccinated i expect my board of education to respect all views but to put the safety of children and the staff at a higher portion of priority than anything else thank you thank you and we have next doctor kashida jackson you'll have three minutes also good afternoon my name is dr kishida jackson i'm here speaking on behalf of my two boys one who is vaccinated and one who is not he's not because he's not of age yet to receive the vaccination i've worked in health care for over 20 years i've been fortunate enough to hold hands of those that were sick celebrate with those who were having great great success in their life i've worn a mask for many hours for
018different events in the hospital i understand that ultimately mass will not prevent the spread of the virus but it will reduce the spread i understand that we have many people who do not feel that the mask will work but we do have many children and adults who live in multi-family households that wear in the mass will not only protect those that are at school but it will protect those that who are in their homes as well i understand that the survey did go out and 60 percent of those were in favor and 40 percent were not but in eastern north carolina we know that the data supports that we all do not have access to internet we have the privilege to have the internet and then there are those that are lacking because we do
019live in a marginalized community guidance was provided by the cdc the american academy of pediatrics and north carolina healthcare association that stated that vast work as well as vaccines we trust the science for tylenol we trust the science for hypertension medication we trust the science for blood pressure medication but in this case we are arguing what data tells us data tells us that mass reduce the spread of the virus i understand also that when children get the vaccine that they have a likelihood to reduce other people getting him those that go into the schools they can get respiratory diseases gi diseases and multi-system influ infra i can't even talk system effects that can be deadly for our little people that have long-term effects such as cardiac diseases and other long-term advance effects that we will
020not be able to know what that will lead to as covet evolves the science should also evolve and that's what happens we follow the science i ask that we listen to what the scientists say we follow the recommendation of those that we listen to when we are sick i ask that this falls on your ears and your hearts and that we pay attention to what our science says for our children and for our community thank you and next we have miss julia petra good afternoon my name is julia petrasso i am the mother of three children two of which go to eastern elementary prior to that they went to wintergreen and a little one who is attending daycare can't wait for her to go to school i am here speaking only in my individual capacity
021however that opinion has been derived from the work that i do i am one of the supervising attorneys for the pitt county department of social services i have been a lawyer for the pitt county department of social services since 2009. i am a parent that is extraordinarily privileged i live in a two-parent household we have two incomes both my husband and i are able to earn wages that allow our children to have all the amenities in life they take piano and guitar they play hockey they do jiu jitsu they take dance and much to my chagrin they have picked up trumpet when we went virtual last year i was lucky enough to have both the resources financially and the community around me to do a nanny share with other public school parents but i am
022not here to tell you about my incredibly lucky life i am here to tell you about the front line social workers and the kids we serve who are not nearly as fortunate currently there are 182 children in the foster care system in pitt county there are 100 families not children but families that we serve in in-home services double that for families with two kids triple that for three so effectively we have our in-home social services workers providing in-home services to well over 100 households in this community and we have 269 families with open investigations and assessments that means every time somebody calls in a report to the pitt county department of social services and it gets screened in an investigation is open there are 269 open investigations right now our schools for better or worse
023are our frontline workers from the bus drivers that greet them in the morning to the teachers that welcome them upon arrival the cafeteria workers that provide their food and nutrition and all the administrators that provide support and guidance throughout the day our kids have a right to education but they also have a right to safety appropriate food and nutrition and an opportunity to report exposure to abuse and neglect we cannot do that if the schools shut down again or go virtual we have a collective social responsibility to look after all of our students if schools are closed we have no eyes on the children that are most vulnerable and i ask when you make your decision you think about those kids and who's going to be looking out for them thank you thank you i
024believe that is all that we have for our public so we'll move to consent items for approval and just so everyone will know on consent is the board minutes from june 7th june 21st special called meeting on the 23rd and the of june and the 28th of july we have minutes um included for a closed session on the 21st as well as the personnel report for august 2nd do i have a motion to approve a move that we approve the consent items caroline's made a motion a second second by tracy any discussion hearing none all in favor to approve right hand up please passes unanimously thank you and we are going to move on to new business madam chair and the board you all may recall that back earlier this year you retained deborah stagner
025and blake eshelston who is a demographer with the company map figure consulting deborah works with darrington smith and raleigh ms stagner and mr echelston are going to help the board with the potential need to realign board districts following the 2020 2020 census to be clear we are not talking about school redistricting in this conversation we are talking purely about election districts and the principle of one person one vote ms stagner is joining us remotely from raleigh and she will be giving you a presentation to further explain the legal issues the process and then seek some info put from the board regarding factors you may wish to provide factors you do wish to provide to mr echelston uh in the map drawing process so without further ado i'll let ms stagner take over thank you um
026let me know if you can hear me yes yes all right thank you um so as um ms hudson said this board has engaged my law firm harrington smith and and myself as well as we will be working with a demographer like esselstyn with matt figure consulting to assist and advise the board and reapportioning its electoral districts for election and board members i know the word redistricting can sometimes get school folks into a little bit of a tizzy but the redistricting that we're talking about is redistricting or reapportionment or realignment and it's a regular process of adjusting the lines of voting districts in accordance with population shifts and so i'm going to try to just share my screen so that are you seeing the screen the slimes how about that well it shows that i
027am sharing my screen and it is showing you so blake is not here this evening although he has had some input to this presentation and i'll just sort of walk you through it so we are working with a a group of uh other attorneys and demographers in what's called the local redistricting service and as explained in our engagement letter we are working with local governments who need to redistrict in order to conduct the redistricting in an open public and non-partisan process so i just want to cover a few topics tonight and give you an introduction and an overview of the process starting with who needs to redistrict what kind of demographic changes lead to that result some legal considerations an overview of the process and then a timeline that i propose for this board so
028does the first question is does the pit county board of education need to redistrict well about 36 boards of education in north carolina are subject to redistricting because they have at least some of their members that are elected by district and those are true election districts pig county board of education is one of those you have nine districts only voters residing in the district may vote for the board member from that district so it's a true election district and that requires you to consider redistricting one person one vote does not apply to residency districts or those where the candidates are only required to live in the district that can still run at large the principle of one person one vote requires those electoral districts to be apportioned so that the votes have equal weight and
029those regular apportionments are required to prevent the districts from becoming so about so out of balance that that principle is violated this board is not going to know for certain whether its districts are out of balance as to require redistricting until the census data is released later this month so we look at the deviation range of the districts but we will not know that until the census data is related typically comes in march of the census the march following a census year but this year there were significant delays and we were expecting that the numbers to come in mid-august so these are um next couple of slides or some maps that were created by blake and this shows you a map of north carolina with the increase or decrease of population in account in the
030various counties based on estimates from 2019 and as you can see hit county as a whole we can look at those estimates and and determine that the county as a whole has grown in population by about seven and a half percent since the 2010 census we can also tell that by looking at the block groups the percentage of population change has not been equal across the county this may be a little hard to read but if you see in just looking within pitt county there are some areas that have decreased in population in some areas that have increased in population significantly so all of those different factors will be taken into account in determining whether the board's current districts need to be readjusted or rebalanced the rule for determining that is not exact equality in
031the context of local legislative districting there can be some deviation from the perfect ideal population equality to accommodate traditional redistricting principles the traditional rule of thumb and what has been approved or upheld by the courts is a deviation of five percent for what we're redistricting above or below the ideal district population size if the population deviation falls within this five percent rule the district map is presumptively complying with one person limbo but this is the board of education's current districts and the um because the census data i'm sorry the census bureau's 2019 estimate that i just showed you of the total population of the county is 742. so if you look at that total and you divide that by nine districts you come up with an ideal size of 20 082 so if in an
032ideal perfect world if each district had exactly equal number of persons residing within it you would have about 20 000 people in each district using that 5 plus or minus rule the largest district should not exceed 21 086 and the smallest district should not have fewer than 19 078 people again these are some numbers from 2019 estimates the 2020 census data will give us those exact numbers but this gives you a sense an idea of what the um the population size of each district would look like so who's responsible for redistricting as school board members you are responsible for your redistricting for your board the new map the new districts do not have to be approved by the voters or by the county commissioners or any other outside body in some cases for some school
033boards there may be local act or look uh court order that provides how that is to occur but in this case you are not subject to such a local act or court order so once the board has decided on its new districts and this new maps those districts would be adopted by by resolution and the legal authority for redistricting is 115 c um i'm sorry north carolina general statutes section 115 c-37i it just says that the local board of education shall revise electoral district boundaries from time to time to correct the population imbalances among the districts as shown by a new federal census and in establishing those districts the board of education must use the data derived from that most recent census you i'm sure will have questions about the role of race in redistricting
034race cannot be the predominant factor in redistricting unless it is narrowly tailored to a compelling governmental interest so what does predominant mean that is means that the courts would look at whether or not the race of voters better explained the boundaries of a district than traditional redistricting criteria and both the u.s constitution um prohibits drawing election districts for the purpose of discriminating against minorities and section two of the voting rights act prohibits any election method that has the effect of denying minority voters an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice so the electoral districts ultimately must not be drawn in a way to either dilute or over concentrate racial minority voting strength so as i've already said each district must be substantially equal in population but aside from that what must the board consider
035and what should it not consider so we've talked about the race not being a predominant factor in redistricting but some other guidelines obviously substantially equal population is required and that is the total population within the county or the district not the voting age population not the number of registered voters it's the total population some of the other factors that the board may consider is con contiguity so you want to have a district that has the boundary lines all following you know the territory within a continuous boundary so you don't have satellite pieces of a district you may wish to consider compactness keeping administrative boundaries together for example keeping municipalities whole keeping voting precincts whole using those as building blocks keeping census blocks whole the census block is the smallest unit or area that the census
036will count a population within keeping communities of interest together there may be certain neighborhoods or historical or cultural areas economic communities that that should be considered together that have the same interest and makes sense to be in the same district and then very often just for ease of the community and understanding where those boundaries are they follow visible physical features like waterways roadways and other areas that are natural dividing lines that is a generally accepted redistricting criteria so here is just a map of pitt county that shows the municipalities and the major roads so when blake sets about looking at the new district lines in addition to perhaps starting from where your current districts are he would take into account those major roads and municipal boundaries other areas you know this is uh voting precincts
037again for ease of election administration keeping voting precincts together it's not always possible but certainly something to to keep in mind helps avoid voter confusion other con other criteria as i mentioned can be it's not required that you preserve the core of existing districts but it certainly can help to avoid and cut down on voter confusion and allows continuity of representation compactness you don't want necessarily districts that look like inkblots but sometimes compactness has to give way to other criteria that you are using is absolutely permissible but not required to avoid putting two incumbents in the same district so if that's something that is important to your board it is a criteria that you can choose to to place importance on you may want to plan for expected population growth in the upcoming decade districts
038that contain fast growing centers of population you might want to give direction that those should be made a little bit smaller to accommodate and plan for future growth and then again you may want and then you may also want to consider what schools are in each board member's district again as i mentioned at the beginning we will not be using any uh political party data or other partisan considerations and drawing the districts for the board so then the next slide here is talking about the process what steps do you need to follow to get to your new to your new districts the first two steps are to determine the need to redistrict based on population disparities and adopt those criteria or guiding principles for redistricting and these two steps can be done in any order
039and because the timeline this year is so compact for completing redistricting i would encourage the board to consider the criteria and adopt redistricting criteria either this evening or or fairly soon so that once the census data is available that those maps can be begin to be drawn so once the board has adopted those redistricting criteria the lrs consultants blake and i will prepare two to three alternative redistricting plans you've chosen to delegate this initial drawing of the redistricting plans to us as your consultants but the final plan must be adopted by the full board and all actions that are taken by the board concerning redistricting will need to be done in a public open meeting and you may want to choose to hold a public hearing or in other ways get public input that is
040not required but it's certainly something that we recommend you'll have an opportunity to review the plans make suggestions or or request revisions to those plans and then ultimately again as i said the board will adopt a resolution for its new redistricting plan and then a copy of that resolution and the maps will be sent to the county board of elections who will then notify the residents in the new districts of the changes so that they will have that information when they vote i talked a little bit about the timeline and this year again we received the census data will receive the census data approximately august 16th of this year the ultimate deadline for completing the process is december 6th when the board the the election the filing period for the 2022 elections opens on december
0416. so this timeline that's on the screen is is a is a proposal but it does give the county board of elections about three weeks prior to that filing deadline in order to prepare and process the information for the board's new districts again in this time period of about uh 11 weeks between the end of august and the middle of november it's a short time frame to get in the drawing of the maps the reviewing of the maps any presentation at public hearings or for public input i would certainly recommend that blake be present when those maps are presented so that he can explain and give the background on how those were developed and so with that said i will be glad to take any questions thank you very much clarification on the uh election
042on the the the filing period starting december 6 i do believe in past elections in the non-presidential year election they've been in february i'm not i believe it was two years ago was it two years ago did y'all file this summer so i guess my question to that would be does that mean that our deadline would not be december 6th you would want to have this to them quickly so that they in november so that they are then able to advise anyone potentially seeking to run for reelection for those districts they'll need that on file and i think ms stagner can probably answer further but yes they would like for you to get it to them as soon as possible right but when we were looking at the december 6th deadline it was because of
043or the filing and such and if it's not until february i mean i don't want to drag my feed on this but yes but december 6 is the date that the filing period opens and it closes in december okay madam chair benji i don't believe we can do a whole lot until we get the population data i mean you got to find out where the population has moved to before we can come together and start working on it seems like to me did i hear did i hear miss uh stagner say that we'd be getting that in the next week or two so yes the the census data is uh the initial release is scheduled for no later than august 16th um but as i mentioned what this board assuming that you will need to
044redistrict given the um seven and a half percent increase in growth for the county as a whole and the um estimated distribution being not exactly equal across the county i think it's um probably a fairly safe bet that this board will need to redistrict and so given that you can go ahead and select your criteria determine what factors you want to consider in your redistricting prior to having those actual numbers so that once we do get the data um we can go ahead and start working on those redistricting plans it's my understanding that that the first step is is us collectively deciding what criteria we would like to to have considered for example the location of the schools um you know i know in some cases board members myself [Music] kind of what our criteria
045look like and then once we have a sort of master list of what those look like then as a board pair those down rather than tonight trying to come up with them or does that slow the process down again you absolutely can do that um this i and i i understand and i did um email to ms hudson a list that covers i think most of what was presented tonight but if if this board wants to take um take some time and have uh have a time opportunity for those criteria to sink in the ones that i've presented and recommended or or discussed this evening you can absolutely um give that get those to us later i just think that you will want to not postpone too long because until we do have those criteria
046blake will not be able to start drawing the maps because he won't know what the board's priorities are since we're planning to have a special meeting um [Music] the wednesday before perhaps would that be acceptable so the 11th the 11th yes okay so if everyone could you email emma what criteria that you find important and then she can put that all together feedback and then for the sake and represent that and then when we have our work session we can is this something we need i guess we need to vote on that then is that correct that is correct or just agree on it i think you could agree by consensus if no one objects you're all you know spitting the same criteria then yes if not then i think you all would need to
047take a vote miss stagner if you disagree if you would prefer that i mean i certainly think you can have it um agree on it by consensus that would be fine and i'm actually i you know i would be very happy to um to join you again on the 16th if that would be at all helpful okay all right so sir if everyone can send the information to emma by the yeah 11th chair i took notes when she was talking but we don't have this presentation did you say you have an email that lists all yes i send it potential factors that can be used yes it was sent to the board before tonight's meeting yes it was like right before it was literally yeah right very shortly that was right like when you sat
048down with it avoiding pairing incumbents as well as a similar number of schools yes ma'am it does include those factors is there any way we can get that presentation sent to us yes this presentation as well i think that would be helpful to go back about you make notes and if everyone could send their um information to emma by the end of the day on the 11th the ones that we do want to use yes and she can come not talk about you know the the first one on that list the equivalent i'm sorry substantially equal population is is something that's required correct for you to consider okay and then we'll have it presented what we've come up with and if you have it together i would like to ask if you have it together
049by the end of that week what it kind of looks like if you could send it to the board so they could you know review that before we come in on that monday and kind of get an idea like oh you know there's there's only five things or g was there's like 20 things on here so that way we'll be better prepared for that also it's the follow-up question are we i mean i'm assuming we'll do a timeline on the 16th because i'm in my opinion we need to have it done by the november board meeting okay is that our goal so we'll have a month yes know what they are yes okay anything else we need to cover questions comments okay thank you so much i appreciate your time and information thank you thank
050you all right let's move on to the next thing on our item on our agenda it's finance uh deborah baggett good evening good evening good evening so i do have two items tonight and the first is regarding teacher supplements so we would like to request that the board consider increasing teacher supplements to six and a half percent during the spring budget session increasing teacher supplements was a priority of the board and so buddy was included in the funding profession and so therefore we're requesting that the board approve an increase to six and a half percent we don't have a state budget at this time but we do know that usually when they you know give increases they fund those appropriately so and as far as our accounting software it would be easier to make changes
051later if we already had this in place and not have to change both all right do i have them did you raise your hands or something yeah well the only thing that i would say is it was a priority of the board and we all discussed this and we emphasized that whenever you know it was able for us to do this that we would try to increase the supplements for our teachers because we felt like we were losing you know good teachers to surrounding counties so i i make a motion that we approve what is a 6.5 percent yes 0.5 increase madam chair our second motion all right it's been motion's been made second by benji is there any further discussion madam chair these monies have been included through the through the county commissioners as
052an approved uh as approved anyway correct just not just we just need to review that enough for the public to understand that too yes yes okay if not let's vote all in favor use your right hand passes unanimously thank you very much and then you also have a request for purchase software and equipment yes we have got three items tonight that we're requesting approval for the first is audio enhancement from sentinel classroom systems the vendor is grace ed technologies and the cost is 869 and that'll come from esser funds that are related to covid because this is related to assisting with learning laws and then the other two are um ireti through a curriculum associates and that's a software product and and seventy three thousand one hundred and thirty five dollars and forty four cents
053and that serves k-eight a grade span and then decodables through reading horizons with sr2 funds for 186 079 dollars any questions i did have a question about the scope of work um how did you choose the three schools south greenville aid middle cms help me understand why those three are the ones that were chosen if you don't mind because those are the schools that already had the the classrooms built in the cameras built in so now we're adding the cameras to those classrooms or the the audio and the audio piece to those classrooms they had the cameras put in there years ago so we're now adding that piece and then we're actually in the esser budget there's actually uh more than almost two million dollars to add these in additional classrooms throughout the county but
054those are the classrooms that i've already started okay so this will be 73 classrooms and there'll be four speakers or audio ports per room this is a start to a longer process or this is a this is kind of the completion of a product that they started several years ago at those schools um and now we're adding the the audio piece the speakers which will be tied to the teacher and then we'll be able to add more schools and more classrooms later but this is something that started in those classrooms this piece just came out and they tied it together so now we can add this piece then we'll be able to able to add audio and visual later to other schools as when they i'm getting teachers are working with the school improvement teams
055now to decide who wants them we have a list of schools who already are on the list is there a valuation component to the effectiveness yes we have lots of documentation that supports this as far as a learning loss process as well as just makes the classroom better right i mean i would think that that would be useful for other schools and teachers who were on those improvement teams to have an understanding from our list is more than we have money for yes yeah all right that's reality all right thank you so is there a motion to approve motion to approve a second okay [Music] thank you very much and we will move on to educational programs and services with our teacher and school leader and center program dr seth brown and dr thomas ballard
056good evening everyone [Laughter] okay so it's good to see you thanks for taking a few minutes for letting us to talk with you tonight we'd like to share with you an opportunity to apply for another federal grant called the teacher and school leader grant tsl is kind of 2.0 of the tif program that we've been using the last couple years and so what we're going to share with you here is a proposal we're working on it's due to the feds in a couple weeks excuse me and so we're gonna we're gonna just kind of go through it and i knew that i do this for a living see these guys here we go all right so here's the overview of the program um tsl the purpose of the program uh you'll see here is to
057develop implement improve or expand expand comprehensive performance-based compensation systems or human capital management systems for teachers principals and other school leaders and a portion of funds may be used to study the effectiveness fairness quality consistency and reliability of those programs for educators basically this is that's all we're already doing that okay so that's what all these advanced teaching roles are that we have the facilitating teachers multi-classroom teachers they're components of our system so what we're looking is to expand this to some more more people it's a three year program if we are funded it would start in october and in september of 2024 and it does have the option to apply for a 24-month extension based on where we get within three years and it does require a 33 match by the district basically for
058every three dollars of the program we have to contribute one that can be through a lot of different things so the way we're meeting that generally is through salaries we're already paying for people we've been able to we're working on finalizing the budget this is based in large part along the grant proposal we presented to you last year that we did not get and so we're taking some of those same things that we've been funding throughout the throughout the year and that'll so there should not be any additional expenditures for us right now so the objectives we have two main ones the first one is really to build off the success from the tiff program uh over the last five years we've had external evaluator we've had a tremendous amount of success we're actually in
059september the end of september hosting the advanced teaching role sharing session for the state of north carolina right here in the kathy taft center to really highlight some of the success in some of the programs we've seen not only with individual teachers and individual communities of practice but really across the entire district so that's the bottom line that's why it is r3 phase 2 how do we cultivate exponential leaders and these highly effective systems the other two things is there are two main areas of focus one is with pathways how do we expand the pathways for non-classroom teachers non-instructional based teachers people like media coordinators uh guidance counselors principals and assistant principals how do we utilize those folks to also tackle problems of practice across the entire district so that's one thing that we're making
060sure we're trying to expand this just not with classroom teachers but beyond that to make sure every educator in pitt county has access to one of these one of these really communities of practice handle um the other thing too is really to look at the system as a whole and that's really what this is about especially with looking at our high needs schools and how do we make sure we take care of every single child every single day in the entire district and we're going to get back in just one second and present okay from current slack all right so then from these objectives um kind of clustered them in five areas so the first one is really to expand the opportunities for leadership amongst every educator so this comes in large part in response
061to the teachers and administrators who over the last five years have said we really want to have access to these additional roles that give us extra money and yet because of some of the requirements under tiff we were not able to do that so part of our purpose was to say now if we can get some additional funds to do this how can we do that um so a couple ways we're looking at is one um seth has already mentioned to kind of expand these communities of practice to to move from just what's happening at the school to moving across the district so having people in multiple schools addressing kind of district issues to grow on then we're also looking to expand the mentoring aspect so both for beginning teachers putting in some additional mentoring
062supports as well as for teachers who are pursuing national board candidacy to give them some support people to provide feedback on their applications really as a way to increase our pass rate on that we know that national board teachers generally increase their effectiveness in the classroom and working with students so trying to get more teachers who are national board certified one of the advantages of national board is in terms of pay the state pays for that so it does lead to a 12 percent raise for teachers that we don't have to cover as a district and then finally uh just giving some additional opportunities for principals and aps to collaborate and mentor each other so not only having cops which are communities of practice for them to to collaborate on but also putting in things
063like mentors for new assistant principals having principals mentor assistant principals that are in our academy program that are trying to become principals really just help them develop their capacity as they move forward and objective two really focuses on school administrators the goal here is to support and empower school leaders to effectively lead teachers in a dynamic world bottom line is we know that we need effective leaders to lead effective schools and what we've seen over the last five years as we have these events teaching role teachers these are highly effective teachers teachers who know how to collaborate and work together leading them is different than leading a school of all beginning teachers so how do we make sure we support those folks how do we make sure our leaders are building leaders to take care
064of the problems within our school make sure we take care of every single student so really there are two main areas there one is to increase opportunities for school administrators to be coached both news administrators your new principal new assistant principal as well as our high fliers one of the things we learned from tiff is some of our most effective teacher leaders were the when they were coached they became even that much more effective so how can we apply those lessons learned to our school administrators the second piece to this is how do we make sure we increase the skills of our school administrators to coach teachers and their staff how do we make sure they are building leaders within the school there's some neat things we've learned over tiff that we've been experimenting with
065and piloting and working with and we're looking at how do we scale that up across the entire district now so that is with objective two objective three looks at the um systems level and we're talking about how can we align professional development across the system um including professional development job expectations and personnel evaluation to better support staff so one of the things we learned again under tiff is that when people knew what had very clear expectations and then their support mirrored that expectation and they knew what they were going to be evaluated on that led to better performance um which should make sense to all of us right um so just trying to do a better job of that in the system so that that looks like a couple of different things one is a
066more clear onboarding process for every teacher not only every new teacher but anyone who enters into a new role so what are the expectations when you're a new assistant principal or what are the expectations when you move into you know if you move out of a classroom teacher into an advanced teaching role so becoming very clear and onboarding a second part of that is to clarify what professional development looks like in the district to bring some standards some national standards across that we've talked uh that you know in classrooms there are certain expectations for how instruction is delivered with students as so then to bring that same philosophy to when we work with adults like what is our way of learning um and teaching with adults and then finally giving some additional supports for national
067board candidates particularly from high needs schools so again we mentioned the coaching looking at some financial options to help support them oh and four i have as well so um four is to create what we call an office of continuous improvement and program effectiveness so caroline this kind of goes back to what you were just asking dr lanker about with you know is there data to support this um we know that across the board you know we we invest a lot of resources in the district and we really experience the value of having high quality program evaluation that we paid for through the grant and so the question became how can we bring that same advantage to other things we do in the district so we've got lots of programs what's the way that we
068can figure out what's really working and what's not working where it's not working what do we need to do to make it better and fix it or do we need to reallocate some stuff and those things that are working how do we share that and you know and expand that so the idea here is to create an office of continuous improvement we would actually work with right now uh the plan would be to work with the tier one university to help us learn um really and master the process of doing those evaluations what they would call in continuous improvement this is really about improving effectiveness and efficiency um so not only like we've got escrow funds we're spending we've got district funds we spend every year so really about how do we make our system
069much more effective and much more efficient by looking at data by trying different things and then being able to share that data out and number five is to align and focus school and district efforts to meet the various needs of all students and adults primarily we have a lot of high need schools in this district in fact the majority of our schools are have a high need so how do we make sure that we're able to to impact all those students and make sure those students are taken care of so really the first thing is to identify current learning gaps and any potential contributing factors so this is going to involve school teams making sure we're doing that and taking care of that across the entire district and then the next thing is making sure
070we look at how do we make sure that students in high needs schools have the same an opportunity to have the same opportunities and needs as every student in every school so that way when we come and recruit a business or we come and recruit a group or a parent to come here we make sure we know it doesn't matter what school you're at because your child's going to be taken care of your child is going to learn your child's going to have access to some of the best educators in the state of north carolina so that really objective 5 is about making sure we take care of every single child every single day for them so so then in terms of our next steps um we have to finalize the proposal we've been working
071with the grant writer to get the narrative done and like i said it is due the 13th that's what will be submitted to the feds pending approval and um we're working to to get letters to support and also finalize budgets and you know we have rough frameworks but some of the stuff we're still working on the details so that's that's our work for the next next two weeks so um with that thank you carolyn i'd just like to say it's incredibly exciting that y'all are um keeping the momentum going from r3 and tiff and building on that success and i'm just so thankful that the two of you sound just as excited today as you did what five years ago when you first presented these types of ideas of helping our staff not only learn
072how to teach but learn how to do inquiry-based evaluation that in real time not a year later not two years later next month next week the end of the week is are able to improve on instruction and it's just so exciting to see that we're in what the third generation of this now and i guess when we took it on in the beginning i remember thinking what's going to happen this is always you know when you're a grant what's going to happen when the money runs out and you just like is it all going to fall apart and we're going to be left with what used to be and what i just love how you all have really broadened the way we look at um how to fund this and and how to expand the
073learning um that you've been able to achieve and i'm so excited about it and i am happy to move that we accept your proposal for august 13th thank you thank you all right i have a motion to approve a second well i knew that we approved it there was a motion in there thank you caroline and mr rhodes second i do have a question absolutely um appreciate you guys bringing all this money to pitt county we just uh try to find all you can yes sir but at the same time you mentioned something about an office of say that again because here is my issue when the grant runs out is the bureaucracy going to continue and then who pays for it so part of the idea behind it's the office of continuous improvement and
074program effectiveness so we have to make sure we know through r3 that dr linker actually said this when we started the qbt program he said if this program is good we'll find a way to fund it but what that means is money doesn't grow on trees so we have to find it somewhere and so the idea here is how can we make sure that we look at within our own district how do we build capacity ourselves to know not only what's good because there are a lot of programs that are good we have to continue what's great so we have to make sure that we're able to say not so much on the good let's improve those but the great things we have to keep and that'll will help us sustain programs and that's what
075we've figured out through the the support of senior staff and endeavor and the finance folks just making sure we're able to continue the advanced teaching roles because those were programs that had a huge impact on our teachers and students i think this office to me is one of the things i'm most excited about um the tier one university where we're working with right now um i like some colors sometimes and i know sometimes i like red i like purple i like blue yeah i i noticed that but here's the thing no matter what whatever university we work with bottom line is they're going to teach our folks how to how to answer the question that you're actually asking and that to me is one of the things i'm most excited about so we can sustain
076it beyond because we know where we need to seek our money thank you sir any other questions or further discussion before we vote they all in favor of approval by hand passes unanimous thank you thank you everyone thank you very much and up next we have this board who's going to talk to us about the 2021-2022 title one plan the title one funding budget is the heading there you go all right good evening madam chair board members dr linker and all that are present thank you for this opportunity again to present our 2021-22 pitt county schools district district title 1 plan first let's begin with our district set aside page and share the changes from this last academic year to this upcoming school year beginning with the monies allotted you see that is at the
077top i'm going to try to work this time the time leave nope i don't do this for a living okay it's not working but at the top you see our title one planting allotment um 9 million thousand seven hundred and ninety three dollars um that is a slight decrease from last year to this year by eighty thousand dollars but as you are aware we have received the cares act so one so2 which in response to the covet has been a support to the schools and to the district there are some increases in the district number five the district-wide instructional initiative and the district-wide professional development and that is for the increase in insurance and the supplements that you just voted on for the salaries other than that things have stayed the same we have those
078various line items like homeless and our 820 000 that we give for pre-k those pretty much have stayed the same for the upcoming school year what questions do you have regarding the district set-aside if there are no questions let's move to the school allocations miss carol all right so these this is our allocations for our schools for this year good news is the top schools are cep schools and they have not changed we have the same cep schools as we had last year good news too that they will get a slight increase this year if you look at the bottom half which was not bottom half the bottom tier those are non-cep schools and they have decreased slightly when i looked and compared from last year to this year maybe anywhere between 3 thousand to
079ten thousand depending upon their adm but not significant and again you know we have those um in response to covey i have to keep saying that that there are some funds that support them so that's where we are the good news is again we have um monies to be able to help these title one schools um i do need to share with you as i came to you last year that we had two schools that were grandfathered in based on their adm and them being below the threshold so we did have two schools to come off this year which were wintergreen and a.g cox they were below that 35 threshold regarding their free and reduced lunch population of students which schools are not on that list you have your high schools with the exception of
080your early colleges and chicag a.g cox wintergreen those three yes sir with the exception of our six regular high schools what questions do you have madam chair just to clarify on the free and reduced lunch to 100 percent what's the percentage that gets us to the 100 i know schools are not 100 but well um these are cp schools and one at the top so it kind of varies what clarifies that to let them be there is what i'm saying that's decided with our school nutrition office which schools are chosen for cep basically it comes the total pop the total number of pre-reduced lunch kids in the school basically it's a mathematical program if it works outdoor we can actually supply pre-reduced lunch for every free lunch for every kid breakfast and lunch uh in
081the school we can actually give them a hundred percent and actually covers the cost of it that's basically the federal program so yeah yeah doing that is there a percentage though anywhere from some of them are 100 percent but 60 somewhere in the neighborhood of 63 to 65 percent something plus we can certainly give you a list and no that's i mean i just want to know the number i know it's right it's in the 60s generally okay and that comes out as school nutrition and they can combine schools together to help do that because because you know a lot of our schools are in the 60s and but we're able to keep them on this list if i've made this man i think i remember when you said it's a calculation i believe when
082i first heard about it was a financial calculation it was going to correct cost us less in labor because it does save us some money because you don't have to worry about handling cash obviously or out of school so you don't have somebody looking at and managing it's like a less fewer personnel needed to manage it and that's how we save money and serve more children at the same time is that that's part of the calculation right we can actually serve a lot more students which obviously if you're getting more reimbursements from the from the from the federal government on those breakfasts and lunches if you're serving more kids you're getting more reimbursements right so yes you get more money back from this from the government in the federal government thank you what other questions
083might you have that i can try to answer if they're not any chair madam chair i would love for you to approve this plan so we can send it off and hopefully get our funds here as soon as possible do i have a motion to approve i mean we approve the plan thank you any further discussion seeing them all those in favor right hand passes unanimously thank you so very much thank you all right up next is operations jeff smith he's going to talk about harvest beam contract our last last group last group good evening good evening i'm here to talk to you about harvest beam a new internet service provider and their desire to lease some space roof space and closet space at grifton school harvest being like i said they're a new internet
084service provider and their goal really is to provide internet service in areas that currently have either no access or very limited access and their initial deployment is planned for grifton their plan is to use the grifton water tower as their antenna tower to broadcast from and what they wish to do is lease a small amount of space on our roof about five foot by five foot for a very small antenna about one foot diameter antenna and then a little bit of rack space in our closet there at grifton school and what that will do is provide them access to uh cantara's network quintero is who connects our schools together and harvest beam will be using canary quantera to get their internet service and so basically that little bit of rack space and that little tiny
085antenna will shoot to the water tower and then from the water tower they will be able to spread from there um so there will be leasing that space for i believe with the worked out for 50 a month and for that they'll also be giving pitt county schools families uh six months of discounted rate if they get uh service through them so is anybody have any questions they do have some representatives here from harvest beam if you have any any questions hello hi um anna barrett i i i assume i know the answer this but it's prudent to ask i think um so whenever i guess we consider an outside vendor having access to the interior of our schools then we presume that they have access or contact potential with with our students and we
086need to to be so what protections are in place to they would be true you know vetted just like other vendors are through facility services and and issued access uh cards and stuff uh with facility services and and one other thing i forgot to mention just make sure you are clear even though our data is on quintera and their data they're never intermixed okay they're two totally separate uh segments there other questions and i think it's it would be good for you just to say how would that commit our community and the students um benefit benefit from us making this decision so um as you may know in the grifton area there are a lot of areas that are very what we call dead zones that currently even the cellular companies don't have coverage there
087um excuse me so harvest beams technology uh would would i think the range is somewhere in their five mile range from that water tower so they will cover a very large area away from that tower and so those those people out in the outskirts of grifton even outside the city limits several miles outside the sea limits will have access to high-speed internet that right now they just don't have access to at all that's wonderful again excuse me and they want to um they want to rent prop some space for correct yeah this this what we're asking for tonight is to approve a lease for them to have like i said it's a very small footprint on top of the roof for their antenna and then a little team piece of rack space inside the school
088and like i said with for partnering with them uh they will be giving uh pick county school student families discounts for the first six months of service i think don when you're saying high speed give me that um i think speeds go all the way up to 100 is that correct please thank you my name is nick dido i'm here with jack mcnary we're two of the three founders uh thanks to all the pitt county schools personnel we've been working with for seems like forever to bring make this happen as well the leadership of the town of grifton and we're just terrific so excited about the possibility uh we uh we plan to offer uh a menu of different speeds probably probably a 15 down three up introductory speed up to about a 120 down
08950 up premium plus speed so we we we as our rf engineers say we won't know exactly what we've got until we're able to deploy and test it out but uh but his estimates are that we'll be able to provide options for high-speed internet service to about 80 percent of the homes businesses and other other locations in grifton and within about a three to five mile uh range so we can't wait to get started right follow up that if you want to leave some some property in the hottie community as as jeff said our mission our guiding light is to go where we're most needed and uh and we welcome advice from the sport and your leadership ongoing advice that we we've already heard some of about to help us identify priority areas for us
090to deploy next and we plan to do that as quickly as we possibly can i guarantee you that yeah we've actually already been in discussion with them that they're already looking at stokes as being an area as well because that's another one of our areas that is you know really in bad shape so far as coverage and so if things work out well using this you know using the school then might find something similar [Laughter] we're grateful for him madam chair yes may ask one more question what's the ramp up time get this done by august 23rd [Laughter] if i could um we're hoping for approval from you tonight the grifton town board is hopefully will offer us approval for the lease agreement with them for the the water tower they also want us to
091occupy a portion of the shad shed for our customer service and operations center which some of us are pretty excited about and um we we are we will try our best to deploy as quickly as possible we're already ordering equipment assuming that this is going to go forward we know about the august 23rd date roughly for the opening of school if there's any way possible for us to be up and running by then um we'll do it it may actually be into september because of some technicalities of the of the final engineering step but that has been their goal actually since i've been discussing with this for several months now so it was beginning school was always their target but you know how things goes i moved that we except this contract with harvest being
092okay second second by anna barrett um if any further discussion hearing none all those in favor right hand please passes unions thank you thank you very much thank you very much and i happen madam chair i happen to have some uh interest sheets from anyone here who lives in or near grifton okay if you'd like to get on our list for us to see if we can provide you with service okay okay thank you thank you thank you good job great up next we have erin talk to us about wildcats good evening good evening um so for walcott school as you may remember this summer we were replacing the electrical hvac fire alarm and intercom and network wiring for the campus the project's going really well and right now we have two change orders on
093the table that we would just like to make you aware of one is a change order to when we bid the project the lights on the campus were included to be converted to led everywhere except for the bathrooms so to do all the bathrooms on campus it would be an additional 9 400 and then the entire campus would have interior led lighting exterior is already led so we we're we're going to move forward with that in addition to a second change order which is on the mechanical system the project requirements called for a office trailer a temporary power pole a dumpster as well as some masonry infill and drywall infill that we were able to do in-house we asked the mechanical contractor for a credit back that credit totals thousand nine hundred sixty six dollars
094so these two chain doors together would be a credit back to the um project fund of twenty three thousand five hundred and sixty six dollars so i believe we don't need a vote on those we just want to make you aware of this um because we will need a board chair signature okay thank you all right any questions on more coach no i like good news like that [Laughter] and now that's next [Laughter] say the best for last yeah all right so i've stood up here a lot lately and talked about cmfs and i do have to talk about cmaps one more time right now we've got a funding request to consider and the first slide that i want to share with everybody was the floor plan by construction years so the storm damage area
095is primarily the the upper air the two-story that's in the 1955 and the floor plan for the one-story area underneath it we've talked to about the 1969 area which is the front two story which has some structural repair needs related to rebar in the walls and additional supports needed in the floor those are the two areas the two buildings that make up what is the main camp campus building for that site so if you can go ahead so in the last five years at cmaps in 2017 through the 2016 labs we did a structural repair in the crawl space that involved sandblasting the existing floor joists that were concrete coating the rebar and then what's called shot creating or putting the concrete back on that area and that cost was a little over a million
096dollars including design fees and that fixed and secured the two-story area on the 1955 wing then last year as you're aware we had the storm damage to the 1955 wing as a result of a tropical storm bringing the roof off the building we had remediation services abatement floor replacement electrical system wiring ceiling replacement fire alarm replacement addition of a sprinkler system an elevator upgrades to the roof including slope metal and replacement of the single pane glass windows over to double pane thermal brake frame windows so the total cost of that work was a little over 4 million dollars including design abatement the base bid and the owner selected improvements related to the window and the a-frame roof so recently we've had the 1969 office wing that we've talked about we have structural deficiencies in the
097walls and the floors we did bid this repair out in june the results varied from 2.3 to 4.1 million which is a wide swing the low bid contractor went back and looked at their numbers and they realized that due to an error in their estimating program the steel and concrete prices had been excluded they withdrew from the bid so that kind of left us in an interesting situation for two reasons one we only had two contractors now instead of three and two um the variation in the price for the amount of money we kind of had to sit down and determine based on the campus what we were what we're looking at as a whole in the building so this work did include the rebar in the walls the additional bracing to the floor elevator
098installation for that two-story wing and other code upgrades related to fire life safety which would include fire spraying of the steel from fireproofing of the actual hallway corridors things of that nature so um which brings me to the newest item out at cmx so when we did the 1955 repair on the two-story wing five four years ago um that addressed the two-story wing but part of that building was also built with the same construction in the one-story wing so we have a remaining one-story classroom area kitchen locker rooms and multiple hallways around the gymnasium the cafeteria in the band room that will need to address the the floor situation in the it's the similar situation as to what was going on five years ago in the two-story the difference now being we currently do not
099have the old steam boiler running anymore i have nothing in the crawl space that i need to keep access to so we can look at actually abandoning that space drilling through the floor and filling the void and that is what the structural engineer is working on designing so the cost to do that in terms of per square foot is lower than the previous although it's a larger area so it will be a larger cost the band room dining hall and gymnasium are not directly impacted as they are built directly on the ground there's no crawl space under those areas so um what this means go to the next slide for this fall semester the areas at the top which is the two-story where we've done the majority of the work in the past is able
100to be used the gym can be used the dining hall can be used and the band room can be used but the 1969 area that we previously discussed as well as the hallways around the gymnasium the kitchen itself and the locker rooms cannot be used until they're repaired that's kind of where we stand right now with this school um i know you're going to have questions i do want to talk about one more thing before we get into that some other upgrades to consider so with the recent storm repair work the upcoming structural repair work there'll be less than 20 percent of the main building between the 55 and 69 wing that are not renovated so we have the option that can be discussed to consider looking at some gymnasium area upgrades including locker rooms
101gym windows gym bleachers gym basketball goals which are original a new hvac system for the locker rooms and replacement of the gym hvac units a metal roof retrofit as an option we have the cafeteria which could use some staff ada restroom upgrades as well as handrails on the loading dock dining hall window and lighting replacement is also recommended and then last is the band room which has a staff restroom that needs to be brought up to ada compliance with handrails on the ends of the risers in the band room itself and then a window replacement is also recommended on the higher windows in the band room the lower windows were done probably 15 20 years ago but the higher windows were not so a rough estimate and this is an estimate because in today's world
102material prices are changing daily i've run through some of these options and what we're looking at in the base bid what we know about the bid from in from june on the 1969 repair as well as just those items that we listed the costs are listed on the sheet and i have a estimated funding source be it county capital which we get annually trying to redirect some of our annual funds to help support this project some cares act hvac funding and then i guess the decision would be for the board the amount that would be goes to the county versus what we can fund internally correct assuming the board says we need to keep moving forward aaron and i along with matt will be presenting to the county commissioners next monday and basically um we
103need somewhere to get out of our quarter cent sales tax article 40 and 42 um school system money but go ahead and get about three million dollars we've got about three million ready to go so we need about another 3 million out of the out of the sales tax so we can go ahead and get this process rolling we need to this is one thing we just need to get over and get done quickly so and then i do have the last slide because i get asked this a lot i just want to make sure everyone's aware um get asked is it a financially respon are we from a financial responsibility standpoint is the proposed renovation the best decision or is replacement a better solution in the past five years between the two projects we've
104spent about 5.1 million dollars we're estimating another 6.3 and that would put us at about 11.4 for the 1955 and 69 buildings if we did this those two buildings would be able to be utilized for another 50 to 60 years this in through these three or four projects would in fact be the half-life renovation that we talk about um every fall in our annual capital so as far as a replacement replacement of just the square footage was about 110 000 square feet at roughly 325 a square foot because that's about where prices are right now you're looking at 35 million 750 000 to replace the the campus buildings not the grounds not the athletic fields not tearing down the old just the building itself so just want everyone to be aware that we are still
105in a position where it does make sense to keep improving on this aaron could you also mention the age of the building with all the buildings in pitt county the schools um so this building so as you know we've addressed the 1929 section at chicag which is still standing but is currently not in use we've got the 1935 building at a.g cox which is currently the construction is ongoing for the replacement of that building we have a 1948 section at pactolis that was partially renovated with the 2000 construction of the new wing and then the next oldest building is cmx so this is in sequence it is falling about where you'd expect ma'am chair you know uh aaron thank you for a great presentation you know back there when you presented before about this building
106we talked about insurance and i know y'all said that there probably wouldn't be anything did you follow back up to just just see we did i called our insurance agent he said unfortunately we don't there isn't coverage for a building that old even if the project had been a bonded sealed bid which most of ours are we only have 10 years from the bid date to file a claim against even the bond agent so we've were well past that that would have expired in 79 on the older building that way insurance policies are written for schools yes so which is part of the reason why going forward now at chicag cox and even on this project as well as even some work um and other projects going on is that we contract with companies like
107ecs or terracon third-party inspectors like at ag cox before we poured the first floor they actually went through and counted every piece of rebar on that project to make sure it's where it belonged and the quantities are there so we have we use those third-party agents now and their bid the the value of them is included in the general contractor's price but they're actually managed through the architect and the owner so it isn't a third party situation yeah um seeing as to how 35 million dollars in large acreage for middle schools aren't falling from trees anywhere i'd like to propose that we vote in favor of this can i make a motion down below i don't know that we have to vote oh i thought it was board action i don't know it says board
108act under board action are you seeking board approval this evening for this plan or are you waiting to get that's above for the harvest contract we voted for bordeaux we i think we need board approval say we can go ahead and continue listeners for the money okay then we can go ahead and re-bid this out correct which we will bring back to the board yes in a couple weeks month maybe we we are looking okay not a couple weeks yeah he tried we're looking to if the timeline holds we would look to bring this to the board at the october board meeting caroline go ahead okay so so moved that we approve this project to bring epps up to the current standards as you have uh outlined for it all right all right bendy second
109any further discussion one more question go ahead you had mentioned the area around the gym did you say that the cafeteria cannot be used the dining hall can be used the kitchen itself cannot so we've worked with our cafeteria staff that will be cooking it at jh rose and transporting it over to cmfs anything else all right let's vote all those in favor right hand opposed okay thank you thank you madam you may ask one follow-up question all those children will fit in those 10 mobile units i see them out there all those displaced the the tenth the ten modulars and then there's two rooms that are typically used to be our staff training rooms they're at the back of apps that are being utilized for classrooms this fall as well all right thank you
110earlier today she's very persistent all right that moves us on to closing comments we'll start with you dr linker um just briefly just want to this has been a a extremely busy summer we've had summer school like no other i know lisa tate and dr lasseter's team have been putting everything together also matt's team along with transportation so as far as that goes there's a lot of people to thank for that more than we can do here but um lisa tate i think was the the leader of that along with monica and preston so they did an amazing job getting summer school where it is along with the support staff and then matt johnson's team this summer has done more work this summer than he gets really tired of me going to see him saying
111i'm not seeing anything get done over here what's going on and yeah he knows okay but you know the biggest concern we had was are we going to get kids at epps we're going to get kids back at wall coast we need kids back at a.g cox and the answer has been yes so they've they've gone really pulled everything together whether it's internal people to make it all happen but the facilities team along with matt and aaron have done a lot this summer are we back at rose yet we will be okay so that's just getting all the roofs so it's been just those guys have done an amazing job that whole team getting our buildings ready the custodial staff and bouncing around between schools getting everything done so uh just it's been a real
112team effort this summer to get where we need to be all right start with you caroline sure you stole my thunder dr linker 30 days of summer school just ended like day before yesterday practically about 4 students thousand staff work this summer 100 students graduated what great results last thursday 100 students that were going to graduate actually graduated this summer and lots and lots and lots we don't have the final numbers yet made incredible progress and we're promoted um from one grade to the next and i know that's incredibly meaningful this particular year based on the pandemic from last year and just all of the learning loss that that was experienced so i'm deeply grateful to the principals the aps the teachers the teaching assistants business office folks child nutrition bus drivers custodians psychologists social
113workers and everybody in the central office and anybody else i mentioned that i missed they need to rest for at least the next eight days crawl under a rock go lay at the bottom no get back to y'all have been working non-stop since the day school ended and um you need to have a time to rest and i wish we could just shut down all of operations for eight days because i think the ninth is when teachers come back or something like that next next friday start the 13th okay everybody needs that break and um really this is yeoman's work and and the momentum has continued and we've seen tonight some of the incredible things that um that we're getting from that i love the the fact that um we're pursuing a teacher and school
114leader grant i mean i'm such a big fan of continuous quality improvement in in what we do and learning from our own experiences so i do hope that we get that grant to to keep moving and you know what if we don't i have a feeling they'll find another way so it's really impressive and then um lastly i'm really thankful to everyone who came tonight um and everyone who's been emailing at least me um their opinion their experiences their thoughts um just the information uh that they've been sending to us uh related to the pandemic measures that um we experienced last year and we're going to be needing to talk more about on the 16th is it um the more people that share their experiences and their thoughts and their ideas the better decision we
115can make so it's i've heard from people from all over like i'll be shocked if i can hear another one that's different but i probably will so it's incredible the the wide varieties and deeply deeply thankful um to the parents and the teachers um in the community who share their knowledge and wisdom and experience with the pandemic measures thank you benji yeah thank you madam chairman just uh two or three things real quick number one i also want to thank the public that was here tonight really looked good to have the our constituents our families our parents grandparents concerned citizens to be engaged with us again that's what democracy is all about and i appreciate that and you keep your elected officials honest that is what that's what your duty is second thing is i
116would like to see uh just so that the public understands and is very very clear i would like to see us take up on the agenda at that workshop uh resolution opposed to uh critical race theory in the 1619 project and so that we can so that we can uh let the public understand and know exactly where we are as a board of education i think we've explained that several times but still it seems to be a lot of uncertainty about that and of course because we heard tonight from an individual that still has some concerns and issues with it and then i guess the last thing i would just want to reiterate is that we have as a board uh chosen to at our last meet meeting make sure that our stand as a
117board right now is that mask are optional thank you amy [Music] where am i going to start i guess i'm going to just kind of feedback off what they what they've already said and just thank you for everyone coming out here today i do agree it's nice seeing groups of people and hearing their concerns and sharing their thoughts with us it does help us to make better decisions of course we know we can't make everybody happy but it does help to hear both sides of any issue that we're presenting um so thank you for that thank you for all the presentations today it's a lot of information a lot a lot of stuff to let sink in over the next week or two so i appreciate our leadership and everyone that worked through summer school
118and i am really looking forward to getting back to school i know that's probably not a good thing to say right now but i'm really looking forward to getting back to school as well as being on the board as well as my teaching position so i'm really excited about being back on campus myself um so thank you for everything okay miss tripp thank you madam chair um just like others i really appreciate the people that were here on tonight this was my first meeting where the public was able to attend and i really enjoyed uh having them here tonight and i also want to thank mr harris for inviting me to the north pitt graduation on last thursday the students and the parents saw a beautiful graduation i was very proud of what north pitt
119did for the graduation and i want to complement all of those and congratulate all of those that graduated through the summer i know it was a great undertaking to get all of that done but i really appreciate and compliment all of them that work together to see that our students go further in their education i'm very proud of of what i saw on that particular day thank you mr rhodes i'd like to congratulate uh coach ronald vincent marvin german and their players and other coaching members for winning the 3a state baseball championship job well done i'd also like to wish good luck to our fall sports teams as the day was the official start of high school athletics for fall sports but i'll also like to thank the parents and others who've been involved especially
120through this mask event with emails texts phone calls face-to-face meetings etc and what i'd like to do is also commend the seven current board members that were here last july and last august as they started the process of a tough decision they made some tough decisions to turn out these good ones and i'd like to commend you for studying the facts i do know that each one of you board members you ask good questions been around you for a while throughout the process since last december and 19 when i in december 19 when i filed i started listening to board members and i was in pretty much constant conversations with board chair betsy flanagan who was in my district and so i would commend you for making those decisions then along came january bishop tripp
121and i had to be a part of a couple of tough decisions but rest assured i'm confident this boy will make the decision what's in the best interest of our students thank you hannah barrett um i'm going to piggyback on on what don said because i know right now tension is high and everybody's got a different opinion about how we need to proceed with with starting our school year but i don't want us to lose sight of the fact that this time last year we were trying to decide if we were going to have an in-person school year so we are not where we want to be but we're not where we were and so you know hopefully that can at least give us all a little bit of a boost i'm super excited that
122we are preparing to invite all of our children back into buildings and that you know our next decision which is going to be a tough one is how to do that in in the safest way and not only safes way but the way that most ensures that we can keep them in school as much as possible good luck to the early colleges that start back this week or early college high schools go back to school on thursday um and that's very exciting um and and just wanted to share with the board um an interaction i had today i had an electrician in my home today and he had no idea that i was on the board of education and he began to speak about our tradeswarmers program and about an intern that they had had
123a high school intern who had continued through the summer and what a what a boost it had been for their business and um how excited he was to see these these young people leaving you know preparing to leave high school with a career and with a way to to earn money for their family so it was really exciting to me that that unsolicited feedback just continues to inspire me and i know the rest of you feel the same way to find pathways for our kids so that when they leave pitt county schools they have a direction in many cases a way to go ahead and make a living and support a family and i'm proud to be a part of a board that that finds out to be important mr forbes yeah what can i
124say but uh i think it's great that this school um the school board um increased teacher supplements we know that the teachers and and they have worked so hard in the past and there again they're going into another year um not knowing what we will face but at least we were able to continue our goal in which we wanted to increase their uh supplements and we were able to increase it from 6 to 6.5 also i think we did a good deed tonight in helping the families of grifton in their internet service and their service there to where those kids maybe will be able to have more of an opportunity and be available to access data that they need and thanks to matt and jeff and what they're doing and i know we have other
125areas for example stokes and there are probably other dead zones that we have that we should look at uh expanding on one other aspect i think that we need to really look at within the coming weeks is the communication with our parents in our community that uh dr linker and your staff you do the best that you know you possibly can can in communicating to our parents uh major items that they need to be made aware of even some things that may come down from the state that ties our hands in regards to things that we can get out to the parents as soon as possible also i am also an agreement that we look at the resolution uh in regards to crt in that 1619 project at our uh meeting or a workshop that
126we're going to have on the 16th and i think it was great that uh we had that teacher and school leader incentive program tsl grant i think that was uh is something good for our you look i'm like i'm gonna talk at least two more minutes and benji can talk five minutes why can't i talk two more but i want to get this time i want to get this in that teaching school leader incentive program with thomas and seth look they there's a whole lot of work that goes in behind that many hours spent in the summer to even attempt to be able to get and i'm sure we'll be in uh competition with so many others but it seems like they really come through and you know they've already done a great job in
127what they have for our system thanks tracy okay i'll be short and sweet well since you took some my time okay um i'm gonna i'm gonna just echo a lot of what's already been stated it is really nice to have our community back in our building for us to see i mean we we read the emails i promise you we do we might not always respond because we get an onslaught of them at times but it's nice to have a face and a voice together and see who's out in our community and what their thoughts are about different issues going on with our school system i just want to echo congratulations to all of our summer graduates there was quite a number of them that graduated from my high schools this year through summer school
128which was really exciting and i'm just gonna say what's already been said i'm really excited about the prospect of having the internet service in griffin i think that's a win-win situation all the way around so that's very exciting okay um i won't be long because it's been a long meeting and i know we're all tired but first and foremost i wanted to say thank you to the staff you have worked amazingly hard all summer and you know i thought we weren't supposed to talk in july but we've talked a lot i thought july was a month that you're supposed to be off but you know i haven't heard complaints we've laughed a lot and tried to to move forward because we want the best possible for all of our students so just thank you so
129much for for digging in and continuing to move forward it was great to have an open meeting i really missed having people in the audience it truly is nice to see people back and and i look forward to one day when things will be back to normal although at this point in time i don't know what normal is anymore it's it's you know but there again you know you do the things that you got to do to get what you got i've got to move a child so i'm going to wear a mask um you know that's my goal right now answering emails as caroline said i i enjoy the emails we've had a lot probably over the next week or so emails coming in will be read but they probably will not be personalized
130at least from the chair because i've got i've got to put my family as a priority because i've got to get my son moved from indiana back to school and but that doesn't mean that that you're not a priority it just means i can't individualize and spend time and put a whole lot of thought to to send your email back but i will read any email that comes through i'm looking forward to school starting i hope we're going to have a great start i'm really looking forward this is senior year for me for the third time so i'm looking forward to that again and all you seniors out there common app opened yesterday so get those applications in so that you can do bigger and better things and at this time i will entertain a
131motion to adjourn a move that we adjourn second all right uh all in favor all right