001We'll just get going with information. >> Yeah, I would just make it clear not a meeting of the board. Good afternoon. Sorry, we do not have 54 technically do not have a form but it is 103 and I want to at least get started. So until we get this will just be information and we can get a meeting and get this meeting convening. So we'll start with the information items questions and then one once I'll give this out for the record we have. So with that, I'll turn it over to you and closing. >> Well, thank you. Good afternoon and board members. The board's second focus developing and refining budget for fiscal year 2627 at the April 21 the board options and on approximately 8.4 million in reductions 1.6 million still to be identified. Today,
002Miss Kim will begin by addressing the question by board membing the items under consideration as adjustments to the budget. Today's session is the consensus on adjustments that will place this from the superintendent budget. Later this evening, the board will be asked to approve a budget agend tell us about what we've done on um advanced placement exams. Historically, North Carolina has covered the cost covered with the advanced placement, the international balora and the Cambridge international exam fees for all public school students through state funding and the NCAP partnership. There are proposals in the Senate budget proposal and the House budget proposal. The Senate budget proposal would eliminate funding for the NCS partnership and would limit the coverage for the exam fees to only economically disadvantaged students. the house budget would maintain full of that's where we
003are now on that. The second question is could you please look into the annual cost of dreambox subscription and whether there's any data supporting continued use. So in the answer we're giving you some information about discovery education and dreambox math because currently those are combined in terms of our cost. Discovery education um engages students with real world content and multimodal instruction supports teachers with intuitive teaching tools and ensures highquality instruction with crosscurricular strategies. Um that's um in K5 science dreambox math integrates curriculum and continuous formative assessment to personalize instruction, develop conceptual understanding, build critical skills, and improve achievement for every student regardless of where they are in their journey. So for 2627 next year, our combined cost would be $1.2 million. And we've also shown you the history for five years of cost um for
004both discovery ed and dream box. >> Yes. So was there a question? Okay. Um so the cost of the usage is also provided in the answer at elementary level. Um we're showing that for um student login usage based on enrollment it's greater than 90% with a few exceptions at middle school 15 out of 41 middle schools show that there is usage some of the schools opted out seven of the 15 middle schools use Dreambox greater than 89%. And then there's a link if you need more information about more of these council if I can just clarify overall vendor is discovery ed experience is for the science and then dream box may so it's two products by discovery. Thank you. Okay, the next question is there a way to determine the savings if we ended one
005to one Chromebooks in K2 and went to a one class set per grade for those in elementary schools next year. So our devices are funded through the capital improvement program which is a building program. So they wouldn't have an immediate impact on local funding. Transitioning to a single shared cart per grade level would present several instructional and operational challenges. Um our class sizes vary across our schools. So one cart serving two classes in some buildings and it would serve six plus other classes in other buildings depending on sizes. K2 assessments require reliable individual devices across within tight testing windows. So making sure we have enough devices during those times. State digital learning standards require constant purposeful technology use and shared cards limit the ability of grade level teams to deliver aligned simultaneous instruction. Adjusting the
006K2 ratios may create future building programs or capital improvement program savings, but they introduce notable instructional trade-offs and no immediate financial impact. >> M I just want to pause there since we do have six out of the nine board members. We officially do have a quorum. So, uh, we can take official action now. So, just wanted to make sure that was reflected in the minutes. Um, the next question is, if we had 500,000 that we could remove from cuts, how many um, leader literacy coaching positions would that be? So, 500,000 would equate to about 57.5 months of employment or between five and six full-time equivalency teachers. Question five, if we were to only have devices and specials, what would the savings be? Um, so it's similar to the other question in that the devices are
007purchased through the building program, capital improvements. So there would not be any immediate savings to the local operating budget and we would still have those um trade-offs that could be difficult which is most well just to point out most of the associated expenses like device management systems required software platforms cyber security and technology support are districtwide fixed or enrollment based. So even if we restricted accesses to devices, it would yield little to no short-term financial reduction in the devices maintenance program upgrades or staffing. Um so we would still have those statemandated assessments that are delivered exclusively through digital platforms and we would need enough devices for that. Making consistent classroom access essential to ensure students can demonstrate content mastery rather than limitations in platform familiarity. Okay. The next question is, what is the amount of
008lottery funds that we received and what is it applied to? So, just for context, we don't receive lottery funds directly into our into our school system budget. Those funds go to the state and county. And at the state level, they use it to support some of the allocations that come to our district. And for the um construction funds, they're dispersed to Wake County for travel projects or to reduce county debt. So you can see that for the current year or for fiscal year 25 last year, we received $64 million. Most of that went to the state and it was then funded to us for some of our aotments. Um for school staff, 40 million, school construction, which would have gone to the county, almost 12 million. College scholarships about 5 million, pre kindergarten 4.3 million,
009and school transportation 2.5 million. The cumulative total from when the lottery began in March of 2006 through June of 25 is $951 million. So Jar just so we can be clear um direct funding that comes to us there is a >> there is not >> right uh and each county can do that differently. Uh but that direct money that we do get goes to the county and they use that to retire debt. Some districts will allow the district to use it, some don't. But we get zero. Even though we have access to all of this, we don't get any actual dollars as a district. >> You know, through time when the state has used some of the lottery funds to support some of the state a lotments coming to the district, they may put it
010toward a category we were already getting and then reduce the funding that was going toward that from other state tax revenues or other things and they just kind of substitute the lottery money for it. And that's usually in the every state budget there's a page that shows how they are shifting those funds. The um next question is about capital outlay. What is connectivity support services? So some of these next questions were not from the superintendent um budget. They were actually from the packet of materials that was in your um last board meeting for the financial statements at the end of March. So some of the questions were from that packet of information. So the definition for connectivity um support services that's a purpose code part of our account code structure that the state requires. And
011the definition is those are cost for um shared education strategies to enhance broadband connectivity and improve the education user experience of public schools. The next question um also from that packet federal grant parent involvement 1.26 26 million. What is that used for? Parent involvement funds are mandatory set aides in our title one budget and we use it to support the cost of activities that encourage and support parent involvement in schools, including activities that train parents to better provide learning opportunities for their children. We also have some in our title four budget. The next question from that same packet, um $2.5 million payment to other government units. What does that go towards? Um, so we use that as the account that we use for our local payments to charter schools where the local funds flow through
012our district and go out to the charter schools. We also use it for indirect cost where we charge cost to our federal grants and enterprise funds um that then help support our local outreach under local board of education 6910. Is there an item? There's an item for $66,000 besides the salaries for the nine districts for the board members. What is the rest of that cost for? So, we've um shown you that in the in the response. It's a number of different non-personnel accounts such as contracted services, membership dues and fees, workshop expenses. Um but the details are provided there for you. Question 11, 5.989 million under leadership. What is that used for? So the charter accounts for the state um for 69.40 show um requires that we put the cost of activities performed by the
013superintendent and assistants such as deputies, associates, assistant superintendent, and other systemwide leadership positions generally directing and managing all affairs of the local education agencies. So it includes personnel and non-personnel at those executive higher level positions. So services would be for the office of the superintendent and then for the assistant and um chief level positions for our building 79.8 million payments to other government use it units. What is that used for? And that is our charter school monthly payments. Question 13. Can you clarify the difference between unbudgeted funds and our fund balance and how they're utilized? So, um, unbudgeted is where we have funds in our budget that are set aside at the moment and are not designated for a particular thing they will be spent for. One example would be after the school year ends,
014but we may identify some savings in some of our areas in the budget, we will if it's a material amount, we'll transfer that into a net savings over under account that we provide um a summary to you each quarter. We may also then determine there's some cost that we didn't anticipate or were higher than we thought and we may transfer some funds out of that. Those ins and out are reported to you quarterly, but we do want those savings set aside while we're still in the fiscal year because we don't want it just to be used for something else without being transparent about that. Once it's set aside, if we don't have to use it for something else at the end of the year, it likely rolls into our fund balance. Another reason we have
015unbudgeted is in a lot of our grants, those grants run for multiple years. So, we would have the accounts in the budget in the codes where we're going to spend them during the year, but if we are setting aside money that we definitely need to carry over to the next year, either to to cover the first quarter cost before we get new money or if it's a grant that we get two years worth of funding up front, we'll want that second year of funding set aside, we'll move it into an unbudgeted line in the grant. and that lets us know that is sequestered and it will carry over to the next year. Very purposeful when we do that. And then fund balance um is after we close a fiscal year. So that's after we are
016past June 30th and we've closed all of our audit entries. If our revenues have come in higher than our expenditures, there will be a positive impact to our fund balance. So that's at the end of the year. Whereas during the year we're using a budget. The next question is how much do we spend on legal fees each year and what category is that paid from in the budget and how much of it is attorney fees. So we provided a month by month and by category breakdown for you of our legal fees. Um and with the Smith the costs were $1.9 million for the 2425 school year. The next question, please provide the number of positions that we pay for for some different categories. So, how many teachers do we have? 11,90. How many beginning teachers?
0171,674. How many behavior specialists? There are 49 behavior support teachers to support students in grades 612 who have behavior intervention plans and intense behavior. 52 EBA that teach students with intense behavioral needs in grades K5. How many of our teachers are dually certified? 4,944. How many coordinating teachers and what is their role? We have 123 coordinating teachers. Um, so in academics, coordinating teachers serve primarily on the district's elementary and secondary regional teams and academic enhancement teams provides school-based instructional support to teachers and leaders. In human resources, the teacher support program coordinating teachers ensure district compliance with state board policy while overseeing the identification, induction, and ongoing development of our beginning teachers. special education services. Um the coordinating teachers monitor the implementation of specially designed instruction and compliance for all teachers in their buildings to build
018capacity for special education teachers. And in the office of early learning, the coordinating teachers drive curriculum implementation through professional development, coaching, and developmentally appropriate instruction. The next question, if any of the above are using county funds, clarify what and how much. So, there are currently 27 coordinating teachers fully or partially paid out of our local budget, which about $1.6 million annually. How many teachers or leadership coaches do we have? And is that provided by state funds or county funds at how much? We have 351 employees who are in teacher coach position. Many of these are not full-time because the teachers hold other assignments. For example, there could be a 50% literacy coach and a 50% education teacher. $18.9 million is spent on teacher coach salaries. 4.3 million of that is locally funded. We have five
019employees in leadership coach positions. Of the 589, 108,000 is locally funded. And on many of these questions on state versus local versus federal, remember that we do shift positions between funds sometimes depending on the experience level of a teacher and how it could benefit the system. >> So those are kind of point in time answers. >> Yeah. Another thing to add to that too is even a state funded teacher, we are paying some local funds due to the local supplement. So I wanted to make sure folks understood that as well. The answers we provided were for those that were sort of solely funded out of the local. We thought that was the intentional question. What is the role of literacy coach? Um they support educators in implementing evidence-based literacy instruction. They collaborate with teachers, administrators,
020and support staff to enhance literacy outcomes through differentiated instruction, datadriven decision-making, and inclusive practices. What amount is spent on that? In 2025-26, there were 648 months of employment. For next year, in 2627, there will be 400 months of employment. Can you clarify if we were removing literacy coaches entirely or cutting down the number of positions? So, we are not removing them entirely. Um, historically, each elementary school received an aotment for a literacy coach. Beginning next year's our schools in level three and four will maintain their literacy coach positions. Do we have a full list of costs for professional development and program cost? How much is provided for teachers and how much for administrators? Um so what we've provided here is a breakdown of costs that are typically professional development like um when we hire substitutes
021for teachers that are absent for training. If we um pay in instructional assistance to substitute for teachers at training, if we have staff development participant pay where we may be paying someone by the hour because they do training in the evening or on the weekend outside their normal work for during the trackout or if we're paying by the hour for a staff development instructor that may be an employee that's teaching during trackout or outside their normally paid work time and any workshop expenses or travel cost. So this is across the system a total of $13 million and we broke it down between instructional and non-instructional just based on the purpose codes and how it that fell. Our restart schools seem to be growing in numbers. It was mentioned that eligibility changed. Can you provide clear
022clarity about what has changed and how it has affected the budget. So we have not added any new restart schools in the past 3 years. We currently have 40 schools in the program. There have been no changes in the eligibility process. In 2425, Wake County School System modified our district's process by submitting applications with the phase one process step before going to an official application. This assisted with moving schools out of low performing status without needing to officially apply for restart. The only applications that have been submitted during the past three years have been for schools that reapplied based on their continuing authorization requirement. Next question. Can you remind me exactly what the details that we used for calculating the master's pay budget reduction based on Dr. Ing's suggestion? So, we provided a chart in
023the answer. So, we currently pay over $15 million for master's pay. That's the amount that the county school system is paying now that the state stopped continuing adding that new staff. So we estimate that that increases about $2.3 million each year based on our hires. There's no way to know exactly how many teachers will hire with Mast's pay. So under Dr. Ink's um suggestion would be that we when we hired staff with M's pay that we would indicate they would get the differential but we wouldn't start paying that differential until after they've been here a number of years. So in this example, we've said if we went with our current way we're doing it now for the next four years, we would keep hiring teachers with M's pay and there'd be an increase of 2.355
024million each of those years as we continue adding teachers and paying them the year we hire them. The proposal would be that we would wait. So any teachers we hire in 2627, we would not pay them the increase until and then it just keeps delaying for each year. So, it's really a pause in the amount of money we're paying out. We would just be paying it on a delay, if that makes sense. Question 21. Is it possible to cut magnet funds without cutting them entirely? Um, for those that are off grants. So, yes, we have local once once they're off the grant, the magnet cost is locally funded by Wake County School System. So, we do have choices. Um, it's important to distinguish between extras and the core costs that make magnets function as magnets
025because typically we would be adding teachers and other resources to those schools for the magnet piece that's at that school. We're currently in the process of critically analyzing our magnet programs to assess opportunities for improvement sustainability and where appropriate potential sub um suns setting of programs. That analysis is focused on which investments are mostly CL mostly tied to student outcomes and diversity goals, where federal commitments align with or differ from our local funding structures, and how any proposed changes would impact access particularly for our lower income and geographically distant students. Um then there's a question about providing information about expenses with out of state travel by central services staff. Um we've answered that by breaking it down per chief. So for each division we've listed the cost um this year for out of state travel
026and in some cases we've listed what the actual travel was for. And then there was a question about um expenses associated with the board of education, travel, out of state and professional development. So the answer there we've provided those together. Um we've shown the expenditures for the board of education and by month so it's through March and what where those expenditures um were paid. Um a question about expenses associated with board of education meals. We provided a chart in that response um showing through April the food cost for board of education meals total $5,000. Expenses associated with the board of education IT equipment and support. So our mobile communication cost for the Verizon services is $3,723. And then the last question is um is really one about the mechanics of the adjustment to the assistant
027principal formula and how that would work. Um if a school were were to lose an assistant principal that's on a terminating contract, would that person be moved to another assistant principal position regardless of the terminated contract? So if a school were losing an assistant principal from the formula change and they had one assistant principal on a terminated contract, that employee would be the one to not return to the school under the budget reduction for that formula. Human resources would support the assistant principal on the terminated contract by contacting schools with open positions on their behalf. It would not be a guarantee, but of course we would like to assist them in finding another assistant principal position if it were available. That concludes the Q&A. Do we have any questions about that before we move to
028budget reduction options? >> Yeah. Um I have a couple questions. Um for just some clarifying things for number one um we don't have anything in the budget to address the fact that the Senate might do this right so there are no okay cost there and then for number two for the dream box subscription um I was I know it's in the capital improvement fund so it doesn't really address the budget that we're talking about but just to clarify we don't have any data that that supports its use over other things like the data you have here who is using it but is it actually improving outcomes we don't have that data >> we can change that data to look at how schools operating on those particular stages that for you to look at that okay
029>> we do have data on that how >> okay um I think you told me too that we're looking at making it more of a supplemental thing anyway, right? >> As a phase out program. Yes, we have that for tier 2 and tier three interventions. >> Okay. Um and then just another clarifying question on number six for the lottery funds. They I mean it's not like we have the budget and then they say and then here's more with lottery funds, right? They just include it in the money they give us anyway. >> Right. Okay. I'm good. Thank you. >> On question three, you mentioned the state digital learning standards required. What they require are state digital learning standards um in place for kindergarten through third grade. So there are requirements that kindergarteners are on devices
030for example. That is that is correct. >> I just wanted the public to be aware that that is a state mandated state >> kindergarten through 12 >> and it has additional teaching and learning standard status for both teachers and students. So, so the state, so for people listening, the state mandates us to have kids on devices, >> but it is developmentally appropriate, >> but on devices >> and have exposure to it, but it is available, >> right? I think people will get that. But when we get questions about getting rid of technology, we want I want people to know that the state is we can't just say no technology use in kindergarten. So, so Mr. I think that is uh probably the proper way to to classify that that when you look through those digital
031teaching and learning standards, they're not going to talk about technology specific anything. Uh but if you begin to think about um what those standards require, then it's at some point going to require technology that they be able to do that. It's not necessarily um um a a laptop or um a Chromebook. It could just be anything in terms of uh how they share information. Uh using a canvas system, you got to have technology access. If you're doing something with uh a smartboard or you know Prometheian board, you got to have the technology. So it doesn't specifically identify, but you got to recognize that if you're going to teach people to fly, you got to have a plane, >> right? Thank you. I think it's appropriate just to reiterate that to Dr. Hill's point that they
032are developmentally appropriate because often times there's other narratives out there like to spend things but knowing that they are mandated and development appropriate for our youngest youngest learners I think needs to be said multiple ways um or multiple times. Thank you. Good. So back to six and that's the lottery. What I what I heard you say just to clarify is that The money, the lottery money is put in place of funds that would have been in place of items that would have been funded directly with state tax dollars or state funding. >> Did I hear you say that? >> That has happened. >> I can't say every year, but >> Yes. >> Right. Right. So, that's even more. It's not over and above. >> It's not over and above. Um, and may I make an
033editorial comment? Um, so at my other job, we have been updating a lot of our fact sheets and what what we've learned is that when the lottery was introduced, we knew this part. It was mandated that 35% of revenues go to public schools. That was a requirement of the prize money. And two years later, they made that a suggestion. And it has gone down, down, down, down. In last school year, only 16% of revenues went to school. Now, that's not Wake County specific. That's statewide, but it's worth noting, I think. >> 16. >> Thank you. Um, on question 21 when you address magnet schools, um, you noted or you you stated typically we would be adding teachers for the magnet program. And I see here it says we're in the process of analyzing um the
034programs and you have listed questions. To what extent have has this um analyzing been done in in the the strategic um realignment of funds thus far? >> So when we talk about the strategic realignment of funds, nothing has been done thus far. We just began the process. In fact, there was a study that was done I believe in 2014 2015 uh was the last time the study was done. So I recently met with Dr. Lane and met with um Dr. so we could begin the process and we're going to bring that information back to the board for clarification. >> Do we have any information on um on magnet programs that have had the the um as you call it the sun setting of their funds? Do we have any information or have has that has
035that happened at at any with any magnet program? >> Uh Dr. Wayne just walked in and so we can definitely I can fix that question to you. The question was have we done any sunsetting of any programs in the past with regards to magnet? >> Yes, we have. Um we actually sunseted rotten magnet and Oakland magnet schools and our community revolted and so we had to remagnetize them. I will also say Wake Forest Magnet Elementary School is a good example of the demagnetizing that happened because the community changed and then 25 years later we remagnetized because the community changed again. So yes, it has happened in the past. When we say remagnetized, does that mean is that talking in terms of funds or is that talking in terms of programs or both? So it depends.
036Well, wait for it. It was because they were in a magnet school assistance program grant. So, it was both programming and funds in that case. That's a fally funded component of that. The Blton and the Oberlin were locally funded and they both uh Broton has the international baloria program. Oberlin has global studies and our dual language immersion that feeds from um some of our elementary schools for both Mandarin and Spanish. Thank you. Um I wanted to go back to question number three with um Dr. Tal you were mentioning about the state digital learning standards. How did we do it before 2020 when we didn't have advice for each student? >> Uh I don't know. I wasn't here, so I can't say what the district may have done in 2020 with And what I can tell
037you is uh every district did it differently. Uh and so I I'll argue with anybody who's here during that period. >> I can speak to that. So I was embedded in the academic area at that time. There was a lot of investment in the um iPads for students. So we had a lot of iPad carts. Um schools were purchasing. So we did not actually have a CIP robust budget for a onetoone. So schools were purchasing funds either from their direct um program $61 for instructional material. Uh they would use their grant dollars. Uh there was also some CIP purchasing out of the academic CIP funds to support um devices in schools. But it was not the Chromebooks, it was iPads for the younger grade bodies. >> It was more for exercises rather than classroom core
038instruction. >> We also, yes, we had people purchasing a lot of the um Apple vouchers uh to purchase educational programs for kids. >> Okay. Thank you. All of this confl >> uh no one >> any other questions regarding the questions that have been laid out you're seeing now we can dive into the meat of our work and I shared with the the board originally before there was um a quorum uh that our goal today um is to come to a consensus on the adjustments to come up with the $10 million in alternative um options uh to adjust the superintendent's proposed budget. And Miss Kinsey is going to share with you uh the spreadsheet uh the options that were presented on April 21st uh options that the board came to a consensus on and um and
039then turn it over to Ch. So, um, we'll I'll go over the items that we propose that the board do get consensus on, and those total $8.4 million. Um, the total we're trying to get to is $10,86,786. So, the 8.4 for land already agreed upon includes the two items which are one-time adjustments where we are able to leave some of the special education teachers on the IDEIDA grant because we were able to recode some of the contract costs off of the grant and utilize local funds that were freed up because we had some late in the year state a lotments that um they had not committed to earlier in the year. We also had put $1 million of our utility cost shifted from local to our community schools funding because the carryover can sustain that
040for one year. Both of those items are one year um delay in those adjustments. We also um had agreement to the adjustment for the high school assistant principal formula where we would remove the top two tiers of the existing formula. So the um largest tier for the allotted funds for assistant principal would be 58 months of employment. The next one the next two that were agreed upon were reductions in central services, a reduction in staffing of 836,000 and a reduction in non-person L um base budgets of 523,000. The positions we are eliminating um are not filled at this time. So those two were both um agreed upon and then we agreed to remove the 811,000 increase needed to support our dental plan cost and what we will do is revise the plan when it begins
041the next cycle next January and reduce the number of cleanings from four a year to two and also have some tiered services to give an in network preference. So those we had agreement upon. So to to come up we need another,674,177. There were three items that were under consideration um that had not made decisions on. One was adjusting the high school teacher aotment formula and we would be reducing 33 high schools between two and five months of employment. So no more than half of a position. That would be $1.2 million to make that adjustment. There's a adjustment that we could reduce the amount of funds that the area superintendent use for additional formula um additional aotments to our restart schools one year at a time that would reduce the pot of resources they have from
042$6 million to $5.5 million. Another item was removing the instructional support specialists, which are hourly tutors that are working in our schools that were created through the North Carolina Education Corp. Those three items total $2.1 million, 2,1 14,289. There were two other items mentioned by board members at the May 5th work session. One was a delay for the local mast's pay which would save $2.3 million and there was another suggestion that we could pause the annual aotment of extra duty stipens which is $1.1 million. So um those are shown on the spreadsheet. you may I don't know if you want to start with the three that were um did not have consensus from the list that was originally put forward. >> I think I think we can start there with thank you um so I
043saw Miss's hand and Dr. Joe Samson. >> Last week at the student achievement committee meeting, I felt more um confident about getting rid of the education core, the tutors. So that's the 440,000 number based on what was presented in that committee. And I asked Dr. Hill a clarifying question about the title one schools that would be impacted. And with title one principles in the room, they all, you know, felt like they could handle it if that were to go away. So, I'm comfortable, you know, if you want me to raise that or make motion. However you want me to do it, I'm comfortable with that. >> We'll pause there and see if there's any other consensus. I'm also open to removing that one. So we have consensus um NC that acronym up. Do you have
044any other um suggestions for evidence? >> Not a second. >> Follow back up. Uh Dr. Joe, thank you. Um, I know it's kind I know we said we were just talking about these three, but it's kind of hard to talk about them while other numbers are out there that might balance them. I think we should take delaying local masters pay off the table, especially considering uh Durham changing to now having M's pay. I think that that is going to be hugely competitive for our stuff and we need to make sure that we are I it would be nice if we superseded their their pay structure but we should certainly be matching it. Um and so I don't think we should consider that 2.3 million when we're considering these amendments. >> I would agree with that.
045I actually had a question for Dr. regarding that but you are right along um uh vice chair. So I would rather Oh yeah, sorry. Is there consensus? I want to do it the same way I did with the proposal. Consensus of removing the local I meant the master's pay >> like taking it off the table, >> right? Not touching this one. >> That's right. Okay. >> So we have removed and saved that. So we are being competitive and whatnot. Sorry. Um, yeah, I'll just go one at a time. Uh, so I would prefer us not to reduce restart funding and to keep that. I have proposals to cover that, but I will wait to to get to that as the chair wants to do, but I would so I would just propose we keep the
046restart funding at 6 million at this point. Miss Kinsey with the 400,000 being removed and we had five. I don't want to mess up the math. So, >> yeah, we would still need what we would still need to reduce is 1 million 23388. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. So, I do have a lot of concerns about the removal of the high school program enhancement features and in trying to weigh these other budget items, I'd like us to consider the pause on the annual alignment for these items. Again, I really feel that these stipens are important and we need to offer them. I don't want to see any reduction in the stipen amount. But whereas removing the instruction, removing the enrichment positions would be a reduction of actual hours and people in the buildings, I would
047rather keep those programs funded even if we have to delay increasing the extra duty statements. Are there consensus around you're saying to pause the increase to the local um extra duty pay to keep the pro high school enrichment programs? >> It's not an exact dollar for dollar, but it's pro. So it's consensus around that. So where are we now? Sure. 109,000 also very close. >> Uh I did have a question on the extra duty statements and what that would can you provide some examples of what we would be cutting. >> Well, I mean not not using it not. >> It's just not going to be an increase this year. The dollars will remain. It's just not going to be a cost of living adjustment or increase as it was proposed in superintendent budget. >> Okay.
048So, they're still going to get it. They're just not. Okay. >> Right. And that includes, I think, department chairs, um, beginning teacher coaches, um, those are big two that I can think of. >> Yeah. Athletic coaches, grade level chairs, and club advisors. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. Can Can you do the math on how much you Because if we replaced almost fully replaced one, are we like $100,000 away now? Is that what you said? Okay. Thank you. I couldn't hear what you said. >> Yeah. And that includes Does that include keeping the restart? >> Mhm. So the restart has been we have only thing that we have removed is the instructional support specialists that were created through the north education court uh through the contract tutors. Uh we have paused the increase to the um
049uh extra duty pay and in in contrast that allowed us to keep the high school program enrichment um positions at the high school level. And so are there any other suggestions? So, Mr. Chair, I know that we do have to get that extra 1,900 met. I'm not sure if there are other proposals for how we get there at this time or if any of these other cuts or additions that we've looked at, you know, they might need tweaking to get to that level. I was just looking for direction about which where you wanted to go next. So, yes, that is a great point. Sorry. >> Can I ask a question about that before we do that? >> Sure. Um, just a like. So, we can't just ask for $1,900 more than we were planning. >>
0501900. >> Oh, sorry. You said 1,900. Sorry. Seriously, there. But 25.4 versus 25.3. >> I mean, it's an option >> rather than trying to cut even more. I'm not sure if it'll matter to what you want to do at all, but the um county manager did put his proposal his proposed budget before the commissioners last night and his figure in there exactly matches what Dr. recommending in his budget. I know just just as a context. I know. I saw the articles and I'm just I mean they're doing salary increases and stuff and we're like trying to figure out where to cut more out of kids scoring experiences. >> So they have different And so what I would recommend, you can share that, but with that small amount, we can make adjustments within what we have
051to make sure that our ask uh will meet um what the county manager has recommended. Um and and at the end, we know this is still going to be continued according to what the state does. So there's still a lot of work to go. So $100,000, 109, I think it is. Uh that's doable. That's different. >> Are there any other suggestions or comments? >> Was there a vote tonight? We would need to show. >> Okay. >> Whether it whether that's reducing costs or increasing. We just need direction on that because they would be approving the figure to go forward to prepare their budget. Uh >> so the options without identifying something specific it would be putting more of unassigned but we do not have on the agenda this evening a policy to wave uh the
052fund balance the unassigned value of 50%. Because that would exceed 50%. Another option, I know you took the restart off of the table, but you could make that small adjustment or reduction to the restart availability. It would take it from 6 million down to 5.9 additional. And then when there's a an actual adopted budget, you could state that if we had additional savings elsewhere that have been identified from potential state funding. >> Um that was exactly my suggestion. uh even though I definitely want to protect restart. Um I think that perhaps tweaking that number a little bit and then deferring it to be paid back into that to that pot would be a a benefit, you know, just $2 or numbers. So do you have a commitment to putting that amount back in this public
053once we have um you know definite number from the state or not get some then I'll get to you with that. >> So Dr. proposal was to Okay. So, was there cl clarification or consensus around what Dr. is suggesting so we can have a balance consensus? I mean, I support the idea. I just want to make sure that there's any other last minute adjustments before we agree to that final number. >> Sure. >> But agree on principle. >> I just want to lay everything on the table that there's some uneasiness that we can follow up. I know you had a question regarding that. >> So I I'm kind of questioning the 109 that we have left because I'm looking at the budget we took out. The only thing we've added back is the 500,000 which
054would put us at 10 million 52,000. Right. No, hang on. I'm not done. >> 10 million 552. >> Right. And then we replaced 1.2. We came in at 1.2 too, but we took off um >> 440,28 >> 177. So, >> you're actually starting with that next column, the 8.4 million, not the 10 million one. I mean, if you start with column D, >> I was subtracting >> and you start with the 8.4 floor and then we are adding to that the NCC 440,000 extra duty 1.1 million and the restart 100,000 rounding just to say the numbers that would get us to the 10 million 86 786 is the adjustment we need. Okay, thank you. Any additional questions regarding the right. >> So I know this has been an exercise for everyone and I appreciate everyone
055going through and looking at numbers and how we've been trying to get to like a balanced number. One of the things that exercises I went through was again you tweak something here and you get closer to 10, you tweak something there, you come back a little bit. Um, something that in the last two years I think this board has been very successful at doing has been going out and trying to find additional monies, private sector monies and donations that we've been able to use to fund important school functions. You've seen how we've been able to build up the angel fund with donations from the AJ Fletcher Foundation, from the maps temple, from individual fundraisers. You've seen um had three or four examples and blanking on them. Um but one of the ideas that one of
056the things that I came across is I found a matching grant program. We were talking about our restart funds and what we might do there. And we were talking about tutoring. And what I found was through one of the organizations that's been highlighted through our community engagement committee uh communities and schools for $15,000. we could get a $15,000 private sector match that would be used for success coaches for North Garner Middle and um I think East Garner Middle and again it's the capacity to take a small investment and double its impact but it would require us to invest the 15,000 in it. It's a relatively modest amount and some of the different scenarios we were playing with. Mr. Yeah, Mr. Chair, I had a, you know, way to try to get that in there because
057we're not coming up with a surplus, but a little bit less than we would have to fill. I'm a little more reluctant to propose it, but I still think it does go to benefit those, you know, children that could be coming from a more of an atrisisk environment that need that additional uh support. So, I wanted to put that out there as a proposal for 15,000 to expand those success coaches to community schools. So, is there support for that idea? I'll get you this as far as questions or >> it's in reference to this. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, that was where I am. Um I do support what um Mr. Hagry is saying. I think that um conversations as well with with that. I'm I'm okay with supporting that and have consensus.
058But what I do and would like to see more um if possible, I think with our with Dr. Hills department. If we can make sure that we really collaborate with these um other organizations who are actually seeking out funding in these other sectors for us um in support of doing the work around our students to make sure that we're meeting the deadlines that they need, including the information that they need as well so that they can do the matching grants and the other uh funding and incentives that we've done. So, I'm all in for the consensus with supporting that, but I do want to encourage staff to work more with our community partners because we need them at this juncture as well as in the future to come. And I think um one thing that
059we um have done well is create great partners um in Wake County. But what I think we can improve upon is keeping those partners, hearing their voices of what they might need to continue to sustain the support that they bring toward us with our children. And community schools is one of those people who've been trying and have missed out on funding to really help our kids because we haven't always followed through the way that was necessary to support the work that they're doing for our students. So yes, Mr. I would love if um other colleagues would come alongside you and support this 15,000 to help views what more they need to do. Any other So would that require us to take some from the restart to match those? I mean what I will show you
060is the board um is agreeing to to add that engine. We can make that adjustment. Uh I know that um uh even with utilities, we can make a slight adjustment there if we want to. Uh as we know that's just prediction. The number could be higher or lower. And so 15,000 I just think u um there just several places in the budget you can make those subtle adjustments. >> If there's a possibility the 15,000 community would require that we look at it. The challenge with paying schools is that also pays for our recruitment advertising. And so my concern with going over a million is just that that would our recruitment advertising. Our program has been really successful. Um and we were hoping to expand it for bus driver recruitment um and use those funds to
061do that. I I feel more comfortable looking more deeply into it before we risk our bus driver advertising. So if we could look into it could do it thoroughly right now. So to have to add anything we have to have a balanced budget and Kim needs to have a budget line item that can be adjusted in the file so that she can make the May 15th deadline to the county commissioners. Um, so it could be another thing that's adjusted in research. I do want to highlight if you have not read your updates from the student attendant that on Friday I did receive information from uh DPI and a state um meeting that we had that there is a lot of um movement on this 15 to 18% increase in Duke power and that will be
062added as a potential risk to the board's budget. We currently spend $30 million with Duke Energy. So you can do the math that 15 maybe 10% will be a significant increase if there is not advocacy to tamper that um increase amount, but we will likely see an increase which we'll be monitoring. Um so that is a potential risk that was not included in the superintendent's proposed plan but will be added in the board of education's proposed budget. So, I do want you to be aware that there may be some other costs. Um, we also have fuel increase cost because of what's going on right now in our nation. Well, not in our nation, but outside of our nation, but it is impacting. So, gas prices are escalating and we spend a lot in transportation. So,
063the state was able to give us a very modest about $600,000 as a fuel increase for this year. Um, and so our fuel inventories are more stable. >> Um, but we also did some fuel futures and we're able to purchase it at a a lower amount than what it's selling for right now. So, I just want the board to be aware that there are some operational costs that could very well go up and depending on how things level out with the rule right now. We we are impacted very much by that. Um Miss Wallace shared with me she's hearing from vendors where costs like gloves are increasing by 25% for her workers in a warehouse. So we are seeing escalation. I just want to make sure that I'm sharing that with you. >> I have
064a amended proposal to the proposal on the table. Given the rest that have been laid out, is this something that we can pass the balance balance budget tonight? And if there's additional leftovers or revenues or something, we can see that we could go back and uh add the 15,000 for the community and schools for those two particular schools. Um cuz that means um sorry. >> So just a logistical question about that. Will the budget finance committee continue to meet or can we request that it continue to meet so that we can do what you're suggesting? Would it be I mean I know we always have work session but um it sounds like for us to get through tonight we're still going to be trying to work with this budget knowing the state is in that
065process we hope so can we make that request chair I just wanted to clarify because in in terms of terms there's community and schools Wake County and And then there's our community schools program. And I just wanted to make sure that we were clear on the two different because then we started talking about using balance from community schools for community and schools. I just wanted to make sure about how do we get the 15,000 we have the budget. Yeah. Uh again, I I just know that some of these are um like hiring decisions and things follow our budget, our budget cycle. So, you know, for 15,000, you even looking at some of the suggestions that came in some of the board Q&A, I was curious if we couldn't find it for this budget. But to
066Miss Edwin's question, I absolutely if it's with, you know, what you as the chair would want, think we could continue to have the budget and finance committee continue to meet to consider the reorganization, the compensation studies, and then let's just be honest, fundamentally, if this is where we think our revenues are going and depending on what the legislature does in terms of any costs and depending what the markets do with additional costs, it would be far better for us to look start working now on what that 2728 budget looks like than trying to do it all in a competitive period next year. I agree. So, a little bit we >> I was actually going to ask if we could keep the 15,000 in there because I think that it is it's a program that is
067much needed. It's something that we hear about often and we're not talking about millions. We're talking about 15,000 and if we can find a way to put that in there, it is something that is going to benefit our students. >> I think the question is, which I'm not opposed to putting it down to saying where because tonight we have to pass a balance budget and staff does not have the opportunity to locate the additional 15. So what that mean if we would take that from the 500 and the restart and then adding that back once that once the budgets are adjusted. So that's that's I guess consensus what we need to figure out. So, so Mr. Chair, if the board has consensus on that, if we can do that restart, uh, uh, we can make
068those adjustments there. Uh, and then we'll have from now to the end of next year to, uh, make that sole adjustment and put it back. So, we're talking about 15,000. Uh, to me, that's a skinny rabbit that I don't want the board to uh, to get too worried about. We'll be able to make that adjustment. Might be a skinny balance. >> That's right. That's the only concern I have is the balance budget. >> Sorry. Can you say so can we clarify where we are with the restart amount now cuz it was at six and we've reduced it just a little bit but so we weren't going to reduce restart at all. Right now before this change we were reducing 109,601 with the understanding that when we first find savings if that happens in the new
069year that would be the first thing to reinstate. So if we add the 15,000 to it, we'd be at like 124 almost 125,000 that we would bring down the 6 million to uh8 some million and the area superintendent used over the course of the year. So I understand that part any savings we would likely be reinstating that before they would need that last toate the schools. >> I just wanted to know the main number that we had gotten to which is 5.8. Thank you. So make the adjustments that we needed to. We would be I'll start from the top. We will be um leaving special education teachers in the amount of $4 million on the grant because the carryover is now going to be larger because some adjustments we've done. We would move a million
070dollars of utilities to the community schools budget. We would adjust the assistant principal formula for our high school so that the top tier would max out at 58 months of employment. We would remove vacant positions in the amount of 836,000 from central services. We would reduce central services base budgets by 523,000. On that one, I want to mention that the slides will show a higher amount because we have already reduced the base budget in the superintendent by over 500,000. So, we'll be summing those numbers. Um, we will be removing the increase for dental plan by changing the plan. no increase to the cost to staff. We will be removing the tutors, the NCEC tiers, 440,000. We will be delaying the extra duty increase 1.1 million. We will be reducing the pot of resources from 6
071million. We reduce it to about 5.8 some million because we're going to reduce 124,000 with the caveat that the first savings we may see during next fiscal year would reinstate that and we are adding the $15,000 to the budget for the communities and schools success coaches matching grant requirement that will get us to where we need to be and we will show these adjustments to you tonight for your approval of the board of education's budget. We would then prepare that budget document and deliver it to the county before the 15th. >> I do I do have a question. Um I I had questions about u Mr. Hagert's proposal, but I I think I clearly understand now. Um Miss Kinsey, can you repeat what you said in the very beginning about special education? So, in the
072superintendent's proposed budget, we our carryover in the grant was going to be less than it has been. So, we couldn't sustain the recurring positions, >> right? So, we're moving about $7 million of special education teachers in the superintendent's budget from the grant to local and that's offset by other cost and adjustments already in his budget. We were going to his budget recommended changing the formulas in special education to reduce the number of staff. That is something you all did not want to do. So instead of doing that, we are making these adjustments in the green. What's happened since the superintendent's budget was proposed is the Department of Public Instruction gave us some money very late in the year because they were able to find resources they did not use in other categories, redistributed and gave
073a lotments to school districts. Those funds allowed us to move some staff from local stages of the money and freed up local money that allowed us to move some contract costs that already were spent off of IDA to the local budget for this year only. so that the carryover in that grant can be $4 million higher going into next year. So, we're increasing the carryover by moving cost off the grant. That lets us leave some of those teachers on the ground one more year. Okay? And depending I'm saying delays for a million a year. Things can happen during the course of next year. We'll see. But there's approximately a $4 million amount for that and the use of community schools funds for one year of a million. So, $5 million are things we already need
074to address for next year because we're delaying that adjustment, but we're not reducing or changing the special education. Okay. So, so I think my question is um around, you know, we we've had several conversations about special education and the workload and you know, we I I understand that we've already gone through a lot of that discussion. However, with with us with this money being moved in the way that it is being moved, is it possible for us because I know there was some talk about um you know in the same the same way that you are offering about the the community and schools coaches. There was some conversation about there being some like um positions dedicated to reducing the workloads fed teachers. Is there a possibility for for that to be addressed with the money
075that is being moved with the $4 million, >> right? If the 4 million is actually balancing the the budget for next year, it is keeping maintaining status quo of existing positions. I I understand I understand that but is I I get your question. Uh what I would say is that what the board has committed to doing is not reducing special education that keep the budget the same. And so that means that if there's anything that we want to do to add any additional positions, that means we would have to uh allocate the resources towards that and that's either through getting additional funding from somewhere. Um, you know, I know the state is looking at uh making some changes in the funding formula uh something else that we would all lot within the budget uh or
076reduce something so we can add that to special education. But at this point, we haven't made any reductions to special education. We will keep all those uh personnel things in place and and we will obviously um have to make adjustments based on salary increases and things of that nature. But any additional positions we might need, we need a way to support special education. We're just out to find the resources to add that and and know exactly what we wanted to add. Was that the question that you had? >> Somewhat somewhat I I hear you when you say we cannot add positions. Um which >> I didn't say that. I said we can, but we have to determine how we would pay for it if we had. Yeah. >> Okay. What can that be done? But
077either you it would be either increasing your request to the county or you would have to offset it by cutting some reducing or giving up something else. It's kind of to get something else to give something without Okay. You can't propose what you want to get. >> I don't want to remove anything. I think we're removing too much. Um, I guess I will ask the elephant in the room, why are we not asking for more if we know that that's what we need? So, um, you know, one of the things I'm trying to do is be very in tune to um what the county's financial situation is. And and what I can tell you is that um um what we were expecting to be $40 to $50 million in additional revenue uh that's way down.
078Uh it's around $15 million. I think what is my is down to $8 million. So that number's been keep going down. And what I recognize is that um uh they've also had to do a tax increase just to cover the budget that we have now. Um and when I look at what we've done in terms of working with the commissioners uh in the best of times, and I know that was my first year, I think they gave us an additional $58 million. Uh and so um uh knowing what their revenue is now uh I just wouldn't see me in a position to ask them to give uh 58 $60 million even in the best of times where they were able to find that money. >> Um I'm I'm definitely not asking for an inflated number
079like that. Um although I know we all know sitting around this table that I don't think that there's enough money in public education period. But um I know I'm preaching to the choir. Um and I I hear you when you say, you know, you're trying to be very in tune with what what the county needs, but I think we have to be really in tune with what our district needs, too. And while I'm not asking or I'm I'm not even thinking of like asking for 20 extra million dollars. Um I think I think it is it is a job of ours to do the due diligence to to to really push. We've heard that there have been issues with scale and although we are remaining we are you know keeping the status quo that we
080had last year we we've seen that that's not enough and so I respectfully ask that if if there is a way for us to determine if if at all we can kind of uh take some of the the pressure off of the workload off of sped if that is a possibility for us to do that and ask for for a reasonable amount for what we need. I would ask for that and and unfortunately I don't know what that I don't exactly know what that number is. So I do want to follow up on the court's question. So, I know that we've talked about the budget amount was for the status quo is is how it was described, not adding anything, but we know that there have been proposals to change special education. Specifically, we talked
081about CCK, I think, and some other programs. So, those programs are discontinued, but we're not changing anything? Where are those now? Well, it is that was addressed before I got on the road, but where is the funding for those programs going or is that money that is being kept within special education, but I'd like to know how it's being used or if any of that could be used for some of these. Yeah. So, so any of those and we're talking about those 16 regional programs and so those resources will be used to continue to support uh those students and those classrooms and those special education teachers. So, it's is not uh cutting anything from the budget. It's just saying that we're going to serve those kids and those teachers in a different manner. So those
082resources are still going to be there to provide that security. Um and those teachers that do not have the license programs can't and and so and and thank you for asking that question. So be very clear that uh if that person is not duly licensed that just says they can't deliver the core content but there's nothing that stops them from delivering the special education um support that's needed. So there's not going to be a change for those teachers. They're still going to be part um of our landscaping special education. They're not going in the CCK classrooms CCK classroom. Uh no, it didn't say that the the teachers will be here, right? Because remember that it's required that those students have um um um if they're going to be in that type of classroom that they
083have a dylic licensed teacher. Right now we only have two of those. And so that means we're out of compliance as related. So that means they will be there to provide those supports for those kids in those 16 regional programs. So are we okay? Um so with the CCK the teachers that are not licensed those regional programs the district is working to get those teachers licensed are not working I don't know if that's what special ed is doing or not. No, you're not working to get those teachers unlicensed because it's a matter of the lure program. So that means essentially the program I call but I'll go to Dr. >> That was what I wanted to ask is that I cuz I've asked this a couple of times and I got the same answer that
084we're going to use the resources to support those teachers just differently but nobody can tell me how what does that look like? So how did So okay so nobody can enter a CCK classroom next year. Um so the students would go to their base schools they want to go to a CCK classroom somewhere else and so what is that difference? >> Yeah. So it depends on the student. So when you think about a CCK classroom those kids have different disabilities. Some may go into some other regional program. Some may go into a classroom. That's just something that's going to be determined uh by the IEP team when they make a decision about those kids in those 16 program. So, I can't sit and tell you where every kid is going to land, but I do
085know some based on the CCK program who's in there will probably end up in some other regional program. those teachers and those uh IE everybody who's in that program and based on where those kids may be assigned uh then they may be in those classrooms providing additional support additional pull out all those things that are going to be there to support those programs >> but they won't be the lead teacher there anymore it just depends on how it's done at that particular school so if you've got um I think you the first answer would be no wouldn't be the need to teach uh I would agree to that but if they are part of a co-eing module that I can't determine because depending on what that teachers lure is the example we know two of
086those are dy licensed teachers and so how they might be deployed in the instruction I won't be able to speak to that detail they made that decision u the special education department and at the school level I just I wouldn't be able to answer that Of course, I'm wondering future student achievement community on what looks how fashion still can there's some confusion around this. Um, but those teachers that are supposed to teach CCK will still have a job as well school. And so and I want to be absolutely unequivocally clear about this that uh we haven't cut any of those teachers. And so remember we were talking about EBS teachers uh and that is what we had talked about reducing by the 130 all that has been put back in place and we never talked
087about cutting any other position. So any change that a school sees in terms of special education will be because there's been a change in the the enrollment of those students or if the principal uh has converted some position to have a special education teacher and they choose not to convert that anymore. And so that will be the a lotments that they get from special education. I can be a personal level school and say I'm going to convert add one additional special education teacher and now the case load for my teachers go from 25 down to whatever that number may be by adding an additional teacher. That's a principal decision. But at the district level, the allotments that we give out have not changed. Uh and the school will see a change only because the enrollment
088has gone up or down and they will get more of those based. >> Okay. Um I have a couple questions. How many um students were in CCK for how many classes? >> I don't know the number of 16 classes. >> 16 classes. So in those 16 classes you have an average of what 18 children I think >> it has to be 16 or eight seven or eight was lower than that less than so it's a less than 150 students total okay so the question that I need to pick up from this board where she originally asked and I'm going to ask for a very direct answer I don't want a runaround I want a direct answer and that is with this with this when we remove the CCK students and put them in their regular
089education class um based upon uh whatever their uh assessment might be. Uh will the student the will the educators who have to now support the special education students or will special education educators period have an increase in case management and paperwork to complete? That is what Miss Gordon is asking. Are these people's workload going to increase? We're not cuz we keep talking about oh no we're not cutting nowhere. We understand that part. But the question really is will their workload increases? She's trying to get to the point to say if it does is there funding for their work to be done so that they can do special education. Special education is a very um supportive role that has to happen and if they have to do the supportive role of the engagement with our students
090so that they can be seen and be supported they can't also do paperwork too. It's not enough time in a day and it's not healthy wellbeing. So what I heard was, okay, we're not cutting anybody, but these classrooms are now getting ready to increase in whatever perspective that they may be, which means workload has to increase. Will there be some support for them? And so when you're saying, "Oh, but we're not sure if we're going to get um if we do have a we do see some needs and if we have the funds, then we can possibly do it if we have the funds. But the question I think we're asking in the front end is do we have supports in place already to support these special education educators for when we know these classrooms
091are going to shift and to confirm from our meetings that we've had since the beginning of CCK. Please public and everybody understands you were not supposed to do CCK without doing the role of teachers and we've been doing it for over 10 years. That's the elephant in the room. I need to answer though. I need to answer that. That wasn't me having conversation cuz that was me asking are we supposed to? >> No, I said all that other part too cuz I don't know to say something else. >> So, uh, Miss Rice, uh, the answer is yes. There will be some courts in place. Uh what I can't talk specifically about is who that new group of students are going to be that are in kindergarten next because I don't know what that number is
092going to be. It could be higher, could be lower. Uh that I don't know. But what I can tell you is that all of those students that typically come into the C CCK program every year, uh we kind of know what those numbers are. I know when we look at who's in free kick is going to be coming in um probably have a pretty good idea what those numbers are. So this is all she haven't talked about that but the idea would be that those supports would be provided. Uh but once you know exactly what the number is, I haven't been particularly I'll let you guys speak to what you've seen so far in terms of what those numbers might look like for next year. Thank you. Um I don't have numbers in front of
093me. I can try to get those. Um and I'm just running over here from Crossroads 2. The last thing I heard was Dr. you know, asking about how these students are going to be served. And I'd like to speak to that if I can. Um, typically we don't satisfy people for talking about this cuz what I'm going to say is what I can tell you is that whenever the IEP says the school is ending, the team is going to sit around the room, decide what that child needs, and when they placed in that school, receive those services. If the child needs 4 hours of separate settings, they'll receive 4 hours of separate settings. If they need 4 hours of inclusion or 2 hours of inclusion, we'll receive teachers that were in CCK are going to
094be in our schools supporting um those students. All students um depending on where they just will be in a separate class receiving instruction. Um We want them receive core instruction from the service of my teacher. And like I said before, especially at this very young age, we want them receiving that in regular classroom as much as possible because these children are still really developing, but we don't know where they're going to land. As as very young children, you all have young children. You know that they all develop at different levels and they come in at different paces. And I don't want children. I make videos with children placed in a separate setting where they don't have access to typical development gear so that they can grow to the maximum extent possible. If you all numbers
095how many we're projecting, I'm happy to get that for you. The challenge is especially the kindergarten level children that are from prek to kindergarten is very like we don't sometimes they go sometimes they don't go anywhere they take addition it's not required school I can give you how many favor services but that is a very fluid number for us every year we start think we're going to have this money and this is how many Those are the questions I knew. I went through. And so I think one of the things that we can do is to go back and share um what those numbers were and I'll just say one October of every year uh for the past 3 years. And that kind of keep you seek. >> So I I my question was really
096about do we have a plan in place to support the increase of case management workload for special education teachers. the money, right? There's there's already a current overflow um of work that they've tried to meet and now we're going to increase the numbers. We're being realistic, right? Or at least trying to be prepared for what to come. I don't necessarily, it's not about the numbers because I can't control the numbers. I want to know what plans of actions does the department have in place to support if it happens and not be reactionary but be preventative or um you know um offensive about the situation. So whether it's later if you have something in place or you're going to put something in place is what parent detail this topic can get the layout where it is
097what the plans are your questions can be raised there answered in greater detail. satisfies cuz I know we've talked about this many times. We had $18.1 million that was towards this program and now we're not going to have the program. So just very simply >> we're removing the program itself. So the aging 1 million is we're talking about the entire U. Federal 60, which is a federal grant that has about4 60 some odd million. Uh at the end of this year, that federal grant will have about $6 million5 or $6 million in carrying. So when we go into the next year, if we do everything that we're doing this year, by the end of the year, there will be a deficit of about $18.1 million. And so we took maybe seven or eight million of
098that put on the local side. Uh and then the remaining 10 million we're going to reduce those 13 uh uh EDS positions is now the board says we will not do and that's what 10 million is about. So so it's not the CCK that's something completely outside of that is within that entire $300 million budget. What we were doing is was identifying the 18 million and seven or eight of them we already identified and then we switched out 10 million uh which is what we did the day the last going back to my head was spinning. So, okay. And I'm I'm just part of what I was going to say with that fund is exactly what Miss Rising was saying is if we're switching things around, what are we doing to compensate these children are
099going to be in a general education classroom now, right? Or if they can be correct, they could be served there. So now we have we have these teachers that we're trying to disperse in different spaces to help these students, but do we have extra to help those teachers do that? >> So Mr. Chair, you take one to two minutes for Mrs. to to share and and then I think after that we can bring back to student talk. Let's go right here. on the table. That might be better. So currently this year, you ready? Okay. So currently this year we have six NCC classrooms 14 of which has have teachers. Those 12 teachers are going to be moved somewhere else where there's a vacancy for somebody retired and they're going to roll into our teacher positions.
100Today, yesterday, and tomorrow, we are training generally kindergarten teachers about how to manage um behaviors for children that have challenging behaviors to help prepare them for the children that are coming to their buildings. Additionally, we'll be providing additional um support through some of the IAS um that are dispersed because of CCK. We're going to be holding some of those at essential services so that when we have cases where children are really having extreme behaviors, we can deploy them out into the schools to help with those. We are also working to hire through 70 which is the CIS funds behavior um BCBAS or certified behavior analyst and registered behavior technicians again to help some of these children that are struggling behaviorally. Um, historically, those are the children that are most challenging in kindergarten because many times
101they've never been in a formal school setting before. They don't know how to they don't know how to do school. And so, we'll be deploying some of these folks to help in the classroom to manage um while we get them prepared to do school. student achieve it. I want to go back to Miss Williams first. um asking question after hearing from special education teachers and reading emails for special education teachers like one specific thing that we can do this is have somebody who handles the IEP the paperwork the um the paperwork the scheduling meeting you know leading the meeting that kind of has got a huge time consumption issue is this industry that comes with that and it's legal need and it's very so we would want to ask for money to cover even if
102it was like a pilot program or or you know having it in 10 schools to see how it works for something like what is stopping us from having like a stepped budget like here's the budget that matches what you asked. Here's what we we desperately need and having that goal here. Like what is stopping us from doing that? some let me uh I got to be clear about this. Um uh when it comes to special education, this is a an area that impacts everybody in the school and I absolutely agree with you. You know what that paperwork piece is like. You got kids that are going to move from one location to another location and those IEPs have to be done. an inordinate amount of time with a fresh just on a school today. I
103don't share that with you. Uh but I get that what we have to be careful about is um in the process of trying to mitigate what is going paperwork uh that we don't put any of our teachers in a position for their skills atrophy as it relates to being able to develop and write quality IEPs. Uh and so uh I understand that you can have uh what some people generally call a case manager to help you manage that and and what I've clearly seen in this industry is that when you put too much towards that that is what happens on the instruction side but we have to determine what needs to happen in that classroom. The special education teacher and the reg education teacher are not going to be as real first in developing that
104IEP. So part of our goal is to make sure that we put processes in place to help mitigate that so they're not overwhelmed by that. But at the same time, we don't do anything that takes away from their ability to be able to provide quality instruction in their classroom. And so that has always been the challenge. And I see that pendulum swing back and forth, but we put a whole bunch towards it and then all of a sudden we see the impact here swing back and forth. And so that is I know the balance that we've always tried to strike is how do we determine um uh what is the right balance to where we don't over tax teachers but we don't put them in a position where they can't do quality work either. Uh
105so uh I I that's one of the things that I talk deeply about. Um we know when it comes to the behavioral support that these kids are experiencing is much different. I was in a school today today uh the kindergarten kid that was prepared to place them and is not in a CCK class support people there. So those are the kinds of things that we know we got to be able to employ out to schools and make sure that that kind of support is in place. Okay. Oh, I was talking to the chair. He asked me to pivot us because we getting I'm not disagreeing with this conversation, my colleagues, but we have to give it back to the budget for this particular meeting. Hang on. Hang on. Let me finish. Okay, let me finish.
106There was a budget question Dr. Joe and did you get that question Dr. the budget part of the question cuz this is a big question. >> What is preventing us? And it doesn't even have to be I'm not limiting it to this special education. What is limiting us to have is to presenting to the county a stepped budget that shows here's the budget we came up with if you were going to limit us to this amount of money. Here's the budget that we actually need to meet significant crises we're having to next week on Monday commission based on the state control act. You have to provide So could you hear me? >> So you do have to provide for a balance proposed budget cannot be an optional a option B. Um so general statute 115
107C. So the school budget this control actical 31 the superintendent provided his proposed budget. the board of education that needs to either accept that budget or make adjustments to the budget and then you approve the budget this evening based upon the adjustments that you provided to balance the request um and then that goes to the county commissioners. Now the county county manager um has proposed the $25 million increase to the local county. um that is his recommendation to the county commissioners. It includes a property rate increase um and it includes them uh appropriating funds from their unassigned fund balance which the county manager has not recommended in the past towards recurring expenses. So it is a challenging budget cycle. Um we don't know what the state will be coming. So in the likelihood budget on
108state revenues come in and decisions can be made about if we have excess funds anywhere um then the board can make decisions about um program changes adding additional resources. Uh I can tell you Dr. Taylor reference about special education at the state. Uh so I was having Wednesday with the state. Uh there's a school public that's been working on that. They also presented that they have a recommendation to the legislature about special education funding for changing to remove the cap and to provide um student funding based upon three different categories. You may have also heard some stuff from your special education reps. Uh so you would have regular education classroom students who you would have students that need to have pull out type services and maybe aology and such and then you would have your
109severe case students that would be in your self-contained classroom. So, we are hoping that potentially it could be in our next year's um calculation, but we're also we are also funding and so we don't know what it's going to look like, but we do know for it will probably be an increase in our special education plan. Um, so to go back to my original question, the answer is cuz the law says we can't do that. what it is that we can relationship that we don't. So that's the idea that um uh what I've always tried to do is be in a really good relationship with the county manager and know what they can do and ask and uh and they don't always fully fund what we ask for. They can get as close as they
110can. Sometimes they may go above and so that is the idea as a board. uh you can ask the commissioners for whatever you want to ask them and then they are going to give you the funding that they're going to give you and then that goes back to what we now have to balance that local budget based on what they've given us. So, so yes, you can ask for and back. So the other piece to this where Dr. Jones is coming from is why I'm going to continue to advocate for a presentation on what is the hospital system like that we can communicate that one thing that we can do as individual board members is have conversations constantly with our counterparts on the county commission so we can take here's what system looks like and
111have individual conversations. There's nothing that is stopping us from doing that. Um, two other quick points on the budget absolutely supports the current budget. It's it's not fun. This is I told people this is the worst 3 and 1/2 years because we have more needs than um the chair point and it's highly unlikely we will get it. Um, and this gives a road map to our staff. If they had a normal funding here, I would ask for 150 more, but as an individual board member, that's what I ask. That's my that's my last thing is to other board members. I'm hoping that we have extra money about library collections. People may not seem like this is in the field but it is to me for 3 years librarians came to us asking us for money
112collections I talked to Miss Rosie she referred me to Dr. Hill and said there's a CIP academics budget separate from our CIP budget uh and Dr. uh bringing that to us as a board to discuss and that's something that again librarians have been asking us for I want to be responsive to them and hopefully we not reading books and having them updated and stuff. So thank you Dr. Thank you. So if it's if it's not clear I think Dr. Taylor, you and staff have heard from the board about the original proposal to cut 10 million from special education, and that's why we're in this exercise coming to look for additional ways to still come in at that budget level. But there's still important needs that we have in special education and support that we need
113for our special education teachers. I think one of the challenges we're experiencing is, you know, I know it takes a long time to put together the budget proposal, but then by the time the board gets it, responds to it, and then when we have a significant $10 million change, the time to consider other alternatives, get the information, develop the proposals is very compressed. And so I understand with the statutory deadline and you know as as the chair stressed we're not going to get all of the answers tonight for a balanced budget proposal but what I think that we can do and it doesn't necessarily happen tonight have to happen tonight but I think a majority of this board maybe the entire board would support a motion to dedicate additional staff resources to special education to
114support our special education teachers and staff and our special education students. And as part of that, you know, the chair knows because of his time as vice chair, he talked to you several times about pilot programs and things that we could come up with to address his IDP the issues and paperwork issues. And just like you shared today, you would see some some challenges with that. But I think we can't let that go. And so we can't just say, well, we didn't do in this budget and then not hear about it again until next year's budget. So with with the chair's blessing, and if you think this is appropriate, feel free to call me down. But I I really think I'd like to see, you know, staff action to elevate this issue to talk so
115that we can all have the conversation about, you know, CCK and middle school essentials. What is replacing those programs? Dr. Ring has talked about problems he's seen with the programs. And we had some teachers and parents talk about the benefits they've seen with the programs. And so what is really going to replace that need but in a way that avoids some of the problems that have been identified. I think a pilot project, even if we can't have the proposal that was presented to us for 100 new positions, I do think there is some pilot program we could develop. And again, once we hear back from the state, is there a change in special education allowance or funding? Maybe we can have a plan in place so we can direct funds toward that. Our special education
116teachers need more support. We need more staff and adults in the building. We need more funding per student for the students with these needs. And even if we don't put that into a budget ask tonight, I would like to ask the chair of the board to keep working on this issue and where we have some specific proposals that were suggested to us. Get discussion and find out, you know, what are the barriers and can we implement these by policy if not by fiscal policy. So this is what I would suggest that uh uh if if we given the opportunity that is what we can bring to the board. Um um listen here maybe at the second session in June that might be a good opportunity. I know that uh you interferes with high school. Okay.
117So, uh and I know you talk some about what um so I know we have talked some about what the um um uh July session look like. Um, so if if we can kind of talk a little bit more, I think we might be able to make some adjustments and then we can bring that to the because I think there was a lot that we want to be able to share in terms of um programs and supports that we're providing and then to talk more about uh essentials and CCA and so um uh we're an so so we we'll talk I think we can um that we we do it before, but that might be the first opportunity. I think that's a good opportunity for everybody to be able to do exactly what we talked
118about broadly in special education and then more opportunity to hear about uh what the would like to see uh in the year. to achieve the details with it depending on what the state does with their budget opportunities for us to really address some of these issues. But um I think it's really going to be dependent on the state to do their constitutional duty as their budget addressing the special education to give us the additional resources that we need to pilot this program that last year push for work closely with this year to make it happen to the was simply his job to step up and fun education. So I saw this morning because I think we have 30 minutes before our next presentation was something so thank you. Um first I feel like our questions
119are getting are just not getting answers like I I felt like I've asked a very plain question. I felt like Miss Rice has asked this very plain question and I feel like Dr. Jo has asked a very plain question and it is it is like circle and but what I did hear what I did pick up on around the question of what is preventing us from asking for even pushing a little bit more for the things that we need. Not even not even fully what we need, but what I heard you say was relationship when it comes down to county commissioners. Okay. I just I just wanted to make that clear for the public and I wanted to make it clear for myself so that I know when we get out there in front in
120front of everyone else. Um I I am I'm struggling a lot with the the rhetoric that we are pushing toward you know the state the the county commissioners um well not even county commissioners but the state needs to do their job. You know, I will speak for myself and say, you know, I attended the rally this past week. Um, and I think it was very clear that that the needs are very urgent and for us to be talking about, well, what if next year, but what if if the money becomes available um in the next budget, I feel like this is a this is a time for us to to lead and a time for us to be bold in in our actions and brave in our actions and say we were given a number.
121From my understand from my understanding from this from this this board member on this board we were given a number and we are being asked to work within that number and we all know that that number is not reasonable. We all know that it does not address the the major spend concerns that we have that that's not even talking about all of the all of the educational education support professional um issues that we have but specific to special education. We know that the workload is enormous at this point. We know that the workload is enormous. I have a a parent who has been waiting on a question to be answered about her child regarding her child's special education services that she has not received that her child has not received and she still has yet
122to receive an answer from staff. And that's just one parent and I know that we've all experienced that. So my point in saying all of that is this is this is an urgent time like I as from my viewpoint we cannot wait until next next budget. So I respectfully ask that we ask for more question. So one word please share. I'm trying to determine how Miss Gordon said I was I was writing to my office. I didn't know Miss Gordon was finished. Um, let me get myself together cuz I'm trying to be polite, but it's just not working in these settings. Um, my question, I'm sorry, my question was around the budget as it pertains to spec and just wanted to make it understood that money can't always fix our spec problems. I see gaps
123in communication, which I'm glad that Miss Harden just closed with that. Um, there are gaps in infrastructure that needs to happen that really could save us money if we knew how to communicate with parents. if we trained and did OP work around educators knowing how to call a family and stop being so scared and utilize our policy around cultural competencies so that you can communicate with people. Um, I am gravely concerned of hearing conversations of our own superintendent talking about a 5-year-old dismantling the classroom through behavioral challenges when yes, we can't control all of that. I think that this is a lot of pressure that we're putting on teachers and we're not using our resources as efficiently and effectively as we need to. If you need some training, I can give you some. I'm a
124certified parenting coach to show you how to communicate with these parents because you cannot, we cannot support these students and these families if parents are not partners. And if we don't know how to train them as partners, if our staff is afraid to talk to parents, then we need to do professional development on how to do that. Somebody called Julia Quir Campbell. She's amazing at it. Like we have to allow people who are in those departments to come into our schools and our classrooms and stop giving our principles this long spoon of 204 203 mayors and have some unified um form in structure that we have to have at every single school being a welcoming school. But you cannot effectively run a school district if you do not have parents partnering with you. And teachers
125are burned out. They are frustrated, underpaid, and overworked. But money can't fix these ed problems when we have so many infrastructure problems that are going on so that you can figure out where you need to add the money. Where's the data that's driving our decision making? instate is I haven't seen it yet. Where's the data that's driving our decisions right now about our budget? I haven't seen it. When I ask for data, I can't get it. Where is it? We are supposed to be a datadriven organization. Where's the data that tells us where we need to put our money, that tells us where we're thriving, that tells us where is that data? And I would expect that my superintendent and his staff would say, "Superintendent, this is what the data says about this department, that
126department, and this is where we're lacking. We don't even know where to put money because we don't really honestly know what works and what doesn't. We're talking about CK and we're moving through emotion, but we're not moving through realistic choices." And that's the problem that I have with the budget and everything that's as I don't have data to know how to make these decisions. But if you put some data in front of me, some things will make sense that we can ask people questions about how things are working so that we know where money needs to go versus just saying, "Okay, let's just cut from this piece and that piece." CCK is a Wake County public school program that was developed, not even a state program. We ain't even talking about I've asked for the
127first time it was presented. I've asked for the data on the program about which students were mostly affected by repeating grades or not getting the help that they need. And we've run a program for over 10 years knowing that they had to be doing the role with teachers in there. Where is the data? I can't make decisions without knowing what the data is. I want to support Miss Gordon and I want to say I have working relationships with our county commissioners as well, but our children are being destroyed because we have a lack of knowledge about how we're really supposed to run our school system because where is the data for the decisions that we're trying to make at the state? And so I'm I'm struggling, chair, help me out. Superintendent, help me out. Miss
128Al, help me out. where is your data that tells me that we need more of this and more of that because this works and that don't work. >> So, so one of the things that um we will absolutely do is uh give that data presentation not only on the CCK program. We do have a lot of data on the students that are referring the number they go into the first grade class the next year. Uh we collect extensive data on all of our programs. You got I think 14 indicators that you got to report to the state on. So I agree with you 100% is about knowing what the data says you need. Uh and that is uh what professional development that we're now providing to teachers. You know uh one of the push backs
129that we often give is we don't need professional development we need support. uh what I would argue the the difference that sometimes it is professional development that uh various people need whether it's regulated teachers special teachers uh administrators to know and understand um what the gaps are in what they need in order to mitigate those gaps and so I agree with you that money is not going to solve all of the problems it helps out tremendously uh but it doesn't solve everything so that is absolutely be able to provide. I think the best thing that we can do is provide you the data that we use to make uh decisions about programmatic directions. And then once you have an opportunity to review that if there's additional that you want us to talk about that you
130have just share that with us. >> I do want to say to Miss Al, thank you for hearing that you all are training your kindergarten teachers today. Um, and I heard and I heard you say that and you're working upon that. But I will again say you can train your kindergarten teachers where in the process of the training need to train the kindergarten teacher of how you're going to communicate with that parent to help them get their own child under control. In kindergarten, that's a I'm speaking and I saying I can take the community and it doesn't matter cuz it's just the truth. At kindergarten, that's a parent problem. I'm being fair and impartial. I stand up for parents all day long in the school system. But here's the situation. Kindergarten, elementary school, the behaviors
131are parent problems. And we can't keep asking our teachers to do something well above and beyond if we're not collaborating with these parents. So, I'll keep saying it every time just like wellness they're being overwhelmed because we need to figure out how we going to help folks um handle some challenges that their children may be having. They may not know how to handle it. Has nothing to do with being a bad parent. Has nothing to do with being a good parent. Some things with behavioral and um intellectual developmental pieces are just skill sets that you need to know how to do. I had to learn with my own intelle intellectual developmental child right wasn't I was a bad parent I was involved because I asked the question how do I help when I don't have
132the skill sets for a child who has some levels of delay right same thing you do at school some of the same things you need to do at home but how many parents know that if your child needs to be a nonverbal so that there is no confrontation then how are you showing them to do that in the classroom and at home and so I think this a do thank you chair for indulging me but some things have to be said we money can't fix it all but we got to figure out how to engage and communicate more with our parents for the budget um one we're making cuts because there was more money spent than was supposed to be spent about $10 million so I think we would actually have cover for that right
133So I do want to find out from staff not right now but safe to make sure that that doesn't happen. Second, as it relates to what they're raising taxes to cover this $25 million, then this is where they $8 million that we have for um this new revenue for EMS and that sort of. So as part of funding us and this additional tax that's a tax that's two cents I was worried conversations I'm not going to disclose all the details but I was worried that we was going to be that was my initial concern 3 months ago that they might have and we go from there. To me it hasn't been they gave us 25 and we look around and it's been conversations to get to that number and not not have something much that's
134my interpretation of it and my conversations. Thank you. Um that's interesting because I I I don't recall that I don't recall the 10 to Okay. Um have we done any research on what what the idea is actually having like the state coordinator? >> Yeah. Um um I went back and asked staff to go through six different proposals recommendations that were given to me uh and the numbers that was anywhere between um 45 $60 million. So the example I said for all of the six proposals that were given to me. Some of them, you know, wouldn't cost you anything other case managers. My mom was there was an additional like a case manager or something. Oh my god. So my memory and all that in front of me was that they were asking for an additional
135staff member in every school to manage the case levels. And I think that was that dollar was like $60 million for 16 to put an additional person into. >> So, so what I can do is um uh and I can get it to you by tomorrow. I might be able to do it today if I searched through um some files, but I did have those numbers running uh and I shared that uh with NC saying that it was anywhere between um 40ome and 60 some example would be that variance in um a teacher position with 5 years experience versus 25 years experience. That's a difference. And so they kind of ran those numbers based on a low and a high. I'll share that with everybody that's here, but those were the numbers that I shared
136with them. So that was uh I just kind of average it at an additional 50 some odd million. Uh and depending on the you put it in, the number would actually be higher. >> So I'm I'm not asking about all of the asks. I'm specifically asking about the the state coordinator positions. And while I understand that the ask was for I think one additional at every school, um is it possible to lessen that number and do more of a regional model which I think that was in the pilot program that um Chair Swanson had initially um talked about. Is it possible to lessen that number and again address that budget? Um the answer is yes, you can lessen the number. Uh you can always add that in the budget, but everything is about uh timing
137to be able to put any changes you want in the budget and be able to present that to the commissioners. So uh the other thing I would say is you can always develop a budget. Uh but you got uh as much time as you want to be able to pivot things within that budget and create pilot programs or switch things around. I just want to give you guys a comment. I I have I don't know all the details, but if you're thinking about one per area, I don't know if that's what you're thinking about. That's still I don't I don't know how much workload that's going to take on the teachers cuz that is a lot of schools for them to manage. >> So what So is it is it correct to assume that since
138you're making that comment that they already have? I I I have never disputed this, Gordon. But it is tough to be a special ed teacher in the nation. And I if y'all think I've disputed that, I have not. I know it's very difficult. I'm just saying if you were putting one in an area, I don't know how much relief that's going to give your teachers because of the number of schools in each area. But is it safe to say that one in our area would any lesson not to to degree? I don't know. But we'll try to look at some numbers by how many spec kids are in each area cuz that will tell you how many IEP. I'll try to do some of that that math if that's helpful. So, so um I'll just
139ask I was asked these difficult questions, but if we said 203 certified business, let's say 200 average teacher salary, what are we talking about? $16 million. And so what I would say is that if that is something uh um that the board would want to put in place, I would say a 2.2 billion budget, you can do that. You just got to figure out what 16 billion budget not do. Um what I would say is that uh that's something that I would want me and myself to really identify as to whether or not we would want to do it at that level because programmatically I don't think that's the right thing to do. I do believe that there's a way that we can relieve teachers with paperwork because it is much different now than it
140was 5 10 and even 15 years ago. And so that is something that we talk about in terms of how we provide that relief. Uh but that is something that I would look forward to saying this is something that we'd like to see and then administration determine what is the best way to do that because I I don't think we're in disagreement. I if anybody makes you think that we're disagreeing, that's the wrong answer. We agree with you. is about what we believe is the the proper way to roll that out and support teachers uh in doing they can continue to grow what um you know I hear and and most of all that's something that we talk about and and trying to identify what is the best way to do that but um we
141will continue to work on Um so I just uh based on what the information that you gave and you said um you commented that having one more at each school would not provide the help that they need one in each area. Yeah. We were talking about the 16 million and I think Miss was asking how left and I was saying if you were thinking about one in each area I don't know how much relief that's going to give cuz if you take 22,000 students divided by n we're going to have a lot of students in there. So my question is really, have we asked them what they need to be taken off of their plate before we go and make and create this data for us to understand? Cuz if you're putting So if I
142understand correctly, if you put one in each school, it's about $16 million. Is that what you're saying? So if we did that, is that something that is going to help them? Because they're the ones that are on the classroom. and they're the ones that are coming to us and emailing us and coming to the board and speaking before us and we all know they need help and I think they're desperate for help. So, I guess that's my frustration not seeing those specific things that we're adding in the budget cuz we know it's there. I don't think it's just keep putting more money in unless we allocate it directly where we know it's going to affect in the classroom. And this is especially one big need that we know that we need. And it's growing. It's
143been growing since my kids were this big, you know, and they've graduated high school now. And I just cannot believe how many families are suffering with this. And they do need help. So, it's not just in the classroom. It's also what can we provide to the parents to work as a team together to make sure that it works both in the classroom and then consistently at home which helps both. And I just I think it would be helpful for us to know if that does solve the problem cuz that $16 billion how do we get it and when will we follow up? Cuz I I agree with Miss Gordon. We shouldn't be waiting another year to talk about another budget. We should be figuring out with the funds we have right now, how are we
144going to make that work? So, we're also, you know, speaking to teachers. We have spoken to the home and we have plans to meet with them regularly next year. Um, this has been a year of us trying to figure things out because this is my team's first year doing this. We're going to be and we've told them we're going to be meeting with you. The desire is that we would meet with all of them for a while and then we would develop a a small group of teachers that could speak or they could go back to their schools and much like Dr. Taylor does with his teacher advisory but just for specialized teachers. I've also invited you all parent meetings. We are doing our best to try to get out to all of those places.
145We realize we have not done enough in the past to give teachers to parents and our plan is to I'm having a difficult time here. Sorry if I'm having a difficult time. It's not Please raise your hand cuz I I just I have a very soft voice. I will do my best to use my teacher voice. I apologize. >> So I actually want to answer Miss Cfield. It is something they've asked for when you asked like if we asked the teachers what would actually help. It's the first demand of the what NCA has been bringing to us is that one more than 16 million. So that's coming directly from them of what they say they need. No to speak to the teachers. No, no. I thought I heard you ask if we've if we have
146if we as a district have asked the specked teachers what would actually help them what they need in regard to the 16 million to the one in each school and that's what that is one so I'm saying that is them speaking for themselves saying what they need so just to clarify I didn't ask if this is going to help I want an overall picture from them yes this will help, but we need this, but we need that. Rather than just band-aids, what is the system that is going to actually help them so that they can focus on and and I do appreciate giving the teachers professional development for what is in their classroom to teach that they may not be special education certified, but to have that knowledge is going to be useful for them.
147but they are managing a class where they're trying to uh you know teach all the kids that are in there with all different needs and then if a kid starts acting out they have to stop and handle that situation. So I do wish that if the state would actually put more bodies in our classroom that is something that they all agree and everybody says that that is something that would help. But my question to that was specifically is it the case manager? Do they need something else? What would be the total ask so that we can evaluate that and figure out how we can put that in? >> Yep. So, >> it's not just one checklist is I want to be clear about that. >> And and and I think that's a a great way
148to characterize it that we're talking about uh multiple things. And so if we talk about uh behavior and students that have behavioral issues and the support that teachers may need or schools may need and you're going to find that's a percentage of students that have IEPs, but it's not going to be 50%. I mean it may be 3, four, five. I don't know what the percentage is, but we have numbers of kids that have behavioral uh issues that are in their IEPs and the support that they need. That's going to number. If you think about um the help that's needed in terms of paper, um um the easiest way to address that is to add 203 case managers and put them in every building. and uh based on the headc count of that school uh
149that's going to uh provide relief uh to students. Uh and so we can deal with all the logistical things and determine how we need to to address that. The bigger issue for me will always be how do we provide educational services to students and making sure that outside of those logistical issues, is this kid learning? Are they getting what they need? And that is something that requires regularly and special education teachers to be involved. And most teachers that come through the program are going to have two special education classes in college. That's it. And and they don't necessarily know about providing specially designed instruction. So, if I'm that kid that's learning disabled, whatever you want to call it, and I get um uh 40 minutes for reading and math twice a week and being pulled
150out for that or pushing in, that's 80 minutes. The rest of that time is with the regular head teacher and they have to know and understand how to provide that specially designed instruction. And so while I want to be able to make paperwork or I want to be able to be sure that behavioral support is there for those kids and teachers that need it, but the bigger part is that instruction and how well kids are performing academically. That's what the work will be for me. But but I think what I know part of doing this year is uh between now and uh um in September is going through the budget and identifying um where are we going to be with redirect funding to do all the things that you all are talking about and and
151a lot of the things that you haven't asked about we know they need to be done. So but more on that. >> Thank you. Um thank you um Taylor um for refocusing the conversation on the students because I really think that yes teachers are important and yes they need to be unvoted in terms of their the burden on on their um work that they have but I think ultimately it is about student outcome and what does it mean for the students and I hear about behavior being you know in a negative that I I I feel like that that that focus on the behavior is unfair and I think that a lot of our kids with special needs don't have behavior problems and they need education. They they need to they need to have a
152proper education. And that means having, you know, the the general ed teacher of how to educate those kids with special needs. And that means having to support from our our special education teachers as to go alongside them so that they know how to best serve their kids. And it's not about money put into it, but it's the the proper way of using that money. Um, and I I'm going to reserve the rest of that to our next, you know, in the conversation that we want to have in the future about special education. I just feel that I I need to say that because I I feel like we are getting lost in the conversation about about funding and putting the money. We don't know what the final outcome will be. We need to know what
153the outcome is for the students, right? And I would appreciate that. and you know the um and then talking about how John the teachers and I don't know what's out there in terms of the education realm but in the medical realm um we they have technology now that we can you know they they can record the conversation as it happens in a in a clinical encounter to be able to synthesize all the information into a document so that that really relieves the the clinician from having to spend more time documenting after the encounter. So, so something like hopefully we can concentrate. Thank you Dr. for the conversation. I think um Mr. Dr. E raised an important question or the statement that he made um and I would like to ask staff and take it back
154to data. Um we talked about children um a lot of special needs children don't have um is not about behavioral challenges. So let's ask the data question of how many of vibs are being special ed. So how many cuz it makes a valid point. It's just like saying people think that all people with a mental illness are violent. That's not true. Only 3% are. Right? So, the question I now have to ask the department is how many of your special ed um students that you're labeling special education are because of behavioral challenges and we know that's a reality. Dr. Taylor is on the side this time so that we so that so that what Dr. E is saying can both be true, right? But because we don't have data that we don't know the truth
155of the matter of what it is. I know from working in the field a lot of times special education is is labeled because a student has a behavioral challenge that is severe but don't necessarily have a medical or mental or developmental diagnosis. And so if we have that data then we know is it more conversations or groups we need to have with parents where is that truency team and our behavioral health team where are they because you can't ask teachers to be behavioral health specialist when it's a behavior. So that was a question staff to tell us what's the data around the numbers when we talk about special ed let's break down the spectrum of special ed and help us understand and identify the the children that we have cuz that's going to help us
156go back to my original statement but this will be a great student achievement in our lane. We are a bit over time because I want to make sure that Miss Ky and Missy have time they need to budget numbers are balance before we go over to the record meeting. So not shifting the conversation but shifting it to keep us true on the budget and already in a good place with the numbers. I I already my good to go. So that gives I think we are okay for you all to get things situated to take us over to the 534. Thank you all for indulging us in those conversations as it relates to the prospect. So we transition over to the uh training process 26 27 years ago. Welcome. require my comments. have to earn my
157voice. So we'll transition forward to discuss welcome. Um we always live in the future. So it's time to start thinking about 2027 28 while you're still trying to figure out how to make 26 27 work. But we thank you for this time. This is the point um in the year where we bring to you some conversation about what should be included in the next enrollment plan. For today, our goal is to review the assignment planning process quickly. I know that y'all are familiar with it, but you look at it about once a year. So, we just want to do a quick touch point. We want to make sure that you're aware of all the information that we're using data wise, the projections, the and how those relate to the enrollment plan. We are going to
158then talk briefly about what we think should be included in the 2728 plan and our timeline and then ask if there's anything else we've missed or that you think should be included in this planning cycle. As a reminder, our website is updated. Uh we will regularly update throughout the planning cycle. At this time of the year, we like to tell families we'll be refreshing the FAQs and things like that about once a month because we're that's kind of the pace we're following with public engagement. As we get to September, it'll be more of a weekly update. So just to quickly anchor all of us in which policy we'll be working with and where we are um in the dialogue is policy 4150 particularly section A that asks staff to balance to the extent possible student
159achievement stability proximity and operational efficiency when reviewing the enrollment plan annually as well as when developing recommendations for assignment changes. As a reminder, a complete copy of the policy is available on the website, but we did want to highlight that there are very specific definitions for each of these four pillars in your policy. This is just a quick summary of those or more details obviously in the policy. Just to remind everyone, it's not a clear textbook maybe definition that someone might think of when they think of these terms. They are very specific policy um definitions. Um again, you've seen this before. We follow a sixstep planning cycle. So uh just to sit through for the 2728 planning cycle, we've already kind of moved through steps 1 2 and three. We shared with you the annual
160enrollment forecast update back in March. We then gave you some projected crowding information in April through the facilities committee meeting is actually in attachments for a later discussion. Today we the board has had an opportunity to talk with the facilities team about the capital improvement plan and approve that seventh year that you'll do through the annual process as well as talk about the upcoming bond funded projects. And so then that brings us to step four of the annual enrollment plan cycle which is developing the plan. As a reminder, there's overlap. So the presentation immediately following this is that step six of the last planning cycle. And so there are these two that both happen relatively concurrently this time of year. Um just as a quick reminder about the annual enrollment projections. You'll recall that we
161talked at length about how they're a little bit more conservative yet still showing positive growth throughout the district. And that of course for us at the planning side, not the budget side, we need to think about where those students will be, you know, growing and adding to our attendance rosters across the district. And so this gives you that regional breakdown. Um the next thing that we do in our process is to look at the projected crowding. Um you can see here the various steps that we follow. And just as a quick reminder, our projection for next year is 160,461 students. And we see more haste to hit that target. And you see the breakdown on the right as how that would break down elementary versus middle versus high school grades. One thing that you haven't
162seen yet, this is your first peak is what that looks like school by school. And so what you're seeing here is a vertical vision, a visual if you will, of what our projected crowding looks like across the different grade spans. So here you're looking at an elementary projected crowding map for 26 27 and projected is based on what we shared with the budget office in terms of projected aotment and all the enrollment for a lotments. Um just a reminder, the darker red the triangle is the more crowded it's projected to be. if it's in that sort of whitish color or even a yellowish color, it's below 100%. Um there's also a size differential, so you can kind of see that magnitude change. Um at the elementary level, this isn't surprising to us because of K3
163class size legislation. It really does impact our crowding at the elementary schools disproportionately to the other levels. At the middle school level, you can see we're doing a little bit better, but we still have some regions where we have overcrowding. there is a new middle school coming that will help that in the future, not this coming school year. Uh that will help relieve one of those areas. But on the whole, we're doing pretty good at the middle school level. In fact, we're at a point where we're going to start recommending some conversions that you're aware of as well as trainings. At the high school level, you can see a slightly different uh picture here uh with some crowding in some areas, but we're getting even better. The opening of Belter Road certainly helped a lot
164in the southwestern corridor. The opening of Morsville High School certainly helped with the Panther Creek and Greeno. And I do want to draw your attention to the two blocks that represent Panther Creek and Green Road. We cap the enrollment at Panther Creek, but keep in mind that 100% crowding is with a multitude of trailers. So these all of these projected crowding images do take into account the trailers that are on the campus. So, it makes it look as if they're less crowded than they are, but it's because they're using so many trailers on those green camp sites. The capital improvement plan that you approved recently includes new schools throughout the district. Uh the one in green represents the school that you've already approved attendance area for. That's Hilltop Nemo and it'll be opening in 2627
165July of this year as a track 4 school. Uh the orange circle highlights the location of Morrisville High School which will be part of this planning cycle and then the darker gray or black circles that you see are those that are in future years of the capital improvement plan. So these are the new school construction projects. This is that same information just displayed in table form. We do want to acknowledge that there's a portion of Morrisville High School's campus that is complete enough that the uh Wake College of Information and Biotechnology has been able to swing in there um for a period of time while they're waiting for their permanent location to be completed and that'll be on the Parkside Middle School campus once it's complete. Um so there's some timing sequencing here. We need
166to make sure they're out before the seniors come in at Morrisville High School, but it all is going to line up nicely for us. You'll see that the light shaded gray also indicates that the Marshall Road Elementary project will also serve as a swing space for Windell Elementary when it is ready and available. We always remind you we have asterisks throughout this slide of this portion of the presentation that of course everything is subject to adjustment based on any um market issues, scope changes, um any design or construction schedule changes. So, what that means for the public is that none of these will open earlier than projected, but they could always slip by 6 months to a year depending on any of those um here. Just highlighting Morrisville High School, which is school we're focusing
167on as a new school for the 2728 cycle. I'd also like to take a moment and draw your attention to the column in 2829. We will most likely still have a enrollment plan recommendation for you in 2829 to continue some work we're doing related to rebalancing of enrollment and realignment of theater patterns now that some areas are a little bit more stable. But I'm going to say it out loud so that maybe it's true. I really really hope that for 2930 we don't have an Olympic that we'll give everybody a year off and that we'll come back with the plan for 2030. We're trying we're trying really hard to give the community a break because we know that the constant annual typing of your address into the tool to determine is it my turn this
168year is is very anxietyinducing and we do not want to do that when we don't have to just again 26 27 you already have approved an attendance area for hilltop you will be asked to approve attendance area for Morrisville High School in this particular cycle and then in the future we'll be bringing you recommendations for those other new school projects. One thing we added in last year that we're continuing to do is to highlight those renovation projects that are also happening across the district because in many cases these renovation projects are expanding the capacity of those sites and we just want to keep an eye on that to determine is that something that could be useful for removing crowding at nearby schools. So Creek Elementary is scheduled and all set to return to its fully
169renovated campus for the 2627 school year. Our plan is to let it sit for the year. Let's see what happens as families come back to the school now that it's, you know, returned back to its uh permanent site. And we might have recommendations for them in 2728. And then for 2728, just for awareness, both Redwood Elementary and Lockhart Elementary are scheduled to be completed with their renovations in time for that school year. So likely we will take a similar approach, give them a year and maybe bring some recommendations for 28 29 if they can release some nearby schools just for a distribution of these schools across the district. Um and then the location of the school we just mentioned that will be done in the near term and then the other schools that we know
170are coming out um in the farterm. One school that is not listed on here that has been approved by the board is East High School and so we'll add that to the future presentations that happened just a little bit late in the cycle to get this particular image updated. I think Washington's also added it. There were a couple of schools that were added, so we'll get that one updated. Um, now, as far as the preparation of the annual enrollment plan goes, we are I'm not saying through with our early spring public engagement. We still have a few more sessions scheduled for later in May. We were having those happen after the conversations about calendar convergence just to make sure we knew what that sort of picture was looking like, but we are ready to review
171with you the annual goals for the particular cycle. So again, our public engagement is something that we do ahead of time before any maps or drafts are released to really understand what it is the community needs us to know that is unique to their perspective and experience before we come up with any particular recommendations. Um, one thing that we get asked a lot, I think you've seen this a couple of times now, we've made this a regular visitor in some of our slide decks, is yes, families are really truly making a difference. We've had expanded stability rules based on the feedback that we've had. We've had um strategic enrollment changes. We used to open new schools as full as we possibly could to immediately provide relief for nearby schools. Then we were coming back to
172those very same schools and doing reassignments within a three-year time period to relieve them. Community said, "Could we not just let the new schools fill up a little bit more slowly and let the crowded schools reduce a little bit more slowly?" You were supportive of that when we tried it with Woods Creek Elementary and that has been a continuing practice. So that is definitely something that is the result of community feedback. We've focused a lot more on theater patterns and cohort continuity. That is a very important feature for families, not only from a progression of cohorts, but also for calendar alignment. We've expanded our planning resources and just and the list goes on and this year I'm sure more things will be added to the list. So here we are today to review the goals
173of the enrollment plan. Again, all the information we're going to review today and that we'll review as we come through is available on our assignment planning website. A special thanks to our communications department for being amazing partners and ensuring that that reflects information parents are looking for. We won't talk too much about this, but once we get through an enrollment plan, the next step in the cycle obviously is to determine whether or not there are schools that are so crowded that they might need to either maintain a cap or have a cap added or have we been successful in recent reassignments and can remove the cap. So on January 20th, you were presented with this information for approval and we did. What happened there was we took, I believe, five schools off of the list
174and had to we did have to add one, but the net gain is a loss of a reduction of four cap schools. So, we're we're making progress. This list is getting smaller. I would really love to see it zero out um and not to use it for long-term crowding solutions, but really to use it for near-term crowding solutions. As a reminder, new this year, the changes that you'll see here, like the ones that are no longer on the list that used to be on the list, and then Zebulun Elementary being added to the list, those all take effect July 1. So, we're being proactive now and making sure that they have a little bit of time to finish out the school year under the current process and then start the new process with the new
175school year. Also, we'll talk about calendar, but we'll save that for later. Um, but when we're looking at other things that might need to be done to support schools beyond what our assignment area can be, um, those conversations are brought to you. So, let's get to this year's enrollment plan. Specific to this year's enrollment plan, no, I think I teased it well enough. No surprise, we're going to open up a new high school. So, we do need to develop in a base attendance area for Morrisville High School. We also will look at aligning elementary and feeder p middle school feeder patterns in this region at the same time in response to those cohort continuity requests. Um in addition in this particular area there's been a call for maybe rebalancing particularly at the elementary level. This
176region of the county has a number of capped elementary schools and also a handful of schools that are a little bit underenrolled. So perhaps we could do some rebalancing at the same time. So the this portion of the district will um we will continue to engage with as we look at what those domino impacts might be. And when I say domino impacts, the other thing to think about is if we do leave schools like Panther Creek and Greenhub, it's obvious those two will be touched. Kerry High maybe there's a portion of its attendance area that's very proximate to the new school site. Is there a need to backfill those schools based on that reduction? And there are some schools in the area that are used to really. So there could potentially be cascading high school
177impacts in this area as well. And we will make sure as we always do that we engage as much of the community as possible so that they're aware of the potential. Um the completed renovation projects will take a moment to determine if any recent completed renovation projects can relieve crowding at nearby schools. I don't have big hopes for that one. Um I think that'll be more of a 28 29 cycle, but we will always do our due diligence and look at that opportunity. We're in the big one. It's the sort of all other bucket, but this is perhaps one of the most important ones for us at this phase in our history. We are starting to level off a little bit. Obviously, we still have growth, but we're starting to level off in certain areas.
178We have some opportunities to take this moment where there's not new construction in some regions and go back and reook at the things that the community are telling us are important like the feeder patterns, the cohort continuity, a balanced or equal or you know equitable distribution of students across schools in a particular region. So we will be looking to address ongoing crowding um to determine if reassignments could help with that. We will continue to look at we will actually newly look at these regional enrollment imbalances. This really is coming out of community feedback. Hey, instead of changing our calendar, couldn't you add some students to our school since the one next door is capped? Let's look at that. Let's see if that would be a more long-term stable solution for the community versus maintaining caps.
179Um, we're also looking at whatever comes out of our next conversation, does that impact any of these areas where perhaps some base alignments or realignments might be needed? Um, we've got a lot of concerns about feeder pattern assignments. kind of similar to that regional enrollment balance imbalance, but I know Mr. Hy, I look at you. I think there's an area where we were opening new schools at the elementary level so quickly that we sort of left the middle schools and high schools alone, but that's now created this sort of five paths out of fifth grade in some areas and that's not what we want. So, the community has been very clear they'd like for us to start looking at realigning those. And you saw some of that in the last plan in the Holly Springs
180community as we made some recommendations to open new schools. We were very cognizant of also aligning feeder patterns at the same time. Get in, realign it, get out, leave them alone in that kind of situation. So, we're looking to do that in some regions of the district. And then, of course, as always, as good partners with our transportation department, looking to find ways that to make sure that whatever we're recommending or what we're coming up with supports their efforts in reducing the pressure on the routing system so that we can improve our basis of transportation and we can improve our magnet transportation routes. Um, and that also sort of hits it kind of touches on the surface of also looking at those areas that might have a distant school assignment by base assignment. Um, we
181sometimes refer to those as satellite areas and evaluating if there's any more space in a closer by school so that we can really do two things. We can help provide a more approximate school assignment for some of those families while also supporting efforts to improve transportation routing. And that's what we have for what we think should be included, which is a lot for a year when we have one new school opening. But let's talk about the timeline and then I'll I'll turn it over for questions or conversation. Um, we've already hosted a lot of our inerson and virtual sessions, but we're going to continue hosting additional sessions. So, here you see the layout. We did update the website over the last couple of days to make sure it reflected all the information we've already collected
182specifically related to Morrisville High School in the eastern part of our county. Um, we have launched new thought exchanges that are a little bit more general in nature, not so specific to like the high school. And, uh, we're targeting the northern area and the central and southeastern areas of the of the sort of city center, if you will, to try to garner their feedback and learn a little bit more about what's important to them. So, we will host virtual sessions that match those thought exchanges on May 14th and 27th. If anyone was on the website prior to this week, you might have seen different dates for those May sessions. We pushed them back a little bit to account for this shift in the calendar conversation to make sure there was plenty of time for us
183to know what was happening with those discussions before we hosted those assignment um sessions. June 2nd, I'm hearing that might not be possible, but June 2nd, we had planned to come to you during the work session and give you an update on the public engagement. If that's not possible and it's available to the board, we'll at least share it with you and and get it posted to the website. that public engagement summary report. We can at the very least get that out to you so you can start reviewing that information if we won't have time for a formal presentation. Um and then as far as the board timeline goes, our goal would be again to um finish up the conversations on calendar conversion hopefully at your next board meeting on May 19th. Hopefully be able
184to have a touch point with you in June. If not, we'll do it, you know, through email. Um then September 1st, we would come to you with the initial draft for the 2728 plan. As a reminder, this is a schedule we've adopted for a couple of years now. That gives us a good 6 weeks between the initial draft and the revision. And that also allows us to put in that open house that has been very, very popular. Um, families have really appreciated us having those open houses, especially those that are going to go to the new school. Um, and then on October 20th, we would come back to you with any revisions as well as all of the feedback we captured. We would propose that that be the time that you have your public hearing.
185Again, that was a change we did last year in response to community feedback. That way, that gives you as a board and us as staff plenty of time to assess and review any information that's collected during the hearing before we bring you final recommendations on November 17th. And then that November 17th gives us plenty of time to support families before the Thanksgiving holiday to be able to get them some information. And then especially those that are interested in the stability transfer, it gives them a nice window to get all of that taken care of before they leave for the winter break. And so that's just as a reminder the reason for this particular schedule. We're obviously flexible, but we left this one. So if you could if we could keep it, that would be great.
186And with that, I turn it back over to you for any questions, thoughts, ideas. Uh Mr. Thank you. Um Miss Bl, thank you. It's always a lot to squeeze into a succinct presentation, but as always, you do a very good job of it. Um I wanted to uh highlight one important area for the board and then I had just two questions. Um, everyone you saw slide 37 and even though there's not any specific school names specific schools named this is a really important slide and if you look at this slide and I'm going to give you a new number um and look at that in the context of slides 15 16 and 17. There you go. These are the areas where you see all of the red next to gray. And whether it's elementary or
187middle or high school, these are some of the areas that we might want to look to address. These are areas where, you know, again, for enrollment issues and efficiency issues, um you know, getting some relief there can help families. It can help um our budget numbers. that can help with transportation. Um, so we don't know exactly, there's no specific proposals brought to us, but this is something staff's going to look at. I know a lot of us have talked about some of the issues with specific satellite areas and how far those students are going. And this will be a chance to really take a look at some of those. So, just even though we've only mentioned Morrisville High School by Maine, there are a lot of issues around the county. I think please pay attention
188to please work with staff on. So you there's no surprises but this will be a great opportunity um to really kind of rebalance a lot of those areas. Um the second thing I wanted to ask and it's good that Mr. Malone came back in call. Um it's a legal question Mr. chair the uh staff in looking at their timeline and asked for approval of the timeline had talked about bringing something to us at a June work session and I know you had talked you had mentioned that in June with graduation and everything else there may not be a work session and so what I wanted to ask is for that review of progress if that's really just like a one side like a one-sided delivery of information rather than a back and forth or a
189vote. Is that something legally we could present as just like a webinar or something online that might not require an actual meeting, right? But that people including the public could just tune into and then staff could present that as a public, you know, sharing of information. You could keep your timeline, but then it would require another meeting. I just didn't know if that could be structured in a way to meet the open meetings law. >> I think as long as we notice it as and now what we've done with some conditional notices would be something like this is to let you know that a majority a quorum of the board may participate in a webinar or whatever just as out of an overload of caution. I'm fine with that. >> Okay. That way nobody could
190later say that father do you happen to be on the same webinar even if you're not asking questions even if it's all one directional just to avoid that issue but no certainly we could do something like that >> I just bring that up for consideration so I think it was a July was the original one that you all had so June is fine it was the July that was >> okay we're good >> it was the July one that you all >> and the last one okay thank I'll defer the other question. Should I just add something quick? I you bring up a really good point too about like taking a look at the feedback that we get from families. And when we do this feedback collection early in the process, you get a more
191holistic response from communities. And I think that's really important for the board to really understand and look at and work with because as you'll see in our next conversation, once you start naming schools, you don't get a very holistic response from families. You get a very individualized response. And so I think that's something for the board to balance as well as they get feedback from families. We'll go sometime. >> So I'm on the assignment website, your favorite website, and um I see the May 14th and May 27th. I see the links, but I don't see what time those are. Okay, thank you. We'll get those updated. They'll be 6:00 to 7:30. Okay. But we'll get that added. Thank you. >> I just want to um piggy back up on what Mr. Hagerty said about um
192the areas that are in gray next to bright red and and especially um go back to what you were saying about the ones that are in yellow or orange but have a ton of trailers and that we we really I don't know how we can cuz I know when you present us the the breakdowns you always show us like what the capacity is and the capacity is with the trailers which is really helpful but but I don't even know we can do to even emphasize that more that these are starting to become not starting to 40 years in of of permanent feeling like permanent structures when really they shouldn't be and we and hopefully we can prioritize getting teachers out of trailers you know anyway as a priority um which I know is not popular
193at certain schools but it's you know unfortunately they just were as we're finding out they just don't sustain the way that we are relying on them to. And so it should be it should definitely be a priority. >> And you bring up a good point too because we got to the point where we started presenting the capacity with the trailers because we were reassigning students and then families would say you're kicking us out of the school and yet there's classroom seats still here available. So there's that that push and pull. But you are correct. You know, a lot of our units are over 40 years old average age. And so that is something that staff has been working on trying to reduce this report. Any other questions? I know we have another short presentation coming
194up. I believe we're done with this part. It's a little more Melissa handing out something that we're doing in addition that so he's going to hand it to you and then we'll have copies for the um communications. As we were preparing for today, we realized a visual will be really helpful for one of the conversations. Didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to do that. We brought Melissa again, Jordan with us. She's our director of planning. I think you're starting to get familiar with her. with us were a wonderful addition to our team there to help out as always. Are we ready? You'll notice throughout this presentation there are some strikethroughs. That's because we wanted to make it clear that originally we had planned to present this at the April 14th facilities committee meeting
195and due to an unexpected power outage, we ceased. We stopped. The meeting stopped. Um and there were a lot of families like what did you talk about? Nothing. We delayed it. We postponed it. So, I wanted if anyone was looking at the April 14th presentation to see that we did go ahead and do some technical updates, but I wanted to make it obvious that if you were having them side by side what those changes were. Um, so it's not that we forgot to take them out, it's that we were intentional for letting people see that this is a revised presentation that was originally intended to be shared at a facilities committee meeting on April 14th. So with that, the goal for today on this particular topic is to um share the feedback that we have
196captured since we first went to the facilities committee meeting and said we think maybe perhaps maybe this handful of schools might benefit from a calendar change to improve operational efficiency. So we gathered a lot of feedback. We've heard a lot of information and we will just say from the beginning, we know that the vast majority of people do not want their school to change. We actually had someone in an information session say why don't you pull us. We don't have to. We know we know that as teachers as you know as family members you've become very accustomed to the operating calendar of your school and you like it because the challenge for us is as we try to find ways to be more operationally efficient what should we be thinking about and how this will
197impact your families um as before we make any final recommendations. We will then also talk about those recommendations our next steps and then obviously open for a time of conversation. You know, I like to anchor in policy. So, as a reminder, this is anchored again in policy 4150. However, it's section A1D operational deficiency where we're working to minimize our underenrolled schools is really what we're talking about um in this particular presentation. As far as the anchors to the uh strategic plan, it's our family and community engagement, our equity focused practices, and our e effective operations services and facilities. So we are now going back in time to the 2627 school enrollment planning process and we're still we're right here in step six and we're here to make recommendations to the board based on the data
198and the feedback that we've collected to date. There are embedded in the assignment planning website in step six is the link to all the information about this. But we also know it's helpful for people to have direct links and not to have to click twice. So we're putting the direct link to the calendar conversion page here as well. So feedback received from the recent public engagement activity. So we hosted several engagement sessions for families and school staff to gain additional feedback and insight. And then Atlanta is partnering with the principles of potentially impacted schools to have additional followup with staff about, you know, maybe more HR type questions that shouldn't be answered in an open setting. Um, where we at today? So when you first were given this information, we had a total of 231
199of views of our videos, but now it's 366. So the total participation hasn't changed. We sent out a total of 8,863 student invitations. So the student IDs that were used to target families because they either are in the base attendance area, assigned or not assigned, we didn't care. If you live in the base attendance area for the school, you received that invitation. or if you lived in the base attendance area for one of the elementary schools that feeds into one of the target middle schools, they received an invitation. I'm sorry, just super quick question. Email or mail. We use whatever they've signed up for in uh through Infinite Campus. So, they might have gotten an email, they might have gotten a text message, they might have gotten a phone, it's whatever they've signed up for.
200We cannot afford the postage. >> So, we stopped sale a while back. And then we also gave for this particular series of sessions, we gave the principles of the schools something they could send home in their principal messages as well because we know sometimes they might read their message before they read ours. So we made sure that we did a multi-pronged sort of approach to getting the messages out there. Okay. Um so with that uh we had a total of 299 individual participants show up for at least one minute to all of these sess to to the combined total of the sessions. And then we saw a real big jump in the total number of views during our sort of delay period between the April 14th presentation and today. So we do know that recording
201these and posting them is a valuable resource for families and community members because they can look at these at an asynchronous um time frame. So our total views is 366 as of April 28th. We expect that to climb. And then the total participants were 299 for an overall of Oh, I didn't I forgot to update the 530. I promise I can do math. So, it's way more than 530 total participants. That's what we had um as of the 46 date. So, 665 will be the total of views and participants combined together. I apologize. So, let's start. We're going to use a regional approach because that's how we did the information sessions in the northeastern area. So that would be the heritage campuses. Um what we heard in the session via the questions they posed was
202that they want stability. Some of them feel like things are changing at their schools every few years and so they just want stability long term. Um there's there were concerns about the enrollment projections we were using and whether or not they were fully incorporating all of the information particularly from areas like in Forest and Roseville. Um there was a preference for less disruption. You know, let's maybe do a boundary adjustment instead of changing the school calendar. Could we approve more transfers into the school? We'll kind of approach all of these. U there was the year- round preference, which I opened with. We know that a lot of families really have come become accustomed to and like and even feel like it might even support their student learning better. U there's the potential for overcrowding. There
203was a concern that if we went to the single track too quickly that perhaps there'd be more students enrolled than could fit. Um and then there was a potential for unintended outcomes. Really just what happens if families leave as a result of this? Maybe teachers would leave as a result of this. Perhaps school programs would shift and change. So just what are those potential outcomes that might happen when you change how the school is functioning? We did set up the thought exchange in a way that would separate out the parents and community members from the staff. So we'll start with the parents and community member responses. We had a total of 204 participants posted 319 thoughts with a little over just under 6,000 total ratings of those thoughts. Um 62% identified as being a member
204of Heritage Elementary and uh 83% said that they were part of Heritage Middle. As a reminder, that's a multi select. So if they had students on both campuses, they could have selected both, which is why it would add up to more than 100. Um, and then as far as the distribution, not surprisingly, 97% said that they were from the northeastern part of the county. When we start looking at the comments and the themes that kind of erupted, um, family and community impact was one, year round benefits, enrollment and assignment, capacity, and infrastructure and educational outcomes all came to light. As a reminder, on our website, there is a link to the interactive version of this. So a person can actually click on that bar and then see all the thoughts and comments that are associated
205with that bar. So anyone who really wants to dig into this, you could use that interactive report for that. What we always find fascinating is the total number of comments and then how that changes when people start grading them. So when we looked at how this shifts the educational outcomes, which originally was I'll just quickly let you see the difference there was on the far right, the lowest lowest total number actually ended up with the highest overall rating. And I will say that if the rating is over a four, that means that as a community, there's probably general consensus around the idea. When it starts to slip closer to 3.5, that's where you can kind of feel like there might be a a size that size kind of situation. So there seems to be some
206consensus of the participants that all of these areas were important because all of them had a rating of at least four or higher. some highlighted these are the exact three top spots that had the highest ratings throughout this particular um section of the thought exchange and so you'll see you know hey these are top schools why would we change something that's working we've got some concerns about what we're seeing when we go to our economic power in our community and what you're showing about space availability for students and just what we've seen a lot about year round calendar we do I will say we've seen this comment go on both sides for working families we've had some say that the year- round calendar is helpful because it allows them to plan for shorter breaks in
207incremental spaces. We've also heard from some that say it might be cost prohibitive because summer trackouts t or summer camps tend to be a little less expensive per week than those trackouts that are happening during the year round cycle. And so we'll hear that same comment on the other side. But in this particular community, these were the highest rated amounts. When we looked at the staff presentation or staff information, we had 66 staff participate or individuals who said they were staff. They posted 72 thoughts with 991 ratings. Um, and this is a good proportion of the total number of staff across two campuses. Um, relatively even split. Roughly 60% said that they were either at the elementary school or the middle school. And then 86% said that they live in the northeastern area, which is
208kind of cool to know that our teachers actually live in the area where they work. Um, but there's a little bit more of a distribution because obviously not all can live as close to school as as others can. the topics and the themes we we made sure we balanced them so that we could have a sort of a look across the brow. So the same themes emerged but year round benefits came up as a much more highly um by number by number and frequency of thoughts and family and community impact. Interestingly when they switched educational outcomes became the first um and most highest created thought. When we got down to capacity and infrastructure there was less agreements. It's not bad. It's just under four. So I would say that there's consensus among the staff across
209all of these things. And then here are the top rated thoughts in the teacher side, in the staff side. Um some indicating that they feel that there's there's a difference that they're seeing a performance difference in students. Um others saying, "Hey, whatever you decide, please just make them the same calendar because I might work at one and leave my student at the other and I'd like for them to be operating on the same calendar." Um and then what would be the the change for families and for students who need that consistent schedule. >> I just want to remind the board when we first started this process several years ago, we had brought in a researcher Dr. Katie Rouse from Elon University and she had shared with you the research she had done on the effects
210of the calendar. Um just to remind you of that research and we can make sure we post it again for the public. We haven't done this on the website already. Um there is no negative impact to students when you change their school calendar. Now, people have preferences, but we do have study and data that showed that if you change a school's calendar on a student, that will not negatively impact their their student achievement. So, just leave that out there for you. >> And one thing we added in a couple years ago is this peak that regardless of what side, cuz believe it or not, although they weren't as highly rated, there were some family members like, "Oh, K12 calendar alignment traditional all the way through. That sounds really nice, right?" We had some that were
211actually supportive of the idea. Um, and we also have some that are talking about how it's difficult to participate at the middle school in things like after school activities and sports when your bus isn't picking you up because you're tracked out. And those events follow more of a traditional calendar. So, we did hear some that were like traditional might actually be an improvement for our family or for our student. Um, and so you'll see that whether or not that was the the approach they were taking or hey, we really have adopted this year round schedule. It's something that's meaningful to us. something that we like. They all seem to agree that considering the student and family needs when deciding on the school calendar was important, which is partly why we continue to do the engagement
212that we do and ensuring that whatever is selected or chosen supports student learning, well-being, and family dynamics. And so, we just thought that was regardless of which side they fell on when it came to the actual calendar type, they agreed on that point. So, we go to the southern and southwestern areas. I'm not going to say they're exactly the same, but you'll see similar patterns. Um, this area had a few more schools, so the number of participants will be a little bit higher. The session that we had for this region, so these are the schools mostly in the Holly Springs type area. Talked about a perceived loss of choice, just feeling like some families made a deliberate choice for year round. Um, calendar alignment. Um, there are some that really are concerned about having mismatched
213calendars and they already have them today. So they were basically saying, "Hey, we're going from traditional smoky track to traditional and we're in favor of this idea that there would be a traditional middle school because then that would clean that up for our family." Um the impact on the community, there were some that talked about the impact on trackout businesses. It was an actually unique perspective that was brought up in this community. Um from the single track to traditional, hey, where possible, can we at least keep that sort of year- round rhythm, but maybe go to track four? And then the timing of the change. We actually had some that said, "We can see what's happening in our schools. We see that they're underutilized. We see that we're struggling to get certain things put together.
214If you're going to make this decision, could you go ahead and do it in 27 28 instead of delaying till 28 29?" And then similar to what we saw for the heritage campuses, Holly Grove Elementary and Holly Grove Middle are on the same campus. This idea that could they both be the same whatever history. Uh for the thought exchange for this particular area, again focusing on the parent and community member feedback, we had 480 participants and 536 thoughts with over 12,000 ratings. Um you had a a different distribution. You had 46% say that they were part they were um aligned with Holly Grove Elementary, 53% of Holly Grove Middle, 28% of Holly Springs Elementary, and 15% with Rex Road. These make sense based on total student counts at these schools. So this does not show
215a lack of participation for Rex Road. It is the smallest enrollment number in that area. Um not surprisingly the vast majority said they live in the southwestern area. And then the themes that came out for this area again focusing on the parent and community side or family impact year on benefits. And you noticed a big drop in those other it was like we had a real hard time coming up with other themes. So because it was really focusing on how does this impact our family and what are the benefits of the year round calendar. when they started rating bots. However, this one wasn't quite as a little bit more line, right? This is because you had more of the we can see the benefits of the traditional. We can see how this might help our
216student. Um we we kind of get it or we can see the track four in a couple of the track four areas because there are some schools in this region that we were talking about maybe a track four change. Uh but there is relatively consistent rating across all of them. And so that's just something to think through. Um the t top comments that came out of the parent and community side were that their child benefits from the breaks and loves the schedule. Um whatever they'd like for the Hollywood Elementary and Hollywood Middle to stay on the same schedule. Um meaning we want whatever you decide just make them the same. Um and if you specifically Holly Brook Middle and Holly Grove Elementary are on the Holly Springs High School campus and our heritages is super
217close. They might as well be on the same campus. Um and that hey public schools need more funding. Um, and so when we look at the staff side of it, again, the number of participants makes sense because there's four schools involved instead of two. So we had 125 participants, 147 thoughts, just under 3,000 ratings. Again, a similar distribution across the schools in terms of schools they identified with. And here you see a little bit of a split. 71% saying that they're living in the southwestern area and a few in the southern lake area, maybe closer to Peakway. But again, it is good to see that many of our staff say that they live near their school. Um here then you see how their themes fill out. The staff and teacher considerations became the much higher
218comment um capture on this one. And then when we balanced it out with the ratings, the year benefits really become important. Again, even amongst the staff group, you start to see a trailing effect where a couple of these don't quite get above 3.5. So that means there's a little bit of a one side or the other on this particular topic. So it's not as consensus oriented at all. The top rated thoughts from the teachers were talking again about the benefits and the the concept of the summer slide that some the term some of you used. Um some people saying hey all track 4 works great because then at least all the staff are on the same calendar. We can handle some of those equity issues when it comes to class scheduling and resource support. Um,
219and then year round beats traditional every time. So similarly, if you had some that were supporting the traditional schedule and some that were supporting the year- round schedule, either way, they had some common ground, very similar to what we saw in the heritage area or the northeastern area, and that's that considering the impact on the families and the community when deciding the school calendar, and make sure that whatever changes are made are in the best interest of students education and well-being. Um and that that is crucial. The northwestern area was then the sort of expand a little bit from Morrisville up into northwest Raleigh. Um that was the Brier Creeks, the Carpenters of Morrisville, Sycamore Creek and I'm missing one. Sycamore Brier Creek Carpenter Grove. Thank you. So in this area when we had that
220information session slightly different topics crowding concerns there were kind of hey well if we do reduce the tracks does our school become too crowded um hey our area has been growing for a while and having new schools added for a while we've had a lot of reassignments can we like stop with change um enrollment projections just saying hey there is still future development in this region are you accounting for that again just wanting to know what's the sources for that information um and we can address that as needed. Preference for year round impact on future siblings. I will say this community is really big on making sure that there's there's there's a plan for the next group of kids that are coming in after. If there's an older student in school today, what's going to
221happen to that young person? So, we want to talk about that with the school rules. And then just again reminding us that there'll be regular adjustments in this area and we keep that in mind when recommendations are for the parents and the guardians. In this particular area, there were 274 participants with 280 thoughts, just over 5,000 ratings. We had a relatively even distribution. We did see a very low participation rate at Bur Creek. We checked in with the principal. The messages went out. Um, so we'll continue to engage that community as much as we can. Um, most of them said they were in the northwestern Wake or Northern Wake area. Uh, 24% saying they were in Western Wake. That all tracks with the enrollment areas for the schools that we're talking about. The calendar consistency
222and family impact clearly came up as like the highest number of thoughts with learning retention, community growth and capacity and teacher and staff well-being being addressed but with maybe fewer thoughts when they started rating them. The teacher and staff well-being actually became the highest rated set of thoughts. So that was and this is from the parent community side. So that's an interesting just perspective that's a little bit different and that's why it's so important that we do these regionally, right? As much as we want to talk about things as a district, sometimes it is important to get that regional view. Um, you'll see a lot of consensus around the teacher, staff, and well-being and the learning retention. It slips a little bit with the community growth and capacity and then the calendar consistency and family
223impact just a little bit less consensus, but by all means, all of these are three and a half or higher. So, I wouldn't say that they're terribly divided as a community on any of these areas. The highest rated thoughts you see here talk about the summer camps being full and expensive and that the year round gives working parents more childcare options. Unique perspective. Um considering the benefits of the year round learning and the family scheduling, we've seen that across all three areas and that the kids love the year round and um it helps with finding camps and coverage during shorter breaks. So just some of the logistical family calendar issues that we've built our life around this type of schedule. for changing is is just something that we don't want to enter into too lightly.
224When we look at the staff in this region, um 102 participants, 95 thoughts, just over 1500 ratings, a similar distribution across the schools. Um and again, a similar, you know, where I live kind of outlook. Uh calendar consistency came up as the highest number of thoughts from the staff group with family impact, teacher and staff well-being, community group and capacity and learning retention coming in you know distant second third fourth and fifth. When they started rating the thoughts however the learning retention became a little bit more higher rated the teaching and st teacher and staff wellbeing as well. Uh with these again notice none of them kind of crested over four. So there is a little bit of um divergence in this group but still everything has a relative importance. I'm not going to say
225that they're not in consensus but there is some diverency opinion probably in these categories. And then of course you have your top three thoughts for the staff in this region. Um there are some considerations about we will address that second one in a you know onetoone kind of staff meeting but there are some concerns about the pace cycle schedule. So, just as a reminder, our staff that are assigned to a multi-track year round calendar or even a track 4 calendar get paid in 12 installments and um everybody else gets paid in 10 installments. So, that would just be a shift. They still get the same amount of money. It's just fewer checks and they have to think a little bit more about saving for that month, but they don't get that, especially that first one,
226first July. That that'll be a big shift for anybody if they go traditional. If they go track four, that will impact them if they go traditional. And then again your common ground across all the groups. Uh both sides agree on the importance of stability for families and students. So that is a unique hallmark for this one and I think it's because of the rate at which reassignments have happened. Um whether for traditional or year- round calendar, we're maintaining a consistent schedule that aligns with family needs and minimizes disruption would be crucial. So that is a slightly different um common ground for this group than maybe for the other two. So, here's where we are with all of our information. Um, our p our calendar has been popular. We had over a thousand additional views between
227our April 14th intended conversation in today. So, we do know it's working. People are going there and using the resources that are there, which is so we're going to continue to put effort into making sure that that's functional. It's easy to read. It's easy to access information. And then you can see with our online forums all the participants and thoughts that we capture there. So all of what we shared with you is available on our website to include those interactive reports. Any questions on the first half? Thank you vice chair. There's a lot to absorb and you know as you start reading one thing your mind starts to go what is going to be the impact on this school or that school. I want to in case I missed it. So what's the timeline on
228some of these in terms of board action or is it still under development or do you have an estimate for when you might be review? Are you going to >> we we are packing that that that's in here. But our plan was to follow the schedule that we had set so that by May 19th be ready to receive some final recommendations at the work session then take a vote because we do know for families knowing in May and really for staff knowing in May especially if it's going to be a 27 28 implementation um is really really critical to making sure they can be financially prepared for each. >> Okay. I just wanted to be clear on >> when what we were doing when and when we >> Yeah. So today we're going to give
229you an initial set of recommendations that we that you kind of had a chance to look at cuz they were limited into the facilities committee meeting, but we wanted you to sit on those. We'll have an additional information session with the community and then bring you final recommendations if there are any adjustments needed uh May 19th for you to consider. >> I just just follow that. So then in terms of board feedback, what do you want like today? Today we haven't got recommendations yet. So there's no way to get anywhere yet. questions about what's coming. Wait, if this is about comments, Mr. >> Uh yes, thank you. I I one question I have for this portion um and I don't think it is in the second portion, but if it is, just remind me. >>
230Sure. >> Um how much staff when you're talking about the options between switching between tracks and traditional? How much staff is in the year round versus the traditional? That comes up in the next. >> It does. Okay. I was looking for Go ahead. All right. We're ready. All right. So, the recommendations, we just want to remind everyone, we shared this graphic with the facilities committee when we did our first conversation on this topic to say we're really trying to get to calendar optimization is sort of the one of the last tools we pulled out of the toolbox. We have recognized that changing the calendar of the school, believe it or not, is actually more disruptive than a reassignment. um our experience has shared with us that changing the school boundary is candidly less disruptive than
231changing the calendar of a school. And so we just want to own that. We recognize it and that's why we're trying to make it sort of the last tool that we use. So for all of the schools that we're discussing that are remaining on the list for review. The projected growth is not there to push on the envelope of these schools. They're continuing to be underutilized. There's not a need to maintain the extra capacity that the multitrack provides. We've looked there's one that might could support nearby crowding relief that is still on the list. There are two that there three that came off because of that mobile units. We certainly want to keep looking at taking mobile units off, but in most cases it doesn't make a huge difference in the um capacity of these
232schools. And then optimization program adjustment is a tool that we'll use in the toolbox probably in the future. Um, I know we're having conversations about site use and as we acquire new properties and we repurpose other properties. So, that's not today's conversation, but that is something that's in our toolbox is when is it time to look at a site and say it needs to be repurposed. So, that's a different discussion, but it's one of the tools in our underutilized discussion sort of toolbox. We remind you about the crowding changes. Most of the schools we're talking to you about are in areas with without the big giant blue arrows. So, they're they're stabilizing in their enrollment. they're aging in place, slower changes in overall um enrollment in these schools because they're I guess one of the
233terms people might use is like built out. Um there's not a lot of new development coming into the areas. We showed you the projected crowding or in the other presentation, but it's relevant to this discussion as well. And we'll zoom in on some of the areas when we're talking about them in the middle school and the high schools. We didn't do the high schools here because we're not changing calendars of high schools. Thank goodness no high school. So again, acknowledging it's the most disruptive. One thing we just want to let you know just logistically when we're looking at a multi-track school and thinking about perhaps a single track, usually it's track four in our district. Historically, always has been. It does require families and staff to adjust their family calendars because if they're on track
2341, two, or three, and now they're moving to track four. That's an adjustment for that group of people. Um, it requires some staff to evaluate potential salary changes. any staff that are currently on a 12 month pay cycle that don't need to be because they'll be shifting to a 10-month job might lose one or two months of pay and some staff positions will lose a staff and we'll talk about that in a moment. Um it allows but it does allow flexibility to return to multitrack year round where enrollment growth returns in Lake Myra Elementary that's a most recent example they'll be going multittrack this 26 27th school year in response to the growth that has returned to the area. Um the changing of the operating from multitrack to traditional is similar, right? So families have
235to all families will have to adjust their calendars um because everyone will be going to the traditional off of a track 1 2 3 or four. Um some staff might have to have potential salary changes that the same on for those situations. And in this case, because all of our high schools are traditional, it does allow for K12 calendar alignment for families. That was something we didn't have in our original presentation, and we just wanted to share that. And that is something that a lot of families have asked for, this consistent calendar alignment. Originally, when we brought this to the facilities committee, we were looking at this entire list of schools, and we will talk about each one of them, but there's a handful of these that we're no longer recommending. We think that there
236are other solutions we could use that are less disruptive than a calendar change. And here, Miss Cfield is where we start to address the staffing changes. So on slide 58 you have we will give you some more financial details once we have our conversation today and know where you're kind of thinking. Um but what we got from the budget office is that at the elementary level um it's anywhere from a reduction of 11 12 to 14 1/2 months overall across these very specific positions largely because they go from 11 or 12 month to 10 month um or in some cases because we overall a lot at the multittrack level to account for the fact that the resources have to be distributed across multiple tracks and so reducing that over um aotment So, it's a specialized
237aotment. Um, with the middle schools, the range is a little bit broader. For the two schools we're looking at, it's anywhere from 22 1/2 to 35 1/2 months of of staffing that is reduced. It's not a whole, none of these are whole positions. Um, the interesting point, you'll see one of those says plus 8. That is not a typo. Um, because of the way that we distribute, we a lot counselors for traditional versus multittrack is a little bit different. And so at the traditional or single track, they give a few more months. Um, and so that's that's the difference there. But overall, the total reduction in months at the middle school level is somewhere between 22 1/2 and 35 1/2 months. We have a rough price range for these, and I'll let Melissa share those.
238And for the elementary schools, we're proposing the six elementary schools. Um the range would be approximately 90,000 to 114,000 per school or the two middle schools it would be 164,000 to 285,000 per school. So what she said is that for the elementary level it's anywhere from from 90 to 114,000 per elementary school and at the middle school level it's a range of 164 to 285,000 per site. So depending on how many ultimately get selected for conversion that could be anywhere from 90 to over a million dollars um in you know in savings. I will say that we're going to get to the recommendations. We're talking about them across two different years. So, the savings will be specific to that budget year. Um, and we'll give you more specifics on the actual finances once we hear
239from you today where you want us to, you know, where we're going because there's one that we do need some guidance on in particular. We have talked with transportation and um, since we actually I've heard from her again since then, but what we're looking at here is that everything should have a minimal impact on transportation. We'll get you some more specifics, but things like no additional drivers needed. Um, routes that are in existence should actually be able to continue. Even KA routes, they should still be able to ride together. Those those siblings that have been able to ride together on our where the elementary and middle school are on the same campus. Um, there might be some adjustments to stops or start and stop times um for the for the bus stops themselves, but the
240bus schedules would not need to be changed. Um, all of that will be preserved for families. That would provide that stability at least in those areas. So, for the northeastern area, we originally were looking at Heritage Elementary and Heritage Middle, recognizing that they're crowding with trailers, as you see is highlighted. Um, we've kind of showed you what that projected crowding would be. Um, and this is where the concerns, you know, pop up. Hey, if Heritage Elementary goes to traditional or track 4, goodness, it'd be 112%. Well, it still has its trailers, so we can allow for some time to have continue to use those trailers and they would be 85%. Also recognizing that the year-over-year enrollment change for the last 5 years overall has been a drop of about 10%. Um, and so we know
241that this the attendance area for the school has stabilized and the attendance area for Heritage Middle has stabilized. Well, maybe two of our regions have it. So, we'll dive in. I won't spend a lot of time on these slides. I think you all have read through these, but just reminder that Jones Dairy Elementary is another elementary school in the region that does feed a large portion of its students by race assignment into heritage and they need to remain on multitrack because of the level of crowding that they have. So just our thoughts about Jenziri going from a multi-track elementary to a track four middle to a traditional high school could be very disruptive for families if they have students on both because they might have to be on track one two or three at Jones
242Dairy and then have that middle school sibling on track four. We wouldn't be able to guarantee that alignment. So that's just something to think about with the Jones Dairy impact. Here's where you see, and this is this is WHAT MAKES THE REGION A little bit different than maybe some of the other areas we're going to look at today, is that there is growth in the region, right? And this information comes from all of our municipal partners. They share with us that, but it's not in the attendance area for the elementary school or the middle school. Their boundaries are correct. These are boundaries for all our schools, which is why you'll see we have some options for this region. At the middle, at the elementary level, you'll see that there are some schools that are starting
243to get critical. Richland Creek, Wake Forest Elementary is doing a really good job with its magnet program and drawing in students. Roseville Elementary is getting a little bit crowded. Sanford Creek um is getting to 93% but they are operating all four tracks so we can go ahead and expand and open up track 2. Jones Dair is similar. Um and then you see Heritage Elementary and North Forest Pines and Forest Pines and Wakefield that all have some available capacity. So the elementary level in this area is just something for us to think about because there is growth kind of happening north and east of the school. So would it make sense to have a split campus which is what the community said they don't want? So just to give you an idea of what those look
244like on a chart form. This is basically that same map but in chart form. There is some space in the elementary schools in the region to absorb some of that growth. Um, but it's something to be thoughtful about when the growth is coming in the next 10 years. Some of those arrows that we're showing you are 10 year growth arrows. So, not all of them are coming tomorrow. And it's a some of them could be seven or eight years out before all that development is complete. The middle school's a different picture. All of the middle schools in the area have sufficient capacity to absorb the growth that's coming as well as to manage the enrollment that they have today. Um, and they have very few trailers on their campus. Heck, we're already reducing some at
245Wake Forest Middle and this accounts for that. Roseville Middle was recently converted to traditional calendar and is still under 80% utilized. Um, so we have sufficient middle school capacity in the region. And here you can see that play out in the numbers, not just the dots. So with that and taking into account the the community feedback, we're presenting you with three options and we need some guidance here. One would be to go traditional calendar for the middle school and a large reason for the middle school going traditional is the equity concerns beyond just academics. Those can be resolved with a track and core schedule candidly. But when we're looking at after school activities, athletics, um all of those things that are operating on a traditional calendar schedule, you've got to find a ride to school
246during trackout. You have to find volunteers to take the tickets at the games and there's no teachers working during the trackout. So now all that volunteer group that I used to have to help with gates and um all the volunteering that happens with all these extracurricular activities that happen on a traditional it just makes that part of it logistically much more challenging and creates some equity and access gaps for for lots of families and and even staff members candidly and if you will Mr. Co's here to answer any questions you might have about that particular aspect. Um this would allow us to better utilize the facility. It provides greater flexibility in class scheduling at the middle school level. It improves that access as we mentioned to the after school and extracurricular programming and at the
247very least it allows for 612 calendar alignment for these families because one option would be to leave Heritage Elementary as a multitrack year round knowing that the growth is happening in the region and the elementarymentaries are getting a little tighter than the middle schools are and maybe expand its base attendance area. So, this would be the first option. It'd be to maintain the multitrack at Heritage Elementary, look to expand its base attendance area to relieve crowding at schools like Roseville, Richland Creek, um that sort of thing, and then go ahead and move forward with the middle school being traditional. This is probably the least favorite of all the community members in the sense that it's not aligned. Um, one would be to have Heritage Middle go traditional and then convert Heritage Elementary to a single
248track, track 4. So when the growth comes, we could expand to the multitrack, which we know we're not going to need to do at the middle school level. It still creates a calendar misalignment, but it's not as bad. It's a four to traditional to traditional. Um, and then the last would be to go ahead and and do the whole campus approach and have both of them convert to traditional and use the other area elementary schools to redistribute the crowding that's coming in the region and to expand their tracks because North Forest Pines is operating on a track 4 soon. Right. Um, so it could expand its tracks if needed in the future and there are a handful of schools in the area that are not operating track 2. Um, so there are some ways we
249can manage the elementary growth without having to use a Heritage Elementary. There's there's a lot of flexibility here. Um, for the southern and southwestern areas, we're not going to be quite so optiony because we we've got some core recommendations at the elementary middle and elementary and middle school level. We have a couple of schools we identified for um for reviewing at Holly Grove Elementary and Holly Middle, they're both located on the same campus. Something to consider for Holly Middle is that um Buckhorn Creek, which is traditional and Lincoln Heights, which is traditional, have a portion of their attendance areas that are aligned to Holly Middle. So, they currently have a calendar mismatch of traditional to multittrack and then traditional high school. Holly Grove and Rex Roy are the current multitrack schools that feed into it.
250Um, and they're the ones that, uh, we would also recommend a calendar change for for Holly Springs Elementary. It's not part of that feeder pattern. It's its own standalone. They do feed into Holly Ridge Middle already. So, they already have a calendar this match. They have preference for multitrack if they select it. I think most of them will um, choose Luckin or Holly Middle at the time, but Luckin will still be available. Um, they have a lot of stability transfers that are going to be aging out after recent reassignment. So that the enrollment will naturally fit in the building a little bit better over time. Rex Road is our newest school in that region. It did open just this year. 2526 is multi-track. We've learned from that experience which is why we're recommending Hilltop open
251on track 4 only. And so for Rex there's just because of the slow growth model that we're using in this region, the developments have slowed a little bit. There's not a need for all of the multitrack um at this time. So we would recommend that it well we'll talk about the recommendations for that one but that's just something that makes this one a little bit different. So looking at the area you can see most of the growth is north of these schools not right around the schools. And so what we're thinking is that if you look at the elementary level there is sufficient capacity at the elementary level to handle all of the elementary students in the region. And you can see that same information here in numbers. And then at the middle school level
252it's a little bit different picture than the north. There are some schools in this area that are a little bit crowded. The proximity at Apex Friendship Middle to Holly Grove, particularly a portion of its attendance area that's south of 64, would be a good candidate to come to Holly Grove over time, but as long as it's multitrack, that doesn't make sense because the school is a traditional calendar school. So, it's just something to think about in the long range planning for this area. Uh, Westlake is operating on a track 4, Holly Ridge is traditional, Herbert Akens is multitrack, and obviously Lufkin is multitrack. The other yellow dot is also a name for is Apex Middle and then of course Apex Friendship Middle. Um that's over 100 110%. So the thinking here is that there is
253sufficient middle school capacity if we just redistribute a little bit to to manage it even if Holly Grove were to go um to single track or traditional. So here you can see that play out in the numbers. So for Holly Grove Elementary and Holly Grove Middle, thinking about that calendar consistency and that K12 calendar alignment and the fact that they don't need the multitrack capacity, the recommendation would be for traditional for both of those schools from staff's perspective. We get that those that really really like multitrack won't like that, but we also know that this would be a stable long-term adjustment that could be maintained for quite some time. Um, in addition, the Holly Springs Elementary and Rex Road campuses, we would actually recommend track 4. Holly Springs Elementary is somewhat approximate to the new
254Veridia development. So, it could potentially need to go back to multitrack if we had to use it to support the growth in that area. And Rex Road is sort of our last frontier. It's the last school we have heading out to that edge of the county. So, any growth and development that would happen in that portion of the county would bring into this space. It might need to go multitrack again sometime in the future. we wouldn't want to have to build another school. Um, when we look at the Northwest area, we were originally looking at all five of these elementary schools. Brier Creek, Carpenter, Morrisville, Pleasant Grove, and Sycamore Creek. Um, based on some considerations we'll talk through, Brier Creek, and Carpenter are, if you look back at this slide, they're the ones that would
255most not fit if they were to go single track or traditional right away. Like, we would have some issues. you know, we have to wait a little bit or maybe even do some reassignments to get them small enough to fit into their buildings. Morrisville is also in that sort of same group. So, the question was, is this too soon? Is it a little too early? Um, for Pleasant Grove and Sycamore, it's a little bit different. Sycamore is interesting. It looks like it's overcrowded. That's because of its current fourth and fifth grade cohort. That's part of the stability transfers from opening of Burton Pond and all of that. So, as they age out, this school is progressive. You'll see it has a a 21% drop in enrollment over the last several years. So looking at this
256area, uh Brier Creek is currently not operating a track 2. It does have six mobile classrooms. The there's not a lot of enrollment growth projected for new development, but we're seeing a lot of new growth in the area just based on people coming for affordable housing near the school. Um it does feed into Leisville Middle and Pine Hollow Middle. Um we would have to reduce the attendance boundary in order to get it to sizably fit if it were a single tracker. Traditional carpenter is very much the same. However, they feed into Austin Ridge Middle, which is a multi-track your own middle school. And Parkside Middle is not opening in this region for quite some time. So, it might just be too soon to make a calendar adjustment for the school. Morrisville High Elementary, excuse me,
257is the same. It feeds to Austin Ridge Middle. It's probably a little too soon to go to a single track or traditional calendar because it would require a reduction of the attendance ends. And these two schools, Carpenter and Morris School in particular, are right in the middle of four or five other elementary schools that are currently capped. So, a boundary adjustment would actually be a feasible solution um for the crowding and under utilized concerns in the area. Pleasant Grove's a little bit different because of where it's located um and because of the impacts that it's had from its recent change in boundary. uh we would want to try to think about not taking them all the way to traditional uh because of that and we'll talk about that in just a moment and then Sycamore
258Creek as I mentioned earlier they're currently feeding into road over in the middle Pine Hollow this is that area where you can have like 5 patterns um and so all of those are operating on a traditional calendar so any change to Sycamore could could function um we wouldn't have that year round middle school um thing to worry about so here are the basic areas where the schools are located. Um the orange arrow is kind of pointing to where they all are. And you can see that they're mostly surrounded by stable nonrowth areas with the exception of Pleasant Grove cuz that big blue arrow kind of in the middle of the screen would be part of the Pleasant Grove base attendance area. And the two blue ones to the left are more of like a Austin
259Ranch Parkside kind of space maybe in Horton's Creek. And you see here there is sufficient capacity in the region in general. It's just not all in the right places. And we've seen a lot of remember when we gave the forecast presentation, we've seen a lot of um migration changes in this part of the county that are slowing enrollment growth. Um so that could change over time if more international families start moving back into this region, but we've just seen a slow um a reduction in total enrollment. Here you can see the numbers for Blair Creek and Sycamore because they're kind of on that sort of norththeast side near Glenwood. And here you see that same information for the elementary schools that are maybe more consider themselves more school airport by the area. So the recommendations
260for this area would be to convert Sonor Creek to a single track truck track 4, but wait till the 2829 school year to give them time for those older cohorts to age forward. Um, this would allow them to have access to the potential for expanding back because this is similar to Rex kind of on the edges of the county. So, if any kind of residential development growth changed, we would have that flexibility to go back to multitrack. Um, and then it would also it would give us the cost savings of going to a single track by going track. For Bear Creek, we would recommend that we continue operating it as a multitrack for right now. We might come back in 2930 depending on what happens with the 2728 enrollment plan if we're able to reduce
261the space attendance area, but for right now they they couldn't sustain it in 2728 or 2829. That they have some first floor issues too which are really important when thinking about kindergarten and first grade and prek. Um and so it makes it next to impossible for them to go traditional or track four right now. With Pleasant Grove, um we think that that growth is still pretty far out. um it's a good you know 7 8 9 10 years out. It's not immediate pending growth. So we would recommend they go track 4 for two reasons. One to support the families that were recently assigned into Pleasant Grove from Multittrack here on elementary schools. We converted Pleasant Grove to multitrack to support them in that transition so they would still have access to that track 4 alignment.
262And since the students go to a couple of different middle schools right now while we're waiting for Parkside to appear in proximate to where Parkside would be, uh we could just we could manage that if if they were on track 4. It also allows us to have access because it quite literally is on the county line. So if any other development were to come in that region, it would allow us to flex back to Lentra and support any of that enrollment work. Carpenter and Morrisville, we think it's just too soon and we think that there are other tools in the toolbox that we can use. um just based thinking about the community feedback, the alignment with Boston Marage Middle, which is a multitrack year round. So, we would recommend taking them off of consideration and
263looking maybe at a boundary adjustments as a better solution for the change enrollment in those two schools. And so, with that, we'll pause. Um I just want to remind you that K3 class size legislation is what kind of artificially changes the crowding uh percentages at your elementary schools. You know, a lot of families say, "Well, you know, you're going to need to multitrack your own middle school because look at all these crowded elementary schools." And that's generally not the case. They're crowded because of K3 class size legislation. So, I just wanted to share that with you as well. >> I'm going to say that stability rules are was our first pass of them and I'm not sure if they're worded in a way that makes sense to anybody other than me. So, we'll keep working
264on them. But the idea would be if I'm a banks student at any of the elementary or middle schools that are actually recommended for a calendar conversion, you just stay where you are. But if you'd like to stay on year round and there's some year round option near you that you'd like to apply to, we would give you priority for that. It's similar to what we did when Roseville Middle was changed. Anybody who wanted to stay on the year- round calendar at the middle school level who's already in it made that priority to go ahead and continue them year round. Priority doesn't mean guarantee, but it doesn't based on space availability and all of that, of course. Um, and then of course that would be without transportation. Then of course that would mean the rising
265kindergarten and sixth grade siblings could follow the same suit as them. So that's what this is intended to say. Then there's another group of students at our year- round schools that are there by calendar application. The board many many years ago sort of developed this idea that families could apply and get some transportation to a calendar option. And some of these schools still have those students. So we would say that those students because of transportation would default be assigned back to their base so they could have a choice but they would be part of that stability transfer period that we normally do for the enrollment plan. They could then ask to just stay where they are. We would let all of them stay at the current school if they built relationships and want to finish
266with their cohorts. Bring in those kindergarten and sixth grade siblings if they need to. and we would include them with all of the notifications that we do during the enrollment plan stability window for whatever the appropriate time period is. Um, we also would give these families priority for calendar continuity. Perhaps they wanted to stay on year round and rather than get the stability transfer, we would extend those same priorities for them if they wanted to stay on year round at a different school. Um, so again, it's very clunky. I'm going to keep working on how to write this up um in a way that makes sense to everybody. might be easier as FAQs, I'll be honest. But the idea is we give everybody as much stability as possible in the school assignment and or try
267to help them keep the calendar that they've come accustomed to, especially if they're going to traditional, if they're going to track for, you know, that they're keeping multitrack. They're keeping a year- round schedule, but if they're going to traditional, and I will say, I think I went a little quickly through um some of the recommendations. Do I have a summary slide here? I don't. Um there are a couple I want to point out that we're actually recommending for as early as 2728 and then others that we're recommending for 2829. So for the northeast area for the heritages we would say let's hold off and whatever decision is made let's do that for 2829 regardless of which option we we end up falling on. Um for the southern or southwestern area and the the Holly Grove
268schools we would recommend that be 2728. even saw that in the community feedback as well as for Holly Springs and Rex Road. They're just they need to change quickly. Um for Sycamore Creek, the recommendation would be for 2829 to give those older cohorts time to age out. And then for Brier Creek, we're not changing them. For Pleasant Grove, similar to Rex Road in Holly Springs, they're kind of ready. A single track would be preferred for 27 28. All right. Yeah. So, um, do you want to do next steps or do you want to do that first? Next step. Okay. So, next steps in timeline. Um, so we've extended the deadline for the thought exchange. The website's been updated since April 14th, and I think we've added a few updates since then. On May 13th, we'll
269host a virtual public information session for families and community members just to share with them what we've shared with you and then take any any questions that they might have. Um and then uh then we'll be working with the principal is to host any staff sessions that are necessary to help staff understand how this might impact them personally. We'll come back to you on May 19th with our final recommendations at the work session as our plan and then with the idea of you being able to take a vote later that same night. And then that way that gives us May to September to determine whether or not anything should be in the enrollment plan based on these changes and or support all of the schools and families as they're preparing for any of these transitions.
270Reminder for everybody, I know I live in the future world. 2627 hasn't happened yet. So 2728 is still a year plus ahead of us. So this would give families and staff at least 13 months of preparation time for any of these changes and then even longer for the 28 to 29 recommendations. So with that I think before we get into your questions or maybe we can do them at the same time. Um Glenn passed out some handouts that I think he wanted to talk you through. So just wanted to give you a visual of what the feeder patterns look like. So when you look at the charts that we provided um started with Heritage Middle and Holly Grove Middle, we basically um just talked about those two particular middle schools because as many of us
271have seen a lot of the emails that we've gotten from parents, we wanted to address some of the concerns that they brought up in some of their emails. So we showed you here the Heritage Middle School feeder pattern. So you have Heritage Elementary which is on the multitrack your own calendar feeds to Heritage Middle School which is currently on the multitrack your own calendar which then feeds to a traditional calendar high school. So where you see the green that shows where you have calendar alignment. So for currently Heritage Middle School has K8 calendar alignment. Holly Grove Middle School has four elementaryaries that feed to it as Susan spoke to. Buckwhorn Creek which is on traditional Holly Grove uh elementary, Lincoln Heights and Rex Road. And two of the schools have misalignment at the middle school.
272So they start on year round, they go to they start on traditional, they go to year round on middle school, and then they go to traditional uh for high school. Whereas the other two have K8 alignment. So then what I wanted you to see was the recommendation that came from staff. So remember we talked about the best feedback we get is before we start making recommendations publicly. Um a lot of the feedback you heard from families was provide us stability as much as possible. Right? And so when you look at the recommended uh calendar alignment configurations, this is what Susan just walked you through and the recommendations from staff, you can see that Heritage Elementary would now have K12 calendar alignment. >> And I'll pause there. We're still going through the three options. We just
273took the most severe option. >> Yeah. and then uh uh Jones Dairy which would need to remain on the multittrack as part of our recommendation due to the growth in the area. They would instead having uh K8 alignment they would move to 612 alignment very similar to what we did for families when we had um Rollsville Middle School and Pine Hollow Middle School when we converted those schools those families at Sycamore Creek and Ber Creek lost their K8 alignment but they gained 612 alignment. Then looking at Holly Grove Middle School, you now have three schools that will have K12 alignment with only one school, Rex Road, having 612 alignment. Okay. Then the last page that I provided is what we heard from families and saying, "Well, let's make us track for." And I just wanted
274to give you that visual where you see you'll still have some misalignment with your feeder patterns. It's actually very similar to what you're seeing in the current alignment. However, Jill and Derry will now go they they'll lose alignment altogether. They will not have elementary KA alignment anymore. They will go from a multitrack year round elementary to a track for middle school to a traditional high school which is very disruptive for families. So, I just wanted to give you that visual as you consider some of the feedback you've heard from families. Um, and if you have any questions about this, feel free to just let us know. >> Thank you all for sharing these updates on trigger function. And I'll start with Dr. Thank you. Thank you for the full um uh review um suggestion for
275making this flow charts. Uh but um my question is if hypothetically if there was growth again in an area um what's better to go from a um track four back to a multi track year round versus traditional going back to a multitrack around. >> Yeah. We had I would say track 4 only because they're still on that ar that architecture and the families gotten used to the trackouts. Um it's still a lift. Um we and we have piloted something with Lakemy that seems to have helped cuz they have to figure out who's going to come off of track 4 and be assigned to tracks 1, two, and three. It's still disruptive, but looking at what happened when Pleasant Grove went from traditional to multittrack and then like Myra going from track 4 to multitrack, I
276think the transition was a little smoother for the Lake. >> And I want to highlight staff's recommendations. Take that into account. We do not want to change a school to traditional and then have to turn around and turn it into multitrack. So, we are very conservative in our recommendations. So any recommendations you see from staff say hey we know that there's potential growth in that area but we think we can handle it in other ways or you know if we think that there's an issue or concern we're conservatively saying let's keep it at multi track four instead of going to traditional and and can you um clarify in my mind the the difficulty for the the uh the whatif scenario for day uh personality track to track 4 to traditional you >> because the number
277of students that'll be in an elementary let's say grade five um will have and all I all of the students in elementary school are likely to have a sibling at some point in time that will also be in the middle school and so when the sibling goes to the middle school and the only option is track four and the younger and the family's been on track one two or three the whole time leading up the the ability of the elementary principal to move all of those families over to track four as the middle school ages forward. It it's just not a realistic expectation. There won't be a lot of seats and you'll also have a track perhaps if we weren't able to pull it off. This is the sibling track and and you don't want
278to do something that's so you know isolating for for families that makes it a very big challenge. So what will happen is the elementary principal would get pressure from the family to move the younger students to track four. you probably wouldn't be able to accommodate all the requests and you'd have a family who could be on track one and four or two and four or three and four and then progressing on to traditional at some point in time when they get to high school. It's just it's not a but practically in application it give you very very bad performance >> and and geographically from Jones daily let's say uh and going to heritage um what what are other options for students um for John uh instead of having to go to a track for let's
279say a heritage um but the other option Well, part of it, the heritage relies on that membership, right? That's part of what builds their total membership is because you can't take one elementary school and go to a middle school. It's not, right? You need two, if not three elementary schools, feeding a middle school in those cases. Um, but here are your schools in the region that have capacity. Uh, Roseville, Wake Forest, and Wakefield are all on traditional um but with further under and low heritage if you were to do that. But there are traditional options, right? So if if there was a misalignment, um they could seek an alternative. Correct. >> They could ask for transfers. Certainly through a tradition certainly for traditional. Yes. >> Vice chair, Mr. So I'm just wondering when you do
280the evaluation I see it in the northeastern area but also there's a second school for like Heritage Elementary School. You're doing the evaluation with trailers but without trailers they would be well under 100%. Which leads me to two questions which is why are they using trailers to begin with now and why are you doing an evaluation of not just the building since they don't currently need trailers? according to the numbers. >> I will say similar to all of us who have houses with extra rooms, when you have trailers and they're functioning, you use them, right? So, principles just find ways to help them spread out, right? Maybe I don't have to have two intervention specialists in one classroom. They can each have their own room. Maybe I can have a dedicated room for PE when
281it rains. maybe I can have PLC's have a permanent setup versus having the setup tear down every time they go into the media center after school. So, a lot of times they'll just creatively use the space that they have because it's available. Um, but if the AC is not working, then they won't ease it, right? Or um if it's too far away or something like that, but that's usually what happens is they find a way to help make things a little bit easier to maybe my teachers don't have to track in and track out. >> And that's one thing we're learning. they don't just share classroom spaces, which is what the multittrack model is designed on. >> As we have planned for the current trailers to come off of campuses, you do have some principles
282who are like, "Well, I I need that space or I I want that space." And so, it's been difficult for the facilities team to say like, "Well, we can't afford to continue using that space or we're going to be taking that that capacity off of your campus." Given that you just cited a bunch of reasons with them not using it as classrooms on everyday basis, and I know that's not your responsibility, I don't understand why we would evaluate it as if it's 93% full in the building because as a board, you know, we've talked about getting away from trailers. So, I'm just wondering why we wouldn't just evaluate Heritage Middle Elementary School, any of them under 100% without trailers as you can fit all these kids in a building. The complicating factor for this particular
283set of schools is that they're on the same campus. And we've learned from our experience, even with like the opening of Bowling Road, that when two schools are located on the same campus, the board seems to prefer that they operate on the same calendar. So, we didn't want to intentionally create a mismatch without having conversation with the community first. >> Thank you, Mr. Thank you. >> And you can see the reduction, too. They're continuing to have a reduced So, you know, just like reassignment, calendar changes always prompt, you know, very emotional responses from the community. >> And it's been tricky. You know, in this role in my district, you have a Wall-E half and a West Kerry and Morrisville half. Year round schools have done a fact of life on the Wall-E half for decades.
284And down there they're very very popular on the carry and Morris building side where you have many more people moving into the area. They don't know what a year round school is and we hear a lot of you know demands for traditional and um they've been unpopular. It's the same district. They're less than a couple miles from each other but it's it's night and day reactions. So inter navigating public opinion on this can be really tough. um the two the two schools in the northwest area that you recommended changes for Sycamore Creek and Pleasant Grove. Um I appreciate that the Sycamore Creek changes are proposed until 2829 because you know I do see new growth out there you know within walking distance of the school. I don't know how other demographic changes will impact the
285area. I know the year round of Sycamore Creek is very very popular, but I also know that when we converted Pine Hollow to a traditional calendar, a lot of other parents want that calendar stability as well. So, I think this proposal for 2829 will give um a sufficient time to get community feedback. If you have to change it, I think changing it to track four is going to be the preferred choice of parents and uh staff out there rather than strictly a traditional. Um but I I'll wait to hear more back from the community about that. um with Pleasant Grove. You all know this is a special situation and the families that go to that school have been through the school now have been through a lot of change, a lot of transition with reassignments
286and everything. And here again, I'm look, you look at those low numbers of enrollment, but we also have the opening of the new middle school right around the corner that's going to result in more change and more disruption for those families. So, I'd hate to see a disruptive calendar change, particularly if they were to move to a traditional calendar and then still have to go to a year round middle school before going back to a traditional high school. >> And that's why the recommendations for track. >> So, so, so the track 4 recommendation is one that that I I think I can support. I wanted to ask you though, just like you said, Sycamore Creek has sort of some inflated enrollment numbers because of the stability rules with Bart Pond families opting to stay there.
287I know that a lot of the families that were reassigned to Pleasant Grove opted to stay at Parkside as their base school. Once those and I'll start once those stability transfers end what kind of impact do you see on pleasant grow pleasant grows enrollment? >> So the area that is here is the biggest part of the space right now. >> Yeah. >> This is the future potential growth that's coming again part of our track 4. We know we can absorb the families here on a track for all the caliber for the time being and then if and when this does take off and puts additional pressure and if this is still continuing to put pressure as there's growth comes we would have the flexibility to go multitrack if that area ages in place cuz it's
288a pretty established set of neighborhoods. If it ages in place and it really isn't generating new elementary students over time then there'd be plenty of space to absorb the growth you know as those students age out. So it gives us the flexibility to respond as needed. >> So then the last question about that area ties back to the reassignment proposal too. One of the schools that you identified, Brier Creek, isn't you don't have any proposal for a calendar change, but you said, you know, you could maybe address some of the crowding issues through reassignment. As you look to draw a new assignment territory for Morrisville High School, I'm wondering how far east you will go into potentially the um Brier Creek Elementary base because if that's if that's the case where it's currently the Brier
289Creek Elementary base, if that's the case, I think some areas on the western most side of that base. You could look at reassignment to Pleasant Grove as I think when Parkside Middle opens, you know, keeping Pleasant Grove and maybe Parkside Elementary Schools together into the new middle school and then ultimately the new high school would do a lot for continuity in that area, stability for the families. and that might also influence how you decide the calendar you decide to pick for the new middle school as well. So, I wanted to share that feedback. Thank you. >> Definitely part of the All right. Um, thank you for this and um I you know I totally agree with all of your numbers and everything. Um, I have two questions and some feedback. Um, first of all, Lincoln
290Heights is magnet. So, what percentage of Lincoln Heights actually does go to polyrop? >> A high percentage. They don't have a very high magnate in middle school. >> Okay. So, like the percent I would say there's the large percentage of Lincoln Heights actually goes to Fukina Middle. It's just a portion of their base that's kind of this more west that goes to Hollywood does show up. >> Yeah, they do show up. Okay. Um, and was it sorry Salem Mill had a track drop? Was that considered in any of these? It was, but because Holly Grove is already at 61% that we've been asking them to hang on to this multi-track here models since Turbor Akens Road opened up because we were anticipating growth towards the Rex corridor. It's just slow and we stalled out a
291little bit. it's going to come back someday. But to have them even drop a track or stay in the configuration that they're in for this long of a period of time and starting to academically impact the students closer to what Parkside Middle School open >> no Salem's got the the growth that's near wide open green level. That's part of the difference there too. >> So I guess it has been considered. Yeah. So, as far as feedback goes, I am going to say, and some of my colleagues already know this, that I'm going to recommend track 4 for the for Holly Grove Elementary and middle school for a couple of reasons. Um, one, I do think the growth stallout is very policy and administrative specific. And I think and I think especially when we looked at
292the numbers and said and saw that a lot of it was due to immigration dropping like a stone and that is absolutely an administrative you know a federal administration policy. I think if that is halted then we could see flooding of the area. There are tons of new houses being built in the area still there. You know there Midia is coming in which is going to be a huge development. Um, and we still have I think Lufkin, um, is, you know, we could stand to look at those boundaries, but that's a different conversation. Um, I'm concerned about the the feedback I got about um, business. When I interviewed for this slot, what your last question was, if you all remember, like 70% of Wake County does not have kids in the school. So like what
293are we doing though to continue to serve them and to be an integral part of the community? And this is one of those things like the businesses in the area and I'm not even talking about camps that are like specifically doing trackout. There are a lot of kid oriented or activity oriented businesses that are handling this horrible economy with trackout stuff. They're, you know, they are basically supplementing what they're doing by providing trackout camps and stuff. it'll be a huge hit to them if those disappear. And I think that is something we really should consider. I mean, because even if you know they don't have kids in the school, like they're still providing a service to our kids. I mean, it's not good for the, you know, for the town as a whole and for
294the area as a whole to like lose businesses. Um, especially, you know, if we have this option. Um, and I also think that there are people, unfortunately, we're getting more choices in this area, too. I mean, you know, they just announced this huge $100 million Grace Christian campus and they, you know, and they have um charters like Pine Springs is supposed to be expanding and that kind of thing. And a lot of the parents, what's keeping them committed to the community and stuff is that they came here for the year round schools. And these are people with these are parents with a lot of options and these are families with a lot of options and we need to listen to them and it was and I know that that when a recommendation is made and
295people like it they aren't as um apt to speak out about it you know and so I I'm taking that into consideration but it was 80% of people were saying that you know who responded and it's way more than that in my email I can tell you that said they wanted the track for and I think especially since you know it is quite possible in that area like there are the homes there and everything for it to expand. It's not like an established area where the houses are all 30 years old. You know I think that keep that going to a track for for um Holly Grove Elementary Middle is the way to go. >> I I just want to ask Darren Ho to give an opportunity to speak about middle the impact of a
296track for middle school. >> Yeah. So um currently with 10 year round middle schools it's already a challenge for actual activities that specifically for participation for students at our year rounds. We have three currently track only middle schools. Uh the challenges that creates not just for staffing but also for the the nearby middle schools who participate against them. The district is so vast. I mean, talk about our 10 rounds in our every single stretch around those schools. Being able to participate against only each other is not possible. Students travel patterns across the district, 45 minutes to close to an hour and travel to those on similar calendars to participate and playing games for 30 and other after school activities. Students can't sometimes can't get back to campus at all, but they can participate. And if
297they do trying to host a game with athletic departments and actual activities that are funded almost solely by ticket sales and ticket revenue, people aren't coming to the games. Um so that is a challenge there. So it impacts not only the school attracting the school but also the partnering schools in the surrounding community and their participation and attendance and contest and availability of those students. >> I um I hear you. Yeah. And yeah and I I so it's just the athletics that are affected all the extraordinary but like it sounds very athletic. Um okay all right I hear you and I also think that that should be explained to the families and then give again give them a chance to maybe look at some creative solutions as well. But to to add your point, we
298did talk with the principles. It does impact like academic competitions, performances, anything that happens on a traditional cycle. Um, so it does impact like a robotics competition or a academic talon type thing. Those types of activities that happen on that schedule, it definitely impacts those. Um, thank you for this presentation, short little presentation. Um, I have a couple questions and a couple comments. Um, as far as the community goes, um, with the with the heritage schools specifically, cuz that is that's my area over there. Um, how much have we involved the town of Wake Forest with these numbers and our concerns? >> Do you want to talk about our partnership with municipal partners? >> Sure. So, there's a yearly program and outreach to the planning department. So the planning data that we have comes directly
299from the municipalities like Wake Forest. So we have a partner with NC State University um who helps us with that analysis and gathering the data. Um so that is all part of what you saw in the the arrows and the heat maps um all incorporate that information. So for the great growth that's coming into Wake Forest and Rollsville and there is definitely growth that's going to happen. Um but it is outside of the heritagebased attendance area. So I think that kind of then turns to the question of the three options. Do we change the heritagebased attendance area to try to help you anticipate some of that growth? Um okay. So, but it's not in the direct vicinity of the Heritage. >> So, are you saying that it's mostly from NC State or from the town
300of Wake Forest? >> No, it's a town. It's from >> So, you just help us analyze what they give us. >> Okay. when you go on to um their mapping uh system on their their uh townway bar site, they have 58 over 5,800 units that are approved and on their way that have not been broken ground, nothing. They have a whole bunch more huge areas that are they have them gritted out and they're working to reszone them and they are tremendous. So, this has already got the community in an uproar like how are we doing this as far as infrastructure go? That's on the commissioner's side of them approving that. But with that 5,800 units that are coming our way, I struggle with some of the information that we have to even touch the heritage
301schools. Um, now I live there and it is all around a heritage. Um, but one of the things I wanted to ask was when we get the transfers, as much as we get the requests that come in and we say that we can't, the families, we've heard over and over again in the emails. I've heard it, I've seen it online, that they're being turned away from going to these schools and they're being told that the schools are are full. And now we're being told that they're underutilized. So, we have to switch them. the idea is to switch them to traditional to compensate for that. So my question, one of my questions is as the transfer requests go, we have a holding village which is right there across the street from the school and there's like
302for those of you that don't live there, there's like a V and Heritage Schools right here is on Rogers Road and then 98 and they're both huge roads completely filled with traffic 24/7. and holding village goes right between the middle and I don't know how but they are sandwiching more and more if they find a parcel of dirt they just go upward and they're still building and they're still proving more in there that whole entire base could walk to heritage schools right there the high school elementary the greenway is even connected underneath the road safely to go right to the high school they could walk down the street literally straight down the street and right onto campus and they don't even need to make a turn Heritage Middle and and elementary school. So my concern
303is with the feedback we hear from this family of how much they like the yearround school and that and Jones daily Sanford Creek and Heritage are year- round options over there. If we take that away from our friendly and the middle school, I want to point out that is our year round middle school in that area. Everything else is is traditional middle school. So if we want to keep this continuous for our families and we do have tons and tons of families that are trying to come in and utilize year round, we could fill that school where we would not need to do that. A comment that I wanted to make off of that is we put trailers in as a temporary measure. And here we have that we're giving numbers here. 93% without the
304trailers, but we're willing to change this whole community. The whole community was based and built around year- round schools in that area that everybody who bought in that area was sold that your your community is here. Grocery store, your schools, your banks, you don't even need to leave leave home. Like that's that's how this whole community was built. Which means it brought in businesses, not just trackout camps, but everybody who is working around these families that are here, the schools that we have there, and keeping everything close into the community. And it's going to affect those businesses that opened up because of what we have right here. So, if we have Jones Dairy that is so crowded, why can't some of those kids go to Heritage Middle School? And I mean, Heritage Elementary School before
305we change it to a tra before we change it to a traditional school. I know it's a lot of information, but I've gotten a lot of feedback. I don't want to take too much time, so I'm just trying to spill it out there and kind of make my case. And as far as the middle school with the afterchool participation, I have never seen so much parent involvement at PTA in Heritage Elementary School and Middle School. We just have an amazing community. The teachers are incredible. Everybody's very involved. I do not I can see how that could be an issue for some, but I do not see that being a problem in those schools. So I'm just asking if we can consider that holding village area if we were to look at that base even if
306we were to split half of it because it is right in between the heritage and and Wake Forest schools would that help with what we have here at 93% without the trailers. >> So I'll just add something. Yeah. Um the staff recommendation for Heritage Elementary to go traditional was just because you had the two schools on the same campus. Um when you go back and look at the slide where you look at the crowding in the area, we do not have the need for the additional seats in the area. Um you know, I live in that Wake Forest area as well. Um and I wonder how much of it is the name as opposed to the calendar because we recently converted Rollsville Middle School to traditional calendar because we couldn't fill the school with people
307who wanted year round. We were often getting people who would ask into Heritage. We would offer them transfers into Rollsville Middle and they wouldn't take it. So, I'm not sure how much of it is actually the calendar as opposed it is to the name of the school. Um, with that, you know, we could be flexible in the recommendation where we could leave the year round um elementary and then give them 612 alignment, but again, you know, the board has historically had schools on the same campus, the same calendar. However, you do have the ability to go against that in this particular case because of this area we'd like to keep year round in this particular area. Staff can go with a recommendation like that as well. >> So, I just want to give feedback that
308I've heard from a ton of teachers, a ton of families, and even students, and everybody really appreciates the year round for Heritage Elementary and Middle School. So, um I'm just asking the board to consider that. I am I am sorry. I know. You guys put a lot of work and time into this, but I don't think it's an option that our families want and definitely not our teachers. I've actually heard from quite a few teachers that they don't need to stay. They just love being there and if they switch to traditional, they will probably retire. And I do not want to lose more teachers or families. We have Franklin Academy, Bailey's, Wake Forest, Charter, Wake Prep. All of those are all in 5minute drive from these schools. And if this is one thing that is
309attracting our kids to Heritage Elementary and Middle School, it's kind of like a model of okay, so what's working here? We could actually use that in some of our other schools. I don't want to take that away from them. We were clear. We we know nobody wants the challenge. Yeah. Yeah. I just honestly all the things you mentioned are why we this was the only site where we had the three options because there's a lot of ways we can solve this right. Um and so that's why it sounds to me like you're leaning more toward option A, but I'll defer to the chair on how we navigate options A, B, and C for this. So, so one um suggestion because we were supposed to do this three weeks ago date is now. Can we not
310um have another work session in two weeks and then vote actually on June 2nd Tuesday? So you can do whatever you like. >> I know that an extra month. Yeah. I think the aggressive timeline was just because you do have some recommendations for 2728 that we'd really like to give you know the families and the staff members at those schools a longer runway but >> yes but May 19th to June 2nd is not is not magnificent. >> So if there's consensus that's one two >> bring it back to >> so we'll come to you on the 19th still as a work session item but wait for the vote for June 7th. Yes. Okay. >> Okay. I was trying to make sure we're in the same space. I'm glad that um Mr. clothes are indicated that
311you know acknowledge that it's our choice what we should do and I think a lot of times um while I appreciate what staff has to say um I have just concern of this year this is the reason and everyone comes and shares why we need to do this next year oh but no this is the reason why it's so concerning and we need to do that and so for me I need stability and thought um and that's what I keep noticing in in multiple departments and mult we create scenarios um according to what I believe I believe that you believe what you need at the moment um but it it often what I found in the years that I've been on the board it contradicts itself so I'm just I'm just trying to stop the
312contradictions so that I can make the best decisions um for parents and families amilies. Um, so I have to ask deeper questions. Um, particularly for me, I had three questions. One with trailers, um, cuz I have to wait for everyone else to finish. But trailers, how usable are the trailers, um, that we do have since we are we're constantly using trailers to count numbers of availability, but are they actually usable and accessible? that we just sanded on paper. Does it really hold the body in the seat? Um I know you mentioned about um um schools, you know, don't necessarily sometimes want to let the trailer go, but I would like to really know. I know you guys may not move the trailer, but maybe Mr. um Strickland um may have deeper information of what's the
313timeline continuously for moving the trailers. I know we've seen it before, but what does that really look like? So, that's one thing. Um, track 4 when Miss um Dr. Joe was talking about um the Holly Ridge um Holly Grove School. My question to that basically was um so if we do know that that all this growth is bursting and booming are we going back in a year and a half and saying but basically on now what we have since then we need to turn it back because right now it's traditional. We want to make it um right now I think what is uh track four uh now we want to bring it back to traditional and then we might have to bring it right back to track four once we see the expanded growth in
314the area and are we being reactionary or we being um what's the word we don't want to be reactionary but are we being um are we doing stuff in advance >> proactive thank you thank you for somebody helping me right that's what I was looking Are we being proactive? Are we going to continue to be reactionary to everything that we do? Um I've I've just I've just been around a long time when when we introduce um year round schools in Wake County. So right I've been around just many as long as many of you of us has. Um some of these changes I'm wor wondering are we changing stuff that happened in 0809? Is that why we're changing stuff when we did this huge burst of choice and all that? So, I'm seeing a lot
315of change of going back to what we were or should have been and that kind of stuff. So, I'm having trouble with a lot of flip-flop um that's being pre presented um at at numerous board meetings. I have a lot of challenge with what's presented to me. And I hate to sound confrontational. is definitely not my intent, but if I know for a fact that what Miss um Koffield is saying to be true, right? Um I've lived um in the north and eastern area, you know, for 15 years prior to um what are we doing? Like I I see a lot of reactionary behavior that we've got going on and and I just don't know what to do. I don't know what to be true or what not to be true and then to respond
316to it in a um integral manner um as a board member and so uh I need to know four out of the how many schools are in the region that we need to consider that are track four. You said there are four that are track four, right? I think I heard um you mentioned three three out of three out of what? >> Three out of the 36. >> Three three out of 36 schools. >> Three out of 36 schools after school program that I work with. >> Okay. So, all right. So, what I'm what I'm what we're talking about we have 36 schools in how in in that region or we talking about overall right. So, what I'm talking about in this region or how how does that work? Because the schools don't go the
317schools that are over in Holly Grove aren't having a game with schools in district 4. Like, what are what are we doing? Like, help us understand where are we getting the presentation of this data from to convince us that we need to shift uh a region again. um when we hear the number and can you show us that there isn't going to be any growth of that significance to change a school right back to four in two years. So, if I may, um, you brought up data in an earlier conversation and I want to say I think that >> and I heard your data point you made earlier too. I think I think our department does a really good job of showing you the data that we use to make these decisions, right? We get
318the data directly from the municipalities, right? And then we work with a um a third party vendor. So, it's not something that we're deciding. It's something that somebody else is deciding and they're analyzing and saying this is the best course of action for how you should respond to this. and then staff takes that and we're even more conservative. So when you look at some of our recommendations, we're not recommending to change a school to a traditional calendar that we think it could possibly go back to multitrack. We we are conservatively saying you should go track for on that. So that gives us that flexibility so it's not going to be um instable for families long term. So that I can I can share you with that. And then from there, you know, I I can't
319speak for other departments, but I do think that we are looking further ahead than most. I mean, because we have to naturally look ahead. Um, and I think we've heard from board members very loud and clear, try to provide stability as much as possible, try to provide opportunities for families to have some consistency, and that's what this long-term plan is doing. And so, that's generally the information that we'll share moving forward. But I appreciate your feedback, though. >> Right. And so with that being said, for me um if if it matters or it consists that we do this u like it is. Um I know this is getting late but I just want to just um um make this comment and um no reply necessary. Um but certainly you know I sometimes I wonder whether
320it it was a self-fulfilling prophecy in in the northeast area to you know the the actions that we have done uh created by these charter schools um and all these options up there that now we have to kind of uh think through are we going to be able to stay competitive as as you an option for families up there. Um, if we choose to go in a different route, uh, when everybody is so in, you know, all the families so ingrained in in the year round lifestyle, uh, and we're choosing to go to a traditional and just are we going to drive people away um, from uh, our uh, our schools because they choose they have other options. So, um I just don't want that to to happen and so I just want you guys
321to consider that. Thank you all. Uh it's after 5:30. So I appreciate staff's hard work and information with this and we we will adjourn any other side.