2026-03-24 Special Called Board Meeting

001She graduated and working in their fields. Thank goodness. I need them to do that. That's without going to the bathroom. Christine is here. I am ready. My cushion our our commissioner is here. Yes. >> I love y'all. >> I did. I got some snacks out there. >> I saw it, but I knew what I didn't realize >> and I started. >> You should text me. >> All you have to do is text me. >> Okay. >> I It's fine. All right. I didn't Remember, let me tell you something. Today, >> a lot has been going on. >> Yeah. >> Ain't it? >> So, I didn't even It didn't even cross my mind. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Girl, >> I got together now. Chris, I got it together. Got a whole basket. >> All right. Well,

002that's what we were trying to determine. They said that they call her car, but I don't know what happened. >> All right, >> that sounds like a You can just >> I thought it was one of their fishing training emails and it was legitimately a real fishing email. Are we going to ride together? >> Went from cloud enrollment >> together, right? >> Okay. >> I'm good. >> Yeah. She just went back there. >> Okay. We don't need her. I need to drink some water, too. Was Toshiba back there? >> I mean, I just saw her go back. >> Okay. >> But if we need to go, >> I mean, it is 501, so I do want to >> Yeah. Do you see Christina anywhere? >> Christina is right there. >> Oh, I got you. Sorry,

003her back was to me. Thank you. >> I'm going to wait like a second and then get going. There's no public comment. >> Okay. All right. Good. There we are. All right. Good afternoon. Good evening everyone. All right, so we will get started with this special called meeting. Uh but before we get started, we have a quorum. I know Miss Rice is there a little Thank you. I make sure there was enough volume on this mic. Thank you. Um we have a quorum. I know Miss Rice is going to be joining us momentarily. So let's stand for the pledge of allegiance and then we'll approve the agenda items. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and

004justice for all. >> All right. So, before we get going, I will need to entertain a motion to amend and to approve tonight's agenda. to add a close session item to consult with the attorney employed by the Wake County Board of Education in order to preserve the attorney client privilege as provided in general statute 143-318.1183 vice chair. >> So moved. >> There is a motion. Is there a second? Second. It's been seconded by Mr. Heggery. Any discussion? Hearing and seeing none. All those in favor of the motion to approve and amend the agenda, let let it be known by the sign of I. I >> oppose same signs. The eyes have it. So I I want to begin and be clear about why we're here tonight. This meeting is about getting answers. Answers that must

005be provided by the administration. The board of education has not made any cuts. This is not the decision of the board of education. This is not the job of the board of education to answer for decisions that we're not responsible for. Our role is simply oversight. And tonight, we are exercising that responsibility on behalf of our students, our families, and staff. Over the past several days, this board has received hundreds, if not thousands of emails from concerned educators, community members. Much of that concern stems from a poorly communicated message that has created fear and confusion across the district. Our community deserves clarity. Our community deserves transparency and our community deserves honesty and that is what we are intended to receive tonight. The board governs based on facts, but we can only govern based on the

006facts that are presented to us. And right now, we need to understand what is facts and what is fiction. And I'll also be clear about my position that I'm not in favor of balancing budgets on backs of our most vulnerable students. Our students receiving special education services depend on us to protect and to prioritize their needs. Likewise, we should not be balancing those budgets on cuts to academics. One of our core responsibilities and our most fundamental responsibility is to ensure that teaching and learning can and will take place in every classroom. So tonight is about accountability and it's understanding how we arrived at this potential $18 million reduction within the special education department, what the real impacts are and what the plan is to address it without harming students or undermining instruction. And let me

007be equally clear to all of my colleagues and to the public that we will that I will not adjourn this meeting until all of our answers have been have all of our questions have been answered. Our community is watching. Our families are depending on us. Our students deserve nothing less than the full commitment to getting this thing right. So I will before I turn it over to the do Dr. Taylor, I will I know the board has just received the slides and and assembly, but I will do something a little different and we will go slide by slide to pause for questions because I'm sure if you're like me, your questions cannot wait to the end. So, we will go that route and so Dr. Taylor, I will turn the floor over to you. Thank

008you, Mr. Chair. And I will ask that uh staff please come to the front because uh we'll be going through this presentation together. Um and if they will pull up the slide, I will do some introductory remarks and then we will get into the presentation. Uh and so I do want to share our desired outcomes tonight. It is uh to one gain a historical perspective of uh of the spending uh from 2021 up until now. There's uh information that we do want to be able to share. Uh we certainly want to have everyone gain an understanding of the steps that special education services uh has taken to maintain a balanced budget for the 2627 school year. I think that is very important in terms of what we want to be able to share tonight. Um

009certainly share uh the potential for staff as a result uh of the updated aotment structure that we've proposed uh and gain an understanding of the aotment adjustments and then share updates to programming for CCK and essentials and and while uh that is not a part of this budget decision, we do want to take an opportunity to be able to share some of that information uh because we know that those are questions that have been um posed as well. And so with that, uh, we could advance that to, um, the next slide, uh, for the superintendent overview. I don't know who has control of that. One more. Uh, and so I I first want to share that I I appreciate our constituents listening to the information that I and staff will share today regarding the special

010education program and the efforts to ensure uh the program remains physically sound and sustainable. Uh now there is a considerable amount of conversation regarding this program. Uh and my goal is to provide clarity and transparency transparency to correct where we have not communicated clearly. >> Excuse me, Dr. the the slides seem to be a disconnect. So, I know we're looking at the >> Okay, go to the next one. Yeah, right there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Uh, and so again, um uh there's been a considerable amount of conversation regarding where we have not uh communicated clearly in the status of the program and our intentions. So, as we share the information with you tonight, uh we will answer the questions that have been posed by the board and questions from any

011constituents uh that have reached out to the board members to the administration and to my office. Uh and I do want to thank the board chair for calling this special call meeting because I think it is very important uh as he has said that we uh continue to establish transparency in this entire process. uh and do give our public an opportunity to hear the conversation and hear uh the questions that the board members will ask tonight. And so with that uh I want to first talk about uh teacher positions. Uh the first issue I wanted to address and I want to be absolutely clear on this uh that the Wake County Public School System is not firing 130 teachers to avoid a budget shortfall. I want to be clear on that. Uh staff will share

012a little more about that in greater detail. uh what that change for the next school year represents. Uh and as we examine the IDA or federal budget, we determine what changes would be needed as a part of the program budget to keep operating within the available funds as we have operated this year for this upcoming year. By examining program and personnel needs, we determined that a change in various program areas and we're going to talk about some strategic reductions to be shared by the staff uh as well as a change in teacher case loads um how that would address uh what we wanted to um do in terms of budget alignment. So each year we have attrition and I want to be sure this about all of our teaching positions but each year we have

013attrition that causes us to have vacancies at the beginning of every school year. Uh these have been the trends for the past several years particularly with sped and for that reason we believe that that trend will continue even uh with a proposed reduction of 130 positions. So, the district does not expect to be able to keep uh all um So, the district does expect to be able to keep all special education teachers who have uh renewal uh contracts. Our total sped teaching staff is 1,453 that are actually on staff. That does not include vacancies. I also want to address uh what some believe is a notification sent out by HR that sped teachers are being contacted that their position is being cut. Uh each year uh any employee is on a term or what some

014characterize or know as an expiring contract receives a letter from HR denoting that their contract ends and they should talk with their principal about future position availab availability. This is done every single year and all teachers with this contract receive it. Whether you're a social studies teacher, a science teacher, an enhancement teacher or a sped teacher, any teacher with a term contract. I also want to address uh the timing factor and one of the questions also asked was about the timing of sharing this information and how it aligns with the overall budget development. uh as as we considered how to adjust the program support we deemed it necessary to share this information once the adjustments had been identified uh we started with sharing in board leadership meeting uh that adjustments would need to be made

015we then share with other board members principles and teachers now we also reason that we had a duty to inform teachers once the information had been shared at those various levels both principles and teachers they have been given the opportunity to submit questions uh any that they may have uh and we are um uh as each day goes by addressing those questions. Additionally, planning relment allotments are released at various times so that principles can begin the planning process for positions. Uh we also recognize that changes in staffing occur constantly from the time the aotments are released up until the start of school. uh and we wanted to ensure schools had as much information as early as possible to aid in the planning process. And so that is something that's constant all the time. In terms

016of the budget status, uh the administration needed to do a better job in communicating the physical status of the idea grant so that stakeholders did not have the impression that we were $18 million in the hole. The idea grant as with most federal grants has a portion of the funding that is carried over from one year to the next. Uh this funding has roughly uh been roughly $5 million each year. But since 2021, the idea grant saw increases in the grant that led to carryover of amounts uh at some points up to $30 million. Uh and that would have varied over time depending on the amount of carryover that was being used. Um, as we will share later, various funding decisions were made to use the allocation in support of the program. Uh, as this

017carryover was expended and the amount reduced, we at the end of this year will have about a3 to5 million carryover that's remaining. Uh, so the program is not in a negative position. It will not and will end with a positive balance. However, uh we have created some confusion and not clearly stating that. Uh and that is what we want to make sure we do moving forward. Um and and ultimately if we do the exact same thing programmatically this year, then the idea grant would run out of money, thus leaving us um in a deficit before the 2627 school year would would uh conclude. uh staff will shortly share information regarding the carryover funding and the months of restrictions to spend the funding. So we will share that. I do want to talk about the CCR

018case load adjustments. Uh and this is where much of the adjustments to the budget that we've talked about. Uh in an effort to align spending with the grant, staff will share the various program changes implemented this year as well as what we recommend for the next year. One of those changes is an adjustment to the CCR case load in order to reduce the number of positions needed in the program. Staff will share the details of these adjustments uh in a moment uh which we will see are still well below the recommendations of the state and well below most districts in the state. Now these changes will increase the case load of CCR teachers and they uh will need additional support. So we want to be clear on that as well in terms of service to

019students. Um and I want to discuss how there will not be a change in our requirement to implement students IEPs. Um this is a question that parents are asking and they are asking the teachers, the principal, district administration, board members and the superintendent. And so again I would say there will be no change in the students IEP. One of the major responsibilities we have in providing sped services is that we cannot choose to not provide those service because of a lack of funding. Uh the legal team will have asked they will reaffirm that tonight that uh that is something that we have to do and funding does not determine what that is. This has always been the case and will remain the case. So to to discuss services I'll start with regional program uh program

020which uh many will call self-contained programs. Uh there will be no changes in staffing for these programs. Uh there will be no changes to services in these programs. Personnel changes and shifts will be made as we do every year based on student movement to different schools or increases and decreases in the number of students served in those programs. Uh related services will not change. If you are currently receiving OT or speech or um um or any kind of related service that will also continue. Again, the only shift is in the number of CCR teachers um uh uh that may be serving students. Each school will determine how they approach the changes um in those allotments. And as an example, I want to use this as one example. There are going to be multiple examples that

021a school may decide to use. Uh I may be an elementary CCR teacher with a case load of 20 students uh that I serve in five groups of four. With an increase of five, I may decide to add a fifth group. I may add one student to each group. I may add three students to one group or two to one two to the other groups and leave the fourth group the same size. That is a choice they get to make. This could depend on student need, grade level, um if there's some other kind of service that they're providing in terms of pushing into a classroom or a whole host of decisions based ultimately on the student needs. Uh but we cannot uh but what we cannot do and have never done is to not provide

022services because we don't have the resources. We just cannot do that. I also recognize that CCR teachers have responsibilities beyond serving students such as IEP development and meetings. Uh and increasing the case load uh will add additional work and additional support as I've stated before will be needed. Also, I want to emphasize that each school is different and principles may use different flexibility choices to assign teaching staff within their school. Schools already make decisions to add more students to one area to provide additional support to another area. So, a principal may decide uh to have 11 social studies teachers instead of 12 and use that position to hire an additional sped teacher, a math teacher or remediation teacher. Uh this flexibility is going to look different in each school and some may state that we

023have vacancies in a host of areas and we're not providing services. uh this is where students are offered compensatory services to make sure to make up for in the absence of staff to provide a service. Uh but we would never decide not to provide a service and so again any area uh where there is a teacher vacancy then we do have to provide compensatory services. I want to talk some about uh the local and state investment and I also want to share um uh the other funding sources and supports for the sped program. Uh but the idea grant covered under six different PRC's accounts for approximately $57 million this year. That'll include the grant and carryover. Uh this is the federal grant to which we make adjustments to stay within the physical boundaries. Uh but

024we also receive an additional $121 million from the state and four other different P u PRC's to support the sped program. Both these funds are based on what we all know as an annual student headcount. Now, one of our goals is to push for a change in the funding formula to account for higher need students that require more uh to educate. So, we've talked about that uh in the board's um legislative um policy, a legislative agenda, if you will. And finally, we receive approximately $15 million in Medicaid funding for billable services uh to the program. All told, the sped program raise receives roughly $192 million. Now, when we look at additional support uh and what can be done to support the program through local funding, uh there's approximately an additional $115 million spent to support

025the sped program. Uh as the superintendent's budget is being uh finalized, we have we have placed additional local support to compensate for changes needed to keep the idea grant within his budget for next year. Uh but as of today, we spend approximately a little over $300 million to support the sped program through all of those various sources. Uh that uh does not include transportation. uh so staff in a moment will go into greater detail on the various funding sources and how they are used to support the sped program. So, I think it's important that stakeholders are asking questions about the details of the budget and that it helps better understand how the budget works and how the funding is spent. And uh and so I do want um both board members uh and all of

026our stakeholders to know that um u there is no issue with you asking those kinds of questions because it helps us to help you better understand how those budgets operate. in terms of future measures. Um um finally many are asking the question how do we prevent how do we prevent this kind of shortfall as is being characterized from happening in the future. Uh and we will do exactly what we're doing now that is to recommend changes so that we do not have a shortfall. Again, the program is operating in the positive, but not making adjustments for the next year would create a deficit by the end of the 2027 fiscal year. Uh we will continuously adjust to funding changes and we will need to provide as long a runway as possible to make those adjustments.

027As I've shared in my state of the schools address, we continue to face limited resources to provide the same or expanded programs for our students. So now I want to pivot to staff to provide additional details to the items I've just covered. And so to reaffirm uh we're not firing 130 teachers. Uh again, timing was not perfect and never will be. Um but it was required uh that we be upfront with all stakeholders about the proposed changes. Uh the program is in the black or positive and will be so at the end of the year. uh adjustments to CCR case loads uh keeps us operating without a physical deficit in the future. Uh we continue to invest heavily locally as it allows us even with recommended changes to support the sped program uh at a

028greater level uh than most people in the state. Uh and that future adjustments will continue to be made uh as we've always done um every year that we have grants. Um after sheriff staff share the details of these items, we will also uh share special education program updates with CCK and essentials and we will then address questions by the board. I do think the chair has said that they may ask questions intermittently between each slide. Uh and so um if that is the case and we will stop and pause when that happens. >> That is correct. Um uh while I cannot control the narrative that is external to my office, I will continue to be transparent, reaffirm to our support, uh reaffirm our support of students and teachers, share when we have communicated poorly and

029when we have communicated correctly, even if the news is not good, and hold us all to the highest standards and expectations when serving our most needy and vulnerable students. I also want to share that we do not have an approved budget and my recommendations are based on what I have determined as the best course of action to maintain each program's primary function. These recommendations will always be determined by fund availability and how each program should function within its funding structure. When a program does not have the necessary funding to operate as it currently does, we then determine what strategic reductions we can make within the program or what strategic reductions we can make in other areas that can be directed towards a specific program. But any changes must always be within the confines of the

030funding we have available and within the rules of how funds can be used. And so at this time I will ask staff begin begin to go through our presentation. We do have with us uh Dr. Melada heel uh the finance officer Trish Posey and uh Terry Kimzy uh Dr. AJ Matillo and uh Dr. Stafy Hut Stacy Huffman who is the senior director for instructional program. I do want to say that uh Lisa all red while not here tonight uh her daughter is having a baby as we speak and so we understand why she can't be here uh but any future endeavor she will be available as a part uh of any conversation that we have uh and so with that Mr. Chair um um we will have staff again to go through and we will

031pause at each moment that you have questions. >> Thank you. And before we get started, I see some folks at the at the door waiting for seats. I'll allow those individuals to find some seats and then you all may get started. >> And just a reminder, make sure you touch the buttons on the turn the mics on >> so folks can can hear you. Can you hear me? Okay. >> Uh, Miss Posie, if you could bring it a little closer to you. >> Is this better? >> That is better. >> Perfect. Uh, good evening, Chair Swanson, board members, and Superintendent Dr. Taylor. Thank you for the opportunity to provide brief context on the state budget environment and its implications for public education as we consider our >> I think you should bring it closer. >>

032I need to be closer. Okay. >> Mutton, is there some way that we can get additional volume on these mics? >> Thank you, Chair. Is this better? Yes. >> Okay, perfect. All right. Um, >> what part didn't you hear? >> Let's just start over. >> All of it. Okay, just start over. Okay. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to provide brief context on the state budget environment and its implications for public education as we consider our local financial planning for the upcoming 2026 2027 school year. Public schools must continue to operate without interruption even as critical funding decisions remain unresolved at the state level. North Carolina entered entered the current fiscal year without an adopted comprehensive state budget. While limited budget actions allow state government to continue operating, the absence of a full budget creates

033uncertainty for school districts in terms of funding levels, timing, and support for mandated cost. Compounding this issue, the state authorized salary step increases for certified staff in the current fiscal year, but did not provide any additional funding. This unfunded mandate required districts to absorb those costs, placing further constraints on the total operating budget. Next slide, please. Nationally, North Carolina is ranked 50th in per pupil education funding with per pupil spending approximately $5,600 below the national average. This places North Carolina school districts at a disadvantage before each budget cycle even begins. Taken together, delayed state budgets, low statewide investment, and unfunded mandates shift financial risk to local school systems and their respective counties. These conditions narrow the range of viable options for districts to maintain fiscal stability while continuing to serve students and staff effectively and

034in accordance with the law. This context is important as we move into tonight's discussion and it underscores the challenges that districts face that are largely outside of local control. I will now turn the presentation over to Miss Terry Kinsey, our senior director of budget, who will provide additional information on the special education budget. Thank you. >> Any question, board members, as we before we move forward. >> All right, Miss Kimy. Thank you. >> Good afternoon. Uh, Wake County School System receives the Individuals with Disability Act federal funding through the state department of public instruction each year. The funds can be used on a 27-month term as Dr. Taylor mentioned. So there there's always a rolling overlap of one grant into the to the next and we spend the oldest money first. So first in first

035out. Um, ideally, school districts carry over balances to cover at least the first quarter of spending of the new year to bridge the gap between current funding received and any new federal coming that would be issued in the fall. The federal budgets run on a different fiscal year than school systems. At the end of the 2526 school fiscal year, we will have a positive balance in the special education federal grants and that will carry over to 2026 27. However, the carryover will be less than it has been in the last few years, and that's why we're in this discussion. And we'll share some more detailed information on a on a slide in a minute. Prior to 2021, carryover in the idea grant averaged less than 5 million per year. It fluctuated, but not a lot,

036and that allowed that carryover from year to year. In 202021, the school system received a $14.1 million increase in federal funding that particular year. This one-time allocation, which the state issued due to, on their end a 2019 audit resolution allotment, increased our carryover that year from 5 million to $20 million. That increased aotment came to the school district seven days before the end of the fiscal year. So, it was very late in the fiscal year that that particular year. Since that time, recurring costs with essential positions have been added to the grant and that's been in the budget each year. We've Oh, >> that's slides. I'm not sure. >> I'm still on the same slide. Oh, >> I'm on number six. Um, slides. Okay. Are we good? >> Okay. Um, since that time, recurring costs

037with essential positions were added to the grant each year, and that has been in each budget that has been presented and approved by the board. As we've moved forward each year, program staff will review the positions added in a subsequent slide. Our special education teacher aotment formula is lower than the state recommended ratio, which is a good thing, and program staff will review that information with you also. So, now I'm going to move to the next slide, unless there's questions on this one. Okay. Okay. This chart I want to stay on the same slide as you. Okay. This is a chart where we're showing you the history of the IDEIDA grants for special education. We're showing the history back to 201819. So, as you can see on the slide at the top, it shows the

038aotment each year. So, that would be the new money that we received each year as an allocation and the change from the year before. Then it shows carryover. So at the end of each year, it shows that is how much carried over to the next year and then a sum of the two. So I've put a blue arrow on there that points to 202021, which is when we received that unique allotment from the state right at the tail end of the year. It was a little over $12 million. um which you can see that was a a large increase from 29.7 million as the allocation the year before up to 43.9 million. I see a little bit confusion. Do you see where I'm do you see that on the chart? >> Mhm. >> Okay. >>

039I'm sorry. I'm having trouble accessing slides. I can't see. >> Oh, okay. >> Okay. So at the end of this this fiscal year you can see how aside from 2021 you can see how the allotments every year um before that were around 30 million after that have been in the 30 to35ish million range you know fairly stable over the time that was the one unique year. the carryovers which prior to 2021 were like two to three to5 million dollars since that time have been more in the 20 to30 million range and as we have added positions each year to the federal dollars that carryover has been coming down. So from 2425 to this year was it decreased quite a bit by $12 million and this year we're expected to use a lot of the $19

040million carryover from last year. There will probably be a balance of less than five million at the end of this year. We won't know until we close out the last quarter, but we do expect there to be some carryover more in the range of how it was prior to this time period. >> Vice chair >> question on this. >> Are you >> Yes, that this go ahead and ask me on this slide. >> So, you just said that um you expect to use a lot of the carryover. Are you going to get to what you are using that on? Okay. Thank you. >> I am. It will be on another slide. If I don't cover it, ask me. >> Miss Coffin, >> thank you. Um, just so just for clarity with the chart. >> Yes.

041>> Each year we are receiving our aotment. >> Yes. >> It's increasing. >> Yes. >> But we did get one lump sum in 2020. >> 2021. Yes. >> So now we're just it's kind of diminishing as the years go on. are spending. We're needing to spend more >> and that's why the carryover is decreasing. There's a a couple of there's a lot of complexities in these budgets, but just on this part to try to show the anomaly on this history is that there was that unusual allocation from the state that one year that came literally days before the fiscal year end closed which increased the carryover and that has moved forward and carried over each year. There are other reasons we have carryover. Um, one would be, and we I think we've talked about this

042with the board many times, when we're spending funds and when we have a program like special education that's funded with state, local, and federal dollars, we're always going to make sure as we go into that last quarter of the year to make sure we're using all of our state resources because if we don't, they go back to the state of North Carolina and don't help the district. We are going to try to maximize our federal grants that end because we would revert that. Also, this is a rolling grant and does carry over. So, if we can save funds toward the end of the year, we want to save them in a federal grant that carries over or in our local dollars. Federal grant carrying over would stay with the program. Local dollars saved go to

043our fund balance and we reinvest it in the next year's budget. So, it's likely in any year any year in our federal grants as we're approaching the end of the year, we're going to look at all of that and make sure we're maximizing those funds. Um, but we can say that this carryover being at a higher level than typical originated back in 2021. >> Do you have a followup, Miss Cville? >> No, I'll wait. >> Okay, Dr. Thank you. Um, and you may have the answer later in your presentation, but I noticed the um sharp drop in the carryover from the on the 2025 2026 year. >> Um, I'm looking forward to hearing what your explanation is. Yeah, I can show you that. >> Okay. >> Any Miss Rice, you have a question? >> I

044do have a question. I'm just I'm trying I don't know how to ask the question because I'm trying to do a level of comparison based off what you're sharing me now and what I saw previously. specifically indicating that there's going to be the 18 million deficit by the end of the 2526 school year. So here from what I'm seeing is it's not it's a carryover. Is that I think what what you saw in a different presentation. >> Um I've rounded this up to the nearest millions. So do you see in the middle of the page under carryover for 2526 it shows a carryover of $19.0 million. That figure is really 18 million something but it rounded to 19 million. Okay. So I think the 18 you saw was from that. Um we are not going

045to I think the issue could have been better stated that we have an $18 million carryover this year. That will not continue at $18 million next year. It's going to be a much less dollar figure. Most likely I I look to today and if I look at how we're looking right now, it would be less than $5 million we carry over next year. So we will not exhaust all of the $18 million carryover, but we will use most a big amount of it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Sure, Miss Cfield. >> Just trying to uh digest the chart. Um and I appreciate it because the numbers are very helpful. Yeah. Um, but in the past, in the past we had the carryover of 2.2 and we were moving along, lack of a better

046way to put it. >> We were moving along >> and now we're at 19 million. >> Yes. >> It's just such a drastic difference >> and and it really did start being a larger amount when we it where that blue arrow is pointing when we got $14 million. it. I think it was actually that was 14 is the increase from the year before. The bump at the end of that fiscal year was a little over $12 million. When that bump happened right before the year end closed, that entire amount had to carry over. But we're in the last week of June, we've already closed out our books for the fiscal year. Um, so that is when the carryover started coming in higher. So, I'm just trying to understand um and if you're going to get

047to it, I'll I'll wait. But I'm just trying to understand how we were, lack of a better word, moving along before and then we got an extra amount during >> one year >> co and then we were able to carry over much more before and now we're basically panicking, right? because we're at a situation, but we still have more than we did before the pandemic. >> Yes, the carryover was larger and I am going to show you in a minute. So, it might be better if we go through a few more slides and then if we need to back up to this one. >> Do you want to do that? >> So, I think the vice chair, you have a clarifying question. >> So, the the chair and I were initially told that there was

048$18 million. I don't want to use the word deficit. Maybe it was a different word and that made it sound like it was going into this next year and now it is we will have a reduction in carryover by 18 million by the end of next year. And now it's well it's not quite we're still going to have 5 million in carryover and we're making all these changes now because of >> so let me clarify a little bit on that. >> Yes. >> This carryover that we have now which is 18 million that rounds to 19 since I went to one decimal that is the carryover that came from last year into this fiscal year. We are spending those resources now. >> Right. How much we spend and how much we're projected to have the

049end of the year varies each month based on things that are who's hired things how we're how we're spending what is due and what's payable. We will not definitely not have $19 million of carryover for next year. It's going to be a much lower amount. It could be as low as nothing. I do not think that will be the case. I think we'll have between two to$4 million that may carry over and that is me looking at a bottom line not having the program people go into a lot of detail with it just knowing how trends are based on our projections. Um this is similar to when we had to work off of one-time esser funding. We had some one-time funding causing higher carryovers than typical in this grant and now we're maneuvering off because

050during the time that we're getting these additional resources in the budgets the last four years, positions have been added to this grant. So, we were adding positions that are recurring to a one-time F funding source. And we'll show you that in just a minute. >> And that's been in each of the budgets. So if you if you think about each year when we are trying to balance what we're going to expect from the state, what we expect from the federal government, what we may need to ask from the county, we're balancing all of those items. And if we have resources and we're adding positions, it's better to go ahead and utilize funds we already have than to ask for more funds we don't need at the time. So, in each of the budgets that we've

051presented the last several years, there have been federal positions added to the budget for four. Um, and I can show you that in a slide or two. >> And so, Mr. Vashi, I do want to um um give it I think as much clarity as I can over the 19 and the 18 uh because the numbers just happen to be the same, but they don't represent the same. And so ultimately u um I would ask that you look at the allotment number that's at the top and then uh from that top number you will spend money in the carryover uh that will bring you in at around a 50 $55 million budget. uh and that is what's going to reduce the carryover amount so that when we get in uh to the 25 26 school

052year um you combine those numbers and now as we go into the 26 27 school year once you um um um apply that carryover to the current budget and we get through the end of the year then we're going to have roughly 2 to4 million in carryover left. And so when we add that number uh to the grant that we anticipate for the upcoming year, that's going to be less than the 55 or $56 million. And that's where we come up with the numbers to say that uh while we finish in the black this year, uh if we don't make adjustments as we go into the 26 27 school year, uh we will exhaust all budget funds before the end of the year. Uh and that's what we've characterized as the $18 million adjustment that

053we need to make. And so I I'm absolutely know that's one of the things that we've confused people with when we said $18 million deficit that is not for this year. That is if we do nothing different for that upcoming year, it'll be different. So that's kind of the difference with the with the carryover I wanted to at least bring forward. >> So I I have a question. and I see my colleagues have some as well. But my question that I want to raise and if it's not on this slide, I can save it, but when were we notified or when was the changes first alerted um that this was going to be taking place? >> So, um um one of the things that um finance department uh shared with uh Lisa all red and

054this was probably in the September time frame is that uh based on what you have now, you would need to make a change. And so what she's done um is to is to spend um from uh that time then all the way up until probably the January or February time frame to say now that I've gone through um I I know the there are going to be some adjustments that we have to make. And so I know that there have been um um communications that uh staff knew in September, staff knew in December, staff knew at different times, but ultimately um she was informed of the funding that was there in the carryover and the grant. And so she spent the time trying to determine what that would be. And so once she had an

055opportunity to kind of go through and know what that was, that's when she came to administration and say, "Well, these are the adjustments that we have to make." And that's when we came to the leadership and kind of went from there. >> So that kind of leads me to my and I see Mr. Heggery and Dr. Job and that kind of leads me to a couple more, but I'll save those. But given the fact that this was notified in September and then emails went out February, I have some concerns with the amount of with the timeline there. And I guess a question, I don't know if that's to uh Miss Posey or um uh Miss Kimy, given the fact that you all knew that this was coming, did you all seek competitive grants, whether it's

056at DPI or others to kind of bridge some of these gaps? And if not, why? >> So, our department does not seek grants. That that is in underneath the chief of staff's area where they have the grants administration office. I believe that if there were grant opportunities, they would look to seek grant opportunities. Um, but that is that's not under our area. Uh I do know that Miss Kinsey met with Miss Alred and shared with her based on what we're seeing here in projections on the financial statements. This is this is what we are projecting that if you don't curb spending look at where you can find fiscal savings that you are not going to have the same amount of carryover for the next year. Now there are multiple things that go into a budget,

057not just the personnel side, but you have contracts, you have supplies, materials, mandatory training, those types of line items. The department would have controls and there are some items that you'll see in their portion of the presentation what they will share. These are some of the things that they did to curb spending within their department. >> So if and I I'll Okay, so thank you. Um I I'm still concerned that if the grants it it seems maybe it's isolation that we need to you know address and perhaps that'll come through with the study to see where there's isolations. But if the grants are in another department and this is all dealing with federal IDA, is there someone from the finance office that oversees and looks to into those to kind of monitor so folks aren't

058making decisions? If so, is there is does every department have a I'm not going to say a Miss Posey in case, but is there a Miss Posey person that is looking at these grants, monitoring this? So the chief's or assistant superintendent is not necessarily doing the deep dive in that as well. So I'm I'm >> Yeah. So So Mr. Chair, that is um I think a very fair question and um and I appreciate you asking it and uh and part of that responsibility is that when they manage the grant that uh they have to determine at what point do we make decisions to keep the budget that grant in in balance. And so uh a part of that is if you make decisions to add permanent positions or or services uh that you will need

059for a subsequent year uh then that will put you in a position to where you got to make decisions at some point. So, so what I would say is that I think you were right in that assessment that uh you know decisions could have been made at multiple times to say um we need to be able to pivot uh and put these permanent positions somewhere else or make whatever kind of cut that we need to make. and and ultimately uh when we make a decision to add things to the grant that are permanent positions uh you hit it on the head that um uh if there's not a place to replace that funding then it's going to leave you in that position. So yeah >> so thank you for that but I don't think my

060question was directly answered but I'll re I will circle back and not monopolize the time so my other colleagues can. So, Dr. I gave you a doctor. You do have a juror's doctor. Uh, Mr. Heaggerty. >> Thank you, Chair Swanson. >> So, thank you for calling this meeting. We on the board have all had a number of questions since we first learned out about this. And what's particularly been troubling has been an inconsistency in the information through different channels. And I know we'll have extended remarks after the conclusion of the presentation. So I don't want to divert. I want to focus on this slide. Um, and I don't know if Miss Kinsey or Miss Posey, it would be appropriate, which of you would be the person to answer this, but I want to try to

061make it as clear as possible. I believe I understand the surplus you're describing. Let's say we have needs of about 30 million a year. Well, I'll do the math. 36 million a year and we don't receive those funds until maybe the second month of the fiscal year. So because of previous surpluses, we're able to cover that first month with the carryover funds. And then at the end of the year, well, we received 12 months of funding, but we funded one month with carryover. So if our budget stays the same, we should have about a month's worth of carryover of expenses stayed the same. Is that about how carryover works? >> Yes. But that we really need two to three to four months because even though when a federal grant is awarded, it may be okay

062and allowable to use it retro to July 1, that cash is not there and accessible to us until it's >> there in the fall. So it's ideal to always have a carryover to bridge you until that comes especially in times when the federal government may not be approving things in a timely manner. >> And so the size of the carryover and how much like at the end of the year you may cut back on expenses in order to preserve a larger carrying carryover knowing you might need it until you receive new funds is really a strategic decision you make to manage those funds. Mhm. >> Okay. So, what I see on this chart is I see a consistent level of spending and then we have the large grant during the co years which produced a

063larger I'll call it a surplus. Maybe that's not the best term, but a surplus of funds that again, if our expenses were staying about the same, then each subsequent year, we're carrying over close to that amount and carry over each year. Is that accurate? >> Yes. But things didn't stay the same. >> But things didn't stay the same. I think you're you're tracking where I'm going with this. All right. And again, ideally, you wouldn't want to carry this large surplus forever. You'd want to use it to address important needs the district might have. >> Correct. >> All right. So we see this carryover remain about the same amount until am I reading this right the 25 26 year and then we see a significant amount beyond what we've typically used up used within that year.

064>> Yes. >> And this is that 18 to 19 million or is this the 12.9 that we see? Is this >> I'm going to Yeah. And I'll show why. >> Okay. Well, so looking ahead to the next slide being a little pro, you know, a little bit of prophecy here, >> we see the historical perspective, and we see where we've had additional expenses. We see additional money we've needed for blind and deaf services, additional money for occupational therapists, right? And then we see 2526. we see a lot of new demands which would explain why we spent more of that surplus in that year. But when I add up those numbers, the numbers you have here, if I if I did my math right, come up to about $6 million. And that's significantly less than the

065amount of surplus that does seem to the amount of carryover that does seem to have been used. So I looked beyond this slide. I didn't really see where the difference was. Is that something you can address for us? >> Yeah, you're doing a good job with the slides. >> All right. >> So yes, as if we could just stay on this slide for a minute. Um, so we were and in your budgets, >> Could you use your mic, please, Miss Kinsey? >> Oh, sorry. Um, so each year these positions were being added to the federal grant as the program staff are managing this and see there are resources available and during this whole time we're growing. We're adding new schools. Additional costs are needed to serve students. So there were positions added each year and

066you can see in 2526 um there were more than the other years added. So that's staffing and those all these cumulative are about 11.8 million. They didn't all happen at one time but cumulative if we can go one more slide further on this. In addition, during this time period, the amount of speech and pathology services provided to students um to address direct service needs for students with their individual education plans increased over $7 million across special education. So, that's not um it that could be staffing and it can be contract support. We have both. Um, we also each of these years whenever there are raises or there is a step increase approved by the legislature that's required and every year the retirement matching rate and the hospitalization insurance increases for all of our staff exponentially.

067When there are staff on grants, the grants have to absorb that cost. So that's also in the churn of all of this. Um, so these are the larger things that were causing the cost to continue to >> where we are now. >> I see this other slide. Services increased over 7 million. I had read that to mean 7 million over this period. Was this a $7 million increase in one fiscal year? >> Uh, a little over two fiscal years. Yeah. >> So, >> the most recent two. Yeah. to go back to Chair Swanson's question about oversight >> and accountability. There's an urgency here in terms of what looks like a looming fiscal cliff. We've talked about COVID dollars and esser funds and for years staff would come to us and make sure that everyone understood

068these esser funds were going away. Don't use ESER dollars for recurring expenses because they're not going to be there, right? >> And again, in tough budget situations, boards don't always do what they should. And in some cases, hiring important emotional and social uh learning positions, counselors, school psychologists. We used ESSER funds for those that we then had to go back to the local government to help keep those temporary positions and transfer them into full-time positions. Here it looks like we have a grant that while the grant may be recurring, the surplus is not recurring. We're using up that surplus at a rate that you've you've tracked here and looks predictable. And so was there some fiscal cliff that either the staff or the leadership or the chief's level or the department someone should have been

069informed about? >> When you look at the dollars in the change in spending and you notice the positions added each year. When we add positions that doesn't mean all these people are hired right at that moment. That takes time to do. So finance staff are involved with the program areas. We have meetings. Um, we're all a team. We're all working together closely and we're all monitoring it. And we do we do this across the budget. It's a very it's a two billion dollar operating budget. There are lots of different programs, lots of different carryovers, lots of things and fluctuation. Um, so we are working closely on it and we're staying informed with each other and we're looking at plans. We did notice this year that big drop and that's when it came to the attention.

070Okay, this isn't going to be able to sustain and we've been having conversations and plans have been underway and we're bringing forth a recommendation. >> Okay. And my last question, Mr. Chair, and again, you're as to the best of your memory, when was this communicated up to senior leadership >> during this fiscal year in late summer, early fall. Okay. Every year, >> um remember when we start a fiscal year, we're always in an interim budget. We don't have a state budget, right? >> We don't know how much is coming from the state. We don't have a federal budget. And federal was very iffy. >> There's been a lot of up and down. We didn't know if we were going to be stable or not. And thank goodness we are. >> Um, what we do know

071is the county number at that point. So, it takes a few months into the fiscal year for us to even know all these things to be able to work with our chiefs on, okay, this is where we thought we would be. Here's where we are. So we have a financial review meeting every late summer, early fall with each chief and their senior staff and we do a highle overview of everything in their area so that we make sure we're all looking at it together um to see where we are. So that occurred. We also had um we also have budget manager training throughout the year whenever we have new staff coming in and that means that we're also looking at the financial stuff whenever we're training new people and looking at and we're always looking

072at the financials. So we're um keeping keeping a look at that. Um but this I know for certain we were talking about it specifically last fall. >> Okay. Thank you, Miss Kim. I appreciate that. Chair Swanson, I'll have other questions later in the presentation. I still think you've kind of hit at the question I raised earlier that I still did not get a decent answer and I don't think yours was fully answered. Um, so Chief Hill, do you have a budget person from the that oversees with this process with you? >> And that would be Miss Kinsey. And >> I would like to also um say that every school has budget managers, every department has budget managers, and we all are working closely with them. on my staff. I do have people that work closely

073with the federal grants, but it's enabling the program managers to be able to put their data into the system and transmit it to the department of public instruction. The writing of the grants and making sure the program pieces there is the program side. We do support with um projections or how to put that in the financial system. So, it it is cross departmental. We're all working together. >> Yeah. just seem like it's a lot for one person to manage given the fact that this is a $2 billion operating budget that there should be >> we have st we have fiscal administrators that are under Miss Posey. We have I have staff that work with program managers. It's not just the two of us. >> Gotcha. Dr. Jo, >> thank you. Um and thank you for

074the explanation. Yeah. >> I my question I guess is going back to what you said about using the one-time funds for what end up being recurring costs. >> Yes. >> Um how many other departments are going to have the same issue or are having the same issue or is it just a special education issue? >> It's something we monitor all the time across many programs. You know, we have these are not our only grants that have rolling terms, >> right? We also receive Medicaid reimbursements that come on a sporadic basis that's getting smoother, but it's not dependable on a certain timeline. So, there are a lot of variabilities that we have to monitor. Some things we know will come. You once there's a state aotment and it's on a formula. Um, typically in a typical

075year, we could depend on that. When there's not a state budget, we can't depend on that. So, we work in an area of uncertainty with some certainty within it. Um, but yeah, there are there are other programs that cross fiscal years and they have variability. >> Well, I'm just saying that like but what but are there other programs that have been doing kind of the same thing where they've been using what was a one-time fund and now we're going to have to come up with something to bolster them as well. Because as we're looking at this and trying to find ways to to fill you know this and not have the cutbacks you know it what other departments are going to come to us and say actually we have the same problem >> right and

076we we like to see a smoother um trend in carryovers and things. Um, so I would say some that we are concerned about from time to time are are Medicaid because that is something we may not get our reimbursements except once a year or maybe pretty much once a year for a large dollar amount that we're depending on to pay for recurring things. So that's one we keep our eye on. And many times when you get the budget, remember we have pages in there that say potential risk. These are all potential risks. um the federal, the state, um depending on reimbursements that may or may not come. And we're, you know, we're saying we're giving you the best budget we can. These are things that could change. And if they do, it will impact cost.

077>> But I'm sorry, my I don't think my question is getting answered. What other departments are using like or have used large amounts of one-time funds to to hire staff or things like that? I mean most of the programs that cross fiscal years and it's because it's our core business are going to be in the instructional instructional support areas because that's where the most of our budget is because we are supporting students. So um you know in the operating budget a lot of the operating costs for things like um maintenance and operations or finance or human resources we're our budgets are one year at a time because it's local funding. It doesn't carry over. um it's recurring unless we make changes in the base budget to reduce it or increase it. So, it's more where

078our grants are and you see those coming in your board materials all of the time. Um most of that's going to be instructional based >> and Dr. Job, I'll add to that that um that is a process for um what would be every single budget. Um you're going to have all federal programs that will have some level of carryover that they would have to determine from one year to the next. Uh but it's also the same thing with any one-time budget. Uh that if um um we're able to save local funding uh that's sort of like a carryover that allows us to increase the fund balance that could be appropriated uh to keep a program functioning. And so that that's something that occurs consistently with every single budget that whatever we have as a funding

079source this year. Uh then that funding source has to be replaced by something uh that subsequent year and part of that is going to be based on carryover. Part of that will be based on uh fund balance allocation and part of it will be based on uh new funding that you may get. And so at any point um program increases balanced with whatever the new revenue is for that year will determine what you can add and what you may have to reduce >> that satisfy your question Dr. >> Okay. Um >> okay I think Miss Kimy I had saw Dr. Ing um I saw Miss Rice, Dr. Ing and Miss Rice. So, Miss Rice, >> thank you. U Miss Kinsey, um I'm going to ask this question. I heard a lot I heard a lot

080of what you of what you all said that um you guys work together very closely. Um you review budgets early summer, fall um for review. Um you have budget manager training. Um, and we monitor all the time. That's that's what I've heard so far. >> So, I'm going to ask this question to see if I have better clarity and understanding, I think, while we're all here. And this is just for me. Okay. >> November projections conservatively place SES with a 18 million deficit by the end of the 2526 school year. That's what I was shared. So my question that I have to ask is on the slide I know we've moved on from that but we were still supposed to been we were on that slide but you move further. Is this deficit being taken

081place because maybe the person in in the but that was providing this information wasn't aware of the carryover and maybe we were spending our funds that we've already had but weren't aware of the carryover. I'm trying to understand that part that the 18 um well you have just here yeah the 19 um but round it up to to the 19 million of what we can use although I heard you all stay in communication you have budget management trainings you do all that is that where that came is that where that's possibly have come from that they weren't aware that there is an eight a $19 million carryover and would say that projections um conservatively share that in in the that the fall what to make sure I'm saying it right November projections so that was

082I guess toward the end of the year conservatively placed SCES with a $18 million deficit. Can you >> I don't I can't speak to that statement because we're not going to have a deficit this year. I want to be really clear about that. We are not ending this year in a deficit. we have enough funds to pay at our current funding formulas. That is not the case. Looking into next year, our carryover will not be sufficient to carry the number of positions currently on the grant. >> Right. So, I hear you right now. I hear what you're saying. It makes sense to me what you're saying. I am completely following about the carryover. But to um Dr. Hagert's point, Mr. Swanson's point I'm trying to understand and most importantly superintendent who do we listen to?

083Who do we hear? You can't tell us one thing in this presentation. Miss Posie tells us a completely opposite thing in a presentation. Who are we supposed to believe? And how are we supposed to operate from fact? Or is it was a human error? Was it a mistake? I can accept that more than constantly having this opposing information not just only from spec ed, but in all transparency, multiple departments, multiple situations that we come back to and we try to be polite in public. cuz mama said don't act out in public. But at this point, someone needs to tell Toshiba Rice, District 4, whose budget analysis do I believe to make real change and to press you as a superintendent to present me a proposed budget that makes sense and that is factual. Because what

084I've received so far and what I'm being told today is completely unaligned. I am not crazy. I am not ignorant. I can read and it makes me very dangerous. >> So I'm going to need you all to please reserve from outburst such as that. The same rules that apply at our normal board meetings apply here as this. >> Thank you, Chair Swason. And so in in all honesty, I'm I'm just I feel my time is important to me and that's something I can never get back. And while I want to hear what's most important, I don't want to hear what I'm hearing on one side, hearing what I'm hearing here, staff going through slide by slide presentation and everything that I'm being told right now, not to disrespect our our staff that's speaking before us

085now. It is completely opposite. And I'm frustrated by sitting here listening to something that's brand new. And I don't know what's true. And I don't know what's factual. And I don't know even to believe you were, we're saying, "No, this is where we are. This is what it is." Because if that's the case, I need to understand why are we paying a person the money that we pay a person in this budget to lead THIS DEPARTMENT and you can't give me factual information about your department now you run it. Then that makes me reflect on the only person that I can hire and fire to say, do I need to make a motion that we consider what we need to do about our superintendent? Because this is unacceptable for me. I don't know about my

086other colleagues, but I speak for me and representation of district 4. This is unacceptable. You know why? Because the majority of children in THIS SPEC PROJECT RIGHT HERE affects black children in my district in which there's the majority of. And so at the end of the day, someone needs to tell the truth. And don't flip it next week, at the end of the budget season, or next month. I need facts and I need the truth and I don't need coverups and I don't need slide talk and charisma. I need people to be honest. And if somebody made a human error about indicating it was 18 million, they didn't mean to say that. Then fine, we can accept that we're human. We make mistakes. I'm the first one that's going to teach grace and wellness. But

087what I'm not going to keep doing sitting at this board table for the past two years is let staff tell me one thing in front of my face, go do another thing, and then come and present another thing to me as a board member. Quite frankly, I'm tired of it. I think it's disrespectful and completely all of this completely falls on you as a superintendent. Every bit of it. Thank you, chair. >> So, Mr. Rice. Um, I know that um, and I don't want to speak to the information that you say you got from Miss Posey or Miss um, um, Miss Kimy or any other staff in terms of what those numbers meant. Um, u what I've expressed before and I'll express again is that when the number 18 million was used, uh, I know

088that was communicated incorrectly. uh what you will see uh are numbers with uh an aotment and the carryover and what was used out of that uh to fund that particular program for that year. Uh and so I want to be clear on this again uh that the program uh is not $18 million in the hole. Uh but I do want to be clear with everybody of what the number 18 means. Uh and that says that again if we do everything we're doing now uh uh at the end of the next school year uh there's $18 million that would need to be to cover all of those expenses that we're doing now. Uh when we talk about uh the responsibility of of of um who has to identify this uh that's going to be at uh

089the department level all the way up to the superintendent. And so when these budgets are developed, uh it is a responsibility of staff to determine whether or not we've overallotted or underotted and how we're going to make those adjustments. Uh and so that is ultimately where we are now. Uh that if we made aotments uh and then determined we don't have enough funding to continue that for the next year, uh then that is where we end up having to say we've got to make adjustments. Uh and so um um I have no disagreement. Uh if you say that responsibility falls on the superintendent, you're absolutely right. Uh and and I am the only person that the board can hold accountable. But I do recognize that uh as staff come in and make adjustments uh make

090recommendations that they are part of a larger budget. Uh and I do want to remind the board that we are talking about uh a $2.2 billion budget. uh and that is interconnected at various levels. Uh but what I can tell you is that uh these are the recommendations uh that I brought forward to say that this is how we make sure that the program is not in a negative balance and then talk about how that impacts student um services uh that they receive out of the program. And so, uh, it is about how staff look at what recommendations are made, uh, what we continue to fund from one year to the next and if we're going to be able to sustain that. So, um, but that that is where you will see subal differences uh,

091in what uh, um, Miss Posey may talk about in terms of the fund, the carryover, uh, or Miss uh, Kimy may talk about aotments that have been used. uh that's going to vary. Uh but ultimately at the end of the day, what what what I want everybody to hear and understand is that the program if moving forward uh uh has to have an adjustment. Part of that adjustment that will be a part of the superintendent's budget is where $7 million of that was put uh on the local side which now leaves about a $10 million gap that is there. Uh and so uh I'll pause there but I I get your point. >> Wanted to say one thing on what you were describing. I will say the budget is a very fluid process. Things are

092happening all the time. So if we if we discussed last fall and saw that we wouldn't be able to to sustain this and you'll see on a future slide, special education did start making some adjustments to their spending. So whereas in November it may have looked like a certain figure as the months go on and changes are being made and spending is being adjusted or we're utilizing different funding sources. A couple of months later the number is going to be different. So I do want to make that point that one number on a certain day is going to change by a month or two later because people are working with the information we are spending across the district. So just because a number is published one time I just don't want you to misunderstand that

093that is a finite number because it things do change as numbers get better as time goes forward. Um, so I it's not unusual for there to be a look at something and say, "Okay, it's looking like this on this day." And then a few months later, and now we're several months later, that to be different. Um, things are changing all the time. So, I just want to >> to be honest about that that it's going to keep changing. >> And and I would just like to add um so Miss Kinsey and I were we met last week when this special called meeting was pulled together. And so we pulled financial information from the system. Um I do not know what presentations you've heard prior to this, but this is the first time that we've pulled

094financial information and presented information on this matter. Um one of the things with as Miss Kinsey shared that the budget is fluid. Um what's on our financial reports, we see payroll projections, we see incumbrances for goods that have been ordered. uh those things don't level out until we get to the end of the fiscal year and we close a budget. At that point in time, Miss Kimy, their group loads all of the budgets, whether we're interim, whether it's an actual budget, likely an interim. Um so that is occurring. At the same time, true balances of what really carries over gets recorded. So we don't have an actual picture of the budget until all of those steps are taken. Planning budgets are reversed. Actual budgets and real dollars are recorded. Then with grants, you have that

095period of influx where the state doesn't even allocate us those money that dollars until the state budgets are released. So it's not until the fall that we get a true look at where the financial position is. How did we end? What does the budget look like? So to see that there was a spending and a decrease from 30 million to 19 million in this year, we couldn't have known any earlier until the fall because all of those things have to reconcile out. And that's when Miss Kimy started to have discussions with Miss Alred because she looked at it and said, "Whoa, hold up. We're still on a trajectory to spend out this carryover." when you are alerted to that. I don't know what that timing looks like. So, we're here today to share what we

096know as the facts in the financial system. Um, and so we do have some additional information to share with you. Um, but knowing it any sooner, those all of all of those steps have to take place. In addition to that, Miss Kinsey, when state dollars do come in higher, we look at where we can move new positions that maybe the grant had to afford because we didn't know the state money was coming in, and we move those to the state. So, there's always that back and forth and maximizing the use of state dollars and and preserving our federal funds. So, this just happens. I mean, we knew when we knew in the fall, and there's no sooner that we could have known this without the interim budget staff sharing information with us. Hey, we accelerated

097spending this year because those accelerated costs were for students who required individual education plans that was in their plans. They were required by law. We we could not forego providing those services. Chair Swans and my followup. >> Um, sure. >> Would you have known 8 days ago? >> We said you didn't know would have not known any sooner than the fall. Would you have known 8 days ago? >> Well, yes. >> Okay, that's all I needed to know. And again, I'll continue to say and stay in that space. Superintendent Taylor. Miss, they've just said they would have known eight days ago. You're saying it misqued, misunderstood. I have to ask, how many more times can um how many times can it be incorrect? How many more times are we going to hear incorrect information? Not

098just on speced, but on other situations in other departments. How many times can it be incorrect that we sent our community in an uproar because staff has not done due diligence to pay attention to what they're submitting out to present to the board and we're here today. And so while I know that we have this thing in wake that we let everyone do what they do that's in leadership there has to be some levels of accountability and we're lacking accountability and today is a prime example of accountability. We're lacking accountability from stuff as soon as 8 days. And so for me it's not okay. And I'll keep sub saying it and keep submitting it until I'm heard until my requests keep being heard in private when I ask. Please hold them more accountable. Please by

099follow up and and check this and check that. Oh, it's good. It's good. And then here we are today. Chair, I yield the rest of my time. >> Dr. Thank you. Um just trying to get a little perspective. if I can only do it in the in my own personal life which is you know paying off my credit cards and you know I spend my I I use my credit card to buy things and and then my statement comes later and and wow I was like that's a big amount of money that that I have to pay off. Um the I guess the the my question is you know in terms of all the cost to added positions added um over the last 5 years um when and who decides that that there is an

100increase need and I know this is not your your area um and you know is there a communication with you guys that says whoa whoa whoa at any point in time in the last 5 years to say we can't afford it. Is there such a process in place? I would say what I mentioned earlier is that when we sit down and look at financials each fall typically in a financial review with each chief, we go over all the information and we're all looking at things and we say, "Oh, it it looks like we may um we may have a surplus here. We could we, you know, put some of that in over under savings or it looks like the cost may be higher. Do you think that's something we need to be concerned about or

101watch it later?" We we're all having it's back and forth between the area that we're working with and finance. we just look at all the information together. Um, so in this case, yes, we did talk about it last fall, but if you go back 12 to 24 months and you look at how the carryover had gotten as high as 39 million, an equally valid discussion at the time when we would have been trying to balance a budget that the superintendent brought to you all and that you all then approved to go to the county commissioners would be, we are growing, we're adding schools, we need some additional occupational, physical therapists, some additional special education teachers and instructional assistants. Well, right now there's a larger than typical carryover on this grant and and we've got a

102choice to put these positions on the local budget or the federal. The choice would be to put them on federal at that moment because those resources were here and available for use without asking for additional money from the county which may impact taxpayers. So both are valid and we are managing through time of uncertainty all the time but that may not answer your question but >> last fall on this is when we would have seen >> and and the tip it kind of tipped like okay now we're going to not be able to do this again next year >> and I certainly understand you know when there are needs for our um kids with special needs that have services that they that that we are obligated to provide that is a um an obligation that

103we have. Um, and certainly that weighs in on that decision. Um, but I do wrestle with the understanding of, you know, can can this be a a real time assessment of of the needs and the ser and the resources that we have instead of going back like you know at at you know when the statement comes and oh wow we spent a lot of money. All right. Uh, I'll go Miss Edmonds, Miss Gordon, and then Mr. Vice Chair, and then we can go to the next slide. >> Um, two, thank you, Mr. Chair. Two things. So, I wanted to circle back to Dr. Job's question because what I heard Dr. Job asking, and I'm going to put it in plain language, and Dr. Job, if I'm mischaracterizing, please correct me. I basically heard her asking

104is, are we going to get another surprise like this of this kind of gravity within the next weeks? months. That That's what I heard her asking. Not in general, are we sure about, you know, federal funding, state funding, state budget? That's not what I heard. I heard what this is a surprise to us. I understand. And none of us like surprises. >> Correct. >> Um, we will be bringing the superintendent's proposed budget forward to you for consideration on April 7th. We'll present we'll present the information we have right now as we're looking toward next year's budget to you at that time. Um >> I me you know mentioned Medicaid we we never know it will be you can look at our potential risk and we can say these are places we're concerned that could bring

105a surprise that none of us know but if things come in differently than we're thinking there could and that's why we put it there. There could be a surprise. Um I don't >> Yeah. What I would say is that um there will be in the budget when it comes forward uh recommendations to change uh some aotment numbers. Uh uh we don't view that as something that we would characterize as a reduction recommendation of this sort. Much of that would be decisions that a principal may decide to make. Uh and so one of those examples would be uh if we now have uh a half of a literacy position for every school. uh and that would be roughly 500 and some odd months. Uh and we reduce that to 400 months. Put that towards the specific

106schools that need uh that have that are high need schools. And when that principal gets that aotment uh they may make other adjustments within the entire allotment that they have uh to refill that position. So we wouldn't look at that as saying uh this is a reduction of this magnitude. So, you're going to see those kind of adjustments uh that would happen throughout the budget such as we did this past year uh when we uh changed the uh a lotments for high schools as it was related to uh assistant principles and some other positions. Uh and so when we gave them those allotments then they took the opportunity to determine uh are there some additional adjustments that we want to make in order to add this or keep this. So the example would be um

107you know you reduce AP they may decide to have fewer uh social studies teachers. So that is something that will be reflected in the budget. Uh but those will be driven by individual principal decisions that they make but nothing that would be lifted up to say that we're recommending that 130 positions be um not used uh within the budget. >> Okay. Um, and then I'm glad you mentioned the potential risks. So, you you brought that up earlier about that being in our budget documents, and this is going to be my third budget um, since being on the board. And there's always those potential risks there. I don't equate that what's in our document in those budgets to this. This is very different. Um, this sounds like a mismanagement. um something went wrong and that's not

108the same as when we talk about potential risks. If Medicaid funding goes away, we that's beyond our control. Clearly, we would have to respond to that. That's not what this is. This is something that we had control over or someone did. And I guess that's what we're here trying to get to the bottom of. But um I just wanted to acknowledge that potential risk part is not an applesto apples comparison in my mind. Thank you, chair. >> Thank you, Miss Gordon. >> Thank you, chair. Um I'm glad Miss Edmonds brought up Dr. Job's question again because I don't think that it was fully answered. Um and I just want to I want to dig a little bit deeper in both questions. Um you know, we are in the business of serving children. That is our

109number one job. Um so my question is of the departments that rely heavily um on federal grants, were there any other departments or should we anticipate any other departments that will see some of the same issues and changes that we are seeing with sped? Gordon, thank you for that question. Looking at our federal funding, we weren't sure of what that funding, how it was going to come in, but there will be some reductions of some of those and we have looked at those current vacancies that we have now to absorb some of those reductions. But with federal funding, there will be some reductions. >> Followup. Sure. >> Are there specific departments >> that will be federal funding title three as well as title one? Title one and title three. >> Okay. And there are no

110no other we don't foresee any other departments that rely on federal grants for that that will see reduction. There's things that have been paid out of those federal funding that will see some reductions. Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I will mention even though it's a normal process, but I want to make sure if it falls in this category or not, but we do have um over time we have magnet grants that span multiple years to start magnet programs. They always have a finite term and at the end of that term there are positions that may transition off of that grant to local funding because the grant's ending. Our magnet grants come at the beginning and then the spending they decline over time. So some of our magnet grants are ending, some are deeper

111into the process than others. So you will naturally, and this has always been the case, you will see things from as a grant ends coming off of a federal grant going on to local um for teachers that may have been started at within the grant. Um so that is also something that would transition. >> Vice Hers, >> thank you. I've got a few. Um I'll try not to be too long. So, let me clarify that neither of you told the chair or I what I'm going to talk about. Miss Bosie, you referenced it. We were told that um money was spent that wasn't supposed to be spent. Now, it was on services for our kids. Is that accurate? >> What I can share with you is that it is my understanding I I review every

112contract. Yep. >> And every contract is written for services that support our kids if they are direct service contracts. So I can tell you that whoever budget manager was approving expenditures, those expenditures were to support student education services. >> So we were told basically that um the interim signed contracts may I'm looking at the 7 million and I thought that's what you were referencing. And I think you said the interim um and I assume that's what it was. And that's why to the point that the questions have been raised about where did the carryover money go that that's the funding piece that we would like to have not spent but was spent. Maybe it was needed and that's why we have lost this carryover. >> Services were needed. That is what has been shared with

113the financial group. >> Maybe you're not the right people to ask. I mean, is that >> over? >> So, so um and I I do want to reference what you're talking about and um I want to make sure that when we talk about uh any person that was in place that spent money that they shouldn't have spent. Um uh uh that's I would say that's not quite the right character characterization. And then again, um, uh, if that was communicated by staff, it does lead to, uh, the belief that something was spent that it wasn't supposed to be spent on. But, uh, the interim person recognized that, um, these services are needed. Speech was one of those. She spent the funding on that. Uh we do recognize that as budgets were being balanced that was the

114huge carryover that was in um um the federal 60 grant. Um and I think that is where uh the foresight had to be if you spend this funding funding then there needs to be a plan to say to replace this um um once we move forward. Um so I do want to be clear on that. that is not necessarily that they spent something that they shouldn't have done. Uh but it's more so that uh any decision decided uh made to spend money that came out of that carryover. Uh if there was not a clear articulation of how that's going to be replaced, uh then you're going to end up where you don't have enough to continue the grant as you move forward. >> All right. Um it's what we were told. I left that meeting.

115I mean we left that meeting and immediately in within that meeting we said you have to inform our colleagues as soon as possible because that was the primary message that I received in that meeting was that but I'm going to move on for to another topic two other items. one this timing where if we knew in the fall why were we not raising the alarm to the public to the general assembly going to our US Congress representatives planning ahead so we are not putting this on the backs of special education and I'm going to put some context which Mr. Mr. Hagerty brought up which is when we had the one-time funding for COVID, we transferred, we knew way in advance that we transferred, I think counselors from that funding onto local. We knew way in

116advance this was coming. I'm going to because it's year to year. Fall is way in advance. And especially we're talking about this isn't even if we did no other changes. We could almost get through this year, this next year. I mean, we could be banging the door of Jones Street. We need $10 million extra. And I'm just not understanding how we have gotten to this place of we announced it last week and it was a horrible announcement. >> Everybody I talked to I said, "What did you take from that?" You're firing 130 people and you're $18 million in the hole. That's what that read. So we and I am on the board so it is my responsibility as well. I am a part of the collective. We we did an awful job with that. We

117did an awful job not raising this in the fall because we should have been talking about this for the last six, seven months. So now I mean you I'm looking at the faces of people here and I am listening to the people I listen to uh my constituents over the last few days. People are hurt and they're angry and they're pissed and all of this stuff because they've had a week to process massive changes that seem to be going into I'm sorry I didn't mean to rant, but I just where was the urgency and why are we putting this on the backs of special education versus what we've done in the past which is to move positions to local and cut somewhere. I mean, we don't want to be cutting. Let's be clear. We're talking

118about jobs everywhere and we're talking about people's livelihoods, but we we we're cutting on the backs of the the wrong people. And we had this runway and we still have runway. We still got another 12 months based on the understanding that I have that this doesn't really go into effect until the end of next school year. So, I'm just cut. I mean, I get it that we'll be burning money, but why can't we go try to get money before we cut all these jobs? >> So, Mr. Hag, one of the things she Hershey uh Hershey, I'm sorry. Um um when we look at how we um address this um what will be a funding gap and one of those things is looking at the services that are being provided, which is one of the things

119we want to talk about in a moment. And that is to say that uh we recognize that we have a number of vacancies throughout the year uh and that making adjustments in the case load which would account for those vacancies that we would know would be there. Uh and then knowing that with the trend of where vacancies are that we bring back all of those term contracts every year we still have vacancies. And so, um, the recommendation was made to, uh, to prevent from having a major impact on other programs and having a major impact here that it would be, uh, to increase that case load for those CCR teachers, uh, but still be well below what the state recommends. And then that would allow us uh to to not uh disrupt those services for

120those um uh those separate classes any OT and PT and then provide the additional support uh that CCR teachers and regular ed teachers would need and not have a major impact on services that kids have. I I would just say that if you ask the teachers and the parents, this is going to have a major impact on with what we're doing. And I'm going to get to the whole uh later on how I don't know who was included in this planning process, but I'm sure certain it wasn't our teachers and the parents had no heads up either. >> We can go to the next slide. Which one are we on? Okay. Um, you want to pull the slide deck back up? So, I think one of the questions from board members was about um of

121the adjustments for this particular topic that will be in the superintendent's proposed budget, what the dollar value is of that. So on the next two slides, I'm showing you the draft of the funding request that would be in the superintendent's proposed budget. It will be on April 7th. Um part of the adjustment is that we are recommending to move 923 months, which is about 92 teachers from the federal funding to local funding, which is what you were just describing. Um so we would be moving staff from federal funding to local funding. Um, and when the superintendent's budget comes forward, you'll see that we had to adjust other things to accommodate accommodate that change. There's a second funding request on the next slide. Let me get down and this is the one that is the 130

122positions or 1300 months. um $10 million is the dollar value equating with that where we would be reducing the aotment formula that we use to um provide resources to schools. And this shows you the formula change, but we won't we prefer to wait until the slide a little bit later when program staff will review that with you. But this is just to show you those dollar values. So, it is about $17 million. 7 million of which we're recommending move to local and be offset by other things. And $10 million would be both of these would be coming off of the federal grant. And to provide context, I think there were also some questions from board members about what, you know, how much is our special education budget. So for the next few slides, um, we're

123showing you that information. This is the 2526 special education operating budget. So this is all funding sources, not just the federal grants, not just the state dollars, um, but everything in our operating budget. It does not include contract transportation. So this is a high level and then I'll show you a little bit more detail. So of the total is 305 rounds to $36 million and most of that is in salaries and benefits of course because we are paying for staff that are are working with our students. There's another $23.6 million in purchase services and likely most of that is in contracts also providing student services. If we go to the next slide, this breaks down each of those a little bit more. So, if you wanted to see a breakdown of the salaries and benefits,

124this takes that $278.6 million, breaks it down in a further detail. Um, so for example, that second line, instructional support certified, those would be teacher positions, about $74 million. But also look down below and you see supplementary and benefits pay. A lot of that is going to also be for teachers. It's this the local the supplement to their statebased pay. You'll see instructional support certified positions um which are also certified staff serving our schools our students $18 million rounds to $19 million and instructional support non-certified those would be um instructional assistants therapist technical staff working with our our students 66.8 million. So that's just a breakdown of all of those cost in more detail. The next slide is a breakdown of the purchase services which is contracted services is what all these accounts are. You

125can see most of that is in the professional and technical services. And then the next slide breaks down the supply cost which is really not that large compared to the total budget $3.5 million for school and office supplies. And then there's a little bit of equipment, $150,000 in the operating budget within the grants um or the state funding. That's not building program money. That's operating budget. So the total, just to give context, is about $36 million um for all of the special education services. And now we would transition to the program staff to cover some information with you. >> Uh, good evening, Chair Swanson, Vice Chair Hershey, board members, and superintendent. Oh, sorry. I forgot it got moved. Good evening, Chair Swanson, Vice Chair Hershey, board members, and Superintendent Taylor. Thank you for allowing me

126a few moments tonight of your time to share some information as it relates to our special education services department. So, we initially began to look at ways that we could reduce our spending. When we were made aware of the concerns, we started by reviewing all of our contracts. We wanted to determine which contracts we could potentially reduce or even eliminate if the services were not directly tied to the needs of students. So, for example, we had a contract for a retiree that helped support our ESY planning. We eliminated that contract and reassigned those responsibilities to someone on staff. Additionally, we looked at seven coordinating teacher positions that were vacant and we closed those positions as well as two additional positions that were planned to support our regional model for a total of nine positions that

127we closed within our department. We also closed a vacant director position on our policy team to reduce that fiscal impact. And we looked through all of our team budgets to see where we could reduce expenses for materials, professional development, other team needs, and we were able to reduce those expenses by over $200,000. >> Any questions before I go to the next one? Um, I do have some, but I want to see I'm going to start on this side, Miss Rice, to give my other colleagues some time. Uh, Dr. Ing. >> Yes, thank you. Um, I I did ask Miss Allred about this particular question about the team budget and what is being used. uh you can explain that to the public, but also um what are the um dollar amounts for these um vacant positions

128that you are um getting rid of? Um >> um I do not have those exact dollar amounts with me today, but I can get that information and share that with you. >> Uh the team budgets, those are used to purchase >> Let me interrupt for a minute. Um, when you mean the uh the coordinating teacher positions >> and the uh director of policy, >> right? And and so the coordinating teacher that would be at a teacher salary that usually runs about 80 or 85 with salary and benefits. Would that be um uh and so with nine that kind of gives you an idea of of what that number would be? uh in um on the director policy uh salary and benefits um uh that probably would be 115 120 somewhere in that range. Um you

129know, Miss Posey, Miss Miss Kinsey, you can kind of let me know the range of a director salary. I would believe it' be somewhere in that range with salary and benefits. >> Is that correct? Okay. They're getting a quick estimate on that. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Taylor. Um, I think there was a question about the team budgets. So, those budgets are for professional development supplies and materials that various teams within our department may need to utilize. It could be math materials. It could be uh materials for our um HI teachers, our VI teachers. So, we looked at places that we could potentially reduce those budgets and we did so overall by about $200,000. Miss Gordon, >> thank you, Chair. Um, I want to go back a couple of slides to slide 11 um about the

130strategic budget uh realignment um and talking about the aotment structure. Um, I mean to put it plainly, this is this is hard for an educator to see given the large workload that they already have. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um, and so I just want to be clear so that it is out in the public. How is it that we are stating that we are doing this strategic budget realignment um and that there is a reduction and yet services won't change. Is it safe to say that we are asking as we have historically done we are asking educators to do more with less? >> Absolutely. like I I I just need I need that plainly like said. >> Yes, ma'am. So, you got a little ahead of me. I haven't gotten to that slide yet, but

131that's okay. >> Um I will I was getting ready to speak to that slide. >> Okay. >> So, if you would prefer, I can address your question. Okay. >> Um so, any other questions about the previous information? >> Sure. >> Can I respond to Dr. Ing's figure? uh roughly between the director position and the nine coordinators, it's about $930,000. Are there any additional questions regarding slide 16? Miss, because I have a couple of questions, but Miss Rice, do you want to go forward? >> Thank you, chair. I I did actually around slide 16 um with the budget. So just to confirm, we are removing these for the 2627 school year. Correct. Because they're unfilled. Correct. >> That is correct. >> Okay. Um I just wanted to bring clarity because we're because at the end of

132the 25 26 year we won't be in a deficit. And so if we're ending these positions that are here, and I'm sorry, I'm looking at my notes. If we're ending the positions that are here going into the school year, I was I had to go check out some um IDA stuff to make sure I understand stuff about budget. So, um what about what the office of um the federal government around help me better understand this around our ume that that we have and the standards that we have to meet in compliance. Um I'm looking and it states that we have to keep our budgets LEA um the SEA must determine that the LEA budgets for the education of children with disabilities at least the same amount from at least one of the following sources. So,

133how so are we still going to be in alignment with what the budget says or federal dollars say we have to keep the same amount of money the next year as we did the previous year or it's a possibility we going to have to pay some money help me understand that better so that I can make sure I'm understanding what I'm reading and that I'm asking correctly because if we're talking about cutting positions fine they're unfilled. So, that's one thing that is unfilled. But if we're talking about um CCR folks and and all of that, help me understand what it means for us to be in compliance with federal law that we have to keep the same budget for things going into the following year as we did the previous year or we will will

134be in jeopardy of actually re repaying money back. >> Yes. Now, that's a that's a great question. Uh, and I'm quite familiar from my previous roles as a senior director with uh finance. Uh, the maintenance of effort that you're speaking to, it holds the district accountable for what we're spending in state dollars. So, they don't look at your budget, but they do look at your expenditures. But if your budget kind of sets the expectation of what your expenditures are going to be, that's a good point. uh they look at your state, they look at your local and they also look at your federal spending. So by reducing federal expenses, we will not be non-compliant. If we were to be reducing our state and our local expenditures by a significant amount and increasing our federal funds,

135then that would put us in a non-compliant. But by reducing the federal funds as you see on the in your PowerPoint presentation, it's reducing the expenses on grants and it's actually increasing your local expenses um by almost $7 million. So if anything, you're you're showing um efforts in increasing your maintenance of effort on the state and the local side. Okay. So just for clarity, as long as we don't decrease our local dollars that we've received, we're okay. It it it applies to both your state and local. So when expenditures are run, so that's why the state also has a maintenance of effort that they have to abide by. So um both your state and your local must show that you are spending above and not more of your federal. So your federal funds are used

136in this supplement fashion, but it can be used for the same things that you pay for state and local. So there is no like in some federal funds, it has to all be supplementary, >> but we can pay for teachers on the federal funds just like we can pay for teachers on state and local. So yes, as long as we show that we are increasing in our state and our local and we are not then increasing more on the federal relative to what we're increasing in state and local >> and we are in compliant with that. We are moving smoothly with that reported annually every year. Yes. Okay. >> To the state to DPI and DPI monitors that directly. >> Okay. And these things that we're cutting, again, I'm going to keep asking because I'm

137sorry, Miss Posie. I I don't get the same information every time. The federal dollars are what they are. We already knew we were losing them as funds, blah blah blah. We're good with that. But we are not seeing any cuts and our money remains the same for our teachers that are coming out of it where the state pays us for the teacher aotment um and things of that nature. So, when we're talking about cutting the nine folks, it's all again, just so I can reiterate, make sure I'm understanding, these are unfilled positions, right? >> According to staff. >> Okay. Well, I'm going to stop right there, Chair Swanson, about the unfilled positions until we get to HR. >> Okay. So, I I do have a question regarding slide 16. Help me understand how removing nine

138unfilled coordinating to teacher positions, removing a director of policy is going to provide support for teachers in the classroom. Help me understand that and why was that even a proposed >> and keep in mind my background I was a special education teacher so I can talk in details how having a policy director who was Miss Lewis at the time that I was in the classroom helped me out tremendously with this. So help me understand why was this a proposal brought forth? So we first tried to look in our house at central services to see where we could reduce spending before we ever looked outside of our house. So we had nine unfilled coordinating teacher positions that were to be part of the regional model to provide support to schools. We scaled that back. We determined

139that even with the staff that were remaining, we could still provide a far greater level of support to schools than in our current structure. So for example, a coordinating teacher now may have 12 to 13 schools that they support, >> which is a lot. >> It is. So with our new model, even with those nine positions that were dissolved, our coordinating teachers will have five to six schools. So we're able to drastically reduce the number of schools, which in our thoughts were we're still able to provide a greater level of support than what we currently do. >> So I might need to see that in a chart because it's not making any sense in my head. Okay. >> Now, let's go to the director of policy, please. So we have a senior director of policy

140and we have a director of policy. At some point over the past few years, several years, there was an additional director position added. When that position became vacant, we just made the decision to go back to the previous model, which was a senior director and a director. But the previous model did not help us reduce the amount of lawsuits that we've been receiving. >> And that is a valid statement. >> Oh, I know it is because we approved them in closed session. So >> So >> this is not making any sense, but I'll let you continue. So our intentions are that with the regional model being able to assign coordinating teachers from our house specifically as a point of contact for schools having them be in those schools on a regular weekly consistent basis. that

141that model with real boots on the ground in the building on a regular consistent basis will help us move the needle in the right direction for students and for the district overall. >> So I would also like to see how that progress is moving forward in this slide and perhaps um Miss Gordon and Miss Dr. Job I hate to throw things at student achievement but I think this might be a great model because I still have questions. I still need clarity, but I still don't understand how the d losing a not filling a director position is going to help provide teachers guidance when there's questions regarding IEPs, when there's questions regarding how do you address certain services, when there's questions about how do you move things forward and not having a director or a person

142to help address that. The math isn't math and it's not making any sense to me. >> Understood. And please note, we didn't it's not that we opted to lose these positions. We were in a position that we needed to look at how we could reduce spending. So, as I shared, we started with our house first and looked at opportunities that were potentials for us to reduce spending. >> I'm still unclear why we would start with special education given the fact that those are our most vulnerable students. that is one of the places where the district receives the most lawsuits for compliance issues that that is where we would make cuts. It is unacceptable and I have a proposal and I will get to that later on but I don't want to see any cuts from

143special education given the fact that we are not in a place where we should be making cuts. So, I do have questions regarding slide 17 because the month of employment and changing those ratios, I have grave concerns about that, but I'll let you continue to move forward unless board members have any questions. Proceed, please. >> Okay. Thank you. So, the chart you want to Okay. >> Can we get the slides on the screen, please? >> Thank you. >> Okay. So the chart that you see here is um basically a comparison of the state recommended allotments. The aotment structure that we used in and the allotment um structure we have used to determine a lotments for 2627. >> And can we explain for the public that may not know what is a CCR a classroom a

144cross categorical resource teacher? Could you explain that before you start going into the months of >> Of course. Yes. So a a crosscategorical resource teacher is basically a general licensed special ed teacher. So within the state of North Carolina there are two lensure types. There's a general education license and adaptive curriculum license. So the CCR for lack of a better term is your run-of-the-mill special education teacher. whereas an adaptive licensed teacher would be in one of your regional programs. So the CCR teachers are obviously where we all lot the greatest number of positions and any did I clarify that for anybody have any questions about that position specifically? >> I don't see any. So I think we can >> Okay. So what you can see in the table is that in 2526 we allotted for

145elementary CCR in a multittrack year round school there was a 1 to7 ratio meaning one teacher 17 students in a traditional calendar school it was 1:20 um in middle school CCR same concept 1 to 20 for multittrack year round and 1 to 24 for traditional calendar. The one thing to note is in the adjusted allotments for 2627 we kept the ratio the same for middle um and elementary but rather than 10 months of employment for each of those position each of those positions would be allotted at 11 months of employment. So what you can see clearly in reviewing this chart is that elementary school teachers could gain up to five additional students on case load. Middle schools could gain six additional and high school could gain three. And for clarity, this will probably impact teachers

146paperwork on a more significant basis than class by class. As Dr. Taylor shared earlier, there's a lot of different ways that those numbers could be absorbed in the schedule. >> So, let's pause here for questions because I have several and I will start with Dr. Joe, Miss Gordon, Miss Caulfield, and then I'll go last with my questions. >> All right. Thank you. Um, okay. I want to I want to ask about state guidance for a second because Dr. Dr. Taylor started out by mentioning that state guidance is higher than Wake County and we've mentioned state guidance a couple of times now at this table. I know that the American Federation of Teachers recommends 12 to 16 students as a case load. The Council for Exceptional Children, which is the basically the um gold standard of

147research for special education, says we shouldn't even be talking about numbers. is that it's about workload because somebody who has several students with, you know, higher needs is going to have more um work on their plate than somebody who has more students with with more minor needs. What research is behind the state guidance? So that I I do not have a clear answer on that. That guidance has been in place for a significant number of years. I'm not sure um where that guidance came from. What I do know is that regardless of their recommendations uh around an aotment ratio, as Dr. Taylor shared earlier, they are looking at a more weighted funding model, which I think that's what you're kind of speaking to. um which is that students with more significant needs would be funded

148at a higher rate. As I will share in some future slides, we are looking at this is this was a starting point looking at numbers. We have added in looking at service delivery for students to add additional aotments based on students that have higher services. So while these ratios were a starting point, it was not our ending point. >> Yeah. Follow up. >> Absolutely. >> Um that is part of what I was saying. But part of what I'm saying is really I don't want to hear about state guidance anymore because when we are losing 160 special educators a year um this obviously these numbers are not tenable and considering past issues with the state I don't think we should be listening to them about what this is. So taking that off the table and we're

149just looking at the a lotment of what we're working with. This is not just a paperwork issue. I I take issue hearing that. Agree. >> I this is a we are talking about teachers who are working in superhuman ways but they only they have a finite amount of time in the day >> and if they like I have you know a family member who gets resourced during their ELA class and so does six other kids in his class. And so if that teacher now has five extra people on their case load, she has less time for my family member regardless of, you know, what we want to do and who we want, you know, and how we want to strategically realign this and and everything. So I want to be clear that we're talking about

150perhaps not less services on paper, but certainly worse services. We are definitely talking about that. And I and back to Mr. Swanson's question about why this, you know, why we haven't talked about um taking money from other areas to put into special education rather than immediately jumping to how can we cut special education. I guess um this I mean again I just want to re I just want to lift up what you were saying before that this is absolutely going to affect IEP implementation. um if we only have so much time in the day and you know we should have been talking about how can we possibly take some administrators and and maybe direct them towards IEP administration. I mean one of the things that other counties have and other you know that we should

151absolutely have is an IEP administrator in each building you know so it takes that paperwork off their plate. So, it takes I mean, you know, I know that one high school IEP um or CCR teacher said that said directly to me that she the bane of her existence is trying to get these meetings scheduled. She spends so much time on the phone just trying to get these meeting scheduled and having someone in charge of that. So, we should have been talking about all of these things starting in the fall. But I want to I do want to make sure that we I if if it were up to me, we would stop talking about state guidance cuz a case load of 50 students is just unreasonable when you're talking about implementing this. And I and

152I would I also my last question I guess would be how besides funding, how is workload considered in Wake County when it comes to the students needs and their minor disabilities versus major disabilities and that kind of thing. So, I think that we all know that it's going to be crucial that our team, our department works very closely with these schools to support. And that may be looking at scheduling with them. How do they build a schedule that makes the most sense maximizing the resources in that building? um what um additional training may we offer that will help equip them to better support students. I think it's going to be a collaborative effort in how do we work together to support these schools um our schools as we navigate this this new chapter that we're

153potentially embarking on. Um, so it we know it's going to be a lot of support. Each school has its own specific uh dynamics, its own schedules, its own student needs. And so it's working within those schools to really see how do we maximize the resources within that building to meet the needs of students. >> And so who is beginning that work? who is sitting down with the teachers right now who are being told they're going to be doing more with less and is and talking through with them how to max maximize the resources or whatever. So, um schools are just now getting their aotments and so as they navigate through that we actually um just on Monday there was a scheduling workshop for schools to send teams. So we are present at those workshops to

154help work through with those teams looking at master schedules. As of July 1, we will be in our regional model. Um, we will work with staff in the in the buildings at the start of the school year to really look at who are the students, what are their needs, what are the resources within the building, and how do we build a schedule that makes sense and that is livable and doable. Um, and as we've always done, we will continue to look at, do we need to make aotment adjustments? So there are times that we may need to add additional instructional assistance. There are times that we may need to add adult support for students. At 20day um the 20th day of school, we do a reconciliation. We look and see who are the students that

155are in the building, what's changed because when we do these a lotments, this is based on projections, right? And so a lot can change over the summer. We have students move in, we have students move out, we have new students identified. So we have to factor that in. So we will continue all of those practices as well as the support. One more >> I I want to build upon that if you allow me, Miss Dr. Joe, shouldn't these things already be taking place? Why are we waiting till we're in a crisis to start having conversations about what we could do better? I'm I'm confused. So, >> well, and the other thing I wanted to ask is what are we doing for professional development for our not special educators to make sure that they can actually

156support their colleagues especially in these times? >> Yes, ma'am. And so, >> so let me let me kind of add to that question, Dr. Joe. Um what I can say is that that is one of the things uh that I recognized entering the district is that there was a tremendous amount of work that we need to do uh with regular education teachers and and I always take people back to the continuum of regular resource and separate. It just identifies the amount of time that students spend with disabled and non-disabled peers and and the majority of the instruction for these students does lie with the regular head teacher. Uh and so those are the things that we've talked about in terms of the professional development that's needed uh for those regular ed teachers to make sure

157this implementation takes place. I can tell you that um this is the same conversation that we've been having for 25 years. Uh but I think you're right on what it is that you were saying. Uh that was part of the restructuring that we were trying to put in place to make sure that we are able to provide professional development not only for regular ed teachers uh but professional development and support for sped teachers as well. Uh we recognize that a lot of our sped teachers that come in are provisionally licensed teachers and so they have a dual thing that they have to be responsible for is uh one learning teaching and then also learning specially designed instruction and then on top of that managing paperwork and meetings but um but um I think you're spot

158on point in terms of what it is we want to do for professional development uh outside of the sped program >> and And I'd like to piggyback on that because we are offering this spring we extended the invitation to every elementary school to send two gened kindergarten teachers to a training on supporting challenging behaviors. Um that training will be done in collaboration with Autism Society of North Carolina. The teachers will leave with some tangibles that they can go and implement in the classroom and that will be paired with a coaching cycle from some of our behavior support folks to really help them take what they've learned in the training and help them structure that up and implement it in the classroom. We've had such a positive response to that that we've had to offer an

159additional training because administrators are asking, can they send more folks? So, the plan is that this will continue year-over-year. Next year, we will train some more kindergarten teachers, but we'll also train first grade teachers because our hope is that we will build capacity at least across elementary initially because we know that that's where a lot of our challenging behaviors are. M Gordon. >> Thank you, Chair Swanson. Um I think Dr. Joe hit the nail on the head. Um reducing sped to only an increase in uh paperwork is um I think that does not only a disservice to to you know um special education educators, but also to the parents. Um, I've spoken to at least three families within the past two weeks where I've had to have difficult conversations with mothers who have cried on

160the phone because they feel like um they're just meeting a lot of challenges with their their um special education students and you know the service delivery with their IEPs. Um, but I I want to say I do agree with you and I do agree with Cher Swanson around yes, we should be looking at scheduling. Yes, we should be maxing our resources. Yes, we should be providing training and and we should also be supporting less case loads. Um and I I also want to say in regard to that can you speak to um do we anticipate that there will be an increase in compensatory services because our case loads are increasing and how does that how does that far with what we are currently seeing with compensatory services? >> So that is a great question. Um

161we do not foresee that there being an increase in compensatory services but that is because we are planning to truly support schools in how to maximize the use of the resources allotted to their building to build a schedule to ensure that all students are getting the services outlined in their IEP. The other thing to keep in mind is that as Dr. Taylor mentioned we have started every school year with vacancies. So those vacant positions are resulting sometimes students that aren't fully served as outlined in their IP, >> right? >> Through this aotment adjustment, we we should mitigate those vacancies. So the compensatory that has resulted from vacancies should not exist anymore. Um our goal and focus will be on ensuring that we are supporting schools and teachers in developing a plan to meet the needs

162of the student in the building. And as I shared before, as we look at changes or significant needs, as we've always done, we will we will make a lotment adjustments and um Dr. Matilda is going to talk about this in a little bit, but Dr. Taylor mentioned it earlier. Schools have had and will continue to have autonomy to convert positions. So, if they determine that they need to allocate additional resources to support special education, they can request those conversions as they've done in the past. >> Followup. >> Absolutely. So, so whether it's a whether it's a vacancy or not, the compensatory services, correct me if I'm wrong, come from a child not receiving the service that they are they are legally entitled to. >> Correct. So I think again my question still stands if we

163are increasing case loads whether it's whether it's a vacancy or not if we are increasing case loads how does that ensure that we are providing the services that a child is owed >> right so it is our intention that we provide the services as it's always been as outlined in the IP I I think it's fair to say these are unchartered territories. We've not been in this situation before. It's not ideal for anyone, right? >> But it's the reality of where we are. And so we are trying to chart a course to move forward and determine how we can best support schools with resources that we are allocated and ensure that students receive the services that the law requires them to receive. Can I have one more followup? >> As many as you would like.

164Your question is getting raised because I'm just as confused. >> Okay. I and I I don't know if this question is for you or Miss Posey. What is the actual number that we pay out in compensatory services? >> I don't I don't have that figure on me. >> Okay. >> When can we get that figure? >> Are you talking about for the current fiscal year or >> if we need to go to the current fiscal year, the previous fiscal year, three years back for can we get the data? I will have to the staff they do have um the agreements that they should be able to pull that together and I can review that information >> possible to have it before the meeting is over. >> I could pull up and see what I have

165and for the current year. >> That's fine. And then you can get the other data to us, but I think that might be helpful. >> Don't let me put words in your mouth. >> Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Miss Cfield. >> Thank you. Um, I'll try not to repeat some of the concerns that my colleagues just raised. That's my original notes and some of the things I was talking about, you were talking about today. Um, if I could first ask one question before I um ask my other one, what kind of guidance does our special education teachers have within each and every school? So can you be more specific in like >> you mentioned that we had a director another director or a senior director an assistant director and then another

166one and if we remove that position it's going to affect who they go to. I would I'm trying to understand in each and every one of our schools. >> Yes ma'am. >> The teachers who are in special education who do they go to with their needs? >> Yes ma'am. So I think that's been part of our concern in our our previous model depending on the need you had to go to a different person. So with the regional model that we will be implementing in July. The plan is that there will be one primary point of contact for each school so that a teacher or an administrator does not have to go through a directory to determine if I have a behavior question I call this person. If I have a policy question I call this

167person. There will be one primary point of contact and within each region there will be teams made up of coordinating teachers that will be the primary point of contact and a senior administrator assigned to each school. >> When you say primary contact, is that somebody who specializes in special education? >> Yes, ma'am. That is that is from our house. And the goal is that they will reach out to that person. Even if the person can't immediately answer their questions, that person, that staff member on our staff knows who their multid-disiplinary team is and they can reach out to get further support and guidance as needed for each school. Okay. Thank you. Um, and then I mean my biggest issue is we hear over and over and over again how our special education teachers are completely

168overloaded. It is the paperwork. It is parent contact. It is what they're coordinating for the child. It is the discipline. It's the discipline. And it's just over and over again we hear the same thing. I'm just I I'm concerned when I look at this slide on 17 page slide 17 that we're saying that we're kind of staying in the same realm. But if you speak to these teachers, if you even add one or two or god forbid three more children onto their case load, they're already beyond capacity of what they can handle. Let alone when they go home, do they have anything left for their own family? Mhm. >> So my concern is why would we touch these numbers? And if I could just jump ahead a little bit. >> Go for it. >> For

169the past two meetings, we met new directors that we had, >> right? And I don't know if this is apples to apples and in our budget, I hope that we can compare this. This is not a space where we should be trimming any positions or roles. This is a space where we have repeatedly tried to see where we could pad the classroom and the support for our children in need. Our special education, our behavioral uh struggles we've been having has been increasing in droves over the years, not decreasing. So, I'm just having a really hard time seeing how we would pick this category of funds to decrease where we need to take from some other places that we have and put them here. And I'm just going to say something that's going to sound very

170blunt and I'm sorry, and that's in central office. We have a lot of different roles that we can consider putting more support here if we've got to cut certain things. And and so uh Miss Coffin, one of the things I'll say is is as we've done uh with each budget reduction, we look first at central services. Uh last year with all of the reductions that we had, uh 48% of those came from central services, even though we comprise less than 8% of the total budget. Um um we do recognize that there's going to be a level of support uh that all teachers will need whether they're sped teachers or regular ed teachers. Uh and those are going to be positions that won't be classified as um uh classroom positions. That's I mean they you could

171label a person as school staff and is on a school roster, but they're actually central services staff. Uh so we don't want to pretend that we're uh having school staff and they're really central services staff. A lot of the coordinating teachers may be listed as that, but they work as a part of central services. Uh the other thing that I'll say is that we do recognize uh that there is an increase in paperwork uh for special education teachers and that's increase from one year to the next based on um uh how we better identify students and some of the legal requirements that go along with that. And so one of the things we had talked about uh was developing a regional model uh where we would have staff or many people characterized or identified as

172case managers that would help manage the paperwork. Now uh this is something we imple implemented about 20 or 25 years ago uh to be able to help mitigate the paperwork that that teachers have. But one of the things that we learned in special education is that when we deploy uh case managers to help manage the paperwork um in the development of the IEP, it causes the special ed teacher skills to atrophy in that if they're responsible for designing the specially designed instruction, but they're not a part of that IEP process, uh then something gets lost as they grow in their uh in their um work as a sped teacher. And so what we now recognize is that we've got to have that healthy balance of not um uh putting it all on a case manager

173and they only provide instruction, but how do we balance that out to make sure that they are not overwhelmed with paperwork uh but they understand how to properly develop an IEP and be a part of that process. >> Okay. Thank you for that. And uh and that is what I was referring to is more padding this department with people that actually need >> that we need and that are going to help um these teachers in the classroom so they're not bombarded with that. Um, and my other thing was, and this may not be able to be answered right now, but in our budget, I if we could get some kind of idea of what kind of funds we would need if we were to help our gened teachers with spe special education, whether it just

174be PD or licensing, it has become in every classroom there's a need. Mhm. >> So I just I I feel that our general education teachers are struggling just as much in their classroom >> and the idea of cutting bodies or cut or or I mean there's only nine roles that you're that you're that you listed here and then a director. It sounds like we have a need for a lot more, >> but our regular teachers having support in their classroom. I I don't know how we would support them if if they don't know what to do. They're only depending on the special education teachers. >> Am I saying that clear enough? I Okay. >> It's an overall need. Yeah. >> Not just >> So what I would say is that that is uh the continuous

175struggle of providing uh the services that all children need. And and so again uh when we talk about a regular ed teacher uh that is there is a responsibility that they have uh in the implementation of an IEP. And so that is where uh while people may balk at the idea of professional development. Uh but that is the only way that we help regular ed teachers to understand their responsibility in serving childrens that have uh these special needs and need specially designed instruction. And so that is something that is a combination among everybody. And so um uh if indeed we want to um intervene on the behalf of children uh then it is going to require professional development and training for regular ed teachers to be able to implement that specially designed instruction. And so

176uh and one of those examples that I would give is that we can't rever uh refer a child because of lack of of quality reading instruction because of lack of reading instruction. So what that says is that that is the responsibility of the of the regular ed teacher. Uh and so we have to do uh more to support that. Uh and and while I do know there are uh a lot of questions that that the board will ask uh and we will be here to answer all of those questions. Uh but one of the things I want to say is that we made recommendations based on what we felt would allow us to have the continuity this program uh needs um but at the same time not diminish it in a manner um that would

177uh greatly jeopardize uh what we provide the children. Uh what I will say is that um uh we are in the backends of the superintendent's budget uh and that will come forward with recommendations in that budget. Uh but um based on what we're hearing here tonight, uh we already know that um a a large part of our work will be to bring a budget forward as we prepare, but also to identify um the options that would reduce uh what the board is is is is recognizing here. And so I don't want to have any illusions for for anybody who's here uh for staff that is up presenting. Um uh again, we recognize that there's $300 million that's spent in this budget uh on special education. Uh and that um we wanted to be able to

178take this opportunity to determine how do we realign the budget for this specific program and not having uh a major impact. We do recognize that uh increases in case loads, those kinds of things, uh we're not saying that that's not going to be the case because we've been very clear that that will happen. Uh but part of the work that we have to do moving forward is about how do we prepare for recommendations uh that the board will have about addressing this uh regardless of what comes out in the superintendent's budget. >> Okay. Thank you. And just uh out of curiosity, how many special education students do we serve? >> Uh probably 22,000. Um somewhere in that neighborhood that >> is correct. >> Yeah. >> So I realized we're going to pause for about 5

179minutes, do a break, bathroom, you know, stretch break as we've been going on for about 2 hours and we're not moving past this slide because I have questions. I see questions here, but at least give folks an opportunity. So we will reconvene right at 7:40 on the dot. Thank you. 7. >> All right, folks. at 7:40 and so I want to be mindful of time and keep that >> Oh, I thought that I was going to >> Yeah, >> she's right there. >> Adhering to the guidance that the vice chair gave me to state make sure we had five minutes and only five minutes. So, thank you for keep me on my job. So, we um left off on slide of 25, but we were talking about the 17, excuse me, the CCR aotments. Um,

180were there any questions on this side regarding slide 17 before I dive into my questions? >> Yeah, I hold on. We had too much excitement. And I got to make sure I know what my question is. Um, as it relates to this slide, which is our employment piece, right? Is that fair to say? >> CCR, which is the month of employments that are going to be in a case load. >> Right. So, my my question is around just employment. I don't know if this is the right time. If it's not, I can pause and wait until we get to it. Um, my questions is more around the employment piece. Um, to um, Mr. Dr. Matillo, >> Miss Rice, let's hold that one until we get to Dr. Matillo. >> Okay, I can wait. That's why

181I said whatever is the appropriate time. That's fine. >> I I'll recognize you when we get to Dr. Matello. >> It is about Okay. Thank you. >> So, my question regarding the increasing to increase to the CCR. Um, and I'm going to put on my my hat as a beginning teacher. I see my former department chair in the audience. Just going to, you know, pose some questions here. I know before the pandemic, well, let me let me not even let me not even lead with that. Um, has the district began a model or explaining and training both ICR teachers and general ed teachers what an effective CCR classroom and teaching model is supposed to look like. Can you answer that one for me? So we are beginning that training um to really kind of level

182set. What we have found is we have some teachers with pockets of knowledge. We have lots of new teachers. We have lots of alternatively licensed teachers. So we have folks coming to the game with different skill sets. So we are developing um have already developed for this upcoming year some very robust training for as I shared with our general education teachers. I shared that a little earlier and with our special education teachers. We are going to do three intensive days um that will not be concurrent but throughout next school year for our special education teachers to ensure that we are level setting and building a very firm foundation around special education practices uh high leverage practices scheduling um providing services to students all the things that we feel like will lay a solid foundation for

183our teachers and then we will begin to build strategically and intentionally. On top of that, we have also trained um in pockets many of our schools on um inclusion practices, co-eing models. Um so I think that's kind of what you're >> I'm going to dig you're you're we're scratching the surface. I'm going to get very deep in a moment. um with this because if all that training has begun and we're looking at case loads for this upcoming year, 1 to 17 to 24 elementary, 1 to 7, 1 to 20 to 24 for uh middle school, 1 to 37 high school and you can see the numbers etc etc. But increasing those numbers by five to six and that training has not been effectively done. It goes back to the point that I raised earlier is

184how is this going to provide support for stu teachers given the fact that you as you indicated many of these teachers are lateral entry teachers. Many of these teachers may come from different states. So if this training has not been done and has not necessarily teachers have the meat of this, how do we expect teachers to effectively do their job and manage a challenging case load? And I I'll share this. I was at Enllo and I was a beginning teacher. If a teacher is out on maternity leave, guess what? That case load gets divied down to their other colleagues, which means you have to learn a new student, plus your own student. So these ratios although they look great on paper, some schools are already much higher and I would like to know which schools

185are much higher because again it looks great to say this is the model but I know when I started my case load may have started about 25ish by the end of the year 35 32 and that's not just you know an easy case load. We're dealing with nuances. You're dealing with so many different challenges. you're dealing with engagement in families and most importantly you're trying to build trust with those families. So if the narrative is already out there that there is some re some shifts that's happening and we're increasing case loads but not giving to teachers the tools they need to sharpen their skills. I have grave concern with that and I know that training when I was here I know Miss Hamilton was uh the assistant superintendent there were some trainings taking place to

186effectively show what case management is supposed to look like what it looks like in the classroom all that fun jazz co happened. So if we knew that these changes was coming and we knew that we were alerted about this these grants in December, September, whatever the early part of the year is, why are these trainings just now beginning? Why is the alarm just now being sounded? And how do you expect to recruit and retain teachers to effectively do their jobs based off this information? So what I will share is that a lot of the plan that I shared with you was a plan that we had already began to put in place or to map out as part of our regional model. That was before we were made aware of our the budgetary concerns. So

187we have tried to continue to move forward with the plan for training professional learning for special ed teachers, general ed teachers, so on and so forth, but to also continue our professional development offerings that as you spoke of that we have historically done. So, we're trying to build a plan to move forward, but we're also trying to backfill to address the concerns of we now have these budgetary issues that we've got to address and determine how to live within our means. and but how do we also build teacher capacity that we need to to address these adjustments but also to move forward because we continuously should strive to build teacher capacity. So will there be protections for schools that are high needs that have challenging uh you know whether it's recruitment and retention of certain

188schools? What protections will be put in place to ensure that some of our most vulnerable students, our most vulnerable schools are going to have the protections that they need if which I'm going to go on record. I'm not a fan of this this change and I think we need to go back in to the drawing board. what protections are going to be in place given that we're seeing high principles retiring. So, we're losing a lot of the institutional knowledge. We're losing teachers and I'm just having a difficult time grasping all of this. >> Understood. I I feel that that is going to require intentional collaboration across other departments to truly look at how do we provide support holistically to a school because I think you're veering into we're talking outside of even just the special

189education lane. How >> about the numbers here on the screen? Okay. >> That is special education, >> right? Yes, sir. So, how do we work to ensure that we are supporting a school? Um, if it's a new administrator, what type of training does that new administrator need? >> Let me let me clarify. I see what you were trying to do there. I got you. Sorry. I'm talking about schools that dealing with this these changes. We're talking about the a lotments, CCR, all that. What special education departments and across our schools that we know historically has high turnover that are title one that have high needs are those schools dealing with special education I'll keep it germaine to special education what protections will be set forth with them to ensure that there are some guard rails

190since we're not moving forward with the policy director when we're not we've closed those nine those support systems that would be there to help give guidance and support. What will be done to ensure that those those schools do not feel the harsh reality of these numbers? Does is that a little bit clear? >> I I believe so. And if if I don't provide a clear response, please clarify. Yes, sir. >> Absolutely. Um so what we are planning to do is that we are looking truly at what overall support do we need to provide for all schools and then when we dig into each school individually their data meaning that if we determine that a school has four CCR teachers and three of them are ALI they need >> down those folks who are not an

191alternatively licensed teacher Right? Meaning that they do not necessarily hold a a teaching degree. >> Um, so that school will need a different level of support >> than a school that has four CCR teachers that all went to school and have a special ed degree. So we are really trying to cater our support based on the needs of the staff as well as the students within that building. But I also think those veteran teachers who do have the license also need support because we're seeing that not every student comes in very pretty packages as former superintendent Moore used to state all the time. So when students are bringing different experiences and and and you name it, it's there. Our most senior veteran teachers also need the support. So, I guess the concerns that I'm really

192trying to raise that I don't think we'll get at in this moment is what support will there be across the board support. Um, and so if that means we need to readjust these allocations to give the board as we are going through our budget process because although the superintendent proposed this budget, it's not the board's budget until we make a final vote. what options could we see that breaks down these um uh uh ratios of aotment for plus you know adding three adding two but adding five or six is unacceptable. Um so I I just think we need to come up with some different options and also identifying the schools I referenced that have the most that needs the most support that in fact they're restart schools that we added support to for last year.

193So, we got the data on it. What we need to see what support they need in order to ensure that we do not see an increase of lawsuits across the board. That's the concern that I have. Any other questions regarding this one, Miss Edmonds? >> For the allotments, I was told that year round schools will not get their allotments for their start of school year. that those allotments will not be counted until the traditional calendar allotments and that is very concerning for them. Is that true? >> Can you speak to that Terry? >> I'm not sure specifically of we are rolling. We begin our aotment process for schools now every this time period every year and we look projected student numbers for every school by grade and we start allocating resources using our formulas. Principles

194if they start to learn that their numbers are coming in higher or different always have the ability to selfallot. So that it is as we're in this process of rolling out a lotments on numbers that we don't know will be certain until all the students arrive next year. There's there's a way to handle that. What you may be what I may hear and what you may have heard is that when we reconcile our schools, I'm not sure if this is what the question was or not. We have typically in the last recent years used day 20 for our traditional calendar and that for a year-round school is pretty far into their school year. So we are making a change this coming year with when we reconcile our multi-track year round schools. We'll be doing it

195on day 20 of track 4. So that's really about the same time in their calendar as it were traditional and that's what we did in the past. So, we're kind of going back to that practice. You think that's what >> this was? >> As best as I can tell and thank you and may I follow up. So, actually for you, Dr. Taylor, can you please ensure that um any of our year round principles that whether whether or not they have raised a question, can you please make sure that our area superintendents that work with year-round schools communicate clearly with their year-round principles and get all of their um questions answered with regard to this specifically. there are special education allotments for these positions because that is a concern that I've heard. >> Yes, ma'am. I

196do know that uh principles have submitted questions uh that we are answering and so some of those may have already been submitted but we will make sure that uh we do additional followup to solicit more questions. >> Any other questions regarding aotments and if some pop up we can always go back. So it's there's that. So we can proceed to the next slide please. >> Thank you. Staff, please bring the slides back up for the display. Thank you. So, while this new aotment structure does result in 130 less CCR positions, as Dr. Taylor shared earlier, the district does not expect or does expect to be able to keep all of our special education teachers who have renewal contracts. >> Could you repeat that, please? >> Yes. So, while this new aotment structure does result in

197130 less positions, as Dr. Taylor shared earlier, the district does expect to be able to keep all of our special education teachers who have renewal contracts >> and can you explain how and what that looks like? >> Yes. So, I'm going to pass it over to Dr. Matillo. Is that okay? >> Sure. Unless you want to get through this and then Dr. Matillo, you can pin that down and answer that as well. >> Okay. Thank you. It's important to note that this new a lotment structure does not impact our regional programs. The changes to those programs are the result of opening and closing of programs that we do every year. We do that to ensure that those students are placed in programs as close to their base schools as possible. It's also important to note

198that these allotments are based on each school's special education population at the time the allotments were calculated. And as Miss Kinsey shared, we do reconciliation at the 20th day to make any appropriate adjustments. We also want to reiterate that all services identified in a student's IP will continue to be provided. We are ready and prepared to assist schools with developing schedules and assisting with allocation of school staff to ensure that all services are provided in the school. Next slide, please. Any questions before we >> Thank you. I see a couple. Miss Miss Gordon, Miss Cfield, and then we'll come over here to the vice chair. >> Thank you, Chair Swanson. um in regard to uh the results and reduction of 130 special education teacher positions. Um I I'm hearing that um I'm hearing that this

199is due to um contracts, non-renewal of contracts. However, the letter that was sent to staff specifically states, oh, hold on one second. It specifically states all ratios will remain within our below state recommended guidelines and will result in the reduction of approximately 130 special education teacher positions districtwide. It then goes on to say it then it then goes on to say principles will work with human resources to identify any positions that may be affected. Employees in these positions will be notified starting March 25th. My question is, how did we come to the decision that special education teachers were notified before the board was even given information on this issue? >> Great question. >> So, we did share that uh with the board and in the conversations that you had with um Miss All Red. So

200remember, we started with um uh board leadership um regarding this information with the 15 this the federal 60 grant. Uh then we met with board members and shared uh the information uh and then we shared it with principles and then with the teachers. So that's what we talk about with the timeline of uh why we shared it with teachers. >> Okay. So the time that timeline is a little bit iffy for me. I don't think I think I think the letter went out and it may have been because of my scheduled meeting with >> U Miss Alred. But >> however the case, what it my point is what is stated in the letter that went to staff is not about renewal of contracts. It is it specifically states a reduction >> in staff. >> So

201So I think we probably talking about two different letters that may have been received. So AJ, I'll let you kind of respond to this, but uh the notification that we wanted to share with sped teachers is that once um we were going to make a recommendation to reduce the CCR numbers by 130. uh that that means that uh based on what that aotment is my school may go from three positions to two positions and then we would work HR would work with that if it's three teachers and one now has to be placed somewhere else that is what we would be talking about is making sure that they would uh have a landing spot within the larger context of what would be vacancies that we recognize and so uh the other letter that's sent out

202is one that as I said before goes to every teacher that has an expiring or term contract. Uh that your employment ends at the end of the year. Uh and so uh there is a possibility that they would have gotten um uh both of those letters. one that generally goes out to everyone but then the other denoting that uh if we're going to make a reduction of 130 uh then part of the work would be making sure that there is a landing spot for you based on what those uh final a lotments would be. Now going back to what we've talked about with uh where we would be with vacancies and this is the trend that uh Dr. Matilda would talk about is that we've consistently from one year to the next uh with all

203of the sped teachers that have term contracts, we've been able to bring them back uh but still have additional vacancies um and and we don't anticipate that that trend would be any different. And so AJ, I'll kind of let you uh talk about letters and notifications so we can better answer that question if that's okay, Mrs. Gordon. First of all, I we're on, right? >> Yeah. >> Okay. I acknowledge the concerns with the communication. Um I I do, you know, the communication did say that we would reduce the 130 positions, but that teachers on renewable contract, I think it said continuing contracts would be placed in open positions throughout the district. So, we have several different types of renewable contracts. When teacher starts, they get a one-year renewable and they get that for three years.

204If they're in good standing, they move to a two-year contract. If they remain in good standing, they then remar um with the extension. So, any of those teachers on those types of contracts, we do have positions in the district. if those if their positions are reduced at their school. Not all schools faced a reduction. So we did have between 40 vacancies that we currently have right now between the transition that happens at the end of the year with employees and and resignations. We should be able to cover I'm confident we can cover those 130. We also have 174 teachers on terminating contracts. If if we needed to, a teacher on a renewable or a continuing contract would take precedent over a a teacher on a terminating contract, but we still expect we will be able

205to hire many of the folks on term contracts who want to come back with us and and hiring managers want to bring them back that we would still have enough um vacancies to be able to hire them back next year as well. >> Okay. Followup. Sure. >> Chair. Um I think what I'm hearing is there were two letters that went out of the of the affected staff. There was another letter that went out notifying them that their contracts would they were they were coming to the end of their non-renewed contract. >> Yes. That's one that goes out to every teacher regardless of their position that uh and and they >> I'll speak more to that. Yes. >> So I think it was February 25th or sometime the end of February all teachers on a terminating

206contract received a letter that just simply said your contract is ends at the end of the year. Please talk with your principal to see if there are other opportunities within the school. And that would be special ed teachers, regular ed teachers, any teacher in the district who was on a terminating contract. We let them know that when we hire them, but we also send them another reminder in February just so folks understand that come June 30 or the end of the traditional calendar school year, their their contract is does end. And often times principles will bring those folks back. And sometimes, you know, and they can be on a terminating contract for a variety of reasons. could be that they started a little bit later in the school year, that a license hasn't cleared, that

207they're, you know, anything less than 100% employed. So, if they're 90% even, they would go on a terminating contract. So, oftent times those folks would even be hired back and sometimes they would move to that renewable or continuing contract the next year um when when they're hired back. >> Can I ask um when when did that second letter go out? I don't have the date in front of me. The one that um I think Miss Alred sent. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I don't have the >> I think it was Tuesday during the during the board. >> Tuesday during the board meeting. >> Right. That's what I thought. Right. During the board meeting, correct? >> Okay. Um I I I just want to make it very clear that I think that I'm not going to speak

208for the rest of my colleagues, but uh myself and quite frankly a lot of the community is extremely alarmed by the decision that was made before even a budget has even been passed. Um, so it it appears as though the decision was made for us and not informing us and we were, you know, we were not included in the in the process. >> You want to respond to that, Dr. Taylor? Um what I've said before is that um once we knew we were going to make this recommendation uh then we wanted to be transparent with teachers and notify them as soon as possible because uh that is what we do with the budget every year uh is to say to principles um these are the a lotments that you can expect so they can begin

209planning uh and so if we are talking about a reduction uh and that it could potentially impact teachers uh that is something that I don't want a delay in terms of letting them know that >> I I hear you, Dr. Taylor. I hear you. But the same level of care and concern and urgency that went that you're saying that went into that decision and letting and letting educators know, >> I think should have been the same care and concern that should have been made with the board in in in this very issue. >> And I I'll I'll take that. But again, um what I will say is that uh the intent for us was to be able to be transparent with teachers. Um if we knew this was a decision that that we were going

210to recommend to the board, uh and that uh if that recommendation um uh is what is implemented, then we've given teachers do and timely notice of what it is that could potentially happen. Uh but um what I will say is that uh in the development of a budget uh when we decide that um we're going to make decisions about positions, none of that is ever going to line up perfectly. Uh but um you know we one of the things that administration will will now do is to make sure any of those things are level set with the board uh as quickly as we are able to do that and hope that they do line up >> cfield. >> Thank you. Um I'm not sure if if the question was directly answered. So if it was

211just to clarify for me um you said that the district will keep all renewable contracts. So how many are not renewable contracts that are being affected out of the 130? >> So we have we have uh it's it's it's impossible to say of the 130 positions right now which employees are on a terminating contract versus a renewable contract. We do have special education teachers on terminating contracts right now. The rest of the 1,453 are on renewable. But it it will we're working, you know, if these changes proceed, we continue to work with principles to determine, okay, if you've lost a position at your school, for example, what are the options to manage that? Do you have a current vacancy? If there's a current vacancy, then um you know, they don't have to move any of

212the teachers. If you have a a teacher on a terminating contract, the teacher on the re renewable contract would take precedent for that position, but we still might be able to find somebody, you know, a teacher on a on a terminating contract, another position in the district based on vacancies in the end of the year turnover. So is it fair to say out of the 130 teachers that you're speaking about that you are trying to place all 130? >> No. No. A lot of them will be able to be managed at the school with um other aotments or conversions with the current vacancy. We are now working with principles to determine who would need to, you know, transfer a teacher on a renewable contract. >> Okay. Okay. So, I guess what I'm trying to say

213is that we're getting a lot of concerns, a lot of concerns and emails coming in that they're fearing they're losing their jobs. >> So, what what are we doing to save these 130 positions is what I'm trying to say. Is there anybody that's going to be possibly left out that they would be part of those very many emails that we receive that they're afraid they're going to lose their job. >> So, a teacher on a renewable contract will not lose their job. We if they don't have a position at the school, we would find them another special ed position somewhere in the district. There is a chance that we would bring back fewer teachers on terminating contracts because of the reductions, but we should still be able to hire many of those folks on term

214contracts again with our normal um you know end of the year transitions and turnovers. >> So, we sent a letter to all of those that have a terminating contract. So, all special education teachers received notice that they all got the letter >> that these redund were coming because we wanted to let them know all teachers who were on a terminating contract regardless of whether they were special education or other certified also receive the typical terminating contract reminder letter that we send out in February. >> Okay. >> Does that intake? I don't think so because I'm trying to find out how many of those 130 people need to be worried right now is is what I'm trying to get at. >> None of the >> So, so let let me share it this way. The the

215130 positions are the reductions that we wanted to make in the CCR pool. Uh there are 174 teachers with term contracts uh that um uh that we are not obligated to bring back. I want to I want to quantify that in a minute. Uh and there are also other regular ed teachers that have terminating contracts that we are not obligated to to bring back. Uh, and so this is where I want uh the board to understand uh what would be a riff and what would not be a riff. And so anybody that's on a that are on a terminating contract, if we choose not to bring them back, that's not a riff. That doesn't mean a hill of beans to that teacher, if I'm the teacher, I I want to upfront say that. But also

216uh of those 174 teachers that have term contracts, when we look at uh reducing by 130 positions uh and the turnover that we will naturally have, uh that turnover uh will compensate uh for those 174 teachers that are on term contracts that we are not obligated to bring back. But if if the trends are as they have been for the last several years, that when we end the year with the number of vacancies, retirements, resignations, whatever the case may be, that we will be able to bring back those 174 that do have uh term or expiring contracts. And then we will still more than likely have uh vacancies that go beyond uh bringing back the 174, reducing 130 and we still have vacancies. That that is um um what we wanted to share in terms

217of what the trends have shown. Um and that has been consistent over the last several years. But what we can't do is to say to anybody on a on a term contract that we're going to guarantee you a position. Uh that is why well that's not why they have term contracts. But that is uh what a term contract puts a a district in a position to be able to do. As miss as Dr. Matillo has said any teacher that does have a continuing contract whether that's two years, three years or four years, then we are obligated to bring that person back and be able to place them somewhere. And that if for some reason we're not able to do that, then that does result in what we would call a riff. >> Okay. Thank you.

218And if I could ask one more question. Um you you mentioned um all locations that were allotted. Are students going to be moved as a result of this from the school that they're currently at? Because I know with special education students sometimes that's one thing we hear from parents is that consistency. Correct. So there are times that for example we have a student in a regional program >> that is not at their base school because currently that program doesn't exist. Through our open and close process we may open a program at that student's base school. that parent would be given an option depending on the grade level of the student things like that if they want to remain at the current program or attend at the base school that is standard practice. We are not

219anticipating moving any students as a result of any of this. >> Okay. And then if I could just end with one comment um with Miss Gordon um stated I think um I think the concern was really the fact that it was we were normally we receive you know we have lots of like committee meetings that lead up to the decisions that we make. So, it's kind of a buildup of here's the information, we have the questions, and we go over it. And this was kind of dumped all at the same time. And I think it has caused a lot of confusion and a lot of questions that went on for a week before we able to sit down and have this conversation, which I think is very important. Um, but that type of uh like

220lack of of information before it actually went to the public kind of or before this type of meeting. I think that's where it caused a lot of confusion and a lot of people making their own um either assumptions is a bad word, but just trying to understand the information that was put out there. And I think having this kind of conversation was probably a better idea to do that first and then introduce it to the public. And I think that's what you were trying to say, Miss Cordon. So, I agree. Um, >> Miss Rice, >> Dr. Matillo, >> you know, I have questions. >> Yes, ma'am. >> About our processes. Um, let me let me slow down though. Um, and take my time to answer ask just these few short questions. Um, do principles receive

221guidance on how to recruit special education and dual licensed teachers? >> I don't think they receive specific guidance per se. Our recruitment team does support um, you know, the recruitment of special education teachers. So, so Dr. Tillum, my concern around our teaching pra, why our hiring practices and the way we recruit is important? Um, I'm really I'm trying to make sure I'm asking my question right. Um, what practices have we implemented to meet the goals necessary at the school-based level? I'm I'm really concerned about how we're recruiting and retaining teachers. I'm trying to figure out what innovative things that you have done to understand that this is something that we constantly have vacancies for. I really need to understand how you aggressively um research and recruit uh our special education teachers and workforce. And this

222question is going to be very important to me in the next slides ahead because it directly correlates to what happens in your office. Everything that we're talking about here directly correlates to what happens in your office. um whether it's the um the the turnover piece, it's the you know I'm really trying to seek what guidance is HR providing for the principles whom we give this broad scope of authority to hire anybody they want to that's their friend cousin or whoever else right like what does your office do to ensure that these schools have the aotted people necessary to teach students. >> Yeah, a couple things and thanks for the questions, Mr. Rice. Um, I think in terms of special ed recruitment, a couple things I can point to that we started this year. I think

223we updated you all maybe earlier in the fall partnerships that we have with NC Central and with NC State apprenticeship programs for IAS who want to go into to be a special ed teacher and we've been able to secure funding um, you know, for those folks to to take classes. So that is one example. Um do know that our future teacher core coming out this year and we have five special ed teachers coming um through our future teachers. So those are a couple of examples of things that we're trying on the recruitment side. Um while we give guidance to schools about things like interview teams, we are currently working on Dr. Taylor's asked us to do this um an additional hiring resource for schools so that we can be more explicit in some of the

224expectations on you know how to recruit effectively, how to how to hire the right people. And then additionally, we're always giving guidance as needed around, you know, our platforms and our systems and how to use those in the hiring and recruiting process. >> Right. Thank you. I think I heard you say we have uh 1,450 new 53 renewable contracts currently. Um and then we have 174 um terminating contracts currently. Um and we have 40 vacancies um as well. These I just wrote these numbers as I heard you just make sure I'm saying them correctly. >> So it's a 1453 teachers who teach special ed. >> Okay. 74 on term contracts. The number I didn't give is is the specific number on the renewable contracts. That's 1,279. >> Okay. I think are principles allowed to offer

225incentives um for hard to fill positions. What types of incentives? >> I don't know, Dr. Matillo. That's your department. I don't know. >> I'm just asking, do they offer incentives? >> No, not really. The closest we we got to that was when we did have a grant for harder to fill schools where we could offer recruitment um and retention bonuses and and that was showing some promise. >> Okay. So, who who else besides retention bonus, who else receives bonuses? Um, whether in leadership in speced, in spec departments, who's receiving bonuses in our district? Who gets bonuses for doing work? >> Nobody. >> I think at this point it's we do have some transportation bonuses. >> Transportation. Yeah, >> most of the other I think all of the other bonuses do come from statemandated bonuses for

226performance, teacher performance. Principles do get a bonus for student performance. >> Okay. >> I'm not aware of that. >> I think that's correct that the only additional bonuses that we offer are for bus drivers based on attendance. Uh but uh for classroom teachers uh there are some bonuses that the state does offer if they hit certain performance points. Uh and so that's from the state, not locally from the district. >> But not every special education teacher would qualify for some of those said bonuses. >> Correct. Correct. >> Say that again. Cheers. >> That not every special education teacher, in fact, I don't think a lot of special education teachers would qualify for those. It's typically your uh math teachers, your reading teachers, English teachers, um certain CTE, >> and it's typically based off of ex

227uh students how they perform on exams and special education teachers do not deal with that. >> So, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but >> right. So, so it goes back to, you know, we've had conversations that um recruitment and retention of teachers are important to me and then representation of certain recruitment and retention of teachers are extremely important. So, how will we ensure we remain compliant after these reductions? meaning for my intent of asking this question is in compliant in the classroom to avoid lawsuits because for me it seems like we're doing a lot of nothing well like when it comes to retaining um and recruiting teachers we're doing a lot of nothing well we constantly see these the fact that we can use part of the budget cut of positions we're

228not even using how HR is not developing processes of wellness um for teacher support around special education teachers who are extremely exhausted just by doing their job. Like HR should be really devoted to making sure teacher working conditions um are well in the classroom. HR should be really embedding wellness in these classrooms and areas and making sure that principles understand this is necessary in order to keep and retain our special education teachers as well as our educators overall. And so my concern and the last thing that I think that I'll say is um I need us to stop doing a bunch of nothing. Well, I need us to stop that. I need us to hire qualified people and create what we need to do. We can create a whole lot of other things and we'll

229talk about the ESOs. We can create a whole lot of other stuff in Wake County, but can we create stuff that's really going to impact folks lives to help them be okay to continue want to work here, right? What are we doing? How are we embedding practices with staff to understand as principles to connect with to parents, right, about their own special education child? And that may be for our um special education teams outside of your scope of HR, but I need for for for me, Dr. Taylor, I need for HR to do a better job in its oversight processes about who you're hiring and this broad scope of authority we keep giving these principles. >> So, Mr. Rise, one of the things that I'll respond to is that um we continue to do those

230things to help better recruit teachers. Uh but I will say that with the special education recruitment, uh that is something that every single district faces and I think this whole conversation that we're having tonight uh helps um amplify what that issue is. That you can come in as a provisionally licensed teacher. Uh and you're expected to do all of those things. Uh and we know that um uh the paperwork is something that has consistently um um impacted teachers. Uh and so because of that reason uh it makes the the recruitment difficult uh for every special education teacher and every principal uh across the entire state. Now what we will say is that um we've worked very hard to reduce those numbers and that this year I think our field rate is about 98% somewhere in

231that range. Uh and even with um 40 vacancies in special ed those numbers um uh we've been able to reduce those I do want to say last year we may have had 84 sped vacancies somewhere in that number. Uh so that is something that we work to address every single year. Uh but uh special education recruitment remains an issue for every district. >> So so so I apologize as my I'm sorry I can't follow up. Okay. I apologize but I hear us but the one thing that I need for us to to do is we we talk about oh it happens across all these districts is everywhere is this. But weight needs to be different. If you're going to be the largest, be the largest. Lead like you're the largest. Be innovative on our own

232ways. Create um spaces that where we show people what needs to be done by what we see is happening in our district and then they follow what we do. Um and and let us not be so quick to pass off things for not doing stuff as it's happening everywhere else. And Mr. Matillo, I just really also needed to know, I don't know if you just answered this for me, but um when you are hiring or asking teach principles to hire folks, what are we doing around the dual license? Did we answer that question around dual license? And I sorry that I had this like um you talked about the three types of licenses of teacher um general license adaptive and general license um spec ed um which is going to be important later. What have

233we done or do you have any numbers around dual licensed teachers? >> I I don't have those off the top of my head. I can get you can get you those numbers. Um one of the things that we will do is when we do have a modest reimbursement for coursework and lenture exams for teachers who do want to pursue um another area of lensure. So that is one way that we support them. Our our own internal educator prep program um we have test prep for folks that are exploring lure as well. So we do have some things in place but we'll certainly continue to reflect on your feedback. >> Thank you sir. Miss Edmonds, >> thank you. Um, it's, uh, relevant to the points Miss Rice was making. I do think it's important that we

234do lift up the horrible ranking of North Carolina when it comes to supporting our teachers. We rank 50th in funding effort. That's dead last. And we are 43rd in average teacher pay. I think we're 38th in beginning teacher pay. I don't know what our ranking is for special education pay. I do know that enrollment in educator programs in the UNCC system has gone down about 40% over the last decade and all of that is relevant to this conversation. it. So, so we are awake. We we do have one of the larger supplements that we offer, you know, among North Carolina counties, but the fact remains that fewer and fewer students are going into special education as a career, whether it's here in North Carolina or, you know, around the country. So, I do think that

235is very important and we can be creative and we can be innovative. We are wake. Those two things can both be true. And so I don't I don't want to dismiss the fact that how how poorly our general assembly is making the investments that need to be made at the state level. It is relevant to this conversation and a lot of the blame needs to be directed to Jones Street. It is relevant to this conversation today. Thank you, Chair. Vice Chair, >> thanks uh for being here. Um you I can you just speak to the 130 um special education teacher positions? I was under the impression that some of those were vacant and so it wasn't 130 people. >> I'll I'll do my best. So when we reduce positions in the district, we do it

236by formula, right? So we don't we don't just take vacancies and say we're going to close these vacancies and because if there were three, you know, three vacancies at a school that that school would lose three positions. So we we do it by formula. We do it based on positions. But but if some of those and we already know from some initial outreach, some of those will be vacancies. So if a school loses a position and they have a vacant position, then that's the position obviously that they lose and they they keep their teachers there. >> Does that help? Yes. Okay. Um, so I I want to lift up a couple of things my colleague said real quick. One, the timing of this proposal should have come with the budget. So if it was coming

237out this last week, then the budget should have come last week. Um, and we cannot do this again in the future. This is too big. This is if it was like a million dollars, okay, but we have to be presented as a board with options. And I think we have not been presented with options. Um, for clarifying, we're talking about $10 million. Is that about right >> as far? Yeah. I see the superintendent shaking his head. >> Yes. >> And in past years, we've been presented a budget and here are different things you could fund. Here is where you can save money. And as my colleagues have lifted up, the process of this has has been out of whack. So we have not able to like I have ideas and one idea is you know

238the Miss Rice kind of touched on it and the superintendent brought it up earlier but principles have flexibility to hire for aotment positions. Why if we have a special education problem which guess what we do? Why is it not just mandated that we're going to take that 11 months or 10 months and say that's a special education teacher in that school? And I do not understand how that's not the first thing we do versus this. And that's not directed at any one person. This is directed at the entire school system in these offices. Like that seems and I think that was one thing that Miss Rice was the flexibility part. I would love to give them all the flexibility in the work, but as Miss Edmonds pointed out, we don't have that luxury for very

239obvious reasons. So like why not that? I mean how many does every single principal have that aotment? Because that's 200 positions and if it's only middle school and high school then it's like 70 positions or something >> but already I'm making a dent. >> Yeah. and then saving these. And I can go and do some others too where you know I I'm going to bring this one up and I wasn't planning to but I apologize to the assistant principles but we have a lot of assistant principles at our big high schools and you know maybe one of those becomes a head of special education and that's their job because you look around the state and because we are underfunded the big schools around the state and you can look it up. You can look up

240comparablesized schools, three, four, five APS, and we have seven. And I don't want to get rid of these people. But if special education is a problem, and it is, why are we getting rid of special education positions versus making hard choices with other positions, redirecting those resources into special education? That's it. >> Sure. Go for it, Mr. Just just to Mr. Hersh's point, we have literally seen principles convert special education positions to assistant principal positions and then come back and blame it on the board. >> Well, so >> so I I I'd be interested in Mr. Hershey's proposal >> and I'll um lean to AJ and and uh Kimzy and and Terry Kim and Trish on this uh in the restrictions of what they can um uh have flexibility to convert and not convert. Um

241I'll let you respond to that first. >> We do not convert special education teachers to assistant principles. >> All right. >> That is not a practice and we it's not an allowable conversion. >> Then please let me know who I need to report that to after the meeting. Thank you. So I I could add one one additional comment to I think Mr. Hershey's point. Um and so one of the things that um that we've done is to reduce um the level of uh conversions that that principles are able to do. You saw that with the um uh the budget that we did last year that we both uh reduced positions uh and um um reduce some of the u ability to be able to convert. Uh but we also recognize that because there are 203

242different schools that have different needs. Uh we do want to be able to still have some flexibility for conversion within formulas and things that we dictate. Uh but we also recognize that uh there will have to be additional reductions um additional um ways that we limit what can be converted. Uh and then and as a part of the whole process uh it really is about looking at every single place where we a lot uh and we did reduce the aotment for APS uh but we also recognize that um um while we may do additional reductions in that we also have to recognize that uh there's a limit to what you can get out of the number of APS that you have and so I I think both of those are necessary uh reducing But knowing

243we can still only get so much from it. >> So 10 seconds. Go for it. >> Um I would just say that we might have 200 schools with different needs, but clearly special education is at need at 199 schools. >> So >> agreed, agree, agreed. >> So I have one question. I think I'm going to change the formatting for the sake of time and we can get through the rest of these slides because I do have questions regarding the KKK. Sorry, the CCK. didn't want to add too many Ks to that. The CCK, that's why I don't do acronyms. The um and the essential six and math six, but regarding this this and I think the ch um I almost said chair her I think Mr. Heerty hit on how can schools convert positions that

244are supposed to be used for gened for other for special education and you just said that can't be done. So I guess there needs to be some guidance or can that be done? >> Yes. So what I what I said earlier was we do not convert teacher special education teacher months to assistant principal. I'm not aware. I mean I can check on the situation but I'm not aware. Um we do allow conversion from a teacher to a different type of teacher and I have seen schools convert regular education classroom teachers to special education not in the reverse. We do not convert from special education to something else. Some schools have converted special education instructional assistance to great create additional teachers. That has occurred. Um but we and we generally do not convert from teacher to

245something that's not teacher. It would just be to a different kind of teacher. >> Gotcha. Thank you. >> Yes. >> And I'll reserve the rest. We can go forth with the next couple of slides since we're close to that 25 slides. >> Thank you. >> So if staff could go back to the presentation. Thank you. >> So, as we thought about how we could best support our schools through this type of transition, we considered numerous factors while we were making adjustments. One of the things that we looked at was the required services outlined in students IEPs as services provided in each school related to behavioral needs. Meaning that we looked at students that had services for behavior or social emotional and we created additional or we allocated additional months of employment by way of a

246behavior support position for the schools with the highest needs. We also looked at aotments for middle and high school to make sure that we were aotting to meet the scheduling challenges at the secondary level. So for example, we made sure that no school at the secondary level that had over a 100 students received less than four allotments because we have to allow for those positions to meet the scheduling demands at the secondary level. We also just want to really reiterate that, and I know we've said this numerous times, but we want to reiterate that we will provide the required services as outlined in students IEPs. And I'm going to transfer over to Dr. Matillo. I think he maybe has hit on most of that, but just in case. Yeah, we covered pretty much all of

247my talking points, but if there are additional questions, I'm certainly happy to take them. >> Sorry, Cher. >> So, now I'm going to share some updates related to special education programming for 2627. It is important to note that these programming changes are not related to budget. These are in line with our customary practices of reviewing and revising our programs every year to ensure that we are continuously improving our overall special education program. Next slide, please. So, the cross categorical kindergarten classroom was developed many years ago as a means to gain additional data related to placement for students beyond kindergarten. In most cases, what we found was that there's not been a great deal of diagnostic data collected in those settings that could not have been collected in a studentbased school. Next slide, please. So the

248ratios for CCK classes really is not drastically different from a traditional kindergarten gened classroom. They were allotted at one teacher to 13 students with two instructional assistants. It's important to note that these classrooms have high concentrations of students with complex behavioral needs. Being in a separate class for the majority of the day gives these students less opportunities to practice the skills they are learning in classes with non-disabled peers. With the closure of these classrooms, the IEP team, as they always have, will continue to make decisions about what services each student needs, and these will be carried out in their base school instead of a regional program. Finally, it's important to note that there's a compliance issue with many of these classrooms. The students in the CCK class are there for most of their day receiving

249core instruction from CCK teachers. The majority of these teachers are not dyed to teach kindergarten and special ed. They all have special ed certification, but many do not have license to teach kindergarten core. This puts us out of compliance. So, for all of these reasons, the decision was made to close these programs and provide the services students need in their base school. As a reminder, special education is a service and not a place. And to reiterate, these students as well as all students with IEPs will continue to receive their services as those out IPS outline. So similar to the lensure challenge for CCK is the lensure issue for essentials. Most of the teachers carry a special education license but not the core the license for the core instruction in ELA and math. Additionally, there is

250no amended or abbreviated resource for these classes um to provide core instruction to the students. These classes also often combine grade levels which impacts rigor as it relates to core instruction. With the phase out of essentials, IEP teams will continue to write the IEP for what the student needs and students will receive their core instruction from a certified teacher in the subject area. Special education teachers can still provide that specially designed instruction targeted at what skills that the student needs, but that will be outside of the core instruction time. So to address this compliance issue, essential 6 will not be offered for 2627 and the plan is to phase out essentials 7 and 8 over the next two school years. I'll get you. >> That is all that I had in regard to those programming

251updates. >> All right. Well, thank you. We have concluded at the end of the slides, but I see questions. Um, so I'll start with Mr. Hegger, um, Dr. Job, Miss Rice, and then once them, I'll go to Miss Cfield, Dr. Ing in that particular order. Thank you, Chair Swanson. So, I have some questions specifically about these last few slides. Now, I'm not a special education expert. I only have the experiences that are related to me by special education families, the staff at the schools, and the staff here at the district office. You know, personally, I see a lot of benefit in the CCK program, tremendous benefit. And I have strong worries that often times we push kids into classrooms before they're ready in the name of inclusion. And I don't believe that's good for any

252of the students or the staff involved. And so I have real concerns about that. >> Understood. However, the certification issue is a significant legal issue and just as I am very sad to see a proposed discontinuation of the CCK program. I have other emotions around how we got into a situation where we would have the majority of CCK staff hired and employed without proper certification and how we would get the same the same situation in our literacy essentials where if there's a requirement for both your ELA license and your special education or it could be ELA could be math could be math content. How are we reviewing and recruiting and hiring these individuals, many of whom from all the reports are fantastic educators, beloved by their stu, you know, by their students and their families.

253But if it's if if it's not permitted by the state, how did we hire them and put them in this position in the first place? I think that's a serious accountability issue and I think you know here we've been we've been very fortunate with the individuals that we've had in this program but let's say there had been an incident there had been a problem in terms of liability if we knew if the state is saying you have to have teachers that have these dual certifications and we weren't complying with that It's one thing to come out and say we can't continue the program now because we've been doing it wrong, but I think we seriously need some answers on how we got here in the first place and I'd like that addressed. >> Would you

254like to speak to that? So, okay. So, I'm going to speak from what I understand is a historical perspective. My understanding is that these programs were initially structured so that the teachers were dually licensed however many years ago they they were established. Over time as principles have autonomy to hire and fill positions that important factor somehow slipped through the cracks. So once we became aware of this issue, we implemented a plan to try to correct the course. So that's the piece I can speak to from the special education lens. If Dr. Matillo wants to add anything from the HR lens. >> Thank you. And and I would be interested in hearing from Dr. Matillo on this. and and I would have to look into it a little bit further, but when we hire special educa,

255these are special education positions. So when we hire them and we run our audit reports and we do our lensure checks, they're special ed certified teachers who are teaching special education classes. So I do I do need to do a little bit more research to, you know, to see how it how it did occur, but that's that's what we would look for in in HR. If if I may follow up, Mr. Sure. >> So, I know we have a lot of issues to consider tonight, but I don't want to lose the gravity of this situation that if we had had a single member of the staff that was not certified, that could have been a big issue and controversial for the district, especially if there had been issues with anything within that classroom here. However,

256it's not one employee. It's the majority of the employees in all of these programs. And I don't understand I you know the the accountability in the process that if you are reviewing credentials and reviewing license licenses how you could have 32 of 39 teachers in a program that did not have the required lensure and how you could have the majority of the CCK teachers not having the lensure in that that general core and I understand that hiring might take place at you know at the school level and you might have some school flexibility but ultimately as the HR department what went wrong I said I I need to look into it further Mr. Hagerty, I I understand your point. Um, you know, I know what we look for in terms of certifications versus courses teaching,

257but obviously there was a breakdown here that we need to review further to determine exactly what happened and I will certainly do that. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr. Mattel. I'm not going to continue on the issue. I think you understand my concern and I trust that you'll provide that information. Mr. Chair, if I could >> go for it. >> All right. And I apologize. It's been about two hours since I last spoke. This will be the last time that I speak on this. I I'm not quite sure exactly who to direct this to. If I need to direct this toward the superintendent, if I need to direct it toward the board, if I need to direct it toward the public, if I need to direct it towards staff, I can't tell you how sad and

258hopeless I feel about this situation. There have been multiple failures at several levels. And I want to commend the chair for calling this meeting because this is not something that in the past I think would have happened and I think that's a problem. I think having the transparency and the sunlight on this process can be awkward. It can be painful, but I think it's healthy and I think it's necessary. Now, I want to point to four areas in particular that I think really deserve to be, you know, called out. I think our communications on this issue was extremely problematic. I will say Dr. Taylor, I do respectfully disagree with a comment that you made earlier when you talked about, you know, your office, you can't control a narrative that is external to your office. I

259believe I understand your point that when information gets out there, you might not be able to address it all, address inaccuracies, but a lot of the communication about this point and what we have here and the response we've gotten from staff and the public did come out of this office. I look at just the written communications I have. I don't even have the communications that Miss Gordon cited. You know, you look at communications for the what what happened and why and we see here what happened. The district must reduce uh special education expenditures by 18 million. That's a direct quote. You know, in in other communications, again, must reduce special ed educations by approximately $18 million. What's the why? What's the justification? What did we share as part of the development of the superintendent's proposed

260budget? Full stop. So, it makes it sound like this is just simply a discretionary decision. Hey, the superintendent has to pass a budget and why not take $18 million out of special education? It's only understandable that there would be outrage if that's the message that goes out there as limited as that goes. And then when we talk about the riffs coming into this meeting, I was still confused as to who we were hiring, who we were not hiring, who was losing a job, who was not losing a job. the communications that went out. While these changes are expected to reduce the number of special education teaching positions across the district, our goal is to continue required funding services to students. Well, that sounds like we'll lose special education teachers. There's nothing about placement. There's nothing

261about jobs. If you were a teacher and you read that, I can understand the anxiety. But then you go to the message that went out to staff. These changes are expected to result in a reduction of approximately 130 special education teaching positions districtwide. I mean, that sounds like you're firing them and you're putting them out of a job. And then in that same communication, when you follow up with, "Oh, and by the way, we're having a special community engagement fair. Come on out." I mean that's just tonedeaf in terms of delivering what to many people could be you know traumatic news and sort of burying it among other news. Now what you've explained sounds very different than I think what a reasonable interpretation of that communication would be. And I think in the timing I

262know that the leadership had expressed some comments about the timing. You've developed this. It is timesensitive. I know that you have to share it with principles and I know that once you share with principles, it's going to get out to staff and everyone else. But I think there's a way, as nuanced as this issue is, as long as it's taken to adequately explain it, to go through with multiple staff and multiple slides exactly what the change will be. I don't think you can fairly communicate that in just a couple sentences in an email and not expect the kind of protest that we've seen to that news based on what was communicated. Okay. In terms of budget and finance, I appreciate that this is complicated. I I really do. But the question, you know, people are

263People have asking was this spending wrong? Was anything done wrong? I I don't want to focus on that, but rather was the spending over budget. Now, you have decision makers in the department who are who are spending, but you all as the recordkeepers, the gatekeepers, why was an alarm not raised? And I appreciate that you've brought this to staff's attention, but by contrast, several times during the year, we will have to make budget adjustments based on changes in revenue, changes in cash flow, and you bring those changes to the board. We frequently make budget adjustments as part of our action agenda, as part of our consent agenda. We've had special action items on our agenda to address a potential shortfall in CNS of about $250,000 specifically requesting board action. And so here, if we're talking

264about a potential shortfall of $18 million, it seems like that is something that should have been brought up. And I'm basing that on other things that you have brought to us in the past for action with special education. I I I think I've I've spoken to those points. I you know, we can't spend money outside of the budget even if it's well-intentioned. If we need to change the budget and amend the budget, bring it to us, I think you will find nine individuals committed to supporting our special education families and students. But to spend beyond that budget creates the situation where everyone is scrambling to try to figure out what is going on. If we have a legal obligation to provide these services, we all understand that legal obligation, but we also have a system

265we have to operate through. >> There's reasons why we have this system. There's a reason why budget adjustments come to the board. I don't think the solutions that were offered here really reflect an understanding of staff and family needs. And I think if there's any takeaway, you know, we have to solve this problem and I appreciate the thought. This was a special education department problem. We want to start here in the central office. We want to start in our house. I do appreciate that and I think that assumes some responsibility. But in terms of the impact, I really think as we prioritize spending, we know that we have funding challenges. We know, as Miss Edmonds has said, we do not receive the funding from the state or from the federal government. You know, all of

266the special services that are required under IDA are not funded by the federal government. I understand and I appreciate that. But when we have this shortfall, we can't go to the most vulnerable students and the most vulnerable families and the teachers that have the greatest burden upon them to make up that shortfall. The certification on license issues, I mean, how does that happen? I I I have grave concerns. I'm not going to beat a dead horse, but I that cannot happen. And then just finally, you know, management and governance. I I save this for last. The other issues are important systematic issues, but you know, spending over budget without going through the proper procedures is a problem, but it's one we can solve, right? It it takes leadership and it takes resetting the culture. Lack

267of oversight of a program. If there's any program in our school system that requires oversight, it's our special education program. And to have this situation where you have this many essential members of staff without proper certification, you know, the glass half full is that you must have something in place to have caught that, to have determined that and brought it forward. And so I can appreciate that and I appreciate that diligence. And it may not have been started by the folks here in this room today, but the fact that it could continue to go on is extremely problematic. But the last point is the communication with board, the staff, and the public as a management and governance decision. You heard it alluded to, and I'm not going to put words in their mouths, and I

268don't know what has happened in closed rooms, but you've heard Miss Rice mention it. You've heard our vice chair mention it. Our chair, I think, exercised a little discretion and didn't mention it publicly. talking with the rest of you around this table, we've had conversations about the conversations that we had with staff where this issue was brought to us and the inconsistencies in that information is mind-boggling and it's unacceptable. And this is really what makes me sad because to do this work, to try to defend the system, to try to do your best with limited resources, with all of the challenges our schools face, you have to make those decisions based upon the information that you have. And if we can't get consistent information, I mean, let alone accurate information, you know, the fact that

269Dr. Job and I can be sitting across a table having a meeting a day apart and have gotten different versions of what's going on that I can have a conversation with the chair, the vice chair, the superintendent and staff and have at least three different versions of what's going on with this funding crisis is a problem. I've to to I'm going to keep this limited to this issue, but I want to acknowledge what Miss Rice said because it's not been limited just to this issue. This has been something we've experienced before with other issues brought before the board. It's demoralizing. It makes it destroys your faith and your ability to work to get things done. And I would just, you know, urge the superintendent, as the superintendent, our chiefs, you have to get a handle

270on this. This is unacceptable. and I'll trust the rest of my board members and how they want to proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you, Dr. Joe. >> Um, it's kind of hard to bring this back to the more narrow. Um, I just had kind of an issue with the the essentials classes. We just had a um a committee meeting about retention and about literacy issues and you know and I'm concerned that the answer to which I understand this is an issue with the unlicensed teachers and and um and so forth on this last slide, but we have sixth graders who are entering middle school who are not at anywhere or near sixth grade level. So, putting them in a general ed class for literacy or for math um where you're talking about, okay,

271we're going to train the special education teachers and the content area teachers in co-eing. However, the one thing we're missing from this is that this was a small group education setting. And I have been walking the schools and seeing middle school classes with 35 36 kids in there. And I don't know how just training and co-eing is going to make up for losing that small group setting. And these are the kids that we will lose entirely. Like if you I mean you know you can differentiate. I thought I was pretty darn good at differentiating when I was a teacher and it doesn't and but still you could be the best in the classroom, but if you've got a kid who's literally on a second or third grade reading level in your in your seventh grade

272class or eighth grade or nth grade class, then they're not going to tune into anything you're doing because they don't have the capacity to capture any of it. And so this is where we need to to to grab them. And so I just don't think like I want to know I guess my question is like how we accommodate for that um without this small group setting. So that is a great question and we can still provide that small group setting and target specifically the skill deficits that those students have. It does not have to be a core class. So students will get their core instruction, let's say sixth grade ELA from a licensed sixth grade ELA teacher. That student based on the needs and services outlined in IEP may be in there for the direct

273instruction from that teacher for that class for the first 20 30 minutes. then may be pulled into the special ed setting into a small group to target decoding skills, comprehension, phonics, whatever the deficits are that are specific to that student. So, it's back to the we will continue to provide the services that the student needs, but we also have to ensure that they're getting core from a highly qualified licensed teacher because what we don't want to do is close the gap here, but they get to high school and we've just created a gap somewhere else because they've not been exposed to core from a licensed teacher. I understand that, but what you just described is them taking a class that they're probably not doing well in anyway and removing them for half of it. So

274that way they get instruction, you know, in those skills. Whereas in in a better essential setting, they would still be getting that core with the special education wraparound. So why aren't we working on figuring out a different way to offer essentials rather than taking it away? >> So that's a valid question and that would involve ensuring that we have dual licensed teachers. >> We do have some schools that have that and are continuing to work through a similar model, but again that would require us to ask teachers to hold a dual license. Okay. Thank you. >> I have Miss Rice. I have Miss Rice. Uh Miss Cfield, Dr. Ing, the vice chair, and then Miss Gordon. >> I'm going to try to be quick, maybe do some rapid fire questions really quick. How long just

275make it short as possible. How long um have we had C has CCK existed? >> So, I do not know the exact date that it started. Um it has been I can find out the implementation date of that program. My understanding is it's been around for many years but >> over a decade. Under a decade >> under a decade but I can get the exact data. I will share that with you. Yes ma'am. >> How many students have repeated kindergarten after attending 60k classrooms? >> I do not have that number readily available but I can get that as well. What have we done with making sure certified staff has been in these classrooms since the inception of this program? Dr. Matillo, >> can you repeat the question, Mr. >> What have we done with making

276sure certified staff has been in these classrooms since the inception of this program? >> I know what what we have done is to ensure that they have the special education certification. I need to look further into where that breakdown was. >> Right. So we haven't made sure we know the programs existed has existed for years and never once has HR understood that we have to have dual certified teachers. Okay. Um a lot of doing a lot of nothing. Well, um so I'm interested in understanding what special education staff actually is looking at at the school level and how vacancies impact schools daytoday. Um I do want to understand how HR is communicating. I think I've stated this before around principles about hiring practices and recruitment strategies and expectations um that we are not just reacting

277to vacancies but building strong staffing pipelines at the school level. And so, um, are we operating as a centralized hiring, um, system, a school-based hiring system, or a shared responsibility model between HR and principles for special education staffing? And I'll say this because I'm very curious as to hearing Miss I don't know your name. We were never told >> it's um, Miss Hoffman. >> Miss Hoffman. I am curious when you say some schools have. I am interested to know what schools actually have um special education teachers with their dual enrollments like what does that look like? Um what parts of the district actually gets to have these teachers um that's still thriving at their schools and how how that's happening. And so, um, I'm just because staffing problems often come from unclear roles and responsibilities

278between HR and principles. And so, I I I had to get my thoughts and write them down, Dr. Matilla, so I don't go all over the place on you. But I'm going to continue to have to say that, Dr. Taylor. I am going to continue to have to insist that your staff comes to this type of meeting about special education and don't know when a program started that they're speaking about, don't know anything about the staff and how many people are hired and what we need and know nothing about dual enrollment and our numbers. Um, again, I will continue to say this is a reflection of your leadership. Um, I can't turn it anywhere else. I've asked these questions in private and now we're here in public. And I hope that this public conversation shows

279that what I ask in private actually does matter. Don't tell me today that you're going to get back to me because if we don't get back to me, we need to have another public conversation because I am concerned greatly that we are sitting here today having this 3 4hour long conversation and staff does not have the data before them about valid questions about a program that is constantly putting students at risk of not being promoted. We saw the numbers at kindergarten and where those levels were today in our um committee meeting. And I can only imagine how many of those children from kindergarten were actually um why now it looks like it rise so high in kindergarten when you didn't have a licensed teacher to teach the kindergartener. And you're telling parents like what did

280you tell parents when you put them in the CCK classroom that it's kindergarten? And who gave Wake County the right to create a program that does not have dual licensed teachers to put a child's put a child in a classroom without the proper instruction when I believe years ago we created where you're supposed to send or parents could be notified whether or not the teacher was certified to teach in their classroom. who gave us the right to change a program or to create a program that doesn't provide a child with a fair and appropriate public education. And if we can create those creative programs, let's create some creative programs to help black students who are predominantly a part of this special education program and thrown in CCK and and did a whole lot of separation

281and inclusion. >> Yes, ma'am. Those are valid concerns. Thank you. >> So, Dr. Taylor, I know they can't answer the questions right now, but I am expecting a full comprehensive understanding of everything that I've asked today. So, I hope that you wrote it down or whatever cuz I've wrote my questions down and I'm going to be looking forward to an answer to this in a later time. >> Miss Cfield, >> thank you. Um, I have um two questions. Um, what happens um with their core over the next two years? Um you mentioned that it was going to take um about 2 years for us to I think you said um essential 6 was going to be 26 27 that you were going to remove it and then um essential 7 and 8 over the next

282two years. What is going to happen with their core over the next two years knowing that we are out of compliance? >> Yes ma'am that's a great question. We will have to diligently work on a plan to ensure that they do receive core instruction from a highly qualified licensed teacher until the program is phased out. So, how will we fa face uh how will we deal with that? Is that like we're going to need more instruction or teachers? Like how are we going to handle that? So, we will have to map out and see how many teachers we have in what areas that do hold dual license. We will have to look at opportunities for those students to potentially potentially push into a classroom with a highly qualified teacher with support of special education staff.

283There are lots of scenarios that we will have to explore depending on the needs of the students in the school and the staff that they have. Okay. So, I think it would be helpful if we could circle back when we do have a plan just to kind of tell us this is I mean we've acknowledged this problem, right? So, now what is the solution? So, we can gain some of the trust back with our families, our teachers and know that our students are not being left behind. I mean, we saw what CO did in just one year. um if we continue to do this over two years knowing that we have to make these adjustments that could be detrimental to all of those students. >> Yes, ma'am. And we will be happy to share that

284plan with you once it is finalized. >> Thank you. And then my other thing is you said um some will be returning to their base school. So I'm going to kind of circle back to my my question before. if they're going to be returning back to their base school, then we're going to be moving these special education students. So, I'm not sure which point you're referencing, but >> So, if they're in a program right now at CCK and they're in a situation where this is where they're placed for that program and we're now moving them back to their base school, they are going to be shifting from one school and one set of teachers as special education students to their base school with new teachers in new surroundings. >> Yes, ma'am. And that has always

285been the structure of CCK. They attend the CCK classroom in a regional program setting and then once the kindergarten year is over, they transition back to base. So that is not a new practice. Okay. But if I understand correctly, this was the pro the whole reason for the program was to get them ready for that transition. But we're now removing those services. So they're not going to have that. >> So you're asking about current CCK students. >> I'm asking about the students that are returning back to their base. So they're actually being plucked for a lack of a better word from a program they're in. So they're not getting that transition now. Correct. >> So So they will the students that are currently in CCK for kindergarten now will finish the school year. Okay. Okay.

286And then we'll transition back to base as they have historically done since we've had this program. >> Okay. So, they'll finish. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And then the other thing that I just it's really more of a of a comment. Um, we constantly hear that we need more bodies in the classroom or adults to assist not only with general education but with our special education. Um, and I like Mr. Hackard said before, I'm not really sure who to direct this to. Um, but I feel like if our gened teachers were trained with special education, I'm kind of a little puzzled why they're not as just a course of general education because our special education has grown throughout the years and a lot like it's it's the the problem I feel is is way more exasperated

287now than it ever was before. If we had more people in the classroom, obviously, you know, budget is always going to come into place with that, but sometimes it's procedures and things that we put into place. So, if we had more bodies in the classroom to help the general education students for just having those extra bodies that are there to help with the special education, to help with those needs, help those teachers. It also really helps with retention of the teachers which keeps our teachers right and if we keep our teachers then we have less vacancies and we it just keep it feels like it's a cycle of we're not going to the core issue inside the classroom of how we can we can solve that problem. So rather than creating another class to try

288and analyze the data, if we were able to put more resources towards extra bodies in the classroom, and I know I'm making it sound super simple, but sometimes it is more simple than it is complicated. So, I I just feel like we're going in the opposite direction with making cuts for special education where we actually need to be putting more bodies and figuring out where we can adjust some of our spending to put towards these solutions because in the end it helps our students with their success. It helps the retention with the teachers. It helps the behavior. It just helps the classroom overall and then we wouldn't need programs like that. So that's just really more of a comment and reflection. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Thank you. Um and to um address Miss Rice's

289question about the when CCK came about. Um my child with Down syndrome was born in 2007. And when we were talking about going into kindergarten, so that that would have been the early 2010s, um, we were given the information about CCK and the transition to CCK. And before that, the model, I believe, this is, you know, when my kid was still a baby. So, you know, we had ID mild, ID mod, and so forth, autism, >> and I, you know, my child at that time, you know, she was learning site words. She was, she was getting up to 200 site words. We were definitely afraid of going into a CCK classroom because we have kids of all different levels. And and the idea is that uh a person a child that has a fewer needs

290may just get lost in the crowd. And the the ones that have the definitely the most, you know, uh needs for attention, they they deserve the the the attention, but at the expense of other kids that do not need the attention as much. And so, you know, we elected not to put her in a CCK or in a private, you know, in a public uh uh school at that point. But my point is that that while it has over the last what 15 years it has come to become an established program and people enjoy having their their child in a CCK classroom. I have a real problem with the whole idea of a CCK simply because it you you're comingling kids of different levels of abilities of different diagnosis and different level of verbal skills

291and whatnot and different levels of bodily function needs, right? Um, and I think that it, you know, it does the kids with a milder um, uh, disabilities a disservice to put them in a not not to let them have a chance to be in a a general classroom, to be with their typically developing peers and to be able to um, reach for a higher goal because I we're potentially setting them up for failure and you create a bias of low expectations. So I am, you know, you know, I I may I people may not like what I say, but I I am in favor of getting rid of the CCK for the sake of creating or or the ability for our kids that have the ability to be in a general education classroom to to

292have a chance and to be in the least restrictive environment. But with that said, they need the support. And in so doing, we I I can't fathom having a significant reduction in positions and and and funding for their programs. when we are trying to advance our special education philosophy, it's you know it it I think that people have kind of been been um lulled into a a a level of complacency or or just say well this is all how it's always been done. Obviously, people don't even remember when it was created. Um, and so, you know, I, you know, I do applaud the idea of of um having um to to to um to get rid of CCK for the sake of our kids, but we still need to provide services um wraparound services for

293our kids. um in terms of the um essentials. Now, you know, that that is a a kind of a different animal in my in my book. Um but still, you know, it's important for our kids that have um special needs to be in in a room as much as possible with the de, you know, typically developing peers no matter what. and and that does require a shift in attitude in all the teachers working with our kids. Um and and yes, there going to be maybe some uh more need to pull out to help additional uh additional help in a smaller or uh setting and I'm fine with that. Um but but that's again requires adequate funding for special education. So, um, that's all I have to say. >> Um, Mr. Gordon, >> thank you. Um,

294I have a couple of questions, so please bear with me. Um, in regard to the CCK program, um, is it true that birth through kindergarten license teachers um, do have that dual certification as a part of their license? Some will have birth of kindergarten and also the the special ed lensure. >> Okay. Um and then um to Dr. Job and Miss Rice's point, we were, you know, earlier we did receive information on um nonpromotion rates by grade level in the student achievement committee meeting and um a lot of our discussion was around how we are able there's a clear correlation between the um the retention rates in kindergarten and the very high retention rates that we are seeing in high school and then everything that happens in between. Um I guess my my question is

295or maybe a comment. I'm concerned that if we are eliminating CCK, how is that going to make the kindergarten retention rates rise even larger? Um, and then is there a possibility to train up and keep current non-compliant CCK teachers to get the license that they need? Is that a possibility? >> It is a possibility. >> Okay. Um, and then I'd be interested to to get that information that Miss Rice requested around um how many CCK uh students have actually been successful in kindergarten and and or been retained. >> Yes, ma'am. And I will reach out and get that information. That is outside of an IEP team decision. So that is not a special ed data point that we keep but we can get that information. >> Okay. And then my last question is um you

296know many of us have had the opportunity to to actually sit and talk to a lot of the CCK educators. What effort has been made on central service side to do the same? So, we met with all CCK teachers and HR also met with all of the CCK teachers. My understanding, and I'm going to let Dr. Matillo speak to the next steps that HR has supported them through this process. >> Yes. So for for any of the CCK teachers that we would need to to move to another position, we would work with them like any other priority hire hire and find a position for which they're certified um and and support them through that process because most of I think almost all of them are on continuing contracts. >> I understand that. My question is

297more about have we have we actually talked to them about what they are finding their impact is because I say that to say I think all of us were deeply um moved to understand and hear their stories um and about the impact that they have on their students and that this their students have had on them. Um, and so that's the reason why I raised that question. >> I share. >> Oh, sorry, Miss Edmonds. >> Uh, follow up. Um, actually to Miss Gordon's question, did I hear you say you've met, your department has met with all CCK educators? >> Yes, ma'am. We had a meeting in conjunction with HR with all CCK staff. That would be teachers and instructional assistants. >> And what kind of setting was that? Was that a virtual meeting? Did you

298call them in? >> It was a It was a virtual meeting and HR spoke with them um at the conclusion of our meeting. My understanding and I don't want to speak to HR, but my understanding was that the senior administrator for the schools were going to follow up individually with the staff. >> Okay. Um, and did they do any talking or were they talked to? >> So, I think there were a few questions. Um, I had a few people reach out to me after the meeting, but there wasn't a lot of information that was exchanged back and forth. So I don't make here I am again interpreting other people's questions but I did not hear Miss Gordon's question in the spirit of a I heard it in a spirit of have you listened to CCKT

299educator experiences and outcomes their testimony their story that's different than we've met with all of them with all due respect. With all due respect, >> yes, ma'am. Valid, valid question. Thank you. >> U, I'll be very quick before the uh chair uh wraps us up in some manner. Um I'm assuming there were some CCK teachers that had duel. Do you have the number? The nine out of 39, the seven out of 39. That's for middle school. >> Do we have numbers for the CCK? Um, are you going to work them? Okay, >> I do have them. I don't have them off the top of my head, but that's okay. If you can send them out, that'd be great. Um, just to piggyback on a couple of things, it would be great pilot program some stuff.

300I know my colleagues over here, but to Miss Edmond's point, to Miss Gordon's point, does the special education central service department have a group of teachers as an advisory board or I mean I know the superintendent has his superintendent teachers advisory board. Do we have something like that in special education? We currently do not, but there are plans to establish a board such as that as well as a parent advisory board. >> So for the parent advisory board, the chair and I were told that would be done by May. Um, but we've been told that for a while now and and it's not been this by the same person. So there has been turnover and we I acknowledge that we have a wealth of knowledge and they are sitting in this room and they are

301watching on TV dying to give feedback and their thoughts and probably help to build and rebuild a system and we're not giving them that opportunity. They are the first people I would be going to for this. I mean especially as we are undertaking such a major change. Please go listen to them. Please, please, please. >> Yes, sir. Agreed. Thank you. >> Thank you. So, I just want to, you know, thank my colleagues for being present and being here. I know I called a special meeting and Miss Allen can tell you all that I forgot to even consider if there was going to be a quorum. So, I had to call the board attorney, but I just knew that with the amount of emails that we all received that this was the most appropriate setting for

302questions to be raised, answers to be answered, um, and for us to find ways not as a board to respond to these decisions because these are not our decisions as we indicated earlier. But I I know as we move forward with this budget, there is there are some things before I even address the budget, there are some things that has to take place before we can move forward with folks. I think there has to be restoring of trust. We can't rely on emails to send things out that's going to impact the livelihoods of our staff. It's inhumane. It's not good customer service. And imagine if the roles were reversed. So we have to do better at that. In addition, I think we have to do better on how process or lack thereof process how we

303how we restore that. Our job is oversighting is governance, is budgets. We have committees. We have policy committees. We have finance committee meetings. We have student achievement committees. there's other ways for us to ensure that this is getting out to the public in a timely manner. I am happy to create additional ad hoc committees to ensure that this work gets done correctly. And given that we've known this or this was brought to light in the fall and there was not a mention of this in a work session, a finance committee meeting, a student achievement committee me meeting to discuss how this grant can impact our budget. That's concerning. So I think there has to be RMPPS to ensure that interim positions, interim directors, interim associates, interim folks period, whether it's at the central office level

304or at the school level can make budgetary decisions that's going to have this much of a rift. And so I look forward to figuring out what those policies look like if that's through, you know, creating some and looking or working with staff on that because we have to do better. And I have a couple of questions. I will email those questions for the sake of time. Um, but I and I also know it's not easy to sit here and be on the the receiving end of this. So, I'm going to acknowledge that, too. So, I think two things can be true that we can do better, we will do better. And it's also tough sitting in these situations, too. And so, I do appreciate that. And I appreciate the superintendent for giving a more detailed

305version of of what was presented to us late last night. So, I appreciate the work that went into that and I do hope that there can be some additional conversations, not over emails, not over teams, but with folks to understand how this is going to impact folks long term and what we can do to ensure that this cuts or these re allotments or whatever it is cannot necessarily, you know, how we can adjust it. I will say and I I'll I'll throw this out here and I'm sure my colleagues will also throw out different budgetary um uh uh recommendations, but for me and I know the work is to go into the superintendent's proposed budget has already been is in the process, but before it can be passed in the board's budget, I would like

306to see a 10% reduction across the board except for academics to figure out how do we restore some of these cuts with special education. And I don't think those cuts should come from transportation or the finance of the other department because my god, we have issues with Hback and buses. So I don't want to, you know, touch touch that. But I do think that we need to go back to the drawing board to figure out what can be done to ensure that these case loads are not going to be implemented at the ratio that is being projected because that is a disaster. that is putting additional stress on teachers who are already overworked, who are barely having enough time to do their own duties outside of work. And so, and I get this is also

307challenging because of the climate that we're in. There's not a state budget. Federal government is not doing anything at this point. And so, I know the superintendent and I have written letters to Congress to express and highlight the needs about the special education. I mean, I hope it gets more attention now. Um, and I know that we've passed this in our legislative agenda and we've had conversation with representatives on Jones Street about this matter. So, the work and the advocacy continues, but I think tonight was about getting the answers, finding ways to be transparent as possible and finding additional ways to restore the trust with our staff, our teachers, our families, our students, and the broader community. And so there's more work to be done. And with that, I will entertain a motion. I will

308entertain a motion for us to go into close session for the reasons that were stated on the agenda. >> I see that attorney Malo, >> it was not on the agenda tonight. >> It was on the approved agenda that we approved tonight. It was in the agenda that we approved. >> The amended agenda. >> Yes, it was in there. It >> Okay. Well, it it would be for the attorney to preserve the attorney client privilege. >> Correct. that part. Thank you. Thank you for cleaning that up for us. That's the easy fix. Um so with that, I'll entertain the motion. >> All right. Second. >> So it's been moved and properly second. Um >> those in favor of the motion, let it be known by the sign of I. >> Oppose. The eyes have it.

309We're entering into close session.