2026-03-17 Work Session

001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> bank days at the end of the year for test re-administrations. We no longer need those days at the end of the year. So, I am bringing an amended 2026-2027 calendar. And you would have thought it would be easy to just add days on those bank days, and it was not. So, I'm going to tell you a couple of the changes that this draft brings. Um there was a teacher work day on April 5th. That has been changed to a student day. That changed a track in and track out on October 6th and 7th. There was like a one-day, it changed to a two-day, three-day split. It does keep the two-week winter break that everyone loves and aligns with the other calendars. Um it keeps the first day on July 7th, which

002was a request from that committee to start on Tuesday, July 7th instead of starting on Monday, July 6th. That gives them an extra day for clo-opening, which is year-round has to close and open like all in the same week. Um and it keeps the teacher work day on June 30th, which they like because that's the last day of the fiscal year. So, that allows them the staff people who are working to have that one teacher work day in case they are separating from the district. So, I welcome any questions that you have about this updated year-round 2026. So, this is for next school year. Question is now, is there any comments, questions, or concerns? All right. Seeing none, I guess we can move to our next item. All right. We will move That was what

003I had to ask you real quick. I will let you know when I get you. Thank you. So, the next set of calendars Dr. Robinson and I want to talk about are the early college drafts. These are also for the 2026-2027 school year. Um the early colleges align their calendars with their college and university partner. So, they usually come in and just do a year in advance. Um I don't have a lot to share because they actually work on their own calendars to make them align with their college and university partner. I count to make sure that they have 177 days. I look for important days like election day. Um and so each of these calendars starts early August because that's when their university partner starts. Although they start on different days, their spring fall

004breaks are a little different. They each do have November the 3rd, November 3rd for election day. Um they each have a 2-week winter break. Um they each have a spring break that is in March. For this particular year, 2027, there is no primary election in March, so none of the calendars have um a election day in March. Um and then they all end the end of May, kind of the end of May. Um again, these calendars are for the coming school year. Any questions regarding the calendar? Just a second. It's okay. So, we'll move to the 2027-2028 calendars. And Dr. Robinson, oh, I see you're restarting. We can start with year-round. You want to start with year-round 27-28? >> Yes, please. Um so, this calendar has a lot of Well, first off, the first day

005is on Wednesday, July 7th. Thank you, at the request of that committee. Um the committee that creates this calendar or created this calendar is made up mostly of admin at the year-round schools. There's a couple of central staff, um sometimes a couple of parents. It's a really tight calendar. So, I don't get a lot of community input. Um although community members are welcome to join this committee just like any other committee. Um there is a work day on August 20th, which aligns with the other calendar. So, all three calendars, year-round, modified, and traditional, will have a work day. You'll see the drafts have a teacher work day on August 20th, in hopes that if academics is hosting something, all the calendars are available or all teachers are available. Um there is a teacher work day

006on November 2nd for election and March 7th, cuz this is the 27-28 calendar. So, in March of 2028, there is a primary date. Um so, there's a teacher work day on March 7th. There is a teacher work day on June 19th and then a teacher work day on June 30th. Um but, you will notice there are split weeks. There are a couple of split weeks. I think there are three where there's a one-day, which is not ideal at all, but when you start one thing, it kind of dominoes and you still end up with sometimes more split weeks. Um there are total of six split weeks. Um but, the others are like a two-day, three-day split, which is a little bit better for parents to send their children for two days or for three days.

007Um I think that's all I have to really share, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. So, Miss Anderson Powell, does that 28 calendar also include November as a work day for the election? Yes. I did I not say that? It has November 2nd and March 7th. Yeah, I'm not I didn't hear it. I'm not Okay, that's fine. I'm not logged in yet. Thank you for >> And maybe I didn't say it. I'm sorry, I thought I did, maybe I didn't. Um, yes. So, both election days are covered in this one. Thank you. Any questions? Miss Coffee? You're just saying on this particular one, right? That March 7th Well, all of them will have it, but reading the March 7th >> My question is about the traditional calendar. I think when you

008said that's all I have for now, I just Oh, that's all I have for this particular calendar. I'm sorry, yeah. I'm just doing one calendar at a time. >> Yep. I'll follow up with you, Miss Coffee, when we get to the Any other questions about year-round? Okay. The next calendar present, Dr. Robinson, is the modified 27-28 modified calendar. So, this is that wonderfully sweet calendar. Um, its start date that committee decided to start on Thursday, July 22nd. There is a teacher work day on August 20th, but you will see on all three of the calendar of the drafts. Um, they have the two-week track out. This is the calendar that's 9 weeks in, 2 weeks out. So, they have a two-week track out, and then a extra work day coming back in on October 11th

009after the track out. You'll see there's a teacher work day on November 7th. Um, and then they have the Thanksgiving break, the winter break, an extra teacher work day on January 4th. They have a teacher work day on February 21st, and that's just kind of a to break up that long um, instructional time. And then they have a teacher work day on um, March 7th, again, like you saw on the other calendar for the primary election. Two week break. An extra day around um, Good Friday, and then they get out the Friday before Memorial Day. I have a I'm looking at March, um, the 2020. I believe the primary should be that first Tuesday, which is the 6th, not the 7th. Oh, my goodness. Thank you. >> Yeah, I noticed that, too. Okay, so I

010need to change that on all of them, right? Because I think I have the 7th. It's Tuesday, March 7th. >> I was right on the No, I think the 7th is right, but maybe the days are wrong on this calendar. They are. I was saying that Tuesday Tuesday is typically the first I thought you're right. Okay, so I need to renumber this calendar, and then make it on Tuesday. I will do that. Thank you. It's correct on the traditional >> I'm looking at here at the screen and >> Okay, yeah, if you're looking at the screen, then that's the one I have in my hand, too. But the traditional calendar is correct. The numbers are >> Yeah, that's correct. >> Thank you for noticing that. March the 7th is a Tuesday in 2028. Got it.

011January 1st on all the days. Okay, I'll make that update. Thank you. Somehow the numbers are jumbled in there. But I will make that update. Thank you for noticing that. Okay, so Tuesday the 7th. Got it. Other Any other questions or notices of errors? Okay. All right. So, I'll update that before we bring that back for approval. And now, the 2027-2028 traditional calendar. Uh Ms. Corfield, do you want to ask your question first or do you want me to do a little talking first? Um I think the concern was around the December break that um I I had gotten a couple of emails about the teachers having the work day on the 20th and 21st rather than it being part of the the break. So, I just wanted to know how we can So, I

012don't I don't know a fix for that, but I'll tell you why. So, teachers have to work 215 days. We run calendars of 177 student days, 11 holidays, 10 annual leave or vacation days. And that leaves 17 teacher work days. So, on this particular calendar, I'm kind of jumping over what I was going to present. Um there are only 10 vacation or annual leave days, the V, the pink days. There's only 10 of them. Usually, we try to spread them out over spring, Thanksgiving, winter break, and spring break. But, there are not enough vacation days to spread them all out. So, you have the vacation day on November 24th. That's one, and then you have 1 2 3 4 5 for winter break, and then four for spring break. So, the fix would be move

013a vacation day or two vacation days from the spring break and make those teacher work days. Move them move some around. There are not enough vacation days to fill up those days. And I can't move the blue days. The holidays come from the state. So, I can't just swap out a blue day. Sorry, I That was going to be my second question was in March, I noticed for the spring break, but they also had a teacher work day. So, that kind of puts them in a position where they can't have that vacation week with their family. Correct. >> But it just really makes it if they don't have the time. So, I'm happy to take recommendations. I'm happy to take recommendations and go back and work with the calendar committee again. Are they required to

014have a teacher work day each month? The district has asked. It's not a requirement, but that is a preference that there be something each month. A teacher work day, a holiday, a vacation day that each month have something. Um that's just part of the parameters kind of of the wishes of the district district leadership. So, if you tell me, Tamani, they don't have to have a teacher work day every month, I could take the one off of February. Um but Thank you. I still don't have enough vacation days to fill in all of the other days. So, the one thing that I thought about is um we could move So, April 17th is a teacher work day that's just aligned to make that Easter weekend a longer weekend because the spring break doesn't align. So,

015I can either move spring break down one two weeks so that it does not align with the third quarter and put it on the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th. That makes a long time before their spring break cuz spring break is late that year. But that would do a whole That would give you a an entire 5 days out. I would still leave a teacher work day on the 27th to align with the end of the quarter on the 24th. So, that's something that could be done for spring break. Um I don't have that same quick solution for winter break. It's >> Does Does January 24th help that option if we move? So, I have Well, I guess it's still stuck. No, let me get some consensus. Sure. Just uh cuz I know that the vice

016chair has some comments and questions, too. And I just want to go around and make sure everyone has input on this. You want to start? Yeah. Okay. Well, I want to let her present that. I'm sure. That is well I'm looking at the 27th, 28th traditional Yeah. Okay. We're good. All right. So, um I notice on the year-round calendar, as you don't have to look at them out, that we have a lot of weeks where 5 days, 5 days, 5 days, 5 days. And then we turn to traditional calendar and we have a lot of 4-day school weeks. And that doesn't include the weather stuff that we have to deal with. And that puts a lot of stress on families that have to find child care, um whether it's one parent or two parents or

017stuff like that. I don't The other I would like So, hear about it a lot like and people filling out their calendars are like, "Oh my goodness, it's so many weeks that we have a day off." That's one thing. The other thing is on this calendar, we're not really prioritizing end of quarter day. I don't see four It's like a few days later sometimes. It's on a Um I know the second I know the first quarter one is like on >> November 2nd. Which is a big election day and our schools have our and it's going to be busy cuz it's a presidential election year. And so, I would rather um and this is just my own as one person. Prioritize the end of the quarter versus of trying to get every single community day.

018I know we're very diverse. And I welcome for um students and staff that need to take To me, it should be an excused absence for any religious observation day. But having fewer four four-day school weeks, prioritizing the end of the quarter for the work day for teachers to be able to catch up like if the quarter ends on the 19th, either the 19th or the 20th is their work day, so they have that. That's just me. Um and I actually really appreciate that you kept spring break in the same area and because it once it gets really late and you have that big break, I don't think that's I think it's good to have it the same. I've argued for that in the past, and so I appreciate y'all doing that. I know it's not

019convenient all the time, but you know, this is we have to think about our students and the continuous education that they need to get and getting those days in before end of grade testing because we have a lot of days after end of grade testing. So, I really want to prioritize the before of that. Okay. Can I ask if you are suggesting moving October 11th to Well, no, we put the quarter one day earlier. Yeah. So, moving October 11th to October 26th? Yeah, I mean I don't have as I mean, just that as a general principle, like giving staff the day after a quarter or asking staff ask our teachers, "Hey, would this be effective for you?" So, staff So, I took these calendars to the superintendent's advisory teacher advisory council. Am I saying that

020correctly? That particular one was not a concern. Their concern was the 27th, having that teacher work day on the 27th of spring break. They were not as concerned or did not have many questions about um when the quarter ends on one day and there are several days until the next teacher work day. >> Yeah. That did not seem to be a concern. On the feedback, it was really about um the 27th being a teacher work day. So, let me tell you I just want to tell you some other things the committee thought about. >> Yeah. So, we know we want to take November 2nd as election day. There was a concern that putting a teacher work day on October 27th and then having one even if you move the 11th, having it on the 27th

021and then having one the very next week just felt Too close together. Too too close. I'm just I'm just sharing what the committee shared. Um but that felt really We do it a >> close. We do it a lot. calendar. I mean, it's literally the next November 2nd and then there's a holiday on the 11th and then But the holidays are fixed. >> January 17th, and then we have a workday on the 24th. Right. So, the holidays I can't I understand that, but the principal Right. So, the other question that you had was about um if the quarter ends on January 19th, putting a teacher workday on January 20th, but because there was already a holiday on the 17th that we can't change, the committee was like, "Well, you don't want Although this week we're

022in because of weather, and that is a teacher workday were bookended by days out, but that would be out Monday, in Tuesday, in Wednesday, out Thursday, in Friday. So, that was why that the committee decided not to do that one. Although two Mondays back-to-back aren't ideal either. My point My larger point is that we have a lot of four-day without taking into consideration weather and its impacting families. And we keep trying to add workdays to cover everybody in the community. And we got to be focused on students and staff and what they're That's my priority. >> Okay. kind of pick up. You know, that would be my feedback. I'd love to see one with fewer of community workdays and more focused on what is staff and students. Okay. And how to What's the impact on

023all of our families? Okay. So, the teacher workdays because teachers still have to work that number of days, that puts the teacher workdays just outside of the instructional calendar. I can make one that looks like that. And let you guys see it if if you >> see it. want me to do that. I mean, I guess my concern would be if this is already went before the superintendent's teacher advisory committee, and they given their okay, then another calendar would undo what they had consensus around. Right. And I Like I said, their only question was about the 27th, and I My recommendation for the 27th is to move the teacher workday on the 17th to April 3rd so that perhaps they can do something else on the 27th but still have a teacher work day on

024the 3rd that kind of aligns with the end of the quarter. Um that might help some of them. But I'm happy I work at your will so I'm happy to do whatever y'all want me to do. I'm happy to make a calendar like that. Um Dr. E, um Ms. Bryce, um this is not so much a recommendation but just kind of a general question. Um and anybody who's been a teacher can chime in um but I mean on a work a teacher work day is it more productive to have one day here, one day there versus having like two consecutive days or like, you know, to be able to get more things done. Um just bouncing it out there. I mean it. In my experience, I think it always come down to those teacher work

025days because you never know the calendar is the calendar but when you're in it every day and there is no break or no weather, you need a a mental health break or a break to get caught up or a day to utilize, get your grade book up to date, have parent teacher conferences, to participate in professional development. Um so I I think that that's my opinion about it. I think for me is the more you can get if we we the more that we can put on the calendar that does not interrupt teaching and learning but also gives teachers those breaks to do the the administrative things that teachers don't get to catch up on is important. That's all you need. As a general I think the chair said it completely that trying to give

026them an opportunity to address some of those things that they otherwise wouldn't do. Uh and so when you've had entire month, uh, without any teacher work day, uh, normally that's going to end up that can actually be, you know, six to eight weeks. Maybe I guess you could have had two weeks, uh, in the middle of January, nothing in February, and then the next work day is is two weeks into to March. So it could be an extended time. So generally we do try to put in those work days for the reason that he's talked about. But again, you're subject to the calendar and what happens with weather days and things of that nature that you don't control. That was another reason for kind of having, even though now we have some other weather makeup

027options that don't rely on teacher work days, um, but that was another reason to have something each month or a teacher work so that if we needed it for weather makeup, hopefully we won't have another year like we've had this year, fingers crossed, um, but that was another reason. But it was also at the request of a former board to find a way to provide some relief each month for teachers. Which is important. As we look through the teaching work and conditions surveys, that is important. Um, Dr. English, do you have a I was All right, so I'll go Miss Ryan's, Dr. Joe, Miss Coffin. I just want to ask a question around what's most effective, um, for the board to have a draft prior to bringing it to our staff to make their decisions

028and then bring it back to them for us to bring a a final piece because I want to be as effective as possible. I hope my question is being understood because if this is just for the sake of, um, keeping stress levels down, staying at wellness domain, right? Can we because for me as a board member, if this is said this is a draft and this is coming to us as a board to make decisions and make edits. I am concerned about staff's feeling uh of their time being meaningful, uh their thought process being meaningful, um so they can be as effective as possible. If in the future if it comes to us, then go to them, say this is just what the board thought, right? Just thought. And in the process of you making

029your decisions, um for we to give it to them for the final approval, and that's what it is because I just feel a little redundant, um and then I feel when if something comes to us and it's a draft, let it be a draft. Don't tell us it's a draft and you've already made your decisions. And so, that's the problem that I'm trying to see how can we be most effective as a board with everyone's time and everyone's work. Let the work be meaningful because I feel like whatever suggestion we make, there's a counter conversation, and I want And then cuz if it really is, this is what the calendar is, this is then let it be that, and then it then make sure we just as if it's just preliminary or what? Or is

030there really meaningful conversation around these topics? I'm just being honest. Which one are we going to do? So, I don't know what's most effective for staff, um that if is that it really is a draft form and say this is it, we haven't taken it to the teachers or there's a few people that's look at it, this is what we have. What are your all thoughts? Right? Things that uh Mr. Hershey is saying or Ms. Colefield is saying, and then really take it back to the people who are going to make the decision about what our calendar looks like to present it to us and just say, we need you all to approve this and do it in an action item or put it in the consent because I they they're they've already made the

031calendar. I'm just being honest. They've already made the calendar. This is what they're saying we can do or works best. So, for us to come in and try to shift it, how much energy are we spending in an effective way to do that? So, in years past, there have been recommendations that I've taken back and created a new calendar for the board to look at, for the committee to look at. It is It is truly a draft. Um and if you see something that you would as the board that you would like for us to focus on, like focus on the teacher work days at the end of the quarter and not community requests. I'm I'm happy to do that. Yeah, it's a For me, it's not about happiness. It's about how effective we're going

032to be. Is it Is it even Is it effective to do it that way? Is all I ask. Oh, um That's the question. Is Is it effective? Or do we need to just take the recommendation of our staff when it comes to our calendar, knowing that they've looked at all of those perspectives or we send an email about what we would consider them to look at when they're creating it. I'm just looking at board effectiveness. I'm not asking any other questions than effectiveness. Right. And this calendar also went to chiefs and then went to staff. Right. And members of staff were able to share their feedback and as I mentioned, their one concern was a spring break. I'm like, I don't know how to fix it. I I have one little recommended fix, um but

033there's not enough vacation days to go around, but I I I have an idea about, you know, moving the 17th to the 3rd, which might give them some help. Um moving the teacher work days out um of the student instructional calendar just puts them on the front and back end. And most teachers don't like that. Um they they sometimes balk at me when I put five days at the beginning of the year. Tmony, that's too many. We don't need five. Um Um, and when I put two at the end, sometimes they'll say, "Tamani, we don't like that. We don't need two at the end." So, um, you know, we try to create the best calendar we can, but it is a draft. And so, I So, Mr. Chair, what I would say, uh, you know,

034with Ms. Rice, I I I think it's good when the board has an opportunity to have a conversation about the calendar because you also would have the perspectives of teachers that have talked to you, parents that have talked to you, and teachers that we Uh, so, to me, uh, I think it ends up being an effective time where they can see that, uh, the people that represent them have brought those to the, uh, to the staff, and we use that to determine what is going to be that final, uh, calendar. And And I think what Tamani will tell you that, uh, when people end up getting on the calendar committee, they see how difficult it is. And And really, the calendar laws has kind of blocked us into these dates to which it's it's never

035going to be perfect. Uh, but I think it's good for them to actually hear, uh, that the board has, uh, talked about their concerns. And then we've been able to go back and and adjust and modify as as much as we can. Uh, and so, I'm like you, I do want to be productive with my time. Uh, but when it comes to the calendar, I think it's very important that they hear this conversation because whatever we come out with, you know, you want to get some more phone calls. Absolutely. I agree. I think you're right. Thank you. And I apologize for going out of order, Mr. Chair, but I wanted to address Ms. Rice's question because I'm not sure and Ms. Rice can please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure that some

036of the responses have really heard what you're saying, or at least how I took it, which was if we are talking about board time and board efficiency, it seems to me, again, I'm going to put my old man hat on. Over the benefit of the years, it would be more efficient to give that board input on the front end to address philosophical questions about placement, general placement of work days and some of that before it goes through all the work. Ms. Anderson Powell has come to us before and explained in great detail everything that goes into the calendar. The number of groups that have input, the number of advisory committees, the number of community groups. And what happens is that once months of work have gone into it, it comes back to us, it shows

037up on the calendar, we'll get a newspaper or a television story about it, someone in the community or a teacher will hear something, they'll reach out to a board member. And so, I'm going to disagree with our superintendent. I think the effectiveness of the board comment is more on the front end, not on the back end, coming in and discussing those concerns because I think we're human and we're we succumb to recency bias, right? Who came to us the most recently? If we hear from two or three or four teachers about something, we might think this is a big concern, whereas you might have had dozens of teachers from all over the district contributing to the calendar on the front end whose opinions we did not have access to. And so, I have seen where

038we have moved teacher work days at the request of a small number of teachers and then only after they're moved, we hear many more teachers who are upset about the move even though we thought we were being responsive to what we were hearing. And so, to the point about being effective, I really think giving that input on the front end and then having someone say, "This is the result of everything we've had. We know you have to vote on it, so if you see a glaring error, right? If the calendar that we brought you has an error on it, there's two 13ths or something. Yeah, let's do that. But otherwise, I think our input should be on the front end rather than trying to second guess a lot of what's coming to us later without

039the benefit of all the work the committee has done. That's how I took it. >> Thank you for being the Chichiba whisperer. You were correct with what I was saying, but you always seem to know how to say it better, Phil. I want us to be very mindful of time because this has gone over and we have a robust uh a robust work session. And so uh I have Dr. Joe and Ms. Caulfield and then we'll pick out some guidance and then we'll move forward and prosper. I very quickly was just going to say I think we should leave spring break where it is even if you do have to have a work day in there that somebody has to take leave on if they want to leave or not be able to meet up

040later or something like that. It just having taught for as long as I did, it it was really hard to wait till the end of March for a major break. I mean, having to wait till mid-April is so long and then the time that you have after that for EOGs it just goes by like that. And so but I think that we should go back to what Ms. Rice and Mr. Haggerty said. Like let's try to respect what they've done now, but maybe the way that we do this process in the future. Ms. Caulfield. So I just wanted to kind of follow up with saying I understand um the advisory board and I think it's great um but we did actually get feedback from teachers once they did see this being proposed because of as

041a result of that. But I was going to ask on and maybe that is a process that we change going forward, but if the March 27th is a teacher work day. Um I'm not sure if this is possible, but if we were to swap that with January 24th and make it a solid vacation week in March. And then they have the option of taking the day before Thanksgiving as a day off or a teacher work day. What you said swap it with January 24th. Those are both teacher I'm sorry. November 24th Okay. I'm sorry. Those are both teacher work days. >> November 24th. I mean that that is certainly doable. They already have Thursday and Friday off. So, if they want to take the day off before as well, then that's one of their alternative

042days. That and that and That might give them the continuity I mean that will work. And do we know how many of these are going to be protected versus unprotected? The schools I want somebody else to to speak on academic things. As I understand, the schools determine The school makes the determination of what days are going to be protected and not protected and that's always done at the beginning of the year so the teachers can fill out their calendars for So, even if we make this swap, a principal can then come and undo whatever decisions are hard conversation that the board was trying to have. So, Right. I think I hear the discussion, but I really think it might just be best let the calendar stand as is and principals and teachers can make those

043decisions. So, I would like to make a recommendation on my own calendar, which I never do. Um the work day that's on the 17th, I think if we move that to April 3rd, that might give um school staff the ability to say the 27th is not required because you have April 3rd, which they can do their end of quarter. I'm kind of looking at Dr. Hill like um they could do their end of quarter work on April 3rd, which would still allow them a whole week. Now, Ms. Caulfield's recommendation could also work. If I say for so long we've given teachers an annual leave day on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, that's like that. That's how we've always done it. We don't have to do it that way, but I know teachers are accustomed to having

044an actual vacation day on the Wednesday before so they don't have to choose. But they're having to choose here. So, I'm just seems to give them a whole continuous week versus having an extra Well, it's still going to look like a teacher work day if we if we don't change it and I put the work day on the 3rd, it's still going to look like a work day. But, you're right, if you move the annual leave day from the 24th to the 22nd, then it looks like a regular spring break. So, I think if that's the recommendation that you have made and you're comfortable with that, I guess we can get a thumbs up cuz I really want to get us back on our time. No, you're fine. I understand the discussion, but I just

045wanted to make sure this is a Chair, point of clarity. Yes, ma'am. Uh are we referencing November 24th being changed to a vacation day for March 27th? Making March 27th a vacation day and making November 24th a teacher work day. That's what I heard. Miss Corfield, is that right? That is the That is the thumbs up thumbs down recommendation that we're doing. Well, that if that's the consensus, but I also thought that Miss Simpson-Powell had a recommendation, too. I did. To move the 17th to teacher work day. Dr. Rosedale, do you want to move down to Yeah, would you have to tell us the month, not just I'm sorry. April 17th. Thank you. Sorry, I'm so sorry. April 17th, moving it up to April 3rd. So, that then there is another teacher work day when

046they come back that could be required by a school to that you know, for that end of quarter work that they need to do. I just find it having a random Monday versus Chair, chair, another point of order, point of clarity, please. Two things. One, moving November 17th to November 27th, as well as moving April 17th to April 3rd. So, is it two changes or just one? No, I see it. I need her to tell me what Is it both or one? Either one. Either or, but only one. Correct. Okay, either or, but only one. So, Miss Anderson, how would it be possible to bring those revisions back? I can do that, sure. And we can go up there cuz I don't think that we'll be able to get some consensus on this at particular

047time. So, I'll make three drafts that show only teacher work days that are aligned with the end of the quarter. One that switches March 27th and November 24th. And one that switches April 17th and April 3rd. Is that okay? Thank you, Miss Anderson-Dahl. Okay. Thank you, all. Folks, can I say that we do not take calendars seriously at this table? We do take calendars very seriously. Thank you, all. Thank you. All right, so now we will turn to our CIP summary update. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Horton-Brinkley. Board members, Superintendent Taylor, and also Steve and I are here to present the executive summary for fiscal year 27 through fiscal year 33. This is a 7-year capital improvement program that we're presenting fiscal year 27 allocations for your review and future approval, and as well as looking into

048the future for 6 years, which has potentially bond referendum implications for fiscal year 2018 and 2019. If you slide show up please. In your package there is a overall one page summary that might be easier to follow and one screen view of one of my favorite slides so far. Thank you. Next slide please. So the presentation is in alignment with our strategic plan and aim points, which is the next slide. Today we're presenting the fund raise funding summary and schedule for the 7-year program. We'd like to provide updates for new and existing school additions and changes. We are seeing growth in the southwest part of the county as well as as the east and northeast and we'll see how those growing enrollment affect and then also present the program requirements and provide definitions for that.

049Um I will come prepared to talk about cost construction data. But we would also like to go in depth with that at the April 7th meeting so we can go in detail and address specific questions on the project. So the main overview of this is to give you the priorities for the 7-year program so that you can make budget decisions as well as bond referendum decisions. So the new school funding we have got one new school this year that we added to the list from last year which is Little Creek Elementary School in Zebulon. We have acquired the property for that. Um and the new school has been named and we're planning that for a completion of 2032. I'm not going to go into every uh allocation amount for to save time but if you

050have any questions at any time please uh let me know. We'll save questions for the end. We'll do the questions at the end. Okay. Um the other change uh is we've added a middle school as a to be determined in lieu of just a school so that's in on the radar. We haven't named those schools yet but uh we do have them in in our in our focus and and idea of where we're going with those. Next slide, please. Existing schools. Well, I call it the rapid way that elementary schools are currently under construction. Athens Drive, Briarcliff, and East Garner are currently in design with Athens Drive starting in the sum- this summer with enabling work. We'll be going in getting construction on Briarcliff in fall of '26, East Garner in fall of '27 as

051well as Willow in fall of '27. Choir Varina in fall of '29. So, those are all all work that went down. We're on the previous executive summary last year. We've got two new schools that we are adding, which is Washington Elementary School. Um this is going to be an in-depth life cycle MEP um update as well as addressing uh fit and finishes on both the uh 1920s building as well as the mid- mid-1990s renovation. The gym at the school was renovated several years ago. It's in real good shape and we're trying to bring it up to that same level. Uh this school was not on the CIP. It was uh um removed in '23 um for additional funding reallocations and we brought it back. It is a priority. Uh East Wake High School is a

052new school. Uh we're seeing the growth and the need for a new high school with intentions of keeping the existing school to be used as a future swing uh space for schools that will be doing up in that area of growth. Uh you'll see uh from last year, Zebulon Middle School dropped one level down and that is for timing on a swing space. Uh we'll be using the existing school at East Wake as a swing space, so that timing had to drop that down. That's the explanation for that. The remaining to be determined schools uh we funded those at an elementary school level. Um that is subject to change as as those needs come in in the future. All the existing schools we have a priority to eliminate mobiles. That is a a high priority

053for us. Uh we're also trying to build in flex and capacity in those existing schools where needed and uh also uh focus on utilizing swing spaces in lieu of swinging on site uh for reduced risk and during construction as well as just a better academic environment and we can build the schools quicker. Next slide. This slide is for school programming requirements. Um, I'm not going to go through every one in detail, but uh I'll like to highlight that the top portion are debt funded by the county. The lower ones are cash funded. Um, those do have some implications if you're trying to move it from one to the other. Uh they they really don't like to move debt and or cash into debt and vice versa. So, that's considerations. Is it impossible? No, but it

054is it's a difficult thing for us to do. Um, looking at the highlights, uh we nearly doubled since 2021 our life cycle for building components funding. We've also are working to uh on life cycle furniture and equipment. We've started looking at updating our playgrounds, which we committed our first program this year for 1.7 million dollars. That's a need that I would recommend and we recommend continuing in future years. Um, program funding, which is the partial renovations when we're not doing a full renovation of an existing school. This allows us to go in just like Washington to renovate a gym or another building. And then we got technology at devices and infrastructure. I'd like to highlight on infrastructure when we're doing an existing school renovation, they're paying for that in IT upgrades. Uh if you're building

055a new school, that's built into the capital project. And the last one is the space needs analysis and priority, which we call SNAP or for non-traditional school improvements as well as um and back of house items, transportation uh facilities and and that type. So, the next two slides are actually the next slide is in a total funding. So for fiscal year 2027, which is what we're uh doing as a proposed allocation for new schools would be 60.6 million. Existing schools would be 189.7 million. And program requirements is 107.2 million for a total for fiscal year 2027 of 420 million and 5. Looking forward at fiscal year 2028 and 2029 for bond referendum, that is that totals to 832.3 million. And the county is recommending a bond funding portion of that of 680 million. So the

056last two slides are some details on what those program items are. If you have any questions on them, happy to answer those. Thank you. So we'll start with just a round of questioning. So if folks have any, we'll start with Fred. I want to give back um something you just said around 419 to 420 mark. You talked about an emphasis on swing space being utilized. So rather than trying to do renovation projects on site, what swing space will you utilize for middle school and high school projects? Currently we've got Spring Forest and we have Garner Ninth Grade Center, but they have limitations on the numbers. East Wake, the existing school, would be one and we've also brought uh possibility of West Cary as a potential swing space in the future. Specifically when I look at

057the projects that we have and that you've listed, I see several projects that are not proximate to those swing spaces. So is that a realistic goal? It is a It's a movement in the right direction. I think we need to prioritize getting swing spaces across the county. I think that it is a good movement in the right direction, but yes, there are additional needs that if we can identify those and there is some pain associated with identifying that. So, I think yes, we need more. So, I and I agree with you 100%. I know that typically what we see in the CIP are school projects as opposed to administrative and other building projects. At some point should we see a project for building more swing space in this 7-year plan? Yes. And I currently don't

058see any swing space in the plan and if added, I wouldn't see it until after 2037. Is that right? Yes. He's with it. It will be your first the first opportunity. It will be as we as we're looking at there's three schools that are going to be are in that area that uh are potentially in need. We got Wendell we can swing to Marshburn Road. But in the future we've got Knightdale Elementary School coming down the maybe, but definitely what's on there is Zebulon Middle School. And again, I support your vision 100% for utilizing swing space rather than trying to continue classes on site in an active construction site. I just have I I I don't see how you will do that with the swing space that's available unless more swing space is constructed or

059acquired somehow. Okay. That's all I need to hear. Thank you. But Mr. Chair Swanson. Mr. Chair. Um it seems like um Mr. Herring and I are on the same page today. Wow. For me it's unacceptable. I'm sorry. Mr. Harry is so so much more polite. It's it's unacceptable. One, what I already have going on in my own district, and it's not okay for me, colleagues, that every time we get here, we don't we get minimal answers, and we get silence like it's okay. It's not okay for the numerous families that we serve, and it's not okay that um we aren't being a little bit more aggressive and assertive to trying to make sure that we have these swing spaces. Um, I don't see it here yet, but I know it's coming probably probably before 2037

060even with Hunter, right? We're looking at this is what what are we going to do? You you said just currently 12 miles away there is no swing space. So, why do we continue to create silos with but we're not What are we going to do? What's the plan of action for what are we going to do because we're going to come right back, we're going to hear families fuss and and and be upset and frustrated. And are you saying that you're not doing it because we don't have the money? Are you saying that we're not quite there with our critical thinking and innovative space or mindset to find swing space? And is Wake County as large as it as it is don't have enough commercial property to do something with? Help me better understand your

061perspective because we can't keep telling citizens we don't can't do it. It It make sense. Uh, as I could respond, so we currently are using swing space in addition to the spaces that Mr. Kearney mentioned. Hilburn Elementary School is a swing space. You'll remember that Fuquay-Varina Elementary School is utilizing that space. Uh that was a nice opportunity where we built that school and we had to find a space for Fuquay-Varina. Could have done it on site. It was much more cost-effective and less disruptive to do that. So that was a nice opportunity where we were able to incorporate that space as swing space. The East Wake High School I think I think it's mentioned 2037, it's 2032. The thought with East Wake High School is we would build a new high school on that campus.

062We would continue to utilize the existing facility as as swing space. So that's an opportunity that is again presenting itself that we're trying to take advantage of. We don't often don't always have these opportunities. Uh so we have mapped out in this this past year we did map out opportunities for that moving forward. In the past, yes, we've been uh looking at the existing swing spaces um and those opportunities that presented itself. Uh we haven't built a dedicated swing space because it's a finite amount of money. So which project don't you want? Uh that would be really the question that we would be asking. We do have other plans for other swing space in the future as we go further out. Um the East Wake High School uh swing space opportunity is one where we

063have a lot of uh new construction a lot of construction going on in the eastern part of the county. So that will be well served and we saw where we could map out its future use for quite a few projects. Okay. Just concerned I'm sorry to follow up just what about Southeast Raleigh? What about schools in the downtown area and that space that have to be um done? Do we have any thoughts on what we're going to do for swing space with that? Well, we would have to look at what projects we do have for those areas. Uh so, if you look at the list, that's that's where we have the projects in the in this window of time. Uh as far as um Raleigh or um Southeast uh Raleigh, again, we'd have to see

064is there a need, you know, for a swing space for to accommodate a project. I'm kind of kind of not thinking of one, but of course we would we would look at all opportunities as we do projects. And And also, where we can do on-site swings, where we have ample site, and it's not disruptive, and we don't have that multiple phases, it works fine to do an on-site swing. It's just where those sites that are very compact, um and and we have multiple phases, that's where it gets that's where it gets difficult, uh more disruptive, and more costly, and that's where we try to avoid those. Any other questions? Thank you. I'd also like to go back to the program requirements, if we could. And, you know, here I'm going to be a broken record,

065but every time you bring this in front of me, I'm going to share my opinion that here under program requirements we're showing on average $30 million a year in our capital budget being used for technology devices. Meanwhile, we have parents and families, teachers and students coming to us with health concerns about schools, mold, air quality, other projects that we should undertake to improve the health and safety of our buildings and we're told we don't have enough money. We see here under environmental ADA by your numbers we're putting 1.3 to about maybe upwards of 1.6 million a year. You could double that and make only the slightest dent in those technology devices in that budget. And I I I just at this point I just want to implore my fellow board members, you're being brought a

066program for your review. This is just an update, but when it comes to you to vote and approve, you have the power to approve or disapprove or to provide input to staff about your priorities. If you want to prioritize technology device replacement, you know, you know, with a one-to-one student ratio over these important safety and health concerns, that is your choice and that is your vote. But I'm not going to you know, every time this comes up, I'm going to continue to raise my voice and say these are not my priorities and I believe this board should provide direction to the superintendent and the staff to make the changes, whether they're the changes I have been advocating for the past two years, or changes of your own, changes that redirect and re-prioritize this money to

067some of the important needs and concerns that are facing the district that I think our staff would like to address, but do not have the resources to address. And I'll just leave it at that, Mr. Chair. Thank you. So, Mr. uh Mr. Chair, if I could first ask that I do think that there were reductions in the technology portion and that it was reflected from our what it is previous >> Not yet. Not for the not for the next fiscal year. Okay. Those Sasha, I think those efforts are already set. Correct. So, basically we are working based on the feedback we got from the board last month. We're looking at a lot of initiatives to see what is that we can do given our current plan to save a little bit of money and see

068what we can do with it. So, that is something we are working on. Uh hopefully we'll come back to the board pretty soon to let you know what those strategies are. Yes. And And with the the technology devices, that is what we need to hear from the board. What is their priority? One of the things that I will have staff to come back and talk about are those places where we know we need the technology in terms of testing purposes. And we know that all state testing is done online. We've got to have those devices. Uh there are certainly changes that we can make with bring your own devices at the high school. Right now, even at elementary schools, um we're not one-to-one in the sense that devices go home. They're not doing that. But

069even when you have computer on wheels, that is still ultimately one-to-one. That's a device cabinet that has 23 computers. Kids are just not taking those home, so we will go back and look at what is absolutely required for the technology. Then I think that's where we can have that flexibility that we talked about. There's Carl Field, there's Edmonds, and Dr. Joe and then more wrap-ups to get I was just curious where you were seeing it. That's one thing I had written down because I I have much more than that. Like overall, and I know you can't get rid of all technology and devices everything, but over the the years it's 217 million. I Is that I was talking about per year. Right, so we're at 28 million, right? I thought you said 1.2 million. No,

070I said Sorry, that's the environment area. Oh, okay. That's where we're moving the part I was taking from and the part I was moving to. And that was my question is that we are spending so much there, and we are getting feedback from families and parents that they would, especially in the younger grades, like to see more of pen and paper. They want to see their kids We we've got them off the devices during class. We're getting really good feedback from that. And that that is one of the highest numbers in there besides the cycle building. So that's that's a concern. So when you're asking Dr. Taylor about our priorities, I don't know when we decide that, but that number is really pretty high. It's kind of like a comment, not really a question. I

071just uh I wanted to ask a clarifying question. So um Mr. Strickland or Dr. Taylor or um um with regard to the that the tech department is looking at that I Is this for starting at fiscal year 28 on? Or are you saying that all those numbers are going to change or or 28 29 is going to change? Uh they're subject to change. And that's the discussions that are happening now. >> Like I said before, the the next fiscal year, which is 26, 27, uh whatever they had in motion is pretty well set, but after that, we'll take the things on the table. Okay. All right. And so, when can that those discussions be brought back to the board so everyone's aggressive with that? So, therefore, once we're getting here, we're not redesigning programs. We're

072seeing that in the front end very soon. Um I think for for FDNC staff, it is you know, we're the producer of the number. There are lots of inputs that go into what does that, and it it's technology and academics. And so, and it's the board and what you all want done and how you want them delivered. So, as that plan is developed and and clarity brought to it, um you know, those reductions can absolutely be in in future budget years, but they those conversations are in their infancy now. We had them this year for next year, but there were things in place that needed to be followed through um but in in the upcoming year, this next year, those conversations need to be held in earnest about what it is you all want implemented

073and how you want it implemented, and then the budget can be aligned with that. So, for me, um if we can bring that stuff to the year at before we get deep into those budget discussions, so therefore, it's aligned, and we can move forward with figuring out how to adjust, uh making reductions. And then, I guess that technology policy for me was supposed to guide some of those reductions because that would drive some of the the conversations. So, I guess we need to see both the technology policy and then start seeing this at the front end so we can make that And we've had a similar conversation around land. Where we can see that is zeroed out for next year. Um we're in good shape right now with land. We're looking at some sites now.

074And I think land may be another um category where we can tighten up some things in future years. And and one last plug, you know, we did tighten things up so we could work on our security efforts. We have We have taken that from 10 years back down to maybe five. And and if we can improve upon that, we will as well. And as Mark mentioned, our one last we're also going to ask you to talk about playgrounds. You know, we we should brought you all plan. I think there are 13, maybe 12, 13 playgrounds. And the first has already been approved. I think it was at the last board meeting. So, we're pushing that forward as well. Mr. Chairman, we'll be sure to before the fiscal year 2027 budget is finalized, we'll bring all

075those things to the board and have those recommendations before um it is uh finalized. Mr. Chairman, any more? Back to technology. Um I just want to clarify recent We don't need one-to-one for testing because not every grade gets tested and not every grade is testing at the same time, right? So, they could still do it in labs if we need it. Uh we're not necessarily doing it in labs, but what I mean is >> roll in a cart with Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's And that's the idea that if I've got an elementary school where grades three, four, and five are testing, uh the minimum thing that we have to do is to make sure we've got enough devices for those students to test at the maximum number that may be required to take in

076a day. But, you're absolutely right. You don't have to have a device for every student. But, the testing will be the minimum requirement, and then you can go from there. And I guess my second question was we talked during the February 8th meeting about a pilot program to pull back on the on the elementary school one-to-one. Is there a status on that, or did it ever move forward, or Are you talking about the discussion we had uh last month? Yes. Yeah, we are actually going to meet in the next few days. We are actually starting the whole thing based on the feedback the board has provided. So, just to kind of step back, we're looking at two things. One of the major concerns the board has is the pace at which we are moving. So,

077I think that's Uh so, we are looking at 26-27 school year and seeing what are the things we can speed up, including saving some of the dollar figures, right? To see where where there are opportunities. That's number one. Number two, we're also looking at a long-range plan 27-28 and on. So, to answer your question, we are still kind of putting that plan together right now. Okay, and part of that plan, just to make sure we're all clear, part of that plan is to pull back the one-to-one program in elementary school. We are having the discussions with our economics team right now. Okay. I think. Final quick question, Ms. Copeland? Yeah, I was just curious um and I don't know if perhaps I missed this, so I'll have to have a deeper conversation afterwards, but why

078would we pilot pulling back on devices if we could save money now, and we know that we were already there all those years in the past? I I'm I mean, we're looking at this CIP for and we see a huge number there. So, we're trying to discuss this now. Why do we have to pilot pulling back on elementary school 101 devices if I mean We already did. We were always there in the past. So, why do you have to pilot something? I mean, that just puts it like another year after. See, we're talking about two more years before we pull pull back on just elementary school. Well, we got to give them time to plan and actually like get materials, whatever they need. It's not just simply pulling it back. I mean, Dr. Kilgore can

079answer, but that's what I would think. And working in conjunction with technology, I've planned and come back to you all and look at those things and those conversations of what our children are expected to do so that we can have a more in-depth conversation about what the expectations are. I I can I think it's Miss Coffin unless you had something. I really wanted to wrap this up. Miss Coffin, did you want to go Yeah, I just feel like sometimes you don't have to reinvent the wheel to get better results. Well, thank you for that. We will move forward with our next item which is our My Future NC update. So, Good afternoon, all. I'm going to have a presentation with the My Future NC and then I'll go over the county profile, Wake County, and

080then give you a brief summary of the national apologies for the delay of our agenda. Thank you. >> While you're giving a initial glance at that, I'll give you a little bit of background on the organization. So, My Future NC is a statewide nonprofit and we set up a couple years ago, 2019, immediately after the state passed in the law an educational attainment goal that would cover all 100 counties that would really feed the need that North Carolina had to match talent to opportunity in the in really the education workforce pipeline. So, I come to you as a Wake County citizen, former Wake County teacher, former Wake County school administrator, current parent of two girls that Wake Forest High School, very embedded. So, this is a nice treat. I serve 15 counties though as a

081part of this work and so the work ends up becoming something that scales across the state in very very micro effective ways. The goal itself is actually centered on young adults that we call early to mid-career adults because that's what we can look at in any of the counties in North Carolina and feel comfort in in terms of the economic prosperity and vitality that will follow them. However, we cannot do this work if we just look at adult learners. So, we really trace it back and have a range of 4 to 44 as our age demographic that we focus on when we're conducting this work. I'm going to walk through a little bit about who we are, but I want to get to the data pretty quickly. That profile you have is a good capture.

082But, as a nonprofit, we're we're doing a few things. That data profile is one of our three legs of the stool. We we are a policy and advocacy organization, so um we try to get the GA to listen to ways that we can effectively um work the budget into more more comprehensive, more impactful programs that will meet the educational attainment outcomes. And again, that goes from K-12 all the way through my zone of North Carolina Accelerate Action. I'm one of eight people across the state who represent the regions um that North Carolina has as a Prosperity Zone and try to let's say stimulate ecosystems of practice around educational attainment. All right, so where do we sit? This 2 million by 2030 goal was something that was really designed because the state realized that we were

083way behind on the talent we needed. And when we say um 2 million, that's not just degree professionals. That could also be professionals with an industry credential. This is This is a big change in the last 10 years. Uh many of us came up at a time when it was degree or bust, it was right to work force. Um the middle has grown tremendously. And so, we're really trying to highlight that. Um so, in the few years since we've been doing this work, we've seen We're at about half time. It's 5 out of the 10 years that we've been collecting data. Um we've seen about 270,000 people gain some kind of industry-recognized credential, whether it be that degree or the short-term certificate. Um and what we're now starting to see is it filter down to

084the high schools, even to the universities. So, what does that mean in terms of the goal? Well, we're still a good gap short uh to get to 2 million. Um we're going to have to really keep that same pace. What I'll mention though is that that was an expectation that 2 million was out of a 3 million total count. Um that 3 million we're going to hit in 2027. So, North Carolina continues to grow at a rate that we didn't anticipate, and so the reality is we'll probably need about 2.1 or 2.2 million to truly meet the need. Um but the acceleration has been there and it like I said it's filtering down as you'll see through the data. Uh these profiles capture a number of different indicators, 18 in total, that were really customized

085for Wake County what the picture is in academic readiness, sequential and college and career access, post secondary completion, and workforce alignment. That way we can know that the decisions we make as a board of ed, as um school leaders, will will really lead to um that pipeline kind of continuity that we we need to see in all of our 100 counties. Um out of those four categories though, it's 18 key performance indicators that break down from NC Pre-K all the way through labor market alignment. And as you're going to see pretty much everything in there. I want to start with this. This was in uh TBJ about a month ago. It shows um and I have to see from there, I appreciate that, but um it shows the triangle counties and where our average wage

086sits. So, at the end of the day, when we talk about educational attainment, it isn't for educational attainment's sake. It's for the change in outcome. It's for the sure prosperity that we can appreciate, citizen by citizen, uh across the state of North Carolina. A living wage, a thriving wage is really the goal. We want to see as many people walk into their adult life feeling confident that they can bring that living wage or that thriving wage home. They can be a good community member. They can be a net plus to society rather than a net minus. And and be very impactful. So, this number that we look at, um which for Wake is very strong, no doubt about it, but lags behind Orange and Durham County, talks about our adult population where they sit. Which

087means that we have to trace back and look at well, what are the interventions that could possibly be put in place? Let's really look at 25 to 44s. Look at the 10 years of performance. It squarely falls into um where of focus is. So, last August, 109 graders walked into school for the first time. Those individuals might never have known each other. They walked around halls that were very unfamiliar. They were introduced to classes that in many cases were above where their expectations were. Um out of those 100, we can fast forward the four years and nine of them won't graduate on time in Wake County. So, nine of them might eventually get across the finish line, but it won't be in that four-year timeline. Of the 91 that are left, 24 won't make the

088transition into any kind of post-secondary institution. That could be Wake Tech for bio work. That could be UNC Chapel Hill. That could be a lot of places in between. So, now we're down to only 2/3 of the original 100 in half the time. Does it mean that they won't go on to impactful lives, be caregivers, parents, uh have have start their own businesses, have a job that doesn't require that credential? But, we have to be careful if we want that bridge to grow up to make sure that we're positioning them as well as possible. Nine of them won't persist through the second year leaving 58 left and then 12 more won't get a degree or certificate within 6 years. So, that leaves us down to 46 of the original 100. That's actually a very robust

089number. As you can imagine, Wake County leads the state just about in uh how many people get through that degree in 6 years. But, it also means a large uh swath. Again, 2 million is out of 3 million. That's a 67 number that we want to see. So, there's 20 just in Wake County alone that we need to get across that finish line so they can control their destiny a little better. All right, I'm going to break down the the profile for you in a way that makes it a little bit more understandable. We're starting at the top. Uh we're seeing the education level break down. This is uh those people with graduate, bachelor's, associate's degrees. Those are all positives. And then the short-term non-degree credential, you notice the little asterisk there. That's because that's

090an estimate. Every county gets 7.5% We don't count credentials. There's too many people who get them once once students are either in high school or they've left high school and they don't have to report back like the DPI does, like the Wake County Public Schools does. So, we're left guessing that it's 7.5% Odds are for Wake it's bigger. It's probably more like 10 to 12%. Uh the gray areas are what we want to focus on. So, it's high school graduates, less than high school, and those folks that might have had touch with college but didn't move on. Uh so, we're together with taking small steps there because as you can see Wake County is 88% of the goal but it's separate than in 2019 which is 300,000 out of the 2 million. 15% will come

091to this county alone. Again, not very surprising. I wanted to show you our peers in the immediate triangle here, how Orange County and Durham have been doing as well. Obviously, this massive growth in Durham um could be attributed to the work that they're doing with their um young adults. There's some great programs but it's also in migration. There's just a ton of people moving into Durham. They bring that piece of paper with them. We like to give credit to the population piece but to be honest, in North Carolina, we're actually doing better. This is a credit to the schools, community colleges, and workforce development boards. Um we have a 19% growth rate when it comes to um those with a credential post-secondary degree or credential versus an 8% growth rate in the same population bracket.

092So, we're doing things right here. That's very encouraging um but there's still some areas of focus. I'm going to back it up and if you go to the back of the profile down towards the bottom, um you'll see the the most recent data that we have for academic outcomes. Um so, our pre-K program, which is one of the many ways that students can get access to um pre-K. Um only 47.4% We just want to make sure that out of those parents who um aside from those parents who can't afford preschool for their children. Private. Um but we're not missing some kids in there. Um it sets kids up for kindergarten and it frees the parents up to go get credentials of their own. Um looking at the counselor uh student to school counselor ratio, 309.

093You can see some of these things we know it inherently from the work that you do. Counselors become the juncture point for so many opportunities for students, especially in high school. So, ways that we can lower that number um it's going to lower the caseload, help them familiarize themselves with the paths that these students have to take, and hopefully uh leads to better outcomes in the long run. And then I I pulled out the CCP number. And this is something that I presented to Wake Tech uh 10 days ago and I brought up to uh Dr. Rawls and his staff um 21.6. It's one of the lower rates in the state. And there's a lot of reasons for that Wake is incredibly large, so it's hard to get that number to grow at the pace

094that some other counties and districts can. Um but this is this is absolutely one of the most emerging trends. It's one of four legs to the stool that I'll talk about in just a minute of making sure that it's a high quality experience uh for high schoolers. Um what you're also going to notice on the profile, down in the lower right, is the uh the work that the CTE department is doing in Wake County Public Schools. Wake County is um two and a half times puts out two and a half times as many uh CTE credentials as any other district in the state of North Carolina. Mecklenburg is two and a half X behind us at the same population. Um so the CTE department got ahead of a wave that now um is finding its

095new, you know, vocational tech. What we grew up with is now relevant in a way that it hasn't been for some time. Um and the interesting part is, again, credentials are great, industry value credentials are really what this is all about. Um we're we're seeing at least at least uh 10,000 of those credentials being recognized as industry value. We don't have a clean count on it. DPI doesn't share that information just yet, but we're hoping to get it. Um so, what does that mean? So, between what we saw with CCP, what we see with CTE, we're going to talk about apprenticeships in a little bit. These multiple avenues for students to be able to access AP for many kids who are high flyers and going to four year, everybody can find a place, and I

096can't say that about many other districts in the state of North Carolina. And you're doing it at mass. You're doing it with the largest population, so um kudos there. Moving on to college and career access, here's a These are usually I'm kind of bringing up points of uh consideration. So, the senior survey goes out every year, and in those intentions are they The year The last year that we had in 2024, seniors said 90% of them planned to enroll, but only 73.8% did. So, that is a key area to look at. Why are 72% of kids saying that they want to enroll, but they didn't? Is it financial? Was there a burden to their family that they couldn't overcome? Was there an academic hurdle that they couldn't clear? I mean, these are key data points,

097and they tell us a lot. Um it's still much higher than what the you know, your peer and state averages, but when you have that many kids saying it, um we just want to know for sure why they're not making the end. A 62% graduation rate, um FAFSA's about to change dramatically. We're about to get workforce help. Um we're going to see opportunities for not just youth, but um young adults recently graduated to be able to access funds for short-term credentials, these same ones that I'm talking about. And all of this is going to channel through CTE when it comes down to the district level. Opportunities are going to be so rich for kids uh with funding. You can get your full work FAFSA, and we'll give you your traditional college, and we'll give you

098your workforce college. Um better at um a Moving to post secondary completion, these are the two numbers that you saw show up before. I just to show you again how they persist uh uh or how they fare with your peer your state average 86.4% persisting to their second year. There's room for growth. That's a pretty pretty rich number. And then 69% earning that degree or certificate in three years. We expect this number has grown since 2019 in Wake County and we expect it to continue to grow. For perspective on adult learners, understanding that things have changed dramatically, you'll see here continuing ed which is those credential spaces. A lot of individuals are making their way there. So, as we leave them from graduating high school, there's still opportunities to move forward. And you see this

099here too with the total capture of Wake County residents who are enrolled in the Wake County community college system. We have one of the best if not the best community college systems in the country and we have within it probably the greatest institution to respect that that community college system. So, it's no surprise that it's being widely taken advantage of. Last two things I want to point out. So, this apprenticeship piece, this number should be about There's a goal set by apprenticeship NC that 1% of the workforce we have a 1% rate of those individuals that are engaged in apprenticeship. But apprenticeship is not short term. It's between 1 and 4 years or requires thousands of hours of time. And what we're seeing now is pre-apprenticeships pop up. There's a great partnership between Wake Tech

100and Wake County Public Schools to lift up these apprenticeships. It's another aspect of CTE, but it's not completely CTE. It's It's got much more It's more robust than that. So, that number, honestly, could double very easily in the next 5 years and we'd still need to catch pace. And lastly, the opportunity youth. So, what happens when a to a student age 16 to 24 when they're not working and they're not in school? They get this label of opportunity youth. It means they're gone. They're off the grid. They're off the radar. Um it is it is an inverse number of success. Um so you've got a healthy rate, 8% is good, but because Wake is so big, 8% is a lot of a lot of individuals out there. Um so these are the kind of things

101that I bring to to communities where we where we try to do this work. Uh Joanne leads a very powerful school to career council that's well connected. I'm doing work up with the Wake Forest Chamber of Stand trying to stand up a northeast regional business alliance, taking five high schools, Wake Forest, Wake Forest, Rolesville, um and Franklin Academy actually, uh as well as I'm leaving one out, Heritage, and and putting together a chamber led effort so that we can really have cross-sector collaboration. Um trying to do much more than that in Wake County is pretty challenging. It's a little different if I go up north, but um what I do is I come with these these questions. So the impetus of the work, the the kind of uh artifact of the work will come from

102the work in Wendell, Zebulon, Knightdale, and Fuquay Varina, the work that happens up in um Wake Forest through this effort. Um we lost Bonnie in Creech, at least in her her role her CDC role at Zebulon Middle, but um that she set a powerful foundation. It's these individuals, it's these um folks on staff that that are willing to take that lead. Uh so the last thing I want to end with is just our policy recommendations. We want to see ApprenticeshipNC really become the work-based learning kind of pillar that we can count on. It is one of the most uh we'll call it shakily funded or shakily funded um entities out there in the state. We also want to see career exploration expand with this NCcareers.org site, which complements the major clarity uh that Wake County

103uses and comes for free, so it's a a nice resource. Um these education pathways we're trying to get a digital transcript. This kind of came up before a little bit, but we're following the student through, making sure that no matter where they are uh in their process, they have kind of a pie chart, uh, for for for their path. And then, uh, the credential works. So, workforce pathways is going to be great, but it's not going to cover everything. It's going to be very particular. Um, so, I want to give you those because, hopefully, we'll we'll we'll get the General Assembly's ear in a more effective way this year, uh, assuming there is some funding that comes out, um, and we'll see these, uh, these elements improve the a lot for the state and, obviously,

104for Wake County, as well. Uh, any questions for me? Questions? Miss Calhoun. Um, can you talk a little bit more about the apprenticeship that you said, um, that was pre-pre-partnered? The partnerships are pre-apprenticeships. Yeah, so, pre-apprenticeship is, uh, it's a tag-on to an existing apprenticeship. Usually, almost in every case, a a business is not going to allow an apprenticeship to happen while students are still in high school. They want them to graduate. They want a commitment, a hard commitment of time and, uh, longevity in place. So, what Apprenticeship NC has set up is these pre-apprenticeships, and they exist across country, but they've really shepherded here in in the state, um, is a way for high schools to get in the game. So, it's in that work-based learning space. It's a little bit more than maybe

105an externship or an internship, um, but it's not quite that full, robust apprenticeship. It allows them to continue to go to school, but get full taste of a career pathway before they exit. So, that way they can know, you know, I'm now a year out now, and I'm trying to make sense of, do I want to be an architect, do I want to be a plumber? I've gotten a chance to be able to be exposed to this program. Is this an in-class in-school class type of opportunity, a club, or is this something that they're doing like a dual enrollment type of opportunity that So, so, it has lots of different flavors, depending on the employer and the educational needs of the program. Um, we have We have our first pre-registered pre-apprentice in the district now

106in the electrical trades, a young man from Roseville High School. And this is an area of focus in the CTE program. You'll hear more about it from us when we come back later this spring with our local plan. We also have several registered apprentices through NCTAP. So, we've been in this space and trudging along. So, the student could be learning the technical skills in a high school class. They could be taking a Wake Tech CCP class, or the employer could have their own apprenticeship program where they do the related training. In addition, the student is working for that employer. When they're still in the school, some of the scope of the work is a little bit limited, but they're able to be on the job and have the learning. It seems this has become much

107more stackable at the K-12 level than it used to be. You used to have to wait to get into the workforce to do some of these things. And we've just found ways to bring it down. That's right. I was just going to say I know we're out of time, but maybe this is something we could do a deeper dive with Ms. Honeycutt on. I think he has something scheduled. Absolutely. Maybe at a at a student achievement committee meeting where we can do a deeper dive into this. All right. Thank you. Thank you. That should do it. Thank you. There's my email if anyone wants to reach out for a follow-up. Perfect. Thank you both for this. And now we will hear from our Apex High School students. The SAD So, SAD stands for Students Against

108Destructive Decisions. So, the superintendent and I and Chief Lutz and our team actually meet them when Congresswoman Foushee did a tour at Apex High School. They shared some information and some of the work that they're doing. >> So, we welcome Mr. Evans and our students. Welcome y'all. Hi, Board Chair Swatson, Dr. Taylor, board members. Thank you for inviting us to present SAD, which you'll hear about in just a moment. As I overheard Mr. Swatson describing on a recent visit with Congresswoman Bushi, Apex High School has a couple of their organizations out on display. This is one of them. We were subsequently invited. I know that you guys had a lot of conversations, dialogue, and decisions made this moment in time serve to center why we're here and grant somewhat of a reprieve. So, I'll turn

109it over to Apex High School's assistant one of Apex High School's assistant principal, Ms. Janette Hill, who will make introductions and we'll go from there. Hi, I'm Janette Hill, one of the assistant principals at Apex High School, and I have the pleasure of being the advisor for SAD, which is Students Against Destructive Decisions. And SAD Nationwide is a national nonprofit that is 45 years old this year. And their focus is on youth health and safety. Um SADD itself is a network of high school student-led chapters. Uh they also have college chapters, which you'll hear about in a little bit, uh that provide educational events for schools and communities on topics related to traffic safety, substance abuse, uh personal health and safety. SADD clubs attract students from a variety of backgrounds and equips them to talk

110with their peers about the importance of good decisions and healthy habits. And SADD is backed by a wide variety of national companies such as Honda, General Motors, Triple A, State Farm, uh Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration. And so, um I'm going to turn it over to three of our seniors. And while they talk, I'm the poster holder. And um they will tell you just a little bit, cuz we could be up here all night, but we're not going to, I promise, but just a little bit about what SADD does um to promote health and safety at the high school level. So, you'll be hearing from McCarthur Cobb. He is one of our seniors, and he's sporting his Students Against Destructive Decisions t-shirt for us. Um McCarthur was our homecoming

111king this year. Um McCarthur is going to go to Wake Tech and do the two-year college transfer program. You'll be hearing from Karen Wang, who some of you may recognize because she was our Spotlight on Student Award winner. Karen is going to go to UNCG and study art. You will be hearing from Trevor Easton, who is our SAC president, and Trevor is going to East Carolina University to study nursing. All right. So, so before we get started, um one of our events that we do, and you'll hear more about it later, is um sleep awareness. It was actually last week. We're passing out um decaffeinated tea and conversation cards. We call it tea and talk. Um it's We also hand out just regular tea during stress-free finals so that um cuz talking is a great

112way to relieve stress, especially during those stressful times like finals. We had law enforcement appreciation day, and we gave um the students had written cards to our resource officers. We have two resource officers at our school uh that work with us every day and they keep They take care of our school and keep us safe. We also had a World Mental Health Day. We gave bingo cards to the students. And they also had tea time during that. Tea and talk. Um all right. So, so last week of we had a sleep awareness sleep awareness month. So, basically, this is the mobile where people are concerned about having a nice sleep before before it the danger of Sorry for my English. And do So, what you see right now Raise your hand if you're familiar or

113you know about Five Nights at Freddy's. I see plenty of you. And so, I see I saw a huge car This is my favorite game of all time. I played every day and I'm excited for the amount of the actors from that movie in this summer. And um I was surprised when I saw a very, very big correlation between this game and the drowsy driving because Let me explain to you in other words. In um in the Five Nights at Freddy's game, you work as um as an actually the security guard in a Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. And night shift from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. And your main point is you sit in security office and keeping an eye on evil animatronics like Freddy Fazbear and his friends Bonnie, Chica, and and

114Foxy who turn on the free roam during the night. And your point is is your reaction time is staying awake because if you will nod off during your shift, if you close your eyes, there's a 99.9% chance that animatronics will get to you because they will see you as an endoskeleton without a suit. And um so, this is correlated with the driving. Just think about it. A car is not a secure is not a static security office with the cameras and the doors and lights. This is a two-ton machine moving at a high speed. And unlike the security job where you just sit and watch the danger, danger waits for you everywhere where you drive. And if you if you close your eyes, it's not just a jump scare and a game over screen. This

115is what you will see in the game. This This is the real danger. And so, I I came up with the idea so, in the in of the driving, Five Nights at Freddy's stands for focus. Focus, stay focused on the road. Navigate, you need to choose the right route and navigate and stay focused on the most dangerous hole in the game. Anticipate. You need to You need to predict where the danger starts and predict as well. This is the stage where all the animatronics are coming from. And the finish. Finish your shift safely and finish your drive safely. And so, here's the main message I saw on the monitor like, "Watch out for dangers on the road just like you watch out for evil animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza." And so, sleep awareness month and

116so, last two weeks, so so that last week it was um spirit day. We were wearing pajamas. We were giving out the Dan O's during the lunch, the decaffeinated decaffeinated tea, colorful pages, and in general, we had a huge lots of fun. So, like what I said earlier, my name is Sherry Easton. I'm the SAC president at Apex High School. Um and I will be talking to you about um kind of like what what Carl was talking about about roadway safety and what that means to us. So, um as I'm not sure if this week anything or just an Apex High School thing, but juniors and seniors should get their lunch pass to get to go off campus. So, um obviously, we want, you know, them to return, you know, uninjured just how they left

117campus. And one of the things that we can do is seatbelt checks. We partner um with our local police department, the Apex Police Department. Um and they are given incentives by um we've been using Chick-fil-A um for little free meal vouchers. So, we just check that you're all buckled up. And if you're all if everyone's buckled up, congratulations, you get a little free Chick-fil-A voucher. Um for also our underclassmen, we have this thing called the quick click challenge. It is a really really fun challenge where teams of four get into an ATV and they have to rotate and see how fast they can all they can buckle up in all four seats. The point of that challenge is supposed to be like if you can you know buckle up and run around in 40 in

118under 45 seconds, you should be able to do it on the road and it should just become second nature. The last thing that we the Makayla just talked about was sleep awareness. Um And then also Red Ribbon Week is national it's a kind of like the national like don't do drugs week. So we share information. We pass out little ribbons, little bookmarks, little our little we poles. Um During Red Ribbon Week you can see our hallways are decorated with we poles everywhere. Um and last thing that I did talk about earlier was stress free finals. I know that now finals are kind of optional for everyone as long as you know you get your work in on time and all that stuff. But finals are still very very stressful and you know they just don't

119go away in high school. They still follow you to college and there's really no final exemptions in college. So you know being able you know to establish those good healthy finals habits um you're able to you know just prepare for your finals the best you can. Um so the next thing I'm going to talk about is um just spreading the message of SAD. Right now in Wake County there is only three SAD chapters. Ours, I believe it's Broughton and Wakefield. Um as much as um you know we are impacting the lives of our students on campus, things like the quick click challenge and seatbelt checks will be, you know, spread around the county just be via my friends. But most but more equally if not more more important things like World Mental Health Day will

120not be shared. Um there are also things like um the bingo card that I that Karen mentioned earlier um that I made. There's a there's a section where as one of the spots is just who's your counselor. We assign counselors based off of last names and me a counselor student at Apex my counselor is Ms. Taylor. And you know, my friend over at Cary can't reach out to Ms. Taylor as their counselor. There's a lot of students that don't know who their counselor is because they've never had to reach out to their counselor. Um and it's just a really easy simple thing that um you know, you might need you might not need to go to your counselor for a mental health related thing but college is sometimes you know, ask for you know, counselor

121recommendations and things like that. Um And I and I think that's community part. Oh, yes. Sorry. Um so as I mentioned earlier, um we um Ms. Hill mentioned a couple of companies that you know, SADD partners with but we also have um obviously our wonderful Apex Police Department. Um this would not you know, this would not be possible without you know, having a SADD chapter. Um SADD is a relatively free club to run. Um obviously you know, we we we pulled some funding together for the Teen Talk stuff. Um but it doesn't need to that doesn't need to be there. If you just have at least just one student, you know, sit at sit at the table during lunch and you even if you just gave if you just attracted one student, that's one student

122that knows, you know, about World Mental Health Day or National Suicide Prevention day that happens back in September or just the importance of drug drug awareness and you know buckling up and things like that. We also not only get to know people inside our school that are in the club. I've never met Karen before this club. So not only do we get to meet you people inside our club but we also get to interact with the other students across our school. And we get to help them you know join in sad. I This is our second year of doing sad at Apex High School and I've met some really good people through that. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you for bringing this awareness to us and hopefully your challenge now since you all have

123brought this to other schools will begin this so therefore students are addressing the concerns they're seeing daily and so I'm so very briefly for folks that have comments or board members have comments. Is that correct? You guys just made my day. That's all. Thank you. Just the just the the positive energy you guys have and and the the way to you know change change your own behaviors pure you know pure to pure. And I think that's a great idea. Oh just amazing job great programs. I think a lot of great things are happening out at Apex. You didn't know I do know. Your previous um chief of police Mr. Jason Armstrong is pretty fantastic. Other great programs you guys got going on there is about um that reaches out to students and families that may

124have had some challenges in the Apex area as you talked about SROs and so they can actually send messages to the staff that says handle with care. Been talking to Dr. Taylor about moving that across Wake County, you know, um about handle with care. Not that they share anything that went on in the home, but it was a rough time, a rough night, and so they get to send a message to administration or and teachers to just with that student had a rough night, handle with care. It's a good one. Um there is one thing that I forgot to briefly mention that Ms. Hill mentioned earlier. SAD, we have a whole bunch of high school chapters. Um there are some college chapters out there. Um as Ms. Hill mentioned earlier, I'm going to ECU. ECU

125does not have a current SAD chapter. I am working on getting that to have a SAD chapter. Um so even if your school does not have a SAD chapter, you already know what the you know, the values, the morals of SAD is, and you can just jump right in. Or you can always um start, you know, a chapter like I have started at ECU. Um any materials are really easy to find online. Like like the bingo card, for example, and things like that. Any other comments, Dr. Sullivan? I just wanted to say that was awesome and very inspirational to see not only did you initiate something like this, but you came before us, and you're trying to get other schools to do that, and keep keep going. That's it. You're doing a great job. Going

126to inspire a lot of people. Thank you. LOOKING FORWARD TO MORE CHAPTERS. YES, ACROSS WAKE COUNTY. So we will turn to our last item. We'll go to about 5:45, and then transition to the next room. This policy was looked at a policy committee. Um I'm just going to just put the time down for the quick quick synopsis and turn over to Dr. Crane. Um but Ms. Adams is our policy chair. We kind of got some discussions on it, but we wanted to make sure that every board member had an opportunity to lay some eyes on this and give some voice. So, Dr. Crane, whenever you're ready. Um so, the questions mostly arose around um the timelines and deadlines of making sure that we're meeting those for families um that bring these grievances. And I know

127Mr. Rainey's not here, but he did make comment about he hopes to see us eventually move to a forum type of model so that some of this is laid out in a little bit of a different way. Um but I I re- I watched the meeting again and looked over my notes and I think the main sticking points were about the deadlines. And making sure that the 10-day was going from 10 to 20. So, that was the gist, which I just want to make sure that board members had an opportunity to share their grievance about the grievance policy. No problem with that. Um so, however you want to kick it off, Dr. Crane. I'm really here to listen. Right. So, one of the Whatever you want. And so, one of the things that we talked

128about and discussed in the community chair as well is that you guys wanted to bring this back to discussion. But one of the main points that we wanted to discuss and make sure that we are able to capture is there were concerns about the timeline and being able to really make a decision and decide whether or not there need to be changes in the timeline to add that runway to allow those grievances to take place. And so, we're here to capture all the notes based upon that. I'll defer to our former chair because this was a conversation he and I had about deadlines not being followed. So, Thank you, Chair Swanson. So, briefly, because of the time, to recap, the issue was looking at the number of grievances and complaints that would come through the

129district in the previous 2 years. We would see a number of them, a significant number of them, where the deadlines in policy were not being met. Often times, there might be a reason why the deadline was not met. An issue might have been more complex. It might have required more investigation. A witness may not have been responsive. And yet, even then, we were not necessarily always following the policy in terms of giving notice about why the 10 days was not being met. The concern here is that, you know, one, if we have a policy, if we have a rule, we should follow it. Failure to do so undermines the legitimacy of the policy. It opens us up to challenge. And so, either we need to do a better job of meeting the deadlines, which of

130course we all want to do, but we also need to be honest and take a look at things. And if the size of the district, if the structure of how complaints are reviewed are such that in 2026, 10 days may not be as realistic as it once was. With the number of students, the number of staff, the levels of staff that we have, that a change in deadline to maybe 20 days might be more realistic based on the actual time it's taking to thoroughly investigate and respond to the complaints and have a fair outcome. So, you know, I think some of our interest was initially um captured by complaints about missed deadlines. But, as we investigate the reasons for the missed deadlines, I think there is a legitimate argument that just more time is needed

131to produce a thorough result. So, we wanted to present that to you as an option for amendment to the policy. I think the policy says it's 10 days, so I had to go from 10 to 20, but not no more than that. So, therefore, it's still a process and families are not waiting to hear. Also, staff not waiting today 19 to notify families that the process happens. Not saying that's happened, but But to your point, Chairwoman Swanson, if what we find is in doubling the amount of time, we still persist in late complaints, then it's not necessarily the time to process the complaint. It's maybe a systematic issue. But this I think is a good faith effort to resolve that, being sensitive to the burdens on staff, but also want to be responsive to the

132families. I agree. Ms. Evans. Um so, the first under um let's see, section E, the process for process for grievances. The first um place that I see that the um timeline is on staff is level two, number two, excuse me, number two under E, level one, where it says the principal shall schedule and hold a meeting within 10 school days. I think that's the first place where the staff is mentioned because a lot of this references the person um filing the grievance is the parent, guardian, or student. And they have 10 days to do so. Do you want to extend that as well? So, it was for me, what I saw in and I will say Chairwoman Hardy can correct me. Um it was not on the school's part, it was once it got to

133central office. That next investigation part. So, the school was adhering to that deadline. It was just a mishap and breakdown of communication at that next step. So, if we want to be consistent and give the schools 20 days and let the administration to do their part, that's fine. But, I just did not want it to think that the narrative is going on a school level, which it was not. Yeah. I've not In my time as chair, I hadn't gotten complaints about school-based administrators missing deadlines as much as I did bottlenecks, you know, here in our office trying to process the ones we had. But, the level two If I may, with the level two, it says that the superintendent shall provide a written response within 30 days. So, I'm looking at level two, um Wait

134a minute. And 30 days. And South, if I may, in whenever we bring this back for um we need to have consistent numerical text in addition to spelling out the you know, cuz in multiple places it says 10 {parentheses} nu- numeral 10. Whereas these other citations, it's harder to see the number cuz it's only the Does that make sense? Did you Yeah. Dr. England, then I'll go to Um yeah, um reading through this, I I noticed where um there was a dis- obviously a dis- distinguishing between grievance and non-grievance. Um but, towards the end of it, I think the the terms complainant was brought up, but then it kind of kind of dropped off as a term. Um so, should there be complainant if it's a not a grievance? And and should there be a

135more clear distinguishing in the front front end of it, betw- you know, what a grievance is and what not a what not not a grievance. That's just my feedback. So, looking at this, I'm trying to think of it like how long something could possibly stretch out if if it goes through all of these levels and the and to the last possible day. And my concern with it being 20 days for I guess level three is really where we're talking about. Is that then it could I mean we could be talking after a semester is over. So, one of the solutions also might be um to increase communication from the office. Like perhaps say you know, if the superintendent needs 30 days, but we'll have some sort of feedback within 15 days of like what is

136still taking, you know, the time, that kind of thing. Or if we're going to move to 20 days for the district of Keal, we could say but you will receive you know, communication at the 10th day and then the 20th day, something like that. So, that way it's not somebody who's waiting you know, with something that is obviously very serious to them and their child, some waiting 30 days and then another 20 days and then all of a sudden it's, you know, the school year is over or something. And they're not hearing. Did you have a grievance, Miss Rice? >> I do. So, I was trying to get a little bit better clarity on why students will have to report to the principal their grievance if the grievance is actually um the principal. So, that's

137one thing that's concerning. Uh the second part is um are we saying that it's going to to double if we're going to double the 10 days, are we also going to say we're going to double the 20 days? Which is down in uh I think Miss um Miss Edmonds was talking about it a little bit down in I think E. It's level I'm assuming. Do you want me Would you like me to start? I apologize, Miss Rice. Miss Edmonds was correct when I was looking at it. I was looking at it with my glasses and I heard the 10 days. I wasn't reading in the right place. What we had talked about was extending the 20 days to 30 days. It was an extension of 10 days, not talking about extending the 10 days. I

138was looking at the wrong section and I misspoke. >> Okay, no worries. Yeah, but I am concerned about I know we don't have our ombudsmen yet and all that other great stuff that's supposed to be happening that I'm looking forward to our superintendent making sure that it happens. Um but I am concerned about students or families who might I get this a lot from me um that have to communicate with the principal as that layer when they're the one with the grievance lives. I don't know what that looks like, but it doesn't it seems like a lot of pressure that's not fair. Dr. Robinson, looks like you're Did you have something that you want to No, I'm just um um I'm listening intently and Dr. Green is over here typing intently as well and we're

139trying to make sure that we capture all the notes. But just a point of clarity as I'm listening and trying to make sure that I understand as well. We're trying to extend it to allow for staff additional time in order to address the issue. And the reason and the understanding of why is because staff is pretty much have come close to the deadline or past the deadline and we want to make sure that we have metrics of accountability in place to provide support. So again, I know that we have limited time and so I don't want to take too deep a dive, but we had numerous cases, again, they're protected by confidentiality, but where in some cases, Dr. Robinson, we were months past the deadline. Literally months past what our written policy had stated. And

140it wasn't just one or two outliers. We had numerous I would dare say the majority of cases where we did not meet the deadline. And so trying to look at reasons why we didn't meet the deadline, you know, you know, we've we've spoken to the superintendent, we've spoken to others about it. I know that the superintendent made a number of changes to really increase accountability, but one of the things that came back in the feedback was that the nature of certain complaints require a thorough and aggressive investigation, which sometimes just were not able to be accomplished within that 20 days. Often times if it required independent witness testimony, witnesses might not be responsive, you know, the people that are in charge of the investigations have other job duties, and often times depending on the time

141of year, that was a barrier. So the idea that we could extend that time by a modest amount to see if that improves this, that's not going to address the situation where we're 90 days past the limit, but it should address those other cases where, you know, it just is simply people playing phone tag or someone can't get time off work to come in to meet for an interview. Okay. Um just in kind of in conjunction with what um Mr. Haggerty was saying is I I think there was times when there was like a grievance within a grievance a layer of another layer of grievance, and that becomes kind of convoluted in terms of the time frame, the timeline that we're supposed to follow. So I don't know where how how that would land in

142terms of being clear communication-wise to make sure that both both sides know where we are at in in time line of each individual grievance within the grievance. Right. That makes sense to you, Ken? Yeah, to your to those lines I'm not sure if that also requires a RMP or some guidance to staff that policies one thing then the RMP guides that I guess checks and balances per se so we're not violating our own policy and there and folks are not waiting weeks or months to get some type of communication. And so Mr. Chair that is where we want to see those kind of things reflected in the RMP and so I think we're all on the same page in terms of giving that additional time for staff with those logistical reasons a large number but

143the communication making sure that we reflect those parts in the RMP that is where I would see that reflect but certainly making the adjustments in the policy in time. See that's that's where I think like keeping it at 20 days but again going back to the communication and saying that some sort of communication is due to the family or to the student or whatever within 20 days and then say sorry then saying you know that because I feel like like we're so much in triage mode around here a lot with how much we're doing and if it if we extend it to 30 we're going to then some people are going to get put off because you know now we have 30 days not 20 days but if if it is if it's legitimately going

144to take longer because we can't find people because we can't you know because we need to collect more statements or or there is a new grievance that arose out of this then at least having some sort of communication that goes to the family that says we need to extend it because of these reasons you know it is happening. It's in our It's in our policy that we're supposed to do that and that doesn't always happen. I'm just saying is that the the language says they shall make reasonable efforts to meet it. It doesn't say they will do it in 20 days. And I think that's important. I think that's, you know, those are specific words for a reason. Can I just share something from an experience standpoint that you even as an area superintendent staff,

145when we have grievances and we need to extend past a particular deadline, we always are under advisement to reach out to whosoever to make them aware that we will need the additional time. We will need to um do XYZ in order to meet the specifics of whatever is being asked as we apply. And so as I'm listening and I'm capturing capturing notes and I've captured them. The main concern that I'm hearing is that we as staff are not adhering to the policy and as a result, we need to make sure that we put things in place to ensure that we are held accountable for those expectations. Correct, because and to Dr. Jones' point, that's some do, some do not, but I think if we are if the only person that we're responsible for as a

146superintendent as a board and his staff is not following policy, we cannot say anything to those staff. We have to address those concerns to the superintendent. But when those concerns have been addressed multiple times, I can remember numerous Friday meetings where this was a topic of discussion where we were trying to triage this, but there was no the process was not rectified. So in order to make this happen is through policy, which is the only thing that we're controlled as a board is through policy. And so I know I've had conversations with our attorneys about it. Not that well, attorney Malone and attorney Hodges about what is the mishap. And so extending that to additional time to give them that time to to at least follow and have that communication could relieve some of that

147and also give those families some trust in it as well. So that's that's why I think the two of us are pushing very hard for this because we've seen and dealt with this for at least a year. Would you like a communication timeline included in this as well? As that's been shared? Yeah, I think so. Cuz you say there's policy about this, but I don't see any in here. Well, it's supposed to be. Okay. That's something that can be reflected in the RMP letter, the timeline. Okay. So, I see um Communication. Um Ms. Rice and then Ms. Adams. Really quick, um fair question, comment, or whatever to the extent about the deadlines, um just because I've gotten some emails um on occasions around um just accountability overall, not just from from we said this school-based

148level is doing great, we're doing our part, then we talked about central office, and then that's also, you know, be more mindful as a board when all of the process has gone forward, there are parents who are expecting to have a hearing, and their hearings are canceled. Are we still within that time frame that our policy refers to? And so, if we're going to be transparent, let's be transparent, and let's also make sure we follow policies. And and I mean, cuz I've had health challenges. Um I try to reach out to Ms. Allen in ahead of time before my stuff so she can find a replacement for me. But as a board, if we're sitting here, and it sounds like we're very intentional about this policy for families to get what they need, but let's

149also be intentional about the fact that if we put staff through this to do what they need to do appropriately, let's also make sure that we actually have a hearing for the families who work very hard to get their voices heard with their student, that we don't cancel on them, or definitely don't have a rotating space for alternatives for ourself with that. And I say that because I've had a couple of families um that were concerned about other appeal pieces and and didn't necessarily get to have their happy to cancel. So, that's just a thought of transparency and trust, building our trust with our community. Okay, so that was a whole another Sorry. conversation, but I think that was a good way to go to Mr. Evans and then Sheriff Mr. Evans. Does this one

150have an RMP? Uh I'm not sure if Well, we can do that. One moment, please. I guess this one would be what? This one does not have an RMP. Thank you. And just the last thing is it's it's not part of the issues we brought up with the timeline, but for a future meeting, perhaps in a policy meeting, I would like to go to Mr. Rice's point because most policies in the corporate world, if it's a whistleblower policy, if it's an anti-bullying and harassment policy, all of those internal governance policies usually do have some sort of alternative reporting vehicle if the complaint is to be made if against the person you're supposed to report it to. So, we should make sure we have something similar. Thank you. I think that can be a good close

151on time with this one, but I think we've gotten a little bit more than where we were when the policy was introduced. So, at least this gives this policy some more teeth and there's a more discussion that took place that did not get to take place at that meeting, but you all can take it back to policy and you know, bring this forward. So, with that, I think that gentleman, Mr. You Yeah, the only thing I was going to say is that we appreciate the idea of knowing that the volume can be greater and to give that additional time for staff Uh but I want staff to be clear boys and girls and teens clear as well as the superintendent that violation of the policy that's is the word willful that's what we want to

152avoid you know those should be extenuating circumstances so this is an opportunity to give the board give staff grace but at the same time there's the expectation that we need to get this done within the time frame that the policy allows and we appreciate the board giving that grace but knowing that is the expectation. Perfect. Thank you all for allowing us to go over allowing me to go over a little bit so I thought it was important to get all get through this with us agenda so we will convene in the next room uh we'll convene in the next room shortly. I'm sorry.