2025-10-21 Work Session

001All right, everybody. Welcome. It is 2:40. We're about 10 minutes behind, but we're going to go ahead and begin our work session for today, October 21st, 2025. Uh first up we have feedback and review for the 2026 and 2027 school enrollment program. We have Mr. Crosen, Miss Williams. Miss Williams got it all set up. We need a moment. So do you want to share what we are? >> So I just want to say uh thank you. Thank you to the board for being um open and honest with us about what you expect from us for this particular process. We hope that this feedback will um check all the boxes of the things that you've wanted us to do over the last several years in improving this process for families. I really do want to take

002a moment though to thank Susan. Um Susan and her team have done a tremendous job with um getting out talking to parents um using the thought exchange um making sure that we're having face toface and virtual sessions so people can all feel heard throughout this process. We think the thought exchange that we're using, providing anonymous feedback is a um an upgrade from what we've used in the past because it's able to get honest feedback on both sides of the argument. Um and you'll see in the feedback and the um the materials you have today, uh Susan and her team have done a tremendous job of going through answering particular questions um and making sure that everyone feels heard throughout this process. And so, uh, really excited for the public hearing tonight that will happen at

003the board meeting. And, um, again, after that, we will then turn this process over to you. And then we will take any feedback from you into any potential changes for the final draft, which is still on par for November 18th for a final vote for the board. Okay. Um, before we get started, are there any questions or concerns or things that you've noticed or heard throughout this process before we get started uh that we should be aware of just moving forward? >> Anyone? >> All right. All right. Good. All right. >> So, in just a second, we'll pull this up and get it started. You'll notice that with your paper materials that you received today, you also received a copy of the current version of the public engagement summary report. We just thought it might

004be helpful to have that on hand during the hearing since a lot of the comments were expecting to hear during the hearing would relate to information that's already included in your packet. We'll talk through that in a little bit, but I wanted to make sure you had a paper copy just in case you wanted to take notes directly in the margins. You'll notice there are other attachments that are included. This is a response to board feedback that on occasion our presentations are really lengthy because we're working on making sure everyone who's listening is getting all the information that's been carried forward. So, we've started putting that in as resources in the packet versus asking uh you all to sit through and rehear the same information multiple times. So, those review materials are labeled with letters

005just to sequentially kind of walk you through the order in which to review them. And for the power of magic and technology, we should now be ready. And thank you for your patience. That was a quick turn around between the committee meeting and the work session. >> All right. Ready. >> Okay. So again, today's presentation is intended to be a review of all the feedback that's been collected since the September release of the initial draft um including any recommended adjustments to the plan. We have five core objectives for today. First to just quickly, as I mentioned, briefly talk about the planning process. Um give you a little bit of feedback that we've received from our recent public engagement activities. We'll spend the bulk of our time responding to that feedback and sharing with you those

006responses that we put together. and we will also talk about those recommended adjustments. And before we leave today, we just want to firm up and finalize where we are in the planning timeline. We always want to remind you of how this work aligns with the strategic plan, specifically aims six and 12 within family and community engagement, as well as aims 14 and 19 within operational effectiveness. And of course, board policy 4150 is the guideposts that are set for us in developing and making recommendations for assignment plans with four core pillars. student achievement, stability, proximity, and operational efficiency. All of which have very specific definitions in policy that are particular to the nature of the process. A full copy of this policy, as well as a video explaining the policy, are located on the district's website.

007And the two websites that we've created for this process are still live and active with the migration. I think you may have talked about it a little bit with, but the migration to the new website, all of them are still functioning and uh fully available to the community. So, the pro the planning process, we're still in step four. We've been here for a while. We're getting ever so much closer to to moving into step five. So, we are um very much getting ready to close out this this portion of the process. I thought it would be appropriate to just take a brief moment and remind you that as we kickstarted this process, we started with public engagement happening in the spring and we always want to remind families that it is valuable for them to

008participate in these processes. Here you see a list of things that have changed over time and been included in our planning process as a result of the feedback we've collected, particularly over the last, I'd say, three or so years. Um, that public engagement kicks off in the springtime. So, usually around March is when we start those initial outreach efforts. And the information, I think I mentioned it to you, you've all been given a paper copy of the current version of the public engagement summary report. So all the details of all the public engagement, even dating back as far as 2022, are included in the report that's relevant to this year's assignment plan. The planning implications going into this year's plan from all of that engagement were to continue to focus on areas like stability, calendar

009continuity, cohort continuity, capacity management, and of course balancing all of those within our policy guidance. In May, we talked with you about your goals for the plan and we made sure that we reviewed those together. And so that's that second step in this portion of the process. Uh we clarified and specified the goals for this year's plan were specific to opening the new elementary school, Heltop Edmore Elementary, and aligning the middle and high school feeder patterns for the opening of that school, as well as any domino impacts in the area based on capacity that's being made available as the new elementary school opens. We looked at renovation projects and made the decision that at this time we don't need to have any reassignments related to those. We're going to give schools like Swift Creek a

010year or so to move into their newly renovated facility before making any recommendations which is a similar process we used when Balkam went into its newly renovated campus and Fway Marina Middle went into theirs. for crowding and transportation. There are some elements of this year's plan that do address the ongoing crowding at certain schools and high- growth areas and also um evaluating assignment areas that have inefficient transportation routes. And we did have the the handful of carryover items from last year's enrollment plan to align calendar and cohort feeder patterns for certain uh families particularly in the apex area which brought us to where we have been since September 2nd. So today we will review the public feedback that we've received so far since the release of the initial draft in September as well as any

011recommended revisions. And again, one last plug, and I won't say it anymore, all of the summaries of the public engagement, including detailed analysis, are included in the report that's included with your board materials. So let's start by looking at some of our participation at the uh in-person events. So our or live, I should say, events. We had three live virtual sessions and one in-person openhouse. This is a format we kicked off last year by having an open house again and an inerson openhouse with a resource fair, if you will, included. Um, and so at the beginning of this process, September 9th, 11th, and 17th, we hosted virtual information sessions. You can see that adding in the participation at the open house, we had approximately 805 total participants either during the live event or through watching

012the recording of some of our virtual sessions as well as the attendance at the open house. I do want to draw your attention to the oddly way odd way we're doing the math for the uh open house. We had 44 families check in. We we realized there was a deficiency in our check-in system. It didn't account for the fact that many of those families brought children with them or more than one person. Um so by a range of anywhere from 1 to six members per family, we estimate that we had around 100 actual participants at the event. So uh very similar to our uh the showing last year when we were actually opening four new schools for the Hilltop Need More Elementary virtual session that was held on September 9th. During the live session, people

013were posting questions and we were reviewing those and using a little bit of AI support to help us summarize those. We identified these key areas of interest or key takeaways that came from that particular session. Um I won't go through all of them. You could read them. They're all available for you in your summary reports as well. But I'll draw your attention to areas like guidance on registration and administrative logistics. That was new for us. We had a lot of families that were excited about being assigned to Hilltop New. Well, so then where would we register? How would I make sure my student gets to go there? if I'm already attending a school like Banks Road, do I have to take any specific action to make sure my student gets to go to the new

014school if they're part of the reassignment? So, that was new for us. We hadn't had questions like that over the last couple of years. Um, in addition, interest in transportation details. Again, getting really excited about the opening of a new school, wanting to know what will the bus routes look like, what portions of the neighborhoods will be considered no transport or walk areas, you know, which areas will have routes and and where will those stops be? And we So, we're very excited that you're excited. It's a little early in the process to announce those details, but we have shared that type of information with our partners in transportation. So, as soon as it's available, um, we can make sure it's ready for those families. And then concerns around special education services. We had very concrete

015questions about how will my students IEP be served? Are there going to be occupational therapists on hand or speech therapists on hand? And so, we did share out those questions with our special education department. They've given us wonderful responses and they've already been loaded onto the website. So families with those specific questions can get those answers there. The short answer is yes, we'll be ready to serve your students, but there's a little bit more detail and nuance to that. So that's what's wonderful about these sessions is we're also able to capture those questions that maybe aren't specifically part of the school choice planning and assignment teams area of responsibility, share them out with our colleagues and other departments, and get those responses posted so families can get those answers as quickly as possible. So, we

016do want families to continue to visit the FAQ portion of the enrollment proposal site because it is updated almost weekly at this point. On September 11th, we had a specific session with an intentional focus on Apex and the southwestern area recommendations that are included in this year's plan. And again, you can see a long list of areas. You'll see that there's some carry forwards, right? Stability, please don't change my assignment, calendar continuity. You'll see those as a common thread through all of these. uh thought we would highlight the year- round versus traditional frustration in this area. You know, we we maybe purchased a home thinking that this would be the school assignment for a long period of time based on a particular calendar and now the recommendations are are changing us to a school on

017a different calendar. That that's very frustrating for families. Um equity and fairness and assignments, concerns about, you know, why our neighborhood and not someone else's neighborhood? Why why not choose, you know, a different area? Why not choose an area that doesn't already have students in it? those types of questions. Um, and then appreciation of a concern. So, despite all of their frustrations in a couple of these sessions, there were some families and community members that specifically said, "We're appreciative of the opportunity to at least ask our questions and have them heard and answered." Um, even though we know this is a difficult process and a challenge that's hard to find solutions for that meet everybody's needs. Um, looking on to the September 17th session, that one focused on the eastern area. We also pitched this

018one as a general catchall for anybody who might not have been able to attend the first two live sessions. So you'll notice on the bottom right it says Cricut Creek community. That's part of the Hilltop Needmore recommendations. So clearly that community felt like they maybe missed the live session and came to this one. Um however specific to this area calendar misalignment across feeders. I'm in the eastern area. You have traditional, you have modified, you have single track, you have multi-track, you have early college calendars, and families just expressing that sometimes that's difficult to manage when they have children across multiple grades. Um the stability piece, you know, what's the sibling stability look like? Questions about how long are those stability transfers valid for? Can my students stay through the end of fifth grade or do

019I have to ask every year? These are questions we do get regularly year after year, but we're glad to have them because we want to make sure that we can provide clarity for families around those concerns. Um, and as I mentioned, you see the little pop in of the Crooked Creek that represents that people did take our sort of invitation to come as a general session to this one and and ask those continuing questions that they have. The open house that we hosted, as you can see, this is sort of the laundry list of, if you will, call it a resource fair type environment that we created. On the left are all of our wonderful partners from our internal departments, anywhere from academics to translation services. Just doing that as an alphabetical list. We had

020uh close to 40 or more staff members present from other areas to be able to support our families that had questions about what is it? How does this service transfer? How does my uh child nutrition services support, my cafeteria support, how does that transfer with my student if they go to a new school? Before and after school care, how does that work at a new school? how do we know whether or not they're going to have on-site or off-site? So, we had representatives from a lot of departments that were there. We're so grateful for them. And this year, we had it set up where families sort of walked through the fair on the way in and out of the main event. That worked perfectly. So, they were had multiple opportunities to engage with those resources.

021In the area where we had all the school representatives, you can see the list of schools that were all represented. We really focus on having tables set up for the schools that will be receiving students so families can ask questions about that environment, that culture, what's what do you have at your school academically, extracurricular, how does scheduling work, um if I want to track requests for schools that maybe are multitrack things. So those types of staff were the ones that we had tabled. However, we also had the floating staff from the schools that were impacted, you know, so staff from White Oak Elementary was present even though they're losing students quote unquote in the current proposal. Um, so it was just a great mix of we also had area superintendent, uh, Mr. Ens, Mr. Overman,

022and Dr. Thompson all came and joined us to support the event and families with questions in addition of course to our full school uh, choice planning and assignment team. This was great. It was great. good vibes, good energy, lots of moving and mixing and people truly appreciated the open house format. So, there wasn't a schedule that could just float in as their schedule worked and those tables that brought candy, they were the big winners for our students. >> It was successful also being able to um conduct it at the brand new school because you saw a lot of children who were excited about the school, a lot of families asking for tours and so we um set them up for future tour with uh the the new principal that'll be coming on board down the

023road. Um, but really excited to see the new school and really, you know, the the beautiful property. It's a great piece of property. >> Creates a different kind of buzz when you get to see the school you're going to maybe get to go to. >> Uh, so participation numbers for our other events. We have our website that's continuing to rock and roll. We've had over 6,400 visits to the assignment planning site in general, and the public engagement page has received over 2,000 visits. Uh the specific site for this year's enrollment proposal, however, trumps the mall at over 16,000 visits since its launch on September 2nd. And that was as of October 14th. So I imagine it's continuing to grow as we speak. Our live sessions, as I mentioned, we had a little over 100 participants

024at the open house. We had 269 participants in the live virtual sessions and an additional 436 views of the recordings again through October 14th. So those numbers will continue to grow a little bit as we get closer to the 18th. The online forum we use again is thought exchange. We had 835 participants post 758 thoughts. And so let's look into that a little bit deeper. This is our most um accessible way for families to participate because they can choose their language. They can participate from any device anywhere at any time. There's no time restrictions. And it was open from September 2nd through October 5th. So, and we sent this year I think a little bit differently. We made sure we put reminders in our community message weekly to families even if they weren't in the

025impacted area so that everybody would be reminded that this was open and we were soliciting feedback and thoughts. Um, as you can see the core question that was asked is specific to what are your thoughts about what's included in the initial draft. And you can see here the sort of breakdown of the numbers. So, 835 participants posted 758 thoughts. That means there are a number of participants who just came to look. Maybe they just came to rate. I will say with the 29,660 ratings, that means we had probably our highest rating per thought participation since we've started using this platform for school assignment purposes. So we had well over the 30 is sort of ideal. If you can get 30 ratings per thought on average, that's a really excellent participation. we were nearing 39 ratings

026per thought on average. So really people taking it seriously that they needed to go in and rate those thoughts that was sort of 1 to5 scale. This is the traditional base format for thought exchange. I think we've shared with you there are many other modules that they've added in over the years. We'll be using a different version of it as we go into this next round. Um we had 94% of the participants indicate that they were either parents or guardians. This is not a choose one. So you will see this doesn't add up to 100 because if I'm a parent and a staff member, I can select both of those. If I'm a student and identify as a community member, I could potentially select two of those. You see that we had actually 22 people

027uh participate indicating that they are students within the district. We'd love to see that number go up, but it's always fun to see and you can sometimes tell which ones are theirs based on the phrasing and the language. Uh but it's great to see when students are participating. We obviously had a large percentage participating in the western portion of the the county. We let everybody selfidentify their areas based on, you know, how they identify based on their municipality. Um, however, since we've started doing that, I think we've gotten more authentic results than if we just say generically pick one. So, the other thing we did differently this year, as I we mentioned a couple of times, this particular platform has a decent amount of AI supporting it. And it allows us to use it um

028sort of rapidly to look differently at the comets. And one thing we've been using over the last several years is what I call global themes. What is the sort of top five, if you will, that are coming out of it. And sometimes some nuance can get lost when we stay in that space. So this year you're going to see me showing you how they're globally sort of organized and then a little bit more granular approach. And then I wanted I want you to see both of those angles to know that that's how staff is looking at it if we don't always communicate it here at the table. But our total number of comments were most highly rated in the area of community disruption. Um that was a common theme this year. We feel really connected

029to our school. We you know build partnerships and relationships. our students have friends here or you know we've invested our time and efforts into being a part of this particular community. So just disrupting that to take us to a new school. Um lots of thoughts in that kind of category. Equity and fairness. I touched on that a little bit in the opening remarks. School ranking concerns, transportation and commuting and calendar changes. When we switch to the star score, so that 39ish ratings per thought sort of outcome, we see that it really levels off. So although community disruption had the most quantity of thoughts the rating across all the other areas was relatively similar around a 3.5 slightly above I think school ranking concerns was a little bit below a 3.5. I would pause here to

030say that a 3.5 really is an indication of low alignment. Right? If you're not getting fours and above, meaning everyone consistently supports and agrees on these thoughts and ideas. We we've got both sides of the coin here. Some people like, I get that there's community disruption, but it's not that big of a deal. We have some saying, I get there's calendar changes, but it's really not that big of a deal. So, we've got people sort of in the community, as as Glenn sort of mentioned, you anonymously being able to represent both sides of each issue. So, that makes it more challenging for us as staff because it's hard to tell what's most important to the entire community. Um, the other thing I would encourage those that are watching to do is to go on to

031the website. We have an interactive link. You can actually click on a bar and see what those comments are and see what the rates are. So, you can see the level of detail that we as staff have as well. This is just to give you a quick breakdown. I won't read through them, but it lets you know the kinds of thoughts that were organized into each of those global themes. We're 10 minutes behind here though. This is that deep dive a little bit deeper. Let's look at this a little bit more granularly. What do we mean when we say community disruption? We're talking about specific communities. We had certain communities really go in and and reiterate to us multiple times, this particular community has concerns. This particular community feels a certain way. Um we had

032the preference for traditional calendar versus calendar changes. Right? That's a very much more nuanced take on that particular question. Stability and consistency. I think without a doubt that has been a theme through every single engagement we've probably ever had since we started doing assignment changes back in the8s, right? Um we just don't want to change and if I have to change then let's take all these other things into consideration. So it just it gives us a little bit you know the calendar changes becomes its own category separate from pref preference for traditional calendar and that's different right? that's oh I'm on this calendar and I'm being asked to switch to a different calendar because of the reassignment right that's a nuanced sort of perspective versus just calendar issues so when I when these get reorganized

033by the star scores as similar phenomena to the global 3.5ish is about our highest rating so getting anything to rise up into a four has been really challenge challging this year. We can't see, you know, combined energy toward one idea. Just something for us to note. So, the thoughts on the initial draft and the granular themes, this gives you an idea of the kinds of comments that would be organized into each of those granular ideas, aside from the ones I've already sort of teased out. However, I think what's really most important for us to think about is, okay, it's been very clear. We we support this, but we support that. This is a big deal. this isn't a big deal. Where do we align? So, one core example for us is, you know, there's just

034we just don't want to be reassigned, right? We just don't want to change. And I get that. I understand that. And please know the planning team does everything we can to minimize the total number of families impacted because we get that change is just not preferable to for anyone if we don't have to do it. Um, and then the other's like, well, but but we see the benefits. We see that moving students around will maybe balance populations of schools. One's overcrowded, one's underenrolled. It might create a a better distribution of resources because I think our community is very keenly aware that headcount equals resources for schools at a base level, right? So, there's some comments there saying, well, maybe the redistribution, it sort of outweighs change, right? Not wanting to change. But either way, regardless

035of what side of that fence a family was sitting on, they could all agree that we need to be fair. We need to have stability wherever possible so that the assignment changes are less abrupt and again on our abone our favorite websites. So what then does that all that mean? So let's let's dig deeply into these. We really started looking at some very specific thoughts and comments and we've highlighted a few for you here in the presentation. And obviously there's more details in the in the full report, but there are some families specifically in the area impacted by the opening of the new Hilltop Nemore Elementary. They're they're kind of okay with that, right? That sort of made sense to them. We've been talking to that community for going on three years now. So they

036kind of understood what was coming. But the alignment from Herbert Akens Middle to West Lake Middle and from Willow Spring High to Middle Creek High, that felt a little I'm not so sure we're super excited about that. There's concerns about the potential disruptions to academic and social development for students, particularly in those upper grades when you're making those long range plans for how you're going to build out your schedule at the high school level. Uh they feel in a lot of times that the current assignments are more approximate to them to the proposed assignments and of course valuing just those community connections that they've established with their current schools. And so just to remind you where the area that we're talking about, the area highlighted on your left represents the current state of things for

037the elementary school. on the right, that yellow area would be the future Hilltop need more base attendance area if you were to accept the draft as it's currently proposed. That same area is not aligned at the middle school level. And as you'll recall, we've reported to you on multiple occasions, cohort continuity is a big issue for our families across the district, regardless of region. If my students are going to fifth grade with this group of students, I'd really like them to go on to sixth grade with that same group of students. And so you'll see here what represents that sort of light blue area on the right is aligning that so that all of the students at Hilltop Needmore would go to one middle school West Lake. In addition, it solves a crowding concern in

038the region. Herbert Akens Road Middle is in a high growth area. It's already getting kind of full. We're sort of pushing the limits here. And with our recommendation that Hilltop Needmore start on a track four operating even though it'll be identified as a multi-track school that being able to go to Westlake creates all that calendar alignment for those families as well. They'll know they're on track four the whole time and it relieves some pressure for her and Red Middle. So this was a dualprong cohort alignment as well as addressing crowding in the region. Um and at the high school level similar concept this area then would all go on to Middle Creek because Westlake Middle for large part goes to Middle Creek High School. So that creates that cohort continuity. And so then that would

039also allow us to address the growing membership at Will Spring being that it's one of our southernmost schools. There's nowhere else to go but sort of up. So allowing us to utilize some of the capacity there at Middle Creek High School. So it creates cohort alignment and um takes better advantage of the capacity in the region. So here you see the detailed response. I'll go through this one line by line and then the others will kind of hop around once you get the flow of them. But here you'll see that so our initial response to staff is that the primary objective of this particular assignment recommendation was to not only fill the new Hilltop be more elementary but to align those middle and high school theater patterns as well as to address the ongoing crowding

040in the region. So the benefits of the or assignment I sort of mentioned as I was going through the visuals is that Westlake Middle and Middle Creek High have available capacity. They will allow for a stable assignment for the foreseeable future. We're looking out, you know, in the out years, you know, as much as 10 years ahead. Westlake Middle is already on track four. So, if Hilltop opens and operates on track 4 per our recommendation, that creates a beautiful calendar alignment as well, K8 for those families. Um, and then it just allows for better resource distribution allocation across all the campuses in the area for stability purposes. Since all of these are existing schools, Westlake Middle, Herbert Akens Road Middle, Willow Spring High, and Middle Creek High, any student that's already attending Herbert Akens Road

041Middle or Willow Spring High that would like to stay there, we're prepared to do those generous stability transfers that we've been doing for the last couple of years, as long as the families can provide transportation. That then gives them the ability to bring in a rising sixth or nth grade sibling if needed. And moving forward, if they're still there, they could bring in those rising sixth or nth grade students. Um, so that the family could maintain that relationship with the school for all of their family as long as the students are close enough together in age. As far as transition support goes on the opposite side, if you'll take the new assignment, the staff is welcoming and inviting. I think our biggest contingency at the open house was from Westlake Middle and Middle Creek High

042School. They were so excited to welcome families into their campuses with open arms and help them figure out how to make that transition smooth. Um man manage academic concerns, extracurricular extracurricular concerns, all of those. As far as distance goes, the Westlake Middle and Herbert Akens areas are about equidistant, right? They're really not too much further or closer. And actually some areas they're a little bit closer to Westlake Middle. Some areas they're a little bit closer to Herbert Akens Road Middle. It's not that different distance-wise. The high school's a little bit different. The portion that's a little bit closer to Hilltop Needmore obviously is a little bit closer to Mil Creek High School, but the area that's right there um at Willow Spring, that is it is going to be a farther distance. It's on the

043order of about four miles. And at the high school level, that's not too terribly far, but it is about up to four miles farther for some of those families. So, we do acknowledge it's not the most approximate school, but as Glenn has taught me to say, the most approximate school with available capacity. And so that kind of is the way we go through our rationale. Again, I won't step through every single one of the future the next steps, but I wanted you to see how we laid out that for you so you could have that understanding from the planning team's perspective as to why we didn't recommend a change. So the next group is the families residing in the Cresmont and Pines communities. They have asked to remain assigned to White Oak Elementary and Mils

044Park Middle rather than being assigned to Turner Creek and Salem Middle. Similar issues. They value their community connections. they don't want to have a disruption in their academic um sort of paths that they've set for themselves and opportunities that are there. So, just as a quick reminder, you'll see this one a couple of times. This is an area that already is experiencing such crowding that many of their schools are capped. Both of the ones we're talking about are wide open um Mills Park. And by the blue arrows that you see on the right, that shows the projected growth in this area. So, it has not stabilized or stopped. we still have more families and students coming into this area. So, the area that's specifically where Cresmon and Pines are is roughly where you can kind

045of see these ovals um on the left and the right of the screen. I tried to zoom in a little bit so you could see it's it's sort of the southern area of the recommended portion to be assigned from White Oak into um Turner Creek and then again from Mills Park into Salem Middle. And again, this is this is the hard one because we had a lot of families asking, "We see that there's new developments in the White Oak base. Why aren't you moving those? And it's because White Oak's already full. We need immediate relief. And the only way to provide immediate relief is to move actual students, not future neighborhoods. So, right now, White Oak needs immediate relief so that they can continue to serve families that are in the remaining portion of their

046base attendance area. And we will continue to monitor the school over time to determine if additional recommendations are needed in the out years. I will say candidly, we came to this community early last year and this year saying would multitrack be preferred to be re being reassigned and that was a hard mode. Um and so in response to the community saying we'd really prefer to keep the traditional calendar that's really important to us. Um reassign if needed. We kind of went that path yet with the stability rules. So that way the existing families that are in these communities, if they're already attending White Oak, already attending Mills Park, they can certainly stay through the fifth and eighth grade respectively, uh, as long as they can provide transportation because the transportation in these communities will now

047be routed to the to the east, excuse me, to serve the base attendance areas for Turner Creek and Salem. So we get this one's hard. We we do understand that completely. Um, again, this is to provide relief to Mills Park. It's stabilizing a little bit. What's hard, and I think Mills Park is a perfect example because it's been capped for so long. Notice its capacity with trailers is 1352. It consistently runs close to 1,600 based on your approved cap. So, they think that's normal, and it's not, right? It's taxing the resources on the building. It's asking the school to function in a way that no other middle school in the district is functioning and operating. And it while they've done a great job of making it work and providing an amazing academic environment for their

048students, they just shouldn't have to work this hard to serve that many students. It's not how the system was designed to function. Um, and so this would provide a little bit of relief. Notice it's not enough because remember to the north of this, the new Parkside Middle will be opening in a couple of years and provide that last little bit of room that the school will need long term. So you can see here, I've sort of talked you through it. I don't know that I need to go through it bullet point by bullet point. Um, in this case, because they're on that lower portion of the attendance area, they're either closer to or not much farther from either of the two schools. They're kind of in a little equidistant spot between uh White Oak and

049Turner Creek and Mil Park and Salem Middle. Same region just a little bit north. This is the Southerntherland community. I believe they even provided a petition during one of your previous board um here board meetings. Same basic concern. We'd really rather stay and and have someone else go. So, we kind of address that point that it's it's about finding communities that are already have students in them. And it's also about collecting all those communities together similar to conversations we had last year. A handful of smaller neighborhoods cobbled together creates an impact. So taking any one of them out reduces the ability of the plan to meet its goals. So again, same region, same high growth concerns, just a little bit different portion of the map. It's the northern area that you see there um that's

050highlighted there in that rough region, but you'll notice it's embedded in a bigger region. So if that whole region comes, that provides the relief we're looking for so that White Oak can continue on traditional. that's probably still going to need to be capped for the time being, but advises some time to figure out what that longer range solution will be for that for that school. Again, immediate crowding concerns trying to relieve those and distribute the resources across um the schools a little bit more evenly in this community. Mills Park is the base attendance area currently for that same community. And so again, the same concerns here at Mills Park as we talked about with the other community. Slightly different nuance. It is a little bit farther for some of these families to go to these

051newly assigned schools because they are slightly more approximate to right in most part. But I think on it's on the order of twoish miles, maybe a little bit more depending on rerouting during hight traffic times. But as far as physical distance goes, this is the most approximate set of schools that has long-term capacity to support the community over time. While we're in the white oak community, couple more. Um, this is uh an area that's also saying, hey, if this has to happen, why didn't we get a traditional calendar application option at the elementary level? So, we've looked at it, we've reviewed it, um, and and feel like we want to make a planned recommendation here to adjust that and add in a calendar application for this area so that they'd have the same options as

052the rest of the students attending Turner Creek, which currently is Botham Elementary. And so, we are proposing and adding in, we've put that in the address book of tool already. So families are looking, they'll see that adjustment is included in today's um review. The K8 calendar alignment year round and traditional also it's in there for nuance. If you want to go through it later on, you can. But they'll have lots of options depending on how they participate with stability transfers. And so this just gives them one more way to keep pay alignment for their families. In this case, maybe even K12. Here's where it gets a little fun sometimes. Every year we have a handful of communities that are like, "But we want to be included." They surprise us. We'd like to be reassigned. We'd

053like to have a different assignment. And that's wonderful news to hear sometimes except for when what they ask you for is already crowded or capped perhaps. But in this case, it's very thoughtful request. There's uh the Trace neighborhood, the Stonemont neighborhood, even some areas near Olive Chapel. There are many others. We just wanted to highlight a few so you could know that we are hearing those requests. And so what we want to remind everyone is the primary objective of this year's enrollment plan wasn't to add things that would destabilize other neighborhoods. It was to open Hilltop Need more and create calendar alignment, address high growth areas where we could possibly and then make transportation a little bit better and hit that lingering concern from last year with the changes um from Olive Chapel and Salem

054into Balkcom that created calendar misalignment at the middle school level and cohort misalignment middle school and high school. So these areas just weren't part of the primary objectives of this year's plan. So, with that being said, the planning team is reviewing these for potential inclusion in future plans if it warrants, if it's appropriate. So, it's okay. Families keep doing that because that lets us know that you have concerns that you'd like to see included in future plans. But again, um, we were talking a little bit before today, but I think it's really helpful for the community to hear multiple times that the planning team's goal every day that they wake up is to impact the least number of families possible each year while accomplishing the district's goals. So trying to keep the smallest number of

055students impacted and provide the greatest amount of stability through stability transfer rules possible has really been the goal particularly over these last couple of years knowing how how much change has been disruptive um really ever since co in particular but no no one's life changed before that but even since like we've just noticed that behavioral and and priority change for our communities so we just want to keep reiterating that And I I just want to throw in there that Susan's team has done a tremendous job of lengthening that runway as well. It's getting out to them earlier earlier and often and and that think that's really made a difference in the plan and the feedback that you've received over time. >> Thank you. >> Another community that's included in this year's plan that's asking to

056maybe not be included is the Becket Crossing community. We had a lot of comments asking that they get to stay assigned to Apex Friendship High rather than being assigned to Apex High. This is part of that objective number three of cleaning up the feeder pattern alignment. So they they value those connections with that school. They don't want their students to have to to lose uh progress that they've made in the courses there. So we continue to reiterate this is to align that cohort. As you can see, this is the area that we're talking about. So it's embedded in that larger piece of purple that becomes green. It's it's in the middle of it essentially. It creates a a lovely map, if you will, from a transportation perspective. It's really helpful to our transportation department because

057the routes become more efficient. Um, in addition, Apex Friendship isn't done growing. We've done a lot to relieve the crowding at this campus. And this year, as of today, for the first time, and I can't tell you how long, has not capped out of student this year. But I will say that quietly because it's it's been a long time coming. And the growth is on the heels of all of that relief coming quickly to this community. So you'll see that it's already projected to continue to grow over time. So not only does this create that co cohort alignment, welcome apex middle, apex high, which is a very organic and natural feeder pattern for students, it also gives us one extra little help to relieve the crowding at Apex Friendship um and prepare for that growth

058that's coming. However, we are again supporting stability here. any student that's attending the school would be eligible to stay as long as they can provide their transportation and of course the siblings can join them as well as long as they're in school together at the same time. This takes us a little bit back to the White Oak community. There's one portion of the White Oak community called Greenmore that's a relatively large subdivision. Um, and because of how large it was, the initial planning recommendations that you never saw said, "Let's take the whole community over to Turner Creek." It was a big change between White Oak and Turner Creek. It would have really reduced White Oak too rapidly. Um, and it would have filled Turner Creek a little too quickly. So, what we looked at were

059some some topographical issues. We talked about this during the presentation and the community has shared with us it's it's just a but there's still a road that connects. we we don't see that, you know, we're like, we hear you. We understand that completely. We really do. But finding some sort of pseudological point to divide the community in half so that we at least have two school assignments, not three, right? We've really worked on that. Um, so that's really the reason for not including all of it or backing all of it out because not moving that area also doesn't sufficiently support the relief we need for White Oak. So, we are between a rock and a hard place here. And so that's why the planning team is recommending to go forth with continuing to take the

060northern portion of the community over to Turner Creek, leaving the southern portion, and then continuing to monitor and evaluate, and if and when it's appropriate, we might come back to in a couple of years or three, four, five, six years and see if we can bring those together. The other piece that's maybe not known to these families is already today, Turner Creek and Salem Middle are their calendar application options. And because they're asking out of White Oak and Hills Park, we would be very able to approve the large majority of those requests if they wanted to follow the community and go together to those two schools. So the families that want to join those that are being assigned into Turner Creek and Salem could easily do that using the online application period that'll be open

061through January. Um or even the transfer request period. We would work with them during that time. Um however, that's kind of where we are. And Glenn, I think you were to add something. >> Yeah. I I just wanted to say like there's a precedent set for splitting some neighborhoods and we've used geographical boundaries. Um I'll take you back to when we opened Green Level High School and we had to split the Carry Park neighborhood. Um it's a very similar situation here where you know we would love to not disrupt the entire neighborhood but we do the best that we can in order to build the schools because again you're chasing land and where you can get land and then where the developments are and trying to make them proximate are all the things we have

062to consider as we do. So we try to make it as least impactful as possible as Susan shared. >> And so that's it for some detailed deep dive responses. Again, there's more information on the website through the FAQs that answers a lot of the other discrete questions that families have asked. Uh you know, how do I do this? How do I do that? How do I get my stability transfer process? What age group can do it? We had a really interesting nuance question come from the principal at White Oak. She said, "We've got some families that are currently overflowed to the designated overflow school, and they just want to know what their stability option is." I was like, "You know what? That's a that's a really clarifying question we need to address. We would want

063you to have stability at the school you're currently attending." So, whatever the overflow school is, if they're already at that school, we would allow them to have stability transfers for that school to stay there if they want to provide transportation or they could take the new assignment to the Turner Creek Salem Middle um whichever works best for their family. So that we'll get that out though because I got that this morning. So we'll update our website with that question as well and others that are similar to it that we keep capturing throughout the the weeks. All right. So again, we have just the one adjustment that we're proposing today from a staff perspective. It refers back to that conversation on slides 59 and 60, and that's to add in Botham Elementary as a traditional calendar

064option for the families that are being proposed to come from White Oak to Turner Creek. That way they have the same option as all the rest of the Turner Creek um elementary families as well as at the middle school level we had already included it that they would be able to apply to Apex Middle. So where we are in the timeline, we're at the bottom of the list. There's not much left to go. So later today you'll have your public hearing and um staff will be in attendance to take notes during that process and and if you need us, we'll be available. Um and then on November 18th, we plan to bring to you the final draft during work session with any revisions that are requested maybe as a result of the public hearing or

065any additional thoughts um that are that are brought forward so that you feel comfortable voting on it and approving it at that meeting later that staff has already launched our website. I was yeah the new updates to the website have already been posted. Um the links to the recording of this session will be added once it's available. We will have your public hearing later today. The uh new online forum is open. That online forum functions a little differently. So just as a reminder, there's many different ways we can use the thought exchange platform, if you will. And one is to do a deeper dive. This time of the cycle, we have a lot of families and community members saying, "I need more than just a handful of characters. I have more to explain." So this

066allows them to get a little bit deeper into explaining what it is that they would like for staff or the board to know. And so we can bring you a more rich summary of that information. It us prompts them to sort of the details and add more to it so that by the time they get to the end of the cycle, they've given us a good comprehensive picture of what it is that they're concerned about and what it is that they'd like to see changed. Um different from the others, they won't see each other's thoughts and rate them because we already have that assessment. We already know how everyone feels about the different concepts. This is about getting your thoughts sort of into on paper, if you will, um so that we can all have

067a chance to review those and and determine if there's any revisions that need to be made in addition to what have already been proposed. And I think chair, you've asked this many times. At this point, we would be looking more to remove something. This late in the process, we really wouldn't add anything because that would be unfair to those families who typed in their address on September 2nd and didn't see an impact and said, "Phew, I'm done." Right? So, at this time, it would just be removing um or anything that the board feels like just has to be done. And then we would do whatever um engagement we would need to with impacted families to to take care of that. October 29th, a week from tomorrow, we'll have a virtual session to just answer any

068questions that families have. We won't go through as much of the detail that we went through with you, but just we kind of highlight the recommended adjustments and how to find the responses, but we'll spend a lot of time just gathering questions and answering any questions that families have. We'll post that recording once it's available as well. >> And so then I turn it over to you. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Floyer. >> Board members, do you have any questions about the presentation or about the reassignment agenda? Miss Ed, >> just one. Did I hear you say the um Herbert Akins Middle School that they're while we see not I'm sorry, Mills Park Middle School. While we see that the capacity of trailers is 1352 that they actually run at 1600. Yes, ma'am. Because

069of that and that >> I just want to make sure I heard that correctly. >> That's just one. Well, schools that are in my district do not operate at that level who are struggling with enrollment. So, >> same >> with that. Well, one is a magnum, one is not, but they're still struggling significantly. But is there a way for those families who would like a traditional calendar option? Could a west carry or east carry be an option for those families? >> So, yeah. So, what we do is when parents submit transfer requests, uh we obviously won't be able to provide uh district transportation, but we do offer the ability uh for families in these overcrowded traditional calendar schools to attend a more uh less approximate but same calendar school. Um you know, Reedy Creek, West

070Carry, East Carry. will often use that during the transfer process before many of the appeals get to you uh as a board. >> And as a reminder, both East Kerry and Rey Creek are magnet schools. So today, families could go ahead and start putting in those applications cuz that opened on the 15th if they're interested in the magnet programming at the school. And sometimes that'll come with maybe a lesser level of transportation service, but it might come with some level of transportation service as well. So they might have two ways to ask for some of those campuses. >> Coming out of Mils Park Middle School, they're likely to have high priority. further questions. All right. Okay. See you all a little bit later today. >> Thank you very much for the opportunity to share. >>

071All right. So, we'll move to the next topic on our work session agenda this afternoon. This is a followup to our presentation, our last work session on insurance coverage, insurance coverage for the district. So, uh, we will welcome our finance and risk management team. We'll give them a mass a minute to set up and then we'll proceed from there. yesterday. >> That's right. Are you ready for anytime you're ready? >> Okay. Thank you and good afternoon everyone. Um we are following up as chair he said on a presentation that was made by you back at your August 19th for court session and purpose of today's presentation is to follow up on a number of questions board members asked that as well as some research we've done looking at other districts and how they have looked

072at and in some cases has gone forward with providing certain clubs or allowing some their schools to provide certain levels of clubs. We've got information to share with the board on that as well. So, I'm going to not put any more into it and turn it over to Miss Posie to present the the information and we'll be glad to take all sorts of questions either through the process or at the end. >> Thank you. Um and again just for time and to manage everything let's try to put questions at the end unless you have something that's really burning and you think uh can get a quick quick answer. >> All right go ahead. >> And joining me uh this is Trish Bilbrook. So we'll refer to me as Trisha or Miss Posey. Um and uh

073Mr. Nathan Barnett is our senior director of risk management and then our director of risk management. So they have all the knowledge base the deep knowledge here and DK will also be here to answer any questions you may have. All right so one of the questions you asked is about the medical insurance provided for student participants and so um Miss Brook shared a little bit about the coverage that we do carry. So the these are risky activities uh we do carry the accident insurance um provided for athletes, band cheerleaders. Um, so those activities that we have always covered for I think about 30 plus years now. And so the activities that are not covered are general club activities. And further into the presentation, you'll see where there's a insurance called all student. And so that's

074the type of insurance that um our other one other we only heard from one other school district uh that has expanded their coverage for some activities club activities that we cons current currently consider um kind of riskier activities that our insurance liability insurance would not cover. So this is medical insurance and so in the last time we met with you we presented and shared what that medical insurance is. It is parent insurance. So the parents can file claims for injuries to their children. It is not insurance that we manage coverage. We pay for it and the parent files the medical coverage. You'll see later on a slide where we have the standard plan. There's some premiums in there that you can see. Not premiums, you can see the coverages for the different types of injuries.

075It is CAT, so it's not a large insurance, but it does cover for injury. And so that was one of the questions that you all presented to us is how do how do other districts do this? They do it through this medical coverage that the parent can file for claims. The next question has to do with um the liability and risk in the event of an accident or injury. So, our liability insurance covers general liability, uh, bodily injury, personal injury, property damage related to school operations and premises. So, activities not included in the policy can expose that would not be covered by our policies. And so adding activities such as the skateboarding or biking um in the form that's been shared with us where we would be sponsoring that not an offsponsor off premise in

076a sense. Those types of things would be policy exclusions as an endorsement removing the coverage for liability. Once again the medical coverage for the parent still cover for injury for a child but it does not reduce the or mitigate the risk and exposure for the district. when it comes to general liability. The next question, what policies are in place with other districts to cover extracurricular programs? So, they don't really have policies. The one district that we heard from in New Hover, their board had a desire to expand some of the coverage and protections for um medical coverage for the students, but their liability is still not covered. they still have an exclusion for adding these activities, but they went ahead and did that. And you'll see later in the slide, we'll share the cost coverage

077that they're paying for their students. They are covering all student bodies. Um, and you'll see that the young group who we work with and they also cover 98 other districts. Um, many about 50% are covering um the student all student insurance coverage. So once again, it does not mitigate the risk of the liability coverage um in the event that there was a lawsuit against the district. Those were the three primary questions that we heard from you. And so we're going to kind of continue with a little bit more information about what research we did do in reaching out to other districts. Um, and so the current riskmanagement guidance that we have, there is a flyer out there and I'm going to look to this little worksheet and explain to you just sort of where this

078uh guidance was created from. Sure. There's a document in the district that we share with our schools and leadership. Um, and it was jointly created with the area superintendent's office. It's called evaluating risk for student activities and events. And so this is the guiding document for our schools when they're determining what type of activities are permissible within the school system. Um it's commonly known as the no fun list. That's what principles tell me when I orient them. Um and so we'll we'll take that for risk management. Um but it is uh meant to be a clear document for schools. We also provide guidance for PTAs and that was added in the last probably three or four years uh and we found that to be very helpful. So this document is housed on the risk management

079and safety website. Um it's shared in numerous ways with schools and that is our guiding document. Um it lists the activities which are prohibited. Um and so we can share that with you at any time if you're interested but that has been in existence for quite some time. The iteration that you see today of six pages is more recent in the last probably three years. All right. So, our one school that did uh respond to me. So, I reached out to the Big 12. And so, that's my network that I reach out to with our uh finance officers. So, New Hover County Schools uh did add they have them as conditionally approved activities. So, this is the their first year getting into this. And so the young group provides their insurance coverage um 88 cents

080per student. So they have a small population of students. So it's 22,000 uh for the year for their student population. Uh they did engage in signing waivers that their legal counsel and insurance provider were involved with. Um that is not something we we stay away from waivers but that is with the exception of the JOTC and the CTE programs. Um but that is something that they chose to do on their end. Um and then once again they responded back to me that they understand with their insurance carrier that the there is still the risk um the financial risk with the liability and that is the one school we heard from. We did reach out to NC Prima through the network uh that Mr. Barnett um connects with and there there was no feedback on that.

081And I was I'm going to turn this so that you can share a little bit on that piece as well. >> A little bit more information about the student accident insurance which you seemed interested in when we last presented. And so we have been purchasing this the district for many many years um as a way to allow students to participate in activities that have a greater amount of risk. The groups that are have been covered for many years are athletics and other things that might extend to athletics such as band, cheerleading, ROC activities. It also covers all of our students when they're on a field trip. And so this particular student accident insurance is a supplemental coverage for parents. It's a medical insurance that may provide out-ofpocket expenses for parents when they have to pay

082things like such as deductibles. Their health insurance that's primary will be considered first. This information is also on our website and has been for many years. Parents often look at that um especially when they have an we'll say an athlete could be a JRTC student as well. If they want to file a claim, parents would file this claim. District purchase it, but the parent would be the one to manage the claim. All right. So, in this slide here, you're going to see our current coverage. And so, we pay $66,500 a year for the current coverage. Um, and that is the exact same coverage that Miss Goldberg just went over. uh in addition to that uh in order to expand it to other clubs and activities you can see the groups covered for high-risisk risk activities

083for the additional would expand it beyond so PE before and after school clubs work study off-campus learning evening and after school types of concerts play dances that would be an additional $80,557 the coverage type is the same when it comes to the medical coverage and the claim claiming by the parent filing it as a supplemental to um their basic insurance. Um those are funds that we do not have designated in our our budget. So that would be something that would have to be identified if the board um wanted to look at expanding to the all student coverage. And then in the link the base standard plan that's where you can see uh the different types of um coverages uh based on the injury it before you go on and I do want to make a

084couple comments or add some information on this slide because when I first heard about this additional coverage it's like wow that's a slam dunk. um less than $100,000 and we can have coverage for skate club, bike club, whatever. There is coverage as you've heard from Trish and Trish um for health, but it's limited and it's limited to a maximum I believe of $25,000 in claims and it's only for the health. It does not cover any other kind of liability if there was an accident and somebody else was injured or it does not cover property damage. So that is an important thing to note and I'm going to give you something in single dismemberment is capped at $5,000. So it's likely in the event that there was some activity that the district is desirous of offering

085and we can put this in place and it does provide an additional layer to manage the risk but it's not true full-blown risk management. It's kind of scratching the surface. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. So, we have um the student clubs. So, student clubs uh they must be based on student interest. They have to have a faculty sponsor and they have to receive principal approval. And so, risk management just really is there in the advisory capacity. Um so, we just provide guidance to the district on those activities. It really has to be elevated from the the school level before it comes to to us. This is governed underneath board policy 68006801. And so as we move forward, we would need guidance from the board as to what direction you would like staff to

086go. Um we pulled the information that's available to us and reaching out to our contacts through insurance as well as through finance officers. um the medical coverage as I said in New Handover this is their their first year going into that and so they are conditionally allowed activities. Um and I think that if you would like to share when I get to the slide you did look at some options of ways to do this through other sponsorships that would kind of mitigate some of the risk. >> Right. >> Do you want to share that here as we talked through that because you looked at some off-campus? >> Yes. There's u well locally there are skate parks and there are biking clubs not mountain biking biking clubs uh where uh a child's parents or school school

087uh would pay for it uh if that was the way we wanted to go with it the liability and all the insuranceances would be paid as part of the the fees to use the parks. So we're transferring the cost, mitigating our liabilities, and we're and we're giving more attention to the safety of individuals. So having having it out of the school's responsibilities is a district's responsibilities is a is a better fit. >> Thank you. So there are some opportunities there to look at um risk exposure um and through other channels of sponsorships where there are skate clubs and other things available and we covered that one right there on the alternative models. Did you have any questions about the alternatives? So, looking at some of the alternatives, I had a couple questions, but I just

088real quick wanted to check to see if any other board members do at this time. Okay, I see Miss Coffin. Let me ask mine and then I'll come to you. Did you also want something? Um, looking at the alternatives that that you presented there. Um, I want to make make clear the alternatives are there to provide student accident insurance. It's not liability coverage for the district, right? It's only insurance that the parents could take advantage of. In those cases, is providing that insurance to the families and parents shield the district from any liability if a family chose to bring a claim in addition? >> No, it does not. So, a bad example, but um bad example, not it's a good example of an unfortunate situation. A student is seriously injured in some type of activity

089after school club. Let's say they lose a limb. Horrible situation. And if if we as a district have this additional coverage that we've heard about that would cover some of the costs, but again it's got limits and on the slide in the assembly there are two links on that slide that will take you to what the actual coverages are. They're hot links. Um, as far as a parent then who is seeking some other type of relief, they are free to move about the country and file lawsuit for any additional medical claims, any other liability claims, negligence claims, pain and suffering, I mean future losses wide open. And so providing just just to make doubly clear providing that student insurance whether through a fee that's covered by the district or just providing it as a benefit

090doesn't act as any sort of waiver for the families that by accepting it they wave any right to play. Okay, >> that is correct. Can I add one one point to that? It's also I think counterintuitive but important to remember that insurance even liability insurance for the district doesn't really protect you from liability. It it provides a mechanism for it provides a fund that can pay a claim but under state law you're the board is immune from negligence toward claims as a starting point. When you purchase liability insurance you wave that immunity to the extent of the coverage. So, it's a voluntary choice to wave immunity, but you're protected in that you can't be liable beyond the extent of your coverage. So, it's just uh I just thought it was important to sort of get

091that when we talk about liability and the scope of liability. I think staff's here talking about the extent of the coverage, but it's there's really not uh purchasing insurance doesn't ever protect you from being sued. In fact, it's a it's a condition to being sued in for a negligence claim. Never claim. Does that make sense? I know it's counterintuitive. >> Thank you. And and just one last thing for me the the list the list of restricted activities that you identified does that vary from provider to provider or is that pretty universal? >> What do you mean by provider? >> So the insurance provider so for example you know is there different is there a different breadth of coverage like varying by cost or like some providers are more restrictive some providers maybe are more permissive

092in what they cover but then you pay for that level of rank. Yeah. You can you can add exclusions or endorsements to any policy if you're willing to pay the higher premiums. >> Okay. >> And and the premiums also will be based on your loss history. This could drive the cost up. >> Thank you. All right. So I have Miss Cfield, Mr. Swanson. I see Miss Edmonds. >> Um thank you for bringing the information. I for one clarity before I ask my question, one piece of clarity. Um you said the current is 66,500. Yes. >> Is it um do you add another 80,000 or Okay. So, it's a total of 147. >> Yes. I just wanted to make sure I I had the numbers right. Um so, that is including the 161,000 students that we

093have, right? That's covering everybody. That's right. >> Um my um I have a question and I have a a comment. Um what other insurance companies have we tried as far as pricing availability having these kind of policies? I know you mentioned how um New Hover has broken it down, but have we are we is this information based on the same company that we have or have we explored other options that will allow us to have these programs like the Nika Club and skating? So we we did um and you want to just share briefly kind of what some of the barriers because we need to have specifics to to get um type of pricings that you're um questioning. >> Yeah. In order to get a specific price for whatever you want to insure, you have

094to have they usually want a on the employee the a student count what activities you plan to uh cover. um how long you want to cover the policy for. Um if your policy prohibits it, they usually advise us against it. It's whatever you bring to the table. Like for instance, these clubs, if we know what we're getting into and how many beats we'll have, what kind of payments we're going to fill out, we put that in front of the insurance company, they write the policy based on that. And then if we have to, we can use a broker to get different quotes. Okay. So, we don't actually try with other insurance companies. We're just trying to add on a policy. >> We put these out to bid on >> Okay. >> a regular basis as

095well as we do any major contracts. >> Okay. And then my other comment is um I know we're talking about the cost the 147,000 and we've got a lot of programs that go around you know our schools. So one thing I would like us to consider is the engagement and physical activity and mental and emotional strength that this provides those kids. So, I understand that it comes at a cost, but to me, 147,000 for an entire district being the largest in North Carolina to provide the peer engagement, the attendance to actually want to come to school and be able to participate in these things with their peers encourages our truency issues, their grades to improve, their mental health and emotional like state. and we've had numerous kids that have come up and state how these

096things have already helped them do that. Um, so I just to me that is very important right there. I mean I understand the cost. I understand the liability and appreciate all the information that comes to cover all of that and all the ifs, you know, cuz there's always ifs and buts. But to me, that is something that I think we really should pay attention to. Um, and doesn't NIKA uh have its own insurance? How does that come into play with the liability piece that we would have to consider? >> With the NIKA program that has come before us, they have shared with us that they have their own insurance piece. >> And Nathan, I have a little more background on this since I know you weren't here when that first came up. Uh, depending on

097how the insurance is structured. So when we enter into an agreement, so we say we have a the YMCA program at the school. That's a perfect example. So the Y learning program, we have an MOA with Y learning. They carry all the insurance coverages that we require of any contractor, million-dollar policies, um any type of uh workers comp coverage. And we have then named the board as additionally insured. That does give us protections because we're named as additionally insured on their policy, but it does not stop people from still coming and trying to um file a lawsuit with the board. And I go back >> and then you would be immune unless you have liability insurance of your own that would apply to cover your employees. So if there's if there's a suit and you

098do have policies for would cover negligence of school employees in many contexts. If employees negligent um in supervising club student club activity the lawsuit could make that allegation. If there's indeed insurance coverage then you could be liable up to the extent of the insurance coverage but not beyond. If you didn't have the insurance coverage there would be immunity. You'd still have to litigate. You'd have to file a motion to dismiss but you could get the claim dismissed. So I think the question with Mike is is that if they had insurance it would be the possibility of doing the same that we would do with the Y where they name us as >> we would have that coverage but to the point that Mr. Amy was just making if it was negligent on a staff member

099of the school system, they're going to come against our insurance versus it was negligent of somebody maybe an employee of Nika or somebody volunteering whether it was their negligence. We always ask for the contractors to or often to to provide that additional insurance coverage in hopes and partially in hopes that that co that coverage may satisfy the claimant and they wouldn't go after you but there's no guarantee and I want to make one clarification um on the questions that you were asking on this coverage we are already I want to just confirm that we are already providing the coverage that's under the current column that's already being provided. So, this additional coverage for the additional 80,000 would provide those things. But, I just wanted to be clear that we're already providing that first section. In

100my experience, when you get um multiple parties involved in some type of liability situation, um a defendant will frequently go after everybody. It's a shotgun approach. And just uh point to clear up the the 66,000 that we're already paying on the next column. It actually covers us with additional things outside of skater Nika. It's it's before school and PE, which I didn't realize we weren't covered with the other one, but um so we have other things that that is included in helping if we were to do that. >> That is correct. Yes. >> All right. Thank you. Just for clarification, that's only for medical treatment. >> Mhm. No liability other coverages. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Vice. >> My question was answered that was aligned with what Miss Coffin was raising with the bike club.

101So, I'm interested in seeing how we could potentially do if that's the will of the board. Um, just because we have heard from students about the importance and trying to figure out how we could make this work if that's the will of the board. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Evans. So, with the alternative models, I'm I'm want to make sure I understand what you're saying. So, if it were off-campus at one of the skateboarding parks, for example, and and we somehow as a district endorse this club that all of their activities take place off campus, that guards us from liability risk. Is that >> that's a question for the >> So Nate I think so up top we have some next steps with the board. Those are some things that we would need to

102get some points of clarification. So having a community partner or such as NIKA. So that gives us some of that coverage that Mr. Remy was sharing. It doesn't reduce it and as Mr. Neer said people are going to sue everybody. They're going to name everybody. But the primary insurance would be the sponsorship club. So, if we had an MOA, you had a sponsorship club, that sponsorship club carried liability insurance that they're probably paying a premium for because it's covering these riskier activities. There would be some coverage, but then it comes down to was it one of our employees who was negligent? Was it one of the um volunteers who's part of the club that was negligent? But there's still there's still risk, but it does mitigate and reduce some of the risk. >> There's always

103excuse, but it does reduce that risk. >> Okay. So, in May I follow up, please? So in that scenario, if it were deemed an incident occurs and it were deemed that it was the district employee supervisor of this club that was negligent, the district would would not have liability coverage. But if it were deemed that it was the NIKA overseer, then their liability insurance would cover. >> They would have liability insurance. And the way that we structure our MOAS or me memorandum of agreements is that the Wake County Board of Education would be named additionally insured. >> We always wave your liability. >> That doesn't wave our liability. Yeah. >> I mean your immunity. Sorry. Doesn't w you would remain immune if somebody else provides the the liability coverage. >> I'm sorry. Say that again.

104>> If if another group provides liability coverage, you retain your immunity even if you contractually require it. Um, so, so if you have a policy with an outside group, you must have an insurance, a liability insurance policy, you must name the Wake County Board of Education as an additional insured. That would not wave your immunity. You would still be able to assert immunity if this district was sued, but you would have the coverage. You could, that's the way you can have your cake and eat it, it too. There's a case law in point on that. >> I have I have a case that I wonder if that counters that, but I hope >> county it's a Wake County uh county commissioner's case. >> Okay. Yeah. Miss Ems, did you have a followup? >> Um, no.

105>> Okay. >> It's interesting. >> Let me let me let me So, so for some folks that haven't asked questions yet, we'll do uh Mr. Hershey, Dr. Ring, and then Miss Coffin, did you have another one? So, I'm I'm just kind of curious um how like who who defines high-risk activities and are we really not covered for things like school concerts and plays and dances and what so what kind of potential exposure do do we have air, things like that would be under our general liability coverage. And trying to give a distinction between, let's say, something like a bike club or a skating club and let's say a dance or a concert at a school, our insurers have not explicitly told us that those will not be covered. Whereas for some of these clubs, they

106have explicitly told us you can do it, but it's not covered under your policy. >> Do we need to ask them or do we need like we have they just don't tell us kind of? >> No, our general activities like that are covered. >> Okay. some of these specific higher risk um activities where there's a higher likelihood that an injury or some type of damage may take place. >> But but if I can I think it's important to remember there's two kinds of insurance here, >> right? >> And you know an an activity where someone is injured in one of those situations, a concert or a dance, our liability coverage, if I'm correct, still covers us. What's not covered is that student accident insurance where there would be a a policy that would pay out

107directly to the family like it would for a sports team or JOTC. That's what they're talking about here. The extra 80,000 would create would be a different policy. On one hand, you have liability for the school. On the other hand, you have insurance for students. And this would provide insurance company for the students that would pay the family directly. We don't have that now for everything in that right hand column. >> Yeah. But our liability coverage, which is different than student insurance, wouldn't protect us. >> I as as a someone who was in the band for four years, I chuckle at the idea that school concerts are in the high-risisk activities category. So that was kind of where I was. >> Sax is pretty heavy. I don't know. I mean, to you knocked out with

108a trombone, I guess. All right. Did you have any other No, I'm good. All right. Thank you, Mr. Hershey. Dr. A. >> Um, thank you. Um, yeah, I I I'm just trying to get a better understanding of this. I mean, looking at the the coverage for what, you know, I feel like we're we're kind of conflating two things and and the coverage for the the medical coverage for the students. It's pitly. It's it's it's nothing. >> I mean, for for the amount of money that that it's charged for for a dismemberment, I mean, it it's it's definitely greater than $5,000 cost. Um, so certainly there is a need for for considering that for any activities that we are participating in. Um but I mean in order for for our liability insurance with the with the

109with the um uh company the insurance company are are they requiring us to have a higher level of accidental insurance in order to to cover us for these you know things or I I'm not quite sure what what we're driving at this point. I mean, yes, it's great that we can have a a better coverage for medical coverage for our students, but but it's still, you know, the the the point of liability is is a separate issue, I think. >> Yes. And I would concur with your statements, Dr. Ang. And I guess my view of this additional coverage, it it is not for a disaster. It is not for a catastrophe. It is not for a dismemberment. It is for, if there is such a thing, a more routine mundane injury that may be in

110the hundreds or a couple thousand dollars of cost. It is a way to benefit the parents and the student to cover those costs but it is not catastrophic insurance and it is not liability insurance to your point. So, are we moving towards uh paying uh the higher uh level of uh insurance for our uh coverage for our students so that we can have more protection as a as a school system? Is that what we're saying? >> Well, I think in in this posie and there was one slide that we didn't get to yet. I'll just flip it up there, but I'll turn it back to you chair. um kind of were in our minds potential next steps that the board might want to work through and discuss through. One being looking at this coverage. Is

111it something that the board is interested in pursuing and that covers the $8ome,000 for the albeit limited medical coverage that it would provide the parents and those additional activities. policy clarification. We use the term policy, not necessarily board policy, of a stance, and we'll use new handover as an example. They made us a decision to take on additional risk by offering an activity without having full liability coverage for it. So that was a a policy decision if you will, not a board policy >> or precedent. >> A precedent and they I do not know if they have set aside reserves for that or what their plan is to be prepared for when and if that risk does truly arise. um community partnerships and then um really one of the things and this is perhaps more

112staff. We think that we can tweak, there's nothing broken, but we think we can tweak a little bit how we conduct an approval process for some type of new activity in a school. So that the different parts of our organization, whether it's school administration, for the area superintendent or academics or risk management, there are a lot of different pieces in here um can coordinate with each other. Okay. Thank you, Miss Cfield. >> Um, I just wanted to go back to um, uh, add to what I said before. If we send um, the students out into the community to engage in these type of programs, we have to consider they'll need transportation, the timing to do that because they won't just be doing it right after school. Availability in the different communities if they have these

113programs. Um, and it's not school peer engagement. you're now going into the community. So like the things that I was saying mentioning before like truency engagement, physical activity, mental, emotional, those are all things that kind of attract them to get more engaged in our schools and just has a whole like more holistic improvement for that child with our schools. So I I agree but with you know it seems like a much smaller cost for the benefit that it would provide our children. So I was also curious what would be the next steps for us to move forward. >> So I think at this point if you see the next steps for the board discussion up there and I know staff you don't have a chance to really discuss all of them. question sort of took

114us off a little bit, but if this is something that is of interest, we can bring it back at either a future work session or as it's a budget item, maybe a budget or finance committee meeting. Um, where, you know, we could look at exactly like what the, you know, real cost differences would be and sort of take the board's temperature. Do you think this is worth it? I mean, Dr. Ing raises some good points about yes, it's coverage. Yes, it's a benefit to the student, but if it doesn't shield the district from liability, has it really changed the equation? Right. But at the same time, if it does encourage and give a little more protection for some after school activities, for some clubs, for some things that might help increase attendance extracurriculars, you know,

115we could weigh that. And one thing that like our team has said is that often times the cost of the insurance is based on the claim history. So, it' be interesting to go back and see what claim history has been in Wake County for some activities. And, you know, if it's been very, very high, that might make it a higher risk for you. If it's been very, very low or very rare, you might be more willing to accept that. So, I think what we could do is maybe bring it back at another future meeting and explore some of these in more detail. Um, we need to move on, but Miss Evans, I see your hand. >> Oh, I just wanted to support that that I I don't think anybody disagrees with you about the benefits

116of these at all. If I'm wrong, somebody speak up. Um, and therefore, I think it is worth our time to dig deeper and bring it back for a discussion. So, I just wanted to ask that we actually do that, you know. Yes. >> Thumbs up. >> Does that sound like a plan? Is that something we can work on? >> May I I'm so sorry. Go ahead. >> Um, Miss Posie, can you aggravate those 11 districts that did not get back to you? Didn't I hear you say that you you reached out to the 12, but Hanover was the only one? >> So, um Durham, Charlotte, basically everyone was like, "No, we don't." They didn't. >> So, they did respond. >> Yes. They didn't expand. I said, "Ple, usually we have a quick network." So, I

117said, "If anybody allows this, can you let me know what it is and how you're doing it?" And it was only one. >> So, the others we didn't we did hear back they're not doing it. That's all right. Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you very much. appreciate all the information. >> All right. Okay. So, at this point, we're going to move to the post-pandemic student devices strategy plan. This presentation uh reaches a number of different areas that we've talked about in policy. Um it impacts policy, it impacts budget, it impacts educational achievement, uh classroom options. And so we're going to get every answer resolved today as part of this presentation. Michael, I'm put it all on you. We'll give everyone a minute to transfer everything over. I So Yeah, go ahead. Great.

118Um, well, good afternoon everybody. Um, I'm going to jump right in because I know we're pretty tight on time, but I think we have a a lot of time to time to accomplish the things I think we'd like to accomplish um with this meeting. So, I just kind of wanted to remind board members we did this uh around cell phones uh probably 8 months ago. Um, and I think you'll remember we had a similar kind of conversation where um, we really um, spent some time um, in small groups with board members kind of asking some focusing questions getting the temperature of where board members are at, the things that you need to know um, to make decisions. And so that was the cell phone policy n months ago. And today we're really here to talk

119about um instructional devices that the district is purchasing. Um so we really we intend this session I think to really get a lot of your sort of feedback and input. Um and that'll be very helpful. Um if you look at our agenda we want to kind of spend some time outlining a vision for the use of instructional technology. One of the things that we've really had a conversation about is that it comes down to how the devices are used. And we all can imagine scenarios where they're used creatively and expansively to do really powerful learning experiences. We can also imagine the opposite of that, right? Um, so I think one of the things I just wanted to say as we start out is that we just want to kind of as we have this discussion

120like resist the urge to either be I'm like a tech skeptic or I'm a tech advocate, right? Probably all of us have both of those inside of us, right? Um so I think as we have this conversation we just want to think through um very importantly how are are the devices that we're providing um to students in the school district supporting learning. Um so that's really kind of our our focus. Um and we're really going to have two main activities. We want um the academics team is going to outline um generally a vision um for the use of instructional technology and then we're going to break into um breakout sessions and we we can just monitor the time to make sure that we can devote adequate time to it and we're just going to have

121a couple focusing questions, get some feedback. Um and then as you can see on the screen, we're going to come back in December um really thinking about a long-term strategy. Um, one of the things that I think it's really important to say at the outset, just a constraint is that if we are making if if decisions are made that affect the 2627 school year for devices, they would really need to be made by the end of this year. Um, so that's one of our sort of um um ways that we're working. But I also don't think that our plan is going to be necessarily turn the ship immediately, right? I think we can think about this in in stages. Um, and we just really need to um get your feedback, I think, to to think

122that through. Um, so that's what we're going to do. So, just quickly, I'm just going to frame this and then we will turn it over to Dr. Hill um to talk a little bit about our vision, then go into our breakout sessions. Again, I think it's pretty obvious, but this stuff really aligns with the strategic plan. And if you think about I was thinking about the four C's, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. We can all imagine how devices are used to further those things for to further communication and communication effectiveness to build um really creative products right that are impossible without computers. We can also imagine how they could be used in ways that don't support the things below which is the foundational literacy and knowledge in reading language arts and mathematics. So very

123much aligned to that. Um secondly, we know that you know we must deliver high quality core um instruction in all content areas. So that's part of what we want to think about. It's not just the device, but it it is how it is used. Um so it really aligns to the strategic plan. Again, we are starting with the academic vision for this because it's very easy to sort of have conversations about how much screen time is too much screen time and that sort of narrative and instead we want to ask what are the learning objectives and how um are the devices and how they're used supporting that. So, we really want to start with the learning needs and instruction technology use. And I think as we said in terms of how we uh titled this

124session, Wake County like many many other districts is at a point where um you know thinking a lot about post pandemic we know that during the pandemic pretty much everybody every school district moved rapidly to one um that was rough in some cases um potentially change things um change practices but this I think is our opportunity and as we move into the breakout sessions, we really want you to be thinking about that last question, what's your approach to provisioning devices be over the long term? Um, so we really want to get um some level of alignment on this and I think one of the things that we'll really ask for you as you think about this and you think about the strategy that we put forth and sort of supporting that strategy, what are the

125things you need to know? what are the range of decisions that as policy makers you're thinking about and we want to collect that stuff today. So really think of today as a um an opportunity to gather data. Um so really in the end what we want to do is a renewed school issue instructional technology use strategy. Um it will begin to impact deployment in 2627. Um so we want to think about the devices. um obviously thinking about um take-home policy and things like that and what devices are provided to what students. Um so that's really the frame what we want to do. So the last two things we have to do really are to turn it over to academics to talk a little bit about the vision for instruction and then we're going to move

126into some breakout groups um get you guys to give us some feedback. Um and do we what do we need to do in terms of timing of this? We're at I just want to make sure that we end where we need to. So, uh, we need to have a hard stop by 5:25. >> If you get out a few minutes before that, that's a bonus. But 5:25, we're moving to the other. >> And that includes the last item. Were not inclusive of the last item. >> Oh, no. I'm sorry. 5:15. >> Okay. Break down. Excellent. Okay. Very helpful. So, at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hill and her team um to talk a little bit about the instructional vision before we go into breakouts. All of us woke up Monday

127morning and we could not log into our devices and technology was really and truly at the forefront of what we value because we were all paralyzed. But we did find some avenues around that. And so when you look at those three big buckets of what we value in technology, technology in the hands of teachers is going to amplify that teaching and it strengthens the core. So we first have standards that we have to teach and standards drive our instruction. But if it's going to be amplified, intensified with the use of technology, we want to make sure that our teachers have that at their disposal. Equity and access. No child should not have that access to any technology device to make their learning not as enhanced as it can be. And the last bucket that we

128want to look at is it is about empowerment and support of those students and their learning. So we've been having this conversation and we want to go now and look at those priorities that we look at from an instructional lens for the use of technology. We have Allison Reed and Mr. Charles Patton here who've been working collaboratively with our technology department because it is a partnership between these two divisions as we look at enhancing our program. So as we look at um identifying when we're starting to think about strategy and what do we need to think about and consider when we are planning for a device strategy in the years moving forward. We first have to start with what problem are we trying to solve? Why do we need technology at all? And before we

129can answer that question, we have to be clear and be have some consensus on what our priorities for the use of that technology are. And so um my team uh Charles led by Charles um has done a lot of work. This is the work we've done for years anyway. But in terms of articulating those to bring them to this group um to get some consensus, we've narrowed it down to I believe seven, which I know is not well not a round number there, but we're going to walk through and I'm going to ask Charles to sort of walk us through. So when we're clear about what we want to use the technology for, then the decisions after that become easier. This is majority of your work. >> Hello. Uh Mr. I've been banned for a

130very long time and don't have to report a healthy dose of nerves at the current moment. Um, great. >> So, uh, there are seven things here. There are six that directly impact students and then there is a seventh that impact students as it applies to the adults ability, capacity in the space. Um, first and foremost is the idea of developmental match. Um, I don't know if you've ever seen a kindergartener trying to open a Chromebook, but they have their leg involved and they're like bent over it trying to carry it. It is a physically imposing uh device for them to handle in many cases. Um, and on the other end, uh, we have students who we are certifying in Adobe products and in Microsoft products and at some point you run into capacity barriers with

131the physical device allowing them to be developmentally matched. So our core priority here is making sure that the devices serve the goals in the moment and we know that we have a variety of filament levels in classrooms K preK through 12. Um and with that come the need to really evaluate can one device meet the needs of every student right so we have to consider things like form factor function processing and all those things um as a first step beyond that we move into and I want to call back the strategic plan because goal number one specifically names digital literacy as one of the core competencies that we're supposed to develop in students. So when we think about complex and relevant tasks, we also have vision in the strategic plan that says students will live

132a full and productive life in a complex and changing world. Um we don't do maps, right? I I love sitting here listening to Susan's presentation because I know what the geospatial analytics team does. Why do we need to design paper maps for students to interact in? Right? We need to be giving them exposure to industry standard relevant things, ways to experience math, ways to experience math and modeling and spatial reasoning. Um, that can exist through digital resources and it's not so much they don't exist outside of that, but it scales to allow teachers to enable that for every kid each day in the classroom. Um, third is multimodal and you heard Dr. Hill talk on this, the idea of accessibility. The National Educational Technology Plan outlines three separate digital divides. The first one we've talked

133about, it's very obvious. Can we get a device to kids? It's the access divide, but there's two more that are really critical. One is the design divide. Are we providing the resources for teachers to know how to use that the right way? And are we designing curriculum that functions in a digital space? Right? We're coming out of COVID where we had a bunch of PDFs or other things that are physical resources that we put into digital space. We didn't actually have time to design for the potential of digital space and so that is the next step. Multimodal also means that students that need speech to text can have it at the click of a button. We don't need uh to have to spend we don't have to ask a teacher to spend time beyond their

134regular planning time. We can empower students with their own agency as experts to say oh I need this resource and I can leverage Canvas or the readwrite extension that we are already providing for them to be the professional learner that they want to be. we can empower that student agency which speaks to the strategic plan through the devices that we provide. Four is feedback loops. We have a lot of research on the power and impact of feedback for students. The ability to do that quickly and again multimodally. Um Canvas in many ways is not that fancy, but it is a really great example for how we can activate that modality and feedback for students. Um it is powerful that students can submit writing or a video or audio. If we think about our foreign language

135teachers, right, for a long time they've had to give speaking assignments that had to be done in person and that took them scheduling time out of their teaching to ensure that assessment could happen. And now we're able to move the idea of speaking and presentation out of the classroom. My daughter just had to perform her Nutcracker playing test for the upcoming performance at Powell Elementary School's the Nutcracker and she had to submit it via Canvas and she was like, "Dad, how do I do this?" Of course, she's a shy kid, so she had to go in another room and close the door and record it 75 times. Um, I am past the nutcracker at this point, but here we are. Um, active and collaborative learning structures. uh we for have a long time right like

136part of the issue with the way we do classrooms is that it's a scale of economy and at the ideal space to exist with students and learning like is the idea of feedback and interaction right we want humans to engage as humans um but in a room embodied the reason we write so many papers is because that was a way to capture student idea and take it with you to time later but now we can actually do that in real time without it being loud so it's not so um distracting in a classroom. We can put kids into a shared collaborative slide deck in Google and ask them to build. They can see other ideas happening in real time and reflect on their own thinking. And that idea of peer-to-peer construction um is highly valuable.

137You can check out the research by Mickey Chi and the idea of moving from passive and active learning to um interactive and constructive learning. um digital tools and the devices we provide allow every teacher to scale that into their classroom in real time. Um and then finally the last piece for students is the idea of digital literacy and executive function. Um I don't know how many of you grew up in elementary schools where you learn how to use a card catalog. I spent many time in Department of Defense schools learning how to use a card catalog and I was obsessed uh with space like many other kids. And so I got very familiar with the moon or space or asteroids or quazars, right? I went to the card catalog and I looked it up. When

138Google came around, I was able to apply an analog executive function to digital space and I was able to function. I know what it's like to have to keep things organized in a file folder. So I know how to organize my Google Drive. I don't know if you've ever seen a student's Google Drive. It looks really neat because it's snapped into a grid, but in reality, and actually here's a better example. We provide a login portal for every kid, the portal that was down the other day. And students are excited because they can customize it. And what that means for my daughter is that when she logs into Wake ID portal, she has 18 folders named after her best friends and they're in different colors and she's very excited about that. But why Dreambox is

139in Samantha's folder, I'll never know. And what that is doing to your point, you worked really hard on a personal device strategy to ensure alignment and coherence and a lack of distraction in the classroom. That policy deserves to be met with intentional design. And so we have to provide really intentional ways and mechanisms to ensure that executive function is modeled and supported in digital spaces. Right? So locking those things down, ensuring that icons are in the same place. UDL would speak to the idea of the predictability of the learning environment. Um and so those outline the six direct impact things for students. And then finally we have the seventh. Um, and this has to do with I think one of the most impactful things we've seen in co, right? We on March 13th, 2020, it

140was a Friday and I remember going home and having many PTA parents being like, "So, when are we going to go to prom in May?" And I for a while we thought prom was going to happen and then all of a sudden it was June and we were trying to figure out how we were going to do graduation. And then all of a sudden it was September and we're like, "Can we have kids in the building?" And it was a very strange time. But we had learning happening all of that time and teachers had to figure it out and they had to find tools and companies made them available and that completely reduced the idea of coherency. We have roughly 3600 different digital resources used across this district every day. And what we have to

141do is provide similar to the executive function for students. We have to provide a consistent and transparent suite of tools because what we don't need is students learning a new tool in the classroom to learn math. They need to learn math because they're using consistent tools, right? So the idea of moving towards a core suite of resources and that moves a little bit beyond the device, but I don't know if you've talked to teachers about Prometheium panels, right? Like that's one more thing they have to learn to use or a document camera is one more thing they have to support in their classroom. Um and the digital learning coordinators are out there and they are going into classrooms and supporting some of that. ISTs are out there and they are classrooms and they're putting hands-on

142to try and make that happen. Um those teams scaling to the size of the district. It's tricky. Um so we have to make sure that the platforms we provide are predictable and teachers understand them enough to adapt their curriculum to the needs of their kids using those tools. And it can't be a new lift every year for every teacher in every classroom. Oh, there's one more. >> Okay, you got your own. >> Uh, we mentioned this a little bit earlier, right? So, the goal here is we have this vision. Wake County Public School System students will be prepared to reach their full potential and lead productive lives in a complex and changing world. When we think about complex and changing world, I think about talking to my colleagues who are still working with high school

143students trying to find their first job, and they can't work fast food anymore because fast food operations are being replaced by AI. we owe them a different skill set and that skill set is not going to be paperbased right so we have to meet the job demands and the complexity of communication u there's a really interesting book as a followup to the anxious generation called um stolen focus by Johan Hari and he talks about the idea of who can afford to be disconnected how many people rely on a bus and they have to track it in real time and that puts them on a phone with a bunch of notifications that are designed to distract Right now all of a sudden it's a luxury to not be in the world where you're distracted all the

144time. So our job is to build a technological environment around that with the same consideration that teachers spend on their seating arrangement on what's going to be on their bulletin board the first day of school so that kids smile when they walk in the room. Kids deserve the same intention in the digital space and consistently see prek through 12 to make that happen. >> Great. Thank you Charles. Anything else? So I think what we wanted to do um is kind of start out with thinking about um uh the starting with the end in mind, right? These are this is what we want devices to be able to support um in the classroom and sort of the vision for that. Um and now we're going to move into a um a section of time and we're

145going to kind of divide up into three groups. um folks from this group, Melada, Allison, Charles, and myself will each go with a group and we'd love to just have a conversation with you. And again, this is really thinking about, you know, as a as a policym body um and thinking about the district's approach to technology over the long term, right? Not not thinking about just like what decision are we going to make for 2627, but as we think about this into the future, what are the things that are important for you? So, we're going to ask you to kind of respond to um some of the things that Charles presented. We're going to ask you to um think about, you know, what's most important to you about our device strategy, what questions you need

146to have answered. Um that will also be part of it. Um and then kind of we we'll take basically 35 minutes. That should be fine and that should meet our um keep us on time and we're going to break out into groups. um get some of your ideas captured um and then that will help inform what we come back to you all in December with in just over an overview of the devices strategy that we're we're planning to approach. Does that make sense? Okay. Um okay. So the groups are going to be um Miss Gordon, Mr. Hershey, Dr. Ing. Uh you can be in here with Allison and Charles. Um Mr. Mr. Hegger and Miss Caulfield with Melada. You guys can be in here. And then just to spread out our space, I can take

147Mr. Swanson, M. Rice, and Miss Edmonds, and we can step out into the other um just right outside the door there just so that we have a little bit of space. So, we're going to have about 35 minutes um to engage that conversation, get your feedback, and then we'll come back together and close out. Thank you. conversation, lots of really helpful feedback. Um, I think as we we'll gather this feedback, pull it together, um, we've already gathered some feedback from the community. We're going to come back in December, um, kind of with an overview of the strategy, um, informed by some of the questions and feedback that you all provided. I just really appreciate everybody engaging in that. It's very helpful for us to, I think, be able to bring alignment between where the board's

148at and um the plan moving forward. So, I appreciate that. I appreciate the time. Thank you. Again, there's a lot here. We know this is a serious topic, requires a lot of serious thought, but it's a big transition, right? That we've we fundamentally changed the way we were delivering educational services and we had to do it in the process. It's like a former superintendent had said, we're building the airplane while we're on the runway. Um, but now it's time to take a look, see uh where we are and the best way to make that airplane fly. So, thank you all. I appreciate it. Um, and we look forward to hearing the report back. All right. Um, we have one final item on our work session agenda tonight, which is just an update on our district

1498 vacancy. Um, I did want to report back briefly that uh we have received some additional nominations. Uh, at this point, even with our new information that we put out there, we're still having some confusion. Uh, we do have six candidates currently. So, as we plan our interviews and what our day might look like, um, we know that unless anyone removes themselves from consideration, we will have six candidates to interview. We did have another additional candidate who applied. Their documentation shows they actually live in district five, not district six, even though they do have an apex address. So, >> we keep putting information out there. We can only hope that people will use it and, you know, we don't want them to put a lot of invest into applying for a position that they're not

150eligible for. But again, there's only so much that we can do. But it does look like based on the applications we've received and based on the vetting that we do have six applicants at this point. All right. Are there any questions with that? If not, all right, then I will call our work session adjourned and that'll give us a few moments before we transition over into our general meeting. Thank you.