2025-10-07 Work Session

001All right, everyone. Welcome. Apologies, we're starting a minute or two behind. I'm Chris Hagerty, and this is our October 7th work session for the Wake County Board of Education. I want to welcome everybody to our meeting today. Um today on our agenda we'll start with infin infinite campus implementation update. We'll continue our discussion of AI readiness. We'll and then we have some updates for you about the district 8 vacancy and need to give you some details about the NCSBA that's North Carolina Schoolboards Association annual conference. All right. So we will start with our infinite campus update. Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you today to give you this and provide these updates on Infinite Campus. Our post go live and today we're going to talk about project history and

002background implementation journey to key milestones. Hit some highlights and accomplishments. Go over some of our help desk insights and data analysis. go over the campus parent portal usage and trends, hit some key lessons learned, talk about some next steps, and we'll certainly provide an opportunity for questions a little bit deeper with the desired outcomes here. We'd like to provide an update on the successful infinite campus implementation, highlight the milestones and accomplishments, share the insights of the help desk tickets, and again to emphasize the next steps. We hit a major milestone, but there's a lot of work to continue and ongoing. So just here just I'm not going to read all this but they hit a few of the marks here. The Kodak moment in 23 of November NCPI awarded the through the modernization program infinite

003campus as the core is not only for Wake County but for the entire state of North Carolina. It was in two phases. phase one approximately 120 PSUs went live in phase one July of 24 we were in phase two we went live July of 25 there's a lot of information on this and and the time on and the key milestones one of the biggest as I mentioned we were in phase two we did not have full engagement with NCDP PI or Infinite Campus until August of 24. We didn't really kick off the project as a whole with that engagement until September of 2024. We always talk about runways of time here. If you look at the first diamond, which my son would call it a rhombus, from September all the way to the July 1st,

004that is an extremely short runway. That's like landing a jumbo jet on an aircraft carrier. Very aggressive, Tom. Um, we went live in production in October with our online registration. So, we were supporting both systems throughout the implementation of Infinite Campus. The biggest marker there, we did in fact hit our go live date of July 1st. The project closing of September is the courses. Now, additional work has begun. We're evaluating new modules, new capabilities, and the learning curve is still there for all of us. This is new for all of us. And I'll tell you, this initiative is not a CIS initiative. This was a district-wide initiative, a state initiative to get to infinite campus. And there was tremendous efforts and work and collaboration throughout the district, throughout our parents, throughout our students. We were

005all in. And it took it took that to get the level of success that we have. Here's a couple of highlights. So the data that made it way over the fence from Power School, 12 years of data was converted. That pool of folks behind it, the armies, about 50 essential partners across 18 different departments and schools were boots on the ground working on this thing to get it where it needed to be. Around 400 hours of training and support was provided to staff. There's never enough training. That's always a point in any CIS implementation anywhere in the country. Training is always one of those things. It's never enough. But there certainly was training and support available for our users. This this is a pretty massive stat. 448,000 students were converted over to P school. That

006is a lot of data. And that's the student count. If you imagine a a high school students data profile compared to an elementary school, high school's going to have a whole lot more data coming over. That's a whole lot of data. In fact, we couldn't do it. We couldn't just press the button and let the data flow. It had to be done in batches to get that amount of data into Infinite Campus and it had to be properly mapped and so forth. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Sandy. >> Thank you, Jeff. As Jeff mentioned, thank you guys so much for allowing us to come today to celebrate the excellent work that has been done across the district to get us to this milestone. Um, one thing that I always call

007out, um, and had had some conversation with my DPI colleagues, Wake County did something no other district in the state did. We turned the lights on June 23rd. That was the day that we received, my team received the data as it was converted from Power School to Infinite Campus from the Infinite Campus team. We went live with users and students in a building six days later. >> No one else in the state did that. Most districts had the whole summer to prepare and to be ready. We went with kids on buses in the building 6 days later. It's quite an accomplishment and a lot to be proud of. What we've got here is just some different supportive measures that we did through the project. Um, we did updates with principles, had lots of articles. Communications

008was a fantastic partner with our Wake Connect website. We have newsletters that went out to various users within the district, different user pools. We have newsletters that go to our data managers every week. We provide them with a newsletter every Thursday to keep them a breast of information around things that are happening that week, things in their schedule and their timelines. Um, there was also community newsletters that we sent out again working with our partners in communications to help engage our families. I believe we have a slide here that talks about our parent portal engagement. Um, that was a huge success. So we just wanted to highlight some of the things the methods that we took to communicate with different people across the district for the project. Um campus passport. These are different things that

009we used for our training. Um we had our professional learning and we had some sessions in person. We had virtual virtual sessions with our infinite campus trainer. His name is Tony. Everyone in the district had an opportunity to meet him. Went through some of our virtual sessions. He's a fantastic guy. Uh campus passport is a product that is still available to us. It was part of the contract that DPI secured with Infinite Campus. I believe the campus passport is available to us until June 26 and then that portion of the contract will expire. Um so those are different options we had for training and the audience that was present for those. Also some things we did to help support. We had a call list available when we went live. So we had people boots on

010the ground we could reach out to when we had issues. We had gone in and prioritized how we would get our help desk tickets. We had school members reaching out directly to log tickets that went straight to the cyst team. We had a tree amongst our team on who would, you know, how we would address those um to get some of our higher priority issues first. Year round schools took precedence because of course they were in the building and had staff and students present. We have wonderful work with the digital leadership team who work with the gradebook contacts. Charles Patton did a fantastic job training those gradebook contacts, getting that information to the teachers. He's provided a wealth of information on the Wake Connect site has a little hub there with all of their documents

011present. We've got FAQs there present campus passport. Um, one thing we've been doing, we started after we uh about a month or so ago and I'm continuing that for at least another month, maybe two. We are having virtual office hours twice a week where we've invited um administration in the building to log on and to ask questions to bring forth issues and have some open conversation about things that they might be needing at the time. This is just a little insight into what our team has accomplished. I have, including myself, there's 10 people on my team. We have received 6,177 help desk tickets since July 1st on this product. We have successfully closed 5,562 tickets. We've got some different categories here that were addressed in some of those tickets. We've also processed over 4,000 above

012baseline user access requests. So, it's been a tremendous lift and some fantastic efforts across the team. And here is our slide about our campus parent portal. We positioned ourselves with our data to be able to take a slightly different approach than most districts did when they converted. We had certain fields populated that would allow us to send out an email to all parents who met the particular criteria so that they could set up their account without having to reach out to the school, get any access code. they could click directly in the link in the email and set that account up to access their students information. That email goes out every Tuesday. It still continues to go out to any parent who has met the criteria within the student information system and has not yet

013created their account. At our last check about a week ago, 76% of the students in Wake County public schools have at least one parent account attached to them. That is quite a lift. A lot of districts close by haven't quite successfully implemented. So, that was a great great accomplishment for our students and our parents and better serving the students needs. We have a total of 97,85 campus parent accounts. Lessons learned. It's always good to do a postmortem when it's still fresh on your mind. As Jeff mentioned, it's essential to engage our partners early. That was something I had a lot of concern over because it was such such a journey and a short runway. DPI was great to work with us. Infinite campus team was fantastic and all the participants here in the district as

014well. Um prioritize our data governance and our quality data. That is one of the things that helped us have a successful campus portal along portal launch. Um our role-based training opportunities and our prepare for our post-launch phase. There were other modules that were included in the DPI contract and we're going to take some time now over the coming months to evaluate some of those modules and see where we think it might be best for the district to engage next. Have some conversation with leadership and see what they believe is the next best step. Um the cyst we've obviously implemented online registration was successful and campus passport we use for our training. And we just got listed here some of the other things we plan to evaluate with. So I think the next slide highlights the

015next yes the analytic suite we're going to take a look at that is actually um more around like an early warning system. It provides a graduation scale for students. It takes things into consideration like stability, grades, um, absences, their discipline. So, various markers that can help help indicate how we predict that student will be successful in graduating with their cohort. Campus workflow suite, I believe, has the potential to really be a positive thing here at WCPSS. It would give us some flexibility with how we take attendance. It would give us the ability to set up attendance kiosk across our building. Would even be able to set up attendance kiosk in each individual students in individual teachers classroom using simply their laptop. It would also potentially in combination with using the campus messenger product that is

016built in to infinite campus provide us an opportunity to potentially have a more timely attendance communication with parents. So those two pieces sort of play off of each other. So, um, at this time, if anyone has any questions, >> all right, questions about the infinite campus implementation. Let's see, Mr. Hershey. First, I wanted to say great job. I told you, but I have not received any emails, concerns with it. So, as far as district 6 goes, it's been very smooth. Um, you mentioned evaluating additional features. >> Mhm. >> How will I'm not really sure how to ask the question, but basically if you're looking at an individual feature, how do you evaluate whether it's good or what perspectives? And I'm thinking from the parent perspective, making sure that's included. Does it save money? That sort

017of thing. So kind of what are some of the >> Well, we've been I've been working very closely with some of our senior leadership in the district also to help identify some of the areas. That's why the um workflow piece came up >> as well as potentially using the campus messenger piece for notifying parents. Um that particular piece we would have the ability to set up. Right now we are calling at the end of the day for absences that happen during the day. We would have the ability to set up attendance calls potentially at a high school at the end of every period an attendance call could go out. Um obviously there's there's potential pitfalls that we would have to talk through but that one has the potential to really be a gamecher for parents

018for the notification for the attendance for their students. So that one to me has a high priority along with some of the other people other leadership we've talked with in the district. The analytic suite for the students perspect perspective we would have hopefully a better idea. Now the analytic suite that does build over time obviously because there's not as more data is entered as more things are there um I mentioned discipline data you know this year we our discipline data is included in infinite campus so as that builds that would become a slightly different indicator within infinite campus but that system could help us identify students who may need more of some support sort of like an MTSS perspective so that we can make sure they are successful in graduating on time. And >> just

019to add one thing to to your question and to what Sandy just said, this is the first major implementation for courses that we've done with the with the assistance of a project management office. And Tise here, I'm so sorry I got I was so eager to jump into the content. We didn't do introductions but um Tise introduce yourself please. >> I'm Trice Cutler. I'm the director of project and change management. >> Yep. And she uh so we closed the project for the courses as we mentioned earlier but there is a new project that just started to drive the initiative the evaluations of the modules. >> Okay. >> And each module the case by case some of them are forward facing where parent involvement and you know we would want to get that perspective. Some are

020just internal functional things that are just a technical turn on turn off type of thing, but the project management office is going to drive that initiative. >> Fantastic. The only other question I have and I really mean like I'm very excited to have you and and doing that and that's really what I wanted to hear. My only other question is when you were putting up the numbers and you said 76% and 97,000 accounts, um does a parent is that uh does a parent with multiple kids have to make multiple accounts? Is that baked in there or is it >> We have 97,000 parent accounts and that covers how many students >> that we have that number of accounts and they have one account that connects all their students? 97,000 students have a parent account attached.

021>> Okay. My bad. Okay. >> Thank you. You're welcome. So just to to make sure we get it in terms of coverage, 97,000 out of 160,000 have an attached account. >> Correct. >> Okay, >> Dr. Thank you. Um thank you very much for the um presentation and uh I just just to be transparent, I did receive an email. >> Yes, sir. >> About one of my my uh the parents uh that had a problem with enrollment. >> Yes, sir. >> But that was fixed. Um so I I think I'm I appreciate the help desk and the people that got involved to uh get that taken care of so that they their student can get enrolled. Um so the question I had that's in that slide um regarding the help desk um and you said that

022there were u a majority of those uh help desk tickets were closed. What what kind of things were uh still outstanding that kept it from finishing the rest of those? We have some issues where students have been duplicated that we have to reach out to the department of public instruction and have some work done on their end. So, there's a little bit of a time lag there. Um, and then we also have some reports and things that people have asked to have developed and there's a little bit of a lag there because we have to make sure do some analysis to determine where's the best place to put this report, where would it be best used by the staff and are there anything is there anything that we need to data that we need to

023add. So those kind of things are maybe what's still out there >> more kind of internal components. Yes sir. We tried to make certain that we addressed issues where we had students who were not able to be enrolled. Um issues where especially right now it's college application time. So we're trying to get those things addressed as well. Transcript issues and things like that, scheduling issues, trying to make sure we have those under control. Um, but a lot of what's happening now is we've got something that we're kind of waiting on an outside entity for or we're doing some analysis around development. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Thank you, Mr. Swanson. And then Gordon, >> thank you all for lifting this up and the highlight and the overview provided. My questions are some of

024them have already been answered so I won't belabor that point but the question I did have um since was talking about the parent pieces are there any peer-to-peer trainings that are happening for parents let's say if there's a parent that's in the community or at the school that has mastered this particular piece and instead of them you know going through the hotline are we encouraging parents to you know go that route or is that not an option that we're thinking through >> we've recently had some family engagement at some of the schools that I believe there was some of that activity um going on there. I have not been as involved in that, but I do believe there's been some family engagement opportunities. >> That may be an opportunity for us to explore is, you

025know, how do we, you know, parents are very active in PTAs. >> Um, and there's issues, you know, training those PTA leaders to really engage. It's not necessarily doing the technical pieces, but some of the the lowlevel or lowhanging fruit that they may can handle, you know, that could be an opportunity to really help and engage those families. Um the other piece I've heard espec and and this may have been resolved now but um there was a certain timeline or time frame that teachers would have to submit attendance. Is that still a thing with infinite campus or >> so let me explain that. >> Yeah. So one of the basic functionalities that's different between powers school and infinite campus is teachers don't have the ability to take attendance except on the day that the student

026is there right they can't go forwards they can't go backwards another big change is they don't have the ability to code attendance meaning they simply enter an absence or a tardy the way our system currently works for notifying parents for attendance is we send a file Our team pulls a file of all the absences that are unexcused at 4:00 every day and we send that information to school messenger and those calls go out because they have to be unexcused. We run a job every day at 3:45 that takes all the unknown attendance and codes it to be unexcused so that we have a successful communication with school messenger. That's where it came into. You have to have the attendance entered by 4:00 in order for the job to run for it to update so it

027can be sent to school messenger. >> Perfect. I was under the impression from hearing from some families and teachers that it was, let's say, and I'll be very transparent. I was one of those teachers that forgot to do attendance. And so it would be that evening or I'm pulling it like darn, I forgot to do attendance. But in this particular case, it was some folks that were saying that if they did not do it within, let's say, the first 20 minutes or something that it would not necessarily count. So perhaps it was just a learning curve. >> It could have been a miscommunication. >> Well, perhaps I I don't know if we need to do some followup to ensure that, you know, that is taken care of. And then my final question would be, is

028there additional support that's happening for teachers that let's say that's getting hired tomorrow or in the future? How are we training those educators um to maneuver through this since some of the trainings have already taken place? Is there support within the school building that's happening to help that or is it just here at the central office level? >> That's one of the conversations that I'm actively having with some of our senior leadership and academics to talk about how we move forward with that. We have established gradebook contacts within the building, but I think we need a strong um this is just me talking, but I think we need a strong structure on how we keep those gradebook contacts in place within that building so that we have that foundation for our teachers who are coming

029in. >> Um thank you. Thank you for this this um information. and I am one of those parents who is affected by the infinite campus fold over um switch over change. Um I had two questions. My first question um is uh going back to you spoke about how we accomplished going live in such a short time the six days. Um while that's great, what were some of the hiccups that we that we experienced in that short amount of time? And what what have we learned from that? Great question. One of the big things I think that caused some issues is functionality in infinite canvas is very different in just the database structure itself. Um I won't go too deep into that but there is um students are attached to a household in infinite campus. all

030the persons within the system are in the same table and a person is a person is a person. Students were duplicated um and not necessarily in a household didn't have an address. So we were scrambling sometimes to make certain that we got that information updated so that we didn't have a delay in transportation for anyone. that was we had developed reports so that we could identify those students who didn't have an indicator who had some transportation issues and we could get those households updated. We spent a lot of time with our data managers and our registars on that particular piece, but that's probably been our biggest challenge was the online registration processing that whenever they came in because while Jeff mentioned we did start using the OLr in October, we didn't use it where it

031we approved and submitted it into Infinite Campus until July. So that caused us a little bit of a hiccup um because it's very different. So we probably needed a little more time to walk through processing those online applications. Okay. Um and then my second question is actually off of uh Mr. Swanson's um question. So, if absences have to automatically be coded as unexcused and teachers are not able to to go back, let's just say like Mr. Swanson said, I was one of those teachers. Sometimes I forgot to take attendance. We can put a little sticker, a lot of us have stickers on our laptops that say remember to take attendance. Um, but if I can't go back and and change or or actually submit attendance, how is an unexcused absence resolved? Because that's actually happened

032to my student where he was marked absent and I let the school know like, hey, no, this is no, he's there. Um, so how is that resolved? So teachers can take attendance up until 11:59 p.m. of that day. Okay. >> Okay. There are jobs that run periodically. One runs at 3:45 to update that attendance. One runs at midnight that night to update. And the school has the ability to run this same process and update during the day. While teachers can't change attendance. So if the student was counted absent but then comes in, they can report that information to someone who is the attendance person or the data manager, the registar and then they go back in and update the attendance. Okay? So they can then code it excused if a notes present. Also, when teachers

033enter the attendance, um I believe it came to my attention, I wasn't aware we're doing this, but it came to my attention that some parents were using talking points to communicate, hey, my students going to be out today. have a doctor's appointment. So when teachers count that attent that absence, they can actually the data manager can see that that comment. They can put a comment in and say, "Johnny's out today for a doctor's appointment." And the data manager can go ahead and code that excused because when the job runs, all it does is pick up everything that's unknown and make it unexcused. >> Okay? And then the data managers have the ability to go back and update that to an excuse. >> Does the data manager have the ability to do that after 11:59? >>

034Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. They can go as far back as they need to and forward. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> The questions that you all did you have any questions? Yes. >> Um I think my question thank you all for your presentation. Um uh I celebrate you as well for your accomplishments that you feel around um your team. Um I always love technology. Uh but keeping in mind with our priority three um around our operational effectiveness, I think my question is more toward our superintendent. um considering everything that's just been said and talking about data and the technology team really doing their part to make sure things can run and filling in the gaps. what are we doing to support staff um to make sure that they are really aware of

035the resources that I just heard explained um so that families aren't impacted by um an inaccurate recording um and the resubmission process. And then how are we um having accountability and followth through with our data managers uh to make sure along with them getting the I mean I'm speaking even in a high school way. High schoolers um is different when they're absent. They come and drop a a a letter in a basket and the data manager gets to it when she gets to it. And so I'm looking at um students who particularly our seniors for the year and a pilot programs that we're doing which are really fantastic. I hear a lot about that seniors, you know, they really try not to have absences because they don't want to do over their 10 because they

036want to be able to not have to do an exam. Um but based upon their high scores in the classroom um that they've met those metrics I'm just concerned not a concern I just want to know >> as what do you want how are we supporting that? >> That's a great question and it's the professional development that we've done all along particularly uh when you bring on a new system and so you've already heard conversations about uh some of the glitches that we've seen there are contingencies for all of that. So, so, uh, the first thing is getting familiar with the process of infinite campers versus power schools. That they're both cars. You got to learn how to drive this versus the other. And so, that's been the major part of what we've done is

037to make sure logistically they know how to function. But then when there are cases where uh things need to be addressed in a different way if attendance um uh needs to be corrected, we still have all the ability to be able to make corrections based on uh staff that have permissions. So some of those permissions may have changed to where now is more upper level, but everything that we do now is really about the professional development that we've always provided uh in using these systems. Uh but as we move forward, we still will have to identify some additional things that we may need to do. So if there are issues and problems with how we do the attendance monitor, there are issues with any other um uh systematic things in the system, but we'll have

038to go back and make sure we put that in place. There's the PD that we've always provided even with um uh power schools and now infinite campus. I know the question was asked about when new people come on board. Well, we've always had that and so now it is about uh making sure that there's additional support from school level people that can support new people that come on. So it's it's a difference of bringing on a new person with power schools that we had for 12 years versus a new person with Anthony Camp. We're still new every week. Um but it's just making sure um that the PD is in place when we recognize we need it. I'll share this now that I'm talking that um I've been through a number of CIS um conversions

039uh and this is the best that I've ever seen. And so even when we when I was at DPM, we were looking at who we were going to have to lead this project. Uh the great thing about it is that they had a statewide cyst that was developed specifically for this. Uh Power School developed that over time. It was a custom system though. They had a different product that was different than what we were using. But this transition has been great and I think that is manifested in the number of calls that you all have received or in this case I would say not received. Uh and so um what we will do is continue to uh uh to identify additional PD that we may need to address a specific area. But I followed from

040the beginning all of the things that we put in place to make sure this was a smooth transition. But now it's about looking down the road and there's something different that we need to do additional that we need to add. >> Any followup? >> Um, no. I I hear everything that we're saying about the systems and and I and I know that we've always had it, but I really was looking at more of at the school level, school base of the supports. Um, as I heard former teachers or current teachers speak about the nuances of human behavior of forgetfulness. Um, just making sure that teachers know what they really can do and get it done. But I know that's something we may you may not know on the ground completely or people just do it.

041I don't know. I'm just assuming. And then the other thing that I just want to ask is um thank you. I only had same as Dr. E. It was I had quite a few people in the beginning with um the the enrollment process was was glitched, but everything worked out and was really great. So, thank you guys and kudos for for that great work. But I don't Yeah, I don't necessarily have anything else um to say then. >> Yeah, I'll go back and address uh the piece about uh making sure people do what they do. So, the first thing I'll tell you is that uh we got two great teachers here. Uh and they forgot to do their attendance sometimes. Uh we're not going to beat them up, but you know, ultimately as systems move

042forward, they take a lot of things out of your control so that you're forced to do it. So attendance is one of those we've known we could always go back and fix attendance whenever we needed to. But now teachers know and understand you have to do this at this particular time. There are reports that schools have to do. You know, you set those deadlines. And so now uh that principal can look a little close at some teachers and they'll get on board. But it's it's it's not about um beating people up, but having some level of accountability where there's continuous improvement. But, you know, we still got a lot of >> and it didn't affect our 10day numbers, right? So, we And then last thing, Dr. Taylor, I just want to ask this is I

043guess again for you um because I know we had tons of participation from our previous um system that we used and wanting in the spirit of um Mr. Swanson's statement as well, there about what 65,000 more families that need to be integrated into the system. And in the only way in the spirit of community and engagement and student success, parents need to have access. And so I hope that at the school-based levels as from the district that we're encouraging to make sure that every parent signs up that has the capability to do it so that they can monitor their students progress because that's the only way for us to increase or to have the best participation for our school parent partnerships. Parents need to know what their children are doing so that we can improve

044student achievement and that's what's important to me is improving student achievement. And I can speak to that really quickly. Um I have started to have some conversation with um different Dr. Norfleet, um Michelle Woodson, some various people around what could be next steps we could take to make certain one that we've got our data in a place where people are receiving the email and how do we make certain that we can get the rest of the families on board. So we're starting those conversations. >> Thank you. because security and safety is important um for us having everyone in the system a parent connect to every child in the system. So we really should I hope that we'll be very assertive even aggressive evenly with getting these parents um attached to a student so that when

045anything arrives we really know how to reach parents and get their children. And and so that was one of the the pieces of data that I was waiting on that when we talked about that 70 some percent of our parents that have engaged that's a really high number. I also knew what the state number was number was but that's also LA that have been on for a year versus us just coming on. So I wanted to make sure we knew we were training at a higher number adequate number. Uh and then looking at where we were under uh power schools versus infinite campus. Uh, one of the things I I know is that it's a much better app. Um, and uh, this is absolutely an opportunity to get parents to engage. I would imagine 95%

046of parents probably got a smartphone. I might be wrong about that number, but that is um, and and how we have families grouped together versus where it was under school. I think this is a great opportunity to make sure that they have that connection to their kids right in their hands. So, that's something we do need to make sure we double down on. >> And I believe that the upcoming scheduling season is really going to highlight those opportunities because there's ability to display course plans within that app so that the the parent can see where their student is on track to graduate and what the necessary classes and courses that they need remaining and to be able to say, "Yes, I see this." And so I believe the upcoming scheduling season will give us some

047opportunities to really reinforce that as well. Perfect. Thank you, >> J. So, uh, a couple things. I do want to go back to the attendance issue and just if we could make a note because sometimes, especially at the high school level, there will be students that will not miss an entire day, but may miss part of a day. And so, it becomes very important that time-sensitive nature of the confirmation of attendance. I might receive a call that says my child was absent for third period. I don't know why they were absent. I, you know, when they come home, I find out, oh, they had they needed extra time for test corrections or maybe they had an some sort of arts performance they were doing. Some dignitary was coming to the school and they pulled them

048out of class, right? But it's showing up as an absence. And so the ability to make sure that we can go back and accurately capture that both for the exam exemptions, for athletic eligibility, for so many other things is just really important. So please beware be aware of that. >> Absolutely. Yes, sir. >> Um like a couple other board members, I did hear from some members of some members of the public about some difficulties with transition, but it was very few, which families is a very good thing. I just want to make sure where we have 97,000 accounts registered. When you look at the open tickets, are there still outstanding issues with parents that have signed up for access that haven't gotten access versus just where there hasn't been an attempt initiated? >> We still

049see a few here and there. We've worked with our school staff to help them understand this how to do a password reset, how to make certain that while Infinite Campus gives a parent the ability to self-reset. One of the things that will block that is if a parent forgets to add an email address because it doesn't have an email address to send a password reset to. So, our staff has the ability to log in and see that. So, we're communicating with some of the schools, hey, reach out to this parent and have them go put that email address in. Um, we if a parent tries multiple times, I think it's five times, and it is a hard-coded campus thing, if they try five times, it disables their account. We're starting a process to automatically clear

050those out so that a parent doesn't keep getting that frustration. Um, but no, nowhere near the amount that we've had in the beginning. >> Okay, great. The other area where I heard of some issues was there were some errors calculating GPA on transcripts, particularly when working with Wake Tech. I just wanted to know what the status of that was, if that was something you were aware of. >> Absolutely. So let me speak to that for just a moment. There is a completely different process around the way the GPA works. There's a grading task associated to the course code. The grading task which is basically the marks that are anticipated to be received by that student for that course code. The grading task has a grade scale associated to that particular course. If it's an honors

051course, it's a 4.5 grade scale. An AP, it's a five. Standards for some of our CCP courses is also a five. If you have to, the reason it rears its head for the WG tech CCP courses is because those courses have to be manually entered. So when they were manually entering those course codes, grade scales were not attached to the course codes. So they had to be wary of which grade scale they were selecting when they entered the grade. There was some human error on some of those. We talked through it. Corrections were made. Um actually we had a meeting with counselors today and had a DPI represented to talk about all of this um at our Fway training location. So we know we have those present. They were human error and we're resolving those.

052>> Okay, great. And then the final thing is when people do come to the board with questions about the implementation, questions about access to Infinite Campus, where should we refer them? I mean, I can send them to Mr. Hill and I can send them to Dr. Hill, but I don't know if there was a help desk or >> desk obviously that's the best place because uh my team tracks all the tickets, so we can track and respond to those tickets. >> Okay. And that help desk can be found where >> for families or for staff >> um >> we typically ask families to reach out to the school and the school can reach out to us. Um and simply because we don't know all the families um staff there is a on weight connect they

053can go and search help desk and there's a button they can click on and log a ticket. >> So we haven't been clear on when that is but we will know by tomorrow where to send folks. >> I just the clarification that we're giving is um parents should contact their child's teacher and their child's teacher if necessary will contact the help desk. >> Okay. and staff know exactly how to find the help desk. >> Okay. So, through the team. All right. Thank you. Last last questions. Any final followup? >> All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. We know it's been done a lot of work. >> All right. Uh next we'll move into session two on our series on building the three pillars of artificial intelligence um AI readiness. This will give staff

054an opportunity to transition. Welcome Dr. Thompson and Mr. Bad'll be a quiz at the end. Taking a quiz. What's your answer? I'm going to use AI to answer. >> All right. Welcome. All right. Uh good afternoon, Chair Haggedy, U board members, Dr. Taylor. Thank you for the opportunity. This is session two of the AI and we're going to uh do a little bit deep dive into other components of AI today. But uh just to kind of step back in the last session uh we spoke about the foundational elements of AI the artificial intelligence and machine learning. Uh again the goal of these conversations is to really equip you with all the information around AI and machine learning as you start to look at policies and uh you know so you are well equipped with all

055the information including the futuristic um strategies you're going to work on AI because AI is really impacting everything we do these days. So just want to make sure um kind of you know we have that level setting there. uh today the focus is on data right um and uh I'm going to say AI is only as powerful as the data behind it when we think about artificial intelligence you know we typically think about all the technologies and chat bots and automation but the lifeblood of AI is the data right without data without proper data you can't do anything so uh I can also say that uh you The data is the true you know is the most valuable resource right now right uh surpassing even oil. Um but unlike oil um you know which evaporates

056and is uh which is you know uh which gets uh you know consumed data is actually exponentially growing uh because it is estimated by the end of 2025 we're going to have 180 zetabytes of data. And what does it mean? Right? Uh it's too technical and all that. So it means if you store all the all the movies ever made store them and then multiply that to about 10 billions. That's the kind of data we are dealing with. That's a lot of data, right? So I think uh you know um there's a lot of data, but again we have to make sure we processes the right way. uh a couple of things I'm going to talk about um is when you talk about data there are two streams of data right you have the structured

057data and the unstructured data when you talk about structured data it is the data which is available in rows and columns so you can think about an excel spreadsheet you can think about the SIS system data you can think about an ERP data operational data so forth and so on right and when you look at the unstructured it's your word documents your voicemails, your videos, your chats, that's all unstructured. So, traditionally, even prior to all these evolution of AI and everything, organizations typically use that 20% of the data, right? Uh that's the using that data warehouse and all those things, right? But the um the structured data is only 20%. The unstructured is 80%. So the real power of AI is when you pull these two things together, right? And really make sure that you

058provide meaningful information to that and you can make really, you know, insightful um decisions. So uh with that said, um at the end of the day, AI without good data is like a car without fuel. It looks great, but you can't drive it, right? So, with that, uh, I know we have a long session. I'm going to turn it over to Miss to take it off. >> Yes. Thank you so much. Um, and thank you so much for having us back today. It's great to see everyone again and to see some new faces as well. Um, for those of you that I didn't meet last time, um, my name is Emory Laner and I'm the K12 education strategy leader at AWS. Um, and prior to um, joining AWS, I worked in public education for more

059than 30 years and I was the CIO of the Rochester City School District um, in upstate New York for about 11 years, but always in education and always in technology and education. So, and again, I'm happy to be here today and I have one new member of our team that is joining us today, Don Wolf. Um, Don is going to be diving into data with you. Uh Don leads data and analytics for our K12 team at at AWS and prior to come joining AWS in January this year uh Don served as the CIO of Portland public schools and prior to that there were a few other districts that he also served as CIO and technology director. Um so he has a lot of experience in K12 public education as well. Uh so anyway we are

060happy to be here today. Today is all about data, which was a great TN. But before we dive in, I thought we would do a knowledge check just to see, you know, uh kind of what you learned from last time. It's this is just a kind of a fun little knowledge check. You guys seem to enjoy the the quiz that we did last time. So, we're just doing the same sort of thing. Um it's a different tool. This is Mentimeter, but it's the same experience. So, if you just use your phones and you just um point it to the QR code. We only have five questions. um today. So, what you'll see, you should see it'll assign you a name, but you can change your name if you want to pick a different name. Um

061and you can let me know when you're all all accessed that successfully. We have 11 12 people joined. >> So, we had to pick on the You'll be able to input your name when we start the next question. >> Oh, okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Everybody in? All right. Go ahead. Okay. So, first question is teed up. Okay. We have nine players. >> Yeah. Here's where you can input your name. >> If you want to change the name that you've been assigned, feel free. You can be discreet and you can pick something that nobody will know because there will be some totals on the screen. All right, everybody ready? Okay, first question. Okay, so how long has artificial intelligence been around? Um, so you have four options. 69 years, 53 years, 19 years, or

0625 years. So select the option that you think is correct. Oh, okay. Everyone has voted. Let's see where we are. 53 years. Okay. Well, we're close. But it's actually been around for 69 years, which is shocking to think about because when we think about AI, we think of like the last few years especially because that was really the advent of generative AI, ChatGpt, which took the world by storm. And of course, we knew about AI prior to that. you know, when we would go online shopping and you'd get those popups that said, "Hey, you people that bought that also liked this, right? That's AI behind the scenes, but we don't think about the fact that it's been around for 69 years." So, the birth of AI was actually 1956. So, you can use that and

063test somebody else sometime. Okay, next question. Okay. It took Uber 70 months to reach 100 million users. How long did it take for Chat GPT to reach 100 million users? >> So 55 months, 30 months, 9 months, or 2 months? Captain. Okay, everyone has voted. Let's see where we are. Two months. Okay. Yes, everybody. Almost everybody got that one correct. That's absolutely correct. Which is really when you start to think about it, I mean two months 100 million users. That just shows the unprecedented technology adoption of generative AI. Um it's the fastest growing consumer application in history. And it's this really marked the beginning of mainstream AI adoption, which is of course why we're here today, right? why you've invited us all here because we all know that this is here to stay and we

064want to make sure that we are prepared and and can you utilize it most effectively. All right, we have three more questions. Next question. Okay. What is not trick question not a potential risk of AI? Hallucinations, speed, bias or security and privacy. So again, which is not a risk of AI. thinking thinking and I should have said this if you don't answer it's okay it'll just skip over so it's okay that is correct track speed is not the potential risk of AI. I know it's difficult to think about like that wasn't the trick question, but hallucinations unfortunately are a risk of AI, right? That is why um we always have to be careful about like the the solutions that we're using, the foundation models that are behind those solutions. We have to understand the AI

065tool that we're using and we always most importantly have to have a human in the loop, right? You can't just believe everything that comes out of AI, everything that's generated. Um it these models are getting better and better uh but they they still you still need a human in the loop. Same thing with bias. Who developed AI? Humans right? Humans have inherent biases and also the data that is behind that is behind generative AI was developed by humans and that so that data then also has inherent biases and security and privacy is of utmost importance. Right? So the consumer models of AI, any data that you put out there in order to help you generate something meaningful is always going to be out there. There's no way to get it back. So we want to

066make sure that any solution that you or your staff um or your children are using are ones that are secure and where the data itself if it is private data does not is not used to train the underlying model. Okay. Uh next question. I think we actually are going to be seeing the leaderboard, right? So, let's see who is in the lead. Definitely not Sam. Oh, Kenned. Hm. I wonder who Kenneth is. H. Okay. All right. We have two more questions. So, this one might be a little a little tricky. What are AI agents? So, we learned about this last time. Um, this is a newer part of generative AI. So, AI agents are an AI system that can only process natural language, autonomous software systems that can reason, plan, and act, physical robots, or

067human assistants trained to use AI tools. Okay, everyone voted. Okay. Um, most folks got that one right. Autonomous software systems that can reason, plan, and act. So, um, an example of this, like why are AI agents used? It's to speed things up, right? So if we have complex workflows that have a lot of manual effort required, it's great to think about how AI and AI agents can be used to speed that process up. Um, a quick example, and I hope I don't steal Don's thunder, but a quick example of of a K12 specific AI agent solution um that uses AI agents. It was a one of region 13 is an educational service agency in Texas. They wanted to develop a solution that helped teachers keep their students on track. Um so they developed pulse and

068this the a pulse is an AI assistant for teachers to allow teachers to keep a pulse on their students. And so one of the things that pulse does is at the end of every day it creates it takes the data you know maybe it's from assignments that the students have completed or or tests um and it actually identifies identifies students that may need some additional supports or it may identifies students that have done something exceptional and it creates a podcast an actual podcast for the teacher that the teacher can listen to on the way home from work to and it really brings forward some of the students that they potentially need to follow up on. So that is an example of a solution that uses AI agents. It was actually AI agents were used to

069build it and are used within it. So that's just an example. Okay, we have one more question. So which is not a layer in the foundations of an AI ready organization? communications layer, use case and application layer, AI and model layer or data foundation layer. So we learned about this from our colleague Mary Strain who was here at the last session and she talked about the foundations of an AI ready organization. >> Okay, great. Everyone has voted and that's right a communication layer. Most of you got that. Um but that was the most popular answer. That is not um a layer for an AI ready organization. The data layer is by far the most important because if you don't have quality data, if you don't have data governance, if you don't have data that's accessible,

070then the answers that you're going to be getting out of your AI solution aren't going to be the ones that you need, right? It you can't count on those answers. So data, you start with the data foundation layer, which is why we're here today and what you're going to learn all about. Um, and then, you know, you move up the stack to the AI and model layer. It's also very important that you um select an AI AI foundation model that is going to be the best for your solution if if the solution is being developed. And you can also use AI to actually help prepare your data for your AI solution. And then the use case and application layer, that is really the last. That's where you don't say what is everyone else doing with

071AI. You als you start with what do we need? What is a problem that we have that we want solved or what is a priority that we have and how can AI help. So those are the three foundations of an AI ready organization. All right let's see the final totals. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> I'll take their flex. >> Okay. Casper. Whoever's Casper, congratulations. >> All right. Um, that is that's it for our knowledge check. So now I'm going to turn it over to Don. Dive into data. >> So again, just just for reference, my name is Don Wolf. I am a former I'm a recovering K12 CIO. Um, I did Henry was correct. I spent 34 years in public K12 education. uh both as a classroom teacher all the way up

072through technology leadership before join joining AWS in January of this year. So, I'm going to start off a little bit of a cartoon and I'm just going to give you a minute to read it here as we're we're getting ready. And while you're reading it, I'm just, you know, as questions come up, please feel free to make this interactive, engaging, jump in. Don't make me drone and feel like you have to save your questions till the end. Um, if something intrigues you or something doesn't sit right, please let's let's address it there. Um, the more interactive we can make this, the better off we're going to we're going to be. love starting this with this cartoon. Um there's an underlying assumption here particularly um in my experience as a K12 leader is that if we

073if we throw enough technology at any given problem that is going to solve the problem and when we talk about adopting generative AI or AI solutions enterprisewide AI solutions that couldn't be further from the truth what we really have to focus on is the strategic plan for the district what the people and processes are that are at play in the district what um already artifacts we have the data that we have at hand before we can then apply the technology to where we want to go. So knowing this as a starting point technology isn't the first thing we think about it's it's trying to adapt it to our strategic plan. Yes sir. >> Only because it was brought up earlier. It was I think it was stated that in the school or not in the

074school system but in general unstructured data to structured data was 8020. Is that >> is it different for data within a school system at all or is it still that kind of divide? And the other question because you had it on the quiz and I don't know if we have a closed data set in the school system yet. That's how we operate. I thought that so the 8020 is a general um across the industries but it's pretty close even for the K12 is pretty close because there's a lot of data which is not structured right so all the word documents you're looking there's a lot which happens right so that's a general kind of a proportion between structured and unstructured okay typically as I said you know historically we always tap into the traditional side

075of things which which is structured which is structured data right but now because of the AI we're able to pull information both from the structured and unstructured and make meaningful insights are school systems worried about hallucinations if we have our own data that's kind of being used for >> I will get into a little bit of that but yes yes that is a consideration that's absolutely a concern that we need to be focused on and what is is the primary differentiator for enterprisewide AI adoption in a capable space. So one thing I would add there is even though when you look at it there are a lot of commercial tools available like your chair GPDS your Gemini your perplex cities and everything but we're actually sitting on the true gold which is our own data

076>> right because when you start to pull the structured and unstructured within your organization that's the power I think that's where you can really see a lot of insights and what just sitting in a SI system it's just a silo system there is purely SI but when you connect that information with other sources of unstructured and structured, you're going to see the true power of AI >> and connect it in such a way that it's safe, right? So not connected in a commercial based solution is your security. This this is a wonderful conversation because all this is this is true and what we're finding in K12 we're talking about K12s tend to run 80% of their daily operations tends to be functioning from unstructured data where 20% of it is is that structured data but

077they they they interact with one another. So the question becomes if we're going to look at a gener genai or a generative AI adoption for an enterprisewide solution, what is going to be critical to that? And the the critical differentiator is your data. Um it's the critical fuel for anything that you do. And we'll talk about some of those concerns, some of those warning signs here in a little bit. But there's three key principles that we focus on is that more isn't always better. quality data, data that is purpose-built for the application that it's going to be used for, for the AI application that's going to be for is far more critical and far more important than having a boatload of data. Um, the use case specific data needs, moving that data into structures that

078are being available or purpose-built for consumption by the application on the other side of that. and that the data has to be available and accessible because in K12 we have lots of different data sources and a lot of them are all over the place. We have our CIS data which doesn't necessarily intermingle with our ERP data which doesn't intermingle with some of our our transportation data and that sort of things. How do we build those data sources together so that they're available and accessible while we also are maintaining privacy and security around this? So when we think about how do we build an AI foundation um based on our data, think about it as as building a house. First you have to have quality materials. You have to have materials that are good. So good

079data. You have to have an architecture that supports what you're wanting to do in that space. That might be, you know, whether it's going to be structured database or data warehouse or whether you're going to be tapping into those word documents that that loosely live in um some sort of accessible file format. You need to have room to grow because the data is not shrinking. The data is growing. So you need to store this data in a flexible format that is not only expandable but also um cost effective as as you grow and expand it. And then you you need to think about the security of it. We lock our homes. We lock our windows. We need to make sure this data is critical. We've seen in the last 5 to seven years explosion cyber

080security attacks on school districts. It's it's rich and people are wanting it and we don't want to use AI tools that are going to inadvertently make it available to the wrong folks. So looking to centralize and own our o own AI deployments is critical, but we also have to prepare the data and make sure it's secure and um privacy is is timing out there. So data is going to be your gener your your AI differentiator. There are lots of generic um LLMs or AI models out there that people can use and are being used in your in your buildings all day every day. There's not anybody who's not using one of the different things that is just using generic available on the internet information. What is going to make your implementation different is how you

081focus what your strategic elements are where where is it we want to see growth and and use of this data and how we're going to put that together. So data at the end of the day is is the rocket fuel for whatever you're going to want to do with this. So when we have these these these conversations with other school districts across the country, we often get the question, what are the challenges and and what are some of the common things you're hearing from other K12 institutions? And really the biggest challenge is every K12 and I use this phrase lovingly almost all K12s are uniquely identical in many different ways. Um we have many different disconnected systems. I mentioned some previously and we have many of our schools standing up some of their own things

082or many of our internal operations standing up outside of it or outside of the formal governance structure. um many applications are being put in place that are valuable that are very critical for the operations or for the understanding of our students growth and for their expansion of their learning and that sort of thing. But they're siloed. They're disconnected. the the trick is the the biggest thing we're struggling with is how do we bring all of that information back into a format that we can use both structured and unstructured so that we can leverage the the promise that AI is bringing for us. So all of those things that you're seeing up there is absolutely common across the board for every every district we're talking with across across the country. It's how do we address these

083and how do we move forward and mitigate some of that. So >> question. >> Yes sir. Please >> can you go back one? Sorry. So >> I think so. Yeah. >> I mean don't we have to identify what we want out of it before we define the governance models and what data we actually want to use. >> Absolutely. >> So I mean >> I'm I'm speaking in very high terms here. No, that's that's a great question. We we don't want to put any carts before in courses. So I'm trying to set a little bit of landscape of kind of the general broad and then I will talk a little bit more specifically on how do we get there and how do we drill out and how do we build those use cases that actually address

084all of these problems and maximize the data that we have available in some specific ways. So this this is our goal. At the end of the day, you all here are spending a lot of your time as board members, private time, that's if you're not any different than Oregon, your unpaid time. And it and it's not an insignificant lift to to serve on a school board because you believe in the students that of of the school district you're serving. Same with all of the executives that are sitting around this table. They believe in our students and what education offers them. That's that's our end goal here is we want to see our students succeed, right? AI and utilizing our data for that can help accelerate that. It's where do we want to put our focus

085because we can do all kinds of things, but we can't do everything. We can do some things really well. we have to focus on that and and kind of figure out where does our data strategy that we're going to need to develop if we don't already have one align with what is the strategic goal from the board from the district and our community to make this happen. So in all things that we talk about here as long as we're leaning back into what we want to do is provide a better outcome for our students and that everything that we implement is for that end goal that's a great place to be starting from. oftentimes as a tech leader, I apologize, it's a little bit of an editorial for me, that it seemed to get forgotten

086in some of the adults in the system that wanted this opportunity to do something that was the students were the secondary concern. Um, and so I'm I'm trying to use my voice wherever I can that our students need to be our primary concern. Um, and if I'm preaching to the choir, Amen. And I'm so glad to be at a table that that is choir preaching right there. All of this talks about is is leading towards a datadriven organization. And when I talk about or when we talk about what is a datadriven organization, it's an organization that's going to harness the data that you have as an asset. It's going to use that asset to drive sustain innovation and to create actionable insights that improve decision-m for your students and for the outcomes that your constituents,

087the parents, the community, the teachers care about. and that's going to build higher trust. All of these six things over to the right side are the key drivers that help get us to that datadriven organization. And the first one I'll start with, it starts at the top. It starts with the district leadership from the superintendent and the board of directors to say this is an asset. How do we take advantage of it? And what structures do we need to put in place? And how do we make this an actionable step that we do every day that we're going to dream big, think big, and empower our folks to do that as well using the data we have at hand. It means creating shared leadership acu I don't just mean the financial office but transportation security

088HR teachers uh teacher uh school supervision with it because it shouldn't be leading any of this by themselves and I will get to that more specifically here in a minute. We have to put forth a commitment to upskilling our folks, both the people that are producing the data for consumption and the consumers because we're entering an age where self um self-service data consumption is reality and it's uh reliable reality that we can count on and we can get actionable insights out of, but folks have to see that it's a thing that we can do. The other one right up there next to the leadership is that robust data strategy. I haven't spoken with Shashi Ken enough to know where we're at on that spectrum here at Wake County, but if you don't have a robust

089data strategy that points back to the district's strategic plan, it's going to be hard to do all of the things that we need to do to take advantage of AI and make our data an asset. So, that needs to be put in place and we need to be thinking about it. Doesn't mean it all has to happen all at once and it's a massive one-time thing, but we can take it one use case at a time and build on it. We need strong collaboration. We need to have chief of chief information officers that work great with our chief HR officers and our CFO and our superintendent and our deputy superintendent to to make all of this come together seamlessly and trade off where we need to and make sure the communication's open. And most importantly,

090we need to build this all with privacy and security in mind. We we don't want any of our students leaving our our districts having to have their data compromised in any sort of way, shape, or form. That's a lot there. So there's questions I would understand. All right. I like to think about all of those things in terms of a maturity model. Climbing a data maturity curve, which starts at the lowest level, which is we've got data and it's descriptive data. It tells us about something. We can take it and we can bind that data all the way up to the prescriptive data. And that's that prescriptive data that says I have I I've got this data and I know what I need to be um pre-planning to provide for students in these conditions to

091ensure that their success. I know by third grade they need to be reading at this level and here's these students and so here's the prescriptive plan of reading we're going to put in place. It's a wide range. a school district that wants to fully implement and take advantage of AI and the honest can bring and leverage the data they have to recognize where they're at on this data maturity and it's okay and I I would actually say it's imperative that we're really honest and say if we're at the descriptive or the diagnostic level that's okay because it's not a race there's not a there's not a prize at the end goal but you have to build those foundations you can't skip them as hot as AI is right now and as much as everybody wants

092to jump to that predictive and that prescriptive layer of using our data. If we can't define it, if we can't diagnose with our data, then we can't predict and we can't um be prescriptive with it. So, we've got to start, we've got to be honest with ourselves and build that foundation up. Just like we're building a house, we've got to put a solid foundation down first and be honest. Where are we at in this maturity level? And let's move intentionally. The beautiful thing is in some of these things people are going to be in part of the loop. You cannot do this without the humans at the table. In some of these elements, we can employ AI agents that can help us with the description of our data, the identifying the data that we have,

093cataloging the data, making sure that we're applying the appropriate security controls and things like that as we move through this through this curve. That's the goal. All right. So again building on this let's talk about some modern data best practices in most K12 districts that I work with across the country and in my own experience we tend to focus on the technology first and then the operations and then how it impacts the strategy. And when we're doing that, we're we're creating a more disjointed, a more siloed, and a much more expensive landscape for us to have to maintain and to buy into. For example, I will I will use an example from my own career as a CIO is a a cabinet member, a partner of mine, a peer of mine on on cabinet would

094come to me and say, "We had this issue with principal retention. So we bought this application that we think is going to solve that issue. It you need to make it available and run it and manage it for us. And that becomes one more system that it now has to manage in a silo because that came out of that chief HR officer's office, not out of the district strategic plan of what our strategic goals were. It was putting the technology before we figured out how we're going to operationalize that and before how that was going to impact our our strategy. We need to flip the script and say again student success at the at the forefront. This is what we're focused on. What are the strategic goals we need to manage first? That's our thing.

095Then we build the operations around that. What are the workflows? What are the people and the processes that we need to have in place to support that. Then we bring the technology in and say okay what technology do we need to do to support this metrics with these operations and let the technology support it. We need to get back to that place of technology supports the the strategic roles and where we're heading with the operations. Does that resonate? Right now, most of our K12s are are continue to operate on that top line. We see something bright and shiny at a conference. It promises marketers are really good. It's going to solve all of our issues. All of your third graders are going to be reading at grade level by this year if you just deploy

096this application. But how is it being operationalized? How are we assessing for that? How are we taking into account those students that have IEPs or have a a different way of doing this or second language learners? None of that is accounted for in that sort of model. So, this is a good place to stop and and ask you a question. Now, hopefully you saw this. I'm not going to put anybody on the spot and make any I'm not going to call anybody out, but I will ask for volunteers as we think back through the district's strategic goals and where we're wanting to head and what we're hoping AI can help us achieve. What are your top success metrics that align with your strategic plan? And what specific data or analysis do you need to effectively

097measure project pro progress against these metrics? I'm just going to let that bake for a second. Now, I'm just curious, and you may have seen this in the slide deck as we got a little bit earlier this week, if there's anybody that has is willing to volunteer to share kind of what their thoughts are. What do we consider our top success metrics and what data might I need to align with that? All right. Does anyone want to take a stab at that? >> Yeah, certainly our graduation, our growth rate. Um, I know we talked about attendance, getting kids to school. >> Uh, what am I missing? >> Grade level proficiency analysis by subgroups. >> There you go. Yeah, >> that's the the subgroups is is an interesting part for me. Um, big goals up here.

098How does that impact and what what does that mean? Because that's how we operationalize and that becomes the people process parts, right? >> Yeah, that's great. Okay, I'm not going to make I'm not going to make anybody squirm. I'm not going to call out anybody, but I thank you. Those are all great things to be thinking about. And as we go down this journey for AI and what do we want to do for us, these are the questions we should be asking. what what are the metrics that we're going to be to be measuring the success by and and what is it we want to see what is the data that we need to have to to justify that. So back to the earlier question starting high level let's get a little bit more narrow

099in our focus and talking about a modern data architecture. So when we talk about a modern data architecture, we're not talking about one of these. We're not talking about building a battleship. And a modern data architecture is something that is lightweight. It's agile. It's built for change. The times we're in, everything's going to change. Your success metrics are going to change. Your strategic goals are going to change with time. We need to build a a data system um and a cohesive ecosystem that can change with it that is cost-effective to change that isn't tossing out a whole ship with that and that is built with a whole bunch of unknowns quite honestly built into it. When we built most of our systems in K12 and I will go back about 14 17 years when data

100warehouses became the thing this was going to change education. and it was going to make us datadriven. And at the time it was the best we had to offer. And it was a great big monolithic monolithic system that had all of the attributes that we knew. We knew we needed all of these elements much like a battleship. And all of the gnomes were put into a cell and then we could build that. That's not the world we live in anymore. And that's not really what we found to be the reality is that oh, we forgot about this data set. We forgot about this use case scenario. we forgot about this question that that constituent was asking in the southeast corner of our of our district. How do how are we going to account for that?

101We need to be able to build a system or build a framework of a system that doesn't know what all of the the imperatives are going to be that can take in new information, plug it in and and move it forward. So, we can't build a battleship because we don't know all the components. We need to build something that is agile that we can plug things in and out of as they change and that can be flexible to change with with our goals with our changing populations. And because we're getting so good at solving this problem, what's the next big problem we need to solve and where do we get that data from? And how do we operationalize that data to to move us forward? >> John, the only thing I would I would add

102to that is you don't have to think about building it all at once to, right? So you're not going to you're not building for the unknown, but you also can have see progress along the way. >> And I will highlight that again here a little bit. That's a very good point. We don't need to build something this massive all on the outset. So when we talk about modern data architecture principles, they're founded on a number of principles. It's cloud forward. Doesn't mean it's cloud only. It has to be all in the cloud. It can be a combination of hybrid cloud. It can be a combination of multiple cloud solutions. It doesn't have to be, but it needs to be cloud-based because cloud is where you're going to get the best bang for your buck for

103being agile, flexible, and being able to move things in and out. And that is adaptable to the change of technologies as we move forward. Needs to be a component architecture. At one time, you might need a data warehouse to answer a particular problem. Another time you might need just a bucket of SQL spread or excuse me Excel spreadsheets that are going to have the information that can answer that. Separating your systems of engagement from systems of record. Those are two very specific systems that you want to have them separate so your consumers are using one end, your producers are using the other end and it doesn't drag the system down. We need to have purpose-built scalable storage. I'm not going to go through all of these. Those are the first four that come to my

104mind. But there's a number of things that go into a modern data architecture that help you become flexible and help you get the most bang out of the dollars you spend because we're all resource constrained and capable right now. And that's that's recognized. The biggest one though and one that has some statistics behind it that I'm going to mention here is the data data life cycle management and the governance piece of it. That's that critical piece that we're going to need that helps us identify our people and processes but also helps ensure privacy and security of the data as we're moving it forward into these modern data architectures. So what does this look like in practice? This is could look like a very technical slide but it's not. It works from top to bottom and

105we spend time talking about the data life cycle just to give you an idea of how things are going to flow and how they should flow and what they're going to cover. So it starts at the top with all of the different data sources. that you could possibly think about your external data sources like spreadsheets or photo buckets or video buckets from your YouTube channels or Excel spreadsheets, existing databases that you might have, existing data warehouses, you might have, documents, all of those things are your collections. You need to identify it, bring it to a singular place, and then you're going to ingest it. You're just going to bring it in to that layered flexible storage. There's lots of different ways you can do it. It can be file shares on the network. It can

106be a a big bucket of simple storage in the cloud. There's all kinds of but you need to have it somewhere centralized that you can use. Now this is where AI helps and this is where the folks come in. You can start cataloging and classifying that data. What kind of data is it? We need to this this is where that governance process comes into play. How do we identify what data is important to us? What data is critical and how we're going to access it? Make sure it's available. We start integrating and mastering the data so that we can start answering purpose-built questions. Do I need a visualization on where the populations are in my district? Do I need um where are our our lunch services are being most utilized? Whatever it is, let's master

107that data and get into a collection that folks can use. Transform that data down a layer. stand it up in purpose-built storage because the different different applications are going to define what type of storage it needs. AI generally likes vector based databases to drive that. So, so some of that we might move in there. Sometimes it can just be a simple collection of PDFs that drive your AI solution, whatever it is. Then you then you apply your visualizations, your queries and analytics, your AI chat box, all your predictive modeling and that creates that visual area where where folks can access it. The middle part is where kind of the the magic I'd like to say happens because that's where your governance goes in. That's where your people are managing who has access to it, who

108doesn't have access to it. Oh, this particular data set can be available to the public because there's certainly applicable data sets that your the community of Wake County wants to see and probably has access to. So, this is what a modern data life cycle life cycle looks like. And it can be this whole thing for for one particular use case for one specific thing. And we're going to get to that because that's where I'm going to encourage you to go. is let's focus on a a single single use case here in the future. What is critical for this is is the data foundations. We talked about this as the house model a little while ago and I found this one interesting. I wanted to just reiterate that that you have to have the quality materials.

109You have to have the data available. It's got to be placed in an architecture that works for you or that works for the use of the consumption of that data. You have to have the flexible storage. And most importantly, you have to have that governance to provide that security and that privacy over that. 46% of executives are are now saying that that data governance is critical to to any of their AI efforts as we move this forward. So Jai promises a whole new world of wonderful things, great predictive analysis, great um ease of use, some burden removing some burdens of our work, but also the same time it creates some new risks and some new challenges. So this should be a familiar this this was part of Mary Strain's presentation a couple of weeks ago.

110hallucinations, bias, copyright and IP considerations, security and privacy. Again, that one's near and dear to my heart, so I'm going to keep bringing that up. Those are all things that you really have to focus on. The nice thing is when you utilize your own data as the core, as the training set of data and as the knowledge base for AI and AI agents to draw from, you limit the hallucinations. You have control of the bias of what's in that data. you have understanding of where that came from. So, so you address a lot of these right off the bat as opposed to just using generative generic engines that are out there. Go ahead. >> Because I asked about it earlier, how even if we have our own data and it reduces the number of hallucinations,

111how does a school system or any company check for hallucinations? Are we running it twice to make sure whatever data we're trying to present or whatever we want. Are we running it two or three or four times to make sure it all matches there's a number of different ways and there's actually some of some of the ways with AI actually has tool sets that that can do that so you're not taking human time but you can't do these things and put out reports and or look at information without humans in the loop. You always have to have a human in the loop and understanding the data and questioning what they're getting out. That becomes part of that upskilling that I talked about at the very beginning. People have to know that hallucinations are a real

112thing. You need to be reading these things. You can't just take a problem and get something out and say it's good to go. You you have to use critical thinking. We're all professionals in a school district and we have to apply that to the same things we're pulling out of AI. I am certain there are folks in this room that have used AI to generate maybe a presentation that you have seen at this board, but I guarantee you every single one of them went through that with a very fine tooth comb to ensure that everything they put in there was fractally correct and had images that were generated that were appropriate and not so you it just becomes a way of thinking and a way of operating within that. Um because at the end of

113the day there's not at this point in time with the technology a 100% way to remove hallucinations from from AI generated material. It's getting better. We're getting finer all the time. The models that are being provided and limiting the data sources improves that drast drastically. But again, it's still a reality. >> Amy, did you I thought you might have had a comment. Oh no, I think that was >> I think just to add to that I think um going back to what Mr. you were asking about uh when you think about AI you know all the way going back to 2022 when we initially heard about it there was a lot of fascinations but I think the model started maturing and fine tuning the quality of data is much more better so you see theation

114levels actually kind of reduce but still exists so it's an iterative process uh training those underlying models to make sure that we're getting the right information Okay. Um, and I'm sorry, I've underestimated how much time I was going to take through this. So, I'm going to get through a few. >> That's what I was a little bit worried about with some of the discussion. >> Some of the discussion. So, I'm going to skip through. You've got this. This is um AWS's six pillars of responsible AI. Lots of conversation still going on about it, but it's things you should be thinking about as you deploy AI across the board. Um, again, we've talked about the house model, so I'm not going to belabor that. What I am going to highlight on this particular slide is that

115the technology of devoid of the people and processes is not the effective way to deploy technology. Focus on the people and processes with guidance from a strategic plan. Apply the technology and that goes for building your operating model about how do we build a modern data architecture that leverages our data to use with AI. So, I did want to highlight I don't have to spend a whole lot of time on this because Ann Marie also um highlighted wanted to share a couple of great examples of how AI is being employed across the country and other K12 organizations. Region 13 is an education service center in Texas. I think we got that one and I can let you read about that. That QR code takes you to a white paper that they panned with AWS so

116you get a feel for what they're doing, a more holistic view. And then also talk about Peninsula School District which is a very small school district in in Washington near where I'm from that had a number of challenges and they have a CIO that's a forward thinker and they partnered with Vanderbilt University that built an open-source um solution their their platform that you can bring in deployed on your infrastructure. They they went that route because they were having all kinds of challenges with people using different sources of AI on generic data and that sort of thing. It was getting very constant, expensive, lack of standardization, no security. The data was all over the place. They brought this, they deployed the solution, everybody started using this. They were kind of forced into this box and it

117answered a lot of those problems. So there's a number of different ways you can approach the the AI solution. Are we gonna have time for the demo? We we also we got Does that include question and answers? Because if so, then we might want to skip the demo. >> I would say you would want them to finish in about five minutes. >> I am so sorry. >> We need to move forward. >> I mean, we can we we can go nine more minutes. >> It'll take us a little bit over, but we can make >> I I'm I'm going to bounce through some of these. I'm sorry, but but I think to your point, the biggest thing you can do is think big. What do we want to achieve? Ultimately, start small. pick out that

118very particular use case. And I'm going to I'm going to tell you with Shash and Ken in the room, don't pick out an IT use case. Pick out something outside of IT that forces those business units to work together. That is part of your strategic plan. And then repeat and build it out with with these principles in mind. And then you start to scale it. You build that muscle. You build that small use case. And then you start to build. You can't do everything all at once. Start with one thing. Make it small. make it repeatable and get going and and expand. Um, again, this reiterates what I just said. I'm trying to when you look at this video, I'm not going to narrate it. There is intentionally no sound to it, but it's a

119use case where you can use your data to build and create visuals from end users all on their own. They don't have to have any coding knowledge. They can ask real world questions to a prompt that was used uh built using the NCES school characteristics data. It's kind of a fun just to go through and look and see what is possible along with being able to use generate AI to build static typical dashboards that folks use. With that in mind, I'm going to stop and and go straight to the Q&A. I apologize for >> well a little bit longer than we >> that's good. I I thank you and I apologize I wasn't here for the first session so you know I was able to go back and review some of the information but I

120might be coming at this a little bit behind but um I'm a little bit unsure of the direction or what we're looking at because a lot of this seems like it is the mile high view looking down Um, but we've been told or we've been tasked with how we develop policies around AI. So, you know what I see is if and if I can give you an analogy, if I'm going to buy a car, >> I want to look at how the car will meet my needs, right? So, I don't necessarily need to understand internal combustion as much as I do need to understand questions around mileage or safety or capacity, hauling, things like that in terms of how I will use the vehicle. Will the vehicle meet my needs? And with this presentation, there's

121a lot of great foundational information that's being shared, but I'm unsure what in our role as the board of education we're necessarily supposed to do with that. And I would apply the exact same logic to two two slides ago. Think big. You need to develop AI policies. Start small. What's the use case that it and another business partner is going to bring? and what might be policy implications for that. Quite often we have found and I have seen in my own experience that you we've tried to say we need all of these separate AI use policies when when in fact it becomes inuser operations and policies that we already have that we might need to tweak for the use case that we're trying to implement as a district. So using that particular use case, starting

122asking those questions where where is AI going to impact this particular project and what policies are going to need to be either reshaped or that we will need to draft to specifically address AI because you can use that one use case to expand out to the to the broader if you're going to have that questionnaire is probably going to apply across the board to to most other AI deployments. >> Okay. So if if I understand you and I understand the presentation, the information today helps us think about data collection and building those layers and there's certain things we'll need to consider concerning, you know, privacy of data, propriety of data, what can be used, what can't be used. But thinking a little bit more broadly, you know, I'm I'm curious, and these are open questions.

123You may not have answers, but they're more for the board members around the table, too. Are we are we the board looking at policies around building our own generative AI system or is this more about using commercial products and how we would apply them? I think we have questions about acceptable and unacceptable uses for AI. For me personally, based on some of the information shared, I think there's a lot of benefits to using these tools to analyze data. I'm very wary about using these tools to make recommendations and to recommend actions. I think about how we've had past controversies about data use, EVOS and other tools that are out there that we rely on other vendors for, specifically where we have predictive models for student success. And we know statistically we can plug a lot

124of data into an algorithm and we can get some pretty good predictive results about student success based on things like wealth or zip code. But we also know that it's unfair to treat every student as if this will be the outcome only just what past data has shown. And so I have concerns about how we will we will use the data for recommendations or placement or identification broadly versus like individual student achievement. Um, I do think we'll have other questions just around, you know, more budget questions, more application questions we'll need to look at, maybe a little bit outside of policy, but things about costs versus practicality. Are you using AI for a function that you don't need to use AI for just because it's there and it's new and shiny, right? And then you

125know how efficient is that in a world where our budget dollars get tighter and tighter versus where we can see real efficiencies and save money and save resources using AI. We've talked about using AI for troubleshooting, for looking for inefficiencies, for ways to look at work orders or purchase orders or things and pull data for us. Um, but I would still be hesitant to use it for necessarily student placement or evaluation or things like that. Um, I think depending on how we use AI in the classroom or how we use it for educational purposes, I think we'll need to look at these operational issues for how the district uses AI, but then we will need to look at how AI is used in an educational environment. If generative AI produces incorrect information for a student,

126what's the result? What do we do? You know, if there's a graded project or test preparation and you get hallucinations, if you get things that incorrectly advise a student, what is the repercussion? I'm sure we will hear from angry students and angry parents, but can we just say, you know, buy or beware, you use this tool, we can't guarantee the results. Your grade is your grade. So there's a lot of different aspects both from, you know, what we might use to, you know, maximize efficiency in bus routing to how we address a student using it to assist with an essay. And that's really kind of where I want to be able to bring us around so we kind of know what policies we need, what sort of falls within our scope, and then there might

127be some other things we're just not ready to adopt yet. So I just put that out to y'all. >> So So Mr. Chair, um, and I absolutely think that was a great question and response about what this means for the board. So, one of the things that I wanted to be able to do is to bring information to the board so we can understand the depth and the breadth of AI that I know uh a lot of the push that you're going to get from the community is you need to develop a policy to deal with chat GBT and blah blah blah. That's not necessarily what um you as a board need to be able to do. It is about knowing and understanding all the things that are associated with it. Data governance, you know,

128analysis versus recommendations. Those are the things that the board has to understand because this technology is so new. Uh it is developing fast and I want to make sure that the board is not in a position where they begin to develop policies that try to restrict or govern specific pieces of technology when that's just a small part of what the AI is. And so that's really what this is about is is is uh giving that information and knowledge so that as you begin to develop policies then you can um have that information and if there's a need to develop a specific policy that deals with a specific thing then you have the ability to do that and so great point that you've made and that's kind of where I want this to be able to

129go. >> All right we do have time left for questions. Do we have questions from board members? Mr. Rice and Vice Chair Swanson. >> I kind of did but not completely sure. So just just a confirmation you were throwing out certain examples. Would we use this particular AI development? Say for instance one of I I looked at it as AI to offer support to help staff be more efficient um in areas where we can't give our complete attention to meaning. I'm going to raise the question cuz I don't know how we feel about it. We are supposed to have a call line for families with disabilities to share information about an IEP or what it looks like. Um, so they can answer generalized questions prior to attending their IEP. Um, however, that call line is

130not always staffed. So, I don't know if if if if it looked like AI putting um the laws in place, which means they would know it has to be specific, you know, according to laws, not specific to the child, but specific to the generalization of an IEP meeting and what you can possibly expect, that type of thing. So, I don't know is that is that what the conversation is that what we're looking at with what AI can do? just not that specifically but around being being more efficient to help staff >> and and so uh you know my response because I want to make sure I understand the question correctly but um in this instance you would be talking about AI being able to give you some data about an IEP and not that it

131would actually make a decision right >> uh but there may be a lot of data associated with decision making that that IEP team needs to make and so AI is a way that you can collect that data and put it in a way that a team could analyze it. So, uh I'll go a bit beyond that. One of the things that we always talk about and Shash and I had this conversation about uh having a data dashboard and so that means that we have the ability to go to these different places and find data. Now AI, we may be able to instead of having a data dashboard to ask it specific questions and develop specific data about students so that a teacher can go back and analyze that uh and not have to pull from

132this, pull from that. It kind of creates the work um u the data for you so you can analyze it. So I think that's kind of what you're talking about if in an IEP situation. It still would be the responsibility of the team to analyze and make decisions even though it may collect it for you and save you time in doing so. >> Okay, I see it. So, a parent could actually share their concern and what it is and that data collected and and it could um output the information for the staff to look at it from the parents voice of what it is and then how they can craft the IEP. So it's it's just machine taking information and then sharing it to human and human making decision. >> So I don't want to

133give you a definitive answer on that because I would see a lot of potential hazard with that. If it advised a parent incorrectly, if it advised a parent something that was either outside of law or it missed a deadline or otherwise did something that could affect a parent's rights, I wouldn't entrust that to a mission. >> So, so no, it's not no AI. This scenario is not going to give parent anything. It's for the parent to share to collect the data of how they feel about their child's situation. They take the that AI takes the data that parent is sharing and and outputs it in a document for staff so that staff can make a better informed decision about the stuff. So it's it's it's it's um it's machine input and output but the human

134decision. The human is going to make the decision. >> I think that part the human decision is right. I just would have questions about the first part of that for this application. >> So, so, so I I get it now. So, in other words, this could be an example. This would be what I would call an individual user type situation, meaning that we may have a particular technology that we can provide that says this is a tool that you can use to summarize your thoughts. M >> um and and so again that's that wouldn't be what we do is try and govern a specific tool uh but there is something like that that you know could possibly be available for a parent and sometimes it might be something that we provide or parent can do

135it on their own and summarize and bring it to and we don't know that they >> IEP takes such a long time that if if they get subliminary stuff could be out and give it to staff it and they have it in advance. It can help them move a little bit more effectively. >> That's just one. Well, I I my question was I I have a question. I also have a comment about the ra the point that was raised. I think as we start developing AI, I have concerns with AI being utilized to help develop IEPs because I think it's important to understand that the IEP is individualized for that student and AI as you indicated doesn't always get things right. So, I don't think that would be an example that we should utilize given

136the fact that they were sued or folks filed those complaints. So, I don't think I I would caution staff about using that. Um, but I I the question I I I have though is, you know, as we're developing these policies, what lessons have other districts utilized or learned from this? What are some guidance that we should be considering as we're developing a plan or policy knowing that AI is going to always de you know things are developing but what are some of the the meat or or meat and potatoes that we should add to the policy that you all have learned that that's going to be so there's a lot of context there to that particular question. Um, I just want to acknowledge that right up front. And the the biggest takeaway of that is

137is are we dress addressing in a policy that which is specific to AI and only impacts how we deploy and utilize AI in the district? Do we really need a separate policy for that or are we are we are we looking at policy that can be handled in in things that already exist in policies that may just need to be tweaked? That's what most districts are are wrestling with at this point is like building out a whole subset of AI specific policies and realizing they've duplicated things that are in the employee handbook or that it might already be in the code of conduct. So nuancing that into this is how we're going to approach generative AI policy about if we're going to put something out that's publicly that was AI generated acknowledging that it was

138generated by AI starting there with those simple things starting there that when we have a a a solution that is on board that is a chatbot for example that knowing that you're interacting with AI those are where most people and most people are still wrestling because this is the worst AI we're ever going to see a and it's already doing things that we can't even begin to wrap our heads around in terms of some of the videos, some of the things that are being created. So there's a whole other side of that in from dis from productivity to disciplinarity and and what do we already have? What what can we not recreate just because this says AI is attached to it? I I would say that you should definitely look to what other districts have

139done as far as examples and I think a great resource to look to is the Council of Great City Schools. I know that you guys are building a relationship with and already have relationships with. Um they're always willing to share um the other organizations as to what they've done and I think that it would be really helpful to draw upon what has been done out there um so that you can see what is the best fit. I don't think that you need to start from scratch. there's already so much that you know that has been already developed by districts. So I think you should you know potentially take a look at some examples to really help inform you know this board as to what the right fit is for for you. Um I would say

140that you know what you what you heard today about data and the previous session around AI in general is really to help inform you of the possibilities. You know what is AI? what what is the what is sort of the underlying AI for for those that may not have experienced um anything other than those um chat bots that are out there you know what kind of goes into AI and what are those factors that you must consider when you're developing any kind of policy um those bias hallucination security and privacy and data um just having that understanding you heard it a lot you know as far as how important and critical data is in order to get anything of value out of any AI solutions going forward. So, um with this the board, you know,

141you have a lot in front of you to develop these these policies um going forward and I would just hope that some of this is to help, you know, would help inform you as to what you need to do um going forward and think about going forward. And I know we're probably far over time. Um I would just say that Oh, do you have one more? >> I said we did have one last question. >> Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, ma'am. Um thank you very much for for all of this. Um I had um I hope that we can go back to um slide 20 and 21 and actually elaborate a little bit more. My question isn't really more focused on that. It's just that has some of the topics around what what my >>

142questions are and I no I totally understand but >> we don't have the slide numbers on it. >> Oh okay. It's uh what is responsibility? Oh AI. >> Um so my my question I think either more for us and No, there we go. >> For this whole presentation is really more understanding like what exactly is our goal? Are we trying to do um is this really more like a tool for helping our teachers? Are we trying to incorporate it into our students learning or both? I I mean, I understand everything that you said about AI and the presentations about how it could work for us, but I'm just trying to wonder I'm just wondering like is this actually really going to help our teachers if we're going to have to have them manually putting things

143in like for the AP. I I agree with um Mr. Swanson that there is a reason why it's called individual plan like and only a person can do that because they're sitting in front of the child. They see how reactive they are. they see what what's happening and what they're getting and what they're not and what they need. So I'm just I'm wondering with that along with so what cost are we going to spend in order to do this like what what would be our goal to actually go and concentrate onto this type of thing because you did mention things like bias um you know how do you control that if and if it's a human that's putting it in and you're dishing this out is well the AI says and now somebody's actually counting

144on that information who's putting it in there right So it it is bias by based on the person who put it in there. And I also concerned about lazy learning. I don't know how else to put that. But it's like, you know, learning how to use the calculator before you learn how to do the math. A calculator is to advance your math skills with much bigger numbers, but you you should really learn how to do it all with a pen and paper and figure it out yourself first. And then it helps you get on to bigger and better things. And I'm just worried I you know I see students I've raised teenagers myself if they can pick up that phone I mean now people are even talking to their phone they're not even entering the

145information they're not even working their thumbs out so I do I am concerned about that and how that will affect our children um new and Chinese are not always better >> no they're not always but there is a reality that it is out there it's on all of our students phones it's on most of our parents' phones and it it's not going to go away. So, how as a school district are we going to take the information that we're we're able to gather around us and move forward with with the reality that AI exists and that our students are going to be coming in knowing it and utilizing it in some way, shape or form. How are we going to rise to that moment? >> And I would I would just add these are all

146things that you need to be aware of. you know that these are very real and I will say that things are getting better and better every day. These foundation models are vastly improving. You saw the speed at you know which the the users of chat GPT reached 100 million and then you know the you know so you can see the speed at which this technology is progressing and so the foundation models are getting better and better and you know when you are looking at evaluating which foundation model is best for you there are even educational models that are being developed um that are specific to education it's getting smarter and smarter so I wouldn't say that you know you should trust everything that comes. You absolutely should not. But I think these are things that

147you need to be aware of. But I I don't think that in the reality of the future that we exist in that we we can say that we can't consider AI. The kids today, our kids today that are in our schools are going to be the ones that are developing AI for the future. Like AI isn't going to go away. And right now, they are consumers of AI, right? They are consuming these AI tools probably more than all of us are, right? they are the ones that are going to be the creators of AI in the future. So when when we're considering how do we prepare our students, we need to prepare them to be able to be the creators of AI and the technology beyond that in the future because they are our future.

148So I think that those are just things that we need to consider um you know as we're developing processes going forward. >> All right. So uh we have reached the conclusion of our time. I did want to ask if board members have specific questions they want to follow up on. Mr. Padilla, may they contact our speakers? Should they contact you? What's the best way? >> They can reach out to me. Happy to. >> All right. All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate it. >> All right. >> So, our next item on our agenda, uh, an update on the District 8 vacancy. So, um, what I'd like to do is we've had a couple questions that have come up. I wanted to recognize Miss Allen um who can tell us

149about where we are right now with our applications questions and then we have a couple questions for you all where we need to get some direction on there's some applications that might be incomplete whether you'd like to accept them whether you would want more information or what your general direction is. All right. Um, so with that, as of today, October the 7th, 2025, Miss Allen, can you provide us with an update? >> Absolutely. As of today, we have had uh several people to apply. We've had to reach out to the district 8 vacancy website. Out of those 10, we've four who just inquired. But in their inquiry, they wanted to know giving their address, do they live in the district. When we look at that number, we have two of those who did not live

150in the district, but said that they wanted to know, can they apply for the district 8 seat? So, I told them, no, they don't. they live in a different district. We appreciate your interest. Uh we had one out of those 10 to ask what is in district 8. I gave back the towns and the cities that were in district 8. I've also had one to tell me that they were interested. They stated that they lived in Apex. They thought that they were eligible and they asked where they could send their letters of recommendation where they could send their application. Now, to the ones who have applied in some type of way. I've had one applicant who apply submitted all documentation, said they lived in district 8 when I received their address. They do not live

151in that district. I've had another two two of them have applied. They live in Apex or in the Apex period. Uh, one has the utility bill in their wife's name. So, they submitted a pink statement with their financial information redacted and they still submitted the utility bill with the wife's name. Um, they supplied that information on September the 28th. I've had another who lives in district 8 based on their address. They have supplied their voter registration card, their cover letter, their resume, and internet bill as the town of AEX Apex utilities bill is in their spouse's name. Um, and the letters of recommendation are forthcoming. I've had another to apply in district 8, gave their address. It in it is indeed in district 8. They supplied their information on 107. They have their letter of

152interest, their resume, four letters of recommendation, a voter registration card, and a save screenshot from the voter registration compilation website. They supplied a current mortgage statement and homeowners insurance statement and they attached that in lie of a utility bill. The last person that I'm going to tell you applied had all information submitted their information on 92925 and they live in district 8 and all of their information has been verified. That's who has applied for your district 8 seat as of today. >> Thank you. So, a couple things I want to ask the board for for direction and then we have like a bigger issue just to kind of talk about around some confusion of the application process. First of all, uh we laid out guidance on the website for what we would accept in terms

153of evidence of doicile, right? And this is based on court cases and advice from our attorneys. What do you want? What does the board want to do regarding situations where someone didn't provide exactly what was asked for but provided an alternative? So, for example, where we've asked for a utility bill and they have might have provided um like a bank or a mortgage statement with the address that matches, is that sufficient? Um if a utility bill is in a spouse's name but not in their name, is that sufficient? And before you answer what we've done in the past where we've had some of these issues, um we've had a list of other documents that we've accepted before. Um, again, in the past for the district 2 vacancy where some people had submitted incomplete information, we've

154had people submit a property tax bill, an automotive registration, uh, a government paycheck invoice or letter or other alternatives. So really what I'm looking at is just some direction for from you in terms of you know is you know is a a mortgage statement sufficient is a bank a utility statement in a spouse's name significant or should we reach out and ask for additional verified documentation Swanson. >> Thank you and thank you Miss Allen for always being detailed with all of this. Um, so I think if I'm not mistaken, I think this something similar came up during the District 4 vacancy where we had to deal with this. And so I I think we should be consistent. Um, I don't think, at least for me, I don't think we should bend and not go in

155in the way that we've done in the past. And so if a person's able to to provide one of these they these pieces uh that's listed out here in addition I think that would suffice before the deadline. Um and if they have a utilities bill that's in their spouse name. I mean they may have time to you know add their name to prove that they live there if they can't get to one of these things. That's that's just where I'm standing on this issue. >> Okay. Thank you. Other thoughts would coughfield. >> Um if they everybody's going to have license with their name on it, right? Doesn't mean that it's current, but if they provide multiple documentation to show like if they if they do the spouse it everything is in their spouse's name as

156far as the mortgage and utility bills, but the license matches and they are on some kind of documentation showing that that's their doicile. I mean, I think it's okay as long depending on the documentation. You may not be able to provide that information and some of it may be outdated. Doesn't mean that they don't actually live there. But there are people who own multiple properties or a landlord's and the address may be in DA, but they don't actually really reside there. That's the thing we need to decide. >> We had a situation where rent was in a spouse's name, but utilities were covered by rent. So, they didn't have a utility bill, per se, >> right? So what do you think? Well, let me let me just ask is there anybody kind of with a

157different opinion or dissent on that? If we if if if if we all sort of we sort of want to stay consistent what we've done before and we're open to alternatives then what I would ask is then when someone has not submitted everything that is required you know in the statement would we give Miss Allen permission to write back let them know that the application is not complete and then provide them the list of alternative documentation to provide for the board to consider. >> Does that sound like a fair? >> As as long as they can get it to the um get it to Miss Allen before the deadline. >> Okay. >> I think for me if they miss that deadline then I'm not as an individual or I wouldn't be willing to accept that

158interview just because I'm trying to be consistent through the process without >> Okay. Which is where I stand. >> Good point. What do we think Miss Mr. Amy? >> Just just to chime in one on the legal point. So the legal standard for doicile uh doesn't require any specific documentation necessarily. So in the student assignment context for example it's normal they would ask for a lease but not everybody has a lease. Some people will live in a home that's owned by a family member that's grandma's home and the and the family extended families live there for a generation. And so there's some flexibility might be a good idea I think because you could have people that are legitimately do have a doicile do meet the legal requirements are residents and doiciles of the district but

159won't be able to provide any particular sort of documentation. So one option would be to have an acceptable list of alternatives and also you know if there's if there is a unique case where someone can't come up with any of the documents but really asserts but I do live and have long lived in this district they could provide documentation of their own for your review. I mean you do need to make sure that people meet the eligibility requirements but again no specific documents legally required. >> Okay. And again, the list of documents was generated by your law firm that specifically ask about what we could use, >> right? Which is it's a good it's a good list. I'm just I'm just saying that in in prayer cases because this comes up in student assignment, okay,

160I work with all the time. They're an unusual cases someone could say, I can't provide any of these, but they're able to persuade staff that they they do live in the in the district anyway. So then the second thing I would bring up to you is that this is the most confusion we've had with a vacancy that I can remember and at least filling the last three vacancies that we've seen since I've been on the board. And I don't really understand it because we're being consistent with what we've done twice in district 4, once in district 2. But again, talking to the attorneys at Dington Smith, they've suggested that perhaps on the application website, we should provide more information, either an address lookup or a GIS tool. They had some that they were able to

161provide. There's one that Miss Allen uses that is available through WCPSS. Again, it wouldn't necessarily establish doicile because it's only as good as the address you put in, but it would let people look up to see if the address that they're submitting shows up within the boundaries of district 8. Is that something that you think we should add to the website? >> It's a great idea. >> If somebody is registered to vote, doesn't it go show up on there exactly what their district is? They'll see what school district they have. >> Sure. Sure. Yeah. So maybe we could provide that link. >> And that was something I think we actually did go back. Um that was something that the vice chair pointed out that state uh board of elections lookup that if people use that

162it will show them their district. But then the the graphic exercise was something that was suggested as well in case there was um unless that voter registration was out of date. And we even had this long debate about, well, do you need to have an updated voter registration for this? And then the question was eligibility to run for office versus eligibility to serve in office as an appointment. Technically, with what we're doing, you have a little more of a grace period that you could be appointed to serve and not have your registration updated yet, but to actually file for office and run for it, you would have to have an updated registration. So, it's trying to balance all of these different legal requirements, um, the voter lookup is something that is on there now. The

163map is just something whether or not you think it would be helpful and whether we should add it. Okay, we can do both. All right. So then the final question then comes to if you know where we've had people in the past that we've needed more documentation from our experience has said that sometimes it takes them a while to put that together. Sometimes people's um you know don't always aren't as responsive necessarily as they should be to Miss Allen's communications. Um, also how many peer people might have been confused about whether they live in the district or or not in the district. And so I wanted to bring up the idea of the deadline and whether if we're going to make this maybe a more involved process if we're going to add more material on

164the website if we want to look at that deadline and revisit it. Vice Chair Swanson. So yes, I do think given the fact that folks are having difficulty determining that they live or reside in district 8 going through this additional step, I think we should extend the deadline at least to the 14th. Um, which still gives folks an opportunity. It does not impact the interview which is stated at the on the 25th that we voted on the last time. So I I think just to be a little bit more transparent and to help folks understand where they reside, I would be inclined to support. And I asked Miss Allen just to print out the latest calendar so you can see in terms of like board meetings, other conflicts or anything that we might have. Again,

165if I understand Mr. Sun, you're not changing the inter proposing changing the inter day. >> Correct. This is just the amount of time so that if there is a cut off, we could still have some verification um and and give people time to respond to that verification. >> And it just extends this roughly 2 weeks and 15 days. >> Uh 15 days. And so, um, based on our previous board action, I think we could have to take board action to extend the deadline, but then all of the other things that we've talked about adding to the website, I think we can just take out of work session. We don't necessarily need a board vote on as I didn't hear any dissension about the map, the voter lookup. Um and then also that we would reach

166out to vote to applicants um if an application was incomplete just to solicit more complete information. >> Okay. All right. If is there any other discussion on that? I don't want to over talk it but I do want to make sure that we all are in agreement or all feel good about it. >> Okay. All right. All right. So, um, all right. If that's the case, then, um, we'll do that at at the board table. That is an action item that we'll have. Um, the next item I have briefly, the North Carolina School Board Association annual conference. So, this is the time of year where you may have gotten information. You might have already spoken to Melissa about whether or not you would like to participate in the schoolboard association's annual conference in Greensboro. One

167thing that we have to do now as members of the organization is we have to select formal voting members. This does not restrict how many of us can attend the conference, but we can have no more than four of our at this point eight board members who could be selected as voting members. We're not going to decide this today, but we do have to decide this before the end of October. So, at our next meeting, we will have a motion that will have a slate of board members. What I'd like to do is ask all of you if you are interested to please let us know in the next week prior to next Friday if you would like to be included on that slate. Now, I need to clarify a few things for you. Some

168of you have participated in this before. Um, this year's delegate assembly will be a little bit different. Okay. Um, and I just have to pull up my notes here. I apologize. All right. So, according to NCSBA this year, if you are a non- voting delegate, an alternate and anybody, we can send any number of alternates. So, everyone attending, if you're not a voting member, can be an alternate. Any number, all the alternates can attend the general session. They just can't vote on anything and they can't speak on anything. So if you remember last year's meeting, we had a big conference hall where there was a legislative agenda and a lot of resolutions and things like that. At this meeting, there will be no legislative agenda. There will be no resolutions. The only thing on the

169agenda is new board terms for the association and election of the officers. So they are actually going to have this meeting during lunch. So everyone's invited to lunch. So, everyone will be in the room. The only distinction about whether you are a delegate or a non-delegate is whether you get to vote for their slate of officers and their new board members. Okay. So, are there any questions about that? Again, you don't have to declare today, but if you're interested, please let us know. If we have four people, we'll put those four up as a slate by consent. If we have more than four, we'll have it as an action item or we'll have to vote on, you know, which four will be selected. Okay? And then anyone who's not selected, if you'd like to go

170as an alternate, you can go as an alternate. If you don't want to put your name up, but you want to be an alternate, just let us know and we can just add you as an alternate. Are there any questions about that? Okay. All right. So, we don't have a lot of time left, but we did have a request to add something to the work session agenda. Miss Rice, did you want to um I guess technically we have to add it to the agenda. So, would you like to make a motion and then see if we get a second? >> I make a motion to add community engagement discussion to our agenda for today. >> Okay. >> We have a second from Mr. Hershey, a motion from Miss Rice. All in favor to adding this

171quick discussion item to the agenda, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? >> All right. >> I understand we do have seven minutes and we will try to expedite less than five. >> Okay. >> It's very quickly as you all know. >> Oh, we take the vote first. All in favor? We did. Oh, we did. Motion passes. Congratulations. We didn't know. Okay, no worries. Um if you if you all recall, community engagement started um with Miss Monica Johnson or her and our long-term vision was that we really do community engagement in the community. And so as being the chair of the community engagement committee, we have did multiple um engagements here at the board table. And so now it's time to bring that into full fruition. And so what we're doing is moving our community

172engagement committee meeting to the community. um as of our next um committee meeting which is October the 14th um which would be in Roseville uh at the uh co-working community space in Roseville uh at Rise Co-working. Uh the meeting would be from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. Uh this of course is about engagement which give parents real opportunities to be a part of our school system versus most can't be here during the middle of the day when we're having meetings. Um, and so it was for uh I brought this to uh our chair and to consent to make us aware and to confirm um the date and the time of us being able to move it to the community um as of next Tuesday. >> Okay. And for transparency, I just saw this specifically today.

173>> Yes. And for Yes. And um we we all just got we've been working on it for a while, but we had to confirm the space. It took a moment for us to find space that would accommodate us um as a board. Um just a we would still continue with the same uh setup as presentation wise as we would have a committee. We would just do this now in community and so we would need everyone around the table to lift up the voice to share it to get community participation. Um, we'll have a new addition to our community engagement piece outside of the folks presenting um to us as normal that we'll also do a fireside chat um in reference to some Q&A conversations. It'll be conversations well questions that have already been submitted and

174that will be moderated by um Dr. Robinson and um Dr. Albert Keith um with the community engagement uh committee around the table. Okay. Thank you, Miss Rice. Um, I know not everyone has had a chance to see like the memo that you had put together on this. Um, I want to thank you for putting a lot of thought and a lot of work into this. If you remember in community engagement, we did talk about this was something that the board would like to do. We would like to move around the we would like to move out into the community and host some of these meetings. Seeing this right now for something that we would do next week, there are a lot of questions about it. And what I want to do is while still respecting

175and honoring the idea, make sure that logistically we can do this or whether we would need to look at like a future meeting. And so I don't know, would you be prepared to answer some of those questions? >> We are. We've already taken care of all the logistics and worked with the staff and the team in reference to making sure that those pieces are already put together before we actually brought it to you all. That was part of why the vetting process took so long. um Miss Alfred Keef and then um had to make sure that it had the space, the accommodations in the VA um AV systems and things of that nature. And she is here to answer any quick questions that we may have if you prefer. Um chair to put it on

176the action of our committee of our agenda tonight if if it so moved you to because we would like to get it announced so community could actually participate for next week. >> Okay. So, real quick, I know we some we have some questions. >> Um, we are almost at 5:30. >> Yes. >> Um, I think we do need some discussion and have some questions answered just to give you the confirmation that that that you're looking for. Do we want to stay in here for that discussion? Do we we can't it's not a close session item, so we can't do it after the meeting. Or is it something we would want to decide in open session adding to the open session agenda? What's your preference? >> I would like for it to be an open session

177if we could. Okay. If you could just allot us five minutes or so with it just because if if the board so chooses to uh collectively have their questions answered, it also gives publication. >> You know, it gives us a a moment for it to be publicized as well at the same time. >> Okay. So, let me ask this. Would staff be prepared to ask questions if it's added to open session? >> Yes. >> M. Rice, would you be able to take the information that you shared with me earlier and provide that to all the board members to give them a chance to look at it? >> Yes. >> Okay, Mr. Vice Chair Swanson, >> we can make a copy and we can make sure everybody has a copy. So, >> okay, Vice Chair Swanson.

178So, I I appreciate the work that's numerous questions and concerns and just um given that this is a week out, you know, it's concerning. How do you move a committee meeting which I know has been done to other place without it being you know televised or whatnot. So just you know concerned about that and you know wishing that we all would have received this a little bit earlier but um I mean I won't be able to make it at that time frame. So I I won't be able to but I mean I I appreciate the effort that's going into there but I have some questions that needs to be raised before I can support shifting that. >> Thank you. and and I I I have some questions as well just based on like other recommendations

179and information that staff had shared with us previously um to make sure that everything can go. But at the same time, I also don't want to squash the energy around this. So um is does anyone object to bringing it to open session? If not, we'll just have a motion to amend the agenda. >> Okay, great. And then that way if you can provide that information, board members, I know we're going to be in the middle of a meeting. I don't want to tell you to multitask or take your attention away from anything else, but do try to look at it where we do you do have an opportunity try to review the information. We'll just add it to the end of the agenda. Is that appropriate? >> Okay, vice chair wants >> so the materials

180or the handout that M has that be able to go into assembly quickly or >> that I don't know. >> I I have copies on my computer. I just to I'm trying to make sure >> I can have everybody excuse me and I can give everybody a copy every board. >> But I don't think that was Mr. Swanson's question. >> I'm just trying to figure out how the public would be able to you know see it rely discuss it and folks who may want to discuss it on public comment they wouldn't have had the opportunity to speak on it then. So those are some of the concerns I have. >> Yeah. We normally it it I'm sorry chair >> but but if if if let let me let me just ask is that something you

181can make happen because if you can then it's yeah >> what I can make happen is I can go upstairs make sure everybody has a copy I can make sure I give Miss Allen a copy as well as far as how it goes in assembly and things of that nature I have to defer to Miss Allen >> see Miss Allen's going to be busy during the meeting in her role and we'll be able to put that in assembly um any crisis All right. >> Okay. >> All right. >> If we we can delay the start of the meeting by a few minutes to try to get that up and in the system. Okay. All right. All right. So, um, >> we're adding it to the agenda. >> We'll we'll have a motion to add it

182to the agenda and then we'll discuss it at the end of that regular agenda. like before we would do board comment but after we would finish our action item. Okay. All right. With that we'll call the work session ajourned.