2025-03-18 Work Session

001for for I just looking through your Tweet and I noticed that um one of the tweets about get the come up anyway um I think you said that it contrasted what I said last so it it didn't actually conflict since it's not it's a new policy beginning for the next plan currently e e e my e all right everyone welcome uh we're going to go ahead and begin our Board of Education work session today is March 18th 2025 it is just after 3:30 and we we will begin we do have a quorum of board members um to welcome everybody our first item on our agenda today is our bell schedule recommendations for the 2526 school year and it looks like we have Mr snid Miller here here to present thank you good afternoon chair hagy

002board members superintendent Taylor thank you for the time to bring the annual Bell schedules to you or recommendations to you um so we do bring the recommended schedules to you for the 25 26th school year um as you can see the schedule up on the Jumbo Tron there um as you know policy 3300 states that the board will establish the start and end times for schools by April 1 prior to the start of the school year um so staff recommend staff recommendation is to make no changes to the current Bell schedules for our our existing schools as you know we have four new schools opening for the 25 26 school year we're recommending the standard Bell time for each of those schools which means that bowling Road Elementary School Pleasant PL Pleasant Plains Elementary School

003and Rex Road Elementary School would have a schedule of 9:15 to 3:45 Felton High School Felton Grove High School would have a schedule of 7:25 to 2:18 um these recommended Bell schedules are on your agenda for your board meeting tonight and that is it in a nutshell and I'm happy to answer any questions all right thank you Mr SN Miller board members you see the schedule in front of you it was shared previously before the meeting does anyone have any questions about the schedule for the new school's opening all right everything's pretty straightforward just not mil for no questions thank you thank you appreciate it all right so our next uh topic on our agenda which I suspect might last a little bit longer we have a presentation from our uh District director of Athletics

004uh Mr Darren Co give you a minute to get situated and transition the presentation over um and then Mr cook I don't know how much of this if you have any of this or if it's all just Mr I'll do a quick introduction once we get the the slides up great thank you sir well good afternoon everyone we um as chair hagard just referenced we're excited to be in front of the board today with an update on a um what I would consider to be a world class program that we don't always get to highlight um as much as maybe we would otherwise like to at list at least in this formal setting um we do want to provide the board with an overview and an outline um of Athletics programming in the W County

005public school system and more specifically we want to talk about the outline and outline the evolution and just the current landscape um of High School athletics within the Wake County Public School System will emphasize Mr Co will go through some of the recent expansions uh student participation growth um the implications for athletic programming in our district and Staffing considerations we'll also be very transparent about some of the challenges fac in Wake County Schools when it comes to Athletics that are probably Universal in some regards across the state and Across the Nation when it comes to Athletics and extracurricular programs but we'll talk about some of those challenges and opportunities uh facing athletic departments including uh title non compliance Unified sports needs and also the increasing demands on athletic leadership roles uh in our schools and

006in our district and we also want to close um and have been charged with sharing a forward-looking vision for what high School athletics um looks like highlighting essential support and resources that are required to sustain excellence and Equity while also addressing future expansions and any large scale projects and so I think all told what we really want to do is provide the board with a clear picture of various considerations implications um I'll go ahead so as not to risk maybe what bearing what some might consider the lead we're certainly not today here before you to recommend any kind of expansion in the near future short of any additional infrastructural supports we'll talk a little bit more about that rationale um and go into more detail about how stretch thin quite frankly a lot of our

007schools are when it comes to Personnel capacity resources facilities um and all the considerations that have to be considered anytime as much as all of us want to want to expand programming and Mr Co will talk about some of those expansions that have occurred at a large scale in recent years but also some of the considerations that we need be thinking about and planning for as we move into the future um both this year and in the years ahead so with that just a quick overview I think you know by now kind of some of the connections that can be made to our strategic plan certainly when we're talking about Student Success like things like Performing Arts the same holds true in athletics we know based on Research that students participating uh in High School

008athletics um Athletics throughout their school tenure are much more likely to graduate on time they're much more likely to have postsecondary success um and have access to additional opportunities down the road and so um again thank you for the opportunity and at this time I'll turn it over to Mr Co to take us through the core of the presentation thank you good to see everybody today uh So currently W County Public School System offers 20 in our 25 Comprehensive High Schools soon to be 26 with Felton Grove we offer 29 Varsity Sports 12 Junior Varsity Sports uh with 12 designated JB Sports included those with both and JV coaching positions highlighted in red that are funded by the school system this does not indicate other JV Sports which may have been added at a school

009level so some schools may have larger programs that necessitate expansion and so they may add a JB team when we don't offer a supplement for that sport so that currently it's 29 and 12 45 coaching supplements are offered per school plus supplements for the athletic director two athletic trainers or First Responders and a three Flex position that each school can allocate based on program size or specific needs in addition schools do have autonomy to convert local funds into payroll to create additional coaching positions as needed so since 2003 participation in High School athletics within the Wake County Public School System has nearly doubled from 10,997 students in the 034 school year to 2,396 in 23 24 and this is high school alone this does not include our Middle School members this remarkable expansion reflects our

010commitment to providing greater opportunities for students to engage in athletics fostering personal growth teamwork and school spirit Beyond competition participation Athletics offers those invaluable benefits including academic success leadership development and improved physical and mental well-being for our students student athletes learn discipline resilience time management and skills that extend far beyond the playing field and into the classroom and into their future careers during that same time while the overall incre increase in participation reflects the addition of new schools the average number of student athletes per school has grown significantly rising from 650 on average to 860 a 32% increase in participation at the school level this growth underscores not only the expanding footprint of Wake County Athletics but also the increasing enthusiasm and engagement of our students in their athletic programs at their schools as participation

011continues to grow so does our commitment to providing enriching experiences that Foster teamwork discipline and personal growth for our students so while the success of education-based Athletics is not solely measured by championships these achievements of Wake County school student athletes over the past two decades are a testament to their hard work dedication and pursuit of Excellence both on and off the field since the 2003 school year Wake County Schools teams have earned 173 team state championships showcasing the Collective Strength and commitment to our athletic programs 88 State runnerup finishes demonstrating consistent competitiveness at the highest level and 635 individual state championships in sports such as swimming and Diving wrestling cross country gymnastics a reflection of the incredible Talent discipline and perseverance for our student athletes these accomplishments are not just about trophies and titles they

012represent the values instilled in our participation Athletics the resilience in the face of adversity and the teamwork leadership and the ability to set an achieve goals we have Contin continually expanded our programs to meet the growing interest and needs of our student athletes over the years ensuring greater opportunities and participation in competition over the years several Sports have been officially added to our offerings further enhancing the diversity of athletic experiences available to our students a bit of a timeline 2010 men's and women's varsity and JV lacrosse were introduced Statewide spearheaded by our district leadership 2014 and 15 winter track was officially recognized as a district supported sport despite schools competing in that sport since the 1980s and notably Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School in Wakefield achieving multiple state championships before it was fully adopted by

013the way County public school system and afforded a supplement for the coaching sement also in the 2014 15 school year jbb volleyball was added to meet to meet the demand of women participants in tryouts across the district as we reviewed data as part of a title 9 review of our district to find proportionality in athletics in that same year we added the sport of stunt which is unique to only Wake County now expanding into Johnson County adding providing an additional Avenue for femal student athletes also part in TI part do in part the title 9 review of The District 2015 unified track was established fostering inclusivity and Athletics still at this time we don't offer a coaching supplement for unified track and field but we provide that opportunity at 13 of our schools in the

01423 24 school year women's wrestling was added supporting the rapid growth in sport Statewide and coinciding with the High School Athletic Association adding a women's state championship and later in the year of 24 women's flag football as you all have heard was introduced with further expanding opportunities for female student athletes in our district this Evolution reflects our commitment to growth inclusivity and Equitable access in athletics ensuring that all students have the opportunity to compete develop those valuable life skills to represent their schools of Pride since that 2003 34 school year and the reason for that setting on that date is that that's as far back as the data goes uh when I came into the office in the 2013 school year uh the we lost some data during that transition and so 0304 is as

015far back as we participation has grown by an average of 32% per school during that same period the number of coaching positions or supplements has increased only modestly by adding positions when new sports have been added this disparity places greater demands on our coaches requiring them to not only train and develop student athletes but also to lead mentor and supervise significantly larger teams as participation continues to rise ensuring adequate coaching support remains remains essential to maintaining high quality experiences for our students student safety and overall program success so the increasing Demand on athletic directors as participation in our programs has grown by 32% the role of the High School athletic director has expanded exponentially with more student athletes coaches and teams comes greater responsibility requiring athletic directors to navigate an increasingly complex landscap landscape of

016compliance Logistics event management and stakeholder relations so expanding responsibility and athletic directors are plentiful eligibility monitoring and compliance assuring academic residency and eligibility requirements are met overseeing compliance with State athletic association regulations and the everchanging landscape of legislation in athletics including nil and gender participation issues parent and community engagement serving as the primary point of contact for Parental concerns mediating disputes and ensuring positive communication addressing issues related to playing time sportsmanship and program expectations supervising coaches and providing support hiring mentoring and evaluating head and assistant coaches across multiple Sports ensuring that all coaches meet certification and professional development requirements and game and event operations including scheduling securing Transportation often amid driver shortage and logistical challenges managing concussion law compliance ensuring student athletes receive proper care and return to return to play protocols which are now

017law in the state of North Carolina Planning and overseeing game day operations includes digital ticketing imple implementation Staffing and security coordination managing live streaming PL platforms to accommodate access to our community who may not be able to attend in person and leading social media efforts to promote teams engage the community and celebrate the achievements of our student athletes and coaches facility and field management coordinating facility use and upkeep ensuring safe and playable conditions for All Sports navigating the recent pause in District supported field maintenance requiring ads to find alternative solutions for field repair and upkeep with limited resources often times either working on the field themselves or finding a way to contract with outside groups and finding and finding finding local funds to contract with those groups overseeing equipment uniforms and facility upgrades while balancing

018heite budgets and crisis crisis and Emergency Management implementing and enforcing emergency action plans for weather related medical emergencies and security concerns at large events additionally coordinating with School administration law enfor enforcement and medical P Personnel to ensure that our students and Spectators are safe at our events despite these significant increases in responsibilities athletic directors continue to operate with limited Staffing and resources their role now extends far beyond overseeing Athletics their facility managers safety coordinators Transportation schedulers crisis responders marketing Specialists and Community liaison for our schools and while all while ensuring our students have the best possible experience in high school sports as participation continues to rise and logistical challenges increased ensuring adequate support funding and Staffing for athletic directors is critical in maintaining highquality well-managed programs that serve our students schools and brother Community it's

019clear that athletic directors play a critical role in supporting our over 20,000 student athletes annually at our high schools fostering school and Community engagement improving student attendance and ensuring compliance with Title 9 if and office of civil rights mandates however as High School athletics has have expanded those responsibilities have grown as shared despite this increasing workload way County Schools does not yet provide a supplement for assistant athletic directors leaving schools to fund these roles through either booster clubs ticket sales or repurposed Flex supplements which were not originally intended for this use while 16 of our 25 current high schools have converted local funds to payroll to pay for assistant athletic directors not all of our schools have the financial means to do so creating inequities and athletic leadership and support in the dist well Athletics

020has a long-standing tradition of excellence in way counting providing opportunities for our student athletes each year to develop skills build character and represent their schools with pride partic IP ation has grown and the responsibilities of athletic administrators have expanded sustaining this level of Excellence has become increasingly challenging Staffing of compliance demands as stated and athletic departments are being asked to do more with limited resources addressing these challenges is is critical to ensuring safe Equitable and high quality experiences for all of our students so some of the challenges with further expansion of Athletics recently we've had requests for further expansion and adding new sports expanding athletic programs represent significant presents significant logistical challenges particularly with facility availability scheduling and Staffing with 42 teams already sharing limited practice and competition space at our schools adding new programs

021with further strain field and Court Access creating conflicts with existing teams and their needs and schedules additionally the scheduling complexities in coordinating practice Time game schedules transportations compounded by driver shortages and increasing travel demands all of this and securing securing funding for equipment and uniforms remains an ongoing challenge for our schools the ability to recruit recruit and retain qualified coaches and event staff is also critical exp expanding any programs would require additional training certification and Staffing support all of which must be addressed to ensure the continued success and sustainability of our programs before adding any new athletic programs it's essential to consider the financial impact on existing resources the cost for equipment uniforms transportation and coaching supplements must be accounted for along with identifying sustainable funding to avoid straining current budgets additionally expanding these programs

022places greater fundraising demands on our communities our booster clubs and our schools increasing the pressure to secure additional financial support and running the risk of creating variable experiences dependent on available support from booster clubs and communities expanding these programs also places a greater administrative burden on schools who must manage compliance with state and local local regulations while balancing an already demanding workload while CH while Transportation challenges obviously would increase with more teams the need for drivers travel coordination especially at schools where local funds are already are already spent for the upkeep and repair of our activity buses additionally ensuring proper safety and supervision becomes more critical and more difficult with limited St staff further stretching the responsibilities of principles and assistant principles student resource officers and security adequate medical coverage also has to be taken

023into account for games and practices as we must must stay compliant with the Feller Waller concussion laws and keeping our student athletes safe and secure as we've expanded from 16 to 26 high schools since the year 2000 the responsibility of the athletic Department centrally has grown significantly with thousands of more student athletes coaches athletic directors athletic trainers parents relying on support in Guidance the demands of overseeing compliance program development risk management professional development and communication have increased exponentially ensuring Equitable resources policy implementation and operational efficiency across a rapidly growing District requires Great coordination advocacy and strategic planning to maintain the high standards of Wake County Athletics all this is done with a department of two people myself along with a senior administrator while we do lean on the support of academic advancement administrative staff they

024are already consumed with their other responsibilities when we don't have dedicated support staff in place for athletics as shared previously participation our programs has grown tremendously one thing to remain cognizant of when adding additional programs for future expansion is the need for proportionality and participation by gender participation by gender ideally should mirror our enrollment by gender or be within a 5% range on the lower graph we show participation including the number with cheerleaders and without that's due to the fact that when we report to the office of civil rights they don't include cheerleading in our participation numbers um for their accountability with the with with title n in the 20034 school year female enrollment was at 49% while female participation was at 35.7% during the 2 3 24 school year female enrollment was at 48.5%

025with female participation rising to 38.25 showing that we've closed the Gap by approximately 5% in that time we anticipate that this Gap will close even further after this school year when we factor in the participation numbers for flag football which was added this past year Unified sports 2015 as I referred to on one of the earlier slides we became the first district to introduce unified track and field in partnership with the Special Olympics of North Carolina since then the program has expanded across across other districts and it now is included in the High School Athletic Association track and field state championships providing inclusive opportunity platform for students with and without disabilities to compete together currently 13 of our high schools offer unified track and field fostering teamwork sportsmanship and schoolwide engagement bringing students with and

026without disabilities together in an equal playing field and building uh building a a more inclusive School environment while we're committed to expanding and fully supporting additional Unified sports we must first build the infrastructure necessary for sustainability and high quality PR programming across all of our high schools before adding any new sports in Wake County our top priority must be strengthening support systems including central office resources and school-based assistant athletic directors to ensure successful and Lasting program growth once this Foundation is in place expanding Unified sports would be the next key Initiative for any expansion to enhance inclusion for inclusion opportunities for all of our students as Mr cook referenced uh a bit of a vision for future of Athletics obviously expansion in other sports has been shared by some uh the interest by some student

027athletes and parents recently there's some other things including the addition of sports that we'd like to add and we think are Paramount in addition to overseeing the operations of growth one of the largest District athletic programs in the nation my vision is to create meaningful leadership development opportunities for both student athletes and coaches while sustaining a platform to honor and celebrate while establishing a platform to honor and celebrate the Excellence of Wake County Athletics over the next several years if additional Staffing and resources become available we aim to develop these four key initiatives establishing the Wake County student athlete development I'm sorry student leadership advisory and development committee to empower student athletes As Leaders creating a mentor and aspiring athletic director program to cultivate future athletic administrators launching a weight County coaches education program to

028enhance the professional development and coaching standards within our district and to develop the way County Athletics Hall of Fame to recognize and celebrate outstanding contributions of Athletics in our school district while we fully recognize the budgetary constraints especially on today and the difficult decisions ahead we can't effectively support the expansion of Unified sports or any other new program until we have the necessary infrastructure and Personnel in place currently Central Services athletic department consists of two staff members as shared my my senior administrator primarily supporting Middle School athletics and athletic trainers as she her strengths are in athletic training as a former High School athletic trainer in comparable districts Across the Nation multiple administrative positions and clerical staff are in place to support schools ensuring effective management and the growth of athletic programs with additional Staffing

029future without additional Staffing future expansion just is not sustainable our Focus must remain on building a strong Foundation to provide quality Equitable and opportunities for our current current student athletes so thank you for the time and the opportunity we're certainly happy to answer any questions the board may have and I I think we'll just note at the end and just to be very clear especially on the day when the board and the superintendent will be talking about the 2526 budget this is not by any means a funding request um this essentially has been an overview of what we believe is a realistic analysis of our current state um and also a vision for what future infrastructure might look like as we make considerations and decisions about any expansion moving forward so happy to talk further

030and add additional Clarity to any topics the board chooses all right thank you Mr Kirk thank you Mr Co um I know we have one board member with several questions who has politely offered to defer um but I do want to ask anybody else if they have um questions for Mr Co Mr cook I have one or two um we'll start with Miss Coffield um I'm not sure if this could be answered but I'm just curious as I was reading through the presentation and everything um is do we calculate per student per sport per School how do we calculate what we need for I mean we know that the boys volleyball came to us and you know we had discussed that and everything how do we calculate for what we do have now what we

031would need going forward I know you're saying it's not in the budget but I'm just I'm assuming that there was like numbers and PE the amount of people so we've only expanded historically when there has been increased interest across all schools the majority of schools it wouldn't expansion wouldn't stop or the any of this does not stop a school from adding a program as long as they can fund it themselves and that they can follow all of the W County Board Board of Education policies they' still be required to follow those policies and also any DPI policies uh so I can help a school do that and I've shared that with some schools who have been interested in expanding programs outside of what we offer and I do support them in doing that um so

032it's not a fixed number but one if when we do look at data one thing that we do keep in in mind is our compliance with the office of civil rights and title n and so expanding women's programs has been a priority continues to be a priority so we can try to get to that piece of 5% proportionality within our participation in line with our our enrollment budget so um my first part of the question was do we have like a a like a calculation of what is needed or it's just kind of as it needed for an individual sport like do we allocate a certain amount of funds or teach or coaches that are needed per students per sport so they're not allocated per sport the number of 45 that that was that was

033on the uh one of the slides are allocated for sports that are already identified in the supplement so for example you know we have an identified football coach that the supplement could only be used for those sports that are identified uh by human resources directed to that with the exception of our three Flex positions which the athletic directors and principles have autonomy to use those based on the needs of their schools so for example we have some schools that have very large CrossCountry programs and we only offer one Cross Country Coach so they may use one of those Flex positions for cross country of their school so they can have an additional person so it's kind of figure as you go well it's it's the it's the the 45 different um positions that are allocated

034for sport and then if you add anything outside of that you can use one of those Flex positions or you could transfer local funds which we would we would help the schools and human resources does this continuously they want to add additional Co an additional coach for sport so some schools may do that they say we have a very large football program we want to add an digal football coach so they could transfer funds to human res resources to payroll and and it would follow the same pay scale as we have identified in our supplement scale so they can do that at the individual School level we don't do that at District level we try to keep it Equitable by having the same offerings across all the bris okay and then just one more comment

035I had printed out the sheet of our state championship so kudos to us yeah absolutely all right thank you f the questions go ahead um this might be one of Mr she's questions but the um Mr Dixon who's spoken about the volleyball for boys he's repeated that it's covered that it would be cost free um for the district can you respond to that please does he mean just for that particular school or do you know if you had conversation with him so you want to speak so Mr Dix it's been a while since I spoke with Mr Dixon I've been in I've been in contact with others in the boys volleyball World um and so they did offer a uh a grant type opportunity for schools and schools were welcome to take advantage of that

036if they so chose um we don't know that that would be sustainable across the district but also if we took it on as a district and branded it and and accepted them as our school teams we would then be responsible for following compliance with Title 9 uh and that proportionality that we've spoken about already but also providing you know we would need to plan to provide for our coaching supplement once they pull away once any kind of a group for example with uh the expansion of women's flight football uh we had a one-year Grant there and then we planned prior to that Grant accepting that Grant to increase the supplement here and we were planning for that in case it was successful it was um so it would cover a lot of the expenses but

037it also it doesn't factor in the idea of uh of managing staff and personnel and overseeing uh content best practices staying in compliance with fell Waller law for concussion protocols and factoring into our emergency action plans and everything that our athletic directors do to provide a safe and equable opportunity participation across all of our schools um follow up yes please um so the only other one that I'm I think it's mountain biking um that a group came to us in the last say that again n Nia okay which is it's I get what of stands for National something Cycling Association I for that one would be um for you know all genders right I mean that's not gender specific um I don't recall that it was and I I recall that there were students um

038you know male and female students they are advocating for that um have there been others that have come through just not with public comment or I occasionally get requests from but would you say those are the two big ones Ian that's anything from mountain biking I know that they um came to the small group can be reward that is not a sport that um really has a an easy pathway into expansion uh it doesn't have a national Federation of high school support which is what we use for rules and regulations and and participation it would seem to be more of a a of an activity uh that students could compete in if they chose to but not with our school um but I I hear from others occasionally just small requests and small questions here

039and there but boys volleyball has been the loudest recently okay thank you so I'd like to I'd like to build upon some of Miss Evan's questions can you walk us through the difference between a Varsity Sport a junior varsity Sport and then what we'll hear is like Club Level Sports so I refrain from using the term Club okay I use school teams and non-school teams okay when most people here Club it creates some confusion um because a club within our school system has to have adult leadership um and some of these there there are some sports in the community that use our school names and and people assume that they are affiliated with our schools and and when they are not uh so that blurs the line when I think of a club sport I

040think of AA basketball or um some of the local soccer clubs so I I split that terminology just to be clear so yeah let me further Define sure as opposed to like a private group coming out and saying they're leeville rugby right but maybe it's a private team assuming that name I'm talking about something that might be offered either you know on school grounds with school students whether they're paid or volunteer coaches do those exist in the schools do we have those um yeah so you know we have we we don't have this um okay what I guess you're you're referring to is what some people call Club teams right um and the reason again that we refrain from that is because any team who is competing using our school name and using our school

041facilities uh creates a a an opportunity for presumption that we own it uh and I'm sure Mr Bell would probably have some questions about liability concerns when when those would arise too um we also have to make sure we're falling all DPI rules and regulations with let participation so once they start playing against another school it's no no longer anything like a club it is inter Scholastic Athletics so again let's just keep following This Thread so you've said that a school could start a sport or it sounded like it if they were able to fund it so out of you know 20 plus high schools if four of them wanted to start a sport and compete against each other what I was calling a club sport but we won't call it that could they do

042that yes okay and so that would be something that if it was funded locally and when I say locally I mean funded by the individual schools they could do that if the principal and it was a school level decision absolutely what district approval or you know you've talked about like the state compliance what sort of compliance or certification or approval would they need if any from the district office they really wouldn't need any the only thing that we there wouldn't be a a specific approval the only thing we would require is they follow all of our human resources hiring uh and and making sure that supervision and volunteers that are out there have been approved through our volunteer process um so if the school wants to own another program that we don't support through a

043coaching supplement they certainly can do that okay we would require the collection of the paperwork the eligibility paperwork uh physicals um and we would maintain that data just like we do for all of our other sports so when we report to the office of civil rights for compliance with Title 9 we would have all that data available and we would count them into our participation numbers uh specifically when we talk about the gender splits and things of that nature so to answer your question that they wouldn't need a district approval they would just have to have a district understanding that they are following all of our policies and all DPI policies all right and so and so you answered the the other part of the question which was they would still be part of the

044district's Title 9 compliance and Reporting absolutely okay um all right so a couple other questions then and You' mentioned a couple times volunteer coaches what are the restrictions you know I know several programs around the district that have like one staff paid staff coach maybe they have an assistant coach that is paid out of school funds but I know many that are volunteer coaches are do they simply follow the same guidelines for a school volunteer or is there a more rigorous training they go through almost full hiring process to ensure that we have adequate background checks since they have much closer interaction with our students than a typical volunteer and they have the opportunity to possibly be alone with a student at some point in time so it's much more rigorous than than what we

045do for a PTA volunteer who might be in a school supervised by a teacher and then finally for me um sorry well I'll reserve the right to come back but um fundraising restrictions so where private groups have come out like flag football originally we were approached with by an outside group with a grant that was willing to help Kickstart that program and we've heard from you know organizations like a lot of the boosters of men's volleyball that they could come in and they'd be willing to assume a number of the costs for our individual schools what restrictions do they have on accepting funding does it have to go through the school can it go through the booster club can it go through the PTA what do need to do to comp it should go through

046our office of Grants Any Grant would go through our office of grants for approval and okay but it could be school specific yes okay all right thank you Miss Cofield and Dr EG um I just wanted to follow up um just because I know I've had several different conversations but the Nik the the group came to us M so that's not considered a club team because it's really not under Heritage everything is under their specific program their own insurance their program and they actually would meet just because they need a chapter like a place to actually meet and then they would go ride fall in line with everything we're talking about today so I what you just so we're going to use another meaning of the term club right so potentially um something like that

047might fall less under the purview of Athletics um and maybe more under the perview cuz what you just describe is potentially a group of students who like to cycle um who meet and perhaps have a club sponsor at the school to talk about and discuss cycling and maybe plan future like we we've got organizations not withstanding cycling per se that could be a hiking club right and so it might not necessarily mean that they're cycling and competing against each other on a school campus but it could very well mean that it falls under the purview of an extracurricular activity that's not necessar L inter Scholastic activity where they're competing and keeping score but they're meeting on a school campus because they share a common interest so that's that's actually another variation I think on Mr

048hagerty's question about what a club might constitute um and that that description would not fall under Athletics well I am deeply involved in a lot of those conversations occasionally a lot of times it lands with Mr Bell who just joined us at the table because of risk management we don't traditionally have any clubs that are athletic in nature we would could have in murals that is within a school and those could be approved at the school level uh Mr B would you like to share anything yeah I think this we look pun intended that we've been down this road before recently um our district Insurance casualty carrier does not Ure that type of um participation that type of activity for a club um if there's a way we could make it an athletic program that

049would fall under a different type of insurance that the district carries which could could work um but I think we do get lost sometimes in the definition of Club as as Drew just outlined um there are liabilities that come along or let me back up let me not use the word liabilities there are exposures that come along with activities with cl clubs we work with area superintendent's office on clubs because we don't have bis management does not approve a club what we what our involvement is is the assessment of the activity of the club so and so one of the things I I wanted uh ask Mr Bill to come up for uh is the question about the Riding Club uh and so uh one of the things we do share with uh the principal

050and the area superintendent is what they can do in terms of uh having a club or an activity that's there uh but there has to be a Nexus or division between what they may actually do versus a writing activity that they may have so if you could kind of share that a good example of that is um a lot of people you join me for the unveiling of Vernon Malone's race car that they build so we work with our district carrier I mean our District insurance carrier for a long time to be able to work that club out and the result was is that they can build a car they can design design a car they can build a car they just cannot race a car so say so cycling for an example they can

051have a Cycling Club it can talk about you know cycling it can it can have people come in and discuss cycling they could build a bicycle that was uh you know for mountain biking or whatever the activity might be they just can't engage in that activity um because it's been deemed by our insurance carriers to the exposures to grade so you're saying in order for them to actually ride the bike which is the purpose right I'm not trying to be smart I think it's funny I'm sorry I understand what you're saying thing like the liability and you could go to a certain point where you're actually learning and being a club about learning how to do it and then the activity of actually doing it so in this circumstance because they have come before us

052and they continue to um we would have to have them make that be part of the Athletics in order for them to be able to do that yeah I'm not saying that I'm not saying that that can be I'm saying that if Darren and I if Darren brought that activity to me and said we want to make this an athletic Sport and that's something that he and I could sit down and talk with and then I could go back to our carrier that covers covers our Athletics and make sure that we don't have any issues there I've already done that for the for the club aspect and we've been told no that our carrier would actually endorse the policy to um exclude any injuries that might come from that activity through a club at a

053school so the possibility is there if I don't know if you if he if Darren can answer that question today it's probably a lot of there's some research that goes into it I'm sure well and also in in that particular instance will often fall on the individual capacity of the school and I I just I want to I want to bring us back to and I think the question earlier was how we can quantify needs and resources I just want to call out and Elevate the fact that our schools are already stretch thin with the resources the district provides for them to provide athletic opportunities and so ultimately what we're describing whether we're talking about men's volleyball or in this case cycling while the district is not prepared and and at the place where we

054have the capacity systemically to direct all of our schools to offer a new program it could feasibly be up to an individual to school to decide whether or not they can participate and so Heritage or milbrook or other schools that might want to consider something like that that um our our position is they would have to have the capacity and the ability and not not by the way just Staffing we're talking about facility use we're talking about additional staff just for Gates and those kinds of things so that's not withstanding the long range Vision that Mr Co shared as well where we've got to make some decisions about other offerings where maybe there's not students or families that are coming to the board Podium quite frankly to make us aware of their desire to participate

055and I'm speaking specifically about un Sports so long term when we're talking about expansion I want to be very clear it may very well be that it's the case that when we do have the capacity to systemically expand into another area it might not necessarily be systemically for all schools some of the areas that we're hearing about but rather some of the areas that maybe we will never hear from um unless we proactively provide those opportunities so I just wanted to call that out too to make clear it's not just a case about what the district endorses or supports or in this case where we're hearing the interest lies it's also about maybe where we don't hear in terms of what those opportunities might be which by the way is a national Trend in terms

056of the expansion of Unified sports and other areas um that I think the W County Public School System again going back to that vision would like to be a part of so just before before you follow up I just want to get a little more clarification on this do you mind so this I I want to drill down on this the difference between when what you're saying if it's a competitive sport versus a club there are districts in North Carolina right now that have like sailing teams or rowing teams their insurance providers cover those activities okay so does you're saying that it makes a difference because it's different coverage whether say a school had a Rowing Club versus if they were competing against other schools and a different policy might cover it if it was

057a rowing team that was in a competitive league what I can tell you is that that I'm not sure that those other districts that have the what type insurance they have but I'm not entirely sure that they know what's going on sometimes with inside that school district I do know that Orange County was one of the counties that I understood that might have a Cycling Club but their Insurance their insurance is not set up the same way ours is um they're through the school board trust and it that is right that's I get that that's type of insurance but I'm talking about Wake County specifically we have two different policies one for athletics or different Provisions one for athletics and then one for more extracurriculars we have a general liability policy commercial general liability policy

058that covers um the broad uh exposure for the district separately from that we have an insurance policy that covers for that offers coverage for injuries of students that participate in in sports for the district it is not um well it is secondary If the parents have insurance for them themselves but it becomes primary if the if the students parents do not have cover okay so but but if I'm hearing correctly it makes a difference how it's offered after school club versus like District recognized competitive it very well could because in in my work in my in part of my world is Insurance in my world the devil is in the details so it very well could okay thank you Miss Coffield I didn't want to interrupt but I wanted to get more clarification on that

059no it was it's helpful I'm just I'm trying I'm still just trying to really understand I don't want to say it's like we're saying no but it it's a little bit like we're kind of saying there's a whole lot of boundaries around how you can do that and it is a national biking program so like to me if they're coming with you know their own sponsors and insurance it's kind of like a no cost athletic thing that we could bring into our school so I hear what we're saying about different aspects I just don't know how how we could make it work if it's a national program I mean they do have a lot of Kinks worked out so I'm just trying to understand like why we can't do it in other schools can so

060I mean we're clearly bigger and have other things that we need to consider so that's what I'm trying to understand and so and and um CES I don't know what you would could share about uh an insurance policy that this group may have to cover that uh and so um um if you think about what our carrier may do or say if there's a separate policy back gr to cover this um have they shared anything with you in terms of their take on that I'm not sure if you can answer that they're they're not going to they're not going to review and give us a they're not they're not going to they're not going to tell us what someone else's insurance policy might cover they're not going to interpret that that language for us so

061the only exposure that they're looking at is what the exposure might be to us um I'm not the this um this biking Association I'm not their risk manager either I can't look at them and say what their policy is going I'm not can't interpret that to say what it's going to cover and what is not only know that our participation in it with our staff that that that in itself offers offers an exposure up to us should something um should something happen or should they direct someone to do something and then something would happen so I'm I'm sorry I can't answer your question about their insurance whether that would be enough or not I can only tell you what our exposure might be okay let me ask this board members who are here would you

062have any interest in a conversation around the district's insurance and risk management like at a future work session is yeah because it seems to come up in a lot of conversations but I don't know that we want to dedicate like the rest of today to this but I don't want to stifle questions on that either does that sound yeah okay well let's do that Mr B we appreciate you asking you being here as a resource for these sport specific questions but maybe we'll have a more in-depth conversation let you explain some of the nuan is at a future meeting Miss Gordon did you have something yes I do um so in regard to uh Nik like just plainly put how can how can we get it done in your opinion how can how can we

063how can we offer this to our students I I didn't hear the first part I said in regard to Nika how can we in in your opinion how can we get this done well honestly I don't see it as part of inter Scholastic Athletics which is the program that I oversee if it were to be an outside club or organization or a a club right and and that would not be under the purview of of inter Scholastic which is my but our understanding of it being a club meaning given the the example that was given about the the making of the car it cannot be a um like an athletic activity it has to be a like of more of a building of a bike so so I'll try and answer some of that what

064the carrier has said is what they will cover and any kind of Nexus or connection between our staff and what they may participate in in in a club activity that's tied to an activity outside of the school like writing activity uh and so uh so we can provide some additional language in terms of if I'm the teacher at the school and I work with the club but I'm also a part of this activity outside will that carrier look at is there's a connection we may be covered so that's what we talked about uh the club activity like the racing Club at friend of Malone they can do all the things associated with the Racing Car putting it together but the one actual thing they can't do is is drive it uh and so uh so

065we're still trying to make sure that we know there's a clear separation between that because there's I want to say it's a shooting club that's associated that's something that's completely active but right we have RC that that are engaged in Riflemen menhip and did that particular thing we moved it off the campus so we could be you know so we could vet that with our insurance company and I do want to clarify something I want to do want to make sure everyone understands I'm not disparaging anyone else's coverage here the coverage that another District would take just like we take um is up to them and what is covered were not covered by that policy is up to that carrier and between that District it's just that not all districts in North Carolina are set

066up exactly like us but then again we are the largest in the state so you would expect some of those to be different from smaller you know districts all right thank you Miss cille did you have any more one quick follow up and I'm going to send you the link but into Scholastic is that what you're saying that we're not considering it that because it is actually considered a nationwide interest Scholastic to be quite Frank this this organization nor any school leadership has contacted me about this is the first I I I've heard a a sidebar conversation at one point so I can't speak to the depth of this organization and what they are or they aren't because I haven't in touch all right so then maybe we could share so we don't take up

067too much time I'll share some of the emails from you with you and great thank you you all right further questions for Mr Co Dr ring and then we'll come to Mr Hershey yeah thank you um um just just can you clarify the proportionality concept to me uh under title 9ine um I I saw in this graph where you know obviously there's a lot more boys participating than girls in any you know in all years um and what what is the magic number what is the so the the the goal is to be within 5% of your the differential not being larger than 5% of your gender enrollment in your school okay okay and where are we at at this point we are we are at 38.5% female participants and our female enrollment is 48.5%

068okay so in a sense we let's say there's all the money in the world um we would still have a hard time justifying starting a boys only athletic group no no so there there's a three-prong test with with title right and one of those prongs is proportionality the other two are meeting the expressed interest in needs of your underserved population which was in you heard me allude to 20145 in here several times we took a deep dive thanks to the National Women's Law Center and the office of civil rights um in 20123 right at the time where I was coming into this role um from being a School outload director and so part of that was deep surveys across the District uh to find out what the expressed interest and needs of our underserved populations

069were which is how we landed on uh adding stunt as a sport ensuring that all of our schools were were um trying to meet the need of livings lacrosse because it was while we were providing for it it wasn't being fully accommodated in all 25 of our high schools uh so there are multiple layers to that um but it it would stop us that is not the stop gap of saying we can't do boys volleyball or we can't do boys cycling or we can't do Bo ruggy or anything of that nature it's just one of the considerations whenever we add anything currently our our greater considerations are just the bandwidth of our employees to increase more offerings without infrastructure in place to help support okay yeah it it just seemed like there was that that

070that proportionality you know concept just didn't seem to make sense to me uh through through this whole conversation sure and the the Genesis of that was the addition if you look at the addition not which slide was on the addition of the new sports since 2010 I believe uh the majority of those are female sports because we want meeting the express interest of the of the females in our in our school system uh and and so that's why that expansion was very heavily weighted towards finding opportunities for female participation when we look at that thank you thank you Dr Mr Hershey um how you doing I'm well how are you I'm doing all right I've got a bunch um can you talk about your job and like what that entails you kind of you talked

071about how there's two of you basically but what's the day of you know like for a for a county athletic director uh depends on what day it is and what season it is a lot of it is is is replying to the needs of families who reach out uh as you can imagine my email box is is is full every morning with different reasons from different contests that may have happened the night before or different decisions that adults have made that impact students things of that nature a lot of what I do also is working on contracts for outside facilities that we use uh surprisingly the largest portion of my budget which isn't isn't very large is providing for swimming and Diving uh we do the contracts for all of our swimming and Diving facilities

072um across the district to provide teams for all 25 of our high schools so managing those contracts and working with all of those facilities securing those schedules and working on that is an odd thing to say that it touches is every month of the year while there are other things that are definitely more seasonal um dealing with any issues with uh the North Carolina High School Athletic Association and liasing between our school system and them that organization if there are any violations of rules regulations staying on top of the changing landscape of legislation uh for example just last week we had some we had some fun in the house where uh the changing requirements of ticketing and what that may do to our staff and how that may impact the need for more staff at

073our gates because now there is legislation that's still Penning that we have to accept cash in our games but we don't currently do that um so a lot of different things like that uh I work with the Special Olympics on you know trying to provide greater opportunities for our students with special needs as indicated in the slides uh I provide leadership for our athletic directors I put on professional development ongoing not just for our district but across the state for athletic directors across across North Carolina um and you know still looking forward at trying to create more opportunities for engagement with our coaches to provide them with greater opportunities for professional development so it really varies but a lot of it is being available to to families and student athletes and parents when they call

074uh and listening and hearing their concerns and then trying to point them in the right direction to where those concerns may have to be met because tip a lot of times it is not me it's one of the other bearing departments or at the school L keeping principales and athletic directors a breast of all of those changes and rules and and supporting them in their work and you you work on ensuring that there are officials like agreements with official officials associations and stuff like that contract with all of the officials associations for all of our high schools and middle schools so we work with as you know the triangle football officials Association and there's an association like that for every one of our sports that has officials so I work with all of them I

075sit on a couple of their Boards of directors to uh ensure that they're meeting the needs of our district uh and then a lot of times when of the you part of the crunch time and I'm hesitant to look at my phone buzzing in my pocket because this is the time when games are starting and sometimes officials get delayed and W show up um or you know there may be scheduling issues so I deal with a lot of the software that is behind the scenes to assign officials and we have some great supervisors officials who work with us to make sure officials are showing up um and also making sure that they're approved and qualified to officiate our game so I leas between a lot of different organizations uh in order just to make a

076happen and support the athletic directors and and the role that they do is and and how many days of the week are we having games and how late are our facilities open on any given day sure so six days a week uh every G every day except Sunday we have games going on in our district almost all year round i' say the only time that there would be a lack of events would be between somewhere at the beginning of June when baseball and softball championships end they're to be the last two to ends of the year and uh the first Monday of August or the first Monday of the week of August when when we gear back up with fall Sports in the summer um not not saying that student athletes aren't on campus all

077summer because they are the mans are high coaches are there all summer but we have games six days a week almost the entire year from mid August until June and that doesn't include offseason practices for every single sport that because that's what we coaches do this year the the magic date is uh is June 14th the day after the final student day of the year because that is when next next year begins for us uh June 14th next year's teams can start working out students at the new Felton Grove can start working out uh and and all of the rising freshmen if they' finished their middle school year if they're not on a year round calendar can start participating in summer activities of our schools and in that you requires the demand of athletic trainers

078and athletic directors being there to keep them safe what's the budget for or how much money do we provide to schools for athletic programs so it has gone up over a th% for the past few years thanks to this board and and and school assistant leadership when I when I came into this role schools were afforded $847 for a High School athletic program to start the year that doesn't good supplements that was the money that we sent to schools uh and that number my understanding historically was based on some some piece of of of data that that's what it cost for your first home football game years you could then start selling tickets um now we provide uh just over $166,000 to each High School to start their programs for the year middle schools is

0795,000 and we've been hearing a little bit about um maintenance of our fields and who's funding that do we have I'm hearing that we're not going to be funding that or I don't know what we've traditionally done so if there's some information you can give us and then what's our plan going forward because that's I mean you brought up you mentioned during the presentation some of the inequities and I can very much see some of the inequities for programs like rotten that can afford to fix have their field in as pristine shape as they can even though their field gets run down of course versus some other schools that may not have that same base of support So historically our our facilities department has done a great job assisting schools with uh with maintaining their

080facilities but even prior to the recent pause and services our school athletic directors play a huge role in mowing lining maintaining the fields um and that support recently has hadn't been caused because of the Staffing short and and concerned with the budget and everything else and you know we know that they're doing everything they can in the facilities Department to to get it back to a place where they can re-engage those those those uh those services to our schools full fully understand that um I don't know what the budget is for next year I don't know how that looks but I I'm sure tonight a lot of things will be will be uh difficult conversations um but School athletic directors are planning as though there will not be support financially uh they have picked up

081the expense of maintaining their fields since last uh since last school year this school year uh and and have have doing what they can to keep their fields safe and playable to the best they and this is the kind of thing where we weren't 114th in funding from the state we might easily be able to afford to make sure all our fields are as in good he as possible because poor you know Fields get in poor shape that leads to increased injuries we don't want our students going out and I can tell you that there is nothing worse officiating than a squiggly line and I have seen plenty of those not at Wake County Schools cuz I'm not allowed to be there anymore um I I oh one other thing so I love that the

082vision includes the the four areas of student leadership development building future athletic leaders have we thought about so people may not know that we have officiating challenges in some sports lacrosse is a big one where you know I know games have been cancelled not NE I don't know in W County but just I hear about it have we thought or considered um any programs to begin trying to um get student officials not necessarily for them to officiate high school but then for them to remain officials and make some money when they're in college or whatever they're doing after they yeah so so there there have been courses that have taught have been taught in healthful living departments that coaching anic initiating type courses which have built some of those skills I don't know how many

083schools are offering them currently uh Brian Glen Denning who oversees helpful living could be a resource there we have had conversations I've had conversations with um with the those who we contract with with the officials associations over the years and doing trying to do some sort of Symposium and helping with the shortage but you're right there is an Ever growing shortage of officials uh a lot of that is due to how much they get paid which isn't within our part of state by the high school athlet so that's determined by the high school athlet Association but a lot of it also has to do with uh as you would know being being ill treated by fans players at some places so our hope is that when when officials come to our games our 25 high

084schools and 36 middle schools with Athletics that our fans treat them well they understand that they are there uh essentially volunteering their time for very little income uh and they are a key part of of our opportunities to provide great great experiences for our students so yeah it's definitely tougher when you're younger when you get older and you get used to it but it's a shame that it's a part of high school and middle school athletics um two two quick questions and I'll be done um are coaches um have any certification requirements that sort of thing yes all of our coaches uh have to at a minimum take a course called the nfhs fundamental coaching uh in addition to the background checks and everything else that we do human resources and there are some sport

085specific courses that certain coaches have to do depending on the on the sport that they coach um so those exist and in in addition to annual concussion training for all of our coaches that they must complete every year um and so our athletic directors we are we are leading the state and certified and certified Master athletic administrators so those are things that we are are hoping to achieve is to always be the state standard and the national the National Standard for certifications and and compliance my last question do we have um requirements for coaches or assistant coaches around getting their CDLs to make sure they're able to take their kids students athletes to ham so we we do not require coaches to get their CDL it's strongly encouraged uh and I can tell you this

086historically when I was a school-based athletic director um one of my questions when I interviewed individuals for coaching positions where are you have or you would you willing to get your CD on um so it is not a requirement but in order to get our students to contests the majority of our coaches um do try to get their CBL so that they can transport the students to their games and not have to rely on uh other drivers who may not be available at the game time which is an additional cost when we whenever we open a school it's having transportation for people forget that we got to provide buses or and that training is often times uh takes a teacher out of the classroom for three or more days to go through that training to

087to be uh to get their c yeah see that goes back to that policy we talked about about driving and volunteer driving and other limitations we put on so it all comes around yeah any other questions not for now I have some other for it later okay all right so looking at our schedule we've come to the end of the time a lotted for the topic are there any final questions for Mr Co oh I one as part of our organizational structure is that I'm hoping that's going to include an evaluation of what other school systems are doing within their athletic department so we can yeah we can include that that would generally have been a part of it but we'll make sure that um that is pulled out as well to make sure we

088look at Athletics and what other districts don't out I think that's going to be very important in terms of uh what we able to fund versus what other districts do there is a a huge difference and I think it would be great if we can lift that up and show what that difference looks like thank you particularly we like Staffing ratios there's two of them and and I know how much a a coach does an individual coach does on a given season so we have one employee per 80,000 students I mean basically yeah okay just putting that out there all right thank you very much Mr Co we appreciate it thank you right all right so staying on time we're moving to the last item on our agenda which is our North Car Carolina legislative

089update um we're here uh we're happy to welcome back Caitlyn roer and Sarah bals uh you all have met Caitlyn and Sarah at before at our various board Retreats and we're excited to have them here at our work session um there has been a lot of information uh coming to us out of the general assembly you all know we put together our legislative agenda and we've been watching both North Carolina School boards Association and other AD the organizations put out information about different proposals coming out and how they might impact our schools so um Sarah we'll take a minute here to see do you have anything in terms of any presentation or anything on screen no no so if you guys are willing to to stick with me we'll um absolutely we'll we'll do no

090PowerPoints on this one so it's good to see you guys all again uh Sarah Bales Caitlyn rockger where your um contract Lobby is down at the legislature so I think where we'll start is we're just going to run through some of the like top bills um and P key pieces of legislation um and then we'll kind of open it up to little questions and back and forth um so give you a high level overview of where we are in session right now at the legislature so we are kind of at the height of activity um the bill file the bill um drafting deadlines have all passed so everybody who wants a bill has submitted that language those deadlines are both passed both locally Senate house public bills prorations that's all passed so if you wanted

091a bill you'd have to get it some other way whether it's in a budget um by Amendment or you know um what we call like a PCS uh the introduction deadlines will the the public introduction or the local introduction deadlines are done so all the local bills that you've seen be introduced that's all you're going to see unless you were to have again like a PCS said got an amend or um something added on as an amendment um the rest of the introduction deadlines will start next Tuesday the Senate public one is the first one and then the house will be the following Thursday so that will be the end of all new introduced bills everything again has to come by way of amendment um the budget is a different story you'll see a lot

092of new things and then you'll have you know Omnibus bills that can change throughout the process so SAR when you talk about a PCS you have a proposed committee substitute and so that's when they take a bill that might already be written and be introduced and then replace is there like a percentage large parts of it wholesale with something else it can be any of the above so typically when you have your you have your bill Drafting and your bill introduction deadline so you have Bill drafting is when you're asking essentially the bill drafting staff to have your legislation drafted your bill introduction deadlines is when you have a standalone bill that is to be filed so whe When I say Standalone it's a bill with its bill number and title and its original form

093that you're going to have it filed in so then to Chris's Point once you pass the Bill introduction deadlines which are to come next Tuesday and then the following Thursday for Senate and House respectively you no longer have the option of filing a brand new bill with a brand new assigned bill number brand new title brand new content what you can do however is take an existing bill that's been filed um you know whether it's something that has already been filed in the other chamber in past or something that somebody kind of filed as a placeholder and it's not going to really be used sitting there you can take that bill and either gut and amend it like Sarah said so that would be to really take the contents and change the title and make

094it a whole new bill just same bill number and then keep it moving through the process or you take what is a bill in its current form and you simply make amendments that are kind of rolled into a new version of the bill and you introduce a new version of what is you know arguably the same bill just to updated an amended version into the same committee it was already planning on going towards so it just really whether it's an amended version of the bill or whether it's an entirely new gutted Bill appreciate it y'all y'all been doing this long enough most bills end up looking very different than they were initially introduced and um as you can see a lot of local bills um tend to be filed and are very short or some

095are even blank placeholders so pcss are very common um in our neck of the woods so um a couple other key deadline States um crossover is May uh May May 12 I'll pull it up let you know we'll give you the exact date so that is the Daye where May um any bill that was originated in one chamber has to cross over and pass in the other the really key exception to this is any bill with an appropriation or a fee or tax so anything that charges money or spends money is not subject to crossover um those things we talked about with pcss and gut amends um aren't necessarily subject to crossover either so if you have a substantive bill that doesn't have a fee a tax or spends money and doesn't make crossover doesn't

096mean that you won't see the substance of that bill in some other vehicle that's not subject to crossover later so what we always say at the legislature is every bill can be a zombie it's never dead um and essentially what crossover just it's when it has the bill crosses from one chamber to the next and arguably if it is subject to the crossover deadline like Sarah said and it does not cross over to the other chamber then arguably it's dead for the rest of session but like she said there's so many ways that you can kind of maneuver around that in 13 years of lobbying I have yet to see a bill that's actually died that didn't make crossover um so with the process and something that's important to us is the budget process specifically

097right now um this year the Senate starts the budget uh the Senate is working in Earnest um I anticipate that we'll probably see something in April late April early May from the Senate obviously the the house will take their um their turn and then they'll work in conference for the you know the couple weeks after that hopefully we get a budget before the end of the fiscal year but because North K has a built-in continuing resolution we don't necessarily need one we would operate off the previous fiscal year um the uh Governor's proposed budget will should be released tomorrow um so that's going to be you know good indicator of his priorities and um obviously he'll present that um to the to the Senate and House and then they can assess it and then you

098know continue to work out what they accept move forward Etc um so let's dive into legislation um so there's a couple bills in particular we want to mention um I think probably top on the list is the um education funding bill introduced by um representative pre as the lead sponsor several um majority uh house members on that bill it would um give uh so this is very much focused around teacher would give teachers a pay bump of 22% in the upcoming school year um deals with uh both starting and continuing pay you've got um also Master's pay included in there and board certification um pay bumps as well um there's also some study uh study language in there that would move move like have DPI and the collaboratory which I don't know how familiar you

099all are with the UNCC collaboratory it's a kind of separate in institution over at UNC that has various projects that the legislature puts in charge puts them in charge of that they study and report back to may receive funding to do kind of pilot projects it has them working in concert with DPI to to look at this study um the the study would look at moving away from traditional aot allotments to more kind of like local discretionary system um I would say our takeaway from this particular bill is I think that the house is definitely putting themselves out there on teacher pay um they are making a statement and representative pre being a um uh Appropriations chair and leading it is um significant um you know we'll see what the Senate does like I said

100this the Senate's looking at their budget right now so this is definitely I think a statement by the house on what they intend to do and work on with teacher what are appropriates uh yeah so to appropriate uh uh 1 Point 597 billion in recurring funds for salary increases the way the the bill is written now um so additionally we've got calendar flexibility um I think I counted over three dozen calendar flexibility bills filed this session um both locally a couple more broadly based bills um we've got our own Wake County bills filed um both in the house and the Senate there's some mirrored bills um representative Pare is on that one as well um you know I will say let's look at history when we talk about school calendar flexibility I think there's some

101really good momentum but we know kind of where our traditional opposition is going to lie um at the end of the day there's you know we we're going to be dealing with travel and tourism um but I think you know it's really encouraging to see the number of bills filed and the bipartisan nature of the bills filed on calendar flexibility um so some other education legislation that's been developing I will say the school Financial flexibility pilot programs I think are interesting um House Bill 149 and Senate bill let's see 112 um those have more flexibility kind of similar to the study that um Pare had and her um funding bill those are something I think we should watch again majority members hopping on those Bill allow for more flexibility with the allotments kind of pushed

102down to the locals um those are pilot programs as well so I would I mention that um not a study but pilot programs not systemwide um some legislation also not cell phone um ban mobile technology ban those are both moving pretty quickly and both the house and the Senate um I know y'all have talked a lot about that so uh as long as they continue to allow for um some flexibility among the boards with regard to um how yall can Implement that I think generally you know you guys have spent a lot of time talking about cell phone bands and we heard the last update we heard from both sides on that was that the intent there is it's intended to really make sure that uniformly boards are encouraged to adopt some sort of cell

103phone policy it's not really aimed at those boards that have already spent time and effort into enacting and adopting a policy it's really to try to make sure that they can encourage some sort of policy to be adopted across the board and emphasize that notifying parents at the beginning of the year what that policy is and those are kind of the Crux of of what they're pushing so just to ask about that we've seen some differences between the house and the Senate bill have you gotten any sense as one more favored than the other or have you heard any discussion of the two cuz one does seem to give like the districts a lot more autonomy and then one is a little more restriced in terms of requiring what each district would have to do

104we did hear that they were talking and they're working together behind the scenes on that um I I've sat through some of the Committees and listened to the discussions I think it might be a little early to say if one's more favored than the other um I would I would just say let's wait and see on how we see those conversations develop and you know I I think with things like that and local boards um they'll probably want to talk and allow for some flexibility there I've been encouraged by the intent agree agree and I think that's where they're going but I don't want to speak for anybody thank you um uh the Lea size study bill um in the house I think it's something that as W County we should be mindful of um

105probably engage with some of the sponsors it's talking about studying the size of larger leas given that we're Wake County I think we can't ignore that and I think we definitely should engage with the bill sponsors it's not just necessarily us I know um Mech and new Handover and there's um you know several other school systems that are going to be interested in that one I think um we should definitely engage with the school sponsor or the bill sponsors and just talk about you know where they're coming from intent uh again it's a study um so but I don't like to sit on studies they they file the bill to get a message across and I don't think we should ignore it um when we talk about legislation that is moving our agenda forward um

106School meals I know we're going to see some expanded School nutrition bills um whether they're Universal or um uh I think one one bill that we know is coming probably mirrored in the House and Senate is universal breakfast um just because it's a little more efficient and the the price tag is a little smaller I think we might see come from some majority party members um I also anticipate we're going to see um a big um School meals package probably in the governor's budget rolling out tomorrow so encouraged by that I know there's a lot going on federally with USDA so that's something that um I'm encouraged the state's taking some action on um there's also some teach teacher licenser bills um and y'all will have to give us some feedback on you know what

107we think of them with regard to like removing the testing requirements for lure I think there's um both a senate I think there's just a Senate bill for that one right now now um and then there's some reciprocity bills I know the Senate's got one with um Senator Han moff and Alexander yeah and then um the there's another Senate bill with mcginness Moffett and Johnson on removing the testing requirements for um some portions of teacher of lure um so that's that's just a very quick wrap up on our end of um things that we've seen Katie and I spent about an hour before we came um on the 38 pages of legislation that we're tracking for White County public school so I know we're not covering everything but um that was just some of the

108highlights um like we said the bill filing deadlines are next Tuesday and the following Thursday so we're probably going to see several hundreds of bills being filed between now and then um so that's just a very quick overview but we wanted this to be more of a discussion than us presenting to y'all so well sah Katie thank you very much I know we have some questions um let's I was trying to think if want to start with anything we've already discussed or bring up new stuff first uh Mr Hershey you said the teacher salary Bill carried a price tag is it new spending of 1.5 billion and is there some thought of where that funding comes from or it fits into an overall budget so um that up actually if you'll give us just a

109second I can actually pull the bill and probably tell you if it's you know all do or or where it's going or how they have it so I would say too I'm pretty certain it would be new spending um and that unfortunately um we don't make those decisions that's up to the legislature on where they find the money but is it something that when when we have a bill like this then does that get just added to a budget how does that work yeah so so this bill is a standalone Bill anytime you have an Appropriations Bill ultimately this is going end up in the budget negotiation okay um so you file a bill like this typically to get the policy out there to start talking about it but this is going to be in

110the budget and so what this says here and I was trying to see if we have any more information from where we're at but what this says is that from the general fund so that big you know our big general fund they're appropriating $ 1.5 97 billion in recurring funds so whatever the difference is in that recurring money versus what was recurring before we would have to pull that up and do that analysis and then wait for a money report to come out to see where it's coming from and if if that's all new money it this doesn't tell us um just from what we've got so we just need a little more time to be able to do that analysis the bill is filed doesn't identify the source of like how much is the

111big general fund um so I think we spend like around 36 billion and we don't quite know yet whatl it is going to be for this year so there's projections Revenue projections and then we ultimately won't know until a after April 15th okay I got when collections come in and then we'll get an updated um projection for that thank you so just a little a little more on that you know there's already been some correspondence going out by some advocacy groups um not directly opposing the bill but kind of throwing some shade at it so um one of the groups talks about the Bill calls for nearly 1.6 billion general fund appropriation to pay for itself and then you know they'll give things like well while most Americans received an average pay increase of about

1124% this would be 21% right or then this is the other one spending nearly 1.6 billion in the current year may not be a feasible solution especially while also paying for an opportunity scholarship expansion so you remember last year we were told that those were disconnected and that money for opportunity scholarships was not connected to public school funding now some opponents of increasing public school funding are trying to tie it back to availability of money for opportunity scholarships so I know there's been some rumbling about you know making more of an investment in public schools this year after making such a big investment in private schools is that just an optimistic rumor do you think that we could see this bill like representative pere's bill or some other proposals coming out of the house really

113trying to make up for some of that disparity I think there's always a discussion around public school funding and I think you're going to continue to see it this year okay in Earnest okay but you believe that we be an Earnest discussion as opposed to just window dressing okay Dr in I have a related question is there a um I know you said uh representative P's Appropriations share is there a similar appetite from the Senate to um Talk specifics about this kind of you know this bill or a parallel bill yeah um uh to to be seen um I think that again I think the the investment in public education is going to happen in Earnest on both sides um I'm not sure to to what extent the Senate's talked about this particular Bill okay

114I guess the other question about this one is when we talk about changes to funding allotments there's a lot of different directions that could go things that could be very beneficial for us and things that may not be so beneficial have you been able to get any sense of the kinds of changes to allotments they're talking about so Dr Taylor you know a little bit better than I do um being a PhD I might let you speak on this a little bit not a PhD so uh uh actually the NC Forum has been studying this this about 60 um uh different um administrators um um Personnel folk from across the state that have been uh looking at uh what's been happening in Tennessee Mississippi and other states so what we really want to do is

115to be able to provide uh some kind of guidance uh to the general assembly if they in Earnest talk about this uh at this point there's not a lot that I know about uh the kind of conversations they're having with the funding form and so what we want to do is to make sure that any changes that they make uh that they don't impact us in a way that will be negative and so we know now that we look at our state teaching positions there are State 01 positions that are funded completely by the state uh now if they give us a dollar amount that could be good or bad and so uh I haven't received any specific information about what they're exploring and what they're looking to change but uh we do know it's

116it's um uh wanting to move away from more of the allotment based uh and more of a dollar figure and so we're anxiously waiting to see what that conversation is like uh haven't heard a lot but I know that the NC form and that group uh we are engaging in deep conversations about what we would recommend uh if they make changes so there are what we believe some positive changes that can be made by looking at what other states are doing uh but uh also how public schools are funded in States vary and so so in many states we do have a lot of local taxing Authority that we don't have uh but at this point uh not a lot that I've heard about uh specifically what they're looking at doing uh but we will

117have recommendation that we make uh when they uh get deep into the Weeds on changes that they want to make and to be fair I haven't seen much more than studying the alignment I haven't seen details and I think there's a lot of questions about how money spent people trying to understand and and there's been a lot of you know change over especially on the house side with a lot of new folks being um taking into leadership who are just trying to kind of understand like the playing field right now the house has put out a study bill for that purpose the Senate has not but in terms I guess um Just In fairness as well and not getting into specifics or why maybe they haven't gotten into specifics yet and we haven't heard exactly

118where they're going to go with that is also based on where they are in the process because the Senate starts the the budget bill this year um and we have seen some things from our chipan parade coming out um on the house side of things but it does start in the Senate this year and they are really um while they've been working they're still in kind of the beginning stages and we haven't gotten that forecast projection yet so it's going to be really probably more into April before we start getting into the Weeds on those conversations and start seeing some of some of those details surface and as soon as we hear about them we'll um we will definitely send you guys in on that and I guess one of the things that we've talked

119about as a board and you've seen in our agenda as we talk about like funding formulas and allotments just today we were talking about how the funding for AIG students is capped at 4% of your student base but Statewide you have about 11% of the district's populations that would you be identified as AIG and in Wake County that's higher it's almost 20% of special education funding similarly that the the they are different types of special education evaluations some are more intensive right in terms of what they require to serve so like a one- siiz fits-all allotment may not be the best way to address those needs and similarly when you have a cap on the percentage of students you can serve you don't want to be a position where you have special education students that

120the state won't fund that are clearly there and enrolled in the school but they just exceed like an arbitrary cap and I don't know if this study it presents an opportunity to bring up those issues or if this is something outside of that well we you know I think we as Wake County have such a big district and so many students one advantage we have is we have data and we have story to tell so I don't think we necessarily have to wait on a study to to tell that story obviously folks are interested in it and we should educate because we have that information to provide and I would love to take that to the general assembly proactively and not necessarily wait for a mandated study okay great other questions about any of the

121bills that uh Caitlyn and Sarah have talked about or other legislation that you've seen come to you and is there anything that we should be looking for no um if you guys see something let us know let Dr killer know um I'm very excited to have a former Wake County Public School Board member at the general assembly um but yeah we're um we're we're encouraged by this this session folks are paying attention to public education and I think we we it's on us to bring forward information as opposed to wait for them to ask us for studies transparency we have a good story to tell I think Wake County does a fabulous job by way of our teachers our students and our parents and we shoulding that information forth to our general assembly members just

122by Shear numbers even when Sarah said you know we were spending an hour before that that's just to go back through everything that we are constantly tracking for you guys and analyzing on a day-to-day basis and went and looked at what's happened over the last week since we've Revisited um and just looking kind of where we were last year versus this year we've got 40 bills that we you are substantively actively monitoring and you know um engaging in and it's not really necessarily I feel like we were more on defense last year and we don't necessarily feel like that is the case there's a lot more discourse and a lot more bills being filed trying to dig into all of these issues so I think that's encouraging from our perspective and what and what we've

123seen well I hate to be asking all the questions I do have one final one but then is does anyone else have I think Mr swans sure thank you for you know I I know we did not follow the instructions you all presented to us at our Retreat about making our legislative agenda bullet point for but it was so much information to live through so it didn't want to negate everything but hopefully we'll do better with directions next I I love this legislative agenda I really do um you you get to the point um this I think you did a really good job I read it and I get what you're after and it says brevity perfect well my question leads to the calendar flexibility I know there's been quite a few bills um and

124historically we know there's always one chamber that doesn't have an appetite for it so what are you all hearing about that this year um it's similar to Year's past um this is an issue that we continue to have to take away at um but I think it's reflective in the number of bills filed and that they're being filed in both Chambers by the party well then just the last question that I had is that something as as much as we always sit up and pay attention when the general assembly is in session this year we're also we also have a lot of our attention focused on Washington and on a lot of proposals and a lot of things that have already happened that affect public school funding here in Wake County are you picking up

125on anything out of the state capital regarding concerns about loss of federal revenues and how it can affect education in North Carolina and Wake County or just elsewhere the the cuts that we've seen proposed to Title One to maget school program to special education funding through idea um through you know already changes Cuts they've made to the school lunch program through the Department of Agriculture have been a concern to all of us and you know if other people are noticing or paying attention or do we need to convey the impact of these cuts to our state leaders as well I think um tell talking about dollars and sense to everyone all of the matters yeah um we've heard we've heard what you've heard and I think it is it is that it is a lot

126of concern without having finite understanding and guidelines about if and when you know certain things go through how it will be impacted and How It ultimately will affect the state and and our schools um we have heard the same things and we have the same kind of speculation we just are we're still kind of missing those connecting pieces to understand how we're really impacted but I do think it is always I really do think it is always important particularly with you who have the expertise of understanding if this happens in the way that we are perceiving it this is how it it it's trick here's the trickle down effect in dollars and cents so that we can educate on the front end that's very important they won't know what's missing if they don't hear what

127it is absolutely and Mr shair um we did have an opportunity last week to uh do a lot of visits uh at the general assembly in speaking of uh what we'll call the the federal funding uh we had a chance to even talk about specific uh departments such as DHHS uh and that is heavily funded by federal funds I think we uh 79% and so that's just one particular program and so one of those concerns that we were hearing is uh if there was a substantial change in that Federal funding how that would impact a lot of what the state does and so uh I don't know if you all want to share anything you may have been hearing in terms of that funding piece and and what that might look like but that was

128a lot of the conversation that I was hearing as well the the state as a whole relies on on federal funding and often ACC as a pass through so the state budget can be affected and so they don't know what they're not made aware of so we just need to continue to tell them what the real dollars and cense positions what they are and pass that along because they're going to need to take that into consideration when they they make a budget all right then well if there no other questions Caitlyn Sarah thank you so much we will be uh in touch uh some of us will be hopefully seeing you tomorrow when we get out to the tomor Thursday sorry it is only Tuesday to it is Tuesday all right well we'll go ahead

129and call this Clos session adjourned give everyone a little break before I'm sorry work session closed before we go into our General Session all right thanks everybody