001e e for all right good evening everyone today is Tuesday October 1st 2024 it is 5:37 p.m. and we're calling this regular meeting of the Wake County Board of Education to order I want to welcome those of you that are watching at home and those of you who are here joining us in person tonight uh Wake County Board of Education meetings are conducted for the purpose of carrying on the official business of the school system the public is cordinate cordially invited to attend the board meetings to observe the board as it conducts its official business persons who willfully interrupt disrupt or cause disturbances at an official meeting May be directed to leave by the presiding officer members of the audience should show respect for the speakers by refraining from loud loud comments or other disruptions
002treat each other with respect disruptions by any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance with North Carolina General statute 143 31817 so I note that we have eight of our nine members here today we do have a quorum and so I'd like to ask everyone who is able to please rise as we say the Pledge of Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you the first item on our meeting agenda is adoption of our meeting agenda at this time I would entertain any motions second so I have a motion from Mr Swanson with a second from Miss rice to approve the meeting agenda all in
003favor of adoption of the agenda please signify by saying I I any opposed all right great our agenda has been adopted and we'll move to the first item then which is an information item academ from our academic achievement or office of academic advancement us the the Sha the school health advisory Council recommendations and commendations we'll welcome back Mr Brian Glen Denning evening good evening chair hagy um members of the board superintendent Taylor uh my name is Brian Glen Denning and I am the senior administrator for K12 healthful living and I am also the district liaison to the school health advisory Council known as the Sha the school health advisory council is charged with providing recommendations to the board of education and the superintendent the recommendations are in alignment with the 10 areas of the whole
004child whole school whole Community model this year marks the 34th anniversary of the Wake County sha Michelle Mill is the current co-chair and she is here to provide the council's annual report welcome Michelle thank you Brian good evening chair Hagerty board members and superintendent Taylor my name is Michelle Mill and I I am one of the current uh Wake County Shaq co-chairs I am a proud product of the Wake County uh School District as well as the proud parent of two Wake County Public School System students this evening I'm here to present the annual report for the Wake County school health advisory Council each year we provide recommendations and commendations for the school system on a variety of Health and Wellness topics for our prior school year as mentioned I served as one of the
005Sha co-chairs our other co-chair is Jen Zera and our secretary is Larry B Brian glendening serves as a superintendent design and we will be losing Tracy Taylor as a member this year and we thank her for her years of service with the shack the healthy active child policy outlines the use of the whole school whole Community whole child or whisk model for the shack representation each year we review our Shack membership with the goal of having representation from each area of the whole school whole Community whole child or whisk model we currently have representation in each area one area for improvement is having uh student participants um and we have been brainstorming on how to accomplish this the next two slides provide the framework for our annual report as directly taken from board policy 6140
006the Wake County student wellness policy it states that a local Shack is to be established and maintained this Council has an important charge to assess the students and employee needs along with the school environment including policies and regulations to help raise awareness about the school health and wellness within the Wake County Public School System this council is to be comprised of Representatives of the school system the health department and Community organizations and shall provide periodic updates to the board which is why I'm here tonight throughout the 2324 school year we heard from a number of presenters on a variety of topics we'll go through these commendations and recommendations for the topics in the upcoming slides this year we broken the presentation a little bit differently um in Prior years we've covered each topic with a
007slide that has the recommendations and commendations for that topic uh this year we've also included a section of recommendations for the Sha to let you know what we will be working on additionally similar to last year we uh our final slide has an overarching recommendation as the theme of communication and youth risk behavior survey and youth tobacco survey data woven throughout many of our conversations so um in September of last year we had Kendrick Scott the senior director for security at Wake County Public School Systems provide an update regarding District school safety um as I'm sure you are aware many of the items for security are unable to be shared at this time due to General statutes and preserving the safety of the schools the district wouldn't want to highlight any vulnerability before solution is
008fully implemented our Commendation is that a visitor management system um became available districtwide it requires a scan of IDs uh id id checks against registered sex offender databases and networked for schools to talk to each other um it's also important to note that the volunteer management system is separate and is still run via HR our recommendations uh include the security committee should continue to process completing the Wake County Public School Safety assessment on a determined frequency we don't want this assessment to be a oneandone um for the district and that we hope that the 2019 assessment serve as a baseline um we hope to also um continue or we hope that you all will also continue to support the implementation of the solutions for the initially defined and prioritized security issues from the 2019 districtwide
009assessment recommendations for ourself as Shaq we uh would like to continue to receive updates regarding the districtwide security plan implementation processes moving forward um a study was published in raising concerns about sucos um this was brought to the attention of our child nutrition services within the Wake County Public School System sucralose is used along with other artificial sweeteners by manufacturers to meet mainstream demand for low to no calorie beverage options since school meals programs have Federal Cal calorie and sugar limits we are relegated mostly to beverages um When selecting them to sell in schools uh and some of those contain culos some of these same beverages are brought to schools or brought to school events and concessions so it was thought that the Sha could Benchmark and see if further information was available prior to
010our meeting additional studies and articles were researched by a registered dietician to be presented on the call additionally sha reached out to DPI to see if there were any other school systems um in North Carolina as well as Across the Nation who um have had or having discussions related to culos there are no current discussions or actions around s sucos in any North Carolina districts um we commend school system and school board for parental controls um allowing parents to restrict abilities to purchase specific items via the my school books um this would include the sugar sweetened beverages um we also commend uh Child Nutrition Services uh who raised the concern and brought their this to their attention um to discuss with us as a group um so increasing collaboration we would recommend to publicize the
011parental control option on my school books for those amilies who would like to restrict certain purchases and we will continue as Sha to monitor um information and studies uh related to culos and children in December um tetta suon Melanie spainhower and Dr corus Thompson Drew came to provide an update to The Shack around Crisis Prevention we heard many great project updates and we're happy to hear all of the efforts around mental health for students and staff as there have been sepal several recommendations from the Sha in the past years regarding this topic we commend the board and school system for adding a youth advisory component of two students per school um that uh this District won the 2023 Innovation award from the i2i center for Integrative Health because of an uh memorandum of agreement with
012the Alli with Alliance Health for Crisis Support and coordination continue expansion for school-based mental health implementing prepare in a Broadway for the school district the district crisis team meetings have been implemented to communicate around Crisis Intervention and prevention youth Mental Health First a training for staff has been offered during the school year and will continue um in the 2425 year and uh it it will be rolled out with a pilot program during the school year as well we would recommend communication to families about crisis intervention services that exist continued recommendation of teleah Health Options in school base mental health because trans Transportation remains to be the number one barrier to service and continue to build on the equity work in reducing stigma stigma around Services as Jack we would recommend to obtain an update in
013the upcoming school year about measures from the incident at Southeast rally High School in January we heard from Nia Rose and Cherry Brown on the topic of employee Wellness they are continuing to offer important resources for the weake County Public School System staff and are increasing the number of trainings and mediation they offer each year we commend the school board and school system for uh the team providing 59 presentations and trainings along with 51 mediations and restorative restorative meetings throughout the year promoting the EAP as an available resource to employees and that this group is connected with District crisis team um to get contractual help for extra support our recommendations are as follows further education on E services and benefits and internet creation to improve ease of access to Services um we knowe that there
014are currently two staff that are currently serving more than 20,000 weight County Public School System employees and would like to request additional staff to support the district's need we County Public School Systems to share teacher working condition survey with the employee Wellness team and as the Sha we would recommend that we review teacher working conditions survey questions to see if additional questions addressing mental Wellness should be added next in February uh we received an update from our safe routes to school program the Wake County Public Health and Human Services receive received a new funding cycle grant that expands the program to high schools which allows for the addition of another person for the safe rout to school program we're looking forward to working with these new members of the safe rout of school program this
015year during this program update we had several recomendations the first is that 40 W County Public School uh schools participated in walk to school day in October of last year and 20 P 20 schools participated in bike and roll to school day in May a total of 60 walk bike and roll events were held during last school year our next Comm Commendation is for the all kids bike program this is a program to teach all kindergarten students how to ride a bike in PE through this program schools received 24 balance uh two pedal conversion bikes helmets and a teacher instruction bike and an eight lesson online curriculum this program was piloted last year and they have added two more additional schools to implement the program in regards to recommendation for the safe rout of school
016program the first is to continue to support the implementation and increase the capacity for the all kids bike program additionally we would like to see countywide Communications for walking bike to school day through Communications as well as at board meetings and back meetings the Sha plans to investigate the newly updated walking policy to have a better understanding of this updated policy and we plan which we've already done actually to uh connect with the two new Lake County safe routa School coordinators and get them involved in sha also in February we requested a presentation from B smart for kids to learn more about responsible gun ownership and safe storage we're pleased to learn that be smart for kids was listed as a safe gun resource listed in the student handbook we were also pleased to hear
017that not long after uh our presentation that the uh Wake County Public School System Board of Education passed a resolution supporting safe gun storage and Dr Taylor created a Wake County Public School System safe gun storage initiative providing multiple safe storage resources and partnering with local law enforcements to Pro promote responsible gun ownership and safe storage we're encouraged by these efforts and hope they continue we would like to recomend men presentations similar to the one we heard at the shack from B smart for kids be heard at all back meetings as well as PTA there's a continued communication around safe storage and be smart for kids continues to be listed as a resource in the student handbook in March we had Sydney Myra and Trevor Hyde with the weight County Cooperative Extension talk about food
018security efforts in the county as well as with the school system while this program doesn't offer any direct service or programming it does offer resources and tools to address food in security as we well know food in security can have an impact on children's ability to be successful in school during this program update we are excited to learn and commend the school board and school system on the food pantry programs the food pantry program focuses on opening food pantries in high schools because they don't have a backpack buddy program and throughout the food pantry they are and through the food pantry they are able to feed the whole family we are also excited to learn about their work with child nutrition services on their efforts with universal breakfast also we would like to commend the
019school board and school system on the collaborative effort for promoting summer feeding sites and sunbucks through G excuse me various groups we would like to make the following recommendations the school system and PTA represent representation um at the food Security Network regional meetings Capital Area Food Network would like to see more parents teachers and social workers present at these meetings continue to promote summer feeding sites especially direct communication to parents we continue to hear stories from parents and families showing up to schools over the summer um as it was in covid as these were summer feeding sites but they are no longer assist with recruiting additional summer feeding sites as the number of participating sites remain low for a county as large as the size of whe County and continue to promote send bucks to
020parents lastly we recommend looking into the share program that Guilford County schools has implemented to address food waste in our cafeterias as for commendations for Child Nutrition Services Child Nutrition Services increased the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables locally harvested uh produce in its School meals this year by utilizing awarded local food for school Grant funds uh utilizing Community eligible uh provision also known as C to provide free meals to all students in qualifying schools in consideration of the wcpss framework that makes it possible to provide this service has been ongoing priority for CNS in the 2324 school year the number of C schools increased to 12 up from seven last year and this year's work has led to further expansion that will have 41 schools on the C for the 2425 school year our
021recommendations for this year includes a schoolwide support initiative that extends beyond the work of Child Nutrition services to encourage families to apply for School Meal benefits plus FNS benefits such as snap and T tanif Um this can include intentional escorts of social workers uh School administrators and leaders in Central Services Department that are closely connected to families and students the board uh also the board supported School meals for all initiative by adopting a federal legislation agenda and through letters of support to our legislators uh consider having representative of the North Carolina School meals for all initiative present at future work sessions for the board um or board meetings to elevate the awareness within Wake County community and of its benefits to students related to academic achievement in April Brian Glen Denning shared the plans for
022the Wake County Public School System dual settlement funding once they were approved by the board in February This Plane included eight action areas including curriculum cessation and programming District infrastructure substance use prevention programming and support inservice teacher trainings community support and Partnerships communication campaigns and advocacy scholarships we are excited for these plans to come to fruition and support where necessary and as requested our recommendations are as follow for the board to allow yearly review of jeel actions and strategies provided by District staff and for the shack to receive updates on the initiative's progress twice a year in May we heard from Michelle Woodson with Cass to learn more about way County public school system and cass's work on interpreting sb49 and coming up with a plan for implementation we recommend that the board and school
023system keep a breast of possible legislative language and proposal that may impact staff students and staff ensure clear consistent communication via talking pre talking points excuse me via prepped talking points for administration and staff and collect data on how s sp49 is impacting student safety health and wellness oh also in may we heard from Virginia Johnson with the post Center for health education to learn about social media and youth mental health we know this topic is something the district partnered with the North Carolina Department of Justice with to host Town Halls to discuss with the community and would like to commend the district and the board for their efforts on on these Town Halls social media is now included seven times within the new ncdpi helpful living stand standards in grades uh 2nd through 9th
024while the town halls have opened doors on the discussion about social media and youth mental health we would like to recommend more opportunities for parents to learn about the impacts of social media on student health and well-being in addition to parents We Believe students should be engaged in the conversation about social media as well another recommendation is to include instruction on social media as outlined in the ncdpi healthful living standards the 2023 youth risk behavior survey for the first time is asking a question about the amount of time students spend on social media we recommend for the board to ensure this question is part of the weight County public school system questions and aim to get local data with oversampling and a passive screening per sb49 exemption lastly as part of the sha recommendations during
025the 2425 school year we would like to research School cell phone policies in North Carolina and have cell phone uh usage as one of the monthly discussion um topics of our sha meetings as previously mentioned there are new North Carolina healthful living standards way County Public School System staff representation was provided on all subgroups that worked on the creation of the newly ratified North Carolina Standards for healthful living we recommend that the The District staff crosswalk curriculum to ensure tight alignment with the standards throughout the 2024 2025 school year in preparation for full implementation in 2025 2026 the Sha plans to follow up on the progress of the healthful living standards implementation and support where needed this slide has the broad recommendations that apply to all of our topic areas discussed as we held our
026meetings this year the shack noticed a common theme of community Comm unication between groups and to parents as such it was discussed that it might be helpful for a shack member to attend one back meeting per District per year to provide updates on Hot Topics provided provide resource in these areas and be able to uh be available for questions or suggested topics for the shack to look into the time would be limited as we know back has many important topics to discover uh to to cover and discuss the thought was by reaching a Brad audience with this information uh could help to elevate communication about health and wellness topics Additionally the board has heard recommendations regarding uh youth risk be Behavior survey yrbs and yts youth tobacco survey from The Shack for many years this
027data is pivotal for understanding local Trends and helping to determine areas of focus without local data we lose the ability to analyze if our efforts are making a difference and also lose opportunities to apply for funding and grants that might further support efforts in health and wellness we did reach out to North Carolina division of Public Instruction to understand passive and active sampling for districts throughout North Carolina and found the following information in 2017 it appears that 96% of the districts used passive permission in 2019 it was approximately 94% in 2021 there was smaller participation due to to covid but uh 92% used passive use in 2023 95% of the Public School Systems appeared to have used passive permission we also learned that Charlotte mecklinburg School uh they oversample in passive sampling um for youth
028risk behavior surveys to provide them that localized data um regarding youth tobacco surveys uh in 2022 wake Cumberland and orange uh County School systems were the only ones that used active sampling um as such we recommend that we County Public School Systems consider passive sampling for yrbs and yts to obtain local data by utilizing the exemption as stated in sb49 um I would like to thank you all for your time this evening if you would like further any uh further information about any of this presentation please don't hesitate to reach out to uh myself or my co-chair directly or uh via board member Edmonds we appreciate this opportunity to present to you all thank you thank you Miss Moville um at this point in time do board members have any comments or any questions for
029Miss Moville Miss edmans thank you and thanks for coming tonight so I just want to lift up um the first year that I served on this committee as the board liaison I wasn't able to attend many of the meetings because it conflicted with either our facilities I think it was our facilities committee meetings um we had a lot of discussion about that and the Sha members were kind enough to move that um and then we subsequently moved anyway so this past year I've been able to attend most of them um and that's been really valuable to me and I want to let you all know how thoughtful and thorough this group is they're have very thoughtful discussion and um thoughtful questions of everything that comes before them and then last and thank you Michelle for
030kind Brian I don't know where he went thank You' all for coming um I just wanted to lift up a couple of things that were mentioned in the slide deck so be smart has almost I think has presented at almost all of the bac's at this point um I don't know if we've reached 100% but um and I I was one of the last to go so but I I do think that that we can you know give a thumbs up on that that we've accomplished that goal and then the with the feud security since this was on your report out to us um we have as the you know the board and um I think a lot of the public knows we've made great strides with our um districtwide Angel fund and I think
031that deserves to be lifted up and we're so grateful to um Mr Luca for her efforts with that and for all of the community members that have donated to that to that districtwide fund so that's another um thumbs up a progress in the right direction thank you chair thank you Miss Edmond other comments ments we'll do Mr Hershey and come back over to miss rice thank you for sharing do you know which two uh schools um are now doing the all kids bike program the new schools are mil and milbrook and comes uh thank you very much I just wanted to highlight the one District Six school because milbrook we had the BAC there and they present it and then milbrook picked it up and it's a wonderful program I hope we can expand it
032further thank you and for those who are watching the feed that mystery voice was Mr Glenn Denning from behind the podium Miss rice I want to say thank you very much for a very uh intentional uh presentation as I was reading through this um prior to our meetings tonight I was really excited about seeing everything that's unfolded doing the work that you all have done um things that mean a lot to me that I know mean a lot to other families I won't go deep into it but everyone knows that I'm all about employee Wellness um and making sure that our um staff you know feels safe and rested and secure and well within their own personal Journeys so I really love seeing the presentations that were done and things like that that's happening um
033just want to really just say Well done great job um I'm glad Lynn was able to be a part of this uh was well before my time but um this looks fantastic thank you thank you thank you m rice Miss field thank you for that presentation I was just curious um how does one serve on the council I know that I know you discussed the different types um or different places that you pull people from to be on the council but how do how do they become part of that Mr Glen denck so as the leaz district liaz onto the shack the The Shack does have bylaws and in those bylaws it outlines those those pieces of the Whisk model and at during our September meetings we'll identify different members um of the Sha that
034are representing those pieces of the model and if there are pieces that are either thin or missing we'll talk amongst the shack to see if there is any knowledge within the Realms that we have to reach out and um it is an invitation sha is a a community community group and it is purposely formed as an outside of the district entity so that they can bring important Community issues to the district so um I think that sha is open all sha meetings are public meetings so uh people are welcome to either uh come with uh via the online mode or there is uh there is a opportunity to be able to go to the pole Health Center and go in person um and that's basically how it's set up but anyone is welcome and particularly
035um board representation is is uh something that we like to have or that the Sha likes to have so uh that would be much appreciated or other folks who have expertise specifically in those whisk model areas would be more than welcome to to join thank you I'm very interested in checking out and being part of that thank you thank you Miss Coffield any other questions or comments I will say you the Sha has done great work since I've been on the board I particularly want to commend you for the tobacco Summits that you've held and how that's transitioned really to talk about vaping and all of the new health issues that are emerging with the new products that are coming out every day and also I just want to encourage you to keep your focus
036on social media particularly students just this week have contacted us about new and emerging problems coming from AI deep fakes and other just just horrible things that um you know we're seeing as new threats and um combined with some of the other potential dangers and health risks we see coming out of um social media addiction and abuse so just um a word of encouragement and um a plea to keep up the good work so thank you very much thank you all right so the next item on our agenda is the public po public comment portion speakers commenting on items on tonight's agenda will be heard before speakers commenting on other topics all other speakers will be heard in the order of sign up only the person speaking at the podium will be able to stand
037again all attendees that are not speaking must remain seated members of the public are welcome to offer comments and criticism directed at the substantive ideas actions or procedures of the board and individual board members the laws and policies of North Carolina provide that issues or concerns involving individual personnel and individual student matters are confidential and therefore not appropriate for public comment settings those offering comments to the board including students may discuss issues and matters of General concern I would ask you to silence your cell phones concerns related to Personnel issues or student matters that are confidential may be addressed through other applicable wcpss policies again if you have a matter that you've brought to tonight but it concerns a confidential matter it's not appropriate for public comment but please remain here and we will connect
038you to a staff member who can help you with your individual issue that you might have in the interest of maintaining Civility and decorum speakers are encouraged to address their comments to the Board of Education those of us up here and must refrain from personal attacks and insults directed at other speakers at the board individual board members staff or members of the general public please at the podium during your speaking time any materials you wish to share with the board may be handed to the board attorney that's NE Mr Neil Ry tonight sitting at the end of the table either before or after your comments continuing on during public comment you may speak up to 3 minutes please note the microphones are adjustable go ahead and adjust them to to a comfortable height before you
039begin speaking the light the green light on the podium will illuminate showing that your time has begun it should not illuminate until you've begun to speak so once you begin to speak that's when your time will start now you can continue to speak when you see a yellow light and you hear the first audible tone that's your warning that there are 30 seconds left so go ahead start thinking about wrapping up your comments um when the light turns red and you hear the tone the second time that's when your time has concluded we have to cut you off so we can go to the next speaker and we will call the next speaker up to the table at that time again speakers are asked to respect the time limit especially for those that are coming
040after you um and please speak for no more than three minutes all right so tonight we have two speakers that are speaking on agenda items the first is Mr Joseph Deon and Mr Deon will be followed by Janet Peterson good evening Mr Dayton the school health advisory Council needs to examine research data that show that social transition in schools completely reverses the trajectory of the overwhelming majority of young people with gender dysphoria from outgrowing it to instead proceeding on to puberty blockers and hormones that have very harmful effects the final step is is surgery I spare you the details because they are Gastly and inappropriate for young ears wpath s so8 removed all age minimums they tout what great relief from distress was found in the original Dutch protocol study for the 5 five out
041of 70 patients who partially responded to surveys they ignore criticism that these short-term self assessments are just placebo effect from the way the studies were conducted they never mention the patient who died after a section of his intestine was used to make an imitation female part they justify all this to reduce suicide over gender distress s so8 asserts it is life-saving care doctors and clinicians have subjected parents to emotional blackmail by asking whether they would rather have a a transgender son or a dead daughter but the analysis of all medical records of adolescence in Finland by Dr Cala shows that these claims of suicide are a big not so yes suicide is elevated among those suffering gender dysphoria but is still just a fraction of a percent but critically the suicide rate is attributed to
042all the other psychop psychiatric problems these persons usually suffer a long-term study on on adults from Sweden found a 19 times greater suicide rate for those who completed medical transition as well as a three times greater all cause mortality so this gender affirming care did not save their lives it's time to end this medical Scandal and Wake County Schools participation that includes everything from the gender identity books for real little kids to social transition that puts kids on an almost irreversible conveyor belt to iatrogenic harms thank thank you thank you Mr Deon our next speaker is Miss Janet Peterson again hi good evening hi I want to talk about uh folet Destiny folet or destiny discover and I just want to share some information that I found out it's not that I hate them I
043just think it's good to have information so are owned by Francisco Partners a private Equity International firm it is the largest private Equity Firm in the world and Destiny fet is the online card catalog for those of you who don't know that students use to find and locate or to locate books in the library so I find that a little concerning that that they're the largest uh in 2021 uh and they've been purchasing lots of different companies they made an acquisition of force point a cyber security company formerly owned by rathon I could go on and on where they've uh purchased um companies that are in related Health fields and I don't really understand that and and I don't understand why we have to use a company that their focus is truly not on education
044it's on making money um I don't have a solution for it but I'm not happy about it um their envi their U vision is fet's environmental social and governance mission is to reduce our environmental footprint while increasing access to education and promoting positive change in the communities we serve inspiring others to do the same at fette we're proud to inspire enable and celebrate the academic journey and they manage all print and All Digital resources sounds like big money to me um within the library students can find ebooks audio books and database resources and more by doing a search on the destiny discover uh product there in the library um I want to talk because I'm concerned that we don't have a way to prevent inappropriate literature getting into the hands of children we know about
045the parents Bill of Rights we know that we're supposed to be protecting young children and I don't believe that we're doing it and there is a way through that Destiny fullet system to do it um I printed out um the summary that is on the online um the screen that children can see to read what the books are about of course young children aren't going to read them so let me share this book it feels good to be yourself a book about gender identity the overview is some people are boys some people are girls some people are both neither somewhere in between this straightforward exploration of gender identity will give children a fuller understanding of themselves and others and that's from the publisher of that book and it's available for children to read online and
046I don't understand why we don't have some way to deal with that getting that out of the hands of young children it's a very attractive book and it doesn't belong in an elementary school I want to leave you with a couple of words well I guess I won't I'll tell the other people a couple of words they'll like it thank you Miss Peterson thank you I appreciate you respecting the time limit next our next speaker on tonight's agenda is Becky L Hobs and Miss L Hobs will be followed by Caitlyn Trader good evening hello all these short people so I'm Becky L Hobbs you guys know me mom of three Chapter Chair of moms for Liberty um kind of didn't have enough time last time but I'm going to continue where I left off you
047know we talked about the opportunity scholarship and kids need options we talked about my son who was bullied incessantly um and the school system did nothing and it led him to needing help talked about my other son who went to a school that had a stabbing and death incident and he was right nearby that schools had other issues I won't go into details so we had to make a decision as to what to do for my daughter do we leav in the public school which really is what we always wanted or do we put her in a place that she can be safe where she can learn cuz my boys they never learned cursive they don't know hardly anything about Shakespeare I can go on about the different Classics and things that they don't know
048honestly what they know about the Constitution is because what I've taught them that's not what they've learned in school so we had to choose and then we kind of started thinking well what happened with our daughter we remember her being denied access to our education when schools are closed I remember her being forced to wear mask and crying at this very meeting when you guys would vote to keep masks on I remember how the principal would not let us through the door and quite frankly that was happening last year I would go to pick her up for some reason and we weren't even allowed in the door they would come out with a clipboard I mean really there was no excuse even during covid parents were not allowed to volunteer but union members were so
049remembering all of this and the fact that four out of 10 students are not reading at grade level there's all this manipulation with the curriculum the school we did tour had Flags speaking about gender ideology everywhere has books in the libraries talking about sexual matters that is not appropriate for an 11 12 and 13y old so I want to introduce you to a con cept of the school to Clinic pipeline you know in the past six to seven years you guys have added over 1,200 positions for psychologists and counselors and so forth but have only added about 10 teaching positions you could have used that money to raise teacher pay add more teachers but no you choose to continue down this road that does not provide our kids with the education they deserve and that
050is why parents are leaving Wake County thank you Miss L Hogs our next speaker is Miss Caitlyn Trader all right come on we let's let's give each speaker an opportunity uh to come up first we'll hear from Miss Caitlyn Trader and Miss Trader will be followed by uh Mr Robert Trader good evening hello give me a little pallet cleanser here totally different topic I live in the Ashley DS Community which is 900 ft from all of Chapel Elementary School I'm here to talk about the rezoning of our neighborhood and Pearson Farms being moved to bacham elementary school as part of the initial draft proposal I've spent the last few weeks doing research speaking to members of my immediate community and surrounding areas and attending every virtual and as many in-person meetings regarding this issue as
051I could I've asked many questions about how moving our communities meets your policy code 4150 and haven't been able to get any answers we appreciate how incredibly hard this job must be I can't imagine how stressful it is figuring all this out so many lives will be impacted therefore I completely understand the pressure you all must be under that being said we deserve that same respect and understanding which means we deserve to know why this proposal has ashle downs and Pearson Farms neighborhoods moving to bakam to be honest there's an endless amount of evidence I can bring up to prove that moving these communities away from oce would be detrimental on every level for families and the community at large I can tell you how it goes against your stability pillar how our families would
052go from year round to traditional back to year round and then to traditional again with no option to switch to a traditional Middle School I could share with you how moving children like this has a negative impact on their student achievement I can share the peer-reviewed Articles the psychological analyses I can tell you how moving Ashley DS and Pearson Farms takes the majority of the walking Community away from oce and forcing them to either drive or require School transport Transportation but will not only put a strain on local traffic but also will impede operational efficiency I could tell you how some of my neighbors used to hit golf balls from their backyards and made it into oce because we're that close the proximity pillar of your policy is very clearly not met when it comes
053to Ashley DS and Pearson Farms because we live in the immediate vicinity I could share all that and more but I expect you all know these things already I expect you know these things because this is your job and the fact that you're all here today proves to me you're good at it you know what you're doing I also believe that moving Ashley DS and Pearson Farms must have been an oversight or a mistake until we're shown otherwise this proposal for our communities does not make sense and we are eager for it to make sense we're more than willing to do the work coming up with different plans tossing ideas around staying at oce is beyond important for our families I have three kids that attend oce luckily they meet the stability requirements and will
054be able to stay unfortunately that isn't true for a lot of families in our communities there are people that have lived there for 10 plus years who lived there before the cap was even put into place who have young children and will not be able to go to oce even though we're 900 ft away I urge you please reexamine The Proposal specifically looking at Ashley DS and Pearson Farms we have been with oce in it for its entire existence moving us away would essentially break the community we understand how stressful confusing and exhausting working on this is and we know that you are doing the most you can to create the least amount of negative impact on families and because we know that we're confident you'll take our words to Heart along with the many
055comments on the thought exchange to keep Ashley DS and Pearson Farms with Olive Chapel Elementary School thank you thank you Mr Trader our next speaker tonight is Robert Traer and Mr trador will be followed by John bog hey good evening hello everybody um you can probably guess why I'm here uh I'm also from Ashley DS believe it or not um if you're not sure where that is you can just picture Olive Chapel Elementary School and picture walking 900 ft away as my wife said and you're there uh there are literally no buildings in between my neighbor neighborhood and Olive Chapel Elementary School and yet our neighborhood and that of person Pearson farms uh which is directly adjacent to us have been rezoned away from all of Chapel Elementary School at least under the proposal uh
056I mean I'm resigned to the fact that you're not going to change your minds uh that's not why I'm here tonight I'm here because I want transparency uh you say that new maps were drawn with the guidance of your four pillars uh two of these pillars stability and student achievement um just seem like platitudes that would apply equally to any neighborhood in any situation anywhere at any time uh but the one pillar that is directly measurable proximity to school has apparently not been applied Ashley downs and Pearson Farms are the two closest neighborhoods to Olive Chapel Elementary and yet they've been decoupled from the school uh if we could get an explanation a reason why every other neighborhood scored higher than Ashley dser Pearson Farms that would satisfy me if you could say you were
057being reassigned because of x uh I might not be happy with the outcome but at least I could see that you're making decisions based on something other than Vibes or you know reading the tea leaves um if you've already made this data available pardon my ignorance uh when I've been searching for it I found the explanation for why reassignment is necessary I found the explanation for what factors would be considered and I found the proposed reassignment map but I haven't seen the raw data uh underpinning that map I know the data exists I know it because you said you were making your decisions based on these real measurable factors and I trust that you wouldn't lie to us uh you may say you don't have the data you may say it's in the hands of
058some contractor that Drew the maps for you and you didn't think to ask them to show their work uh you may say that the data is too complicated for us to understand um but I say show us because if you're right you have nothing to hide and we have and you have nothing to lose we deserve transparency um that's it but trans rights are human rights trans lives matter trans rights okay thank you Mr Trader our next speaker tonight o excuse me our next speaker tonight is Mr John bog and Mr bog will be followed by Jessica Lewis good evening Mr Bon good evening how you doing doing well thank you good evening School board thank you for your time back in July this board voted 7 to2 to implement Biden's Title Nine changes those
059changes redefine discrimination Andor harassment based on biological sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity seven members here made a choice for an unconstitutional decision from the US education department the Chevron decision in 1984 allowed federal agencies to interpret and change or enhance laws passed by Congress that has been deemed unconstitutional Title 9 is another example of that you wanted 100 million from the government payout we now know what your price is when making a decision to protect our students to make it work you had to modify your policy 1710 and 1720 I can understand your frustration the government payout comes with strings attached as we all know now some in the government can't Define what a woman is points of confusion include freedom of speech pronouns overnight trips locker rooms bathrooms showers at least
06051 Wake County schools are on a temporary legal hold not to implement your lawyers are confused parents Bill of Rights are key possible conflicts with the state laws liabilities it all makes our heads swim I'm curious how will Wake County Schools accommodate a biological male transgender who is now pregnant here's an idea in approximately two weeks starting on October 17th each of you can cast your vote for school board members vote for common sense you don't need more money to do this in District three you can vote for Dr in thank you Dr in in District 5 you can vote for Ted Hills in District Six you can vote for Josh points and in District eight you can vote for Elizabeth M McDuffy problem and confusion solved but if any of you lacks Wisdom ask
061of God who gives to all and without reproach and it will be given to him thank you very much I'm waiting for the 2023 sorry 2023 2024 grades to see how our product our students are doing uh I don't know why they have to wait till the end of o October when everything's digital right now um but thank you and real quick I have 20 seconds our daughter is a teacher in bravard County up in the mountains I have my truck packed I was going to go do some wiring to make the generator that they have uh take care of the house they have no water uh I just got a text she said don't come takes about 7 hours to get there it's dangerous hurricanes don't mean much to dads but uh she said
062they might get their hour Friday so thank you Mr bog and good luck to your daughter our next speaker is Miss Jessica Lewis will be followed by uh John amanaka my name is Jessica and I'm the vice chair of moms for Liberty I have two children in the Wake County School System there are a couple of issues that I would like to speak about tonight first one being at the meet the teacher my daughter's science teacher introduced himself and thought it was appropriate to share his pronouns with all of us parents my daughter told me also he asked the students for their pronouns as well I find this entirely inappropriate and unrelated to academic success I then arranged a meeting with our core teachers in the seventh grade assistant principal during the meeting I made
063it very clear to the science teacher to please not ever ask my daughter what her pronouns are again I also spoke to her Ela teacher and asked for a list of books the students would be reading this year I expressed my concerns about inappropriate content in school books um given past incidents in the district well I left the meeting feeling somewhat reassured that her teachers now underst understood to keep gender identity out of the classroom another issue has come up this past weekend my classroom or my daughter's friend sent her a picture of her Ela teacher dressed in a white frilly skirt standing outside his classroom door the image has spread across the student group chats as a teacher in an authority figure there's a level of professional ISM that's expected his attire is a
064major red flag what message is is sending to students and why is this being allowed Sam Hershey this is your school Martin midle how will you address this issue I do not want this teacher around my daughter and I request her removal from his class immediately next I want to acknowledge the brave 15-year-old student who spoke about the short story she had read it in her class at Athens this is the second time inappropriate content has surfaced from Athens with the first book being the absolutely true Diary of a Part-Time Indian I emailed the school asking how this issue will be addressed and who is responsible for selecting the ELA curriculum at Athens Drive and am yet to get a response to be clear this isn't about banning books it's about ensuring age appropriate content
065that protects the innocence of our children you can and must do better in selecting materials that encourage critical thinking without exposing their children to damaging content Lynn Edmonds this is your school and I have reached out to you twice and I'm still waiting for your response there needs to be a resolution immediately given the growing numbers of students struggling with depression anxiety and other mental health challenges this content is harmful and needs to be removed from the classrooms my daughter has stated um slated to attend Athens Drive and so I will pursue this issue until appropriate action is taken seven of you are responsible for students leaving the school system seven of you need to stop voting on policies that harm our children seven of you are against school choice but yet you are the
066reason parents want School of Choice how many more students is it going to take leaving this District before you change your ways our kids deserve better all right thank you our next speaker is John Aman chukra and Mr Alan chukra will be followed by Our Last speaker for the evening Natalie Lou my name is John Alman chuku and the last name means I I know God and I'm glad to say that I do I'm also the founder of iow god. us this board is in viol a of HB 49 matter of fact you all are criminals right now you're criminals because you are not adhering to state law what gives you the authority and the right to break state law the parental Bill of Rights was passed last May went into effect on January 1
067and there are several books that are quite damaging to children that are still in several schools in this District books like Born Ready the true story of a boy boy named penel penelopy Calvin I am Jazz uh it feels good to be yourself when Aiden became a brother worm loves worm call me Max introducing Teddy Jack not Jackie my princess boy Sparkle Boy 10,000 dresses Morris MWI and the Tangerine dress Julian is a mermaid Julian at the wedding my princess boy all of these different books are still in your libraries you're violating the law and what gives you the authority to do so what gives you the right in the gumption to think that you can break the law and no one do anything about it consider the young girl that came two weeks ago
068Lorina Benson she stood here at the age of 15 and told you that she was forced to read a pornographic book she's traumatized by it her parents pour her out of the school system who has done anything to make sure we bring that young girl Justice where is her justice where is it Lynn you like to talk about politics you have a lot to say about Democrat policies and Republican policies you love to be very political where is the justice for that 15y old young girl came to came to this country nearly three years ago where is her justice we want Justice for the trans students who have a mental illness but we give no justice to Children across the board you want to know why you all don't give Justice to everyone because you
069lie about diversity equity and inclusion Dei is the ultimate black face you say it's about Negroes and black people but it's really about pushing a trans agenda and guess what since you like to break laws since you won't give Lina Benson Justice when this clock has three minutes I'm not going anywhere all right our next speaker is Miss Natalie Lou Justice for Larina Benson the next speaker is Miss Natalie l Justice for Lina Benson and once again justice justice for Lina bensson this is a public meeting and disruption of the meeting is against North Carolina General statute Justice the meeting will be cleared we would ask the rest of to please follow Justice for Lina Benson M say her name say her name no we haven't reached it yet say her name Justice for Lina
070bitson I can't sir I can't Justice for Arina Benson Justice for Lina Benson you need to go arrest them no arrest every last one of those people who are are keeping the pornographic books and the gender confusion books in the school system Justice for L we will stand in recess until the room Justice forina Benson Justice for Lina Benson Justice for the kids who still have gender confusion books in the school system they're breaking the law sir you have to go you all are breaking the law sir you need to the officer is talking to the wrong person understand he should be talking to y'all you need to go the officer is talking to the wrong person Mr Alan this point I must instruct you to leave thank you you have been instructed by the
071presiding officer I am following North Caroline General statute breaking the law you are also you are breaking the law you are breaking the law you are breaking the law you should be removed I e for e e e e e e all right everyone welcome back we are returning from our recess um I want to I want to especially express my gratitude to miss Lou thank you for remaining for your comment I apologize for the disruption and the delay but you came all this way to speak at public comment I want to make sure you have that opportunity board members asked Miss Lou if she was comfortable and wanted to speak now or later in the meeting and I think she did want to go ahead with comment as planned so thank you for joining
072us thank you very much and you can begin whenever you're ready all right my name's Natalie Lou and I am uh Raleigh um and I'm here to support uh the original title 9 I'm in 1980s product of Wake County Schools I ended up going to college I have a a b in math and so here's our wonderful bell curve that everybody is familiar with all this Chunk in the here is what you know as is normal and on the ends we have not normal so normal is basically usually usual typical and expected not normal doesn't mean it's bad it's just not usual not typical and not expected so girls that like to lay bricks work on cars jump out of airplanes they're not typical but that's okay nothing wrong with that in my day back
073in the 80s boys that did gymnastics did cheerleading they were unusual they're not normal but thanks to them doing those things they had more opportunity to do those things my athletic ability I'm not normal for a female I'm not normal but that's why I was an elite athlete so only 16 people in the US were better than me and one of them was Jackie Joiner Cy as you know I've held some records at um NCSU and UT for over 25 and 35 years I'm not normal but how do I compare to a boy we have our little girl graph here and if I put the boys up you can see that I'm like sorry it's a little Elementary I'm way down here all right so my being an elite athlete when you compare me to
074a boy I'm kind of on the bottom half of normal for the boys we know that normal for boys they're bigger they're stronger they're faster than girls boys are more competitive to than girls most boys are better than me even though only 16 women in the United States of America were better than me back in the 80s um most of you guys know that I'm involved with the RDU wak stone rock Cory fighting the keep a rock Cory off of Odd Fellows a very beautiful piece to forested land saying boys and girls are the same is like saying that forested tract is the same thing as a rock Cory not true so um boys that are straight gay or trans do not belong in girls sports girls locker rooms or girls spaces being gay or
075trans is not is part of somebody's personality it is not part of their biology it's okay it's just their personality it's not their biology ology the norm should be for boys to accept all boys of all personality types same thing with girls we accept all the girls of all different personality types I'm a big tomboy back in the day there's other girls that like dance and do fluffy things we're still all girls it's okay to separate people by their biology that is normal that is expected and that is good please keep our original Title Nine keep girls sports for girls for girls that's all I got for now thank you all right and thank you everyone in the audience for your participation for helping us to maintain qum and allowing us to finish our public
076comment period thank you very much we'll now turn to the next part of our meeting which is comments from our superintendent Dr Robert Taylor Dr Taylor thank you Mr chair uh before I start my comment tonight I want to spend a little time um uh recognizing Western North Carolina in the in the tremendous um um things that they've been through with hurricane Al uh I've asked that we post on our website uh information about recovery support and resources uh for that part of the state and what we can do to assist them uh with this information you'll find information about how you can make Financial donations um uh how you can uh help with school resources that districts May uh ask for General donations and even how you can volunteer I will tell you that
077uh these kind of of natural disasters uh can be a heavyweight on a community and it is incomp upon us uh and the rest of the state that we take time to be able to reach out and support them uh when those support systems are in place and ready for us to assist uh so let's please keep them uh in their in our thoughts and prayers and I'm and I'm grateful that my daughter was able to return from Asheville North Carolina uh to Raleigh uh and so this Dad is is quite comfortable as a result but we know what other people are going to so please keep them in your thoughts and prayers uh and with that uh I'd like to start by congratulating the students families and staff of Willow Springs Elementary which was
078named the 2024 National Blue Ribbon School by the US Department of Education last week uh Willis Springs was one of just six schools in North Carolina and 356 schools across the entire country to receive this most prestigious award the National Blue Ribbon program recognizes schools that excel in academic performance or make significant strides in closing achievement gaps among student groups these schools serve as models of effective and Innovative School practices Willow Springs principal Camille Miller says the secret to her school's success is their commitment to creating a student centered environment she says that Willow Springs is not just a place of learning but a home away from home where students are nurtured supported and inspired to thrive academically socially and emotionally this approach extends to staff members and the close-knit culture has resulted in a
079low turnover rate and a healthy Spirit of collaboration teachers work together to cultivate a deep understanding of the standards and the science of learning and they are trusted to develop Target instructional strategies that ensure all students Master essential skills for all these reasons and more the academic proficiency rate at Willow Springs is higher than both the state and District average principal Miller and everyone in will Springs Elementary Community should be extremely proud that through their hardworking commitment to supporting one another their school has been recognized as one of the best in the entire nation it's also a useful reminder that this people Center approach which every school in our district is striving for every day is a sure far way to help close longstanding gaps in academic achievement when students and Staff feel valued they
080will perform better my uh my thanks and appreciation to everyone at Willis Springs Elementary for putting this simple principle into practice and serving as a national model of its Effectiveness next I'd like to congratulate Colin Richardson of green Hope High School on being named the 2024 North Carolina history teacher of the year by the Gilder lman Institute of American history as an American history teacher you know I am quite jealous this award recognizes teachers for their outstanding contributions to American history education Mr Richardson will join the esteemed group of 53 finalists at a special ceremony in New York City next month where the 2024 National history teacher of the year award recipient will be named Richardson teaches AP US History and honor sociology at Green hope he is a proud Green Hope alumnist and is
081now in his 11th year teaching at his Alma moer uh he has served on his uh School Improvement and Equity teams and as a faculty representative uh for the PTSA he is a regular presenter at the North Carolina Council for social studies most recently for his work creating and leading an Asian-American oral history project teachers like Mr Richardson who make a point of fully engaging with their students and colleagues inside and outside the classroom represent the best of the best so again congratulations again on this well-deserved honor next I'd like to share uh that the month of October provides multiple opportunities to celebrate our students with special needs and the caring professionals who support them October is disability history and awareness month across the state of North Carolina a chance to increase public awareness and
082respect for students and adults with disabilities this year's theme is unity in diversity our special education services team has provided schools with a number of Engagement opportunities to encourage common language and understanding including classroom discussion prompts and guidelines for creating banners posters and social media posts highlighting disability uh awareness activities our schools have done a wonderful job in past years of facilitating meaningful engagement with students during disability history and awareness month and I'm sure this year will be no different October also gives us a chance to celebrate two important groups of employees our school audiologist and physical therapists our District employees 14 a audiologists and 24 physical therapist I got some notes somewhere else do it go you okay there we go got to flip it over right audiologists are professionals trained in to D
083agnos manage treat uh Hearing and Balance problems in children's and adults due to the significant background noise other Factor School environments present a unique listening challenge for students with hearing loss educational audiologists are responsible for ensuring that students with hearing loss have appropriate educational uh accommodations to minimize any impact of hearing loss on students access to instruction School physical therapist support students so they can safely assess uh access access to school environment and engage in educational activities as independently as possible a school-based PT considers the students ability to access the whole school campus including walking in the hallway getting on and off the bus playing on the playground and sitting during lunch and class instruction the school PT assesses functional mobility balance and other factors for all of these environments and provides the students but
084the needed support uh so we're fortunate to have these highly trained professionals working every day to eliminate barriers to learning and social emotional development so I hope our students families and staff will find meaningful ways uh this month and all year long to show their appreciation for our students and staff in special education I'd also like to recognize um this as custodi appreciation week uh and some will see it listed as custodial Appreciation Day on October the 2nd uh we know that they do a tremendous jobs in keeping our schools clean and that has a tremendous impact on the learning environment uh Beyond being uh people who keep our schools clean they are also outstanding mentors to our students so I encourage our schools to do everything they can to recognize our custodial staffs during
085this week uh lastly September the 15th through October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month and our schools are celebrating the occasion with a variety of cultural events take a look at this video for one such celebration here recently at Wilburn Elementary Wilburn Elementary School was one of many wcpss schools to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and they did so with the community engagement event so we had a Hispanic heritage celebration tonight where we had students and performers come in dance to celebrate Hispanic heritage fun students took the stage with dance performances and also shared facts about hispanic Heroes she is an eight time Grammy over award winning singer author of two New York Times bestselling children's books so we're just hoping to make connections with our families bringing them into our building um and also just celebrating
086all the different cultures we have here at Wilbur this is an amazing event that helps bring our families in it helps celebrate it helps everybody feel like they're one you should come out and join us and that concludes my comments Mr chair thank you Dr Taylor so had very different remarks prepared for tonight coming into the meeting and I do want to to talk about a few of them you know one thing coming up later than this week is that we will be celebrating naming and celebrating our principal of the year and our assistant principal of the year and this is a fantastic celebration this year as chair I have to sit on the selection committee for one of the different areas in which the candidates are judged and you know it's like they say
087you love all your kids equally maybe differently but equally all of this year's all of this year's finalists are just absolutely wonderful there are principles that I have known for years that are loved and produced fantastic results in their school there are principles that are new on the job and have done amazing things in very short time they're principles that have gone into incredibly challenging situations and produced just amazing results for their families and for their students and so you know I look around the board I encourage all of you to attend this year's ceremony I think everybody attended last year when you hear the stories of these you know these these great principles and the great assistant principles it really will inspire you Dr Taylor I'm glad that you talked about flood relief um
088many of us know families that were affected from by the hurricane um one of the things if you've seen there there are a number of eight organizations that are working to coordinate relief efforts up in Wake County I do want to alert all of you to a situation that we might be seeing here locally which is that there were I've received several calls this week there have been so many families that are being displaced by the devastation by the floods by by the wind the rain the tree damage many of them won't be back in their homes for some time some of them have family some of them have friends here in Wake County and they're going to be coming and staying with our community for a while many of them have children and these
089children will want to continue their public education and so that means welcome them into our public schools now we've talked about the problems with school funding and how we calculate funding based on the average daily membership after 10 days well again we are going to have to find ways to make each of these students and these families welcome and find a way to do it in such a way is to already to minimize the trauma that they're already going through and so you know Dr Taylor You've Been copied on it I've reached out to staff to tr to start producing that information having it available for families either the families that might be locating here or families that already live here that might be hosting families so we can try to make this transition as
090easy as possible for a lot of families that are going through a very difficult difficult time now I want to recognize some of our college students who are with us to tonight we have some wonderful students that are here in our our future Teachers program and y'all you've seen it all now I don't know if when you were planning on attending the school board meeting you're planning for these kinds of Fire works but you know we appreciate you sticking it out standing you know sitting with us through the whole whole time and that really shows your dedication and we know that you have to be tough and have strong character to be teachers and so we just want to let you know how much we all appreciate you here so thank you for coming to
091our meeting tonight now I was going to talk more about school funding tonight and I think maybe some of other board members might want to address some of the issues because you know with 30 days until the election education becomes a political issue and you know I try to keep our meetings focused on local issues and focused on what we do here and what we can control but there's really no way that we can do our jobs with Fidelity without talking about the current movement against public education and and just defunding and weakening public education and it doesn't make sense to me you know public education is what made our state great and separated us from many other states that had like highly rural economies and you know we're threatened with rural poverty you know
092public education building our Public Schools or universities or community colleges is I mean that created the engine for growth of companies wanting to move here because of our educated Workforce not just in our cities but all over the state and so you know when we see policies that are designed for for really no other reason but to weaken public education we have to call that out now you know even around this even around this table we'll have different ideas different ideologies but we came together at the beginning of the year to try to come up with some common principles some common language around a legislative agenda and you know one of those positions was simply that we all felt that we should fund public schools first before making money available to private institutions and I
093know some of us support private institutions some of of us wouldn't want any public dollars going to any private institution but but but the the position we agreed upon was at least take take care of the public schools first and we know that's not happening we know that we're not getting the funding to address all of the problems that we see in our schools and so we turn to local funding and that local funding to increase our bus driver salaries to increase our teacher salaries I mean that's financed through our property taxes and that money comes out of funds that we would use for building more schools renovating schools all of those things that the county is supposed to pay for and it it just doesn't make sense to me because I mean these schools
094these are the state schools these are our public schools these are the Constitutional responsibility of the state and you know it's okay if people want to choose other options but if you're responsible for something you should take care of it and it's it's it's like you know it's like our legislature owns a McDonald's but it's telling everyone to have it their way and give them coupons to Burger King right let people go to Burger King if they want to go to Burger King but if you own McDonald's invest and take care of McDonald's you know I I'm I'm I'm very flustered by the situation um you know when we talk about these funding needs we're met with responses about oh well maybe Wake County needs an audit and everyone around this table knows we have
095we're not only audited every year we not only win awards for our audits for our financial scrutiny we have independent audits that are an additional layer of public accountability many of you have have been on the Committees and reviewed those documents you know we get finger pointing that well all of these needs should have been paid for out of your Esser funds and how were funds used well you all have sat in on the meetings you've seen the documentation you've tracked the dollars Dr Taylor has done a good job you all received email documenting how those funds were used for which HVAC repairs and what other important funding needs were required to address the needs that came up in the pandemic so you know I can't I can't change what the debate is but I
096can try to respond to misinformation when I hear it and continue to site the needs we have for our public schools and I'm going to continue to do that now the elephant in the room no pun is what just happened and I want to apologize to everyone in our audience and I want to apologize to your teachers and everyone else for the disruption um you know Miss Lou I'm glad you stuck around and were able to give your comments and I just want to give an appreciation for those of you who do come to our meetings who do follow the procedures Miss Peterson Mr Deon Miss Lou and others you may be here occasionally you may be here every week but you come in you prepare your comments you deliver them thoughtfully and professionally and
097you follow the rules that were set and you know even if we disagree I respect the professionalism and the civility in the respect for discourse that you bring so that we can have those conversations and that's true of most of our public speakers on what whatever side that we bring but what we just saw was a publicity stunt plain and simple you know one of the previous speakers is not from Wake County he he presents he promotes documentaries and what we saw was a premeditated publicity stunt he's from white count he is white count so I well if he was I apologize I was told he was not so you know that but this was a premeditated stunt and you know it no one on this board is breaking the law to make that kind
098of accusation especially if you've worked to pass the law you should know what's in the law and to say otherwise to say that we are violating the law is ignorant and it's lious and we're not you know we're not going to stand for that you can come up you can disagree with us you can even be like Mr bog an advocate for electing other candidates that's within your constitutional rights but a publicity stunt and using this forum for that purpose is simply wrong so again advocate for your issues advocate for the sides that you want to but we have law North Carolina state law which I'm so tired of reading every single meeting at the start and which I didn't think I would I would have to keep reading because everyone who's come in has
099followed those procedures and followed that law and generally been respectful of each other but when you come in and you take over the public forum for that purpose and disrupt the meeting and then do not allow do not clear the podium do not allow others to speak You're impeding the business of the board you're impeding our official business and our official meeting and you're keeping other speakers from speaking and keeping the board from doing its business so I'm not going to say anything more than that I hope that addresses the situation again you know this is this this is America we have a First Amendment we have the the ability to speak out to speak our beliefs to agree to disagree but we also have regulations about the use of public forums and the time
100the place and the manner it's not the content of what's being said it's coming in and disrupting a meeting and you know holding things up that's something that we have to have order if we're going to have ordered civilized society so at this point in time I would turn it over to our vice chair Vice chair Johnson hostler who's not here so instead we'll just go around the room for board comment I'll start Miss rice if you're ready today thank you Mr appreciate that all right I'll get started good evening everyone I want to speak on Solutions based conversations that serve our community best on September the 10th at Southeast Raley Magnet High School in the auditorium did um did you guys know that the flood Glo group partnered with the um experienc Aviation Inc
101DBA barington Irving Technical Training School uh to begin a pre-apprenticeship and Workforce Development stem program to Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School students where students will will get additional Education and Training in stem and Aviation bits will serve as the structional technical and instructional Catalyst for the project the flood group will serve as the fiary physical overseer um for the to support families in the um Southeast Raleigh specifically the pre-apprenticeship program allows a strategic partnership between underserved Target populations training um providers employees within Raleigh so I was really excited to be a part of that um program um when they that when um Mr barington did a presentation uh he was very engaged with the students it was absolutely amazing um students were engaged they were listening he was handing out money um but he was
102showing students direct connections between their education and their financial uh status later on in life um and so it's an amazing program that I was very excited to be able to participate and I'm excited about the beginning orientation of what's happening with that on Sunday uh September 29th at uh kdic cult science and um system of unity K cssu they presented a discussion panel called weighing of the heart um with talks about Equitable solutions to ending the school to prison pipeline in the African-American Community it was a robust conversation with key leaders in Wake County um there were disagreements but the thing about the disagreement it was cordial and civil in the disagreements and I love how the a P's chief of police spoke of how we can still find commonalities that unite us to
103support all weight County students yes linday a big old heart for Him He was absolutely amazing um um and it is and is in that um Same Spirit of unity I'll end my comments with one of the eight Dimensions of Wellness and tonight we're going to do something a little different one Wellness of the eight Dimensions I have not done let me open this thing I wrote out okay and I'm getting there all right so tonight's eight dimension of Wellness everybody since we've talked is spiritual Wellness we've talked a lot tonight about breaking the law and I want to encourage us to keep the law of love you shall love your neighbor as yourself a spiritual Wellness tip for being non-judgmental and working productively with others in a school system community staff and students is
104to practice compassionate understanding this means recognizing that everyone in their own in their own Journey shaped by different experiences perspectives and challenges instead of jumping to conclusions or judgments approach each person and situation with empathy seeking first to understand rather than to be understood in a practical sense let's look like active list listeners valuing diversity of thought and promoting inclusivity when differences arise focus on common goals such as Student Success staff well-being and Community strength and encourage collaboration through shared respect this will help create an environment where everyone feels valued and motivated to contribute their best spiritually this practice deepens your own peace and connection to other building unity and productivity in a meaningful way so yes practice some positive spiritual Wellness tonight thanks for everybody thank you so much Miss rice Miss Coffield thank
105you um I wanted to say um education is one of the biggest issues and I know that it's getting very passionate and everything as we get closer to the election but it's because it's where it all begins and where it all ends it's with our children it's what it's all about it's our number one goal so while I understood a lot of what you said uh chair hagy I all I agree with most of it I agree with some of you know the points that you made and I don't agree with some others but actually I think I disagree um because of some of our focuses and the details matter because it can change our ask and what we can do so I'd like to share some information that Al that also needs to be
106considered when the public may or may not hear all of the details and I guess it's kind of my diversity of thought so week after week we come here and I advocate for our children focusing on Reading Writing and and life skills ways that we can help our teachers help our students and our families that's our families that I'm concerned with these are the people that make our community and all they want is the best for their children and while we assist the parents with the goal by educating their children with this Reading Writing and math and life skills this day and age I would love for us to remove the politics out of the classroom and focus solely on the goals that prepare our children no matter what that means so that has been
107my goal from day one and as a parent I know how important my child is no one else is going to love them or care for them more than me so I understand where parents are coming from it's been said a couple of times that I am not advocating for public schools because I acknowledge that sometimes we are not able to provide what they may need or sometimes they need us to listen sometimes we are not making the necessary changes that a family may need I'm actually it's actually that I'm advocating for the changes that we need to accommodate their needs so I wanted to be clear that I do support our Public Schools but that means our students it means our teachers it's never changed not agreeing with the business decisions that we are
108making does not mean that I don't believe in public schools it means that I don't believe in how we are doing it right now it means I know and I believe that we can do better it means I know that we can be our parents number one choice our teachers number one choice that we can have what we need and focus on our HVAC and and bus drivers being the number our number one us being their number one choice it means that I hear the real issues that they are struggling with it means that I know that we can do better acknowledging that with the choice and opportunity does not mean I don't support Public Schools it means I support every child and at the time that they may need it because some of those
109children actually come back to us um so to say because we say so um they don't have to fit into a particular box and especially if simultaneously we are not listening to what our families are telling us then they're concerned about our proficiencies and everything that's happening around them in their schools we can't fit in everybody else's box so I understand what it is that they're saying and I am willing to listen so while I want to be their number one choice I know sometimes we can't be and I don't think it's necessarily always a choice sometimes it really cannot be our schools and I get it so I believe that when we had letters the science of reading we went back to the basics we went back to what works and and I think
110this is what the families are asking for they want that support to be heard and understood they want their proficiencies and and everything that's happening in the classroom the behavioral supports the teachers want the same thing so I want to also repeat that we do have a ton of opportunity a lot of advantages for parents to be part of our community here at Wake County Public Schools but I know that they are focused on the goals on how we get there so I'm going to skip some of what I said because of just a lot of the things that were mentioned already today my job is not to advocate for the system it's to advocate for the teachers and our students and I will continue to do that regardless of somebody's trying to say I
111don't support Public Schools supporting Public Schools doesn't mean that I go along to get along it means I'm trying to have those conversations and put those things on the table like bullying discipline that helps in every one of our elementary schools a better math program connecting our parents with resources to advocate for our teachers like I did all summer long I met with legislators to advocate for longevity pay Master's pay and some flexible spunding with our funds like the restart program has this is supporting the public schools our teachers and our fam's needs so in the past we have been at the top I know when I first moved here I was so excited because we moved to up into Wake Forest and and when my kids kids were too young to actually join school
112at this point and actually my other son was not born yet but at that point we were at the top in the nation so I know that we can get there I know if we listen and and open up our minds to some of the things some of it we may need to pause and step back and see what was working before I think this is what families want to hear and this is why they're getting frustrated they want to know that we're willing to listen to them and consider that when a young lady leaves our school that sends a clear message that we need to do better and listen harder and that means putting something back on the table to have a discussion then maybe we should do that for as far as the
113opportunity scholarships to be clear I don't feel that that money is stolen from public schools we have $2.2 billion in our budget that we're responsible to allocate and that's up to us and each year we ask for 50 to$ 60 million dollar more from the county if millions and millions of dollars more each and every year is not helping our proficiency scores jump or even f faster than we needed to be then are we putting all of our money in the right places more money doesn't fix the problem spending it in the right places does we have neighboring counties that have that have reconsidered and I know I had discussed this before they went to zero balance budgeting and they found a lot of money in different places that they could reallocate to where they
114are and with the opportunity scholarships I wanted it to be clear that there are tiers tier one is only up to 57,000 that means means for a family of four that only makes $57,000 they get the most money they get $7,200 and tier two is only up to 115,000 for a family of four now all of us live here in way County we know that if you have several adults working and some of them are working two jobs 115,000 taking care of four kids is really pretty hard so and that that person the the amount of money that they get goes down and by the time you get up to tier four where they are making 260,000 for a family of four or they do not report their income those families get $3,200 so in
115way County we get $ 13,508 per student if they only get $3200 towards their tuition they don't get the other $1,380 out that there is in fact a provision in the law that adds the savings of that quote lost student back and it goes back to the public schools so the notion that we're stealing millions of dollars from our Public Schools makes it sounds like we're just taking the money away from our school and giving it to another school instead it's just simply not true if we were able to take the money that we are getting and put it into Pockets that we need and kind of tune fine-tune a little bit of more of our spending I believe that we can get a better picture of where we can put our dollars it's not
116in lie of the monies that we're that we're directing in into the classroom so while I do agree with what you're saying I do Advocate I want to ask our legislators to put longevity pay and Master's pay back in for our teachers I want them to give us flexibility for spending so that we can get more IAS in our classrooms get more bodies in there to AIDS Aid our our teachers and have that flexibility of the restart program more IAS more adults and the I think that's what the teachers need they need the support they need the behavioral supports so that's what I spent the summer doing and I will continue to do that because I think that's what it means to advocate for public schools so I look forward to Dr Taylor and his
117staff making some great changes we heard about a lot of great things today with the Strategic plan I'm excited to see how this next year goes and I hope that we can do better and we will become our students number one choice and we won't have to worry about everybody going to take those opportunity scholarships on a separate note I wanted um to uh Wake County uh Wake Forest I'm sorry had mental uh Health Resource day I think is how they do it they're doing it annually they just started last year and I believe that they are going to try and continue to do that each year going forward as long as they can it was a great event that had families with all types of challenges from Seniors veterans teenagers parents and it ranged
118from Behavioral Health to Suicide Prevention PTSD healthy active minds and families and F friends that struggle with trauma of suicide they had a lot of really great resources and I'm excited that these connections um and of these con connections and I'm looking forward to seeing those changes on our website as we learn that they are working on some of those changes to bring that we will keep you T in tune with that um I think it's important for us to connect our towns our municipalities and the school resources and vice versa for us to share with them them to share with us so that we can get all the information that that our families need um and then last I just wanted to say some extra prayers for all the families that were affected the
119devastation is overwhelming while we cannot go there and deliver any of this uh any of the things that they need there are long list that I will post for people that want to know what they can contribute there's many ways to provide the supplies to the E emergency crews that are going up there so I'll share that on my website if anybody is interested and prayers go out to everybody because this is going to be a very long Devastation for people to recover from that's it thank you Miss Coffield Mr Swanson thank you Mr chair and originally I did not have any comments prepared but in lie of the circus that we saw um during public comments I decid to change and so I mean y'all be safe um what I also want to say
120is congratulations to our principal and AP of the year uh one of those I had the pleasure of working with our AP uh uh finalist Miss uh Smith um who taught at in low Magnet High School and my former principal Dr Jackie Jordan and congratulations to all of them um with that being said I also want to now discuss more serious matters I want to thank those future teachers for being the adults in the room um often times you will see nonsense in your classrooms uh this is just getting you all prepared for what's at stake and your dedication you showing up and being the true adults uh is really what's important so thank you and looking forward to the great things that you all are going to do um you know I I do
121believe that everyone has the right to address their concerns as laid out in our constitution but you know that behavior that we saw at public comment would not been acceptable in my classroom when I was a teacher and it should not be acceptable here because what that did what that stunt whatever you want to call it was for views political agendas nonsense and for folks to say they want to remove the politics out of the classroom M Practice What You Preach Practice What You Preach use your vote as your voice um you know we talk about discipline and behavior you got to lead by example if you want to see that behavior changed and and and model What You Preach uh it's just the hypocrisy of it all and yes we are 17 days from
122the beginning of early voting and so I hope folks do make their voices heard make their voices count because who is in control of our schools matter character always matters and I think it is just appalling for the same group the same stunts to come up here and use this and take this show across the it's nonsense they speak for a solid majority of folks and that's what gives me so much hope because looking two years ago when all these seats were up the voters have always spoken and chosen public schools for a reason they've always fought to believe in our public schools and I'm hoping and and the same thing happens this time you know these mics and these platforms that we have that it's it's respon it's we have a responsibility to do
123what is just and what's right you know you can't sit here and say that we're concerned about student behavior and discipline and bullying but yet you use platforms here to say the complete opposite so again the moral is practice what you preach and preach what you say actions speak louder than words we can't sit here and attack communities based on how they choose to identify saying that someone's pronouns does not make grammatical sense and we got to get mind your business these students that we're here for are here and they're in our systems they're in our they deserve love to be seen to be heard and that's what irks me so much and so originally I did not have any remarks but I have so much but I I could go on but the moral
124of the story is vote voting matters voting is cons is is our is our our way of settling political discourse and then holding folks accountable and this whole notion that this removing public dollars going to Charter School is not going to hurt our system I don't know where these folks have been I saw the presentation I saw that we're going to lose nearly was it a billion dollars by 2032 that's a billion dollars I don't know who's going to be able to I don't have a billion dollars and I'm sure looking around the community doesn't want to per year per year excuse me 1 billion per year that we could be using to address HVAC concerns to be addressing teacher shortages and the facts are this teaching shortage is by Design what we're seeing is
125an attack on public schools and and I'll be I'll be very this my last point if there is if it was if if if this whole voucher thing was about even the playing field bill you should take care of the system that you're supposed to first to your appointment Mr chair which is our Public Schools what we're going to see now as two systems getting funded and we know that it's going to be by Design to defund public schools to reallocate our public dollars to give to wealthy folks I said it was is it was a scheme to give wealthy families tax bricks or taking wealthy families giving them welfare for for going to schools that are not held the same standard so I'm going to stop there because this is it's been a long
126night and I want to uh honor the rest of the time of my colleagues but again early voting starts on this in this state on October 17th bring your ID make sure you vote and vote the entire ballot because everything on that ballot is going to affect your life it's going to affect you and the things that are on the back of the ballot that is the closest to you it's going to affect you much worse so happy voting thank you Mr Swanson all so I was going to call on Mr Hershey next unless you're coming up here and you no I I didn't I thought I was going to be last and so you know I was I think I think we all need a shot of go ahead I can brighten us up
127a little bit so I want to shout out to the Meredith College uh students here I'm in District six so on behalf of district 6 principles please do your student teaching in district 6 they are amazing in district 6 and uh the the principles would appreciate it and if I happen to be on the board still then I'll come and be able to shake your hand and all that great stuff and since I'm the only one who went over there to shake your hands remember District Six Mr Hershey I was the first one to go speak to him which which is a good transition because for some reason I just feel compelled to say that I am so happy that Tyler swans is the District 9 representative um on the school board I appreciate you
128very much sir um a few things uh I want to say happy rashash Shana which starts tomorrow evening um I would just leave it at that um I also want to uh we're talking about Western Carolina um and all the things and and all the impacts of the people who live there I also just want to recognize our First Responders and everything they have to go through um to help those people and and they're dealing with the tra tragedy also and and it's a lot it certainly impacts my household um I want to thank Rod Malone and his team for their work on clarifying hp900 um it is 900 right yeah I was thought I almost thought I said the wrong number um and I want to thank and shout out to uh the leadership
129academy families for their um determination for their passion uh for their support of those acmis um you know everybody who worked on finding the new partner and this this application uh from from the school system their hearts are in a in in the right place and ultimately I think we we got to an excellent decision where we're going to submit to Applications so I appreciate staff I appre appreciate um Rod Malone and I really appreciate the families and the students that spoke up about that and then last um because I'm going to keep mine a little shorter um and this kind of touches on I got to find the email real quick uh Dr Taylor mentioned um that was not the right email uh C custodian week so um I was took a visit to
130Lacy Elementary um and found out that uh their custodian was um their September employee uh excellent was the recipient of September employee Excellence award and so I'm going to highlight her and I just want to um share these words from um NC State's number one fan Elena Ashburn uh Miss uh Sharon Harris Lacy Elementary's custodian for over 20 years is a beloved and integral part of the school Community Beyond her meticulous cleaning she goes the extra mile supporting students and staff with unmatched dedication Miss Harris connects deeply with students offering Comfort encouragement and a listening a her kindness makes her a mentor and a friend especially to those who struggle her impact on Lacy Elementary is profound reflecting her commitment to the well-being and growth of every child so shout out to Miss Harris um
131very kind words and I really appreciate her and I got to meet her uh at my visit and um Lacy's a wonderful school they're doing wonderful things they are lucky to have her that concludes my board comments thank you Mr Hershey Dr ining okay all right thank you uh good evening and for the future teachers if you want to be teacher of the year go to District three but seriously um yeah my prayers are with all the people in Western North Carolina um I A friend of mine was vacationing there uh this past week and they were stuck there and they had a hard time trying to leave the area so I am thankful to God that they were finally able to come home to Raleigh on Sunday afternoon um this is after them running
132out of gas having their keys locked in the car and having a flat tire so they were exhausted um so I know there there are countless number of people who were not so fortunate and I am truly heartbroken with the devastation the loss of life and the people who are still missing and the immeasurable impact on the local economy um so this is really a time to put aside our differences and help out in whatever ways we can uh there are a number of relief organizations as we've been mentioning um private groups as well as Church a Affiliated groups who are going out there to help um I my my my family and I donated the Samaritan purse uh they have set up five relief sites across Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee to help
133the communities there as well as the area hospitals that are trying to uh uh uh give um Health Care to the people that need it um the Red Cross is already there and to assist in the local communities and search and rescue operations as well as humanitarian relief um if you're like me and not able to help out physically or have limited time I would urge uh you all to donate money or supplies to those organizations who are going out there and there is always a need for blood uh so I uh encourage people to set up a time to donate blood uh and please continue to pray for the massive effort to find people and to get the help that they need um a couple of weeks ago um The District 3 had our
134BAC meeting at Wildwood Forest magnet Elementary School we had the honor of having Don M from the way County Board vet Commissioners come as our gu special guest our our own Trisha posy and Terry kimsey were also there to help explain the budget process and commission M kind of you know closed the circle and was able to explain their the board's uh role in the partnership to support our increase in Teachers Pay he also gave us a wider view of all the other priorities that they have and uh in addition to supporting uh our uh school system um I believe everybody went away with having a better understanding of the budget process um and finally in reflecting on today's public comments I do have to think about what this ultimately means for the children and
135the parents that we serve um in an effort to be inclusive of various uh Lifestyles we run the risk of alienating many many people who hold a more traditional view of the world so is that really what it means to be inclusive we on the board may not agree on everything but we need to find a common sense solution that we can agree on that factors in the age appropriateness of the books that are on our shelves if we want to protect our children's well-being let's make sure that it includes the children of all backgrounds in this day and age when parents have the option of what kind of education their children get we have to prove to our community that they want to choose public education I am the strongest proponent of public education
136I this is how I got to where I am today and I I still believe in it if we want to be the top choice for our education in Wake County we have to listen to our parents all our parents so that we can eliminate reasons for parents to take their children elsewhere that's all I have to say thank you Dr in our next speaker will be Miss edmans thank you um so chair Hagerty I am actually with the exception of one thing and that's principal of the year I'm going to read my comments exactly as I wrote them this morning before any of this um and the principle of the Year comment I want to make is that I am I deeply regret that I won't be at the celebration this week and so
137I just want to extend my congratulations to all of the principles that have been nominated and to give a prec congratulations to the winners um for principal of the year and AP of the year so these are my comments um band books week was last week and I want to share with you that uh band books week.org is an excellent resource it is up active just because the week has passed um there's lots of great resources there I encourage you to check that out and celebrate All Year regarding hb10 I've got lots more comments about that I want to thank chair Hagerty Vice chair Johnson Hustler and superintendent Taylor for your remarks last week at a press conference and for getting this message out to families I'd like to offer some supporting information to that
138message and respond to some pro vower pro voucher messaging this expansion will cost local taxpayers more money we have made substantial funding requests of our County Commissioners and local taxpayers over the last decade why because the of The Chronic underfunding of public schools from the state county governments are supposed to pay for school infrastructure the state is supposed to pay for teacher salaries classroom supplies and materials bus driver pay they're supposed to adequately staff our schools with counselors School psychologists social workers Etc these are things that our schools need and instead of fully funding these needs the general assembly has prioritized vouchers for the wealthy with hb10 that is going to mean seeking that funding from local taxpayers after our press statement last week speaking against hb10 we were accused of lying about accountability for
139private schools so here's what the legislation says about accountability voucher receiving schools shall administer at least one test per year but that test can be selected by the administrator at the school and does not have to have any link whatsoever to the North Carolina standard course of study because private schools don't have to teach the North Carolina standard course of study they shall report graduation rates to the authority that releases the vouchers there are other shs for other grades um reporting for test scores in reading and spell spelling English grammar and math but none of this not the test scores or the graduation rates have to be made public they don't have to be made public they have to be reported but not made public Dr Taylor how would that fly for the public school
140districts in our state I'm thinking not very well so yes testing is required but but the public won't know what tests are given or the results of those tests that is not not transparency that is not accountability and by the way voucher schools don't get the a through F School letter grades that public schools and charter schools get so we want to be sure that parents know whether they're choosing a failing public school or charter school but somehow that's not necessary for the private voucher schools receiving taxpayer money with regard to how these taxpayer dollars are spent hp10 says that voucher received schools must have an audit but it doesn't require that audit to be public and it's only for schools with 70 students or or more excuse me 70 students or more there are
141many small private voucher receiving schools in our state that have fewer than 70 students that is not transparency that is not accountability for taxpayer dollars finally hb10 continues to allow just one adult at the school to have a background check only the staff member with the highest decision-making Authority is required to have a background check another claim that has been made is that these vouchers are going mostly to low-income students in tiers one and two this is false yes Miss Coffield they get the largest chunk of the voucher but this school year in 55% of the applicants were in tiers three and four that's people making more than $115,000 per year and these were the people on the weit list the wealthiest of the applicants that brought hb10 about hb10 was specifically to ensure that
142the families on this weight list who can already well afford private schools private school tuition get that private school voucher tuition it was to clear that weight list you know what weight list was not cleared the North Carolina pre- weight list almost half of children in North Carolina that are eligible for NC prek sit on a weight list that wasn't a priority so are we really serious about student achievement are we really serious about third grade reading proficiency and we're not going to clear the weight list for our youngest Learners most vulnerable youngest learner Learners to have access to kindergarten Readiness and North Carolina prek that doesn't sound very serious to me if we compare State investment in public schools to State investment in vouchers in recent years here's what that looks like in 2122
143the state invested 15% more in the voucher system and a 7% increase for public schools in 2223 the state increased the voucher funding by 79% in 23 24 the State increased voucher funding by 35% in 2425 the state increased voucher funding by 62% and now with hb10 the state is increasing voucher funding by a whopping 199% in all of those same years except for the one 2122 where the public school system got a 7% increase all those other years that I mentioned the public school system in North Carolina got a 3% increase this is why this board is taking well most of us this is why we are taking a stand not just for ourselves and this District but for all public school districts in the state where the majority of North Carolina's children are
144educated thank you chair thank you Miss Edmonds and we will close with Miss mafy thank you I was reminiscing for a while how when my oldest started kindergarten in 2015 there was a dedicated teaching assistant in every kindergarten class and by the time my youngest started in 2019 that teaching assistant was shared between classes um thank you for choosing to be in the education profession in District 8 we're opening three new schools next year um and on that note I'd like to thank all of the families that did come out and participate in our thought exchange joined in information sessions that were virtual and those that came to the inperson session at Herbert Akens Road Middle School thank you to uh Miss Adkins for opening up your school for us uh Miss Johnson Hustler and
145I were able to speak with several families and I would like to thank not only those folks that came to learn and ask questions but our Student Assignment team long range planning after school programs facilities design and construction magnet schools Athletics academics student Support Services Transportation HR family engagement area superintendence many many principles that were there and also those folks that I may have forgot because there were a lot of District staff there to make sure that these families could get a lot of their questions asked um and I just want to thank them for for being there and be making themselves available on a Tuesday night I would like to thank Dr Robinson and Dr Alfred Keith for coming to our BAC last week um BAC members dissected data related to our strategic plan
146I and I think that discussion was summed up best um by our final comment of the night and one parent said Dr Robinson ask for their takeaways and this parent said and I'm I'm paraphrasing a little but Dr alred Keith and Dr Robinson will keep me honest if I Stray too far there's a conversation out there that our public schools are in a bad place but the reality is our public schools are in a really good place thank you thank you Miss mafy so that concludes our board comments for the evening the next item on our agenda is consideration of our consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda second we have a motion for Miss mfy for approval of the consent agenda items on the consent agenda with a second from Miss rice all
147in favor of approving the items on the consent agenda please signify by saying I I any opposed all right the items on the consent agenda have passed we will now turn to our action agenda uh these our top item tonight is policy uh two items to be presented we have board policy 1810 on sustainability that will be followed by board policy 7810 on evaluation of licensed professionals good evening good evening Mr Bernett this is the second reading of policy 1810 sustainability this item was first discussed at the May policy committee then presented at the September 3rd Board of Education work session then uh and followed by the U most recently at the September 17th Board of Education meeting uh board approval of this policy is requested at this time thank you Mr brunette um before
148we start any discussion is there a motion I'd like to make a motion that we adopt this policy on second reading yes sir all right we have a motion from Miss mfy and we have a second for Mr Hershey uh we brought this policy back we discussed it first at our last meeting well we we discussed it first in policy but we discussed at our last meeting on first reading does anyone have any questions about the policy or anything that they'd like to discuss at this time okay just making sure um in that case we have a motion on the table uh to adopt policy 1810 sustainability on second reading all in favor I any opposed all right the motion passes thank you Mr brnette the next item is board policy 7810 evaluation of evaluation
149of licensed professionals looks like we will have Dr Mello presenting tonight sorry I had to make sure that all of those students knew that whatever Board District they chose I could help them get into White County public schools so um thank you all for um being here tonight so I'm bringing one policy for first reading that's 7810 evaluation of licensed employees we presented this at the August 27th policy committee meeting and board was pretty aligned on language um during that time as a reminder this is a Schoolboard model policy so your black font is the school board's model policy language the blue font is any language that we've brought over from our prior policies or um adjustments we've made to the School Board Association policy and the blue strikeouts um in this case were just
150to streamline remove some redundant language as we presented during the policy committee meeting shared last time too that um we heard the board discussion on ensuring that if we were going to remove some Provisions in the policy that we ensured supervisors were aware of the different requirements and we have reviewed our information on weight connect um to make sure that it is clear for supervisors so um with that um you know this policy would replace 3230 evaluation of licensed employees so tonight I'm requesting the board's approval of the first reading of policy 7810 chair hery I make a motion that we approve this policy on first reading thank you Miss mafy is there a second we have a second from Miss Edmonds is there any discussion about the policy or are there any questions for
151Dr mitello Miss emmans so I'm just going to keep it interesting I actually do have a question about 1810 and I missed my opportunity so Mr Ry it would not change my vote I support 1810 um can I ask that question after we complete this or is it completely off limits because we've already voted unless board members have a concern that's within the proga of the chair to AOW comment Y okay so no that was that was a perfectly legitimate question and um we do have a motion on the table so of course we would take up your question after resolution of this motion so um are there any other question or there any questions related to board policy 7810 or any discussion about board policy 7810 on first reading we had a thorough discussion
152of this in policy committee Miss Coffield this is not really a technical question are we talking about policy 7811 because in my assembly I go from 7440 to 7811 to 7815 are you in consent or action take a look at the action agenda you should see 1810 and 78 my technical error thank you I have made the same mistake scrolling I'm like where all right thank you Miss Coffield any other questions or any other comments at this time all right we'll go ahead and we'll take a vote for on uh board approval of policy 7810 on first reading all in favor say I I any opposed all right board policy 7810 has passed first reading now before we leave uh the policy section of the action agenda Miss edmans I believe you had a question
153I do and it'll be um brief so um in the my understanding is we're going to um do an r&p for to a company 1810 in that rmp could we include some anything about the North Carolina K12 environmental literacy plan or does that have to go in policy I don't know who to look at so that's an interesting question I'll ask Dr Crane and Mr brette to to be on standby Dr crane as we develop policies and then as staff develops you know what we call R and P like what are the guidelines for determining like the specificity for what goes in policy versus what might go in that like rules and procedures rules and practices whatever the piece stands for I can tell you that for the development of this policy staff did not
154cons consider um curriculum related efforts around environmental sustainability Concepts Etc our take on it was those are curriculum related they are in the standards they they go there in many sustainability policies across the United States you will find those kinds of standards embedded within a sustainability policy we made the decision to keep them separate because they are part of our standard course of study we do have learning standards and objectives that address those things so we kept it apart so Miss Evans one thing I will um you know like to contribute on this topic is in our policy committee actually we moved it to Works actually work session and you remember we had the discussion there were a number of board members who were in favor of a broader policy that could integrate elements of
155like a broader sustainability Mission into curriculum into instruction whereas a lot of kind of our focus on this policy was on business operations and there was a lot of interest around the table in you know developing additional policies to support that there was some debate because like putting a policy on business operations it tends to fall into a certain like you know the the number sequencing a policies and some of these others might go into a different policy so I think while Dr crane you know is is correct I don't think that was considered for this policy I think there is board interest based on our discussion about pursuing this and I don't know if it would be integrating into this policy or into a separate policy that'd be but I think that'd be something
156we could talk about in committee Miss Evans so just um two things first of all I'm sorry I wasn't prepared I forgot to take this out of my bag and because I did print it out I was prepared at home but then forgot to take it out when we were talking about it a minute ago um and then that's fine I I would I think I would rather um maybe get up with Dr Stacy Wilson Wilson Norman Dr Wilson Norman and um about you know what's in the curriculum regarding the North Carolina K12 environmental literacy plan um because I was just getting familiar with it since our last meeting so I'm good but I just um I appreciate you allowing the question and thank you I'm sorry I wasn't ready a minute ago it's okay
157that's what we're here for all right thank you um at this time if there's no other questions about policy uh 1810 we will turn to the next item on our action agenda okay so the next item we have um I am presenting it is the North Carolina School boards association annual meeting for voting delegates so um that's right so if I don't if I don't like my presentation I don't have much recourse do I um one of the things that we talked about remember we introduced this topic at our last meeting we went through the changes that were made to the North Carolina School boards Association Constitution and their policies about how delegates needed to be selected so this new process of delegate selection is in accordance with their organization's new policy so what we
158had asked we presented all the information about serving as an as a delegate for the delegate assembly which is part of the convention now we are a member of the association and all school board members can attend the meeting and whether or not you are a delegate at the delegate delegate assembly you can still attend and you can still participate in all other aspects of the convention the delegate assembly is a special meeting that's held during the meeting where they might introduce policy changes like changing how the board members are selected and there might be debate and then each district votes based on their delegates that are present because there had been some trouble in other districts or some questions about the selection of districts or sometimes two people both saying they represented one District
159this is their way of getting an official board action to officially name the delegates so we asked um all board members to submit any interest if they'd like to serve in this role there were four available seats we have four delegates coincidentally we had four members suggest interest so what I'd like to do is first I'd like to propose that we adopt as a slate the four board members who expressed interest in and that they be the ones named to serve as delegates um if that vote passes we will have our officially selected delegates and then we have to also submit a list of alternates and you know I know at least like one person is Express her willingness to be an alternate if you are planning on attending the meeting and might be there
160anyway being an alternate is a great way to fill in if someone can't make it if you don't think you'll attend the meeting no need to list yourself as an alternate because we don't want to put you in in that situation of having come to the meeting if somebody drops out if you weren't planning on coming anyway okay so um that's the that and because we can have any number of delegates what I'll do is I'll open nominations for alternates anyone is interested just list their name because every other board member can be an alternate there won't be a need for a ballot or a vote we'll just close nominations and then vote on that list okay so the first item is that for the four delegate seats I have the following names that were
161submitted Swanson mfy hegerty and Coffield so we have four delegates and four Bo members who are expressing interest so at this time I would entertain Ain a motion to name those four members as our delegates to the school board association annual meeting we have a motion for Mr Hershey we have a second for Miss Edmond all in favor of adoption of the Slate of delegates please signify by saying I I any opposed all right congratulations you are now delegates we will process all the paperwork uh for the assembly uh the next thing I'd like to do is open nominations for any board member who'd like to be named by official board action as an alternate is there a motion to open nominations there's a motion from Mr Swanson a second from Miss mfy nominations are
162open we now like to hear from anyone who would like to nominate a delegate or who would like to be a delegate themselves Miss Edmonds I would like to be listed as an alternate I'll second that Miss Edmunds is an alternate is there anyone else who is interested in serving as an alternate who might be attending the convention Mr Hershey do alternates need to be there Monday at for to check in potentially is that do we know let me let me get clarification on that I believe all the delegates had to be there for checkin I don't believe that same standard applied to the alternate but let me double check just to make sure if you don't have to be there at 4 on Monday I'd like to be an alternate as well okay all
163right so we have uh Mr Hershey has a second alternate seconded by Miss by Mr Swanson and what we can do is if there is any change or or anything like that we can let you know and it's easy to drop off all right anyone else who is interested in being an alternate how M rice Mr how many alternates do you need four I would hope we wouldn't need more than four it's mathematically possible we could get all the way to five but we can take any number yeah so seven alternates even though that would mean we'd need 11 board members right do if we need another person I can I can be an alternate okay we don't necessarily have to have one so it's only if you think your schedule would allow it that's
164all right I'm not sure that Miss rice was was officially putting her name in nomination all right I'll ask just anybody else um M rice is checking her schedule Dr in would you like to no I have to excuse myself I have a BAC meeting that night okay all right well then we'll excuse Dr Ring because it is a board related function and um I'll just double check Mr rice did you want your name and nomination or do you have a conflict all right well then yeah I think we'll we'll take your name and nomination seconded by Mr Swanson so at this time I would like to all right hold on all right would you like to read that Dr Taylor and so this is about the delegates and what it says is that the
165voting delegates and alternates must be registered to attend uh they need not register for the entire conference uh they may register for Monday only or just for the delegate assembly uh for delegates to vote uh the voter must first pick up their conference badge before signing in and picking up the voting items at the Des delegate desk this enable them to receive their voting items for the meeting so my understanding from that is that you have to be registered uh but if the anytime that you plan to vote you have to be present for that and pick up your badge so but we'll get additional Clarity though okay all right then so then we have uh you've heard the names for the three alternates is there a motion to close nominations motion for Mr Swanson
166second for Mr Hershey all in favor of closing nominations and adopting the Slate as proposed say I I any opposed all right nominations have been closed and the Slate has been adopted thank you Mr chair I move that we go return to close session for reasons stated in the board agenda motion for Miss maffy that we return to close session second for Mr Swanson all in favor returning to Clos session please signify by saying I I any opposed all right we'll return to closed session thank you everyone e