001Amica for B person no these bigger practices a cheer just how much right [Music] that may what cons what you do e all right just as a notice to everyone we do have a board member participating remotely tonight so we're having to make sure all of our connections are up and operational and one of those connections is experiencing some technical difficulty so that's the reason for the delay we'll get started just as soon as we can Gra kind to e St all right everyone I apologize for the delay we're going to call this meeting to order good evening it is Tuesday September 17th at 5:57 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 at home uh who are watching via
002the stream and those of you who have joined us here in person tonight the W County Board of Education meetings are conducted for the purpose of carrying out the official business of our school system the public is cordially invited to attend the board meetings to observe the board as it conducts this 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 comments or other disruptions disruptions by any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance with the general statute 143 31817 so the first thing to bring up is that we do have a quorum tonight we have two members who will be
003joining us remotely Miss uh miss our vice chair monicaa Johnston Hustler and Mr Sam Hershey and this also requires all of us to conduct all votes by roll call all right so for those of us who are able please stand and we'll recite the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you everyone so the first item on our meeting agenda is approval of the meeting agenda at this point I'll entertain a motion second second we have a motion from Mr Swanson a second for M mafy to adopt the meeting agenda any discussion any debate if not all in favor of adoption of the meeting agenda please signify
004by saying I as I call your name because everything is a roll call vote tonight so we'll start off with Mr Hershey I um Miss Edmonds hi Miss mafy I the chair votes I Vice chair Johnson Hustler we're still working through some connection issues we may not be able to hear her until that gets reset uh Mr Swanson I and and Miss Caulfield all right adoption of the agenda has been approved thank you all um the next item there were no Nays uh the next item we have we have a list of recognition items the first academic advancement we have our 2024 wcpss Constitution week Proclamation and we'll be hearing from Mr Drew cook presenting welcome Mr cook thank you good evening everyone chair Hagerty Vice chair Johnson Hustler uh superintendent Taylor and board members
005we appreciate the opportunity this evening to highlight what I think we can all agree is a critically important topic that is truly foundational to just about every aspect of our daily lives as citizens of the United States and to our work as Educators in the Wake County Public School System as you may know in 2004 Congress enacted legislation recognizing September 17th which of course is today as Constitution and citizenship day this day is intended to commemorate the September 17th 1787 signing of the United States Constitution each educational institution that receives federal funds for a fiscal year is required to provide educational programming about the US Constitution for its students though there is no mandate on the use of specific curricula lesson plans or activities each year the Wake County public school system provides instructional resources
006that can be used by teachers and schools across the district in support of and alignment with the applicable legislation in recognition of this important event in American history and its critical importance to our work as Educators in helping our students reach their full potential and Lead productive lives as Citizens tonight we are requesting approval and signing of the 2024 Wake County Public School System Constitution week Proclamation which I'll read for the record at this time by the Wake County Board of Education Dr Robert P Taylor superintendent a proclamation whereas September 17th 24 marks the 237th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention and whereas the Constitution of the United States is the Cornerstone of our nation's democracy and embodies the principles of Liberty Justice and
007equality that have guided our nation since its Inception and whereas North Carolina was one of the 13 original colonies that represented uh was represented by three signers of the Constitution William Richard do Spate and Hugh Williamson and whereas in 2004 the United States Congress enacted Public Law 108447 recognizing September 17th as Constitution Day and citizenship day while also requiring that educational institutions that receive federal funding hold educational programs on September 17th to celebrate the Constitution and whereas Public Law 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the president of the United States of America designating September 17th through the 23rd as Constitution week and whereas the observance of constitution week serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring significance of our founding document encouraging citizens Across the Nation to reflect upon the values
008enshrined within it and the responsibilities they entail and whereas the Wake County Public School System recognizes the importance of educating our students about the Constitution's role in shaping our society and fostering an understanding of their civic duties and rights therefore the Wake County Public School System does hereby Proclaim September 17th through the 23rd 2024 as Constitution week across the district we encourage all members of our community Educators students and families to engage in activities that promote the study and appreciation of our nation's Constitution thank you for your support chair Hagerty thank you Mr cook so at this point in time are there any comments or any questions regarding the proclamation for Mr Cook miss Coffield I just want to say thank you I really appreciate that W county is actually making this Proclamation and and
009emphasizing the importance of this day and I I I think it's wonderful and I hope that every teacher and every student and family um enjoys whatever lesson or celebration that they do in their classroom and thank you all right thank you Mr cook at this point in time Dr Taylor and I will sign the proclamation all right thank you all right all right thank you everyone we have the signed Proclamation all right next on our agenda uh we'll hear from our chief of schools we have the naming of the enlo Magnet High School auditorium featuring Dr Ellena Ashburn and I see principal Jordan's in attendance and some other friends um all tied to enow high school so good evening superintendent Taylor chair Hagerty Vice chair Johnson Hustler and members of the board I'm excited to
010be here this evening to introduce enl Magnet High School principal Dr Jordan Dr Jordan will be sharing details regarding our requests for the naming of the auditorium at Eno after former Eno teacher Freddy Lee Heath we will be seeking your approval of this request at the conclusion of her presentation thank you and this was a surprise that it was we had to keep under wraps so I want the medical people to be on standby for Mr Heath Dr Jordan take it away thank you hello I'm Dr jacn Jordan the principal of Enlow high school and I'm here to tell you about my colleague and my friend Freddy Lee Heath Freddy has been a Guiding Light in arts education for nearly 40 years his motto open the window any way you can exemplifies his Relentless pursuit
011to make the Arts accessible to everyone beginning his journey with Wake County in 1992 Freddy inspired students across all grade levels including student at enow where he served as the leader of our dance Department he recently retired as the district's director of Arts education overseeing 650 Arts Educators setting the highest of expectations and helping them be realized by Champion championing equity-based practices which emphasize rigor and relevance he supported principles including me in creating Dynamic Arts departments by securing much needed resources tirelessly mentoring future teacher leaders and walking with us hand in hand as we help to bring our dreams for our programs to fruition he worked with individual schools to tap into sustainable funding sources for example through his advocacy the inlow Arts Guild funds an annual scholarship program extensively supporting seven vital Arts disciplines
012Dance Theater chorus Visual Arts Orchestra TV and audio visual production and piano Theory most impressively though the list of responsibilities on Freddy's plate was massive it never interfered with his attention to detail and his responsiveness at the micro level for his teachers students and principles he always took the call he always made time to give advice he always showed up for the performances or even just gave a hug or a laugh that sense of humor how many days did that get us all through he is Simply the Best Freddy's leadership and advoc advocacy of the Arts extended Beyond school-based programs his direction of our yearly pieces of goal program provided every year a chance for the community to witness the first to witness firsthand the power of the Arts every me M of the audience
013was left Amazed by the talent of our students and inspired by the work of their teachers which ensured we would continue to have the support for Arts programs and public schools Freddy was a master at putting together a program that kept us all captivated from curtain to curtain and who can forget Freddy's dynamic programming every summer for our summer Leadership conferences allowing school and District leaders to step back into their artistic eles as we performed memorable dance numbers that left everyone inspired it took us all back to the joy and the purpose for the hard work that we do through the Arts Freddy helps start our school years off imagining what is possible of what we're each capable of Freddy Lee's work on behalf of Arts education can also be felt on a State national
014and Global level he was one of the first dance Educators in the country to achieve national board certific ation some of his numerous prestigious Awards include dance teacher magazines K12 national teacher of the year and the national dance association's K12 national teacher of the year his passion for the Arts has taken him to over 35 State conferences and and even International platforms like the national museum of dance and the national dance company of Armenia in 20 March of 2023 Freddy was awarded the order of the long Pine one of the most prestigious awards given by the governor of North Carolina for persons who have demonstrated exemplary service to the state of North Carolina and their communities that is above and beyond the Call of Duty and which has made a significant impact and strength in
015North Carolina suffice to say Freddy Lee has dedicated his adult life to advocating for the Arts and serving students teachers and public schools he is a role model for us all naming the Enlow Auditorium in Freddy Lee Heath's honor is a fitting tribute to a leader who is a true example of dedication and commitment his contributions to our school our students and the broader arts arts Community have had a lasting impact thank you for considering this request on behalf or from the Enlow Magnet High School Community thank you thank you Dr Jordan so you know at this point in time we're going to you when you if you looked at our agenda we're sort of jumping around a little bit normally we have all our information items then we would have our action items and
016then continue on to close session but having heard this as an information item we're going to move immediately to an action item which is consideration by this board for honoring the request by Eno Magnet High School for the renaming of the Auditorium and so what I'd like to do at this point in time is entertain any motion I'd love to make it but you know that I can't so mooved all right we have a motion from former Eno teacher Mr Tyler Swanson and seconded by Miss Coffield um the motion is for is to Grant permission for the renaming requested by enow Magnet High School are there any comments from board members about the request at this time miss mfy I don't know if we can sum into words the scope of all of the lives
017that you touched from our students that you taught yourself from the work that you and Bo did at the head of this department making sure every teacher felt supported and understood that the Arts are a part of the core cre culum here in Wake County Public Schools I am just thrilled that it's a theater that is getting named in your honor and I just want to leave with this quote from Oscar wild I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms the most immediate way in such a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human human being thank you Freddy Lee thank you Miss mfy are there other comments by other board members I know everyone's ready to vote right um you know this is
018this is amazing you know Freddy Lee both in your role as a teacher as being so instrumental in building the County's arts program you have seen this growth and development not only in students but then also in the team that you you you've trained you know in the ACC country we talk about Dean Smith and the coaching tree and as you know from um Governor's Proclamation from the the last pieces of gold um there are countless Wake County folks that have been touched directly by your influence as a mentor and by a teacher and you know when it comes right down to it we could name County buildings after you but I think there's something very special about naming that Auditorium that theater at Eno for you and so I know that I and all
019of my colleagues are super excited to bestow this honor and with that we have to take a roll call vote because we're remote we can't do it in one Fell Swoop but I'll call each board member's name and we'll proceed with the vote all right all right first we'll call on Mr Hershey hi next we'll call on Miss Edmond I next Miss mfy I the chair has an enthusiastic vote of I Mr Swanson I and Miss Coffield a very happy I and so by the unanimous consent thean unanimous approval of this Wake County Board of Education we have granted the request of Eno Magnet High School and we encourage everyone to visit the Freddy Lee Heath auditorium at Eno high school thank you Freddy Lee I don't I'm not going to ask you because I
020know this was a surprise I don't know that you have anything prepared but obviously anytime you would like the microphone to address this body and this audience you are more than welcome I can't talk right now understood understood and this just to to give you the extent of Eno arts and Wake County Arts while we're giving you while we're making this Proclamation I'm getting texts from people all about this the arts program and all of your great impact so please know that you're respected you're loved and you'll always be part of this family so thank you all [Applause] right all right um the next item on our agenda um and I want to uh confirm too we have been joined by Vice chair Johnson Hustler who is also participating remotely so we welcome vice vice
021chair Johnson Hustler um the next next item we have is we're going to return to our information items and the next information item I get to recognize myself um this is about the North Carolina School boards association annual meeting and the selection of voting delegates and I wanted to share this with board members in this meeting in in preparation for an action item that'll come to our next meeting um as you know our organization is part of our state Association of school boards and every year we have an annual conference where we bring all of our school board members together there's continuing education professional development wonderful speakers um but the organization also has a delegate assembly where decisions about the business of the organization are made and due to recent changes in the constitution of
022the organization they are requiring standardization of how each School each School Board member each each member School Board sorry selects their delegates for the delegate assembly and so I would just encourage all of you between now and the next meeting please review the materials posted familiarize yourself with the dates coming up in November for the annual meeting and if you would like to be nominated to be one of our four delegates our board will vote at that time for four individuals now whether or not you are a voting delegate you can still attend the conference we could have all nine members attend and all nine members have access to the delegate assembly but when voting only the four that are selected would have a vote for that purpose all right so think on it if
023you'd like to share with me ahead of time um we can see how many people are interested um we can have up to four I hope that we will have four and then if we have more than four we would have an election similar to how we elect our other offices our presiding officers and such and then we would go through the process that way all right does anyone have any questions about the process or any other suggestions for how we move forward with this it is a new change this so this will be the first time that we've done this all right great thank you you so we have one final information item tonight uh we'd like to bring up our um we've got a team I think Mr coros is working on this
024David Neer Trish posy um staff from our chief of schools office about house pill House Bill 10 which is recently passed by the North Carolina general assembly and its potential impacts to wcpss this is something that I think we've all been following closely I know Vice chair Johnson Hustler myself and the superintendent have been meeting about it several times since the legislature came back into session and we've asked staff to put together a presentation about it's you know potential impacts known already to us to brief all board members so we'll get the presentation loaded Miss Rory all right it looks like it's up all right all right welcome Mr cor roza good evening um CH heg um superintendent Mo uh Taylor members of the board sorry um thank you for having us this evening uh
025before we kick off I'd like to thank all North Carolina Public School Employees especially those with way County Public Schools as school choice is the driver of the work that I do I see firsthand all of the amazing things that we do to make school the school experience a special one for all students while we still need time to finally digest the impacts of HB uh 10 I can assure you that we will be impacted they say iron sharpens iron we welcome competition we just ask that we have a Level Playing Field while we do so so with that we are here today to review our current enrollment forecast data we're going to provide a history of the state change to funding in a re and we're going to share what we know so far
026about hb10 with that I'm going to welcome Miss Marcel Rory our senior director with longrange planning to kick off the long range membership forecast welcome Miss Rory thank you are you doing a clicker good evening again thank you so much for allowing us some time to come and speak with you um the image you see on this slide you've seen a few times as Miss Pam and the office of uh student assignment has shared what our process is the six-step process for managing our growth and crowding throughout the district well step number one starts with long range planning and our annual membership forecast this is a datadriven process that includes not just staff members with the Wake County Public School System but I wanted to highlight some of our partners that work as part of
027this process we are could not do this work without our Wake County Municipal planning teams and their planning departments um we also work collaboratively with UNCC Carolina demography and demo advisors we also work with NCSU and itry the institute for transportation research and education and our partners with Wake County government as well as our Wake County Public School System staff across multiple departments doing a forecast is a data driven process however as we've shared with you uh over the past several years and most recently iterated this past February there are challenges to provide to the accuracy of a forecast so some of we're going to highlight some of those some of the uh issues and challenges that and unknowns that we've dealt with over the past few years are the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic
028um how fast people are actually going to give birth so our birth rates our in kindergarten to uh excuse me birth to kindergarten rates our residential migration patterns uh and also school choice and legislative changes as part of our forecast process annually we review what new data is available we conduct era analysis we analyze what trends are happening not just here in Wake County but throughout the country and we adjust it accordingly for our 2023 24 membership forecast using the data that was available to us at that time we forecasted that we would increase by 450 students for the 2024 25 school year which is roughly an increase of 28.1% of our students for the next 10 years we had forecast that Wake County Public School System would increase by just over 12,000 students or
029roughly 7.72 six% the vast majority of Wake County families have chosen to attend the Wake County Public School System we continue to forecast that we will educate the majority of schoolage children in the Wake County Public School System therefore continued investments in school construction facility improvements programmatic classroom enhancements remain vital to attracting over 75% sent of the families to our district so let's highlight some of the challenges or reiterate some of the challenges that uh we shared with you this past year two of those items were the changes in decision making for charter schools and the new laws for expanding the vouchers for private schools and all of those and those items in addition to the other ones that I mentioned a moment ago would impact what our forecast ends up being NC private schools
030have grown from 471 schools and just over 54,000 students in 1991 92 as of the 20123 24 school year the North Carolina Department of administration for nonp public education reported there are over 131,000 students enrolled in 881 private schools in North Carolina W County had 91 private schools with just over 22,000 students enrolled our forecast team has already kicked off the pro the annual process for the 20242 5 uh forecast and our plan is to bring that to you for information in the in February of 2025 as of now the changes and fluctuations that are expected in the private school voucher uh program assuming it is approved should settle by October 1st of 2024 if that is passed and it that does occur then we should be able to capture those changes in our pmr2
031our principal's monthly report month two numbers which are baked into the forecast for 20242 there are additional unknowns that we simply won't know for quite some time as you're aware there are over 55,000 applications for students living in uh excuse me but we don't know how many of the 55,000 000 applications are for students that are living in Wake County we don't know how many of that number of students are already enrolled in private school and are simply seeking additional funds to help support that process we also don't know how many students are currently enrolled in Wake County Public School System but may use a voucher as a way to change their enrollment to a private school but once we get that information we will uh bake that into our forecast for this year so
032I just wanted to go back and just share some information with you real quick um there are 131,000 plus students in private school as of last year DPI reported that the number of public school students and charter school students was less than 1.6 million students so if you do the math you're looking at a less than 10% market share when you're talking about private school so just consider that as you consider the impacts and what's being given to the voucher system the overall amount and with that I'll turn it over to David meter and his team talk about hb10 and the funding good evening chair hackery members of the board and superintendent Taylor we' like to cover just two specific topics um briefly with you the first has to do with legislation that was passed
033a year ago in the long session and that has to do with funding and AAR something Miss kimsey is going to come up and speak with you about in a minute and then the second will be the actual houseu 10 legislation what we know about it at this point and the potential fiscal impacts Miss kimsey good evening so a section 7.2 of House Bill 259 in the session 2023 law directed the Department of Public Instruction to bring forward a model that would fund public school districts based on their prior year average daily membership and also to have a contingency fund so that if school systems were to increase in student enrollment they would be able to address that through the contingency reserve um by directing the Department of Public Instruction to make this change it
034would be an advantage for school districts that are declining in student enrollment because it would give them a year to adjust to that if they were funded at their prior year number of students um so I wanted to point out that that was the direction and that is what the Department of Public construction moved forward with this slide just shows that in their allotment policy manual for this year it directs that there's an ADM contingency reserve to provide funding to public school units that have a higher current year ADM than the allotted ADM what is different is if those funds are available in a contingency reserve they would be allocated if school systems come in with higher student membership if there's not enough funds they would use what is in the contingency to do the
035best they could to address those issues where there's been growth and it also um addresses that the funds would be allocated in a new program code historically if our district grew after our projected enrollment we would receive adjustments to our allotments in their individual categories so this is a change that it would be a new program um but it's something we can manage that part is not an issue the next couple of slides are copies of slides that the Department of Public Instruction provided to us at a Summer Conference because there is an issue that has come up with this um new process so they shared with us that they were intending to roll out this new formula and their intent was to distribute initial allotments based on the planning numbers plus technical adjustments plus
036salary increases and any expansion and that they had planned to be able to fund each Public School unit that has an increase from that contingency reserve so the department requested funding to be able to to do that their estimate that they would need to be able to fund growth across this the state of North Carolina was $200 million the house in the Senate agreed to $95 million and even though when the state rolled out the second year of the baym budget at the start of this fiscal year and they directed the Department of Public construction to move forward with the model none of those funds were approved in that at the start of the fiscal year which is an issue so the summer when the state was in this with us the department was really
037struggling they were having to start looking anywhere they could to find any savings within their own budgets um that might be able to address growth once it occurs so this last slide that they shared with us um is that they were going to make adjustments within funds they had so really looking within their base budgets to see where they might have savings or things that could be used to address it um so it brings us to the current state where the one thing that we are good that we see in House Bill 10 is that it does include funding not enough not based on what the department needed but it does put the 95 million um accessible to be able to fund growth we don't know the specific impact on our system yet we have
038received our initial allotments um just a few days ago last week the department sent to us the basis they used for our allotments and we're in their process right now of analyzing that and we won't know if we how much we have grown um until we get to second month average daily membership so we will be doing these calculations now and up until we know what our growth numbers is are are to be able to provide an analysis um to the superintendent his team and and to you all but that's where we are right now knowing we're under a new process but there's not full funding in place thank you m kimy now moving to House Bill 10 House Bill 10 was w ified by the legislature and sent to Governor Cooper on September 11th
039and if the bill becomes law as Miss kimsey just mentioned North Carolina can DPI can use these $95 million of funds that are included within the legislation and on the slide you see a little cut and paste where that is the amount that is included um for a contingency reserve that would be available for growth again noting that the Department of Public Instruction estimated they would require $200 million to fund growth this is less than half of that there's another provision in House Bill 10 um I haven't seen it written about and we have not received any feedback from the Department of Public Instruction on what implications it may have for the leas but in addition to providing that additional 95 million ion dollar of funding to ncdpi it also eliminates an education enrollment reserve
040of $65 million that had been in place and that was in place for both the community college system and also uh Public School enrollment so I would like to think there's got to be some implication with that again we don't know specifically what um this next slide is also a portion of House Bill 10 um it speaks to the um increase over the already existing set of increases for the opportunity scholarships um and you'll see it goes back to 201718 and it goes all the way up to 2031 32 and you can see that beginning um this next year it takes what was already a significant about a doubling of the amount and more or less triples the amount Year over-year all the way up to at the end of this schedule uh just after
0412330 bring almost a billion dollars of Public Funding for private school funding annually yes ma'am so again House Bill 10 is with the governor at this time as you know he has 10 days to either sign it veto it and if he does nothing it will become law um and if it does become law as Miss kimsey referenced we're going to need North Carolina dpi's interpretation of the legislation as well as their allotment formulas until we have that we truly won't understand the actual implications for the district and that chair hagard and board members is our pre presentation all right thank you Mr Neer I know there's a lot of information I know some of you have been following it very closely I know some of the others may have only just been following the
042headlines so you may have questions about what we know so far or you may have opinions that you want to uh bring to the table at this time uh both are welcome for questions we'll direct it toward staff for comments we'll direct them toward each other and to the public so um we'll start off are there questions or comments we'll start with Miss mafy on this Constitution Day I want to reference the North Carolina Constitution Article 9 section 2 uniform system of schools part one General and uniform system term the general assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students thank you Miss mafy further comments
043further questions Mr Swanson you know Miss mafy I guess we're both two teachers because you were actually in my notes because that's exactly what I was going to say how befitting it is to have this conversation on constitutional day where yet again this North Carolina General Assembly which is an illegal constit constitutional Body by Jerry mandering districts and diluting the people's voices yet again giving over billion dollars to our Public School taking billions of dollars from our public schools which then puts that burden back on the taxpayers the local taxpayers to step in the Gap Time After Time After Time when we are seeing this body of of folks who are have a high disregard for public education uh it's it's it's able that that's what they choose to do and yet again I looking
044through this there was no raises for teachers um but yet here we are so I have a lot that I will say about constitutional day in my board remarks but the only thing I can say In This Moment is elections have serious consequences these folks are on our ballots and this is a political body and this is what they're doing is a political statement so we have to get engaged and really let our voices be known and to support those folks who believe in public education because because yet again these we're talking about the Next Generation the the generation of now and tomorrow our future doctors our future teachers our future principles our folks who are going to make a difference in these communities yet again their education is getting robbed by a bunch of
045folks who choose to provide welfare to the real to the world uh rich and wealthy so those are my comments thank you Mr Swanson additional comments Miss edmans sure thank you um thank you for raising the election piece uh so that's coming up real fast uh absentee ballots are going out soon finally I think after um rfk's mess that that he pulled early voting starts October 17th and will last what 10 12 15 days um thank you October 17th through November 2nd and of course ction day is November 5th we do have one member of the Wake County delegation that voted in favor of House Bill 10 you can do your research and find out who that is and if you're in that District that is something to consider um private schools in North Carolina
046have zero accountability there are some other states in the country that have private school vouchers that have some accountability um in North Carolina this is just a couple of examples don't have to have any licensed teacher in the building zero uh don't have one person one person at a voucher receiving school has to have a background check one that's in statute um you all know they don't have to provide you know special education services they don't have to provide School meals they don't have to provide transportation and that's not to say that some of them don't some of them may provide some of those Services some of them may decide that they do want licensed teachers in their classrooms but by state law there is zero accountability we are obligated to be very accountable to
047the voters to the citizens to the students we're obligated to actually teach them something that is all in statute for us to comply with and that's where your public dollars should be going is to Public Schools thank you chair thank you Miss Edmond anyone else Miss Coffield so well I understand and it's a very sensitive topic um I certainly want to be very clear that I support public education my kids went through public education my entire family line has gone through public education but I think the the focus for us should be on being their number one choice the whole idea with the opportunity scholarship for me from what I understand and from what I hear from families is that they may not be getting what they need from our Public Schools so opening that
048convers that conversation listening to them and providing that extra support is really what I would like us to be mostly focused on and as far as um the generation of Tomorrow every child that goes to school whether it be public charter in our school which is where we hope it it would be every single one of those children count which also means wherever they can get the best education for them and when we don't receive funds from from for that specific child we're also not providing services for that specific child it follows the backpack so again I'm going to keep repeating that I want to make it so that Wake County is actually everybody's number one choice voice and I've said it before and I'm going to say it again it is a big convenience
049to be a parent at public school we get to drop our kids off or they take bus they have all kinds of scholarship and opportunities that there are some schools that cannot provide it but we provide it we give them choice we have magnet we have Early College we have so many things that are available for our students it doesn't mean that it's going to meet each and every person's needs need and I want everybody in the public to understand that there is a tier system this isn't just for it to give money to the rich people it starts with tier one and it starts with all of those families first it's not a perfect system we don't have a perfect system but I would really like us to focus on making it as perfect
050as we possibly could be to be that choice I understand it brings us difficulties it absolutely does but the things that we're saying here today it gets me set because I know that there are children out there that don't fit in our perfect box and those people those parents they are taxpayers it is their money they have a right to find alternative if we can't give it to them but we still should be working 100% to give them whatever it is that they can it's always going to be a learning growing thing so I don't like the fact that the money is going there I don't like the fact that our families are going to other Alternatives but I still think that it really should be the focus on what can we do better what
051can how can we listen to the parents and the families and the students so that we are their number one choice thank you thank you Miss Coffield next I see uh Mr Hershey is online and he has some comments so I'm a little confused about what was just said because every single day our staff gets up and works their tails off to make us the best that we can be to to provide the best education possible for our students I do not understand how someone can sit at a public school board and be okay with this amount of private vouchers which were passed specifically to pay to give money to people with higher incomes that's what this is this is not about helping people with lower incomes this is about people making significance a significant
052amount of money at home and I I'm just kind of Blown Away any kind of assertion that our staff is not working 100% to make our schools the best that they can be I just have to reject that outright at this table I'm sorry I'm not there in person to do this but I I'm not having that our our staff Works their tails off and then they get uh the short end of the stick from the general assembly that's what this bill is and I I would love to see us do a resolution opposing vouchers at this point because I I you know it's I'm extremely frustrated I'm also going to add that if you just look at the results in other states this is going to blow a hole in the budget and then
053they are going to start looking to cut and guess where they're going to look at they are going to look at public education and we need to be prepared for that and I want voters and constituents and public school families to all be aware of that of what is going on in other states because it is the model and it is not working in other states this is a giveaway everybody knows it and public education Advocates and public education board members should oppose this 100% full stop thank you thank you Mr Hershey um I'll ask if uh Vice chair Johnson Hustler has any comments all right and then I will I just have some comments of my own you know this we know that we have a diversity of opinion and we have different people
054with different views and we have families with different needs and there's no disputing that but we can create good policy fair and Equitable policy to do things the right way and I'm so troubled by this legislation because there was an opportunity to do something no pun and and it was missed it it was really missed you know we know that public education in North Carolina is not adequately funded you know it I know it the North Carolina Supreme Court knows it it's a con it's been held as a constitutional fact and yet the legislature sits on funds in you know overly generous Reserve funds and making additional Appropriations for programs like this and you know who pays you know when we don't fund our schools the way they need to be funded you know that
055comes down to every local community big counties like wake smaller counties rural counties and either we do without these incredibly valuable essential government services or we turned around other local governments to fund them that means our counties and how are the counties paying for them they're paying for them with a property tax and so when the State doesn't fund these programs out of its other state revenues it comes back onto all of us with increased property taxes and we know that property taxes are regressive they hit retirees they hit others when the state has many more more fair more Equitable ways to pay for these essential education expenses now you know in Wake County you know that the problems that we're having we see that our county has stepped in to pay for the funds
056that we're not getting from the state but that comes at a cost and that cost has been we haven't been paying for our Capital Construction needs this is what you know by the state only giving us $15 an hour for a bus driver and knowing that bus drivers won't work unless we can get them up to $20 an hour and as you know we still have a number of vacancies the money that we're spending just to keep our buses running is money we can't spend on HVAC systems and mechanics and other crucial needs in our district but beyond that if we wanted if if there's an argument to be made for assisting other children with school choice and school choice it could be done fairly and this is where I think we have a real
057missed opportunity here this is why why I would encourage members of the general assembly I'm anticipating a veto by the governor I don't think I have to ask the governor to veto it I think he's way ahead of me on that but then I would ask that members of the general assembly vote to sustain that gubernatorial veto because not only is it bad for us here in Wake County it's bad Statewide it's bad because so many of our small school districts don't even have private school options yet their public schools which are there to serve those communities are underfunded so much of this wealth is Flowing to the larger counties like you saw we've got 10% of the private schools here in Wake County another 10% in mecklinburg that's two counties sitting on oneth of
058all the private schools so it's not fair to those other counties now I understand Miss caulfield's argument I respect it about you know you want to make sure that if families have a choice that they have special educational needs and I'm sympathetic to the idea of families that are in need financial need having that opportunity but one thing that you said was when we when we have these and I'm not going to quote you directly but I think the point was you know when we are funding the schools we need to have funds for the specific children so that children that need money for Education are not missed a and I agree with that but that's exactly what this legislation does it does not fund all children and this is the problem this is when
059I talk about fairness and Equity this is why we had our staff present some of these budget numbers and some of these policy numbers that I know can get lost sometimes on people they're not always the most plain they're not always the most common sense our schools are funded based on an average daily membership that means we do not get money for every student enrolled in Wake County we only get funds to the schools based on the average attendance in those schools whereas all of the students that qualify and get one of these scholarships they're getting funded and the level of that funding now it is variable there is is a a wealth indicator but at the at the top each you students can get $7,000 per student for their private school education whereas in
060Wake County we're like 110th out of 115 school districts in the amount of money we get for students and we have many more state requirements for the services that we have to provide that are required by the state that those students those private schools don't have to provide so it's more expensive for us to provide an education for these children based on the requirements put forward by the state but they'll give more money to the private school students per student than they will for us and that's just not fair that's not good policy there's been no money set aside for this transition there's no been no money set aside to break Bridge the state public schools for the transition that you heard M Rory and others talk about in terms of projections to enrollment and
061it seems like if you wanted to do this there could have been a better way and maybe they can bring it back up in January when they come back into session maybe there's a way to reform this but but what is passed it doesn't fund all students it doesn't fund all students in Wake County they say they'll give us 95 million for enrollment growth but they're going to take 60 million away in the other in the other growth fund and that's for the entire State that's not for Wake County that's that's for the entire state of North Carolina and the changes in enrollment so I really appreciate staff coming together working very quickly trying to put these projections together for us because I want us to have accurate information I want us to be able
062to tell families about these changes and again we can have different opinions on what we should do but I want us to be able to accurately reflect what the bill will do so I appreciate it staff I thank you for the information item and board will continue to get more information in terms of the impact on enrollment and the impact on our budget Mr Neer if there are adjustments I'm sure you and your team can calculate those and bring them together so thank you all right that concludes our information items and now we'll turn to the public comment portion of the meeting as we move into public comment I want to um remind everybody that per our policy we'll recognize students speaking first on agenda items first and then off agenda items and then speakers
063commenting on items before tonight's agenda and we do have several will be heard before speakers speaking on other topics so all of the speakers will be heard in order of sign up we have so many tonight that we will likely have to cut it off have the rest of our business session and then return to those off aggenda speakers after after we've concluded that business so you've heard me recite the policy before I know many of you are familiar with it again members of the public are welcome to offer the comments and CR and criticisms directed at the substantive ideas actions and procedures of the board laws and policies of North Carolina provide that there are certain issues that might relate to individual Personnel student matters other items that are confidential are not appropriate for
064public comment but those may be addressed to the board um you know if there's something that needs to be brought up with staff while you're here we can direct you to the appropriate staff um in the interest of maintaining Civility and decorum again we please please please please speakers should address their comments to the board of education and must retrain refrain from personal attacks or comments directed at individual board members staff and especially members of the public who've come here tonight a number of whom are here to make public comment uh please remain at the post Podium during your speaking time any materials you wish to share should be shared with our board attorney Mr Malone sitting there at the end of the table again as uh speakers you may speak for up to three
065minutes note that the microphones are adjustable uh your time will begin when you start to speak you'll see the green light light up at that time you'll have three minutes don't be surprised there'll be an audible tone that first one is just your warning you've got one minute left you'll see a yellow light light up at that point I'm sorry you'll have 30 seconds remaining in your time you caught me on that one 30 seconds remaining on your time when speaking up when the speaking time is up you will see a red light at that time you do have to conclude your comments I'm going to call the next speaker um again please respect the speakers please audience members if don't interrupt speakers please don't make comments directed at speakers we want to treat everybody
066with Civility and let everyone make the comments that they've come here to make tonight so um at this time I'll go to our agenda of speakers our first Speaker tonight is a student we have um cam F I believe speaking on House Bill 10 welcome cam good evening uh my name is Cam F I am a student at enll high school and I love my school it is a wonderful School the teachers are wonderful the community is wonderful and I am proud to be both a student at Eno and a student of the Wake County Public School System lifelong but every single day when I walk into school I see the cracks the cracks that are left by chronic underfunding and a lack of support to our teachers and administrators last year nearly every single
067one of my teachers was made to work a second job just to be able to continue to for to live within a reasonable distance of their work this meant that most of my teachers were not getting adequate amounts of sleep not having time to grade or perform the work that they need to do to further the education of our students I feel that I was robbed and my classmates were robbed of our teachers attention and of our education additionally when I was a freshman coming into high school English I was very excited yet not a month into to my school experience my English teacher left um this has happened to me three times in my wck County public education experience where my teacher not a month into the year was offered a better position at
068a private Institution for nearly double the pay and much more job uh stability I do not blame my teachers for leaving I would have made the same decision but this is incredibly discouraging for students like myself who one day hope to pursue a career in public education and I think it is a real tragedy that these students in my class were left behind in that way I have continued to see those students not want to pursue advanced level classes in those courses English and math because they were failed to receive the grounding in those subjects that they would need to pursue those passionately and well um I would encourage everyone and the members of the general assembly to stand against house bill and as it robs our students of more funding that they need to
069pursue their education and their dreams thank you thank you our next speaker will be Gabrielle Alcantara is Gabrielle or Gabriel here now I want to be clear this is speaking time for students oh I didn't put student okay um if you don't mind I'll put you next in line after the students finish thank you uh next up on the student list is Rowan Bido and rollan will be followed by uh Mr Alcantara I started this speech with good afternoon but this is a lot later than I thought it was going to be um so good evening um since today is my birthday I've decided not to talk about the sober topics I usually cover instead I want to offer thanks thank you to those of you on the board who truly put all students first
070thank you to those of you on the board who have listened to me and what I'm really saying rather than using my words to further an anti-me rhetoric thank you to those of you who recognize and celebrate each child's differences instead of standing on platforms of hate against those differences thank you to those who take student safety seriously instead of making it a political issue you thank you to those who have proven time and time again that you care about me as an individual thank you to those of you who don't let politics get in the way of providing for students since none of these issues are political anyway thank you to those of you who recognize how difficult it is for me to keep coming back here thank you to my specific board member
071for always making a concerted effort to help me when I bring up a problem thank you to those of you who see me for what I'm worth a human being deserving of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness as opposed to seeing me as something worthy of hatred and Unworthy of Rights thank you to those of you who who have provided me the exence to keep coming back despite the nastiness I hear directed at me my community or just like simply the words I'm transgender and lastly thank you for those of you who have shown me the side of the world where people hate difference and treat me like a disease if anything that's made me more passionate to stand up for myself I am not a disease I am a person and you can't
072make me go away have a good night y'all mine will be good I'm expecting birthday cake thank you our next speaker uh we will go to Mr Alcantara and again we apologize for the confusion on the agenda list happy birthday by the way uh good evening superintendent Taylor chair hagri and members of the board uh thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today I have tremendous respect for the work that you guys do um I'm the parent of one child in a public Middle School uh and another child who got his his whole education in elementary school uh from at w County but then he opted to go to private school uh on his own his choice uh I want to bring to the for Forefront a topic that I don't think we
073talk about enough maybe it's taboo uh School avoidance School avoidance is when students begin regularly missing school uh due to intense emotional psychological or social barriers it can stem from anxiety depression bullying family stress or trauma and when left unaddressed it can lead to long-term consequences such as academic failure social isolation emotional distress and diminish long-term opportunity long-term opportunities some of these families have experienced this for years unfortunately it's not that school avoidant kids won't go to school they can't if they could they really would many of these students are struggling in silence whether it be because of threats of school shootings academic pressure bullying or the challenges that come with socialization for some they're avoiding school because it has become overwhelming an overwhelming anxiety inducing environment uh what's important to to recognize is that
074school avoidance is not treny nor a form of defiance or something that can be fixed with traditional discipline School avoidance is a cry for help what's at stake is the future of these students we can't afford to lose these students nor can they afford to lose their education which will play a significant role in determining their future so I want to know what way what is w County going to do to add address the problem of school avoidance I applaud to you for your efforts thus far on chronic absenteeism but chronic absenteeism is too broad as it's anecdotally often en TI to social economical or logistical challenges such as lack of Transportation single parent households um School avoidance is a subset of chronic absenteeism hence it should be addressed specifically and named specific specifically the
075good news is there are effective strategies we can Implement uh first is identification of these kids um I'm I only see I have a minute left I think I'm just going to try to summarize uh but I think we need more education in our schools for um specifically special education um I'm finding that a lot of the Educators don't know about the idea uh or the child find act it's an obligation of the school to identify these challenges and address them they need more training on neural Divergence uh and what I would call invisible disabilities second we got to prioritize Mental Health Services I think you're doing all that you can you're pouring a lot of money into that that's more of a jab for the state I guess um third we have to continue
076to try to create an environment that is free of bullying that is safe for for our kids uh where they don't feel like they're um at risk of being bullied the next day so I got 10 seconds I'll say in closing School avoidance is a mental health crisis um I would welcome an opportunity to to work with you all as an invested parent myself and I thank you for the time this evening thank you so now we'll go to um our addition our additional speakers uh first on an on aggenda topic uh Becky lob speaking on Constitution Day and um Miss lobs will be followed by Maria Ramirez good evening hello happy Constitution and citizenship day I'm Becky lobs mom of three amazing kids and Chapter Chair of moms for Liberty in Wake County the
077US Constitution is the foundation of our Republic and for those of you questioning that statement recite the Pledge of Allegiance it's a p Republic I'll remind you that there's a difference between a con tional Republic is not the same as a democracy last year moms for Liberty volunteers delivered constitutions to Wake County eighth graders across this across the county most teachers and administrators and even many of the board just seem to not know what it was even though federal law state law and Wake County policy requires the day to be recognized and there to be educational programs about this foundational document and citizenship I hope youve read it each of you got a copy last year it doesn't take long maybe an hour and moms for Liberty is thrilled to have had an integral role
078in educating students about this about the founding of our country as a constitutional republic with principles of Liberty law and limited government this year moms for Liberty volunteers delivered over 14,000 constitutions to eighth graders across the county our volunteers delivered visited over 50 schools including public and charter schools at each school we are greeted with smiles and gratitude teachers and administrators were happy to receive these resources for their classrooms thank you for formally recognizing Constitution and citizenship day we have a long way to go and educating our children and maybe even some adults and we look forward to continuing to educate and Empower our parents about their rights as Citizens so kind of switching topics I want to tell you about my children and why there needs to be choice and house built T and
079funding for the children my first child was bullied incessantly to the point where he suffers a lot of anxiety and depression by the time he reached high school he could not be in one of our high schools too many people the anxiety he would get when he would get in crowds of more than like a 100 people he had to go to a smaller setting we were able to send him to that setting and he thrived and he actually graduated a year year early because we chose to send him somewhere else and it was a stretch for us we're not wealthy people my second child he's still in public schools but we've endured a stabbing incident that resulted in death and injury of other children another murder suspect was from that school and we had
080to deal with that I'm constantly in fear of his safety but my third child there was more PR in sexual orientation and flags promoting that everywhere around the school but not a single American flag which is required so she won't be going to public school anymore either our next speaker is Maria Ramirez and Miss Ramirez will be followed by Julie pige okay and so I understand uh there's translation being offered tonight yes uh I am an interpreter and she's going to go ahead and speak and then I'm going to interpret everything she said okay and and so at by practice where you have an interpreter and there speaking the the time will be extended to allow for the interpretation um ol for so I'm going to do this so she said uh my name uh
081good evening my name is Maria Ramirez and I am the mother of four children who are students or students in Raleigh thank you for giving me this time to speak as a graduate as a graduate of the parent power group from the alliance for educational Justice over the past six months we have have learned about various issues related to Public Schools including the how North Carolina legislators would rather give more funds to private schools owners instead of helping Public Schools I want to thank you to thank the members of this board who oppos that terrible proposal hb10 steals money from public schools and would divert even more money to private schools at a time when traditional public schools are struggling to meet the many needs Amplified by by the pandemic PR okay yeah she says
082that um these are my concerns about hb10 loss of tax revenue May reduce academic programs and teach in staff in public schools there is no evidence that private private or religious schools offer better education qual quality of education for students than public schools private schools do not have a background check uh their employees and volunteers as public schools do a pedopile could be teaching your child private schools do not have uh to hire licensed teachers and are and are not subject to the academic standards imposed on public schools public schools are not required to provide free or reduceed Price meals Transportation special education services and and can choose and can also choose which students they they admit I urge you to raise your voices and fight alongside us thank you all right thank you m
083Ramirez our next speaker is Julie Paige and Miss Paige will be followed by Maggie F I'm I'm sorry there are students here that have students I'm sorry sir sir I'm I'll address it because it's a good faith question but the rules are you can't address the board while we're conducting business no we had we had three people signed up as students one of them turned out not to be a student those are the only students that we have signed up for public comment through the public comment process so those are the we've heard from all the ones who have signed up tonight and Miss Chief Luton may be able to give you more information all right Miss paig I apologize that's okay give a second to get here hi everyone um I want to say
084thank you to superintendent Taylor and board chair hegerty for issuing the Constitution week Proclamation it's a bold and positive action to assist in educating our students on the founding of our great nation and I commend you for it um I do want to talk about one phrase in particular and I quote whereas the Constitution of the United States is the Cornerstone of our nation's democracy and embodies the principles of Liberty Justice and equality have guided our nation since its Inception while I appreciate the sentiment here I want to point out that our government is actually a constitu U Republic not a democracy a democracy is a political system where the People by majority vote at the polls to select their rulers and the rulers have absolute power by their own majority vote in contrast a
085constitutional republic is a system where the people also vote by majority to select their rulers to make laws the difference is that those rulers cannot make any laws that they just please to do because the Constitution restricts their power the following is taken from an article from The Daily Mining Gazette by Marilyn Sager on March 29 2024 great strides have been made toward the goal of subverting our Republic and transforming it into a democracy the subverters foremost tactic is subversion of language by calling America a democracy until people thoughtlessly accept and use that term totalitarians have obscured the real meaning of American principles of government writers the Constitution were anxious to safeguard Liberty against dictatorship their Chief anxiety was to protect the country against democracy bless you the constitution in article 4 section 4 requires
086a republican form of government for all states nowhere in the Constitution the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence is the word democracy mentioned John Adams said democracy will Envy all contend with all endeavor to pull down all and when by chance if it happens to get the upper hand for a short time democracy will be revengeful bloody and cruel students should be taught properly about our constitutional republic and this necessary revision to the proclamation would be a good place to start I urge you to strongly consider this change tonight for the sake of correctly educating our children in the united with the United States knowledge and patriotism and I just wanted to say a couple of real quick things uh chair hegerty has recently acknowledge that funds have been mismanaged and misspent for
087years in the school system which is one reason why the AC units are broken all the time and not fixed what happened with the covid money where did it all go why was it not spent properly we are still waiting to find out thank you all right our next speaker is our next speaker thank you is Maggie F who'll be followed by Laura Wood good evening hi everyone thank you so much for t uh giving me some of your time this evening my name is Maggie I'm the proud parent of two kids in Wake County Public Schools our family has loved all of our public schools from con Elementary to Lian middle to Eno High School our family has also watched teachers and administrators do the best with what they have in the face of
088chronic underfunding and rampant teacher turnover which turnover that's understandable uh based on their pay this past weekend I watched as probably many of you did the debate between candidates for superintendent of Public Instruction with interest a phrase Michelle Morrow the Republican candidate said stuck in my head marrow an extremist and support of private school vouchers calls the almost $1 billion 1 billion taxpayer dollars the legislature has diverted this year from public schools for unregulated private schools a short-term fix vouchers are not a short-term fix they are an almost decade long problem let me repeat vouchers aren't a short-term fix they have added to our North Carolina Public Schools long-term Financial problems since 2015 the state legislature has given $50 million from Wake County taxpayers alone to unregulated private schools that money could have provided a
089long-term fix for low teacher pay early childhood education waiting lists needed classroom assistance and allowed more of our County funds to go to maintaining our aging buildings rather and this has already been discussed rather than subsidizing woefully inadequate state pay scales for our teachers and bus drivers instead the legislature is giving a taxpayer handout to wealthy families 63% of the people receiving these handouts make well over $1,000 a year they make well more than our teachers make double at least and unaccountable private schools the state legislature's voucher handouts are long term threats to our state's children families schools and businesses thank you thank you our next speaker is Laura Wood and Laura will be followed by Marius Thompson good evening good evening superintendent Taylor chair hegerty Vice chair Miss Johnson Hustler and board members my
090name is Laura Wood and I am the environmental connections integration specialist at Lincoln Heights environmental connections Magnet Elementary I am here this evening to speak about the sustainability policy 1810 on behalf of myself and the Wake Green Schools committee we want to say thank you to all of you that have worked to create this policy that will be brought before the board tonight thank you to the facility staff and the policy team and all of the Committees that have worked hard behind the scenes to draft and revise this policy in March of 2020 before covid we started talking about the importance of such a policy and the need to put one in place within wcpss we we are elated to finally be at this point so that we can begin the work of creating districtwide
091standards and procedures for many different sustainability initiatives as we have always said we are doing great things but we need to take the next steps forward to better manage and conserve resources reduce and eliminate waste and to reuse and recycle materials all while teaching and learning about environmental literacy collecting Baseline data which will then lead to monitoring and reporting will be essential to make measurable progress across the district this work will need staff to develop and Implement these practices and have accountability for their implementation in closing thank you for policy 1810 I look forward to seeing this Vision put into place and I think it is only fitting to mention that today is the perfect day to vote to approve this policy today is my birthday so happy birthday to you as well and thank
092you for the perfect birthday present wonderful thank you Miss W thank you good night I'm going home all right our next speaker um coming up yep Marius Thompson will we followed by Serena Johnson good evening good evening good evening superintendent Taylor and board members thank you for the opportunity to share a few concerns with you this evening my name is Myers Thompson and I am the mother of two amazing Sons a junior and a senior who are honor students in am Raleigh I am also a EGA 2024 parent power cohart graduate I would love for the board to adopt policies that protect the privacy and rights for all of our students I know that training can be provided to staff on how to create a more welcoming and inclusive environments for families so that public
093schools are more appealing to our students staff parents and communities over the past several months in EGA we talked and learned about many different topics related to public school one that stuck out to me personally was tardiness and consequences The Narrative about this issue has been stated that our children have enough time to transition during class which isn't always true it is a case- toase basic like the size of the school of teachers not adhering to the Bale schedule which can cause our student students to be late for their next classes also considering that some students use this time for a bathroom break as a mom I'm constantly contacting my son's teacher to make adjustments and to update his attendance when he's late get to his classes this tardiness has never um been his personal
094issue but because of his prior teacher this unnecessary stress which he cannot control has also affected his mindset and focus on occasions I am here today because you have the power to change this tardiness policy please consider allowing a few more times a few more minutes for our students to transition during class changes without the stress of running late my children simply want to learn thank you thank you our next speaker is uh Serena Johnson hello everyone um thanks for allowing me to speak today I'm here with education Justice Alliance and I have to say that I am I am very happy to hear that most of the board is on for making making sure that the public school system has resources to do what it needs to do for our students in the school
095system I want to speak on resources that has been available for the schools and what's not available for the schools um I'm a mom of three kids that attended Wake County Public School System one of my kids have uh disabilities and we went through a lot of issues just getting services for her within the school system because of funding and to see how drastically These funds have been cut for the public school system now it upsets me because I know what I went through and to have a board member not being support of public schools getting as much resources as needed when it comes to busing when it comes to Staffing when it comes to additional Medical Services that's needed within the school system and I see um a child that resembles my child in
096the audience and and it it brings me to emotions that I didn't even know was going to come up today but it's like what are we thinking about who are we who are we really doing this for now if we're not going to do everything that we can for the students within our school system every student that needs supports why are you here and that takes me back to another board member saying that we have to be careful on who we vote into these seats because this is why we're in the predicament that we're in right now with the general assembly and with our school board we have to make sure that we are getting people in in positions that want to do something for all students and then we talk about the Constitution the
097Constitution was written it was written for me and we have to that and it has to be culturally affirming on what the history of the Constitution all of it all of it those words sound so beautiful they sound so amazing but they weren't for my ancestors they weren't for me they weren't for a lot of people in this room so we're going to address even these days let's acknowledge all of the aspects of what's going on here not just what looks good not just what feels good to say in pretty words because we are going through stuff we have students that are my daughter is lesbian she went through hell in school not being accepted for who she is within the school system and we have to make sure that all students are looked at
098on who they are and and caring for people if we're going to do justice and and and the Constitution and we don't to speak on it be about it be about those words because those words was written in a time where they did not mean it for all of us so let's mean this for all of us and we're going to speak on what we're going to do and how we're going to do it make sure that's what you're representing I'm representing EJ a today that's what we represent all students and we want to make sure that we address issues within black and brown students cuz they're not getting everything that they need and that's what we're here for thank you thank you Miss Johnson at this point um we have a little bit of
099time left what I'd like to before we would transition to the rest of our agenda would I'd like to do miss Butler I understand that you're a student Bailey Butler no Lina Benson oh sorry wrong one on the list Lorena Benson okay um if you'd like to we'll put you at the front of the list of the off agenda speakers which is now so we'll let you as a student go ahead and come up and then we'll uh try to get one more after that and then we'll proceed with our business agenda good evening good evening thank you very much for this chance to speak so my name is s Benson I'm in the 10th grade and I'm 15 years old for 11 of those years I lived in the Dominican Republic public 3 months
100ago my family and I moved to North Carolina and have me enroll in the highly rated Athens Drive Magnet High School I was very excited for this opportunity until last Friday that is on Friday the 13th my English onur's class my teacher assigned the class to read a story independently and then come together into groups and discuss the story and answer some questions there was a part in this story that made me feel very uncomfortable and looked around and saw the same expression on other students faces we all had just read the following it was not the summer you fell in love with your cousin doozy because that happened just a few Summers before when you both wiggled into the tiny space behind Grandma's garage and he tried to fit what you both called his
101banana into what you both called your tomato but neither of you was sure which was the right hole even after reading again it makes me feel very uncomfortable this graphic graphic ancestral sexual language should not be taught in any class much less an honors English class that day I came back home from school as per usual I told my parents about my day and the things I did I show them what I was taught in my English class and they were as outraged as I was this incident got me thinking in my healthful living honors class I am being taught about brain functions and development I was taught that the teenage brains like mine are not fully developed yet and that we must be careful about what we engaged during these years based on this
102logic I am a teenager my brain is not fully developed and I should not have graphic and social sexual content taught to me in my classes I am deeply bothered and deeply disappointed I have decided to leave Athens Drive High School because I should not have to deal with pornographic inal sexual conduct taught to me in my classes thank you thank you Miss Benson our final speaker before we move to our business agenda will be Margaret Bido hello everyone members of the board superintendent tonight I want to talk about something that's undoubtedly at the Forefront of all of our minds school safety in meeting after meeting we talk about how to make our school safer we want all our children to feel safe at school and we should be doing everything in our power to
103ensure that they are but we have to face the truth there are children right now who are in critical need of protection and sadly that need extends to their time spent in school the fact that there is even a debate as to whether to legally allow the othering of transgender children is not only abhorent but harmful we're seeing the consequences Nationwide Title 9 protections have been put on hold in not just many K through 12 schools but at over 700 colleges and universities around the country and we are in the middle of what is being called the Red Zone the period between the start of school and Thanksgiving break where nearly half of all oncampus assaults occur we cannot afford to ignore the vulnerability of all of these children some have suggested single stall bathrooms
104as a solution to protect transgender students but let's not fool ourselves single stall bathrooms do not protect transgender students separate but equal is never equal support for single stall cells under the guise of safety is a disingenuous attempt to appear concerned about transgender students when in reality it does little more than perpetuate their isolation and would require funding that we do not have let's be very clear the very notion of creating separate safe spaces acknowledges the fact that these students are not safe if a child feels unsafe in a shared space like a bathroom the solution is not to isolate them it's to address the underlying reasons why they don't feel safe in the place in the first place the fact that children feel forced to request single stalls as a form of self- protection
105is not a sign that things are going well and using the words and fears of a child to justify further othering is not just unbelievable it's cruel the solution is not separation the solution is creating an environment where all students feel safe and where no one feels forced to isolate themselves for protection I am tired I'm tired of having to beg for my children and for all children to be treated with the same respect and dignity as everyone else not everyone has a choice pouring money into private schools takes opportunities from all children most especially low income and special education children and they can reject anyone they choose there is no alternative for lwi income children and the vast majority of ecs1 students outside of institutionalization let's remember our North Carolina Constitution and since today
106is Constitution Day as a reminder every single person present in the United States is protected by the Constitution regardless of immigration status and has afforded the right to be treated with human dignity especially children when will we finally understand that marginalizing any group of people never works out well not for the group being targeted and not for the whole Community thank you thank you so uh speakers have signed up for other off agenda topics we will get to your comments we will get to them though at the conclusion of the business portion of our meeting so at this point we will return to our agenda and first up our comments from our superintendent Dr Robert Taylor thank you Mr chair and good evening to you all uh as we've just heard in detail during the
107work session our school district made significant strides this past school year in terms of academic proficiency and our four-year graduation rate uh so I'd like to take a moment to commend our students families and staff for their hard work and determination and to look ahead to how we can build on this momentum here are a few highlights from the data our four-year graduation rate was 93 91.3% the highest rate this uh in this District's history of the class of 2024 was also our largest graduating class ever at over 12,000 students students these figures are even more impressive when you consider these students started high school in the fall of 2020 uh and the uncertainty of the pandemic our overall academic proficiency rates increased to 64.2% and is now just 1 percentage Point shy our pre-pandemic
108proficiency rate in fact standardized test scores in many subjects are actually higher than before the pandemic we also saw uh a major increase in the number of schools that exceeded expected growth in academic efficiency 40% of our schools 77 in total exceeded expected growth that's up from 29% last school year and it's our best performance since 2013 in total 85% of our schools met our exceeded growth which is also our best performance since 2013 we also saw significant Improvement in the school letter grce issued by the state nearly 60% of our schools received an ARB um another record high we we also had 10 schools that were able to exit low performing status as measured by the state you can find more uh details uh about these and other statistics on our district website I'd
109also like to direct your attention specifically to specifically to the school progress reports that our data and accountability and research teams compile every year these reports include not only test score data but also data regarding demographics School leadership and school climate offering a more comprehensive snapshot of each School uh you can find these at our uh wcpss.net progress reports on our website we all of course greatly encouraged by this significant proc progress yet we are equally mindful that there is much work left to do particularly for our students of color and students of low social economic status reducing and ultimately El eliminating these disparities in some outcomes lies at the very heart of our strategic plan uh tremendous effort has gone into to putting policies and practices in place to give our teachers and school
110administrators the tools they need to meet the needs of every student indeed I believe these policies and practices played a major role in the growth we saw last school year this date is a heartening reminder that we are on the right track and and and should fill all of us with confidence and renewed determination to continue pressing onward and upward I'm more than certain that um than ever that we will uh we are well on our way to a new level of national Excellence with that we also need State policies and practices in both funding and measuring academic progress fairly to further support our work uh lastly I would like to thank the wakad partnership and everyone who has supported the Tools for Schools uh school supply Drive uh this drive collected 400,000 items and
111raised about $70,000 over the summer this helped stock the shelves at the Tools for Schools classroom supply store where Wake County school teachers can obtain these essential items free of charge since the store opened for the current school year on August the 6 our teachers have gathered more than $16,000 worth of supplies that's about $120 in supplies for each of the nearly 1,400 teachers who have shopped there thus far this year since it's launch in January 2022 the new for schools has given away more than $1 million in new school supplies so last year alone more than $8,000 teachers representing each one of our schools took advantage of this program we are grateful for all the ways that W Ed partnership continues to support our staff and students Tools for Schools program in particular has
112had a direct impact not only on the availability of classroom resources but also on teacher morale I feel strongly that Tools for Schools in addition to saving teachers money has reduced their stress and reminded them just how valued they are that's why I'm pleased to see the tremendous community support for this program and I know it will continue to grow so again to for schools operates throughout the school year uh so it's not too late to support the program through donations or for any teachers to make an appointment to book their own shopping spree uh so again we thank Tools for Schools Mr chair I'll you look back to you uh didn't want to rush to these comments tonight because I know we are press for time thank you Dr Taylor U all of your
113comments are well received and uh well stated I'll follow up on a couple of them just to add a little bit behind them but this comment is really for our board members um I wanted to make you aware of this document this is the student resource guide it's put out by Wake County government with a lot of our government local government and uh other public agency part Partners often times we talk about supporting the students making sure that our students arrive at schools ready to learn we do our best to satisfy that um but oftentimes we know the need is very very great parents councelors staff all need to know about these resources that are available and good work that's being done I will be emailing you each a copy of this I'd encourage you
114all to read it just familiarize yourself with what resources are available to family and then feel free to distribute it as you feel is appropriate um again just I found it I only recently discovered it it was just updated this month with the latest information and programs to assist families and I've already used it successfully to help a number of families out of specific hardships that they had so thank you um Dr Taylor and I we were both along with Miss rice who's who's not here today at Green leadership and uh world World Language Elementary School and we were there to talk about and see the results that the students had made one year after um being lifted up by the helps program and board members and I hope folks in the community are familiar
115with the helps program I'm hopeful that we can take that presentation that was shared with us and bring it to perhaps a student achievement committee because the results were just phenomenal the interiew ventions having adults come into the schools and spend time with those children reading with those children helping them and again this these are volunteers who've been trained through our partners with um Wake Tech or sorry wake Ed partnership and then um the the help education um we looked at beginning of the year tests we looked at end of the year tests and just for par participation in the program students had to have been identified as facing some severe challenges by the end of the year those kids were performing at or better than the school averages and in some cases were among
116some of the top performers in that school and like we talked about into Dr Taylor's comments the growth that we've seen to get us to exceeding prepandemic levels is huge and part of this you know part part of our Focus has been early literacy those K through3 students so I'd encourage you to learn more about the program hopefully we can find sometime and we have a busy agenda but maybe to look at those results and if we can see the good results this is something that we can expand into additional schools into mathematics into other areas that I know our board has talked about um I know we are continuing to experience Transportation issues through the district and as we heard today in our staffing updates while we've done a great job of getting our
117school-based positions back up over 96% fill rate we still do have challenges with Transportation but as Dr Taylor pointed out Wake County is trending in the right direction and we are bucking these State Trends where we're still seeing in other counties declining bus driver um you know bus driver enrollment in these positions and so we know what we have is working we know that for many families it's not working fast enough so we're going to continue our efforts and we hope that we can show more relief sometime soon um I was also lucky this this past week to attend with uh a number of members of our staff a program at the Friday Institute about mobile phone use in our schools looking at different policies what people have done and we got to hear from
118other superintendents and staff from around the state about the experiments that they've done um seeing the early results from staff from teachers and families of changes in these policies we heard from develop like Youth Development and uh child psychology experts and really got a good balanced view pros and cons of you know what the implications of Technology use and specifically mobile phone use can be in our schools and so I look forward to the discussion we'll have later this fall on some of those issues um but my my my final thing and I guess it is related to technology and phone use is you know I don't know that we've come together and given a lot of discussion to the events that took place in Georgia just just a few weeks ago um anytime there's
119violence in the schools obviously we're all concerned parents families staff teachers the entire communities anxiety level raises um um and we come together and we we we question our our safety and our security we had a good briefing today about the Safety and Security efforts in our schools but I want to call out something very specific which is the number of threats that have been called in to our schools to our high schools our our middle schools even an elementary school now thankfully all of these threats have been hoaxes but we have to take every threat seriously we can't afford not to and we know this is disruptive this disrupts the school day it creates anxiety for the students anxiety for the parents and it's just plain wrong but again we have to take every
120threat very seriously so you'll hear us talk about this at the board table but I'm going to say it once more we do have a tip line that students and parents can call to report concerns related to Safety and Security it's 856 1 911 that's 919 911 often times some of these threats are made as a joke as a hoax as a way to disrupt school as a way to get out of class and we have to communicate to our families and our youth that it's not a joke and it's not funny whether or not a person carries out a threat and we don't want any threats acted upon this is a criminal offense this is under North Carolina state law a class H felony and even students who are joking can be prosecuted by
121our district attorney and they are responsible for all of the the the harm that they're doing to their fellow students disrupting their education putting them In Harm's Way creating panic panics and it has to stop so parents please talk to your students about the irresponsibility of such hoaxes and threats if you allow your students to use social media please monitor that social media and just help us get the message out that these hoaxes are not a joke we have to take them very seriously and we have to we we have to you know hold people Everyone responsible even if they're joking for making these threats there's there's just no other way it's a threat it's it's a threat to our safety it's a threat to our security and we just can't tolerate it so please
122work with your children on this thank you so that concludes my remarks I'll check to see if our vice chair John Miss uh our vice chair Miss Johnson Hustler is available to make comment here she is yes k can you hear me as well we got you perfect I'm speaking of uh cell phones and technology I've had quite a bit of Technology issues but thank you to the staff who's been bearing with me um and again I I will start by something that wasn't on my notes and that's happy birthday to those who are committed to join our school board meeting on uh Tuesday night so both to Rowan and to Miss Wood happy birthday and thank you for joining and hopefully they're both going home to eat cake um again you you've heard from
123our our board but also staff memb um about today's constitutional day but I would also remind us that it's also in light of that while the Constitution certainly was not written for all of us there is a day that is for all of us adults and that's National registration day and so as we've already talked about school voucher programs and indeed I would be the first to say school choice is a parent right um however it is also the right of all of our students to have a sound basic education and that requires to do that by fully funding our public schools and that is the responsibility of our North Carolina general assembly and so I don't think I have to say much else other than today is the day and so hopefully all of
124you who are watching um and who are in the room are already registered to vote and I encourage you to invite your friends to not just register to vote but to check their voter registration because indeed every vote does truly count and so I'd be remiss if I didn't add that given this the things that we've talked about but also a reminder um that of us independently have the ability to change the outcomes to see Public Schools reach the potential that we all know that it does have um second I'd like to thank um Dr stur Who uh was walking out on a dreary but then human day on Saturday at the Crosby Community Day um Dr Taylor you'll be glad to know that she was there ensuring that every organization in that space was
125scanning the QR code and registering for Community mapping again just another way to remind us of our commitment to engaging our public um especially in the trying times as our chair just spoke to um the threats that are being made on our schools um it is truly going to take an entire Community to be invested in our public schools and I certainly felt that that is that's the feeling that I got this weekend in people being willing to engage with us around being supportive of Wake County Public Schools um and lastly I will say which I'm sure I I didn't hear another colleague say it yet but I'm sure it's on somebody's list is and that is an acknowledgement that we are also in Hispanic Heritage Month and so just another reminder to us around
126the importance of our community and Community engagement and thank you again to the staff who's been very patient with my technology issues this evening thank you Vice chair Johnson huster we appreciate it and we're glad that we were able to you were able to join us for those comments all right uh we'll go around the virtual table we'll start with Mr Hershey uh no boy comments tonight thank you all right thank you Mr Hershey we'll go to miss Edmunds just um a thank you to teachers in light of the data that we reviewed today um out of our the accomplishments that the class of 2024 particularly the high school students of 2024 um you know the students deserve a lot of credit for sure but we wouldn't see these results if it weren't for our
127phenomenal Educators our DED dedicated educators um for these kids to have started you know in Virtual learning um during a pandemic with all of that you know that was entailed um just a shout out to them because all of the results that we've seen that we'll talk about more next month um are a credit to you and uh we're very grateful thank you thank you Miss edmans Miss mafy thank you I just would like to extend a thank you to the families um who continue to share information via the thought exchange and participate in the virtual information sessions that are being provided by our office of student assignment I've been in frequent contact with Miss pum and her team as they review the information and questions that are shared I encourage everyone to continue to
128participate and check the FAQs on the website for updates um and we will continue the conversation I do also want to lift up our Holly Springs High School community and ask that you keep them in your thoughts and in your hearts at this time they've had a really tough week thank you thank you Miss mfy we'll come back around Miss rice is not here but I will wish her a happy birthday Al joining the crowds of those celebrating birthdays this week and next we'll go to miss Coffield thank you um so I want to start out with uh the recent events the bomb threats um and just kind of reiterate I was going to talk about what some of what you just said and how um very severe it is and you've heard some of
129the facts some of the questions that were presented um we've discussed in closed session um some of the security measures and some questions that were shared some concerns and some you know answers that they were able to provide I want to point out that the Heritage evacuation by law enforcement worked very quickly efficiently to make sure that our students got out to safety first and foremost while we would continue to work on Improvement our number one is keeping our kids safe and they did I want to thank the staff and Wake Forest Police Department for making sure that their safety was our first priority that being said I would like to reiterate with Mr Hershey heads I'm sorry switching tables with chair hagard said um that we need to continue um you know we heard
130your Fe feedback we heard from our families it rece we received it but we also need the families to be involved and engaged and understand that I mean we heard the numbers I'm not sure if we could share the numbers but they were astonishing to hear in such a short period of time across the county and not just in our County in other counties as well so our children really need to understand the consequences that will come from this but not only that the chaos it causes the safety concerns that it causes the traffic that's outside the the resources we need to bring in how much the teachers are are also living in fear this is not just a simple prank that you can say on social media or make a phone call it goes
131well beyond that and well beyond that day so I really do hope that our families are going to take a little bit of time just to have a conversation a little bit of table talk to speak to their their children just so they understand a little bit more about what what it means um I was originally going to address address the importance of today Constitution Day that recognizes September 17th of 1787 and citizenship day that recognizes those who have become US citizens but as Mr cook put it so well um he stated the value of this day and I just wanted to say thank you again for bringing that um proclamation to Wake County Public School families and supported the importance of this day and what it stands for I encourage families to open conversation
132with their children about what they learned and celebrated at school today I wanted to share a recent um meeting that I had I had the pleasure of meeting with uh principal Stacy mcquirt and Dr Savage at beaverdam Elementary School principal Stacy has been with beaverdam for just uh two years and she has taken our that school from an F to a c and while a c sounds like it's still kind of mediocre that's a huge huge undertaking not it's it's different if you're taking it from a b school and you're improving a little bit because they have a lot of foundation but to have a school that's in that status and to take them that far in such a short period of time was a real accomplishment so I wanted to lift her up for
133that and the staff that was at Beaver Dam she shared with us some of the Magic in her success or in their success I should say and that not only did she have such a special staff a committed staff but the flexibility that allowed many more instructional assistance in her school and the real impacts that that had using restart spending flexibility of course funds are needed to support our students through programs resources facilities but much more importantly where and how we spend it while we do have restrictions in some regards the flexibility that our restart programs allow our schools has shown that where we spend our money can really make an impact on how that looks for our students daytoday this flexibility allowed quite a bit of assistance of putting IAS in every classroom in
134her K3 she had two IAS and the teacher this not only helps our teachers but it gives more one-on-one to each and every student in her fourth and fifth grade classes she also had an instructional assistant along with the teacher they had high expectations and lots of support to come with plans to Zone in on the needs of each and every student I wanted to lift up principal Stacy and her staff and their successes and I know that she has a lot more successes to come but it should be recognized that her high expectations great leadership and having the flexibility to provide that specialized need really could make a huge difference so congratulations to beaverdam families I look forward to seeing where they will go from here I did want to acknowledge what you said
135about the helps program because I know my own child was when he was in third grade we had an amazing teacher um she had actually retired and came back to way County public schools in third grade and she was a literacy coach and she used this program and I was one of the volunteers to come in and help with the children and I really saw the difference that it made on each and every one of those kids it's an incredible program and I glad that we are using it all throughout Wake County Public Schools a final reminder um that our up board advisory is on SE uh September 23rd and we will be meeting with Dr Taylor thank you all right thank you Miss Coffield and we will turn it to our closer Mr Swanson
136to conclude our board comments thank you Mr chair and I believe that we have added an item to the student achievement committee based on your remarks so I will uh work with Dr Wilson Norman to make sure we incorporate that and some take a deeper dive into this data that we saw um I want to I thought Miss mafy was going to include this in her remarks yes we had a opportunity this weekend to attend the uh Western Wake band uh day that featured Green Hope carry high and green level high school um such a great event uh to really highlight the Arts we often hear folks say let's get back to the basics well the basics often neglects the art where we see students Thrive and shine and grow uh so it's a great
137opportunity to engage with that and to see the great things and hopefully next year Dr Taylor we I'll make sure I remind you to join us it's such a great event um also I want to say uh Happy HBCU week also happy uh voter registration day and happy constitutional day it's so befitting that we get to highlight all of those and talk about education when this document was written it was illegal for black folks at the time to be able to read right it was also illegal for women to to to have the right to vote uh the part in the Constitution I don't think is often talked about or can't be talked about in certain States because of legislation that is passed to present this alternative vision of America that's in my opinion A
138revisionist Vision uh because we can't acknowledge the future of our country without acknowledging the past and the pain that is deeply rooted into that um and you know it took uh the Reconstruction Era which happened about a hundred years after the Constitution was written to give us rights such as abolishing slavery giving black men the right to vote and all these other pieces that we are now seeing that is being attacked and being Rewritten in history and so I think it's a it's a a a great reminder to get out and register to vote but not just register to vote go out and vote because we are 30 days from the start of early voting uh I also want to thank the North Carolina PTA and the North Carolina public schools first for putting together
139such a fabulous Forum this weekend I had the opportunity of watching how two individuals one I'll be mindful of my words um lay out their vision for what they want to do for North Carolina public schools and you know I think it's be fitting that we do some good digging I I think it's important to support those who believe in public schools not those who call to abandon and dismantle the Constitution to uproot lies and whatnot so I I think um November is going to be very critical I think we have to not only register but activate come up with the plan to vote and make sure that your voices are heard because that is how democracy works when all voices are able to access their their voice at The Ballot Box and Beyond so
140come up with your plan don't just register go vote and make sure you tell four or five friends and family members to make sure they vote and don't forget your ID thank you so much all right thank you Mr Swanson so that concludes our board comment section of the agenda next we'll move to the items on our consent agenda board members have had an opportunity to uh review the items is there a motion at this time chair Hagerty I make a motion that we approve the items on the consent agenda second we have a motion from Miss mafy to approve the items on the consent agenda and we have a second for Miss Edmonds is there any debate or discussion all right if not we will go back to another roll call vote so um
141looking online and making sure folks are available um actually what you know what we'll start in a reverse order this time to give everyone a chance to come back so uh Miss Coffield you we're voting on The consent agenda yes thank you so that was an that was a yes that was an I I was say no no worries all right so that was a vote of I uh Mr Swanson I Vice chair Johnson Hustler I that's an i the chair votes I miss mfy I miss Edmonds I and Mr Hershey I all right by unanimous vote all of the items on the consent agenda were approved and adopted next we'll go to our action agenda where we have five policy items before us today uh the first is the proposed board policy 1810 a
142policy on sustainability uh here before us on first reading welcome Mr Bernett thank you appreciate it this uh this is the first reading of policy 1810 sustainability this item was first discussed at the May policy committee uh suggested changes were discussed at that time and it was then presented at the September 3rd Board of Education work session there was one adjustment and that was incorporated uh board approval of the first reading is requested okay so board members uh you did see this item in policy committee we had good discussion uh Mr Brett's presenting the item at this point do we have a motion just to begin discussion so moved second we have a motion from Miss mafy we have a second from Miss Edmonds so um approval of the policy on first reading has been
143proposed are there any comments any any debate I see Mr Hershey and then I'll come back to miss Edmonds and then miss mfy uh Mr Hershey the floor is yours thank you um I just want to give credit to uh Miss mafy and to chair Hagerty on their work on a sustainability policy I know uh the chair has been running this for uh a number of years and talking about it I'm happy to have helped push for this I am very happy that uh to have worked with miss mafy our policy chair on you know doing the work this year going to NC State having conversations um doing the research and I want to thank also you know the weight green partnership uh um group who I they let me meet with them every once
144in a while and I'm I'm very appreciative of their consistent push uh for this policy um I look forward to its implementation across our school system and I just want to um you know this is this is a good strong start for sustainability policy and I just appreciate Miss mfy and and sh H with their uh help on this thank you Mr Hershey next we'll go to miss edmans thank you um I just when we have it for second reading I'd like to request that it be on action versus um consent that's it okay thank you thank you so noted Miss mafy I just want to recognize um Mr Bernette Mr Strickland and their team Dr crane um it is not easy to craft a policy out of thin air when multiple board members are
145throwing different ideas at you um and I want to thank the folks that were a part of the sustainability um working group that Miss Edmonds Mr Hershey and I were able to be a part of that was eye openening on the different facets of sustainability and so I look forward to this being a start as we move forward to being a more sustainable district and living up to that green ribbon District District um recognition that we earned a few years back and being able to see Miss Wood and carpool thank you Miss mafy other board members any comment anyone else online Miss Coffield I just kind of had a question really more um I think it's great that we actually have this policy and we're kind of just showing you know where we stand on
146it and it's going to kind of be a base of of how we operate in the last paragraph where it says that we'll regularly monitor um just wanted to suggest that we actually put in how often we actually monitor it just so we have a good sense of following up on the information and seeing if we need to tweak anything so that's that's a good question what I'll do is I'll turn it over to Mr berett and then Dr crane as well in recapping the committee discussion whether whether was their discussion about how often things could be monitored was there reasoning for the current language whatever you could share with us um because I know like sharing Miss caulfield's Point obviously we want to monitor it as often as feasible and I just didn't know
147if you all had some idea of what that was um I guess a proposal could be that uh it's uh a report or a presentation is done annually uh if you want it to be more frequent than that we certainly you can can do that too is is that something we could put in rules and procedures or would your like an internal document or would that be something for policy is that if you have a Rec recommendation I'll ask board members as well we could add it to the to that last section that it would be annually if if that's if that's if the board's good with that if you have in my work with our attorneys over the last several years I have recognized that often the word regularly is inserted instead of a
148specific time frame so that it allows staff to put in an r&p when we get a report that we will when we identify those parameters and those items then we can identify a reporting Cadence or timeline but to put the word regularly in there does state that there will be a report it will happen regularly um but does leave that specificity to an r&p if the board would like the specificity of an annual report in the policy we can certainly do that and then build that um even annually or more frequently in the r&p but at minimally annually we can put that in the policy if you'd like am I good on that Mr Malone is that fair okay okay is that anything we want to address now or do we want to think about
149it Miss Evans has asked that this come back for action and so we could take some time if we wanted to before voting on a final if or we could do anything with it tonight or not miss mafy uh my understanding was that there needed to be some like base level monitoring and understanding what our metrics and systems were um which was why as Dr crane said putting the regularly in um what we can do Mr Strickland superintendent Taylor is maybe in a year get a report whether it's in facilities or a work session or bring back the policy to know what metrics you all have and and figure out what that reporting schedule will look like so we are excited about this too what we would like to do is um establish the metrics
150that we want to measure let's make sure they are good that they apply to the work that we want to do and then we can determine the best frequency of how we report that back to the board that's kind of what we're thinking through now if we leave it at regularly um that says we will do something once a year but as we dive into it and get into the specifics it could be that we do things uh every 6 months every quarter we just want to look at the metrics but we do need to gather the data first okay any further thoughts or comments on that all right uh I'll check just online again just to make sure anyone online had any comments All right so again as as referenced by Mr Hershey this
151has been um several years of of of work and labor by board members who are here at this table and board members who came before us and so it is always very satisfying um very very meaningful when we get to see it come to fruition I want to acknowledge everyone's contributions who's who has worked on this I know that you know oftentimes we might get policies recommended to us like by the state Association or required by state law or federal law and this is one that we were putting together customized for Wake County and I know that takes a lot of work and appreciate everyone's dedication everyone's thoughts and research on this putting this together so I just want to express my gratitude for everything you've done to get us to this point to have
152the policy presented before us tonight the work of our policy committee and its leadership and having the discussions and getting us to this point and I think this is the right thing to do and I I think we will see good things come out of this and as board members have suggested this is a first step and we'll continue to evaluate continue to see where it can grow can see you know how it how it should evolve and grow uh you know based on our needs and based on the data we collect so I just wanted to give those comments and thank you all so we do have a motion on the table um from Miss mafy seconded by Miss Edmonds if there's no other comment we'll begin our roll call vote all right uh
153first we'll start with Mr Hershey hi Miss Edmonds I miss mafy I chair votes I Vice chair Johnson Hustler Mr Swanson I and Miss Coffield I all right by unanimous vote the bill has passed first reading and we'll return to us on the action agenda at our next meeting for second reading thank you both all right our second policy that we're considering tonight is proposed board policy 7425 on first reading I believe Dr muella will present thank you chair hegy and just give a brief overview of the four policies I have before going into each individually I am bringing policy 7811 and 7815 we presented all of these at the August 27th policy committee meeting um and again I'll review them individually just a reminder tonight these are all model Schoolboard Association policies so what
154you see in the black font is the model School Board Association policy blue font is Staff revisions to that policy which often includes us bringing over existing policy language um green font just represents moving language within the same policy and then the yellow highlighted language um is new language that we've added since the administrator contracts um bringing this for first reading once adopted it would repl place the following policies in the old manual 2010 for school administrator contract and 2021 for retention renewal and career status um during the policy committee we we highlighted staff changes to the model policy and added Provisions from our current policy and practices we agreed upon language um during the committee meeting so tonight we are requesting the board's approval of the first reading of policy 7425 thank you Dr
155mitello uh is is there a motion so move we have a motion for Miss mafy is there a second second for Miss Edmonds all right are there any questions for Dr muello about the policy any comments by the board about this proposed policy oh sorry I lost my online uh image just checking to see okay none from our online members all right then at this point we'll proceed to a vote uh we'll start with Mr Hershey I miss Edmonds i m mafy i the chair votes I Vice chair Johnson hosler I Mr Swanson I and Miss Coffield I all right by unanimous vote the policy has been approved for first reading and return to the board for second raing great next uh in your the parade of personnel we have uh policy 74 proposed policy
1567440 yes so policy 7440 for assignments reassign assignments um and transfers this is the one I probably have the most to present on because we left it a little um open-ended with us to come back and and try to reconcile some discussion from the policy committee meeting um but once approved it would replace the following policies in the old manual 3320 and 3321 for employee initiated transfers and employer initiated transfers as well as 3,300 for transfers so if you would call from the policy committee meeting we did have a a discussion centered on Section B which was Employee initiated transfers during the school year and the board wanted us to look at some consistent timelines as well as some consistent criteria um for um some some of those timelines so we talked a bit about
157potentially 30-day timeline or a 60-day timeline went back and talked with the HR teams as well as some other folks to try to bring back a a recommendation to C sure both the concerns around consistency of timeline in a transfer um outside the transfer window during the school year as well as some criteria that's specific and in policy that will allow for an extension Beyond um the timeline so you can see that language highlighted in your materials in yellow but I'll go ahead and read it as well um for those who don't have those in the public who don't have access to those materials so this this talks about teachers instructional assistance and clerical staff uh and and says must receive permission from the principal unless the POS the position is an increase in salary
158and here's the the highlighted language and the employes principal and the prospective principal must agree upon the date of the employees release which will be no later than 30 days from the date the transfer is approved by human resources except if one the transfer will create a vacancy that Cur that occurs during the final two weeks of a semester or two the transfer will create a vacancy that occurs during a immediately proceeding mandatory testing three there is not an available qualified replacement or substitute employee for the transferring employee or for releasing the employee will have a detrimental impact on instruction and employees who release date is delayed must be released no later than 60 days from the date of the transfers approved by human resources and again this was our attempt to capture the discussion
159um at the committee table and bring forward a recommendation to you great thank you Dr Mello any uh go first just to keep with the protocol is there a motion so move we have a motion from Miss mfy is there a second second for Miss Edmonds is there any discussion about this policy or any questions um following up our discussion from policy committee Miss edmans so if I remember correctly um I think Mr Swanson and Miss Coffield had the most comments or feedback about this highlighted section in so I just wanted to know does this kind of capture what you were looking for Mr Swanson I say it's an attempt it's a yes and no um but I also understand being in the classroom that there are certain time frames that is not convenient for
160transfer so I will concede to that but I also appreciate the attempt to really um come up with some happy and happy medium I I think the concern that I'd raised was if a teacher is requesting that transfer for sometimes teachers need a fresh start sometimes they need to change of scenery just like our students and I think we should try to find 30 days which was I think was uh the suggested language to agree upon and let that be a trans a peaceful transfer um so therefore it helps our retention our recruitments and and whatnot so I I think um I think it is a great a great start so I I will yeah thank you thank you Mr Swanson Coffield yes uh I agree with uh Mr Swanson um the 30 days I
161like that that's in there the only concern I had and I think this is what you were referring to is unless there was not um somebody to replace them so that kind of pins them back to the 60 days but I do agree that some of the other stuff that's in there is is necessary around testing and everything because then it does affect the students so I do think it's a fair compromise thank you thank you okay is there any other com comments any other questions okay if not we will proceed to a roll call vote on proposed board policy 7440 um on assignments and reassignment transfers all right um we'll start with Mr Hershey I miss Edmonds I miss mfy I the chair votes I Vice chair Johnson Hustler Mr Swanson I and Miss
162Coffield I all right by unanimous vote policy is passed on first reading and will'll be brought back to the board for second reading next on the list uh proposed board policy 7811 plans for growth and Improvement of licensed employees all right next policy um again for first reading once adopted this policy would replace the following policies in the old manual 2233 and 3233 certified employee Improvement plans um as discussed in policy committee uh the details of the different plans the district uses to help employees improve performance um I think we agreed upon the language during the policy committee there was some discussion as we sought to streamline the policy and remove some components that those the specificity of those might be lost so the board had talked about us ensuring that we provided direction to
163supervisors um on different Improvement strategies how to how to choose the correct plan so we are starting to review our content on weight connect and the performance team um is augmenting what's out there just to make sure that anything that was removed to streamline the policy is not lost in terms of guidance for supervisors so um tonight we're requesting the board's approval of the first reading of policy 7811 thank you Dr Mello is there a motion so moved we have a motion for Miss mfy is there a second have a second for Miss Edmond are there any questions for Dr Mello about the policy any comments from board members again we did have a thorough discussion of the policy and policy committee all right then we will have a roll call vote on the proposed
164policy we'll start with Mr Hershey I miss Edmonds I miss mafy I chair votes I Vice chair Johnson Hustler I that was an I from Miss Johnson Vice from Vice chair Johnson Hustler we have uh Mr Swanson I and Miss Coffield I all right by unanimous vote proposed board policy 7811 has passed on first reading and will be brought back to the board for second reading and the final policy I have is board policy 7815 evaluation of non-licensed employees thank you chair heger um yes last policy for this evening um once adopted this policy would replace policy 4230 evaluation of support employees um staff has taken in the model policy and added statement from current board policy about the timing EV Val of evaluations and also um added language to be consistent with the evaluation
165of licensed employees that the one that we just reviewed so tonight we request the board's approval for the first reading of policy 7815 evaluation of non-licensed employees thank you Dr muello is there a motion so moved motion for Miss Mafi is there a second second second from Miss edmans are there any questions for Dr muello any comments from board members all part of the migration all part of the migration again um we had a very full policy committee agenda and we're just you know we're just moving these along policy sorry all right then we'll move if there are no questions we'll move to a vote on first reading we'll start with Mr Hershey I miss Edmonds I miss mfy I the chair votes I Vice chair John Hustler I Vice chair votes I Mr Swanson
166I and Miss Coffield all right so we have unanimous approval of proposed board policy 7815 which is passed on first reading and we'll return to the board for second reading thank you Dr Mello thank you all all right so now um I want to thank all of our remaining speakers for their patience uh as we continued with our business agenda uh we'll now return to our public comment portion hearing from members who signed up to speak to items that were off agenda and so our first speaker for this portion of public comment will be Joseph Deon and Mr Dayton will be followed by Bailey Butler good evening Mr dayon and again thank you for your patience thank you at at recent meetings I asked the board not to include gender identity in anti-discrimination policy be
167because this will require social transition by schools the overwhelming majority of those who are socially transitioned then go on Medical Treatments whereas the majority would outgrow dis dor gender dysphoria if not socially transitioned puberty blockers are usually the first medical treatment that that follows the world professional association for transgender Health wath in version 8 of their standard of care still claim that puberty blockers give adolescents time to think about their gender but this claim is not credible when 96 to 98% of those on puberty blockers go on to cross sex hormones wpath so8 uh re repeats the debunk claim that puberty blockers are fully reversible and then contradict themselves by admitting adverse impacts on bone density and brain development W path's solution to these problems is now to recommend to a proceeding one to cross-
168sex hormones before the age of 16 cross- seex hormones cause irreversible changes in sex characteristics but curiously s so8 calls the the effects partially reversible in addition to causing atrophy of reproductive organs and loss of fertility cross- seex hormones increase rates of heart attack cardiovascular dis disease blood disorders and cancer s so8 goes into detail about which varieties of hormones should be avoided based on family history and pre-existing conditions assuming that these are known or manifest for young patients s so8 admits they do not eliminate risk but recommend hormone treatments to supposedly improve mental health but the cast review for NHS England found that those short-term studies were low quality and the claims unreliable the harmful effects of puberty blockers and hormones go back to social transition in schools you are putting extremely troubled and
169vulnerable young people on a one-way conveyor belt whereas most would outgrow dysphoria if if left alone thank you thank you Mr Deon our next speaker is Bailey Butler um and I believe Mr bog is he here I don't see him if not then following U Miss Butler would be Zachary Bess good evening hi good evening um hi I'm a resident of the Pearson Farm neighborhood in Apex and I'm here to respectfully ask the board to reconsider the 2025 the 2026 student assignment that directly impacts Pearson farms and Ashley DS let me start by saying I fully understand all of Chapel Elementary has been an overcrowded school for many years and I recognize the school district must relieve that pressure Pearson Farms is uh 6 miles away from oce and Ashley Downs is 900 ft so
170we have driven through the intersections where parents pick up and drop off their students during school hours and we know how bad the traffic is we also know our principal Miss May faculty and staff are doing truly a remarkable and a likely incredibly taxing job meeting the needs of a large number of students I acknowledge rezoning schools is an effective strategy in resolving these issues and many communities are and have been impacted due to the enormous growth in wck County my concern for Pearson farms and Ashley DS resol revolves around the lack of calendar consistency offered to our children by the current proposal our families are being asked to tr transition school calendars four times without any other options or support we are also being asked to fund child care for calendars breaking two distinct
171calendars often within the same year or risk losing access to public transportation this will create further Financial stress on residents already meeting the demands of growing property taxes and rapidly Rising home prices some of our community members attended the virtual call yesterday seeking Clarity to see what options we currently have from my understanding the key takeaways were one our specific Community has a robust stability transfer option for our children to remain at oce and two Parkside Middle School will open in 2026 and the board isn't considered middle school realignment until this school is open offering a robust stability transfer is greatly appreciated I know it's not something that's strictly in accordance with your policies so I do appreciate that ultimately you're asking us to go to balkam but our community is struggling to make decisions
172between a stability transfer or balam because because of the uncertainty of the Middle School alignment one of which mentioned yesterday could possibly be impacted by the pending Park School Middle School opening Additionally you cannot give us any reassurance that future students in our community will receive the same calendar consistency options therefore it is hard to feel confident in The Proposal that ultimately is relying on something that might happen I believe there are solutions that align closer to the four pillars of the student assignment other than relocating our students to a school on conflicting calendar schedules that is times the distance away from our current school and our community would be eager to work with the school board to help navigate the possible solutions I am running out of time in conclusion I'm kindly asking the
173school board to keep our small population of students of Pearson Farms down at oce if that's not possible please um wait until the impacts of Parkside Middle School are fully realized thank you all right thank you Miss Butler again last chance for Mr bog I don't believe he's here but just in case he's out of the room all right then we'll proceed seed um Zachary Bess who will be followed by Kenneth Butler good evening good evening I think I would have tied it to the Constitution if IID known how long I was going to be here um I love Tools for Schools I've got a whole laundry list of things to talk about I stood up here two three years ago and then again two years ago talking about how unaffordable it is to live
174in this County and teach in this County at the time I lived in Durham and I looked and looked and looked and looked wake and I bought in Johnson because I cannot afford to live in this County where I teach that is beyond frustrating I'll say that I was this close looking at Johnson County schools and lucky for everybody you all pass Master's pay and then I was like all right I guess I'll stay around because that gave me an option because as much as I'd love to become a board certified teacher if I move states that isn't going to do anything for me because we are the only state that seems to care about it and Masters will take me in every single state so while I eventually plan on become board certified if
175I stay here Masters is the one that I wanted to Prior prioritize um additionally I wanted to say that while we talk about bus drivers we talk about a lot of support staff we talk about teachers I think some of the other support roles like uh Speech and physical and occupational therapy often gets left out um am I biased absolutely my wife just graduated from Duke University with her Doctorate of occupational therapy and the 250 she will get for having a doctorate from duke is laughable when my Master's that I'm paying nothing for will completely change how much I'm making a month twice as much as her doctorate from the University where the aota is transitioning to being a doctoral only position and that's what we're paying the position very frustrating um I have so
176many things I want to say we've talked about a lot of a lot of holidays U one we haven't talked about is band Book week next week week and I just want to say a lot of people up here talking about the word liberty and freedom but I want to say that hopefully we can stand for the freedom to read what we have available to us and not restrict people in the name of Liberty and freedom most importantly I wanted to say thank you all for I've seen so many of your faces around uh the leadership acmy I'm in the middle of some of that mess and I appreciate how much was talked about during the work meeting today that's one of the reasons I wanted to come and support it I did have my
177biggest concern I think is that the staff of these schools have not been as involved as they can I understand the policy complications I understand that everyone's not going to go what they want especially with potentially having a third school and I just wanted to say I think I see a lot of potential issues with having a high school split across three campuses including the two previous campuses plus the new campus at Shaw University um I don't think I have a perfect solution I just think that space is already an issue on our campus I would love to see you all consider Contracting additional space at Governor Morhead school a lot has been talked about spending I teaching a 100-year-old building mold and cracks and all those things are regular for me thank you for
178everything bye thank you our next speaker is Kenneth Butler who'll be followed by David SMI okay good evening good evening chair hegerty and the board I'm another concerned resident of Pearson Farm um here to Advocate against the resoning plan for 2025 and 2026 um these are neighborhood school I mean as my wife said it's 900 ft away Ashley Downs is 900 ft away um I think there's a lot of benefit to going to especially at elementary school going to the school that's close to your uh house um our community would be divided if you uh allowed some students to stay at Al Chapel Elementary School and some students to to go to bacham so I didn't want to just come up here with some baseless claims I did a little bit of research um first
179I'll brief go through them first one is a paper called how did they get there it's by slosberg at all it's was published in planning and uh planning practice and research and he goes on to say that school sprawl as a result of uh rezoning has numerous negative effects the first being um reduction and exercise of the students less students are uh going to walk uh to school it's not going to impact us but future uh residents of Pearson Farm and Ashley down will lose that ability to walk to their to their local school um higher traffic congestion as was mentioned and dependency on um cars which is worse for the environment the next one um let's see so this is the relationship between students um sense of their school as uh a community sense
180of their school as a community and involvement in problem Behavior so this was by badic at all um published in the American Journal of Public Health and the proposed uh rezone is going to divide our community as as mentioned so some students will be going to bacham some to Olive Chapel I think the students will have a reduced sense of community if that happens uh the third one here do children who move home and school frequently have poor education outcomes in their early years at school this is by Hutchings at all in plus one um and basically just said that moving schools is bad for academic performance kind of across the board the more they move the worse it is so those were the three studies that I that I looked up in relation to
181this um on this Constitution Day miss mfy Mr Swanson I think you made a great point that the right to public school is enshrined in the North Carolina Constitution and that um it's ultimately the right is funded by taxpayers so we are concerned taxpayers that um our children being moved are not going to have the best um form of education and you know really our question to the board is you know these issues that we brought up the traffic congestion environmental impact uh lower chance of exercise for for future students increased problem behaviors and work academic performance um you know are going to be justified to our communities thank you thank you Mr Butler all right uh next up David Smith good evening good evening um my name is David Smith I have a ninth
182grader at enll high school um I applied for bus transportation for her this year I missed the application deadline on August 29th I received an email that said we are working to provide service as soon as possible a customer service representative will contact you when you're student is able to ride the bus no one contacted me today I called and I learned that she will not get a spot on the bus unless someone drops out or a new route is out added both of those possibilities seem exceedingly unlikely to me my daughter is essentially being denied bus service for the entire year and my my question is this is this District policy to limit bus service this way this year we can't go back and forth and engage but I can follow up with you
183after okay um thank you um I guess I'll just ask rhetorically how many other students are in this position and if I had applied on the last day what would the outcome have been um and the relevant statute seems to refer to a hearing process and I would like to know what that hearing process is I did send you an email earlier today so if you can respond to that great and if you're willing to stick around a minute after public comment uh we can have a word with you also direct you to staff too before you go okay thank you all right thank you and so that will conclude our public comment period so at this point the only item left on our agenda is our closed session discussion and then having to come
184out of closed session to report back so at this point I will entertain any motions Mr chair I move to be return to close session thank you Mr Swanson is there a second we have a second from Miss mfy again this will be a roll call vote so before you pack up we'll need to uh pull up everybody and go through go through our order all right I see Mr Hershey is available online so we'll start down there um there's the motion to move into close session Mr Hershey I I miss Edmonds hi Miss mafy I chair votes I Vice chair Johnson Hustler I Mr Vice chair votes I uh M Mr Swanson I and Miss Coffield all right everyone we will adjourn transition to Clos session thank you very much good night all