2024-06-04 Board Meeting

001don't like it goes along with those yes very unique you want yes [Music] I'm e for e for e for e e all right all right good evening everybody we're going to call this meeting to order it's Tuesday June 4th 2024 uh 5:40 p.m. I want to welcome those of you that are watching at home and those you who are joining us here in person today W County Board of Education meetings are conducted for the per purpose of carrying on the official business of the school system persons who willfully interrupt disruptor 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

002be subject to action in accordance with North Carolina General statute 143 31817 so we' like like to ask all attendees to take a seat we've been seated great uh we note that we do have a quorum uh eight members here miss MAF is attending another school function tonight tonight and uh at this point I'd like to ask all of you who are able to stand as we recite the pledge of allegiance to United States of America to the for stand Nation God indivisible andice for all all right thank you everyone we will begin our meeting with a superintendent comments turn to Dr Robert Taylor thank you Mr Cher uh I'll say It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year in Wake County Public Schools uh and that is graduation season uh more than 12,000 members

003of the class of 2024 will cross the stage and step into the Bright Futures ready for college career and productive citizenship uh this year seniors have earned millions in scholarship money and many will be attending prestigious institutions such as Harvard Davidson College NC State Central Duke Highpoint University UNC Chapel Hill Winston Salem State I have to add fedal State uh the United States military acmy and the cadale they've achieved all this and more despite starting their High School experience amid the covid-19 pandemic we do not need to forget that I'm am proud of each and every one of our of those students for persevering to reach this important Milestone and I'm grateful for the teachers and family members who supported them every step of the way graduation is the culmination of everything we strive for

004as a school district preparing students to live meaningful productive and fulfilling lives is what we're all about and these young people are now well on their way uh every gradu graduate has a story and we will be sharing just a few of them over the next few weeks so you'll know uh so check out our website and social media media channels for profiles of graduates who have left their Mark in high school and are now ready to make uh that same Mark in the world so again my congratulations to every member of the class of 2024 and their families I do look forward to celebrating with all of them next I'd like to recognize Dr Kimberly Lane our senior director of magnet programs on being chosen to serve a two-year term as president of the

005magnet schools of America uh magnet schools of America represents and is a resource for magnet schools all across the country and I can think of no more uh person more deserving uh of this prestigious leadership position than doctor Lang since 2020 she has led our magnet programs with vision and purpose building on the strong Legacy of of magnet excellence in Wake County and strategically implementing new programming to reflect the changing needs of students and Families Our magnet schools continually are recognized as National models of magnet schools two of our schools Athen dries high school and con Magnet Elementary were recently named the two best magnet schools in the country so we're so very proud of that I know Dr Lang will represent our district well uh as MSA president and use this platform to benefit

006students inside and outside Wake County also congratulations to Ashley ra Rob of uh Mills Park Middle School on being named the 2024 Wake County Public Schools counselor of the year uh Miss Rob has been been a school counsel for six years and serves as um and and served at Mills Park since 2021 uh she has been a catalyst for positive transformation in students lives by focusing on data accessibility individual support grouping classroom lessons and parental involvement her principal says that she has demonstrated a deep commitment to equity and inclusion within the school community and as a leader in the school and in the school counseling profession she is also known for being calm under pressure and for her commitment to the well-being of all students as we know the work of school counselors is absolutely

007integral to our mission of helping all students succeed uh we simply can't reach the goals of uh set forth in our strategic plan without our school counselors systematically giving students the tools and support they need to overcome challenges and Thrive inside and outside the classroom so I thank her and all of our school counselors for the energy compassion and expertise they demonstrate every day again congratulations is welld deserved for this award uh uh I would also like to recognize the students and staff at Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School which was recently named as a school of Distinction by Project Lead the Way Project Lead the Way provides students and teachers with Hands-On stem-based curriculum creating impactful experiences that are inclusive and Equitable for all uh the goal is to Empower students from all walks of

008life to unlock their potential Southeast Raleigh is one of just a few hundred high schools across the US to receive this honor for providing broad access to transformative learning experiences the school has um had to meet multiple criteria such as the number of Project Lead the Way courses available percentage of students enrolled percentage of students taking more than one course and efforts to ensure Equitable access so my hats off to to everyone at Southeast Raley Magnet High School for their in uh intentional work to prepare all students for Success uh in the modern Workforce and I'll end my comments with uh a wonderful meeting we had today with Cindy L with the USDA uh where I and members of the Board of Education and other administrative staff uh had a chance to engage with them

009about what we know is the important work Senator around school nutrition and so we had an opportunity to talk about the importance of nutrition in a general sense for students well-being but also the impact that it has on the academic achievement of students we all recognize that uh a well nished body and a well hydrated brain is optimal for learning uh and so we know that uh collectively at the at the federal state and local level we can do all the things necessary to make uh Universal school lunches a possibility in this state and so I wanted to share that that was uh a really great meeting to be able to engage at that level uh and and and continue to look at the work that we need to do as a school district and

010with that Mr chair I'll turn it back to you all right thank you Dr Taylor um and congratulations to miss Rob at Mills Park I've worked with her before she's very deserving of that recognition uh a few other special recognitions to go out Panther Creek High School student Alex Fluker and enow high school student Connor Krueger recently received the dpack rising stars awards for the best actress and actor respectively in the district the DPAC rising star awards they are a regional award program as part of the National High School Musical Theater Awards aka the jimmies um we got to see the retirement of Mr Krueger's um Drama teacher who had been on Broadway uh on on the Phantom and came back to Wake County and taught for I think almost 20 years in the arts

011program and um I I really want to thank um you know our Arts director who made a special trip out to uh convey some very special recognition to her and a wonderful wonderful ceremony um but congratulations to Alex and Connor for their recognition um in addition Panther Creek High School students were featured an article in the New York Times if anyone saw it um it was called this week these teens adopted an orphaned oil well then shut it down and it's just a wonderful story again of student activism and empowerment and going out with a mission and uh seeing it seeing it seeing it to the uh successful end so uh some great things going on at Panther Creek High School uh as you heard from Dr Taylor uh there was an opportunity to meet

012with representatives from the United States um USDA yeah the Department of Agriculture and uh to talk about the school lunch program and as you've heard around this table the the questions and concerns that board members have with the future of our lunch program is a real priority and so this is something that we are going to be very intentional about over the next few months we had a presentation in our work session today looking at our community eligibility program The District policies regarding meals will come up in our policy committee and we'll continue to look and explore what we can do to make our school lunch program sustainable and to be able to provide nutritious healthy meals um um to all students without uh wealth being an obstacle barrier being an obstacle or without stigma

013or shame so you will see a lot of this issue coming up I just wanted to go ahead and announce it now so no one's surprised when you keep seeing it up on the agenda um the big item tonight of course I think for most people is the uh Wake County Commissioners adopted a county budget and you know there's good good news there's bad news uh the good news our County Commissioners have approved the largest amount of County money ever spent on public education and uh this is the largest increase in at least a dozen years likely longer um and I think we need to be we need to show our sincere appreciation for that um this is this comes as the third year in a row that they've increased our budget by over $50

014million and we could not maintain the quality public schools that we have in Wake County without the essential partnership that we have with the Wake County with the Wake County Board of Commissioners together we do make wake better together and this was a significant increase from what their manager had recommended in his proposed budget for public education so that's the good news now the bad news is those of you that follow our work and our budget know that they even with this large impactful increase they did not fund our budget request and even the budget we adopted did not go so far as to address all of the needs of our schools our budget even larger than the county commiss what the County Commission funded still left out other priority needs we had identified in

015our multi-year plan and so we had tried to prioritize compensation and student mental health and those important behavioral professionals support professionals uh in the request we made so we won't know what our final school budget number looks like until the state legislature comes out and approves a state budget that could be late summer that could be early fall I hope it's not later than than than that um but once we know what we're looking at we'll know what our budget options will be uh but without a fully funded budget we we want to be set everyone's expectations we will expect that we will have to cut some valuable and essential programs that we've been able to offer so far whether those are ones that were funded with federal eser dollars or other things that we're

016able to identify we will have to see but I do want to say this and I'm the chair I'm speaking as an individual board member but I believe that and all of you board members since I'm speaking first feel free to disagree with me but it's been my observation that I believe every member on this board as we developed our budget prioritized staff compensation and so we won't know what we're dealing with until we see the state budget but I believe I believe all of us will do everything we can to see a budget that provides the increased compensation to our salaried and our hourly workers to our teachers to our bus drivers to all of our important support professionals that we put in our recommended budget not sure how we're going to get there

017but I think that's our priority and if you agree I'd appreciate any support anybody backing me up on this um and again if we are able to do this I will say it will probably be because of the increase that the County Commissioners were able to provide over what the county manager had recommended because without that increase I don't think that we' we'd be able to back up what we said we wanted to do now the last thing is just the ugly truth and despite what the County Commissioners were able to provide the ugly truth is that we're seeing that the the current system of funding public education isn't sustainable it's just not until we have a sustainable system for public school funding we're always going to have to be in the position of making

018tough choices to cut valuable and essential programs for lack of funding and that cheats our that cheats our staff that cheats our students and it cheats our future um we know we won't have a more sustainable system until we can get the state to commit more dollars per public school student plain and simple and it would help if we could identify some other alternative stream of Revenue coming in other than outside of our County property taxes so going forward I've pledged that I will work with the county for both of these goals lobbying our legislature to fully fund our Public Schools our teachers our students and to identify any other funding sources that might be out there we might have to be creative with this you know in the past we've had fees and like

019fine forfeiture monies that have come in that over past years have dried up or they've been diverted for other purposes we've had other funds that have been dedicated for public education that over the last decade have been diverted to other purposes and I want to work with County leaders to try to explore some of these options and see what we can do um to make sure we can have the resources in place to keep great public schools in Wake County so we will know more as we get more from the state but at this point that's the best I can report thank you Vice chair Johnson Hustler thank you chair and I will start with saying yes I agree with you since I'm next to Echo your sentiments that that truly is um not just

020your commitment but certainly my commitment as well to to our staff and it's been something we've clearly I believe continuously worked on and will continue to um attempt to stand in the Gap with the support from the county which I also appreciate and still continue to push along our state elected officials regarding their responsibility as well so I certainly Echo and appreciate your comments um and would like to additionally thank the Commissioners last night for their very thoughtful and transparent process in which they um went through their budget and I do believe most of us can say just we saw a few of them today they did not take this lightly and understood what it meant to not fully fund this budget um but also recognizing their other responsibilities and I I would say we

021heard the majority of them say that they really really really worked really diligently to try to get us to to the amount that we requested as a board so again um my appreciation and AP and um support for them and hopefully you all will extend that as well as we move to our next leg of this journey because the general assembly has not passed its budget um so hopefully we'll keep that same energy um moving forward um and we will unfortunately do our due diligence once we do reconcile all of those budgets which um could be months from now um so again I to all of our supporters continue um to be great Advocates and share our stories and it's the story St that really I believe create the change for people we certainly saw

022that um with our commissioners um I will also Echo another comment from both um our chair and the superintendent regarding um uh director long uh joining us today at Kings withth Elementary around Child Nutrition Services um many of you know that's been a longtime initiative of mine and I continue to attempt a stalemate to not increase our lunch prices every year um while also being very clear and understanding that um it is a it is hard for people to understand that we need to make a profit to keep our child nutrition services um in the black but it's also important to me that the lack of funding for our services shouldn't directly impact families and their capability um to pay for school lunches um so I'll continue to be an advocate and hopefully we got

023great information today as you heard from Dr Taylor from director long so I feel like we have some report again yet another thing for us to now take to the general assembly cuz we had a we had a local and federal conversation about the importance um and one of things that I think was well stated and I think I have not used in my narrative before is the importance of making uh school detrition lunches and breakfast a part of our school day and not treating those things as though they're separate so helping people understand the seamlessness of in being inclusive of school lunches and breakfast um so again a great opportunity to be be in space and to hear that we have Partners at the federal level who who hear us and also are looking

024for creative ways as including but not limited to the CP today um one thing that I always when I talk to our students especially sitting at the lunch table today um I asked them about school lunches and what they had to say one of the things that I did not know and Mr Luke is not in here um but the the director at Kingswood CNS was telling me that they taste test every the students taste test everything before it is actually served for lunch so they were telling me the students were telling me the most recent was some type of potato breakfast food that they liked um so apparently when we have a new vendor they taste they let the students taste test the food before it actually goes on their tray so that was

025the most exciting things from the students perspective of talking about school nutrition um again always a great reminder to be in our buildings with our young people and especially our ambassadors who share their roles and respons posibilities for us um Miss mfy is at another event in her district and so I'd be remiss if I didn't say this was my I love it when there's a first because it feels like after 10 years like what's the first uh but we were we were at Felton Grove High School today for what we thought was going to be a beam raising which I been to before but we were there for a flag raising which I had never done before um because of the delays of getting it up they wanted to keep moving forward so the

026school could be ready so they couldn't have a beam ready for us to raise and sign so they raised a flag in honor because we also some of you will know we did not have a groundbreaking because of covid so this was the first event to acknowledge and celebrate a new school that's going up in Apex um so and again I'm sure miss mfy would want me to thank all of the elected officials were there we had three County Commissioners join us today Miss Evans who used to be a school board member was on this port when we purchased that land so she spoke today and then we also had both Town representation from Apex and Holly Springs so thank you to our elected officials who continue to support our building program in Wake County

027um I'll also um I'll switch these around so I end on a high note um many of you who watch the local news know that a family in Garner the uh the Campbell family um was a tragic for the entire Garner Community um I was traveling when it first happened and I can't tell you the response that I got from schools parks and because the 8-year-old played baseball church has reached out to me as a board member to make sure I understood the impact that this was having in the community um they held a visual for this family um but most importantly it is always a reminder in a large community to see a community wrap around at school and wrap around its families and so thank you to the Garner Community for one making

028sure I was aware what was happening while I was traveling for work but more importantly for taking care of the teachers faculty staff and students who knew miles at aoro elementary so thank you to everyone who reached out and were very supportive um to that school community and still being supportive understanding that this will have lasting effects for his uh classmates so thank you to the Garner Community for that support and I'll and on a high note um the Garner softball team won the championship and I I I was like if I forget I know Mr Hershey will remember for me so again the community wrapped around them I again I was traveling but they had a whole event like I loved it on their social media they're like if you're in town meet us

029at the restaurant we're going to celebrate the girls so again um it is a reminder that we don't do this work Al while it sometimes feels like this sitting at this table in this seat but we have a community of supporters and again I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my our partners at post Center um as they know I love when they bring our young people to share the work that they're doing so thank you for bringing our young people and nice to meet them and they are excited so I will end my comments there right thank you Vice chair Johnson Hustler I will go around the table Mr Hershey uh thank you chair Hardy um just on Garner softball coach Barbara is a fantastic coach he's been there a very long time we

030coached against him when it was Wake Forest Roseville uh and it's always we've always had great games against him so even though they beat Wake Forest congratulations to them uh you know it's in my heart can't help it um I I want to start by thanking also Dr Harvey from DPI as well as director long from USDA for our conversation and a lot of times um the public doesn't really see us as school board members really push staff a lot behind the scenes and so there are times when I publicly you know want to give um call attention to a staff member give them credit and and really today it is um first of all uh to Dr Taylor actually you know we it's our job to evaluate the superintendent you know it's it's our

031number one job we hire we fire the superintendent and we don't really talk a lot about um or share moments with about staff so I just wanted to take this time because it was a private meeting and I was sitting there listening to our superintendent and the depth of knowledge on the topic where he came from his perspective how he hand L the federal aspect as well as the state aspect it it just to people listening who may not know him yet it it was outstanding to see it it will go on my evaluation excellent work uh but I but it's it's important to acknowledge staff and not just um staff at schools but also our central office staff and that includes our superintendent so uh he did an excellent job and for people that

032you know Wonder like how how how much attention he pays to different issues he is all over this issue he understands the importance of school uh nutrition and so I'm looking forward to the after action steps that we're going to be taking um including finding somebody to uh re ultimately replace Miss Johnson Hustler as the do- it all about school nutrition I I said in the meeting that I am thrilled that she's going to be ascending in uh the state legislature but I am heartbroken that she's going to be leaving us cuz the wealth and knowledge is something you don't you just can't replace um I will do my best to try to fill like a portion of your shoes on that front um moving on I want to oh let me thank uh Matt

033collabria County Commissioner uh Matt collabria for being at the meeting he too has been a champion since he's been on the um since he's been a county commissioner uh so I really appreciate him being there his support for this partic for these programs uh I also want to thank the county commissioner for their continued support of our Public Schools I agree with the chair and the vice chair about prioritizing uh the salaries and so you asked for agreement I am giving you that agreement um but I I appreciate the County Commissioners for their dedication uh to our schools they have a lot of responsibilities but uh they've really done a marvelous job steping stepping up when the state has not um oh before I go on let me also um point out that we did

034bring up how much it would cost the state to cover uh breakfast and lunch for all students and we know there's a a significant budget surplus that they are working it um on of about a billion dollar maybe a little less it would cost only a hundred and I will I will say only because it's in the context of a big budget it's in the context of their vote uh Voucher Program only $125 million to cover the entire state to ensure free breakfast and lunch for all students in our Public Schools that's nothing and it's absolutely worth it instead of cutting uh business income taxes to nothing um I can't help it um let me move on to a couple of uh wonderful events we had the leadership academy graduations I always love being there

035for them um congratulations to those students for moving on I don't normally cry at graduations but I did at project search yesterday that a number of us were at I um thought it would be mentioned already um but let me just read what project just has L that's okay I'm going to just read I know Dr in is going to speak about it too but for those that don't know um this is coming straight off of their website it's a high school or young adult transition initiative which is a business-led one-year school to work program and it is uh designed intern internships for students with intellectual or other developmental disab abilities and let me start let me also thank uh Embassy Suites for their partnership um they are fully invested in this program it is

036as joyous an occasion as you will see at a graduation it is completely moving and um I was uh it was wonderful I will not miss another of of those graduations um finally uh let me close with um I want to congratulate all our Wake County Public School students and um on earning their black belts at Master Changs which my colleagues know I have been missing a couple events to uh go to Black Belt training myself and um this includes students who are uh children of our staff and um covering really elementary through high school and they did a wonderful job and it led me to think and I don't know where Dr Robinson is I don't see him um huh he went oh okay CU I was going to talk about the Strategic plan

037because it made me think quite a bit about uh you know a lot of these martial arts places are always like hey how can we partner with schools and and I'm not advocating that we have martial arts and as part of PE but um I do think about the Strategic plan and the well-being you know priority to student dispositions and well-being um some of the the aims that talk about promoting well-being and I was looking at the standards the of physical education for North Carolina and I'm wondering how we use this the Strategic plan to kind of evaluate um our PE programs especially when you look at statistics around mental health physical health uh the longterm in this country how are we doing so I would be interested as a board member as hearing from

038staff how we're applying and how we're actually examining the curriculum in this particular field um for the well-being of our students and secondly um and I would love to get this from staff is when we have uh entities like this and by the way I do have to mention that uh Master Chang is a Wake County Public School family parent in the best District which is district 6 um which is my district y'all uh but how do how do we give opportunities for these organizations that that want to present to our school district who do they speak to how can they present um whether it's creating an after school program or being in our schools and how do we make sure especially as we're talking about Community engagement as one of our uh big initiatives

039this year and ongoing initiatives how do we give them that opportunity to to really be heard and to present something and and I would love to get some information on that and I will make one more request before I give this up since I mentioned the leadership academies I would ask that the superintendent um make sure that my colleagues get fully updated because we are coming to a point in the next month month and a half where we're going to be looking at a new partner um and I just want to make sure my colleagues are fully up to date on that maybe at the next uh closed session board meeting as an ask thank you all right thank you Mr Hershey Dr ining um good evening um I would like to congratulate all the

040seniors uh graduating this year um I had the fortune to be able to attend several of them so far um um the uh Wake Early College of Health and Sciences North wake College and Career Academy as well as the international Balor graduation at milbrook high school um they're they're the smaller setting which I really like because they you know allows us to kind of hear what the the the students accomplishments were and what they aspir to do when they uh go on to the next phase of their life um yesterday I was able to attend the project search graduation ceremony and it was kind of kind of um uh emotional for me too um especially when they started playing that uh song from uh what was that uh Hamilton yeah um um and uh you

041know this program is a one-year internship program like you said um uh and it's for our young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and you know the partnership with uh Community Partnerships and and Embassy Suites has been a great uh thing uh to um really uh help our uh community of uh people with ID uh to lead a productive and fulfilling life um and this is my second year attending this and I really feel like this that's always the Highlight is always going to be highlight of the graduation season um I um wish to thank the W County Board of Commissioners for their hard work uh in putting together the budget um I we appreciate that they put education of children as a top priority but we also understand that they have many other priorities

042as well um so um now we have to kind of come together to make some uh decisions for ourselves um and I agree we need to prioritize um um um you know helping our staff um and unfortunately you know right now we are kind of living in a perfect storm um our local economy is growing uh we all see the you know buildings coming up um and more people are moving here and so there are more children that need to be uh to go to school um and on the other hand with the inflation under the current Administration everything costs more including the cost of running a school system and at the same time we are having to transition away from the Federal Co relief money that is set to expire so what do we

043do um you know we are feeling the financial squeeze just as much as you guys are at home um so what can you do you know you can uh reach out to the state legislators to impress upon them the importance of supporting public education um just this morning or yet yesterday there was a glimmer of hope that uh DPI was um uh presenting um some recommendations for advanced ing special education funding um so that's uh really um I'm I'm you know I'm really hoping that there'll be people that spearhead that um put it into a bill form and if you know if uh we can all um support that that'll be great um you can also volunteer to help uh age your child school you can um you and your neighbors can help each other

044out um with Transportation issues um and you know when November comes around there is a chance to um you know U make your V vote count you know if you're are not satisfied with the direction of this country you know you have a right to make changes um finally um this month is a very important one for me on my calendar um so last week as we um celebrated Memorial Day our nation you know pretty much stopped to honor those who died in the service of our country and this week on June the 6th we will be commemorating the 80th anniversary of dday when the Allied troops landed on the coast of Normandy uh to take back the Western uh Europe from the Nazis that day was the beginning of the end of World War

045II um thousands of young men died that day for the cause of freedom but it really pales in comparison to the Six Million Jews who died in the Holocaust so this month when people talk about Pride I think about how proud I am to be a citizen of this great country a nation that was founded on moral principles and whose people were willing to die to defend those moral principles and when people mention allies I think about those countries Who band together to fight a real threat to humanity both in Europe and in the Pacific that threat was ultimately revealed to the world when the Allied Forces opened the gates of the concentration camps and saw the atrocities that happened there and when people talk about their identity I think about the millions of Chinese

046people like my grandparents who had to flee the Japanese Army because they were massacring the people simply because they were Chinese my identity as a Chinese is deeply rooted in the real struggles that my parents and my grandparents had to live through and I also think about the Jewish people who for centuries have struggled to be seen and heard they were enslaved taken from their Homeland dispersed over the entire ancient world persecuted and even killed just because of their identity and even now they are caught up in the fight for their very existence so if there is anything to celebrate this month it is to celebrate the legacy of the greatest generation without their selfless sacrifice to fight for what is right and what is true the war would have had a very different result

047our world today would likely be a very different place and this is something that we should never forget thank you next we'll go to miss Edmonds thank you uh this week I will spare you all from all the specific uh events and school visits that I've had because it would take way too long but I will say that I love may sber um I'm very grateful to all the school communities that have welcomed me in recent weeks congratulations to all of our graduates not just our high schoolers but every student that is moving on from one grade to the next you're a graduate too you're a graduate in one way or another and we congratulate all of you happy pride month to all of our students and staff that are in the in our schools

048in the lgbtq plus Community you're seen you're valued and you belong here in Wake County Public Schools I will continue to stand in solidarity with you to resist those that wish you harm in any way I will do that as your board member and I will do that in my personal life on my personal time happy pride month this weekend is wear orange weekend wear orange is centered around gun violence awareness day which is this Friday June 7th the there are events all over the triangle all over the country actually local law enforcement um here in Wake County participates and it's a time to raise awareness about gun violence and prevention you can simply wear orangee or find an event near you at wear orange.org and finally a friend of mine wrote a book that

049was just released um Dr Carrie Harwood wrote a book called wake and it is about um a very tumultuous time in Wake County that um happened with the 2009 School Board elections it is about why um diverse schools still matter and truly integrated schools still matter and while it does talk about um a very particular specific point in time in Wake County there's lots more in here about the larger picture about school integration um Dr uh bill mcneel is interviewed you you would read it as a quick read you can see I don't know how many pages it is but it's you know very easy to consume in a in a day or afternoon um but Dr Bill mcneel is interviewed and a lot of other local leaders that you'll recognize so I encourage you

050to check that out things have changed drastically in the last 15 years that was 15 years ago or almost 15 years ago and um you know we didn't have private school vouchers certainly not um what we have today there was a cap on the number of charter schools Wake County has changed drastically um as far as like traffic patterns you you know just getting from point A to point B looks a lot different than getting from that same point A to point B 15 years ago and um so I encourage you to check it out and thank you so much thank you Miss Edmonds um and again I've I've started that book from Dr Harwood and it really is a good read um go back around the table Miss rice I know you know Carrie

051Harwood as well yes and I've got my signed copy that said I was there in the beginning and I was right here at that very Podium every week speaking up for families across the district um to be treated fairly speaking of being treated fairly and equally I too want to say happy Pride month right even from a place of clergy um people U may not understand but you know I'm a believer that God loves everybody and I'm not afraid to say that concering I have families that have experienced um major challenges of being accepted in all spaces and places and I'm very thankful for the great job we do here at Wake County Public Schools of being an inclusive place for all children and speaking of being inclusive for all children and making sure that

052our environmental Wellness is good you know I'm going to talk about wellness and but before I get to the environmental Wellness let's talk a little bit about intellectual wellness and with that intellectual wellness space I do want to celebrate and congratulate the amazing students at the inlow high school who um won first place um for a crank um won first place in their uh honors helpful living um course that they take in partnership with a corporation well a nonprofit organization I'm sorry called cranial Inc um with this first place honor that they won it was student um Emily tid please excuse me if I say their name wrong anishka banha um narea um neram and Carrie Norwood I'm just going to leave that last name Norwood out there for us um students did an amazing

053job with sharing their presentation and basically what they did is they had to build a neuron and so they built this neuron and the um doctor out of Duke University that um who who founded the program and is in partnership with Wake County Public Schools I think about 35 25 25 schools across our district particip iates in this program but of course you know enla won um so I was really excited about that but what the the um doctor that shared about the presentation that those students that I just mentioned that won Under the teaching leadership of Miss Sherry Jones House who is now the current ad director the first African-American woman um um within uh the the system to um be an African-American woman and a woman as an athletic director so we're making

054great strides in Wake County with being inclusive but I was saying is she the students she she admitted how the students created their neuron was so life form because she's a neuroscientist and so she talked about how what made them Stand Out was because they not only just demonstrated the pieces within the neuron they did it in such huge life-size form that she says that's what it's really like in real life and Dr um n may can understand that a little bit better than the most of us on the board of how she says if you're a tall person that neuron will be at the top of your head and depending on how tall you are it's long and it's big and it's stretching and those students actually performed something that all four of them

055had to hold which would demonstrate something that was real real life so I'm really excited about that place of intellectual wellness of where we have our students uh demonstrating such academic El excellence and in partnership with other partners that can expand their knowledge the the other thing that I want to say in reference to intellectual wellness is I am proud um to be a part of a school system that um believes in the overall development of how a robust Library System supports our schools and so I also want to encourage people to utilize their Library systems I have children that expands I sit on this board is probably about four generations myself weight County Public Schools my children weight County Public Schools and my grandchildren right now of Wake County Public Schools so that's three

056generations and so therefore we know that our libraries are extremely extremely important my children love the library not only just in our school system but in our Public Library Li Aries as well and I've watched them flourish through that system I've watched them start as Elementary as pre as preschool with their Bob Books I don't know if you guys remember those little three-word books right see we're on it even down to right now with my first grade granddaughter being so engulfed and bringing home books from our school library that I read to her even just on last night and so I want to encourage us to continue to move forward with our intellectual wellness find a book encourage enage your children to check out a book in our library system and use it to the

057best of their ability to gain more knowledge and so I'll move on into my second one which is going to be environmental wellness and this is why it's important to me this month is Gang Awareness Month encouraging individuals to wear orange um and so Community what when we talk about the environment in which we live in it determines a lot of times how people will be able to thrive and so we have to take the time to look at how we are creating environments where people can have access to have uh recreational areas how they can have activities and have um promote mental and physical wellness within those constructs and those areas around those um spaces that we live in we want to make sure our homes are safe we participated in our safety that's

058an environmental space that we need to look at but one thing that I want to highlight is with the environmental Wellness Nale high school did an amazing job with creating an environment to prevent gun violence I wanted to highlight two Community leaders which um that prevents gun violence which is team truth 919 and catch the kite these two organizations were in nighto high school during the school year every Thursday to prevent gun violence from from gun or gang people that we knew were actively within the community and they would make sure that it did not enter into our school systems and it was absolutely phenomenal the work that they did throughout the entire school year and so I would not um be a good Community Advocate if I did not mention these two organizations who

059actually every Tuesday night host a Teen Talk um teen talks every Tuesday night over in the City of Raleigh and they would actually bring these teens together bring um and they also would be able to um eat food and they will really share and talk with students in real time about the communities they're in their environments right who may not look as well as someone else's and they would really talk to them and encourage them to do what's right and not to bring that into our school system so I think that I had to really express my gratitude considering his um gang awareness that these folks are actively in our schools so even though I know we see things that are going on in our schools there are people out here who are doing the

060extra mile and the extra step to make sure that it doesn't escalate even more they've had numerous phone calls where our very own children have called their organizations because they did not want to do the wrong thing but needed an escape because their environment was not the way that it needed to be to be able to make the right decision so they call these men to literally take the guns out their hand and so I'm excited about this Wellness piece and so I'll just end with saying this to you check your environmental spaces access your environmental space and determine how you can improve them for your well-being that's in your home space then your community space and then just check out the world have a positive and productive day thank you Miss rice and I

061will say that in your comments you reminded me something that I was remiss to address before we need to give a special congratulations Wake County Wake County Public School System we have 13 students districtwide that were named National Merit Scholars at 2500 nationally some of them at the high school that you intellectual wellness right there so thank you Miss rice Miss Coffield thank you I'm not sure I can follow all that energy but I'll try great schools great week I was also at the meeting today and it was great to have all the different voices at the table but I do believe that we can extend that seed to um at the table to others um some of the right people to understand the money the quality and conserving um waste and sustainability with the

062restrictions and regulations that we must follow this is in regards to the the um the food that we were talking and nutrition we were talking about today um because it's more than just food and feeding our our children as Dr Taylor you know was referring to it's a it the quality in our food and what we provide to our kids it's not only what nurtures our students minds but also their well-being and how the success of their day will go so I'm glad that those convers STS are going to continue um and I look forward to doing more help with that um this is an exciting time for everybody while we spent a few weeks of celebrations and Senior Awards I was honored to attend Wake Forest High School last week and they went well

063over the time frame for all of their student um senior Awards and they prevent presented so many wonderful recognitions to all the seniors there so congratulations to all of them they earned $7.4 million in scholarships so congratulations to all the seniors at Wake Forest High School I also went to um night Dale high school and I'll tell you it was like a competition between ndale high school and uh Southeast Raleigh the excitement from the families and the students you know at that graduation the energy was just unreal um I do not remember the number that they said Southeast Raleigh had for the millions of scholarships they won but night Dale I know got over $4 million in scholarships so that was wonderful to hear um and um the principal at Southeast Raleigh he led with

064the growth mindset and G and spoke about a story which really I just keep thinking about it and I've heard the story before but it's a good reminder the story about the boiling water and how it turns the carrot soft the egg becomes hard um and yet the the boiling water which is stressed dissolved and impacted the change of The Bean to succumb and develop new opportunities transformed its surroundings with strength integrity and endurance I saw this as great advice for the students that they are about to venture in the next PATH in their journey and hopefully they remember that message day in and day out and I've heard the story before but I just I have to continue to remember that because it just encourages growth with change not all change is um negative

065and sometimes it's actually um there's a meme that I just saw recently and I could not remember it but it's like sometimes don't be upset that the path has led you in a different direction sometimes that is the path so to allow that positive growth for all of you while you venture out into that um I thought that was great advice um this coming Friday I'm going to celebrate um roseville's graduation and next week we have Wake Forest High School and Heritage High School so I'm excited to see those um I wanted to give a special congratulations to the class of 2024 this year graduation is very special for me as well as all of these students um I'll be celebrating with so many families that I have watched grow since kindergarten and even before

066that and um I'm going to have a really hard time not being emotional on that stage um but it also reminds me this year that all of these graduates for the class of 2024 four years ago were so excited to step into high school and join you know their their High School school where they where they were going and that new Venture turned into a lockdown and most of them had a year or two a year and a half where they were in remote and virtual learning everything was new and it was hard but they made it so these graduates should be proud it looked very different for many of them and so many students um ventured in different directions it looked different for everybody and it just reminded me how much they had to

067overcome to reach this week of celebrations so an extra congratulations and just really heartfelt to all of the students that are there they should be so proud and I know it's going to be a very emotional year for everyone as they celebrate their their children and their successes remember each day is a new day and you are the author of your story so I wish you all many blessings as you go out and write that story to all those teachers who showed up who were compassionate they showed compassion they were patient and resilient themselves and who guided and helped our children navigate such a challenging time thank you the impact that those lessons and examples that you showed to these students is invaluable and I want to say that we appreciate you and we thank

068you without you they could not have thrived and nor could we so thank you thank you Miss Coffield and Mr Swanson thank you uh I had some remarks prepared but I will just start with the to-do list that Miss Johnson hostler gave and not belabor the points so we can hear from the public um I want to start by saying thank you to miss Sherry for welcoming us at Kingswood this morning it's always great to be at Kingswood um to see the great things and the just the great learning environment that's T that's taking place there um also a congratulations and a major shout out to annaya Pana uh the Davis Drive Middle School student who placed third place in the National Spelling be um I also want to give a shout out to the

069Green Hope student newspaper for their for all of their accomplishments this year having the number one distinguished website over 517 published items 6 67,68 3,6 and7 stories read um I also want to shout out Dr Jordan the proud principal of inlow in the back as all we were talking about the greatness that was happening in inow always great to see her and I used to work with Miss Jones Coach Jones so I know the greatness that that she does every day in the classroom and I was a teacher at enlo Magnet High School lastly I also want to thank the commit uh the Commissioners for their dedication and their commitment to W County Public Schools and uh like all of everyone has said this has been a very tough budget I know that uh um

070there's many things that could be done but I will remind uh the public since I know the national conversation was brought up that if you're not satisfied with what's happening in the state level there is an election to make your voice heard so with that being said Mr chair that concludes all of my remarks and congratulations to the class of 2024 all right thank you Mr Swanson that concludes our board member comments at this point in time uh we will consider our meeting agenda for approval is there a motion I move to accept the meeting agenda I appreciate that enthusiastic endorsement from Miss Edmonds and the equally boisterous second from Miss rice we have a motion for approval of the meeting agenda I know what M Mr Hershey has coming that'll come after this motion

071all in favor of adoption of our meeting agenda for tonight please signify by saying I any opposed wasn't so sure there motion passes all right Mr Hershey I enthusiastically make a motion to approve the HR recommendations made in Clos session second we motion from Mr Hershey a second from Mr Swanson all in favor of the motion please signify by saying I I any opposed all right the motion passes at this point on our uh meeting agenda we have an information item uh from our academic advancement office we have a presentation uh a student Advocates uh vaping presentation Mr Glen ding good evening chair Hagerty um superintendent Taylor and members of the board um my name is Brian glendenning I'm the senior administrator for health and physical education for our school system it's my pleasure to

072introduce a team of student Advocates who have worked diligently over the past several years to raise awareness about the harmful effects of vaping and share resources for those uh those looking to quit in their school their passion and persistence in this area is inspiring and their leadership as students is so very valuable to our school system and community presenting tonight our arjin cucha um who is a senior at Eno high school so he's just about done he's going we got he's going to do one more thing for us before he's done um Vishnu ready rabu who was a junior at enla we got him for one more year and Benjamin Lou Who is a senior at Green Hope High School so I'll turn it over to them this all right thank you Mr glendenning and

073to all the wick County school board members for allowing us the opportunity to speak today and for supporting our efforts uh my name is arjin kcha I'm a current senior at Eno High School I first noticed vaping back in middle school so these past few years I've seen many peers using Vapes especially in places they shouldn't be that includes like school bathrooms and other public places uh where they could have an influence on people in their surroundings um I also saw that many people are just ignoring this problem and it made me very concerned that this issue was going unaddressed Studies have shown that more than 90% of people who smoke or vape began doing it before the age of 18 and that's why it's so important to take these preventative measures and when students

074do start to vape and experience these withdrawal symptoms they don't know how to access the sex cessation resources to quit throughout High School I've been working to make sure that my peers don't suffer the same fate in my sophomore year I had the idea to expand my reach in combating b to my school the next year I formed the enll students taking on prevention or stop coalition to promote safer environments throughout my school and community service and informational presentations while it did pass along a powerful message it wasn't reaching the whole school last summer I got the opportunity to attend the kadka or community anti-drug coalitions of America conference by the post Center and there I was a able to meet many different people from across the country involved in similar initiatives I searched for

075ways I could continue to raise awareness and I stumbled upon a campaign known as Escape The Vape week it was created by a student in um uh in a Cincinnati high school and named s and it seemed like the perfect way to get the enlo community involved with our cause I brought along Vishnu since he was in Youth Empowerment and it it was a long process but it began with me meeting with Community leaders like Miss Virginia from the post Center and Miss moo for the Wake County dep Department of Health and Human Services and we developed a layout for escape to week I first presented to the Wake County sha and then to the school board and later we both met with the principal uh Dr Jordan and Mr brick and they've been very

076supportive throughout the process and we're very thankful for that and I also met with Mr Glenn Denning and we uh he advised us on how to run the campaign in our school um with the help of the en stock Coalition Key Club and National Honor Society were're able to set up these educational posters banners and more throughout the school and escap The Vape week featured daily afternoon announcements interactive presentations social media posts and sensation resources that were able to reach the whole school and with the help of the post Center we were able to give away two gift cards to the winners of our cahoot trivia game that we hosted after the presentation we did during lunch and so our end goal was to raise awareness about vaping's harmful effects and provide sensation resources for

077those who were quitting and both of which we were able to do during that week we were also able to make people really aware of the issue and they started talking about it with other students and staff which is what our main goal really was and by putting up that pledge to be vaperee Banner we gave students the opportunity to directly interact with our initiative and they could repost our um posts on social media as well and overall I'm very proud of what Escape The Vape week has achieved and I'm hoping that we can permanently implement this in Wake County schools because it really does provide uh students an Avenue to kind of get the resources they need and also spread awareness and I'll hand it over to Vishnu so he can go more in

078depth on some of the biggest outcomes successes and implications of our pilot program thank you thank you Arjun and thank you Arjun and thank you Mr Glenn Denning and Miss Virginia and Dr Reay so my name is Vishnu rabotu and I'm a junior at enll high school for the last three years there hasn't been a single week where I have not seen my own peers vaping in the bathroom every every day without fail a large portion of my peers willingly sabotage their health and potentially their future and that is why I'm so passionate about the Escape The Vape week campaign I'm now going to share with you the various phases of implementation of the Escape The Vape week at enll high school which we implemented last November firstly we had informative posters hung around the

079school and where people Vape the most which are bathrooms this serves as a constant reminder to those who do and do not Vape that the health detriments are immense secondly we placed a banner near the cafeteria which is where almost every student passes by every day where students can pledge to be vaperee as Arjun mentioned we also had daily announcements on our School's new system the lowdown about one quick Health fact regarding vaping similarly we had announcements after school concluding and after school concluded that were said right before the bus changes were announced this helped raise aw awareness to the entire School our campaign was implemented during the week of the Great American smokeout which was convenient because it was about time for students to address vaping especially for the sake of other students however

080there were some challenges we faced with implementation many people did not take the campaign seriously and were in fact tearing our posters down others were completely ignoring the posters and actually vaping right in front of them I walked I walked in on this several times thankfully we had many kind people who supported the cause and left positive comments on our feedback forms and some even helped rehang the posters we planned several meetings through our club the stop Coalition which stands for students taking on prevention this is where we incentivize Community oriented students to help put up posters around the school which we found beneficial as we were able to converse with students that also see the negative effects of VAP Ing and are willing to take part in this cause all in our all in

081all our campaign was successful almost 50 students attended our educational presentation on vaping during lunch we had almost we had 100 plus views on our link tree and and had 100 plus signatures on our pledge to be vaperee many people repost on social media not always with the right intentions but at least it helps spread the me the message thank you [Applause] thank you vishu for that my name is Benjamin Lou and I am a graduating senior at Green up high school and in the fall I will be attending the University of Pennsylvania my involvement in this anti-nicotine campaign first started when my friend alov gam who's also a senior at Green High School fortunately he couldn't make it today but I remember it was August of last year he came to me he said

082he received an email from Miss Katherine Moville from the Wake County um tobacco coalition and this this email was an invite for the meeting we were at first confused because um we thought it was an accident or by pure luck but at this opportunity we jumped at it we s we we contacted Miss Moville and through the contact um wait let me rephrase that we jumped out this opportunity to voice Our concern about our youth and specifically how we were concerned about um how our youth's health was impacted through vaping and nicotine um use specific spec specifically for me my concern for youth Health was was first started when I witnessed close teammates on the varsity football team using Vapes and nicotine products before and after practice as Varsity Captain I try to talk to

083them and cons and consult them and ask and try to give them help in order to quit but some of them weren't interested in quitting and the and the teammates that were interested in quitting simply kept on failing time and time after again I knew I had to do something because they're these with vaping not only impacted their health but also our but also our relationship as a team they um this vaping harm harmed their lungs made them unable to breathe and cause IR regular heart rates where they were forced to sit out games likewise to Arjun and and Vishnu also witnessed peers using Vapes and um nicotine products on a daily basis whenever um it's during passing period and um in the bathroom and administration's unable to solve or impact this issue this prompted

084my involvement in the post Center of health education working with the PO Center of health education and students from Eno we decided to implement the escape to vape campaign in our schools similarly to Eno um alov and I also implemented this campaign and Green Hope where we researched where we coordinated with the post center team to put resources as well as our school administration the biggest difference between our campaign and en's campaign was um we put a Twist on it I specifically researched that personal stories of advoc advocacy have the greatest P impact with this in mind I reached out to Dan Daniel AMT a teen from Michigan who was hospitalized and almost lost his life to vaping and ni nicotine addiction a few few years ago he received a double lung transplant he was

085in a 30day medically induced coma and after a yearlong recovery process he finally became healthy again with his approval I we spread his mission in our in our posters showing the true and devastating impacts of nicotine use our posters garnered both positive and negative feedback despite poster evangelization and people tearing them down we fought back by putting them up overall alov and I hung over 3 300 posters in the hallways bathrooms sterols and common areas of our school most notably after the program we saw groups of students and teachers in class exclaiming at our efforts and um and applauding our efforts and encouraging each other to abstain from nicotine our friends corroborated this story hearing positive positive conversation about our nicotin cation project efforts some recommendations I have the future through our experience to improve

086the implementation of escape the V campaign would be to involve every school and the C um involve more schools and for increased impact ideally every single high school in the county it would ideally wait hold up I would also advise to invite a guest speaker to share their experiences with nicotine addiction and provide nicotine sensation resources from the counselors and administ administration themselves finally I like to thank Mr Glen Denning and the wick County School Board of school board for your continued support on behalf of Arjun and Vishnu and myself we thank you for allowing us to speak on our experiences during this meeting [Applause] chair ha chair hagy may I after you just really quickly Mr Glen Denning I didn't know if there was anybody else that you wanted to recognize or if there's

087anything else in the presentation uh that will be all the information is all about the students and what they had to bring to the board all right wonderful Miss I just wanted to thank you for coming this um presentation came about with my in um not because of but I'm involved uh the board liaison with the SHA the school health advisory committee and um Mr Glend Denning brought this to my attention and we agreed that it was something that the full board should hear and I just really appreciate you students coming out and I know you sat here for an hour as we went around to give our own comments but we really appreciate your time and thank you Mr Glend dinning for all that you do thank you chair thank you Miss Edmond and

088thanks to you again for bringing this to our attention and requesting to be put on the agenda thank you all very much yes M rice I do I can't I can't let this one go this is my Emil I just also want to continue to highlight I just want to say Argin is an amazing student um he also won a competition for the Wake County 4 he's a part of the Wake County 4H GIS club and he actually won second place at the National High School GIS competition so he's a senior that is welld deserved yes Miss carfield I just wanted to say thank you for coming out tonight I mean it really means a lot to hear from voices um especially as a teen with your peers going through the same thing this is

089not the first time that I've I've seen you in the last couple of months um and it's really great to see how much you're advocating for the students and how you're getting around Wake County and really just spreading that so thank you for doing that thank you Miss Coffield any other questions or comments again we just want want to thank you all for coming out thank you for your advocacy it was important to share what you're doing but it's just the actual work you're doing is very very important for your peers and others educating them about the risks that they're taking and you know we often talk to kids about you know decisions you make now having long long-term impacts sometimes to the point of scaring them or a little bit of Overkill but we

090know from The Addictive quality of Vapes and the the the quantity of nicotine contained within these devices that the actions that that students start now start that might start off very mild can have life-threatening long-term impacts so you really are saving lives so thank you very much all right um the next item on our agenda we will transition over to public comment um you all know this SPI by now but I'm going to read it anyway uh speakers commenting on items on tonight's agenda will be heard before speakers commenting on other topics all other speakers speakers will be heard in order of sign up only the person speaking at the podium will be able to stand again all attendees that are not speaking are to remain seated if you have to leave the room please

091do not remain in this building because only this room is open right now after hours the rest of the building is closed if the public comment portion of the meeting exceeds 30 minutes board policy states that the board chair reserves the right to conduct other board business before inviting the remaining speakers to the podium members of the public are welcome to offer comments or criticism directed at the substantive ideas actions or procedures of the board and individual board members laws and policies of North Carolina provide that issues or concerns that address or that involve individual Personnel or individual student matters which may be confidential should be addressed to appropriate wcpss staff and we can work with you to direct those to the appropriate staff person rather than making those through public comment um find in

092the interest of maintaining Civility and deorum speakers are encouraged to address their comments up to the board up here to the front and to refrain from personal attacks or assaults directed at the board individual board members staff and especially members of the public and your fellow speakers um any materials you wish to share with the board should be handed to the board attorney Mr Rod Malone here either before or after your comments please not during uh during the comment period you may speak for up to 3 minutes note the microphones they are adjustable um and we will see various speakers they go up and down um your time begins when you start speaking so you don't have to worry if you need to take a second to compose yourself to you know organize your time

093starts once you start speaking uh you'll see a yellow light that will and you'll hear an audible tone when you have 30 seconds um continue on don't let it distract you and stop you but when you see the red light and hear another audible tone you do need to stop your time is up and the next speaker will be called up to the podium um I think we've got it we ask that you respect the time limit speak for No More Than 3 minutes and of course we remind you you may speak for less time but you are entitled up to your full three minutes all right so our first Speaker tonight I need to uh move to this list is Nadia stefen on academic achievement followed by Susan book is Nadia here I wasn't

094the can you hear me sorry this is my first time speaking for board so not really sure if I went into the right category um am I supposed to push one the okay um so my son is an elementary school student in way County and he has multiple mental health disorders um and he has an IEP um and um he's got I've gotten him transferred um but unfortunately I'm not really sure I I keep getting told different things and he keeps getting told things he's like being bullied at school he's in third grade told like to kill himself and um he's said he's going to kill himself in front of the principal and she just IGN the person just ignores it but if it's somebody else that say they just keep writing like doing um

095fbas and I've had to take him to he's had the same like therapist for 3 and 1/2 years and the same neuros psychiatrist for 3 and 1/2 years so um nobody's looking for you know there's no shortage of mental health needs so um they've had it with like with the school and it's just I don't know what else I'm supposed to do I don't know what I mean he used to he wanted to live at school I'm boring I'm old he's eight I mean nobody wants to hang out with their mom and now it's almost impossible to get he he can transition to the bathroom and he wants to leave and like go to the unnown which is like a miracle for him and they've lost him over 50 times he's eight like I I

096just don't understand he's he's failing everything um and comes home crying that you know that they they don't care there's nobody safe it's you know I've tried to talk to the appropriate steps and I just don't know what else to do at this point I mean he even read to achieve like can't afford to drive him there and they won't provide me Transportation but his his transfer was a medical necessity because he can't do a year round school which was his base it wasn't even like the school I picked it's just they gave me five options um because he hasn't letter of medical necessity for um the traditional calendar year school cuz he needs the structure um he is like I said for diagnos he's a challenging kid I don't deny that um but you

097know when you get to know him and he like once he gets he follows the rules he just needs to know what they are like what's expected of him and just to see it like a kid like just to see him like that he mindboggling to me and guess it don't know what else to do so miss Stefan what we'd like is if you if you have the time tonight uh Michelle Woodson here on our staff would like to talk to you about the issue and try to provide whatever information we can get this worked out for you okay thank you very much I appreciate your time sorry like I that's quite [Applause] all all right our next speaker will be Su Susan book followed by Christina Spears good evening this book first and foremost

098um although when planned I did not realize it was Library Night listen to these ladies please um the media center has been a sanctuary for my child since day one it is his happy place and his safe place and that is because of librarians but I wanted to tell you that at the end of April I had the great privilege of presenting at the family and Community engagement Summit the summit might have overdone itself with more breakout sessions than necessary however I'm very proud of my presentation and I hope to be able to present again sometime a question hung in the keynote why don't we have disability parents more involved with things other than IEPs I am more than happy to talk to any one of you and staff about my personal experiences both in

099and out of Engagement but it would certainly take up more than three minutes in fact I was first asked um by an organizer of the summit um to do something about the I AP process to speak on that um for a talk to any audience greater than one it's hard because IPS are individual um they should be individualized to the student to the school so those workshops and talks are always awkward not to mention how many of those seminars already exist besides we should honestly be looking at Family engagement beyond the IEP table I chose to talk about disability rights in general and the real issue of ableism facing families like mine since I have a limited time let's just talk about the end of the year engagement opportunities before us right now celebrations dances

100ceremonies movies in class and not to mention multiple disruptions to school schedules it's not easy right now for our neurodiverse community right now you probably will be calling us parents and Reporting behaviors but really it's a disregulated Day created by the school itself we often opted as a family to miss some of these days after eogs because there isn't any new material and in the words of my son some things you all think is fun isn't really fun for me so we don't engage we skip ceremonies that end up being more of a long weight and end up with a disregulated child at the end it does get better with age but the feelings of being left out remain when you leave out the kids or segregate the kids you leave and segregate the parents

101too we're doing we're still doing lots of things traditionally with adults in mind at the end of the year and not what meets the needs of our inclusive populations it's time to rethink how we do our programs so that we're more inclusive if you're unsure of what that might look like you might need to start real conversations with diverse families like mine thank you thank you Miss book our next speaker is Christina Spears who'll be followed by Julie Styers good evening Dr Taylor board members and staff happy pride month happy graduation season happy June in public schools happy everything I'm Christina spear special education teacher former coordinating teacher in equity Affairs reader and believer and worker power first I want to recognize this moment and budget season as you all have thank you for your

102unanimous vote last month to make a historic request to the commission to ensure employee compensation and retention of important support staff since your vote wake andca packed the commons building for the commission B public hearing union members staff parents clergy and allies told our stories about how much we love our schools and Wake County and how desperately we needed Commissioners to stand in the Gap they listened engaged in what they called the most difficult budget season yet and made hard decisions to keep taxes above Revenue neutral in order to fund a $58 million increase to your request there is lots of work ahead of you and ahead of us as we wait for the general assembly's final budget I hope the staff and parents who participated in this process by turning out and speaking up

103will continue to be involved as this body makes decisions about reconciliation this summer moving forward but tonight I'm here to stand with our school Librarians this isn't the first time and it won't be the last I believe just as this board does that school librarians are critical staff in our school communities they are literacy leaders who provide access to books technology and other worlds for our students you've demonstrated that value and your support of wake up and read and the diverse books Grant unfortunately the burden is on Librarians and families to fund School libraries through grant writing Book Fairs and crowdsourcing donations from the community having physical books and libraries to drive academic growth and student achievement is an issue a majority of folks can get behind regardless of race gender zip goe or party

104affiliation our Librarians are most knowledgeable and qualified about how to do that getting books into the hands of all of our students I'm proud of their advocacy to raise the issue of Equitable funding for all School libraries I'm proud to stand with 158 school librarians as they deliver their photo petition asking for your consideration on funding School libraries by allocating with parody from fund two those are monies from the state for instructional materials it's been a pleasure to be led by these Librarians let me be clear they are not asking for more money they are asking for an opportunity for deep strategic collaboration with important stakeholders in this organization thank you to Mr badula KRA Allen and the dll team for meeting with us this spring to start this conversation we hope this is the

105beginning of a collaboration between libraries school and Librarians school and District staff Mr badulla dll Equity Affairs and you the school board to ensure Librarians have the books and resources they need to support all students thank you thank you Miss Spears our next speaker is Julie Styers who'll be followed by Stephanie Johnson uh good evening my name is Julie Styers and tonight I'm speaking as a Wake County resident and Community member I believe in school libraries and this belief is based on some key truths one school libraries are sanctuaries for so many students of course School libraries help develop lifelong literacy School libraries coach students in navigating an information saturated World School libraries improve AC ademic outcomes there are over 60 research studies that show that students with access to school libraries with certified Librarians

106perform better academically and score higher on standardized assessments studies show even higher growth when Librarians work with students that have been identified as underserved this could include black indigenous students of color students with disabilities and or economically vulnerable students so final truth School libraries are essential for wcpss yet they don't exist in a vacuum they need support Wake County school libraries are not warehouses of books and Chromebooks School libraries are programs not rooms to run these programs need to be resourced with funding each year no matter the individual School climate ZIP code or Administration if we believe in public education we believe in the idea that every school should be resourced unfortunately if we look at our libraries that is not currently happening in Wake County there is an absurdly wide variation in the funding

107that each library reses from their school with some libraries receiving no funds at all to purchase books book fair profits do not count that's a whole another talk but relying on book fair profits to fund our school libraries is expecting our families to pay for our school library collections it's unacceptable every student in Wake County needs access to a fully funded Library no matter their zip code that's it that's the message I stand here in solidarity with these amazing Librarians here tonight because every student needs access to a funded Library no matter which weight County school they attend the zip code of a Wake County student should not determine their quality of their school library collection and I think you would all agree thank you thank you Miss thank you Miss tyers next up is

108Stephanie Johnson followed by Heather Munger hey good evening hello um I'm here to speak on behalf of all the children at Lake Myra Elementary School um as also a parent who has a kindergartener there um I think in today's world we all send our kids to school and pray and hope they come home safe um I don't think I need to go over all of the statistics of gun violence and horrible things that have happened around our whole country on Tuesday May 14th last month Lake Myra was used as a public voting spot now normally you would say big deal except it was used as a public voting spot during school hours with students and staff um our doors were open to one and all and we know it only takes one to send chaos

109um and have a very bad outcome so I know all of the board members um here have the safety of our kids and staff as a top priority so I hope in the future that this ever has to happen again that we would not have students in the building um and maybe not have voting there or not have students in the building as in the November we did not have students in the building I know some said it wasn't going to be a large party it was only one of the parties there wouldn't be many people but again it only takes one um so thank you for listening my name is Stephanie Johnson and I also work at Lake Myra in the ECS classroom thank you our next speaker is Heather Munger who will be

110followed by Evelyn uh is it Buel or Basel bu bule all right thank you good evening Dr Taylor chair Hagerty and board members my name is Heather monger and I'm a Wake County Public School librarian and parent and a proud wake ncae member I am here today to present the petition for fully funded libraries on behalf of 158 Wake County public school librarians what does a fully funded library mean let me start by highlighting how the library's goals and objectives embrace the vision of board policy 3000 which is the goals and objectives of the educational program it states the Wake County Board of Education believes that the function of formal education is to provide a foundation for lifelong learning and to enable each student to participate effectively and responsibly in a changing World recognizing that

111students have capabilities interests and individual patterns of growth and learning there are many examples of how our library support these goals and objectives but the one that I would like to discuss today is our book collections a fully funded book collection means that we can support all students research projects free reading and personal interests in libraries we're always striving to provide a broad range of viewpoints on a topic to find the most relevant up-to-date information on all subjects reflect on current reading Trends provide access to various deps of content reading levels formats and if possible languages support new classes and curriculum remove outdated and incorrect materials replace well-loved well-worn books buy extra copies of popular titles ensure that every student sees themselves in a book sees their interest represented on the library shelves or highlighted

112in displays discover something new or someone new when they visit the library these points do not even address how hard Librarians work to get books in the hands of all of our students there is not one model Library libraries need to support the school that they serve a book collection is not something that can be built and then left unmanaged this is why we are asking for a reliable stream of funding for all of our Wake County Public School libraries and to help us continue to build a culture of lit Y and research at all grade levels in every school I am here today to ask you to consider fully funding School libraries by allocating with parody from fund two by working with us we will be able to support all three priorities of the

113Strategic plan student Knowledge and Skills student dispositions and well-being and operational effectiveness thank you for your time and consideration on this important matter thank you thank you our next speaker is Evelyn Buell followed by Michelle [Applause] O'Keefe good evening good evening I'm Evelyn Buell a Raleigh native a parent of two Wake County Public School students a product of Wake County Public Schools and the librarian at leeville Road Middle School since 2002 I have worked in Wake County school libraries in yearr round and traditional calendar schools one high school one middle school and three elementary schools two different magnet programs and two Title One schools and in all of that time I have never had the Assurance of a budget for library books when there were funds for books it was never enough to replace lost

114outdated or damaged books much less to keep off with new or high demand titles I've written grants I've given up instructional time and closed checkout to my students so that I could set up and run Book Fairs to raise money I've asked PTA for money and solicited the community for donations to get books into my libraries even if that meant driving to a stranger's house to go through books they've stacked up in their garage it never gets easier telling students I don't know when or if we'll even be getting the latest Dogman book or the next Harry Potter book or about biography on the latest pop star it never gets easier telling students that I don't have a book on that non-fiction topic you have a project for your class or I do but it's

115so outdated it's from when I was in elementary school in the 80s last summer I joined with other school librarians in the district and wake ncae to join forces in advocating for change over this past year I have learned the state provides funding in fund two for instructional dollars to the district which is then distributed to each School based on enrollment and under fund two in school budgets there is a line item for library books this year only 51% of Wake County schools did not have funds in the line item for library books 10% of those schools had less than $1 per student and the line item for library books in case you didn't know a library book cost an average of $22 70% of schools have outdated collections as measured by Wake County Library

116collection standards how are we supposed to keep our school libraries up to date and engaging for our students to prepare them to reach their full potential and Lead productive lives if there's not a reliable funding to purchase resources to keep up with a changing and complex world I'm here asking you because my children and my students deserve to have access to current engaging books reflective of themselves and their experiences thank you thank you our next speaker is Michelle O'Keefe followed by Joseph Deon hi all so first off happy pride month sending lots of love and light to all of those that are celebrating secondly thank you Librarians for coming today please fully fund our libraries across the county these students deserve equ Equitable resources to materials across the county no matter where they live the

117main reason I'm here tonight is to talk about the mental health of our students my daughter has been diagnosed with both autism and anxiety she has several struggles but fortunately or unfortunately these struggles are mostly invisible to most people she often comes across as shy but once she meets you and gets comfortable she's silly and goofy and just a pleasure with Her diagnosis it is not always visible that she is constantly masking and focusing on going with the flow unfortunately while masking she comes across as a perfect child and this is what we've been told numerous times by her teachers and the rest of her school community she's just a pleasure and just so perfect while I appreciate the compliment this masking she has told me this masking shows that she can pretend to be

118perfect on the outside but yet her inside does not match this at all she tells me that she forces herself to not move or fidget during class time so she doesn't get reprimanded she's tells me often times that she tell she chooses not to use her fidgets or use flexible seating arrangements because she's afraid of getting in trouble I applaud her resilience and restraint to come across as being perfect but this comes at a significant cost many days she comes home and she is just completely spent she comes home and has mental and emotional breakdowns these come come in the form of basically meltdowns and Tantrums that you see in toddlers well I can deal with these the biggest problem that I see with all of this and other kids is that there's a huge

119long-term risk of masking and the mental health burden that this be that these children bear unfortunately I am a very big believer in mental health and the long-term consequences for masking have been studied and they can lead to higher rates of depression and suicide sadly I already have lost both my parents to these diseases and I cannot Stand By and allow my daughter to have another greater risk of suicide and depression in her life I feel these could be easily fixed and addressed by some understanding of masking and the neurod Divergent and autistic communities I urge the Wake County School Board to review policies around these and especially to treat those who may appear to be perfect on the outside as not being perfect on the inside thank you thank you our next speaker is

120Joseph Deon who'll be followed by Jane Miller good evening um for the top budget priority I fully support raises for teachers and especially bus drivers adjust wage for an honest day work but to keep within a a fixed total budget you must take a hard look at administ straight of expenses that have ballooned in recent years I know how painful layoffs and pay cuts are I lived through 10 layoffs when I worked in R&D for a company that used to be one of the dow30 Industrials before it fell upon Hard Times finally my whole business unit was sold to an Asian company that didn't want any American employees I subsequently took an academic research job at less than than half the the pay I don't think it's right for you all to keep asking people

121like me and others to pay higher and higher taxes before you've done uh serious belt tightening nor is it in the best interest of students for you to keep applying political pressure to deny opportunity scholarships so that you can keep a monopoly on on funding thank thank you thank you our next speaker is Jane Miller who will be followed by Lynwood Watson good evening good evening Dr Taylor chair hackery and board members my name is Jane Miller I'm the librarian at fuqu Arina Elementary and a proud ncae member my mission as a librarian is to make every child a reader when children see themselves as readers they spend more time practicing reading they perform better on all time types of tests and have more confidence after all literacy is the key to success in the

122information age to make a child a reader you need the right book for the right kid at the right time I surveyed my students to find out what types of books they want to read this list of their responses is five pages of unique answers because I didn't want to type Taylor Swift 40 times my kids want books on how to play golf chrysalises the mythical drop bear which I didn't know was a thing the French Revolution puppies soccer Hindu holidays chickens and the Kansas City Chiefs to name a few and every day a child asks me has my book come in yet because they have their hearts set on these books and they truly believe that I'm going to make all of those wishes come true this is why we have to fully fund

123libraries what do librarians do if they do not have funding Book Fairs are the most common form of fundraising but as any child can tell you there is nothing fair about a book fair every year no matter how hard I try to identify kids who don't have money and give them free books there are always children crying that they can't afford what they want or that they don't have as much as someone else and I know that other schools would have even and more disappointed students than mind us grants are an option but thousands apply and only a few win leaving most of us wasting our time filling out applications but worst of all many Librarians in this County charge our students fines for the lost and damaged books this is the worst practice as

124it punishes our students who have the least access to books by charging them money they cannot afford when I arrive arrived at my school I had to call parents and convince them to allow their child to get library books again they had refused to allow their children to get books because the previous librarian had charged them fines there is there's only one way to turn our children into the readers we want them to be we must fund School libraries as an essential part of our school system I urge you to fully fund School libraries by allocating funds from fund two thank you our next speaker is John Bor will'll be followed by gwendel and Yale I don't I don't want to look up and start talking yet till I'm set okay good evening board members

125uh thank you for your time a drug policy budget item is needed and appropriate for the Wake County School System a study in Forbes Magazine States the areas of our upper brain are responsible for logic and rational thinking our lower brain areas are responsible for producing pleasure and emotions as humans we tend to be guided more by our pleasure centers than by Logic and reason if we begin to use our logical thinking ing from our upper brain to satisfy the pleasure Cravings of our lower brain we will begin to behave in highly unacceptable ways some of the issues your self- worse degrades your perception of others becomes distorted your perception of reality and life changes but this study was not about the effect of drugs but of pornography on children to believe that pornography cannot

126develop into an addiction is a fallacy that denies the biological and neurological reality of the functioning of the brain I spent May 15th in the 29th downtown Rally for the NC legislative day I stood at the pavement education project table and discussed the books found in the Wake County school systems and others across the state these books have graphic pornographic pictures others promote suicide if I were to hand any of these books to a minor I would be arrested but the school are exempt there was much disbelief to everyone who browsed through the books there wasn't an exception there were multiple speakers including from Charlotte gaze against groomers he did a great job one of the reporters asked aren't you afraid of going down the slippy slope of banning books we are not campaigning to

127ban books we are asking for age appropriate access just like the movie theaters and gaming stores like when I took my 12-year-old grandson I had to show my ID I walked over to the reporter and okay same reporter and asked if this should be sh um if this should be in the school libraries so this is in your libraries this is uh oral sex on a maale then we have this classic in elementary school when you were born you couldn't tell people who you were how you felt just just a baby they looked at you and made a guess well I could make a guess right now this book is trash when people guess wrong it's okay to let them know Ruthie was five when she told her parents I know you think I'm a

128boy but I feel like a girl so this is what we're feeding elementary kids we and NC values brought over 3,000 signatures a stack about 10 in tall to the legislator we got the signatures at the NC Fairgrounds DMV lines town events and church across the streets after that we visited over 90 legislator and they all thank you Mr thank you Mr B next speaker is gendin Yale followed by Chris Tuttle good evening Dr Taylor CH hagy and school board members my name is gwendel Yale I'm a proud Wake County school Li librarian and ncae member you've been hearing and will continue to hear from my colleagues and our Community Partners about our concerns for Library budgets in this County we know and you know that literacy is crucial to our students of all ages

129we all know that free access to information that is appropriate current representative and available to all of our students is crucial to their growth we also know that Librarians in this County are educated professionals who are very passionate about their work I'd like to pose a few questions about your vision for the county what does a student meeting their full potential look like to you does this Vision include research skills Does it include creativity and critical thinking do you see students collaborating with each other and School staff do you see students interested in their curriculum and searching for materials to supplement their learning do you see a library as a heart of this video as it is the heart of the school every day in my library students are reading creating researching and we are

130engaging their critical thinking collabor collaboration and communication skills I know libraries and Librarians across the county are seeing and doing the same thing what I can't say is that libraries across the county are seen as a funding priority in the same way that they are seen as the heart of the school I'm here today to ask you to consider fully funding School libraries by allocating with parity from fund 2 I urge you to support all 158 Librarians who stand behind this request let's equip our students with the tools they need to succeed in an Ever evolving world thank you thank you our next speaker will be Chris totle followed by Cecilia [Applause] Joyce good evening Dr Taylor haggardi and board members my name is Chris Tuttle and I'm the librarian at South Garner High School

131and a proud wake NCA member I know that each of you values literacy and believes that all students deserve access to books that reflect their identities and experiences spark their curiosity and enrich their imaginations I've heard you speak passionately about the power of wake up and read and the importance of children having books to call their own I know you understand the transformative power of stories and the impact they can have on our kids additionally Priority One of the Wake County strategic plan highlights the importance of foundational literacies and skills in reading our school libraries are essential to upholding these values and beliefs for many of my students our library is their sole source of access to books with the high cost of books and limited discretionary income many families can't afford to purchase them

132and public libraries are far from where my students live I am fortunate to have a principal who prioritizes Library funding which has enabled me to offer a vibrant and up-to-date collection for my students Miss Johnson Hustler has visited our library many times and I believe she would agree with the importance of this Support over the past year I've spoken with Librarians across our district who struggle to keep their collections current engaging and representative depending on grants Book Fairs and ptas to buy books we fund what we prioritize if you believe that literacy skills are essential and that every student should have access to books then you must agree that all students deserve fully funded libraries currently 70% of our schools have outdated collections as measured by the wcpss library collection standards and reported in the

1332023 North Carolina digital learning and media inventory according to the wcpss library collection standards the average age of fiction book should be 2009 and non-fiction books should be between 2012 and 138 that's 70% of our libraries are not meeting the standards that Wake County has set tonight I stand with a 158 librarian a super majority who have signed the petition urging you to fully fund School libraries by allocating Resources with parody from fund two without this funding how can our library collections remain current engaging and representative more importantly how do we justify to our students that we aren't willing to invest in something we claim is crucial for their success thank you thank you our next speaker is Cecilia Joyce followed by Carrie [Applause] Richardson hi I am Cecilia Joy the proud librarian at Diller

134Drive Magnet Elementary School I am also a proud ncae member and parent of two w County public school graduates go in low Eagles I am myself a product of Wake County Public Schools I live in District 7 and my school is in District 5 sometimes people ask me how it is to be a school librarian these days see some people think that kids don't like reading anymore I was speaking to someone recently who had this false impression he said it must be hard to teach kids in the library and I said no my students love coming to the library many of them don't have access to books in their homes and don't have the opportunity to go to a public library I went on to explain that I have curated a collection of books that's

135relevant to them one that honors many cultures one in which they see themselves reflected and most of all very fun and current book collection I was able to build a collection like this because we are a new magnet school and have had three years of magnet grant money with which to purchase new books I am now worried that I will not be able to continue to update and add to this Fine Collection now that our magnet money has dried up my principal is very supportive of the library but she is forced to stretch our school's budget to include many many things I am worried that new library books may be cut from future budgets because of multiple demands I am worried that our PTA will feel obligated to run not one but two Book Fairs

136to fund book purchases this means that families are paying for the books essentially when they have already paid taxes which should be spent towards books I'm worried that in my already impossible schedule I will have to make time to write grants in order to keep my collection relevant and current I am joining with a majority of school librarians in this County who have signed a petition and many of whom have come here today to ask you to consider fully funding School libraries with parity from fund two please note that we are not asking for additional funds we are asking for a policy that funds libraries with parity school librarians in Wake County are literacy leaders in our schools however a majority of school libraries in Wake County do not receive funding to purchase regular and

137replacement books for their students this is at a time when over 130 of our schools do not meet the Wake County Public School's own standards these standards require an average age of books of 2009 or later and more than half of our libraries do not meet the standard this needs to change sufficient book budgets for all schools would have positive literacy results and it's just the right thing to do for our kids thank you thank you Miss choice now before before Miss Richardson speaks could I get Lynwood Watson to raise a hand okay I want to sincerely apologize I misidentified another speaker who was up here as Linwood Watson and I even wrote down some nice quotes and attribute them to you instead of who actually spoke them so if you don't mind I know

138it's out of order but um if you'd be willing to come up and speak after Miss Richardson okay and again I apologize for the oversite and um again when the meeting's over I do want to find out who's talking about the the fines that were charged because I accidentally attributed you those comments to the wrong person that was you okay thank you all right um Mr Richardson if you're ready sorry about that that's okay hey I'm Carrie Richardson and I have three children in Wake County Public Schools I have an elementary schooler a middle schooler and a rising high schooler I'm here today to advocate for a district policy that will fund with parody the um from the instructional materials F uh fund whoops sorry that sentence got messed up when I fixed it um

139the library budget line for the schools each year I'm confident that we all know the importance of libraries and books and the impact that reading can have on a student I'm also sympathetic to how tricky School budgets can be and the real issue is that there's simply not enough money allocated to schools but that's a much more complex Pro problem and not one the school board can fix easily today one of the things that the school board can do is make a significant positive change in the Wake County Public School System Library collections improving collections at libraries throughout the county by designating funding is a measure that will benefit every student that walks through school doors because all Learners visit the library your average student your gifted student your ESL student your special education student

140they all have access to school libraries right now in Wake County funding for libraries is discretionary which means having up-to-date resources often gets put on the back burner in the 2022 2023 school year 52% of Wake County schools had 0 from instructional funds allocated for library books and 90% of those that were funded were still under $10 per pupil that's less than half the cost of the $21 books that the libraries would want to purchase the current underfunding means that if a library collection is getting any new books or replacing damaged books it's typically in more affluent zip codes where PTA support profitable book faires and parent donations backfill the budget and even though schools are finding outdated books in their collections one that list Pluto as a planet or contain inappropriate terminology for disabled

141people and minority groups I ask my children if they thought this issue was important and while my elementary schooler was Pro more dog man books my and books for book reports uh my middle and high schooler agreed that up-to-date science materials data spes and online access to online resources which would be included in this funding was definitely worthwhile this is a fixable problem but only if the board funds it please make sure that students countywide have access to upto-date books regardless of their zip code thank you very much thank thank you and so now Mr Watson I apologize if you'd uh like to come up and share your remarks good evening ladies and gentlemen of the school board appreciate the chance to be here I also appreciate all our esteemed Librarians and uh principes and

142School staff members they are our oracles at Deli definitely um U my name is lywood Watson I've got two kids in the Wake County Public School System I'm eat my own cooking got skin in the game like many of y'all and uh I just want to say I've had the privilege of uh not only having my kids in the Wake County School System their entire primary school career but also um I've served on our school library mtac uh committee advisory committee as apparently aison for the last four years so I've had and I've also serve with some of the middle school librarians with their book club so I've heard a lot I've seen a decent amount and I just really want to Advocate as a parent for this special relationship with books that our school

143libraries really f um you know as a parent uh it's an upstream battle as we all know I know though when I walk by my kids' room at night and I peek in the door and look at them at their desk hopefully they're at their desk um doing their work you know when I see a book I tend to rest easy but when I see a screen as a dad I tend to get a little nervous cuz uh not being a lite but you know screens are pricious and they're Insidious it's like playing whack-a-mole uh I look in the back seat my rib mirrored as a screen and then the friends got a screen and they all got different sources and different motives and you as a parent I'm all for Effective tools but I

144don't want my kids to be a tool and because of that I really advocate for books books are time tested they're not perfect but there's something that really relate as you mentioned um School Board member rice member rice there's a special relationship and we mentioned the neurons there's biochemical connections aites and dendr dendrites all connecting there through processes that we don't even know about through that connection from eyes to verbal to parents Librarians teachers and connections and this is something that is all fostered with books so you know in short um I really hope that we can uh have this designation for books to assist our Librarians so that you know this special relationship can continue I know it's trendy nowadays to focus on stem I'm all for stem but how are we going to

145get the stem accomplished as a friend of mine uh in AI says AI I'll give you a lot of how and when and where but it's never going to give you the why and the why comes from here and here and books and gender that thank youall thank you Mr roon [Applause] all right at this point on our agenda we will turn to our consent agenda do we have a motion second we have a motion for adoption of the consent agend sorry of the uh cons the items on the consent agenda from Mr Hershey second from Mr Swanson all in favor of the consent agenda items please signify by saying I I any opposed all right those items have passed we now um let's see we have a motion to go for Mr Hershey to

146go back to close session for the reasons previously stated um I Heard a second from Miss Coffield all in favor of returning to closed session please signify by saying I what did I do I at this point Y all give me some Grace um all right uh do we want to correct that for the minutes Miss Allen's got my back so I appreciate that all in favor of the motion please signify by saying I I any opposed all right we'll take a moment and reconvene in the uh Board conference room thank you very much I got for