001for e all right good evening everyone it is Tuesday April 2nd 2024 at 5:41 p.m. and we're calling the regular meeting of the weight count Board of Education to order I want to welcome those of you who are watching at home and those that are here in person and I guess those that are also watching via camera phone Wake County Board of Education meetings are conducted for the purpose of carrying on the official business of the school system the public is cordially invited to attend board meetings to observe the board as it conducts its official business persons who will willfully interrupt disrupt or cause disturbances at an official meeting may be directed to leave by the presiding officer members of the audience should show respect for the speakers by refraining from loud comments or other
002disruptions disruptions by any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance to North Carolina General statute 143 31817 and again if all attendees are seated I note that we do have a quorum with eight of our nine members present and then everyone if you can stand if you are able we'll recite the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of aliance to of the United States of America and to the republ for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy andice all right everyone we will begin our meeting with comments from our superintendent Dr Robert Taylor thank you Mr chair and good evening to you all uh this morning we announced the finalist for this year's teachers uh of the year and so I had the privilege of visiting each one of
003these teachers in their schools and surprising them with the good news being a part of what we call the prize Patrol and I can tell you this was an absolutely wonderful um uh Journey that I had this morning to recognize these teachers and they are Ryan Bergland of U milbrook Magnet High uh Juan Cruz of Buckhorn Creek Elementary Susan Enis of leeville Road High uh April gunler of lockheart Elementary Monica Hall at Timber Drive Elementary Kelly hurry and Laurel Park Elementary Whitney Masterson Mills Park Middle Madison Parker Alon Ridge Elementary Karen Ray Dillard Drive Magnet middle and Ashley Smith of Zebulon Magnet Middle these 10 finalist represent the best of the best in a district filled with talented teachers they absolutely do shine uh our selection committee will interview each finalist in the upcoming weeks
004and select our teacher of the the year uh and I think that the board chair is going to be a part of that that's a joke I'm kidding uh the winner will be announced at our annual banquet on May the 6 so we want to say congratulations to these remarkable Educators I can tell you've been selected by your peers uh as the teacher of the year is a great honor and being selected as one of the top 10 finalists is an even greater honor so we want to say congratulations to each and every one of them also congratulations are in order for Ain uh Wasco who was named this year 's School library media coordinator of the year for our district Miss Wasco is Media coordinator at Overland Magnet Middle School principal Pelton shared this
005about Mrs Wasco Miss wasco's collaboration teaching and Visionary leadership are truly amazing she exemplifies best practices for media coordinators and she continues to lead the way in taking the best care of our school Community she was presented with this honor at the celebration of teaching Excellence on March 21st Julie Kodak of Wildwood Forest Magnet Elementary and Heather Barkley at wake Young Men's Leadership Academy finalist for their school levels uh so thank you all for your exemplary work and April our district recognizes and celebrates many of our staff groups for the for the tremendous impact they have on our students and their families April is occupational therapist appreciation month April 1st 1 through 5th is National assistant principal week April 4th is school library media coordinator day April 17th is data manager appreciation day and April
00621st through 27th is Administrative Assistant Appreciation Week each of these roles is vital to school operations and impact students learning uh as a district we will be shining a spotlight on these employee groups throughout the month I want to personally thank our staff who serve in these positions for your dedication to our school Community April is also arab-american Heritage Month a time when we recognize the accomplishments of arab-americans across the country arab-americans have made immeasurable contributions to American society with their diverse backgrounds in faith Traditions bold Innovations and commitment to community this year the Arab American Foundation seeks to spotlight the richness of Arab culture paying homage to their Heritage and identity our district joins with cultural institutions school districts and state legislates to recognize and celebrate Arab American communities thank you Mr chair thank
007you superintendent Taylor well I would be remiss if I did not begin the meeting by extending yall know what's coming right uh congratulations to the NC State Wolfpack men's and women's final four basketball team you know this is a special moment it's rare that we can get both the men's and women's team together in the final four so it's that's a tremendous honor and then you know I was getting some ribbing over here from my fellow Deb cpss along Mr Kendrick Scott the last time the wolf pack made it to the final four we were both students in this County so you know for a couple Old-Timers it's good to be back and for the rest of you welcome to the final four um superintendent Taylor did hit on a lot of the wonderful things
008going on in the district one thing however did you know it is also food waste prevention week and I bring that up only because we've had discussions in our board advisory Council about issues of sustainability and what we can do in our schools to reduce food waste reduce the the amount of waste that's generated the cost of the school district and also to address issues of food insecurity so uh if you don't know anything about it try to increase your awareness and um pay a little bit of special attention to these food waste issues and I know we'll be continuing to do that in facilities as we look at other issues of sustainability in the district um the big issue that we've been talking about you know is our budget I know we have speakers
009here tonight on the budget I hope many of you were able to tune in and watch the discussion that we had in our work session about the budget um this is going to be the most important work we do over the next several weeks I think that you heard um pretty much consensus opinion around on the table that there are many important changes that we want to see to the budget that will reflect our values as a board to address our priorities and one of our top priorities is Staff compensation you know we've heard and I've heard different numbers about this whether we're 46th in the nation in teacher pay 48th in the nation in total education spending either way it's shameful and you know what we can do locally may only be able to
010put a dent into it but anything that we can do to move forward is progress and that puts us out there as a leader in North Carolina um and I think it's just something that we're all obligated to do and something we all feel very strongly about um I do want to share this with my fellow board members you know oftentimes we feel frustrated or butting our heads against the state legislature and some of the policies if you were if you had noticed the North Carolina General assembly's house select committee on education reform came out and made after several you know months of review several recommendations and findings and I've produced copies for each of my fellow board members I'll pass out at the end of comments but some notable findings in here that I
011think are significant this is a bipartisan Committee of Democrats and Republicans that came together and found as you know committee findings teacher compensation in North Carolina has not kept up with the rising cost of living and inflation statement of the committee the increasing employment opportunities for many of our teachers in a changing Workforce May often make teaching less attract of a career choice as it once was and then the you know North Carolina teacher pay has not even kept up with other public sector employee pay oftentimes we look at comparing our teachers to teachers in other states and other districts but just even here in Wake County what our staff can make compared to staff working for municipal or state or or County government sometimes I think needs to be examined and and held up
012so you all can look the report for yourself see what you think you might agree with some of it you might disagree with some of it but just stay informed I think the one thing that's clear coming out of this that if we have at least one chamber of the legislature willing to come out and and say that North Carolina is not ensuring and this is a quote so I want to make sure I get it right North Carolina is not ensuring that the hardto staffed subject area positions and hardto staff schools are sufficiently filled with highquality teachers sorry with highly qualified teachers then we're not doing our job so um I'll give that to you all and I'll turn it over to you for your remarks thank you Vice chair Johnson Hustler thank you
013I will start by saying I won't belabor the report because I do think it's um important that people see the work that's been done and again I also think it's very important to acknowledge that even though um the um the budget has not reflected these priorities I think the difference is is having it in writing gives us all another tool to Advocate to those who clearly have articulated through this um housel committee the importance of teacher compensation and so it's a lot easier to have a conversation with people once you're on the same page how you get there is the real work and as I said at the work session table um that's what we're hired to do we have one job and that is to really do the work to ensure um that the
014people who do the most to ensure that we are educational institution are the people that we pay our Educators um up and down and you all know when I say Educators I mean literally from the bus to the CNS to every single person who touches our kids including of course our teachers um that that is our job and um and I'll also lift up which I think is important because I thought about this after I said I was like in 10 years I don't think I've articulated it so clearly so it's definitely my retirement uh you know I think you get re smarter when you're about to retire um but that is giving the exact language of the things that Wake County Public Schools actually do that one I don't even think our elected officials
015at the general assembly understand the work that we are doing to fill gaps and I certainly would say I don't think the general public does either I think our Educators who are listening do but I would not say the vast majority of our Educators also know the the ways in which the budget is structured and so again I will Echo thank you Miss mfy cleaned it up for me um when I said Apples to Apples I was really going with we do a great job so it's not okay for us to compare ourselves and seem like we're doing Less in other districts because of the way that we are spending our money doesn't necessarily reflect that I do believe the work that we've done I I what I have said for 10 years is our
016budget is our hard work and it should reflect the things that are important and of course um how we take care of our people is the utmost priority to me um so again thank you uh superintendent Taylor for um articulating very well that you also have a job and that is to follow the board and I um remain steadfast that we appreciate the work that you've done but it is our turn turn to do the hard work and the heavy lifting um so thank you and everyone who put all of their work into that and I will um end on that note thank you thank you Vice thank you Vice chair Johnson Hustler Mr Swanson are you ready all right thank you teaching you my ey contact so you don't get called on but that
017didn't work today so good evening everyone and um I also wanted to say congratulations to our teacher of the year semi-finalist also an happy AP Appreciation Week to our um School administrators who do the work every day for our students our teachers and our families um and also April is Autism Awareness Month and so today we celebrate uh autism awareness day and I um as a former special education teacher could not let that be lifted up today could not uh left that up so I'm glad that that we recognize our students and the you know the contribution they do daily and um well yes I think that's all I have sorry was I'm still on spring break mode as well just like our our staff so my remarks are very short and I'll uh kick
018it over to back to you Mr chair I appreciate that Mr Swanson was going to like just dish the ball to another person across the table start going back and forth um Miss Coffield are you ready thank you welcome back everybody and I hope everybody had a great Break um Roseville High School hosted a shed and Vault competition this year um and I appreciate that Principal Perry um and his staff walk me around to show me the program and all of our students hard at work the great programs that they have there are uh students handon experience both with carpentry and electrical work and I'd like to congratulate Heritage High School for their uh second win in a row for the shed competition I know everybody was hard at work um and they really came
019together with uh you know their teammates you had our first uh all girls group uh was there as well so they were competing with them um and I did have the statistics and I hit the delete button but we had quite a few schools that are participating um in that competition each year um let me see there are two students from Roseville High School that place in the vault electrical trades competition those students are Gavin puffy and Kyle Condon so congratulations to all those students um they did an outstanding job and were recognized by their peers from nearly 20 other teams in addition to both the electrical trades and construction classes already being taught at Roseville next year Roseville will house an HVAC program where students will have the opportunity to learn this trade and
020gain certifications with the HVAC Edition Roseville High School will be the only High School in the county and possibly in the state that has electrical trades construction and HVAC all in the same location well these programs will have a um in these programs they'll have a pre-apprenticeship upon graduation and they could leave with apprenticeships that offered stipends over $40,000 per year so congratulations to those that were competing um the other thing I wanted to mention was the ramp designation is celebrating their 20th year recognizing schools committed to delivering a comprehensive data informed School counseling program and since its Inception there's been more than 1,600 schools that have been designated as ramp prant so ramp is uh in schools that are now in 47 States across the country and I wanted to recognize in District One
021um her uh I'm sorry night Dale High School River New River Middle School Roseville middle school and Wake Forest Middle School for their dedication to this program and finally um for our budget um we get lots of feedback and emails a lot of people talking to us and I appreciate all the comments and feedback um it really just gives us a lot of insight in what everybody is reflecting on and what they need and see for me the priority is going to be supporting our teachers getting behavioral support and resources in our classroom as well as supporting our mental health my priorities is more lens looking from the bottom up before we continue as we have always done I feel the need to reflect on our successes and our challenges which we reflective which is
022reflective when we see things such as the bus I'm sorry I I think my mouth is on spring break right now um our um bus drivers our HVAC and our teachers we need our behavioral supports and mentors we need a lot more support uh where that is regarding what that is regarding and we need programs that support academic recovery so before we can actually move forward with our budget we had a lot of good discussion today I know there's a lot of questions that are coming um for our next session that will be answered so I appreciate the fact that it is being done much earlier this year so it allows for us to have that conversation and open up a lot of questions so that we can understand it a lot more and we
023we've heard from our teachers um and they are the one reason that they are my priority is because they're the leaders for our next generation and we need to reflect that in our work on the budget and that's all I have for today thank you Miss Coffield Miss rice good evening everybody I'll be very brief um just want to uh reiterate with Miss Coffield um I also visited uh Roseville High School that was the host of the grounds for the shed it was very amazing to see youth literally building something from the ground up and I came in at the almost the finishing stages of the project so that was very great to see um I enjoyed my uh holiday weekend it was spring break for for my family in most of the district that
024I also serve um but I also got to attend Fountain of Life um Ministry where Rend Pastor Anderson was the pastor and I got to see amazing wake youth students reciting um scriptures for their um program for the holiday so that was very nice to see but I just want to um continue to focus of course on well-being um April is child abuse awareness month um and April 5th is Child Abuse Prevention Day um if we know anything about ASUS ASUS stands for adverse childhood experiences and data says that if a child has one positive adult in their life it will allow youth to be a resilient from Aces and so I just want to remind everyone to do some personal Aces prevention by doing self-care and saying one positive thing to yourself every day
025and then I would love for you to say one positive thing to a student that you may encounter every day for this month and get into practice and doing that and I just want to definitely um say with that being positive it's laugh out loud week from April 1st to the 7th and so remember to smile remember to laugh because it's some good medicine for your soul and as well as um Mr Swanson has mentioned it is Autism Awareness Month as well as counseling awareness month and so I just want to give kudos to our amazing um School staff who are counselors and who are special educ ation teachers that is some dedicated intentional work and so I just want to tell you that I think that you are amazing and that's my positive thing
026to say for the day all right thank you Miss rice Mr Hershey I'll turn it over to you but before I do I have a trivia question for you so I'm sure that you know that NC State star basketball player DJ horn attended a Wake County Public High School Carrie high school but transferred on what other what we have one more Wolfpack player on the roster who attended and graduated from a Wake County Public High School can you name the school it's the pan it is the Panther Creek Panther Creek C that's not District Six I know it's it's District Seven it's district 7 don't forget that save my there you go Mr Hershey time for your rebuttal who was the leading scorer for the wolf pack last time they were in the final four
027anybody CH chassid Melvin 37 points against Louisiana Tech she was amazing come on now cuz I am all about the women's sports and I got my shirt on order that everyone loves women's sports and I was very loud and I was like half coaching and cheering while I was sitting on the couch for the women's game not so much for the men's game so um a few items and a couple serious items uh first uh the next district 6 BAC will be April 29th at ly Road Elementary School from 5:30 to 7ish and our uh guest if he doesn't know yet will be Dr Taylor um we will also have uh you know we have a lot of students who do things things like uh martial arts and we and there will be some there
028presenting as part of their black belt program um for Taekwondo uh so I'm very excited about that including um students of some of our staff who will be there uh in order for them to test on June 1st for their black belts um two other items so we talk a lot about state pay and I I appreciate uh the board chair reading the comments from the committee about what they uh need to do but I hope that they understand that this cannot be you know two and 3% raises we need 20 and 30% raises from the state for our teachers I miss Edmonds will correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we are last in the Southeast amongst teacher pay um you know it is more important for us to have strong Public Schools
029than it is to have a a corporate tax rate at zero and I think um that's why we get this High Business ranking because we cut taxes so low and then we're just not taking care of our our Public Schools the way we should the the numbers I I encourage people to look up the numbers to to see for themselves because they can view me as an elected official trying to spend something but the numbers are what they are and um anecdotally I was speaking with a friend of mine who moved out west to a very red State and um he was he's a public school teacher uh making over $90,000 um so this is not a red verse blue liberal verse conservative this is about our state needing to step up to the challenge
030and to the occasion and rise to the occasion and actually pay our staff because Wake County and the surrounding counties are big economic drivers in this state and the companies are moving here and our staff just cannot keep up with the cost of living here and it we just have to say it over and over again so people hear it um and it really impacts Wake County um residents as well because we have to turn to the county to support and I would love it if we had salaries so so high that we didn't need a supplement and we didn't have to put it on the backs of Wake County residents only um and and I certainly so I just want to encourage the state as they recognize that we are way behind and that
031it's got to be substantial anything is appreciated but come on we got to we have to do better than you know 2 3% um lastly before uh traditional calendar spring break there was another racist incident in one of our schools and I'm not going to say which school or which schools were involved because it was two schools it was at at an athletic event and I was thinking a lot about this over spring break in the context of we did a um we did our gun safety resolution and we are going to be putting out more and regular information on gun storage safety and I'm also watching the news about what happened in Baltimore and you start to see The Not So subtle racism anymore using Dei as um to denigrate um people to to
032put people down and I'm wondering if we are doing enough and this is a an ask to the superintendent and to staff and I don't feel like we need to have a resolution to to do more but are we doing enough in our messaging and in our education about the issues the harm the nastiness around racism in our in in our messaging not only to parents because this is a learned behavior but also as part of our education to our students and the impact that racism has on our community on individuals um I I'm sort of rambling here but I just thought about it a lot and if we're going to be putting out more information on things like gun storage are we rising to that level on racism as well on bullying as well
033um so I would ask staff to reflect on that I would love to know as a board member kind of what our yearlong messaging is on these topics I don't know if it's really been laid out I know that we have good responses when we have these incidents um but I would like to see us be more proactive in our messaging and our education on these topics thank you Mr board chair thank you Mr Hershey Miss Edmond thank you um thank you Mr Hershey for all your comments I am pretty sure I may not know the ranking in the Southeast I know we're low but I also know that in our bordering states South Carolina Virginia Tennessee they pay better and so a lot of our other districts in the State lose staff to those
034border states that that pay better we've got a long long way to go um I am also going to talk about the shed event because I went out to rolleville High School uh and it is I I went for the first time last year and it really is such a tremendous Showcase of the CTE offerings that we have in Wake County Public Schools it's a competition with students from across the district numerous high schools they build these sheds that um H you know from the ground up that have to meet code um there's supervised by their teachers but also by many local volunteers that work in the construction industry and it is it is truly one of my favorite uh events um as a board member to go and attend uh the students compete and
035anyone in the public can actually buy the sheds that they build so it's it's really really cool and the day that I went was the day of the Vault competition where students were competing in wiring and electrical skills and this year for the first time we had some middle school students attend so that they could explore some of these courses and programs you know as they look um to their High School uh experience I only saw one news story about it um but I think it's a headlining event and I think that we as board members need to continue um any chance we any opportunity we have to lift up the CTE the robust CTE program offerings in this district and our students who are interested in those um opportunities and choosing those career paths
036I don't think enough of the public is aware of really how strong a program we have here in Wake County and um Dr Taylor mentioned the celebration for the nationally board certified um teachers we had I think 322 or something Educators that either obtained or renewed their national board certifications this year so myself and chair Hagerty m rice and Mr Swanson were at an event on March 22nd to celebrate those folks and also the media coordinator of the year I'm excited to attend a reception this Thursday at the North Carolina Museum of Art to celebrate about 200 students who from across the district who are going to have their artwork displayed this week I forget when it started but the artwork is there um through April 7th so if you get a chance to go
037to the art museum I just think that's tremendous for their work to be shown in our state Art Museum and finally with the budget I uh got worked up in the work session today I get worked up anytime that we are talking about what our district needs what other North Carolina School Districts need in light of the gross underfunding coming from the state and I mean that not just for Wake County but for all districts across North Carolina it matters that we're at the bottom in funding effort it matters that the ISL has set our corporate tax rate to go to zero it's already the lowest in the country but that's not good enough they're setting it to go to zero within the next four years or so that means corporations like apple um Lenovo
038Red Hat uh epic game whoever will not be contributing to the public education system in this state and that is wrong and therefore local districts like wake County are having to go to our County Community our county level you know neighbors County taxpayers to ask for what we need and when I say we I mean our Educators and our students not this board not the superintendent not the County Commissioners it's an Ask of what students and Educators need um so I'm I'm going to say more in two weeks and stop now and thank you Mr chair thank you Mr semmons miss mafy all right thank you um I want to thank everybody for taking the time to acknowledge autism acceptance and awareness month and the fact that today is um autism acceptance and awareness day
039one in three one in 36 children are diagnosed with autism boys four time four times more likely to be diagnosed there are a lot of current inequities with how autism is presented in girls and women versus what the DSM standards are for boys um the shift from awareness to acceptance we all know at this point that there are autistic people in this world but we do need to find ways to help them navigate this world they are different um in so far that their brains are wired differently it doesn't make them less of a person um and we need to work to make make their lives more fulfilling rather than treat autism like an illness um it is a spectrum and it presents in many different ways you could have an one autistic person that's
040hyperlexic and one autistic person that is non-verbal and there are a myod of combinations within that spectrum and there's a saying that says when you meet one person with autism you have met one person with autism this is something that's very personal to me I have a child in my home who is on the Spectrum and she is one of the most wonderful people that I know in this world for many years we went to different doctors trying to figure out what how we could help this kid she was presenting differently than your typical child developmentally was told by multiple doctors she will grow out of it was told by one doct doctor she's making eye contact she doesn't have autism thanks to the folks at the Wake County Public School System I had an
041assistant principal who said Miss mafy you're doing all this work let's have an IEP meeting and see how she qualifies and thanks to a Wake County psychologist in our school system that IEP was shown that my child had um qualified for an IEP under the diagnosis of not diagnosis but under autism that diagnosis then officially has to be looked at and presented by a doctor I am profoundly aware of the inadequacies in our system when it comes to helping some many of our special needs kids and I'm also profoundly aware of the amazing people who have helped families in this District as including my own and so I just want to lift this up that it is autism acceptance and appreciation month because there are many many people among us who are diagnosed undiagnosed walking
042amongst us and we may not know just because they present to the world differently um and not in a neurotypical way and I'm sorry to end on such a personal um quiet note but um I just to the people in Wake County Schools who have personally help my family or other families like mine just thank you thank you Miss mafy there's nothing to apologize for I thought those were very appropriate and we thank you for sharing that story next on our agenda we would have the approval of the meeting agenda but before we take a motion there are two potential amendments we would need to to make um I'd entertain a motion to remove from consent policy 7241 drug and alcohol testing just to be brought back at the next board meeting from some additional
043work that needs to be done on it and then to add the approval of the administrative appointments and recommendations um to our action items before we return to closed session is there anyone willing to make that motion motion from Mr Swanson second from Miss Coffield to amend the agenda all in favor say I I I any opposed all right now we need a motion to adopt the amended agenda motion for Mr Swanson second second from Vice chair Johnson Hustler all in favor of adoption of the amended agenda please signify by saying I I any opposed all right the amended agenda has been approved so the next item on the amended agenda will be our public hearing on the superintendent's proposed budget for 2425 generally for those of you who've been here before you know what
044the rules for public comment are the rules for public hearing are very similar the only difference is that here at the public hearing speakers are allotted 2 minutes per speaker so when you begin the green light at the podium will illuminate showing that your two minutes have begun a yellow light will light up with an audible tone when there are 30 seconds remaining and then when your your speaking time is up you'll see the red light and hear another audible tone again we ask that everyone remain courtious to the speakers only one person come to the podium at a time and um when your time has expired please do and your comment so the next person can come up and speak all right if we are ready then we will recognize our public speakers for
045the public hearing the first Speaker being Joseph Chancellor followed by Stacia Solomon uh hello good evening good evening hi thanks everyone um so my name is Joseph Chancellor I love talking about Airborne infectious disease um I sent some emails to the board about this I thought you might like to see uh my eyes um I live in kry I have two kids I have a family member that has long covid um he was fully vaccinated he got Omron two years ago I literally just found out today that he is now immuno compromised so he has entered into the disability category and and I hear uh a lot of the uh concern about disability um and and uh most folks so I do a lot of advoc advocacy for disability um folks are often surprised at
046how much of advocacy for disability has a link to viral infections I don't know if you know Judith human Justin Whitlock D Dart Jr um a lot of the Ada uh advocacy came from folks who were survivors of polio and specifically post polio syndrome um we're also finding links between Ms um and Epstein bar virus infections and so actually the story behind the story of much of the disability rights advocacy was viral infections and so a lot of folks here um have never felt the same after their Co infection um they've not felt the same after repeated covid infections and so um I'm bringing the uh Airborne infectious disease concern to you we've talked about this for several years I'm very sorry that the World Health Organization just acknowledged Airborne transmission of SARS Cove 2
047like two weeks ago um there are new standards now for Airborne infectious disease HVAC is an issue that is on your budget um the new standard is uh basically forx what the old standard is so I brought with me actually a you probably lose about $50 for every student that's out sick um this purifier is $300 I'm not selling it I'm just showing you it's super quiet uh you can put two of these in every classroom and you could dramatically uh reduce The Chronic um absence problem that you have you've got teachers out sick you've got uh substitutes uh that you're scrambling for and so please consider that uh that's something you should be doing thanks thank you Mr Chancellor next up is uh Miss Solomon followed by Christina Spears on Wednesday March 20th my
048son participated in a baseball game with his Wake County High School J JV team against another Wake County high school team unbeknownst to my husband and I during that game my son was the target of multiple racial slurs derogatory comments about his body side in shape and discriminatory remarks related to slavery these comments were being made by the opposing team within an earshot of coaches and other game officials including the Umpire put lightly my son's social emotional well-being was being attacked because of his racial and physical identities while all School leadership for all the high schools involved have been notified and have responded to this incident there seems to be no formal districtwide policy or path response for this type of behavior each school is left to his own devices as to how and whether
049or not they will hold anyone who participated in this Behavior accountable or the plan for disciplinary action this should not be so there was physical when physical harm is being done there is a plan when social emotional harm is being done there is no plan there should be appropriate cultural competence training required by all staff to set an atmosphere wherein students and anyone who gauges engages with Wake County Public School um should know that hate bias and discriminatory behavior is not not tolerate I know that tonight's agenda is about the proposed budget I am sharing this experience about my son to endure to to share um to emphasize the need for uh Behavioral Health supports the plan indicates a goal of student well-being by 2018 2028 the majority of students will um perform in a
050way to eliminate disparities by race ethnic ethnicity and gender I know that my son's experience is probably not unique and that should not be so please do not allow room for other students and families to deal with this type of experience by underfunding and ignoring Dei resources and behavioral health support for to prevent this type of behavior thank you thank you Miss Solomon next speaker is Christina Spears followed by Aubrey deorio good evening y'all I'm Christina Spears a Wake County special education teacher by trade currently serving as wake nca's president hop right into the budget it's odd to me that on page seven of the current proposal the first priority employee compensation is highlighted in a nice big blue box yet at the bottom of that same page it reads wcpss will pause on the
051multi-year initiative to increase employee compensation beyond the State Legislative increase in 2425 compensation remains a priority for the district how is employee compensation a priority when we're relying on the general assembly's raises that we know meet our needs I wonder who made this decision on behalf of 20,000 workers to pause the plan and remove additional compensation I wonder if workers were asked how we might prioritize our funding request despite the fiscal transition I'm not sure but I asked my co-workers and Union families and as Union family and as a reminder last month we delivered a petition with almost 3,000 signatures asking for an increase in the local supplement further after not seeing this in the proposal we conducted a flash poll of work ERS over the last week where 90% of them said that pay
052was their priority even over maintaining the eser funded positions regardless of why it's not in the current proposal I hope you choose to go above and beyond the State Legislative increases to use Mr neer's words from earlier and do more than rely on the general assembly's bare minimum increases we don't trust them y'all but I do trust my co-workers and what they need to stay in this district and the board has the opportunity to do the right thing and make adjustments to the proposal adding increased pay for all staff to your final request if you do the brave thing asking for what we need in this dire moment we will fill the commissioner's Chambers with workers parents community members and taxpayers urging them to fund your request so thank you in advance for your work
053over the next couple weeks we want to save some in the tank so we can go to the commission and get a fully funded budget thanks y'all thank you Miss Spears our next speaker is Aubrey deoro followed by Tracy Taylor good evening board members superintendent Dr Taylor and District staff I'm Aubrey diorio a stem teacher at Turner Creek Elementary and a carry resident I take promises very seriously I trust that people will do what they say they will do if they don't my trust is broken I know that you put the needs of our school students first I know that you know in order to ensure their safety and educational needs are met we need highly qualified Professionals in positions in our Public Schools I know that you know in order to maintain our current
054highly qualified School Employees they deserve wages that are closer to the cost of living in Wake County we all know that you don't control the salaries of certified staff to lessen the burden on our local boards and County commissions we need our state legislator to fully fund public schools and provide increased salaries for public school workers you do make decisions about a recommended budget to our weight County Commission I'm here as a Wake ncae Union member to ask you to keep your promise of increasing the local supplement for certified staff and hourly rates for classified staff include the cost of those pay raises in your budget request to the County Commissioners I know you have had hard decisions to make to meet the educational needs of our students and deciding how money gets allocated is
055not an easy task I know because I'm constantly rearranging my own B budget to cover my bills and finding side gigs to help cover the difference when my salary doesn't pay for my needs you have all said that it's important to maintain our current level of operation in order to do that we need to keep the highly qualified staff we already have working in wcpss I already know of multiple staff members at multiple schools who do not plan to return next school year because they're looking for higher paying jobs you can help stop that from happening by asking the Commissioners to fund pay increases for wcpss staff include supplement increases for certified staff and hourly rate increas increases for classified staff and I'll join my union siblings in going to the commissioner meetings to tell
056them the importance of a fully funded budget that includes pay raises or increasing local supplement thank you our next speaker is Tracy Taylor followed by Becky lops good evening board members it's been a long time since I've been here to speak um my name is Dr Tracy Taylor I wanted to say hi to Dr Taylor I've not met you yet um I have a request of uh chair hegy please and Tyler Swanson because Apex High School is in your district and also miss C Coffield just because I wanted to ask you um I briefly looked at the budget and I did not see anything in there regarding school safety so please if you could take a look and make sure I didn't Overlook anything and if you could please get back to me I would
057really like that information imagine as a parent at 902 yesterday morning getting a text from your daughter that says there's a Code read on campus if anything happens to me I love you both very much imagine as a parent never getting the code red alert from Wake County Public School System every single one of you spoke about different things tonight but you did not address the failure on W W cps's part to accurately alert Apex High parents not only did you failed to do that but you accidentally alerted Apex Friendship High parents of a code red there was no um there was no notification to Apex Friendship High parents that this was a mistake there was no notification to Apex High parents that there was a code red this created confusion amongst 5200 families that
058led to multiple calls to multiple schools and let me just tell you Apex High School admin staff teachers and students responded remarkably I have nothing but great things to say about Apex High School staff admin everyone police officers SRO fix the problem within Wake County central office thank you m t thank you next speaker is is Becky L Hobbs followed by Daniel Grant King hi good to see you guys I'm Becky L Hobs um I've been before the board many times and I've stated this many times that more money does not equate to a quality education but once more you're proposing to spend more money but you're still failing students education so this year's proposed budget will be in will go to $ 3.41 billion and there're the normal categories on the budget that we've
059all talked about before you know the 6 A5 million for textbooks and we never see textbooks overpaid professionals that actually offer no educational value to our students and for a bit of perspective I looked back so let's look at the two compared to the 201819 school year the total budget since then has increased $1.14 billion in that time only seven schools have been added and only 180 teaching positions and that was very Sur urised when I looked that 1,230 professionals have been added and this category per ncdpi includes like Equity Affairs psychologist counselors Consultants it was very broad terms it's almost a 70% increase in that category and also in that seven seven-year span how has this 50% increase affected the quality of the education for kids in Wake County are they getting a better
060education and that answer is no proficiency scores still have gotten worse 39% of Wake County students cannot read at grade level and when you look at the Black and Hispanic students it's about six out of 10 cannot read at grade level and you know we had office of equity Affairs that's supposed to help that and it has a not so this brings us back to what I've said spending more money does not equate to a quality education so stop redirecting resources to positions program and contracted services that don't provide the quality quity education to our students so after that I really hope we have the same goal to provide our kids a quality education just please look at the budget and focus on their education and what they're doing thank you thank you Miss Hobbs
061next speaker is Daniel Grant King followed by Taylor Cordis good evening um I am Daniel Grant King and I am a proud ncae member along with a educator in special education at South gner High School and I would like to just concur along with what my union brothers and sisters have already have stated but I would like to take that a step further because in a review some time ago in the budget there was when I looked at some things and items I realized there was a gap and I'm not sure exact amount but I would like to meet with many of you to discuss that because let's remember our state is held to the highest standard making sure that we not only have high qualified staff in our classroom rooms and in every position
062in our district but they are also to make sure that we have fully funded public schools and once again we have seen the failure tremendous failure on the state's part and my hope for each of you as this is continued to be discussed in the next couple of weeks that each of you will continue to Advocate to district and staff and not only that at the state level holding them responsible for making sure that we have fully funded Public Schools like it's been said many times in many ways if we all do our part we will go to the highest and make sure that they do what they said we were that they said that they were going to do and also I would like to say thank you to the board once again for
063the hard work and we cannot overstate the value and need of Educators in our system thank you thank you you our final speaker in the public healing in the public hearing is Taylor ctis good evening good evening my name is Taylor ctis and I am a former full-time teacher and special education teacher in Wake County and now current long-term substitute at Wildwood Forest Elementary and I am here to ask or I'm also a PR member of ncae should throw that in there um I am here to ask that the board listen to the nearly 3,000 wcpss employees who are asking for an increase in the local supplement for all staff as outlined in the previously voted on multi-year plan we have a serious staffing shortage and I know that is no secret to any of
064you um but it is evident from the number of job listings we have posted on the w County website right now it is evident from the staff turnover we see in our schools and it is evident from the fact that I have steady work as a long-term substitute it is really no wonder why we have such a shortage um the majority of my co-workers have to have a second job I actually had multiple co-workers who wanted to be here tonight but couldn't because they had to go to their second J job so they can make ends meet for their families um I've had co-workers tell me that they fear they will never be able to afford to buy a house because they're living fa they're forced to live paycheck to paycheck and they can't save
065up enough they can't pay off their loan debt from college they can't pay off the Master's debt that they got because they thought that that was going to get them better pay um they're really struggling and so you know when I was an ECS teacher I had actually an instructional assistant um and I he told his story and I like to tell his story um because it's just very fitting for what they're dealing with he would come to us he was with us from 6:55 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. every single day and then he would leave and go to his second job from 300 p.m. to midnight where he'd get up the next morning to come do it again um he often talked about how he didn't get to see his seven-year-old son during the
066day or during the week very often and usually only got to see his son on the weekends due to his schedule um our staff deserve better than that our students deserve better than that I say it for my students they deserve a full-time teacher in their classroom I'm doing my best as a long-term sub but they deserve a full-time teacher every classroom does and our staff deserves to be compensated for their hard work otherwise we will never stop this shortage thank you thank you that concludes our public hearing on the budget and so we will immediately transition to the public comment period now I've already discussed some of the logistics of the public comment period for the public hearing period the difference here is that the public comment speakers get three minutes for their items
067we do prioritize students our students will speak first we'll have speakers then who are speaking to items on agenda and then those off agenda 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 the laws and policies of North Carolina provide that issues or concerns involving individual personnel and individual student matters are confidential and therefore not appropriate for the public comment setting those offering comments to the board including students may discuss issues and matters of General concern if you do have an issue related to Personnel issues or student matters those may be addressed through applicable wcpss Personnel who are here let us know and we can direct you to the appropriate personnel in the interest of maintaining Civility and
068dequorum speakers are encouraged to address their comments to the board of education and must refrain from personal attacks or insults directed at the board individual board members staff and especially members of the public and your fellow speakers please remain at the podium during your speaking time any materials you wish to share maybe hand it to our board attorney Mr Malone here on the end and they will be distributed to us you can give those to him either before or after your comments again during public comment you may speak up to 3 minutes and as I said the microphones are adjustable you'll see the light come on when you have 30 seconds left you'll hear one tone and then when your time has expired the red light will come on and you will hear another audible
069tone again please conclude your comments when you hear that second audible tone so for our speakers tonight uh we start with our students we welcome back Rowan Belo good evening Rob guys I haven't even said anything yet hold on good evening board members happy April I hope everyone had a good spring break today I want to talk to you about Dei for those of you who don't know Dei stands for diversity equity and inclusion I don't really understand why anyone is explicitly saying that we shouldn't have diversity equity and inclusion in schools or anywhere I don't understand what the problem is with embracing differences treating everyone equally and involving everyone yet there are people out there who want to remove Dei and other things that exist for the sole purpose of being more open and
070respectful the same people who are supposedly fighting for the quote state of being free within Society from oppressive restrictions imposed by Authority on one ways of life Behavior or political views that's the definition of Liberty by the way I personally think that Dei is liberty and as such should be present in Schools and Government and really just everywhere people make claims that Dei is racist and sexist but these are the same people that reduce others to their skin color or agenda ignoring their achievements it's the people that don't adhere to Dei and that say things like Dei needs to deie so that's all the more reason to keep and increase Dei policies I want to close out with a quote from a doctor at the University of Washington School of Medicine diversity equity and inclusion
071are not only important to an organization but beneficial as well diversity allows for New Perspectives Equity creates a fair environment and can help to provide opportunities for individuals who need it and inclusion helps individuals feel a sense of belonging and understanding now why wouldn't we want that thank you our next speaker for public comment will be Susan book and Susan will be followed by Margaret Belo good evening Miss book good evening hold on every fre time it's autism acceptance and appreciation day at least in my house I stand before you as a proud autistic adult yes we do much well amongst you my hope for Wake County Schools is that they Embrace disability Justice in their approach to days like today as well as in the everyday lives of their students teachers staff and Community
072disability Justice tells us that the old medical model of disability is no longer what the community seeks what am I talking about I'm saying we are not all seeking a cure we're not trying to fix anyone anymore yet I see examples of this model often in our schools when my son was really young he was already struggling in kindergarten many pointed to his rigidness and lack of flexibility some well-meaning professionals pushed by the school decided to try and explain to my son how we needed to be more flexible you see if you are stiff and you can't move you break very easily now if you are flexible you bend you twist but you do not break and then they did a craft because they always do a craft my son wore this in kindergarten every
073day to remind him to be more flexible this is a good example of the medical model where the onus was put on a kindergartener to change he worried every day that he wasn't being flexible enough yet he didn't know how to achieve what the grown-ups wanted in such a stressful place I believe it was the adults who needed to be flexible and model flexibility to him my hope is that W County Schools turn to a more social model of disability this model tells us that it's often the system that needs to change it is of often the very environment of school that is disabling when we change how we do things and the settings that they take place we um to fit a more inclusive population we eliminate barriers how many times do we tell
074our artistic students to put on headphones when we could just turn the volume down for everyone how many times do we ask our students to be more flexible and not the system Wake County I see you breaking constantly you're melting down too often and sometimes you don't even realize it how many lawsuits will it take how many Elementary School restraint cases does it take before your behavior changes yes we need more funds but we must confront the ableism in our schools along with the intersectionality of disability and its relationship to racism this is disability Justice this is a social model of disability and it should be the key lens in which you all operate the system needs to change our kids are just fine all right thank you Miss book the final speaker is Margaret
075belel good evening thank you for allowing me to speak tonight um public schools are supposed to be a place where all children gain an education free from bias with equity and accessibility we've already seen some extremism brought into education in North Carolina fundamentally undermining one of the critical cogs in detecting and preventing child abuse and child abuse reporting we've handed a layer of protection to the people who are the most risk to children while simultaneously ignoring decades worth of data under the logical fallacy that this has something to do with parental rights and there is the very real potential that it will not end here I've briefly mentioned before a few times that I'm the product of fundamentalist religious homeschooling right here in Wake County I was raised an operation rescue child you know the
076people that bombed abortion clinics that was us uh my tiny little private Catholic Elementary School wasn't quite Catholic enough so my mother restricted my library access to avoid indoctrination by books such as my teacher as an alien and sideways stories from Wayside School I was in dance until my instructor chose an Ena song for a recite and that was just too much new age indoctrination fast forward to me as a homeschooled teenager I was sexually assaulted by a person from a church with a homeschool Co-op less than 5 miles up the road from this building I only came forward out of concern that it might happen to a friend of mine who started getting attention from this person it was not taken seriously it was not reported and in fact I was eventually emotionally manipulated
077into apologizing to this person I had a teenage pregnancy with no high school diploma and virtually no high school math or science because in fundamentalism science is bad and does a girl need math if she's just going to get married and have babies so what if I wanted to go to college I ended up marrying my child's father and subsequently endured abuse and stalking here in Apex and carry eventually I divorced and then remarried and spent the last 13ish years moving around as an active duty US Air Force spouse during that time I finished college at age 32 I served as a command appointed volunteer employee of the Air Force for several years at several locations I was a court appointed special advocate for children in foster care in Georgia until I became a full-time
078caregiver to my youngest child my husband finished serving 20 years and now we've retired back home where three out of our four children were born to schools their oldest sister started in my two youngest children have been active duty dependent their entire School careers until his retirement they sacrificed stable schooling friendships distance from family and now their home their rights in the state are being slowly eroded and now they face potential extremism in their own schools which would make them unwelcome unsafe and their needs unmet all of this to form a military children in their first permanent location by people who call themselves Patriots while there's little that you can do to control who is elected you can certainly resolve to protect the children in our school district no matter what happens the children of
079our vibrant and diverse Community need you and your voice moving forward to take a stand against any policy that marginalizes children based on any characteristic and require that any policy pass be based on factual and reliable information thank you thank you Miss p that concludes our public comment period we will now move to adoption of the amended consent agenda if there's a motion second I heard a motion from Mr Swanson a second from Miss mafy all in favor of adoption of the consent agenda please signify by saying I I any opposed all right thank you it has been adopted next we'll move to our action agenda uh we have the drafts of the 2526 traditional modif modified and yearr round instructional calendars Mr car Roa and uh Miss Tan Anderson pal how are you doing
080well so tonight staff is bringing to you a recommendation for your approval of the 2025 2026 instructional calendars for traditional modified and yearound schools as you remember this item was discussed during the March 19th board work session the calendars that we've proposed to you adhere to General statute 115 C- 84.2 we're seeking your approval this evening and we're open to questions all are there questions about the calendar Miss mafy I make a motion to adopt the calendars before us it's been a motion to adopt the staff recommended calendars second I heard a couple seconds um I'll take Miss Coffield all right the motion is before us for discussion are there any questions for staff or any comments Miss mafy I just want to thank tamani Anderson Powell for continuously doing this work keeping us with
081within the legislative requirements bringing together people from the community from all different walks of the community so that they can help develop this complex calendar um we know that this is not easy and this is just I don't know how many calendar flexibility bills are sitting in the house that hasn't crossed over to the Senate but this is just the reminder that there are statutory requirements that we must meet and it's up to the general assembly to give us more flexibility thank you Miss happy are there any other questions or concerns um Mr C I do have one that's just come up with some discussions that we've had about uh wake young men's lead young men's and young women's leadership acmy um because of their special Arrangement that they have with our college system and
082their calendars if I know we're uncertain exactly what path we have going forward if there's any changes that need to be made regarding those calendars is that something you can come back to the board with we will staff is looking for an option that will be the least disruptive to parents and so once we have a final answer on that we will bring to the board wonderful thank you I appreciate it all right are there any further questions or discussion if not all in favor of approving the recommended calendars please signify by saying I I any opposed all right thank you Mr Cora thank you very much thank you thank you Miss pal all right at at this point we'll turn to our um amended agenda and we have um the items that came out
083of close session for approval of our recommended administrative appointments do we have a motion concerning set appointments motion to approve the recommendations for administrative appointment and recommendations for appointment heard a motion from Miss mafy and a second for Miss Johnson hosler any questions or comments if not all in favor of the uh approval of the recommendations please signify by saying I any opposed all right at this point I would enter that concludes our open or our regular meeting agenda at this point I would entertain any motion to return to close session Mr chair I move that we return to close session second motion from Mr Swanson second from Miss rice all in favor of retur to close session please signify by saying I any opposed all right thank you very much we will uh take
084a few moments to clear the room and then we will reassemble for closed session thank you