001I got it foreign good evening ladies and gentlemen apologies for the delay our work session ran a little bit long we'd like to call this meeting to or order we do have a quorum all board members are present along with our superintendent and our board attorney if you will all stand and join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you I'm going to turn it over to superintendent bridges for his comments Madam chair members of the board attorney Malone last time we met I didn't have an opportunity to say what I'm about to say because you hadn't taken a certain action but wanted to congratulate you on your superintendent search process and the naming of Dr Robert Taylor as the next superintendent of Wake County Public Schools
002I've known Dr Taylor for uh several years and know him to be an outstanding educator but more importantly a good person that's concerned about the welfare of all the children under his charge if you don't know where you're going any road will take you there so one of the things that I look at in systems that I work with is what I call their directional system and I found that here in Wake County Public Schools with your strategic plan that's grounded in equity that you have a clear Direction and that's a positive thing for any school district I've been working daily with the Chiefs and had my first superintendent's leadership team meeting and met a number of the area superintendents and assistant superintendents and executive directors and really enjoyed my conversation and time with them
003as a matter of fact last week I managed to go and visit four schools and if you don't really know about Educators sometimes when we do the things that we do administratively we have to justify that by going to see kids so I made it to some elementary schools and I make a beeline to the kindergarten Wing because that's always what I what I like to do um during my time and working in several school districts I would often talk to community members Community leaders politicians members of the faith community the business community and I would ask them this question is it important for all children to receive a quality education in all my years of working I've not never heard somebody say no to that it's always yes where the rub comes in is
004how we provide that Quality quality education and oftentimes we would have to agree to disagree with respect I think the core business of any successful educational entity is teaching and learning and at the core of what we do that's really what it's about and if we stay in that space we'll make good decisions for children even we disagree on the how to provide if we stick with the fact that teaching and learning is our Core Business and what we're doing is in the best interest of all of our kids then we'll be just fine I believe the school systems are even moving forward or they're moving backwards and if you're trying to hold a line you're moving backwards I didn't just become familiar with Wake County Public Schools in the last 30 days I've known
005about Wake County Public Schools my whole professional career and during that time it has always been viewed as a leader in the educational Arena both at the state and the national level and I'm convinced with the strong support of this community with this board and Dr Taylor that those things will happen in the future thank you thank you Dr Bridges my comments today are short um I just want to say welcome to our track four students and staff members we also had our modified calendar folks start and very soon our leadership academies and early colleges will begin we had a robust doesn't even seem like a good enough word discussion about Transportation I want to thank all of the parents that reached out and shared whether they would provide transportation to their students and we
006look forward to having further discussion on Transportation at our next work session on August 15th and I know there will be more information in Dr Bridges updates so I'm going to leave it at that and turn it over to Vice chair Hagerty thank you chair Mahaffey I will also keep it brief I had the opportunity this past week to meet with a representative from an organization called um my future North carolina.org and this is a great organization I'd encourage you to reach out and learn more about their work one of the things that they are interested in you know I guess an area that they're interested in involves like metrics and performance and how we can properly evaluate the job we're doing in terms of educational attainment for our students economic impact and how we
007compare to other districts in the state and then other districts around the nation and so one of the things that they do have available is a fact sheet I just wanted to share one with each of you please take a look at it you'll see areas where we're doing well in some areas where we might be falling a little bit short I will say that I was very encouraged a lot of the areas that they have looked at and identified are areas that we have looked at and identified ourselves as part of our strategic plan and the process that we had going through all of our aims and goals and all of those different individual elements so I think there's a lot of alignment here I think this reaffirms a lot of the work that
008we've done for where we need to put our focus and I hope you'll take a look at it and I hope it's helpful to you thank you Ms Waters thank you chairman happy I want to say welcome back to all of our students and Educators who have already started the 23-24 school year I'm wishing you much success this school year and yesterday was a really special afternoon for me I had a chance to attend what turned out to be a nice work family reunion it was the retirement party for Chris Brown a long time Central Services employee and friend to many it was probably 25 or so years ago that I was hired to work for her and got a chance to express my gratitude as well as to express my gratitude to some of
009my other colleagues Kevin Gilliland and Juliana muli so just wonderful to see how everything has come full circle in the investment that we make in our students you never know how that may come back because that was when I was a senior at high school and so just to be able to express that gratitude means so much to me and I know that we have so many of our Educators who are doing amazing work and I hope they don't feel unsung because you have certainly made impacts on your students that you probably probably will never realize so that was a great moment for me and I appreciated seeing the excitement from the Hodge Road Elementary School community at their open house last week there were so many families gathered to meet their teachers and to
010gather information on a variety of topics from carpool to lunch options they were very organized they had it all and so there was so much energy in the room and so I really appreciated seeing so many come out to that building and I know they're going to have a great school year and one thing that was really special about this they were also registering for the Girl Scouts Miss Johnson Hustler so appreciate that I know Mr Happy you have a special place in your heart for them as well so I really appreciate all the work that our schools do to provide opportunities for our students and I was also fortunate to visit Knightdale Elementary with principal Teresa James we just had a nice time of chatting and I don't want to spoil the surprise but
011I think that all of our students and Educators when they come back to Knightdale Elementary they're going to be very very happy with what they see so very excited about the work that is going on there and so um really nice to be at Knightdale Elementary and as I was looking at principal James's um well so she had a Florida State diploma and so we had a little bit of a rivalry there because I was born in Gainesville which is the home of the University of Florida Gators so that's probably one of the biggest college rivalries in the country the Gators versus the Seminoles and so we joked about that for a little bit of time and so I just had a chance to really reflect on that and having grown up in Florida there
012was really a time when people Associated Florida with great Sports and teams and wonderful family vacations but many of you may know that in the news Florida has been certainly the topic of discussion lately and if you've heard about the State's new black history standards those say that's like that it's okay to teach that slaves develop skills which in some instances could be applied for personal benefit I share this because we have seen time and time again that things surface in one part of the country and then move around to multiple States and so when decisions are made about black indigenous and people of color that are not transparent and without input from those key stakeholders there is going to be great harm so I think it is really important for us to be vigilant
013in how things are presented especially as we look at what we teach in our classrooms and particularly as it pertains to history and culture and affirming the lived experiences of people in this nation so just want to lift that up and so as we think about those things there are so many ways to uplift our students and our communities and a lot of that can be done through organizations that exist to help support and build up our school community so I just want to share again a couple that are really good at helping our students be prepared and equipped for their first days of school I want to continue to lift up Note in the Pocket they provide clothing for school-aged children so that they can not worry about their appearance and be prepared when
014they come into the school building so if you're able to give in that way I hope you'll consider that and Tools for Schools another great organization that helps with school supplies so many ways to give and support and to be able to participate in the success of our students and Educators this year and so I hope you will I'll consider looking into one of those organizations thank you thank you Miss Waters Miss Edmonds thank you I want to join and um my colleagues in welcoming our track for students and families Centennial Magnet Middle in District 5 started last week they're on the modified calendar and Vernon Malone College and Career Academy starts one week from today I extend a happy new school year to all of these students staff and families thanks to the Raleigh
015Chamber of Commerce for hosting their Equity conference last week I attended with chair Mahaffey and vice chair Hagerty as well as about a dozen of our staff this event was held at the convention convention center and I believe it was sold out many of the workshops were crowded even standing room only and the big takeaway message for me was how everyone benefits when we practice Equity Equity is good for business it benefits not just ourselves but everyone around us and I started excuse me I stated last meeting How concerned I am about some of the legislative and pending in the general assembly legislation that is not based in equity and inclusion I know we are committed to equity in this district and I hope we do all we can to continue what to do what's
016right for students and children as forces outside of Wake County Public Schools are working to make things less equitable finally a thank you to two of my principals principal Sykes at Dillard Drive Elementary and principal Miller at Middle Creek Elementary they both invited me to some of their back to school events principal Sykes on her popsicles with the principal tour I'm calling it a tour because there's at least four stops and four dates I joined her and some of her staff last week and I'm going to attend another one next week I was unable to attend the events at Middle Creek Elementary but I'm finally going to tour that school next week there were just a few District Five schools that I didn't get to in the last school year and so they are at
017the top of my list at the start of 23 24. thank you Dr Ing um good evening I wish to say welcome back to the track 4 students and staff at Durant Road Elementary School and Durant Road Middle School and for all those students and staff on the year-round calendar who has who have already been back to school I hope that the school Year is off to a great start this past weekend I went to watch my daughter compete at the southern Zone age group swimming Championship here in Cary at the Triangle Aquatic Center um even though it was right here my daughter actually had to stay in the hotel with the rest of the North Carolina team being that it was her first time being away from home she experienced a roller coaster of
018emotions including feeling homesick exhaustion from not getting enough sleep nervous stomach before her event the joys of getting into the finals and then the tears when she didn't do as well as she had hoped I was overjoyed to see her win some medals but more importantly I was glad that she learned some important life lessons she had the chance to witness what hard work perseverance and dedication can achieve when you do everything that you can to learn and practice your skills and then you tough it out through the hard times it builds character even when you don't achieve what you want the prize is just the icing on the cake ultimately it's the journey that counts as the students in the traditional calendar school prepare to get back to school I want to challenge every
019student to do their best in their classes every day even when it's frustrating or difficult you may have to stay up late to finish your assignments or you may get stuck on a problem that you can't figure out or you have to do a finish your night job at the local fast food and then come home and finish your work just keep pressing on it'll be all worth it later on you will be hearing about the efforts by week together tutoring programs and I want to encourage everyone who has available time to volunteer their time to help out our students for all the grandparents or recent retirees out there this is a great opportunity to part to be part of the solution and to make a lasting impact on the children of Wake County you
020can get more information and sign up to be a volunteer at wake together dot YMCA triangle.org finally this week I am planning to visit Pleasant Union Elementary School and Durant Road Middle School and I am eager to see what great things they are doing there when the traditional calendar schools resume and I hope to do more school visits in the coming months thank you thank you uh last week I went to partnership Elementary School and Moore Square Middle School I want to welcome those students and families and staff back I want to congratulate uh senior partner slash principal Jeff Kimbrough on his first week at partnership and I want to thank principal Taylor at Moore Square for continuing to hire North Carolina State University graduates I want to thank North Carolina state for providing us
021with teachers I go out of my way to try to thank all of our new teachers at schools I visit if you ever see principal Taylor she really appreciates NC State so be sure to give her a go pack the intent of my visit to both schools was to examine our visitor management system which is newly implemented across the county I want to congratulate the security team on the rollout of these devices at our schools that are currently operating the experience went well for me it was quick it was relatively easy I appreciate that the security team is being responsive to feedback on how we can continue to improve the visitor management system I want everyone to understand that this board and our school system takes Safety and Security extremely serious uh it is a
022priority for us and will continue to be so and as you have experiences with the visitor management system if you have any feedback please give it to us we welcome it to make it better um second I want to thank WakeMed and Mrs Andy Curtis for inviting us we get invitations as board members to community events and they invited us to their farmers market and medical simulation experience which I attended with a few other county-wide office holders including Raleigh City councilor Christina Jones and it was a wonderful experience they do a lot for our County for our schools and for our students and families so I thank them for that and last since I will not be here in person next board meeting I'm going to say this now because it is the start of
023the Fall athletic season which means our student athletes are back our coaches are back officials are getting ready and I want to just encourage parents and family members and people who come to sporting events to remember that these are High School athletics to think about their own sportsmanship the words that they say and to be encouraging and if you would like we can always use more coaches to volunteer more volunteer coaches certainly we can use more officials at all times so please be respectful and kind and remember these are student athletes not paid professionals that we might otherwise yell at on TV thank you great reminder Mr Hershey Ms Caufield thank you I just got a vision of uh like Sunday Night Football and everybody's screaming and yelling it is like that I want to
024say welcome to track four and wish everyone a great 20 23 2024 school year Friday I'll be attending a UNC health uh is hosting an annual stuff the bus school drive this Friday I look forward to stuffing the bus with school supplies that will be donated by UNC health their teammates and Community it's that time of year where everyone gets shuffling with their new backpacks and fun school supplies so if you're able to maybe offer some extra supplies in your community to help out those students who may not be as fortunate you could reach out to your school for more information on what they have available and how they can share and donate and I will post some opportunities for families to see as well as things get back to more of a normal schedule
025whatever that is I would like to fit in some Community engagement and hold a tea time in my communities locally and hear from our families I started this role with parent engagement being an important part to me and I'm hoping that reaching out to the people they can provide some places in our community where we could meet in all throughout district one where we can engage and share conversation in our community so I will also post on our on my web page on my Facebook page and hope to hear back from communities how we can engage with each other and start to talk about more opportunities that we can be more involved in our schools and I will keep that short that's all I have to add today Mr Swanson thank you thank you chairman
026haffey and I will join my colleagues and keep mine short as well um Oh I thought I heard some something um I want to also congratulate and say welcome back to our track for families and students I'm wishing you all a successful Academic School year and I'm looking forward to going to tour the year-round schools that are in District 9 and so I look forward to getting to those before the traditional calendar starts um also miss Waters did a plug and I want to do another plug for Wake ptas nope I'm sorry wake it Partnerships um tool for schools if you have any additional school supplies that you would like to give or donate please go to wakeitpartnership.org to look at some of the locations and some of the YMCAs that are partnering with the
027wake at partnership to bring school supplies so teachers do not have to continue to go in their pockets uh to fund their to provide resources to their students and so that is the end of my remarks thank you Miss Johnson Hustler thank you very much and I will make an additional plug for Stuff the bus not only can you take those supplies but it's also fun to see the competition between all of the different departments at UNC health for Stuff the bus so please feel free to stop by and stop the bus and they also will let you stuff yourself in there so you can see how much stuff they stuff that's always fun to me to see like the the neat you know Tetris ways that they are packing those buses so please consider
028giving um you all know I'm a huge fan for wake up and read so a reminder to you because I just got a reminder sent to me that it is sign up time for back to school public events so wake up and read which they can be found at wake upper read.org for any volunteer opportunities so they're going to be at a multiple Community festivals and cons including our Raleigh Parks and Rec has a couple open houses that they will have books that they can give and they give a little bag of five books for age-appropriate students they'll also be at the Garner Latino festival but if you go to their website there's a whole list of summer activities before back to school that you will be able to go and volunteer so please consider
029volunteering for wake up and read again as my colleagues have said welcome back to all of our folks who are returning to school and also it is a reminder in my own house that even though our educators are not back in the building for traditional it is they begin working really hard before they step foot back in there on August 21st so also to all of our Educators who are starting to prepare their lesson plans for the next school year happy lesson planning that's what I've been seeing in my house for the last two weeks is lots of lesson planning throughout the downtime and an acknowledgment that our teachers really do work 12 months a year although we acknowledge that they mostly work 10 months a year but I don't know any teacher including the
030one I personally know that doesn't work 12 months so as they prepare to get back send lots of love and kindness to them as well and then lastly thank you to Springfield Baptist Church I have several of my schools where there are a lot of church and my happy and I share Lincoln Heights which I will I would acknowledge that church when they go back on the traditional calendar but thank you Springfield Baptist Church for sending your men in suits to cheer on our students at East Garner Elementary School as they started I know it's my favorite cheering the students in and they love it and they're excited to have people especially it's the first day back they're still a little groggy they're have all the range of emotions and it is wonderful to see
031people there cheering them on so again thank you to all the participants and supporters of our schools thank you Miss Johnson Hustler and I do want to take one moment to thank someone who is moving on in their educational journey and that is Dr Paul Coe this is his last board meeting and I really I forgot to say it because I really don't want to say it Dr Koh because we've really enjoyed having you here and working with our students and bringing your Insight as someone who is um a principal and a teacher and coming from a different part of the country um to bring your work to Wake County Public Schools and we just want to say thank you and wish you well on the next part of your journey in education and we
032know that you're going to continue and and not be a stranger to Wake County so thank you very much and best wishes to you with that at this time if we could get a motion to approve the meeting agenda for tonight second all right we have a motion in a second any comments questions concerns okay at this point seeing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay and pull this up I just want to welcome everybody who is here and remind everyone that these board meetings are conducted for the purpose of carrying on official business of the school system um and the public is cordially invited to observe and persons who willfully interrupt disrupt or cause disturbances at an official meeting may be directed to leave by the presiding officer members of
033the audience should show respect for any speaker by refraining from loud comments or other disruptions and those disruptions from any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance with General statute 143-318.17 and I say this as we move on to public comment speakers commenting on items on tonight's agenda will be heard before speakers commenting on other topics all other speakers will be heard in order of sign up if the public comment portion of the agenda 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 substantive ideas actions or procedures of the board and individual board members the laws and policies
034of North Carolina provide that issues or concerns involving individual personnel and individual student matters are confidential and therefore not appropriate for the public common setting those offering comments to the board including students may discuss issues in matters of General concern concerns rated related to Personnel or student matters may be addressed through applicable wcpss Personnel the grievance policy or other applicable policies in the interest of maintaining Civility and decorum speakers are encouraged to address their comments to the board of education and to refrain from personal attacks and insults directed at the board individual board members staff or members of the General Public please remain at the podium during your speaking time any materials you wish to share with the board should be handed to our board attorney Mr Malone either before or after your comments during
035public comment you may speak for up to three minutes and please note that the microphones at the podium are adjustable once you begin speaking the green light at the podium will illuminate showing that your three minutes has begun a yellow light will light up along with a brief audible tone when there are 30 seconds remaining in your time and when your speaking time is up you'll see a red light and hear an audible tone when your time is up the next speaker will be called to the podium speakers are asked to respect the time limit and to speak for no more than three minutes you may choose to speak for less time we have 13 folks that have signed up for public comment we will begin with on agenda our first speaker is Jessica Lewis
036followed by Janet Peterson foreign Miss Peterson followed by Colleen Miller and you're still asking parents for school supplies something is wrong here in addition North Carolina was given 6 000 million in federal pandemic stimulus funds that's 8 billion dollars Wake County Public School touts a 90 and over graduation rate while our proficiency rates are around 50 percent how is that possible I don't think taxpayers are getting their money's worth okay I heard you talk today about school supplies maybe the warehouse needs to be revamped maybe we don't need those vis-a-vis markers or those overhead transparencies anymore and we need things that teachers and students really use of course tonight I'm really here to talk about policy 3210 I really do not understand why we continue to to struggle with it you need to take the
037students out of the challenge committee and put members from the community in that in that place I want to say that these students are not able to buy alcohol buy cigarettes or even rent a car I can't understand why you would ask students to be part of a committee that may read a book that is sexually inappropriate I don't understand it you cite State Statute 115c 98 and the policy 3210 when addressing the central instructional materials committee the statute states that a local Board of Education May establish a community meet Community media advisory committee to investigate and evaluate challenges from parents teachers and members of the public to textbooks in supplementary instructional materials on the grounds that they are educationally unsuitable pervasively vulgar your turn you like were inappropriate to the age maturity or grade
038level of the students I heard Dr Bridges say we want a strong supportive community and part of that would be adding more people from the public and parents on your committees the pavement education project has noticed a trend throughout our state it is obvious that some school districts purposefully are not including books that introduce ideologies to to Elementary age students it is obvious take a look at the site not to say they don't have inappropriate books in their middle and high but mostly it's it's you can see that it's a deliberate Trend not to include them as well so I would I challenge you to do better with 3210 I also think it's very inappropriate for you to cite your your personal opinion up here of legislation that's being proposed such as Senate Bill 49
039and Senate bill 90. I think it takes a lot of nerve to stay to state that up here you're supposed to be representing the public and people in your District our next speaker is Colleen Miller followed by Joseph Seaton thank you I'd like to start by saying that Senate Bill 90 is a great bill for schools I've read it and frankly don't understand why at the last meeting Miss Edmonds stated if passed it would put gay and trans children in danger she never explained her reason for that comment my team the pavement education project believes that all children not just gay and trans will continue to be in danger until this bill is passed Senate Bill 90 was thoughtfully crafted to correct the numerous shortcomings in current statutes and in our education system it protects
040the liberty of parents not School Employees to direct their child's education and their medical and mental health care it enhances transparency so parents have better oversight in their child's education those who oppose Senate Bill 90 prefer that public education is run with totalitarian Authority by Educators disregarding the importance of parents in their child's education it's arrogant of anyone to believe that Educators always know what's best for a child your opposition to transparency and accountability causes me to wonder if you prefer running schools as a secret society grooming students to a distorted agendas or the status quo is not acceptable as schools continue to fail our students this is demonstrated by the poor literacy race the latest school report card for Wake County is 41 students not proficient in math 40 percent not proficient in reading
041the 38 Wake County schools that are low performing when is the school board going to start focusing on proving academics I've attended many of your meetings excuse me and not once have I heard you address this topic I hear about Equity inclusion diversity not academics academics is a primary reason for schools and with the the budget Janet just spoke of it's reasonable to expect much higher proficiency rates at the last school board meeting we heard the budget for textbooks was about 36 dollars a student I agree that's too low but I understand students don't have textbooks so how is this money spent is it spent on purchasing books filled with sexually explicit content profanity gender delusions and violence spending valuable resources on garbage like these books instead of textbooks is unconscionable you can feed garbage
042to kids to pigs but children deserve better irresponsible quote unquote professional Librarians are placing harmful books in our schools by the way our attention is not exclusive to books about gay and transsexuality quite the contrary many of these books we've mentioned normalize deviant behaviors among minors sexual behaviors I'll read from one book and you can see the word count here the profanity count Eugene's penis was bigger way bigger than a teen size tampon I was a flower and I opened us often ripened and warm I felt I felt like a woman rather than a girl as he found his way inside me I wondered fleetingly if this is what sex was like for my mother much more sexual content here Librarians excuse me who place books like this in our schools have little to no
043respect for young readers thank you our next speaker is Joseph Eaton followed by John beloved well good evening my concern with policy 3210 is that it lacks objective standards and instead leaves the decisions about parental challenges up to subjective decisions of the various committees for example the Committees are instructed to form opinions about the material as a whole and to not focus on select passages or or scenes but I would I would suggest an objective standard for example something like no passage or scene that describes or depicts any kind of sexual act should be admitted another objective standard that I would suggest would be something like no controversial Theory may be presented as fact while alternative views and criticisms are excluded my concern here is that there are certain theories about the nature of the
044human person that have evolved relatively recently out of post-modernism and existentialism that are being promoted and active acted upon in in violation of the non-establishment clause because already years ago the Supreme Court held that such philosophies and belief systems even though they are secular that they are in fact like religions so well I I thank you for your consideration of my concerns this evening thank you thank you very much speaker is followed by Donna lupus thank you board members for your time my property tax for 23 sends 47 percent to Wake County Schools some speakers you've heard don't pay taxes yet I do I also vote and I'm becoming a very involved campaigner I oppose 3210 to limit my speech against the library trans books my question to you has the board read any of
045the studies following transitioning or detransitioning a detransition teen is suing Kaiser Permanente Hospital doctors removed her breasts during her transgender procedure Layla Jane is 18 year old woman who began to identify as transgender a male at 11. doctors performed a double mastectomy when she was 13. Jane wrote on Twitter mind-boggling to me that a doctor signed off on a double mastectomy for me before I took a sex ed course I barely started the eighth grade I was 13. 19 year old Chloe Cole is detrenditioning from gender reassignment that began when she was 12. Miss Cole said she had first-hand experience about decision children may grow to regret gender reassignment caused me lifelong irreversible harm she said she doesn't know if she will ever have a child but she knows she cannot breastfeed she said that
046when her parents were questioned about the diagnosis they were asked if they would rather have a dead daughter or a live son we hear that quite a bit at the podium a Canadian transsexual 35 years old has requested that the socialized Health Care System provide an assisted suicide lethal injection in order to end long-term suffering and pain Lois Cardinal has expressed immense regret over a 2009 surgery to create an imitation vagina out of an inverted penis saying that the euthanasia would be preferable to the constant pain this month University of Florida and Brooks Rehab released a study which claimed that 81 percent of the people who have had sex change genital surgery over the past five years have experienced long-standing pain following the surgery about one-third are incontinent said one doctor we still have a
047lot to do in other words we'll still experiment until we get it right precia mostly 25 filed a lawsuit in Gaston County North Carolina Monday this Monday against the medical team who prescribed her testosterone while she was a minor and surgically removes her breasts when she was 18. the surgeon counselor and other providers are being sued how long will it be before a school board legislatures counselors Librarians those who guide resistant children are sued better a millstone around your neck than to hurt one of these next will the school nurse hand out fentanyl I'm imploring the school system not to support mutilation and medical treatment for the rest of these children by selling seeds from the books you supply thank you for your time our next speaker is Donna Lewis followed by Julie page my
048name is Donna lubis I'm a retired school teacher I started teaching in the mid 70s I've taught in Connecticut Puerto Rico Fairfax County Virginia in 30 years here in Wake County Public Schools the public needs to hear from teachers and most teachers are afraid to speak up as an AIG teacher in Wake County we had monthly meetings at those meetings run by Wake County Public School one time a speaker spoke to us about the effects on the brain of children who were exposed to Too Much screen time the scans the brain scan she showed us were frightening every student in Wake County Public Schools has given their own Chromebook which they use most of the school day taking tests watching videos and now using a lot of cmap what has happened to pencil and paper
049a new policy was implemented this school year Wake County has directed principles that the only curriculum and activities teachers can use must be approved through them only cmap can be used as a resource is this coming from this board what are you afraid of Are You Afraid Of good teaching any good teacher that I know including myself will tell you cmap is awful cmap will eventually be loaded with your ideologies and agendas we need to let the public see cmap with no discipline support and this kind of curriculum controls some teachers who can't afford to retire are moving to other less controlling counties I'm told the curriculum is even different in these counties Wake County Public School is taking the professionalism out of teaching and creating classrooms that do not need teachers differentiated instruction is
050gone there is an offer an office of the North Carolina office of learning and Recovery just what the teachers don't need more support Personnel telling them what to do Wake County Public Schools has cubicle after cubicle of highly paid staff not helping students put all these people in classrooms that might put a dent in the teacher shortage now they would never leave their cubicles to work in classrooms we don't need more testing and data analysis but more Reading Writing and arithmetic but that's difficult to do when there are disruptive students in classrooms and don't think there are just go in and visit classrooms classrooms K to 12. there are no consequences for bad behavior that the newly hired superintendent is creating a hundred day plan if it doesn't simply address retaining good teachers discipline and
051allowing teachers to chew how choose how best to teach their students it's doomed to failure my late husband was also a public school educator and we always voiced support for public schools now I tell parents to run from them and their agendas my four grandchildren are out of public schools China is not America's greatest enemy it's our government-run Public Schools our next speaker is Julie page followed by Chad Stahl hello uh Julie page chair of moms for Liberty Wake County these are some of the attacks name calling and slander and public comment about my chapter in the last two board meetings racists bigots book banners hate group censor manipulate marginalize malicious fascist anti-lgbtq anti-bipoc anti-government extremist harassment proud boy supporter white nationalists white patriarchy straight white image mold all of these are outright lies the
052Wake County chapter of moms for Liberty is not anti-lgbtq not anti-bipoc not Banning books not a racing history and not anti-government the most laughable thing that I've heard is that we want to defund schools because we don't have children in public schools I'm here to remind everyone that I have two children wcpss with absolutely no plans to pull them out we supported increase in teacher support staff and bus driver pay a cut and Bloated administrative pay and to defund the office of equity Affairs we want academic education to be the focus not social issues students need to learn to read and do math proficiently first and foremost social justice issues do not take precedence over academics all students should be treated equally with respect and kindness period when someone says that Monster Liberty has an
053agenda I tell them no we don't our agenda is No Agenda we don't want any agenda pushed on any student we simply want the kids to learn and become successful adults teach academics while at school keep gender and political ideologies out that is called common sense not extremist as to policy 3210 and book challenges I've said this before revise redact restrict or remove I've heard parents seemingly at the opposite side say that they want age-appropriate diverse and historically accurate books in school libraries they also say that parents should have a say in what books their child has access to I could not agree with them more we want the same thing shocking right what is the district's plan to restrict access to content and themes that a parent doesn't want their child exposed to why
054isn't this addressed in any of the new instructional materials policies with all of the public comment and feedback that you've received about this subject you are still failing pervasively vulgar to your waiting period students on review committees removal by school instead of by district and more I suggest you go back to the drawing board thank you our next speaker is Chad Stahl followed by Barbara Bradley hello it's been a little while good evening everybody um you haven't really had the desire to come and talk about 3210 uh because I think I lean more so on the side of whatever parents need to help their children get through life they need that access and then my son and I walked into a comic book store he's uh kind of getting into Comics now big fan of
055Miles Morales Spider-Man don't know if you know the character not but miles is Puerto Rican my son is half Puerto Rican I actually see the desire of him like oh my god this is my guy because we have some common denominator that I don't have everywhere I go so I I see that and I can absolutely admit there's a lot of value there and a lot of importance there we went in the comic book store and we're trying to figure out okay well where's a good starting point what should we do and the girl behind the counter says okay if you go to this section all the comics are going to be all right everything's gonna be cool if you go to this section just look at the covers you'll kind of get a jest
056of what's inside the comic and you may want to choose carefully and I thought that was a weird thing to say in a comic book store so we go in I'm like oh yeah clearly you can look at certain covers I'm like oh Dad that is going to cause my son some unintended harm meaning we think it's a good idea we take the book home he reads it next thing you know he's having nightmares unintended harm that comic book person had the the vision to understand okay well you're shopping for a 10 year old in the Spider-Man dad make sure you're paying attention and if you have any questions you can ask me that's really that's amazing and that's an appropriate tour of any kind of reading material that a parent might want to suggest
057for their children in the library setting they don't always get that guidance because sometimes there's like 30 or 40 kids rushing the librarian so it's not always available to them and I think a lot of the books that are questioned the covers also don't really give you any kind of clue of what's inside the book even the cover of genderqueer is like a cute cover where there's an individual staring into a pond and you think to yourself oh my gosh my child is going through something internally maybe this is good so the parent thinks okay this is no problem and then you open up it'd be like my son getting to page seven of Miles Morales and all of a sudden there he is engaged in some sexual activity with spider girl there's nothing to
058give anybody any clue that that's what's hiding inside the book on some of the language here I'm kind of uh I'm not sure because it has languages like on the defense thing it says the books will be reviewed as a whole and then when you look at um Miller versus California it says almost exact same thing when discussing obscenity right a work will be found to be obscene if taken as a whole so it makes me think that you guys for legal purposes change the vocabulary not to include words like obscene or pornographic because you know the precedent is already there so you chose words that there is no precedent for and I think that's risky thank you our next speaker is Barbara Bradley followed by Mark Peterson [Applause] Barbara Bradley followed by Mark Peterson
059hi this is my first time speaking I'm a grandmother with little grandkids about to enter the Wake County Public School System uh I also have been dismayed and bewildered by the denigration of Senate bill 90. I've read it it seems to me that it helps keep parents informed about what their children are being taught a lot of it is dedicated to that and I don't understand what could be wrong with that it includes uh giving parents detailed outlines of courses at the beginning of the semester how horrible the right to request assignment to another school you can request an assignment what would be wrong with that require parents to be informed if a child is self-identifying as a gender different from his biological sex well why should that be a secret from parents who would
060not want to let parents know that a child is struggling with that the right to opt out of courses on human development and reproduction well you can argue that one but I can see that one going both ways too it makes it plain this is a doozy it makes it plain this bill that that calling of that a parent calling her son a boy or calling her a daughter A girl is not child abuse well I thought we knew that but apparently not as others have said schools should be teaching reading math and science and not the latest self-destructive social emotional fad that sets kids up for a lifetime of pain and misery I think this bill actually would go a long way to restoring some trust between the educational system and parents and we
061need that trust for the school system to survive parents have to be able to trust the educators meet people we can trust our next speaker is Mark Peterson followed by Renee seckel I want to begin with an examination of the word grooming Oxford dictionary defines grooming as the practice of preparing or training someone for a particular purpose or activity worknik defines grooming as preparing a person for a position requiring skilled Behavior especially by providing opportunity for practice and guidance and making the right decisions and the act of teaching someone often for advancement at work grooming can be a good thing parents want this type of grooming for their children your job is to ensure this type is a priority to be practiced in the school system wording it goes on to it with this definition
062the act of attempting to gain the trust of a minor with the intention of having a sexual relationship with him or her I want to be perfectly clear I'm not here to accuse teachers and Librarians of intent to have sexual relations with minors I'm here to say the overall effect of the books highlighted by pavementeducationproject.org Falls just short of that intent most parents have little or no knowledge of the graphic sexual content of these books available in public schools safe library books for kids provides another definition for grooming the deliberate Act of bringing a child into a sexual political or racial ideology practice cult or lifestyle without the knowledge or consent of his or her parents with the aim of isolating them from their family so the external party can abuse and manipulate them rain
063rape abuse and incest national network states that sexual grooming often follows a five-point pattern victim selection gaining access in isolation of the victim trust development and keeping secrets desensitization to touch and discussion of sexual topics and attempts by the abuser to make their behavior seem natural rain goes on to report grooming behaviors are not only used to gain a victim's trust but often used to create a trustworthy image and relationship with their family and community Tyler Swanson recently seemed thrilled with the trust the board is building in the community and contempt for uh for sb90 by saying the bill usurps the power and constitutional duty of the school board I believe the school board is using a loophole in the North Carolina law to betray parents Trust if a creepy neighbor is sharing these books
064with minors by NC law they are committing a crime but if a school teacher or a librarian shares them with students by NC law they are exempt from prosecution sb90 is intended to close this loophole the school board is acting like a creepy neighbor's battered spouse who out of fear would rather protect creepy neighbors than do anything to stop them everyone in the system who allows this to happen sends an unspoken message to the students the adults in charge approve of the content in these books policy 3210 is designed to keep sexually explicit and erotic books accessible to minors forever the board should trash 3210 and adopt a zero tolerance policy against grooming literature stop the 13-year long grooming process in our schools our next speaker is Renee speckle followed by Mary Richardson [Applause] hey
065y'all I'm here tonight to speak in favor of 3210 I've spoken before but there are two aspects I'd like to highlight tonight number one is to note how well this policy balances the interests of parents in controlling their own child's education and the First Amendment rights of the students and the parents in the rest of the school system in the Pico case I'm not going to get the whole name of it right I think it's painted tree School District versus Pico the Supreme Court affirmed that it is inappropriate and unconstitutional for a school district to remove books from the library simply because they don't like what's in them so you know I've been coming here for God two years now and hearing people say well we have to take books out of schools that imply
066that it might be okay to be gay because we disagree my God tells me that being gay is a sin so I think nobody should be allowed to read the being gay as a sin well that's Viewpoint discrimination and it violates the First Amendment and you as a board would be violating the Constitution if you were to allow such challenges to uh to decide what books were in our schools so I appreciate the balance that this provides now speaking on the rights of parents we have always and continue to have under this policy the right if there's something that I don't like in the curriculum my child is seeing or in the the library I have the right to call the school or call the teacher and say I don't want my child in that
067lesson please provide an alternate and in fact I have exercised that right before when my child was in Middle School I have the right and in fact it is part of my routine to say hey bud welcome home I know today was Library day let me see what you got and I flipped through it and I read it and there have been times when he's brought home a book that I'm not fond of and I say you know what you're not going to read this one sorry bring it back to school and you know what they do because I'm their parent and I set the rules that's my job as a parent and it's my right as a parent to be involved in what my individual child reads or has access to we have books
068in my home I have a bookshelf in the hallway where my kids rooms are and there are books on that shelf that my children are not allowed to read they're on the Shelf but my children know that it is not their right to pick up those books and read them and because they respect me and the rules of our home they don't all of that is parenting all of that is me exercising my right as a parent and none of that requires you as a board to parent for me none of that requires you as a board to ensure that my child never sees touches has access to or even knows exists books that I don't want them to read that would be inappropriate that would you be you a surfing my role as a
069parent and I'm glad that 3210 does not do that thank you uh one more thing the parents who were saying that there's no reason to keep secrets from parents must have been really lucky as somebody who was physically and emotionally abused my entire childhood and based on things that my teachers might have told them I'm just saying they're lucky our next speaker is Mary Richardson followed by Edith Jones good evening board I spent some time uh this week looking up past test results and I was pretty shocked at what I found as you can see when I put it out where I can visually see it year by year connected on on a graph it's pathetic our test scores for the first four years from 2014 to 2018. were pretty stagnant and straight across and
070then all of a sudden they dropped dropped off the chart our students that were excelling went down our students that were failing failed even worse all I have on here is math scores except for the not proficient English scores and you can see math and English non-proficient students run almost parallel my question for you tonight is what are you going to do about the failing scores I could suggest a good phonics curriculum to teach them to read Because if they can read they can figure out a lot of other things um maybe find a better math curriculum because the one you're currently using is leaving half of our students failing quality education that's what we want for our students quality all of the students deserve a quality education they deserve to learn to read to
071do math to study the history of our country so that they can compete and get a decent job or a career when they leave school what your strategic plan it has nothing to do with achievement academic achievement there's nothing in it there's lots about excellence and equity we're going to always have students all over that graph students that do poorly students that do well students that are right in the middle and that's fine they all start at a different position but they all deserve to be challenged to do their very best the students that are failing deserve to have some extra tutoring and my goodness there's enough money in this school system to provide for tutors for these students that need it there's nothing wrong with giving extra challenges to your amb students that need
072harder assignments to challenge them and keep them interested so again I'm going to ask you what are you going to do to improve these test scores and see that all of our students are challenged to learn and do their best thank you our final speaker tonight is Edith Jones Edith Jones hello uh I'm coming from Jeremiah 1 and 5. and it states I knew you before you were formed in your mother's womb speaking of the children and uh the children came from the inside of God God carried these children inside of him and then he blew the breath of life into the mother's womb we you came from the same place you came from inside of God he carried you and I know as time went on you went to grade school you went to
073high school and I know your parents and you know Educators they encourage you to be anything you want to be anyone you want to be whatever uh education or doctors whatever you want to be and then as you became adults you fell in love your parents were like okay I want grandkids I want grandchildren you didn't have grandchildren because of them but you had you fell in love and you began to have children someone that you love with all your heart you love your family and you love your children with all your heart but my question to you is why why should you not expect that from them why why should you want anything less for these children than to be married with Children and with a family because the crap and the the things
074that you're teaching here same-sex marriage and you're telling these children telling the girls you can be a boy telling the boys you could be a girl doesn't produce a family it does not produce children what it produces is confusion and destruction but my challenge is to the educators to educate your children to to uh educate the kids to teach them Reading Writing and arithmetic and the Constitution and I challenge the parents I challenge the parents let not a day go by that you don't tell your children who God created them to be God created Created them to be he created the man to be a man of God he created a woman to be a woman of God and I I also say to the parents to come to the school to come to the
075school libraries and find out what your children are reading and I also challenge the parents to talk to your kids ask your kids questions ask them what the teachers are talking to them about all right this concludes public comments we are now going to move into our one information item which is our superintendent updates superintendent Bridges Madam chair members of the board attorney Malone the board held a work session prior to this meeting and the only topic on the agenda was transportation foreign thankful to the individuals in transportation operations Human Resources all the Departments who have come together to try to address this crisis and and it is a crisis in terms of not having enough bus drivers to safely transport our children to school we have approximately 90 000 students who ride our buses
076each day um let me go back a big thank you to the bus drivers for their commitment to our children in this community we lost approximately 50 to 52 drivers from last school year but for the 560 who committed to come back and be in this process with us and educating our kids we're very grateful to them we have 560 bus drivers and we have 577 routes which means we're 17 routes short of a bus driver for those routes will impact approximately 2 000 children um we presented a tentative plan to the board today basically for their input they gave us a lot of that as they should offer some suggestions that we will go back and and try to churn those out and know that we consider as a number one responsibility as I
077said earlier teaching and learning and we can't teach and learn if their kids aren't in school so we're asking any of our employees our members of the community who have CDLs if you're willing to help us out in this Arena we certainly would appreciate it we're not asking you to drive for the whole school year we think that our process will net some drivers as we move along but for right now with school starting for our traditional calendar students on August the 28th we are in need of bus drivers dim students arriving at school safely and on time is our most important focus and right now the 560 who committed to be with us are driving one two and three routes uh in order to help address some of the routes that don't have a
078an assigned driver we go to what we call a tier four which means they'd be running four routes and the backdrop of that is that kids get to school late so as we continue this process of looking at all options and trying to recruit additional bus drivers I just wanted to make the parents and the audience aware that the board spent a good deal of time this afternoon discussing a presentation for my transportation department thank you Dr Bridges I've been told by our Communications Department that we miss one of our speakers um so we're going to go back to public comment briefly um and that person that commenter is uh Lana Witt thank you Elise for correcting that I appreciate it my name is Lana Witt resident of Wake County and taxpayer prior educator been
079here many times and appreciate all of you in the work and time you put in instead of focusing kindergarten through high school students attention curriculum and instruction time on normalizing politically correct and age and appropriate sexual identity content please begin to focus as much evaluation time on successful math and reading outcomes as well as long-term life skills the test scores are in how many of our Wake County Public School students can do basic math how many are reading like at grade level how many will be ready for University trade school or forming and then guiding a family upon graduation with that said I believe we all agree that in order for certain actions to be public publicly acceptable there must be three things alignment and timing alignment in action and Alignment in the person or
080people doing it if it's the right timing the right person but the wrong action that makes the entire environment wrong if it's the right timing the right action with the wrong person it means the choice is wrong if it's the right action the right person but at the wrong time it's wrong a neighbor showing a drawing of genital genitals to my 9 or 11 year old wrong why that's the wrong person to be doing that another example a preschool or kindergarten teacher welcoming students to line up by their gender that they want to be today why is it wrong a teacher introducing the idea that a four five or six year old can choose to be either a boy or a girl is wrong why because if guardians or parents do not agree with the
081timing and that activity of interest in this lesson about gender and the option to ultimately change their gender it's wrong it seems policy 3210 over complicates the decision-making process for what literature is appropriate at what time and with what age of students I encourage all of us especially new legal counsel Mr Rod Malone from Farrington Smith carefully review the following statutes 14 1 90 13 14 190 14 190 15 14 190 16 14 190 17 14 190-17a why because it talks about Distributing material that contains a visual representation of a minor engaged in any type of sexual activity if those books are in the schools it's wrong okay this includes public comment apologies for the oversight at this point we move on to our consent items is there a motion to approve the items on
082the consent agenda chairman if you have move adoption of the consent agenda all right second all right we have a motion in a second any questions comments Miss Caulfield um one of the purchase orders that's on there is for the National Training Network I'm not sure who would actually answer it but um it says that they have uh there's 15 contracted for the middle schools and 15 for the high schools says to be determined um do we know how they determine who gets that is that the item that's on the action National Training Network math coaching contract uh that is under consent can you say the item number just so we can find it uh hold on I backed off of it Miss Caulfield you might need to refresh I think it was on consent
083but it is now on action okay but but you'd have but if you opened your screen early it might still be on the old it did okay yeah this was well this was on action on Friday when the agenda was published but okay it was not okay oh apologies all right that is on action missed call field okay yeah and so just to clarify so we'll be able to have discussion and ask questions at that point yes okay okay yeah all right all right all right seeing nothing further all those in favor approving the consent items please say aye no any opposed nay all right we now move on to our action items um the first one coming out of our facilities committee and this is a resolution on our continuous CIP appropriation um we've
084asked Mr Strickland to come speak on this because it does involve money that voters approved during the last Bond cycle Mr Strickland thank you chairman happy board members superintendent Bridges tonight for your consideration is a resolution involving the continuous CIP appropriation approved by voters last fall for our CIP program Bond efforts although it's lengthy act I think it's appropriate to read the resolution the main points here this resolution requests an appropriation totaling 365 million 547 912 dollars for construction funding at Pleasant Plains Elementary bowling Road Elementary Parkside Middle lake Early College of information and biotechnologies and preliminary design funding for Morrisville High Lockhart Elementary Brentwood Elementary and Athens Drive High along with program needs such as permits fees life cycle building life cycle Furniture educational equipment environmental and Ada work technology infrastructure technology devices security
085temporary classrooms assessments property acquisition space needs analysis and prioritization referred to as snap and partial renovation improvements projects referred to as prep program management and program contingency this appropriation is in accordance with the master funding schedule and this funding provides the initial part of our CIP plan for the fiscal 24 25 years thank you Mr Strickland and as noted this is normally on consent but again because it does involve information about our bond funding and because we've moved some things from consent to action to provide further explanation that's why this is here in front of us today on action is there a motion to approve this resolution Mr hegarty chair Mahaffey I move adoption of the resolution is there a second all right we have a motion in a second all those is there any
086discussion comments questions Dr Ing um just for our edification can you differentiate between the snap and the primp and is it a um already designated to particular um schools or is it just kind of at the discretion or the priorities of what happens during the school year so projects are submitted through our facility needs portal and once they come in they go into one of three categories they can either be facility modifications which are paid for by the school can be a print project or a snap project crimp is a partial renovation similar to what we did at Brassfield Elementary in the last year or two snap as a space needs analysis where we might go into a school that needs a particular program where they're deficient such as a lab or a CTE classroom
087and we would fund that out of the snap program further comments questions seeing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay all right so next thank you thank you all right next item on our um agenda comes out of academic advancement and that is the aforementioned weight together high impact tutoring we have Mr Drew cook assistant superintendent of academics Mr cook good evening chair mahathy Vice chair Hagerty superintendent Bridges and board members as I think all of you are well aware by now and as Mr ing referenced earlier wake together is a district model for high impact tutoring that's been developed and implemented beginning in the 22-23 school year in close collaboration with the YMCA and several other community-based partners and organizations more specifically wake together is a collaboration of Community Partners
088families and schools with the aim to strategically improve academic outcomes for students by aligning resources building Partnerships providing evidence-based learning opportunities and also measuring and evaluating impact on an ongoing basis the Wake together initiative utilizes evidence-based instructional practices and fluency curriculum to strengthen and enhance student learning outcomes this High IMPACT Program provides professional learning materials and coaching support for staff in our schools additional that additionally that same professional learning the materials the coaching support is also provided importantly to community volunteers to ensure that all tutors are effectively trained and also adequately prepared to support students in the classroom during the 22-23 school year wake together utilized the helps curriculum for fluency to support Literacy for students in 27 of our elementary schools nearly 400 coaching sessions occurred with 139 trained volunteer tutors who collectively provided
089over 4 300 tutoring sessions to students professional learning materials and coaching support volunteer management and strategic planning will be implemented again in the 23-24 school year to provide tutors to approximately 30 additional elementary schools beyond the original 27 that we began with last year in addition to the YMCA and our existing Community Partners the Wake County Public School System is also now working with the Wake Ed partnership to further expand the Wake together initiative by providing more opportunities for schools and more trained tutors in 23-24 and our plan is beyond 23-24. as part of our continued implementation and expansion we are working with the Wake County Public School System data research and accountability office to engage in an ongoing evaluation of the model training materials and overall impact on student outcomes in closing it is
090important to note that this work does align seamlessly in our view with the district's new strategic plan and specifically with aim number eight which references expanding access to high quality instructional programming and enrichment activities to provide a point of connection for every student and also aim number 12 to build strong relationships among staff families and Community organizations in order to share resources and promote well-being we look forward to sharing more updates with you on Wake together and other Wake County Public School System tutoring and academic enrichment opportunities at a future work session or student achievement committee meeting this school year in the meantime staff is requesting tonight board approval of the local fund balance appropriation to continue and expand the Wake together tutoring initiative initiative as outlined and at this time happy to answer any
091questions or provide additional information the board may have thank you Mr cook is there first emotion and a second to approve the fund balance appropriation second all right thank you Mr Swanson and Miss Johnson Hustler questions for Mr cook Miss Edmonds so um Mr cook what's the majority of the 485 000 is it staff time do we have a dedicated staff person that works on Wake together or is it multiple people can you talk through that a little bit and then I heard materials obviously but if you could just walk us through what that 485 is yes ma'am so that great question important question so first of all there were and have been some initial startup costs probably on the front end of this in 2223 that we may not necessarily have to to account
092for this coming school year but we we have contracted at the district level to provide additional support in managing this um you know I think initially going back more than a year ago it and it still is existing staff members that have other full-time jobs that are helping to manage this we have spent some money at the district level to help manage the work at each of those schools the majority of the money is being spent on training of the volunteer and the staff members that are engaging in the high leverage tutoring program so the most significant costs are associated with that training I mean we anticipate that again the majority of the costs for the 23-24 school year would have been again be going directly to the training of hopefully many many more volunteer
093tutors and staff members that can help expand the effort Miss Waters and then doctoring just a comment um this is a wonderful example of collaboration between partners and members of the community so I'm very glad to see that this will be expanded to additional schools so thank you for your work yes ma'am thank you um yes thank you you know how I feel about this project certainly um you know I I wonder in the future you know whether there could be a model of like a trainer training training the trainers so that you can kind of continue to perpetuate the training without as much of the cost involved but certainly you know this is great that this can be available for for the um Community I wish we don't we don't need it but here
094we are right um so my question is um are there any kind of metrics that you are are going to be be able to present to us in the future about kind of the success of this project yes sir so the the last part of your question in the last part of your comment first yes we are working with data research and accountability we've developed a logic model up front to identify specific performance metrics that we'll be able to trace back to individual students and that those that participated in the tutoring cross-referencing that potentially with peers who maybe had similar academic backgrounds and profiles who did not have access to or engage in the tutoring so the answer to your question I think is quite simply yes sir and I would anticipate in the coming
095year that we'll be sharing with you additional specifics on those outcomes you know which if it aligns with what we've seen nationally we expect there to be some significant and positive impact on student performing performance in literacy at those early grade levels and the other thing I want to I want to make this point clear as well regarding the funding as we move into this next phase of implementation and I think we've shared with the previous board and certainly for the volition of this board our intent is for this to uh be a permanent sustainable structure within the Wake County Public School System and so during the 23-24 school year it's also our intent to work vigorously with our Community Partners to identify external funding sources to assist the school district's investment or to enhance
096the school district's investment in this long term so I wanted to make mention of that as well since you brought up the funding model Vice chair Hagerty thank you um thank you Mr cook I appreciate the presentation I appreciate you highlighting the uh with the citation to the academic elements of the Strategic plan and how this work will be part of our continued work over the next five years and Adoption of that plan I want to Echo uh Dr ing's comments about the interest in seeing more presentation on the impact of the program how it's doing if we're able to track the early program participants through later grades and then a question that I had was I know early when we rolled out the program because you know we were inventing it for the first
097time there's always going to be challenges one of the challenges early was a bottleneck and that we had a lot of people that were very interested in participating in the program but we only had the capacity to train so many tutors at a given time I know with these funds we're looking to expand capacity are there things that we will do different will we renew the call for volunteers can you tell us just a little bit more about the process and how we'll build this up yes sir and I think you yourself experienced that bottleneck firsthand as did others and so I think there were some upfront Logistics that given the volume initially that we we simply you know quite frankly didn't have the Staffing to be able to manage as effectively as we'd like
098to and so I think again transparently you know I mentioned 169 trained tutors I think we had more than 300 that showed an interest and so I think it's a legitimate question and concern as we go back in kind of Monday Morning Quarterback what we did this past year how many folks might we have lost because it took us an undue amount of time to respond back to them and so I can tell you uh directly that is an area that we'll be focusing on in kind of this next push for additional volunteers I think that's going to be really really important the last thing that a district or a school want is to send out a call for help and folks come to help and that we're not positioned to be able to plug
099them in immediately and specifically on where and how and when and so I can say that's a priority moving forward I do expect and anticipate that given kind of the first round of learning in that first year we expect that process background checks Etc to run more smoothly that does take time and effort and money to be able to move more efficiently thank you I appreciate it thank you Mr Koken for those who are interested in volunteering I'll just point out that that website is wake together.ymcatriangle.org and thank you Mr Hagerty that was my question about volunteering and I appreciate Mr cook your honesty and transparency about the situation and I want to thank Ms Johnson hosler oh and I know she along with Miss cash pushed really hard to make sure that that process
100could go a little more smoothly in many thanks to the folks in HR that listened and helped get make that happen and I just want to say as a parent I was able to sign up to volunteer at my kid's school online without having to go into the office so that helped prompt that be easier for parents as well that want to volunteer in their schools so thank you for that um seeing no further questions all those in favor of approving this item for the Wake together high impact tutoring please say aye any opposed nay thank you Mr cook and now we're going to move on to the National Training Network math coaching contract I imagine you're staying with us we're staying right here all right take it away Mr cook all right thank you
101board chairman happy so to the question posed by Ms coffit a little earlier we do want to provide you with a little bit of background and context on the National Training Network as we'll reference as NTN this is an organization that offers professional development support that is job embedded and grounded in evidence-based practices for improving student achievement specifically in mathematics these practices are research based and focused on increasing student performance productivity and classroom engagement NTN specializes in providing professional development and coaching services to mathematics teachers across the country and is currently partnered with over 250 schools and districts throughout the United States this contract agreement will provide instructional coaches in 30 Wake County Public School Systems secondary schools for the 23-24 school year currently individual School selections are being finalized to Ms caulfield's question earlier
102with 15 middle and 15 high schools having been initially identified to receive this support which we believe will have a significant and positive impact on teaching and learning in secondary math classrooms I will say two Miss caulfield's question an important one we've got those 30 schools that have been identified who have essentially opted in and we're now in the process of kind of cross-referencing their capacity and willingness to engage is kind of that first group for the 23-24 school year with data as those results come in we'll be cross-referencing that to confirm that we've got the right 30 schools that are participating yes based on their willingness and capacity to engage in this activity in this work but also cross-referencing that with their outcome and data for the 2223 school year which is you probably
103know we're beginning to get at least preliminarily so we'll be finalizing that Ms Caulfield in the next few weeks um I will also mention and it's important to note that that our belief in this program is based on our own recent experiences and work with this model in the Wake County public school system as we did initially pilot this coaching model with NTN in four of our schools this past spring while too early to conduct an analysis of impact and outcomes pending some of the data that we know is coming the feedback from schools from principals and teachers has and was over has been and was overwhelmingly positive you know again anecdotally one teacher commented this was a quote great decision to bring this support to our school another staff member Rave that the immediate
104impact of their schools assigned math coach from NTN was profound and she specifically cited their understanding of the needs of the school and the students and the staff their work in conducting classroom observations and modeling lessons for students and for teachers this facilitating individual and group conversations on instructional practices assisting with resources completing administrative debriefs and also importantly submitting written follow-up and feedback to teachers after each lesson that was conducted this feedback is early and again transparently completely anecdotal but as this work expands in the Wake County Public School System in 2324 District staff will be working closely with teachers and with school leaders to monitor this implementation and effectiveness of instructional practices professional learning and improved student outcomes on both formative and summative assessments so yes eocs eogs but also the ongoing formative progress
105monitoring assessments that are being implemented on a regular basis inside the schools and inside the classroom we certainly plan and anticipate sharing more details and outcome data on this effort with the board in future meetings just as we would plan to do and anticipate doing what wake together and other ongoing initiatives align with the Strategic plan and speaking of the Strategic plan as we referenced also with wake together it is important we believe to note that this work does directly support and align with the district's new strategic plan specifically among others with aim one which references cultivating high quality professional learning communities aim two which references delivering standards-based rigorous culturally responsive and inclusive curriculum resources and instructional practices and also aim three which references analyzing performance data to guide instructional planning and decision making the
106instructional coaching and professional learning support that NTN will provide is also very much in line with the action steps and implementation strategies shared and discussed with the board last fall if you may recall those of you that were here in a series of student achievement committee meetings and discussions from September through November of 2022. so with that bit of background in context staff is requesting tonight board approval of the contract agreement with the National Training Network as has been outlined and again happy to respond to any questions or provide any additional information that may be helpful thank thank you Mr cook is there a motion to approve the coaching contract with the National Training Network we have a motion in a second questions comments Miss Caulfield thank you very much for that and for answering
107the questions I'm very happy to actually see that we are playing some of this towards the schools I know that it would I'm pretty sure we had like 41 and 31 middle school and high school so it seems like we're at least getting a decent amount of that and I like the fact that it that you mentioned feedback after lessons sometimes we wait till the end to see if it works and a lot of time has passed and we're missing some information so it seems like it's a really good way to track and see if it's working so I appreciate that thank you for the presentation thank you Mr Hagerty thank you Mr cook so I'm just curious is this would you say that we're seeing like a shift in our professional development strategy to
108maybe offer more coaching opportunities or in-school opportunities or is this it's always been there in the background but this is just highlighting it that's a great question and I I don't know if I'd use the term shift although I think that may be a fair characterization I think the reality is and we've talked about this many times over the last couple of years after you know two plus years that we've all experienced um the turnover and staff and the tremendous need and I would say probably unprecedented need systematically not just in Wake County but across the country for rigorous aligned evidence-based effective professional learning the need has never been greater and so I think part of this reflects maybe a shift in working to find contracted partners with an organization like NTN that by all
109accounts have you know some extremely effective models and have been very successful in the districts and schools they've worked in to essentially help expand our District's capacity to provide the training that our teachers need and deserve which as you know then if it's done well and done right immediately translates into positive learning outcomes for kids and I didn't reference it specifically but you know we even heard kind of second hand anyway teachers referencing in the four schools that did this in the spring students giving feedback about the teachers from NTN and the coaches that were coming in providing direct support the students in addition to providing that coaching real-time embedded coaching with our teachers in the classroom so I think it's probably fair to say it's a shift and it's a shift based on the
110kind of the new landscape of what our needs are as a district and across the country thank you other questions comments Dr Ing um thank you so much um I um I really applaud this project and one thing that I thought about was you know you you I guess you know because it's still kind of a growing program and you're you're having 15 middle schools and 15 high schools but I you know I'm thinking you know if if you were to actually have unlimited unlimited amount of money right I mean this is a dangerous premise doctor yeah yeah money grows on trees um but you know wouldn't you think that start like having more emphasis on the Middle School would make a lot of sense because I mean if you're going to be uh you
111know doing that coaching to the you know at the high school level you know um they they probably more of the middle schoolers probably could benefit from it earlier on so that you know that they don't have to play the catch-up at high school so yeah I mean great I mean it's a great question and I think it's one first of all I'll say this even if funding was unlimited and obviously it's not um I think that you know we dipped our toes in the water with this this company and this program and this model this past spring and I think what 23 24 and what is reflected by this contract agreement is we're taking the next step um and you know if we see the results that we expect to see and the outcomes
112and student performance in mathematics and middle schools and high schools and I would expect that we would expand this um you know to all of our schools potentially in the near future I mean we want to make sure that the efficacy and the effectiveness is there you know and I think the other thing is is we can be transparent about this there's lots of room for improvement in our student outcomes and Mathematics at the secondary level and that applies to both the middle school and the high school level and we see this as one of many important core strategies to help help get the results that our students deserve and we need to see across the board across subgroups across schools you know so I we we probably could Tinker a little bit with how
113many middle schools and how many high schools I think our goal initially is to kind of get a sense of how this works effectively at both levels thus the reason for kind of the even the even breakdown of the number of schools further questions and I appreciate Mr cook the looking at the data to make sure that just because your school didn't opt in maybe they need a nudge from the district that this is a good idea I know we have math coaches at the elementary level do we have math coaches in the secondary level or are those usually the the department heads yeah typically it's it's our department chairs at the high school level we've got some literacy coaches in some of our high schools but systemically we don't have embedded math coaches with
114that specific role being their 100 percent priority and so we see this as an additional kind of line of human resource support and capacity building that you know will just enhance the outcomes and learning both for our teachers and our students which you know ultimately is our goal thank you appreciate that any further all right at this time all those in favor of approving this item on our agenda for the National Training Network math coaching contract please say aye any opposed nay thank you Mr cook thank you at this time we move to item 10 on our which is our closed session items is there a motion to move into closed session for the item stated under item 10 closed session second thank you we have a motion in a second to go into closed
115session all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay we are now in closed session thank you