23-5-16 Board Meeting

001everyone it is Tuesday May 16 2023 at 5 30 pm and we're calling this regular meeting of the Wake County Board of Education to order I'd like to welcome those of you that are watching at home and those that are here in person these 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 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 speakers by refraining from loud comments or other disruptions disruptions by any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance with General statute 143-318.17

002we have all nine board members with us tonight as well as superintendent Moore and our board attorney Mr blumberg ladies and gentlemen at this time if you could please stand for the presentation of our colors from Sanderson High School's award-winning Air Force Junior ROTC commanding and carrying the American flag is Cadet Riley Dawson the North Carolina flag is Cadet Sebastian Brown and the rifles are carried by Cadet Kaya Sledge and Cadet Isaiah Prince I pledge allegiance of course thank you and many many thanks to the Sanderson JROTC for being here to present those colors during this month at this time we move on to well I got rid of my agenda so I believe we move on to the superintendent's comments thank you very much this is a team effort superintendent more thank you good

003evening congratulations to Wayne McCoy of Cary High School who on May 5th was named the 2023 wcpss teacher assistant of the year Mr McCoy has been an instructional assistant for nine years and is currently serving in an extended content classroom standards classroom he also performs many extra Duty roles at Kerry High driving the bus for field trips arriving early and staying late to assist special education students during arrival and dismissal and serving as a coach on three different athletic teams his principal Nolan Bryant wrote in his nomination Mr McCoy was selected by our staff because of his dedication in the classroom his role as a mentor and his commitment to supporting our extracurricular programs for all these reasons and More We Believe Mr Wayne McCoy is hands down the best choice for Wake County teacher

004assistant of the year as Mr McCoy's exceptional service indicates IAS play numerous essential roles at their schools inside and outside the classroom I'm grateful to our more than 2500 IAS in the district for their support of their students and for everything they do to keep Schools running smoothly again congratulations to Mr McCoy on this well-deserved recognition wcpss students are among the more than 2500 winners across the country in the latest round of National Merit Scholarships winners were chosen from a submission pool of more than 15 000 students each winner will receive a twenty five hundred dollar scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation in this second of four rounds of the prestigious scholarship program winners from each state are judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishment skills and potential for success in rigorous College

005studies congratulations to these scholarship winners who are listed on our Facebook page finally this evening two of our teachers are among 38 Statewide who were selected to participate in the Kenan fellows program for Teacher leadership at NC State University next year congratulations to Edwin Davis a science teacher at Broughton Magnet High School and Kimberly McDonald a career development coordinator at wake stem Early College High School the Keenan fellows program provides teachers with experiences in industry and research settings and supports them in using their internship experiences to improve their schools districts and communities as a part of their Fellowship Keenan fellows will spend three weeks immersed with local experts in stem Fields They will receive a five thousand dollar stipend and participate in 80 hours of professional development that focuses on project-based learning elevating teachers voices

006and strengthening the ties between the school and the local community they will also receive peer coaching and mentoring Mr Davis will work with Dr Amy Maddox of UNC Chapel Hill and a team of researchers on a project seeking to understand how cells undergo the step-by-step process of division Miss McDonald will work with spark NC to design learning experiences that teachers across the state can use to expand students exposure to careers in technology she will be immersed with industry Partners who are using technology to drive growth in local economies being named a Keenan fellow is both a high honor and an excellent opportunity for these Educators to grow in their profession expanding their capacity to deliver relevant rigorous and meaningful instruction to their students congratulations again concludes my comments thank you superintendent Moore um my comments

007tonight are pretty brief I want to thank our 32 High School seniors who were selected as part of our future Teachers Program this has been an incredible program kind of to grow your own so folks who are interested in becoming teachers that are currently in Wake County Public Schools please reach out to your counselor to learn more about the future Teachers Program you earn a stipend and get professional development throughout your time in college and you graduate high school with a contract in hand to come back and teach in Wake County Public Schools one of the things that was noteworthy was not only having a teacher who was a part of our first cohort who is in Mr Swanson's district and I'll let him talk a little more about that if that's part of his

008comments but also to hear the love and the passion of teaching from people who are in central office positions and how that time in the classroom is still something that they greatly love and reflect on and draw upon and believe in in this district and it really is one of the best professions that anyone can choose and um I just want to thank these 32 seniors for choosing this profession and we look forward to seeing them in the classroom in four years and that concludes my comments Mr hegarty thank you chair Mahaffey I appreciate it I keep my comments brief tonight I have four items that I would like to touch on we were excited in district 7 to welcome our the chair of our County Commission Ms Shanika Thomas who came to speak at

009a ribbon cutting for Barton Pond Elementary now of May ribbon cutting for school might seem like it's a little late like getting a Christmas present in July but trust me this was a ribbon cutting that was long overdue and the opening of a school has been a real exercise and resilience for principal Stephanie Costa and her staff there's some challenges to overcome everyone rallied together and all the Barton Pond bullfrogs had a tremendous first year and so we were so happy the superintendent was there area superintendent Cedric Moore myself and several other dignitaries and so thank you for that invitation and again Craig congratulations to the bullfrogs superintendent Moore had already mentioned the Wake County teacher assistant of the Year banquet and I just have to say I was fortunate enough to attend also with

010Dr matillo area superintendent uh Jonathan ends and I cannot say enough about the winner uh Mr Wayne McCoy Jr superintendent Moore already highlighted so many of his wonderful accomplishments three sport coach the hours he spends as a youth Mentor but it was probably one of the most inspirational speeches I've heard given as an acceptance speech in any of these types of functions and I know there are a lot of people around those head tables that were looking out to Mr McCoy wondering how quickly we could get him a teaching license but by Mr McCoy's own words he had cited the wisdom passed down to him by his father to grow where you are planted and I think we're very very fortunate that he is remaining in place and just being a paragon of Excellence in

011the role that he's chosen to take on so congratulations again to Mr McCoy Jr congratulations are also due to all of the students in the district that participated in c-span's student cam documentary competition they had representatives from c-span's headquarters in D.C come and deliver the cash prizes locally to some of our students we had many participants in many fine entries and it was great to see that recognition from the great public service that C-SPAN provides and then finally we did have our last BAC meeting of the year at Sycamore Creek Elementary since our last meeting on Internet Security we had representatives from the Department of Justice consumer protection Division come in and discuss different ways we can work to keep our kids safe from online predators to be aware of content that's out there discuss

012parental controls and had a great conversation with you know question and answer period we are you know shutting things down for the school year but we will be recruiting BAC officers for next year so if you are in district 7 Northwestern Wake County have a child in one of the district 7 schools interested in service on our BAC please reach out send an email and we'd love to talk to you about a board position thank you thank you Mr Hagerty Ms Waters thank you so many wonderful things happening across the district and in District Four I'd like to highlight just a few of those things I want to thank Communities In Schools for the opportunity to attend night in the blue at Ligon Middle School which was a great time of Engagement with nearly 100

013Middle School girls on a Friday night in pajamas and so I see principal Duvall sitting over there and just really appreciate the opportunity to see our supports for our students in a really unique way that focus on social emotional learning self-care and the opportunity to engage with high school students and so I'm so wonderful be it to be in that environment and to look at how intentional we are in making sure that all of our students receive supports and encouragement and inspiration as they are in their journey and do it in in a very special and unique way so very pleased to have been a part of that I also wanted to lift up the state of inload which is an annual event that that focuses on important topics every year this year the Focus

014was on school safety we had a wonderful panel that included in low principal Dr Jordan along with Russ Smith who is our director senior director for the office of security as well as Dr Paul Cohen Dr Elena Ashburn who are there to provide us with some really good information about school safety and so it was an important time to have engagement and to see where we are and what concerns the public has and what questions needed to be answered and I would really like to highlight how I was so pleased to be in the room and then look back and see my colleague miss Monica johnson-hosler they are in support and just really appreciate her commitment to the district over her long tenure as a board member and then also at individual schools and across

015the district Beyond where she represents and so that event as I said is annual and so I can't wait to see what next year's topic is and how we will uplift and provide information that is important to the community and lastly I want to highlight The District 4 BAC meeting which was last night such a great opportunity to bring together all of our school communities and to be able to get information that is relevant and really up to date and so one of the things we focused on last night was the superintendent search we had an update from Christine Chief who was legal counsel and director of policy for the North Carolina School boards Association lots of great questions from the attendees and a lot of great ideas on how we can continue to make

016this a process that forwards and centers what the community wants and needs in our next leader and so really pleased to have had that conversation and that input from our attendees I also want to talk about the panel that we had at the BAC last night really wonderful to see Dr Chavis there to represent our Equity team and he was so kind enough to bring some of his staff members with him Dr Maria Rosa Rangel and Bria Wright were on the panel and one of the highlights for the panel again talking about student voice we had two seniors from Enloe one who was off to UNC and went off to Morehouse College and it was great to get a perspective about the importance of equity from the lens of our young students and want to

017continue to lift up policy 1150 as it is continued to be operationalized in the work that we do and so really great to have a BAC meeting that focused both on the superintendent search as well as our Equity policy and so looking forward to more more opportunities to engage in our bacs and vice chair Hagerty I appreciate your comments about letting people know that this is a great opportunity to serve and represent your school community and also to engage with others who have a strong interest in ensuring that our district continues to be the awesome and amazing place that we have so much time to be able to invest in education of our next generation of leaders so thank you plotters and Ms Edmonds thank you last night I attended the senior awards ceremony at

018Vernon Malone College and Career Academy it was a great event with a great group of students receiving scholarships some going into the military some attending Wake Tech and others moving on to four-year universities I really enjoyed being with that group of students this morning I had the honor of being at Swift Creek as they were recognized as a positivity Project Shield school a little over 800 schools across the country applied for this distinction and only 11 were chosen and Swift Creek is among them and the only one in Wake County to receive this honor the celebration this morning was a lot of fun the kids were very attentive and excited and it was a really good time and area superintendent Mr Jonathan ends joins me at that I'm excited to get some choral performances this

019week and the first of our graduations next week that's exciting as a new board member to attend the graduations I want to thank all of you and the public who have advocated to County Commissioners on behalf of our board funding request I ask that you continue to send those Communications to Commissioners as they deliberate their budget which includes support for Wake County Public Schools and finally I want to comment on the cost of School meals and the fact that we are faced with raising those costs I want the public to be aware of what the North Carolina general assembly is about to do with private school voucher funding today lawmakers invest 133 million dollars per year in private school vouchers that's 133 million dollars of taxpayer money that go to subsidized private school tuition two

020bills Senate Bill 406 and House Bill 823 are proposed now and if they pass voucher spending will go up more than 400 million dollars in 2023-25 excuse me 20 24 25 400 million dollars um on private school tuition and these bills also raise the income eligibility so that anyone regardless of how much money they make per year will have access to a private school voucher this is what lawmakers are doing versus funding Universal School meals there is a coalition actively working to pass legislation to fund School meals that organization is School meals for all NC it is a North Carolina based group they have a website School meals for all NC and I know they would welcome your support and your advocacy thank you thank you Dr Ing good evening just wanted to um let

021you know that I had a always have a good time on going to the um coming to the student recognition last Tuesday and it was just so great to see all the children being recognized for their accomplishments not just as a student but also as a person and just the kind of people that they are becoming and so it was very uplifting for me to see um today we had a um uh in our meeting talking about the career in technical education offerings that we have at in our Wake County Public Schools and there'll be more I'm sure there'll be more mentioning in the in the weeks to come um and I just I just went back to the my uh recent um uh tour of Wakefield High School and the Virtual Enterprise class they

022had on there and and just the um the way that it was developing these young people as a future um entrepreneurs and business people and and the way that they were developing their confidence in themselves and so it was really just incredible to see and I'm looking forward to going on the tour this uh Friday of Northway College and Career Academy and so I'm I'm optimistic that I'm going to see more uplifting stories there um uh just um I would be remiss if I didn't talk because of my background in medical field um today I just got an email from my hospital I work at that they were finally going mask optional and it just um as of May 11th last week it was the end of the federal covet Public Health Emergency and I

023wish that it would be the you know the end of the national crisis but it has had a long lasting ramification um just being in the school board it has you know I have seen the you know the effects on our school budget and and the hourly rates that we have had to increase to keep up with competition in our community our education in terms of the learning loss that we've seen in our students and the um and the lessons that we had hard lessons that we had to learn in terms of uh virtual learning and and the pros and cons of that and then also with our you know kids Social Development the the behaviors that we've seen in recent months and and then the increasing Reliance on social media and the and the

024um negative effects it has had on our kids uh self-image and um and the kind of um time away from uh really productive conversations that the kids can can have but there are some good things coming out of it out of this pandemic um you know I don't want this to ever happen again however what we've learned is that you know there is a butterfly effect in terms of the things that that happens in society you know actions have consequences and and the kind of the Rippling effects of one one decision causing a Rippling effects on others you know so you know I talked about this before in terms of you know societal you know the the kind of uh the employment or unemployment that people hadn't had to go through um and then having

025to increase their hourly wages to try to get people back in the workforce um and also um the the thing that most um impacted me was the increasing parental engagement that has happened as a result of this pandemic um parents really have gone to become more involved in our children's education I mean that is part of the reason why I'm here um and I I thank you thank all the people who have had the courage to stand up um to take a stance for their children's well-being for their children's education and then that then they are continuing to take a stand so uh thank you so much Mr Hershey thank you um I want to thank uh principal lay at style Elementary for hosting our BAC yesterday we had a extremely thoughtful conversation around the

026superintendent search I want to say congratulations to Carroll Middle School as the something I didn't know about it was the first Lego League Challenge and they won two trophies first place uh champions in robotic performance and robotic performance Awards I know sometimes there are conversations around Reading Writing and arithmetic but between that competition between the CTE presentation we had today which was fantastic and being at stemposium just a um 13 days ago there is really so much more to education and I love seeing our students excelling in these fields lastly I just want to say good luck to all of our Wake County or actually two things first of all excellent job Sanderson our JROTC presenting the colors and representing District Six and good to see all of you here from JROTC from the county

027I look forward to you guys presenting shortly and then lastly I want to wish all our student athletes currently in Spring State playoffs I think it's lacrosse boss soccer softball baseball track may have finished already track is not finished yet oh I was given some bad information oh okay it's just that none of my kids teams are in the playoffs got pass County so sorry for the bad information got it got it got it count yes okay making me look bad here ah but I want I want to get and I give us a little special shout out to the Wake Forest softball team because they will always have a place in my heart since I coached there for 10 years um but good luck to all our our student athletes across the entire County

028this and the next month thank you needs to come from Miss Johnson Miss Caulfield thank you um I do not have a whole lot to report this time um but it doesn't mean that we are not ridiculously busy I know many students are preparing for graduation all the exciting things that are coming down the road um just please be careful as we enter this exciting time I know that you're about to enjoy a very special time in your life as you get ready to prepare and move on to your next Journey but it's at this time that sometimes everybody forgets a little bit of safety a little bit of caution while you're so excited I remember when I was in high school we used to have the car outside it was the infamous car that

029came from the fire department to remind everybody it came out at prime time and it came out at graduation time so I know you're all excited out there but please be smart um speaking of being careful there are plenty of our students that go through our Jordan Driving program and I wanted to mention another program breaks that I think is a really good program for all drivers especially new drivers that it puts you into real life situations and I think it's a very powerful program I'm excited to be able to take advantage of that I'm mentioning the program I have not done it yet so I could come back and report but I've heard really good things about the program I've seen what it does just haven't been able to take it live but I

030mention it now because the registration is going on and I think for our children and as we're talking about safety I think it is a great program to go along with our Jordan Driving School program and that is kind of all I have right now thank you Mr Swanson thank you I will follow my colleagues and keep mine very brief as well I want to say last week we celebrated teacher appreciation week and I just want to officially Echo you know just thank the teachers and all staff for the great things they do um and understanding that our teachers are the backbones of our education system and and it's those long-lasting memories that they make in our classroom so I really want to thank them for that um I had the opportunity of visiting Weatherstone

031Elementary School and meeting their new principal and I want to thank them for their warm welcoming and their tour um it's always exciting to see uh the great things that are happening in the classroom as a former High School teacher is always great to engage with the little ones and hearing some of the great things that they're they're sharing um Friday I had the opportunity of attending um Miss baggett's annual Mother's Day celebration and I have to say this was her last one because she's officially retiring at the end of the year so whoever is going to take on the task of continuing this great tradition um please keep me posted so I can attend next year so the students did two they presented a brunch to their parents and to their mother's rather and

032some two classic songs um The Temptations My Girl but they substitute the words to my mom and then Sonny and shares I got you babe and it was their version was I got you Mom and so hearing that and seeing how they were able to perform was really great and exciting um I did leave out before they went to uh um their words or Escape me um field day so I didn't get to see all the great energy that they had there but there songs was really great and also wanted to say to our new future teachers that I had the opportunity of attending with chair Mahaffey congratulations and we look forward to the great work that you're doing I was hoping superintendent Moore was going to share the story of the young man that

033she shared in her remarks but it was a very moving and great experience and so looking forward to having more Educators that are homegrown into the district and for those that are Juniors going to be seniors next year and if you're interested in becoming an educator please reach out and do not miss about that great opportunity so that concludes my remarks so thank you it's Johnson Hustler thank you I will start with um excuse me thanking Student Assignment Susan Pulliam last night there's been a series of our student assignment and I surprised her because I had been in Fuquay at multiple of my schools all day yesterday so I was a surprise visitor but the energy was amazing and it's probably my first time being on the board that we've gotten this far ahead of

034talking about student assignment and she did mention another board member had attended and parents appreciated it they may not necessarily like the decisions we make but they liked having this much of a Runway to have a discussion about what the impact will to them will be and I certainly enjoyed her her energy match mind so we were really hyper last night it was the end of the day for me so so so thanks and she had a team of Staff with her and I would be remiss if I didn't know that this is also probably the first event I've been to where we actually did have language access available for the families and so for me that speaks to as policy chair as difficult as it is to go go through the policies the implications

035for our district are life-changing for so many families and so thank you to my Siri doesn't agree with me apparently but thank you to my colleagues who have endured this rigorous process we're going through to our policies which to that end for those of you who've sent emails I'm responding here publicly regarding policy 3200 it is on tonight for first reading our policies have more than one reading especially because we have the opportunity to make changes and for those of you who did not watch our last policy meeting I did I was teasing a board member Caulfield that I gave her homework last time for this policy so you will hear it again from us and um homework for everyone to to continue the discussion but thank you for your emails I have the great

036opportunity well it's mixed feelings garter Education Foundation who I adore do do an amazing event at the end of the year so it's May so I have mixed feelings because there were a lot of retirees that were hard to see that their retirees being recognized but it's a recognition program so for our retirees our teachers of the Year our IAS of the Year nationally board certified in renewals so always a great time to recognize the schools and they always remind me because I always forget every year that the guard for those of you who know the Gardner Performing Arts Center used to be East Garner Elementary and so everybody who said was like this was my elementary school also we had a lot of people who were retiring for the second and third time that

037speaks and I asked them to return for a fourth given we have a teacher shortage um so so we had one who had been with our District 47 years this is the only District she's ever taught in um and she has retired so she took a six-month sabbatical in the 47 years between her first retirement um so so that speaks to the commitment of the community but also it is okay to retire but so thank you Gardner Education Foundation and the community members there and speaking of Garner we had our last BAC as well of the year and as you all have heard me say I've moved to round tables because it is the best way to get information from our community and so thank you aversboro Road Elementary principal Stewart for hosting us thank

038you Avers World Baptist Church for giving us a full meal with fried chicken well we still had a beating we similarly had round tables on the top issues that come before the board so I went through my email and said here are the topics that I get the most emails about please give me your feedback so I got lots of feedback on discipline well-being policies and transportation the funniest is everybody wanted a four-day work week to reduce the load on Transportation everything else we had great feedback but I did let them know that that is up to the general assembly I can't give them a four day work week and then we also talked about the superintendent so they helped build out questions um for we did the first round of questions last BAC this

039BAC they started thinking about the second round of questions they'd like to have as we pursue hiring our next superintendent so thank you to District Two and we had a lot of people join us because we've offered all of our meetings are open and you've heard our colleagues say that but it is an opportunity not only to be in relationship with the community but also to be a relationship with your board members as my colleagues have already said it is indeed playoff Willow Spring High School no s does not have a senior class but they indeed made it to pass the first round of soccer playoffs and so that's really exciting for a new school because they're building all of their history for their school so hats off to them one of the athletes her

040mom used to actually be our Deputy in here from the sheriff's department scored two goals last night so Destiny Arrington thank you for your commitment to the team they won 3-0 and she's Court two of those goals so hats off to Willow Spring we're excited about building the Legacy at Willow Spring we have our jrtc here and again like my colleagues that said Thank You District Two has two purple star schools South Lakes Elementary in Willow Springs with an S Elementary and purple star schools are schools that demonstrate military friendly practices and commitment to military connected student and families so thank you to all of our schools who put forth the effort and certainly thank you to the two schools who have received that honor I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you that I

041love wake up and read I think all of my have you volunteered yet I know you're on the list um so I so I was at Lincoln Heights yesterday to set up what you all know I am obsessed with wake up and read it's my favorite I get to see the kids choose books and they're building their Library yesterday was the first time I've ever set up much easier to be volunteering than setting up but we had a lot of students helping us so a great experience for them to actually see how you set up a library system as well so we've rounded out the District Two schools for wake up and read this school year and lastly I have a great opportunity to be at Lincoln Heights with Senator batch for take a legislator

042to school today school day thank you to our Educators and our students alike who participated in panels it's always great to be at Lincoln Heights many of you know it was one of the schools on my list that we really need to grow and change and we have now exceeded my wildest dreams that the school is very full and a lot of great ways that they've instituted their magnet but we had great feedback from our students and I don't know what Senator Batch's favorite part was but mine was all the hugs because the littles love Senator batch so thank you to all of our elected officials who are supporting our schools and as I tell people you don't have to show up in the building to support them you can support them by advocating with

043your elected officials to continue to support public education thank you thank you Miss Johnson hosler and I had just a couple of things that I had or missed I did mention our Cadets that came and presented the colors from Sanderson and I just once again want to thank Cadet Riley Dawson Cadet Sebastian Brown Cadet Kia Sledge and I'm sorry for mispronouncing it earlier and Cadet Isaiah Prince I want to wish a happy birthday to our board member Lynn Edmonds and since graduation season is upon us for those of you that are here that are seniors that are graduating take at that time remember that teacher see if they're still teaching and take a moment and thank them and I was reminded of that this weekend my mother was a school nurse in my hometown and

044she received a flower delivery for Mother's Day and I happened to be there to surprise her and I think she was more excited to see one of her former students who has you know left Elementary School graduated from college is out living his life has a career than she was to get the flowers it means so much to your teachers to hear how you're doing and what you're up to and it will mean more than any teacher appreciation gift to say hey you know Miss so and so Mr you know please I just want to say thanks I remember being in your class and take that time and just say thank you I know it's easier to do well you still have a Wake County email address so um but I just want to say

045that as graduation season is upon us and starts is it next week yeah next week so um yep so thank you at this time we will approve the meeting agenda is there a motion to approve the meeting agenda chairman happy I have uh I'd like to amend the agenda absolutely if we could remove item Roman numeral nine three e meal prices for 20 23 24. off the calendar and put that on action of the consent agenda and put that on action I'll second that all right thank you Miss Vice chair Hagerty for the motion and Mr Swanson for the second um again that is approval of the agenda with the amended change um and we will revisit that again when we do the consent just to make sure we're in compliance with everything Mr blumberg

046yes um there's a question about policy 3200 it is exactly yes I believe that initial request to remove it was rescinded yes Miss Caulfield so I just just to confirm are you saying that 3200 is on the table to be approved today first one second reading correct it was approved at the last meeting on first reading so it would be set for second reading tonight on consent which is the standard approach of first reading it is done sort of in the actions and then if and then the second reading would be on consent so it's following the standard process that would be done for approval of a policy so at what point can I comment on that particular item for something on the consent agenda yes I think when we go to prove the consent

047agenda unless there's a motion to pull it okay so I guess I would make a motion to pull it I'm not sure that we're actually ready to move forward with a lot of the um feedback that I'm getting on it particularly to the read aloud part and the Very simply vulgar part so I would um I do appreciate all the work that they put into it but I would really like to have more discussion on the policy itself on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable so miss Caulfield are you proposing an amendment to the emotion to approve the meeting agenda yes okay and I I second it I actually just texted Mr Bluebird about pulling off that's why I brought it back I'm Mr Bloomberg procedurally is that done now or is that

048done for at the consent agenda just to confirm so my understanding is that any board member can pull an an item from the consent to action so I think that it can just be the the agenda can be approved with the understanding that both the meal price and policy 3200 would be moved to action okay and then you can proceed in that fashion and I yes there was a question to come up about it being announced as first reading and it is second so I felt there needed to be Clarity on that before you all approve the agenda if it's helpful since we made the motion to move the first item would you be okay with amending it and then adding so we had a motion in a second to amend it so then we

049vote on so rather than voting on the first motion we would amend the motion removing item Roman numeral nine three e meal prices from the consent agenda we would amend it and then we would also remove item Roman numeral nine number seven a policy 3200 also from the consent agenda and move both to action all right so vicer Hagerty you amend your motion to reflect that yes yes okay so the is there still a second Mr Swanson okay so we have an amended motion from vicer Hagerty with a second for Mr Swanson to pull both the meal plan and policy 3200 off the consent agenda onto action any further comments or questions from board members seeing none with that motion as amended do we have approval of the meeting agenda as amended all in favor

050please say aye aye any opposed nay all right thank you we now move on to our recognition items our first recognition item is a first I believe for this board and that is the recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with that we have Mr Drew cook who is going to introduce our speakers for tonight which includes some students as well as Mr Gary Duvall of Ligon Middle School Mr cook all right thank you chair Mahaffey Vice chair Hagerty superintendent Moore and board members we do appreciate the opportunity as Miss Mahaffey just referenced to have a few minutes on the board agenda to share tonight and highlight and celebrate two different groups of people this evening as you know well it is always best practice to let our teachers our administrators and our

051students do most of the talking and the presenting and as you can probably see by the diverse and sharp looking group in front of you tonight that is exactly our plan in both of these cases we'll begin first with the presentation to honor and recognize Asian American native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander heritage month which is celebrated each year during the month of May as we highlight connections to our strategic plan this work is part of our District's broader ongoing efforts to ensure that teaching and learning opportunities are consistently inclusive and supportive of all parts of our community as is reflected as you see on the screen in our District's core belief statements numbers one and number five our intent is to ensure that all students and families see themselves lifted up and reflected in a

052positive light in every school and every classroom across the district and not just in a single month but every single day to that end our teachers our administrators our District staff work to ensure that multiple opportunities are provided to make connections to core standards curriculum and instructional activities across grade levels and content areas by intentionally sharing resources and educating ourselves on the culture and Heritage of our students as lead Learners we will in the long term increase the ability and capacity of school and District staff to create meaningful instructional activities where every student accurately sees their culture and their Heritage reflected in their learning again relevant rigorous and meaningful learning each day and speaking of lead Learners at this time it is my privilege to introduce my friend and longtime colleague Mr Gary Duvall principal

053of ligand Magnet Middle School who will share a little bit about his personal experiences and insights some historical background and perspective and a little about what is happening in the Wake County Public School System and specifically Heritage High School which you'll get to see more of firsthand in just a few minutes Mr Duvall welcome good evening board chairman happy we pretended more and fellow board members a big thank you to Mr cook for for kicking off this evening um is an honor to be able to present here today regarding the observance of Asian American native Hawaiian and Pacific island Heritage Month this month has a special meaning for me due to my Taiwanese heritage this month serves as a special opportunity to be able to acknowledge celebrate and highlight the contributions from all people who

054identify as Asian American Pacific Islander and their impact on society as a whole it is my hope that through our time together this evening I'm able to share some of my lived experience while also highlighting how this month came to be and hopefully being able to report out some interesting facts I've been fortunate to be a an educator within Lake County School wcps for the past 20 years through that time I've served as a teacher a coach an assistant principal and now a principal through this journey I've been fortunate to work at wonderful diverse schools across our district but even within each diverse School climate I have felt my unique cultural identity as a school leader in each place I have worked as one of the only Asian American principals within our district this point

055was driven home to me a few years back when I had the opportunity to attend a national Equity conference where one of the breakout sessions had us in collaborative conversation groups based on our ethnic identities even on a space like this with fellow Educators who are identified as Asian American Pacific Islander I was the only principal in the room of almost 100 educators this definitely stood out to me as I was shot that even with this National convergence of Educators so full so few School leaders who look like me held leadership positions as we all know representation matters and as we prioritize bringing on highly qualified staff members for our district the intentional recruitment of people with diverse cultural identities must be a consideration in our hiring processes I'm deeply thankful to the board for

056all of your support in helping to make these things happen along with the observance of the months like this for all cultural identities I would also talk about my live experiences how it's helped to drive me and uh in helping students to feel like they're capable and I think that's and also looking to increase access for our students and helping them drive them to see how they can make their career goals an actual reality this is why I fully endorse and support our core beliefs especially core beliefs one and five as we continue to continue the ongoing work towards building School cultures where students from all ethnicities and backgrounds are embedded into inclusive learning environments whether cultures are valued and they can see themselves on what is being taught along with being pushed to reach

057their full potential each and every day we will now move into a brief history of background on the significance of this month Asian Pacific Heritage Month originated in June 1977 when the house resolution was introduced that called upon the president to proclaim the first 10 days of May as Asian Pacific Heritage week the next year in October 1978 President Jimmy Carter signed a joint resolution designated the annual celebration 12 years later President George H.W bush signed an extension making the week-long celebration a month-long celebration and then finally in 1992 the official designation of May as Asian Pacific heritage month was signed into law the month of May was designated to commemorate the first Japanese immigration to the United States on May 7 1853 1853 it also honors the Chinese immigrants who work to complete the

058Transcontinental Railroad on May 10 1869. and as you may know while the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad is often heralded as a modern Marvel of human engineering which opened up westward expansion an accelerated industrial age in the United States that feat also came at High Cost of thousands of Chinese immigrants and other laborers that were involved in the work earlier this month Governor Cooper issued an executive Proclamation designated may as Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month in North Carolina to celebrate the many contributions Asian Americans have made and continue to make to North Carolina's communities schools and Workforce this month and every month the Wake County Public School System recognizes and celebrates the contributions and achievements of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders both locally and globally and the spirit of Celebration and continuous

059learning the next couple slides highlight a few facts of Interest pertaining to the month that directly relate to North Carolina and Wake County Public School System so one thing of note among North Carolina Asian American population is the most commonly spoken language with over 30 000 speakers followed by Vietnamese and Arabic and then I thought another interesting fact up there is the largest Asian American ethnicity is Asian Indians who make up 25 percent of the Asian American population followed by chinese vietnamese and then Filipino and then when we consider students and overall makeup and Wake County Public School System some interesting facts are Wake County has the largest population of Asian American residents at 72 000. and in 2022 we have Maria cervania and yalu were the first two Asian Americans elected to the NC

060legislature and finally whenever you consider Wake County has nearly 600 Asian American Staff members who make up about three percent of our staff in the school Workforce within Wake County Public School System we're very fortunate that students across schools and grade levels are given the opportunity to participate and connect through coursework extracurricular activities and other engagement opportunities that broaden their cultural understanding one of the many great examples of this is the Asian International clubs at Heritage High School Heritage established their Chinese program in 2013. the program's focus is building on a k-16 learning community and then some of the things they've done has been able to share and present Chinese culture on Pac day participation in the land of parade on Chinese New Year Asian Fest and the international showcase also through this program the

061complete community service projects with Wake Forest Elementary School and they have a partnership with UNC Chapel Hills Asian studies program I would now like to introduce Miss weijing Liu and the Heritage High School students who will perform a cultural Arrangement composed of two dances thank you good evening everyone uh dear Paul member is my honor today be here to present um for Heritage High School in the past 10 years I'm teaching in The Amazing school I'm so happy every single day I have a chance to teach my just not teach my student language I have I have a chance to they experience my culture my Heritage so you can see that on the slide I cannot believe in the one year this school year we do so much stuff we learn the pembras we do

062the like a face painting and we make a dumpling together we do the Lambton parade and we do the so many community services and then we make most students not in my classroom outside my class students have changed to learn the paintbrush to play Chinese chess and we learned the paper cutting and they learn no chance Chinese so many Chinese culture so I hope every single day we will keep doing this way it's like my mission to share I hope it's not just one month of course I appreciate we honor the aapi I think that's great opportunity for us I hope every single day I have a chance like a gift to share my Heritage thank you and then my our school Asia American Culture Club student would like to present thank you and board

063members the students will be sharing their presentation with us via email we weren't able to get it uploaded today um hello we are the leaders of the Asian American Culture Club in Heritage High School and we're here to briefly talk about what we did as a club to represent the Asian community and also the recent event that we hosted this past April called Asia Fest hello my name is Anson king or Ava and I am the founder slash president of the Asian American Culture Club these are my co-leaders who have greatly contributed in within this club and the event called Asia Fest which we'll discuss further in this presentation hello my name is Ariel Yoon and I'm the vice president of business tablets event hello my name is Hanya I was the director and event

064coordinator hello my name is Tara Foley and I'm the treasurer so going briefly into what our club did monthly to represent the Asian Community is that we meant monthly to mostly play like traditional and trending games to do like make the meeting more exciting and fun for the members to experience the culture and learn from other students and we also have the K-pop dance team which we met weekly to practice and also perform every semester in various stages which we are grateful to have so going into more deeply about the Asia Fest that I mentioned um before so Asia Fest the reason I have decided to create Asia Fest is that the main reason is to represent the Asian community that have been underrepresented within our school and within Asia Fest so what is Asia

065Fest is Asia Fest lasted all throughout the school day which first and second period we had the cultural Fair representation in fourth year we had the talent show which every student in our school were had the option to audition and participate and share their talents and show representation so our co-leaders will go more in depth about what we did in Asia Fest and like the limitations and implications that we had during our process and yeah yeah starting off with our vice president error Yoon um as the vice president of Asian American Culture Club when it came down to the uh to the planning of the country representation booths I found it really crucial and important to make sure that every single member that would chose to participate were responsible with designing their own booths that

066they chose personally with their own Asian country and I really just wanted them to make significant process by following their their established guidelines and their established um what's it called goals and we just wanted the main reason why we even did this event is because we wanted to let every Asian country to have equal amounts of representation without letting other Asian countries overshadow each other because that is something that we have noticed a lot happening in the media um because of this um monitoring each and every single group was something that I also found extremely important uh because we wanted to make sure that each and every group was fulfilling their duties to their fullest by doing everything correctly doing everything quickly I'm just doing everything in time I guess and in order to do

067this we would establish priorities and stuff like that we would establish clear expectations clear um um deadlines and we would also establish clear milestones for each and every student that would be participating and last but not least I feel like the communications with the performers was one of the most biggest important things as well because communicating with the performers letting us know how long each and every performance would take letting us know what song they would do and letting us know what they would be doing I just thought it was so amazing to look at and I just thought it gave so much happiness to each audience in this Stadium hello I am hun I was responsible for on-site directing um we had so many great talent from students that are participating in our show

068and I was responsible for making sure that everything ran smoothly and a part of my responsibility was um Talk communicating directions and other like General changes to our music tech and our performers as it is was our first time running something this big we did have ran into some issues and one of those issues was having too many Talent participate in the time that we were allotted and it was a little difficult to you know handle but I did have to make some necessary change changes to accommodate that and what I did was the um remove talents that were performing twice and that allowed all of our talented people to go up on stage my team my on-site team was amazing we thank them for being there and accommodating to the change which allowed us

069to make the show successful we also think the teachers that participated in the judging we didn't want any bias when it comes to winning first place it was forty dollars on the line um for Chick-fil-A so we um we had for three available teachers on-site you know um to judge our students and our one of our students one she was a singer her name says Grace congratulations Grace um this was an excellent opportunity for our Asian American Culture Club to grow as a whole we believe that this is an opportunity to bring more representation into the community as well as other schools and we encourage that everyone participate in something like this just to spread cultural awareness thank you so there was limitations and implications to our financial status as our processes of pre-planning was

070not easy as we had financial problems so boost the amount of participation we needed to meet specific requirements in order for the event to go smoothly and as the treasurer it was my duty to make sure that was good so we thought of running a fundraiser but because of the limitations of our school we weren't really allowed to fundraise like that so our final Solutions were to have other club members or Club organizations to donate to us so that way we had the prizes however we did not have a lot of participation as like as much as we thought we would but fortunately other members and our president Abel was able to get that stuff so thank you Ava for saving us um but um next year I definitely want to minimize the stress that

071a lot of our members have because you know there was a lot of stress it was the big first event and I just want us to be more better next time and yeah thank you just making one little adjustment of what we said earlier it was actually thirty dollars for my gift card and a trophy just putting that out there okay so like the various events that we have hosted we hope to continue our effort efforts to support and represent the Asian Community within our school thank you [Applause] so my uh China Society student will present the a lot of Dance thank you I'm so sorry [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] now [Music] [Applause] thanks [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] this show will be our Asian American Culture Club K-pop dance and uh everybody

072uh Ariel Liliana Tai [Applause] [Music] oh yeah [Music] okay unboxing Little Things [Music] do do it again [Music] [Applause] [Music] good night foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you Heritage High School never did I ever think blackpink would be present at our board meeting yeah um just want to take a moment to thank our students for coming and sharing their contributions to their school and representing their culture and Mr Duvall thank you for representing the staff and administration side of things certainly always a wonderful time to recognize different cultural identities and please give our congratulations to Grace for winning Asia Fest um are there any other comments at this time from board members no Dr Ing I was hoping you would raise your hand um I was getting a little dizzy watching those umbrellas twirling

073oh no that was it was wonderful um uh and um just wanted to add on to the comment from uh president principal Duvall um the um one thing in history in American history that didn't touch upon was a Chinese Exclusion Act and that was one of the things that really you know affected the at that point in time the ability for Chinese people to establish here but I think that the important thing that um uh through the the last you know century and a half was that the Chinese people and subsequent other Asian American communities did come here and a lot of them you know come here as refugees a lot of him come here on a legal basis and so you know there's there's a you know a the thing about I think that

074sums it up is resilience I think that no matter what has happened in the uh in the community uh um the things that have happened um with our Japanese internment camps and uh with the way that that the Chinese people had to work hard long hours in grocery stores laundromats things like that but the fact is that we cared with us a resiliency and to be able to go above and beyond and rise above the challenges so that's the challenge for all of us to be able to rise above the difficulties that we are in and to look forward thank you thank you Dr Eng up next we have a presentation of the JROTC program highlights from this past year and our senior administrator for K-12 healthful living Brian Glenn Denning will be presenting Mr

075Glenn Denning welcome good evening um I'm happy to be here again my name is Brian Glenn Denning for those who might not know me I'm the senior administrator for K-12 Health living which is also inclusive of our eight exemplary JROTC programs in honor of military appreciation month it's my privilege to bring student representatives from sixth of our eight JROTC programs to deliver highlights from this year's endeavors tonight you will hear from Bryce Global from Broughton Air Force JROTC he's the deputy group Commander this year along with being the Drumline captain for the Broughton marching capitals he will be attending Liberty University in the fall to earn a bachelor's degree in Aeronautics for commercial and or corporate Aviation we also have Jerry atanku from Kerry Naval JROTC he has been an honor Cadet at Kerry which

076is the cadet with the highest GPA among his great group while also balancing his commitments to the student council black students union and the varsity track team he'll be attending Princeton University in the fall we also have from Kerry Naval JROTC rapley Henderson she has been recognized as an honor Cadet and chosen as Cadre for the area 6 Leadership Academy which is held at the Citadel outside of JROTC rapley is a member of the National Honor Society and she will be furthering her education at UNC Charlotte in the fall to major in biology next from Enloe army JROTC we have Grace ajimong and Grace completed her tour as Battalion Commander the highest ranking Cadet in the school she was part of two national championship winning teams last year unarmed duet and unarmed exhibition exhibition platoon

077sorry She was recently accepted to UNC Charlotte's Honors College and plans to major in computer science and continue her first year in the senior ROTC program next also from Enloe army JROTC is Bobby chowdray as a sophomore Bobby was this year's company first sergeant The Pride the primary leader and trainer for their first period on B days he participated in JROTC leadership and academic bowl and was part of the Armed drill national qualifying teams this year he was also a member of the wrestling team and plans to continue to a four-year institution upon graduation next from Millbrook army JROTC is Justin Taylor Justin is a rising senior at Millbrook in the three-year JROTC Cadet he just completed the year as Battalion Logistics officer he is scheduled to complete the IB diploma program in 2024 and

078he is a multi-position player on the football team they told me all three positions but they're just so many years um he uh he also participated in Varsity wrestling and track and competes with a drill and archery team next from Sanderson Air Force JROTC is our Shiloh Bullock our Sila is a second year Cadet and currently the Kitty Hawk Honor Society commander in charge of leading Cadets through scholarship service leadership and character building activities she has been recognized as the JROTC outstanding Cadet of the year in both her first and second years in the program she is currently the JV cheerleading Captain stunt team member and a member of the track team and finally from Wake Forest army JROTC is Jackson crank Jackson is the current Battalion commander and a four-year JROTC Cadet he received

079the American Legion Scholastic excellent award in 2021-22 the military ordered the Purple Heart in 2020-21 academic Excellence award in 2020-21 he will be attending North Carolina State University pursuing a degree in biological and agricultural engineering Technologies he also earned his Boy Scouts of America Eagle Scout this year serving as troop assistant senior patrol leader our first student to speak tonight will be bruss or Bryce Goble from Broad good evening I'm here to talk about bronze air afjrotc unit we're the 11th chair OTC unit in the nation and the first unit in North Carolina we were designated as a founding unit for the JROTC program North Carolina for the Air Force we were established in 1966 and our program is rich in history and Heritage we are located in downtown Raleigh and we are near the

080city's unique culture and functions including the governor's mansion and other government functions we have fulfilled requests from the governor's office to present colors at various speaking events and we have also presented the colors for the Raleigh Human Relations Committee also annually at the state fair for the tractor pool and we also recently presented colors at the Salvation Army for an opening baseball game every year we also participate in the Veterans Day Parade and the Christmas parade we were once held hailed by WRAL as the only entry to never have missed a Christmas parade we also partner and serve the community through our Kitty Hawk air Society we have done care package donations for the homeless and deliver them to different shelters we have also participated in helping an eagle scout food drive that raised over

0812 000 pounds of food for various food banks some notable people we've had graduate from our program are Jonathan Mills who graduated in 2013 and was selected for the Top Gun Navy Premier flight school we also have Rachel Smith who graduated last year she was awarded the j100 scholarship accepted into the Flight Academy she also did the Civil Air Patrol flight school completed Ground School earned a pilot's license while in high school and she might be addressed as Madam president one day out of our students I went to the Air Force we have Cruz Vasquez and Zachary line we also had students go into the army which is Alicia Paratus Bernard Murray and Amari Clark of the Marines we have Samuel Estridge Roan Stevenson the Navy we have DeSean Richardson and then for law enforcement

082we have Saka who works for the Holly Springs Police Department and also Gillard who works for the Raleigh Police Department and finally Master Sergeant Duke McDuffie went to the Air Force 2 he graduated and he went through the Air Force and now he teaches us so he's a great teacher and he did 24 years of active duty so that's all I have and thank you for your time [Applause] all right uh good evening everybody Cadet Commander Jerry at sunku and I'm very honored and grateful for this opportunity to represent our great Navy JROTC unit at this Wake County school board meeting we have great pride and confidence in the work our carry unit has done we place in the top four for our area six drill meet academics and Athletics competition our cyber Patriot team

083was Platinum tier and first in area six and we also finished fourth in our brain brawl competition and we did outstanding on our area managers inspection um side of these statistics we have we have seniors in our program that are pursuing careers in the military receiving full ride ROTC scholarships and excelling in other undergraduate programs and with the foundation of leadership embedded within the core of this cadet-led program I'm fully confident that with the skills of tact organization and command presence that those skills will serve us very well wherever life takes us I'm empowered to be an active member of my local community and to this great country thank you [Applause] good evening everyone I am Grace agimon and tonight Cadet chowdery and I are going to talk a little about emlo's jrtc GRTC has

084helped me in developing my leadership skills while instilling discipline responsibility and teamwork it has also taught me how to be resourceful accountable and live my life with integrity for the past four years all of our seniors have committed to attend institutions of Higher Learning the main reason is because our instructors consistently talk about improving themselves through education this year we have two students accepted to Honors College at North Carolina a t and UNC Charlotte one has also been awarded and accepted a four-year ROTC scholarship to attend North Carolina State University we have a very active program both in the school building and in the community from supporting Miracle League of the triangle to presenting the colors for the Department of Transportation Summit with the governor we've also been active and successful with our extracurricular activities

085we qualify to compete nationally with our fitness team armed and unarmed drill teams the leadership bowl and our academic Bowl team though is not into competing but in the interactions with other schools colleges and University recruiters at those events one of the most fun parts of JROTC is a chance that I get to go and explore outside of my daily life just two weeks ago our drilling Fitness teams traveled to Daytona Beach Florida to compete at the national drill and fitness Team Championships we placed third for color guard and second for the mix team beach run there we were able to talk to new people and learn about different aspects of life and Pathways for our future last year I attended the jrtc academic Bowl Nationals where I met a lot of cadets from around

086the country and talked with them about their lives and programs we bonded over similar interests and I still talk to them to this day essentially JROTC has allowed me to grow in every aspect as a leader friend student teacher and teammate we also actively recruit for our GRTC by having our students go to middle schools and talk about frequently asked questions of the program the main thing we and our instructors stress is that we are not a recruiting tool for the military and that there is no military commitment upon joining the program my senior year has been very eventful to say the least with being involved in many extracurricular activities and the stress of family life has taken its toll on me I do not think I would have made it through my final year

087of high school without GRTC and my Army instructors they guided me through my entire college application process and gave me ample scholarship opportunities to apply for many of which I received lastly the jrtc program is like a second family we depend on each other for guidance tutoring and just to be a listening ear leading your peers is hard but those who have obtained part-time jobs have noticed how the Leadership Lessons in jrtc have helped them at work thank you for your time [Applause] good afternoon chairman hafey superintendent Moore members of the board my name is Justin Taylor um I am a Cadet Lieutenant Colonel and recently appointed law cap Italian Commander we work JROTC provides a unique opportunity for students to lead and learn outside of the standard curriculum we have Cadets that range from

088IBN AP students to Varsity athletes to Cadets who excel in all of the events and extra crippers that we hold as a program our Cadet seniors are competent public speakers they are learned leaders who are not afraid to stand up when asked they are trained to manage failure with Lessons Learned in Victory with humility milberg JROTC Cadets are some of the hardest workers we have at Millbrook academically our seniors who stay in the program are some of the top performers in their in in the school they are the ones that our principal can count on to represent not just us as a battalion but the school the district and the US Army and events that we hold and outside of school our mission is to make Cadets better citizens and we take this very seriously

089this year we have 17 seniors graduating among those we have six joining the active military we have one going to prep school for our military academy four Cadets are going to college and joining a university ROTC program four Cadets are going to college only three are joining the workforce and 11 total scholarships have been given out to these seniors due to JROTC involvement commitment to a service Branch or university ROTC program a program of note is our radar program it is the most physically challenging program we have in Millbrook and it is the only program in the district to qualify and compete in a 13 State best of the best competition and qualify for Nationals in November at Fort Knox Kentucky um with our 96 Cadets we're the one of the most involved in trusted

090programs in the entire school we are truly developing tomorrow's leaders while meeting our mission of making every Cadet a better citizen thank you for your time [Applause] good evening everyone I'm Chris staff sergeant our Shayla Bullock Sanderson High School Air Force JROTC nc939 is comprised of 110 active and reserved Cadets from grades 9 through 12. during school year 22-23 nc939 accomplished over 22 Color Guard events honoring our nation's colors to local and National organizations which included the Raleigh post one veterans organization the city of Knightdale the North Carolina Electric Cooperative general assembly and the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Incorporated Cadets also successfully conducted our annual code Drive in support of wral's coats for kids drive and a book drive in support of wake County's wake up and Rec campaign furthermore Cadets independently raised over 18

091thousand dollars to support events such as our annual military ball in which nc99 just celebrated its 30th birthday finally to raise awareness for our program and to continue to grow and develop the next generation of leaders nc939 created an awareness presentation team whose mission is to bring awareness of JROTC to Middle Schools this year's Focus was on sanderson's feeder schools this initiative has been deemed successful as early numbers have indicated a 75 increase in ninth grade participation in JROTC for the school year 23-24 we also planted early seeds in the elementary schools as nc99 taught students from York Elementary had to honor the nation's colors through their own flag detail initiative last but certainly not least although nc939 may be losing 14 senior Cadets the program has proved to be a successful stepping stone in

092supposed high school life this year one of our Cadets received one of the Air Force JROTC j100 scholarships which allowed him to attend the Citadel we also have Cadets that are committed to four-year institutions and entering the military nc939 has been at hard work and will continue to develop citizens of character thank you [Applause] good evening I'm Battalion Commander Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Jackson crank I will be discussing three major accomplishments in the school year 2022-2023 for the Wake Forest High School army JROTC Battalion I will begin with our long-term service learning project that was completed last week each year we invite 10 local high schools to bring special needs students to North wake baseball field in Wake Forest for an opportunity to play t-ball against other schools cheerleaders administrators and Willie bowl from the Durham

093Bulls cheered while varsity baseball and softball players from each School assisted the special needs students in celebrating the opportunity opportunity to represent their school in this friendly contest we are proud to announce that this was the 12th year in holding Field of Dreams next year due to continued growth and popularity we will be inviting all Wake County JROTC programs to join us in forming a joint venture by making this an annual part of their service learning experience as well the second major accomplishment for our school was an increase in the Battalion grade average for all courses taken by Cadets when looking at the third quarter our Cadets rallied and increased our average by approximately 4.5 points as a group this places us at an overall GPA of 82.46 percent our final accomplishment was the successful

094completion of the mandatory inspection that is administered every three years by Fort Bragg's ROTC Brigade also known as the JROTC program for accreditation or jpa the previous jpa was given in 2017 the latest jpa was delayed several times due to covet 19. Wake Forest received a 98.3 percent and retained the highest available recognition known as the gold star unit of Distinction thank you for your time and consideration in listening to my presentation thank you each of these students is recognized as a leader in their school and in their Community their shining examples of how academic programming such as what is offered by our JROTC programs is foundational to the attainment of lifelong skills thank you for allowing them to speak tonight thank you Mr glendang and thank you to our Cadets and thank you especially

095to their um teachers and commanders who take so much time to nurture and Foster these programs and I'm going to turn it over quickly to superintendent more who oversaw an ROTC program because I don't have any and everything I Learned was from attending the Navy ball with Mr Swanson who graciously invited me and I will just say that if if I could figure out a way to have an ROTC program at every High School I would we've been banging on that door for a long time and we are actually seeing in some cases programs closing across this country so I consider ourselves fortunate to have been able to maintain the ones we have we expanded by some a few years ago and we continue to ask every year to see if there are other if

096there's a way there's a really long waiting list but these programs clearly connect our students to their schools and communities to the values that we hold as an American people and they benefit their schools their communities um and and all of us so uh I look forward to staff continuing to bang on that door and see if we can't get some more thank you superintendent Moore and I'm sorry for putting you on the spot we now move on to public comments speakers commenting on items on the night'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 common portion of the agenda exceeds 30 minutes board policy states that the board chair reserves the right to conduct other board business before

097inviting 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 of North Carolina provide the issues or concerns involving individual personnel and individual student matters are confidential and therefore not appropriate for public comment settings those offering comments to the board including students may discuss issues and matters of General concern concerns are related to Personnel issues or student matters individual student matters may be addressed through applicable wcpss Personnel the grievance policy or other applicable policies during public comment you may speak for up to three minutes a green light will illuminate at the podium when you begin the yellow light will light up along with an audio tone when there are 30

098seconds remaining in your time and a red light and an audible tone will signal when your time is up and the next speaker will be called to the podium in the interest of maintaining civility in decorum speakers are encouraged to address their comments to the board of education and refrain from personal attacks and insults directed at the board individual board member staff or members of the General Public please remain at the podium during your speaking time and any materials you wish to share with the board should be handed to our board attorney either before or after your comments we have five speakers for today our first speaker is Becky Lou Hobbs followed by Julie page hi I'm Becky Lou Hobbs Wake County resident and concerned mom concerned because the board has allowed vulgar age inappropriate

099and obscene materials in the classroom and concerned because of policies it looks like are going to be violating First Amendment rights so what are these policies policy 3200 which was mentioned tonight as well as policy 3210 inspection and objection to instructional material so these policies use a term pervasively vulgar which was mentioned earlier tonight yet neither policy Define what that means so according to the dictionary pervasive means permeating to be prevalent throughout and then synonyms for vulgarity include obscenity profanity and lewdness in other words pervasively vulgar is permeating or prevalent profanity obscenity or lewdness which is also interesting that I saw a news report for board attorney blumberg stated that there's no law that defines a term but then is also quoted as saying that pervasively vulgar is repeated vulgarity throughout a material well that

100brings what's going well in the past few years many parents grandparents concerned citizens have read from Lawn Boy Jack of Hearts the true Diary of a Part-Time Indian there are many many more books that pervasively depict sexual acts sexual acts by children books that instruct children and insect in sexual manners any of this material if it had been in the workplace would be deemed a sexual harassment so why has this board continued to allow children to have access to this material and since we're also the board is concerned about legal definitions this policy also cites as a legal reference the American Library Association so what local state or federal Authority has this Association been granted the authority to develop laws they don't have any authority to make laws any organization such as the Ala the

101Nea the ncae that supports allowing children to access sexually explicit pervasively vulgar materials shouldn't be recognized in any capacity legal or professional and then there's policy 3210 regarding inspection and objection to instructional material it places a two-year moratorium on filing grievances limiting the First Amendment rights of parents the right to speak out against materials that parents know is harmful to their children in other words my right to redress a grievance is dictated by somebody else if they filed one both these policies have major flaws that need to be Rewritten materials with sexually explicit in other words pervasively vulgar material should not be allowed accessible by children and these policies need to be backed by board that will act to protect our children please send these policies back to the um committees thank you our next

102speaker is Julie page followed by Brooke Weiss thank you Becky's taller than me well I will Begin by helping being the superintendent the board and especially the board attorney with the rewriting of policy 3200 on books and schools apparently you all can't seem to figure out what pervasively vulgar means is it the pervasive part or is it the vulgar part if you can't determine what it actually is then change the language how about the better word here as I've seen of which there are clear definitions in federal and state laws North Carolina statute 14-190.1 obscene material is any material that describes sexual conduct in an offensive way appeals to an inappropriate interest in sex and lacks serious literary artistic political or scientific value now if you need a definition of sexual conduct it defines that

103for you too number one vaginal anal or oral intercourse normal or perverted two masturbation excretory functions or lewd exhibit exhibition of uncovered genitals three an act that depicts torture physical restraint or flagellation of or by a new person person in undergarments or person in bizarre costume this law also tells you how to judge obscenity when it comes to minors under the a under 18 years of age with reference to Children if the material or dissemination is directed to children aren't K through 12 schools in Wake County Public School System directed to children is that not something that we can all agree on the United States Department of Justice also clearly states that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment rights to free speech especially when it comes to minors any reference to First Amendment

104rights should be removed as it does not apply here any reference to the library Bill of Rights from the special interest American Library Association should be removed as it is not a legal Authority your own school policies 4309 3005 and 3012 on student and professional conduct prohibit the use of language whether oral or written that is obscene profane offensive lewd vulgar demeaning and pornographic violations of that can result in a student being suspended or an employee being terminated did you know that the Wake County Detention Center has a policy on books given to inmates they cannot contain images or content that is excessively violent profane pornographic or obscene they tell me that the material has to be wholesome porn is not allowed for adults but it's okay for kids it's outrageous our next speaker is

105Brooke Weiss followed by Lana Witt good evening my name is Rick wise thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak I am also a concerned parent to find out that sexually explicit material is in Wake County Schools I am glad and grateful to hear that you're throwing um this back to committee and gonna look at it some more let me help you understand what pervasively vulgar means it means that if the content of the book were put up on a movie screen and it received a rated PG-13 or an NC-17 or a rated R that it should not be in the school libraries that doesn't mean that you're Banning books it means that you're insisting on age-appropriate material in an educational setting you're not Banning books because if a parent chooses to allow their

106child access to those materials they can still go buy the books on Amazon go to a public library or go to Barnes and Noble the idea that these books are inclusive and that every student should be able to see themselves in these books is just not fair just because one child may be broken doesn't mean that you break the rest of the children in the environment I can tell you as a victim of sexual abuse I was abused for years when I was a child reading a book like that or having access to a book like that would have been traumatic for me it's traumatic for me as an adult just to review some of the books that I have to look at that are in the school systems now so I'm glad that you're

107going to look at it again I hope that you will make responsible decisions as to what you allow the children in your system to be exposed to because it's on you it's on you to make the decisions you've decided that parents aren't able to make the decisions when we send our children to school we're not relinquishing our rights as parents and we don't co-parent with the government we do not want our children reading stuff like that sexualizing children is damaging to their brains it's damaging to their emotional development their little brains are not ready and capable to handle mature topics like that and it should be up to a parent to decide when topics like that when their children are exposed to topics like that so I hope that you very carefully consider what you

108will continue to allow in your libraries in your classrooms in the curriculum because it's a very important decision Children's Mental Health is at risk thank you for allowing me to speak today our next our next speaker is Lana Witt followed by non-tron good evening board members as a resident and taxpaying family thank you for the public service you offer Wake County Public School students and the families here at a historic time when inflation impacts individuals and families as taxpayers throughout Wake County what an incredible opportunity to look at budget funds directed by this board consistently The Narrative is fully fund the public schools would you agree my question remains as a prior educator who set a department budget what amount of money is enough money to quote fully fund public education is it that our

109Public Schools aren't fully funded or is it that decision makers direct funds away from basic needs for students away from excellence in Reading Writing and math skills away from bus driver cafeteria worker and educator salaries and towards six-figure salaries for over 100 administrators who don't spend instructional time bus driving time or food preparation time what percentage of the budget funds things outside the scope of basic needs do student and educator retention rates reflect and support how you as decision makers are directing These funds by the presence of Educators here topics of poor operations of bathrooms and classrooms bus driver and educator salaries the previous few months I'd say there's High concern for how it's being directed would you agree retention rates for both students and educators are low while Wake County population continues to increase

110why does the majority of the community share satisfaction with outcomes and how our taxpayer dollars are being spent January 23rd through the 29th 2022 Governor Cooper declared North Carolina school choice week because even he sees increasing disinterest in public schools and the value of providing every family school choice information to bring competition and encourage excellence when my kids want more without taking care of what they actually have Is it wise for my husband and I to move money away from one area of basic need to an area that's not being well used in this time of historic inflation my request of this board and our County Commission is audit every area of increased spending and put it towards students Educators bus drivers and cafeteria workers our next speaker is non-tran thank you good evening my

111name is non-tran and I'm from Wakefield High School today I'm actually also going to talk about aapi month and more specifically the role I play in the community um and today I'm actually here to ask you for your help and your support but first I want to give you some context so I started the Asian Culture Club at Wakefield this year for the first time and my friends and I had the goal of not only educating those who are interested in Asian culture but to also educate ourselves and I must say we did learn a lot through the experience within our first year we gained over 50 members instantly and hopefully plan on gaining more for the years to come what interested us the most was the diversity that made up our our club members

112we were incredibly happy to see that the club didn't just consist of Asian Americans but it was even able to reach out to those who aren't of Asian Heritage seeing the diversity and the members proved to me that people who don't share the same Heritage or the same race could still come together and share the same interests and Curiosities everyone ended up having so much fun learning about different Asian cultures seeing everyone come together with one goal inspired me it inspired me to go bigger I didn't want to just educate this time though I wanted to focus on the connection aspect which brings us to my organization gwac or the Guild of Asian American communities is an initiative that we started in order to connect with different Asian American clubs around Wake County our goal

113is to create a network that connects people ideas and cultures across the state in order to Foster greater growth and development within our diverse communities we have been able to build out our organization and expand to a few schools beside my own and we hope to keep on expanding more with your support we've already done on this sheet that I've handed in there's a list of like what we plan on doing and what we've already done and so far even though we are small we do have big goals and we do have Big Dreams for change to society and we really want to be a part of that so you know hopefully through these efforts that we can gain more recognition for Asian American communities and cultures and that our goal of connectivity can come

114to be with the assistance and support from the community itself um again if you have any more information it is on the sheet and contact info is also on there but yeah thank you for your time thank you this concludes public comment we now turn it over to superintendent more to update the works with updates from our work session good evening again the board covered three items during today's work session earlier this afternoon uh the first item the board will see later this evening in the work of the Strategic plan with an update after a number of sessions with board feedback and some wordsmithing to create the final draft of the goals and AIMS in the Strategic plan that we will be requesting for board approval this evening the second item on the work session

115agenda was a proposal that the board will also see later this evening on action to increase meal prices for lunch from element in elementary school from three dollars to 3.25 cents and in middle and high schools from 3.25 cents to 3.50 the it is you know in the work session today we discussed the federal Child Nutrition program the very stringent requirements for both the food that is served and how the funds are used and what is required to get reimbursement from the federal government for free in reduced price lunches and then the revenue that's raised from either full price lunches or a la carte items the increase in the lunch prices at elementary and middle school of a quarter is Will those funds will be used to support increased salaries and benefits for staff as

116CNS is an Enterprise fund and the salaries are paid out of the income that is received from the lunches those funds will also be used to increase when the funds will also be used to handle increased Supply costs and resources as their costs are going up as well the board will be considering that increase later this evening as part of an action item item number three that was covered in the work session today was year two of a two-year plan the CTE Career Technical education local plan it is a two-year plan the board heard updates in work session for year two of that plan year two of that plan will come before the board for approval on June 6th and that was those were the items in work session today thank you superintendent Moore we'll

117now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda noting that are items item e under facilities as well as item a under policy 3200 are going to be pulled from action and again I'll note that this will not be reflected on simply so we will have to go back to consent agenda to do that so is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended at this time so moved all right we have a motion for Ms Johnson Hustler a second from Vice chair Hagerty any comments questions all right all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay all right we now move on to our action items first coming out of the office of the chief of staff Dr Robinson presenting the Strategic plan for final approval chairman happy Vice chair Hagerty

118is team board members superintendent Moore tonight we bring to you the final draft of our strategic plan this draft includes the spelling out of the four C's communication collaboration creativity and critical thinking which was recommended during your work session earlier today this final draft also includes the addition of goals aims to the Mission Vision core values and strategic priorities that you approved last fall this plan focuses on the Excellence in equity for all Wake County Public School System students staff and learning communities chairman haffey Vice chair Hagerty and steam board members this evening we ask for your approval of the Wake County Public School System strategic plan thank you Dr Robinson is there a motion to approve the Wake County strategic plan so moved we have a motion for Miss Waters a second from Mr

119Swanson is there any comments or discussion at this time questions Miss Edmonds I just want to thank you and your staff all the staff involved as we workshopped this and met about it over many months including the previous board before you know this board were sworn in late last year so thank you it's been a ton of time and thoughtful input and it's appreciated thank you thank you Mr Hagerty thank you chair Mahaffey um I want to say how pleased and satisfied I am with this product that's being presented today I know that it's taken months of hard work by a team of people working in many different disciplines to pull this together but what you know not that anyone gets emotional about a strategic plan right but I will tell you one of the

120things that as we do this work where board members I know run into frustration is when they feel they're not making an impact or they feel that they're not being heard and as I look at this document I can see very specific contributions from all of my colleagues around the table I know that not everybody got every change that they were looking for but I see very specific comments as I look through here I see the change from recruit hire and retain diverse instructional staff to add non-instructional which is a priority I see including develop because it's not just hiring a diverse staff but providing opportunities for advancement and promotion as you know I've been harping on sustainability since the beginning of this process I'm glad to see that included but it's good to see

121comments that my colleagues have made around the table in the different work groups all submitted into this so I want to thank you on behalf of the board and I want to thank all of my colleagues for all the work it's taken to read through all of this material consider it thoughtfully and provide your feedback into a vision for the district going forward so thank you thank you swatters I don't know what I could add to Vice chair haggerty's comments or Miss Edmonds but I do Echo the great sense of appreciation for the thoughtfulness of all involved in your leadership to get this document that I feel will really help us to operationalize so many things that are important and I appreciate being able to see its impact in its ability to create great outcomes

122for all of our students and so thank you for that work and thank you for your leadership I think I spoke to this at the end of work session but absolutely I echo my colleague sentiments thank you for your leadership also it's hard to ensure that you're meeting and making sure every board member is heard and so I I just Echo those sentiments that um sometimes that meant you had to call some of us multiple times and I appreciate that level of commitment and conveying that back to the team and always being very clear that there are multiple people in hands in this I thought we laid a great Foundation the last strategic plan and what we all the complained about was there were not clear measures that were able to be articulated back to

123the board so that we could actually follow along with the work that our staff and students were achieving and so I would say Ames is a word I had never used but I feel like you gave us the tools that no matter what happens at this board can use it as a real metrics for the growth and change in Wake County Public Schools and also accountability so thank you and everyone who touch that and also for all the people who took notes and heard the feedback so that it can be reflected in a document that I truly do agree with my chair Hagerty that feels reflective of each of our board members in our comments so thank you thank you Miss Caulfield on his second third and fourth all the thank yous I know that

124that was a lot of work that was long before some of the board members here um and for answering the very many questions that we all gave you over and over um I think it was really great for um maybe the public to even know that if they weren't paying attention in Prior meetings we actually did the breakout sessions and it is often very hard to have open conversation as we all have been pointing out like with all the meetings and agendas and everything I think that really led to a lot of good conversation and then seeing what was up on there on the board from the previous group to come in and it really just helped everybody kind of collaborate and put it all together into something that made sense so I couldn't imagine

125the work that it was on your end so thank you for that and I look forward to the how which is what we talked about you know knowing the how and what comes afterwards so this is the you know the first step of getting that all in place so thank you all that thank you further comments questions Dr Inc um Dr Robinson thank you so much for all that you have done and your whole all the crew that works with you um it's uh it is a daunting task to try to you know um put everything together all the all the ideas that we have come you know to you with and uh so I appreciate that I also appreciate the fact that you um you know you've listened to our concerns about making sure

126that our um population that have been not paid much attention is represented in this document so uh and especially with um you know reaching out to the community to get feedback I think that's going to be an important piece moving forward thank you and I know we're up here thinking Dr Robinson but I do want to make it clear that you had a whole team behind you doing yes and I know we have in here tonight you know Dr McMillan who made sure that our accountability measures that we're not creating anything new but we're using what we have I think that's very important to our staff and making sure that we're not giving additional work to them I'm sure Dr Alfred Keith yeah I mean yes the entire superintendent's leadership team and then the feedback

127loops that we had not just with board members but I believe there was reach out to teachers and other folks I mean there was a whole so superintendent teacher advisory Council support advisory councils everybody many hands many people yes and so I thank you on behalf of all of them yes so it wasn't me alone and as as I don't want to say difficult because this was good work and and productive work as it was the real work now begins with the approval of this and the accountability piece and I appreciate what we saw in the work session of how that accountability model begins starting I believe in October of this year so I just want to say you know we have this product and now it's going to go out and live and breathe

128and exist in our school district much like as Mrs Johnson hosler said our vision 2020 did with giving us the four c's and so just thank you to everybody who took the time to share an input and and participate in this process but there's going to be one more thing that we're going to bring back to you there's one more thing we have to get a name a name all right well name notwithstanding the uh new strategic plan will now entertain we have a motion in a second all those in favor of approval please say aye any opposed nay all right thank you Dr Robinson thank you we now go into our out of our academic advancement Department we have Drew cook and Miss Joanne Honeycutt I'm talking about our CTE advisor stipend which was

129referenced in the work session Miss Honeycutt thank you chairman happy board member superintendent Moore as I mentioned in the work session earlier today we are coming to you requesting action to increase the stipends that we pay to staff members who serve as advisors for our Career and Technical education student organizations affectionately called ctsos the Department of Public Instruction has allowed us to pay a stipend up to five hundred dollars until earlier this spring when they increased the amount to one thousand dollars they set the criteria our teachers have been well aware of that and have participated in the program to earn the stipend we would like to give them the benefit of the increased amount is there a motion to approve this advisor stipend increase all right we have a motion from Miss Edmonds the

130second from Miss Caulfield any comments questions all right I think we're ready yes do you got your hand up no okay I'm just making sure I didn't catch all right all those in favor please say aye any opposed name all right thank you Miss Honeycutt thank you we now move on to K-12 instructional supports summer learning weekly perfect attendance bonus with Dr Shanika Moore Lawrence senior director of K-12 instructional supports Dr Moore Lawrence welcome thank you um good evening for chair superintendent and board members I stand before you with a request for Action funded by PRC 176 the K-12 instructional support summer learning weekly perfect attendance attendance bonus serves as a recruitment and retention strategy for staff working one of the three summer learning programs coordinated by K-12 instructional supports those programs are awake we

131accelerate kids every day Verizon third graders navigating new environments for Rising fourth and fifth grade multilingual Learners and on the rise for Rising 6th and 9th graders this structure will provide a 200 per week bonus for all certified and instructional staff for a maximum of one thousand dollars for the full summer program this bonus structure acknowledges the five we time commitment of Staff the novelty of the programming and the allowance within the funding source of PRC 176 for the purpose of tracking the bonus tracking the bonus eligibility attendance structures will be utilized by each site administrator to Monitor and Report attendance are there any questions or comments all right is there a motion to approve the perfect attendance bonus at this time so moved second we have a motion for Miss Waters and a second

132from I think Miss Johnson Hustler um questions at this time for Dr Moore Lawrence right well we're very thankful to everyone that steps up to help administer these programs and help our students at this time all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay thank you very much thank you all right for those following along we are going into the consent agenda and we're going to start under facilities and look at meal prices for the 2023-2024 school year again this will be moved later this was moved from consent to action um and so we will have Miss Paula De Luca and Mr Mark Strickland presenting and again this is reflecting what we heard in the work session good evening board chair my happy superintendent Moore and members of the board today's work session Child

133Nutrition Services presented a recommendation for a meal price increase of 20 25 cents for paid meals for the coming school year and discussion followed to answer any questions or any other items related that you felt important to explore I am here tonight to request the board's approval to increase the meal price 25 cents for elementary school students from three dollars to 325 and middle and high school students from 325 to 350. your consideration is appreciated any welcome questions all right is there a motion to approve the meal prices for the 2023-2024 school year that is correct so all right is there a second all right we have a motion by Vice chair Hagerty a second from Dr Ing questions comments board members Mr Hershey uh can you go back over the is it cep the

134um the cep that was discussed explain it again and where we are in that process and how that impacts some of our schools and the cost overall I'd be happy too so the community eligibility provision also known as cep provides school systems the opportunity to provide free meals to all students in a school or in a group of schools that meet a percentage qualifier of enrollment the percentage qualifier is is a composite of students that have been directly certified for food stamps TANF or are categorically eligible as Foster students migrant homeless and Runaway when you achieve approximate 62.5 percent of your enrollment with students qualifying based on those categories we can then qualify the school as a community eligibility provision School in so doing we can claim all of the meals that we serve to

135students but that would be one one launch one breakfast per day per student for at the free reimbursement rate which is the highest rate of reimbursement that we can receive we also have the ability to qualify schools as low as 40 percent again meeting that set of qualifiers however if all of the schools that you select to participate in cep say there's some that are grouped at a hundred percent or I should say the 62.5 percent they would get reimbursed at the all free rate any individual school not part of that group or another group of schools you decide to group together that is less than 62.5 percent we would receive a partial reimbursement at that Higher free rate with the remaining meals reimbursed at the lowest rate which is the paid reimbursement rate it's

136about 30 to 35 cents per meal yeah if we were to move in that direction as the school Food Authority or Enterprise as you know Child Nutrition services to be we cannot absorb the additional cost to support the meals that don't qualify at that Higher free rate so there would need to be a fun Source provided to Child Nutrition services to offset that cost at this at this time I know that we have a group of schools that we can qualify at the 100 percent reimbursement it's taken us some time to get here currently we have seven schools on cep this is our first year participating once a school or group of schools is on cep they can receive they can receive the free meals for four years based on that qualifying status as a

137school or group and then at the end of four years we can enter into a fifth year grace period by petitioning the Department of Public Instruction for the additional year during which time we would try to encourage families to apply for food stamps or TANF to elevate the percent that qualify which hopefully would then further qualify the school in that next stage when you say we would need funding a new fund source how much are you talking about it would depend on the schools and I believe we we're going to have a cep presentation coming so we do well I got it sort of what I'm getting it is and I'll just ask this question is this something that we need to vote on tonight um or is it something that can be delayed when

138we get that presentation I don't know if it impacts the cost or the or anything in this program so I'm just curious about the timing of this that let me just see what I understand what he's asking the question that he's asking is would the potential to identify more cep schools negate or change the recommendation of needing to increase meal prices by 25 cents for lunch at Elementary Midland High School in order to cover Revenue the revenue need I would have to say the answer to that is no and it's for this very reason the schools that qualify for cep have a large percentage of students that already would be receiving a free meal and we're all barely being reimbursed at that high rate so if you consider that what I would be looking at

139now is 15 schools possibly if we if we can make that happen that leaves almost 185 schools yet to still have some type of support on the paid meal so my Just One Last my only my only concern is as we talked about in the work session are the students and families that don't quite qualify and I would um appreciate it if we would take the lead as a as a county and look at ways to help those families that are in estimate some percentage or pick some percentage that don't qualify so we aren't putting it the cost on them and the families that can't afford it you know if we find local dollars for them and the families that can't afford it that are able to afford it um they will help us and

140what and achieve the income that we need but I I feel very strongly that we've got to do something in that gray area with families to not put it on on them that don't qualify see if there's a business case for next year's budget to look at something like that as well yeah Miss Waters I appreciate it I'm Mr Hershey's advocacy and speaking for members of our community who are going to be impacted and who are already facing economic challenges there tends to be a disparate path on certain communities and so it's never um an easy decision when we try to balance our students needs and the realities of the different places that they come to us from with business needs but I always wanting to do what is best for the children in our

141building and understanding that children face hunger in this country and that's the reality that we live with Waters Miss Caulfield just wanted to clarify from our work session earlier is the need for the the extra money that we're asking for in the lunch funds that's 6 million and 3.8 million correct is that from if I'm reading that right is that is that our ass like this it says the supply chain assistance is six million we ask them for six million more no that's just how much we normally need we started out with the print approximate 6.7 million dollar shortfall and to offset that we've tried to come up with some creative ways of addressing it for the coming year so we are carrying over 3.1 million of the supply chain assistance funds which provides a

142net result of what 3.6 million and then we've also taken some other steps we've reduced some school-based positions that were vacant holding that over that will provide some benefit for us and you know the the net result of the meal price increases actually eight hundred thousand so it's it's significant for us because even that does not do enough to get us to the break even in order to get to a break even we will have to DAP into our net excess funds in order to shore up our potential losses again this is all based on a projected budget as I mentioned earlier I can't predict um how many meals were so will serve and um any shifts that could occur in supply chain on cost increases and I I know you spoke earlier about the

143Enterprise funds but um can we also get this from local funds to to supplement what we need and the increases that we're seeing rather than impact the families I'm just concerned because there are families out there that are working two jobs two parents and every little bit counts so it may seem like a little bit but I feel like it's the little guy who keeps getting kind of the brunt of it and I'm just wondering is it is that some place that we can pull from local or is that absolutely let me answer that so um so just to just to recap it's a 6.7 million dollar shortfall minimum it'll probably be more 3.1 million is coming from some funds that are able to carry over there's a reduction of school-based positions that has occurred

144to take a portion of that there is revenue that is anticipated from the 25 lunch price increase that revenue is a little shy of a million dollars that's what that represents and then there are some additional funds that are available that will need to be tapped into knowing that that likely doesn't cover it the district will have to find funds to support whatever that shortfall is because they've got to zero out so to speak and they're not allowed to run a deficit and um so the short answer is yes we can find local funds to do it at the expense of something else and and that's that will be something that staff will look into and bring back to the board as part of a potentially either the final budget resolution or the time when

145the funds are needed for CNS Mr Hagerty and then Mr Swanson and then Dr Ing thanks Kathy and I guess that last Point gets to a question that's come up with our budget and as a talk to County Commissioners you know they ask we talk about a living wage and supporting all of our workers and predominantly you know our our bus drivers but our Child Nutrition workers are among some of our lowest paid employees and they ask sometimes about full funding of the budget and what that would mean and they bring up the point if our CNS workers are paid for just out of these Enterprise funds how can funding the budget the local budget help us and this is one of those examples where if we were to receive the full ask I think

146some of those dollars in that pot would ultimately go to this shortfall if that's correct or no I think we have more options is is the answer is you know fully funding the superintendent and now board's proposed budget allows the reconciliation when it happens on the other end of what the legislature does to have more options for how to do that um less than our ask or not raising meal prices both of those require that the staff go back to look at the requests that are on the table and figure out where to make reductions and and you know reminder that um over 50 percent of the the budget request is squarely tied to salary and compensation more than that if you look at benefits as well that are required and and and I think

147as I said in my summary earlier uh the revenue shortfall that's being made up including the 25 cents is offsetting costs for supporting increased salaries for all CNS workers and the fact that resources supplies Etc have gone up as well thank you superintendent Moore Mr needer and if I could just clarify to you um and now the boards propose budget the funding that superintendent Moore just spoke to for increase in compensation does not include compensation for Grant funded employees other federally funded employees or enterprise-funded employees that's not within the 56 point thank you Mr kneader so I guess we're this leaves me as we as we talk about this issue is you know I am concerned about our CNS workers and the wages that they're paid and the wages that we can pay them and

148even though we also you know we have the competing needs of the families because of this crazy system that we have that the pay has to come through the revenues that come from your office Mr Luca I know that limits our options so that's really why I put forward the motion for the increase because I think we have to get to 17 to 18 I think we have to get to a higher wage than even what is proposed but I know that we can't do this yet without this step and I guess my direction and and what I would ask the board to consider is just like Mr Hershey had brought up some other streams are there other sources of revenue within the Enterprise program that we can just aggressively market and tap when you

149mention revenue from snacks revenue from catering and I think about our athletic events I think about school social events PTA meetings BAC meetings how many parents that are out there families that might be buying supplies booster clubs that might be buying outside of your office if any of those sales could be directed and then somehow just increase that pool of money so it's not falling just on student meals to cover this I just like you to investigate that as an option thank you all right Dr Ing um yeah I you know I mentioned about the butterfly effect you know this is unfortunately one of those situations where it is a you know Downstream uh effects on our society and um and I I tend to agree you know with Mr hegerty I mean you know

150we have to make hard decisions and the knowing that the funds to fund the salaries of CNS comes from this uh or partly from this that we you know we this is one piece of the solution to help increasing the salary and I just remember I had to remember the you know a few weeks ago when um those um members from the CNS came to speak to us I mean it was it was heart-wrenching to hear their stories and you know my I can't get it out of my head so what do we do about it we have to do something so thanks superintendent Moore I think we heard um some agreement amongst board members to pursue additional revenue streams for future budgets and I know um your tenure here is almost at a close

151but at the same time you know we don't direct your staff what to do that's that's your purview so um I think that that we can do that and I think we can all attest to the um the catering skills of wcpss culinary and certainly it's affordability so um I would just say that they are there are there are things that I think we could look at for um for um securing additional Revenue it remains to be seen what the impact of those efforts are right so we still end up at a point at the end of the next school year where we have to reconcile so we'll we'll have to do that no matter what sort of a decision we the board makes this evening um but that to me that does sound like

152a future presentation in terms of options that are on the table and I can think of some right now but I won't say them out loud because if people have a hard attack um yeah I do all right I mean I'll share my thoughts on some of those items but but you know some of it also requires I think that our our schools are our greatest Partners in this work as well um and so how we leverage the relationship we have with 198 schools is going to be really important but we've got we've got to think about the capacity of what we have in our currency and as staff as well so there's there's just a lot of moving parts to answering a question of how we might generate additional Revenue but we are I

153think we're more than happy to look into that and see what options are before us and I hate to talk about future budgets well where you still have to reconcile the current one but um I do know and and not our friends at the County Commission have a strong interest in food security and a huge part of that is the nutrition and food security of the children that are in our schools each and every day so I think a future business case may be warranted for those revenue streams Mr Hershey just last thing when people kind of talk about and we we hear board comments about it what is full funding look like full funding looks like free breakfast and lunch for all of our students just to be clear part of it is the

154small plug in case anybody with pull in Congress is listening we would love to have that back for all of our students that was a huge game changer for so many of them at this time are there any additional comments questions or concerns from board members yes and I apologize y'all because I don't mean to drag it out but there is one other thing that did bother me that I do want to say if we are looking to fund these positions it really and I know it's necessity but the idea of having to eliminate positions to reconcile it just ought not to be the the favor the the favorite option because when you eliminate positions you're putting the same amount of work on fewer people to do it and that means what's already hard work

155becomes even harder when it's spread over fewer people and I know sometimes these choices are forced upon us and they're not what you would like to do but I think that's just even more reason why we need to look to see what we can do to help this program Miss Johnson Hustler comment on that but but now I will so so I think the thing that I was going to say I'll say what was in my head first which is I know it's hard for human behavior to think past a dichotomy we all I mean our inclination is black white left right one or the other I don't generally you all know I live in the both end I don't generally accept that you can't do both it is just an acknowledgment that it will

156be difficult to do both um and so I I guess I my personal perspective is I don't think I'm at a place where I'm like oh well we're going to be laying off all these CNS workers if we don't increase this 25 cents because then one time we're like well it's 25 at the same time we're like we're going to be laying off staff and we we heard the CNS workers they those stories are true and stuck with us but we also are very clear that they're understaffed that one person is covering three schools I so you're gonna layoff staff and nobody's covering the schools so I think for me this just brings up a whole lot of unanswered questions and I know nothing we do is simple and you all heard me say this

157is not again squarely in the lap of our board um and to miss my happy Point she knows that I've talked to our members of Congress about the need to address this and for a very long time it's a platform of mine because it doesn't fit anything that's real in our world and it just challenges boards and communities again who have some resources to to do the impossible and while we tend to believe it's impossible it feels Herculean and it is but my vote to not raise it is it a vote to lay off staff it is a vote of confidence that sorry Mr needer that yes I believe we can have larger conversations and push the envelope about where we are now and so I just want to acknowledge to Mr Luca who I've

158worked closely with and respect the work that you've done and the multiple ways that you've tried trust me I I know of anybody else does at this table to be creative to support our students and family so I also want to hear people say this offered to increase isn't also about you or your office actually choosing one or the other either so I just think it's important to note that I don't believe that's what you're saying and it's certainly not what I'm saying with my vote if if I may um I just have a point of clarification we are not laying off staff what we are doing is we are eliminating vacant positions to get us down to effectively a net zero rate of vacancy for that clarification Mr Luca and I I just want

159to say in a Mr I'm going to call on Mr Swanson next this is the conversation that happens and it may look like we're grilling Ms DeLuca but really it's that time where we can you know convene and talk on this topic even though we just had it in the work session with our board members and think out loud and um Point staff in in other directions as well as we as we do come to a vote Mr Swanson thank you for the work that you do every day in your staff to ensure that our students have a full stomach I know firsthand as a former teacher that students can't learn if they can't eat and Ms Johnson thank you for helping me articulate my words I've been very quiet on this issue because I

160I understand and I get this about the end but oftentimes we know that those who who have can and those who cannot suffer um and that's what I feel like in this particular case like although a 25 increase may not be major to us but to some families it's it's the choice between light bill it's a choice between a gas so I get it and I understand and I I I want to thank the chair for pulling this from consent and thank you for acknowledging that because I I struggle for this all week and trying to figure out what are some options that I want to thank Mr Strickland for calling me about this a little bit more to give me some more insight but I still cannot with a good conscience vote to increase

161this knowing that it's going to affect some families who are already making barely surviving and we have to do better and if we really want to say that we are fully you know supporting students we had to put our dollar amount this and we are doing that and when I say they I mean those who have more decision making power than we do um they have got to step up and we have got to have a partnership instead of us being on opposite sides because at the end of the day our students suffer and at the end of the day workers suffer and so thank you and I my vote is not a vote against against your work and your staff it's just continuing the conversation so thank you if if I may if it's

162okay um just to provide a comment it's not our first choice to to bring a meal price increase forward it's a force choice and that's a result of how the structures um are delivered to us from the federal government thank you for your understanding Ms Edmonds so by my account we have three people that have vocalized that they're not going to support the increase what does it look like if we don't support it what happens next but I I don't I think the superintendent articulated that it would just be that additional funding and please correct me if I'm wrong at the end that supplements the loss so I think I think I think there's a short game and a long game right and and um in in the short term there is an amount that

163is represented in Revenue by the 25 increase that will have to be covered in addition to what we project to be a deficit that goes beyond the 25 cent increase um if you're playing the law that's that's the short game for me the longer game really is about all the other dollars also that are no longer going to be available that make the difference in requesting a local funding increase for example if we were to build that out as a budget case for next year quite substantial um and but I don't but the amount that it would take to raise prices in order to break even in the absence of other revenues is quite substantial also and so um there are there are not great choices before us with this and uh maybe answer with

164more dollars and cents add um just a little bit not necessarily with dollars but as you've heard us talk about the budget reconciliation process step back from the meal price for just a moment come right back to it um we need to wait and see what the County Commissioners finalize and agree on as it relates to the final counting appropriation for next year whether it is equal to the board's request more than or less than we need to wait and see what the state legislature does with their budget and other legislation that can have budgetary implications even though it's not budget legislation good example of that would be the class four class five or grade four and grade 5 class size for which if that passes we would require additional teachers without additional funding for

165those teachers all those things have to come together into a budget reconciliation and usually at the end of the day we can't do all the things we intended to do if the board were not to move forward in supporting this 25 per meal increase that would put another million dollars on the table that would be part of the reconciliation process of things that funding that we need to identify that we don't have and um I just the question before us is whether or not we're going to support this 25 cent increase it's not who is in favor of of doing that who who likes increasing the meal cost do you see what I'm saying I don't like at all the implication that anybody up here any not anyone none of us wants to increase meal

166prices for families I don't think that was the implication I think we all struggle with this and I think we heard that but um and so I just need to know in the immediate you know weeks to come not a year from now in next year's budget proposal what does that mean more immediately thank you um I think I think already you reconcile at the end of the year right that is correct and you cannot run a deficit that is correct so at the end of this year if they're running a deficit we have to figure out a way to cover it at the end of next year if they're running a deficit we have to figure out how to cover it and and we can't use federal dollars for that we have to use

167local dollars I think for that so um in the show it it doesn't look any different in a school or to students or to families um but but there is a Reconciliation that has to happen um at at the end of the fiscal year and as we heard in the work session any Community Partners that want to donate to that definition so it can reach out and we would greatly appreciate it um at this time are there any more board comments or questions all right hearing none um all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed nay all right and if we could call out um just individually for the record um to share your vote and again this is a vote for is not a vote in belief that this is a wonderful

168thing it is just uh it is what it is no one likes doing this part so I'm going to call out individual board members names just because we can have it for the record Mr Hershey aye Dr Ing aye Ms Edmonds aye Ms Waters hey Vice chair Hagerty um Jonathan's also taking notes Mr Swanson no Miss Caulfield nay I have a vote of I so the motion carries but with direction to staff that we would like to see something come forward um thank you Mr Luca and thank you board members for a robust discussion thanks for your time next we go through policy and we go to policy 3200 again this is currently listed under consent agenda but was pulled to action and this is board policy 3200 selection of instructional reading instructional materials for

169second reading um and everybody's here so thank you uh Mr cook good evening chair Mahaffey superintendent more board members staff is presenting board policy 3200 selection of instructional materials for second read and seeking board approval uh we're happy at this time to respond to any questions or hear a board feedback either for it to approve or 3200 I know there were multiple comments made during the agenda approval thank you Mr Hershey we have a motion to approve board policy 3200 is there a second thank you Mr Swanson all right questions comments concerns at this time Miss Caufield I just really like us to like I said before earlier um I got a lot of feedback from teachers even people who are not in my district that did not really care for the way it was

170worded they felt that if we made more of a statement in our policy it kind of eliminated them having to answer to certain things like that and it's really more about the language that's in 3200 not just not necessarily did not have 3200 so Ms Caulfield could you provide some specificity to the language that you're speaking of so that we know what you're talking about so specifically said to me was pervasively vulgar and the uh the other one I think that was the word that was that was mostly opposed was the pervasively vulgar that's and is there a suggestion for replacement the only replacement words that I heard from people were to to explain it more instead of pervasively vulgar they were saying was very vague so either to be specific with what we mean

171by that or to change into words that involve obscene or certain words like that where it would be more descriptive okay and is that your suggestion yeah I don't have a problem with that okay Mr blumberg can you explain we talked um in the policy about pervasively vulgar and the vagueness of it um can you speak more to the why and sure I'd like to um where it comes from um so pervasively vulgar initially came from the leading Supreme Court decision regarding sort of a book challenge it's the Pico case and both the parties in the in the case agreed that a school board would have the authority to be able to remove an item a material that was pervasively vulgar so this language comes directly out of this the United States Supreme Court that

172language was then incorporated into North Carolina statute so North Carolina law specifically lists grounds on which a school system a school board which is the ultimately ultimate Authority on book challenges can decide whether to remove a material it's educationally unsuitable it's inappropriate for the maturity of particular students and pervasively vulgar and so that's where the language comes from there is not a North Carolina Supreme Court or federal case that covers our area that specifically defines it but that said the district has been through book challenges where the language has been applied by school committees by a central office committee and by the board in in applying that to be able to make decisions on whether to remove materials or not this particular policy 3200 really goes to book selection and it's taking that same standard

173that would be used in a book Challenge and asking staff When selecting materials to use that same lens about whether you know the the material passes that that sort of test and if it is pervasively well within the ideas that book wouldn't be selected wouldn't be added to the materials to start with so that's sort of the where you know the origin you know where it originated that language why it is you know in suggested to be in policy so that you hug the North Carolina law that comes from the United States Supreme Court there are terms that are challenging to Define I would add that to move to obscenity that's a very different standard that's the criminal law standard for if if some if there is material like at a video Place uh that

174is that is obscene that's a different in fact a higher standard and it would involve then potential criminal Behavior so this is the language that's used specifically for book challenges that the North Carolina general assembly and the United States Supreme Court have used so that's where it comes from thank you Mr Bloomberg so um I appreciate that thank you um and I understand what you're saying I think the conversation about 3200 also kind of we know that 3210 is following right behind it and how you implement it and I think the fact that it was brought to the table that we would limit people being able to and this was also not consistent across Wake County as we did discuss that it would be by school so if we're going to limit them to a

175two-year after some committee has reviewed it I think having the language of what is acceptable and not I mean we're talking about this policy because there are a lot of people that are coming forward that are talking about it I mean I'm assuming that this is why it came to policy in the first policy Committee in the first place so there's a lot of people have been talking about it for a couple of years now this is not something that just came up so my recommendation or what I was hoping for is that we would have a policy that was a little bit more specific in things that were acceptable and not acceptable to Wake County I do understand we need to follow along with the state law and everything but I would hope that

176we would have a little bit more description as to what is acceptable and what's not I mean we even heard from some people today how you know it's not acceptable in other places but it's acceptable in the school and I think that's important I think it matters and I I just don't think having something that vague is is really something that I'm okay with Mr Hagerty and then doctoring thank you chair Mahaffey so you know I am glad that we're having this discussion because even though we did have a very good and thorough discussion in policy there are a lot of questions and Mr Bloomberg has Revisited some of the discussion about pervasively vulgar but I would say that I do think it is a vague term and it does not provide a lot of

177specificity and I actually do favor changing the language um and I'll talk about that more in a minute but I think one thing that we all and I think most of us here at the table recognize but I think it's some of the community discussion that doesn't get recognized is that there's not some commonly held consensus as to what is appropriate and so when I see some of these emails that say pervasively vulgar is too vague a term you need to make it something more clear and then I was I was looking at my notes some of their languages sexually inappropriate or developmentally inappropriate we still don't know what inappropriate means just tonight we heard in public comment someone who said that what should the standard be I'll tell you what the standard should be

178anything if it were a movie if it was rated PG-13 or R should not be allowed in our schools and I mean come on y'all maybe you have a family that that's your family values and those aren't the movies you would go to but this would include and yeah I looked some of some of them Lord of the Rings which I think is a literary classic and I know that I really enjoyed reading when I was you know in when I was in school age Jurassic Park Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Star Wars the sequels not the original ones and maybe you can argue the sequels weren't very good but Harry Potter for God's sakes I mean these are some of the things that one family would say if they were PG-13 were not

179appropriate but I think many families and I don't pretend to know if it's the majority or not but that there would be many families that would think these are are not only appropriate they're important pieces of literature for youth so you know I can look at families that I have in my district that come from a very conservative religious culture maybe overseas where a bare leg is honestly considered you know inappropriate where it was scandalous to have a kiss in a movie on TV in their culture and for those families it's a sincerely held belief that that is inappropriate but I don't believe that's the majority belief and when we get to a situation where we have a policy like this where we're allowing one group of parents to determine what the children of other

180parents can read and again I know they can still get it at a bookstore get it somewhere else but we're talking about what's available in the schools and not everybody has their own Amazon accounts or can go and and get other books you know when we're talking about restricting access to these materials through the schools personally I would have had a different policy I would have had our Librarians our media coordinators using their skills come up with a rating system maybe to flag mature content and that way it could alert families as to potentially sensitive information let students make informed choices but that's not where we are we're here where we're talking about restricting material restricting access to material in the school so I do think if we can't agree what developmentally appropriate means are

181sexually appropriate means and I think there's legitimate disagreement in the community about that I think you do need a more strict definition and standard and so to go back to where we've had cases legal cases about obscenity and inappropriate materials it does come back to that definition of obscenity and it's a strict definition but I think the reason legally we have that definition is because it's so hard to come up with agreement about what is and isn't appropriate so I don't know if it would address your concerns Miss Caulfield or other community concerns but I would be in favor of replacing the pervasively vulgar language with language as opposed to not persuasively vulgar with not be obscene as defined by law because I think there we do have a clear and adjudicated legal standing that

182we can fall back on existing case law we can fall back on court cases we can fall back with how law enforcement has administered in the community and it might not be a sharp clear line but I think it's the clearest line we're going to get so I'd just like to offer those comments also and oh I'm sorry did somebody else go ahead um I I think the biggest problem is not so much because I I have heard from people on both sides it's not so much about not representing different communities I think it's more the sexual material some of the stuff that was put up here and read in front of us I don't know about you all but it made me very uncomfortable and no I would not sit down with Grandma and

183read that I did not think that that was good content I mean somebody bending him over or I thought it was a girl actually but whatever but and what they were doing sexual acts performing it how to do it correctly I mean some of the verbiage that's in there yes a rating system would be much better because then you would at least know what the content is but I don't know what that educational material is providing I mean you're talking about sexual positions you're talking about how to perform sexual acts this is not educational material and the more I start diving into these books the more I see what people are really complaining about when I was running for for this campaign I did not talk about the books at all I did not talk

184to people about it I said we are here for Reading Writing my tick I want to stick to the educational material the books that we're hearing about that people are getting upset about this is not about lgtb when we were talking about when that man stood up here and read that book I thought it for two weeks until somebody told me that he was talking about a girl and a guy relationship it has nothing to do with lgtb at all it has to do with the sexual material and I don't think that it belongs in this school so I feel that we really need to have language to say when these things come up in the classroom for read aloud or for whatever I mean if people were arguing about the read aloud I think

185that was the other part of what I was trying to remember with the read aloud a teacher in an educational environment should know what they're about to read to the class they should know that there is a purpose in what it is that they're reading they are not randomly finding that book in their classroom it didn't magically appear through the book fairy it came there with purpose they know what they're reading and I don't think that there is a problem with a teacher knowing what it is that they're reading and why and what purpose it has in the classroom the kids are here to be educated and one more comment if I could when we talk about how you're taking your your parenting other people's children I feel that's exactly what we are doing is

186parenting somebody's children when you're putting the material in front of them you're taking somebody into a candy store and saying don't look at the candy I mean obviously these are kids they're impressionable we had the teacher of the year who or or one of the runner-ups said you know our teachers our kids are sponges right now we know that that's why we're feeding them with all this information I'm just asking to be more mindful of what we're feeding them that's all Dr Eng and Mr Swanson so um I appreciate the this discussion and um you know you know where I come from you know where I you know the you know I I'm a very [Music] um faithful person and you know I I believe that there is a certain standard that there is a

187there is a standard that I live by and I expect the standard for my children to live by and you know if if I were to have a uh you know a child be able to access that you know this kind of material that is that they're not ready for um I have to answer not to my wife I have to answer to higher power um and you know I in in good conscience I cannot allow this to be accessible um in a when it's not appropriate for their school for their age group and so you know when you talk about the Supreme Court you know the that classic phrase and I know it when I see it okay ultimately that's kind of a subjective um type of a phrase and and um and I

188I tend to agree I mean you know we need to to better Define what we are talking about you know in in our language in this policy even if we have to change the wording even if we have to refer to laws that are in the books I think that is necessary so that if anybody were to challenge it there is something that they can go to it's not that you know we are trying to um [Music] make it difficult for them you know they need to know where where we are you know what language we are coming from what what what dictionary we're using um and and I think I I tend to agree with Mr Haggerty you know if if there is some kind of a rating system that is uh available for

189our libraries that that the children would you know be able to be protected from some of these material that they're not ready for and um so you know I I would um you know be happy to see something like that in our in our schools thank you Mr cook for the work that you've done and Dr crane your work in the folks who you know put a lot of energy into this and y'all are going to get tired of me saying this but I'm going to keep saying it as a former teacher for the district the learning takes place in plc's you know when I was thinking about initiatives or pieces that I was going to bring towards my students those conversations took place in our professional learning teams which took place on Wednesdays after

190school where teachers were not co-taught an English class so this is great so I can actually engage in this because we took we took all this into consideration we bounced ideas off of off of our colleagues at the time to say what worked in this class what is something that we should look out so this notion that teachers are just presenting information without doing that homework it's a flat out lie I'm trying to think of a better word to use but I'm just going to tell the truth tonight um because I had to have to answer to a higher power and so I think for me there's other issues that we should be dealing with and the word that comes that I've been thinking about this this weekend is is choice we all have a

191choice I visit libraries all the time I look through and there's things there that I may not read but that's my choice there's pieces that some friends you know my colleagues May read that I may not like that's their choice but I think this whole notion of us restricting because that's really what it comes down to is restricting who gets to have access to and who does not it's a problem for me um and so I I think that whatever language we put forth and whatever substitute we make we're not going to satisfy everyone because there's going to be ways that folks going to try to figure out a way to challenge certain aspects so for me I'm satisfied with the worth I'll support the the recommendations that my colleagues have made but either way

192I think this is this is a a further ish a driving it's I'm struggling with my words here because it's our teachers are trained professionals I think it's time that we treat them as those trained professionals who are massive who have their Advanced degrees our Librarians our our trained professionals who have master's degree they understand the content so I just want to go on record by saying that I'll support the policy so thank you for your your work and I I think this is a thank you Mr Hershey thank you um so I would not be in favor of changing the language without knowing what the consequences were to that I don't have a problem with some kind of rating system for books that have something in it that's that can be on the table

193but let me be clear about a couple of things one and these this was brought up tonight and in other places this policy has no impact on people's First Amendment rights they can come up here and complain or speak to let me take the word complaint back or speak to what they don't like about these books so that's totally off the board when you when you have a two-year potential two-year uh ban so to speak on complaining on challenging a book the other aspect that is getting lost in this conversation is that parents can have conversations with their kids about different books what books they can choose and then it is up to the kid to listen to their parents and I really object to this idea that if this is a book right here

194that we're going to take it away because you can't tell your kid not to check that book out and whereas my kid might want to go check that book out and read it because I have given permission so at some point we have to put this on parents to have conversations with their kids about what they are allowed to read and if the kids go do it that is not anyone's fault on this board or a lot or who works in a school if parents want to accept responsibility for their kids and the choices their kids make then that's on the parents but have those conversations with your kids if you don't like a particular book tell them why tell them what you don't want them to go read but this idea that we are

195going to just you know get rid of these books because some people have a a small a very let's be clear this is a very small percentage of people that have problems with some of these books and I respect that they share their opinion here that is great that is part of the process and if we have a rating system for some of them that's fine but this idea that we're going to get rid of them now Miss Johnson Hustler thank you uh I should have uh just yielded uh to Mr Hershey um so so here's I will add to it in this way and I Echo your sentiments um this this policy isn't saying to us we're going to say yes read any read aloud material in a classroom right we've we've certainly heard

196the feedback we certainly the next policy is putting in place dealing with if said books that we've heard or read in a classroom that we're putting in place so people actually can say I have an issue with this book and here's why so so I guess for me I also think it's important to disaggregate what's happening I don't disagree that parents should have a choice of what their child hears however I'd be remiss if I didn't speak into and I've sat here literally for two years and a little more than that and let people talk about anti-sexual violence and what it means and what I will say to you is I've spent 28 years of my career working with people who were sexually assaulted 28 years not one Survivor can speak for another Survivor so

197let me dispel that first what one person feels is important and validates or invalidates them is personal I can tell you research is very clear that we know that when young people have sexual trauma histories often desire and engage in consensual sex and say they want and need sexual health information to support them having healthy consensual sex because that right has been taken away from them so I'm happy to share all the resources where we help parents talk to their students who do need access to materials for their health and well-being to keep them safe the data also supports that we know that when young people are getting unhealthy messages from social media porn TV Etc they are deeply inaccurate harmful and reinforced violent oppressive social norms about sex and relationships I think we can't

198keep young people from those things but I do believe that it's important to note that the data that students who have access to accurate and appropriate and I don't disagree with appropriate versus inappropriate material actually wait and delay having sex because they have the information necessary to make the decisions as parents we believe we can tell our kids exactly what to do and we almost all of us do tell them what to do we all we also know that at some point they're going to make this is based on peer pressure their own curiosity or just the fact that they saw it somewhere else all of those things are real and I believe that we have choice I believe that is important we talk about what is and not heard in our classrooms but that

199is also distinctly a different conversation for me than what's available for students we also talk about in my world that students needs mirrors Windows which is allow them to reflect themselves for me that's just not about lgbtq it's about they need to be able to see that it is there's nothing wrong with them they are not vile human beings they can still operate in the ways and principles that their families have raised them in and still be curious one because our frontal lobes are developed two that's when it's our responsibility to guide that and what our role is here is to not to make those decisions on how parents parent or what we what we believe individually what our students should have access to as personal parents because we all have that right and I

200wouldn't take that right from any of us as a parent well we do have a responsibility to do is to put in policy how to respond to what we've heard now we may not agree with the language we can have that conversation we can certainly explore a rating system but I do believe that we have to have language that puts into policy how supplemental material will be chosen I certainly agree with most of the language that we have that doesn't rip or strip a teacher of the right to read a book because I'm not a teacher but I'm certainly hoping if we're discussing supplemental material that I have read the material that I'm talking to my PLC or my PLT about so for me I was not going to stand here and dispel all the

201things that have been in the that we've heard here but it's really difficult and I say to I just said to Mr Vice chair Hagerty earlier that I live my life by the principle of everything you say to me is personal but I don't take it personally right so there's no personal affront in what we believe and we both can still be devout Christians and have very different beliefs which I do and am but I also believe that it is our job to govern here recognizing we are governing how we introduce material into our class we are governing a process to remove remove material right because again that is a necessary thing for us to discuss because we didn't have and we had not articulated how to remove materials that we don't think is appropriate

202for our schools so I'm not disagreeing and I take um the privilege to say Mr Happy chairman happy I'd like to bring this back to policy because I do and I said this last time I do want people to do their homework and I want them to articulate to us what they want to see in policy what changes there are as my chair Hagerty made some recommendations and be very clear that this is about governance and not about our personal opinions because I got lots of them but this is about governance and how we ensure that our schools have a process to review materials and remove materials which we did not fully have those as vetted out and again thanks to all the staff for the work that you've done but our work has never

203been as I said to you all policy is organic we should not put pencil to paper and leave it so that is my request to you chairman happy that emotion well yeah superintendent is waiting to talk so I didn't make emotions superintendent is brilliant she may have a better option so I I do just want to make clear that if this goes back to policy staff needs specific Direction because we don't have it right now 100 agree Miss Edmonds thank you um there are things that I've heard at the podium the last many months because I was watching these meetings online before I got in this seat um and we have not heard any book in its entirety they've been excerpts and it's salacious and uh whatever word you want to use shocking whatever excerpts

204that we've heard there are families in this school district that would not be bothered of their children having access to those books and there are families too those are our students too those are our parents too and so it is not appropriate for me to decide what Cheryl you and your husband choose for your children or what is not appropriate for me to you know tell you what they should and shouldn't read and have access to I am not in favor of changing any of the language I believe that the I appreciate your comments that's exactly what I was going to say about the professionalism of our Educators and our school librarians Mr Swanson thank you for those comments because that was the point I was going to reiterate that I trust their professionalism and

205their expertise and I think that the in on page two number three C um that it it covers the teacher should first independently read the text as a whole before you know with regard to the read aloud um but thank you so um I do want to say that I support the policy as it exists right now we had a long talk I had a long talk with Miss Reed and Mr blumberg about some of the points around the vagueness of pervasively vulgar and what that means and when you look at a book in its entirety is does it persist throughout the book I'm hearing about a rating system and I the teacher and me kind of cringes because that that is still subjective and we have these principles governing you know the selection of

206the materials um Inc and how do we get school library materials and how do we um govern selection by teachers you know for read-alouds and none of that is done in a vacuum that is the rating system and you know I I recall when I was teaching and doing my student teaching we had literature circles and and very often the teacher would say the lead teacher would say and if you don't like any of these topics or if you find that you just need to put this book down come talk to me we will find something else for you and I just think we have multiple methods of accountability here and we heard in the board in the policy meeting that at any time a parent can decide for their child and we're not going

207to say no your child has to read this we want to honor what parents believe is best for their child but we also have to honor what our Educators believe has an educational relevance to their their classroom we're not going to have to Kill a Mockingbird in an elementary school um that would not be an appropriate selection of materials for a fifth grader but we're sure going to see it in a high school and I think you know we have multiple pieces of the literary canon and as things move in and out making sure that we can reflect those doors and windows that Miss Johnson hostler selected um no one book can be judged by a sentence within that book and that's why I support this policy as it stands and you know I'm welcome

208if we decide as a board that we want to go back to policy and continue to have this debate that's fine but I will say none of this is done in a vacuum these are Educators that are trained in pedagogy that are trained in child development that also take the time to honor parental choice and listen to parents if that book that is being selected for the class is not appropriate for one particular child in the class and so I just want to reiterate what was said in our in our policy meeting because we're having these discussions and you know the policies it stands nothing is done in a vacuum here this is all done with collaboration of educators of folks who have their masters in library science and um an understanding of Child Development

209and what is developmentally appropriate for children and again this is we're looking at a general not every specific child but again we heard that things can be tailored for individual children um and that's my opinion and my piece here I know there's further hands up so we'll go back around Dr Ing well I I do respect the the professionals who um are you know part of our our staff and I think that you know they are they are well versed on the you know educational relevance they're well versed on but you know what what these um you know different aspects of significance for for education all I'm asking is you know if there is a professional experience in in understanding these books spell it out spell it out is it educationally relevant is it you

210know is there a literary um uh um uh importance you know if there is some graphic content give us a warning if there is sexually explicit information um yeah let's let's inform let's give people the informed um uh decision you know ability to make an informed decision um you know there are resources out there already doing some things like that where they are rating it not just a a to f type of a you know grading system but it is looking at different aspects of of a book's relevance and so um you know I'm that's that's all I'm I'm looking for you know I'm looking at people want it you know parents have just as much of a input into this as as the professionals and you know I know that choice is important and

211I know that each each family would have a different um decision about what is what they what their child would uh be okay to read or not read um I respect that but I think that when when people who are not in the you know day in day out looking at books looking at Material it's very easy just to you know say Okay Johnny Sarah you know this is the book that you know you're reading okay have at it not knowing what what is in it and what the relevance what is the educational value of it and so um you know I let's consider that I would also like to clarify that the books that we've heard read aloud none of them have been a part of the classroom curriculum they've been on a shelf

212in a library um and Mr Hagerty I believe you had your hand up thank you um I did have one question for Mr blumberg and then I'd like to make a motion after hearing his answer if I could all right Mr Bloomberg we've talked about this issue and you've said it before in meetings but just to be clear for tonight when we talk about a legal definition of obscenity I believe you've identified maybe three prongs or three things that have to be satisfied that can help really give us a more objective definition than one that's more open and if you could if you're able to easily access it I wonder if you could share that definition because if it does provide us more guidance and something more specific I would have an amendment just to

213change the pervasively vulgar replace the pervasively vulgar language um happy to uh would want to just repeat that the the statute that's incorporated into this draft is the one that was specifically designed by the general assembly to address schools so that's why it has educationally unsuitable that's why it has language about inappropriate for the maturity level that's not what you generally see in the obscenity standard which is the criminal standard which also includes more language but also other terms that you would need to Define so the material depicts this is obscenity Criminal statute North Carolina the material depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct specifically defined by subsection C which we'll get to of this section and the average person applying contemporary Community standards relating to the depiction or description of sexual

214matters would find the material taken as a whole appeals to the puriant interest in sex and the average adult person applying you know that's it goes on states that again let me there is um that the material or performance lacks serious literary artistic political or scientific value um and let me see there's one other there's one other problem and they're ands on all this so to say that you would exclude the material it needs to be all of those protected or privileged under the Constitution yeah which would be another then term that would need to be defined so there are there would be multiple different terms including a temporary Community standards and so on and so forth that would need to be defined puriant and on and on so so I'm not saying it's a

215board call about what language you use my starting point my guidance on this is to is that that the language of the statute that's designed for schools is the one that's most suitable in this situation and turning to the obscenity standard it's a criminal standard yes there would be more case law on it that could help a definition but there it's loaded with a lot more additional definitions that would need to be applied and is that the standard then that would be used anytime a material is even selected so I I would leave it back to the board but yes okay thank you Mr Bloomberg and so I'll just I'll just end with this because that obscenity standard as defined by law has been litigated over many many years we have definitions for what prurient

216interest is we have definitions for community standard we have definitions for so many of these other bigger questions that I think could trouble us as we try to answer definitions of what is appropriate who says what is appropriate what does appropriate mean whereas this this law this definition the criminal definition sets these up and it has the caveats that I think are so important in it about is it educationally or culturally relevant does it have artistic merits so that under this definition we wouldn't have situations where someone was trying to ban Michelangelo's David or a book that might reference sex but maybe it's done in a very you know culturally appropriate you know whatever whatever way that's the standard way I just think here with the Crim with that line we have a clear line

217that I think is easier to follow will protect our works of literature and I I think I know I'm getting some some staff reaction or some other reaction but I think that's it I think the other language that Mr Bloomberg refers to while in the statute has not been litigated is not in case stolen is not clear and when we ask then policy to give clear examples we didn't have examples of these definitions yes so I struggle with this and and you know I don't pretend to be a lawyer even on TV but you know I guess the question and and Mr blumberg perhaps you can answer this has obscenity even been defined for selection of materials in schools because well there's case law I mean that's a whole different thing and and you know

218I I again I get that there's vagueness but it is hugging the statute for pervasively vulgar and I would much rather hug the statute that applies to the policy than craft new verbiage that doesn't and I I know we're in disagreement on this and that's fine but I I would rather stick with it where it is because I would have many many more questions about the case law defining obscenity for school materials Mr Swanson may I call for can I make a motion to close at the base so we can vote is that yes I was in the process of making a motion before the chair had spoken so and with all due respect I don't mean to interrupt well okay I I was in the process of making the motion there may not be

219enough support for the motion so if there's not I want to waste our time um I can't read the faces so I'll I'll I I I will pardon yeah so I'll I'll I'll I'll withdraw I'll withdraw my motion okay so Mr Swanson you're making a motion to call the question yes ma'am all right is there a second to that motion so it's the motion procedurally is is to call the previous question it's the motion is not in order until every member has had an opportunity to speak I believe everybody has had an opportunity to speak if you haven't but but it then since everybody I believe unless somebody objects to it has had an opportunity to speak then there can be a motion to call the question and if that's seconded and then approved then

220the board would vote on the underlying motion which is the motion to approve this policy on second reading as written so there's a motion to call the question um the motion is to call the question again this is not uh this is a motion to vote on the policy this is not the vote on the policy um is there any was there a second I'm sorry second there was a second thank you I'm sorry the motion was called by Mr Swanson and seconded by Miss Johnson Hustler I believe there's no discussion when the vote is called to question correct all right all those in favor of returning to and to vote on policy 3200 please say aye aye any opposed nay nay all right we have I believe seven eyes and two names yes okay

221all right the motion carries we now return to vote on policy 3200 selection of instructional materials um and so all those in favor of adopting policy 3200 a selection of instructional materials does it stand please say aye aye any opposed nay nay okay with two objections I believe that's Dr Ing and Miss Caulfield the motion carries and the policy is adopted we now move on to closed session thank you Mr cook thank you all right I will now consider take a motion to consider confidential Personnel information protected energy s143-318.11 A1 and A3 to consult with the Board of Education attorney and preserve attorney client privilege as provided in Gs 143-318.11a3 to consult with the Board of Education attorney and preserve attorney client privilege as provided in gs143-318.11a3 due to current litigation Ed versus Suite County

222Board of Education number 23 EDC 01341 and JM Thompson company versus Wake County Board of Education number 20-cbs that one zero one three three three nine Wake County Superior Court and to consider confidential student information protected under gs115c-402 in the family educational rights and Privacy Act 2020 USC 1232g we have a motion from Mr Hagerty a second by Ms Johnson hosler all those in favor of going into closed session please say aye any opposed nay we are now in closed session thank you