001foreign good evening everyone it is Tuesday April 25th at 5 34 p.m and we are going to call 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 to observe is the Board of Education conducts its official business 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
002persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance with General statute 143-318.17 all of our board members are here and present along with our superintendent and our board attorney if you all rise and join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance foreign thank you at this time I'm going to turn it over to superintendent Moore for her comments good evening congratulations to the staff students and families of Washington gifted and talented Magnet Elementary School which was named the top Magnet Elementary School in the country by magnet schools of America on Saturday in their award announcement magnet schools of America noted that Washington combines strong instructional practices in the core subjects with over 200 elective offerings that are designed to enrich and support while extending and enhancing The Core Curriculum Washington is noteworthy
003for finding and nurturing the gifts and talents of all students through a unique educational program that cares for the whole child since it first became an elementary school Magnet Elementary School in 1982 in elementary school in 1982. Washington has received numerous Awards including the Ronald P Simpson award as the best magnet school in America as one of our earliest magnet schools Washington has had a long tradition of recognizing and cultivating the gifts and talents of our District's youngest learners Washington continues to thrive as a school with a rich history a proud Legacy and a strong connection with their African-American alumni this award is yet awarded yet another reminder that our District's magnet programs Stand Out nationally and internationally as models of Excellence congratulations again to everyone in the Washington Magnet Elementary School community we recently
004had two staff members who received major recognitions from the North Carolina parent teacher Association Dr Shanika Moore Lawrence senior director of K-12 instructional supports has been elected president of the North Carolina PTA and Melody Brunson principal of Sycamore Creek Elementary was named the North Carolina PTA principal of the year Dr Moore Lawrence has served ncpta president-elect for the past two years and will serve as president through June 2025. she has been with wcpss in her current role since July 22 and was an elementary school principal in Durham public schools for 12 years before that began her career as a teacher at Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School Miss Brunson was awarded for the many ways she and her staff engage family and Community Partners For example the school regularly hosts campus beautification days as well as
005parent seminars focused on literacy principal Brunson says of the award behind every honored principle is a strong School Community with a PTA volunteers families and staff who are phenomenal congratulations to both of these outstanding Educators for earning these Statewide honors congratulations are also in order for Dr Maria Rosa Rangel director of family and Community engagement for earning the title of Hispanic Latina women of the Year from the Hispanic Latino ecosystem partners the partners are the General Consulate of Mexico General Consulate of Guatemala Small Business Center Durham Tech InStep and Neil mujeres Rangel participated in the Summa 2023 annual convention a day to celebrate Hispanic Latinas to connect them with resources in North Carolina and to promote promote Economic Development Career Development and social advancement Dr Rangel has served our families and communities Faithfully for many
006years I can think of no one more deserving of this recognition congratulations again finally I'd like to highlight the more than 400 100 wcpss Juniors and seniors who gathered at NC State's University mckimmon Center last week for the annual extreme Beginnings Career Development event this annual Symposium offers sessions on helping students be prepared for the workplace and explore a variety of career options representatives from more than 170 businesses non-profit organizations colleges universities and Military institutions were on hand to offer information resources and in some cases job opportunities students were able to attend four sessions College and Career Pathways practice interviews employment and personal branding our driving goal as a district is to prepare students for productive citizenship as well as a career or College events like this with strong support from business and Community Partners
007are just another example of the many opportunities that students are provided to sharpen their skills and that concludes my comments thank you so much I'd like to first thank all of our staff and community members that took the time to share their input on our superintendent search via the survey and other opportunities your feedback is valuable in this process and I'd like to highlight that this Friday at 3 pm we will have a special called board meeting to share the leadership profile compiled compiled from your feedback selecting a new superintendent is a task this board takes very seriously and yesterday our application window closed for the superintendent position I do want to share with the public that we have received 28 applications candidates come from 13 different states and territories and applications are being processed
008by the North Carolina School boards Association and will be released to the board we have a big task ahead of us reviewing applications and beginning to interview candidates this is a closed process but we will work thoughtfully and considerately as we weigh this decision to select the next leader of this district and I do want to take a moment to thank our board members and acknowledge the heavy lift this is on top of the regular work of the board and coming in especially as new board members it is a lot and I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that because I it's it's multiple fire hoses um last Monday I was excited to attend the 25th anniversary of Olive Chapel Elementary classes took time to decorate their doors and principal May invited past
009principals and assistant principals and staff to view the school and see a student parade in order to celebrate this event and it was great to see so many people who helped grow the school's culture and to celebrate it and it was especially great to see the founding principal Miss Jan Hargrove and our former principal of the Year Dr Ruth steidinger among other guests and many thanks to superintendent Moore for coming out to celebrate with us this past Thursday Fuquay-Varina high school held their pinning ceremony for their information Technology Academy the academy is welcoming 80 students this fall semester and students can choose one of two tracks they can choose to study python or computer science all students and their time in the program doing an internship and about 60 percent of those kids are also
010involved on the robotics team While others may be invested in GIS I would like to thank Miss Rhonda Lusher for working so hard to grow this program and to the parent board for their work alongside Miss Lusher and her team to continue to present different opportunities to our students last evening Miss Johnson hospler the superintendent and I were in person and I believe Mr Hagerty and Miss Caulfield were online to attend the open house for the Indian education program it was great to see so many people to hear more and to hear more about this program and how our students and families benefit from access to their culture and connecting with those that share their cultural identity and I'd like to thank Dr Ryan Emanuel and the parent team as well as Miss Becky foot
011and of course the ever wonderful Miss Gwen Locklear for all of her hard work in growing this program so that students can have this access and this Thursday wcpss will announce its teacher of the year and I just want to take some time to thank Our Community Partners who contribute to making this program so very special not just celebrating our 10 finalists but every teacher of the year from all of our schools are going to take time and be honored today on Thursday and I just think that's really special to highlight those Partnerships and the folks in this community that make this happen and those are my comments Mr Haggerty thank you chair Mahaffey so some staff had pointed out earlier that I'm I'm not wearing a tie and for returning board members you know
012why I'm not wearing a tie because it's playoff hockey season and there are no ties in playoff hockey I didn't bring the flag this time so y'all got off lucky um we are cheering on our hairline Carolina Hurricanes who are such a wonderful Community partner for our students and for Wake County Public Schools we really appreciate all they do in the community and we're really looking forward for a victory and moving on to round two um Ms Mahaffey chairman happy talked about the Indian education program and it was great to be there and to be a part of that I did participate remotely but we had a special off agenda item at the end of the meeting where we got to recognize all of the contributions and great work of Gwen Locklear who was the
013program coordinator for the Indian education program and has just put years and incredible efforts building and developing that program and I hope it's something that all of our board members will learn more about and look for opportunities to participate in because it really is a great service to students in our district um last thing I will say because I know we've got a busy agenda as I'm looking forward to our stand up and speak out presentations tonight and some of the good friends we'll be presenting with us and so that'll conclude my comments thank you Miss Johnson hosler thank you I will start where you ended which was our Indian education last night one of the things I and I've tried to attend all of these it truly is for our new board members one
014of another way that Wake County Public Schools provides great Support Services to communities that we often aren't aware and lifted up so I certainly recommend looking at the work that they do and you certainly are missing a tree because miss when Locklear has been here for with us for 20 years and she will be Gravely missed as you've heard my colleagues say one of the things I hadn't heard them to use before was the word consultation which I'm familiar with in my day job with tribal consultations which really means it's a it's usually intergovernmental conversations where you're building trust respect and share responsibility and so last night when they continued to use the work consultation I was a little confused until we got through the agenda and it really was a space for those of
015us in the room who are not members of any of our eight North Carolina tribes or federally recorded a nice tries to to hear the distinct differences into one note how many kids have a 506 form which is a form that's required that you are registered with and you have a tribal number but also it was helpful to hear that there are barriers to meeting that need and so for someone who spends their quite a bit of their time in DC doing public policy yet another place where we can lend our voice around Equity issues that directly relate to our state and our students here in Wake County because we are a state with a significant number of State tribes that are not federally recognized which just enhances the the barriers that are in place
016for those students and families but it is always great to hear from the students as some of you have gotten to experience that here in the boardroom but we also got to hear kind of the educational ways in which the Indian education program and Miss Gwen Locklear and her devout service to Wake County Public Schools so again thank you to miss Locklear who will be Gravely missed and for the folks who will as I always say when big when someone leaves big shoes they're generally multiple people end up filling those shoes but also thank you to the way County Public School staff who've supported Ms Locklear she also made very clear that she felt supported by the district so thank you to those who've supported the work of Miss lockler in the Indian education program
017lastly I promise my kids I would mention this um I went to Smith Elementary to their family engagement and literacy night and they had guest readers and their theme is a b a bumblebee so the whole thing was a mystery of finding the IB because they're IB and I see the magnet school people like yeah this is so much fun to find the IB in the school um so I followed one group of students from their classroom where parents got to talk to the teachers which is honestly how we get them there but there were babies there but I will say for me the in outside of finding the B which was great in Kona Ice which I did not get because a lot was way too long but they also had code eyes but
018it really was watching the students expression when they saw the guest readers and particularly for this evening the guest readers were teachers who just left their school and so are no longer Educators in their building and the squills that I got to hear from those students when they figured out who their guest reader was was a reminder of why it's important that we truly support our Educators and truly note that when we're talking about support them it is also supporting our students because they were absolutely screaming and a parent looked at me and she was like who is this guest reader and I was like I don't know but she must be famous in this school and it was a former teacher at the school but again I just thought that that for me truly
019Illustrated that teacher support is student support so thank you Mr Swanson thank you thank you chair Mahaffey um and my remarks will be very brief tonight um so I just want to give a quick overview since the last meeting and I was honored to be able to tour Carey Elementary School in Briarcliff elementary school last week with Dr Sexton as we continue to maneuver through all of the wonderful schools in District 9 and I had an opportunity to join the Cary Town Council at the Youth Villages breakfast which was a couple of last week I believe just to see some of the many great things that are happening in the communities and the Partnerships that we can build and lastly I forgot and I hope principal Pierce at Farmington Woods will forgive me but I
020forgot to wish them a happy 20th birthday it has been 20 years since they were authorized as an IB School and so although my message did not make it on their screen I get to get the best shout out here at the board table so I am so glad to see the great things that they're doing and they have been recognized twice as the top Elementary Magnet School in the nation by the magnet schools of America in 2011 and 2018 and so major props the great work that they're doing over there at Farmington Woods and looking forward to celebrating 20 more years and experiencing 20 more great years of wonderful things so thank you and that's my that will conclude my remarks Miss Caulfield hello everybody Wake Forest had a pretty rough week this week
021this past week and I'd like to send some thoughts and prayers to our community our family our students and our staff who are trying to work through these hard times please know that our website has some information for for help hotline and other resources that you may need and by all means if you cannot reach it please reach out to me and I will make sure that you can find it I wanted to continue to advocate for awareness for our families regarding mental health and substance abuse awareness is the first step in curving the troubles that we face it's important that we put time effort and resources into those areas surrounding Mental Health and Wellness we won't know when the need will arise and it's helpful to know your resources in the best ways to
022reach out and be aware so that it is fresh in your mind and you know what to do or how to help someone else Reach Out reach out if you need help reach out if you see someone that needs help our website our webpage is wcpss.net forward slash wellness and you'll find a whole lot of resources on there that could lead you to finding some of the information that you may need whether it's for yourself or someone you know that is struggling I know I've mentioned it before across about about our local vape shops and that it's way too accessible to our children I continue to reach out to our towns in district one and I'm happy to say that the mayor and town staff have swiftly approved ordinances in Roseville and Knightdale to support
023distancing the vape shops from our schools many of you know how easy it is for our kids to either walk across the street or a short distance down the street to access this if you have not heard about Delta 8 please look it up Delta 8 can be in many forms including gummies chocolate and even candies there are horrible ingredients in Delta 8 and I think it's important for parents to understand the effects and what that means when you're when you're dealing with your children or even their friends so I appreciate the town of Roseville and Knightdale for reaching out to that I feel that every layer to protect our children is important there's no category that we should not discuss when it comes to our children's safety so thank you to Roseville and Knightdale
024to bring that to fruition and I continue to have conversations with our other towns people and I hope that that actually will spread not only across the district but across our County I've had the pleasure of attending a community work session at East Wake High School along with our wonderful mayor of Wendell and our area superintendent Dr Savage where our principal Stacy olston um and his lovely student helper provided us with very detailed information about the progress at their school and all the wonderful things that they do for our students not only does he light up the room and I appreciate all the positive input that he has to help our students he takes a lot of feedback he listens to the community he listens to the children and he gets them very involved in
025the better decisions that they could make and what that means for their future and what they can do so I appreciate that he he just puts a lot of positive energy into everything and it's always a pleasure to talk to him you can clearly see how much that touches everyone that is around him so thank you to principal Stacy Alston and please continue to do the wonderful work that you're doing there at East Wake High School many hours are being spent in student appeals and budget interim superintendent our superintendent search a strategic plan so there's a lot of comments that are coming in from the community and I just wanted to address that if we have not re responded to your emails just please know that we will just there's a lot of time being
026put into these very important jobs that we're working on and on a light note Wake Forest High School is having their last week of Sound of Music if you have not seen it last week please go out and see it this week and if you have even more time Heritage High School is also their show is Mean Girls so please enjoy both of them thank you I think we'll go around the circle Mr Hershey thank you chair and thank you Miss Caulfield for your advocacy Around The Vape issue very impressive stuff um first off BAC meeting our final one for the year will be May 15th at style Elementary I appreciate them stepping up it'll be at noon on the agenda we're going to have a few schools present what they do and we are
027also going to have a little round table about issues that are in front of the board including start times and the superintendent search I want to thank Wiley for having me at their Wiley Elementary for having me at their Earth Day Guardian planting weekend work they got to work on where they have the mulch drop and if you know then you know it was a very long haul I was happy to be there though a lot of wonderful people there thank you to The Men's Leadership Academy for having me during their elected officials day to speak to students the students were incredibly engaged it was a terrific um event and I want to take thank area superintendent Cedric Williams for making sure I was at the right location that morning I may have gone to
028the wrong Leadership Academy at first um lastly and I'll make this very quick we had a wonderful event it's it's not a school in my district but we are not just about our districts being at Southeast Raleigh was fantastic and I would actually like to encourage that perhaps as a plan over the next school year that we make it a point as a board once a quarter once every three months to be out at a different School somewhere in the county and make sure we give staff enough planting time I know that it can be difficult but it's important for us to be in the community and it was really wonderful to be around them and and to hear their voices and it is US acknowledging that it is a long drive from different parts
029of the county to get to this area all the time so thank you all Dr Eng thank you chairman happy um so uh back on April 17th Miss Coffey and I had a joint uh BAC meeting and it was a very um uh successful I think to we we had a good conversation regarding the timeline of what we've done so far in our search for superintendent and then also moving forward and then also got some feedback um uh from the the people attending um so uh after that we I had a chance also to go to visit some schools um at the Wildwood Forest Elementary School as well as foxworld Elementary um and um and then also in the same week I went to Wakefield High School and I got a chance to meet principal
030Brazil and assistant principal akri and I I was just very appreciative of the breadth of scope of the uh the school there I got to meet some of the animals in the back uh the uh in the cage and I'm not talking about than anybody else um they had a plant cell that that week and it was uh you know it was a fundraiser and they will have a um FFA banquet I believe coming up um their FFA program their Agriculture and Horticulture program is just phenomenal um and you know it's just a Hidden Gem there um and as well as the other thing that I was really appreciative of is the the Latin class the kids in there were getting ready for their uh the Latin exam and it was uh it was kind
031of a flashback to my my days back in high school too of taking Latin um and then just also appreciate it a good uh view of the special education programs there and to just appreciate the fact that one of the assistant principals uh president assistant principal akri has a special education background and is also oversees the special education programs there so um I I had a good uh really a thorough look of that school um and I I was second the idea of um you know after having gone through um that uh day at the southeast Raleigh magnet school high school um that it was really good to get feedback from the community and I agree that if there is any kind of chance any way that we can have a rotating system somehow to
032go to different regions of Wake County that would be a great opportunity to be there in the community to listen to the the folks there and the needs that they have in and it's such a very difference in in uh in the needs and and the demographics so so it's good that we have a chance to do that um and um I uh I also want to just advertise for Heritage High School the means girl musical that's the I think this is the second week this coming weekend so if you have a chance to attend that'll be great um not quite sure what mean girl is but I hope it stays they were pink I hope it's nice no I don't know that's it Miss Edmonds thank you Washington GT Magnet Elementary I'm gonna chime
033in with superintendent Moore Washington is in District Five so that's exciting for me but I am also one of their former parents both of our children attended um K-5 at Washington so to be their board member now is just so special and I'm just so honored in this moment and so proud of them proud of their work it is well earned and I hope that I get a opportunity Beyond tonight to celebrate with them and their Collective hard work a shout out to Holly Ridge Elementary students who collected over 4 300 items for the Holly Springs food pantry Holly Ridge Elementary has done something called the guys food drive since 2017. each year the male teachers at the school come up with a challenge where students get to vote for their favorite person or their
034favorite team by bringing in a canned food item a can or a food item this year the team worked together to build a food shelter to sleep in outside on the campus at the school so the students got to see them in the shelter the following morning when they came to school and this year was the most food that they've collected since they started this so well done Holly Ridge Elementary you can find pictures of this event on the wcpss Facebook page and I want to thank our Communications team for spotlighting this in that space I'm still making my way like a turtle like a snail to all of the District Five schools last week I was at Athens High School and tomorrow I'm super excited to go to the Westlake campuses I want to
035share a contest that came across our I think it was in some of our district-wide email a contest happening with the Wake County Board of Elections that I think is pretty neat they have launched a sticker or contest for middle and high school students to design a new I voted sticker and these will be used in the 2024 elections so that sticker will be handed out to tens of thousands of of Voters in Wake County the contest is open now and it is for Wake County 6th through 12th graders and it's open now through May 31st and you can find the details at wake votesearly.com finally it is still a it's still April and that means that it is still School library month as I did at our last meeting I want to thank all
036of our school library staff for your dedication to fostering a love for reading with our students for your professionalism and for your courage in this moment when so many are seeking to limit students access to books you are valued and appreciated thank you Miss Waters will you close us out I certainly will and I just want to Echo the comments that I've already gone forth and and say a very special thank you to um chairman happy Vice chair Hagerty and all members of the Wake board of education for the heart to go out to the community and to have a public input session at Southeast Raleigh High School it was so meaningful for members of the community to have the opportunity to share their heart their perspectives and their desires for what we are doing
037as we move forward with our profile for our superintendent search so very grateful to Southeast Raleigh High School community and everyone who was there and present and provided input we have some very passionate community members who love our students who advocate for our students and I am so grateful that we had the opportunity and I Echo the sentiments about moving to other parts of the county to make sure that we are accessible I was taking a Sunday drive and I went past Roseville in Miss caulfield's dish again I said wow this county is very big and so I wanted to make sure that that we are accessible and this is a board that really cares about the community and cares about what people think and and is very accessible and so I'm looking forward for
038more opportunities to connect in that way I want to also note that we will have our next BAC meeting on May 15th like Mr Hershey it will be in the afternoon at Southeast Raleigh Middle Elementary Southeast Raleigh Elementary and it will be at 6 p.m we're going to lift up the superintendent search and we're also going to have an update from the office of equity Affairs so looking forward to that and lastly as we round out volunteer appreciation month I had the great pleasure of having a volunteer information booth during the Earth Day celebration last Friday and I was so delighted to see the number of students in Wake County who stopped by and expressed that they were already volunteering in our community and particularly enjoyed hearing from two ninth graders from Panther Creek High
039School and the service that they're doing in our community and so it's never to to uh you're never too young to volunteer and I believe our students in our district realize that and I appreciate all the service that they do and how they are already giving back to the community to make it a great place to live work Play and Learn so thank you Miss Waters is there a motion to approve the meeting agenda so moved second we have a motion in a second all in favor of approval of the meeting agenda please say aye aye any opposed name right we do have a lot of recognition and information items and so I just want to lay this out for all of the folks that are here just so you know when things will be
040coming because I know we are here for many different things first is our recognition item for the magnet schools of America Awards and recognition of our schools and their leaders followed by that we have our and you heard reference to it our stand up and speak out bullying prevention video recognition and then following that we have the public hearing on the budget and following that we have public comment so just to lay it out for those of you that are here I will let you know we have a lot of incredible magnet schools that we will be hearing from so I'm going to turn it over to superintendent more to kind of share what we're going to be seeing and superintendent more so I'm gonna welcome Kim Lane our senior director and our director and
041team director and Church of magnet programs and then I'll be going around the front to help congratulate the principals individually we are fresh off the magnet conference I'm sure she'll cover that from last week in addition to celebrating Washington we are going to celebrate all of the schools that received honors and awards at the past conference and I'm gonna let her talk specifically about how the numbers and how big a deal this is so I'll be up there just a second okay thank you and our principals will be coming through shaking hands getting rewards and then walking out the back door to go back to school go back to work we'll be walking through they might go home yeah thank you superintendent Moore chair Mahaffey board members it is an honor to be here to
042represent our magnet schools awarded at magnet schools of America National Conference last week in Dallas we did have lots of opportunities for our principals and some of our magnet coordinators to Showcase some best practices from Wake County public school system in some of these sessions as well as to celebrate these wonderful Awards as you well know we are celebrating 40 Years of magnet programs in Wake County Public Schools so needless to say we're pretty excited that there are 44 schools tonight that will be honored for merit awards these are Awards both of Distinction and of Excellence three of our schools were named top Schools of Excellence eight schools were named Schools of Excellence and 33 were named schools of Distinction magnet schools of America merit awards recognize magnet schools across the country that demonstrate an
043exemplary commitment to academic standards curriculum Innovation desegregation diversity efforts specialized teaching staffs and parent and Community involvement in order to become nationally certified MSA member schools must submit a detailed application and this is a renewal cycle for every four years so merits are awards that are awarded annually we like to receive a lot of these and then our schools can go through a certification process so it's almost like a model School process Across the Nation that many of our schools have gone through four schools were recertified two received certification status for the first time in one received certification demonstration school so demonstration basically means this is a great school to come visit and see how we do things I do want to give a shout out to our magnet team that's out in La Rotunda
044trying to keep all these principles and magnet coordinators happy tonight until we can get in here Dr Lisa Thompson will be joining me to read the names she and Josh Hunter both have done tremendous support with our Merit program applications and I just want to give a shout out to the number of departments data research and accountability Student Assignment again this is a collective effort as we submit this information appreciate superintendent more for being here for pictures and normally our recipients the Merit award winners will receive plaques but they decided to start mailing those from DC so they'll be here in a couple of weeks so we have certificates to give them and just a little honorarium of honoring the work that they do by upholding our magnet objectives day in and day out so
045please Dr Thompson if you'll come there's nothing good evening thank you for having us we are going to be starting with our MSC merit awards of Distinction a b Combs leadership Magnet Elementary School Julie Sexton principal Tracy totherow magnet program coordinator and with her tonight with Miss Sexton is Riley irons who is the student body president thank you Brentwood Magnet Elementary School of Engineering Melissa McKinley principal Kristen McBride magnet program coordinator and representing the school tonight is Cara Wright this school also received re-certification status [Music] [Applause] we'd like to announce Brooks Museum magnet elementary school as a demonstration school and also a school of Distinction they were not able to be here tonight but I wanted to let you know that that is principal Marie Palmer and magnet program coordinator Amy Whitman [Applause] Broughton Global
046Studies language immersion Magnet High School principal Janiece dilts magnet program coordinator Dr David Brooks congratulations bug Magnet Elementary School Center for design and computer science principal Dr Anis Williams magnet program coordinator Monique Booker can I also say that's our principal of the year [Applause] Carnage gifted and talented AIG Basics Magnet Middle School principal Eric Rosen magnet program coordinator Elizabeth Ross thank you Douglas creative arts and science Magnet Elementary School principal Tiffany Faison Bullock magnet program coordinators Marcia Heffner and Mary Scott Peterman Garner inter Lori at myp Creative Arts Magnet Middle School Jimmy spasado principal Joanne Edwards magnet program coordinator Fox Road International Baccalaureate pyp Magnet Elementary School Jacqueline Williams principal Megan Peterson magnet program coordinator Garner International Baccalaureate middle years career related and diploma program Magnet High School Matthew price principal Gerald seamering Amy Bennett
047and John Sherwin magnet program coordinators thank you Hodge Road Spanish dual language immersion Magnet Elementary School Felicia Dorsey principal Alan Arrowwood magnet program coordinator [Applause] Jeffrey's Grove Spanish language immersion Magnet Elementary School Huli Ventura principal Joanna Gonzalez magnet program coordinator [Applause] Joyner Center for Spanish language ibpyp Magnet Elementary School Jennifer zeza principal and Cheryl Davis Jackson magnet program coordinator Martin gifted and talented Magnet Middle School Marla mandora principal and Claudia d'alessio magnet program coordinator thank you Millbrook environmental connections Magnet Elementary School James Aldridge principal and Randy Jones magnet program coordinator [Applause] Millbrook International Baccalaureate middle years and diploma program Magnet High School Dr Brian Saunders principal Lauren Barron and LaShonda haddock magnet program coordinators this is also one of our recertification schools thank you Moore Square gifted and talented AIG Basics Magnet Middle School Leslie
048Taylor principal representing today is Tracy Purvis assistant principal and Lauren Michael Magna program coordinator North wake College and Career Academy Dr Elizabeth battle principal Sherilyn Murray magnet program coordinator Oberlin Global Studies language immersion Magnet Middle School Brianna Pelton principal Chris hayner magnet program coordinator [Applause] for playing Ingenuity Magnet Elementary School Dr Curtis Brower principal Chris Lawrence magnet program coordinator [Applause] Reedy Creek Magnet Middle School center for the digital Sciences Tim Chadwick principal and Christine Sachs magnet program coordinator [Applause] Southeast Raleigh University connections School of Design arts and Engineering Magnet High School George Hardin principal Lauren Johnson magnet program coordinator yeah Vernon Malone College and Career Academy Carter Hillman principal Jill Oliver magnet program coordinator [Applause] wake young women's Leadership Academy Mariah Walker principal Sharon cuffy magnet program coordinator [Applause] Wendell creative arts and science Magnet
049Elementary School Dana permiano principal Sarah Downing magnet program coordinator [Applause] West Millbrook International Baccalaureate nyp Magnet Middle School Kelly Ayman principal Jim bollenbacker magnet program coordinator [Applause] Wiley International Studies Magnet Elementary School Tracy Avery principal Claire Sullivan magnet program coordinator foreign gifted and talented Magnet Elementary School David Newkirk principal Laurie Johnson magnet program coordinator [Applause] Magnet Middle School Candace Jones principal Whitney Reynolds magnet program coordinator [Applause] and now we're going to be moving into our MSA merit awards of Excellence Athens Drive Center for Medical sciences and Global Health initiatives Magnet High School Steve mayor's principal Terrell hartenstein magnet program coordinator [Applause] Khan Magnet Elementary School of entrepreneurial design Gabriel chedester principal representing this evening Jeff Kimbrough assistant principal and Dan Gridley magnet program coordinator they were also up for recertification this year [Applause] Enloe gifted
050and talented International Baccalaureate diploma program Magnet High School Dr Jackie Jordan principal and accepting the word Helen Davis former magnet program coordinator who is now with us in our office [Applause] Farmington Woods International Baccalaureate pyp Magnet Elementary School Winston Pierce principal and a good drum magnet program coordinator and accepting today are Jaden and Jordan Perry they were also up for recertification receives recertification this this year as well green leadership in World languages Magnet Elementary School Mrs Leslie Blake principal and Tricia Seymour magnet program coordinator [Applause] Kingswood Montessori STEM Magnet Elementary School Sherry slicer magnet sorry principal and Michelle Gensler magnet program coordinator [Applause] ligging gifted and talented AIG Basics Magnet Middle School Gary Duvall principal Megan retzick magnet program coordinator Lincoln Heights environmental connections Magnet Elementary School Scott Gayton principal Brittany Jennings magnet program coordinator
051[Applause] partnership interactive Community Magnet Elementary School Dr Mark kanjarski principal and Mary Hunter Merton magnet program coordinator foreign gifted and talented AIG Basics Magnet Elementary School Christy story principal Alexis lisenby magnet program coordinator [Applause] style Mandarin immersion Magnet Elementary School Jody lay principal Stacy Shoemake magnet program coordinator they are also a first-time certified School this year [Music] thank you Wake Early College of Health and Sciences principal Lisa Cummings magnet program coordinator Robin mcalexander and that rounds out the end of our excellence awards because now we're about to move into our top three Schools of Excellence that got this distinction from the magnet schools of America Carroll leadership in Technology Magnet Middle School Tina zarzecki principal and Julie Klein magnet program coordinator Hunter gifted and talented AIG Basics Magnet Elementary School Shane Barham principal Jenny Johnson
052magnet program coordinator [Applause] the final school that was a top School of Excellence is Washington gifted and talented Magnet Elementary School Katie Burnett principal and Amy Wilkinson magnet program coordinator [Applause] we also are recognizing this evening wake stem Early College High School for their certified status as of this year Dr Drew Ware principal and Sophia over magnet program coordinator [Applause] and I'd like to welcome Dr Lane back up to the podium thank you here yeah each year we get to recognize a awake County teacher and a principal of the year as a designee for region four for magnet schools of America and we'd like to honor those candidates for this award the magnet teacher this year is from Green leadership and World languages magnet to Middle School Tony Kelly thank you we also have this
053year's principal of the year on recognizing recognition and this award is always awarded by the colleagues so our magnet principals vote each year on the person that they want to represent them and this year was principal Kelly Ayman of West Millbrook IB magnets Middle School foreign so last but definitely not least we have a little big award to give out to our Elementary Magnet School Merit Award of Excellence drum roll please Washington gifted and talented Magnet School okay this is not the first time as superintendent Moore said earlier tonight that they've received a national award and been recognized they were pretty excited can you tell um so you can't leave yet okay so as you all may recall last year superintendent Patty Moore was recognized as magnet schools of America superintendent of the year she
054honored us with being present at this conference this year to present the new awardee and then she participated on a panel and I don't know about you but I've rarely seen superintendent more blush so the superintendent that was introducing her introduced her as one of the most distinguished and successful superintendents in the United States and that's our superintendent okay I do want to say that we do want to honor superintendent Moore and not just her vision for Wake County magnet schools but her vision and the importance of her Champion magnet schools Across the Nation and her willingness to be a voice for diversity and Equity across all districts of the um within magnet schools of America and within our district and within the U.S so thank you superintendent [Applause] is for our board members to
055this the 40th year and we promised you a gift thank you so much Dr Lane and for families that are interested in the magnet program [Music] um there are a great number of schools listed on our website we encourage you to look into them do some research and in the fall go tour some schools because they really are incredible and even if it's not your choice you get to see the best um choices that we have in our district so thank you all very much up next we have an information session or an information item excuse me coming out of academic advancement and that is our annual stand-up speak out bullying prevention video recognition I'm going to hand it off to Dr Paul Coe and Miss Crystal Reardon so that we can hear about these
056fantastic students in their projects the chair Mahaffey good evening board member superintendent Moore so this evening in honor of continuing our celebratory Spirit we're celebrating our elementary middle and high schools that participated in our 10th Annual wcpss stand-up speak out bullying prevention video contest we're excited to be able to introduce our winners and share some amazing videos so at this time I'm going to invite our wonderful Crystal Reardon director of School counseling to the podium thank you good evening chair Mahaffey board member superintendent Moore it is my privilege to bring before you this evening the winners of our SEC uh 10th Annual Wake County Public School System stand up speak out bullying prevention video contest this contest was organized in 2013 by our Wake County public school system's bullying prevention committee which is comprised of
057representatives from student services intervention schools including principals parents and the community the video contest is one of the means for getting schools and particularly our students engaged in and excited about bullying prevention I want to take a moment to recognize Mr Cecil Coates who is one of our senior administrators for School counseling who has organized this competition for the entire 10 years that it's been in existence and he's here tonight he's been instrumental in organizing and implementing this contest I'd also like to thank the members of The Bullying prevention committee who each give so willingly of their time in order to focus on bullying prevention efforts in the Wake County Public School System so we opened this contest up to all schools in Wake County we're pleased to say that this year we had 25
058entries we recognized the top three videos at each level elementary middle and high all students who participated have received a certificate of recognition and our top winners at each level received a plaque during our school counselor celebration in February tonight we proudly introduce you to the first place schools and share their winning videos with you but we do want to take a moment to recognize all of our first second and third place winners so our third place winners were Brentwood Elementary East Kerry middle and Crossroads Flex High School our second place winners were Bug Elementary Apex middle school and Green Hope High School and now our first place winners so let's begin with Yates Mill Elementary Yates Mill if you would stand to be celebrated principal Dr principal is Dr Vonda Martin Jenkins and the
059faculty sponsor for the video is robyanne Morgan and we want to share their winning video with you thank you [Music] to say goodbye my dreams are fading out I don't understand why are you so mean [Music] but you're always making fun of me you are just like me there's nothing like a Great Divide so please look at me it's not funny when you break my heart I really need a break to breathe breathe [Music] shout out [Music] together singing together [Music] and that was an original song by their music teacher it's an original song and I also want to point out that the criteria for this competition is that yes they have a faculty sponsor yes they have support from adults but the content or the competition is driven by students and so it has
060to be student driven the video and so this was their idea this was their this was their implementation of something phenomenal so thank you and which adult could say it better right which adult could say that better okay we have a first place winner at the middle school level and that is East Millbrook Middle School East Millbrook if you'll stand principle is Aaron Morrison and they had two faculty sponsors Joyce rosalato and Marla routman and we would love to share their video with you [Music] the national Center for educational statistics reported that one out of five students report being bullied this is a story about a girl who was bullied because she was poor and how her friends helped her oh what's that smell well of course it's Camilla the dirty human trash can are
061you going to cry didn't your parents teach you how to take a shower and wash your clothes or do they stink just like you don't talk about my parents like that listen I'll talk about whoever I want to talk about why are you being so mean to her what you're doing is bullying and it is not okay because I can you little rat calling me a rat isn't going to make me go away I'm not going to let you talk to Camille like that just as Rayo was about to say something else a teacher walks by what is going on here she started it if I didn't you were bullying Camila and I was just trying to get you to stop yeah Freya started it Mr James Ria definitely started it I was on my
062way to class started giving Camille a hard time I came over to help right it seems like maybe I've been nice to other students repeatedly picking on someone is considered bullying because that type of behavior very serious here but it's not true maybe you should pay attention to how your words affect the people around you not moment Raya realized how much she hurt the other students and that she needed to do better I'm really sorry I never meant to bully you guys I have just been dealing with problems at home sometimes I feel so angry I hope you guys can forgive me it's okay I understand I've been through that before we all have bad days that's not an excuse to bully though I forgive you too that we do not allow bullying at our
063school so it cannot happen again Reya learned a valuable lesson from the other students today sometimes you need adults to help but most times other students being upstanders is enough is enough to make things better remember when you see bullying in your school thank you the creativity and our high school winner green level high school green level please stand to be celebrated principal is Karen Summers faculty sponsor is Grant trevette and we would love to share their winning video with you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] words right sometimes just the image is powerful can we give one more round of applause for all of our winners this evening thank you all so much for the time thank you Miss Ruden and Dr Koh and thank you Mr Coates for organizing this
064and to all of our first place winners we appreciate you taking the time to share your creative talents with us and for such a cause and I'm just blown away and I'm sorry that we had some aspect ratio issues but we appreciate the fact that you all came out tonight so thank you all chairman happy yes can I ask a quick question sure how do students see these videos that is a wonderful question how do we share these videos Miss Reardon we share these videos they're available on our internal site for all school counselors to access so they can utilize them in their building and then we also have winning videos on our Wake County Public School System public facing site excellent thank you so much good question thank you thank you and families students
065you are welcome to stay but if you um but if you would like to go home you are welcome to at this point that's actually thank you tonight we both have a public hearing on the budget as well as public comment speakers commenting on during the public hearing will be heard before speakers commenting during the public comments section um [Music] members of the public are welcome to offer comments or criticism directed as 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 board members 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 related to Personnel issues or
066student matters may be addressed through applicable wcpss Personnel the grievance policy and other applicable policies for the public hearing on the budget you may speak for up to two minutes a green light will illuminate at the podium when you begin a yellow light will let you know and an audible tone will let you know when there are 30 seconds remaining in your time and a red light and another audio signal um we'll let you know when your time is up so please finish your thought and we will move on to the next speaker um and in the interest of maintaining civility into Quorum speakers are encouraged to address their comments to the board of education and to refrain from personal attacks and insults directed at the board individual board members staff or members of the
067general public we ask that you remain at the podium during your 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 13 folks signed up tonight for the public hearing and again that's two minutes first is Daniel Grant King saw him here earlier is he not in the room now okay okay uh Amy Bryan good evening board members and fellow wcpss staff as most of you are aware this year we have had lots of issues with Transportation when my students arrive late to school or don't make it to school at all because they don't have a bus driver or other Transportation they lose learning opportunities each year I've taught students who do not eat if they do not have
068school lunch especially in today's world our schools should be consistently safe places that families can count on when the buses arrive late for pickup in the afternoon family stress worrying about whether or not their students are safe our school is out at three students should be on their way home by 3 30. yesterday the last bus picked up at 4 15. teachers and staff have had to create a schedule to help each other so that we can make it to other jobs solidarity without transportation students cannot make it to or from school without School meals some students do not eat regularly it is hard to function if our basic needs are not met teaching is a career Educators and classified staff should not have to have more than one job in order to make ends
069meet I am here to request a living wage for all staff I think that it is important to use our voices collectively to create positive changes in our world solidarity our wcpss board has worked to increase pay for staff members and to provide bonuses for staff this is greatly appreciated however it is still not enough to recruit and retain staff for example I looked at the numbers yesterday and we still have approximately 79 vacancies for bus drivers despite sign on bonuses and an hourly increase as we continue to improve salaries and working conditions this allows for better Recruitment and Retention of qualified and dedicated staff I am here in solidarity with ncie co-workers to ask that the board provide a wage of at least 18.20 for all wcps employees I told a CNS worker today
070that I plan to speak at the board meeting tonight and they said good you're going to speak for all of us solidarity thank you for listening our next speaker is Kiana Espinoza followed by Lindsay Lewis I'm Mr Grant King I see that you're back I'm going to put you at the end hi my name is Kiana Espinoza almeter and I am an 8th grade teacher at Dillard Drive Magnet middle and I'm here in solidarity with my co-workers and also with uh Wake ncae On behalf of West Cary Middle School um who I'm sure you guys are aware is requesting some facilities updates and I would just like to share my experiences working at a brand new building which we are very grateful for all of the updates that you guys have been funding but I've
071also been at an older building for a couple of years so I currently work at Dillard Drive magnet middle which was built in 1998 and it's one thing when we see our facilities problems but it's another thing entirely when we feel them so I'd like to share a story with you guys that kind of highlights our facilities issues in my building so every morning I walk in and sometimes I smell rotten eggs and that comes from our art room she's requested several times that that be fixed but it's it's a reality of an older building um so we have a lot of issues similar to this you know some patchy walls about two-thirds of my whiteboard space is unusable but like all teachers do we make it work and we make sure that our students
072have what they need um we also had an incident recently there was a really terrible incident where we needed to use an eye wash station and that completely flooded one of our science classrooms so at a school where I believe that we have a great staff and we're making it work we're still kind of struggling to get our our needs met by our current facilities so I'm here in solidarity with West Cary Middle School asking for their fully funded requests from the budget thank you so much Lindsay Lewis followed by Erica drepo good evening thanks so much for the chance to speak tonight my name is Lindsay Lewis I teach fifth grade at Lake Meyer Elementary that's in Wendell and I came tonight to ask for the rate of 18 and 20 cents for those
073that work in our child nutrition services I absolutely cannot do my job if my children are not properly fed and properly fed does not just mean the food the workers that work in my cafeteria are unbelievably kind and gracious and welcoming they're also very patient I don't know if any of you have ever fed 100 five-year-olds in under 10 minutes but you really haven't lived until you've done so I am honored to work with them I asked for this 18 and 20 cents not only because I think it's the moral thing to do or not only because I think they deserve it but I also think it's the Practical thing for us to do because I don't want to lose the workers that work in our cafeteria Wendell like so many areas in Wake County
074is a rapidly growing community and I do worry that we'll lose our staff to places like Publix Who currently has an opening at twenty dollars an hour it's about point seven miles away Starbucks is opening May 5th they have many openings they are 19.69 Wendy's has already been opened and it's 19 an hour I'm naming a few but there are dozens like this within a five mile radius of my school please consider the 18 and 20 cents for our child nutrition services thank you we have Erica drapo followed by Emily hooks good evening board members and District staff my name is Erica drapo I'm a kindergarten teacher at Lake Meyer Elementary School in Wendell with Lindsay I want to share with you a story about my kindergarten classroom unfortunately it's not a fun story about
075how we Integrated Science and literacy together I'm gonna have to say that for another time because tonight I want to talk about the budget I want to talk about how it affects my classroom and the learning within it as well as the classrooms all around our district and the learning in their classrooms for the entire third quarter of this school year our classroom had a broken sink throughout the quarter our day was negatively impacted by this we had to interrupt neighboring classrooms to wash hands to fill water bottles multiple times a day I also had to adjust my learning activities which may have needed access to those sinks Not only was the broken sink A disrep disruption to our learning but it was a safety concern and additional stress for me to contend with along
076with the other staff finally after weeks of waiting the plumbing was restored and that was a load off of my teacher's shoulders we no longer had to abandon those messy learning activities within the classroom or manage 16 kindergarten students while they properly wash their hands before meal times to reduce the spread of germs we remember excuse me and remember I shared that the sink was broken during the third quarter that's the cold flu and the beginning of the allergy season our schools need plumbing and they need maintenance staff that can respond quicker to these broken equipment needs within our buildings we I can't imagine what it would be like to navigate this issue for an entire school year or longer like my colleagues at West Cary Middle have had to do as long as those
077as well as the Safety assistance at rock quarry and CNS workers around the district me and my ncae union siblings are asking for a budget that reflects care and concern for the bill for those facility needs thank you our next speaker is Emily hooks followed by Michelle Craig foreign good evening superintendent Moore chair Mahaffey and school board members my name is Emily Hooks and I work at West Cary Middle School I spoke at the last March meeting when coming up with something to say tonight my heart still pulled me towards the direction of my students voices so to prepare for this I told my 8th graders that I would be speaking at the school board meeting and the topic of discussion was the budget and the money that Wake County would spend on renovating and
078building schools I let them know that I wanted to speak on their behalf I would speak about their experience and time at West Cary many of them wanted their voices heard about the concerns that they have for our building so we started collaborating I reminded them multiple times they probably would not see these upcoming fixes anytime soon and it wouldn't affect them directly they said uh duh we know it won't happen right now we'll probably be in high school or college before it does so then I said well then why do you even want to help me write this y'all their responses blew me away I might start crying they said I don't want to do it for myself I want to do it for the teachers that I love I want to do it
079for my younger siblings I want to do it for my neighbors I want to do it for West Cary to see a better future if that doesn't make you cry I don't know what will this pull to my heartstrings and made me very teary-eyed knowing that these little teenagers were not only thinking of others but they were thinking of the future with all that said we compiled a list of items and a Google doc where all my students were able to write out their thoughts and ideas I will list them now that would take longer than the two minutes I have what I can do instead is share that document with the board because I can find those emails and send it to you if you want I think they'd be pretty excited if one
080of you just said yes we'd love to see it so our big ask is this with the school budget proposal are you willing to make West Cary one of the four unnamed schools that get updates are you willing to value our students voices and hear their concerns and do something about it are you willing to make West Cary a priority because we felt neglected for far too long are you willing to be like our loving students and think of our future thank you so much our next speaker is Michelle Craig followed by Christina Spears my name is Michelle Craig I'm a parent and teacher in Wake County Public Schools happy national Administrative Professionals Day tomorrow and happy National Library week I'll quickly highlight two budget issues that need immediate attention first maintenance and operations for
081Wake County Public Schools are underfunded by nearly 20 million below the industry standard and our students and staff cannot afford to wait any longer for facilities that meet basic standards of health safety and functionality I teach in the same building that I was in six years ago and in that time issues that we Face have included no heat in the winter mold which we were told was various stages of mildew and plumbing issues just to name a few I have a bathroom in my current classroom which has been broken for most of the year they keep coming out and fixing it the second need I will highlight is the need to pay our classified staff a living wage our classified staff are the heart of our school system without them we could not function and
082we must recruit more and retain them I would like to tell you a story of my instructional assistant Jan I refer to her as my co-teacher because the care and instruction that each of us provides our preschool students is of equal importance I started this school year as a substitute teacher Jan began in the in the fall and this has been there all year she was the only teacher in the classroom from September to January when I took the interim position because her Lead Teacher went on leave and Jan taught that class with numerous substitutes assisting for more than three months during that time she helped plan delivered lessons dried tears she did it all she spent a lot of money out of her pocket the superintendent budget says there will be 10-year Regional programs
083and you need instructional assistance for those if you want to get instructional assistance in those positions we have to increase um funding for that for a living wage of 18.20 an hour and raise each of our classified grades two dollars and 20 cents an hour so we can recruit and retain these essential workers thank you our next speaker is Christina Spears followed by Becky Lou Hobbs good evening chair Mahaffey Vice chair Hagerty and board members hello superintendent Warren staff I'm Christina Spears wake NCAA president I want to start by thanking some of you for meeting with our members and workers to hear their stories and find ways to fund our needs in this budget at the last Board of meeting Miss Edmonds articulated succinctly how an organization's budget is reflective of its values and the
084current proposal it's hopeful to see the emphasis on compensation for all staff certified and classified in today's Finance meeting superintendent Moore named this board's role is to communicate the needs of the district to the County Commission and the commission's role is to fund those needs we recognize the multi-year plan increases hourly wages for classified staff to 17 an hour in the current proposal however our bus drivers CNS workers instructional assistants and safety assistants make up the highest vacancy race rates across job categories in our district workers in these job categories have been consistently communicating their needs saying they need livable wages to continue to work in this District without the necessity of a second or third job we recognize the responsibility of our state legislator and funding our Public Schools though Miss Johnson hosler the
085finance chair reminded you this afternoon that it's this body who is currently in control of this budget process and is responsible for making the request to our County Commissioners so I'm asking do you value the Recruitment and Retention of our classified staff here in Wake County Public Schools you articulated verbally this afternoon that you do if that is so demonstrate that value with action by take making the right decision to include a livable wage of at least 18 an hour in this year's proposal I appreciate your willingness to push staff to investigate what this wage increase would cost in your upcoming meetings and I'm hopeful the board will vote to have our values reflected in this year's budget by investing 18 20 hourly wage for all classified staff thank you our next speaker is Becky
086Lou Hobbs followed by Susan book hello so Wake County Superintendent and the board seems to have a problem an addiction to spending the outgoing superintendent has requested yet again to increase the budget this time by 55 million dollars and on the surface you may think well costs have gone up materials wages land Etc is it really just inflation or is it poor planning poor decision making or just misplaced priorities in the proposed budget you show spending of other school districts compared to Wake County in order to justify the expenditures some of these school systems spend in excess of Sixteen thousand dollars per pupil but when you look at the performance of those systems they're actually worse than Wake County and then you compare to local private schools where children can go for as little as
087seven thousand dollars and have a better education so there's absolutely no correlation between spending and a child's education so what is in this budget almost every line item when I read it there's an excuse citing end of federal funding that is extremely poor planning by this board and why did you fail to plan for that you knew it was coming and there's a lot missing from this budget you've heard from several people here tonight but there's no focus on academics and improving our children our children's outcomes from academics what about the busing issue you can't even get kids to and from school what about funding to protect the safety of our children we need sros you have officers protecting you here tonight why not protect our children for years Wake County has increased the spending
088the budget has increased by about 45 percent since 2016 and that doesn't include covid funds and we have fewer students focus on what we need to provide a quality education spending more money is just spending more money stop this addiction to spending our next speaker is Susan book followed by hanyu Hana show wait up okay enough with lack um hello my name is Susan book and happy Autism Awareness but most of all acceptance month and I want to thank the board for paying attention to equity in this budget as a parent I know how important support for students with disability are English Learners and all of our children marginalized by the greater Society how important that can be I've sat and heard from our amazing professionals like our OTS who remind us to move our
089bodies as well as our minds I know how important early childhood and our special education professionals are in the earliest stages of Education I thank you I ask you to remember that not having your bus arrive on time is one of the most disregulating things that some of our students can experience not getting through a lunch line as well the board has spoken at length about efforts to lobby and move our North Carolina general assembly for more funding but I ask you did you know that there is one more office that you should be talking to the controller's office in the controller is the one person right now with a motion holding up Leandro funding one person everything else is ready so in your budget efforts I'm going to ask you to talk to our
090North Carolina controller or friends of his if we remove his motion this budget gets some much needed relief thank you our next speaker is hanyu hanacho followed by Pamela Winston good evening members of the board my name is honey and I'm the Third Way teacher at Wilbur Elementary I'm here tonight also support raising the minimum wage for classified State staff for 18 20 per hour um I have a total of 20 students six of my students have intense Behavior needs and one of them has autism disorder I'm alone with my students without support so we uh these students also acquire a dose distance in winning the hallway um doing the transitions I'm very occupied with my instructions so I that's what I need another adult to assist these students um if I a in my
091classroom my student will feel safe and protected instead get into fights because I'm without them I'm definitely struggle I also need another assist these students with transitions like going to the bathrooms in between the classes so they can enjoying their recess specials and lunchtime so also my the school experience my my other colleagues also experiencing the stem issues I would really urge board consider raising the wage so we can have I we can retain IA and work together for our students thank you for your time our next speaker is Pamela Winston followed by Chad Stahl good evening board members my name is Pamela Winston I've been a safety assistant with Wake County since 2017. my job as a safety assistant is to support students by making sure they get to school and get home safely
092transporting students is our job as Safety assistance and to make sure they're safe my co-workers and myself have a number of concerns this is why we have come together to voice our concerns Safety assistance are a diverse group of men and women who come from many backgrounds of the Working World some have retired from other jobs some of us are in school or entrepreneurs I can remember my first day at Wake County and when I walked onto the lot and seeing a bunch of young ladies and men standing in line outside I didn't understand what was going on and I was told oh you have to get in line and wait because you cannot enter the building until 5 30. and I noticed that this happened on a number of occasions if it was raining
093snowing sleeting or whatever we had to wait outside until 5 30 to get into the building I'm 64 years old there are employees that I work with that are safety assistants that are my age and older we care about the children we love the children and we want to be there for them we bring something that's special to these children some of us are grandparents great grandparents we just want to know in your budget for the 2023-24 year if you would please include an 18 and 20 cents an hour increase for us we have the highest vacancy rate in the county 35 percent of the positions are empty for Safety assistance thank you our next next speech had Stahl followed by good evening everyone so just uh real quick with school choice coming on pretty
094strong in North Carolina now Wake County is going to have to become more competitive it is going to have to really step up and start competing against the other Alternatives in business we view budget as anticipated Revenue I guess anticipated expense it has nothing to do with our values because our values don't fund us taxpayers do and that's reflected by participation so you can stand strong on values and keep losing students and we'll keep coming here asking for more money more money more money because you're naturally defeating your own system by closing your door and your minds to what parents are asking you for code of ethics and responsibilities for school board members policy code 2120 the Wake County Board of Education recognizes that collectively and individually all members of the board must adhere to
095a code AS required by General statute 168-86 and general statute 115c 4757 it is important that a board member is non-partisan in dealing with school matters and that he she not subordinate the education of Children and Youth to any partisan Principle Group interest or personal ambition I believe you guys all signed that hey we agree to these codes of Ethics so I'd like to read a couple of them Item B specific board member commitments number three render all decisions based on the available facts and independent judgment and refuse to surrender that judgment to individuals or special interest groups item 13 avoid being placed in a position of conflict of interest and refrain from using the board's members position on the board for personal or partisan gain mine item 16 remembers always that a board Member's
096First and greatest concern must be the educational welfare for the students attending the public school so if you agree to those principles and you're having this budget I don't hear anyone I don't hear the Red Guard talking about it I don't hear you eat the student s we're going to benefit the students directly thank you Mr Grant King okay all right first of all good evening to everyone chairman happy superintendent more District staff I'm Mr Grant King currently I'm an educator and I serve proudly as a member of our local union and our state union of ncae and also I'm on the board of directors with the with the PTA of North Carolina let's keep it really real as to why this budget is needed my colleagues have said it best and apparently we have
097had people over and over try to diminish the progress that has been made but let's make something very clear today and that is is that they are afraid the people that try to diminish the progress are afraid that our students our Educators and our um and other staff will benefit and I would like to thank this board along with superintendent Moore for a thoughtful budget even though it still has a long way to go but let's remember why we are here and that is for our students Educators and families and that is what this board is about that's what ncae is about and so let's keep it really real we cannot sit up here and allow allow like it has been the status quo it is time for a long overdue race it is time
098for educators and staff to be compensated and above all it is time for everyone to be treated with the dignity and respect that they justly deserve thank you so much thank you this concludes our public hearing on the budget and appreciate everyone coming and sharing their thoughts this evening we now move on to public comments for public comment um the same disclaimer that I read earlier still applies except it is a three-minute [Music] um time limit and again you will see a yellow button when it's you have 30 seconds left and a red one when you have um when your time is up we have seven speakers four public comment tonight the first Mr Steve Rao from Morrisville Town Council The Madam chair and a school board first of all I want to from Steve
099Rao serving the city council want to thank you all for your service and really thank you for the new high school coming in Wake Tech we're really excited I came in today uh sometimes to come and share some insights and my role also as a media analyst on PBS and wptf radio and um just to share with ideas with policy makers and so uh last week I hosted uh the Indian ambassador to Ranjit Sandu along with Governor Cooper and Morrisville for a small business event with the Biden Administration and um over lunch with secretary Commerce Sanders and leaders of the community I learned a couple things about India and I wanted to just sort of share a Global Perspective for the work that you do the Ambassador indicated to us that today there's 1.2 billion
100Indians with a digital identity which means that 40 of all of the world payments are being done on the device no more credit card terminals that in the last five years they've deployed internet access to the rural areas to 340 million Indians in the last five years this is unprecedented and what does that mean why am I telling you this well the reason is that I think it just Bears it shows how important the work you're doing for our schools are because as people are getting more access to the internet in these rural areas they're getting the skills they need in the knowledge economy today the final point I want to make is the ambassador said that in the nation of India 65 percent of the population is under the age of 26. so what
101that means is there's a huge vast emphasis on training and knowledge the knowledge economy and I think it's it just justifies all the more reason why how important it is number one that we work to deploy internet faster across the state and the governor and Secretary of Weaver is doing that it's also important that we invest in stem education like we're doing in early career education at Wake Tech RTP that's really important critically important so my final remarks are I couldn't think of a better person to ask okay what advice can I give the school board um about what we should be thinking about in terms of the jobs of tomorrow so I said who could I text and call and I texted John Chambers who's the former CEO of Cisco he's a family fundament
102from West Virginia he ran a 47 billion dollar company and actually was a dyslexic from the western state school systems and John told me tonight to remind you that as we automate AI with AI we're going to automate about 40 of the jobs over the next decade but we can create 15 million new jobs and what are those three areas entrepreneurship India had a hundred thousand startups and thirty thousand unicorns or billion dollar companies but we can create more entrepreneurs we can create more jobs in AI John says and we can create more jobs in cyber security so the work that you're doing is incredibly important and I just wanted to share that global perspective because we're competing with every ninja in the world and as the rural area divide is widening in the U.S
103it's shrinking in other nations of the world and that's something we should all be very concerned about thank you for your work thank you council member Rao our next speaker is Sam Cronin followed by Sarah hooks hi everyone my name is Samantha Cronin and I'm here with my friend Hampton Hoffer we both have children in second grade and kindergarten at root Elementary along with a few other younger siblings who can't wait to join their big brothers there one day soon Baseline we are so proud to be part of Wake County Public Schools and we really just want to start off by saying thank you for all that you do everyone in this room to help support and grow our school system clearly you do so much and it's very hard work and it's very important
104work um on the heels of yet another tragic school shooting we are here today to humbly and urgently ask what we can do to help support you in bolstering the Safety and Security of all Wake County Public Schools we represent a growing group of anxious and worried parents across Wake County who are also highly motivated to plug in and help be part of the solution whatever that looks like both at our individual schools and for the school system at large we simply don't know where to start we acknowledge that this trend of school shootings is multifaceted issue and School Safety and Security is just one small piece of that puzzle but while we look to solve those larger issues our kids have to go to school tomorrow and the next day and the next day
105and so do our Educators and the staff at all of the schools so we are aware of the recent Wake County Public School Safety assessment that was conducted and we're so grateful for that strong First Step our questions and present here today are really meant to be a jumping off point to build a more collaborative and action-oriented relationship between you board members and parents across the county on the particular topic of school safety the following sort of questions kind of fall into two buckets I think how can we we're thinking about how can we accelerate change across the school system at large and again not just Hanson and I but we have there are parents all over who are thinking about this and worried about this and then also separately but at the same time
106how can we move certain initiatives forward at our individual schools and what is the crossover between those two things look like so our questions really are first how can we as parents help accelerate and support implementing the recommendations from the school safety assessment amongst other potential ideas across the school system in what literal ways can we mobilize a passionate group of parents who are eager to support the school board safety initiatives with tangible next steps and then separately in kind of that second bucket help us understand how much leeway do individual schools have to fundraise for implementing school specific improvements in conjunction with our leadership while the goal is to make all of our schools safer parents and administrative teams are also curious to understand what can be done at their individual schools in addition
107to or alongside the solutions on the system-wide roadmap at a high level what would that process even look like where do we start so in summary we're here kind of seeking guidance and Direction on how to best be of service in tangible ways with respect to School Safety and Security improvements um can you help provide us with next steps thank you our next speaker is Sarah hooks followed by Julie Stivers good evening everyone my name is Sarah Hooks and my sister Emily is a teacher at West Cary Middle School day in and day out my sister shows love and dedication to her students and her colleagues and she only has the nicest things to say about the staff that she works with she's mentioned a time or two that this is one of the best
108groups of teachers that she's ever worked with the students at West Cary are a phenomenal group of kids also and I've seen this firsthand when I visited the school for West cary's annual Color Run and other public events they seem like such a happy group of people with a very beautiful outdoor campus The Greenery trees and flowers are gorgeous however when I visited inside the building it reminds me of when I was in Middle School I'm from Charlotte North Carolina and I went to a school in a very similar situation as West Cary it was a very old school built about 60 years ago and was overlooked by the Mecklenburg school system it's since been renovated and looks wonderful middle schoolers make it work with whatever they have but I'm telling you if I was
109a middle schooler and we got things updated or renovated I would have been an excited kid this is all I want for the students teachers and other staff members at West Cary I want them to have an amazing place to learn grow and help one another I want my sister and her colleagues love and dedication to be reciprocated by the county I truly hope you're willing to put West Cary on the renovation list so they know that they have been seen and heard thank you all with the national librarian of the year please approach the podium to speak that's not necessary raise these up a little bit and congratulations thank you can we all take a moment and just recognize that in Wake County we do have the national librarian of the year I know
110you're not here for that but I will take that as a point of personal privilege and I thank you for indulging me thank you very much yes I'm definitely not here for that something related hi I'm Julie Stivers librarian educator Mom we are in the midst of an alarmist theater of book challenges across the U.S and many of these challenges have the same talking points because they're top down sometimes scripted efforts to offer a counter story to those points I'd like to make my own and this is a shout out to CJ suits and George yamazawa for inspiring the structure it's called 10 things you should know about being a school librarian one Librarians support literacy literacy not only drives academic achievement across all subjects but it improves life outcomes number two Librarians understand that
111literacy is nurtured through Choice through availability and through inclusion number three all students that walk through the door of a school library deserve to see books on the shelves that affirm themselves their families and communities their lived experiences and real history number four Librarians are trained Educators we all have master's degrees in library science as part of our programs we study many topics including selecting books for specific age ranges Youth Development children's and teens literature and the teaching of literacy number five we love when families read our books stories may try to pit Librarians and parents against each other don't believe it we see families as partners in celebrating the reading lives of our students number six we also believe in parents rights and students rights because of this we understand that a small number
112of parents does not have the right to tell other parents what their children can and cannot read number seven I can't believe I have to say this but here it goes number seven we are not and I quote Peddlers of pornography I am a middle school librarian I choose books that are a good age fit for middle school students number eight the library for many students is a sanctuary number nine we believe in intellectual Freedom we do not force students to read a certain book instead we invite them into a community of readers we talk with students about what to do if they start a book they don't like or they don't feel ready for for whatever reason it's very simple are you ready you close the book books are magical that way it is
113completely different from online content for example which you can scroll forever you simply close the book and you get another one and there is great power in that and there is power in letting students make that choice in a nurturing environment with again literature that's been chosen for their age range number 10 we love literacy we love literature we love learning and we love our students thank you thank you our next speaker is Rachel hooks followed by Chris Tuttle is this the whole hook Sisterhood okay well hi my name is Rachel Hooks and my sister Emily Miss hooks is a math teacher at West Cary Middle School she is such a caring and phenomenal teacher and really wants her students to thrive and grow in her class as do all of the teachers that I
114have met that work with my sister they all put so much time and effort into their duties as teachers and in order for them to do their job the best that they can I believe their school needs to be considered for an upgrade it is almost 60 years old and feels like a little neglected to the eye the students and the teachers alike would be able to better meet their goals if they have a sustainable and maintained facility the community surrounding West Cary is growing like the Park West Shopping Center and the new housing developments all around and I think the schools in it need to grow with it and I will ask this think of your siblings do you love and cherish them do you hope that they have a happy and sustainable life
115if you had a sister working in a building the needed major Renovations would you stand up and speak for her if you'd answered yes to any of those questions then please consider moving West Cary up in the renovations list thank you Chris Tuttle followed by Crystal Behrend good evening superintendent Moore chair Mahaffey and other board members my name is Chris Tuttle and I'm one of the Librarians at South Garner High School as well as a parent of a former and current Wake County student finally a proud member of wake ncae I stand here tonight to disrupt the harmful and ongoing narrative about Librarians and the books we choose and I want to do that by telling you a story the story of the school library at South Garner High School it is so much more
116than a collection of books it is a place of joy it is a space where our students and their families can see themselves and their lived experiences represented in our books on our walls and in the activities we facilitate it can be a quiet space for a student to study a space where students come to collaborate a place where students wrestle with ideas a spot to reflect breathe deeply and simply be a place to laugh and sometimes even a place to cry a place to connect through playing games like Uno Connect Four and Jenga a place to get a snack a place to read Miss Lewis and I are honored to serve our amazing Titans and strive to build a program that represents the beautiful tapestry of students and families that come through our doors
117daily we know book ownership is a privilege and our families face many barriers accessing books and information in our community many of our families do not have the disposable income to buy books nor do they have transportation to get to the public library therefore the collection we lovingly curate at South Garner High School is even more important to our community censorship and book Banning disproportionately affects the students that we serve because in many cases we are their only point of access today I am asking each of you what I challenge my students to do daily be curious ask yourselves who are the people choosing to read excerpts of books allowed here each week whose voices are missing from the conversation why do some in this community believe they have a right to make decisions for
118All Families which books are being targeted how is history repeating itself in the words of Nea president Becky Pringle I will continue to be an Unapologetic advocate for the students and families of South Garner High School and I hope you will continue to do the same thank you our final speaker tonight is Crystal herring I know I've heard your name before and for some reason I'm looking at it and struggling I'm so sorry it's not a problem it's not the first time good evening superintendent more chair Mahaffey and board members I'm Crystal Behrend one of The Proud Librarians at Knightdale High School and mother of two Wake County graduates I'd like to talk to you about the revisions for policies 3200 and 3210 selection of instructional materials and the challenge policy as you take on
119this task some of which is necessary I'd like to remind you of a few things that you might have heard a couple of times tonight your Librarians are professionals with master's degrees your teachers are curriculum experts and literacy is the foundation of a strong education regarding 3210 we've always had a very strong and transparent challenge policy in Wake I hope you will continue to uphold this policy filled with checks and balances while also putting much needed limits in place limits that could avoid our library media staff from being bogged down at a quagmire of repeat challenges purely designed to waste resources is the board can and should make revisions to policy but should not seek to overreach power and override policy I have a few concerns about some of the language and policy 3200 specifically
120concerning read-alouds the fact that selection of read-alouds is singled out as something that must be done in collaboration with others implies a lack of trust for our professionals understanding and knowledge of age relevant literature what's even more concerning is the amount of self-censorship that will happen as a result of this addition surely you are aware that one of the best ways to improve literacy is by reading to Children yet if I'm a first grade teacher with five minutes left in class before buses are called am I going to grab a book that isn't pre-approved or just let kids play on their technology would I read a beautiful book like and Tango makes Freight three or do I fear retribution for sharing a beautiful true story of two male Penguins raising an egg that could be
121labeled pervasively vulgar in 2020 there were 223 unique titles challenged Across the Nation enter the famous list by Texas lawmaker and by 2021 there were 1858 titles while 2022 saw 22 571 unique titles challenge just a bit of an increase following that political Ploy we could probably get Vegas odds on the number for 2023 those are just the documented challenges this doesn't even touch the Insidious self-censorship that stems from Fear as you rewrite these policies ask yourself what the Fallout may be I want this board to stand up for intellectual freedom I want you to assure your teachers and Librarians that you believe in our professionalism and the work we are doing I want you to assure all parents that their children and families will be represented honestly in our literature and I want you
122to assure students that you do respect their First Amendment right to access high quality literature good things are happening in our libraries they are safe and joyful places where everyone is welcome and has access to representative literature please acknowledge this in your policy thank you this concludes our public comment thank you to everyone that came out to speak tonight for public comment and for the public hearing I'm going to turn it over to superintendent Moore for her updates from our work session good evening again during the work session today we covered three items beginning first with the an item that is on your agenda this evening and that is the adoption of the 2023-24 calendars for our Early College Programs last month you adopted calendars for traditional modified and year-round schools for 24.25 based on
123the calendar law and our ability to go ahead and project forward for all of our early college Partners we must wait for the University and community colleges to finalize their instructional calendar before we can adopt a calendar for those schools hence the adoption today is for 23.24 as our University Partners always adopt around this time for the following year the [Music] those calendars meet all the requirements of the calendar law and um do start and align with the Community College calendars and then time to end with community colleges as well and they have flexibility that is granted either based on restart status or the fact that they are identified as a Cooperative Innovative High School that will come for Action this evening for you the second item that you covered in the work session was
124the revised seven year CIP plan the rolling seven year plan that comes up every year for the board to review where we allocate with specificity the the near years of what's happening with our CIP funding and then make changes or projections as we move out in the further years of the seven year plan that is by design that work is also done in close collaboration with our County Commissioner partners and the core team as you have heard it called before and there are a couple of changes that that are being made to this seven year plan that will be adopted this evening the first one is the addition of Cary High School in the later years of the plan dollars being going ahead and allocated there you will recall last year that it was kind
125of neck and neck between Athens and Kerry for the next School in the plan that is facilitated by moving h-15 outside the seven year window h15 is the presumed high school that will be located at the Bobby Murray site that currently does not have an academic program defined or established we feel like we can move that further out in the Years move carry in as a renovation and then the second change in the seven year plan is the addition for the potential of up to four schools being identified in the last couple of years of the plan for design funding and moving them in likely Renovations the four is just an estimate that could change depending on whether elementary schools are chosen middle schools are chosen or high schools are chosen that work will continue
126with the board in the next year as you will have a chance and an opportunity again to look at the rubric that is used to determine the order of need that you've all been a part of and worked on for a number of years but you'll see that in depth and you'll see where all the schools stand and the board will be part of making those decisions at that time so this evening the CIP will also come to you for action with the addition of Carrie the addition of the potential of additional renovation schools that will be added in the later years of the plan the last item on the agenda this evening was an update on the Strategic plan for the board we are coalescing around the final feedback to establish the goals that
127will be in the Strategic plan as well as an item that was introduced this evening as Ames that include that are much smaller in number than the action steps that were previously reviewed by the board this is sort of setting up a separation of goals and aims that establish the work that we will be prioritizing in the Strategic plan leaving the specific action steps and metrics as as areas that will likely change as we implement the plan and more the work of Staff sometime probably the second board meeting in May I think is what we established today the board will be asked to approve the goals and the aims as a part of the Strategic plan and we would just want to say that I appreciate the time that the board spent today in the
128small group sessions it's like being back in school and walking around the feedback that was provided and the opportunity that you really had for 90 minutes of good discussion in small groups to provide that feedback so thank you superintendent more at this time is there a motion to approve the consent items second all right we have a motion for Mr Hershey a second for Mr Swanson all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay moving on to the aforementioned 2023-2024 instructional calendars presenting is Mr Glenn corrosa and chair Mahaffey members of the board superintendent Moore yes so you can just say ditto you know and it's funny I just I came up and I was like I'm going to say what she said yeah you did a great job of elaborating as to why
129we're bringing the calendars today so staff is seeking your approval for the 23-24 instructional calendars for our early colleges all right is there a motion and yep I move that we accept the 2324 instructional calendars for the early colleges that were presented exactly all right we have a motion by Mr Hagerty and the second from Monica Johnson Hassler are there any questions or comments at this time from board members I think we had a discussion in our work session and thank you for that at this time is there um all those in favor of approving these calendars please signify with a sign of I any opposed nay right thank you very much thank you we now move on to board policy the first one being as Trish is on the way up here Mark Strickland
130CIP next time not this time okay so it's next meeting not this all right thank you no the seven year plan that's being approved it was on the consent agenda never mind thank you sorry I was like wait yep all right we're now sorted great thank you everybody this is teamwork all right Miss Posey is here to present board policy 6530 research conservation first reading thank you good evening chair Mahaffey board members and superintendent more so we have as part of the policy migration three new policies created by the School Board Association and we are bringing these forward for first reading the first one is on resource conservation and we did not have any edits in our March 28 policy committee meeting so we would ask for approval of first reading if there are no
131questions thank you very thank you very much Miss Posey as you noted all three of these policies or new policy is a part of our policy migration and I move that we accept excuse me the first policy 65 30 on first reading Sarah all right we have a motion in a second are there any questions comments for Miss Posey yes sir thank you I appreciate all the good work that Steph has done on this policy I know as part of the policy migration but I'm hopeful that this policy and several others in this series might go on to form the basis coming back later of like an overall sustainability policy where we're taking the different policies in our resource management and others and then in a future time we can sort of organize them similar
132to how we've done other policies of similar groupings say that in our 9000 Series there's there's much language that we currently have in policy that we'll be reviewing again with regard to facilities and properties and the sustainable efforts that will sustainability efforts that we have ongoing and will be new creative with regard to facilities so it'll be handled in the 9000 Series policy wonderful we appreciate it thank you Dr Craig thank you Julie Heather seeing none all those in favor please signify with a sign of I yeah any opposed name right moving on to policy 6540 hazardous materials first reading and Miss Posey all right this is the first reading for the Hazardous Materials policy the edits recommended by the board in policy committee on March 28th are shown in blue if there are no
133questions about the edit changes made to this policy we would request approval of first reading so moved on first reading thank you all right we have a motion in a second is there any questions comments at this time aren't hearing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed name moving on to policy 6550 vandalism first reading great all right once again this policy first policy reading and our edits are shown in blue based on the recommendations given to us by board members on March 28th so we ask for a review and approval of first rating so moved we have a we have a motion and multiple seconds I think I heard Mr Hershey and Miss Johnson hosler um all those are are there any questions at this time or comments all right seeing
134none all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay all right thank you very much Miss Posey and Dr crane we now move on to our next action item which is out of human resources which is our Nas recruitment advertising proposal and Dr mutilo will be joining us good evening chair Mahaffey Vice chair Hagerty superintendent Moore and board members I'm here tonight to request your approval on a contract with nas recruitment Innovation to support the creation and purchase of recruitment advertising for the following positions bus drivers bus safety assistants instructional assistance as well as K-12 General Ed and special education teachers this advertising will include Google search display and retargeting campaigns programmatic online job ads sponsored posts on Facebook Instagram Snapchat ads to run on online radio such as I Heart Radio Pandora those
135kinds of platforms as well as your traditional radio this is our second contract with nas as part of the first contract they helped us to create a micro site with five different landing pages dedicated to recruiting bus drivers substitute CNS staff IAS and special ed teachers each of these landing pages includes a form that allows us to capture contact information even if they've not yet completed an application in apple track we also purchase search and social media advertising direct more potential applicants to these new pages once potential candidates visit a landing page and complete the interest form staff and HR transportation and special ed reach out to help them through the application process this strategy enables us to contact or connect with candidates early in the process so we're in better position and convert them
136to applicants and eventually to hires the advertising and the work we do to follow up with our leads are just two pieces of our multi-strad or multi-strategy approach to recruiting high quality Talent as I shared in the Staffing and compensation updates in your work session a few weeks ago our team also continues to travel to college and university recruitment events we've also hosted most multiple in-person and virtual job fairs in our last event was the teacher job fair on April 15th and 400 or 647 applicants did attend that fair both virtually and in person and then we have a support staff Job Fair coming up June 15th and a bus driver job fair scheduled May 17th we continue to focus on signing early contracts and our student teachers as well as other applicants and we're
137also working to increase the number of participate teachers that we bring on this year we're also strengthening and expanding programs that tap into other pipelines such as high school students IAS to grow our own Talent so recruitment advertising is just another facet of our overall strategy and we appreciate your consideration of this request this evening happy to answer any questions that you have do we have a motion to approve the recruitment advertising proposal all right we have a motion for Mr Hershey a second by Dr Ing are there questions comments for Dr mutila at this time Mr Swanson yes thank you so much for pulling us together but I have one I just have one question regarding this wide Snapchat why are we using SnapChat as a way to promote and who was our targeted
138audience that we're trying to reach yeah so you know when you when you talk about some of these different platforms from Snapchat to Facebook you're looking at different age demographics so Snapchat would hit you know more of our college students in earlier career teachers yep Dr Eng yes um can you clarify um this expense is it a one-time expense or will it be a recurrent expense moving forward yeah so at the moment this is a one-time expense we could potentially have you know additional advertising that we purchased but we're also hoping with our new applicant tracking system we may be able to link that to some of these sites a little bit easier but we do continue to expect some kinds of advertising expenses in the future further questions comments all right seeing none all
139those in favor please say aye any opposed nay thank you Dr mutila we now move on to an item that is generally in our consent agenda but seeing as we have new board members we requested that this be pulled to action to kind of explain what we're looking at so we know this comes once a quarter it is the net savings identified in the local budget and you may also hear it referred to as the over under um and highlighted a little bit during our budgets discussion today so Mr kneader great good evening chair Mahaffey members of the board and superintendent more tonight we are presenting to you the net savings identified in the local budget report the report is made to you it's two and a half you just stated on a quarterly basis
140and as you also heard it's normally on your consent agenda but we wanted to highlight it since there are a number of new board members um and we placed it on action this report is really just one of many different initiatives we haven't placed maintain and support transparency in our fiscal matters at the district again as Miss Mahaffey stated you'll sometimes hear this referred to as the over under report first let me give you some background on the reporting and then we'll take a look at the actual third quarter report which is end of March 2023 that is coming to you tonight as you heard during your budget work session during the finance committee meeting earlier this afternoon budgeting is a very fluid process throughout the year um there are times throughout the year when
141things that are included in our local base budget are identified that we don't need the full funding amount for perhaps don't need any of the funding amount for in a particular year um where we identify an alternate source of funding and we can free up the local funding we take that amount of budget and transfer it to this savings account or over under account as we refer to it there are also times during the year when an unanticipated need comes up for which we do require funding and there is no funding in our base budget we can use the identified net savings towards investing in that on budgeted or on that need and if as a reminder most of the state funding that we receive if we do not utilize it during a year it
142reverts back to the state so our goal is to utilize all of the state funding we can during the year and by doing that and you'll see a couple examples of it on the over under report that you're going to miss kimsey is going to speak to you about as she goes through a few of the line items in a minute that can in turn free up local funding um Miss kimsey and her team regularly maximize use of State funding um so the quarterly net savings report identifying the local budget effectively is a transparent sharing with the board and the public of savings that we're creating throughout the year and then if we are investing back into the system some of those savings for expenditures specifically what those are I want to share that this
143report is also shared with Wake County government on a quarterly basis as it is reported to this board in the public um before I asked Sarah to come up and review the third quarter Report with you I want to put it into context you'll see on the report that at the end of the third quarter we've identified 14.9 million dollars of savings year to date through March and 12.9 million dollars of unbudgeted needs that have been reinvested back into the district that leaves as of the end of the third quarter a net savings to the district of 2 million dollars and if that remains at the end of the year that effectively will become part of unassigned fund balance because the local funds do not revert and again for context that two million dollars in
144savings represents nine one hundredths of one percent of our total operating budget so it's a lot two million dollars is a lot of funding too I'm not trying to make light of it but it's not like we're creating this huge savings account for the purpose of it and we are reporting this quarterly as I said for complete transparency Miss kimsey I'll ask to come up she's not going to go through every line item I'm not sure you would want she's going to go through several highlights from both the savings and the reinvestments and then if you have any questions about what she's covered or you want a particular line item that she did not cover review will be glad to do so I think this just highlights a lot of the gymnastics that you do
145on a daily basis so thank you Miss kimsey sure no problem um we'll talk first about areas where we've identified savings the first one is alignment of positions and we've talked about this before is where we monitor on a monthly basis our position allotments we receive from the State Department of Public Instruction and we look at the staff that we have in certified positions and we make sure that those that are the highest on the the pay ranges are in the position allotments because the state will cover that cost no matter the cost of the employee they're just tracking the months of employment so today we've had Savings of 5.2 million dollars by realigning positions between our state local and federal sources the second item is in transportation that is the one state allotment that
146doesn't they do not release our entire allotment at the beginning of the year from the state there's a mid-year adjustment and it came very late this year it was in the third quarter so once we did receive our final Transportation allotment we do have a savings of 3.7 million dollars where that mid-year alignment came in higher than estimated and we compare that to the cost that we have for our staff and contract dollars and fuel Parts Etc so we recognize the 3.7 million dollars there have been a couple of revenues that we budgeted for this year that have come in higher than anticipated one of those is interest earned the other is fines and forfeitures so we continue to monitor those but when we see that our collections come in higher than budgeted we are
147able to increase the budget and that puts some dollars in savings earlier in the year we requested a fund balance appropriation for district software subscription renewals we were waiting on an allotment from the state for technology funds that had not been released at that time and we had a timing issue with paying some of those bills so there was a fund balance appropriation of over 1.3 million dollars for that cost since then we have received the state allotment so we are moving the money that was appropriated from fund balance to the savings since the State dollars did come through when we were able to use State funds so those are some of the larger savings that gives you an example under the cost the largest of those is Charter Schools as we continue to monitor
148how much of a flow through we have to our Charter Schools based on our revenues our numbers of students is Charter School student numbers we had to adjust that budget by 6.3 million dollars this past month the board approved that we are able to reinstate the Master's pay for our certified staff that will begin July 1 but we had already identified the resources in this year's budget so we have set aside 4.4 million dollars for Master's pay we will not be spending some of that this year it will roll to fund balance but it will already be in the base budget for July 1 so that we are able to use that as a recruiting tool this spring then you'll see some revenues that came in lower than anticipated one is red light camera fines
149we are not having collections in that category so we reduce the budget 550 000. so when that Revenue stream came down we still had to have dollars to cover the cost in the local budget so those are some examples of how when we see a material amount that is either a savings or a cost we recognize it this way to be transparent with where things come in different than they were estimated or anticipated do you have any questions thank you Miss kimsey at this time we'll take a motion and then we'll ask questions and comments no this was pulled from the consent agenda chair Mahaffey yes sir I would move we accept the budget adjustments proposed by staff thank you second all right thank you Mr Swanson all right questions comments Mr Hagerty and then
150miss Caulfield and I miss Edmonds thank you very much for the presentation um I'm curious some of the some of the items that are presented line items when we have Revenue sources like fines and forfeitures where we had an unexpected jump in the revenue collected and then we have another source down here like the red light cameras where it's showing less I mean that suggests to me that like we're able to sort of project each year what we might get from these Revenue sources am I is is that accurate and since and before I wouldn't have jumped to that conclusion except that if we have because the red light finds being below something I know we're not actually paying the fines so it's it looks like it must be an adjustment from what we thought
151was coming in so could you tell us a little bit about that and then the second part of the question how do we spend that money does do those funds come in are they used for General revenues or are they restricted to certain purposes um good questions and thank you Mr Hagerty we estimate at the prior to the beginning of the year effectively what you see what you saw earlier today in finance committee and the superintendent's proposed budget it's got estimated fines and forfeiture News Android like camera revenues for next year so we will look at historical Trends as well as historical numbers and if we see Trends going up or down and forecasts and estimate sometimes through averaging and so that's where they come from the fines and forfeitures do come in Ebbs and
152flows and we actually saw during the pandemic when the court systems slowed down or shut down a reduction in the fines and forfeitures and then when we actually get them you know we get them periodically and we see as Miss kimsey said we see okay we're already here today over our annual estimate we will increase it or or significantly trending under what the annual forecast is let's adjust it down so that's what it it's but again it's a forecast or an estimate and again budgeting is that's where risk comes in because you can under forecast over forecast and again what was the second part of your question is there any restriction use because I didn't know if it was viewed as like a windfall or something that's forecast is it something that these are all
153just considered part of our overall General operating revenues and they are not the revenues themselves are not specifically aligned with any particular expenditures that for example they're not restricted to Capital they could be used for operating or any of these things on the top line of that shape correct okay thank you Miss Caulfield um I do have a couple of definition questions just so we can clarify um that when you mention the over under um one of the formal name of that on the budget is that kind of like the nickname of something that is it's really net savings is a better way to describe it it's a tool we use these are budgeted funds but when we see that there are savings we move it into an account that we have internal controls on
154so there can be no expenditures from that account so it's a place that we move the budget and sequester it we can't spend against it and if nothing happens if we had no cost that would roll to fund balance at the end of the year so it's kind of a precursor to it going to fund balance we're just setting it aside so that it can't be used for anything else until we purposefully decide we're going to transfer it back out and use it for another cost okay that savings is probably a better term that's okay I understood I thought I did I just it filled in the blanks for me the other thing is um red light camera funds what is that so so there's the the lights at traffic lights in the City of
155Raleigh and I think Kerry has them also if someone runs the red light and it takes the picture and sends that person a ticket for say fifty dollars yeah those funds after the city keeps the amount of money they need to cover the cost of the equipment and their software and all of that any extra comes to the school systems so we're actually receiving it's kind of a fans and forfeiture but it's from the red light cameras okay I didn't realize that we had anything to do with that as a school board and then my next question was going to be fines fines and forfeitures if you can explain like what are some examples of that those are funds and forfeitures that are levied through the court systems and when they collect the Jonathan might
156be able to give a specific example there's a constitutional provision in our that all that basically the Public School Systems get to receive the the clear fines and forfeitures there could be parking fines and all kinds of other fines and forfeitures that happen and that just the way the constitution in North Carolina has set up that the school districts get that so it gets passed on to us yeah there's a lot of litigation some of it that we wish but it's been expected to receive we haven't received yet but that's a longer story longer the shorter the short version is that the constitution indicates we're supposed to get the clear fines and forfeitures and and for both those categories most Caulfield the fonts and forfeitures and the red light camera Revenue those are occurring within
157Wake County thank you and then my last question was going to be can you explain um the charter um line there um because that seems like a pretty big number so I'm just trying to understand what exactly that it is um as the school system receives County appropriation and a few other local revenues legislation requires that we share that with the charter schools and we share it by a mathematical calculation that looks at the revenues we're bringing in the number of students from Wake County that are in charter schools and they can be in it's a Wake County student in a charter school the charter school doesn't have to be in Wake County it's a number of char Wake County students in charter schools and the number of students at Wake County school system has
158so our accounting office every month pulls that data and it changes every month and we have to share a pro rata amount of our revenues with the charter schools each year we estimate in the budget how much that pass-through will be and this year the cost is coming in higher than we estimated and the total amount that passes through to charter schools in the current year is 58 million dollars but our beginning budget was understated by 6.3 million dollars it's hard to estimate because we did not know until we actually get to the fall to know what the student numbers are and how the disparity between the numbers in charter schools and the number with Wake County School System your superintendent's proposed budget also includes a funding request for next year showing our estimated increase
159in that that would flow through the charters we listed it as the potential risk in your budget also for this very reason the numbers will come in different usually they come in higher Miss Edmonds I'd just like to know are you acquired by a statute or something to provide this quarterly report to us and the Commissioners or is this us Rising as Wake County often does we are we are doing this of our own volition and we believe it is within our fiduciary responsibility to maintain transparency and I wouldn't just add one thing as well Mr Bloomberg um I think some of you may have heard said it's it's kind of an information item we are reporting this out as information on a quarterly basis for the reasons we've shared it has been placed on
160your consent agenda so you actually do take action on it when you approve the consent agenda again giving it a little bit more level of transparency because that is a formality that the board is approving this reporting on a quarterly basis rather than just reporting out as an information item yeah I just was noting that the recommendation for Action says no action Administration is reporting that savings identified in the local budget so I was really pointing that out I think it's it's in the consent because that's another way to report out and and since the tradition has been the board support you know approves the whole consent item I don't have any problem with the boards doing it I was just noting what's on the agenda are we technically approving an information item that's what
161it sounded like to me it sounds like this is a report that comes and I just was worried that if you establish a a precedent of always approving it what happens if it's not approved you know and it's still valid so we can just let that slide and and not vote on it right it's what you're saying okay sounds like there's maybe a withdrawal of emotion is that what I'm hearing or not yes if yeah I do not tell you who made the motion I do not believe that this needs to be approved thank you Jonathan yes thank you all right is there a withdrawal of that motion thank you Mr Hagerty and thank you Mr needer and Miss kimsey thank you we do need a motion to approve our HR appointments and recommendations for
162employment so moved second thank you and all in favor please say aye any opposed nay we do superintendent more I just want to take one quick moment of privilege prior to entering into the whatever the long language will be for closed session to recognize and acknowledge that this is the last meeting for our chief technology officer Marlo Gaddis who will be retiring her last day is on Friday and you know there you go Marlo I'm just going to say thank you uh you know this the role of Chief technology officer is fairly new to school systems across the United States and for being as large as we are we were a little bit late to the party to actually add that role um Marlow has done tremendous work in the time that she has been
163in that role to not only learn and grow through the professional affiliations and opportunities she's had to to learn about this role but to also become an advocate on the national level and show up show up for Wake County in National spaces as a is it president of kosin or what's what's the title on a board on the board well okay several several large organizations across this country we she is very well respected nationally and I think it's just important to say that um it is always wonderful when folks retire after service to the district um but the the work that she has done as I told her myself in person through a video and and now live um we are because we have none or we have been changed for good so and that's
164just uh another little reference given that she's very much The Artsy person so thank you well said superintendent more at this time we'll take a motion to return to closed session for reasons previously stated at the end of our work session second we have a motion a second all in favor please say aye any opposed nay we are now back in closed session thank you