23-4-11 Board Meeting

001good evening it is Tuesday April 11th 2023 at 5 31 pm and we are calling this regular meeting of the Wake County Board of Education to order I would like to welcome those of you that are watching at home and those that are here in person to observe as the Board of Education conducts its official business Wake County Board of Education meetings are conducted for the purpose of carrying on the official business of the school system the public is cordially invited to attend board meetings to observe the board as it conducts its official business persons who 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 our speakers by refraining from loud comments or other disruptions disruptions by

002any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance to General statute 143-318.17 all nine board members are with us today along with our superintendent and our board attorney if you all would join me in standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance of America indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you we'll now begin our information items and begin with the superintendent's comments Ms Moore good evening congratulations are in order to for the 10 finalists for the 22-23 wcpss teacher of the year I had the honor of surprising each one of these finalists with the good news on March 28th they are Jane Ferguson an ESL teacher at Brooks Magnet Elementary Terry Hennings a civil a Civic literacy and African-American studies teacher at Garner Magnet High Sarah Freeman an

003English teacher at Wake Forest High Leroy Salazar a Spanish teacher at Wake Early College of information and biotechnologies Caitlin putt an Ela teacher at Carroll Magnet Middle Tyler LZ a third grade teacher at Buckhorn Creek Elementary Darius Davis a special education teacher at Washington Magnet Elementary Ross Anderson a social studies teacher at Moore Square Magnet Middle Ginny Clayton an ESL teacher at Cary high and Chris Stapleton an English teacher at Apex Friendship High we are blessed with thousands of talented teachers in the Wake County Public School System and these finalists represent the best of the best they will appear before an interview committee which will select our teacher of the year the winner will be named at a special celebration on April 27th congratulations to all of these outstanding educators congratulations are also in order

004for three staff members who were recently honored for exceptional service to our students first Jacqueline Fuentes a school social worker at Lincoln Heights Magna Elementary was named the wcpss school social worker of the year she has been a school social worker for 11 years and has played an active role in her school serving on school Improvement teams and other groups that support the social emotional physical behavioral and well-being needs of students Lincoln Heights principal Scott Gayton says she tirelessly investigates all avenues to find any and all resources for our families in need she will attend appointments with our families find medical resources connect families to Providers and the list goes on next congratulations to Angelica Smith known as Angel who was named the wcpss school library media coordinator of the year she is the school

005library media coordinator at North wake College and Career Academy Ms Smith enjoys being a part of her students academic Journeys from the moment they first enter school until they graduate she says I can talk to them as individuals not just the students find out their passions and interests with this in mind I can tailor the library's program to meet their needs I cultivate relationships based on trust and respect and students see me as a partner and an ally in their learning we also recently named barnann Creech of Zebulon Magnet Middle School as the wcpss CTE Career Technical education teacher of the Year Ms Creech teaches family and consumer science Health Science and exploring trades courses and provides many career development opportunities and experiences for the students she takes students out of the classroom on a

006regular basis to interact with Community leaders businesses college campuses guest speakers and organizations our goal as a district is to do all that we can to give students what they need to be successful both inside and outside of the classroom each of these employees were honored for the many ways they meet students where they are to give them the best support possible congratulations to all on these well-deserved recognitions finally I would like to invite all families to participate in the annual wcpss family survey which they can complete now through May 12th the survey will include questions about family engagement in schools barriers to engagement School climate and more we will use this information to improve the way that we connect with families to better address their needs to improve the overall School experience so invite

007families to help us make each child's educational experience as positive and beneficial as possible by giving honest thoughtful and thorough responses you can learn more and find a link to the survey at wcpss.net Family survey that concludes my comments thank you superintendent Moore and not to survey everybody out but we do still have the superintendent search survey that is live until the 18th we encourage everybody to take the time to fill that out as well both are very important in providing feedback to our district and to our board as we move forward I want to um first highlight that it is assistant principal week thank you to the Kerry chamber for having an assistant principal's luncheon this afternoon where some of our APS not all in the Cary Area were able to sit down and

008enjoy lunch in a nice quiet environment and thank you also to the YMCA of Carrie for sponsoring that um very thankful that to see and excited to see that the Holly Springs High School Optimus Prime robotics team are our state robotics Champs and they are going to Nationals if you've never been to a first robotics program I highly recommend it I know this is a growing part of our community and many many more of our schools are adding it and it's just a really neat experience for so many of our students last week was school librarian week many of them had the week off so I thought that was pretty nice but many thanks to our school librarians for the work that they do to help our students find that book that'll keep them being

009a reader and keep them excited about reading as they move forward in their life [Music] um before spring break I was able to go see the Apex Friendship High School Musical Anastasia I don't know how they did it but they had a full train car on stage that rotated 360 Degrees our theater folks are absolutely incredible green level high school will be doing Once Upon a mattress April 14th and 15th they have three shows and towards the end of April keep a lookout for Holly Springs High School performing SpongeBob SquarePants the musical um it is also still Ramadan and also Apec or Arab Heritage months schools have been provided resources and how to support their students and celebrate this month it's also autism awareness and acceptance month which is very near and dear to my

010heart um this morning we got to celebrate a new school in our district that has been open since July I want to send a lot of thanks out to Herbert Akins Road Middle School they had a great student ambassador team their jazz band had performances their school choral harmonics group sang and they had two young men who performed a guitar duet they had students speak honestly about their experience I especially appreciated the eighth grader who said I didn't want to come here but now I love it and I'm telling all of my neighborhood friends that they're gonna love it too starting a new school is a difficult thing and I think that that really encapsulated a lot of experiences for many of our students and I appreciate them speaking and sharing their experiences and being

011honest about it and Miss Atkins her team the Nighthawk PTA and their students have worked really hard this past year to create and cultivate a rich learning environment for students we saw multiple clubs that I they have during the the week and I just want to thank our voters and our Board of Commissioners for their support of our school construction program because of you we're able to have these places for our students and that concludes my comments so I'll pass it over to our vice chair Mr hegarty thank you chair Mahaffey uh good afternoon good evening yeah it's still is it evening now it seems like it's been a long day so um it may not surprise you then to learn that April is also Stress Awareness Month and alcohol awareness month not saying those

012two are combined but please do take care of your mental health I will keep it short I do want to thank the Kerry chamber for their awareness for their recognition events that they have done for our principals and our assistant principals out in the Cary Area it's nice to see again the hard work that our building administrators do recognized by people in the community outside of our schools I want to thank the folks that came out to the community meeting we had at Parkside Elementary regarding the new Parkside Middle School that's being built the the student assignment staff did a fantastic job collecting feedback about school calendars assignment areas and then the timeline for the project there's a lot of excitement in the area for the new middle school and as you know that's an

013area where a lot of our middle schools are really crowded and so this school will be well received I'm not going to go too far into it because we'll have some budget information later in budget discussion at later at later meetings but one of the concerns that I want to draw to everybody's attention if you have seen it as you know we are heavily influenced by the funding we get from the state and our two-chamber legislature has adopted a house budget that does contain a provision in it that didn't necessarily get a lot of attention but it's in regard to class size and class size limits so what the legislation does is you know right now we have limits on the number of students you can have in a classroom kindergarten through third grade and

014this Ledges and what that does is that then if you only have a set number of classrooms in a building and you have to spread out those kindergarten through third graders you put an awful lot of kids into fourth grade and an awful lot of kids into fifth grade and that could put a lot of stress on your fourth and fifth grade teachers and those fourth and fifth graders may feel they don't get enough individual attention so the solution to this was rather than repeal those limits or maybe take them from 16 17 kids to maybe 20 22 kids was to put limits then on the fourth and fifth grade classrooms so now we have we need more classrooms than we have available within the school buildings it's not an ideological issue it's not even

015an educational issue as much as it's just a simple math issue geometry and spatial relations how many classrooms do you have in a building how many students can you divide up among them and the impacts from this in a district like Wake County are going to be huge you know it can lead to potential reassignments it can lead to potential calendar changes it can put even more strain on our Capital budgets this is something that I think the legislature did with good intentions right I think they there was concern about the fourth and fifth graders but without looking ahead to what the Practical impacts will be this could have a really severe fiscal impact on our school system it could destabilize a lot of families and their assignment areas and there's there's just a lot

016of drawbacks to it and whether or not this can be changed somehow whether or not this could be drawn out to give us at least a Runway to transition people over time so it's not an immediate impact or whether there's some way that more waivers could be granted I hope everyone who's concerned about this will reach out to State lawmakers make sure they're aware of these impacts even if you have to draw little boxes of classrooms and students and show that you know what you run out of boxes before you run out of students just the harmful impacts this will have so thank you for letting me talk about that issue thank you so much Miss Waters thank you chairman happy as we've already said April is an important month to celebrate many things including

017volunteerism it is global volunteer month and I want to say a special thank you to all who volunteer within our schools to help our students and our Educators in so many ways I would also like to highlight an organization that I recently volunteered with that is having a positive impact on the lives of students in Wake County no in the pocket helps ensure that children have the attire needed to attend school their motto is clothing children with dignity and love they work closely with our school social workers to get clothing to our children all over Wake County it is a great place to volunteer and a great place to donate new and gently used shoes and clothing of all sizes from infant to adult and as chairman haffey said April is also World autism month

018and I'd like to read something I read from UNC teach it says this is the month we celebrate the unique strengths perspectives and success of autistic individuals worldwide and if you have been blessed to know and love someone with ASD or Asperger's it is truly a gift April 18th as a reminder is the date for a special call Board of Education meeting this is a public input session for the superintendent search process it will be held at Southeast Raleigh high school and will begin at 6 30 PM so I hope if your schedule permits you will come out and help us by providing feedback on what you would like to see as we continue on the search process and then finally I'd like to announce the next District 4 BAC meeting it will be on

019May 15th at Southeast Raleigh Elementary the meeting will begin at 6 pm and will provide an update on the superintendent search process and we will also get an update on Equity so thank you and I look forward to great things coming up in District 4 lots of activities and events coming up soon so thank you Edmonds thank you April is school library month I want to thank all of our school librarians for their work and their professionalism you are valued and appreciated since our last meeting I've continued to visit schools in District 5 including the Dillard magnet school campuses I attended Athens Athens Drive High School's production of Seussical the musical and just before spring break I had the pleasure of attending a performance by the North Carolina Symphony with more than a thousand of

020our fourth graders next week I'll be at Middle Creek High School for their production of James and the Giant Peach the Arts are thriving in Wake County Public Schools and I'm honored to support the hard work of all the students and staff involved in the Arts and I'm grateful to Our Community Partners that help bring the Arts to our students in regard to our search for our next superintendent I want to remind everyone as Ms Mahaffey said about the online survey that's still open through April 18th and there are several several in-person comment opportunities next week in addition to the one on the 18th right the 18th on Tuesday on Sunday the 16th at 3 pm I'm hosting a public input session again that's Sunday at 3 P.M on the superintendent search and that will

021be at Powell Drive community park on Powell Drive in Raleigh it's indoors rain or shine and open to anyone in or outside of District five second on Monday April 17th I'm hosting my second BAC meeting at Middle Creek Elementary School that meeting is at 5 30 pm and part of the agenda we will do budget and then the other part will be input on the superintendent search and finally I want to thank superintendent Moore and staff for all of your work on the budget proposal that will be presented tonight budgets are an expression of values and I look forward to doing the work necessary to secure the funding that our students and staff need to be successful thank you thank you Dr Ing foreign good evening um and I hope you guys had a great

022Spring Break um uh the one thing that I it's still on my mind um is the issue of gun safety and um and I you know ultimately do want to see kind of where we stand as a as a school district in terms of our position on gun safety and especially specifically um what we talked about in the previous meetings about and from the be safe to talk about the safe storage of guns um you know all these things that are still happening in in our society I just want to make sure that we take a stance on that um and just also bear in mind that in our the proposed house budget that there is a 40 million included in that is a 40 million dollars for school safety grants and I you know

023I would really strongly urge people to call your representatives your senators um to um uh just really push for that that aspect of it so that we we can have safer schools I am going to be visiting um Wildwood Forest Elementary as well as Fox Road elementary school this week and at the end of the week I'm going to go visit Wakefield High School so I'm going to have to wear my uh you know different hats the I'm going to have to learn some lingo for talking to high school students and then next week we're going to have um our BAC meeting a joint BAC meeting with Mrs Caulfield in District One over at Heritage High School at 6 pm on April 17th and there will be elections but the the uh the major agenda

024will be to discuss getting feedback about the superintendent search and the kind of the characteristics of a superintendent that you the the people are looking for a person that perhaps would best fill fulfill our um uh the role of a superintendent and the meet your needs and to um have the same priorities as you you do so I'd like to get some of that feedback on this coming Monday so thank you very much thank you Mr Hershey thank you madam chair April is also occupational therapy month as I was informed by our OTS that are here today um I want to first thank everybody who's come today to this meeting everyone who has signed up to speak I appreciate the time that you are taken out of your lives to be here so thank you

025all everybody in this room for coming I'm going to raise awareness about one issue that is in the net in the North Carolina general assembly and that is there are some bills that are attempting to strip power from the North Carolina High School Athletic Association Wake County and our state we have some excellent athletic programs the nchs AAA is not perfect but a couple of years ago they came to agreements with DPI to fix a couple of perceived problems everything has been fine the changes would put the entire Athletic Association or our entire Athletics in the hands of um the state uh the State Board is yes sorry I've lost my train of thought um basically what I'm getting to is what we have works really well it is respected around the country they set

026eligibility requirements returning from concussions we have a lot of well-run state tournaments the football games everything they put on we do a great job oftentimes our state will be where we try out new rules and athletic events and I say this speaking from experience as an official we do it and then the other fifth the other 49 states then adopt what we have done they do that because we have a high quality organization and we have high quality Athletics athletic directors coaches student athletes and so I encourage you to reach out to Representatives this is not political we should not make Athletics political we should keep things the way they are they are not broken and I just want to voice my support for our North Carolina High School Athletic Association thank you thank you

027Miss Johnson Hustler thank you um so it is April is a busy month and um I was like I should go last because mine are downers many of you know I've spent my entire professional career in anti-violence against women and children are most vulnerable and April is also Child Abuse Prevention awareness month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month and at least one in four of our children are sexually assaulted before the age of 18. for girls and 1 in 12 before the age of eight before the age of 12 for boys so our Educators and certainly our social workers know the students in their buildings who were impacted and I certainly each year I'm very fortunate that um most of our social workers and our staff know what I do for a living and each year

028I have an amazing social worker who goes above and beyond to ensure that a student that they suspect this is happening to ensure they're providing accommodations in our building so that those kids can manage the trauma that they're experiencing while they still are attending our school so while it is um definitely not an exciting month that we wish we and I certainly wish we did not have to acknowledge but given the number of people that it impacts we do um so if you see blue pinwheels especially in the town of Fuquay thank you to one of our great constituents who's ensured that their blue pinwheels throughout Fuquay to draw attention and awareness to it but also we're putting information in their community at their request that speaks to red flags and prevention and the thing

029that I would say that some of you know my story that Drew me to this is graduating by the age of 18 is considered a protective factor for our children Wake County Public Schools specifically project Enlightenment and our Early Child office of Early Childhood learning has done a great deal of work with parents which is also how we create protective environments but guess what else is a productive factor for our children is one adult outside of their family that they can trust and I guarantee you for the thousands of kids and families I've worked with it is almost always an educator is the person that they trust and that they can disclose to we thank our Educators and our social workers in our school psychologists and our school counselors all the time but especially this

030month for those of you who in the midst of teaching also have to be that support person for our students and so I certainly know that I thank you but I also know that those students will forever remember you because navigating that level of trauma especially for our younger students is quite difficult and today my morning was spent with a colleague looking at the data with Department of Health and Human Services and not a surprise to any of us we did quite a bit of media during covet but now the number of reports pose covet have gone through the roof and we anticipated it but it's still really hard to hear the level of egregious cases and speaking of things that impact schools today were discussed looking at putting torture laws on the books for

031children a child with special needs was held captive in North Carolina for six months um and was required to communicate with their family that they were safe um by the person that was holding them captive and so sadly enough my morning was built with how do we create straight laws to hold people accountable when they cause harm to children and I certainly said in in that space that well the one place that most of our kids if nowhere else feels safe is their school buildings and so certainly while we're introducing those bills on behalf of children we're certainly also speaking to the need for the adults in the building because that is the primary protective factor for keeping our kids safe is those folks in our building to ensure that we are also taking care

032of them while they are taking care of our most vulnerable and traumatized families so fortunately um all of my colleagues agree that our public schools are essential to the work that we do to provide support and preventative measures for students and families who've been impacted by such tragedy and Trauma so thank you very much for the work that you all do and I see lots of hits nodding because I know that means that you've been touched by this with many of your students and I never failed to mention that those of us who are adults have also been touched by this personally and what this means for the work that you're doing on behalf of your students so thank you all very much for the work that you do and then in good news we

033are officially back from covet one of my favorite schools I used to always talk about Ballantyne Elementary very small well actually they're growing this year I went to see the fireflies and their first Lego league is back up and running and I got to see three of my favorite volunteers many actually Lincoln Heights pre-covet also had a couple of retired volunteers I don't know if they've returned but when I was at Valentine I got to see all three of my grandfathers who my grandfathers I mean they had children who went to that school grandchildren those grandchildren no longer no longer at that school and they are still volunteering every day to ensure that the robotics team is back up and running at Valentine's so it's great to see our fireflies and while I was in

034Fuquay I went to see our sea turtles there's a theme Here the principal that was at Valentine is now at South Lakes and she is all about their school mascots and so I got to hear how they are using um excuse me um Supportive Services and SEL which they have every day in all of their classes at South Lakes they're the only Elementary who have SEL built into every day of their school day for their students so I got to experience that with our young people and their acronym is swim so that kids because they're sea turtles and I promised I would do the sea turtle so that they can remember how they can take care of their cells throughout the day so it was definitely exciting to to swim with the sea turtles and

035then lastly I will note that many of our schools go through ramp which we've talked about before which is a designation that schools can receive for their school counselors and this year we have only one actually we have two schools only one in my district that are being recognized and that's Willow Spring Elementary will be recognized this summer in Philadelphia at the national ramp conference and again I'm always excited and for all of our new board members I think I've said this to you before it is probably one of the most enlightening processes that go through with your school to hear what they are doing in their buildings to support their students with the minimal resources that they do have so hopefully you'll all get a chance to go through a rant process but congratulations

036Willow Springs Elementary thank you Miss Johnson hostler Mr Swanson thank you madam chair and good afternoon or evening I did the same thing Vice chair Hagerty at the time is of the essence I guess um but my remarks will be very very brief tonight um I want to say welcome back to our traditional students and and staff and hope they had a very safe and and restful spring break I also want to give you know thank the chamber the Kerry chamber for their principal and AP launching and so if um I was joking with Ms Edmonds that what are we going to do next week when we don't have a meeting a lunch meeting before the board meeting but it was always great to see and be in community with our principals and APS to

037learn the great things that are happening in their schools last week I had the opportunity of visiting Northwoods Elementary Adams Elementary which is a year-round school in District 9 and East Cary Magnet Middle School I enjoyed hearing from the global ambassadors that gave us a tour to talk about the great things that are happening and to hear their perspective and so I am extremely grateful to those principals for welcoming into their schools and always excited to see the great things that our students are doing um and just to reiterate the point that if you have not completed the survey for the superintendent search please please please ma'am please sir uh get that input to us before next week um and we're looking forward to the great things and also looking forward to the budget discussion

038and so I want to thank the superintendent and her team for putting this together and look forward to the powerful dialogue that we'll have to ensure that our students and teachers and families have the needs that they deserve thank you thank you Ms Caufield oh hope everybody enjoyed their break and welcome back to all the students and staff that head off I wanted to say congratulations to all those teachers that were recognized at this celebration for Teacher Excellence that we were able to be part of um and once again I want to remind everybody of the board advisory we have the joint meeting with district one and three over at Heritage High School and we'll speak about the new superintendent survey this search and how that is important to everybody in our community the community

039survey is on our website as they've said it's very important that you all reach out and find out how you can get that if you don't know I haven't already done it it gives us a lot of understanding about what our community wants and what's important to them and I don't have any more awareness as of April I think we're pretty full with that one in our last meeting we got to reckon in the student recognition meeting it was very inspiring to hear the stories of all the students that sat in front of us and I think there was quite a few times when we were passing around the tissues both in happy and and inspiring achievements from all of those students so congratulations to all those students that came and gave us one happy

040day to sit and recognize them all Wake Forest High School has their performance the sound of music that is coming up April 21st and 22nd also on the 28th and the 29th and Heritage High School has Mean Girls that's coming up April 21st 22nd 23rd and then the 27th through the 30th so please go out and enjoy their talent you will definitely be pleased so that's all I have thank you if we can get a motion to approve the meeting agenda so moved second okay we have a motion in a second any comments discussion seeing none all in favor please say aye any opposed nay all right we do have one information item before we get to public comment um and I'm going to hand it off to Miss Johnson Hoffler to introduce this item

041thank you very much um and I certainly um you all some of you who follow us quite a few of you in this room know that I promised my dear colleague Roxy cash that I would always continue to support the work and Elevate the work that she began here and and she did a great deal of that but today I this evening I get to introduce the partnership that we have with activate good which you'll hear from them the work that they've done Miss cash included me fortunately um because she had heard me for many years talk about the support of some of our schools who don't have thriving fundraising ptas and what works how could we as board members but also as a community support those schools and you'll hear about El love vate

042shortly from from both Amber and Rose and Mr cook will formally introduce them but I would be remiss if I didn't give a great deal of appreciation and gratitude to Roxy cash and Damon sir Costa from the AJ Fletcher Foundation who supported this work to get up and running in our schools at Wake County and I'm glad that we finally were able to bring you all to the table so that you can hear the great work that has happened and I certainly can speak from personal experience especially from there are lots of favorite things but the break room was life-changing at Creech Road Elementary I went there doing teacher work days during the transition of the holiday break it was the first time they really literally had a break room which seems minuscule to so

043many of our larger schools we've always had a break room and but theirs was full of stuff mostly paint that had not been put on walls but thanks to the volunteers and the support of activate good and the work that you are doing with our schools so I had to say that because every time I think about it the teachers always say tell people about the work that they did in our schools and so again you'll Mr cook will officially recognize you all but thank you very much for the work and efforts and patience that you've sustained as we figure out how to get businesses back into our buildings now so thank you all for the work and patience that you've certainly showed us foreign Vice chair Hagerty superintendent Moore and board members we do

044appreciate the opportunity as Ms Johnson Hospital just referenced to take a few minutes to highlight some of the impactful work uh past present and future of an important and valued Community partner which the Wake County Public School System and our broader Community our students our staff are so fortunate to have and no more appropriate time to make this recognition than what I've learned is global volunteer month among others among other efforts activate good helps to recruit and connect volunteers with hundreds of Community Partners around the triangle including the Wake County Public School System notably and as many of you may recall in the early stages of the pandemic three years ago in the spring of 2020 activate good partnered with our district technology services staff and others to mobilize more than 200 volunteers to configure

045Wi-Fi hotspots and to distribute 50 000 laptops in a matter of weeks to students that's just one example of the important work that activate good is engaged in to support our schools and our students over the past decade plus so to share a little bit more information about what they do including current and future Community involvement and volunteering opportunities it is my pleasure to welcome and introduce executive director Amber Smith and Senior programs manager Rose Thompson foreign good evening esteemed board and guest tonight uh can we get my slides back up here thank you I'm Amber Smith I'm the executive director and I'm Rose Thompson and we're with activate good we're a small part of the activate good team and it is just such an honor to be here with you tonight to share some

046of the work that we're doing and honor the partnership that we've had with you all and explore and dream about how we can support each other in the future so I want to start by just asking a question and board members I don't know if you can see what's on the screen but this is a question for you and it's a question for everyone in the audience too I'd love to just see by a show of hands if you have felt any one of these ways before in the past so raise your hand if you've ever felt Unsure how to help a problem you saw on the news or a problem with too big or complex for your actions to matter or perhaps that you didn't have sufficient time or resources to contribute to making

047a meaningful impact that so many of us that's right and you know what we're not alone a recent study by our friends at Points of Light showed that 66 of the Americans that they surveyed don't feel like their actions can make an impact when you consider the population of the United States and the population of our local community think of how many thousands of people that is who might have a passion or desire to get involved but who might be facing barriers to getting involved in their communities we also learned that 40 percent of people are not sure what they can do that would be helpful and 44 percent are not sure where to find Opportunities to engage and all of this is part of What's called the Civic empowerment Gap that Dr Levinson at

048Harvard says is as large and disturbing as the nationally recognized reading and math achievement gaps imagine all the potential that's lost when people can't get involved easily in their community so activate Goods Mission and to provide the foundation the context for why we're here tonight activate Goods mission is to make it easy to get involved and our ultimate vision is a world in which all people both realize and act on their power to improve their communities what we do is we invite everyone everyone in this room everyone in the region to join us on a journey of learning because we're always learning taking action and Community Building to become agents of positive change in the Triangle so learning means we talk about local issues and we learn about ourselves our community and how we can

049help action means that we facilitate opportunities to volunteer and make an impact and Community Building means we're going on this journey together now since we've gotten started in 2005 we've been honored to partner with over 600 organizations that's a lot of non-profits also so many schools right here in Wake County to get people out there get the people volunteering to meet the needs that they're seeing on the ground we have almost 39 000 people in our volunteer network who are out there doing good and since we got started and also since we were able to start tracking this effectively we've tracked over a hundred thousand volunteer Connections in our community what that looks like day today is our large-scale days of service many of which benefit schools we have a youth volunteer course so we

050can get those students out there volunteering and Families we have transformational projects that we work with businesses on again many of which are in our schools and we have our volunteer opportunity database where our partners are posting and sharing their needs and people in the public can sign up to meet those needs so now that you understand a little bit about our mission and why we do what we do I want to share a little bit more about our history with you all as our partners there are so many different ways we've partnered throughout the years but one of the earliest ways was by introducing a leadership and service curriculum many years ago and some of our first adopters of that curriculum that taught teenagers all about leadership and service in their Community were brought

051in and the leadership academies and East Wake Partnerships for student service I mentioned we work with youth volunteers well we are happy to work with schools and youth groups and after school clubs to facilitate youth volunteerism of course we mentioned earlier the Partnerships during covid-19 it was our honor to support the school system in getting hot spots out there and laptops for the kids to learn remotely youth volunteer Corps that connects to our student services as well but that's for ages 11 to 18 to get out there during supervised projects where students are both learning more in depth about the community issues and volunteering with us as well and finally like I mentioned before our opportunity database where many schools are already partners with us and are able to post their volunteer needs so that

052we can recruit volunteers to help support and fill those needs we also have a number of Youth and school groups from schools who are also volunteering I'm going to turn it over to my esteemed colleague Rose now to share about the L love eight Schools project we are so excited to share about this impact campaign here tonight and what better audience and platform to be able to do it with all of you here and those at home listening so a bit about this as you know schools and ptas located in under-resourced communities often have less access to volunteer support and resources than other schools as we created this project our vision was to mobilize Community individuals businesses corporate groups other community members to gather and really pour some love on those schools and Elevate them

053with their time their resources and their talents Elevate them with their time their resources and their talents Community Support matters that's that's no secret I think we all know that that's why we've got this room full here today and between covid-19 learning loss staff shortages that seem to be plaguing schools across our nation and other challenges schools need support from communities that they serve in order to thrive as do our students so a bit about this awesome project we have worked with five schools over the last year in our pilot cohort and we are working with 17 over the course of three years we have worked with schools to determine what their volunteer needs are and bring in community support to rally and get behind them with ongoing volunteer needs or other service projects that

054they may have all of these Partners have free access to our website to post their volunteer needs at any time throughout this partnership and beyond that website is called Golden it's a great volunteer management platform for schools to utilize and as Ms Johnson host letter mentioned this came about from seed funding from the AJ Fletcher Foundation also from a lot of sponsorships and Community Support so what does this cycle look like first are schools apply to be a part of this last year we had five that we worked with we go out and we perform A needs assessment with school leaders and PTA members to really determine what the needs are at those schools and create a volunteer mobilization plan in order to address their ongoing internal needs as well as their large transformative needs

055at the schools additionally we perform the Outreach in order to Rally Community Support to fulfill all of those needs and really strategize how to Rally that support and gather that and get it to our schools sorry after this partnership though all of these members are able to utilize our site indefinitely a few impacts from our pilot cohort that I'm happy to share with you tonight I did mention we work with five Title One schools we also worked to Rally supplies for student kits for every student at those five schools as well as staff appreciation kits for every staff member within those buildings we worked with nearly a thousand volunteers to make that possible and you can see here about how much time and effort was put into these projects as well as Community Resources we

056couldn't do this without the support of many private funders and businesses who have made this possible so nearly 75 thousand dollars has been given to these schools in resources and you know again time and talent the five schools that took part in our pilot cohort were Wildwood Forest bailiwick Creech Road Elementary Farwell Road and Fox Road all amazing schools they made us feel so welcome we truly feel like we're part of their family when we enter their doors and those are just a few of the I'm sorry I have a few amazing stories to share here tonight uh at baileywick we put in a community garden additionally we help to mulch the grounds paint multiple classrooms and create a steam learning room at Wildwood Forest we did some similar projects that were very transformational as

057well as rallying our triangle businesses for good and other corporate Partners to take part in a career day I also was one of the presenters it was great to explain what a non-profit is to Elementary students and at Fox Road Elementary they posted a lot of their ongoing needs within their school and we also took on a lot of transformative projects there we have a great testimonial here that we wanted to share with you from their media coordinator there were multiple sign ups for folks to come in and just support her work in the library one of which was a retired librarian who came from multiple shifts which was pretty amazing additionally we have a picture here of a volunteer with the North Carolina Education Lottery who came as a group to help create the

058staff appreciation kits and at that time she got to reunite with her Elementary School teacher her favorite teacher and it was great for her to just return to her Elementary School and be able to put that Community Support out there and show her love for that teacher in that school at Creech Road uh you mentioned that staff Lounge well there it is on the right we took on a huge transformative project there during our 9 11 Day of Service new paint new furniture other materials and came back during our MLK Day of Service to do even more painting projects and mulching and campus grounds work at that time our volunteers met a brand new teacher it was her very first day helped her unload her car helped her prepare her classroom for the school year

059so um you know folks don't realize just how much work new teachers and all teachers need in order to get that work done in their classroom so she was met with a whole team of support that day at barwell Road Elementary they have experienced some changes in school leadership rebranding and some staffing shortages and staff workload because of that we have given the school new life with paint and you know a fresh clean coat of paint can just help to lift and brighten the spirits of the staff there and the students there so many hallways have been retouched with paint there in that school and it's been amazing they've actually made us part of their family there at barwell they have the family system and additionally um you know the staff there were moved to

060tears when speaking to our volunteers and it was touching and I'm getting worked up now just thinking about it um speaking to the Staffing shortages and how it's affected their work and just how appreciative they were of having the Greater Community come into their school and support them in this way a new coat of paint doesn't sound that exciting but it truly is huge for an elementary school that can't get that paint but once every 11 years or so so we want to do even more good together with all of you here all of you listening and the board we want you to help by spreading the word about activate good about the Elevate Schools project help us by considering opportunities to Advocate and support this project and also continue the conversation about ways that

061we can partner through this Elevate Schools project here are some ways that you can do that you can certainly visit our website at tobagood.org Elevate schools learn more about it sign up for the volunteer needs that are listed there help to support the ptas of these schools and schools across your District of course I know many of you are doing that but these schools need our support now more than ever so please consider signing up to volunteer and sharing about activate good and also there is a video embedded in the presentation you're welcome to share with your Networks see someone we all know here so here we have a meet ways to Advocate and support for this project we ask that you help us navigate the current School volunteer processes it's a little bit different

062at each school and we'd like to continue this conversation with you about that additionally helped you learn about our volunteer services and our software that we can offer to the schools we'd love for every school to use it beyond our Elevate schools Partners we do have many other schools that we are partnered with who do Post their volunteer needs on our website that that can be done by PTA leaders or internal staff members brainstorm with us about ways to remove barriers from sorry community members to help with the schools please let's continue this conversation we'd like to figure out ways that we can more deeply partner and and get get the work done in these schools and help us to continue this conversation help us to connect with more resources that you may have or

063community members may have who are listening here tonight we would love to just continue the conversation and get the good work done and now if there are any questions I want to say thank you Rose and Amber for your partnership and the work that you're doing to help fill in the gaps in so many of our schools where their ptas are either non-existent or struggling and thank you Miss Johnson hosler for sharing your personal stories with Creech Road and barwell and I know that this was something that Miss cash was very excited to see get off the ground so are there questions or comments from board members at this time no yep thank you so much for the presentation and you know get up you know this cash being my predecessor I I would like

064to carry the torch um you know going into being in this position and learning there there is a some schools like the ones that you quoted the ones that are in District 3 that don't have a you know parents who are able to you know participate in the PTA and so I'm just glad that there is an Avenue for Community to really wrap their arms around these schools so thank you so much thank you can I respond to that as well and just add an additional comment and what we're learning is that there the ptas at these schools are so many different levels of growth and sometimes coming back together after a period of party you know they're all in a different place but one thing that's really important to us that we want to

065make clear is that we're centering the voices of the teachers and the faculty and the parents of these schools and we want to um not come in and assume the needs or you know impose what we think the needs are but hear and listen from these stakeholders what they're saying the needs are and have the community listen to that as well and wrap their arms around these schools so I just wanted to make sure that was that was known all right Miss Johnson Hustler thank you for bringing that up because I do think that is important to know that you all are in deep conversation with the school Community even after the needs assessment the like barwell got a new principal also got two new PTA members and you all were very patient in walking

066through the process hearing what they what the needs were and so I can't say enough and I just leaned over to Mr Swanson and said I I failed to mention one of the probably the thing that did bring me to tears is um you had a picture of there were Coastal Federal Credit Union came and you were there Amber um they lined up the school did a full parade and not just including our teachers but every single person in that building like I had our CNS workers and our custodial staff saying is this for me too we're not teachers and they said it's teacher appreciation and they went above and beyond for every single person in that building that literally did almost bring me to tears because it was clear to me that while yes

067we have all these appreciation days the one of the things I think most children know is Teacher Appreciation Day and so I as a parent had a whole new perspective that everybody in that building and I always say from a bus drivers to our CNS those two were probably the first two people who see our children every day and we don't acknowledge them the same way and so I would be remiss if I did not give a shout out to Coastal Federal Credit Union for acknowledging that in that space walking over to them bringing them into the crowd um yeah it still makes me emotional to think about just the look and the sense of inclusion and gratitude that we witnessed that day that was a great day and I'm clearly emotional talking about all

068of it mm-hmm I just want to say thank you for the presentation and it's really great to um see like creative and resourceful ways that we can bring help to all our different schools because they do have so many different needs and so many different conditions our schools are in and what our what our students need they're coming from everywhere um for me I know that I've been I've had family that their PTA was kind of non-existent and they just didn't have the ability or the time or the funds and I've also known that that we've had neighboring schools where our school was blessed with Boosterthon and they were able to get new white boards and new playgrounds and we weren't a very old school but meanwhile the neighboring school they got dropped from the

069program because they couldn't even raise enough money so just to have something like this where you can add that extra layer we're always asking all of our community members to come in and volunteer with our students and everything and help in any way they can and it's just really it's a blessing to have something like this that you can add some something extra to our students so thank you thank you thank you so much and I'm sure we will all be sharing on how people can get involved and thank you for highlighting this we really appreciate it thank you so much thank you we now will move on to public comment speakers commenting on items on tonight's agenda will be heard first and followed by speakers commenting on other topics all others all speakers will

070be heard in order of sign up the public comment portion of the agenda exceeds 30 minutes board policy states that the board chair reserves the right to conduct other board business before inviting remaining speakers back to the podium members of the public are welcome to offer comments or criticism directed at substantive ideas actions or procedures of the board and individual board members the laws and policies of North Carolina provide that issues or concerns involving individual personnel and individual student matters are confidential and therefore not appropriate for public comment settings concerns related to Personnel issues or student matters may be addressed through applicable wcpss Personnel the grievance policy or other applicable policies those offering comments to the board including students may discuss issues and matters of General concern during the public comment period you may speak

071for up to three minutes a green light will illuminate at the podium when you begin the yellow light will light up along with an audio tone when there are 30 seconds remaining in your time and then a red light along with an audible tone will signal when your time is up and the next speaker will be called to the podium we had some issues last time the last two times with this our test run was successful earlier so we're going to keep our fingers crossed that we don't have to Pivot to a paper system um but we will do that if we have to in the interest of maintaining Civility and decorum speakers are encouraged to address their comments to the board of education and to refrain from personal attacks and insults directed at the

072board individual board members staff or members of the general public please remain at the podium during your speaking time any materials you wish to share with the board should be handed to our board attorney who's right over here either before or after your comments we do have 26 people signed up for public comment today we will begin with those that signed up for on agenda topics and we will begin with Anna Stratus followed by Bridget Bridges good evening chair and members of the board my name is Anna Stratus and I'm the cafe manager at Oberlin Magnet Middle School tonight is the third time that I have come before you to speak on behalf of CNS employees and to advocate for a livable And Timely wage I am grateful to the school board for listening on

073those past occasions and for the wage increases and bonuses provided however the reality remains that CNS employees are still struggling here's the truth it is impossible to pay for all our bills by working for CNS alone as you and I'm sure every person in this room are aware Wake County is not an inexpensive place to live and the cost of living rates are continuing to rise with every passing month in fact at the time that we wrote the petition before you just two months ago Wake County identified that a livable wage for a single adult was 18 20 an hour today that wage has risen to 1851. and yet starting employees in CMS are making only 16 an hour and so I ask you this how can you expect your employees to survive when they

074are earning nearly 15 less than the minimum livable wage the answer is you can't without the support of a spouse there is no way we can't support ourselves our children and we cannot survive alone by working for just CNS in fact every single parent that I know in CMS Works a second job if not even a third budgeting for our bills is made even more difficult by the once a month salary pay schedule when you're living paycheck to paycheck a month between each can feel like an eternity let me give you an example imagine that today you applied for a position with CMS a few days later you're scheduled for an interview and a few days after that you receive a call from the area supervisor offering you the position excited to start your new

075job you put in your two weeks notice at your old job and wait for HR to contact you typically this takes about a month it is now man you have been without income for two weeks so you're excited when you finally receive that phone call from HR with your start date it is now one month later and you really need that paycheck it's June and you've been without income for six weeks however you just learned that the finance department requires an extra month to process you in the system and you still won't see any money for some time another month passes before you finally see a paycheck and it's July and it's been nearly 10 weeks since you've seen any income now imagine when you finally receive that paycheck that it's less than the minimum

076earnings needed to live in Wake County and then is when you might begin to understand why we continue to have staff shortages in CNS and positions across the district tonight I stand before you with my union by my side asking you to address these critical issues by adjusting the pay schedule to a bi-weekly check including a livable wage for all public school staff in the 2023-24 school budget thank you our next speaker is Bridget Bridges followed by Christy banyas Bridget Bridges followed by Christy banyas I will also say that those microphones are adjustable so if the person before you is of a different Height please adjust them good evening members of the board my name is Bridget Bridges and I bring you greetings from the EC transportation department where I am a safety assistant we

077arrived to work between 5 15 and 6 a.m to board transportation over the dangerous highways having to relinquish all of our control for our safety to our assigned driver in pursuit to pick up our students due to our children's special needs we never know what to expect I've experienced and have been told about injuries due to car crashes being assaulted by students being verbally abused by parents and or students due to issues we have no control over we've had to become nursing assistants along with being infested with bed bugs and roaches we go into some of the most dangerous communities in the Wake Johnston Durham and other counties to pick up our children deliver them to school and back home our children have mental health challenges emotional struggles developmental handicaps behavioral issues and homelessness yet

078with all these obstacles we do our job successfully with pride and compassion now we're asking for compassion to be given to us Weaver Safety assistance request a building with an increase of toilets and with space large enough to house us so we can come out of our cars where we freeze and become sick in the winter and we broil suffocate and become definitely ill during the summer even your dogs get better treatment than this we also request a grade increase from 17 to 20 in order for us to receive an hourly wage that will bring us closer to the living wage that way some of us won't have to work multiple jobs While others of us can finally be done with the welfare assistance and lastly we the essays want control over how we utilize

079our annual time that way we can better balance our time and our salary and let me not forget to mention our need for sufficient light in our parking lot to decrease the injuries and near car accidents it's not only my coming to request these changes but it's over two-thirds of my co-workers who have joined ncae Public School Union along with the bus drivers cafeteria workers requesting for these changes thank you for your time our next by Christina Spears Christie banyas followed by Christina Spears I do want to note that it's a little warm in here there is a drinking fountain outside of that door if anybody needs a something to drink good evening chair members of the board thank you for this opportunity to speak to you this evening my name is Christy Banas and

080I'm an assistant manager at Scott's Ridge Elementary School although previously I was a floater between kitchens throughout Apex area schools and an assistant manager at Apex friendship middle I'm here today to bring to your attention a critical issue in CNS that impacts the culture of kitchens all across this County the lack of appropriate training and support of new Harrison CNS Wake County Child Nutrition Services writes on the hiring page and I quote as part of the CNS team within the Wake County Public School System you'll love the camaraderie of your team end of quote this is the ideal that inspired me to join the Sienna family but the reality of the work is far more isolating when I first started as an assistant manager I was aware that I'd be expected to fail in for

081my Cafe manager should she be absent I was aware of this my manager was aware of this my training supervisor my my training specialist and my supervisor were all aware of this however when that day came that my manager was unable to come to work I was woefully unprepared to step into her shoes with the help of fantastic co-workers we were able to serve our kids breakfast and lunch but for their responsibilities of coordinating orders processing inventory and so many other critical administrative works I was left to figure it out on my own without the help of any support and training imagine yourself in my shoes and you'll be able to understand how completely incompetent and alone I felt it was exhausting frustrating and very very lonely time and time again I've seen this exact

082situation play out in the few short weeks that I was floating between schools I watched several individuals brought into kitchens that I was working in without necessary training that was needed for them to adequately perform their jobs workers were placed in the kitchens unprepared without the resources to seek out other than the experience of their other co-workers who already being overworked became frustrated with the now extra duty of training those new employees the frustration fuels a cycle where their new employees are frustrated with their lack of training the veterans staff are exhausted by the additional work that's now fallen onto their already full plates and as you can imagine this doesn't Foster camaraderie it Fosters isolation I'm thankful to have found my camaraderie and hope within the Union and just the peace that I felt

083with ncae it's because of this that I feel hope for CNS and for the future of my career here in Wake County unfortunately my Rocky beginning and so many of the other co-workers experiences doesn't Inspire them to think of CNS as a long-term career it's specifically because of the lack of support and the sense of isolation that I've seen so many of my co-workers resign from CNS this isn't the fault of our training specialist nor our supervisors we know they're overworked and understaffed as well this is the fault of a poorly funded program so again my ask of you tonight is to address the critical need for support and training by including additional funds for CNS and the 2324 budget thank you for your time our next speaker is Christina Spears followed by dimitria Harvey

084Christina Spears followed by Demetria Harvey good evening board members and District staff I'm Christina Spears a special education teacher proudly serving as the Wake ncae president wake ncae is the local affiliate of the North Carolina Association of Educators an organization formed in 1970 after the merger of the North Carolina Education Association an org of white teachers and the North Carolina Teachers Association and org of black teachers ncae is the state affiliate of Nea formed in 1857 and we're home to over 3 million members I wanted to lean into a history lesson and put some respect on our name tonight as also as a PhD student I'm learning about the role of school boards and the impact of labor unions on our Public School System since their establishment in the late late 19th century Public School

085labor unions have petitioned school boards and state legislators to improve material working conditions and increase funding for our workers because they know knew the then what we know now that fully funded Public Schools recruit and retain a strong professional Workforce as a result of racist classist Jim Crow laws in the South Working Class People Like Us were stripped of their rights to legally unionize people in power like legislators privatizers school board members even superintendents continue to call us a professional organization and assume we do not recognize the connections between politics and power are experienced as workers and the impact it has on our children we call ourselves a labor union because unions with or without collective bargaining rights are groups of workers who work together with shared interests to use our Collective power to improve

086our lives at work we're politically engaged we deliver petitions to school boards we request meetings with you all and we fight to ensure the schools we love are fully funded both locally and Statewide for us as politically active workers in Wake County Public School System we know that the district's budget that y'all are working on tonight is a political process and is a reflection of our institutional values and priorities our CNS workers safety assistants and the staff at West Cary Middle School are standing on the shoulders of public school workers and union members who have made these demands for decades even centuries we're asking for buildings and Facilities that allow us to do our jobs with dignity we are asking for livable wages so our folks don't have to work multiple jobs and can serve

087our students with attention and care we are asking for training and support to provide the sound public education every student deserves we are proud to continue a legacy of fighting for public schools by engaging in tonight's budget process and in the coming meetings and I just want to remind us that wcpss had a historic merger and a legacy of equity please don't forget the role of the public school Union as a critical component in that history then and now I hope you will consider this impact on our current conditions your place in that lineage by fully funding a 2324 budget thank you our next speaker is Demetria Harvey followed by Daniel Grant King again that's Demetria Harvey followed by Daniel Grant King good evening Wake County board members my name is Demetra Harvey and I

088am a safety assistant for the past uh 12 years US Safety assistants accomplish students with disabilities to and from school without us some of most vulnerable students would never be able to get educated we have to do every anything and everything doing I've arrived from wiping snot to administrating the holes if a student starts to get out of hand we have to control them our vacancy rate is 35 and is highest among all job types in this District in order to keep me and my co-workers in this job for a long haul and a track to safety new Safety assistance we need two changes first our pay grade has to be increased we serve the same students as IA assistants serve but they are paid 21 while we're 17. is that fair we're not only

089served the same students but we have do we we have to do it alone without support with nurses certified staff or administrators and we do all this moving on a vehicle in a hostile environment on traffic second we need a better facility our parking lot is so dark that we we have numerous of co-workers tripping falling injuring some of our co-workers that even drove into each other we do not have an actual building building instead we have trailer a trailer a trailer where a snake have been found that last since the last month we have a break room that came all of us fit in there this means that this means when it's either cold or hot we are sitting out in our cars I would like to thank Mr Mark Strickland for the chief

090the chief facilitator of the operations for having meeting with us with multiple times to address our uh facility concerns he is working on getting lights up in our parking lot as well as getting us temporary air conditioned space before the summer heat sets he discussed plans ultimate uh moving us to a building a which is much bigger than our current trailer all of the South all of that sounds promising but we need these chains made as quickly as possible we need lights today our safety can't wait it's not just me and my fellow safe assistance here today we uh we have we I am joined with a union and I ask that you all would please get us a facility thank you our next speaker is Daniel Grant King followed by Kei Mensa Daniel Grant

091Canton followed by okay Kai thank you Mensa [Music] Kai let let's call you next Kai I'm very very sorry all right and then Lauren Gordon will be following good evening everyone my name is Guy Manson I have working Wake County school since 2010. I started as a cashier assistant at Millbrook High School right before Kobe I did the training to become a manager and I started as a manager at Penn technique High School in January 2020. we have a lot of equipment problems we have two milk coolers that have been broken for more than six months maintenance people have come by many times to fix them but right now only one is working for the second one they even stated that they don't even know what's wrong with it but it doesn't get replaced We

092complain about the equipment problems but nothing get done we have to talk to the administration of the school because nothing gets done earlier this year despite our efforts to pull paint of ice from the freezer to cool the milk the students were complaining about the milk being sour it wasn't out of date but it was because the cooler was broken parents called me to complain at the time I only have two employees working with me we were running around like crazy working for the full line I am supposed to have five employees I am supposed to be doing my pre-planning writing down my list for ordering in putting sales in the computer instead I am on the floor prepping and backing the line by myself eventually painter Creek administrator noticed and asked me if I

093needed help and step in to help sometimes we aren't even able to open the line to serve lunch at 10 30 when we are supposed to because we are behind it affects my family I work 5 30 a.m sometime to 5 or 6 pm my husband and my kids start calling me they get worried for a while I was on health restriction but I had little to no help in the morning I wasn't supposed to get running around on the line but since I have no one to help me and serve the student I have to do it we do this because we love our job we love our students but we also need to take care of our family I get involved in the union ncae to talk to other people to see if

094we can get more help to try and fix what is broken when I got involved and had our first meeting thank you I had the same things everywhere we need to replace the old equipment ourselves and you need to hire new people thank you our next speaker thank you thank you I'm going to remind people that we have 26 speakers tonight and we all have three minutes to speak and these are all we appreciate you being here miss Gordon and you'll be followed by Patricia Collins hi um my name is Lauren Gordon I do want to say um I'm very supportive of ncae but I'm here to talk about something else tonight um I'm a mom of two young children who will soon be students in the Wake County Public School System in 2007 I

095was a student at Virginia Tech where a gunman killed 32 of my friends classmates and Educators I'm here to address the board about preventing gun violence at schools in Wake County I do want to State now that although my background and experiences I just shared are anecdotal the statistics and recommendations I'm going to cite are base completely in facts and evidence we now know that Firearms are the number one killer of children in the United States they kill more children than car accidents cancer and any other childhood illness or accident if my children or your children die before they become adults a gun will be the most likely reason 4.6 million children in the U.S live in a home with at least one unlocked and loaded firearm coupled with the fact that an incidence of

096gunfire on school grounds up to 80 percent of Shooters under the age of 18 got the gun from their home or the homes of friends or relatives the threat of children getting access to firearms and bringing them to school is greater than ever in your school board code of ethics it's stated you should remember always that a board Member's First and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of the students attending Public Schools our school board has the obligation to do everything they can to keep our children safe while at school as there is no educational welfare for students that aren't breathing I do applaud the board calling for lawmakers to pass a state statute requiring safe start storage of firearms I would also recommend you extend this support to an assault weapons ban in

097our state more than 85 percent of fatalities and mass shootings are caused by assault rifles you're of influence is essential in demanding that lawmakers protect our children by passing legislation that keeps them safe I also applaud you for presenting the be smart Firearms guidelines at an earlier meeting however I was unable to locate these these guidelines anywhere on the Wake County Public Schools website even when I specifically searched be smart in the search bar within the school safety and emergencies overview tab on the wcpss website there's no discussion around gun violence or preventing gun violence on the Student Health page there's a mention of Suicide Prevention but nothing about how the majority of American suicide deaths involve firearms in turn my second recommendation is that we should train Wake County parents and Guardians on be

098smart guidelines for firearm safety and provide resources and materials to them throughout the school year so it remains top of mind for those I'm not going to go over that the school board should provide links on their website encourage all Wake County schools to include it in their websites and host presentations that can be attended in person and virtually at all schools for students and their Guardians some of this may feel like just one more thing but this type of gun safety education will literally mean life or death for many children in Wake County in the upcoming years our next speaker is Patricia Collins followed by Jessica Lewis Patricia Collins followed by Jessica Lewis put my quests on to the school board and to all attendants good evening my name is Patricia Collins and I

099am a safety assistant I'm here this evening advocating for a much needed raise for the labor that is required of wcpss Lake County Public School System employees namely Safety assistance bus drivers teachers IAS administrators cafeteria workers and custodians we monitor assist and serve the most marginalized and vulnerable students in the school system this work is very challenging and unpredictable each of these students must have our full attention in these vehicles out of these vehicles and in these vehicles in the classrooms cafeteria restroom including campus grounds we want compensation for the work that we do the labor that we labor for these children and we should have the equal uh as the other Departments of the Wake County Public School System because of our jobs that is so demanding unpredictable and dangerous we are here to

100bring awareness to the Public's eye about this group of special needs students who are so vulnerable and marginalized and left standing alone they are the ones who suffer and seems not to be the ones that are helped they're the least of all and it should not be that way we're going to give voice to these voices and to give to them that need hope but most of us we're going to show them Love by standing up for them and so we're asking everyone that who does not belong to ncae to unite with the others public school system and stand up for better pay and decent facilities and I thank you for this time is Jessica Lewis followed by April Henry that's Jessica Lewis followed by April Henry good evening I was once naive and believed

101that the public school system should be trusted to provide my kids with a great education that trust was lost a couple years ago when my eyes were open wide to what was being forced upon our kids diversity equity and inclusion is toxic Dei attacks the Integrity of academic goals Dei is failing our students I would like to see a new superintendent focus on academic Excellence I had my daughter's sixth grade meet and greet at what will be her new middle school next year I took a screenshot of the book she will be reading in the curriculum to research them you might ask why I am about to tell you this past school year I was approved to be a Wake County substitute teacher in the school system I know there were I knew there were

102pornographic books in the school libraries for our kids to check out but I was shocked when I was subbing sorry control I was shocked when I was subbing at a high school that these books are made mandatory reading for our students why are students being forced to read aloud about masturbation anorexia racist in committee and suicide these are all detailed descriptions of the book The absolutely true Diary of a Part-Time Indian do you honestly think our kids want to read this trash especially in front of their peers I can answer that question as I was in the classroom when a female student said she was not going to read it and was laughed at by our teacher and Pierce an investigation was done but this school system has not provided a resolution another example of

103dismissing major concerns is sweeping it under the rug I have also called the English curriculum department and left a few messages to not get one returned phone call back can you please have her reach out to me I would like to have a meeting with this person approving books like these ask yourselves are you okay with your own children reading this material would you go into one of the schools you represent and read this book to the student whoever is approving these books needs to be fired books like these have no business being forced on our students for people saying we are Banning books no we are not Banning books we are parenting looking out for the best interest of the information our children are consuming these books are made to stay in are made

104to stay in the classroom so parents have no idea what their children are reading parents deserve the right to know with more shootings more suicides more addictions more mental illness do you really think this reading material is a good idea my hope is the new superintendent will do a much better job with what is allowed as reading material for students we need a superintendent who makes our children's safety a top priority by having more us heroes in schools and adding metal detectors we need a superintendent that pays the staff working directly with our children a reasonable living wage this also includes social workers cafeteria workers bus drivers and substitute teachers we need a superintendent who focuses on Reading Writing and math you have heard a lot of parents that want the focus to be on

105this what are you waiting for are you going to listen stand strong for our children because they deserve an excellent education next speaker is April Henry followed by Becky Lou Hobbs April Henry followed by Becky Lou Hobbs good evening board members and everyone here tonight my name is April Henry and I'm also a safety assistant and my job as a safetist I'm sorry I'm getting emotional my job as a safety assistant is ensuring the safety of special needs kids to and from school as previous of some of my co-workers stated that we get to work anywhere from five in the morning to six and sometimes you can't you cannot even see where you're going because of the parking lot is so dark me personally I've came close enough to hit one of my co-workers and

106that was enough for me hoping that we are safety assistant get the training that we need to do our job as the best as we can also a better working Place meaning bathroom and of course some might find it funny ventilation reason being is because I have one example one day I came back from my route and really had to use the bathroom but I made a choice to use the men's bathroom and little do I know someone almost walk walked in on me we are safety assistant also need better pay I'm speaking as a mother of a special need kid and it it has been more than a few times that I got home first before my job reason being is because of no drivers no safety assistant to go on these routes to

107bring our kids home more than more than half of the safety assistant staff have joined in the ncae union and been working together speaking out on what we need to better our job as safety assistant thanks and followed by Colleen Miller Becky Lou Hobbs followed by Colleen Miller sister we're still in the Easter season I'm Becky Lou Hobbs and I'm here to discuss a series of books that's in two middle schools and 18 of the 34 high schools this series is called assassination classroom it has more than a dozen books in the series I handed Mr Bloomberg a printout I would have hoped you guys would have looked at it but I guess I will have to show a few of the pictures here it depicts murder in the classroom it depicts some very despicable

108Acts in the classroom some of the things that this book talks about is assassinate your teacher I've been wanting to kill a teacher so you see this book depicts killings murders and sexual images supposedly it's rated six ages 16 and up and here's a quote what the author says about it kill is a fascinating word it's often used but rarely put into action so I dedicated decided to create a story centered around this unique word if you enjoy it you can kill me now and I'll die happy one of the basic tenets of the United States is life life liberty and the pursuit of happiness yet this author wrote a series of books that speaks about killing murder and assassination now I don't have to repeat what has happened these past few weeks but that's

109a very antithesis of life with these books available in middle schools and high schools in Wake County what what is the literary value of these books what possibly could they teach that is positive and life-affirming these books talk about killing killing teachers murder assassination how can you in good conscience allow these in our schools and some of you board members prattle on some of the previous board members throttle on about these horrible acts of violence that have occurred in our society though people have lost their lives but you Wake County School Board allow these types of books in the schools talking about assassinations assassinations of kids of students and then you wonder why there is violence these books need to be removed from each Public School library now Wake County needs to have a public

110school rating system on these books that needs to be age appropriate they need to warn of violence of murder assassination inappropriate sex any other topic that might need to be looked at we need to develop this we don't have it we have the abilities please keep these types of books out of our kids 16 year old in my opinion is not should not be reading a book talking about killing a teacher thank you our next speaker is Colleen Miller followed by David Grinnell Colleen Miller followed by David Greenough good evening uh thank you all for the opportunity to speak tonight for the record I have a grandchild in a Wake County Middle School and my daughter graduated from Enloe High School in 2000 so I'm a grandma here but uh I was I kind of

111changed my plans because um Becky stole my thunder I was going to talk about those books too they're actually I was astounded when I heard these books were in Wake County schools and it's uh it's horrifying I want to start off a reading from a book so we've got Story Time ladies and gentlemen so um mute your if your kids are in the room anybody watching you might want to mute this the haters by Jesse Andrews a summary of concerns about this book is it contains obscene sexual activity sexual commentary excessive and frequent profanity on page 101 it was definitely my boner no one was awake to stare and discuss at the lurk lurchy jailbreak of my sleep boner still had the boner masturbating a Brisk business-like manner into the seat with the hotel conditioner

112page 102. well I don't know either but it looks like jizz now the language is not good English just keep that in mind well it's true or false that's your jizz in our sink shut up about Wes in the sink rinsing isn't always enough to get jizz all the way out of the sink but I figured it wasn't just awkward because I had masturbated in the hotel sink page 265 she guided me onto my back and pulled me on the on the bottom of my bridge and pulled on the bottom of my briefs and I pushed them over my knees and feet and was completely naked and not hard at all she straddled me and pulled her top off and her breasts flopped out and I heard them more than saw them she reached behind

113herself and kind of carefully took my not hard dick into one and pretty soon into one and I couldn't really think about anything else and pretty soon after I was hard and she shook her hand away I heard her opening some little crinkly package I could feel I felt her put the cool plastic middle of the condom snugly on the front of my dick like anyway you get the I don't want to read anymore I'm sick of it you get the image you get the uh count on the awards using this book ass was 18 six cut one dick 77 the f word was 196 the GD word six piss ten the p word for girl parts five and the sh were at 121 times if my uh it's to me that book has no

114business in any public school how many billions of dollars do we spend on education every year in our Public Schools what a waste of money these books are there are hundreds of like books in our Public Schools I have seen them for myself I have read some of them and they're disgusting they make me want to vomit so we need what I need for you I ask from you is you find a way to keep these books like this out of the hands of minor students like Becky suggested uh a way to rate them and keep them away from our students why do we need to waste our money on these books thank you our next speaker is David Bruno followed by Donna lupus David Greenough and Donna lupus good evening board members I'm David

115Greeno and I'm here supporting my company usuv clean out of Wilmington North Carolina usuv clean you might ask why is a guy from Wilmington driving all the way here with my co-workers here from Wilmington well we've been reached out to by everybody you can think of from parents to principals to bus drivers because your buses we've heard are very very short staffed right now and what we have done in the Santee lynches region of South Carolina we have gone in with Congressman Jim clyburn's with his gratitude and his support along with Senator Tim Scott we have installed what's called far UVC technology in your school buses we've just finished up 331 school buses and six districts these uh State engineers allowed us 90 days to get it done we got it done in six and

116a half days we also installed the lights in 72 schools over 2500 square miles they allowed 90 days for that we got it done at three and a half what UVC technology does it renders the DNA molecule of the nuclei of the cell and Doc you may know more about this than me but what it does the DNA Helix if you guys remember in biology the DNA Twisted ladder looking thing it rips out the rungs of the DNA it renders everything the pathogen useless the viruses that activated and so what I'm here suggesting is the shortage of your school bus drivers probably has to do something with the pay probably has something to do with the bonuses you know incentives but I guarantee you one thing that I saw when we were driving in here

117eight of eight school buses we saw the driver was still wearing a mask it is a safety issue because in the Santee lynches region which is 80 percent out of at or below the poverty level they are having no issues with their 331 school bus drivers no issues they're actually having from other counties apply in other districts apply to come drive buses there they're not having troubles in hiring for their school systems like the the special needs classes they don't they're not seeing this issue and it's amazing that during the omnicron and Delta variant that the school system saw a 38 to 40 percent increase in instructional hours and attendance is it because of the lights maybe so another thing that it's hurting is these kids are being looked after by their grandparents a lot

118of them in these rural areas and they're bringing this stuff home to them so now you've got kids that are being raised by no one and that's what's spiking the juvenile crime rate in South Carolina and it needs to stop here Peterson Donna lubis followed by Janet Peterson evening my name is Donna lubis I am retired teacher from Wake County I started teaching in the 70s I've taught in Connecticut Puerto Rico Fairfax County Virginia and I retired from Wake County after 30 years of teaching so I've been around the block teaching has changed over the years starting in the mid 70s teachers now I don't see teachers now as being creative they're not allowed to be creative back in the day we could our the curriculum was handed to us and we were responsible for

119instilling that curriculum in the T in the students by the end of the school year and that's what we did now I feel teachers hands are a little bit tied um I don't think the term Equity jives with the term creative teaching I don't think the two can go together today's the achievement today is down the test scores are down and um I I can't hear that it's being being blamed on covid that should be done with now um students are graduating not being proficient in reading and math they're graduating where are they going I think taxpayers should be up in arms about that what are they paying for they're paying for a generation of children who cannot go out and do they'll be work they'll be out here looking for minimum wage and that

120is not fair um so and what is up what is up are is depression thoughts of suicide sad kids where's that coming from all of a sudden there are children it around the world who are in war-torn countries and they're happier than some of the kids in this country where where is that coming from it is mind-blowing to me um it seems and I'm not just talking about Wake County I'm talking about our country it seems that school boards have become the parents of children parents have relinquished their children schools you take care of them and I think school boards are doing a lousy job the kids are not learning and the depression is growing I I don't I don't know where that's going and another thing that is blows my mind is there is

121no discipline children cannot learn if they're just allowed to go oh boy we need discipline if children are not listening they're not being instructed we're creating a two-term two-tier Society kids who go to private school and kids who go to public school do the math on that two-tier system my two grandsons were in Wake County Public Schools a year and a half ago both identified A.G in advanced classes they have since come out and are in private school thank you and they had to do boatloads of work to catch up to the kids in the private school that's sad our next speaker is Janet Peterson Peterson followed by Jim Walsh Janet Peterson followed by Jim Walsh I before I start I just want to say that I was once a member of ncae and I

122stand in solidarity with all these workers that work in the cafeteria and bus drivers and they deserve better they deserve better um [Applause] the privilege of teaching at Creech Road for six years love that school so I'm here today because after spending 25 years teaching children to read I am shocked and surprised as at what is being made available for them to read and so I want to share with you a book and if there's any minors or children around I hope that you leave the room quickly I want to talk about the book Shine by Lauren Miracle it has a pretty cover with a flower and it looks very innocent but there's no warning label on that book this book is about a 13 year old girl that discovers hidden secrets about drugs alcohol

123and sexuality this book has profanity derogatory terms pedophilia and it's located at Apex Middle School Centennial Campus Middle ligand middle windale middle and it's at 16 high schools in our district so I want to read a little bit of it to you so you get the idea his breath smelled like my daddy's corn liquor he fumbled at the elastic of my panties but my cutoffs were too tight and you know this is a youth a minor and he couldn't work his fingers to where he wanted come on cat let me feel how wet you are I don't know what he meant I pressed my spine into the sofa to get away from him but moving like that raised my hips and loosened the hug of my shorts his finger slithered under my panties oh yeah

124he said moving his fingers to the best he could see now I was lost Tommy was touching a part of me that no one was supposed to I was pushing against him but he was so much bigger than me it goes on on the next page by that point Tommy had unbuttoned my shorts and yanked them or down around my thighs along with my panties I was gripping them trying to get them back up but he was Stronger he had no longer had his hand down my tank top but instead his arm was stretched across the back of the sofa bearing his weight while his left arm wrote up the length of my belly straight As A Rod until the sharp Flex of his wrist with Aunt tildy standing frozen behind him in the doorway

125he got one finger up inside me I whimpered he kept at it the hill of his palm driving into my pelvic bun until he got into more and it goes on I can tell you that if an 11 year old had been molested they certainly don't want to relive it by reading this book and if they have haven't been molested they certainly don't want to read this book there was no warning label on this book it was attractive School libraries are not the place for this kind of content it is sexually inappropriate I want you to consider explicit sex violence horror profanity what kind of criteria are you using When selecting books for the library our next speaker is Jim Walsh followed by Joseph Kinsley that's Jim Walsh followed by Joseph Kingsley good evening excuse

126me good evening board uh my name is Jim Walsh I live in Cary my son and I were having a conversation the other day he's got a 10 year old and a 16 year old talking about movies well they went to see Mario Brothers great movie PG they had a great time the 10 year old said wait a minute I want to go see Dungeons and dragon can't go see it it's PG-13 he has a dilemma so a ten-year-old can't go see that movie but yet it got me to thinking about our society our society accepts having movies rated and even video games rated this got me to thinking about ourselves how our society accepts these ratings as Society parents we feel safe knowing that the measured rating system is in place is acceptable in

127understanding the overall mental and visual level of maturity needed to enjoy and understand the material that is being displayed with specific movie or video game as a matter of fact it is so important that there's an entertainment software rating board hear this this is the mission statement our mission is to help parents make an informed decision about video games and apps their children play our advertising review Council actively enforces industry adopted advertising guidelines and privacy certificates wow that's a powerful mission statement so how do they do this how do they have this rating system well first of all that rating system is published on material that's being purchased either on the outside cover the CD and or when the movie starts and or the game starts and their rating system is fairly simple e for

128everyone E10 generally suitable for 10 and above team generally suitable for 13 and above m17 oh generally suitable there's an interesting common theme Here generally suitable this is a guideline so what would happen if a wake employ a Wake County Employee of the school system brought in a game of m17 to the school room or an R-rated movie how would that go over but yet we have these books in our schools and we don't have a problem and the school board is well aware of it that's a problem our next speaker is Josephine ping-powered by Karen Merchant Joseph Kingsley followed by Karen Merchant hello glad you guys are all doing well uh there are nearly 200 schools and 160 000 students in Wake County and it is our Collective duty to protect each and every

129one of these students I read that Wake County Schools have 75 resource officers on school grounds we should have at least 200 officers to ensure there's one at every school although two at each school would be much better right now the officers are stationed almost entirely at middle schools and high schools despite elementary schools being targeted in shootings more frequently than both officers near the school will not prevent a tragedy but having them on school property certainly will resource officers deter fighting and bullying as well we had another active shooter lockdown drill at my son's elementary school last week I never had a lockdown drill when I was in school but we did have an officer on the property every day it was safe and I felt safe we now live in a sick country

130where Mass executions of children don't last a week in the news cycle and are forgotten until the next one a few months later everyone talks about common sense gun laws and I'm all for that but gun laws in our culture are not going to change anytime soon and we need a solution now common sense is having police officers at every school when bad people want to hurt good people they always find a way to get a weapon but those deranged cowards rarely Target places with police officers on duty they always attack gun-free zones the softest easiest targets there is no reasonable argument against having armed police protecting our children we have armed guards in so many other places they're all around us all the time but we neglect the most important and most vulnerable a

131small number of grossly misinformed and cynical people have said resource officers resource officers will not prevent shootings that is a patently false and ridiculous claim there are far too many examples to point out the absurdity of statements like that you may hear people say a police presence creates a bad environment compared to the environment of widespread Terror created by by school shootings absolutely not children no police are there to protect him I always felt safe with officers in my school our kids are everything safety protocols should be at the Forefront of the annual budget children are the most important thing and we have to protect them what could possibly be more important than protecting them we should use every practical measure to keep them safe every single day that should be among many other things

132April is occupational therapy month I along with a couple of other OTS I want to give you a glimpse into our roles in the school setting since speaking in March I've met with multiple state representatives and Senators to discuss recognizing OTS and PTs as educators moving our professions to the certified scale during many of these meetings I was asked how does an occupational therapist support children and why are we called occupational therapists our role is to support the engagement participation in a person's daily occupations for children in a school setting their occupation as a student and a classmate OTS promote Independence skill development and engagement in their academic activities in their daily routines my day May consist of singing Ring Around the Rosie and Building a garage out of blocks with a three-year-old before transitioning

133to a fifth grade classroom to support a student with identifying visual strategies and modifications for cluttered assignments we provide specially designed instruction through targeted interventions in conjunction with consultation and collaboration with our special education colleagues maintaining experienced staff has a direct impact on student services and collaboration offered by an experienced OT provides valuable contributions to our teams in my time as an OT I have provided training during staff meetings and when touring for a new therapists I support new teachers in facilitating meetings and navigating IAP paperwork which helps ensure compliance with special education regulations this is critical given the current vacancies and turnover and our special education setting retention of school-based OTS provides unique opportunities for developing and maintaining family relationships as we often serve students for multiple years in addition our collaboration with outside

134providers creates a bridge and consistency between the community the home and the school settings OTS support our teams and administrators in understanding the least restrictive environment given our knowledge of multiple settings and Regional programs our view of the whole child allows us to support adapting and differentiating and differentiating instruction to meet the needs of our most unique Learners in other settings OTS are viewed as medical professionals but because of the many reasons I described in a school-based setting we are Educators just as we advocate for our students with disabilities we will continue to Advocate at the county and the state levels for recognition and compensation as an educator within the school-based setting thank you our next speaker is Chris ultroki followed by Kirsten Howe I just want to say that you're the first person who's

135ever tried to say my name correctly the first time so I'm so impressed that's literally the first time that's ever happened okay good evening my name is Chris ultrogi and I've been an occupational therapist with Wake County since January of 2021. I'm here to help answer a question I get all the time what exactly is occupational therapy occupational therapy or OT is not an easy career to Define OTS can work in schools hospitals outpatient clinics rehab facilities and more treatment looks very different in each setting But ultimately our goal is the same the goal is to improve a person's ability to perform activities or occupations that are meaningful to them in the schools OTS help students of all ages and all ranges of ability to engage in meaningful occupations such as play communication writing creating

136art eating meals and using the restroom we perform evaluations and set goals we provide direct therapy adaptive equipment and environmental modification we consult with IEP teams Implement strategies in classrooms and collaborate with teachers parents and other disciplines to support students in a special education and general education settings occupational therapists offer a unique lens to support academic performance we are trained to assess motor function executive function visual motor skills sensory processing differences and more our involvement helps Wake County provide the best possible education to its students education is about empowering students to live their best life occupational therapists are trained to empower those who have unique needs and abilities occupational therapy is a second career for me I started out in business but my heart pulled me in a different direction I graduated with a Masters

137of Science in occupational therapy in 2015 and worked in clinical settings prior to accepting position with Wake County Public Schools due to a technicality I was credited with only one year of experience when I started with Wake County in 2021. my current salary is similar to my business salary almost 20 years ago my school pay roughly equates to 35 percent less per hour than I made working as an OT in clinical settings due to another technicality Wake County OTS do not earn as much or carry the same job classification status as colleagues with similar degree requirements I feel like I belong in the schools my best moments happen when I see that look of accomplishment or here I did it well my job is rewarding I sometimes wonder if by staying I'm allowing myself and

138my profession to be treated unfairly I wonder if staying with Wake County is actually perpetuating the problem for now I've decided that I believe so much in the difference OTS make for our students that I'm going to stay and help be part of the change that needs to happen I hope this information helps you to see the value of school-based occupational therapy and the importance of attracting and retaining quality occupational therapists in our school system thank you our next speaker is Kirsten Howe followed by Margaret Watkins Kirsten Howe followed by Margaret Watkins hi my name is Kirsten Howe and I'm Meredith college student I'm also a part of the future Teachers program of Wake County I've been in the Wake County School System since kindergarten and I recently graduated from Fuquay-Varina High School in 2021.

139I'd like to start up by remembering the victims of the Nashville shooting Mike Hill 61 Catherine Kuhn 60 Cynthia Peake 61 Evelyn dicos nine Hallie Scruggs nine and William Kinney 9. I'm here to tell you that I am scared sad and even angry I am scared from my future students I'm scared to walk into a school and I'm scared to become a teacher I am saddened by the fierce teacher student staff and I have to face every day and I'm sad for all the lives lost due to census violence most of all I'm angry I'm angry because I have to be here and beg for change because not enough is being done teachers are dying children are dying Administration even custodians are dying while children and teachers are being slaughtered at school school boards and

140legislative bodies are focused on pronouns Banning books and critical race Theory we have our priorities in the wrong place I recognize and appreciate that you've called on lawmakers to ask for more safety funding and advocating for gun safety storage but it is not enough schools around this country are paying for the consequences of inaction instead of focusing on what schools can do we need to be focusing on what a government can do for us but first we need to recognize the true problem our problem in this country is our gun culture this country has more guns than any other place in the world and we have more guns than we do people increasingly or increasingly along the country gun restrictions have been on the decline just two weeks ago North Carolina repealed the state's requirement

141that a person needs to obtain a permit from a local sheriff before buying a pistol we are going backwards I urge you to call on lawmakers in our state to pass Common Sense gun control laws and not turn our schools into militarized zones mimicking a prison building more than it already has this means an assault weapons ban a buyback program raising the minimum wage to buy semi-automatic weapons Banning high-capacity magazines strengthening background checks and gun licensing programs all of these all of these I just discussed are mentioned and protecting our kids act that I've provided you the summary with a bill like this can be passed in our state legislature I will leave you with this as we know military personnel get a purple heart if they are wounded or killed as a direct result

142of enemy action if I happen to get wounded or killed by an enemy as a teacher where is my purple heart I will serve my children in keeping them safe in school as I'm a last resort in keeping them alive instead of an award for trying to protect my students I would have my name plastered all over the news while nra-backed politicians continue to send their thoughts and prayers while nothing changes and we wait for the next one to come along thank you our next speaker is Margaret Watkins followed by Megan Kaufman Margaret Watkins followed by Megan Kaufman I actually came here today because I wasn't hearing back from staff about an idea that I had to help with these building new facilities um actually heard back while I was sitting here that um that

143there was no mechanism for me to place donations that I get for the school system so why don't you guys just create one why is it sort of just dropped you know you have a problem you're not going to get anywhere of the general assembly the two parties they just they can't get along long enough to accomplish anything so I'm proposing a solution and I just need you guys help accomplishing that I don't work for the school system I'm just a parent the other thing all these people here work for the school system I used to work in HR happy employees are just more productive period so if you guys can focus on safety building those facilities and keeping the employees happy that there should be your top three priorities so thank you Megan Kaufman

144followed by Michelle Morrow good evening hi my name is Megan Kaufman and I am an occupational therapist with the Wake County Public School System I have always had a passion to help others specifically others with special needs from the time when my sister was born three and a half months prematurely I watched her participate and grow in various therapies PT iot speech vision the list goes on as well as within the public school system I was always fascinated with the Independence that she was able to fund thanks to her excuse me team of therapists but specifically her occupational therapist when doctors would Place limits therapists would bypass them we aren't here to talk about my sister though um we're here to talk about occupational therapy I graduated with my undergraduate degree in special education from

145East Carolina go pirates um and continued on to get my masters in occupational therapy from the University of Alabama in Birmingham I have since worked in the hospital setting the private setting and for the last five years the school-based setting where I found my home I have worked with students from birth or three to 22 in the Pre-K elementary middle and high school setting I previously worked with high school students on the occupational course of study track to assist with their independence in activities of daily living that would apply to their future career path currently work with students in the Pre-K and Elementary settings at this point in the current school year I have completed evaluations attended 83 IAP meetings and had a total of 79 students on my caseload I see students directly in

146a one-on-one environment as well as on a consultative basis in the classroom environment I have worked with students on hand washing skills using utensils to stab or scoop food independently at lunchtime and how they hold their crayons or pencils I have strategized with teachers physical therapists speech therapists and the assistive technology team to name a few in order to promote independence with students I have created and implemented sensory diets to assist with students regulation in the classroom it may look like trialing a Chewie a vibration tool a weighted blanket a vests or additional opportunities for specific movement breaks within their educational environment I have created obstacle courses in the Pre-K setting for students to work on a variety of synthetic sensory input as well as balance coordination and strength necessary to play with their peers

147on the playground I chose to work in the public school system because I find it to be the most natural environment for our students like many others I don't work in the schools for the paycheck although I couldn't live without it I love what I do and I love the people and the students that I work with like many others I spend countless nights at home and money out of my own pocket to create fun activities for students like the teachers you provided with arrays and the social workers and speech therapists included in the occupational therapists and physical therapists do just as much for the students of this education system I continue to stay because I have a dream that one day our profession will matter just as much in my heart or on paper

148as it does in my heart thank you our next speaker is Michelle Morrow followed by John Aman chikuwu foreign hey I've been here many times and I'm going to talk about some of the same things that I've talked about before our children are suffering the mental health in this in this state specifically we have tripled the number of suicides just in North Carolina among 10 to 18 year olds and when we want to talk about gun violence and we want to talk about the death let me tell you the number one thing that is causing deaths of our minors is auto accidents and the second thing is suicide we now have for every suicide there are nine children that are put into the hospital for suicide attempts and there are 47 that are there for

149self-harm let me tell you mental health is a real issue and us talking about it and talking about it is not helping what we need to do is protect our children's innocence let me explain something first something is hearable it's thinkable then it's hearable then it's watchable then it's speakable and then it's doable and um and when Miss Johnson hostler was talking about the sexual abuse of our children it is happening in grave proportions and it's happening in our schools the statistics for 2019 to 2020 60 of the of the sexual assaults that were actually reported were reported on Elementary and Middle School age children this is an atrocity right now as we speak there are over 240 teachers who still have their teaching license in North Carolina it might be suspended but they still

150have it on the books and they have been accused accused or convicted of crimes against children we have got to have background checks we have got to stop raising our children's innocence by talking about things that they are not able to handle let me explain something to you there's a doctor named Dr Judith reisman she has done Decades of studies and put together studies from around the world that talk about what happens when you discuss sexual issues with children whether it's in book form whether it's in a video form whether you talk about it let me tell you what happens to their brain there's something called the frontal lobe and it is well known that that frontal lobe is not developed until we're 25 or 26 years old do you know what pornography does to

151a young child's brain it completely rewires it and it makes them unable you know what the frontal lobe is responsible for it's for judgment it's for social and for sexual behavior it's also for understanding what the impact of a situation will be a decision that you're making and we are rewiring our children's brains when they are when they are introduced when they are talked about when they are confronted with this adult issue it changes their brain it increases anxiety increases depression it is increasing the confusion of who they are as people we've got to stop telling our children that they have a mental health disorder when they don't like their bodies when they feel uncomfortable during puberty when they don't like their voice change that is natural it is normal we need to start telling

152our children that that is true stop making it normal to be abused stop making it normal to be sexually active in childhood stop making it normal for files to be attracted to Children this is wrong it's happening in our schools you just heard these books and it's time for us to protect our kids our next speaker is followed by Julie page [Applause] tonight I'm filled with righteous indignation I wanted to find something for you tonight the definition for pervert it means to alter something from its original course meaning or state to a distortion or Corruption of what was first intended it means to it means to lead someone away from what is considered right natural or acceptable this book has been permitted in six schools in the Wake County Public School System this book explicitly

153details anal sex tips a response to a letter about gay sex and b d s m I'll read just a little bit of this perversion that we have allowed in the school system so he bends me over the bed and drizzles some lube on my ass I made him wear a condom of course and he starts pushing it in and then we get to the tips it says use your lungs to suck not your lips to pull you're not trying to yank the d-i-c-k off with your mouth you're trying to make it feel good use your tongue doesn't it make you cringe as I read that to you I witness as person came up as each person came up and read different things from the books that were that's in the public school system here

154you all cringe you don't like it you don't want to hear it aloud you don't want anyone to read it makes you crawl in your skin it's a dastardly deed the question today is who is the Pervert that's allowing this to be purchased and delivered to our libraries come out come out from wherever you are who is the Pervert that signs off on this bill who are you [Applause] you know what do you stand for to accept this can you be in your right mind and be decent as a human to allow this to be at the access and the fingertips of children who is the Pervert that thinks that this is okay who is the Pervert that sits smog in the school board meeting while this take place who is it you don't have

155to answer that question we know who the perverts are there's one political party in this country that supports this junk it's the Democrat Party it's a party that castrates children mutilates children but God's children Grooms children murdered children and indoctrinates children we know who the perverts are and then say NCAA listen you all have signed off on this and it needs to be removed from every your time is up Sir our next speaker is Julie page thank you I will remind members of the audience to allow the person at the podium to speak thank you Julie page is our next speaker hey y'all um hard act to follow there um all right on the agenda tonight is a revised board ethics policy it says the boards remain non-partisan just as you were all elected each

156member should not subordinate the education of children to any partisan Principle Group interest or personal ambition this would include the ncae of which only four and a half percent of all employees are members there are other things listed in the policy but perhaps the most important one is the last your first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of the students with your oath to make a sound basic education a priority you are required to ensure the following components are met according to the Leandro case from 1997. ability to read write speak English knowledge of math and physical science science knowledge of geography history basic economic and political systems academic and Vocational skills to enable students to engage in post-secondary education training or gainful employment Reading Writing math History Science economics not Equity not

157social emotional learning not gender ideology Equity is an absolute impossibility it implies that everyone can have the same lifestyle and the same outcomes that will never happen we are all human we are created by God we are all different but yet we are equal in his eyes Equity actually forces unequal access to goods and services be leaders and promote actual equality so that no one has an unfair advantage social emotional learning and practice today is disguised as mental health with the actual goal of Shifting the values beliefs attitudes and worldviews of children it manipulates children to accept a progressive ideology that supports gender fluidity sexual preference and systemic oppression it leads to seeing the world through an equity lens I will remind you here that this SEL is described here as a partisan Doctrine and

158not compliant with your ethical duties you also have the ethical duty to obey local state federal laws and protecting children from sexually explicit content obscenity and vulgarity adult subject matter of any kind have no place in our public schools schools are not social justice centers schools are not Health Centers schools are not gender indoctrination centers schools are for academics supplemented with arts and Athletics I will end with the request to dismantle the office of equity Affairs use the money from that ill-conceived effort to supplement teacher pay classroom supplies and for school security use it to fund students and not social programs this concludes public comments at this time I'll ask the superintendent to provide updates from our work session superintendent Moore so as has been my custom I'll provide a couple of updates from the

159work session today where two items were covered the first item covered in work session today was a review of The District grants process presentation from the office of Grants to provide information on how grants come to our attention how we provide information to schools about those grants how we support schools and district offices in writing grants researching grants applying for Grants and monitoring the implementation of grants that we do receive we do provide a yearly update on our grants process that is provided to the board as well so we wanted to provide this as with the number of new board members that we have is just sort of an understanding of how grants operate in the school system the second item that was in the work session today was the update for the CIP seven

160year plan presented by facilities and collaboration and in with the support of our County Partners who helped work on this as you know the seven year plan really is about how we stage our school construction School Renovations and other dollars that the public entrusts with us the seven year plan concept was designed to be fluid and flexible in its later years in order to make changes based on changing circumstances in our community so the update that we brought today included an addition of one additional school that will be added Cary High School based on delaying the work for h15 which is not necessarily fully conceived or needed at this time so um Kerry which was our next school will be moving up and then there was also the addition of a couple of additional Elementary

161or other schools potentially in the later years that could be scheduled for rental stations or updates those are not named at this point because they're later on in the seven year plan and provides continued options for the board to review as we get closer that request will come formally to the board at a later meeting to vote on and approve those were the two items in the work session we are now going to move on to another information item out of finance and that is the presentation of the superintendent's proposed budget for 2023 and 2024. we will have time during work sessions and ways to communicate with staff this is just the presentation of the budget and we want to thank the superintendent and her team for um putting this together for us or thank

162you good evening again dear school board members I am pleased to share with you the Wake County Public School System superintendent's proposed budget for 2023-24 the county appropriation for the operating budget for your consideration is 650 million dollars and 650 94 842 which reflects an increase of 55.8 million dollars or nine percent more than the appropriation we received in 22-23. as we finalize bold and ambitious goals and action steps for our 23 through 28 strategic plan we must also ensure structures and resources are in place to support this critical work that is why our proposed budget includes continued and significant Investments to improve employee compensation provide behavioral health support and ensure our school facilities offer optimal environments for teaching and learning this proposal also Begins the work to transition more than 32 million dollars of

163recurring budget priorities from one-time Federal pandemic relief dollars to other permanent funding sources as available our efforts to shift these costs whenever possible will continue over the next two years the federal funding has been key in our pandemic response and Recovery efforts but our students need ex needs extend beyond the availability of these federal dollars following are the key components of the proposed plan employee compensation our people are our greatest strength for this reason the largest line item in this budget proposal is 25.8 million dollars to improve employee compensation this item continues the multi-year plan to better align salaries with cost of living increases and Market rates to strengthen our ability to recruit and retain the best talent for non-certified personnel we are proposing moving to a 17 an hour as a minimum wage pay

164rate or a minimum four percent increase as well as increases to salary steps and grades to mitigate further compression this proposal also includes a four and a half percent increase in the local salary supplement for certified staff with this recommendation we'll reach a 10.5 percent total increase to the local supplement since 2018 when supplements were moved from a percentage to if the base salaries to a flat rate next are legislative requirements per state law an estimated 61 million dollars of local funding in this proposal will go to charter schools in our County this represents an increase of 3.9 million or 7 percent of the total amount of local dollars that we provide to Charter Schools this past year or current year 22-23 this proposal also includes more than 5 million in local funding required to

165account for anticipated State legislated changes to retirement and hospitalization rates those are direct benefits to staff when you add the 25.8 million in compensation and the 5.2 million in benefits that investment in employee compensation and benefits is a total of 31 million dollars of this request next is maintenance and operations standards during recent years Building Maintenance needs have been deferred to create and maintain funding protect the funding for teachers and classrooms this proposed budget transitions nearly 12 million from one-time Federal funding to local funding to cover maintenance utilities and custodial contracts this includes funds necessary to support necessary repairs and upgrades to our aging school facilities it is also part of our multi-year plan to invest in preventative maintenance in our school buildings and to ensure optimal learning environments and to extend the the lifespan

166of our existing facilities since the start of the covid-19 pandemic we have seen more students in additional with in need of additional mental behavioral health support for their well-being yet our work to address this issue actually began in 2018 when Wake County Commissioners and our Board of Education asked staff to develop a multi-year plan to address the district's growing need for additional instructional support staff in 2019 we launched a five-year plan based on an Acuity model to secure additional positions to support students Behavioral Health from 2020 to 23 we have used more than 11 million dollars in one-time Federal funding to accelerate the support of these positions the 2023-24 budget proposal continues this multi-year plan and includes an additional two million dollar request in local funding for additional school counselors the next item is instructional

167support technicians our district gained an additional 135 000 laptops and six thousand iPads during the pandemic in the coming years we expect to spend 22 to 25 million dollars annually on devices and classroom technology and infrastructure in 2019 we launched a multi-year plan to to phase in again full-time instructional support technicians to help students and staff with technology needs since 2019 we have used a combination of local dollars and one-time federal funds to create 34 of our IST positions the 2324 budget transitions almost a million dollars to cover 10 of these positions to move them from one-time Federal funding to local funding next area is new expanding and special education programs again expiring one-time federal funds will create an additional strain on our local dollars in the next year and years to follow but we

168must still provide programs and resources to meet student and staff needs this proposed budget includes requests for additional funds to support the following a new Early Learning Center to open in Fall of 2023 to serve the increasing number of pre-K students with special needs additional school-based preschool education teachers and instructional assistant positions to support students with additional social emotional behavioral and physical needs that we are required to serve additional special education instructional assistance to serve in 10 new Regional programs where we have significant growth and offer other assignments and staff to serve students with disabilities two employee support senior administrators to provide crisis and wellness support resources to staff and finally as we talk about achieving excellence and equity our 2328 strategic plan framework outlines priority areas of student Knowledge and Skills student dispositions and

169well-being and operational effectiveness this budget proposal is closely aligned with these key priorities and will support the critical work happening under the essential pillars of a high quality instructional core Equity focused practices high quality staff and family and Community engagement while this proposal outlines how we will fund District Operations in the coming year it also reflects the resources and structures that we need to be successful in our work in achieving excellence and Equity as we move forward thank you for your time I will ask David neder now to come provide specifics thank you superintendent Moore and welcome Mr needer thank you superintendent Moore and good evening chair Mahaffey members of the board tonight what we'd like to do is share information and again it's just for informational purposes it's listed on your agenda as an

170information item we're not asking the board to make any decisions about anything tonight you'll have further opportunity to do that and I'll discuss what that timeline looks like towards the end of the presentation want to start by providing as we have in years past with some background on the landscape that we developed this proposed budget within and when I say landscape perhaps more explicitly the economic landscape we also want to share with you potential risks that we see associated with the proposed budget again taking a step back a budget is a in a way it's a forecast or a projection um we are forecasting or estimating what we believe the state legislature will do as far as making decisions associated with compensation of employees associated with required employer contribution matching rates for both retirement for

171health insurance so anytime we're making estimates there will be some risks with it so we want to share some of those with you give you a high level review as you already heard from superintendent more of the funding requests and then go over with you a timeline from here through the rest of the process so one light posit why does the economic Outlook really matter we're talking about the school system's budget well unlike the vast majority of States I think all but four or five states in the United States school boards have taxing Authority in North Carolina it's school boards have no such Authority so for all intents and purposes school boards in the state of North Carolina are reliant upon other governing bodies in this case our state legislature our local government Wake County

172and then the federal government for provision of funding to support our operation um so in turn as the economy changes it impacts those different governing bodies capacity to fund us so keeping a bit of a radar on what the economy looks like we think is a good thing you know just share a couple slides related to this this is a a slide showing the federal state and Wake County unemployment rates which is always a good Bellwether indicator of what the economy is doing it starts over on the left I think in mid-2018 you'll see very low unemployment numbers at both the national state and local level see that Spike up in about a third of the way through the graph that was the beginning of the pandemic where unemployment rate shot up to about 15

173percent at the national level and then you saw you see the quick recovery now back down and on the right we're looking at a couple months ago January of 2023 so that indicates a really strong economy some other things that indicate a strong economy is inflation it's a double-edged sword but inflation is one thing we look at and then another thing we look at um is uh I guess the brainchild of someone on The Faculty at NC State University Dr Michael Walden an economist and he for years has been keeping what he calls the NCSU index of North Carolina leading economic indicators kind of what it is it's a series of different indexes that he pulls together to get a sense of which way the economy appears to be going as we look into the

174future and this is the first report where he has shown things look like they may be slowing down and compared to May of 2022 his index of leading economic indicators is down five percent so it's trending down what does that mean the economy is going to Trend down and likely slow down so what does all that mean well we all know that the Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates and will likely continue to do that albeit with a couple bank failures recently they might slow that pace down a little bit um and they're doing that to get inflation under control most economists including Dr Walden are forecasting a mild recession sometime between now and the end of the calendar year so I think that's going to be on our radar in all likelihood so

175the question marks we have is what impact will that have on state revenues we do know that the state has currently record surpluses so assuming it's a a mild recession don't think it will be anything like what we experienced in 2008 or 2009 but we'll have to wait and see perhaps what might have a little bit more impact is on our local government our local government has two primary revenue sources one are property taxes of property owners in Wake County and the other is sales tax the local portion that the county is allowed to charge and purchases for services and goods which are sales taxable generally will slow down during recession which means the County's potential Revenue may slow down so that's a little bit of what we're seeing jumping out of the state this

176is a biennial budget year so the first of a two the first year of a two-year budget with uh the legislature being in a long session the governor has released his proposed budget in mid-march the end of March the house released their proposed budget and these links that you see in the in the PowerPoint slides which are also in assembly they're hot links they will take you to those documents and we expect the Senate of the state legislature to release a budget in the coming weeks if not sooner and both the house and the Senate have said they do desire to have a budget in place if not by the end of the fiscal year June 30th shortly thereafter I want to talk about some potential risks I'm not going to go down every single

177item on this page and there's some additional potential risks that are listed out along with background of what they are and why we think their potential risk in the actual budget document but I'll start with the charter schools and superintendent Moore spoke a little bit about this significant amount of funding that comes in from Wake County government to the Wake County Public School System and then turns right back around and goes out to the Charter Schools almost 10 percent so for every dollar that comes in from the county almost 10 percent goes right back out and it's not available for Wake County students um House Bill 219 which I believe Mr Hagerty referred to I believe in work session earlier today includes some Provisions that would seriously and aggressively change the funding availability to Charter

178Schools of the local revenues and other revenues that Wake County Public Schools and all the other school districts in the state of North Carolina receive similar legislation was proposed several years ago it stalled we don't know where it will go this this session and some of the provisions effectively would allow the charters to basically get what I'll call two bytes at the same Apple when a dollar comes in to Wake County Schools the charters have access to their portion of it but then they have other accesses for that same dollar not a new dollar but for that same dollar they have other opportunities to fight at it as well I'm not going to get into the details of it but it really makes it an uneven playing field Child Nutrition services up until June of

1792022 we had significant pandemic funding and essentially free meals for students during the pandemic that ended on June 30 of 2022 however some additional Federal supplements were available to Wake County to supplement our Child Nutrition revenues and our support that are expiring on June 30 of this year so we're going to have to very closely monitor what our Revenue picture looks like for Child Nutrition our Child Nutrition operation is what's called an Enterprise fund so that means it has to be self-sufficient the revenues it takes in for its charges for meals and a la carte items and the federal reimbursements it receives for free and reduced status students need to cover the expenditures within child Revenue I believe it's likely the spring later this spring Mr Strickland and senior director of Child Nutrition Services Paula

180DeLuca may come before you requesting a modest meal price increase based upon increased costs and it's it's kind of a I guess you could say it's it's a catch-22 we heard in public comment from so many different groups of employees about their compensation and you heard from the superintendent you're going to hear from me in a few minutes as well of how much that is our primary focus we've got to work on continuing to have competitive salaries to recruit and retain high quality employees but if you look at a Child Nutrition operation their two primary costs to it food and labor and if we want to pay these people more and I think everyone does that means the labor costs go up which means that the revenues that have to cover those costs some have

181to go up you heard from superintendent more that we've got two years to address what we're calling a fiscal transition it's not a surprise we knew about this going into it we made very conscious decisions that during the pandemic to invest about 32 million dollars of pandemic relief funds back into the district knowing that before those funds expire we would have to transition you'll hear a little bit more about that but we begin that process and the superintendent's proposed budget their risk with legislative impact we do not know what the state legislature will say our new retirement contribution rates are crawl eight for every dollar we pay an employee if they're a locally funded employee we have to pay an additional 24 and a half cents to the retirement system for that employee's retirement year

182over year those rates go up we don't know what the increase will be for this coming year so we've estimated we took a look back over the past five years and averaged the increases for both the retirement contribution rate and the health insurance rates and use that as an estimate it's possible those costs will come in higher once they're finally legislated so that's a adjustment we would have to make you heard also from the superintendent about technology replenishment it's one thing to replenish technology when you're at maybe a three to one device ratio device per student it's another thing when you're in a one-to-one density which we have now become during the pandemic and very necessarily so the last thing I'll touch on there's a significant um utility rate increase before the state Utilities Commission

183or keep your eye on that just to give you a sense the district spends somewhere between 35 and 40 million dollars a year just on the utilities to keep our schools open electricity being the biggest one gas water and sewer being some of the others in the past the state Utility Commission has generally not supported significant increases and they've moderated it so we'll keep our eyes on that as well but that's a potential risk so jumping into the superintendent's proposed budget it is a 2.145 billion dollar budget you see the breakdown on this slide about the source of funding again the majority of funding is still coming from the state at 54 percent I do want to point out that the federal funding which shows us 12 is higher than historically normal normally the federal

184portion of the budget is in the eight to nine percent range the reason it is higher now is because of the significant influx that we've had over the past few years and into the coming year and a half of the federal pandemic relief funds but you'll see that percentage shift back over the next couple years and then as far as where the funds go 88 go directly to the schools in support of our instructional staff our school support staff another four percent goes directly to transporting students to and from school to the utilities that light and heat and cool the schools told Child Nutrition programs into the maintenance and operations that maintains our almost 200 facilities three percent of the total budget including all funding sources goes on to Charters but because the way the

185state is structured state and federal funding doesn't come to Wake County and then go to the charters it comes the Department of Public Instruction and they distribute it directly to Charters whereas local funding comes directly to us and then we're responsible for Distributing it so really when you look at the charter pass through in terms of local funding because that's what it is it's closer to nine almost ten percent and then the remaining areas which make up five percent of the other internal Central support areas that support our operation I want to just continue to put in perspective um as we compare per pupil funding in North Carolina and in this case looking at Wake County Public Schools to some of our out-of-state comparisons and when I say out of state comparisons some of them

186are very similar in size as far as number of students and or as far as what type of public K-12 system they are and what their offerings are this data while it is the most current data we have those go back to 2019-20 but I think it gives Stark comparison to see that per pupil funding of 9 610 dollars for a Wake County student compared to even looking at a Gwinnett County which is very similar in size and it may not look like a lot but now it's a couple thousand dollars more per student when you take a couple thousand dollars more times 160 000 students big number my master is me correctly it's almost 300 million in that one example so back to the priority areas and you heard from superintendent more already as

187she shared her overall message but budget message these happen and continue to be our priority multi-year Focus areas they began back in 2019-20 they remain a central Focus but now as we're managing through the fiscal transition these multi-year initiatives are also competing for our need to migrate off the federal funds but again employee compensation instructional support technicians to provide support to our schools that are now managing a one-to-one student device density Behavioral Health supports for our students and aligning our maintenance and operations formula with the national standards so we can make sure that our schools are maintained to the level that they need to be for our students staff and teachers to do what they need to in those buildings each and every day foreign speak a little bit about the the actual pandemic fiscal

188transition you've heard the 32 million dollars of things that we currently have assigned to it they primarily come to current school-based behavioral support positions that we expanded during the pandemic and we expanded it by being able to use the federal relief funds school-based instructional Technology support staff that we expanded during the pandemic and we were able to do so by using these same Federal pandemic relief funds improving the maintenance and operations funding formula and we were able to do that again during the pandemic by utilizing and leveraging the federal pandemic relief funds and building level substitutes is another example so all told we've got about 32 million dollars what we would like to be recurring expenditures on one-time funding the superintendent's proposed budget between the shifting of Maintenance and operations funding some of it from

189the federal funds to local funds and then also the instructional support technology positions some of them from the federal funds onto local funds shifts 12.6 million dollars of that fiscal transition away so it still leaves about 18 million dollars 20 million dollars that we have to address but it's a significant first step and just to give you a sense we've received since the onset of the pandemic 475 million dollars of different forms of relief funding our estimated spending of this through June the end of this fiscal year will be 379 million leaving 96 million dollars available for the 2023 year and then some of it is still going to be available for the 2024-2025 you're not the complete year though so priority area and perhaps priority area number one employee compensation public education is a

190human resource intensive business 82 percent of our operating budget is to pay for salaries and benefits of staff State funding of compensation increases going back to the Great Recession and in all the incredible recovery years since has not kept pace and this crosses the boundaries of all of our staff you've heard from a lot of different staff today all of our different categories of staff including our school administrators our teachers our various support staff including safety assistants Child Nutrition workers front office staff instructional assistance it crosses all boundaries and the new employment Market that we've seen post pandemic continues to exacerbate our capacity to compete for high quality students in recruiting and retaining a couple quick graphs and you saw these recently I believe at your joint meeting you had with the Board of Commissioners

191at the end of March I'm not going to go through these in detail but this chart and the next chart still point out and especially in certain categories of Staff we still have significant challenges that this relates to vacancy rates with perhaps bus drivers standing out at the top like a sore thumb but there are others as well but then we have made progress in other areas as we have been able to take the minimum hourly rate for our support staff from not that many years ago from 1180 an hour first the 13. then to 15 and in the current year to 16 and in the superintendent's recommended budget effective July 1 it would go to 17 an hour minimum so the first chart I showed you was buy type of position as a percent

192and this listed out as total number of positions so coming back to the employee compensation we've estimated that the state will on average legislate a three percent increase for all types of employees as far as their compensation we know that the house proposal came in actually higher than that it was over four percent don't know what the Senate proposal will be or the final state budget but those are all things that we will have to reconcile on the other side of having a state budget and on the other side of knowing what the county appropriation will be for the coming year as you've heard the recommended budget includes a 17 per hour minimum and addresses compression by maintaining a step and grade differential and as we went through the grades and the steps it's 17

193an hour or four percent whichever is higher we ensured that everyone would receive at least a four percent increase in addition to the three percent estimated State Legislative budget increase for teachers the superintendent's recommendation includes a four and a half percent increase to the certified staff salary supplement and the recommended budget includes a one and a half percent local increase beyond the three percent increase in our estimate for the state budget for our banded positions um school principals SLT and others and that's to maintain distancing as we keep pushing that minimum hourly rate up maintain or mitigate compression between the graded positions in the banded positions we have a new sanctioned sport that we've now included in our extra Duty schedule women's wrestling coach and we've made a tweak and as we get into your

194Workshop sessions we can share a little bit more about what the increase in pay for using instructional assistance as substitutes are in the background for including that the recommended proposed budget so this chart is on the instructional support technicians second of the the several multi-year priority areas and it shows you at the bottom of history of the increases we were able to make starting back in 2019-20 and it shows back in 2122 when we use that Federal funding to continue to expand to the tune of 120 months of employment and about 870 thousand dollars and then it's showing proposed in the coming year removing that Federal funding removing those 120 positions from the federal funding and shifting them to Local funding I want to be clear that year over year with the superintendent's recommendation the

195total number of IST positions will not increase it will remain flat but will be shifting them off that expect the funding that will expire and onto a recurring source and just as I had on a previous slide when we looked at the priorities we also look at the fact that we've got to manage through the fiscal transition we recognize that some things we're going to have to take a pause but we do as you see here Target continuing the expansion of these ists beginning in the 20 or take it back up again in the 2024-2025 year similar for the multi-year priority year for maintenance and operations you can see in the 2020 one 2022 year we put an additional net of about 10 million dollars onto Federal funding and we pulled a couple million dollars

196off in the current year and our proposal for the coming year in the recommended budget is to take the remaining 11.7 million dollars off and shift it to local funding so again just as with the ists I want to be clear there's no year-over-year increase and the total amount of Maintenance and operations funding but a shifting again to manage the fiscal transition from the federal funding to local and you see again it Targets in 2024-2025 continuing that multi-year increase to get us to a National Standard behavioral support positions these are our school counselors psychologists and social workers that work each and every day to support our students in the schools um the superintendent's proposal does request an additional two million dollars in local funding for 250 additional months for counselors so this is a year-over-year

197expansion and I do want to point out this area um is one of the major areas if you go back and look back in history on 2021-22 you'll see we added eight million dollars of federal pandemic relief funds to expand these positions and that will be part of the remaining fiscal transition we have to address after this coming year legislative impact again I've spoken about this a bit you've heard from the superintendent under 4 million and our estimated local increase for paying employer contribution rates for benefits just over five million dollars new programs very limited here our focus is on the priority areas and the fiscal transition but we are opening Early Learning Center and their costs associated with that as well as costs with Staffing it so those are the primary errors under new

198programs I do want to point this out and when you get to your books on page 26 you can take a look and again in your work session we can drill down of this in a more granular manner but we really did I believe is the superintendent leadership team some hard work to look at how we could take existing funding and repurpose it to meet some of our needs as opposed to just saying we need more local funding and that's what you see on these pages and again we'll have a chance to get into more granularity when we sit down in your work sessions so as you heard from the superintendent the recommended budget includes a significant increase in requested County appropriation of 55.8 million dollars and again the vast majority of that is in

199the area of employee compensation and related benefits we as we have in years past fund balance to balance this budget and on the recommended budget there is 25.2 million dollars of fund balance used to balance the budget and to put that in perspective the unassigned fund balance as of June 30 of 2022 was 46 and a half million dollars the board has a policy that directs it not to use more than 50 percent of a prior years on assigned fund balance to invest back our recommendation is just over 50 percent so if that remains in what will become the board's proposed budget we will ask you to waive board policy we've done that in the past at different times so we'll see if we have to cross that threshold and at this point the actual

200budget document which you have a hard copy of um should be posted on our website should also be in assembly as well as this presentation as backup materials of the board meeting and as we go through the different phases of the budget development process and it passes from being the superintendent's proposed budget to being the board's proposed budget and ultimately the board's adopted budget each of those iterative documents will also be posted on our website this is a a look at the table of contents and it starts out with budget at a glance some of the graphs I showed and some of these slides are included in there discussion about the priority areas that you've heard some potential risks information about our school membership a number of schools that we're operating and then it gets

201into the different funding requests first at a summary level and then a more granular and granular detail level this next slide is a timeline from today through towards the end of June we're presenting the superintendent's proposed budget today two weeks from today the board will have a finance committee meeting I spoke with the chair of that committee Miss Johnson hosler yesterday um and we've tentatively agreed to hold the budget work session within the finance committee meeting and then as needed extend it into the actual board work session as well um the County Manager David Ellis plans to make his recommended budget presentation of the County Commissioners on May 1st on May 2nd the board will have another work session this board will have another work session on its budget and I will say it's not

202on the schedule but based upon the discussion the board has the questions they have and any kind of direction that the board may give to the superintendent and staff to make changes or revisions to the proposed budget I would offer a chair Mahaffey and vice chair Hagerty that as needed we could have another work session for the budget dates into this period of time because then ultimately we do need to get to the County Commissioners by May 15th the Wake County boards approved budget and that's required by state statute then as you can see the Commissioners have several work sessions and then they're targeting to adopt the final budget in early June and depending on where the state legislature is or is not by the time the board will get to their second June meeting

203I believe it's likely we will ask the sport to adopt an interim budget at your second June meeting if we don't have a final state budget which allows the board and the school district to continue to operate but not make any significant changes based upon changes reflective in the in the budget and then it's a waiting game for the state to finish up their work have a final state budget and then for the superintendent to work with their staff and make recommendations of how to take what at that point will be the board's approved budget and make any recommended adjustments to align the board's approved budget with the final state budget in the final County appropriation so between now and your first work session on the 25th as you're going through the budget document as

204you're reviewing the presentation we ask that as you have any questions about the budget if you would direct them to senior director budget Terry kimsey she will in turn keep them all intact and she will coordinate with the different departments and areas within our district that have the subject matter experts to prepare responses to your questions and we will present those formally at your work session we'll also post those for the public to see along with the budget documents on the website and that can be iterative process as well and they don't if you have multiple work sessions there'll be multiple opportunities to have questions because as you may redirect us to make some revisions that may in turn generate some additional questions so that concludes our presentation it's for informational purposes only but that

205being said we'll be glad I've got Miss kimzey Miss Posey and Dr matillo here be glad to answer any questions we could at this point Thank you Mr needer and thank you superintendent Moore I would like to thank Miss kimsey Miss Posey Dr mutilo our Chiefs and our SLT for the work that goes into this document I know well I don't know I cannot imagine how difficult it is um but you are bring something to us along with your work with our Communications team that is legible breedable and make it so that someone reading the document that doesn't have an iota of what goes into a school budget can at least understand the why to many many things and that is a huge Testament because that is a big translation from Financial speak to layman's

206terms sometimes so I really appreciate the work that you continue to do with this in order to make it more accessible to our public because it should be are there questions comments from board members at this time Vice chair Hagerty thank you chair Mahaffey thank you Mr Anita I really appreciate the presentation and everything that went into the the this year's superintendent's draft the information's clear it's easy to locate what we're looking for I know everyone will have concerns about specific programs and that's why we're going to bombard Miss kimsey which is a wave after wave of email as we go into the work sessions and the finance work but I had just two general questions the first is that I know it's very difficult to predict what the legislature might and might not do

207and of course that's one of that's a huge driver for our budget looking at what you have in here what you've projected under legislative impact and what you've projected under legislative risks what's the latest you think that you could adopt any potential changes to those estimates based on legislative changes before we had to approve a budget would we have an opportunity if legislation passed between now and May 2nd to recalculate that or would we just go ahead with what we have and look for an adjustment um Mr Haggerty great question not necessarily A straightforward answer but I would like to think that if there is additional information or perhaps better estimates or revised estimates that we would have some potential to let that influence the board's proposed budget okay but regardless as as former board

208members no And for those of you this is your first cycle this budget process is just a very Dynamic iterative process and just because the state finalizes its budget and the county finalizes it and the board finally adopts the budget doesn't mean that iterative process doesn't stop changing but um and it is possible I guess to your point that as staff if we see something that we did not include in the superintendent's budget in past years it's not been every year but occasionally we have come back as staff in the superintendent to make recommended changes back to the board beyond what was in the superintendent's budget that we would like you to consider to be included in the board's proposed budget thank you and then the second question isn't looking for a number but just

209in terms of impact and things to be looking for if the state were to you know and they've we've seen proposals if the state were to increase staff pay what impact does that have on us locally Beyond does that have any benefit beyond our employer contribution to benefits in retirement or is that really the key expense that we would that we would feel after a state increase yeah let me maybe tease that apart into a couple parts um and I think this past budget cycle gives a good example but as far as the benefit the two primary benefits we have to contribute as an employer are for health insurance for employees and for the retirement contribution as a district we only have to kick in those contributions for our locally funded employees using local funds

210because for our State Farm employees the state provides those benefits automatically so we don't have to estimate or worry about what those increases are if they go higher the state continues to pick it up so if the state comes in with higher contribution rates than our average estimates were will have to identify some additional local funds coming from somewhere but perhaps the second part of your question we experienced in the current year where our estimate for increases that the state was going to fund we underestimate the state came in higher than we thought which meant the state will pick up for state funded employees more than we thought they would which would free up some local funds or if the county does not provide the complete increase in County appropriation could be used towards reconciling

211that Gap okay that helps thank you their comments or questions for Mr needer restate our next meeting is April 25th we're going to have a finance committee when would you like and maybe this question is for you specifically Miss kimsey because I do know you take the time to prepare each and every question so that every board member can see what was asked and the answer to it when do you need those questions by why don't we do this we're going to put um an email reminder out okay either tonight or tomorrow to all the board members and we'll include that a Target but we do need a few days um prior to the 25th to pull everything together so but we'll put that in the information thank you very much I appreciate that anything

212else all right thank you Mr needer thank you at this point we will move on to the consent items is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved okay we have a motion in a second all in favor please say aye any opposed nay next up out of chief of schools Department we have the proposed calendar laws first we're going to see the instructional calendars for modified and year round for 2024-25 followed by the proposed 2024-2025 instructional calendars for traditional calendar Mr crosa good evening and thank you Anderson Powell for being here staff is here seeking approval for the 2024-25 instructional calendars I'm joined by Mr Money Anderson Powell who's our lead contact for Wake County schools with regards to calendars the calendar committee which is comprised of various Wake County staff as

213well as members of the community at Large provide input into these calendars that we've developed and shared with you today um just a reminder these were presented to you during the March 21st work session with some minor edits that I'll talk about in just a moment first we'd like to bring to you the year-round and modified calendars that we're seeking a vote for their approval this evening staff is open to any questions or concerns you may have we have not received any feedback from any of the board members regarding these calendars since the last time we presented thank you is there a motion to approve the 2024 2025 instructional calendars for modified and year round the second any discussion or questions all right all in favor please say aye any opposed nay moving on to

214traditional calendar thank you so for traditional calendars we have two calendars that we've presented to you during the work session version 1.5 and a version 7.5 which was modified slightly based on feedback from a board member at that particular work session staff is recommending that you approve version 1.5 it follows the North Carolina calendar law however there is discussions about a potential change to the calendar law and staff is asking that should that calendar law pass that we revisit this calendar discussion at that time however staff's recommendation for right now for the 2425 instructional calendar is version 1.5 and we're seeking your vote tonight is there a motion to adopt a 2024-2025 traditional calendar so moved and what version is that the staff recommended version okay staff recommended version 1.5 is there a second second

215any discussion Miss Edmonds in the offfield I just um want to thank staff for drafting this for us so that we can see the version that in my opinion is much better suited for students and as many in the public know and as we know aligns better with our community college system so thank you for bringing that draft to us um thank you Miss Caulfield I have a question you you recommended that if the if the calendar changes that you would revisit it um is that for the following year after so once the calendar law well if the calendar law is approved to be changed we would like to bring back and revisit the discussion regarding 7.5 version 7.5 because we feel that with that flexibility that will meet the requests from the public and

216staff regarding trying to create a first semester that ends prior to the winter break and just to just to clarify what the request for this evening is for 24.25. so the request to revisit version 7.5 would be if the calendar law is goes into effect and we have that flexibility to revisit 24.25 we are not looking at this point to revisit 2324. it's too close for that I think in our opinion but we'll do what the board asks us to do which version is more beneficial to them so we do have as part of the calendar committee we do have members of the community at large who are part of that process we can open it up where we'll have a work session again and then provide you with a two-week window or a three-week

217window depending on the time frame before a final vote so you can collect information from the public that's generally how that process goes but we can certainly be open to anything that the board would like us to do so Mr crozo what I'm hearing is should this legislation pass then version 7 would be brought back to this board to amend this action today to adopt this version of the calendar and then we would be able to have public input at that time we would bring it back and see if you'd like to vote to change and not use version 1.5 at that point but yes okay thank you any other questions comments yes sir just just for clarification and I know you've done a good job of presenting this and the board has talked about

218this in work sessions but I know sometimes we get a lot of conflicting information out there I don't know how many of you are contacted by people that thought we were changing this year's school calendar and there's some people that thought we've already made our summer vacations please don't please don't change it this is why we do this work so far in advance because in addition to Staffing and hiring and all of the school-based decisions we know our community looks to our calendars and makes a lot of plans based on that and you know one thing that I would suggest that if the calendar flexibility law does change you know I think staff had specific Direction about let's see if there was a way that we could finish the first semester before winter break but

219there might be other options that we'd like to consider you know based on whatever flexibility we have is it just to look at having more schools on our modified calendars which seem to work very well which might not meet the same criteria but could be be like an alternative that some people would consider or just a few other options maybe they want an early start but maybe not quite as early as getting that feedback like Miss Caulfield had said I think would be really important but then also looking at what the the staff has done in present in looking at some of the other Calendars our schools use you know we don't have the opportunity to put a lot of schools onto the modified calendar anymore only those that were put on the calendar before

220the law changed and so I just want to keep all of our options open and so if it comes back up it's not we'll have to accept seven five but that we could have the discussion sort of at the pros and cons absolutely but we're we'll deal with the hypothetical we'll cross that bridge when we get to it Mr Hershey is this the first calendar that I tell me if I'm wrong this is decoupling spring break from Easter effectively you're talking about version 7.5 no one point isn't it 1.5 1.5 the recommended yeah I believe it still keeps the traditional spring break as we have had it that it couples with the uh I think it's into third quarter and then usually that holiday that's on the Friday Good Friday you sure about that as

221we sure that was the intent because I'm looking at it as 1.5 is April 1st through seventh and I don't think that's when Easter is I think Easter is on version 1.1.5 yeah it is Easter Sunday is April 20th it is why that year it is and and and whenever whenever the Easter holiday which is a required holiday is very late in the school year our you'll see you our spring break is always earlier because we try to we we try to align the spring break as closely as possible also to the end of third quarter and so in this particular case in this year the Easter break is very late so the spring break is earlier which is you also see because we're using five days for vacation as opposed to the four that

222we would be able to use if we were able to to you know tag team Good Friday on as a holiday and that leaves more vacation for other days so well I personally love this and I love it that it's at the beginning of April and not on Easter because it is less expensive for our families and students to travel quite frankly so if this is something that we can do right after the end of third quarter going forward I think that's great but I'd like to acknowledge Mr Miss Anderson Powell for the work that she does on this and all of your questions and my misunderstanding of when the days are it's very difficult and she does a great job of putting this together working with lots of groups and there's a lot of

223conflicting personalities and and I say that because it's me but there's a lot of um different thoughts of how we should do this and so there's a lot of different permutations that can come out of it she does a great job with it so thank you you notice there's a lot of numbers between 1.5 and seven points yes yes and certainly within the restrictions that we have from the general assembly that makes that process a little more difficult correct um and so any further questions or comments okay seeing none all in favor of adopting version 1.5 of the 2024-2025 traditional calendar please say aye thank you very much thank you have a good evening we move on to an item off of the um Chief of Staff office and we will be discussing the upcoming

224visitor management system and it is Mr Russ Smith our senior director for the office of security Mr Smith thank you good evening board chair Mahaffey superintendent Moore and Board of Education members this evening we're going to be providing you with information about a district Initiative for visitor Management systems and to request your approval to move forward with the solution so tonight what I want to do though I want to start with giving you a little bit of information about the visitor management system just to define the need for visitor management system describe the proposed features that the system will have and also to summarize the benefits of having a system in place if you'll recall in a district-wide assessment completed by the school safety advocacy Council there was a finding that the district does not

225employ a standard standard visitor management system for the schools and the buildings school safety advocacy Council also went on to recommend implementing a single standardized visitor management system that will check all the visitors against the sex offender registry that will also provide notification if an individual that has been trespassed or for some other reason is restricted from campus will also give us that notification system also standardizes what the visitor badges look like across the district so they're easily identifiable by staff and also an added benefit would be to provide student tardy passes so along with the visitor management system we also have to standardize a policy update policy as well as to the rmp for visiting on campus and by doing that what we will do is better control the access control to the district

226schools and Facilities which in turn will enhance protection for the students and staff on the campus so at this time we bring to you a decision on a solution for a visitor management system the services for this contract will provide a system-wide visitor management system as recommend as recommended by the school safety advocacy Council and in their assessments so at this time staff recommends Contracting with Biz Tech Incorporated to provide ricotta visitor management software for three years the total cost for the software is 532 thousand dollars which is 432 000 for the software and another hundred thousand to implement the system across the district at this time board approval is requested promotion to approve the visitor the contract for the visitor management system so moved second all right we have a motion in a second

227any questions or comments Miss Edmonds and then Mr hegarty so are these going to be badges that students and visitors can lose so they they can lose them they are going to be stickers just like uh you know most of you see at different places uh that do provide a system but what we have now are 20 some odd difference this will be something issued like this no ma'am okay and then my second and last question is are we going to get the same system here for this building yes thank you it'll be standardized through all administrative buildings as well as all schools and so but there won't be any these won't be accessed these are just identifications to note people that are visitors on campus so when staff sees this particular badge sticker badge

228that they'll they'll realize that this is somebody that has been approved to be in the building Mr Haggerty thank you uh thank you for the presentation Mr Smith I wanted to go back to something that we had talked about in some previous discussions but I just wanted to confirm will the district have the ability to enter additional data into this system so for example if we become aware of protective orders you know against individuals that might be a threat to students or staff they could be yes sir that's a big part of this system and a big reason for why we need one centralized system one is to be able to do the of course the searches in which that can be done with just about any system but having the one standardized system that

229is networked across the entire County we can input information such as what you're talking about domestic orders child custody orders if somebody is trespassed uh you know because they've assaulted a teacher or something of that nature we can input that in the system and it'll alert us if they try to to enter another campus thank you Dr Ing so um can you clarify in in terms of the time of how fast does that database update it and um and how frequently it is it updated so um for the sex offender registry that's going to be a weekly thing and then it'll be live time when we input information individually when it comes to trespassed individuals I was just curious because you said that this is like a sticker thing um and um Miss Edmonds had

230mentioned if it was lost is the student tardy pass and the adult visitor is it identifully identifiably different like as if a student just ripped their sticker off and somebody found it in the parking lot because they just stick it back on or is there a color difference it would be uh individual to the student so it had the student's name on it parents appearance could look the same yes but it'd be up to you know any any any uh student that's in the in a hallway has a pass that allows them to go to class it's up to staff to be able to observe the past and be able to determine if somebody is supposed to be in the in the hallway do you have a question okay all right um thank you so

231much oh sorry thank you thank you uh Mr Smith for this presentation and I I just have a quick question all of our front staff will be trained on how to make sure that this system is working correctly that folks visiting the schools will know how to use the system correctly exactly yes sir that's correct uh I can give you a little bit more information about what it's going to look like sure okay so uh these are going to be standardized and we went through an extremely thorough process to go through to get to to where we are here tonight and um so this particular product is actually going to be we will be purchasing iPads that are going to be in a in a case on a pedestal with Rolling Wheels so it's going

232to be mobile we can use it to move it to other locations but the answer to your question uh specifically in reference to training is yes that's part of the implementation fees all staff members will be trained on it and again uh we are we are looking to have those in place for the year rounds prior to July 1 and I anticipate that we will have them all in place prior to July 1. and hypothetically if the system does not necessarily work we will be able to have folks train in-house versus going to an outside agency to wait for them to do the train not the trainings the you know yes thank you I'm losing my words here which was a huge piece about what we vetted when we went through this process they will

233be providing support from another location but we will have a system in place so that if there are issues that we can replace the iPad and we can do some things in-house to make the make the switch very quickly Miss Johnson Hoffler and we may not know this question but given we just heard activate good today do you know if it's possible for this system or will it do you know if it'll already be separate that we're doing our background checks through another system or can we do all of our background checks for all of our volunteers through this system so to streamline the process so that is not uh we have not gone in depth with HR that falls under HR we have had some conversations with them in reference to the uh the

234policy and procedure and they are involved in that process and we anticipate you know while we're doing this first we want to make sure we get this off the ground I think at some point in time there can be some communication to see if there's an opportunity for us to to address this but for right now this is this is mainly for our visitors I guess my question is does the system do that do we know I'm going to say that I think we need to check to see whether or not what this system checks for in visitor management does in fact align with what we check for in volunteer screening well so that's not what I mean so when you do a volunteer screening especially based on what your feels are you design those

235I guess I'm asking does this system have an interface yeah I don't think we know that that's a really good question I think it's a great face yeah so it's streamlined even right right I I yep that's a good question I think it's a great question it's something that we can look at pursuing down the road uh to get the answers right well so that all of our systems sort of talk to each other so that we're not having either duplication of effort or disparate efforts do you have another doctor um another question regarding um uh are you setting up some um steps protocol policies in terms of what happens if the system is malfunctioning um at any time during the school day yes sir that'll be something that we'll look at uh we're also

236putting together policy and procedure for you know when it alerts things of that nature all of that will be put into place before they are installed Miss Waters thank you thank you for this presentation just trying to understand the logistics of how this works so upon arrival a visitor will still press a button to be buzzed in and then get into the school to then use the visual visitor management system tool so will you have training or guidelines as to how or what reason someone is buzzed in is that a part of the process or it's not exactly a part of this process but it will be included in the rmp when we do put together the the rules and procedures of when a visitor comes on campus we're also we also have some training

237actually that's going to be made available to office staff in May of this year that will address security issues for front office staff specific to that that topic thank you and and that question and I don't know what what someone sees on the other side of it but I'm assuming when you buzz there's a camera they can see who's at the door has there been any sort of consideration of the quality of that is that I'm a part of this process to or is that separate and not a part of this process it is a separate not a part of this process and one for which I'm probably not going to comment any further okay thank you um Mr Smith I have one question and that is um language access language access for our families

238where English is not their first language when you go in because your child was late to school and you have to fill out that form is that is this accessible so that someone whose primary language is Spanish or tagalong or something other than English that they are able to see the the information Fields written out in their language similar to when you go to an ATM and it gives you the instructions in your preferred language that's a great question and I'm I'm not going to stand up here and tell you because I don't know the answer to that I know I think I'm 99.9 sure but I'm not 100 sure so I I can get you the information if that's if it's incumbent upon that I know our front office staff does their best at

239translating for many of these systems and I'd I'd love to know if this is able to give me a minute I'm going to get you the answer I can wait on the I mean I can you can give me the answer later that's yeah are there any further questions for Mr Smith all right at this time we have a motion in a second to approve the new visitor management system all in favor please say aye any opposed nay thank you Mr Smith prior to um coming into this meeting we did go into closed session during the work session during that time we did approve HR recommendations for administrative appointments and transfers is there a motion to approve HR recommendations for administrative appointments and transfers it's not just administrators it's all all unemployment yeah okay thank

240you for clarifying second all right we have a motion in the second well all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay all right at this time I'll entertain a motion to go back into close session for reasons previously stated absolute second all right all those in favor please say aye any opposed nay all right we are now in closed session thank you Spanish branch