5-17-22 Board Meeting

001probably sit on the wrong side yeah it's not for anyone here hey here we go all right well it is tuesday may 15 2022 at 5 46 p.m and we're calling this regular meeting of the wake county board of education to order i want to welcome you those of you watching at home and those that are here in person to observe as the board of education conducts its official business we are were a little behind because we did go into closed session after our work session so it took a minute for setup with some microphone technicalities at the very end there but we're here i want to highlight board policy 2310 which states persons who willfully interrupt disrupt or cause disturbances at an official meeting may be directed to leave by the presiding officer members

002of the audience should show respect for the speakers by refraining from loud comments or other disruptions disruptions by any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance with general statute 143-318-17 we do have a quorum uh dr martin and ms kushner are joining us remotely ms scott had a family obligation but was able to attend the work session earlier if you will all join me in standing for the pledge of [Music] and to the allegiance for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all so much we will begin with superintendent comments good evening chairman hafin board members i had the privilege last week of announcing broad broughton magnet high school special education teacher caroline olsen as the 22-23 wake county

003public school system teacher of the year miss olsen has been an extended content standards teacher at broughton since 2015. she was named a wcpss diane kent parker first year teacher of the year award winner in 2016. miss olson was honored for the many ways she keeps students engaged getting them excited about learning while fostering positive relationships she employs a variety of means to assess what her students currently know what they want to know and what their interests are outside of school she uses this information to increase engagement and motivate students to meet their academic goals to address the need for time to relax and connect with others during virtual learning she set up an optional social half hour for students to join she says what i thought would be a few students joining every now

004and then turned out to be nearly the entire classroom connecting with each other on a daily basis school closure was particularly challenging for special education teachers and students so it was fitting to give our district's highest honor to a teacher who works hard and use that hard work and ingenuity to help her students weather that difficult period as teacher of the year ms olsen receives a one thousand dollar award a variety of gifts and will participate in the go global north carolina international study program in chile in the summer of 2023 my congratulations to miss olsen and to all of this year's deserving teacher of the year finalists they represent the best and the best will continue to serve as an inspiration for their students and colleagues during a surprise ceremony earlier this month milbert

005magnet elementary school math coach victoria lightfoot received the prestigious milken educator award which comes with a 25 thousand dollar prize for her personal use she is just one of 60 recipients nationwide this year and the second winner from wcpss since 2010. the milken family foundation bestows the award annually to recognize exceptional early to mid-career education professionals winners are honored for what they have achieved and for the promise of what they will accomplish in the future before moving to her current position miss lightfoot taught for six years at cedar fork elementary and for five years at bug magnet elementary and she was a finalist for wcpss teacher of the year in 2021. miss lightfoot is known for her creative and culturally relevant approaches for connecting and motivating with students motivating students including integration of arts and

006music education into her classes miss lightfoot inspires her students and they know that they can depend on her she also takes an active role in supporting other teachers in her school and at the district level leading professional development sessions and creating literacy and math lessons along with the twenty five thousand dollar financial prize recipients join the national milken educator network a group of more than two thousand eight hundred top teachers principals and specialists in the nation in june the honorees will attend an all expenses paid milken educator awards forum in los angeles where they will meet with other education leaders about how to increase their impact on k-12 for years miss lightfoot has demonstrated excellence in the classroom and she is quite deserving of this honor congratulations 10 wcpss students are among the 2500 nationwide

007to be named merit scholars by the national merit scholarship corporation the 2500 merit scholar designees were chosen from a talent pool of more than fifteen thousand outstanding finalists the winners who received twenty five hundred dollars each are the finalists in each state judged to have had the strongest combination of accomplishment skills and potential for success in rigorous college studies the wcps winners are rachana cadikar daniel shen andrew chen arnava goyal all from enlo magnet high school nikita manoj from green level high school sophia woodson and pritheka roy from green hope high school liam smith from heritage high school william sharp from leesville road high school and andrew yang from panther creek high school congratulations to these outstanding seniors i would also like to congratulate and recognize our child nutrition services employees as they celebrate school

008lunch superhero week this fun this this week this fun and spirit week style celebration encourages cns employees to dress up with a different theme each day including a wacky techy day twin day superhero day it's a great time for students and staff to show their appreciation for our cns employees who work every work hard every day to make sure students get nutritious meals to fill their minds and bodies look for pictures and tributes on social media under the hashtag wcpss school lunch hero finally i want to take a moment to acknowledge the tragedy this past week in buffalo where acts of racial hatred resulted in the deaths of 10 americans at a supermarket located in a black community among those who died were a retired law enforcement officer an educator a grandmother a community activists

009and others described as strong pillars in their community many of our students families and colleagues are deeply affected by these shootings we are a community and what impacts one impacts all so this week let's remember to look out for each other care for one another and check in on students family neighbors and friends i know that we might not all agree on every topic regarding education but i believe in my heart that we all want all our children to grow up in a safe world where they have every opportunity to thrive our core beliefs require us to have a positive influence on the community beyond education specifically wcpss core belief 5 states that the board of education superintendent and all staff value a diverse school community that is inviting respectful flexible and supportive so i

010encourage all of us to examine our hearts and the values we hold and work together in our commitment to safety equity diversity and inclusion thank you that concludes my comments thank you superintendent moore as someone who grew up in erie county just south of buffalo this tragedy uh hits home in a lot of ways and first and foremost for those of you looking to help there are many community organizations that serve the east side of buffalo that are already and have been doing this work and i encourage you to research them and look out and and and reach out to them [Music] this this community had been looking for two decades for a supermarket and finally um top's friendly markets came in i believe it was 2013 to serve this community and now they're hurting

011for access to food as the supermarket is is shut down this was clearly an act of of racially motivated violence and if we don't have conversations with our children about loving one another doing unto other as we expect ourselves to be treated these are the things that that continue to happen and it's unfortunate that there have been multiple instances throughout the years where this has happened and and please please please have these conversations with your children on how to love people that maybe don't look like you that don't share the same beliefs as you that don't just it i you know not only was there a law enforcement officer but there was a father buying a birthday cake for his three-year-old who didn't get to celebrate that birthday and i think his parents that can

012resonate with all of us how important celebrating those milestones are um and so please please please look into your own heart and and share just those simple words of how can we respect and love one another and i think those are simple basic tenets of humanity teacher of the year was a wonderful time to get to celebrate those folks that that do a lot of work in teaching respect and kindness to our children very very thankful that we were able to gather together and and celebrate our teachers once again being able to be here for spotlight on seniors was always soul filling to hear the work of our students and their resiliency and their their work and what they're going to go on to do we had our board advisory committee talking about the strategic

013plan most parents and community members and it's also up on the wake county website to fill out information to input our street information that may inform our strategic plan please do that i believe the deadline is the 19th so that is approaching there is a bit of a interactive piece so the landing page will will show community members and we invite parents and community members who may not have children in the schools as well as our students to speak on that as well and it is state mandated testing time and our schools are once again desperate for proctors please reach out to school go on their website see if you can volunteer to proctor it is a lot of tedious work sitting in a room for hours in complete silence with no access to even

014a book for yourself but it isn't a necessary part of the work that we're doing here and that's all i have uh by shere hegarty well thank you ms mahaffey i'll change the mood and go back and just follow up some of the superintendent's comments about our teacher of the year uh recognition that has gone on and what a wonderful event that was you know you can never say you can never say thank you enough times but to really hear the stories ms cash and i talked after the event just just how wonderful it was to hear from miss olsen about her day-to-day experiences her motivations you know how much she gives in her classroom and all of our finalists had wonderful very very similar stories cindy parker yates mill elementary uh george berlich at

015enlow high school maggie childress austin ridge middle brandon soros at east millbrook middle cindy layla willow springs elementary julia minch at sycamore creek elementary christian shea bull at buckhorn creek elementary jermaine howell at cedar fork and lori newhouse at dillard drive all were finalists as well and i just wish more people could see the ceremony hear from the teachers hear from the folks that are there every day about their experiences their successes their victories their joys what their challenges are and how they overcome those challenges also we honored some previous award winners from earlier in the year the diane kemp parker award winners hannah rowe thomas fairbain samaria warsaw and taylor brown and i just think it's important to again celebrate them and their great work this year's first year teachers um and encourage them

016on their journey i'll wrap it up it was wonderful to hear from joanne honeycutt about our cte program the plan going forward our career academies you know so many times i'll talk to parents i'll talk to people in the community that don't have kids in the schools that talk about how we need to have more vocational ed in school we need to have more job preparation school and we have these wonderful academies and we're doing all of this wonderful work and i just think it's i think we need to do more to let people know everything that's going on and all these great professional certifications our graduates are coming out of school with in the meantime been meeting with commissioners on our budget issues meeting with parents about security concerns and academic recovery issues and

017again just want to remind everybody that it is mental health month there are a lot of issues a lot of people may be experiencing in the workplace at home in the schools there are resources available many are very confidential if you need help please reach out but then if you're just looking around to your friends and your family as as as the superintendent has said and has said just check in check in with your friends see how you're doing um finally we have some friends who aren't here tonight uh it is primary election day in north carolina with our municipal elections uh we might always agree on all the issues but for those folks that do have their primary elections tonight good luck and we'll see the results as they come in tonight thanks so

018much thank you vice chair hegarty we're going to go to the virtual space first and start with miss kushner thank you here i'm happy and can hear me okay thanks we can hear you great all right i appreciate the grace of my colleagues and allowing me to be remote today um and also thank you to superintendent moore for your opening comments both highlights the excellence and teaching that is going on across wake county schools both in highlighting our new milk and award winner as well as our teacher of the year and i enjoyed being at both lynn road and brentwood elementary school that they celebrated with wake up and read and watching children build their libraries from the generous contributions that have come through wake up and read from our community was a great joy

019so that what student spotlight on the seniors also really filled up my cup but again to the comments that have been made about the increase in racism among uh in our country and and the increase specifically among young people which um i think we all need to be concerned about so thank you chairman happy for your comments and i hope that our community will rally around a new sense of empathy and compassion across our community so that we can move forward thank you thank you miss kushner dr martin thank you and good evening i'd first like to thank the folks from the department of transportation who worked with a core group that i was able to join at moore square middle school for a walk to school day uh the group from the north carolina

020department of transportation is working with safe routes to schools really just emphasizing how important it is to make sure we design good routes to schools for walking and biking that actually adds good healthy exercise for our students as well i also want to highlight i wasn't able to attend because of uh some health issues with my mom but um two weeks ago the vernon malone college and career academy had their annual signing uh celebration where either two or three students signed on uh with contracts with out of programs coming from their cte uh training in addition to that they handed out uh six trade tool kits valued at 250 dollars each and six students received 500 equipping awards to pursue additional study in their chosen career field so congratulations to the folks congratulations to the

021students at vernon malone college and career academy that's excellent work and we're really proud to see those kinds of opportunities for you i too uh well then this week or not this week last week i enjoyed teaching a chemistry class uh one of the ap classes uh invited me uh to come and talk about currently things happening in chemistry and how one transitions to college enjoyed our spotlight on students recognizing uh some pretty amazing accomplishments from a variety of our seniors who have faced significant challenges and like my college colleagues enjoyed the teacher of the year banquet where we got to celebrate the accomplishments of several of our teachers at one of those events i was given an additional gift which is not maybe quite as nice and that's why i'm here at home uh

022it is not necessarily one's individual choice but if we don't work it as a community what i discovered is covet is highly transmissible transmissible so at one of those events i was exposed and tested positive that makes me want to remind everybody please be careful it is not an individual choice to stay safe it is an individual choice to work together as a community to try to keep us all safe in that regard i think it's important to look again at what's happened both in wake county public schools and in the county in the last week the reported cases on the wake county schools website were one thousand and five coveted cases in the last week that is the fourth highest week of reported cases that we've had since the pandemic began it is 167

023percent of what the prior week was so that's a 67 percent increase over the prior week importantly over that same time period the community transmissions in wake county as reported we're only 48 so we're increasing faster in the schools than we are in the general community of those 1005 cases 1.3 percent of our staff reported uh coveted this week that means they obviously cannot report to work for five days if a teacher can't report to work the children do not have the level of instruction that they need in their classroom the largest number of these cases both in terms of staff and students are occurring at the elementary school and that is supported by looking at the state numbers although the state numbers now are delayed by two weeks because of the way they report

024as of this afternoon the current wake county reported case numbers are 476 cases per 100 000 population we know that that is a very low estimate because persons like myself who home health tested are not counted in those statistics i even contacted the health department to see if i should go ahead and get an official test and the answer was no so we know that that uh number of 476 per 100 000 population is a low estimate most things i i'm hearing it is the reality is at least two to four times what the reported numbers are so we've got to work together and this is not in an individual decision we've got to start taking this seriously cases are are showing no no indication of plateauing i personally am very concerned that if we

025do not voluntarily take action now it's going to jeopardize not only teaching and learning for the rest of the year but i'd hate to see it hurt our graduation exercises where we just don't have the staff to support it and we don't have the students to walk across the stage so please everybody be careful work together as a community put those masks back on until the cases uh start coming down again we are very fortunate that we're not seeing hospitalizations increase yet but i can tell you that even though i haven't needed to be hospitalized this has not been a fine couple of days please work together let's be careful we can get this thing under control thank you thank you dr martin we certainly wish you a speedy recovery miss waters thank you chair

026mahappy and i do appreciate all that you've said and we grapple with another tragedy based on the color of one skin there's a lot of work to be done still and so as i reflect on the last couple of weeks they've been really special times for me to see all the beauty in our district particularly seeing our spotlight on seniors was very special to see myself really looking up to our students and finding inspiration in their stories their stories of courage and resilience looking at students who have overcome so many things from students who have come to this country with little to no english skills to have excelled or students who have overcome challenges of physical disabilities and for students who have just pressed forward it's just been really inspiring and then also the teacher

027of the year was a very special event we have some amazing teachers and to see the finalists there and then our final winner was really amazing and one of the things also that happened at teacher of the year banquet was the opportunity for me to sit with our new assistant superintendent for equity affairs dr will chavis and so that was quite a great time to connect with him and to see and learn about his vision so the work that he is doing is really important and excited about this district's commitment to equity and i'm looking forward to to seeing how he leads us in those initiatives it's been a also an awesome time in district four and really great to see commitment from some of our state and local leaders as they are committed to

028our education we had a visit from representative james roberson to hodge elementary school and that was a really great time very special to see our students who were serving as ambassadors they met us at the door greeted us and took us into a very special presentation so it's just amazing to see how brave and inspiring our students are i don't think i was at that place in fourth grade to be able to speak so eloquently and i think principal dorsey and ap moore and ap de leon for hosting us and dr mark savage for coordinating that visit it was also a great time to see all the work that is being done for social and emotional learning and being able to listen to the students as they share some of the affirmations that they have

029used to carry them through some of the challenges that we've faced most recently also in our district we had a nice visit from county commissioner vicki adamson who met us at lingan middle school and was able to go on a great tour and see some of the work of our success coaches as we again do the work to support our students and their social and emotional learning very happy that assistant superintendent for student support services paul coe was able to come and we were able to look at our work with the communities in schools so there is so much collaboration within this community to support and uplift our students and so it was really great to have commissioner adamson there and she was also at hunter elementary unfortunately i was not able to be on

030that visit but mrs kushner stood in my place and and i'm sure that was a great visit as well southeast raleigh high school i remember when that school was being built i was an employee in the district at that time and it's still a remarkable school and so just wanted to highlight some information from my visit there which this is quite a mouthful it is an international baccalaureate university connection school of design arts and engineering magnet school and so they do it all and they do it all so well and principal hardin really um is committed to all of our students and i really appreciate the work that he is doing with our students who are on the autism spectrum and um just really value that and also got a chance to meet our theater

031director at southeast raleigh high mrs branch they have done some amazing performances i saw some of the pictures of some of their work and i can't wait to go back for one of the performances and also met our dean of climate and culture there mr edwin campbell and very impressed that he was a student at the school and is now serving in that role so that's always wonderful to see that come full circle wake up and read was mentioned earlier and i love wake up and read i got an invitation a little bit late my calendar was pretty full but i was able to run over to bug elementary and to see the very tail end of them wrapping up so i saw all of our wonderful students with their orange bags in the hallways

032and so that was very special and i'm looking forward to going back again i saw mr quentin neal who was my son's art teacher years ago and glad to cross paths with him while he is at bug and it came full circle that day because when my own preschooler who's a student at brentwood came home i unzipped his backpack and he had his orange bag full of books so it was nice to see our home library expanding but looking forward to going back to bug for a more comprehensive tour to see all that dr williams and the staff have going on over there and one of our wonderful community neighbors and partners is the library system it was very special for me to go to south great community library as they had their ribbon cutting

033last thursday and this is a very special library it's a community library and it is very close to a number of schools in district 4. so glad that library is open again and looking forward to going back and checking out some books there and then lastly wanted to highlight our bac meeting as a new board member establishing the bac is really important and so i had some wonderful help from mrs monica johnson hosler who allowed us to connect with her bac meeting and so that was a wonderful experience at rogers lane elementary school and principal faison hosting us there it's a beautiful school it's my first time there and it was really wonderful to see so many of our principals and so many of our parents and so many of our dads were there in

034attendance so it's always great to see that but wonderful things going on across the district our students are amazing they're inspiring and they are our future and i'm excited about the next generation and and who's going to be stepping up to to lead in the future and we have some some some remarkable students and so our teachers um are at the heart of that and all of our staff and so just very thankful for these um last couple of weeks and the experiences that i've had thank you thank you miss waters miss carter thank you and i wanted to just kick off today by recognizing that this is national police week and i know during our work session we did have a update from our safety and security committee and i want to give a

035special thank you to our sros because there are many that do work hard to form relationships with our students and they are very meaningful relationships i've seen them firsthand from kids who are struggling to come to school and when they show up that there is a celebration or just from acknowledging students as they're entering the building from giving fist pumps to hey how you doing or you know how's life going or going to athletic events and that's where students are going in first to go check in so i want to thank all those sros in our schools who are doing that work good because it is meaningful to so many of our students and it does work to help keep our schools safer and transition a little bit this weekend was the tennis state championships

036and i wanted to give a shout out to green hope men for being the 4a runner-up uh champ so i just wanted to congratulate them on that effort and it moved indoor due to all the storms i wish i could have seen that because i've actually never been to an indoor tennis event but uh huge shout out to them and all those who supported them and made the trip to greensboro and i'm mentioning wake up and read i did enjoy going there were no events at any of district 9 schools but i did go to smith magnet elementary school i've never been there so it was a great opportunity loved the event it doesn't get old seeing students just light up when they learn oh you mean we don't have to bring these books back

037and so i spent the afternoon doing that and just each class coming in it was just interesting to see just the excitement every single time so i appreciate all the work that all the folks who are volunteering with that great organization are doing i also attended farmington woods 5th grade exhibition ran into dr mcfarland i don't know if he's behind over there or not yes at the event as well um just a fabulous job there were so many different topics and those students at fifth grade i just thought i can could not imagine myself standing up in front of a room making a presentation and not only about the topic the research they did but also action they had taken and possible action we could take and then also being able to answer questions that

038they don't know what's going to be asked and opening up that floor in fifth grade um and just want to say it was just a fabulous event and the students just it blows me away fifth grade i keep going back they're just in fifth grade and i really appreciate all the community and families who did come out to attend because it was a really packed night so another one that others have mentioned the senior spotlight i just i loved it as well primarily because i really think it speaks volumes to the different paths that our students take and because i'm a firm believer that there are so many different paths to get to where you're going doesn't mean one way is you know the it an only way that can be done um and then

039the end goal is different as well for our students um so it was just a great event and just uh congratulate all the seniors who were recognized and all their supporters who came as well and i went to kerry high school's drama club show actually that was right after the event it worked out nicely i was like i think i can make it to art and beyond it was a fabulous event i got to speak to some community members that didn't even have students there anymore that came just because they heard about it and i wanted to give a special shout out to the directors because it was students for this event and they were both seniors maddie alger and sam bryant and it was just a fabulous show and a great way to spend

040the evening and another event they had there i'd mentioned it before but if you've not gone to an improv night please try next school year it's so worth it two bucks gets you two shows yes you might be there two and a half three hours but it is well worth it and that was a final one for the school year so be on the lookout for next school year um it's just fantastic the students are just so quick in their humor and just at this time i just feel like it is so healing for so many people um and the audience participation is great and it was a great turnout and just having folks holler out different ideas and to have a lot of high school students and be able to do that and not

041have to be like oh did that just get said was amazing in and of itself it was fabulous i want to the teams in case you mind they're the jorts the big boats and lads the biohazards and the placeholders you all did fabulous and i'm looking forward to i know some of our transitioning off because they are seniors i'm looking forward to next school year and i really want to thank miss mccormick for all of her support for both of these programs that went on and all those who came out and supported the students and then davis drive middle school i still consider it my somewhat home went to their spring dance performance and it was phenomenal despite the or in spite of the spotlights not being able to be moved which if you are

042have a or have had a daughter or son or anyone in a performing arts you know if that is not just right sometimes you know you're in the dark okay and that did happen and you would not have known that those students just carried on like it was everything was all good it was a fabulous show and i wanted to give one particular shout out was to miss geiss and miss mrs stevenson bennett's classes they were included in the performance and it was wonderful inclusion is so important at all different levels and it was great to have that on that evening they also had their dancers inducted to the who qualified to the national honor society for dance art and that night that was also an added benefit so well done students and also thank

043you to dance director miss winans and all those who came out because again it was a packed house and another event i unfortunately was unable to attend was briar cliff elementary's international night i had a previous commitment that same night but principal nelson was wonderful she offered for me to come back out the next day which i did took her up on that offer and it was just amazing apparently they had around 300 or so folks show up and they had artwork in the all their hallways from that the students completed and it was from all different countries so you were going and learning about countries and it was related to the art and there was various different types of art it was just it was mind-blowing to me all the work and all the

044different pieces that were there and they also allowed and offered for parents or families to set up tables that night to bring in things that related to their their country um and that was some of that was still out and i was able to see that it was just a a wonderful event and i just want to thank all those who worked so hard to organize it and all of those folks that work with the students in the schools to get all of that set up and all of our work done and the students did a fabulous job and i know the teacher of the year banquet has been mentioned so i won't but i just want to say you know for those who might not or might not be aware they start out with

045every school has a teacher of the year so a congrats to all of y'all and then it goes to 20 semi-finalists then 10 finalists and then two the ultimate winner but i just wanted to congratulate each and every one of the teacher of the year at each school level i appreciate all you all do and of course a huge congratulations miss olsen and i'll close with tomorrow night at 8 30. i do have a d9 connection meeting if you're interested in coming that's an informal meeting where i just open up the floor to you all but you can find the link on my blog or send me an email and i'll be glad to share with you thank you thank you miss cash i just wanted to i'll be brief i just wanted to say

046that um mr haggerty and i did talk about the teacher of the year event and i think when what what we don't see enough of is what we watched at our spotlight on students because that's amazing when you see young people talk about what they've been through and then going to the teacher of year banquet and and letting them talk to the public about what it is that they do every day in our schools and that's what the public should see the most of and we don't we need to get them out there more rather than us they need to be out there we need to be looking at them because they're telling an absolutely wonderful story i did go to a couple of the sros this week and recognize them because i am a

047big supporter of that program but actually the athletes in a couple of schools for doing some things for their sros because they feel like sometimes they might not have a football game if they didn't have some crowd control with their sros so there was a lot of good things said at the schools that i went to by students that were glad to have them there but they were like you said some of them are very close friends to many of our students so the ones that i know are doing an excellent job so i wanted to recognize them and then just simply i'll be at fox road tomorrow for uh three three or four hours doing our wake up and read i'm excited about that and then i'm excited about the carolina hurricane so i'm

048going to end with that thanks all right miss johnson hossler thank you i'm excited that all of us have been able to enjoy wake up and read whether in our district or not you know all know i'm a super fan and i have never missed to say in all of the work up and read stuff i've talked about is it is our amazing staff who do the legwork especially your department barlow our media specialist it is amazing um especially for me um personally knowing that there are not a lot of books where i was reflected in those books growing up and there was not a way given read that i've been to where students could not walk in that room and see their cells reflected and know that they have the option to choose it

049or not and so i think we don't speak enough about the importance of giving all kids options to see themselves reflected and so hats off to the staff who make all of that happen it is no short feed and i also learned a whole lot about books that i've never heard of and i was like no no read judy bloom i love those books but there but i also learned a lot about a new a lot of new books that i will start purchasing so i can be up to speed when children question my love for reading when i have not heard of the most important books which i'm sure miss my happy has younger kids so she certainly probably knows but i was like i don't know what you're asking for so i'd have

050to go ask the media specialist what does this book look like so i can expedite finding it but but certainly again the the the work doesn't just happen in a vacuum and i know they are certainly glad that we can volunteer but it is the exceptional work of our staff who have full-time jobs who are still making this opportunity happen for us and so again it is always a pleasure to be in our buildings and um as so many of our colleagues said it's the full circle moment for me i was volunteering with folks who teach in the education department which i didn't know it was called the education department now at wake tech because it used to be early childhood but now it's just education and they were there and one of our new

051ias had just finished at wake tech and she was so excited to see two of her professors and was showing them around the school and they were excited i was excited then i got sad because my principal there's retiring from smith elementary so it's just a full circle moment but just a reminder that that we live in an amazing community and we often take those things for granted by the vitriol that people say and so you know certainly i think that there's so many spaces in our life where we can find the joy that our young people still are holding and it is absolutely every one of our jobs to foster that in any way that we can the the murders in buffalo speak to why we have to pay attention and be open and

052honest about about the the number in the frequency of tragedies and harm done to black bodies and not calling that for what it is it's a tough spot to sit in this place to say it but those little faces at every single school i went to expect me to do the hard work and the heavy lifting and say the things that are true because as we've talked about before certainly and i will say again may is mental health month and those strategies and those options aren't available to everyone and i am gracious for the work that our school system has done to open up those spaces for our young kids i certainly have heard from parents that that they were surprised that their schools opened up space for black kids to talk about if they

053needed to the tragedy that's happened because we forget it's not our community but it is our community because what technology has done is separate these false lines we had around community and so these are our communities and we are certainly all impacted by the media that we consume and so i i appreciate my colleagues i don't have to read an article that i was going to read pieces of um but i want to mention it i'm a non-profit exec and so it's an amazing i just think it's funny to follow for people it's called non-profit af you can imagine what that stands for uh but but this but this week they talked about and i think and it was for non-profits and foundations to really walk the walk and start to question ourselves for the

054performative comments and statements that we make and really walk the walk and what does that look like and how we all have to hold each other accountable we are all struggling every day to figure out how to do this work and the thing that i think is important is to remember humanity it is the one thing that we all know to be true is that we are human and there is no greater gift than we can give to each other to our young people who are watching us is to be honest about when we're wrong and to be open and to apologize and to also ask them for forgiveness for the ways that we have not been speaking true to our babies so that they have what it takes to be the amazing next generation

055that we certainly saw at the spotlight on students which is always emotional and amazing the things that our young people have gone through and we'll continue to go through and our job is to give them the tools that they need and one of those tools is kindness and the other is honesty because there is nothing more important than them understanding their own truth and the truth that we can give them and be open so thank you to my colleagues for the words that you have said and not just the words because i can say i worked with these people at this table these are not just words um you can hear the passion and the empathy but i also think it's important to say that 47 years i spent time with people being performative to

056me about apologies and it is important to recognize when people are not being performative and i think it's important to note that for my colleagues at this table so thank you all and i you know my colleagues have talked about the amazing things that we've gone through so i won't repeat those but i certainly will lift up a couple one i see mr king in the back he's shared with us often that he serves on the state board of education advocacy committee and so i had a great opportunity mr haggerty couldn't get online to join us to recognize miss yolanda towns lemon uh lemons from south garner who is a special education teacher you all she was in tears our kids were in tears always amazing to be in our classrooms and the acknowledgement of

057our educators at every step of the way is amazing to me that our educators often like we train ourselves that you do the work because it's your mission or ministry or hard work that people find it difficult to be appreciated and so thank you for the appreciation that was done at south garner which literally followed the next few days later of the town of garner and the garner ed foundation in the garner chamber recognizing every school-based teacher of the year ia of the year our retirees which that was really sad because i have a lot of retirees in garner but the recognition in those communities again just people saying i'm not sure why you're giving me this recognition and so we can't say it enough because we have socialized people who do public servant work

058to to shrug off the appreciation that they so well deserve so keep appreciating and acknowledging that um which i also got to see you all know i'm a die-hard lifelong girl scout even in all of my womanist ways it is still the place in addition to my church where i learned all of my leadership skills and my ability to to speak out and not bite my tongue and be bold in who i am and you all wake county of course no surprise had a significant number of girl scout gold awardees very diverse group of kids and what i will tell you about every single gold award from which is the pines of carolina so from onslow cumberland county wake county chatham county durham county every last one of them understood the importance of the least

059of us every last one of their awards was dedicated to communities marginalized communities and centering people who needed our love kindness and support and so those young people are out there so the tragedy that we saw at buffalo for me is a reminder that we can capture all of our kids hearts with the truth and kindness that they all deserve but it's our work to do and we have to actually say it out loud to actually hold ourselves accountable to do it um so without a shout out thank you commissioner um thomas for inviting me and allowing me to also let those young women see um the durham police chief who was also a girl scout who talked about the power and the difficulty of choosing careers that are not often careers that black women

060choose in leadership so again thank you to the girl scouts of pines of carolina for always opening their doors and hearts to me and i for the first time got to be on the 360 which i did not understand how it worked for the record but certainly great to be there again miss waters spoke to this was my first ever joint bac i know biscott and i've talked about it because we are also neighboring bacs but it was great to have district four join us and the only thing i'll mention about that is thank you dr gardner thank you dr mcmillan for all of the support that you've given all of our bacs and for their patience of allowing our students who were in this space to also participate in our bac we had a

061fur we had a kindergartner who was my ambassador who i'm pretty certain that child should not be in kindergarten but she was also four so that speaks to who she was but she was like a little boss brown girl for sure and then we had a fifth grader as well who uh and what grade was eighth grade so so it was also great to see our young people engage in our bac in in our survey as well and lastly um i i'm learning a lot about fuquay in their history both fuquay and verena in the last year we've been to multiple events so i got to go to the bell move which is leaving fuqua marina middle school because we are changing the school site and so it's moved to their new museum and we

062had a first person story about the bill which for the record you all it was eight o'clock on the saturday morning i was a little slow and she led with over 130 years ago i was moved in a freight train i was like what is happening but it was an amazing story and there are people there who remember ringing the bell and again it's just a reminder that that the history is flawed but it is still rich because certainly they were able to speak about the flaws of the school systems when they were segregated and where they are now in their reunification and that mean that literally um because we now have two high schools and so they um had both the storm and the bengals play to really speak to them understanding the need

063for us to speak to our history and the importance of sharing that with our young people so that rounds out my comments and i know it's been long but i do think it's important that often we're speaking into a vacuum and sometimes there are new people in the vacuum who might hear some words of wisdom thank you miss johnson hostler at this time i'll take a motion to approve our meeting agenda chair chair mahaffey i move adoption of our agenda second all right we have a motion and a second um all those in favor please signify by a sign of i any opposed nay okay our immediate agenda is approved we move on to public comment now public comment is accepted in video written and in person format members of the public are welcome to

064offer comments or criticism directed of substantive ideas actions or procedures of the board and individual board members in the interest of maintaining civility and decorum however speakers are encouraged to refrain from personal attacks and insults directed at the board individual board members staff or members of the general public the laws and policies of north carolina provide that issues or concerns involving individual personnel matters are confidential and therefore not appropriate for public comment settings concerns related to personnel issues may be addressed through applicable wcpss personnel the grievance policy or other applicable policies speakers including students may discuss issues and matters of general concern but should refrain from discussing confidential student information concerns related to confidential student matters may be addressed through applicable wcpss personnel the grievance policy or other applicable policies as a part of our

065written comments which are attached to the meeting agenda and can be found at the school district's website wcpss.net under the tab labeled school board along with guidelines for those wishing to submit comments [Music] we have 13 written comments and the topics include coveted safety measures with seven comments sustainability in the district's strategic plan two comments and four other comments including driver education and bus driver staffing school reassignments books renovations and durant road for those of you that are signed up to speak in person during public comment you may speak for up to three minutes at the podium a yellow light will illuminate when there are 30 seconds remaining in your time and a red light will signal your time is up please remain at the podium during your speaking time any materials you wish to

066share with the board should be handed to mr blumberg our board attorney either before or after your comments and please for folks in the audience respect other folks three minutes whether you agree or disagree we're going to be respectful of the fact that people have come to share their thoughts with the board of education during those three minutes our first speaker on public comment is rhonda taylor bullock good evening my name is dr rhonda taylor bullock i am the co-founder and lead curator or executive director at we are we are stands for working to extend anti-racist education at we are we provide anti-racism training for children families and educators we use a three-pronged approach to disrupt and dismantle systemic racism in education and beyond by offering summer camps for our children and rising first through

067fifth grade professional development for educators and workshops for parents and families both my name and my organization's name have been mentioned during the last few board meetings here at wake county and i thought it appropriate to show up here tonight i would like to thank each and every one of you on this board for choosing to be on the right side of history by voting to approve we are as a vendor organization allowing wake county employees to apply just to apply for grants with us i would especially uh like to thank board member cash and board member kushner for your comments for defending us when we weren't even in the room and i think that speaks to not only my reputation and the work that i've done in my community but as well as to

068the work that we are has been doing since 2015. our children deserve the truth that's what you all just said our children deserve the truth and a critical race theory framework provides our students with historical accuracies to better understand the world around them and one of the biggest lies in this coordinated misinformation disinformation campaign is that crt is about labeling individuals as racist that is not helpful and it's also not a part of crt teaching our children the truth aids in understanding how the ongoing legacy of inequality affects the country today and fosters empathy to create a bridge to unite us how would this weekend have been different if the white supremacist shooter had been educated in a school system that provided anti-racism training that use a critical race theory framework that focused on building

069healthy racial identities to build upon that empathy that you all talked about to help him appreciate those from whom he was different we are is an anti-racism organization unapologetically rooted in critical race theory and so tonight i ask you all as board members the people in the audience and those of you watching you're either are you for anti-racism are you against it there is no middle ground thank you your time is up our next truth learn is dibble [Applause] good evening my name is nathaniel i am a senior at garner magnet high school and i'm the proud president of my school's gay straight alliance the past couple months i've been tuning into these meetings online i'm here tonight because i and people like me have no choice but to be concerned by what we've been

070hearing we have watched the same people come up to this podium week after week and say the same claims over and over that book bannings are essential to saving the children in fact it took me until last meeting to finally hear something different from that rhetoric last week i heard them talk about mental health which brings me to my point tonight if we're going to talk about mental health then let's talk about mental health a survey conducted by the trevor project estimated that more than 209 000 queer youth between the ages of 19 and 24 attempted suicide in 2021 503 000 more between the ages of 13 and 18 also attempted that's a total of nearly 713 000 children my community is not born prone to depression mental illness or suicide we are born with

071self-hatred we are not born with self-hatred because we're morally wrong or flawed in some way we are not born feeling ashamed of who we are as a natural result of our identities and yet nonetheless we experience those feelings because we are made to these beliefs are instilled in us by people that wake up every single day and make the conscious decision to hate us just because of who we are i know these feelings and i know where they come from because i have felt them i have had moments where i did not think i would be at the age that i am at or where i would not be a few weeks away from graduating let alone having those milestones as a person i can be proud of god knows i would not be standing

072here right now if i had to make that journey alone i was lucky enough to be born into a family that has been supportive accepting and loving every step of the way and i've been lucky enough to find even more family in my community not everyone has those things children whose families refuse to help them or have communities that aren't there for them children whose worlds are hostile will find refuge in the worlds provided by books if they cannot turn to those books if they cannot turn to you then i can only hope that they're stronger than me or you or anyone else in this room book censorship does not save any child the only legacy that will ever come from censoring queer voices or voices of color or voices of people that do not

073adhere to the majority is the pain and suffering of not only your children but every child in this district thank you our next speaker is kira gratton hello before i begin i would like to thank you for your comments especially from miss johnson hossler who represents my district district 2. i would like to thank you for your time for listening for to us the students for considering our thoughts our feelings and our futures and your deliberations my name is kiera gratton and i'm an 11th grade international baccalaureate diploma student at garner magnet high school and the vice president of the gmhs gay straight alliance i love my school i try to be a good member of my community and most relevant to what i am going to speak about today i am gay before i

074begin i would like to urge you to not listen to me passively each year you hear from hundreds of voices hundreds of stories but these are not stories to us these are our lives please listen to me with the same level of care that you showed the first person who ever spoke with you and the same amount of dignity as the person who will last speak to you during your tenure on this board i'm not a north carolina native i was born in west virginia where a lack of children in my neighborhood made books my dearest friends getting swept up into worlds of rhyme and reason curling up under giving trees and getting joyously entangled in charlotte's web when i moved here in early elementary school i was grateful to be given far more opportunities

075my love of reading skyrocketed my academic career and i am forever grateful for the opportunities given to me by the school system but it is because of these opportunities that i am so very passionate about the importance of protecting the rights to read these rights to education are the reason that i am here that you are here and that even those who oppose me are here finding comfort in those who are like me is what built my character finding books with queer characters and themes were difficult and thus it was difficult for me to accept that aspect of myself banning books that feature queer and people of color characters is not going to change who we are it will only make it harder for us to find ourselves and for others to empathize with us

076everyone deserves to have a voice and so i ask you to continue to vote as you have in the past and keep our education uncensored please do not take my words lightly be considerate in your deliberation and please continue to make the best choices for this community thank you very much our next speaker is chad stahl number four tonight has a lot of pressure those are all three great speakers um i'm just going to go through a couple things though because this weekend brought a ton of tragedy to our country and it seems that we're all very hyper focused on one incidence seven injured winston-salem sunday night and then if you scroll down okay let's see on sunday one person was killed five other people were injured in a shooting as asian churchgoers convened in

077buffalo ten people were killed three others were wounded and then a mass shooting in downtown milwaukee at the end of an nba playoff game you know we our school system that definitely sick demented young man in buffalo the school system flagged him and tried to do something about it and proved how inadequate school systems are to try to manage the mental health of every child they failed he was flagged and they did not know what to do with him it's not the school system's job it is not your place you should be advising people getting them to the proper help at best but playing counselor when you're not qualified you're not trained you're not educated to do it is a very slippery slope the empathy social emotional learning since the 90s we have gone on

078to this thing where the snowball keeps building keeps building keeps building and now we're in 2022 the children that need the most diversity in their lives to prevent that kind of hatred we kept home i think this young man even claimed like you know i was by myself on the internet and so he just got stuck in this this very sick depression i imagine i'm no expert but that's where this person was left alone the school system failed him again social emotional learning we have more sros on school campuses we put locks on doors to keep parents out of schools we don't want parents to go to the schools still to this day there are parents across our country that just want to be involved in their children's education and that side of their child's

079life and they're not allowed to because of covid right which jim the five times seven times nine times injected wears a triple mask to bed has covered we have to be able to accept some things and work on the things that we cannot accept social and emotional learning is failing our students and it is failing epically if that young man had his life focused on good grades maybe a job maybe he would have been at work this weekend just think about that thank you [Music] our next speaker is pete bly i'd like to remind folks that personal attacks are not a part of this forum hi we've been coming here to advocate for math for about three years now in that time i have lost 85 pounds i've lowered my a1c from 7.8 to 6.2

080i've started a new career i've had back surgery they do all those things on a whim i did them because i had a plan that was going horribly wrong and i held the accountability in myself to fix it you talked about accountability plans earlier in the work session so you know how to hold your schools accountable and what the opt-in email we got this week you show that you're able to uh that you're looking to hold our kids accountable but i've never heard you hold yourselves accountable and all the time we've been coming here the state mandated letters program shows that your reading program wasn't getting it done is it that hard to think that maybe the math program isn't either in a day and age when people are quick to shine the bright spotlight

081of accountability on you when you've done something they don't agree with they're just as quick to yell cancel culture the second you put that same spotlight on them i feel like sometimes you'll feel like we're just up here coming up here to yell at you just to yell but we're not i hold myself accountable i hold my kids accountable i'm asking you to do the same same standards i'm asking you to hold yourselves accountable and do the right thing for our kids by actually taking a real look at your math program instead of just blaming it on the kids and sending them to summer school because thanking us for our advocacy advocacy without looking up from your laptops is the same as people giving their thoughts and prayers for every mass shooting and then turning

082around and pretending as if gun there isn't a gun problem and there isn't a racism problem in america our kids deserve better we're asking you all to do better thank you our next speaker is russell lichenstein not here okay becky lou hopps hello so as we're winding down the school year and holding this board meeting on primary election day i thought this would be a good time to recall the highlights of the 21-22 school year so this is how the school year began for kids and parents the board and superintendent were requiring children to cover their faces for eight hours a day promoting medical treatments without a license declaring all illness symptoms covered and then denying children access to their constitutional right for public education denying parental access to their children during the school day

083limiting public meeting comments to 20 people limiting meeting attendance to 30 people installing a barrier between the public and the board that was not in place before and mr sutton while serving as chair also served as interim superintendent of warren county through the end of 2021 the video texts purposefully avoided filming any signage opposing board policies to the point they were awkwardly flipping camera views once again this never happened before and then mr sutton as chair stated that signs were no longer allowed and i found that ironic considering in his early days at the school board he was with protesters holding signs now moving on to early 2020 in the first meeting chair mahaffey limited attendance to only 10 people so public commenters were forced to wait outside in 30 degree weather it was really

084a good way to encourage public involvement and then the next week the board accepted applications for the open board seat interviewed the candidates and voted to appoint mr ardis that next board meeting i asked the board why did they appoint somebody that did not reside in district four as legally required the board never apologized never acknowledged their mistake for not doing a simple background check and in february the board was presented with a request to begin masking preschoolers ages 2 and up and actually there was a debate about it on twitter several members of the board liked a depiction showing parents that were in a very derogatory manner and board members were also photographed at several events wearing matte without wearing masks yet continued to require students to wear masks and then now the barrier

085is still here almost all most of you are wearing masks but at the event on may 10th barrier was gone very few of you were wearing masks so throughout this year the board has shown its disdain for parents has discouraged parental involvement and furthermore the board has acted in an ethically questionable manner as wake county school graduate and a mom with kids in the public school system this is deeply concerning i look forward to november general elections are just 174 days from now 174 days that we the parents will make a change thank you [Music] our next speaker is rowan rostovich rowan no okay following that our next speaker is julie page um first i just want to make it crystal clear that i come here as a concerned mom not a domestic terrorist and

086i pose absolutely no physical threat to anyone anywhere whatsoever please don't call the fbi on me moving on regarding the proposed budget for the 22-23 school year how do you put a number on increasing proficiency on improving graduation rates on recovering from the learning loss that you not the pandemic are responsible for what is the cost to improve reading and math scores where is the study that ties dollars spent to student success if we pay a teacher more will that make her a better teacher does that mean she will spend more time on academics and less on social and political ideologies how will adding nurses and mental health professionals increase testing outcomes throwing money at problems does not solve them union county spends less per student yet has higher grade level proficiencies and graduation rates

087conversely charlotte mecklenburg spends much more per student and has lower graduation rates clearly money is not the answer as the largest school district in the state that also claims to be the best you have yet to give a realistic plan to improve grade level proficiencies retaking the eogs is a shady tactic to further this administration's charade of excellence now i want to address some of the lies that have been told about parents advocating for their children we are not right-wing extremists we are concerned parents that are awake to the education system's failures we are not book banners or book burners we simply want books to be age appropriate for kids in school we are not racist or anti-lgbtq we believe all children have the fundamental right to a free quality education and should be treated

088equally we are not against teachers and we are not against public schools finally to parents the local ncaa or fake teachers union does not have your best interest in mind it represents a small minority with very loud voices that scream of inequity and injustice it is a political action committee seeking votes for its corrupt agenda if you have been unhappy with the school system for much of the past two years vote the opposite of every election endorsement it makes for now and into the foreseeable future in closing i have no political stake here i'm not running for office i'm simply a mom advocating for children and parental rights parents want to focus on the one thing you are charged with doing education not indoctrination thank you our next speaker is katie long good evening i

089come to you tonight again as a concerned parent of two children in wake county public schools we have brought concerns to you about policies that are failing our children we have yet to receive answers so many students have suffered learning loss as a result of remote learning and quarantine mandates there have been no discussions or plans put in place to help our children to get back on track with what really matters reading writing and math the only plan that has been publicly announced is you're pleading for more funds while it's really great for some students that new schools are being built others are learning in old trailers with no ac during a 90 degree weather how about investing equally in all of our children so that they are not in such poor learning environments like

090in trailers this is the condition my daughter was in when she attended west cary middle school are our children really passing their grade levels with required education or are the academic standards lower to meet the school district's goals i would like to share some data with the that was accumulated from the north carolina department of instruction this data that the school board would not publish because it doesn't reflect favorable view of their performance the data reflects the 2019 and 2021 school years on enrollment and grade level performance this data is evidence that school wake county public schools are failing students at such a rate that parents are seeking other options the average of percent change for enrollment declined district 1 5 decline district 2 10 percent district three one percent district four nine percent district

091five eight percent district six fourteen percent in district seven that's i'm i'm in their dutch district four percent decline district eight one percent and district nine four percent let's talk about year year grade level performance for all nine districts district one and district two a whopping 40 percent decline district 3 34 district 4 30 district 5 a 17 decline district 6 22 district seven eighteen percent district eight fifteen percent and district nine seventeen percent decline in the grade level performance let's do better for our children thank you our next speaker is stephanie lorman stephanie daniel grant king good evening chad mahaffey superintendent moore and board members i am mr grant king and currently i serve as an employee of wake county along with the state board of education as chair with the subcommittee with the

092committee rather on our advocacy as i reflect and as my committee has reflected on this past school year and as i have come as an educator hearing the attacks from the very minority in regarding the work that our educators do regarding the advocacy work that our local ncae does and many other attacks and i want to make something very clear to those who have bullied and attacked this board of education and myself especially i would like to make clear that is very selfish and very despicable i should add that you you are not in the classroom the work that we do as educators we teach your children but yet you have the audacity to attack us us the educator that is enough i am very sorry that you feel that everything has to be your

093way but let's make something very clear there are certain guidelines there are certain rules that we the educators and many others who work in this school system have to follow and to ensure that your children receive the education under the law mr grant king if you could address your comments to the board please thank you so first of all i would like to say thank you to every last board member on this board that has addressed racism that has been across this country also i would like to thank miss johnson hossler for coming to my school of south garner to the event that was upheld by my committee as we recognized one of our very own educators none other than mrs yolanda j townslymus she has been a 22 plus year veteran in this state

094starting from greensboro guilford county all the way in 2018 to wake county and i would like to thank my committee especially as we approach budget season and trust and believe we will do our very best to advocate for all our educators thank you so much well i know we have folks in the room that may disagree with our speakers please direct your comments at the board as we move forward our next speaker is fallon seabrook is failing with us here tonight so [Applause] good evening as you guys know my name is fallon c burkin my daughter attends ridiculous school i'm not here tonight as a parent i'm also here tonight as the sexual assault survivor and i'm here to address the very graphic images and messages that's in the library books that my minor child

095has access to um during the school work meeting on april 19th um there were two parents up here um but one parent who yelled a cuss word another parent and she said it was culture forming books but what she doesn't realize that these are not culture foremen these are pornography it's nothing culture fun about this any parent that'll do this is a pervert a child groomer a child molester she has no problem with kids reading graphic images these words don't belong in our books these are kids minors all of you have the power to remove these books oh none of you please remove them thank you [Applause] we'll once again state that personal attacks are not a part of this meeting joy elliott is our next speaker good evening superintendent moore members of the board

096my name is joy elliott and i currently serve wake county schools as coordinating teacher for special education math i've been a teacher for almost 25 years serving north carolina schools in four districts including wake county i love wake county schools and i see some great things happen here that you all mentioned in your comments i even left for a short time and came back i felt glad to speak to you today from my current perspective from the time i entered school i wanted to be a teacher as my career progressed i wanted to lead mentor and teach teachers i was provided that opportunity in september 2021 i now have the opportunity to visit all schools of all levels across this district as i've visited schools i've seen teachers dealing with high work volume covering classes

097due to vacancies or absences and serving a high caseload of students many with smiles on their faces a lot of people don't realize teachers have spent the better part of this year reorienting students to school after being out for almost two years due to circumstances beyond our control on the special education end of things this can be particularly difficult many teachers are doing the right things for their students and working harder than ever before and i commend them for that sadly many tell me they're hanging by a thread and some have chosen to leave this profession we've all seen the attacks from on teachers some within our own community accusing us of all sorts of things again we're just trying to teach students to be in school again i ask the community right now to

098be an advocate for your child's teacher not their adversary to the members of the board as we move into the 2022-23 school year i ask that you consider your support for teachers i'm not asking for money don't get me wrong we're grateful for the bonuses we all received but i'm sure not any money to monetary amount right now can reward teachers enough at this point we know people stay in their careers as a result of feeling valued respected and when their leadership capacity is built some districts in our state have found ways to ease paperwork and duty burdens of teachers perhaps this is something we can look at as a district and we can lead our state and nation in teacher support efforts i know that i welcome the dialogue as i'm sure many of

099my colleagues would we are wake county schools we're one of the largest and greatest in our nation with the largest number of national board certified teachers and a magnitude of resources at our disposal i am certain with our collective knowledge and expertise we can find ways to recruit and retain the best teachers in the world when i watch my desk in the morning there's a little pad of paper on it i received in my last orientation that says what starts here changes everything let's start here i ask that you keep retention and recruitment as a major priority for the next school year in our strategic plan thank you for your time our next speaker is carrie bly i wasn't sure if i would be speaking tonight so i still owe you a history number three

100but we've stood here and reduced the problem of inadequate math resources and pointed out the most obvious blatant deficiencies first and foremost when you remove physical access to core math learning content from students you remove a child's ability to take ownership of their own learning and comprehension we just can't say that enough all math learning in wake county middle and high schools start and end in the classroom i know you like to speak of the benefits of discovery education and student collaboration learning environments and there's a place for those and there's a benefit however the benefits of such a narrow learning environment do not outweigh the consequences without access to math learning resources that are organized and comprehensive students are not free they're not free to learn period they're not free to assess themselves they're

101not free to challenge themselves and it is within the realm of possibility that what you call that in wake county students can sometimes be more so at the mercy of a sage on the stage because their math teacher is the only purveyor of knowledge the only one that has a book to follow the only one that has the answers and the only one that's allowed to see the bigger picture students are unable to take the quiet time at home to digest and play around with mathematical concepts and are more likely to stop thinking for themselves altogether there is no need in wake county for a student to come into math class the next day prepared feeling confident in yesterday's material so that today's material has a solid foundation nobody cares there is no immediate responsibility

102i mentioned last month that middle school students use open up resource youtube videos by mr morgan to answer their math workbook questions they're cheating because they have no other option and i hope you see that when you talk about your student achievement meetings number two discovery based math curriculums alone do not provide enough supports for special needs students or english language learners and you know that your studies have confirmed it over and over again and the similarity between those two impairments is usually that students need more time to digest materials and concepts thus our ever-present three-year ask for organized visual math learning material you have a new word here student agency you can't define it yet but the internet defines it as giving students increased voice choice and ownership in their learning you do not

103have that in your math classes today at all that's the irony if you don't understand what we discussed in class watch a video if the videos are too confusing or fast or take too long or give you a headache tough luck that's all you have if you ask your teacher for help but didn't understand what she said your peer doesn't understand you ask her again stop asking because your voice doesn't matter okay our next speaker is christina spears good evening chairman hatha vice chair hegarty board member superintendent moore and district staff i'm christina spears wake ncae vice president and president-elect currently serving as coordinating teacher in our district's office of equity affairs until july 1st when my term begins as coordinating teacher i've had the pleasure of working with instructional staff administrators and equity teams

104to disrupt inequities for our most marginalized students in our classrooms and schools i've been proud to do my best each day to live into core belief number two which states every student is expected to learn grow and succeed while we will eliminate the ability to predict achievement based on socioeconomic status race and ethnicity i've spent four years building the skills and capacity of educators to eliminate the educational debt with regards to race class gender and other social identity categories my work includes offering professional learning for topics like understanding culture and culturally responsive teaching speaking up against discriminatory language and co-creating equitable classrooms with our students most importantly it's been necessary to support educators and administrators in elevating their critical consciousness honing their equity lens to name systems of power that create and perpetuate inequities for

105our students i thank you all for your board comments tonight about buffalo yes empathy love and kindness and truth and anti-racism in listening to this afternoon's work session and reviewing tonight's agenda i'm left wondering how well our district leadership both staff and board members elevate our critical consciousness and naming systems of power across all topics addressed in these meetings and beyond in order to disrupt inequities and transform our school system and considering the changes in mill prices are we asking who will be harmed by the raise in these prices in aig processes how can we begin to see all of our children as gifted and genius why are enrichment opportunities available to all students how can we make it so in reviewing proposals for alternative school accountability are we asking why the general ed classroom

106isn't working for these admitted students are we creating schooling spaces that aren't inclusionary and marginalizing for students whose ways of being aren't seen and valued in our schools right now in discussing school safety are we willing to address how systems of power like racism sexism and classism impact not only who responds but how i made the decision to run for wake ncae full-time release president after realizing that our local union has been the place where i've had the freedom to trouble with these questions that i pose for you here tonight the local union is a space where we can dream together as public school workers about how rooting our practice and racial and social justice can transform our public school system here in wake county superintendent moore and board members speaking my truth at this

107podium is an invitation to dream about a more just school system and build together thank you for your time our next speaker is kristen beller good evening board members kristen bellerin the current president of awaken cae excited about my new president um and i am coming to to you tonight to thank you for approving a budget that supports students recovering the various types of interruptions that they've endured over the last two years interruptions and learning opportunities of course but also transformation of traditions that they have been looking forward to and unfortunately the loss of community and for some of our students the loss of family and friends lives in the spring of 2020 our superintendent reminded um staff i'm not gonna i'm not gonna recall this as eloquently but that interruption interruptions give us a

108chance to do things differently to reimagine how our best practices can be made even better for our students and we as a society felt so uncomfortable during that time of trying to reimagine what could be different and existing in the space where change happens we rush to return return to normal forgetting that normal wasn't great for many of our kids additionally local and state local state and federal governments had a chance to do things differently as well they could fully fund our students needs for the first time and just imagine if they had what i mean sorry how would our students lives have been changed what could be possible for our students at the local and state government we're fighting over who had the privilege of securing our children's constitutional right to a sound basic

109education what if they were competing for who could demonstrate strong stronger support through their increasing budget allocations instead of trying to convince us that less money per student equals higher levels of support what if our classified staff were paid above the 18 20 cent living wage instead of two to three dollars under what if our teachers were compensated for the mastery and continuous practice of their craft similar to other comparable professions what might these dreams be unrealized mean for students what if we were celebrating a budget that expands all of our amazing programs all of our nationally known and appreciated achievements can you imagine the futures our students could have if elected officials at all levels were clamoring to fund the budget and the schools our students deserve instead of the budget that we need

110just to sustain operations right now our county commissioners are deciding if they're going to fund a sustaining budget i'm asking tonight that our parents educators and students watching at home and here in this room reach out to our county commissioners and share your support for fully funding the school board's request for a budget that's built to sustain our students and our schools and you can do that at weightgov.com backslash budget but and submit an online public comment because our students deserve far more than 18 million dollar increase but we need at least that just to sustain what is happening right now right um and with my last 14 seconds i'm just going to ask that we advance our ability to protect this space beyond restating the expectations because some folks are not adhering to those

111expectations i don't have a solution for you on that but i would just like to ask that that is looked at that concludes public comment at this point we move on to our information items which includes the superintendent's updates superintendent moore good evening again i'm going to just recap some of the discussions that were held during our work session today where we covered four items the first item was a an update from our from safety and security folks this included providing seven key areas of focus that have come out of the work of the school safety advocacy council and we will be providing additional information to the board and our schools as we move forward on those seven areas of focus we also had a discussion in work session about meal prices for the 22-23

112school year the discussion revolved around the enterprise nature of the current cns operations the cessation of the federal government's support for all students to enjoy universal breakfast and lunch every day in our schools as well as the the other issues that are happening with regards to the cost of food supply chain issues having to come back from two years of not having students need to fill out paperwork in order to receive free and reduced lunch and how we're going to have to work through that as we move forward the proposal from the staff did include a request that will come to the board later this evening as an action item for a 25 25 cent increase in breakfast and lunch in our for grade levels all grade levels in our schools and look forward to

113further discussion then the board also received a an update and information around the cte career and technical education plan that we must submit to the state board later on and the board will see that again for approval we highlights there included the programming that already exists in the district the successes that we've had some of the places where our data suffered during the pandemic and needs to be brought back to where it was as well as the priorities that are in that cte plan and some good discussion about the role of cte programs for all students in the wake county public school system the last item was the alternative schools accountability model that comes to the board every year for approval we must take that to the state board of education as well we brought

114it this year as a work session item because our alternative schools principals have worked with paul walker's office and paul cove to determine that they wanted to shift from plan c which they have used in the past to plan b for the coming school year those were the items that we covered in our work session and one last thing and that will come back to the board also next board meeting for action thank you superintendent moore if moving on to our consent agenda or consent items if we could get a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second okay we have a motion in a second is there any discussion okay hearing none all those in favor signify by sign of eye any opposed nay all right before we move on to our action

115items i'm gonna use my privileges chair to take a five minute recess for everybody and then we'll come back to action items thanks uh oh it's off yes it's fully there's nothing recording i appreciate this yes okay thank you all very much we are ready to get back to our action items our first action item comes out of our facilities department this was a part of our work session and miss paula deluca will be speaking on meal prices for the next school year some background information regarding child nutrition including budgetary matters revenue streams and cost obligations and presented to you was a recommended meal price increase to breakfast and lunch for the coming year of 25 cents at this time i would ask for your consideration and we'll be happy to offer any answers to

116questions that you may still have do we have a motion and a second before we continue discussion and questions i'll move adoption of the recommended increase i'll second okay moving on any questions or discussion from board members let me just check and make sure there are no hands online yeah vice chair hegarty mr look i appreciate the presentation that you gave at the work session and you answered a lot of the questions that we had talked about a lot of the pros and cons on the board i think talked about some ideas strategically for some things we might do going forward one of the things we didn't talk about then was like you know some of some other possible revenue streams and we talked about the enterprise model that we have and i know from

117pre-pandemic meetings that we've had we've talked about other ways we're able to raise money for cns for example like when there were school activities that could require the purchase of food rather than bringing outside food that's food that could have been brought from cns and i know a lot of those activities were suspended throughout the pandemic do you see any other alternative revenue streams or streams like that that might start to rebound or come back with students back in school one one revenue stream actually would be to provide support to other school systems independent schools and charter schools we currently do that we have a transport operation coming out of 19 of our schools to support our schools within the school system that do not have cooking kitchens and we have provided service to those

118charter schools that have come to us because they do not have kitchens and that has been helpful to us and them in a joint partnership but the challenge that we have with that is it does require an expanded transportation system which includes more staffing to make transport operations work as well as vehicles which can also be costly to support thank you i appreciate all the work that you've looked into all these different scenarios and alternatives and again that's just one example thank you mr luca we do have a hand up online with dr martin yes i just want to know that i do appreciate the work that you do mr luca in the cns i eat and understand where all the issues come from i will reluctantly vote in favor of this but i think

119it's um important to recognize that i think it's kind of disappointing that we as the wealthiest county in north carolina still have about a third of our children who are food insecure and this is a commitment that i think wake county needs to make that we will have no child that is food insecure and i'd love to see us work toward a universal breakfast and lunch for all children in our schools i understand we can't do that right now and that's uh put us in a bad situation but i think that at least needs to be acknowledged thank you thank you dr martin miss waters yes i understand this is such a complex topic particularly as we are grappling with rising costs in so many areas and so as we consider this increase and look

120at all the factors that are are driving it i just wanted to know as our families are facing so many increases that are important and food and nutrition is really really important as our students come to the classroom we want them to be to be fed and to be prepared to learn and not have having those barriers as we look at this increase as we're coming from paying nothing for for lunch our families have been able to benefit from no cost lunch and then going to not what we had before but to jump higher is there any way to ease into that increase or does this need to start immediately at the start of the school year i hope that answers there are no necessary requirements for a timeline in which we would have to

121implement we could implement a price increase at any point in time during the school year a decision could be made today and a decision made later to make it an amendment to a price as far as transitioning in certainly if we were to opt to do that that would reduce the amount of revenue that would we would be able to generate which could leave us in a situation without sufficient funds for or toward the remainder of the school year i think it is important to note that um certainly the thought of how we might build a runway to to this is is i think a valid and worthy goal and we don't have that we don't have the ability to do it with the federal program in terms of how they service and provide funds

122to us so we would need to find local dollars to offset that um earlier than we would otherwise you know so it's um they're because the runway would be greatly fed provided that runway quite frankly but um but we don't have it so we would just have to we would have to find other funds to to do something other than begin charging as we had prior to the pandemic even if we kept the prices the same so um because we don't have the reimbursements we don't have otherwise um we just we just start earlier with the defined other funds to continue to support a program that's not allowed to run in the red miss johnson hustler i'm sorry i didn't think about this earlier and i think i've brought it up to a couple of

123you so i should have asked you mr luca are we because of our resources in wake are we not eligible for the u.s are we not eligible sorry you told us that earlier are we wake county not eligible for the usda grants some of our smaller rural school districts receive to continue free lunch and breakfast that's a good question i think what you're probably referring to is the community eligibility profession provision also known as cep and cep to qualify you have to have a number of students that are directly certified being at a minimum threshold of 40 percent 40 percent doesn't necessarily cover your costs it's just the minimum federal threshold there's a magic formula that is used in order to assess the point in which you can actually have all of the meals in

124a school covered at the free reimbursement rate we have this year this current year for the first time in our history implemented the community eligibility provision earlier in the year we implemented in six schools and thankfully we didn't actually have to implement because we were able to provide free meals to all of our students recently i re-evaluated our schools again and i was able to add a seventh school so going into next year we will have seven schools that effectively operate universal breakfast and lunch however we do offer universal breakfast and i believe it's 28 schools currently and i believe we're adding three more for next year as well so just speaking to the community eligibility provision the concentrated number of students eligible for snap or tanf is what is the predictor for us to

125qualify to get a high level of funding which makes it feasible so just to reiterate we are not eligible as a district but we do have now seven schools that are eligible that will be in that program next year and 28 adding three that we support through local dollars as well to have universal breakfast miss kushner thank you chairman happy and i and i'm i'm glad to hear that mr luca and that's a great update and i think we need to be as i think was alluded to in the work session very aggressive about making sure we get all the students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch to be signed up there are first graders who never have whose families have never gone through this process before because they were impacted by by

126the pandemic and had universal lunch without having to sign up so i hope that we are aggressively making sure we sign our students up because i and i also want to reiterate our support for working toward as much universal meals as we can provide i've heard from many parents whose children had never purchased lunch before never participated and were so positive about being able to send their child to school and know that they were going to get a nutritious lunch and eat with their friends at school so however we can work toward that goal thank you miss kushner mr luca i know you mentioned this in the work session but i think it bears repeating can you talk about how our cns is funded and that it's an enterprise fund and what that means for

127our district and where that money comes from in order to and what it pays for certainly so as a self-supporting enterprise within the umbrella of the wake county public school system cns is the recipient of revenues which is comprised primarily of student payments for paid meals or the small discounted rate for the reduced price meal a la carte sales which is like item sales that is not reimbursable by the federal government which we are extremely reliant on because it's the one thing that shores up the lacking federal funding that's necessary in order for us to try to get to a break even at the end of every year and then of course it's the federal reimbursements that are based on a graduated scale that is issued by the federal government and it's it's provided to

128us based on meals served in the category of meals that we are serving whether it's a free meal a reduced price meal or paid meal and the reimbursements vary as well based on certain criteria that schools fall into and then of course there's a differentiator for breakfast and lunch it's a complex structure as far as our cost or or expenditures that we have to manage we encore in cns all of the responsibility for covering costs for labor for the associated benefits food supplies kitchen equipment technology equipment vehicles to transport meals and anything that it takes really to operate our program with one exception there is an indirect cost fee that we pay for the school system is effectively a thank you for supporting us in ways that other departments bring to bear on cns a

129really great value that's our human resources staff other staff within the school system maintenance and operations who helps us keep our equipment going and that's the purpose of our indirect cost fee is to help offset those necessary support systems i hope i've answered your question i'm not sure if you need additional information but i'm happy to talk more about more detail no it's as as folks are listening just making sure um what goes into it and then this past year the usda covered the cost and the federal government covered the cost of lunches and so now we're having to go back so just if folks are listening if you get that text email from um or that form in the backpack please consider filling it out for free and reduced lunches i see miss water's

130hand and you may not have this information available but do you have a ballpark figure of how many families who are eligible for free and reduced lunch actually complete the form and send those back in as we are transitioning back to needing those forms just a ballpark we fell short this year in terms of applicants but actually it wasn't as bad as i i recall the prior year being i think we got above about 25 percent uh in terms of eligibles uh normally we run about 28 of our students eligible for free meals and about five percent eligible for reduced price meals again we would encourage families to apply for their benefits before this before july first if they have not yet applied especially if they're in a year-round school because that benefit from this

131year will carry into 30 operating days into the next school year but starting on at the time that that 30 days ends the families will no longer be eligible and you'd be able to use the prior year benefits so they have to go into our online application or pick up an application from one of the school offices and complete it prior to the point in time which their benefits cease the applications for the new year will not be released until july first and we are not allowed by federal law to re release them any sooner so families have to apply every single year and that's that's kind of heartbreaking to hear that there's no rollover in that miscash so just to recap i think real quickly um on that prior to pandemic we were looking

132at about 33 percent of our students that were that had submitted the paperwork to be eligible for either free or reduced lunch it was in the mid-20s this past year which is higher than i thought it would be because they didn't have to do it so there's a gap there but i will just also submit that even at if we were to return to the 33 percent or so that we had prior to the pandemic there's still a gap for kids who might be new to the district you know ell families who don't understand processes people that we're constantly seeking and finding all year long miss cash i don't know if this is a loaded question or if it's not helpful at all but um i know the non-profits get usda funding too in white

133county um and sometimes i don't know if they use all their usda funding is there any way we can reach out and and is there any way that they can give universal breakfasts to more of our schools from some of the non-profits that get usda funding that might not use it all i'm not aware of nonprofits that are directly funding school system universal breakfast i do know that there have been organizations that have provided support for equipment and things like that to help help i don't think they are i just was wondering if we could ask that they be a partner in it only because i know they get funding they do get funding but i don't know if they use it all all the time depends on what what is going on in the

134community i'm sure i think our work session brought up some great questions like that that we can continue to ask i'm thinking of you know how are other ways that we can reach families besides just a backpack or a text or an email and also how do we communicate and operationalize systemically our angel fund for schools so that folks in the community know we have it and and it can be accessed so i think that there was a lot of great discussion that brings further discussion as we move forward are there any further questions for miss deluca miss waters in terms of the completion of the form are there uh opportunities to receive assistance with the completion of the form for free and reduced lunch particularly talk speaking to our families who may not speak

135english as a first language or for whom the form is just complex or difficult to complete is there any resource or support available to families who may need help completing the form i think we have a pretty broad staff that's very familiar with with the form itself and certainly they can help any family member that would be interested we do provide the form in both english and spanish and we can get other translations if necessary we have an online version but we also have a print version for those who may not have access to the technology needed to do it online but candidly that is the quickest and easiest way and families automatically receive a notification of the preliminary benefit so it's really a great way to apply but i do i do think to

136miss water's point i think the the as we think creatively about how to do this doing things like um you know if i remember you know from my recollection being a principal we spent a lot of time on things like open house nights and things like that making sure that families had access to the forms and that there was somebody available at the school to help them that evening if they needed to um you know i do believe that counselors or social workers may need to find families um go to where they are in order to make sure that forms are filled out i think we are going to have to engage in those activities for a couple of reasons number one because of the the fact that they've not had to do this for

137a couple of years um and and number two because that's how we eliminate the barriers to make sure that we've got a better representation and support for those students families who are eligible for these benefits so further questions certainly a difficult decision to raise meal prices for our students and their families knowing that there are barriers to accessing free and reduced lunch maybe something will happen at the federal level where we can experience what we've done before but until that happens i we're faced with difficult decisions like this and thank you mr luca for taking the time to go through this again with us twice today um and i know we appreciate you and your staff and and certainly the superheroes that are our cns staff being that there are no further questions for mr

138luca we have a motion in a second with those in favor please signify by a sign of i all right any opposed nay nay nay okay thank you very much miss allen make sure you have those recordings okay thank you mr luca thank you at this time we are moving on to our calendar modifications perf for professional learning time and here to speak on that is mr drew cook good evening chairman happy superintendent moore and board members as a follow-up to board work session discussions held on april 19th and may 3rd staff is bringing forward this evening a formal request for board approval of proposed modifications to 2022 2023 instructional calendars to incorporate additional time for critically needed professional learning for school staff modifications include the incorporation of six two-hour early release days into each

139instructional calendar and the conversion of one instructional day to a teacher work day on april 24th 2023 for tracks one two and three for our year-round schools we'll note that there will be no change to school day start or end times and schools across all calendars will maintain three days of bank time and will meet or exceed the state standard of 1025 instructional hours for the year to the degree feasible the proposed calendar drafted that you have in front of you reflect board feedback and input shared in the previous two work sessions just a few additional notes that bear repeating to make clear the rationale for the recommended changes recognizing that it's so often been the case over the course of the past two years no decision here comes without opportunity costs and some trade-offs

140in one form or another first in august 2021 the state board of education approved a three-year contract to provide language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling to all teachers in north carolina k-5 this is mandatory for all north carolina school districts and it requires a significant amount of training on par with graduate level coursework in terms of cumulative time commitment outside of paid work hours letters training provides the opportunity for teachers in the letters cohorts to complete some of the online work that is a required component of the letters professional learning and the additional time provided during early release days if approved will help with this effort in addition to the state required letters training we also believe it is critical after two years of a pandemic where so much time and energy had

141to be focused rightfully on emergency response during new and constantly changing circumstances that we also provide additional opportunities for all pre-k-12 teachers and school staff to engage in continuous professional learning together throughout the 2022-2023 school year among other considerations we understand and certainly fully appreciate that early release days can pose a challenge for families who have child care issues we will be working with our community partners to ensure that after school care options are available for those who may need it on days where school is dismissed two hours early aside from the use of early release days we've studied many different scenarios that might provide teachers the time needed to complete this stand mistake mandated training without having to use more personal time beyond what they already do such as on evenings and weekends a

142couple of additional notes state law does mandate specific beginning and ending dates for school years which further restricts potential options while the six early release days are not sufficient to provide all the time that is needed we do believe it's important to provide additional designated time beyond what had previously been planned for the 2022 2023 school year which in our view is simply not sufficient to meet the vast need for professional learning across schools and grade levels in our district for the upcoming year in closing we do want to emphasize that while we've long ago abandoned any notion that we can accurately predict changing needs and circumstances too far into the future the request this evening for early release days is limited to the 2022 2023 school year only and we have no plans to

143extend this practice beyond that time frame so with that background and context in mind we're requesting board approval of the revised 2022-2023 calendars as drafted certainly happy to answer any questions or provide additional information as needed thank you mr cook for acknowledging the difficulty this is on our family and emphasizing that this is a one-year thing certainly something we've tried to get away from as a board and appreciate that acknowledgement is there a motion and a second at this time before discussion we're all very excited to do this for purposes of discussion is there a motion in a second i'll be glad to move in support second thank you dr martin okay any discussion questions comments for mr cook or just general yes sir i mean just for the purposes of discussion and we have

144discussed this you know as as a board at previous work sessions and with staff you know i hate these early release days i'm just going to put it out there but i know we've talked about several different scenarios and i don't know if you know you're reading my mind but in your comments tonight you hit on the points that i was going to ask about right is this a new curriculum that our district has come up with no it's something that the states required well is this required training something we came up with no it's the state is requiring this training too so well once we do this is it done or we have to do this every year is this a return to those early release days and i thought you made the point

145very clearly that no this is not something that we anticipate will occur but this is after looking at all the different scenarios the only path forward that you could see that would comply with our calendar law you know because we don't have the flexibility to have too many days on the front end too many days on the back end and we still have so much minimum hours of instruction that we have to get in during that time the one thing that you did say that i was excited to hear about that we had talked about several board members had mentioned this was concerned about the impact on parents and families and i am excited to hear about you know anything that can be done for after-care opportunities you know again for potential enrichment opportunities if

146this is something that our you know our k5 teachers are having to engage in are there other opportunities even at the higher levels that we can look in and provide something back to students optionally for those that you know might have to take advantage of an aftercare option or staying the rest of the school day so i want to thank you for your your candor thank you for speaking clearly about it we're in a we're in a tough bind with this but um i appreciate all the work and i appreciate your continuing creativity and looking for solutions on how we can minimize the impact to families and if we do have some sort of after program ways we can use that to continue to benefit the students as we work toward more academic recovery thank

147you yes sir thank you thank you and i would add that that state mandated training that has a lot of requirements for our teachers as far as learning is has gotten positive feedback from folks that have taken it but did not come with a change in our calendar law um and also our district wanting to be respectful of bank time so if there was a snow day or an inclement weather day we aren't using those times to cut into spring break and so there was a lot of balancing we looked at addition adding 15 minutes onto the school schedule to deal with hours and our principals and and school staff made sure that we didn't have to do that so a certain certainly a special thank you to them for making sure that although our

148calendar change may be coming late because we've had multiple work sessions on it it is not without uh work going it haven't gone into it any further questions or discussion oh ms kushner your hand is up no thank you well thank you i did just simply want to thank mr cook for that summary and mr hegar do you hit a lot of the high points but i also think it's important to underscore that after two years of interrupted learning and and interrupted professional development this gives our staff members our educators who've worked so hard learning about a lot of other things that had to do with more with protocols for health and safety than teaching and learning that this allows us to return some focus in professional development to teaching and learning which we've heard

149from the community so i think it's it's lifting that up is um important as well thank you yes and thank you for recognizing the early release piece i think most folks that we heard back from are not fans of it and we're glad to hear it's a one-time thing so without further ado we have a motion in a second will all those in favor please signify with a sign of eye bye any opposed nay nay all right thank you very much mr cook thank you we now move on to closed session and i will ask um if we can just get a motion for reasons previously stated in the work session so that we do not have to read in five paragraphs again and on the printed agenda so and listed on the printed agenda

150as well is there a motion to that effect so chair mahaffey i would i would move that we return to closed session for all of the reasons previously stated um and as printed on our written agenda okay thank you is there a second okay we have a second all right all those in favor please signify with the sign of eye any opposed nay all right thank you very much we are now in closed session [Music] you