5-3-22 Board Meeting

001good evening it is tuesday may 3rd 2022 at 5 39 and we are calling this regular meeting of the wake county board of education to order all of our board members here with vice chair hagerty being virtual today and i want to welcome those of you that are watching at home and those that are here in person in the boardroom to observe as the wake county board of education conducts its official business i do want to take a moment 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 of the audience should show respect for speakers by refraining from loud comments or other disruptions disruptions by any person or persons of a public meeting will be

002subject to action in accordance with general statute 143-318-17 and you may hear some excitement buzzing about as we have many of our wonderful magnet school personnel here today if you could please join me in standing for the pledge of allegiance thank pledge you to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all um with that we'll move on to our information items starting with our superintendent's comments superintendent moore good evening congratulations to gabriella bella burwell a junior at knightdale high who is now a finalist in the 2022 national poetry out loud competition bella who had already won at the state level competed with 54 other students from across the united states representing their state

003or territory in a virtual event bella's recitation of her poem placed her in the top nine students in the nation she will now compete for the national title and a twenty thousand dollar prize on june 5th poetry out loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition for high school students across the country this program helps students master public speaking skills build self-confidence and learn about literary history and contemporary life in the wcpss we do prioritize and prize our arts education programs we know that arts have a positive impact on school engagement college aspirations and the development of 4c skills and over the years our teachers have nurtured and inspired many talented artists like bella you can watch her compete

004on june 5th at 7 pm by visiting arts.gov poetry hyphen out hyphen loud put that information up our young students learn phonics through letterland which features friendly characters called letter landers from annie apple to zigzag zebra every spring we invite young learners and their families to meet their favorite letter landers in real life this year characters can be found at various locations all over the city of raleigh throughout the month of may students can meet the characters and compete complete fun activities all locations and activities can be found at wcpss.net letterland many thanks to our sponsors the city of raleigh sinclair broadcast group letterland international and wake up and read for supporting this annual celebration of literacy and learning finally this evening it's teacher appreciation week a time for students families communities to express their

005gratitude for our amazing educators you can see tributes on social media and post your own under the hashtag hashtag wcpss thank a teacher i also had the opportunity to sit down for a conversation with three outstanding teachers we talked about the various challenges they have faced over the past two years how they were able to overcome them and how teachers can take the lessons we've learned in the last couple of years to be even more effective in the classroom the teachers i spoke with are carson lamb a special education teacher at apex high school christopher mccormick a cte teacher at dillard drive magnet middle and keisha mcneil a fifth grade teacher at fox road magnet elementary take a look at this a clip from this conversation and look for more videos on social media this

006week [Music] it's teacher appreciation week one of the greatest weeks of the year and i'm here today to show my appreciation for teachers i think that teacher voice is incredibly important and what better way to show appreciation for teachers by letting them talk to us about their highs their lows their passion for teaching and students we're back in schools we've got new tools we're rededicating sort of reframing what learning looks like for kids and moving forward what do you hope for yourself for the future what are your expectations without the will to continue and make changes and build upon the things that we did in the past and add to those um we wouldn't have come out as strong as we did and so passing that along um to my students that you can persevere

007through anything i think that right there will speak volumes to them everything is constantly changing so um i think staying relevant um and keeping kids interest is what's most important to um to be able to even for us to be able to stick in the game my expectation for the future is to continue the relationships and the way that we are creating these relationships within the school and you know showing our students that we're here for you and you're here for us we are a community working together and continuing with that mindset i want to thank you for all that you do every day for our students in the classroom we know that because of the work that you do because of the dedication that you have because of the perseverance that you've just talked

008about that anything is possible says quick reminder hashtag wcpss thank a teacher that concludes my comments thank you superintendent moore and um i had the pleasure of serving with a group of folks throughout the district to do our teacher of the year interviews it was incredibly humbling and insightful to hear from our our best of the best in the district and i'm looking forward to our teacher of the year celebration coming up on the 11th at the convention center we had a great inner city visit with the raleigh chamber appreciated them putting a spotlight on education hearing from their state superintendent as well as representatives from their community college system in their university system and seeing chambers of commerce come out and support our teachers last week and this week as we go forward and

009i'm going to keep my comments short because i know we have school folks waiting so vice chair hagerty thank you chair mahaffey and my apologies to everyone for not being there today i'll just say let me be uh let me be a cautionary tale that sometimes when the person next to you says it's only allergies it's better to be safe than sorry um i wanted to again wish everybody else a happy teacher appreciation week we're really excited about all the activities this week it is also asian pacific american heritage month and asian americans and pacific islander americans make up about 10 of our school families in wake county and a much higher percentage out in my area of the county and i know there's a lot of exciting events planned through this month and i

010hope you'll pay attention to those i want to wish a happy mubarak to those out there celebrating that holiday as well some great news in our schools since the last time we came together pleasant grove elementary i want to spotlight put a quick spotlight on them for raising over 26 almost 26 thousand dollars for the american heart association as part of the annual kids heart challenge that's a tremendous charitable gesture that they were able to make and starting early with those kids at an early age you know caring about their community i know that uh miss carter was able to attend our gifts of gold event so i'll let her talk about that one i was sorry that i was uh unable to attend that one but that was a fantastic event we also have

011uh we were able to attend the ribbon cutting for york elementary the york kids have been back in the building for a while now but it was great to actually have the formal event bring everybody out and really celebrate an important school that's an important part of the community out there and i want to thank everyone who is able to attend and for the york pta and all the york staff for hosting finally as ms mahaffey noted we had we've had several events recently with the raleigh chamber the kerry chamber of commerce and tomorrow the moorschool chamber of commerce is having a great event as we go to all of these chamber events it's really fascinating you get to meet so many diverse people all with different backgrounds all the different opinions but everyone working

012together with the goal of a better community and the one thing that i'm taking away from all these events is that we see whether it's kerry raleigh morrisville anywhere in wake county through these chamber events how much our community values public education and everyone at these events continue to tell me when they find out i'm on the board of education that great schools are one of the most important selling points for wake county so thanks to our chambers of commerce and everything they do promoting us and and thanks for keeping us as a partner thank you miss matt all right thank you miss scott and i hold my remarks this evening because i'm excited to celebrate our amazing folks and happy teacher appreciation week all right thank you dr martin well to add my happy

013teacher appreciation week and looking forward to budget discussions because the way we really appreciate teachers is by actually compensating and not just saying thank you and i know that the superintendent's budget has made a real effort to do that and we'll need to keep working with our commissioner colleagues to try to make that happen i want to give a huge shout out to the pta of yates mill elementary they put together an amazing work day last saturday we were pulling weeds folks were pressure washing a local business nursery uh connected with a parent brought a lot of plantations so kids were painting their foursquare units it really was a great day an amazing time for community building to to have you know lots of people you know you can actually see the transformation of how

014the school looks but it also reminds me how important that is to frankly help sustain our buildings um you know pressure washing saves uh corrosion good landscaping uh saves erosion and so working together with them clearly pointed out some things that we need to work on and i will continue to advocate for that but the parent team did an amazing job it was a really great day um and i know it's news that people don't like to hear but i do need to continue to give the covet update things are not going in the right direction right now the county's cases are up to as of last night the most recent data is 220 cases per 227 weekly cases per 100 000 population uh that's twice what more than twice what we used to call

015high transmission that's up 124 times so it's 124 percent of what it was a week ago so climbing and climbing fast probably the more concerning news is uh the wake county public schools cases increased by 207 percent uh last week so basically the cases that we're seeing in wake county schools are increasing at about twice the rate of what's happening in the general community uh that is a concern that we need to be taking into consideration very very carefully i can't give you the current on age disaggregated data because the state no longer reports the current week you can only go a week back a week back the highest cases were among the 18 to 20 year olds which was at 270 cases per hundred thousand population the 25 to 49 year olds were at

016206. um but given what we're seeing in wake county schools which is current data i believe we're going to get back to seeing the school cases exceeding the community cases in the next week or two specifically our staff cases has jumped like crazy our staff cases are now about one-third of what they were at the peak of the january spike we had 108 staff cases last week now if you figure that we have roughly 20 000 staff that means our staff infection rate is 540 cases per 100 000 population so be careful things are going up and we're seeing significant transmission in our schools higher than in the general community if we don't want to have forced uh interventions then as a community we better get to work at uh working together to keep this

017spread from getting worse because it's not going in the right direction right now thank you all right miss kushner thank you chairman happy and um i do feel a need to address some of the the comments and public statements that have been made over the last few weeks and months concerning some of the books um in white county libraries i have i've read out of darkness george and lawn boy and i would urge anyone criticizing these books to please read them in their entirety and and understand their full context george is a book about a fourth grader a play based on charlotte's web and gender identity and i understand that gender identity makes a lot of people uncomfortable but there's no explicit language in this book and it can create understanding and empathy for students

018so please allow children a choice and families a choice with that book lawn boy does have explicit language but the bulk of that book is about entrepreneurship self-reliance and overcoming trauma including sexual trauma again it's a book not on any curriculum it's a book available for choice for students and i think in the proper um with families working with their students to understand it can create empathy and understanding the group we are is a group that was also there were false statements made about this group it is a has a proven track record of helping educators and community members fight racism i've attended their events i've followed their work dr rhonda bullock is a strong voice in our community and their work is neither radical nor is it offensive it is anti-racist and in this

01921st century when we see racism rising among young people we cannot be neutral we must all in my opinion choose to be anti-racist we cannot be neutral it should be alarming to everyone in this room that racism is on the rise among young people and so i would hope that you would not be color blind to racism and i while i have worked to be anti-racist i've not always succeeded i but i am not giving up and i will not allow speakers to misrepresent the work of our teachers and staff at millbrook high school i appreciate ms clash's statements at the last board meeting and lift those up again because i think the educators at millbrook are working hard to make every student feel welcomed included and seen in their school so thank you to

020those educators at millbrook and to ms cash and my colleagues for supporting that work public education well thank you but public education is a public good it is for all children in every school and also for all in our society so let our children learn i truly think we need to start treating our schools with much greater care and compassion understanding and really embrace empathy for all of our students so moving to other work to other news i wanted to thank the greater raleigh chamber of commerce for the great inner city trip to salt lake city utah it again showed the strength of our schools in comparison with other schools which i always enjoy underscoring with our business community and they and great conversations lifted up the work and with the four c's collaboration creativity

021um i always have to try to remember them all critical thinking and communication because those are the skills that are going to support our community and our economy and thanks again to wake ed partnership stem poseum yesterday was a wonderful way to showcase our students work and their commitment to stem and another great partnership with our community i'm just so grateful for the business community and others trying working hard to partner with wake county schools and give our students more opportunities and i just wanted to highlight there were two wake county public school graduates that were highlighted each of these meetings the ceo of solido.net which offers high-speed internet fiber internet to the triangle their ceo shiratan nagaraj is a anglo graduate at the stem posium yesterday the chief technology officer for wolf speed which

022used to be cree he is a proud olds daniels and broughton graduate go caps and he was really had an aspiring talk to our students to really encourage them to get into steam stem and steam so there's just two examples of wake county graduates and who are products of our schools and are truly contributing to our economy so um thank you madam chair and my comments there thank you miss kushner miss johnson hossler thank you miss mahaffey and thank you ms kushner for for making sure that we bring to light all the concerns that we aren't able and just a reminder during public comment we do not respond back to our constituents who are at the podium and so this is our opportunity to make those comments and you so eloquently address the importance of

023those mrs kushner and i will certainly start with thank you for reading all the books i think we were on the phone one day when you were checking them out at the library so thank you very much but i also want to note that may is mental health month and one of the things that we have not done in all of this conversation is make the connection to the things that have been said to and about our school district they are absolutely connected to the mental health and well-being of our students our families and our educators are like somebody asked while we were on the inner city trip of you know why do you run for school board and how tough is it and i tell people every day that i thought i had thick

024skin until i sat at this table and then i also was reminded that everything even though they are not speaking directly to me it feels personal because my commitment to this school district is personal and that's exactly what i would say for our educators our students and our families that everything people say while it may be a broad brush stroke it definitely impacts our folks and their mental health to dr martin's point we've we've put forth our best foot in terms of a budget to ensure that we are able to address the pay and equity by the way for educators are primarily female so if we think about the impact there are greater reasons for us to look at the work that we do and how it impacts not just the mental health of the

025folks in this room but the folks who are listening to us and how we information and especially misinformation spreads and the impact it has on our mental health so a reminder to the great work of wake county public schools and the offerings that we offer to our students and our families for mental health services and our educators as many of you know we don't often take care of ourselves when we are helping others and so this is just another reminder that we did often throughout covet is to remind folks that mental health options are available and we do hope to start to normalize that by talking about it from the board table and i know mr haggerty has also done a great job of talking about the importance of mental health from the board table

026so may is mental health month and is acknowledged by nami and so hopefully we will continue to have the conversation of the impact of our words and the impact that it has on our lives um a great segue to that is many of us attended the boys and girls club luncheon which was a reminder listening to those students of the impact of being seen and heard by their educators and in their building oftentimes people say why are we doing this at schools and i actually had a few educators ask me last week why is all this put on the school system we have so much work to do we're tasked with testing and and the answer truly truly is because that might be the only place many of our students have someone who is the

027trusting adult in their life and we all know that relationships matter and so while the burden is heavy the rewards are great and listening to those students and what the impact of boys and girls club had connected to many of those are connected to our schools which i didn't know some of you my colleagues may have known that some of our elementaries like washington elementary keeps their boys and girls club attached to their school so those students still return there even once they're older and one of them was a graduate so again thank you to our partners for ensuring that our students are being taken care of both mentally and also academically through the work that they're doing i would be remiss if i did not mention wake up and read you all know how

028much i've enjoyed going to schools to read directly with our students and we had our celebration yet another reminder of the great work and partnership of our community but also a reminder to for me in that room that those are educators who are responsible for making sure i'm able to come into the building to read with students so they're still tasked with their job and also ensuring that a partnership like wake up and read partners read is able to happen in our schools and so again they were graciously welcomed and supported with much gratitude from weekend partnership but again i think it's important that we note and again a reminder everyone please sign up next year to read i told you all the game changer for me is a student who sat with me literally

029all year and did not read until the last two weeks that i read with her on a friday if you need to be reminded why this is personal that is a reason why this is personal because the game changer is one child one child at a time and our educators in the room know that so again thank you for to our partners the last partner i want to thank is activate good and miss cash who's sitting to my left i many of you know have schools in my district who don't have active ptas and ms cash came to me and said i could choose one and then she said i could choose two and we ended up with now five schools in both of our districts where activate good is doing a project called elevate

030spelt with love schools so for those schools who don't have ptas who can organize yard cleanings or paintings where literally the principal at one of my schools was doing all the painting herself and knew what every paint color was in addition to all of her other duties um activate good yesterday well actually two weeks ago started with the kits for our students and so the kids were excited they had little pouches that they could put their laptops in that were given by the schools and yesterday i got the opportunity to be at one of our schools where we clapped all of our educators and i mean every single person in that building was acknowledged and so that's my last note for those of us who still are doing teacher appreciation remember your cns workers and

031all your non-instructional staff in the building also deserve the same appreciation thank you miss cash thank you for that monique and i have spoken a little bit about this this has been a great project it it was something that i approached um aj fletcher about and they were excited to give some seed money we have ptas in wake county that don't and and ms kushner is part of this group that we've talked about this in the past where we don't have ptas like not all ptas can have a giant pta membership and so aj fletcher gave some seed money to activate good and we're picking five schools each year for the next three years and they're going to partner with them and they have done some really great things in this teacher appreciation week there's

032going to be a lot of things going on in these five schools with partners in the community and lenova has been a great partner they did these great kits they also did something called a project if you could if they could get 30 kids or more to write what is a kind city look like which all five schools did they got a two thousand dollar check for their pta in that school which is a big deal in schools that don't have ptas so i hope in my future life if i have more i'll get to continue to work with ptas that don't really have a strong foundation and we can continue to do that so and monica has a couple schools we're going to move into eastern wake ms scott and i are going to

033work on a couple ones and it's going to be it's going to be fun so it's fun to see kids and teachers get things that they deserve and that principals don't have to use their own money to make that happen which our principals do all the time i'm going to say teachers and principals put a lot of money into their schools so um i thank him for that we did have a back meeting on monday the 25th and uh lloyd gardner came and we did input for our strategic plan and we had a lot of good conversation it was i was not sure but he did he did a great job which i knew he would i wasn't sure about that i was definitely sure he would do a great job but i was the

034the activity everybody was really excited into putting input into the strategic plan so we had a long meeting and we had a lot of input i went to a musical at wakefield emma i mean these kids are contagious they are hilarious on stage and talented and i'm you'd go all the time and i'm going to go to more and more and more of them because i was so happy when i left there and i need that happiness we don't always get that so i had so much fun i did miss the one play the musical matilda that was at millbrook high school so i'm sorry i missed that um i was going to go on thursday night and i had to go out of town for a wedding and had to go early because i

035had a job at the wedding and um but i missed dana king that night she was at matilda with her grandson that night which brings me to and i don't believe we read this proclamation halfway from the city the city of raleigh dana king long served principal at millbrook high school and beloved and a legacy and millbrook community we lost her suddenly and have not quite recovered from that at all but in the process of this he had a great retirement celebration on the monday prior to her passing on saturday which was very unexpected and she was going to retire on april 29th and we had planned a proclamation day the dana king day and so i want to read the proclamation that the city of raleigh issued for dana king and it says whereas

036the faculty and staff of millbrook high school believe that excellence and education is vital to the success of its students and community and whereas principal dana king has 36 years of service to the wake county public school system serving 19 years as principal millbrook high school and prior to that principal of east millbrook middle school assistant principal of athens thrive high school an english teacher at sanderson high school and whereas in addition to the day-to-day duties of the job principal king has served on the board of community and schools nchsaa the advisory committee for the regional wake county social services mental health as high school principal director of the wake county public school system division of principals and vice president principles and whereas during her time at millbrook high school principal king has created an

037environment that has produced elite academic achievements championship athletics and unique programming and whereas the millbrook high school community is celebrating dana king today on april 29th for the many ways she has made a difference through her dedication to students and the professional educational community and serves as an inspiration to all and whereas the city of raleigh north carolina applauds her service and calls educators volunteers and individuals to engage our young people and work together to create a brighter and more hopeful future for all of our children now therefore marianne baldwin mayor of the city of raleigh of north carolina has proclaimed april 29 2002 in the city of raleigh as principal dana king day so we now have a dana king day and i celebrate that april 29th would have been her last day at

038millbrook high school as the principal but she lives on there forever so i wanted to read the proclamation thank you thank you miss cash it's very sweet and a wonderful way to remember her contributions to this community thank you for sharing that thank you miss carter thank you and that's kind of hard to come after but thank you for sharing that miss cash and i'll try to transition um i enjoyed attending davis drive elementary they had an earth day celebration where you could plant seeds they had some plants and some artwork displayed and also an option to pick up trash which is what i chose to do has some interesting items that i found along the campus grounds or on the campus grounds but i'll leave it at that but just really want to say

039thank you to all the staff who came out and helped organize that and the parent and family volunteers for coming out and the students who came out and community members and then back at green hope elementary for beautification day they're really focused on the frog pond and we kind of joked about renaming it i'll get to that in a minute but we were pulling up weeds moving compost and mulch and the students planted almost 200 sunflower seeds that day but during while we were pulling up weeks we were down there and then a mama duck notified us that um by the frog fund and the plants growing by the frog pond there was a duck nest and she was sitting on her duck nest with eight eggs so it was a really neat opportunity to

040talk to the students about you know we ought to stay back from that we don't you know about but she watched us the you know kept so we tried to work as fast as we can but we had a lot of work done but she came right back but uh again thank you for everyone who organized that and for coming out and supporting that event and i did attend the arts night featuring gifts of gold at crabtree valley mall it i always enjoy the arts and athletics y'all know i just love doing anything there so it was wonderful to see all the artwork not only on the big screen there that was projected but they had some displayed in a storefront and legan middle school choir was there and they did a magnificent job singing

041i just i couldn't imagine of that age in that environment but they did an awesome job and i want to say congratulations for doing so well students and performers and also music director miss dunbar it was well done and then i was back outside salem middle school had an apex community night and their student council president actually reached out and invited me and i met with him there talked with him about all of his work on getting this put together and it was just a great event the salem middle school jazz band kicked it off and i'll just i say they had it hopping i'll just leave it here the last song they played was hawaiian 5-0 the hawaii 5-0 theme song i mean those kids i mean it was a magnificent event not just

042that but i kind of you know go back to that so i well done performers and all those who helped organize it and the band director mr henson i forgot they also had an amazing race that night so it was very um it was a lot of work into that so well done the following night i was at kerry high's green tie gala and bear with me because this was a big one and i just have a hard time because i go i love going to events but you know once i see a student in a little chop of horror and i see that role that they're in and then i see them standing before me in a tux or like the long floyd gown and the pearls i'm going back to but wait you're

043like that dentist that was like you know ah you know and so but i go to that because you know at this event um you walk in and the art of just art is displayed all in the lobby just wonderful work um and then you go in it's kicked off by the navy junior rotc by presenting the colors and you have the chorus the jazz ensemble the green eggs and jam the orchestra the concert band in orchestra theater and the symphonic band and wind ensemble and they they did it they threw in a little shop of heart in their tux all of a sudden they start doing pieces of that with everything else and they threw in some improv so if you've not been to improv night they're having another one may 13th i really

044encourage you to check it out so for me i was like oh guys they just so many of them do so many different roles and it's just fascinating to see be able to turn it on and off and just their talent is just amazing so i want to congratulate everyone who performed and all the artists who had work in the lobby and all the instructors and directors i'm going to list them mr yasik the choral director mrs culberth the orchestra director mr foster the band director mrs mccormick the theater director and miss phillips she's the theater student teacher and miss moran the art instructor and mr white the art instructor it was just a fabulous night that i could just go on and on about but anyway so uh then i also attended east cary

045middle schools um shrek the musical junior fabulous job singing the dancing even threw in some tap dancing everything was just well done just shout out to the cast crew and director miss bridges for another job well done and so i mentioned all that because as you can see a lot of art events and i've said it again i know but i'll do it again i just cannot speak enough highly of the importance of arts in all of our schools and how important they are not only to our students but also our community and families and just thank you to everyone who support these and also athletics too because i'm on that side too but anyway i also had a back meeting as well and i want to thank miss gaddis over there for all her

046work for the tech side of it the registration and dr gardner dr mcmillan and dr malik for presenting information about the strategic plan and gathering input and i too the folks really liked the tool that was being used online not only be able to provide feedback but also rate other people's feedback which is a nice feature i think to have so thank you all for all of that and i know thank you to all the teachers teacher appreciation week i know all of the folks that are in our schools are not necessarily in our schools but touch our kids lives every single day and you might not even know it but you have just such a role that's so powerful that you can literally change a direction of some students lives and you may not

047even know it until they come back and tell you later on so i appreciate all you all do and another i know mental health awareness month was mentioned i also wanted to mention that it's foster care awareness month because and it kind of goes you know you you might not know what students are bringing with them when they come in our schools and um i right before i actually graduated from meredith i was a therapeutic foster care social worker i did that as an internship and i did that for three years and i just say that because um even back then i was working with wake county even though y'all didn't know but you know you have teenagers who been in 10 11 homes and they're coming to you and you're thinking oh they won't

048do their schoolwork or or they are doing their schoolwork and you have no idea what they're having to overcome and i just want to say if you are in foster care been in foster care you matter and you can speak up that was something i know we speak about here but having that role in having a voice it is your life so i just wanted to take a brief moment i know it's not necessarily school but it does impact our students and family so that's it thank you thank you miss carter miss waters thank you chairman hafee and as we celebrate teacher appreciation week i feel a immense sense of gratitude for being in the seat because of teachers in this very district who nurtured me and encouraged me and so i'm extremely grateful and

049having been a student in this district and then now being a mom of students in the district i know how much teachers give how much they care and how much they pour into our children and so i'm just so excited to be able to recognize the hard work of teachers this week in and throughout the year so very grateful for that and speaking of teachers i had a wonderful opportunity to get to see some of our kindergarten teachers at khan elementary as they had kindergarten orientation yesterday and they had an amazing group of kindergarten teachers and i am the parent of a future kindergartner so i was definitely looking at their work but just to see their energy their excitement and their passion as they are preparing students to come into for many of them

050their first school setting so thank you to khan elementary kindergarten team for all that you do and look forward to coming back to see all of your students again very soon and then also in district four river oaks middle school which is a school that is very close to my house i passed lots of times but didn't know a lot about and just wanted to say this is an amazing school that you may not have on your radar so if you are looking at middle schools be sure to look at river oaks it is a wonderful place if you have a student who maybe needs a different environment there's a lot of creative energy there they have a wonderful principal principal blake who's been in place i believe since november and who has already just

051done so much to change the culture in fact when i went to the school they were celebrating her work and they had written lots of wonderful messages on the wall there and i said kids are honest so everything that's up here is true and so so many wonderful things said about her in just the short time that she's been in that role so really looking forward to see her greater impact in the district and also i felt really special visiting the wake early college health and science i used to work at the wake tech campus where this college is housed at both campuses where this high school is housed and so just being able to have our students exposed to so many learning opportunities and to prepare them for career success is just amazing so

052our district has some wonderful opportunities and i appreciated the fact that they go to great lengths to really encourage and nurture our students particularly those that are going to be first generation college students i think that is wonderful and also love seeing the diversity of the students the students were so passionate as i visited their classrooms they were able to really articulate the work that they were doing really engage and so just really encouraging to see those students and then one other school visit at hunter elementary school for their 95th birthday celebration and so saw ms scott there as well and so just always wonderful to see our communities gather and to celebrate the diversity that we see and all of our families coming together so lots of wonderful things going on in district four

053as well as in all of the districts and want to thank miss johnson hustler for welcoming district four to join the upcoming bac meeting that we'll have next week on may 12th at six o'clock and so just a wonderful chance to be in community and really sharing the work that we do and i'm very new to being a part of this board but immensely grateful for the work that you all have done and and didn't realize how much you give of yourselves how much you sacrificed and so just a great sense of gratitude for all that you have done as i'm coming into this work i'm just really new my appreciation level for the work that you all do is has grown immensely so so thankful to be a part of the work that you

054do and thankful to be a part of a district that nurtured me and helped me to achieve a lot of my dreams and a lot of my goals so thank you so much and miss waters you have jumped in with both feet hit the ground running and certainly embraced this role and we we thank you for putting your heart and soul into this um and i think miss johnson hossler kind of touched on what that role means to so many of us here at this table and we appreciate you being a part of it um before we get to the celebrations we do have one formal piece which is approving the meeting agenda so if i could get a motion to approve the meeting agenda madam chairman should approve the agenda as listed second all

055right we have a motion and a second to approve the meeting agenda is there any discussion hearing none all in favor please signify by a sign of i any opposed nay all right we are moving on to recognize some of our great schools and school leaders and principals and dr lane if you will kick off the celebration thank you is this on good evening superintendent moore and board members i'm really excited to be here tonight to recognize our magnet and our early college high schools that were recognized at the 2022 magnet schools of america national conference in clark county nevada we brought some of that excitement with us if you could hear them in the doorway so i think miss cassie said you wanted some happiness i brought you some happiness tonight the conference was

056held april the 19th through the 22nd and we recognize magnet schools of excellence schools of distinction are certified in demonstration schools and recognized will recognize tonight are magnet schools of america region 4 principal of the year and region 4 teacher of the year so at this time i would ask superintendent moore if she would join me up front to present certificates and to our awardees i do want to make a note as she's coming up that one of the things i heard you say about the visits to other places is that we did have the opportunity to visit schools in clark county nevada and the team many of the magnet folks and the magnet team were texting me saying we already do that we do that in wake county we do that so i don't

057want to miss the opportunity to say that we are a model for our nation when it comes to the way that we use magnet programs and i think glenn carosa is running the slide deck for me from his office i hope but usually i like to start with the magnet principle so i do want to remind everyone that we recognize these awards that meet our own wake county public school system magnet principles of reducing high concentrations of poverty promoting diversity through school integration maximizing use of school facilities and providing innovative and expanded educational opportunities the magnet schools of america principal of the year award annually recognizes an outstanding school leader who has succeeded and provided innovative programs that promote equity diversity and academic excellence for schools and for students in magnet schools region 4 consists

058of kentucky north carolina south carolina ohio tennessee virginia and west virginia and i was honored to serve as magnet schools of america region 4 director for the last four years so it is with great pride that our region for principal of the year come from our own wake county so congratulations to abby stotzenberg for the msa region 4 principal of the year and i'll let superintendent moore present the plaque [Applause] abby earned this recognition while she was principal at vernon malone college and career academy and she is now our proud principal of wake early college of information and biotechnology so congratulations abby the teacher of the year award annually recognizes an outstanding dedicated full-time teacher who exemplifies excellence in academic achievement and executes innovative programs that promote equity and diversity for students in magnet schools

059he inspires students of all backgrounds and abilities to learn and again we are very excited that this year's region 4 teacher of the year winner came from wake county public schools so please join me in congratulating brentwood magnet elementary's engineering teacher greg eiman as region 4 winner during msa's national conference it is a common practice that the host district give out 10 student scholarships during the pandemic magnet schools of america expanded the scope of the scholarships and to include not only the host district so clark county nevada did award 10 scholarships in their district but also to award 10 national scholarships the awards are of a thousand dollars and are made to the college or the university of the students choosing this year wake county public school system has two national scholarship winners and before

060i announce the winners i want to thank our own team members tila george east and josh hunter in our office who spearheaded this effort and worked very closely with these students to get their essays and all their requirements uploaded to a challenging technical system so um and i would love for the principals to join their their students and certainly their parents if they are here too so this year's first winner is erica rice erica is from southeast raleigh university connections school of design arts and engineering magnet high school principal mr eddie harden she doesn't get the check herself so we don't have a check to give to her but she will receive the scholarship to the school of her choosing congratulations erica [Applause] our second award winner is hadil adamlingli from wake early college of

061health and sciences and principal ms lisa cummins and i think she does have family with her as well so congratulations is so again congratulations to our student scholarship winners very excited for them magnet schools of america merit awards recognize magnet schools that demonstrate an exemplary commitment to academic standards curriculum innovation desegregation and diversity efforts and have specialized teaching staffs engage in parent and community involvement with over 4 300 magnet schools in the country it is an honor to have 47 of our magnet schools being recognized tonight so before i call the names of awards of excellence i do want to give a shout out to our own dr lisa thompson for the mac from the magnet office whose leadership through the years has contributed greatly to this work she works directly with our magnet coordinators

062and their staff of the school and the principals to help them be prepared to write a merit award but also in finding the information needed we do data tables they require student academic scores not student individual but schools scores so it we really do appreciate all the work that she does to contribute to this i'd also like to share that normally our excellence in distinction award winners would be receiving a plaque from superintendent moore tonight they will get a plaque they're mailed so they will receive them in two weeks so in lieu of that we decided that we would give them two honorariums tonight and that is a certificate and a rose and we're honoring the magnet principal and the magnet coordinator so they get to decide who gets the rose and who gets the

063certificate [Music] i do want to say thank you to all the hard work of our educators it is teacher appreciation and a huge appreciation to our magnet schools and the work that they do in terms of marketing and recruitment in terms of really lifting up the district in so many ways so thank you for your hard work i know you all been waiting about an hour to be recognized so we really appreciate your patience at this time i will individually call up each of our nine schools of excellence to receive their merit award recognitions from superintendent moore first is broughton global studies and language immersion international baccalaureate diploma program magnet high school try saying that when you answer the phone in the front office sophie flynn will be receiving broughton's award tonight so congratulations dr

064elena asprin is principal and dr david brooks is the magnet coordinator so congratulations to bralton i thought i saw dr ashman she is here there she is [Laughter] our next winner is khan magnet elementary school of entrepreneurial design gabriel chedister is our principal congratulations [Applause] our next is east gardner international baccalaureate myp creative arts magnet middle school jamie pasado's principal and joanne edwards magnet coordinator you get the rose and the certificate fox international baccalaureate pyp magnet elementary school jacqueline williams principal and martha hayes magnet coordinator [Applause] hunter gifted and talented aig basics magnet elementary school shane bam principal and jenny johnson magnet coordinator [Applause] kingswood montessori magnet elementary school sherry and i'm probably going to mess up the name but i'm going to try really hard sherlister nope close slicer principal and michelle geisler magnet

065coordinator sorry i tried martin gifted and talented magnet middle school marlaura principal and claudia the lazio magnet coordinator [Applause] i told my team you wouldn't believe it but when i was assistant principal to high school i had to read all the names at graduation and nothing makes me more nervous than getting the name wrong so millbrook international baccalaureate middle years in diploma program magnet high school dana king principal and lauren barron magnet coordinator dr brian saunders who is new to millbrook as of this week will be accepting the award [Applause] reedy creek magnet middle school for the digital sciences trent evans principal and christine sacks magnet coordinator [Applause] okay ap coming into this place so we appreciate our aps too so let's give a big round of applause to all of our schools of excellence

066at this time i am going to ask dr lisa thompson to come up and read or share with you recognize our magnet schools of distinction hello everyone i am pleased to be able to announce the magnet schools of america awards of distinction a.b combs leadership magnet elementary school principal julie sexton tracy tothero coordinator and accepting with julie sexton is adam barnes [Applause] athens drive center for medical sciences and global health initiatives magnet high school and we have steve mayers as principal and tonya hinton coordinator [Applause] brentwood magnet elementary school of engineering principal melissa mckinley and coordinator kristen mcbride [Applause] brooks museum magnet elementary school principal marie palmer and nicole schwartz magnet program coordinator bug magnet elementary center for design and computer science principal aneese williams [Applause] carnage gifted and talented aig basics magnet middle school

067principal pam johnson carol leadership in technology magnet middle school principal tina zarzaki and coordinator julie klein and with her today brandon brendan fetters [Applause] douglas creative arts and science magnet elementary school principal tiffany faison bullock [Applause] east millbrook academy of visual and performing arts magnet middle school aaron marson principal and joanna caves coordinator [Applause] and gifted and talented international baccalaureate diploma program magnet high school jackie jordan principal and helen davis coordinator [Applause] farmington woods international baccalaureate pyp magnet elementary school and we have elizabeth plotkin accepting ann carter on behalf of miss winston pierce [Applause] fuller gifted and talented aig basics magnet elementary school principal kendra culberson and laura thanos coordinator [Applause] garner international baccalaureate middle years in diploma program magnet high school uh do who do we have representing john williams is the interim currently

068and john sherwin gerald simran and amy bennett are the coordinators at that school green leadership and and world languages magnet elementary school leslie blake principal trisha seymour coordinator [Applause] hodge road spanish drill language immersion magnet elementary school felicia dorsey and alan arrowood [Applause] jeffrey's grove spanish language immersion magnet elementary school maria ventura principal and joanna gonzalez coordinator [Applause] congratulations join your center for spanish language ibpyp magnet elementary school and jennifer zezza as principal and cheryl davis jackson is coordinator [Applause] lincoln heights environmental connections magnet elementary school scott gayton principal and brittany jennings coordinator [Applause] congratulations thank you millbrook environmental connections magnet elementary school james aldridge principal randy jones coordinator [Applause] congratulations moore square gifted and talented aig basics magnet middle school leslie taylor principal lauren shepard coordinator north wake college and career academy elizabeth battle

069principal and sherilyn murray coordinator oberlin global studies and language immersion magnet middle school brianna pelton principal and chris hainer coordinator [Applause] poe gifted and talented aig basics magnet elementary school christy story principal alexis lisenby coordinator [Applause] congratulations powell center for play and ingenuity magnet elementary school curtis brower principal and chris lawrence coordinator [Applause] congratulations mandarin language immersion magnet elementary school christopher cox principal stacy shoemaker coordinator [Applause] underwood gifted and talented magnet elementary school travis shillings principal ashley cooper coordinator [Applause] vernon malone college and career academy carter hillman principal jill oliver coordinator [Applause] congratulations wake early college of health and sciences lisa cummings principal and robin mcalexander coordinator congratulations wake stem early college high school drew ware principal and sophia overdeep coordinator [Applause] wake young women's leadership academy carla jernigan baker principal and angela cox coordinator

070[Applause] washington gifted and talented magnet elementary school katie burnett principal and amy wilkinson coordinator [Applause] wendell creative arts and science magnet elementary school everett johnson interim and megan cornigay coordinator [Applause] thank you for west millbrook international baccalaureate myp magnet middle school kelly aymond principal and jessica collins coordinator [Applause] congratulations wiley international studies magnet elementary school tracy avery principal and claire sullivan coordinator zebulun gifted and talented magnet elementary school david newkirk principal lori johnson coordinator and last but certainly not least zebulun gifted and talented magnet middle school candace jones principal whitney reynolds [Applause] coordinator congratulations so and now we're moving into our next phase of celebrations josh hunter i welcome you to the podium all right we're here to i'm here to recognize our msa certified and schools certified in 2020 fuller magnet elementary school i

071think she's running back around and zebulun gt magnet middle school [Applause] and our demonstration schools in 2020 reedy creek magnet middle school center for the digital sciences and vernon malone college and career academy [Applause] and re-certified in 2021 is wiley magnet elementary school [Applause] and demonstration in 2021 douglas magnet elementary school [Applause] and centennial campus magnet middle school we did save the best for last finally it is my honor to celebrate with you and with this community that the national magnet schools of america superintendent of the year award went to our own leadership commitment and involvement are three descriptions that capture the essence of the qualities magnet schools america seek in a candidate for the msa superintendent of the year i think we all know yet it bears repeating superintendent moore has shown steadfast leadership

072especially through the many challenges and stretches the pandemic has provided the educational system and specifically here in wake county public school system for her commitment to students staff families and the broader community as well as her involvement that manifests itself whether she's reading to students rooting for them at a sporting event or wiping cafeteria tables superintendent moore superintendent kathy moore it gives me great honor to recognize you as magnet schools of america national superintendent of the year for 2022. congratulations thank you we appreciate the time i know that was a lot but thank you for celebrating thank you dr lane and can we give all of our magnet schools our scholarship winning students and our superintendent a round of applause again first of all we have excellent fantastic schools in wake county [Music] if that

073is your base school or if you choose to go to a magnet school your calendar application school one of our early colleges and i think what we just saw today and i think our board members knew that this was going to be a lot so we intentionally stayed sitting for the duration because we could have easily given a standing ovation to each and every one of these principals these magnet coordinators and these students because they're phenomenal their recruitment efforts to make sure that we follow the principles of the magnet schools as well as choice with a purpose and our own guiding principles within wake county i think is just a testament to all of the excellent educators that we have throughout the district and certainly always wonderful to see the work that they do as

074well as to see their work be recognized because i think during teacher appreciation week it's an app time to say that that recognition isn't necessarily felt every day but it is something that we continually believe on this board is is something that needs to be imbued every day that we recognize each teacher regardless of the school you're at is is here for our students and making sure that they are doing their best these celebrations do not end there and i am going to pass it over to our superintendent for our next two awards that come out of our technology department superintendent moore good evening again it gives me great pleasure after a slight delay to invite rob dietrich from north carolina department of public instruction he is uh the state director for digital teaching and

075learning to present this next award good evening superintendent moore and board members thank you very much for having me here today i'm going to follow with the theme if that's okay of sharing the joy because it seems to be going quite well tonight so as part of that i am here today to celebrate the achievement of marlo gaddis your chief technology officer at the nc ties conference this year she was awarded the 2022 north carolina technology director of the year award this award was created to recognize the hard work of technology directors across the state and as part of this process her peers recognize the efforts that she has done to enhance digital teaching and learning here in wake county being a technology director is tough these are folks that when things are going well

076very few calls right and then when it's not going well they want you to fix it before they called you and it has changed drastically over the last two years previous to the pandemic you had strategic plans you had an idea of rolling these things out and then the pandemic hit and we went from face to face to emergency remote learning overnight and over the course of the past two years miss gaddis has done an outstanding job guiding this district through all that deploying student devices teacher devices making sure students had hot spots to get connected to the instruction and give them the best possible learning experience they could under the circumstances also she understands the importance of not only the technology piece but the instruction piece and how to marry those two things together

077to make sure that they truly are getting that experience that they deserve no matter what environment that they're in this is something that we at the department of public instruction recognize it is something that her peers across the state recognize as well as folks across the nation recognize so with that i present to miss gaddis to let you know the north carolina 2022 north carolina technology director of the year award which is i am so honored to be here to give to her today thank you very much for your time thank you mr dietrich then uh we'll leave marlo up there for the next award yeah i'm just switching trophies is all i'm doing right now so i'm going to ask my leadership to come up we have some of us here [Applause] we generally

078don't like to be seen out in public so that's generally what happens uh good evening chairman happy school board members and superintendent moore while i am honored and grateful to the north carolina department of public construction and mr dietrich for my award no one person does this work alone i'm extremely proud of our technology services division as we were recently honored with the 2022 consortium for school networking cousin district team leadership award the award recognizes the district leadership team for its transformative impact on in leveraging technology to improve learning opportunities and access for all students the award also emphasizes the consortium's belief that district leadership teams are crucial to digital transformation our technology services division has supported teaching and learning in the past years through tight collaboration with the academic advancement and magnet divisions we've

079also supported our students and families through our technology help desk and online resources and we expanded our hours and now offer spanish support on all of our call lines through these collaborations we were able to build professional learning resources adopt new technology facilitate the planning and implementation of the virtual academy with our friends including the building of curriculum courses within canvas and the deployment and support of those courses in all schools our technology services team also partnered with finance and hr to support hiring and adjust payroll to infl to reflect increases many people don't know that we're the ones who help with that health services to build our health screening and vaccination proof apps and facilities to outfit our new schools with technology and library materials through partnerships with local companies like apple sas and

080microsoft students have been able to participate in programming activities like hour of code and code and go and make curricular connections to expand their knowledge and innovative technologies the fun part of this award our fun part of this award was that we received a five thousand dollar gift certificate to donor shoes which we spent to grant the wishes of several wcps teachers last week we also received a two thousand dollar honorarium that will go to tools for schools which is our wake ed partnership teacher store though many were not able to attend the meeting today i know many are watching on streaming but i'm very very proud of this team and very thankful i have four of the leadership team up here um i'm going to let them introduce themselves and make them talk in

081front of the mic for just a minute they're going to hate me for that kathy come on okay hi i'm kathy white i'm director for inventory management um my team was very instrumental with getting student devices out and hot spots and that kind of thing and we were happy to do it good evening i'm don kustongway senior director of technology resource management i have the pleasure of working with kathy white also our contract administrator keith cooper and our e-rate administrator along with the support services the help desk and i am very pleased to say that they have helped support the spanish-speaking families that we have in the district so thank you good evening i'm walter white i'm the senior director of enterprise architecture i have the honor of working with this wonderful team just to

082keep it all moving and to build things and it's an exciting opportunity and thank you so much and last eric health information security officer just trying to keep our data and our students safe thank you so we just thank you for the honor of letting me be able to honor them as well as me thank you so much and certainly a huge lift from our technology team over the past few years and um just thank you for the continual work being a one-to-one device school making sure that our our devices are safe and secure and making sure that our students and families are aware of how to be safe online as well as in their email we now move on to public comment public comment is accepted in video written and in person formats members

083of the of the public are welcome to offer comments or criticism directed at 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 i'm also going to refer to earlier where we said please allow speakers to speak for their three minutes whether you agree or disagree with what is being said that is a person's right to speak to us for those three minutes so please 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

084personnel the grievance policy or other applicable policies speakers including students may discuss issues and matters of general concern but should refrain from discussion discussing confidential student information concerns related to confidential student matters may be addressed through applicable wcpss personnel the grievance policy and other applicable policies our written public comments for today which are part of the meeting agenda which can be found at the school district's website wcpss.net under the tablet labeled school board we have 13 written comments and one video comment those topics are include class rank books durant elementary as well as public comment budget and thank you during public comment for those of you that are here in person you may speak for up to three minutes a yellow light will illuminate at the podium when there are 30 seconds remaining in your

085time and a red light will signal when your time is up please remain at the podium during your speaking time any materials you wish to share with the board should be handed to the board attorney mr bloomberg right over here either before or after your comments thank you again for coming and speaking with us today our first speaker is tucker willenborg our class drinks are a serious problem they are harmful they are inaccurate and they do not comply with north carolina statute specifically chapter 116 article 1 section 11 subsection 10a which requires class strength to be calculated according to a method devised by the institutions of higher education how do we fix the issue there are multiple options that i'll summarize briefly all of these options can be implemented on a school by school or

086county-wide basis the best option is to remove class rank entirely removing class rank is very easy delete the current class rank records and do not rerun class ranks a similar approach is already used by several charter schools in the state if for some reason the board wishes to offer members of the class of 2023 the option to report class ranks there are methods used by other states including class ranked certificates that could be uploaded by counselors for college applications the next best option is that in honor's tier numeric ranks this option complies with grad zero zero nine and this based on weighted gpa aligning with the current wcbs recognition tiers under this option all students with weighted gpas of 4.25 and above would be tied with the rank of one those between 4.0 and 4.25

087would be tied those though and those below 43.75 would be tied this option does not lower the rank of any student and will help ensure that no student is harmed by class rank it can also be implemented in powerschool with a few button clicks and one and one line of code details for this option were delivered to the board on april 24th alternatively wake county could use a powerschool custom template to create a wake county transcript based off the nc standard transcript this transcript could be uploaded to common app and scholarship applications by counselors with nc standard transcripts sent to unc system colleges through cfnc while this option does not remedy class ranks in-state it does have the advantage of giving wake county complete control over the transcripts that are printed and could be implemented

088on a student by student basis if necessary on a smaller scale the wake county transcript could be avoided by manually or automatically removing class rank from the nc strand transcript before counselors upload it into common app with unmodified transcripts sent to state schools if necessary all of these methods removing class rank entirely using tiered numeric ranks or using separate transcripts in common app will prevent class rank from harming students admissions and scholarship opportunities there are numerous ways to solve class rank but it's imperative that this board move forward with least one thank you thank you our next speaker is susan book [Applause] greetings board happy teacher appreciation week i'm here to thank our teachers here in public and more i believe in a well-paid well-resourced well-professionally developed teaching force in wake county schools i believe

089we aren't quite there yet i believe many sitting before me have the power to make our teachers working conditions a little better one thing in this volatile climate that we need to protect as we think of teacher appreciation is the freedom to teach we need to preserve our teachers ability and freedom to teach the truth we should not take this right for granted as a district we can support our teachers by giving them culturally appropriate curriculum and books professional development that gives them the opportunity to learn more about their students and how to support their needs we should continue to support the freedom to teach to teach the truth of our history all history by centering only white history we exclude our history is colorful in any way you define the word it is messy

090but with so many lessons applicable to the world around us when teachers feel supported their lesson plans are inclusive inclusion is one of my favorite words teachers need the freedom to inspire the entire class and not just the few give our teachers the freedom to teach about black folks support teachers who support their students all students the trans dubai and the gay students too i think each and every one every educator here whether they are a teacher or an instructional assistant in the classroom you are all vital you deserve support not only financially but in your working conditions our teachers should never have to fear when they teach truth to our students supporting our teaching staff means supporting our students teaching conditions are student conditions i know it's traditional that we give teacher gift cards

091and treats i know we provide free lunches and silly dress-up days however i challenge the board and our public to support teacher appreciation by advocating for our teachers speak up to the county commissioners our state leaders and even our congressmen about the need for teachers and our need for more diversity in our teaching staff tell them how important supporting teachers is for our educational system to thrive and serve all students tell our teachers we love them by advocating with them for better pay better working conditions and the freedom to teach thank you our next speaker is good evening i am here today to talk about the funding proposal for speech language evaluations for students with special needs the proposal wishes to increase funding because of growing demand for evaluation of kids who are educated outside

092of the public school i will not comment on its price tag or its necessity since it is the right thing to do no matter if they are in public school private school or home school however i must ask one question why is there a growing demand maybe more parents are pulling their kids from public school because they are not learning as they should in fact students with special needs are seeing greater learning laws than their typically developing peers programs are chronically underfunded and when we have to go to remote learning kids in special education programs suffered the most it just did not work or maybe parents don't agree with what else is being taught do children with special needs have to be saddled with learning about racism do they need to spend precious school time

093learning about gender identity or gender affirmation they have enough academic challenges to overcome as it is and is it right to expose them to sexually explicit materials or even to talk about sexual matters when they may not be at the developmental age to understand them children are very impressionable and even more so for children with special needs parents should be the ones to teach these sensitive matters at home at their discretion and let's stick to teaching the basics at school or maybe parents are afraid another masked mandate is coming and they don't want to fight another mass exemption fight or maybe parents are just fed up that they are not being heard despite spending their years banging at the proverbial door i'm sure many parents can relate to what i'm talking about even if they

094don't have a child with special needs when parents have to go elsewhere for schooling it is a direct indictment of your school board policies to make matters worse in this proposal it refers to our children as quote parentally placed students excuse me but they are not placed in our care by the school system no they are not your children as president biden would want you to believe these children are our children 24 7 and we must know what is best for them and we must show them what what is the best if you as a board wants to stop the exodus of students from public schools you must understand and acknowledge this fact and listen to the parents thank you our next speaker is ruth willenborg [Applause] congratulations i appreciated the discussion on class rank

095during last month's policy meeting and i'm thankful that this board understands the harmful effects of class rank on our kids the general agreement across parents students educators in the board is actually the strangest part of the class rank discussion who is the other side why do they want data that is both wrong and harmful to our children during the policy meeting ms reardon asserted that the unc board of governors and nccs require a standardized transcript with a numeric rank as a numeric rank is not specified in the state law or grad zero zero nine where is this documented based on public record responses from both the unc system and dpi we have an unexpected answer a document detailing these findings was shared with this board last week in 2013 a gpa recalculation task force led

096by the institutions of higher education with representatives from dpi devised and approved the narrowing of the course weightings that are in use today the seven point grading scale with two augmented sliding scale options was not changed sbe was directed to update their policy which they did and they approved on august 7 2014. so therefore some of today's most serious class rank issues were introduced two months later when dpi switched to the 10-point system and eliminated the augmented scale options these changes as well as the emergency edition that implemented pc19 were neither devised nor approved by unc and therefore are not part of the standard method we also found no documentation supporting ncdpi's claim that the standard method requires a numeric class rank class rank is defined very broadly as based on weighted gpa in fact

097the task force wrote the group generally felt that class rank was an issue that is more properly addressed within the department of public instruction as most unc universities either don't use class rank within their admissions rubric or use class rank on a lesser scale than other factors so unc did not prescribe and does not care about having a single class rank method classrank methods were intentionally left to dpi and local discretion class rank is harming our kids the data is wrong and the method appears to be illegal let's take the final task force recommendation to heart to be cognizant that whatever system is used we want our students to continue to be competitive in those college university admission pools outside of the unc system it's time to take action and remove class rank thank you

098our next speaker is raya kapali hello my name is ria capali i am a seventh grade student at west cary middle school i want to share with you how career and technical education or cte help students like me my first middle school elective introduced me to family and consumer sciences i quickly joined the career and technical education student organization or ctso for fcs students which is fccla family career and community leaders of america i want to celebrate some of the successes at my own school as an example of the positive impact of career and technical education i and six of my fellow family and consumer scientists students at west cary entered fccla's level one skill demonstration events for students at in grades six through eight from west cary sharon placed first and ella placed third

099in the fccla knowledge challenge phoebe plays first and maddie placed third in the nutrition challenge eugeta plays second in interviewing skills i placed first and teach fcs and sadie plays first in toys that teach for the second year in a row wes carey has more level one skill demonstration winners than any other school in the country again this year wes carey is the largest individual middle school chapter in the state we were one of six schools to receive recognition for our say yes to mental health project because of our efforts to support mental and physical health by spending time in nature our west carey walks in initiative was chosen as the best middle school project in the country for the fccla national program student body this year this march i was one of four family

100and consumer sciences students in north carolina elected to represent over 4 000 affiliated fccla members in 75 middle and high school chapters since our installation as state officers for the upcoming school year at the 2022 state leadership conference in greensboro i have taken great pride in serving as your north carolina fccla state vice president of public relations thank you for supporting strong cte programs with active ctsos for students like me thank you ria and congratulations to you and your peers our next speaker is lana witt good evening wake county public school board of education members it's been two years since parents and community members long quiet about the leadership of our public school system began to petition you through public comment respectfully asking questions about their rights and freedoms outlined in our north carolina constitution

101in article 1 section 15. the people have the right to the privilege of education and it is the duty of the state to guard and maintain that right for two years parents continuously offered their voice in person when given opportunity virtual and in writing when not allowed to access you to address various concerns and grievances as i prepared to visit again tonight i reflected on the past two years and began to wonder about the exact oath you took when you were elected december 1st of 2020 that i will support and maintain the constitution and laws the constitution and lives of the united states of the united states the constitution and laws and the constitution and laws of the state of north carolina of the state of north carolina that consistent there with not inconsistent therewith

102that i will faithfully discharge that i will faithfully discharge my duties my duties as a member of as a member of the wake county board of education the wake county board of education the oath isn't to a governor or a dhhs secretary it's not even to your constituents as we look at closing this school year and prepare for the coming school year i ask you to refresh our community by being leaders who live out your oath reflect and ask if you've participated in upholding constitutional rights of all parents and students to be educated amidst the business and fear of covid keep your oath to support and maintain the constitution above any special interest or union pressure it is these constitutional documents that originally united all of our families hundreds of years ago and again numerous

103times as it was amended here in north carolina in the 1800s it's these documents and the rights that continue to be a light to other nations like in the most difficult and best of marriages when one of you begin to stray from the simplicity of this oath may all the others keep upholding these constitutional rights for all north carolinians john locke foundation based here in raleigh donated these north carolina constitutions for you to keep close at hand our next speaker is renee suckle good evening i'm here to speak about the importance of culturally responsive books and curriculum in our schools we saw we've seen for months and months and months people standing up here speaking up for books speaking up against censorship and what we're standing for isn't radical it isn't or shouldn't be scary

104most of us i would bet have had the experience of reading a book that reflects our experiences it makes us understand that we're not alone or that our experiences are neither wrong nor unusual for me being a redhead born on prince edward island and adopted basically meant that anna green gables was my sister as i said that need to be able to find oneself in one's experiences in books is common and understandable so it's really instructive to note the way that the folks in this room who want books banned responded when mslita muhammad made a simple assertion last meeting that schools need culturally responsive books they called her a pervert a pervert and that's how we know that's how we know that the effort to ban books and to demonize our schools isn't about sex

105it's not about so-called pornography it's certainly not about protecting children this is about labeling certain people obscene merely for existing this is about small groups of adults desperate to ensure that kids who aren't white who aren't straight or cisgender and who don't just subscribe to their particular brand of religion feel unwelcome in our schools and they're desperate desperate to ensure that their own kids will never slip their control we'll never have a chance to develop empathy for the people that their parents hate and so they attack our schools our librarians they attack the children who just want the freedom to read books that they choose and of course they attack us the parents standing against them what happened to miss muhammad was not an isolated incident it was just the latest in a months-long campaign

106of harassment of anyone who dares disagree with them some of you have been made specifically aware that members of your own campaign staff have been engaged in harassment and the silence has been deafening as ms kushner noted our public schools are for everyone all kids but especially kids for whom our schools have not always been welcoming our safe spaces deserve to see themselves reflected in the libraries and in the curriculum they deserve a truthful clear-eyed education on the history of this country but none of that happens by accident it takes sustained and intentional effort by all of the stakeholders in our schools and so i have a message for those of you who may be watching at home tonight it is time for each and every one of us to get off the sidelines and

107take an active role in protecting our schools and the students in them we all need to be speaking out for our children that others will label obscene merely for existing so come to the meetings make comment and above all be aware of who speaks who's seeking to take over this school board in november our next speaker is daniel grant king [Music] [Applause] good evening chair mahaffey superintendent moore and board members as you know by now i'm mr grant king and i currently serve as an employee of wake county and also advocate at the state level for our educators and our instructional assistants as we reflect on teacher appreciation week the attacks i come board meeting after board meeting and see people come before you you are elected officials and attack and that alone is near

108and dear to my heart because what happened at last war meeting to me was very concerning and yet above all not fair because one of my dear friends who is here this evening made just an observation and she was penalized penalized that shouldn't know that that should have not been but it was and yet while she was escorted out by security everyone else got to stay no no nothing additional was done and that just goes to show you what the reality that we now have to deal with as a society so on this evening i would like to really express my dear gratitude to my dear friend that is here this evening for her work and her diligence to the organization of education justice alliance because it is more than coming before you are officials

109but there's work that goes on behind the scenes advocacy work for our colored students especially those who have been racially profiled in this school system but yet nothing is done i am a product of wake county schools i graduated from wake county schools and not ashamed to say that but when things occur from people who constantly attack this board of education for the work that you all are trying to do it is despicable and just downright selfish and so i implore the board of education and i implore you mrs kushner for what you said this evening because it is very important that racism is not tolerated at all and that's why i do what i do at the state level and continue to advocate for our educators and our communities thank you so much our

110next speaker is tracy taylor good evening board members it's been a little while since i've gotten a chance to speak to you um first of all i just want to address some things that have been said in this board room tonight the first is when it comes to parents not advocating for certain books it's the books that have cartoon depictions of minors giving each other oral sex i'm sorry but that is not what should be in wake county public schools it does not promote academics it promotes promiscuity i don't have an agenda i'm not running for office but i do advocate for the truth and i have been advocating for students for over 11 years one of our board members tonight again spoke about coveted cases failed to address hospitalizations that are at their lowest

111failed to address that the ba2 variant is the dominant variant in north carolina also failed to address that again as kovid changes it becomes less virulent i expect you as a member of the science industry to tell all of the truth and not just what you want people to hear another one of our board members spoke about mental health tonight and what you all fail to acknowledge is by keeping schools closed teaching online you have not only been complicit with our children's mental health you have lowered the bar in ways that is not acceptable not just at the local level but at the state level as well as the country we have people up here who are advocating against class rank i don't think you understand that class rank is what's used across the country

112it's also what merit scholarships are based on as well as sat ranking for those of you who don't have students in high school that's coming and that is the reality either we can choose to continue to keep the bar raised high and meet students where they are so that they can do well and succeed or you can choose not to our next speaker is stephanie lorman we watched the nationwide moms for liberty political machine take the membership they built off anti-mask protests and shift it to attacking books i can't personally make the homes of religious extremists a safe and healthy environment for queer students and i can't personally eradicate the racism in the white queer community for queer students of color what i can do is ask this board for the specific legal protections that

113come from an equity policy culturally relevant and gender affirming books can save lives they always enrich lives my parents were not religious extremists i'm so grateful now to have at least missed that extra serving of internalized self-loathing but from 1982 through 1993 i was an adhd bisexual cumberland county public school student who quite literally didn't know that bisexuality was a thing that existed outside of the fantasy of men not seeing bisexual relationships in my fiction did not prevent me from having romantic crushes on girls i just felt deeply ashamed and broken that shame has impacted every relationship i've had for my entire life to include my long cis-head marriage when i came out a few years ago to my thankfully supportive and loving partner to the youth who are enduring this debate about your humanity

114in so many news outlets to the young ears hearing their parents demean and ridicule other children because yes kids hear everything we whisper please trust those of us telling you that the shame here is not yours to carry your decisions about how you express gender how you reject or accept how past generations defined gender on who and how you participate in relationships those are your choices and before the common and false refrain if it's not that it's the explicit sex a reminder that it is legal in north carolina for 16 year olds to marry and that it has only been a year since we raised that age from 14. the same flavor of religious extremists that prevented the child marriage age from being raised to 18 now insists that even though you are legally old

115enough to marry you are too young to read the word penis or to learn about the existence of sexual aid devices i feel so much sadness and anger for kids absorbing this bile in 2022 when we have nothing but opportunity to know and be better people for the children of color who have been fighting for equity access in wake county school for decades for the kids suffering through true grooming of sexual abuse and not the version being weaponized to motivate a religious extremist voting bloc i wept after reading the last page of genderqueer for the first time the author wrote though i have struggled with being your daughter i am so so glad that i am your child many parts of that memoir spoke to my experiences as a youth but that one hit me

116in the parent feels parents i promise that at least some of you are going to feel the full consequence of your choices when your kids are old enough to get away you'll sit around with the other lonely elders blaming everyone from marx to demonic possession but it will absolutely be your fault it'll be the hatred that you spewed when maybe you didn't even know you were talking about your kid our next speaker is amanda for levine i don't know when religion came into the picture this school system is broken today i come again with more questions than answers how many times have you been read obscene content and embraced it how many times have you acknowledged parents you disagree with how many times have you closed your eyes laughed or rolled your eyes at concerned

117parents i have lost count why do i continue to come here i'm not running for office i'm not establishment i'm a mom the most underestimated force in society 2020 has taught me that even one person can make change i come here so that other parents might be made aware of the state of our school system i come here each meeting to hold all of you accountable because what you are doing is not working sitting stone cold behind a mask listening to public comments isn't working to open lines of communication in our community denying learning loss isn't real isn't raising test scores asking for more money isn't allocating funding appropriately trying to be a healthcare and psychological facility isn't working as students continue to lack the basic education they are promised political parties pseudo-teacher unions and

118the local gop pushing their weight around but not backing it up with action is not working parents who think someone else will advocate for them parents who don't want to make waves the thousands of parents hiding behind a keyboard but never once showing up is not working i'm a mom not a politician and there are some things i just don't understand like why did it take two years for tim moore and the general assembly to bring the free the smiles act just as masks were coming off why does the lieutenant governor have a task force if no one responds to parents like myself who have reached out why does the governor still have north carolina in a state of emergency why does kathy moore make 300 000 a year while teachers struggle the system is

119corrupt society is divided into and no one is going to fix it for you no one is going to protect your child for you no politician no facebook group no school board member no one you have to pay attention you have to show up you have to vote you have to make waves you have to hold these people accountable because no one is going to do it for you all the political forces thrown at parents over the past two years are just a drop in the bucket compared to the lengths we the parents will go to protect our children we will never ever back down ever we will always be here watching holding you accountable why do i come here i come here to remind parents that your days in office are not promised they

120are numbered you have 189 days left until we the parents can make change i suggest working with parents instead of against them thank you our next speaker is katie long good evening everyone as the 2022 school year is coming to an end let us not forget the nightmare that we as parents and our children have gone through in the past two years we especially must not forget about our parents and children's rights that have been stolen from us and who is responsible for the past two years our families have faced challenging times because of the current school board members parents were denied the right to direct their child's physical mental and emotional health many mass exemptions were denied across the school county lockdown's mass mandate significantly impacted our children's mental health and learning it is

121what sparked my activism since september 2021 because my child fell into depression parents were not provided full transparency regarding their child's curriculum and performance data the data provided appears to be manipulated to reflect the favorable of the school district lowering academic standards in order to increase graduation rates would be a result as an example prior to the pandemic parents volunteer in their children's classrooms and ate lunch with their children on any given day their involvement in their children's education was stripped away with no rational explanation other than shifting the blame on kovid while other children in countries like sweden were thriving amid the pandemic parents were not provided full transparency of student surveys and privacies what we discovered in these student surveys were questions that did not pertain to students immediate education but rather questions

122that curse them into answering directly in ways that violate the privacy when seeking solutions through systems prior channels and processes parents were incur encountering resistance parents were encountering resistance and rhetoric from the same administrators and principals who are aware that the process of filing grievance is not easily accessible an amicable solution was rarely achieved for which they will not for which they would need to be accountable in closing i'd like to remind the public one more thing our voices were also ignored and muted by the current school board by limiting the number of speakers at school board meetings and parents who question policy decisions and express concerns over the children's curriculum the parents will have their voice back and together we will never have it stolen against from us again thank you our next speaker

123is brandy sullivan hi good evening thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak my name is brandi sullivan and i am a resident of apex i have three beautiful healthy children that attend two different public schools here in wake county my youngest is a cheetah he attends holly springs elementary and thanks to wake county he has been given such an amazing opportunity of getting the best start to his academic career i learned about services provided by wake county through project enlightenment we had an amazing educator come to our home she was part of the parents teacher program and she made such a beautiful impact for our family this amazing educator did home visits with my son and i when he was an infant i noticed that he was learning differently and at

124a different speed than my other two children and she provided such amazing tools each time she came to our home to visit she was patient and kind and even gave me free passes to the marbles museum occasionally so that i could take the kids out for fun adventures she empowered me with the knowledge of the different programs offered by wake county thanks to her resources and her ability of pointing me in the right direction we had my son analyzed assessed and he is currently attending a cck classroom in holly springs elementary he has an amazing teacher who is so kind and patient as well she is a complete blessing for our family my son entered the school year with a difficult time of sitting still or keeping his hands to himself and now he's just

125everything has turned around his demeanor his ability to speak and it's all thanks to the amazing services provided by you all thank you so much our next speaker is christine zaccardi good evening my name is christine zaccardi i'm the librarian at foxford elementary school and i came here tonight to talk about the power of school libraries i'd like to thank the members of the board who have recently upheld our students freedom to read by allowing books to remain on our library shelves where they belong to the students who have also come to speak out on behalf of their right to read books that affirm and honor their identities in authentic ways i'm so proud of you all you are representatives of exactly what wake county's core belief number five means when it states that the

126board of education superintendent and all staff value a diverse school community that's inviting respectful inclusive flexible and supportive when we truly create those environments students like you are the beautiful results i'd like to speak about creating those environments and the power it has core belief number five speaks to the heart of what true librarianship means the library is the heart of the school it's a place that connects to everything in the school the students the teachers and staff families and caregivers it can support curriculum it supports independent reading it's a place for creativity it's a safe space a place that's welcoming and inviting when i first started working at fox road the library collection looked nothing like what it does today over the last nine years i've worked to make the collection reflect the diversity

127of our students by increasing access to high quality culturally sustaining books libraries have the ability to bring communities together build empathy develop critical thinking and transform the lives of the people within their communities by providing access to necessary resources we've partnered with community organizations such as wake up and read in order to build students home libraries and grassroots organizations like project lit to increase students love of literacy last year during remote learning i read students bedtime stories virtually as a way to keep our connection together and also just as a way to make sure students who wanted a bedtime story could have one if i were to think about the impact that's had over the years i would estimate that at least four thousand students have benefited from this purposeful collection development that's four thousand

128students who have come to the library each week with the ability to check out an unlimited number of books books that have characters that look like them that represent their religion their ethnicity that might be written in the language they speak at home so they can read with a family member or loved one or books that have positive lgbtq plus representation of their family structure current and historical role models and or fictional characters when a kindergarten student at my school grabbed a book with miles morales on the cover and held it up next to his face and proclaimed it's me it seemed like a cute story and an even cuter picture and it really was but it's also more than that it's a five-year-old who's seeing himself reflected back on the shelves from the beginning

129of his school career he's had his identity validated the library is a place for him not only is it a place that's welcoming but even the superheroes look like him why wouldn't he want to come back thank you our next speaker is gabriella burwell gabriella burwell i'm just going to introduce gabriella really quickly and i'd like to thank um i'd like to congratulate superintendent moore and marlo gaddis and your team we couldn't do our job without you gabriella is our state winner sorry we can only have one person but yes thank you we did hear gabriella was our state winner for our poetry competition and i so appreciate the enthusiasm of her educators thank you today i'm going to be reciting a small part of one of my poems dr booker t washington to the

130national negro business league by joseph simon cotter senior to strange indeed to hear us plead for selling and for buying when yesterday we sat away with all good things but dying the world's ago and we're agog to have our first brief inning so let's away through surge and fog however slight the winning yay orators of point and pith who force the world to heed you what skeletons you'll journey with air it is forced to feed you a little gold won't marr our grace a little ease our glory this world's a better biting place when money clinks its story thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you gabriella and congratulations again we appreciate you taking the time to share with us our next speaker is latha muhammad good evening so as everybody knows a couple of weeks ago

131when i was here for the board meeting i stood in this very spot to talk about the importance of prioritizing a budget that recognizes that culturally affirming books and curriculum are important for our students for our students to be reflected and to see themselves and i was attacked by a bully and i responded and as i you know have taken the last couple of weeks to think back over the attack in my response i had the right to respond had i maybe if i did it again i'd respond in a different manner but maybe i wouldn't have can't say but what i'm really here to say tonight to you all that it is very important for us to protect this space this time public comments are our right as citizens to stand before you as

132elected board members and share our concerns i've been coming to this board room some of you all know at least 10 years speaking up and out and on behalf of myself my students and other families in wake county and never never had i ever had an experience like i experienced two weeks ago it is important for this space to be safe i have heard from so many community members and students that they don't want to come to this space to speak because over the last two years folks have been in this room and been allowed allowed to act a plum food to be bullies and threatening we want more gabriellas to come up here and share their wonderful oratory skills or their concerns like our first speaker tonight around class rank we want parents to

133stand before you and share their excitement like one of the parents who just spoke about her son's experience we want parents to share their concern because that is our right as citizens of this state to be before you and without being attacked by audience members i had folks call me and say lisa don't stop and i was clear that i'm not stopping because i don't do this for me i don't come and talk to y'all because i like to see y'all right i come because this is important somebody has to stand up somebody's and speak the truth to call us forward to remind us of the children the least of us right who often times get forgotten and thrown away pushed out of schools and and a data point and i'm just here to affirm

134that i'm not going anywhere that i'll be here and my community will too that we know that our public schools are important places for our families and communities to thrive and grow in and i encourage you all to protect this space thank you time is up thank you our next speaker is chad [Applause] good evening uh you know i'm gonna just take a second i was sitting on this side of the room in the last meeting when i was called out by name right and i had nothing to do with it and i actually agree i think that every single person who comes to this podium it is their right to speak and they do deserve that time i myself i was okay with your reaction to be honest with you i was more disappointed

135that she got kicked out because you know i mean i've listened to moms read books to you they have way way more extreme language in it than one person who is up here trying to defend their space for their free speech now i think that we have to 100 percent recognize that free speech should be free to all of us even when we disagree so i just want to go on record let you know i was there in the words of one of my other favorite poet shaggy it wasn't me okay uh friday i was at the ga's legislative office downtown right i was meeting with some of those guys there and i just once again so you know i have started asking them and requesting them if they would be willing to maybe allow

136you to cut out some of that fear money some of that coveted money and actually invest it in something that's a little heavier in the arts because i don't hear any of you talking about healing recovery i hear you just constantly talking about okay here's the problem mental health mental health mental health well over the last 10 years right social emotional learning has been such a focus suicide rates have only gone up in 2020 the number one leading cause of children dying between 15 and 17 was homicide homicide so i hear you talking about all the fluffy puffy stuff but i don't hear you offering any solutions so yesterday i was at the commissioner's office i was able to connect with mr ellis really cool guy and i asked him i said well has wake

137county has the public school system gone to you to try to utilize some of the park space so that you could have a beautiful instead of locking all of the principles in the little hallway there to have a beautiful open space for the community to come and show appreciation instead of trying to squeeze everybody in here lock them into little whatever that is back there actually like really reward them and i'll tell you a third group of people that you are absolutely just being ignorant in your attention span are the children the children that you neglected the children that you've masked the children that you've stripped their individuals from you stripped it from them you are not yet awakened to the idea yet that you owe something to them they have been phenomenal the parents

138that have gotten up here that have been upset i get upset thinking about it those children did not deserve one single ounce of your authoritarianism not one and you've yet to open your mouths to apologize to them to do anything for them get with the county do something at the parks make a real difference thank you our next speaker is cecilia joyce hi good evening it is teacher appreciation week so i'm going to turn the tables a little bit by letting you know some of the things that i appreciate as a teacher some of what i say might resonate with other educators too um what do i a joyful veteran educator and proud union member approach appreciate first of all i appreciated that awesome trail mix bar that our pta provided for us today it

139was really yummy in fact i appreciate all that our ptas do to support and advocate for educators and students and on that note i would like to encourage all pta families to email our county commissioners recommending that they fully fund the wake county public schools budget request you can also attend a budget public hearing on may 11th may 16th may 18th go to the wake county commissioners meetings website for all the details i appreciate it when we all think of all of our children not just our own children at home some school social workers i know want you to know that so many kids are struggling with mental health needs we desperately need the support of counselors social workers and nurses and the wake budget request includes increased funding in that area please take a

140look at the superintendent's proposed budget under finances on the wake county public schools website i also appreciate it when we let librarians do their job as professionals and allow them to follow policy and procedures allowing them to promote literacy provide access to information and introduce children to the joy of reading i also appreciate it when folks stand with us in upholding the constitution as it prohibits public bodies such as libraries from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint or censoring materials based on their message libraries uphold these constitutional principles by enabling readers to choose materials representing a variety of ideas opinions and views this fundamental right is for all citizens not just those over age 18. these rights are critical to all of our students especially students of color our lgbtqia youth to whom seeking themselves

141represented in literature could very well mean life or death joy or misery in our schools and finally i appreciate the support of our wake county public schools core values we are tasked with preparing students to maximize opportunities in this global economy they are able to do this when they can understand people with different life experiences and can navigate diverse cultures we want our students to see the world and understand its people's and its history so they can leverage their full potential as informed and engaged citizens please allow educators to continue to teach true history in age-appropriate ways school board and superintendent more and others i appreciate your time and attention thank you our next speaker is russell lichtenstein [Applause] keeping everyone [Applause] um i'm here tonight to bring light to the priorities of this board

142specifically those who continually vote for obscene and pornographic material to be readily available to our children there is no shortage of lies and conflation when it comes to this subject no one is advocating for the banning of books i see cute t-shirts stating i read banned books i wonder if that refers to the bible or maybe huckleberry finn there must be conflation because when you understand the facts this argument falls apart the suggestion is not to ban books but to control at what age they're accessible just like any other explicit material there are age limits in my view that is what being a parent is all about i believe my primary job my duty as a parent of a nine-year-old daughter and my fourteen-year-old son is to keep them safe this means protecting their innocence

143first and foremost for as long as possible while at the same time preparing them to be adults as their parent and guardian who knows them better than any teacher and or administrator will decide when and what i teach about sex gender and other moral issues this is not the place of school or teachers i don't need someone to live vicariously and have their own personal affirmations pushed onto my own children for too long parents were complicit and oblivious to what really goes on inside the classroom but with the advent of social media and the in covet forcing us to see what goes on in the classroom we are finally seeing behind the curtain i am unsure when the line between a parent and teacher became so blurry but i am thankful i am thankful that

144has awoken me and has woken to sedentary citizenry that wants its country back and wants its schools back we don't want a socially engineered grooming mill but a place of academic excellence a place of morality i am thankful that this time next year i'll be standing in front of a board that listens to the parents that understands the difference between pornography and sex education i am thankful for my friends that i've met since coming here in august that will run and put their money to where their mouths are thank you very much this concludes public comment moving on to our superintendent update superintendent moore good evening again we highlighted three things during our budget work session today the first was an opportunity for the board members to continue to provide feedback and get updates on

145the work of the strategic plan today we honed in a little bit more on trying to ensure that board feedback is placed within and how in our core beliefs as we move forward and you got an update on the work that's already uh started and is ongoing with regards to getting feedback from large groups in the community and stakeholders to help provide for the development of our strategic priorities as we move forward second item in the work session was about letters training the board had asked several questions and wanted some information from the last board meeting around a proposal to implement six early release days in the next school year which would require a change to our calendar and board had some questions we provided additional information today on options for doing that in particular

146taking the extension of the school day off the table we believe that most of our schools we knew that most of our schools had more than enough time to accommodate that but we really needed to go back and check and we do still have a few schools that we need to work with to to make those modifications and then just a little bit further explanation of what is needed and no action tonight if if we are going to seek action we will bring at the next board meeting and the last item was really the initial planning session that happens for the 23-24 enrollment plan that will come at the beginning of the next school year uh the 2324 enrollment plan will not focus on the opening of any new schools we do not have any

147new schools that are opening but there is an opportunity and some need to address our schools that are either overcrowded or capped or underenrolled there were a couple of other things that came up in the conversation as we knew they would the role of magnets calendar choice there's a number of things that are in there um so they're all sort of intertwined and we will be able to advance that discussion based on board member feedback um and i think it's also important to note that within that presentation today uh there are two new schools opening in 24 25. five new schools in 2526 that is seven new schools in the span of two years so while there may not be enrollment decisions being made about those schools next year we are going to try to

148front load information to communities that will be impacted as we started doing a few years ago because that is a large number of new schools opening in the next few years and that was our work session thank you superintendent moore we're moving on to our consent items if we can get a motion to approve our consent items please i'm sure i'll make a motion to approve consent as okay we have a motion in a second is there any discussion hearing none all in favor of approving the consent items please signify with i any opposed nay all right thank you very much we now move on to our agenda items first being a waiver of board policy 8101 for approval of the proposed 2022-2023 budget mr needer thank you and good evening chairman happy members of

149the board and superintendent moore at your april 5th board meeting the superintendent and staff presented the superintendent's proposed 2022-23 budget that proposed budget invests 24.9 million dollars of fund balance into the proposed budget the 24.9 million dollar investment of fund balance is more than the threshold that is set out by board policy 8101 board policy 8101 directs that the board will not use more than 50 percent of its unassigned fund balance to balance a future year's budget and the unassigned fund balance as of june 30 2021 is 44.7 million dollars the investment of 24.9 million in fund balance represents 55.7 percent of that june 30th fund balance as a result staff is requesting the board waive policy 8101 so the board can move forward in considering approval of the board's proposed 2020 to 23 budget

150staff has carefully reviewed this and are comfortable in recommending this to the board waivers to this policy for similar purposes have been made in past years and i've asked the board's consideration of approval of waiving board policy 8101 okay thank you mr anita before we move on to discussion do we have a motion ms cash i make a motion that we waive the policy second okay we have a motion in a second moving on to discussion okay seeing no hands and hearing none all in favor of waiver of board policy 8101 for the approval of the proposed budget for 2022-23 please signify with i any opposed nay all right thank you mr needer we now move on to our next agenda item and my guess is you're going to be sticking with us which is

151the approval of the board of education's proposed 2022-2023 budget yes ma'am after the presentation of the superintendent's proposed budget on april 5th the board has taken a number number of steps they've asked questions about the proposed budget and received staff responses they've conducted a budget work session held a public hearing and are now further discussing it tonight that said much uncertainty exists and will remain into the foreseeable future as the county commissioners consider the proposed budget that was presented to them last night by the county manager as we await the state legislature returning in mid-month i think it's the 18th of may to review the second year of their biennial budget the proposed budget of wake county public schools for 2223 includes several funding parties that are part of a multi-year initiative like to review

152those priority areas with you first pandemic relief funding to continue to invest in the support of interrupted learning resulting from the pandemic second compensation increases for our staff to acknowledge we value their work and equally importantly to help us become more competitive and recruiting and retaining these staff compensation increases include raising our beginning starting hourly rate for support staff to 16 dollars per hour the proposal also includes a request of local funding for the currently legislated average two and a half percent compensation increase for other instructional non-instructional staff not where we need to be but again a step in the right direction third expansion of instructional support technicians to leverage the continued expansion of digital devices digital learning content platforms and related digital learning tools fourth expansion of behavioral health support resources for our students

153and families so that they have access to social workers counselors school psychologists and related support staff and fifth continuing to increase funding for the maintenance and operations of our schools with the ultimate target of this multi-year initiative to maintain our facilities with funding at nationally established funding formula averages the proposed budget also includes funding requests to support the opening of four new schools next year two elementary schools one middle school and one high school in early college the proposed budget includes funding requests to support expansion of magnet school programming athletic staffing and school allotment expansion performing arts allotment expansion and academically intellectually gifted program expansion the proposed budget also includes additional local funds required to pay charter schools and to meet increasing employer benefit contribution rate increases asset by the state all school funding and

154resource allotment formulas remain at 20 21 22 levels in the 2223 proposed budget with one exception the high school assistant principal formula actually increases based upon one of the funding requests these priority focus areas and initiatives and others are the basis of requesting an increase of 56 million dollars in the county appropriation of that 56 million dollar request of the county 35.2 million or 63 percent is for improving staff compensation and with an additional 8.3 million dollars being requested or 15 percent of that request for payments to charter schools and increased requirements for state benefit rates and employer benefit payments so i want to stress this 78 of the requested funding increase from the county is for employee compensation charter school payments and employer benefit rate increases required by the state the board has now

155waived board policy 8101 allowing to invest more than 50 percent of the prior year's unassigned fund balance into the proposed budget staff is available to answer any final questions and then we ask the board's consideration of approval of the board's proposed 2022-23 operating budget thank you mr needer i think we all feel the gravity of the request that is put before us with the superintendent's proposed budget before we move on to discussion is there a motion to be had motion to support the superintendent's proposed budget and to adopt it as the board of education's budget yes that is the motion okay yes sir we have a motion a second discussion ms carter okay um all right thank you um and i i was going to mention my support for so much of this going for

156staff compensation and you pointed out the percentages so i won't go over that but i think it's important for our employees to know where we're trying to get where we're going and where we're trying to get and hopeful that the state will stick to their commitment specifically i'm talking about that hourly 15 feel free to increase that if you wish but other than that please don't you've left out public school employees for too long and i just want to thank you and your team and everyone who works on this for how you put together the information for staff to be able to see where we're hoping to be able to go because i know i just feel like that's so important literally in writing so um and not just to have to guess so i

157appreciate that i also you mentioned the social workers and school the social emotional mental health support and i wanted to say thank you again i know we're not at the national recommended ratios but your team that was one of the questions i had i put together that chart that is linked on our website under the board question and answers and i just bear with me just a moment just to point out something like a school social worker currently we're the current year we're at a one to one thousand four hundred and thirty two that's the ratio where we're projected again if we get support financial support by 25 26 so that is a little ways away but within reach here it's hopeful to get to one to 250. that is a huge to me step

158in the right direction i wish quicker but at least having the hope that that's where we're going and you know it's for the counselors school psychologists school nurses all trying to get to that nationally recommended ratio and i do feel that that is a very important piece and i am grateful for the goals that have been set out for that the other piece and i i know we have spoken about the textbooks and i'm hopeful um that we will see that come back to us with some type of plan whatever steps we can make in that direction baby steps whatever just to start having some of those physical textbooks back in our schools and i just i'm hopeful that the county commissioners will support as well since so much of this is for our staff

159compensation and also our first facilities which we i know um wish again it's not perfect where we need you know where we're headed but it's a step in the correct direction i hate to i'm saying that nice as i can because i would have more but i just uh thank you for your work on this no it's not perfect for those who are wondering and ask me it's not but it is in many of the areas a step in the direction that i feel our staff and it directly impacts our students if we have staff if we can maintain staff consistent staffing and staff that feel supported and truly appreciated and not worrying about having to juggle three to four other two or three other jobs whatever it may be i think it's important so

160that's thank you miss carter miss kushner thank you and i would sincerely echo ms carter's comments i think so much of our increased request was a fixed costs the the cost for new schools the legislative mandates the paths through to charter schools but that additional piece that 35.2 million is focused on our employees and um and the county manager referenced um in an airplane you put your oxygen mask on first as and as and they were you know attending to their goals and their needs but you have to complete the task of putting your ostrich mask on and then putting the oxygen mask on the child or the other vulnerable person next to you um and so we need the same support for our employees going forward and i hope the commission and the county

161will see that we cannot continue to be consistently rated as one of the best places to live and work in america and we won't we are consistently rated highly but we won't continue to be if we don't have strong public schools so i hope that they will um go through our request and and um carefully consider that the pla the places where we have wanted to invest in our in our community ms waters thank you chair mahaffey i really value the work that has gone into creating a budget of this magnitude and not having experience being a part of something so large and so important and i'm really proud of the work to compensate teachers and it feels very personal for me this year particularly as my son at his school lost the principal and

162four amazing teachers three were special ed teachers and so don't want to see anyone else leaving the district so really glad that we're prioritizing and supporting our employees and making that a priority and i'm just really hopeful that we will be able to get the funding that we're requesting as i look at the budget document and i see it as really telling a story and wanting to really emphasize the way that we support our employees and also our students particularly as many of our students are still grappling with the impact of the pandemic so as i ask many questions throughout this process and looking for equity and how we prioritize that i'm thankful for the work and looking forward to how the funds that we are requesting are going to strengthen our district and continue

163to support the important work that our teachers do that all of our staff do so i appreciate the tremendous body of work that has gone into the creation and appreciate being a part of this process thank you dr martin thank you i too want to uh say thank you to staff for working and developing this budget i think superintendent moore you put together a very sound budget i think you know any of us different community members might have put in different priorities but there's absolutely a sound set of priorities uh that i that i strongly support very pleased to see the return uh and strengthening of the long-term uh plan request because you know a lot of the needs to get where we need to be we're down in a hole you don't get out

164of the hole all in one shot it'd be nice if we could but the hole's too deep uh but i think if we outline a plan just like we did at the the seven year capital plan i think that's fiscally sound and a very important part of the budget so very much appreciate that um i advocate for the facilities all the time glad to see starting to work on that as one of the long-term plans so i want to highlight that and i appreciate the appropriate use i believe of a lot of the coveted relief funds you know we heard some various things in public comment uh about not using it appropriately but i actually think we you have proposed and i think we now agree and that some of these funds are going to

165be used to meet some of these long-term needs but we have to recognize their one-time funds and so that becomes part of our long-term challenge i very much appreciate that you know you have focused this budget on staff compensation uh as we all know it doesn't get us where we need to be but it's a important step in the right direction at a joint meeting with the commissioners i very clearly stated that we need to end that little asterisks the except for school system employees i believe that our effort to try to go up to 16 an hour is going in the right direction but i think we have to recognize i haven't had a chance to look through all of the county budget but i believe the county was already at 1733. so we

166have not eliminated that asterisk so ms kushner to your point you're absolutely right you put the mask on yourself and then you put it on the children and i'm sorry you don't keep that asterisk and say no you only get a fraction of the oxygen we're going to keep the main oxygen for ourselves we need to end that asterisk so we need to end it now as long as they're well i was asked by somebody you know will this um compensation request stop the bleeding i said no as long as there's a differential between the wake county pay structure and the wake county schools pay structure we don't end the bleeding and so it's past time that we end that asterisk we need to have both uh groups uh paid on an equivalent basis so

167this is a step in the very very much in the right direction we need to approve it but i really do request the county commissioners pay attention to that related to this you know i think it's just high time uh that we recognize we've all heard arguments we've heard some coming out lately about how we need to pay the best um you know executives boards administrators in order to get the appropriate candidates for uh the office the position and i want to be clear that we need to make that same argument for every worker if we don't pay workers appropriately we're not going to get the workers that we need we need you know if you're going to make that if you're going to make the argument that we have to pay an executive to

168get a quality candidate then you've got to make that same argument for paying a worker and i think that's really critical as a community as we go forward asking for this budget it's a small step in the right direction to begin to address some of that compensation that said i've also heard several people say oh yes but it's the state job to cover a lot of the compensation and it is the state's responsibility to cover a lot of the compensation that needs to increase dramatically as well absolutely no question there the state needs to substantially bring us back up we were at one time 23rd in the nation we are not there now in terms of what the state's contribution is and you can't use local funding to sort of you know be that that

169buffer to say oh look how good we are as a state the state dollars themselves need to be above average if we want above average educators that said with respect to the local contribution issue i think it's also important to recognize that the state of north carolina i believe rightly has a differential appropriation to different leas those in uh more well-to-do areas get a lower state appropriation than those in higher needs locations what we note is noted in our our budget document wake county ranks 114 out of 115 leas in terms of the state's compensation that means that we have a deficit just to get so the local contribution to get us up even with what is the state average uh is 606 dollars per student our projected enrollment of five 159 542 students that

170means we need 96.68 million dollars of local contribution just to get up to the state average oh and by the way that local contribution needs to come for charter school students as well of which the projected number is 17291 so that's an additional 10.48 million for a total of 107.16 million dollars of local appropriation that gets us up to the state average so when we hear comments about how we have one of the largest state appropriations or one of the lo one one of the largest local contributions that's good and that's great but let's remember that 107.1 million dollars of that local boost is to deal with the uh equity across the state that's not addition to way county now wake county i checked a couple of years ago i don't i remember the number

171i haven't looked recently but our cost of limiting index was about 1.07 which means we have a seven percent more expensive place to live than the rest of the county so that take that 107.16 million multiplied by 1.07 now you've got 114 million point seven so 114 million point seven you gotta add before you can now start talking about the additional compensation that we give locally to our local people so a lot of information am i advocating darn right i am this request in this budget is absolutely appropriate we need to you know we talk about teacher appreciation we're going to know teacher appreciation when this budget passes fully funded and we can make this small step which still does not erase that asterisk but it's a small step in the right direction again thank

172you for the budget and we'll keep working to try to get it passed thank you dr martin miss cash so i um i want to apologize to a couple board members because i had been asked if we could have a small work session today which i was given the the belief that we were i was told we would and then i believe it went to executive and i therefore did not get any responses from anybody but miss mahaffey did call me so we talked a little bit so we didn't get to talk about the items i'm disappointed that we didn't have a part of the work session today and i feel bad that i didn't get any responses about it again except for miss mahaffey and there are some things that i think we should

173talk about that in this budget i'm i have nothing i support the budget it's not like i'm talking about anything big these are little things but for some reason we get we're way up here and then people in our schools are talking in their areas and superintendent warren i spoke a little bit today about the arts and i know ms scott will have something she might want to add on that the fact that we have middle school programs which we've had meetings with dr mcfarland and staff and a year ago maybe about how we're going to strengthen our middle school art programs even the basic three like band and those that are high schools are now feeling the pressure the covid there's very little middle school bands that are being successful right now because kovid

174took the sixth and seventh graders out and now they come to high school if you go to a game if you go to athletic games the bands are about a third the size they used to be and i know some of our middle schools don't have bands so my point in all this was i thought today we would have an opportunity to talk about the months of employment that schools are allotting because i think that the principal gets to make the decision on what their allotments are but i do think that we expect that all of them are going to have at least some fine art programs in their middle school i felt like we could talk a little bit about that today the other piece and i'm going to then just say a disappointment

175is that we don't have much in this budget for maintenance and operations and you've heard me say that i won't say any more about that i have i know you talked about the multi-year plan i've watched multi-year plans in wake county and we've extended years on them we've cut budgets out of them i am from i'm very upset about that the multi-year plans that we've put out there before so i already have heard that if we don't get the 50 the 56 million or whatever we get the first thing people are going to look at is we're going to take the main some maintenance and operation dollars back and i'm for the compensation i want all of that to stay in there but i feel like we are taking our eye off this maintenance maintenance

176and operation problem that we have um and i i don't know what to do with it i i won't i won't be around to see the five-year plan or six or seven whatever it develops into but we have put those things off a very long time and i'm disappointed we didn't couldn't talk about it in a work session today but that's all i'm going to say i know that scott you may have something you might want to add about the arts whoever wants to add some things that they'd asked me early on that i thought we would have today and i think when it came to the month of employment piece that was a separate piece not necessarily for this budget but something that we needed to talk about and i know you and superintendent

177moore have talked about that today so i'm not going to go too much into it um but i just want to acknowledge that you know we've we've discussed that concern and we'll continue to yeah we'll need to discuss on that and my promise we've we've talked about the middle school our programs almost a year ago and now we're i'm hearing we're having middle school art teachers losing positions because their band didn't hit the 45 is 15 or something so we're we're digging a deeper hope i just think but i'll i'm gonna let that go at that point i'll just make a i'll just make a quick comment that um we have asked previously that all middle schools offer at least three different types of arts programming and look at the staff that's needed to support

178that when we reviewed it in the last couple of weeks as the questions have come up we thought i thought it was six but not maybe even less than six that don't meet that threshold all of those schools do have access to targeted enrollment and we asked the area suits to work with the principals today we understand that certainly the covet could have created some sort of an impact with regards to arts because of how participatory they are and the experience that they had remotely was not the same and and some principals have talked about that so we want to make sure that we are able to maintain the commitment of the three that are baseline for all schools some schools have offered far more than that in the past have been able to but

179as enrollments change you know they may not want to continue to do something we want to make sure that the baseline of three is kept whole for everyone and continue to be committed to doing that there are some other things that i think we can do as well that probably do require a session and a student achievement committee or finance committee meeting may be better to have a better understanding of how the allotments are different in elementary and middle and high and if there is a strategy which we've been talking about that can better support either protecting or defining what it is that the board wants to see with regards to program enhancement in middle and high ms scott thank you and and i do want to say that ms cash and i did discuss

180this and when the question is is this a budget issue i i don't see how it isn't um if we're if we're looking to protect programming at schools i i hear that we're saying at least three fine arts at middle schools i hear you know these these different things and and quite honestly that allotment or that expectation is something that during my tenure on the board we have not ever discussed so if if that is something we have the opportunity to to get more into that in terms of allotments and and you know that would i would certainly welcome and i would appreciate that but i feel like i've asked a question and just never got an answer and i asked how many months of employment for program enhancement teachers were reduced due to lower

181than expected adm and it's a it's a this is a this is a number answer this is something to be answered specifically in my area and yes i would absolutely and proudly represent all the wake county but i also have to speak for the people who expect me to to speak the people who who elected me but in in my part of the county there are market shares an issue there are there is an oversaturation of charter schools of schools of choice uh in eastern and northeastern wake and it does it does impact us so when we're looking at our schools to what sets them apart people talk about program enhancement they talk about a strong theater program they talk about a strong choral program that not only goes out into the community but brings

182the community in for concerts and plays and musical theater so it's our middle schools also don't have a legacy i mean people top people talk about brought in high school who haven't been there for years i mean they have a strong legacy elementary schools people are there for six years but middle schools are only there for three years and it's once a program is gone it's it's very hard to bring it back and i don't want to throw anyone under the bus here i don't think anyone's at fault but i do think there's a major miscommunication or misunderstanding rather where if we have principals who are feeling obligated to cut things because of certain enrollment numbers or if there is in fact this months of employment available somewhere that they could ask but only if

183they could do this thing i mean it makes it very difficult for me to understand it makes it very difficult for parents to know who they should be advocating for when they're concerned and these programs absolutely do trickle up to the high school if we don't have a strong feeder program we won't have those in our high schools and i think we are all so very proud of our comprehensive high schools and that they offer a place for everyone and we hear that when our students who are brave enough to come speak to us talk about the different places where they feel safe the different places where they learn who they are so it is it is a budget question um because it while i support so much of this absolutely compensation absolutely the steps

184that we're taking to get back to multi-year plans absolutely understand the necessity for many of the positions and understanding that our central office staff has been working on a skeleton crew as well but i really really need to be able to look into the eyes of people who are maybe going to have to be worrying about this each and every year the first to be on the cutting block knowing that those programs and when students participate in those programs the life skills that it builds them so this is this is a very very difficult place and and and quite honestly if i had just received a direct answer right away i don't i wouldn't have said all the things i have rambled on about for the last five minutes that's it's a huge concern for

185me so i'll just i'll just reiterate that first there are no changes to allotment formulas if but it has been the practice for as long as we've provided resources to schools that there are formulas upon which those resources are predicated and if enrollment drops there are fewer resources it's fewer counselors fewer aps fewer fewer textbook dollars everything is that's resource based is is done that way however we also know that sometimes changes in enrollment fluctuate from year to year based on different things that happen in the community and we have a process for principals to work with their area superintendents to cover needs on a short-term basis as we figure out what's happening with enrollment that might be fluctuating based on outside impacts like a charter school opening or a brand new school opening even

186within the wake county public school system so those those processes are there all of that being said i think that you know what's become clear out of the conversation is that there's a desire from the board to better understand what the mechanisms are that can be implemented to both highlight and support designated sort of baseline and expectations around our schools with regards to our arts programming we've we've set that expectation sort of in the background and where we have found that it's not being met we are providing schools with the opportunity to make the changes so that they do have at least three programs available but i think there's a there once we get to that i think there's the issue of how those resources are lighted and the fact that principals will make decisions

187based on what they're finding in their school communities on how to best use those resources to meet students needs that is that has always been where that lies redoubling our efforts to make sure that principals understand what their options are they and i think they are aware we've been we've been doing the targeted enrollment process for a number of years so i don't i don't think there's a lack of understanding of that but i do think that understanding the expectations and what the baselines are that we want to have for all schools is something that might need to be more formalized through both how we talk about this at the board level and if we change the manner in which we communicate how resources are allocated because there's a there's an option to do that

188resources are allocated differently at the elementary level than they are at middle or high and at the elementary level there is a specific program enhancement allocation that is not the way they are allocated at midland high school so i think there's an opportunity for increased work around that moving forward understanding and and for the board to weigh in on what those priorities need to look like so and if i could add to what super intent more just shared miss scott we've talked about possibly at either a finance committee meeting or a student achievement committee meeting giving some additional background about the allotment process that takes place in the spring that is based upon student projections the staffing planning process that school administrators do in the spring and then higher in support of and they work

189with the human resources department in that and then as ms moore said the fluctuation up and down in student populations in individual schools has to be considered all that's based upon estimates and we don't know what actuals are until the students actually start arriving and then there's a a process in the fall is called the reconciliation process and throughout this continuum from spring through the fall and really throughout the year because populations can change during the year as well there are safety nets and opportunities for school administration working with their area soups and budget ultimately in human resources to request resources to fill specific needs and we have reserves of these resources because we know those sorts of things happen just one last point as far as what final allotments and positions being earned are

190we won't know those until the fall because they're based on actuals not estimates finally principals do have the opportunity as well in the spring to do something what we call self a lot if they believe their student projections are lower than what they will actually be they can request months of employment that were not earned so they can go ahead and staff up for those positions and then assuming they have the students to come in that follow it then that nets itself out so we have a it's a very complex set of structures and processes and we have discussed and we'll bring back to one of the board's committee meetings um some additional understanding around it thank you mr nieder i think we look forward to seeing more of that information certainly the loss of

191any program is impactful to any community but i think over the years we have seen over and over again nationwide how budget impacts have impacted the arts specifically wherever you are in this in this country um so we appreciate that and miss scott thank you for your commitment to your arts community um because hearing that from from you as a music teacher and and miss scott and miss cash are conversations over the past it's always hard to hear when a a program is impacted especially when something that can bring such joy to our communities but making sure that we're understanding the impact of of covet on those communities as well not just within the arts specifically but others that may have been impacted as we move forward i do have mr haggarty with his hand

192up so i'm going to acknowledge him thank you chair mahaffey i know it's difficult participating remotely like this but i did just want to put in this piece on this budget you know i think what it comes down to really is why this budget at this particular point in time and you know i think we can look at this budget based on our needs in the schools alone and we can but we can also look at this budget just in the context of our whole community and what's going on in our whole economy right now you know if you look around many of the same problems we're experiencing here are being experienced in the private sector in other areas of government you know excuse me we know we have you know critical vacancies that we

193have to fill we've seen this in city government we've seen this in county government the county budget the county knows that they have to do more to fill critical vacancies for essential staff for their ems workers for or social service workers and that you know simply coming back with the budget that they've had isn't going to fill those crucial vacancies and you'll remember what we've what we've seen in the last just just in in recent months right we've seen critical vacancies in our teaching staff in our support staff our bus drivers our cafeteria workers and when we have those vacancies it makes the job of everybody who's left who stuck with us all that much harder and that makes working conditions even worse and so we have to do what we need to do to

194make sure that we can fully re-staff with great professionals and then that will help take care of the existing staff who's been with us you know we we have to remain competitive and we we're not just competing against other counties for teaching jobs anymore we're competing with other jobs with other sectors we have people that are leaving teaching leaving our workforce for completely different jobs so we have to do everything we can with this compensation piece to keep adequately staffed effective functioning public schools if we're a community that believes in public education and i know that's a challenge in this state this is a state north carolina that that built its progress that built its reputation on investment in public schools community colleges and universities and we've seen over the last 10 years even a

195little bit longer than that although how we haven't been getting the adequate state funding for our public schools i think adjusted for inflation we're probably i think we're spending less now on each of our college seniors than we were spending on them when they were kindergarten students you know we're moving the state has been moving in the wrong direction and if we're going to be competitive in our hiring if we're going to be competitive as a community in a region and building jobs here and attracting growth you know we have to invest more in our schools and our students right we invest less our students than all of the areas that you know are our our business leaders are going out and trying to compete with and and recruit companies from we spend less than

196austin texas less than dallas texas less than nashville memphis fairfax virginia the major metro areas in georgia you know this is an investment not just in our schools not just in our kids but even if you don't have kids this is an investment in our whole community and i think if we put it out there to the people we have to ask the community in the community the citizenry of wake county do you support great schools and if you are if you do are you willing to make the investment we need to keep them great and again we've heard from hundreds of teachers hundreds of staff members about how much we need this compensation plan i don't think we can back off our ask at all a lot of work went into putting this budget

197together like miss cash has said they're things that we've put off multi-year needs right that that are crucial needs we're not asking for the sky we're not asking for the moon you know we're we're presenting what is needed to keep going i think it's a responsible ask and i support the budget as it's been presented thank you bye sure hagerty ms johnson hustler did you have anything yes thank you uh miss mahafay and i'm not sure where to add after uh mr haggerty who you are not present but very much so delivered a very closing uh great closing argument um to why this budget is important so not a lot i would reiterate to that only more of a a comment to to uh to us the board and our process um fully supporting the

198budget and of course as i said echoing everything mr haggerty noted around our workforce development again lots of things we also heard on our visit to salt lake from our colleagues here in wake county and what are you going to do as i said to my colleagues what are we going to do about teaching profession and now we're losing principles which not our retirees hopefully but those who are who are leaving us for better paying jobs and the thing that i said to them is pay is at the top of the list and there are ways you could do that like advocating with your county commissioners but the other piece is many of those business owners have children in our schools and that is to be a part of changing the conditions of our school

199environment which includes respecting and valuing them by our words deeds and our money and so so hopefully we will see the fruits of our labor labor with our colleagues in other industries in wake county really seeing wake county for the economic engine we are but also to ensure that this is the best place to also raise your children when you come here to work and play which which speaks to to our public school infrastructure so again thank you to the staff for for the enormous amount of work i'm still not sure how miss kinsey mr uh mr strechland and uh mr nader keeps all this in your head but thank you very much sorry yes mr winters the other mark and i and and i could see both of them literally um sorry about mr

200winters but i'm not sure how how you all hold that in your head especially for the number of years that you that you've maintained this so again thank you and also thank you for enduring the questions and the ongoing questions um because we also have to think about two things one the questions that are at the table and what it means and part of that isn't for me um which it's always great superintendent morris like me she's like well let me add a point here so that we don't lose the point um and and part of what i hear is you've given us a lot of information when you said the three courses i was like oh we talked about this when the state tried to cut adm for arts and so so now it

201resonates that you have said that to us at this table before but not in the context of a budget and so unfortunately i'm not like our three amazing finance staff that i can't speak for my other colleagues but i'm not holding that information in my head and so sometimes it is going to require staff to reiterate we you can even say per my last conversation that i told you ms johnson hospital in 2018 i'm fine with the per my last email but but to but to help us remember and hold these things in our head when when our hearts are being tugged at the potential of not having the full budget ass that we've made which to be clear we are still advocating for our full budget ask and the harder part of this which

202is going to be even more important to remind us of the things that we are doing we are solution oriented whether it's our arts our athletics our buildings and maintenance our mental health this district i i will put up against any it has been hard and we have pushed a staff but there is not one person in this district that i doubt believe in the solutions that make our district better um i i wholeheartedly we might not agree with how we get there um we might not agree with the timing of when we do it because you know we'd like for things to happen a little faster but but the commitment is there and i think part of that is being the echo chamber and saying to us over and over again here's what we're

203doing for these things so that as board members we can not rest easy because there's still a whole lot to do but at least rest in that we're being heard around the priorities that our communities are screaming at us about so yes it's a lot of undue work superintended more on you and your team but it certainly also makes us better advocates in the community especially at a time that not everyone believes that our full commitment to our students in wake county and i think that's going to be even more important if we are not successful in our full ass to make sure that we are putting those things forward first and forefront in our parents line of sight so that they can see the things that we are maintaining even in spite of the

204difficulties that are ahead of us miss cash i'm not sure whether i want to i wanted to do a clarification but it's not near as great as the last two comments so i'm sorry this will be not as dramatic i just want to clarify my no yeah no i didn't mean that there's another there's another word i can't think i'm from iowa um but i always say that i want to clarify though the position i'm talking about just to be certain we understand i'm not saying we have i'm here's the i'm just going to draw the picture we have an art teacher we have a band teacher in east wake and she's getting paid enough she wants to stay with us as a band teacher but she's got 15 8th graders because we didn't have

205band for 6th and 7th graders we asked the teacher we tell the teacher we don't have a position for her she goes to another school i'm that is not a teacher we've been trying to recruit that's a teacher we let go of in in the art field and i'm talking about band cause i'm trying to stay with the three main arts because i'm not trying to get extra arts for extra schools i'm trying to stay with the basics so it's not a position that we couldn't fund or that we couldn't have enough money to hire that teacher we lost the teacher because we we gave up the position so now the 15 8th graders don't go to band because they don't have a teacher anymore and they certainly don't go to band in high school

206that is just i know that's just a little itty bitty thing of this whole budget but it's still part of the base budget that we don't always see that that is concerning to me i think part of it also just shows this whole i'm going to defer to mr neader before i talk well just to miss cash a couple points to that again your your example is a very specific example where that school administrator has the opportunity to work with their area superintendent hr and budget to look at this set aside of resources to meet that very need you describe we do have systems and structures and processes for those types of situations and just one other thought when we might need to displace a teacher they're under con we have a contractual obligation with

207our teachers with the exception of terminating contract teachers we're obligated to employ them not necessarily any one particular school but we will find them a job in their field within the wake county public school system because we do want to retain our employees so i just want to point those two things out i i want to insert i'm just looking around miss kushner thank you i just wanted to add i think this is um indicates a need for us to dur in the finance committee not to to have it year round once a month so that we can continue to revisit and better understand because this is only one step in this budget you know this is our ask to the county we don't know what the state's going to do i have folks asking

208me about the covid coordinators as one example that i think that's a state position so we're gonna have to wait for the state budget to come out to find out about those positions is that what so i'll just i'll just you know take the opportunity to function where i can the positions that each schools received or that they were able to hire for and i think a lot of them have hired for that was related to districts that opted into some form of the state testing program received funds that could be used to hire staff to support that we just had an update on that in a webinar today i've sent that to paul co the state is continuing to fund the the testing program but there are more options within that testing program as

209we move forward into the next school year so there will still be opportunities but but that that work is still before us well and so much of the state budget is still before us so we're going to have to keep right going and i think to to some of the discussion if we can keep giving us updates on how things you know how things are shaking out that funding was set to expire at the end of this fiscal year that said the what ms moore just referred to late breaking news it is our understanding that will be extended a year as long as districts maintain some type of testing program we're still working through the details and we have a significant multi-million dollar carryover that we could then use i i think this conversation and

210and talking not just about the the broader ass but the specific impacts is really important and it shows how much of this is kind of left on our local ask to support what is constitutionally required by the state and that has been adjudicated since i was in elementary school to have a sound basic education i have a kid in middle school and i have a kid in elementary school or two kids in elementary school that's how long it's been we have people in this county who were a part of that initial lawsuit who have children in this district and other districts across north carolina we heard that 15 percent of what we're doing [Music] is that charter school pass through with local dollars and employ putting more on the employers for state health programs and

211we have different mandates where we are looking at the county in order to help fund those mandates dr martin talked about the the teacher supplement that our county commissioners are so proud to give that now other you know counties throughout the state are getting it from the state and it's not a salary all teachers need a salary and salary increases it's it's their supplement and so now we're competing not just with other states with other parts of the economy but other counties for our teachers when that has been a part of a point of pride for our county and for our county commissioners and you know we spent time with our former budgets over the last you know five years and looking at kaffirs and i'm sure many of you have but our multi-year funding

212plan went into place in 2019 and then we immediately pulled back because of the economic uncertainties of covet and so to see and hear things like we have a full economy and making sure that that we have these supports for this economy to thrive in involves investing in our students and the people that serve our students and so seeing so much of this go to additional compensation as well as asking for that recommitment to those multi-year funding plans that we've held back on i think is really really important because there is a shared goal to have good schools in this district because it not only benefits our children which is first and foremost but it benefits the people who who live here who choose to stay here to raise their families and people like me

213who move here to raise their families and so i think for me it is a budget that that starts to redo that work but it is imperfect because there's only so much we can ask for and we have to be fiscally responsible in that ask of our local government because we know that the state and and really you know the federal government with ida needs to be fully funded so i'm i'm going to be supporting this budget with the knowledge that there's more that we can do but if we had those state supports we wouldn't be arguing over arts enhancement positions because we might be able to use that local supplement to make our schools not just survive but thrive and that i think is our goal any further comments questions for mr nader or

214superintendent okay with that i will take we have a motion in a second to take the superintendent's proposed budget and adopt it as the board's budget all in favor please signify by sign of eye aye any opposed nay all right thank you very much thank you moving on we have policy our first policy is board policy 3420 student promotion and accountability this is first reading and presenting will be mr drewka our assistant superintendent of academics mr cook yes ma'am good good evening everyone i'm here to present to you the first reading of revised board policy 3420 student promotion and accountability reflect revisions reflect updates made by district staff and the north carolina school boards association the revised policy incorporates guidance on literacy interventions in alignment with senate bill 387 also known as the excellent public

215schools act of 2021 and also provides information on credit recovery practices for high school courses as is now required by state board of education policy with board approval this revision will replace and update the current version of this policy the revised policy was discussed and reviewed at the april 20th 2022 policy committee meeting so tonight we're requesting the board's approval of the first reading of revised policy 3420 student promotion and accountability happy to provide any additional information ms kushner thank you mr cook and chairman happy with that i will move approval of policy revisions to 3420 student promotion and accountability for approval for first reading second okay we have a motion in a second any discussion okay seeing none uh all in favor please signify with i any opposed nay all right the motion passes

216thank you mr cook thank you moving on to board policy 7503 teleworking first reading we have dr aj matillo assistant superintendent of human resources chairman hafey superintendent moore members of the board i'm here to present to you the first reading of revised policy 7503 for teleworking the updates begin to move our telework policy from a response to an emergency situation to a policy that will guide us to situations that won't only be governed by or allowable under emergency situations so while planning teams continue to work on additional proposed revisions we felt it was important to bring this one specific revision that will allow school staff with the permission of their principal to telework on unprotected teacher work days providing their job responsibilities can be performed remotely on these days your consideration of this proposed change

217tonight will allow schools to better plan their work days for next year when given final board approval it will replace the current version of the policy it was reviewed at the april 20th 2022 policy committee meeting and tonight we request the board's approval of the first reading of revised policy 7503 for teleworking all right thank you dr matilda miss kushner thank you chairman haffey and dr matilda a great overview just for us to give more options for our school and our staff members so i move approval of board policy revisions to board policy 7503 teleworking on first reading okay we have a motion a second is there any discussion ms carter okay i know i've said it before but i just want to reiterate it again i think this i'm very happy to see this

218come to us i appreciate this added flexibility for our staff and it's doesn't cost us anything as a district to give staff the respect i think they deserve to be able to understand they can do their work from home in most i mean i know there's some situations they cannot but if they have work that they are able to carry out in their home environment gives them flexibility for many reasons that they might need to use it so i appreciate that and i just caution and hope i know we mentioned it before ask for striving for consistency somewhat from school to school because i do not want that to become well my school has this my school will only have this and i know we're not going to say you know you have to have

219x y and z but as much consistency as possible so that all of our staff just district-wide feel this added what i see is an added bonus so i thank you thanks ma'am thank you any further discussion all right seeing none all in favor please signify with eye any opposed nay all right the motion passes thank you dr matilda thank you at this point we will entertain a motion to enter closed session chairman happy close session to consider the confidential personnel information protected under gs143-318.11 a3 and a6 to consult with the board of education attorney and preserve the attorney client privilege is provided in gs 143-31318.11 a3 due to current litigation wake county board of education be town of apex 21 cvs 009-1444 to consult with the board of education attorney and preserve the attorney-client

220privilege as provided in gs 143-318-1183 thank you miss johnson hustler for that motion is there a second all right we have a motion in a second any discussion all right um would all in favor please signify with a sign of i any opposed nay all right we are now in closed session thank you everyone