Board Meeting 1-18-22

001good evening everyone and welcome to our board of education regularly scheduled meeting on january 18th 2022 it's 5 32 pm and we have a quorum all of our board members are in attendance as well as the superintendent and other staff members and our attorney jonathan bloomberg if you will all rise and join me in saying the pledge of allegiance thank you of the united states of america thank you all very much we are going to move forward and hear from our superintendent good evening chairman happy board members congratulations to the 16 outstanding teachers who have been named as finalists for the diane kent parker first year teacher awards each year we honor outstanding teachers from elementary middle and high school levels as well as from special education they are recognized for navigating the challenges of

002a new job with grace skill and confidence and for serving as models for their colleagues and inspiration for their students this year's elementary finalists are lauren blanton from a b combs magnet elementary school amelia murray from wildwood forest elementary hannah rowe from sycamore creek elementary and soren bradley from westlake elementary school the middle school finalists are courtney smith neal from martin magnet middle school dr leif tornquist from west cary middle denise bitz's from salem middle and thomas fairbairn from dillard drive magnet middle school the high school finalists are gianna buccilato from broughton magnet high kaylee clifton from athens drive magnet high school maya sinclair from rollsville high and samaria warsaw from willow spring high school and the special education finalists are taylor brown from buckhorn creek elementary cornisha middleton from carroll magnet middle school and

003tamer muhammad from cedar fork elementary and laura velez from west millbrook magnet middle the winners will be announced next month congratulations again to all of these talented and dedicated teachers for their commitment to their profession and to their students one of our newest schools neuse river buildings that is school buildings neuse river middle school in nightdale has been selected by the town's land use review board as the recipient of a community appearance award this award is a testament to the hard work of our facility staff and architects who design and build aesthetically pleasing and environmentally sustaining school buildings it also recognizes the efforts of the neuse river school community for taking pride in the maintenance of their building thanks to the investment of our county commissioners and wake county voters we have been able to

004build state-of-the-art schools all over the district that are both high quality centers of learning and assets to their communities congratulations to everyone involved in building and maintaining this excellent facility the community appearance award will be presented at tomorrow's nightdale town council meeting finally i would like to thank wake ed partnership for launching the tools for schools program a free classroom supply store for our teachers i'd also like to thank the companies foundations non-profit organizations and individual donors who will fund the bulk purchase of these supplies for the store the program will start by targeting teachers at some of our highest needs schools in wake county these teachers were invited to sign up for time slots to visit the store today and will receive more information when the store adds additional shopping days in the coming

005weeks more schools will be added over the next few months until all schools and teachers in wake county are being served i along with chair mahaffey other district representatives including dr martin had the honor of attending an open house last week or the grand opening event this morning and this morning the first group of teachers shopped at the store on piney plains road in kerry for free supplies north carolina public school teachers spend on average 526 dollars of their own money on classroom supplies each year this program will allow wake county teachers to keep more of their hard-earned pay while continuing to support the needs of their students my sincere gratitude to all those who have made this program possible wake ed partnership will need the continued support of the community and business partners to

006sustain this effort through donations of new and gently used items and through financial contributions learn more about how you can help at wake ed dot org slash tools number four schools thank you that concludes my comments thank you superintendent moore and for our teachers that go to this space um a lot of times as an educator you hear oh well there's free stuff available and it's a sad cardboard box in the corner with you know ripped pages and and folded edges this is a store that has brand new items brand name items and we are certainly thankful to the members of the business community who donated in order to make this possible for our schools and our teachers and our students i think i've never seen that many post-it notes outside of an office supply

007store so certainly certainly thankful and also thankful to the wake county staff that helped collaborate and help folks decide what was important what do our students need in the classroom i also want to recognize wake up and read is beginning their book drive they are looking for sites to collect books to promote literacy around wake county if your organization that you're affiliated with or your school is interested in hosting a dropbox please go to wakeupandread.org and i want to take a moment to thank our students teachers our families and broader community members for the flexibility we've had to have this past couple of weeks with this omicron surge and just thank you it's it's hard it's difficult we know it's not easy and we know having our students in our schools is very important so

008that we can be with them and and face to face but i just want to take a moment and thank everyone for that flexibility we know it's going to continue we're not through it as we heard from our health partners earlier in the work session but i think it's important to acknowledge that this is difficult and also to thank the people for their understanding that this has impacted so thank you vice chair hegarty thank you chair mahaffey i'll keep things brief i do want to say our january bac meeting for district 7 has been moved we will move that to february on february 24th and we'll send out more information about that once that's available we do have our board retreat coming up and i'm excited about this this is a wonderful opportunity i think

009to get back together as a board talk about the work that we're doing the work that we can do better areas that we want to explore and i know the weather is a little bit threatening right now but i'm looking forward to that and hope everyone can participate and can attend and then again just i want to echo what chairman hafey had said about some of the challenges that we've undergone coming back to school after winter break and the staffing shortages we've experienced and everybody who's been working in our schools at all levels really chipping in really going above and beyond the call of duty to keep the schools up and running as best we can for almost as many almost all of our schools we've had a couple of instances where the vacancies were

010just too much to keep everything up and operational but i really want to i really want to sincerely thank and commend everyone who's put in all of those effort extra efforts to keep our our kids in the classroom so thank you very much okay ms scott thank you and good evening i appreciate uh superintendent moore highlighting the work of news river middle school is a gorgeous facility and i feel badly we haven't really been able to collectively visit as much they open during covet so it's been hard but they absolutely do great and also for our teachers who live who live and work a little far away we're excited about with a courier that will eventually be part of the tools for schools as well and the last thing i just wanted to highlight was

011i thought there was a really great article on ed enc about the pandemic ebt benefits so i would strongly encourage families who who could benefit from that program if their students are out due to cover those benefits have been expanded and wanted to thank the folks at the federal level as well for making sure that we could continue providing those benefits to our students thank you thank you ms scott ms carter thank you um i had the honor of visiting crossroads flex and i just want to spend a little time you know i like to kind of highlight a few schools that might be a little different or unique and it's actually right next door here and i really enjoyed learning more about it and just how individualized it is and what it takes to

012make that happen and i they have a board which i really enjoyed because it had this picture of the students and their pursuits and you go from alpine skiing to women weightlifting which i really liked and then i was like wow okay and then swimming and you know tennis or all kinds of pursuits dance and then you look around the clock not the classroom but the school itself and they have silhouettes around on the walls and they add a silhouette once a student enrolls in the school that has a different pursuit that isn't already on the wall if that makes sense and i really think that's a great way to create a sense of community with a school that's might be a little um difficult to do because you're not it's you know you're doing

013so much virtual you have students that might travel a couple weeks at a time perhaps a month at a time and they can come in and they're becoming a part of the building itself in a way and what their pursuits and interests are reflected and i just wanted to thank the staff there and principal ray for spending a good amount of time with me to go over it and just your flex speaking of flexibility i mean you have students that you might not see if they're traveling ensuring they're still engaging online keeping track of their in-person hours when they're on campus checking their grades making sure they're getting assignments in and i i think that is a challenge can be a challenge anywhere but particularly in that type of setting and they're doing it and

014doing it well and helping these students be able to continue to stay with wake county pursue whatever that may be for that student and earn their high school diploma and i think it's another example of how being responsive to the community and the needs of our students and different programs that might be helpful that look a little different and being able to respond to that and give the community another option to be able to stay with us is a great thing so i just wanted to point that out and i wanted to congratulate all the mid-year graduates because i think today was the first ceremony okay for that and i just want to say congratulations you all made it whatever you may be doing military career college and i wish you all the best it's

015exciting so i was like oh yeah that stumbled upon us kind of quickly and then in closing i just wanted to say on sunday january 30th at 4 pm i'll be hosting another d9 connection meeting you can email me for the link or it will be my blog d9 connection thank you thank you miss carter dr martin thank you um so i'll as superintendent moore noted uh a big thank you to weight head partnership the tools for school store is uh fantastic they've done a great job of staffing it it and and as chairman happy noted it's not just a a box in a in the corner it really is a a nice place as i shared in remarks they asked me to to give a few remarks in support of the board this morning

016you know i share my my tinge of mixed emotions and that tinge of mixed emotions is that we need a store like tools for schools because what we really need to have in our schools is that each classroom is appropriately supplied so that we don't need an extra volunteer place to go to to get those things it really ought to be there so thank you thank you thank you to wake ed partnership for stepping up and meeting a need and as a community let's make a commitment to make sure that every classroom is appropriately supply supplied i too want to give congratulations to the mid-year graduates uh congratulations to your work and all the best as you pursue your future um as i have done uh for quite some time now i i want to

017update us on uh the covet cases that we're dealing with here in the district the last week there were 2 243 student cases 330 staff cases that's 4.6 times higher than the previous weekly high so um something that we need to pay attention to in wake county the uh latest uh seven day average uh data is 2947 cases in the week per 100 000 population so that means in the last week 2.9 percent of the wake county citizens were tested positive for covid public comment is later in the agenda thank you very much the north carolina department health and human services breaks down that that information uh well and by the way i i normally will not respond to public statements like that in a meeting but the issue here is not death the issue

018is we shouldn't be wanting people to get sick even if it's the flu yes if it were deaths if there were significant number of deaths particularly a significant number of deaths in children children are not supposed to die we would have an even worse situation so we need to be looking at cases we need to be looking at infectivity as i noted in the work session i think it's important for us to even consider what would be the case if three percent of wake county's population came down with the flu in one week that would cause significant disruptions to business all right the north carolina department of health and human services data lags but it does give us the breakout by cohort the last week reported was for the week of january 9th for which

019their average was three hundred and five cases per hundred thousand population the five to nine year olds were three thousand two hundred and sixty five cases per hundred thousand population the ten to fourteen year olds were 3429 cases per 100 000 population the 15 to 17 year olds were 3105 cases per 100 000 population three and four weeks ago the student numbers were lower than uh the county average and then several other groups but this week the five to nine year olds and 10 to 14 year olds are the cohorts with the highest infective infectivity of any cohorts in wake county the other thing we need to be paying attention to is that based on the that data which does lag so these things will change but all cohorts except the five to nine year

020olds the 15 to 17 year olds and the two to four year olds are decreasing from last week to this week those three groups are five to nine fifteen to seventeen and two to four are increasing so we may be approaching a peak for everybody but we're still on the rise for our schools these numbers uh continue to give me pause and concern that i raise at our last board meeting and i raise again that i don't feel like we're providing accommodations for people who are concerned about sending their children into these high infectivity settings and this probably also goes uh to staff going into the high infectivity settings we don't have to shut the whole system down but do we need to create options for people who are concerned to voluntarily go remote or

021have some other accommodations i really think it's important that some accommodations be made we're more willing to give accommodations for family vacation and travel than we are for people who are concerned here the other thing that uh i think is important to note is that how do we respond to all of this we need to respond as the public health staff at our work session uh noted today with layers of protection there is no one thing that's that will solve everything there are breakthrough cases with vaccines mass are not 100 effective there is nothing that is 100 effective um but that's why we need the layered approach there is almost no question uh i suspect that we're going to hear comments about masks you know that the masks the holes in masks are bigger than

022what you know than virus particles it's true virus particles um are generally between about 20 and uh nanometers that is smaller than the holes in your mask the minimum size of the coveted aerosolized virus particle is reported to be about 4.7 microns again smaller than the size of your masks but guess what the laws of diffusion and effusion mean that it's going to block particles is it going to block all of them no it's going to reduce flow but then we're also going to hear that oh my god it's going to trap co2 and it's going to not let oxygen come in well guess what co2 is 40 times smaller than the smallest virus particle so if you're making these arguments that the masks won't stop your virus then don't make the argument that it

023will stop that it will stop co2 because co2 is 40 times smaller and oxygen is even smaller than that so oxygen can get through your mask the most easily co2 next it's a long ways till you get to the other particles so you can't sort of make an arc an argument that i can't get oxygen but it won't stop a virus because the particles are just different in size we need a layered approach there's no such thing as perfect protection but masks actually do resist uh the this spread it's a part of our layer you know and i share these numbers and discuss the layers of protection not as i'm again i'm sure we're going to hear tonight because we're afraid i don't wear a mask because i'm afraid i wear a mask because i

024want to see this pandemic end i want to work together as a community to help this pandemic end it's not because i'm afraid i don't wear a seat belt because i'm afraid i've worn a seat belt all of my life i have not had a need for a seat belt in nearly 40 years but when i had a need for a seat belt i'm sure glad i had it on because it saved my life or saved me from from further injury i don't wear a seat belt because i'm afraid i don't brush my teeth because i'm afraid i'm afraid of getting cavities i brush my teeth because it's good hygiene it's good health it keeps me in better health i do the same thing with the mask i do not wear it because i'm afraid

025i do it for my community i do it to try to end this pandemic i do it because it's good public health practice good public health practice is going to lower our transmission in schools and everywhere else we've got to get this virus under control thank you thank you dr martin miss johnson hossler thank you very much i want to start with what one of my former colleagues would have led with so i can't be remiss if i didn't give you a heads up that wake up and read annual book drive starts january 29 through february 28th so if you want to host a drive or drop off books or donate or volunteer you can go to their website at wake up and read.org and i strongly encourage you to i can give you all

026the data points but i hear mr fletcher is going to make a powerpoint so i'll be sure to share all the data once he creates the powerpoint for wake up and read but it is has been since i've been on this board one of the one of one of our prize partnerships for our families and so please i strongly encourage you to participate and visit the website um again i'm going to refer you back every month as well because we're starting a second semester for weekend partnerships partners read in our school so again you can also go to wikipartnership.org website for partners read in our schools that allow folks to one give books every week we do it on fridays to students who don't have them and you also get to read with them for

027them however they choose to do so those two wake county public school partnerships i strongly encourage you to participate to support our students thanks thank you miss johnson hustler miss kushner thank you good evening and i just want to add my gratitude and thanks to every staff member every student all the families and all our community who are helping to support our schools at this time and have them open for in-person instruction for our students and just want to add that thanks thank you thank you and i do want to know miss cash uh sends her regrets for not being able to be here she is with her family for a celebration but she will be sure to tune in later so that she can review the conversation and hear what has been brought to

028the board so we will now move on to the approval of the meeting agenda is there a motion to approve so moved okay second we have a motion for miss johnson hossler a second from ms carter any discussion all right hearing none all in favor of approving the meeting agenda signify by sign of eye any opposed nay all right thank you very much we now move on to our information items the first one being our superintendent updates superintendent moore good evening again i'll be updating the information brief statements that summarize what happened in the work session today there were three items in the work session the first one was an opportunity for the board to provide feedback with our partners from rti in preparation for the work that we're doing around our strategic plan to

029answer some foundational questions about our students needs wants desires futures as we move into the mission vision core beliefs portion of our work later on with the agenda we're supposed to continue that work at the board's retreat the second item in our work session today was that some information and opportunity for q a with our partners from north carolina dhhs and wake county health department they brought information around the current status of metrics with covid vaccination number of other pieces and provided an opportunity for board members to ask questions clarifying questions make some requests around additional data as well as some more specific answers to a few things that they they're going to have to go back and work on so we appreciate our visitors today and the opportunity to engage with them the third

030item that the board had in their work session today was a review of the under-enrolled multi-track year-round schools that we have in the district and staff recommendation for changes for what is now i believe will be the 22-23 school year to move three of our schools from multi-track year round to a single track year round using several data points that include enrollment where they stand in position to the cip and either new developments housing developments in the area or new schools that are opening or other overcrowded schools in the area as well as in some cases some information that came from the families of students in these schools so the board will vote at its february first meeting on a recommendation from staff to move westlake elementary westlake middle and middle creek elementary schools to

031a single track year round for the beginning with the 22-23 school year those were the three items in the work session thank you superintendent moore um we have had a lot of questions as board members in our inboxes and in the community about remote instruction and so we've asked our attorney mr jonathan bloomberg to talk about the limited authority of school systems using remote instruction to count towards the required instructional days or hours that outlined in what is now session law but we will refer to it as senate bill 654 mr bloomberg thank you thank you and is my mike's are my mics on okay fantastic grateful for the opportunity to provide some information around senate bill 654 which as the chair stated is now current law there's uh many provisions of this bill but

032we're focusing on the provisions that relate to remote instruction and the starting point on it is and the key focus today is is when is it legal when does the board when does the school district have the authority to shift from in-person instruction to remote instruction under the law and the general assembly they they put some significant restrictions on a school system's authority to to shift uh to remote instruction uh and that's what we're gonna focus on uh on this provision um the the key is is and you can proceed with the powerpoint thank you so much um the key is is you know you have to meet the calendar law requirements and so for you all that's going to be 1025 hours of instruction so shifting to remote the question is would those hours

033count towards your 1025 hours continuing then the the primary uh authority to do that under this new law is the provision that allows the school district to temporarily shift to remote instruction and it's for individual schools or classes and that that would need to be on a temporary situation due to covid and it's in the and the law breaks it down it says necessary due to covet exposure and specifically that those exposures result in insufficient school personnel or required student quarantines so that's a limited grant of authority for the school system to do it and that that limitation in fact that provision that allows that authority is only in place right now for this school year the that that when the district exercises this authority for again temporarily shifting an individual class or a school

034that that it needs to report that to the department of public instruction within 72 hours and then and hear some key language that the district that that school or that class shall return to in-person instruction as soon as personnel are available or the required quarantines are complete so again very limited and temporary and some legal requirements associated with exercising that that is that's the the primary covid directed provision for shifting from in person to remote there is the general calendar law which does grant five days of allowing remote instruction for emergencies and a public health issue the pandemic would be an emergency so you can have five days and that can be that can include a whole district-wide shift to remote for up to five days but it's cumulative so if you had if you

035shifted say three or four days three days for weather conditions um and that came up inclement weather and the shift was for three days and then two for for for covid situation then that would be your five uh for the year um so those are the the two sort of provisions that i wanted to primarily address i didn't want to in the interest of just thoroughness i wanted to just mention virtual instruction because that is also covered by senate bill 654 um as you're familiar with your remote instruction emote academies and the the process that you went through or applications and the like for this school year a district can provide virtual instruction with the consent of the parent or guardian and following the remote instructional plan that you've submitted to the department of public

036instruction as weak has done that's for this school year after this school year and i think this is some important language that the only way that you could have a virtual instructional program is if you basically had a school code already put in place to uh to cover that school and uh and that that's and you would still need to you know other than that uh you're not permitted unless the general assembly grants it um there is a uh there is a a provision in senate bill 654 that says that virtual instruction is is under review it's being studied and there's supposed to be a report out in march of this year from a working group regarding virtual instruction so a little bit of stay tuned on that so i mean that's that's that's what

037i wanted to uh review with you all you can you can see those the primary conclusions you do have a board policy on it just to be clear you first have to have the authority under the law to be able to shift to or use remote instruction when that's in place then your policy would kick in the policy does allow the superintendent to do it but if it's going to be on any kind of ongoing basis that would require board approval of course the law would limit it as well in terms of any kind of ongoing basis and there's provisions in your policy about providing notice to the board um so those are my uh that's the presentation the conclusions are listed on there i'm happy to entertain any questions are there questions from board

038members on this information item miss kushner thank you i wanted to um see if superintendent war could tell us where we are on banked time do we have some bank bowers in the bank we have had a practice for a number of years now going back six years maybe or more of ensuring that all of our schools have what the equivalent of three days worth of banked hours that can be used so that we meet the minimum threshold of 1025 that has allowed us over the years when we had a weather day or another situation to close school for students for the day but still have the required number of instructions that the day did not have to be made up that's what the banked hours are for we did have all of our schools

039continue to build into their their daily schedules three days worth of bank time we have used one day of bank time so far this year so we have two days remaining of bank time um that we could use moving forward and recognizing that we have january and february still ahead of us with some inclement weather and yes and we have used the bank time generally we use them for weather situations thank you further questions mr bloomberg i did have one sure when you say cumulative and i just i'm asking because we've had several cl a few classes that have had to go to remote it's that piece so if the district were to go remote on top of those classes that had already been remote that's adding to those students cumulative hours for their class

040not so the five days they've already spent three and then the district does three then they're over by one day correct i'm just making sure that no so if there is if there is a a shift to remote based on the on a temporary basis for covid reasons necessary for covered reasons the five days don't that does not count towards your five days so you that could happen and if it you know in in in it it's temporary and as soon as staff is back in place the co the quarantines are resolved then need to come back in actively and in person in that situation but those hours would not count against the five the five are separate standalone emergency hours thank you i appreciate the clarification yep sorry mr no problem they're coming at

041the last minute no i apologize my pleasure my pleasure um chair mahaffey's comment inspired another question so under your interpretation of 654 senate bill 654 will we be able to offer the virtual academy in its current form next school year um no no no you would you would not be able to offer it in its current form that the provisions quoted in there about if you have a school number that's been established through dpi by the deadline that those could be considered for um to be virtual schools where the primary form those schools the primary form of instruction needs to be virtual at those schools so it's essentially a virtual school but but as it was constituted this year in the wake county schools of schools within schools of allowing virtual instruction that is that

042is a limited one-year grant for this school year and is not in place at this time for the upcoming school year thank you mr bloomberg so just a quick follow-up then to superintendent moore the approach of that deadline i assume is coming up soon or how much time will we have if there is any sort of additional virtual option for next year either a standalone school or something like that that would need to be set up we do have an update to the board scheduled sometime in the next month or so next maybe early spring um on the status of what options would look like for next year but mr bloomberg is correct the school within a school options that we've had where students have been able to maintain their relationship with their base school

043as a part of being in a virtual option is not an option for the 22-23 school year but it sounds like that planning work is going on now yes okay thank you all right i'm not going to leave this time until i'm sure i'm going to do one more look okay all right thank you very much mr blumberg thank you very much appreciate it okay we are now moving on to public comment properly worn face coverings are required for those attending board of education meetings if you are unable to wear a face covering because of a disability you may watch the live stream of board meetings or listen by phone during the public comment session you may speak for up to three minutes you will see a yellow light at the podium when you have

04430 seconds from meeting remaining and a red light when your time is up speakers are welcome to offer comments or criticism directed of substantive ideas actions or procedures of the board and individual board members in the interest of maintaining civility and decorum however speakers are encouraged to refrain from personal attacks and insults directed at the board individual board members staff or members of the general public the laws and policy of north carolina provide that these issues or concerns involving individual personnel matters are confidential and therefore not appropriate for the public comment settings concerns related to personnel issues may be addressed through applica applicable wcpss personnel the grievance policy or other applicable policies speakers including students may discuss issues and matters of general concern but should refrain from discussing confidential student information concerns related to confidential

045student matters may be addressed through applicable wcpss personnel the grievance policy or other applicable policies the following citizens have submitted comments as part of our public comment portion for this evening's agenda their comments are linked on the same online agenda that we are using for tonight's meeting that agenda as well as guidelines for those wishing to submit comments for future meetings can be found at the school district's website wcpss.net under the tab labeled school board we have 13 written comments from members of the public the topics are as follows two speakers on covet preventative measures including mask mandate support and opposing three on social media comments and seven in a variety of topics ranging from athletics board questions on candidate selection masks attending board meetings calendar changes balancing public health and academic needs and informed

046consent for medical therapies at this time we will be in the in-person public comment speakers and begin with steve lauderdale thank you i decided to be very brief your work session today was very informative thank you and to your staff i really want to wish the board superintendent moore and all the employees all the employees of the system best wishes for 2022. thank you thank you our next speaker is carrie bly hello again we are still here reminding you of the need for clear organized math resources in your middle and high school math classes one of the best pieces of advice we have ever received is to never bring forth an issue to school administration that you could not control or that you could not solve i think you tuned pete and i out because

047you think you can't solve the problem that we have and i keep coming here because i think you can the following is an important piece of history that you should have been capable of communicating to us from the very beginning it's from a list of recommendations by the e-learning commission and it reads as follows north carolina should consider the timeline for the adoption of common core standards and assessments as they consider the adoption and purchasing of mathematics and english textbooks there is a major national effort underway to develop high quality digital resources aligned with the common core standards that will replace traditional textbooks i'm going to paraphrase the next part we recommend that local school districts be allowed to carry over funding across years for new mathematics and english curriculums until the products being developed

048by the bill gates and pearson foundation other publishers and other organizations and perhaps state consortia developing innovative materials become available and they all thought that would happen by the year 2014. the roadmap laid out perfectly illustrates what has happened in the school district it's like you followed it to a t it explains historical actions of north carolina education initiatives and legislative agendas the adults in the room have been waiting and seeing if other publishers or other organizations would come along and solve the problem of translating common core math standard for you and when the innovation took too long and the sand was running out of the hourglass you had to pull the trigger and purchase something but i keep asking you did you do something amazing because the larger question is did you purchase a

049trusted math resource that kids can learn from or did you purchase common core prototypes because it was part of a roadmap because your friends were doing it because you promised you would or were still because you needed to look like you were doing something and i don't want to believe that but that is what the history shows we understand that you cannot control or change the north carolina standards we understand that you cannot change the sequencing you're actually one of only two states in the entire united states that cannot control the sequencing of your math however what you can control is the usability comprehensive nature and quality of the math resources that you put in front of my children because our kids are stuck with confusing frankenstein resources not quite digital yet not visual print

050of yesteryears and none of it comes even close to giving students a fraction of a chance to take ownership of their own math comprehension and i still don't know how you did it but we have actually taken math away from these students kids may not be performing poorly in math because they are inept they may simply be performing poorly because they are disorganized because you are disorganized because i'm disorganized as a parent and we continue to respectfully ask you to start providing such resources to your teachers and students because we're all tired of waiting and seeing and we hope that you are too thank you our next speaker is reynaldo olvaria how y'all doing um thank y'all for the work that you do i was here during the you know the the prior session and

051i realized i don't know how you're doing you'll sit down for that amount of hours without a break but i'm here because i want to emphasize that when you're going to your retreat and having other meetings that you tackle the issue of making sure for example i haven't seen i looked over some of the videos of these meetings and so forth i haven't seen any translators or disabled interpreters you know with the signage and whatever so i just want to make sure that you make an effort to include two populations in your future meetings um and that's again that's based on my limited amount of attending these meetings seeing um and looking around and seeing there's any interpreters around or translators and i haven't seen none so i just want to make sure that when

052you do your future planning that you include those two populations um you know and for example i live in wendell and and in carver elementary i think they got like a 40 um student ratio hispanic so that's the significant you know so just consider that thank you again for your work your hard work and uh if you can a little bit more organization when you have the little hecklers around but thank you um god bless thank you our next speaker is julie page hi my name is julie page i am the chapter chair of moms for liberty in wake county i am here to speak about sexually inappropriate content available to minors in schools i submitted a formal grievance about this on november 30th i had a conference call with marlo gaddis on december 20th

053and i have not heard back since you are all aware of the obscene books that are physically present in school and classroom libraries as well as electronically available on school issued devices wake county public school system can no longer plead ignorance to this fact north carolina general statute 14-190.1 orders that dissemination of obscene writing with offensive sexual conduct is unlawful the judgment of these materials is held to a higher standard when children are the audience sexual conduct includes vaginal anal or oral intercourse that is actual or stimulated normal or perverted masturbation excretory functions or lewd exhibition of uncovered genitals an act that depicts torture physical restraint or flagellation of a nude person here are some titles of vulgar material that parents may not be aware of almost perfect breathless me and earl and the dying

054girl out of darkness what girls are made of all of those books have some form of sex oral sex hand jobs orgasm masturbation popping cherries lewd acts vulgar language adult to child rape [Applause] an exemption to schools and school associates regarding criminal charges does not make these books acceptable so what are you going to do about this problem because it is a problem for many parents sitting right here in this room and watching this meeting online right now moms for liberty does not want to ban books however obscene materials of any type should require express and fully informed parental consent express means in writing in person with a photo id so a child cannot forge a signature fully informed means direct quotes and passages of the illicit language in the physical book to review we

055are asking for the board to show that you care about all children and all parents in the school system not just those with an extreme view don't all good and responsible parents place filters on the internet look at movie and game ratings check song lyrics for their children by requiring parent parental consent for minors you can show us that children matter parents matter and choice matters do the right thing on this and maybe just maybe you can save your seat in november thank you our next speaker is katie long katy long yep got papers and papers and papers i am here tonight for a new reason i'm here to inform you of the 26 laws that you every single one of you have violated both state federal and international laws not to mention you've also

056violated the wake county commissioner's orders you'll want to pay attention and hear what i have to say a public official bond is a type of charity bond that serves as a statutory obligation requiring faithful performance fidelity and integrity of a public official's duties to the public this bond is one of the oldest forms of written guarantee that requires persons to obtain to qualify for office i bet you didn't know that huh you are bonded insured and are carrying individual liability insurance so if you're in acting capacity as a public official you are causing war i mean if you cause wrong or harm we the people have a recourse and can hold you accountable you have violated your oath of office i along with other parents are serving each and one of you a letter of

057content to file a public official charity liability claim and intent to file caller of law you each have been served with a letter of intent which we will file if the following conditions are not corrected within 72 hours or you can vote at the end of the meeting [Applause] those violations need to be corrected are remove the mask mandate now remove all the offensive material from school libraries and all premises immediately yeah you're smiling over there huh stop all pcr testing in all public schools and districts parents will have the right to review all material that is taught in public schools and any material that you wish to introduce that means our approval and last the federal funds that you receive the sr3 you either return it to the federal government or you use those

058funds to help our children who are failing in school to hire tutors you have violent 2026 state laws and the letter of intent will cover those laws north carolina laws the international laws and the federal laws and let me just tell you a couple of federal laws civil action for deprivation of rights and the cons conspiracy to interfere with civil rights if i can have security ma'am serve the letter 10 to each board no i do not that that's that's not how it works i know my law so if you're not going to serve them i will serve them ms long ms long ms long you may give them to our attorney thank you ms long excuse me he pays your paycheck so she should have to tell her she pays your paycheck she can

059actually fire you today okay thanks and we'll support you and we'll stand with you you treat her like a criminal she's giving you something you deserve ms long thank you she's been asked this is speaker is dr chad slatter dr chad slaughter madam superintendent members of the board tonight i rise on behalf of my three children to appeal a kerry high school review committee's decision to deny my request that the book lawn boy by jonathan everson be removed from the school's library because it contains sexually explicit and objectively obscene material you should know that on january the 12th the central instructional materials advisory committee voted six to one to support the school's decision in response to my appeal to that body super policy 1316 i will appeal this decision but i thought it important to

060respond publicly and afford you the opportunity to hear passages directly from the book in the event you haven't had the chance to read it and first let me say that whether or not a book is a signed reading when a book is curated into a school library that constitutes approval by the school for the book's content and an implicit recommendation for students to read the material and so i ask you does wake county public schools approve and recommend the following material that i'll read in these three passages and although i'm going to shorten the foul language for the benefit of all of us i want you to know that all the words are written out in full in the text i quote placing her knee between my legs she wrestled off her sweater and unbuttoned

061her blouse and pulled off her panties and she climbed on top of me before i even had a chance to savor the moment i'm not saying that i wasn't grateful to this day i remain grateful to gina or whatever whim or combination of alcohol and restlessness prompted her to unbutton my jeans and straddle me in the passenger seat of that car and quote i quote no it was risky but it wasn't dumb that's what i'm trying to say sucking d word is dumb d words are dirty dude really dirty mine sure is maybe you ought to wash it unquote and quote g d effing c word f word s word a word effer i yelled i flailed and stomped my boot in disgust as a dollop of s word hit the sliding glass door s

062word effing mother of f f you i said so let me ask if one of your colleagues uttered those words at the school district office would that constitute a hostile work environment if you uttered those words that your place of employment would the hr department have something to say on the matter if a student uttered those words in class how would you as board members expect the teacher to respond we have a responsibility to protect and to safeguard our children exposing them to obscene sexually explicit and pornographic material harms the physical their physical and emotional health by normalizing the sexualization of children and stealing their innocence parents not literary critics should decide what and how our children are taught especially with regard to human sexuality and sexual expression i look forward to working with you

063on my appeal thank you for listening thank you our next speaker is jessica lewis or i'm sorry chelsea bartel chelsea bartel good evening thank you for your attention to public comments and for your work as board members my name is dr chelsea bartle i'm a licensed psychologist and parent of two wake county students i have been continuously impressed by the work our public educators specialized instructional support personnel and staff are doing in the face of inadequate funding from our state legislature reduced staffing and ever-increasing demands first thank you for continuing to support masking requirements there is no scientific evidence to support claims that children and adolescents are psychologically harmed by wearing masks the problem is not the masks the problem is the pandemic and our response to the stress fear and grief it brings us

064i ask that you facilitate transparency and reduce anxiety in the community by improving management and communication of wake county coveted data students and educators deserve timely accurate data presented in a clear easily accessible format with graphs collecting the data is undoubtedly a huge task but the data are useless if they cannot be quickly summarized to inform decision making i also request clear communication regarding the status of pcr testing in schools given the degree of spread in our schools right now it is safe to assume that many of our students and staff are in contact with people who have covid every time they go to school i'm troubled by reports of long delays in receiving pool results and follow-up testing all while those in positive pools are still expected to report i hope you can encourage

065the district to develop a plan for flattening the curve in our schools maybe using rapid tests for positive pools or requiring follow-up negative tests to return which i know in the board meeting your work session was discussed finally as a parent of a student with an iep that is out of compliance due to a specialist resignation i urge you to work for timely communication with all families of identified children many parents across the district are likely unaware that their children's ieps are out of compliance and these students are afforded legal protections to ensure they can receive the specially designed instruction and related supports they require to access the curriculum i know today i was told by the ec person i communicated with that there are for example 11 open speech-language pathologist positions county-wide and no

066applications for those positions and then i was told that it's the principal's responsibility to communicate to parents that students ieps are out of compliance which maybe that could be reconsidered because that's a lot for a principal to explain and communicate if wake cannot hire educators and specialists for the increasing vacant positions families must be informed that these services are not being provided and must be given guidance as quickly as possible thank you for your time thank you dr bartle next speaker is jessica lewis good evening again i have shared many of my personal family stories of what masking isolation in school has been like for my children through this pandemic i have emailed you all with questions and concerns only to get one response back from karen carter she always comes back with the same

067answer as we do not make these decisions but does nothing to offer direction my last email was asking y'all to provide your medical license and if you cannot you have no legal authority to deny my son's doctor's order stating he should not wear a mask in school at any time i have a hard time believing that if you have the authority to vote on whether or not our children wear masks that you do not have the authority to approve approve a mask exemption this is where the inconsistency lies within our failing school system you continue to keep passing the buck in a circle and never give parents a direct answer to our questions no time to share specific scientific evidence yes jim martin i said scientific evidence that mass do not prevent transmission a may

0682020 study on covid published by the uscdc found that face masks had no effect neither as personal protective equipment or as a source control a danish controlled study with 6 000 participants found no significant effect of high quality medical face masks against covet infection in a community setting the oxford center of evidence-based medicine found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks against virus infection or transmission new england journal of medicine came to the conclusion that face masks offer little to no protection in everyday life a german professor who studies viruses found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks that in that the improper daily use of mass by the public lead to an increase in infections an analysis by the us cdc found that 85 percent of

069people infected that wearing a mask did not reduce the risk of infection in january 2021 the german state of bavaria was one of the first places in the world to mandate n95 mass indicating that these mass made no difference in the spread of covid a study by the british medical journal found that mass were penetrated by 97 percent of particles in increased infection risk by retaining moisture austria was the first country in january 2021 to introduce a n95 mass mandate at the national level the mandate was further expanded in september and by november they reported the highest infection rate in the world i can go on with scientific evidence that states how mass do not prevent the spread of this virus but will you listen or will you choose to ignore the science once again

070you are masking our children for no reason in fact you are harming them and suppressing their natural immunity by forcing these mass on our children we are counting on the days till november 8th when we can get elected official officials on this board who have a backbone to stand up for what's right for our children until then please ask yourself why you continue to keep harming our children instead of helping them thank you i have been informed that our timer is not working so i will keep track of it here and i will give a 30 second visual warning and my apologies for that our next speaker is bruce foster forrester i think i'm sitting on the wrong side of the room thank you for the opportunity to speak i as well as many others

071have been before the board previously pleading with you to unmask our kids we have shared with you that multiple studies have concluded that cloth masks are ineffective at stopping the spread of covet unfortunately that did not seem to matter to you however masks are effective at spreading fear they are also make it difficult for young kids to learn to speak starve kids have needed oxygen to perform well hinder socialization and contribute to depression and he even have been a factor in driving up teen suicide by the way no wake county public school kids died of covet in 2020 and i don't think that changed in 2021 an otherwise healthy child has a one in a million chance of dying from covet but i digress this board has not seemed to care that mass cause more

072harm than they do good you have sat here dispassionately and perhaps even disinterested in what is best for our kids now i think i know why i recently came across a provision in the american rescue plan act passed into federal law in march 2021 that requires that schools continue to mass kids in order to receive s or three funding esser stands for the elementary and secondary school emergency fund what is more it appears that north carolina's department of public instruction's plan for use of the esser funds includes multiple methods of mitigating covet including universal and correct wearing of masks so my question to the board this evening is are you required to keep our kids masked in order to receive funding if so for how long are you required to mask our kids you see

073according to the wake county public school website wake county public schools is to receive approximately 214 million dollars in sr3 funding are you selling out our kids welfare and education for additional funding we have a right to know if the funding ties your hands from doing the right thing give the money back do not put funding ahead of our kids well-being even if not legally you are morally accountable for your actions and the voters will hold you accountable on november 8th our next speaker is lindsay tobin thank you and just to address dr martin's comments earlier covet is not going away that's all the indication so if that's how you guys feel about math then are you saying that we're going to be wearing masks forever in our schools that is a question that needs

074to be answered and if mass don't block all the virus but block the flow the same principle would apply for the oxygen and co2 now to address the tweet and picture that the nc democrats put out this week it was very offensive to the parents that come here and disagree with you guys no one denounced it miss scott and dr martin liked it this is the non-physic this is a nonpartisan position you guys represent all of us you should be embarrassed about that and i hope more parents go and look at it we come here now let's talk about the misinformation that that tweet spoke about we come to advocate for mass optional because maths do not stop the spread of covert at 19. if it were true they worked i don't think we would

075have such a high rate of positive tests in schools and community among people who are wearing these masks and vax three times furthermore the former fda commissioner dr scott gottlieb stated on january 2nd on face the nation i quote a cloth mask is not going to protect you from a virus that spreads through airborne transmission end quote so why are we still forcing this on our children we know the negative effects of mass have for learning especially in young children the anxiety and i hope that you guys do not go on the other extreme and try to put kids an n95 mask for seven to eight hours a day five days a week kids and parents will speak out against this next bit of misinformation the vaccine will stop you from getting sick or transmission

076of the virus obviously we see triple testing positive on january 10th the cd on cnn the cdc director rochelle walinski stated i quote our vaccines are working exceptionally well they continue to work well for delta with regard to severe illness and death what they can can't do anymore is prevent transmission end quote so why are we updating guidance that treats vaccinated and unvaccinated differently and discriminates against unvaccinated children if both transmit the virus next piece of misinformation childhood hospitalizations are over counted many of us of us have stated that referencing child hospitalization rate does not differentiate between hospitalized because of covid or with covet on december 30th thought your foul tree stout it stated on msnbc i quote if you look at the children hospitalized many of them are hospitalized with covet as opposed to

077because of covet if a child goes into the hospital they are automatically tested for covet and will get counted as a covet hospitalization individual when in fact they may go in for a broken leg so it's over counting the number of children end quote lastly pcr tests are not accurate on december 29th rachelle lewinsky stated i quote we know that pcr tests can stay positive for up to 12 weeks end quote given that our parents have been correct on many of these covet issues i ask that you please realize that we have the best interest of our children at heart and the parents are the correct authority to make health decisions for our children children should not continue to bear the burden of this virus for the adults we ask that you make mass vaccines

078and testing optional going forward thank you our next speaker is becky lou hobbs hi i'm becky wuhobbs i'm a 16-year resident in district 4 and i've been a ray county resident for much much longer than that at the special board meeting last week one of the candidates spoke about how parents want to be heard and acknowledged he's correct we do because the board did not respond to my emailed concerns for the past couple of years i started coming to the board meetings here i met other parents with similar grievances to mine also at this special meeting the board asked questions to the candidates one of those questions called those of us who speak vocal groups the one reading the question laughed and that was followed by the board laughing why is the board calling those

079of us who exercise our right to to voice our public comments and concerns and then laugh at us it's disrespectful and then there was a january 4th board meeting where the chair without any kind of policy or reasoning reduce total attendance to 30 people including the board this room here is about 3 200 square feet when you do the math it's with proper social distancing that's about 90 people in the room but during this meeting you're bored you're sitting just like that the press was like they are there's actually more press than there are today the rest of this room was empty and only seven people were allowed in it that's just i can't your actions show that you do not listen to parents your actions show that you don't want us here but let

080me remind you november 8th is coming you are elected representatives of us you work for us now i'm going to address the elephant in the room there was a board member appointed last week i don't see him here and i saw that the swearing-in ceremony was canceled and there hasn't been a reason given so last week you appointed a member i understand that's policy it was stated by several board members that during the meeting that candidates must be a resident of district four but it appears mr ardis is not his voter registration business registration puts him in district one i i you know i would i just i was wanting to hear somebody address this before we even got here um so not only did district four people not get a chance to actually elect

081our representative the board chose somebody who appears to not be a resident i'm tired of the inequities inadequacies and the incompetence we want transparency from the board we the public the parents these are children they're so precious to us we want to trust you with our children you violated it provide proof of mr artist's artist's residency immediately if you plan to proceed to appoint him to district four and residency as in now not he plans to move there sometime soon thank you our next speaker stop ignoring us stop calling us names thank you renee suckle good evening i've been coming to these board meetings a lot people say a lot of stuff here most of the time when people come to the meetings i sit in the audience and i listen and i might have

082an opinion on somebody else's opinion but i keep silent it's all part of the democratic process and i know that people will say whatever they're going to say but recently there's been a thread underlying a lot of the comments here and last week it was finally made explicit and i can no longer stay silent apparently it's now fashionable to bully some of the most vulnerable people in our society in an attempt to score political points in the past year we've seen our lieutenant governor mark robinson say awful hateful things about gay and trans people sometimes while our superintendent of public instruction catherine truitt has stood serenely by his side and said not a word in protest here in wake county we've seen months and months of attempts to rip books out of the hands of

083our children accusing way county of disseminating so-called pornography when what they really mean is there are books with lgbtqia characters and finally again as i said at the last meeting somebody made the implicit awfully terribly explicit someone stood up here and accused trans children of having a serpent spirit repeating over and over again that these children are evil she received a round of applause from this audience so let me be crystal clear no kid deserves to be bullied in school but for particularly not trans and non-binary children we know that when trans and non-binary kids are isolated when they're told in the books that contain characters like them are obscene when we when they are deprived of warm accepting adults in their lives it harms their mental health these behaviors by adults are not without

084consequences to our children it is morally reprehensible for politicians to try to score points on the backs of our children and it is far far beyond the pale for grown adults to stand in public and call children evil and be applauded for it to any gay trans or non-binary kids who may be listening there is nothing wrong with you you are a unique irreplaceable human being who deserves to be loved unconditionally by the adults in your life you deserve to be loved and enjoyed not in spite of who you are but because of who you are i will repeat there is nothing wrong with you i'm sorry so many adults see fit to make you feel otherwise excuse me ma'am public i'm sorry ms eckel you've been very vocal during public comment and board comment

085we're going to be respectful of everyone's time we are all passionate about our children and our education here thank you very much our next speaker is russell lichtenstein i don't think so russell liechtenstein hello everyone brought my speech this time um so i finally got some a little personal i spoke with roxy who's not here tonight which was nice um brought a little personal touch to it got an email from miss mahaffey finally which was nice could be the start of a beautiful friendship a couple of things i'd like to bring attention to um the ceo of pfizer said that the vaccines offer little to no protection for the omicron and it's also my understanding that that's the only one available for children he mentioned that that one wouldn't be ready until march and based

086on what i've been reading and listening to and so forth most likely by that time omicron will be gone so it kind of renders that mood if if i'm reading that correctly i think we're kind of missing the force through the trees here you know everybody's um forgetting the natural laws of viruses and you know how they trans transmit and um i think i heard dr martin talk about you know the flu i think i heard he actually mentioned the word context which was nice to hear i said this last time i was here i know more people now who've had kovid you know it's pretty much you could flip-flop it with the flu i think i had it um i know more people now that have had it in the last month than the

087entire two years of this disease um we're all going to get it and in order to achieve herd mood immunity that's how you do it and the vaccines are to supplement her you know natural immunity no one mentions natural immunity ever the brief dr mashonga i heard today never mentions that it's all fealty to the vaccine that is dangerous that is scary it's all vaccine no natural immunity no therapeutics no early treatment you have to question that where's the critical thinking in that there is lack it's all lacking whether it's you folks whether it's my doctor who said go take some aspirin or some tylenol or excuse me ibuprofen or tylenol and basically good luck thank god i had some therapeutics in my pocket to go home to i purchased some from my parents because

088god forbid they get a booster that does nothing for this omicron these are the kind of common sense things that we're forgetting about um my kids are already had it i'm just tired of it then you take the masks off common sense needs to prevail we've lost sight of it covet is going to be over within a month that's what i'm hearing mark my words thank you very much our next speaker is chad stahl chad stahl you guys got served that's fun um yes trying to wrap my head i brought something uh karen carter jim martin you guys are asking some stuff today from our department of health regarding some statistics and stuff like that and i don't know why they don't tell you what they print on their website i don't know why you're

089too lazy to do it yourselves but i brought a copy of it i'm gonna hand it in to homeboy here so i want to point out a couple things uh the first thing so this is the public health epidemiologist network uh if you're paying attention then you know exactly what this is right and you'll find really cool statistics like what percentage of people tested for the virus that causes covet 19. so there's this high bar right and positivity test is like 13 14 percent this is the most recent one they have omicron dr tilson has already publicly stated it takes two to three weeks to determine whether it's omicron or delta or whatever so just because it goes high and you go oh it must be omicron it means you're just a media junkie and

090you're not patient enough to wait and find out so you know cool your jets there's also another fun graph in here that says okay this is uh the the the pandemic of the unvaccinated independent yeah right yeah so almost 40 of the most recent reported cases are vaccinated people so if it's almost 40 percent of the spreaders are the ones getting injected why are people that are a little conscientious and a little concerned about getting it why are they doing this so i think to myself well you know if all of this data is readily available what is going on in your minds and then i got this great email from miss scott right you're miss scott hi nice to meet you i think i've seen stuff online i think your schools on the academic

091level are extremely low but you wrote this email thank you for your email i do recognize there are people who disagree with the reasoning behind masking while transmission of covet is high i understand you are choosing to listen to doctors this is the best part who do not share the beliefs of the who cdc ncdhhs and the abc science collaborative so then it all started to sink as a oh this is about belief that's what this says this is about belief this is about your belief this is about the belief of some drug or some pharmaceutical or maybe you're into cnn the housing authority for pedophiles so i am the county commissioners yeah okay okay the county commissioners uh their ordinance gives very clear guidance and is very specific that says that you know what

092you will not interpret their order to defy the state of north carolina's constitution or the federal constitution via oh thank you yeah so i just i'm just curious if you don't have to listen to the county commissioners if you don't have to listen to the legislators if you don't have to listen to the parents who are you listening to thank you our next speaker is sue barnett [Applause] hello thank you freddie letting me speak um i'd like to say that i feel a great deal of sympathy for all the parents who have concerns regarding the pandemic disruptions the mass the mental health both of my children and extended family have similar stories there are currently 4 000 people in hospitals fighting covid in north carolina today and some of them may die and some of

093them may suffer long-lasting effects of covid if you and i fight against covid excuse me if you and i fight against each other covid wins the longer the virus is alive it will morph into new variants and spread some of you believe well most of you believe that the school board is being overly cautious maybe we need that to end this pandemic perhaps we're asking too much of schools scores are down but how can we as parents help our kids learn within our homes and our neighborhoods kids need to play more how can we as parents get kids to socialize in small groups outside of school i like to learn from history in the early days of world war ii thousands of allied troops were stranded in france and britain didn't have enough ships to

094rescue the trapped men that were being pushed by the nazis to the beaches of dunkirk local british citizens risked their lives and their boats to cross the english channel and help save 330 000 soldiers they were neighbors who looked past their own comfort to save their country and that is what we are being asked to do right now and we might differ in our opinions but personally i don't want to see another friend die and i don't want to see another child or grandpa or mama die from covid one is too many our next speaker is susan book thank you school boards and superintendent moore and a very special thank you to the staff that was meeting my needs today and my accommodations to be here and keeping me safe and just make sure that

095they know that they did an amazing job my name is susan book i'm a public school advocate and a parent living here in wake county we've heard the term learning loss tossed around we've connected it to virtual learning however learning loss can happen just as easily in person students with disabilities not getting their iep services or even getting their iep in the first place can have learning loss it can happen to students who get targeted for suspensions learning loss can happen when students can't get to school due to bussing issues it also happens when we rely on substitutes i know that gov the governor has released state employees to serve however as a former state employee i knew i would not be your sub i could do a mean travel reimbursement group international domestic i

096can write an excellent department budget and help with a federal grant but i certainly didn't belong in front of a classroom except maybe to change a projector light bulb i hope we don't view virtual as an evil but as a tool in our toolbox albeit a very limited one that's all that can be useful in the future and now i'm hoping we can be proactive in getting out virtual plans to parents and especially students i hope we continue to work with students who've experienced learning loss but with the mindset it occurs both in and out of in-person learning and i hope we don't view virtual as an evil but as a limited tool in our toolbox for safety thank you thank you our next speaker is amanda horlobine and miss harlem just so you know

097our buzzer isn't working so when there are 30 seconds left i'm going to do my best to hold this up thank you [Applause] hello my name is amanda hollibine i'm here tonight because there are 294 days until election day approximately 80 percent of the population are parents and i want to talk about how this board views parents i'm sure most people are familiar with this recent tweet by the wake democratic party notably both jim and heather like this tweet it reads shout out to lindsay monica christine haggerty heather and jim for caring about our kids and showing courage grace and patience while facing misinformation lies threats and bad behavior from wake county parents and citizens parents are confused about what courage has been shown courage to uphold the state and federal constitution courage to be

098nonpartisan as required courage to strive for excellence in education courage to address learning loss courage to open a dialogue with parents thereby disseminating any parent-teacher board tension courage to show parents respect by keeping your eyes open kathy moore and refrain from tweeting during public comment jim martin you know what this tweet tells me it tells me that this is what wake democrats and this sport think about dissenting parents it shows the heart of wake democrats and this board wake county school board believes parents who advocate for their children are crazy conspiracy theorists i don't really see a resemblance here wake county board believes parents who support america the south or republicans are threatening this school board believes that parents who choose not to put an experimental drug in their child spread misinformation this school board

099believes parents should embrace crt which says all white children are born oppressors and therefore should hate themselves while all black children cannot succeed because they are inherently oppressed this board should focus on educating all children regardless regardless of color so that each child is prepared to be a productive member of society upon graduation this board believes dissenting parents incite riots and insurrection the actual problem with wake county parents is the presence of this school board we are all counting down 294 days until change can happen if you are tired of arbitrary rule changes and a lottery public meeting we will be across the street february 1st at 5 30. we will not have a lot of you are open to speak we'll be streaming with the media you can find this group on facebook or

100you can email wcpss b-o-e p-o-p gmail.com thank you for your time brian pursek you i'm a veteran voter taxpayer but most importantly i'm a father my dad taught me what that means to be my father and my mother taught me what it means to fight for what i believe in and jim you mentioned none of this has to do with fear i disagree fear it what's me it makes people do and say things they would never accept in normal situations what makes a school board in a county not listen to people who told them last year that these cloth masks were not working fear carrie dropped their mask mandate months ago but we are told we have to wear them to the meeting when no one is even close to six feet look around fear

101what would cause a school board and county to outsource their decision-making authority to an unelected unaccountable organization fear what makes abc collaborative duke and wrel push a headline that 50 percent of transmissions occur during sports fear the headline should have read transmission during sports incredibly low only three cases play ball by the way abc duke nih why zero recommendations of adding an extra gym class or workout program at schools the number one comorbidity is obesity all parents and teachers could have gotten behind this but why didn't we fear 51 percent of democrats 28 percent of republicans think the chance of being hospitalized from covid is 50 percent or more reality is as low as one percent fear driving your car with two masks on by yourself fear what would cause someone to post a picture

102of parents who care about their children as uneducated slobs fear was their goal to embarrass or shame us as parents i hate to tell you i just bought an adult scooter and walkie-talkies so i can ride around my neighborhood do you think that picture would embarrass me fear what i would be afraid of uh is what got served to you earlier today and hope that your bonding holds up in court you're not going to be able to claim that you didn't know that there's been a 50 percent increase in suicide rates amongst children a 31 percent increase in er mental health visits and adolescents i'm a christian so i believe in forgiveness and redemption but as a parent i will not forget hope find it in your children find it in their daily lives finding

103in the people willing to speak on your behalf we need you parents and grandparents i am willing to dance but the most important people are the ones willing to stand up and dance with me reach out we can show you some of you are not ready and that's okay some of you will trash me and that's okay too just know when you're ready to talk i'm here to listen and i'll end it real quick on this from my favorite artist thank you it's been thank you [Applause] good evening school board members and superintendent moore thank you for all your hard work and commitment to the students staff and families of wake county okay my name is cecilia joyce i'm a middle school aig and intervention teacher i have taught in wake county public schools for

10421 years i am also a product of wake county schools and as are my two daughters and i could not be more proud to work here i would like to begin my comments with a quick anecdote that fairly well sums up the last few weeks of school recently i entered a classroom where my role was as intervention co-teacher one of the students asked me are you a teacher today where is our teacher the amazing educator who normally teaches that class was absent she was absent because of covid thankfully i was there as a co-teacher and was familiar with that day's lesson in most classes with an absent educator a substitute someone who teaches a different content area on their planning time or an administrator or a central office worker is filling in that class time

105will not be a normal class the students will have many of these types of classes all day and have for the past weeks because of covid we have normalized this and we have all stepped up to help each other because that's what we do but it's been at a cost cost to rigor to academic expectations and to student and staff emotional health this would be fine or okay if it were just one day or one week but educators and children are resilient but it has been weeks the problem has persisted to some degree for months it is not sustainable for any of us and i don't want to imply that there is not a lot of learning going on there is there are wonderful things happening in our schools as always but with fully staffed

106schools our educators and students are able to be most successful this is a statewide and nationwide problem and i and many other staff would like to know what this school board and school system plans to do to attract and retain educators and critical school staff during this challenging time and in the future we very much appreciate the bonuses truly and the raises in pay for our education support professionals these are a wonderful great start but we also recognize that the issue needs resolution at the state level and with supportive actions by our general assembly and believe me that myself and others will be active and organized on that front to transition to my second topic of comment i'll return to the intervention class i mentioned earlier after entering the class i began my lesson and

107i had the co-teacher and i had planned which was about the life and work of cesar chavez the famous labor organizer and civil rights leader as we examine the fiery and inspirational commonwealth club address that chavez gave in 1984 i found myself becoming emotional because it spoke to me in so many ways the students got a lot out of it too but maybe different things because of our different unique perspectives at the beginning of the speech chavez describes the discrimination humiliation abuses exploitation and violence and voter suppression experienced by latinos in urban and rural environments your time has expired oh i'm so sorry okay thanks i do want to take a moment and just that is the end of our public comment thanks to all of you who came to speak today i do want

108to say um that we are follow following the outline policy 3210 objection to instructional materials that will be going forward and i do i can say personally i reached out to uh members of and i know other board members have reached out to the people who produced that tweet that was presented to us in concern over it our next piece is to share is to approve the items on the consent agenda madam chair i move approval of our consent items as listed second all right we have a motion for miss kushner a second from miss carter any discussion okay all in favor sign of i any opposed nay all right we now move on to our action item so board members our legislative agenda which we spoke about in our last work session has been

109re-framed due to the commentary heard at the work session and so we wanted to take a moment to look through it discuss it this was sent to you prior to this being uploaded into assembly so that we could have additional time and so if there is any questions or concerns i do believe we need a motion in a second before we can enter discussion uh chairman mahaffey i would move that we adopt the revised legislative agenda okay second okay we have a motion from vice chair hagerty a second by dr martin and so discussion on this um updated 2022 policy and agenda ms scott i just had a question i'm not sure if it was the how it was uploaded and assembly but some just the formatting there's a few um like not a space

110after the the colon of like k3 class size so i wasn't sure if that was just be the way it appears on my computer or if that's but there is a space on other uh after it and under recruitment and retention there's a space after pay diversity and benefits so i just wanted to bring that up just for the purpose of it looking nice and neat yes and i'm sure our communication staff hears that and if there's anything that can be done with that formatting they will attend to it by sharing thank you and and nobody on the board has any objections to spacing or formatting corrections necessary at this time without having it having to come back because they're right we can proceed without yeah okay well thank you um i just wanted to

111thank everybody for their comments and all the feedback that we had in work session to produce an updated legislative agenda i think a lot of the changes really reflect a lot of the discussion we've had and a lot of the shared values we have i'm particularly proud that we're we're specifically calling out the aig funding and special education funding that needs addressing that has that has gone underfunded for so long and i also look forward to us using this not just with our state legislators but also with our federal congressional delegation who will vote on things like idea funding and then also with our county commissioners and others that are interested in the government policies that impact our schools so i do want to again thank everybody who contributed to the document i think there's

112a lot of good improvements here and i recommend it to everyone and i hope everyone finds it as good as i do thank you their comments okay i do want to thank our communications team who went and our um team uh from the the policy side of things who went back over that work session and filled this out and tried to capture what they heard us saying compare it with their notes and thank you to my colleagues for your insight and thoughts as we move forward with this new legislative agenda with that um anyone all those in favor of adopting our 2022 legislative policy and agenda please signify by saying aye any opposed nay thank you you will now move on to closed session yes sir i'd like to move at this time that the

113board go into closed session to consider confidential personnel information protected under gs 143 318 11 a1 a3 and a6 to consult with the board of education attorney and preserve the attorney client privilege as provided in gs 143 318 11 a3 due to current litigation cc by and through his parents sc and mc versus wake county board of education 21 eastern district 0.5061 and finally to consult with the board of education attorney and preserve the attorney client privilege as provided for in general statute 143-318-11a3 okay we have a motion by vice chair hegarty a second by ms kushner all those in favor aye any opposed all right we are moving into closed session thank you all for uh coming in and tuning in to our regularly scheduled board meeting once again you