Board Meeting 10-19-21

001uh um good evening and welcome everyone to our wake county board of education regular schedule meeting it is october 19th it is 5 39 call this meeting to order we have all board members uh here present so we do have a quorum and we along with superintendent moore and board council jonathan bloomberg so with that again we do have a quorum if you were standing with me inside the pledge of allegiance with liberty and justice for all all right we'll move right into our agenda and thanks everyone for joining us those that are here with us in person and those are joining us online or virtually welcome to you all we'll start with our uh comments and move to superintendent moore for your comments good evening more good evening chair sutton and board members congratulations

002to knightdale high principal keith richardson and our heritage high assistant principal bonnie mwanda on being named our 2021-22 principal and assistant principal of the year mr richardson has served as principal of knightdale high school since 2019. before that he served as principal of crossroads flex and york elementary assistant principal of sycamore creek elementary and principal intern at leesville road middle he has received praise from his colleagues and many others for his servant leadership for celebrating achievements among his staff and for his commitment to strengthening the school's relationships with the community that included expanding the partnership with wake tech even amid the pandemic to increase student participation in career and college promise opportunities ms mwanda has served as assistant principal of instruction at heritage high since 2017 prior to that she worked as an intervention coordinator

003at heritage high and a math teacher in union county and charlotte mecklenburg schools she was cited by her students and fellow staff members for building a welcoming school environment for all students she is also known for her commitment to doing whatever it takes to best meet the needs of every child even in a school of more than 1800 students one of her former students called her the most hardworking and influential woman i have ever known congratulations again to these two outstanding school leaders as well as the other finalists i would also like to note that october is national principals month which gives me the opportunity to thank each and every one of our excellent principals as i've said before effective school leadership has been more important than ever in our school communities as we have

004navigated the challenges of this pandemic our principals have worked hard to keep their staff members connected and their students and families engaged we simply can't thank them enough for all they have done to help us weather the storm and i do hope that parents students and staff will find some way this month to express their gratitude for all the principals who have made a difference in their lives last monday was indigenous people's day and many of our schools honored native american people and commemorated their histories and cultures staff members received resources to help them appropriately acknowledge and celebrate this day with students this is the second year we as a district have officially recognized indigenous peoples day and we look forward to this becoming a vibrant yearly tradition but this important learning isn't just limited

005to one day native american history and culture are also taught throughout the entire school year in the secondary social studies curriculum our strategic plan core belief number five states that the board of education superintendent and staff all value a diverse school community that is inviting respectful inclusive flexible and supportive this work is part of our district's strategic ongoing efforts to ensure that we are inclusive and supportive of all parts of our community specifically our hope is to ensure that all students and families see themselves lifted up in a positive light in our schools in closing i along with several board members had the privilege today of joining representatives from the u.s department of education and from the north carolina department of public instruction touring two schools that have received national recognition for promoting environmental sustainability

006we began at abbott's creek elementary which was named a green ribbon school in 2019 by the u.s department of education the school has implemented a program to reduce waste in the cafeteria and students regularly monitor the activities and life cycles of monarch butterflies on campus among many other initiatives we then toured athens drive magnet high school which was held up as a model when our district successfully applied to receive a district sustainability award from the u.s department of education earlier this year tour highlights there included sustainable gardens a solar panel and a report on the school's various recycling initiatives i was proud that these schools were able to impress our visitors with the hands-on way they are instilling in their students the knowledge and passion needed to protect our world and while these two schools

007got the spotlight today environmental stewardship is a value shared district-wide not only in the classroom but also in the way we build and maintain our facilities my thanks to all of our students and staff members who embody these values and to the state and federal officials who took time today to recognize just some of our efforts that concludes my comments thank you senator moore i echo all of your comments and my special thanks and appreciation too to all of our principals and particularly to principal richardson and assistant principal mwanda congratulations to you both and again thank you to all of our principals for the amazing job that you do for all of our students each and every day i also want to take this opportunity to take a moment to this evening to mention the

008recent passing of joyce nelson a remarkable teacher in the history of inlo high school ms nelson recently retired from enlo after a career that spanned 44 years during that time she shaped the lives of several generations of students and was recently awarded the order of the longleaf pond the highest award given by the state of north carolina for exemplary service and exceptional accomplishments those who knew her and there are literally thousands both appreciated and benefited from her remarkable career she will be missed and remembered if i could ask you to join me in a moment of silence in honor of joyce nelson thank you very much for that bye sharma happy thank you chair sutton many of our schools celebrated walk to school day and i had the pleasure of joining the olive chapel elementary

009clippers and it was just a great way to promote safe routes to school and a healthy walking environment where several members of the town of apex staff and elected officials as well as some members of the apex police department joined that walk last week thursday i was invited to the groundbreaking of a large business that's coming to wake county and this has not happened in my time on the board but i really want to thank the folks at fujifilm dias and biotechnologies for including our school district and talking about how important education is in their minds for their workforce not just the higher ed institutions that are in this area they had chancellor woodson of nc state speak but recognizing the build that our k-12 institutions have and it was very nice to see that

010we hear that a lot from our businesses it was nice to see that recognized for a business partner hopefully that will be coming and they're looking to bring 600 jobs to the area and i know more businesses are looking because of this and the life-saving medicines that technology that are going to be coming will hopefully be wake county graduates creating that because we know they're fully capable of that we have upcoming virtual meetings on the enrollment proposal and i want to thank our community members and parents for posting on that granicus forum it is so important for us to hear your feedback and thank you to our communications team for monitoring that during this time thank you thank you about chairman happy i'll start to this side and i'll start with board member johnson hoffman

011thank you chair sutton i will start by acknowledging your point of your first moment of silence that we have certainly um been in a time of mourning and i just keep reminding myself that it is a part of the circle life no matter how difficult it is and i will leave one giant for miss scott to talk about in her comments assuming she probably has it in her comments as well but certainly she will discuss it but i also would like to spend this time we talked last time about bullying both cyber and in person and i want to remind us as we think about those things we also have to acknowledge both sides of what's happening as i discussed at our last board meeting and one of the things that we don't often know

012is what kids are experiencing that lead to those things and unfortunately wake county lost five lives way too early on sunday morning all students or former students of wake county public schools and so we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge that we certainly don't know why things happen the way that they do but truly way too young to have made their full imprint on this world and i want to remind people that when we acknowledge those five lives that we lost that there are families and communities that love those lives no matter what and so i want to remind our community and i brought up bullying because adults have a tendency to state what they think about people and i also want to remind adults that sometimes that feels like bullying to the other side

013who are receiving comments about who those students weren't and what they were and so i want to acknowledge for adults ms scott told us several weeks ago that adults are often the best people to model good behavior and i'm going to ask that people do that why we have families and communities grieving those five young lives that we lost way way too early on sunday morning in a car accident it's not a call any of us as parents ever want to receive and so i would ask all adults to think about that before you start talking about what those students may have been doing and why the accident may have occurred that they do have families and communities attached and so i'll ask people that if you pray to pray for those families in those

014communities and if you don't send some love and light and think about ways in which we can re-invest in those families and in those communities during this time of harm versus hold people at a standard that none of us would understand how this feels at this time so i'm begging our community to be thoughtful and kind during this time to those families in those communities i will end on good news we celebrated arts and action and many of you know as a non-art person i love the arts literally dr martin knows i went to ballroom class with him one time not my gift but i enjoy it i enjoy it but he entertained me but nonetheless i you all know i do love our arts and my daughter and miss cash's granddaughter go to a

015studio cece and co who started a non-profit that i serve on their advisory board for called move at raleigh and the focus is to get all folk moving including those of us who can dance and love it and those of us who can't so we did earth day in a park we did a partnership with marbles for people who can't who aren't dancers like myself but we also during arts and action week hosted for all wake county schools a day for teachers dance teachers to get professional development from well-known stars the biggest one for kids was costa mayor who were tick-tock phenomenons who i did not know that but there were there were actually three other students who were graduates of wake county who have made dance their career professionally who volunteered their time to

016our students and our teachers and it was clear love from our educators who ask that we continue professional development even if it's through zoom and also ask how can we get their students there but we had nearly 100 students from wake county who were able to participate at no cost to them and those students i truly will say and i'd be remiss if i did not say robert green is my favorite to mention but there's also kiersten stewart and evan who were those two went to millbrook uh robert woodson low but i always bring up robert greene because he was one of those students who couldn't afford to dance when he was in high school and the studio owner picked him up and allowed him to explore and he's been on more prominently taylor swift

017more recently little baby but he has been on tour with with many many people he continues to give back to wake county public schools and so i want to highlight those three wake county public students who have made it big and have come back to wake county so again i wanted to end on a high note that we do have our amazing students who always come back and give back to our students thank you johnson hostler mrs cash miss johnson hassler's daughter is an amazing dancer and i i think she said something to my granddaughter the other day and she said she talked to me and she said well she was so excited that gabby talked to her so it was an amazing dancer i'm glad you brought up the students that's been sad that

018was a shock on sunday morning so um it's just way too soon for those those those young people i did walk to school with hunter with miss scott we were in that group of large group of people that walked to school it was very large group and had a good time that day tried to keep up with everybody but we made it got a ride home with somebody else but and i visited durant middle school this last couple weeks east wake high school with miss mahaffey and miss scott i went to millbrook high school to watch a little bit of their kovid tracing going on i went to a wakefield high school homecoming game against millbrook wait i missed you at that game you did you did but and i left when they were tied

019but i'm not going to talk about who won because they i love both those schools so much together and and again i'll just finish with saying that the going with the state superintendent and superintendent moore was there today and catherine truitt and the board members from the state board of education to abbott's creek was really a highlight today the sustainability that these kids are doing and we need can you talk about it often mr haggerty does that they do watching them put their trays away and separating their food into this and their their trash into this and then taking their compost out to their gardens and it it's really important that all young people learned that and they were going to release a monarch butterfly today but the butterfly just wanted to hang out on

020their hands so i don't know if he ever flew away or not but he's still hanging out on somebody's fingers so they had a good day so it was a good day on that respect thank you thank you mrs cash mr hagen thank you mr chairman it's been a busy couple of weeks since the last time that we've met i had a great opportunity to go out i got to see my first coral concert since the pandemic to have everybody live and on stage and singing it was just really really beautiful and the kids loved it the parents were super excited about it it was just a wonderful event cross-country meets and even got to go to a very exciting tailgate before one of our homecoming games and i won't i won't spoil the results

021because i know there's some rivalries up here but we won people have been excited going around talking about the new high school that we're going to talk about later in the meeting so i won't talk too much about that except that there's a lot of great excitement and people looking forward to this and see this is another great step another big big activity this weekend we've seen more and more people come together to advocate and support for taking action on the leandro decision and so there were a lot of great public events there's been we've been joined you know we passed the resolution at our last meeting the wake county commission has come out and made their voices known that they support this action we're seeing more parent groups community organizations and get behind education

022because this should be something that should unite everybody we might have different ideas about you know local control versus state control different ideas about curriculum and and certain policies but just the idea that we need schools open teachers in building good pay good curriculum good facilities these are things that we should all be able to agree on and so i'm hopeful that as the legislators continue their budget negotiations some of these voices will be heard finally miss mahaffey had mentioned the granicus forum and the reassignment plan there's a lot of impacts of the reassignment plan in in district seven so we've been going out and talking to a lot of people and i really appreciate the time that that staff has taken to help answer questions to provide me with information and maps and everybody

023even some are happy with moves some are unhappy about moves but everyone has been very civil very understanding and just looking for ways to understand the issue and argue their points and so i want to thank everybody who's come together for that i know there'll be information coming about about some virtual information sessions and if you're in an area that's impacted by the reassignment plan please try to schedule that you can participate in one of these sessions because i'm taking all of the feedback and i'm i'm passing it on to staff if you have a chance to come out here this on your own individually and and advocate your position hopefully you know you'll learn a little bit of something about the about the district's plan and then the district will hear your concerns and

024your feedback directly uh finally just one last thing you know chair sutton you gave a nice tribute to joyce nelson miss nelson was one of my teachers so and to this day many many years later i can still tell you about the impact that she had you know she she would push students but she prepared us we had her for senior english and she did so much to prepare us for going from high school english to college english and what the expectations were again you know she was you hear that you hear the expression tough but fair but she really did push kids to reach their potential and um like i said to this day i can remember that class and everything she did for us and and she's very much appreciated and she'll be

025missed and again our love goes out to the family thank you thank you mr hegarty it's not often that we have someone here at the table who was talking about someone but just the impact of her and you know we have a lot of teachers and and we lose teachers throughout the course of the year but we raised ms nelson because she was with us for 44 years as a teacher and there not many teachers who also received the or the longleaf pine so she was definitely a special individual mrs carter thank you um and kind of taking a little side note one in my notes here to speak on but just noting the importance of teachers and other school staff and really looking forward to we've discussed it multiple times really addressing funding and

026addressing increasing pay for our school staff and how important that is to take action sooner than later so i just want to throw that out there but kind of side note there but since the last meeting i mentioned right before i was heading to the carey high 12 angry jurors it was their first live theatrical performance since march phenomenal job um the cast and crew and i was kind of caught off guard i was like really we're going to sit on stage we the first uh audience were sitting on the stage um the couple time i caught myself like jumping because there was so much emotion and just like you know sarcasm which is awesome um but the the students were just just amazing and it was just so great you could just feel it

027and the audience was you know and some of the students were next to me like oh yeah they're getting you know i was like are they going to get this or they totally got it and it was just a great experience and just well done to the director miss mccormick as well just wanted to throw that out there i've also had some sport events i try to attend what i can and did a volleyball for the first time at green hope and they won that one i won't talk about the one after that one and just great energy and actually great to see so many students come out and support them had it was senior night so had you know the blown up pictures and everything so that was great to see and actually i

028stayed after a little to talk to some of the referees because there's been a you know well staffing issue i mean you know we're having staffing issues but you know our high school students can't play if we don't have referees so i stayed around after the game walk them out and talk to them and just thank them for what they're doing because if they don't show our kids can't play so um and they were just talking about just the level of intensity that they have noticed and how much these students are just it's like all in i mean not that it wasn't before but it's like for them some of the ones that were there that night have been doing it for quite some time and they said the difference um was just unreal to

029them and so they just keep coming back because you know they love it but i just thought that was great and friday was um the homecoming parade along walnut street at cary high and i just have to say i think i could use one of those like every week i know it's a lot of work but it was a hopping it was great to see the students in the parade the floats and three of my feeder schools in district 9. reedy creek middle east and west cary were there the band they were participating in the band and they had some of their athletes as well and it was just lots of fun and the kids were just out actually i don't know who was having more the kids or some of the staff i'm saying

030you know were really enjoying themselves and the adults along the line and their navy junior rotc so it was just a a great event and the other event that i attended last night really focused on i know i've mentioned several different awarenesses for this month but another one is blindness awareness that do impact some of our students and their families and there were two young adults that really led this webinar it was a turning insight and vision into awareness and it was maya warren and billy pickens and i just want to mention them because they really took the time to explain the history because it's a relatively to me newer awareness month started in 2009 by the little rock foundation and both of them discussed their blindness or if they had the visual impairment and

031actually their struggles but also their victories in school and the importance of self-advocacy and working on that at a younger age and gave giving some advice along that and involvement in iep meetings as students so it was a a great thing for me to hear as not only a board member but several parents were on there and it was just very helpful to know and i think to looking at our schools and encouraging that for our kids to feel that's okay to speak up for yourself and advocate for what you're needing in school so just want to quickly mention that and then also if you are heading to the state fair because i know some folks are i just want to encourage you to go to the cars scott building and check out our student

032art so there's quite a bit out there and just lifting those kits up because what they're doing is fantastic i'm not an art person i've always kind of get joked about if i tried to do so with my students but i have fun doing it and so many of our students are their talent is just to me just mind so please check that out um and then lastly um i'll just remind her this sunday at 4 p.m i'll be having another d9 connection virtual meeting there to listen to any concerns you have so thank you thank you mrs carter mr scott thank you and good evening appreciated hearing my colleagues talking about our fine arts performances starting up again indoors i really love seeing those happening and the theatrical performances coming back and it's it's

033really amazing when you consider that i mean some of these students have not been on stage for several years and as you look into your middle school fine arts programs i mean you have to think some of those parents have really never had that experience so um extend your if you're a music parent make sure you extend your your patience and and and you'll once you hear your kid i'll play it's all worth it um i really did appreciate ms mahaffey and miss cash coming to eastwick high school just taking a look at their their facilities there and also i was really glad they had the opportunity to meet mr alston he's a phenomenal principal he works so hard he he knows his community he knows his staff he knows his students and he really

034knows his community he coaches these kiddos when they're little and it's it i think it's just a great opportunity and i would love to go back again so if any of my other colleagues have the time i'd love to go back with you and a few years ago prior to serving on the school board when i had a little bit more free time my family and i uh used to buy mini packages for the durham bulls and one year the bulls lost every single game in our mini package except for the one that i had hurt my back so i didn't get to go to it and i say that because of course our principal of the year and our assistant principal of the year are from district one and i could not attend the

035celebration that evening um because i was sick my kova test results which were negative did not come until later that night so certainly did not want to expose 194 principals assistant principals and so forth to some illness but i'm so thankful for the recognition and also just a reminder heritage middle school we have the ms pride as the teacher of the currently the teacher of the year so that's a district one sweep but i'm just so i'm so thankful that others have the opportunity to see the amazing teachers the amazing administrators and the dedication that we have in eastern wake and i also ask that you please extend your your thoughts and and prayers to the nightdale community and the zebulun community i know many uh saw on the news that a young officer was

036killed in the line of duty and his father was a police officer and chief of police in zebulun for many years eastern wake is is a close-knit community and this hits hard and and it hits deep and i know that knight hill high school really appreciates the relationship that they have with the sros there i mean they do phenomenal work with the kids in in in the elementary schools as well with the dare program and i have to we lost a great person i former mayor frank eagles he was a powerhouse and i could say many things about him but the biggest thing he taught me as an elected official in this role was do what's right for the kids and he would say that all the time and sometimes when the school system would

037do something that he thought was not the right for the thing for the kids and i know superintendent moore was on the receiving end of many of those phone calls and so were many of my colleagues because i know i know uh ms johnson hassler and miss kushner were also very close with frank um he would let you know and you would explain the reasons no it's this thing that and he would say so now my favorite is you're the district of no ms johnson hossler but he he really was the epitome of of how i see many servant leaders lead in that you may not see every time ms carter goes out to a school and helps with a tree or plans you may not know every time mr haggerty has reached out to

038his schools and all of my colleagues you don't necessarily see the work that they do and frank really lived that where he did things because it was the right thing to do he did not post pictures of himself on social media doing things because he just did it and i as somebody the the impact he had on this world and everyone who knew him was so great um and we're and we're lucky to know many of the things he did but as as someone said i don't think we'll ever know just how much he did at the beginning of the pandemic he as someone who was health compromised loaded up his truck with the meals from the stations and went around in mobile home communities and made sure that folks who were in charge of

039of those efforts knew where those students were where those families were and that i mean that's just one day that's just one year in the life of frank giggles so he will be missed but we are all better um for knowing him thanks thank you mr scott dr martin thank you and uh great tribute to frank he was uh frank was a friend uh a wise man yeah and a very practical man yeah and he will be missed um and superintendent moore uh recognized and i but i too want to recognize uh that the 11th was indigenous people's day i think it's very important that we recognize that all but the indigenous peoples are immigrants and we the indigenous peoples of this country contributed much uh in in history and culture and language one of

040the things i think that impressed me the most as i've learned about particularly the um indian education council here is the students in our schools reminded us that the indigenous peoples aren't just history indigenous peoples are are today uh and and so it's we don't just celebrate the contributions of history the contributions of the past but we recognize and celebrate each of the indigenous peoples in our schools in our community and thank you for the ongoing contributions and just an important reminder that we don't just recognize history but we recognize contributions today i also had the privilege of joining the group from the um us department of education and the north carolina department of instruction as they celebrated the green ribbon schools program a national program of which several of our schools have been honored

041i had the privilege of joining the group touring athens drive high school one of the high school one of the schools in my district particular shout out to the students people were welcomed by principal mayors who does an outstanding job of leading that school but the students absolutely stole the show from the band who welcomed us the athens band is is an impressive group and uh led by an amazing conductor but listening to the students and seeing how sustainability is integrated across the curriculum was quite quite impressive and quite impressed the state and the national leaders who came to visit with us from the art rooms to the science rooms quite impressive in fact i would say one of the art students who you know was part of the contributing they weren't tour guides they

042were really educators but uh how she was talking about how in one of their art projects how you know in art you often have multiple layers in the visual art right multiple layers of any kind of a project from the background to the foreground and she she had a very nice piece looking at the layers of sustainability as well and just sort of interfacing those ideas that are so critical from the science uh to the art of understanding sustainability from the health program impacts and programs to the technology programs the students did just a phenomenal job and folks walked away taking the experience from the wake county school system to the state and national level so hats off to the students y'all did a fantastic job uh finally as i have been doing for the

043last uh quite a while i want to give the update on covid statistics in the school system and the county so if you look at the reported cases in our schools they've slowly been going down although two weeks ago we did have an uptake uptick in a number of cases on reported in our school system back down again this last week but where we're at it we're still two and a half times higher than the high from back in may uh and almost three times higher than we were back uh in in january so going in the right direction but still we have a ways to go here in wake county itself well in in the schools the week of 10-3 there were cases in 110 schools in the week of 1010 that dropped to

04495 schools the good news is that the week of 10-3 152 schools had two or fewer cases in the week of 10 10 163 schools had 10 or fewer had two or fewer cases so schools are working hard to try to keep environments as safe and productive as possible here in wake county overall cases continue to drop although we're at a current little bit of a plateau we're at 131 cases per 100 000 population and again from the cdc's recommendation uh a hundred cases per hundred thousand population is considered high transmission so we're still significantly above that looking at the department the north carolina department and health department of health and human services age disaggregated data uh and and their data always lags a little bit but the numbers that we have for all in

045wake county their reported weekly numbers for the week of 10-3 were 145 cases per hundred thousand i went to 129 cases per hundred thousand that's for the entire population for the five to nine year olds uh the week of ten three we were 204 cases per 100 000 population that went up last week the week of 10 10 to 229 cases per hundred thousand population uh and unfortunately that age cohort the five to nine year olds is the top cohort uh in the county almost double what the the overall county rate is the 10 to 14 year olds the week of 10-3 were 179 cases per 100 000 population the week of 10 10 that dropped to 167. the 15 to 17 year olds the week of 10-3 were 123 cases per 100 000 population

046the week of 1010 last week there were 121 cases per hundred thousand so this is the first time in a very long time that any of these cohorts have dropped below the county average so the high schoolers have just um having these last two weeks dropped below the county average that's good news keep it up high schoolers we all have to work together to have the trends go down but that's our update um for the last two weeks thank you thank you dr martin mrs kushner thanks and i'll wrap it up um thank you to all my colleagues for your heartfelt tributes to those we've lost in the last two weeks um thank you i'll leave it at that it was wonderful to celebrate our principals our assistant principals as well as miss johnson hossler

047and i were able to go to the hispanic heritage celebration which was a great um virtual gathering of many of our educators and community leaders that serve not only our hispanic students and our spanish-speaking students but other students who are internet from international descent and it was highlighted dr rangel was able to highlight the family academy programs that we have in up to six different languages they're having facebook live meetings so please share with your communities those opportunities that we have within our school system to reach out to families whose first language are not english and need to learn not only how to engage in the school system culturally as well as in their language so that they can maximize opportunities for their children so thanks to um that wonderful gathering and thanks to mr

048winners ms kimsey and uh mr carosa for coming to the district six board advisory council meeting um last wednesday we talked about coveted recovery funding which we continued in the great budget session we had ms cash thank you as well as the student enrollment plan so thanks to all who came out last week and i wanted to um also looked up wonderful work being done by our students the sanderson equity team led a big waves from big wake session last week they had students from sanderson millbrook and lowe heritage as well as roseville frank would have been very proud of them just talking about their experiences in the pandemic their experiences coming back to school full time the need for social emotional and mental health supports for our students and this is as well as

049the need for flexible time any time i talk with our students it's the best meeting i have of the week month year and they will lead us both out of this crisis and they will show us the way so um great gratitude to the sanderson equity team for leading that student work thank you thank you mrs kushner that concludes uh our board member comment some comments from the superintendent board members before i ask for your approval of tonight's meeting agenda i would like to add one item to our action agenda and that is a revision to the 2021 wcpss calendar so again adding one item to our action agenda and this is a revision to the 2021-2022 school year calendar so with that revision i would like to ask for a motion to approve tonight's

050agenda as amended and i'd like to make the most soon that we approve tonight's agenda with that amended item added on calendar revision thank you second got a motion from mrs kushner ii from ms johnson hofstra to approve tonight's agenda as amended is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor shall assign a via opposed nay as have it tonight's meeting agenda is approved that takes us to our information agenda for this evening we've got two items i believe there the first is a recognition of disability awareness history and awareness month good evening superintendent assistant superintendent karen hamilton board chair sutton superintendent moore and members of the board thank you for allowing us to address the wake county public school system's ninth annual recognition of disability history and awareness month we are delighted to

051continue this annual celebration and are grateful that our board provides us the time and space to spotlight what is for us a very special month bringing this information to you tonight is joe mckenna board chair sutton superintendent moore and members of the board in 2007 the general assembly of north carolina designated october as disability history and awareness month in order to expand the public's knowledge awareness and respect for persons with disabilities later in the same year the wcps board school board issued a resolution outlining that during the month of october our schools will provide intensive instruction on disability history people with disabilities and the disability rights movement the link to the full document is at the bottom of your page since september 2012 our district has engaged in an annual celebration of our students with

052disabilities led by their teachers oftentimes this is a celebration that includes the entire school community a celebration and guidance memo for disability history and awareness month was provided to school and central level staff on october 5th 2021. this year the district is embracing the language of from here anything is possible for our students who embody unique abilities and in light of our continued movement through a pandemic anything is possible looks and speaks to our future district core value number one states every student is uniquely capable and deserves to be challenged and engaged in relevant rigorous and meaningful learning each day for the month of october we have the opportunity to celebrate all uniquely capable students in our district schools and classrooms in consideration of the current demands on teachers and our returning students special education

053services is providing access to focused activities and opportunities these activities share the unique abilities of public celebrities provide lessons for students of all abilities and promote the use of social media to spotlight the achievements of individual students classrooms and teachers this link leads to information and additional activities that include quotes book lists and school projects provided directly to teachers in early october and we have been the happy recipients of pictures videos and tweets representing district light engagement as october moves forward and we are gathering responses for the 2021 disability history and awareness month we thought you would enjoy a brief video highlighting some of the previous year's celebrations due to technical issues this link will be shared with you through email i know i hate we can't watch it tonight so we want to thank

054you for allowing us a few moments to focus on the distinctive abilities of all students and to specifically celebrate the successes of our district students and to be more aware and to celebrate the uniqueness of the students that we in special education services are honored to serve thank you and thank you for the recognition welcome thank you all right superintendent update superintendent moore thank you chair sutton i'll provide a brief update of the items that we covered in our work session today the first item that we covered was an update on the covid testing contract with miko we outlined the phase one two and three works of the voluntary testing cova testing program in our schools uh mako has informed us that they should be able to begin that early in november and that'll be

055after the board approves the mou this is voluntary testing that we will start with schools with either active or potential clusters and voluntary testing for central services staff by the end of november moving on we should be able to expand that to options for voluntary testing open to all schools this is testing for staff and students as a reminder all student testing does require parental permission and that all of that is a runway building to what will be phase three for the staff anyway for the implementation of the biden mandate through osha where we anticipate that all staff will either need to provide proof of vaccination or regular testing and so that we're starting with the voluntary testing program with schools with active or potential clusters first and then building towards divide and mandate requirements

056the second item that we discussed in work session was the year rounds continuation the year-round schools discussion and there was a hearty discussion as we looked through scenarios about all the challenges of our year-round programming over the years about its place in terms of how we the role of year-round in capacity and parental choice and needs under-enrolled schools over-utilized schools and how we can be strategic in making decisions making forward looking forward in particular i think as dr martin often states to ensure that our calendar is the choice has a purpose in terms of how it supports the district objectives we will continue that discussion that is not over because there is still work to be done to establish what our priorities are and then the mechanisms that we will use including how we gather

057feedback from our school leaders our communities as a part of this decision-making process moving forward those are the two items that we covered in work session thank you thank you superintendent moore that takes us to public comment consistent with the august 18th 2021 declaration by the town of kerry requiring face coverings in all indoor settings properly worn face coverings are now required for those attending board of education meetings to limit the spread of covert 19. in keeping with the town's declaration a face covering must be secured to the head with ties straps or loops over the ears and fit snugly against the side of a person's face board members wcps employees and the public must wear a face covering even if vaccinated a properly worn face covering means the nose mouth and chin are covered

058if you're unable to wear a face covering because of a disability you may watch the live stream of board meetings or listen by phone if you are selected to give public comment on unable to wear face covering due to a disability or other reason please let us know when completing the registration form only those indicating a disability on the registration form will be permitted to remove their face coverings during public comment if you are unable to work fast cover you will be asked to wait outside the building until you are contacted prior to your speaking time after you are contacted you will be allowed to enter the meeting room to give public comment then you will be asked to leave if you do not properly wear a paste covering during the meeting public comment is

059accepted in writing via video in person during regular meetings of the full board 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 30 seconds remaining then a red light when your time is up if the public comment portion of the agenda exceeds 30 minutes the board chair reserves a right to conduct other board business before inviting remaining speakers to the podium the following citizens have submitted comments as part of our public comment portion of this evening's agenda their comments are linked on the same online agenda we're using for tonight's meeting that agenda as well as guidelines for those wishing to submit comments for future meetings can be found on the district's website which is wcpss.net under the tab label

060school board we have 44 written comments and seven video comments from members of the public the topics and speakers whose comments are attached to the agenda are as follows there are 25 speakers regarding covert preventative measures uh including mass mandate these include both in support of and opposition ii in addition there are uh seven speakers that wish to speak regarding bus drivers four speakers regarding spanish instruction four speakers of comments regarding the uh reassignment concerning abbott's creek and then there are 11 others on a variety of topics and miscellaneous topics with respect to those that are here with us tonight in person providing comment we'll start with those first up is russell victingstein liechtenstein sorry sir i'm sorry he said math is on right during speaking okay all right um i'm here tonight talk about

061masks and vaccinations uh i am unaware of any peer-reviewed study that shows any significant mitigation of covet 19 via mask and i would ask that this information be provided to us as justification for the continued mandate there's been much discussion as well about vaccine mandates for our children we are asked to accept liability for this vaccine and its unforeseen side effects and consequences will the school board or ncdhhs be responsible if this mandate is enacted and god forbid something happens to my children down the road we are being asked to accept all risk from an experimental vaccine for a disease that is essentially zero risk of death for kids this is simply unacceptable to me dr martin has stated that kovit is one of many sicknesses that isn't deadly we do know however that the

062vaccine is deadly via the vares website how many life-altering side effects or death is this board willing to take responsibility for this pandemic by any metric is not an emergency for children and any sort of mandate is unjustifiable my son has natural immunity and should not be subjected to either a mass mandate or a vaccine mandate or this testing regimen that you all spoke of a one side fits all approaches on american there are all sorts of accommodations made at school for children to fit their specific needs why should my son be any different that would be discriminatory i want to tell you a little anecdote about my son's football game he plays at holly springs holly ridge he's an eighth grader he was playing against apex middle he's a lineman he told me after

063the game that the kitty lined up against each game was wearing a mask the entire game you see that dripping with sweat with water dirt grass all over the entire game i don't know who's directing that if it's his parents his coach after the game when they do the lineup and say congratulations or a good game he said the majority of the kids are wearing masks on that one team his team is not again i don't know who's directing that to me that's just overkill or it's just unnecessary and frankly a little scary to me those kids should not be doing that especially after hustling in a game it's it's just unnecessary finally when i think about disease and all the measures we as a society excuse me implemented and i look back very few

064have been justified from the lockdowns and the disastrous effects on our economy school closures and the continued delatorious effects on our children and their education the masking and the developmental and physical toll the initial vaccine efficacy and protection promises to today's reality that the vaccines not only don't protect us from contracting or spreading the disease but we can also still die after receiving two doses all of this is to say i want to be able to choose what is best for my kids i do not want anyone else choosing not you all not the health department not our federal government i think their track record speaks for themselves thank you very much [Music] thank you sir tracy taylor if you guys can't see that i'm happy to give you a copy of it i can

065email it to you okay good evening my name is dr tracy taylor and i appreciate your time today to just to discuss north carolina's constitutional duty to provide every child access to a sound basic education i've been speaking at board of education meetings since you allowed parents to attend again early this year i presented data that schools were safe to open prior to when you allowed us to come i presented the data and stated that my recommendations have been firmly rooted in the evidence evidence has never supported masking in schools and it does not support your current testing recommendations and quarantine protocols sorry i feel like i'm going to pass out okay you are all proposing the implementation of a program to perform screening testing on students using a test that is already too sensitive

066regardless of symptom status why would we be testing and screening perfectly healthy children who are symptom free if a child tests positive and has no symptoms they're sent home and have to quarantine for 10 days we've seen this occur already even if the student never develops symptoms throughout their quarantine the optional testing will lead to unnecessary unnecessary quarantining of students which will lead to decreased classroom instruction hours and days unfortunately wake county is not telling the general public how many students test positive out of those who are being quarantined thankfully other school districts in north carolina are keeping very good data on the number of students forced to quarantine as well as the number of those who test positive union county is a mass optional district and their incidence rate the percent positivity compared to

067wake county is what you see here bottom line is that there is absolutely no statistically significant significant difference between their county and ours none between union county and lincoln county they've demonstrated that anywhere from less than 2 percent to 10 percent of students who are forced to quarantine actually test positive conversely this means that 90 to 98 of students who are forced to quarantine do not have covid let me repeat 90 to 98 percent of those students who are forced to code to quarantine do not have covid if we extrapolate this to wake county last week 300 students were excluded from school for seven days if they chose to get tested this is equivalent to twenty one hundred person hours for one day fourteen thousand person hours for seven days recently a board of education

068members said that union county would be on the wrong side of history and i do not want to be with them it appears that union county union county has done everything right since last year they opened schools they're mass optional now and there's no statistically significant difference with their covet incidents they're also the number one performing school district in north carolina i strongly recommend that you do not perform coveted testing in schools and please ask wake county health department to change their their cove quarantine policy thank you clayton diller good evening so i'm here to talk about a few things but most of all the lack of transparency with the school board when it comes to making decisions and developing and enforcing policies that are negatively impacting our children i have to start off a

069little bit though and kind of along that line and talk about fud bud this doctor likes to spread fud maybe he should be called dr fudd because the numbers that are pointed out are all slanted towards how many kids might be sick or how many kids you know or people are going to the hospital the real number that matters is how many kids are dying and i think that number is zero in wake county i don't think any kids have died in wake county and at least in the past year and a half and speaking of that i've got the bears database website open right now there's something wrong with these vaccines that are being given to adults and now children and now you guys and others want to force them on our on our

070kids up until 2020 the size of the bears database maxed out at 42.23 megabytes now it's 508.89 that just represents about a 10x increase in the amount of data in the various database which is the database where people report negative side effects to the virus you can look that up on the various website um so um i and many other parents have been coming here for weeks and months and we're asking questions and raising concerns to you um about what's happening in our schools and instead of taking the opportunity to engage us in an open dialogue and collaborate with us as the parents of the students who are affected by these policies that you're implementing you put up walls and you tell us to go talk to the abc science collaborative or to the health

071department the tactics that you're using really amount to stonewalling and we have a genuine we have genuine concerns about these policies and their effects on our children what we want is for this board to comply with our demands for parental choice and informed consent concerning mass on our kids in school as well as any testing for covid or any medical treatments for covet such as the experimental vaccines that are being proposed today there's a lot of studies that talk about the effectiveness or the ineffectiveness of masks and i mean we can debate that but the bottom line is we deserve choice and our kids deserve choice um so i would say you know i've got a few questions here um when are you going to begin engaging parents in a two-way dialogue about these issues

072and our concerns why don't you hold an open forum each month and give parents who elected you the courtesy of answering our questions face to face what's going on behind closed doors between this board and the abc science collaborative and then parents how much longer are we going to allow this board to continue to abuse our children ashley special ashley session good evening i come to you tonight to speak again about the draconian toolkit that is quarantining too many healthy children i realize most of you do not want to question the tool kit but it is a fact that it tries to punish mass optional districts and unvaccinated children thank goodness for counties such as union lincoln harnett cabarrus and pender who have decided to be successful without forcing mass in vaccines they all have

073fewer vaccination rates than wake and they are still seeing a similar decline in positivity rates unfortunately this board is so focused on vaccines testing and being health care facilities it seems you are abandoning your primary role education the majority of kids you send home are healthy and they are being quarantined and denied in-person instruction who's going to take responsibility for another lackluster year of academic performance parents did you know last year in north carolina only 45 of k-8 students were at grade level performance in reading only 25 to 30 percent of african-american and hispanic children passed reading and math and 70 of economically disadvantaged kids were not proficient at the end of last year the toolkit also punishes the unvaccinated and it will mostly punish the minority community you know why because they are the

074least vaccinated group will that help our academic performance speaking of performance when will the board be sharing wake county scores also the board seems to think that mask and the jab are the only treatment options does anyone know what natural immunity means if low vaccinated and non-mass counties are seeing similar declines to wake do you think your strategy is working no well yeah you do but in addition you want to the answer is to test more and more kids for what to catch more asymptomatic kids and quarantine more healthy children this toolkit with its contact tracing and quarantine policy is a joke the school system is short-staffed of nurses and teachers who are already overwhelmed and the answer is to make it harder on staff by bringing in testing to an already messed up system

075what's the logic it is hypocritical to claim no responsibility as you are just taking advice from the experts at the health department and the abc collaborative and then turn around and have no problem forcing school staff to make medical decisions for these children and they have no health care expertise or statutory authority these children have rights parents you also have the right to question these ridiculous policies that have never been confirmed by mandate or statute it is time to start standing up against bureaucrats who are using our children as political pawns tell the schools to get out of health care business and back to educating our children thank you katie long i actually have a message for the audience a child i know who no longer attends a wake county school is now attending a

076school where children come first and mask are optional this child is eight years old a third grader his dad picked him up and inquired about his first day the son's response the best part about the new school was that the kids there are way more social towards me let that let this child's response resonate with you don't you want your child to attend school not being muzzled half of our children's faces are gone moms you and i do not give birth to our children with just half a face when that child arrived into this world that baby was scared because of the unknowns the baby is able to express their feelings by crying smile when they're happy make facial expressions when they want to be funny now all you can see on your children's face

077is just a big fat diaper and they're two eyes this mass mandate a mandate which is not a law by the way is one step closer to the so-called vaccine i bet many many in this room and who are listening at the nutrition facts when you buy an item for consumption because you want to know what the ingredients are before you put it in your body why won't you want to know what's in that vaccine we teach our children never take food from strangers because we don't know where it came from or what's in it why wouldn't you apply the same logic to the so-called vaccine we have a 99 survival rate against coven what we really need to truly be fearful of is the mass that the schools insist our children aware that decreases

078the amount of oxygen in their lung tissue the virus uses something called ferrin cleavage site to merge with your lung tissue to infect you you can fact check this on pubmed it can become more infectious with decreased oxygen peer review research clearly shows that wearing a mask increases the chances of developing an upper respiratory infection 13 times more than a person not wearing a mask we are in an informational war we have been misinformed and lied to this is not about our health but to rather a political agenda jfk once said ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country everyone in this room and who is watching or listening has has a moral obligation to empower themselves with knowledge and truth don't just take people's words

079for it do your own research and listen to alternative news and please don't worry to call others for speaking truth we should come together as a community and leave communism out of this beautiful country and the entire world free the smiles free chat stall love is the greatest force of victory renee sekel 750 000 people dead 700 well i think it's actually closer to 700 let's be accurate about this 700 000 people dead and we're sitting here talking about whether our children should be asked to wear a mask for their own safety and the safety of those around them i appreciate this school board for voting consistently most of you to allow our children the safety to come to school in person every day to enjoy their peers and their teachers and experience school as

080close to as it was meant to be as possible i ask you to keep going i ask you to keep doing more vaccines are still a ways off for our kids and we need you guys to keep being proactive as dr martin pointed out our case rates aren't going down real fast and they need to be so yes please keep masking i've asked for filters for our classrooms certainly at least in the oldest schools where we're not entirely certain we can trust those hvac systems and i would ask you to please accelerate the testing plan i appreciate that it's putting into place but next month is not as good as this month so please accelerate your plans for testing and finally i would ask that you impose a vaccine mandate not just for staff but

081for any adult volunteers in the schools who are interacting with children there is no excuse to be in the school putting children at risk if you don't have to be thank you very much wendy fuller runyon i'm not here to give you data and i'm not here to give you statistics you know them i'm here to tell you my personal story of how my two children are being discriminated against in the school system last tuesday my 15 year old honor student and football player at millbrook costco one who wears a mask every day by the way sent me a text that he had a mild headache two of his friends had nasal congestion and he was worried they would infect their teammates so the two other mothers and i decided to have our children coveted

082theirs came back negative my son symptom-free came back positive i did not believe my son had coveted because he did not have a single symptom after the mild headache for 45 minutes which went away on its own so i took him to a doctor who tested me my son and my other son who's also in quarantine until november 1st symptom-free and we have had four negative tests a negative antibodies test and a doctor has diagnosed my son as have never having coveted and gave him a note to go back to school last friday because i could not get anyone from the school system or the health department to call me back i did not send him back to school friday i finally received a phone call today from a doctor at the health department that

083stated and i quote it is up to your principal when she lets your child come back to school but it is quite possible she doesn't know this information how embarrassing that a principal would not know when a child is allowed to come back to school my son's mental health has been affected he's missed two football games his grades have plummeted i remind you he's an honor student he now has a 55 in anatomy because the teacher is putting in zeros for missed work who's going to pay these doctor's bills when we have to seek out a psychiatrist for my child we're a tax paying family my children are entitled to an education and they're not getting it and it's for no reason there's no communication between the department of health and the school system the

084amount of incompetence that i have uncovered throughout this last week is appalling there's a breakdown in communication and because of that our children are suffering my children are not sick and they have not been sick and they need to be in school this is embarrassing and this is shameful every step of the way our families tried to be proactive and do the right thing and now my children are being punished for it next time i doubt we'll be so proactive becky lou hobbs i grew up in the wake county public school system my kids are now part of the public school system recently the actions and the policies from the school board have created a harmful environment for them though the first one is masking the school board mandates that all students and staff must

085wear a mask yet both students and adults are going to concerts football games and other events all without a mask it just doesn't make sense my elementary age daughter tells me she can have a mask break when they eat lunch or they go outside to play for a seven hour day that's hardly any time to breathe freely she's expressed she's afraid to tell her teacher when she's having a hard time breathing how many other kids are afraid to tell their teachers too whether or not they should it's not the point we as adults we've created an atmosphere that they're afraid to speak up and that's not fair to our children and then there are the health issues that potential masking or masking can cause we all know what colgate is many of us use their

086products the colgate's website details something called mask mouth it's where colgate states that wearing a mask for an extended period of time creates unwanted side effects including dry mouth bad breath tooth decay decay gum disease uh disrupts breathing and leads to dehydration and of course all of that has negative health effects and my daughter has experienced that 400 in dental bills because of tooth decay the second is lack policies regarding the treatments of students with so-called coveted symptoms this has resulted in denying a lot of children their education including mine my daughter said to her teacher the class is loud it's giving me a headache they sent her home with coven symptoms the school would not allow her on campus offered her no educational support denied her her right to an education for five days

087furthermore i've been provided no details by the school how was she removed from class was she put in a room by herself was she put in a room with other sick children was she ma of mark absent when she was denied access i don't know the school won't tell me this practice is just a major concern with our teens too last year they were denied access to their education for a month how many times would they be denied this year we couldn't take it anymore we had to pull them from school and go to other meets where are the guidelines that the schools follow why are healthy kids being quarantined the school board's coveted practices administered without wisdom discernment or even just basic guidelines for the schools to follow it's resulted in a practice of

088denying thousands of students access to public education that they are legally entitled to stop this now adults need to be an example they need to demonstrate the use of thought and wisdom not blind obedience let our kids breathe stop quarantining healthy kids and stop denying kids an education thank you jessica lewis tonight i would like to address the school quarantine policies my main question is why are so many healthy children being quarantined there are so many reasons kids are being sent home such as headache runny nose stomach ache my kids were out of school for three weeks last year because my son had a runny nose due to allergies and my daughter had a coveted exposure they both had zero cove symptoms and negative tests and were still told they could not come back this

089year already my daughter has been sent home twice from school the first time was trouble breathing and the second one was a one-time vomiting incident she was quarantined with no alternative to learning education and she once again had to go get tested to prove she was healthy in addition to children has the board considered the burdens on parents many families have both parents working they risk losing their job because their children are out for weeks at a time and their kids are perfectly healthy children are going to the state fair football games restaurants where it is crowded they are shoulder to shoulder and everyone is massless parents question why their kids do not have the same opportunity to choose whether their child wears a mask in school quarantining and contact tracing is a sole responsibility

090of the health department not the school administrators if a child is at home why are parents responsible for contacting the health department to beg for their healthy child to return to school it seems that it should be the other way around the health director should have to prove that the healthy child is an imminent threat now the school board thinks that testing in schools is an exit strategy the contact trace tracing in quarantine process is already in a mess with communication between the school and health department the solution is to add more workloads to an already broken system why is the school board more focused on turning schools into healthcare facilities instead of education testing in schools will most likely find more asymptomatic cases and will result in more quarantines does anyone on this board

091think these solutions are going to improve the already poor education and test scores from last year also who is going to be liable with this testing in the schools who is going to be held accountable for the continued decline in learning especially the healthy kids that are being denied in education these are just a few issues every day within our public school system this illness is not going away and we must learn to live with it runny nose stomach bugs congestion and headaches or child symptoms that have been in our schools forever and there has never been a concern until now everything in life cannot be due to covid mask mandates vaccines and constant testing may not be the solution we as parents want to know an exit plan to keeping healthy kids from being

092quarantined our children cannot afford any more learning loss they are already behind also please consider the burden on working parents who cannot afford to lose weeks of work i ask you to question this toolkit and the negative impacts it has on children and parents thank you cassandra cloninger good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening i'm coming before you tonight as a concerned parent i have two children currently enrolled in the wcps school system and have two that have graduated my concern lies around many things however as i'm limited in time i will be focusing on the most pressing issue i'm experiencing as a parent the safety of our children my 10th grader attends roseville high school two weeks ago i sat here and listened as

093you all sang the praises of deidre lasseter their principal i agree she is a wonderful leader and i am grateful to have her as a principal despite the fact that deidra is arguably one of our best in this district my son comes home almost every day with stories and oftentimes videos that are circulating amongst the students of fights breaking out at school one of his good friends who i lovingly refer to as my weekend child was beat up last week for no reason and despite the fact that he did not throw a single punch was served in school suspension last week they had a code red lockdown that lasted the entire day with very little communication to the parents as to what the threat actually was to this day i still have no idea what

094this threat entailed was it an email threat was it a gunman on campus so many rumors but i have zero facts that in and of itself is unacceptable that as a parent i am kept in the dark even after the threat is over it's also unacceptable that several children in my son's class had to urinate in a utility sink in a closet as they were not even allowed to go use the restroom meanwhile students taking the psats had zero idea that there was a code red lockdown and were wandering the hallways and able to use the restroom freely so please tell me how serious was this threat as a parent i have a right to know i say all of this to show that our children are under an unprecedented amount of stress the rise

095in fights and now lockdowns and even suicides are proof that our children are breaking under this pressure there have been four suicides on north carolina college campuses in the last week i am begging you please put an end to these abusive endocrine mass mandates and quarantine policies before we lose any more young lives are any of you here parents i trust that many of you are and if you're not i trust that at one point you had a passion for education and for our children i want you to take him onward this evening perhaps not now but as you unwind tonight and have time to take a deep breath and stop and think about how stressful it was for all of us to be a child particularly a teen and then i want you to

096think about how much more stressful it would have been had we had the social media pressure and technology that our children are now faced with navigating and then i want you to add a global pandemic to that and please remember that as a child you do not have the same decision making abilities or freedoms that we as adults have as a child you can't just tell your teacher that you will not wear a mask or that your stomach is really just anxiety and not covered no one will listen to you because you're a child and subject to the rules that the adults put on you i want you to think about how crushing these mandates are how devastating to your education and social well-being it is to be quarantined when you are perfectly healthy take

097a deep breath tonight and reflect on what we are asking of our children and ask yourself is this necessary i can sit here and spew numbers and cite studies but to what end you've been provided with this information time and time again and you choose to continue to go against the actual data in science and follow the narrative of fear so instead i will ask you to reflect on what impact your decisions are truly having on our children and their mental health finally i would like to know what your exit strategy is who is making these decisions and what is the plan to give back our children's education that they are entitled to how many more lives must we lose to suicide and how much more damage must we witness here before we before you

098implement a better strategy thank you for your time elizabeth horne i have been a substitute in wake county schools for several years now and i don't know who on the board or why the board decided to decrease the substitute pay it used to be 91 a day now it's 80 a day in addition you make all the substitutes take an effective teacher training class which i think everyone should take eighty dollars a day is about ten dollars an hour and you say well it's only seven and a half hours that's still in today's economy with the rate with coveted 19 with the fear that you've put in the teachers the students and the staff before i stood up today i checked there's 170 vacancies 170 vacancies i don't work at all schools i just choose

099the few that are closest to me there's like 12 you have a crisis in your school system i chose to substitute teach because i really care about the kids kids are number one parents you are number two teachers are number three i'm sorry board but you i care about you i know that you got a bad job and it's really tough and i understand your dilemma but parents need to have the right to choose for their kids i did substitute during coveted 19 because i read about my immunity as a teacher in wake county schools teachers have a strong immunity most of them unless you're diabetic you're overweight you have other health issues teachers we get exposed to everything our immunity is strong because the more that we're exposed to and dr martin you should

100know this when your body is exposed to illnesses your immune system gets stronger children have developing immune systems their immune system with each exposure gets stronger and stronger the mast if your child has a dependency on wearing the mask it's like a binky it's a security system you're going to have a hard time getting these parents to send their schools and their children in without masks there's a lot of children just like the parents in this room there's a lot of children that do not want to wear the mask it's a problem being a substitute teacher in the classroom is divisive even within the classroom so for me the pay i decided you know y'all are making it like really scary to even go into the classroom so i found another job but i do

101want to tell you because a parent asked me to bring up the suicide rate the cdc said today the emergency department visits for children between the age of 5 and 11 years rose by 24 this year and some 31 for ages 12 to 17 suspected suicide attempts among girls 12 to 17 saw more than a 50 increase this year compared to the same period last year the masks are causing a social dilemma you have to unmask the kids let the parents have a choice and let them work with the teachers for classes joyce rosenfeld [Applause] joyce rosenfield good evening superintendent moore chair sutton and board members thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight i have a few concerns i'd like to share with you ever since covet began i've been particularly concerned

102for my son the current situation with the way safety is handled has left me with a constant worry about my son's safety my son worries too school should be the one place that he doesn't have to worry about his safety and well-being we are in a pandemic yes these are not normal times but that doesn't mean that safety shouldn't be a priority first and foremost at his school and all wake county schools the mass mandate must continue to do otherwise would mean to say that you don't care about his life my life the rest of my family his friends teachers and staff maths are about safety not politics although i know you've heard this before but i feel that needs to be said again mass helped prevent the spread of clover they helped keep children

103and others from ending up on a ventilator and dying even losing one child from this virus is one too many i ask that you put the interest of not only my child but all students teachers and staff our children have been affected enough by this pandemic i ask that you use all strategies available to ensure that they not have to also suffer the loss of a student teacher or staff or staff member due to covid we shouldn't have to worry every month if the mass knit mandate is going to continue or not unfortunately we're dealing with a delta variant a much more contagious more deadly and aggressive virus in addition i ask that you accelerate the implementation of testing at schools when warranted and as necessary it's yet another important and crucial safety measure that

104helps prevent the spread of covert 19. is it unpleasant yes is it necessary at this time 100 percent we all want our schools to be safe and we all want to avoid another shutdown the testing will avoid having a major spread or cluster in our schools the testing is already paid for so there's really no excuse not to move forward with it of course a parent can opt out and test on his or her own i have a final ask and that is that you move forward without hesitation without excuses to allow ensure to allow and enable air purifiers in all our classrooms and to allow and enable outdoor lunches when weather permits cost isn't a factor as all of these expenses have already been covered by the cook by the uh clova 19 federal

105relief funds staffing isn't an issue either plenty of parents including myself are willing to volunteer to keep all of our children safe thank you again for taking the time to listen to understand to [Music] empathize and relate and to act in the best interest of all children their families teachers time thank you [Applause] sherry porto good evening chair sutton board members and superintendent moore i would like to thank you all for continuing to put safety over politics and science over rhetoric by supporting a mass mandate in our schools thank you for doing what was needed to keep our schools open safely after all that is the ultimate goal it's unfortunate how ugly and heated this topic has become and i'm sorry that you're being put in this position monthly i want to urge you all

106to continue to support to continue to support a mass mandate in wake county schools it is our most effective strategy to prevent the spread of the virus in schools on september 24th the cdc released three studies in the morbidity and mortality weekly report that highlighted the importance of universal masking to stop the spread of covid and minimize disruptions for safe and person learning these studies found that school districts without a universal masking policy were more likely to have coveted outbreaks when we prevent these outbreaks we are not only keeping kids safe from this virus but we are preventing unnecessary disruptions to their education kids in quarantine are not learning as well as kids who remain in person every day the abc science collaborative also continues to recommend masking in schools for both vaccinated and unvaccinated

107staff and students as the best mitigation strategy to prevent secondary spread of covid look at how well way county schools are doing with a mandate in place i know there is pressure from the opposition but i am asking you to please continue to follow the science and the data masking allows us to keep our schools open and to avoid widespread quarantines and the need to return to remote learning the social and emotional benefits of being in person have been immeasurable for my children please let us keep our eye on the goal and do what is necessary to keep our schools open safely and maintain the universal mass mandate thank you kristen beller good evening superintendent moore chair sutton and board members my name is kristen beller and i'm the president of wacon cae the professional

108organization representing all certified and non-certified public school employees in wake county currently we have vacancies and critical positions and the responsibility for filling them way on this board but the impact is felt by educators navigating challenges caused by them every day it's important to listen to the folks who have not left what do they need what makes them feel trusted and respected as a professional what are they doing that is the best use of their time in preparing for and responding to student learning during what part of their day do they feel most valued when we asked our fellow educators these questions over and over again folks shared that they feel most valued when they're with students teaching or supporting them we love working with our students supporting them in their learning driving them to

109and from school making nutrition field filled meals teaching them to ask questions and listen for the answers helping them navigate maps and math reading and writing foreign languages body movement and team sports we create classroom communities that support learning and grow our students academically socially and emotionally most of us in this room and at home have a vision in our minds of what our classroom should look like feel like sound like and when educators have all barriers eliminated that shared vision becomes a child's reality and our whole community benefits this year the barriers are plenty as the impact of the pandemic continues to bear down on our school staff trying to protect our students from tarnishing any of that shared vision of what we all want our school experiences to be like educators in every

110role are teaching and supporting students without social distancing testing or adequate contact tracing from the second year of a pandemic even through the delta surge because we want to keep our students in in person learning conditions but those conditions have meant that educators are taking greater risks and responsibility for student and staff safety than ever before educators working in person with students should be compensated for that risk with hazard pay certified staff are covering classes during planning periods instructional assistants and other non-certified staff are teaching in classrooms when a teacher is out and there's no substitute to fill the absence bus drivers are driving extra routes and doing double backs to make sure that all students arrive to and from school safely despite having less drivers on the road school staff are coming to school

111early and staying late to supervise students for an extended bus duty due to the shortage of drivers when educators said that they feel most valued when they're working with students it's important to add the butt but that experience can only feel that way and be that great for students and staff when they have time to prepare for it the staff who are covering classes and routes stretching themselves to do more learn new roles or content and take on unsustainable extra duties that interrupt their own personal needs and lives the staff who are doing all of that because they care about the experience students have should be well compensated for that extra work you might not be able to wave a wand and immediately fill the vacancies but you certainly can choose to compensate them for

112their time in labor thank you sincerely your joyce hi good evening ford and superintendent moore thank you for allowing me to speak i'm cecilia joyce i'm a middle school aig teacher here in wake county and also a proud in-law eagle parent with a senior again i'd like to begin by expressing my immense gratitude for the continued mass requirement in schools and all the wake county public school sites the highly contagious nature of the delta variant means that we must stay vigilant and keep our students ourselves and our family safe i also appreciate your resolution and support of leandro ruling and i hope to see movement there from our north carolina general assembly while this school year has been like no other we are really glad to be in school doing what we do best students

113and educators have shown tremendous a tremendous amount of resilience and perseverance in the face of all the challenges thrown our way the majority of our students have no problems wearing their mask properly and go about a fairly normal school day their core classes electives club meetings performances after school some have the opportunity to eat lunch outside some classes are outside at times too and in most ways our school year has been back to a new normal which there's a lot of meaningful learning happening but also some added stress because of the pandemic there is a staffing shortage that leaves very few substitute teachers available for work while my school site is fully staffed many are not we do not have staff we do have staff who are absent at times due to many factors and

114we are called on to cover classes for each other when no sub picks up the job we are team players we do this without animosity towards each other but we deserve compensation for working as a substitute during our planning time or for covering a bus route the work during our planning times such as planning grading sped aig intervention paperwork collaboration with other teachers if we're unable to do these tasks during planning it has to happen on our own time at home with our families and like everyone during this challenging time we need that downtime for our own social and emotional well-being now more than ever as a means of retaining the amazing hard-working staff who are working with students without social justice seeing many unvaccinated with problematic contact tracing we deserve hazard pay our ias

115deserve at least 15 dollars an hour and sub pay when they act as subs it is an honor to work with students and our time and labor should be honored as professionals the federal covered funds would be put to great use towards this thank you thank you school board and superintendent and staff for your time and efforts in compensating wake county public school staff fairly during these difficult times thank you michelle thompson i have never spoken at a board meeting for the education and public speaking is not something that comes easily for me however i am teaching my son that when you bring believe strongly in something you should make sure that your voice is heard i want to thank the board for promoting masking in schools and allowing my child to feel safe as

116he goes about his day i am here to ask the board to continue to take action to ensure the safety of our kids while they're in school i'm fortunate my school has been able to raise funds to have outdoor seating for children the pta purchased that seating the parents have purchased air filters for their children to be in school i'm asking the board to be sure that every student has the availability of these protections that are being provided at my school at my child's school we need testing and i'm glad to hear that the board has implemented a testing program i ask that you would accelerate that and continue to push towards testing for all people i look forward to the day when masking is not required but we're not there yet i would like

117to know from the board what are the measurements that will be taken what are the steps that will be taken to determine when that is able to go away i have a second grader at school he has never experienced a year at school without covid stress he's never had a full year of learning in school in an environment that he feels comfortable at i'm asking the board to do everything you can do to ensure that he continues to be in person at school and learning remote learning didn't work for us my mother had to do his learning with him at school my kindergartner was not savvy enough to do a lot of the electronic things that were being asked of him there were many days he would call me in tears mom i can't get

118into school today i would email the teacher i'm sorry i'm at work i can't help him log into school i'm sorry he won't attend today please don't let that happen again to our students please do everything in your power to ensure that they stay in school and that they stay safe thank you for your time and letting me speak and be an example to my son thank you of the things that you can do when you feel strongly about something [Applause] holly wheelchair good evening dr holly higgins wheelchair i'm grateful to be here with you again this evening it's affirming to know that we all stand here with a shared goal of healthy and safe and happy children this evening i want to talk to you about two things a child's emotional safety and resilience

119emotionally safety we've heard resoundingly in this public forum about how we want to keep children healthy and safe i think we can all agree on this goal at the same time the current experimental virus mitigation measures are threatening our children's emotional safety i cannot reiterate enough how much emotional safety is an important part of their overall health and well-being while missing signs of seizures strokes and nosebleeds or of course aspects of physical safety that are messed with children's faces covered emotional safety also impacts their physical wellness an environmental void of an environment void of facial connections for children is an emotionally unsafe environment did you know that research shows that we have a psychosomatic relationship with health and that emotional health is a huge impact of physical health a young child's emotional safety is threatened

120with not being able to see the faces of their peers and teachers how our brains and bodies process what we're experiencing emotionally is a large determinant of our physical health for example when a child sees an adult smile this is a neuro physiologic physiological event it makes our bodies physically healthy and keeps them psychologically safe when we institute policy practice and law that is in synchrony with the biology of child's developmental well-being we see remarkable things happen with their health and development when we institute policy practice and mandates that are out of synchrony with the child's biological development we have a mental health crisis on our hands resilience a very alarming statement i've heard thrown out over the last 18 months it's just a mask children are naturally resilient they'll be fine did you know

121that resilience research began six decades ago with a small group of psychologists who are studying children facing significant adversity and following their trajectories of health mental health mental illness and pathology these researchers studied a group of children in hawaii and tracked them over time the phenomenon of resilience doing well in spite of adversity actually arose as an anomaly from this group a small group of children doing well in spite of high risk factors what those researchers learned with it was that it was the protective factors in the lives that determined if a child would do well despite adversity what resilience research agrees agree on is the phenomenon of resilience occurs with the presence of the right internal and external child protective factors what resilience research does not tell us is that children are naturally resilient

122or born resilient in fact failure to thrive in infancy shows us this rather children are born with the capacity and potential to be resilient being in a relationally healthy environment is one of the greatest protective factors to build resilience it is important because for children who don't have a lot of protective factors in their lives it's not just a mask for a child who's already experiencing a lot of trauma it's not just a mask please consider these special considerations for children and consider giving parents the choice to send their children to school with masks thank you for your consideration in time christina jones i'm so sorry all right good evening thank you for allowing me to speak with you tonight i appreciate the update on the testing program and i was unclear whether the testing

123had begun or the next steps in addition to testing i'm interested in learning more about what is being done with further mitigation methods outdoor seating does not exist for all schools yet and air purifiers and classrooms are a hit or miss nothing from the district oversight has changed since the start of the school year what are we waiting for delta took us all by surprise and threw us for a loop at the beginning of the school year we came to you asking for metrics transparency and requirements and have received the bare minimum what is the plan for the next search i want to know that we have learned something from all of this to be better prepared for the next wave leadership isn't about having all the right answers it's about putting a plan together

124that is transparent for all to see i don't know how i can trust you to have a plan b when i'm unclear as to what your plan a was with the weather getting colder i understand that outdoor seating is not going to be the preferred location for many in our schools but how have we improved the air quality in our cafeterias this sit and wait game that the district is playing is putting our children and families in the line of fire vaccines are still not available for our elementary school students and i fear that due to the declining number of coveted cases we will soon be hearing about how the importance of seeing each other's faces outweigh the health of our children family and friends i'm exhausted with this fight just as much as anyone

125else but i'm not willing to give up on our children because it was an easier decision for you to wait it out last year the message was all children need to be in classroom so this year we did just that why are we not bending over backwards to ensure that they stay in their classrooms we are still in the middle of a pandemic whether or not you want to believe it we are seeing progress now with the delta surge but it seems that some people think that it's all over if we treat this like an on off switch it will come back just as suddenly as it did before and then we'll be stuck trying to remedy a problem that we have already faced so what are you doing chair sutton and superintendent moore to

126lead the district today to proactively solve the problems we will undoubtedly face tomorrow thank you michelle marie marrow hi i want to thank you for the opportunity to speak i am a registered nurse as well as a mother of five kids and i'm also a follower of jesus and i wanted to share this verse in the book of james we're told to consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything if any of you lacks wisdom you should ask god who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you we all agree the past 19 months have been a

127trial in many different ways i wanted to express to the wake county board of education my appreciation for your decisions over the last 19 months you see if you had not chosen to close down schools and send children home with the computers we still wouldn't really know what's being taught in our classrooms so thank you if you're not coward to the demands of the ncae in keeping our schools closed longer than any other industrialized nation we would never have looked into the workings of the ncae and realized it has direct links to the progressive party and less than 18 percent of our educators belong to that organization thus casting a shadow on the ncae as a whole and the power that they wield so thank you if you'd not fought to keep critical race theory

128in our curriculum the majority of the country wouldn't even know the ulterior motive that the federal government control in our schools so for that we thank you if you had allowed our children to come back to school and a lot left the decisions masks up to parents many who have researched the scientific facts about covid masks and the risk factors and chosen to keep their children home or put them in in private schools that promote freedom of choice and focus on education rather than indoctrination they wouldn't have done that so for that i thank you for the past 17 months as teachers doctors parents students teachers concerned citizens have filled this building with facts with scientific with scientific analysis psychological discussions personal testimonies and struggling stories of their youngsters you have turned a deaf ear

129you've doubled down on your agenda to obey the u.s department of education as well as the myriad of highly paid appointed members of the dpi the dhhs and even superintendent moore's office you've demonstrated an air of superiority and contempt and for that i thank you because for your responses or lack thereof you have gotten parents off of their couches and they are now taking responsibility for their children's education which definitely should have happened a long time ago your attitudes have also empowered people who never thought they would be involved in civics to get involved to run for local positions like the school board because they've learned that just because you're elected to a position does not make you the expert in decision making gives you the opportunity yes to serve your people i believe we

130are on the cusp of a huge change here in wake county and even throughout our country and you have much to do with that change so for that i thank you so that concludes tonight's public comment speakers that moves us to our consent agenda can i entertain a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda so moved got a motion from his johnson hoster second from dr martin to approve tonight's consent agenda during the discussion hearing none are those in favor shall by sign of i nay eyes have it content agenda is approved that moves us to the action portion of our agenda first up is the name for the new cooperative innovative high school and morrisville roosters triangle park area ms parker good evening good evening chair sutton superintendent more ladies and gentlemen of the board

131always a pleasure on december 12th of 2018 the board of education acquired 44.14 acres adjacent to parkside elementary school for use as a middle school and a small high school building on the success of ongoing early college high schools in concert with wake technical community college an agreement on the terms and conditions of a memorandum of agreement between the board and wake tech to support the location and operation of a cooperative innovative high school on wake tech's rtp campus has been reached consideration of approval by wake tech's board of trustees occurred at their meeting today the school is currently slated for a 2022 opening naming for the new cooperative innovative high school is now required in accordance with board policy 9300 the following names are offered for consideration western wake college and career academy morrisville

132college and career academy research triangle park early college of information and biotechnologies and wake early college of information and biotechnologies in accordance with board policy 9300 the names were offered to the facilities committee on october 13th after due consideration and robust discussion the facilities committee recommended that the name selection of wake early college of information and biotechnologies be brought forward to the full board for consideration today the facilities committee further recommended that for internal and marketing purposes that the school location on wake tech's research triangle park campus be referred to as the wake early college for information and biotechnology's morrisville campus and that the future location at the parkside middle school location be referred to as wake early college of information by biotechnologies at the parkside campus pursuant to board input staff recommend selection of

133wake early college of information and biotechnologies i'm happy to have any answer any questions you may have and once again dr kimberly lane and paul dominico from magnet and curriculum enhancement are available if there any specific questions about the program dr martin on behalf of facilities committee with robust discussion i'd like to move going forward with the name as recommended the wake early college for information biotechnologies with campuses at mooresville and parkside second i had a motion from dr martin second from mr hegarty to name the new cooperative innovative high school the monster richard triangle park area as the wake early college of information and biotechnologies during the discussion mr hegarty thank you mr chairman i just want to thank dr martin and dr lane and miss parker for the wonderful discussion that we had

134during facilities you know anytime there's the naming of a new school especially one kind of is news and exciting and this one everyone has their favorites but i thought we were able to really go through a lot of the issues and find a way to honor all of our partners in this proposal so i really appreciate everybody's input and feedback and think we came up with a good solution thank you mr kushner thank you chair sutton and i also want to reiterate the discussion we had at facilities around the academic innovation that this school represents and the continuing despite um you know that just the continuing choices and creativity and focus on curriculum that the school system continues to have during very strained times so i heard great things about the open house that was

135held virtually from the early colleges i i just think it shows that the innovation in education is happening in our public education system and we need to emphasize that academic excellence thank you dr martin i think it's also appropriate to acknowledge president rawls and all the members of wake tech they've been outstanding partners and this will be another great opportunity to partner between wake county schools and the community college system indeed all right here enough further discussion all those in favor of the motions sure about santa barbara all right any opposed nay as having the new name for the cooperative innovative high school in mars for richard's triangle park will be the wake early college of information and biotechnologies thank you ladies and gentlemen next item up is the revision to the 2021-2022 wake county

136public school system calendar it's tamanna anderson you don't have to rush you're right good evening i didn't realize i was next thank you thank you good evening on behalf the wake county public school system leadership i am requesting a revision to the current 2122 calendar specifically the change would extend the current veterans day holiday break by one day to include friday november 12th for all wake county public school systems staff and students the purpose of this request is to provide an extended veterans day break for those honoring our military families and a chance for employees to use a remote workday to help them reflect and repair i'm sorry prepare for the remainder of the semester the district can implement this change by using bank instructional time to ensure the required 1024 hours of instruction is

137delivered for the 21 22 school year year-round track three who are tracked out on november 12th and the day of reflection and preparation will be held on november 15th 2021 that's jim happy chair sutton i make a motion that we accept this revision to the calendar and that would include the waiver of board policy 7503 as listed on the prices of course thank you thank you so i got a motion from his vice chairman happy second from uh mr scott to approve staff's request to change or revise the 2021-22 calendar and this includes a waiver of board policy 7503 during the discussion pastor mahathi thank you chair sutton i think last year we saw these calendar changes coming and we would brace ourselves and it's hard and it's never easy to change a calendar i

138think this year given vacancies given what our staff has been going through covering for those vacancies having time for our children to spend a little more time with their families having our staff have a moment to reflect and plan is appropriate during this time and and having it but up to the veteran's day holiday which is also a day of reflection for our nation is appropriate i don't think any of us take a calendar change lightly after what we went through last year and i appreciate staff taking the time to make this possible mrs carter thank you and yes i would agree i it i guess i'm a little worried that it didn't make the agenda on friday just for the public to be able to have awareness and have that information known what was

139going to be presented tonight and i guess the other question i have i know it's one day but for many of our students they are struggling academically and i also realize though many of our students are struggling emotionally i've heard quite a few especially at middle and particularly high school level who are struggling and i acknowledge the importance of education but many times we can't get to the education with other issues that are going on and i just want to state that at the table because i know that's real for a lot of our families the emotional piece is what i'm referring to and i just want to state that because i feel like it's very important because not only for our staff our school staff and everything that they're having to go through i

140also feel like our families and our students as well and i'm just wondering around though because it is less than a month away any supports that are going to be in place for those who are needing assistance with child care or is there any work around that being done as a district and ms carter we have contacted the y raleigh park and iraq and all of those so so they are aware of this potential change that depending on where we land tonight they're already moving on and um kind of piggybacking my other thoughts i had there sorry i was just trying to because it just got posted so um i was wondering if there was a way that we could have communication go out to our employees and also our families about reminders of support

141that are available for those in our district the social emotional support that we've got options available of course there's if this does get approved tonight as part of some of the just because sometimes like we get so many emails and understand we don't want to keep sending that but sometimes it if it's sent at the right time folks can use it and some might choose to use that during this time okay any further discussion dr martin i think it's appropriate to recognize and thank you for this uh recommendation that we set aside bank well bank towers as well as potential emergency days in the event of particularly in the fall in the event of tropical storms and i think we're all thankful that we did not have a tropical storm but i think we did

142have a pandemic storm so i think this is a very appropriate use of banked hours and will give time for reflection time for some of that frankly mental health breather and and so i actually think this is uh respecting the different kind of storm that we had and thus a very appropriate use of our banked emergency weather days thank you mr scott thank you and i also wanted to uh express my gratitude to staff for bringing this uh to us um it's it's a small uh in in terms of what we would like to be able to do um but i also appreciate that unlike weather which we cannot predict three weeks in advance this does allow our partners in parks and recreation and child care providers to to be able to help us in

143any way that uh families may need for that so i appreciate all of this thank you any further discussion seeing none all those unfavorability about signify opposed nay eyes have it the motion to revise the calendar is approved thank you thank you next up is board policy 2610 board attorney on his first reading dr gardner chair sutton superint superintendent and members of the school board good evening i'm here to present to you policies 2610 board attorney for first reading policy 2610 board attorney is a revised policy and the reflect revisions reflect updates recommended by the north county school boards association and district staff when given final board approval tonight it will replace the current version of this policy in your backup materials the revision is highlighted in a different color to show you the different

144phrase that was extended in this particular paragraph this revision was reviewed at the september 28 2021 policy committee meeting so tonight i request from the board approval for first reading of policy 2610 board attorney ms kushner thank you chair sutton i move approval of the revised policy board policy 2610 board attorney for its first reading second motion from mrs kushner second from johnson hosler to approve board policy 2610 board attorney on his first reading during the discussion hearing none although it's unfair shabbat shalom opposed nay eyes habit board policy 2016 board attorney is approved on his first reading thank you very much next up is board policy 6330 insurance for student transportation services on its first reading sudden superintendent moore members of the board good evening i'm here tonight to present to you the first

145reading of policy 6330 insurance for student transportation services policy 6330 is a new policy it was created by the nc school boards association as part of their policies to lead the school's manual and is a part of a policy migration project when given final approval it will replace current policy 7140 student transportation insurance it was reviewed at the september 28 2021 policy committee meeting and tonight we request the board's approval of the first reading of policy insurance for student transportation services mrs christine thank you chair son and likewise i'll remove approval of board policy 6330 insurance for student transportation services for its first reading again it was part of the policy migration project so just i'm working with the school board association to update our policies i had a motion from mrs kushner second from

146dr martin to approve board policy 6330 insurance for student transportation services on his first reading during the discussion hearing none are those in favor show by sign of i opposed nay eyes have it for policy 63-30 insurance for student transportation services is approved on this first reading thank you thank you sir i can entertain a motion to go into closed session chair sutton i'd like to make a motion that the board enter closed session to consider confidential personnel information protected under gs 143-318-118183 and a6 to consult with the board of education attorney and preserve the attorney-client privilege as provided with gs143-318-1183 got a motion from vice chair mahaffey second from mrs kushner to go into closed session for the political reasons just stated and that's printed on our agenda during the discussion hearing none all

147those in favor shall sign oppose nay eyes haven't we are now in closed session please stand adjourned thank you very much you