Board of Education · Regular Meeting · December 14, 2023

Moment of silence as we're getting ready to go into the holiday season we hope that everyone has rest and some peace over this break we also know that there's continues to be turmoil in our world and let's hold those things together as we have this moment of.

Silence thank you the next item our agenda is celebrations we'll welcome Miss. Cooper good evening board members Dr maena fellow DPS colleagues families and the Durham Community it is a continual honor to address you as we come together to applaud the achievements of Durham Public Schools our district marked by the remarkable accomplishments of our exceptional students and staff stands as a testament to our Collective dedication to Excellence and our mission to embrace educate and empower EMP every student to innovate serve and Lead while this may be expected for those familiar with our community the recognition of these outstanding individuals tonight will undoubtedly reaffirm the extraordinary caliber of talent within our midst first we will recognize the December student of the month followed by our teacher and employee of the month honors we will conclude this month's celebrations with DPS spark pin presentations please welcome Dr Gloria Woods weeks principal of Riverside High School to present our December student of the month this is a Mr Seth Stallings not Dr Glory Woods weeks Riverside High.

School thank you I noticed the meeting's three hours I'll only take half of that for Lila I am Seth Stallings Project Lead the Way teacher at Riverside High School and it's a privilege and honor to introduce our December public school student of the month as a teacher I've watched this young person develop socially emotionally and academically over the course of her High School career she has impressed me and the rest of the faculty as one of the finest young individuals at our school when I think of Lila Perez my first thought is of selfless service I'll give you a glimpse of what I have seen every day since Lila came into Riverside as part of our Project Lead the Way engineering magnet she has graced my doors three times now maybe another one coming in the spring and I'm better for her presence my teaching philosophy is the same as my business philosophy was in my prior career and that is to give your people lots of freedom and let them.

Flourish some people are uncomfortable with that Leila flourishes I first got to know the fiber of her in digital electronics where she produced Flawless work Lea may not know this but I don't always do keys I figure out who my top students are compare their answers and if they agree then I roll with it Leila was my key for digital electronics 2022 23 I went right down to the peas and said looks good to me let's roll her analytical ability is at the highest level but her helpful nature sets her apart from other strong students it was common for her to hear from me Lea come figure out why the circuit's not working Lea help so and so Lea Lea Lea I expect she wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes says Mr Stalin is calling me you know one of those nightmare moments she never not once complained rode her eyes reacted or as if she was bothered she's the most caring helpful and compassionate student.

I have taught in recent years Leela does not single out her impact in our magnet program though her achievements are remarkable awards are numerous and community service impeccable for an honor rooll high school student she is co- officer and co-founder of Riverside 's Asian American Student Association she is a member of Riverside Student Government Association she's a member of the environmental Club an integral part of our new chapter of the Society of women engineers and a member of both the National Honor Society and the National Technical Honor Society outside of school she volunteers at the local food bank in Durham extracurricular activity that Lila is most involved in and most passionate about is dance she's been a company and competive itive dancer for nine years at Nina School of Dance Lea enjoys the challenge of learning a variety of dance styles as she continues to strengthen her dance abilities she won an artist simply human Apprentice full dance scholarship in February of this year after auditioning at their convention Lila continues to give back.

To her community while pursuing her passion one of her Studio show showcases multiple choices for the children Jazz show requires each company member to D each dancer to raise a minimum of $400 that will be donated to the juk Children's Hospital during the summer before this her senior year she attended Governor school for dance which she considers to be one of her top achievements she even auditioned for her spot with a sprained ankle I attended the governor School recital and Leila stood out in the impressive group of dancers my son is a dancer and though it's definitely not my area of expertise after seeing hundreds of competition one develops an i the governor School choreographer knew where their strong dancers were and it was clear that Lea was given the technically difficult Parts because of her extraordinary abilities Lea's humble and she would say that's not true but it is she's clearly incredibly talented and she was a standout on the dance floor at Governor School upon graduation Laya has.

Options as would be no surprise she is looking at North Carolina State perhaps majoring in textile engineering industrial design at appstate and may be electrical engineering at UNCC Charlotte she may pursue a minor and dance I hope she does and she also plans to obtain her master's degree whichever school is lucky enough to land Lea will be doing their institution and their student body a great service Lila will be a positive force on campus watch for Lila Perez in the news you're gonna see her please join me and congratulating our DPS student of the month Miss Lela Perez.

What an impressive resume you have Leila congratulations we are so thrilled to acknowledge you tonight publicly and with this public celebration of how amazing you are we have a few things that we'd like to present to you tonight so please come forward first we have your official DPS student of the month certificate we have a DPS spark pin and these are presented to individuals who epitomize what it means to represent during Public Schools we hope that you were Weare this proudly we have some friends over at triangle e cycling and when they heard about you they wanted to make sure that they knew that you knew that they were supporting you 100% regardless of where your endeavors take you so they'd like for you to have this laptop.

Tonight and now please welcome Dr chis Soto director of school-based well-being for the Durham public schools foundation for a special. Presentation that was that was amazing and it makes me humble to be sitting here and sharing this award with you the Durham Public Schools Foundation is dedicated to supporting and championing our DPS students families and staff we are proud ongoing sponsors of the DPS teacher of the year program DPS Building Services employee of the year program the appreciation celebration the DPS convocation and beginning this school year the DPS student of the month program the DPS Foundation believes that every child deserves well-funded community- centered Public Schools rich in materials human resources and programming that supports the development of the whole child we fight for those schools day in and day out in partnership with DPS and we raise funds to do that work and to distribute those efforts DPS sees our student of the month as ex as an example of our Durham community and what happens when a combination of resources reach students.

Families and School staff we want to support your continued growth Leela and we hope that you will use this $500 gift card to further your educational passions whether they are academic art based college or moving into the workforce we are very proud of you and we are proud of Durham public.

Schools at this time Leela we'd like for you to step forward to take a photo with Dr Pascal mbenga our superintendent we'd like your family to come and take that photo with you and then you'll be congratulated by our board.

What.

Please welcome Michelle Hayes executive director of talent acquisition and employee recognition for our teacher and employee of the month.

Presentations. Good evening chairman I'm s members of the board Dr MinGa and cabinet members the theme for our December teacher and employee of the month is inclusivity this is the individual who ensures everyone feels welcome valued and respected no matter who they are or where they are or where they come from Imagine your school or Department with everyone is invited and treated fairly regardless of their background race gender or beliefs our teacher of the month is sponsored by North Carolina Central University's tennis program the tossa chapter of Omega SciFi Fraternity Incorporated and DCL Consulting LLC and our employee of the month is sponsored by the office of Human Resources we're going to recognize our teacher of the month first then our employee our December teacher of the month is Joy Mas first through third grade teacher at George Watts Monas.

School Miss Mason is a model of inclusivity in all areas she is constantly looking for opportunities to learn about Equitable and culturally responsive teaching practices but beyond that her classroom is a model of social emotional and Community Learning as a mono classroom teacher Miss Mason approaches her classroom Community as a guide and a facilitator for both Independence and interdependence students are explicitly taught to use the the peace Corner four times when they need to address both internal conflict and emotionally regulate as well as time of external conflict with a peer students are confident in their abilities to talk about conflict and navigate resolution Miss Mason is a consistent Problem Solver ensuring students with disabilities are able to engage and grow in the community outside of the classroom Miss Mason also leads in inclusive practices she facilitated a splash session this summer sharing monory practices for classroom management and Community inel Development with more broad teacher Community Miss Mason also serves on the teacher leadership committee implementing a grant funded Rainbow Club.

Providing a safe space for students to talk about identity issues and creating inclusive spaces for all including gender and lgbtq individuals and families let's congratulate Joy Mason for being named during public school's December teacher of the.

Month you also get a spark pen coach Lawson was not is not available to be here tonight but he did present her an award at her school the other.

Day.

Our December employee of the month is Michelle Hera Garcia family liaison from Glenn Elementary.

School Michelle Hera Garcia has proudly served as Glenn's School family liaison since 2022 a former student from Glenn she is passionate positive and patient as she serves our school Community every day and frequently on nights and weekends too last year Miss heleta Garcia LED efforts to build our school's Family Center while ensuring clear communication and support to all glance family as a member of the school's attendant team she is passionate about students attending school every day being bilingual she never hesitates to help interpret for our Spanish-speaking families students and community members and ensures that all documents families receive are accessible to families whose first language is not English Beyond her daily work Miss Hera Garcia is always ready to lend a helping hand whether that means covering at extra Duty so a teacher so a classroom teacher can have a short break break helping with home visits to support our families providing resources to our school community and establishing Partnerships Miss Hera Garcia seems to do it all and more last.

Year she led the planning and imple implementation of our school's Hispanic heritage celebration to say it was a success is an understatement hundreds of families attended to enjoy a local cuisine food truck meals and desserts from our families see see students and teachers perform traditional dances and music and learn about what students have been studying across content areas in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month it was easily Glenn's most successful family night ever and we hope to build on it this year well next year when asked why Miss Hera gasera wanted to become an educator at Glenn she said I wanted to advocate for our students and I love working with our families and I want to to be able to Pro to provide support to each student just like my teachers did for me when I was at Glenn Miss Hada Garcia does all that and more we are grateful she is on the Glenn's team once again congratulations to Miss Michelle Hera Garcia for being named during public school's December employee of the.

Month also gets a spark.

Pain.

Okay.

Congratulations.

Culations congratulations to our teacher and employee of the month tonight's spark pen recipients come from all all corners of our DPS and Durham Community each has played an important role in shaping young lives and our district our first Spark pen recipient is presented to sherod Washington in DPSS transportation department Mr Washington is one of the first faces our students see in the morning as he is one of our dedicated bus drivers on the morning of November 9th after completing his route Mr Washington jumped into action in a different capacity he was the substitute teacher in a fourth grade classroom this was observed by our chief of schools Dr Stacy Stewart as she conducted a school Improvement plan walkthrough visit Dr Stewart said that it was amazing to watch how he engaged his students and how excited they were to participate in the lesson noting that their hands popped up like popcorn to be selected to read and share responses Mr Washington proudly exhibits his commitment to our students and we know.

He is making a positive impact in Scholars lives thank you Mr Washington and.

Congratulations are you a family is this your family that.

Here. You're shaking my hand thank you so much congratulations congratulations our next recipient is Meredith money and DPSS research and accountability Department she is considered a thought partner and Problem Solver among her fellow RNA colleagues her invaluable support within the department has a direct impact on our students and central office staff departments Miss Mooney's knowledge and expertise paired with her caring spirit and can do attitude is appreciated and felt by all executive director for research and accountability Dr Al Royster said Miss Mooney ignites supports and advocates for our DPS students and is the true definition of the word spark thank you for all you do Miss Mooney.

Congratulations.

Heidi Perez DPS is secondary literacy integration specialist is our next spark pin recipient in addition to her role in curriculum and instruction Miss Perez Works tireless to coordinate large District events for teachers one of those events was the back toschool kickoff for all secondary teachers which was held in August I know several of us are aware of what it takes to launch a new school year Miss Perez took on the role of organizing a funfield day that included professional development sessions a community partner fair and a mini Food Truck Rodeo for nearly 1500 teachers Dr Linda uan DPS is executive director of K12 Cur curriculum and instruction said that it was an amazing start to the school year this would not be possible without her unwavering dedication and commitment to our staff thank you and congratulations Miss.

Perez.

Durham and DPS are so very fortunate to have Community organizations that understand the critical role they play in the success of our students it takes a village and Dr Wanda Boon has been part of our village for many years she is the founder and CEO of together for resilient youth or try try has served our community since 1992 and expanded in 2012 serving our state and Beyond the organization promotes Health wellness and safety for all by using the public health model to address underlying adverse experiences that often result in behavioral health challenges our strategic plan prioritizes the social and emotional well-being of our school communities and emphasizes the importance of hold child whole Child Development we appreciate the support she has provided over the years that has allowed us to better serve our students and families We Salute You and Your advocacy Dr Boon thank you and.

Congratulations.

Our final presentation is a bit of a surprise and certainly Bittersweet one of this colleague signatures was his ability to disarm and make people feel heard and welcome his professional development opened with connection before content to give participants a chance to to get to know each other before they got down to work if he called or visited one of his colleagues he'd always asked how are you doing before sharing his question or thoughts and he laughed as hard as he worked that work ethic and his ability to educate in a manner that encourages people to reflect is what we celebrate tonight Dr Daniel Kelvin bulock has served this District greatly for more than 17 years as a teacher and administrator while with us he has positively impacted students families colleagues and outside organizations he exudes leadership in a way that makes it easy for others to follow him his trailblazing Equity platform within the district has created safe spaces for critical conversations and constructive friction both of which are necessary for.

Any positive change to take place Dr Bullock's leadership continues to align with the DPS strategic plan and his personal work goal is to always push others in the same capacity and deliver exceptional customer service to every single Durham Public School stakeholder the DPS spark pin is hereby presented to Dr Daniel Kelvin bulock for the spark he ignites in DPS in the city of Durham thank you Dr Bullock and.

Congratulations.

This concludes our celebrations for the evening there was so many wonderful celebrations from staff to students Dr Bullock will definitely be missed as the equity first inaugural Equity director in our district but we're really sad to see him go but we know that his impact will be felt for many many years to come the next item on our agenda is our superintendent's update I'm going to pass it over to you Dr mainga all right thank you Madame chair good evening Madame chair members of the board and the Public School Community thank you for the opportunity to share how our student and staff continue to amaze us with their achievement DPS annual shortcase of school was a rising success with families from across Durham joining us at Durham Convention Center on Saturday November 18th learn about every school and program in our district we receive many thanks from parents caregivers community members we appreciate it our onetop shop for learning and getting the questions answered our school are hosting tools not through January for families to.

Visit and experience what our schools have to offer last week DPS received an invitation from ncdpi Office of advanced learning and gifted education in recognition of our efforts to broaden student access and successful participation in advanced courses DPS data for 2023 exams reflect a 24% increase of exam taken and 24.8 increase in qualifying schools higher than our district preco data in addition our broadening access with success is reflected in increased participation in AP courses and an increase in qualifying schools with significant increases among student of college thank you to Laura peret director of advanced academics for your leadership in this area DPS is actively recruiting qualified staff to fill vacancies our approach to International candidates continues to GIC results I'm happy to report that we have sent 17 teachers from Jamaica who will join us next school year tonight I would like to acknowledge two dynamic DPS laders who will departing from for we will departing from us next year so I'm going to start with Kevin bulock as you heard tonight Kevin.

Bulock has been really the pioneer of Equity work in our district even though it's leaving us today the work will continue but but the person that will follow him by the footprint of that bulock will remain forever Dr bulock you have served us really well we studed from scratch I remember my time when I came to DPS it was just a PowerPoint presentation that you presented from that point you were able to build up the work going from definition of what Equity means policies and the PD that came along to impact all our staff you'll be missed and I heard your comment you will still be around tonight I would also like to acknowledge our will calling my friend Dr Dan Davis that has been here with us for six years Dr Davis has served us as assistant superintendent for a onepoint secretary education then it was transferred to high school only I met Dr Davis when he was coming from New Mexico we worked together at.

DPI and then he left us he went to hcom then finally came here to join us the way that Dave is going to be reminded or be remembered is been able to build the culture of collaboration among High School principles during his tenure Dr Davis has been able to work with our principles and three of those principles has been named DPS principal of the year I will site Dr Tobias Miss Taylor and Dr Logan who has been named recently you all will be missed both of you but the DPS will always be a part of your family as the superintendent of Doran Public Schools ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our student and staff is my most foremost priority we are committed to providing secure and nurturing environment that Fosters optimal learning environments our comprehensive safety Protocols are regularly reviewed and updated to align with the latest best practices ensuring that our schools remain at the Forefront of safety standards this include ongoing collaboration with local law enforcement and regular safety.

Drills we recognize the importance of cultivating a culture of awareness and responsibility within our school Community it's through the combined effort of our dedicating staff engage parents and Vigilant students that we can create an environment where everyone feels safe valued and ready to excel academically and personally we remain unwavering in our commitment to maintaining and the highest standard of safety in all DPS empowering our student to strive in a secure and supportive educational setting as we approach the winter break I want to extend my warmest wishes to our students families and dedicated staff of Duran Public Schools may this holiday season bring joy relaxation and cherish moment spent with your loved one thank you for your hard work and commitment throughout the year I look forward to our continued success in the upcoming year Madame chair board members community members pleas conclude my remarks thank you Dr MinGa what a really rich superintendent update the next item on the agenda is our agenda review and.

Approval a second the agenda the excuse me it's been moved by Miss VOD darz second by Miss Lewis is there any other discussion all those in favor please say I I I I hear some eyes behind me and those opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously pleas the next item on our agenda is the monthly meetings stated November 16. 2023 move approval of the November minutes second it's been moved by Miss buer seconded by Miss Rogers any other discussion all those in favor please say I I I any opposed please use the same sign passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is general public comments before we get started I'll do a RW of the rules first please state your name and if you're speaking for an organ organization state your name in the name of the organization second speakers we're going to ask you to present your comments within two minutes we have 22 speakers signed up tonight so we are going to limit it to two minutes and.

That is within our policy when the yellow light comes on you'll have one minute left to start winding up your remarks when the red light comes on it will beep which indicates your time is up complaints about Nam staff students or parents should not be voiced in Open session however we are very interested in hearing your concerns with regard to public education safety of students or to the operation of the school system finally board members will listen carefully we consider your comments but we do not engage in a discussion with speakers I'll also add I know many of you might have had longer comments that you can email the Board of Education if you would like to share that's b as in boy o as in I can't think some right Omar thank you e in education at dpsnc.net b o dpsnc.net our first speaker will be Millie Rosen followed by Chad Irvin and if I mispronounce your names please correct me when you come to the podium been called rosin a lot hi.

Everybody am I good to start my name is Millie Rosen I'm a seventh grade math teacher at DSA I've taught here for 10 years I'm not speaking for an organization I know I usually do I'm here to speak about two things support for queer staff and students and the new DSA plan generally I think the lgbtq task force is making good strides I encourage the board to keep DPS moving forward we need to set an example of inclusion and support for everyone in DPS regardless regardless of the backwardness of our state leaders as the GSA adviser at my school I can say that middle and high school kids are following the state laws that are passed and pay attention to whether our local leaders push back or not and they very much appreciate when they do one suggestion I have in this vein is to maybe vet our PD speakers a little more carefully the speaker at the southern kickoff this year who led the Middle School Equity session said something I'm.

Paraphrasing but it was to the effect of we may not all agree with it but we just have to keep it inside and be nice to each other in regards to homophobia and what you were taught I think as a district we can do better than that and I say that not as a complaint but as a suggestion one resource I found really helpful in talking to people about this is called the riddle homophobia scale it's worth a Google can really help you understand the levels and where tolerance Falls which is actually pretty low the other topic I'm here for is the new DSA building plans I'm concerned for the reasons a lot of my colleagues are going to share in a minute the main issue is that staff were nominally involved in the planning but very little of our input was even considered or applied to the point of as we're going to explain doing exactly the opposite of some things that classroom teachers know and voiced multiple times as best.

Practices for doing our job well I'd like to point out a specific issue as as a middle school teacher in seventh grade so stakeholders in including staff were misinformed and told that middle and high school students would not share spaces stakeholders were told that the bell schedule would be different so they would not be in the hallway at the same time this is not true all day in our current situation our seventh and eth grade students are on the same schedule as 9th through 12th and for the last three periods sixth graders are too it's not developmentally appropriate for sixth grade and 12th grade students to be sharing Hall space and bathrooms throughout the majority of the day currently they're in separate buildings were able to do that is that my minute oh that's my time that's your time thanks Millie thank you next we have Chad IR Irvin followed by Joseph kver and Kimberly Gino y'all feel free to come on up and be ready to roll right thank you so my name is.

Chad Irvin I'm a social studies teacher of 13 years at DSA parent of two future Durham Public Schools children and voter and a taxpayer and I want to talk about the new DSA and not speaking for any organizations as well but so the new DSA plan as it currently stands is consuming a large amount of taxpayer money and resources it's way over budget from the original projections years ago a lot of this is due to inflation and Rising interest rates which is obviously not anyone's fault here and out of our control however how we respond to these changing situation is within the board's control stakeholders in our community want to make sure resources and taxpayer money are used wisely and equitably with the cost of constructing the new DSA currently so large is worth asking about should this project be done right now and what alternatives may be out there especially the new DSA the community is getting for such a high price is a facility that's arguably not going to.

Function properly this begs that there are current excuse me this begs the question that what alternatives are out there despite what we hear there are currently proposals and plans available to the board to renovate the current DSA facility much lower cost to the taxpayer these plans would alleviate the current issues of new DSA project is facing at half of the cost and provide the space needed for arts and academics at DSA if a better solution presents itself that is reasonable and way less expensive than the new DSA plan let's make a smart decision not just stick with the same plan just because that's what was originally decided a few years ago is it possible that District leadership wants to build a new DSA on a different site because they currently have their own plans for the DS the old DSA location yes one current proposed plan for the old DSA location has spend $35 million of taxpayer money as of board meeting November 2021 to renovate the old DSA to build District leadership.

Some new office central office space so my question is how is spending these millions to build the new central office suite student centered or even Equitable to any other school that that money could be spent on and so we're advocating for the board to vote no to the plan for the new DSA as it stands from our perspective these options moving forward are to first and foremost reconsider is that the end okay thank you thank you hello good evening thank you for hearing from us I'm Joseph kver I am DSA as well this is my fifth year at Durham Public Schools 17 years in North Carolina and I'm talking about some of the concerns for the classroom a lotman as they stand for the new new DSA right now so right now we are at currently at 111 classrooms and we are doing a lot of classroom sharing and floating which in a 100y old building understandable but we have the ability right now to plan for there not to only be enough.

Classrooms for the current teachers there but as our motto says for DPS grow together you know we want to grow and our our enrollment is going to go up we want that we want you know more students we want more teachers and so it'd be really nice to not only have enough classrooms for the teachers we have now but also for how we hope to grow and I think it's serendipitous that Dr Bullock was here tonight because my job is to kind of paint a picture of how important it is to have that classroom space you know one of the things one of the really great advantages of having your own classroom is number one as soon as the kids leave I make my second cup of coffee then you you have PLC meetings you have students come in for tutoring and retakes and you know for separate settings for students with 504s and IEPs and that is all part of the equity plan and when I came to DPS five.

Years ago and knew that Equity was one of the focuses that was so exciting and that is just something that we use the classrooms for and I don't see how we're going to be able to do that with the classroom allotment as it stands right now and also we want to keep recruiting as you were mentioning Dr manga we want to keep recruiting great teachers and as a teacher this is something this is one of the first questions I asked in my interview here was will I have a classroom it's how I get to know the students around the school I can tell you kids names in the hallways that I've never even taught in a class because I stand out in the hallway between class changes meeting people asking how they're doing asking their names you know it's it saves classroom time because I don't have to spend 10 minutes at the beginning of class in 10 minutes at the end of class setting up and breaking down so thank you thank.

You after Miss Kimberly we'll have John Hodes Coppel followed by Lawrence Isaacs all right good evening Kim Gino teacher librarian at Durham School of the Arts and I'm going to be the closer for my previous two colleagues since their time was cut a little bit short I think all of our concerns have been shared with everybody on the board so I know that you are already aware of the fact that one of our concerns is that there is only one cafeteria in this space it is not developmentally appropriate for middle school and high school students to be eating in the same space we've been told not to worry about it because it can serve five to 600 students this just isn't going to work there I know that details have been sent to the board in email I hope that you take a look at that or have taken a look at that and we'll consider that what my colleagues before me have not had an opportunity to say that I want to make.

Sure they do is that we are advocating for the board to vote on a no plan for the new DSA as it stands we want you to first and foremost reconsider the viability of renovating the current downtown campus at a much lower cost if not provide the additional funding needed for a fourth floor so there will be adequate space or hold off on the current plan and redesign a functional space that will increase involvement from all and with increased involvement from all stakeholders and I would like to see the rest of my time to John copel we have that keeping track of Thomas Smith okay on one second before we get started after John Hodge's couple while we're waiting we'll have Lawrence ISAC followed by Danielle Hamilton and Cecilia palano great thank you I'm John Hodes oh you're good get sorry okay okay again I'm John Hodes Poppel thank you for the opportunity to come talk with you again about the 2022 school bond projects and the role that.

DSA plays in being able to achieve those projects I want to reiterate my appreciation to both the board and the staff you're clearly very hardworking and care deeply I've met or talked with many of you and the staff have carved out time to listen I also want to stress that no one has made a wrong decision in the P we make decisions based on what we know at the time and it's hard for leaders to pause and reconsider decisions when conditions change but now that we know those changed conditions and that there is a practical option to address the more than $100 million gap in the funding for schools our citizens were told they would get we owe it to them to verify the validity of that option so that we make an informed decision for Durham I believe even more strongly than before that DPS should take a brief pause to take a thoughtful balanced Community engaged look at the only two practical options we have the first to continue with the move DSA.

Option with the financing available which will mean deferring some of the elementary schools and further delaying other projects on your CIP or move forward with the elementary schools while devoting a set amount of funding maybe a hundred million less than the new DSA will cost for a major Improvement at the current campus focusing on five elements mostly involving new modern purpose-built construction and I'll email those details to you later the improved DSA option is five straightforward steps not the overly costly complex and timeconsuming renovation option you have seen in the past totaling up those five steps I am pretty certain you can have a $40 million budget more than you spent on the new nor Northern High School but a 100 million less than it will take you to build a new DSA both the move DSA and improved DSA options have pros and cons so they should be looked at in a quick balanced transparent way with true Community engagement please pause briefly please look at this seriously please support.

The elementary schools please engage all of the community over the next three months to choose which path is best for all of Durham thank you.

Good evening members of the board my name is Lawrence ISAC I am a DPS parent and a DPS teacher I've taught sixth grade social studies at Durham School of the Arts for the past 17 years and my daughter has attended DPS schools for her entire career I mention all this because I see the construction of the new DSA from multiple points of view as taxpayer constituent parent and educator and from all of these perspectives the new DSA project as it will be presented to you this evening falls short of our District's own strategic goals and short of the promises made to the Durham Community when they were asked to support the bond issues funding this and other DPS projects many speakers here tonight will explain in Greater detail the shortcomings in classroom Studio space support for exceptional children cafeteria Media Center athletic facilities and more I would like to focus on shortcomings in funding Durham School of the Arts is two schools in one and in some ways three a comprehensive.

Middle School a comprehensive high school and a School of the Arts as well unfortunately all of the planning and design process to date reflects the misperception that DSA is only a traditional High School one need look only as far as one of the slides of cost comparisons that you'll see in a presentation later this evening with the exception of one hypothetical weight County School cited in that data the new DSA project has been compared to only other high schools yes the DSA project costs exceed those other proposed schools by as much as $40 million however you must consider that getting a new Middle School along with a new high school is essentially a two for one deal DSA and Community stakeholders have been told several times that adding more space to accommodate future growth would increase costs but there is no way that DPS could construct a state-of-the-art middle school anywhere in Durham for the difference between the proposed schools comparative schools from other districts yet with a modest increase in overall funding this is.

Exactly what the board would be getting thank. You hi everyone my name is Cecilia poano I'm here the organization I'm with is papusas for Education we're a community- based organization out of East Durham where I live and grew up I'm an alumni of dur Public Schools I graduated from northern 2011 and I'm here to support the work and the presentation of the community safety and wellness task force that I was able to be a part of through P fore I we do mental health Retreats for students in in in Durham Durham public school students and one of the biggest things we're seeing there that students need is attention they need the undivided attention of multiple adults so for for them needing that attention I'm curious how we can get more alumni and Community engagement in our schools for example I do the work that I do because I care about Durham Public Schools I care and I'm proud that I'm a DPS Alam I don't have children in Durham Public Schools at the moment but.

I care about my neighbors who go to DPS so I would love to see how we can deepen relationships through alumni Community engagements things like mental health Retreats and other engagements I would love to see that youth can identify five ad adults that they trust and feel they can go to likewise adults ask ourselves are we in relationship with five youth who we support do you have five adults who support you because we need those networks of support for each other along with that I also want to uplift things happening around restorative practices in our schools wherever it's working that's great I'm worried about where it's not working where restorative practices is really just ISS by another name students are being moved into the room and restorative practices are not happening that's where I'm concerned I'm concerned because those are the students who probably need us the most need that most attention with that if there's any data that we can bring to the community so youth understand the numbers about themselves and hold.

Community sensemaking sessions together so we can understand what's going on and plan the solutions together thank you thank you before you go I'm gonna go ahead and read the next couple names we have Jordan Watson Jahim France Alex Adrien all right good evening my name is Danielle Hamilton I'm a teacher at DSA a parent of a DPS student a taxpayer and an active voter I'd like to talk about the new DSA and the design as currently planned when The Architects make their presentation to you they are going to say that our school will have a capacity for over 2,000 students they'll show you how they multiply the 18 instructional units by 25 students found an 85% utilization rate and give you a nice number unfortunately that formula may work for a traditional Comprehensive High School but they're failing to consider that we are not a traditional Comprehensive High School we are a Middle School a high school and a School of the Arts all in one building 27 of those instructional units are.

Designed for only middle school students because of their schedule and the needs of the middle school students Middle School teachers cannot float their classrooms are unavailable to be shared 40 of those instructional units are designed for Arts elective and EC specialty programs not all students have access to those classrooms throughout the day because they have a specific Arts pathway or not a part of those programs not all teachers have access to those rooms because those spaces are designed to house the specific class that they you know art that they are designed for with our remaining 41 classrooms d teachers and administrators have worked diligently to create a mock schedule for the rest of our High School academic teachers with every Department floating our maximum number of teachers we are still short classroom space this is not a scheduling issue this is an issue of too few academic classrooms we are advocating that the board vote no to the plan for the new DSA as it stands from our perspective the options moving forward are.

Reconsidering the viability of the current downtown campus providing additional funding needed for a fourth floor so that there will be an adequate number of classrooms and middle school and high school students can be separated or thank you thank you next we have Jahim France followed by Alex Adrian I'm sorry are Jordan Jordan Watson come on up I apologize I think they reversed the order before hello my name is Jordan Watson and I teach art at germ School of the Arts I'm also the parent of two students in DPS and I'm here to speak to the plan for the new DSA building the prospect of new DSA is a tremendous opportunity to take our mission in academics for excellence and academics in the Arts to a new level the plan for the new DSA however does not suit our current needs and will not suit our future needs for a host of reasons I would like to ask what does the district want a comprehensive middle and high school a state-of-the-art school of the arts a.

Larger school to accommodate derms growing population we've been promised that the New Deal will be all of these things bottom line is we simply can't have it all and we know this we at our current spending ability Cuts need to be made as the recent renderings show those th those cuts to facilities and programmatic capabilities are severe for example I represent the visual arts and a letter was sent to the school board earlier today explaining our concerns in detail but so the community may be aware let me summarize all Visual Arts classrooms are on the second floor which means no necessary access to the outside for 3D materials for moving clay up to the second floor for using solvents Etc there's no dedicated public facing Art Gallery there's no photo sorry there's no printmaking Studio a photo in woodworking studio is too small for whole classes there's significantly smaller storage spaces and all of these are resources that current DSA students enjoy but they will not be available in the new design and DSA.

Students and and parents and community members should also be aware that visual art will be on the same level as Middle School so my high school students will be sharing stairwells bathrooms and hallways with middle school students we express these concerns and suggested Solutions in early November yet no changes have been made so we are advocating for the board to please vote no on this plan and consider first and foremost reconsidering the viability of renovating the current downtown campus thank.

You hello ladies and gentlemen my my name is jnim France j h i MF r a n c I am a ninth grader and a freshman at DSA what I really want to talk about and also represent propus for education so what I want to talk about is that in our school system right now kids are struggling through a lot of stuff like how kids are getting bullied they're not getting treated with respect by the adults they're they're not listening they're not doing anything and and I feel like that it's my it's me as a freshman as a student of the Darren Public Schools it's time to actually listen to these kids because there's kids who can't speak for themselves so I feel like it's my responsibility to help out these kids who can't speak and who don't want to speak to actually speak up there is there is stuff in the school system like like like like school work is difficult for some kids you know they get in trouble for not.

Paying attention to class and I don't think I don't think it's a students I think it's it's some of the some of the stuff that's going on in this in the school like the teachers are not really paying attention to the kids or teachers think that the kids are are being are being this way because of their parents no I don't think I think I think it's the people inside of the school that's doing this to the kids and I just want to say thank you and thank you thank you thank you so much for coming Alex Adrien followed by Nicolo sorry Nicolo I can't read your last name and then Ana H Street good evening I am Alex Adrien I use they and he pronouns I am the lead on the leadership team of the rainbow Collective for change we are here tonight at the final opportunity to put in place policy changes related to S sp49 before the deadline set by the legislature I recognize you have worked diligently and thoughtfully to cross.

Policy that does the least harm while complying with North Carolina law in my ideal World during Public Schools would choose to affirm the rights and lives of all students including lgbtq folks over complying with a law that will likely be proven in court to inherently violate Title Nine passing these policies which require parent notification of a name pronoun changes and exclusions of lessons on gender and family structure diversity could be the last straw for students in the throws of internal decision-making about whether living their authentic self is feasible as an example when policies similar to these were approved in California District an affirming third party hired rainbow youth project USA to implement a hotline for the trans students 56 students in the district called that Hotline in the first week what can you do to minimize this harm how does the school board ensure that no one in DPS goes beyond the law I ask that you replace Dr Bullock as on the task force as quickly as possible and that.

You provide that support person lays on for lgbtq students that are enumerated in policy 1735 and look to having their compensation be in the next budget I am not blind to the differing values and opinions of the Durham Community but by pushing back on this discriminatory laws DPS can align with their vision of embracing educating and empowering every student to innovate Serv and Lead thank you. Just start okay hi everyone my name is Nicola RI and I'm the co-director of the lgbtq youth center of Durham my pronouns are they he and I just want to First give a shout out because I'm also the co-chair of the lgbtq task force for dur public schools with Dr Bullock and y'all are doing amazing work right I think it's just a good affirmation to start out like I know the discussions here are being done so thank youall I also want to know that like it is clear that Senate Bill 49 is in direct violation of a bunch of Rights it's a dehumanizing.

Bill and so if we know this and you hear students being able to say this you hear adults being able to say this you hear family members I want to just name that the things that we see that are being put as Provisions into the policy go directly against actually what you all have on your website because I'm a community psychologist and so for me and in my practice it's all about questions and answers and so my question is if you all have on here that we need to have equity and that our students in schools deserve Equitable access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed dur public schools and the community must distribute those resources in a manner that eliminates inequities saying that we can't talk about gender identity until the fourth grade in any way or talking about curricula or any sort of provision that says that we are compromising or we're putting language from the Senate bill goes against that period if we want to.

Talk about other stuff that's plating because we're adults talking about students and youth and so I want to say that there's another chord belief of shared responsibility so as a task force member I don't even know who the replacement is for my co-chair so if we have a shared responsibility I'm in that room to do Community Education but I don't have or Community engagement but I don't have all the answers I don't even know who is the next person to collaborate with so then that then leads to the Assumption of what are we doing to set these Provisions if there's not clear communication to those even on the task force so thank you thank you Nicolo next an to C H Street followed by and please again I'm trying to read handwriting and I can't do it well po will be the next person and Then followed by meline rooper hi all my name is an swi hem Street my pronouns are she or they sorry and I am the founder and director of.

Rainbow Collective for Change and a queer parent of two young kids I'm here tonight to reiterate how much harm s sp49 and other anti- lgbtqia plus laws will cause our community's lgbtqia a plus youth you know and I know that erasing diverse families and genders from the classroom outing children to their parents and caregivers and prohibiting trans kids from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identities causes harm and creates a hostile learning environment for lgbtq students it will lead to increased bullying and discrimination depression anxiety and suicide and I also recognize that you all feel like you have no choice but to comply with these laws and pass the revisions to policies 1735 1310 and 3540 whether or not you pass these policies I urge you to implement the following lgbtqia plus support strategies that have been discussed in your very own task force meetings I noticed that these ideas did not make it into the update later in this evening so I wanted to uplift these ideas in my.

Public comment identify an lgbtqia plus liaison or support person at every school elementary and secondary to provide them with the support and provide them with the support and resources they need to support their students lgbtq students Educators and Families Two establish a reporting system that allows students parent parents and caregivers and school Personnel to report discriminatory behavior and practices that violate DPS policy and Title 9 the system should allow for anonymous reporting and include more than one person on staff that reviews those reports and third provide all schools the resources and encouragement to establish rainbow clubs and gsas and remove any barriers that may prevent students or Educators from participating in these clubs our kids already have to advocate for themselves too much please stand for them tonight thanks thank.

You hi everyone my name is pilot a trans identifying High School senior at Jordan high school and I am one person out of hundreds of queer students within the district I am also the student leader of Jordan High School Spectrum Club which assists queer students and allies in creating a safe space within our community I grew up in Florida where an endless amount of discriminatory laws are infesting our education system particularly those focus on transgender children I am no stranger to the fear that knowing that your lived experiences are controversial and that my lawmakers will rarely protect me coming to Durham I was in awe that of the acceptance and love that was given to me I am endlessly grateful for the opportunity that I have to be here and feel very responsible in ensuring that my underclassman receive the same treatment that I've been so lucky to have s sp49 requires that all staff members tell the students of parents once they become aware that the student goes by a different name or.

Pronoun than what is on their birth certificate this has the effect of targeting outcasting and bullying all of our transgender students I along with most of my peers began my transition by experimenting at school and other social places in order to further understand what I was feeling inside while some say that this bill is purposely aimed at students who may not have a safe space to come out I argue that it does further damage to the core of where most students would begin to understand themselves by revoking the ability to experiment with their peers before conversations with my mother my Guardians my grandparents I spoke with my 10th grade history teacher about using new pronouns I was not in danger but I was unprepared for the weight of the conversation about my unknown gender identity and expression would hold without your support against this bill I would not be approaching you all as myself statistically transgender people who are unable to express themselves at home or at school are at a much higher.

Risk for poor School attendance school performance and even suicide according to the National study of medicine the use of a chosen name at school can decrease depressive symptoms in students by almost 30% the attempt to suppress queer voices when this within this bill feels undeniable to anyone who has seen what is happened happening across the country regardless of these laws the queer community and DPS is not erasable my club members and I have come here to stand as more than just ourselves we are here to represent a growing number of queer students and staff members in your District worried for our futures hoping to ensure security for those with end during Public Schools thank you for your time thank you I'm so sorry I got your name wrong pilot I apologize I can't read the handwriting it's it's me not you you can go back that that way if you want yeah next next up we have meline roer followed by Walt Baron and then Tatiana Molina haa do I do I.

Start okay hello my name is Maddie roer and I am a junior at Jordan High School I'm also a member of the Spectrum Club and I'm here to talk about sb49 it requires teachers to inform parents if their child requests to go by a different name or pronouns this forced outing would be immensely harmful and dangerous to the hundreds of transgender students who learn here for many kids student school school is the only place they can safely be their authentic selves requiring teachers to out students destroys the ability of schools to be a safe space for those students it puts them in potential Danger from unaccepting parents lgbtq youth are at a disproportion disproportionately high risk for abuse and homelessness the sad truth is that for many kids secrecy is the only way to protect themselves sp49 also creates dilemma for teachers supportive teachers are often the first adults a student will come out to and students trust these teachers to keep them safe and help them any way they can but sb49.

Forces these teachers to betray that trust and put their students at risk or else break the law and risk their job a policy punishing teachers who don't out their students harms the best teachers the ones who put students safety above all else I ask that you hold off on changing any policies based on sb49 it poses a threat to kids and teachers sets a standard for for Dangerous legislation in North Carolina schools and invites discrimination lawsuits transgender people's rights are in danger right now but I've always felt that Durham is a safe place for us I understand the pressure to act on S sp49 but I believe Durham is better than this thank you thank.

You next we have Walt Baron followed by Tatiana Molina Hua and again please correct me if I mispronounce your name you got it first of all a Amen to what these these Brave students are saying my name is Walt Baron I've lived in Durham for 20 years and my daughter is a freshman at DSA this proposed move likely won't affect her so I'm talking tonight as a parent but also as someone who both lives and works downtown there are many reasons to pause this decision as you've already heard from so many tonight and I think it's because people really care about DSA it's not just any school it's a very special school and to me being downtown is part of what makes it so special being downtown is part of the education that DSA students get what they see what they're exposed to and what they can access of course the central location makes it more accessible and therefore more inclusive to students all over Durham but just as.

Important to me is the proximity to Arts to culture and to businesses downtown like where I work mckin it's an ad agency that's actually hired multiple DSA grads being down toown makes DSA truly unique amongst DPS high schools and is a gift that we should protect moving it several miles away will take away perhaps its greatest strength I don't envy your decision but I ask you to think about all the comments you've heard tonight voicing concerns about this and maybe a lack of people commenting with support report for it DSA makes downtown Durham better and downtown Durham makes DSA better and I ask you to please pause to reconsider this move thank you you come on up Tatiana Tatiana will be followed by an Zar and Sarah white Hill hello my name is Tana Molina close and I'm a 16-year-old student at Jordan High School here in DPS I first want to thank parents Educators and allies that have used their voices tonight to advocate for Trans and queer.

Students who don't have the power to come and speak for themselves that being said I wanted to take this opportunity and this platform to share my point of view as an lgbtq student who would be directly affected by the implementation of Bill sb49 in Durham and in North Carolina as a whole there is an extensive body of research demonstrating again and again the correlation between forced outing of lgbtq individuals and increased rat of suicide and self harm while every student deserves a safe home environment it's sad to say that not every home environment is safe for lgbtq students s sp49 would be putting already vulnerable lgbtq students particularly the ones with unsafe households in danger forcing queer kids into a closet lest they risk outing to Violent households is not protecting parents it's endangering kids sp49 would also potentially withhold education about lgbtq and sexual health I was lucky enough to learn about career identity and Sexual Health in an age appropriate safe environment without shame and I saw firsthand how teaching instead of.

Sheltering promoted safe habits and healthy mindsets it's an observable fact that states with absence only sexual education have higher rates of teen pregnancy and abortion this is doubly so for career and chance children who aren't even taught about the possibility of same seex attraction and transgender identity it's a cycle of ignorance leading to the further discrimination of LGBT use and fueling you LGBT suicide self harm and hopelessness of course parents deserve to know what's happening in their children's lives but s sp49 doesn't exist in a vacuum it exists in a world where career teenagers have to grow up navigating a society in which our existence is treated as inherently deviant thank you thank you.

We have Anna. Zar and there there I apologize followed by Sarah white Hill and then Rachel Meyer hi my name is Edna Zar I'm a teacher at George Watts monor I'm here as a queer staff member to Echo what's been said by these incredibly Brave community members and students what you all can't see out in the hallway and what's happening out there is incredible I spent a large part of my life trying to blend in and being afraid to stand out with good reason and the spirit of this state bill is a painful reminder of why there's so much fear in coming out this school year has been full of that same fear and uncertainty because of this bill and DPSS lack of clarity on its implications especially what it means for elementary stud and teachers nobody should be meant to feel unsafe or like they don't matter and others compeny reinforces that idea that we're not worth standing up for I know that that is not true my students matter their families.

Matter and I matter and we need your support through resources and meaningful policies thank you thank you Sarah white.

Hill my name is Sarah whill my pronouns are she and her I am here tonight as the parent of an amazing student in Durham Public Schools I want to start by thanking you for hearing the concerns that were raised the last meeting and over the last year it is clear that you are trying to mitigate the inevitable harm these policies will cause and I appreciate that I do however still have some concerns first and foremost While most teachers in DPS I'm sure are affirming and supportive we know know that not all are we need a way to report anonymously when teachers exceed the bounds of these laws and when violations of Title 9 happen we also need a chance to talk about what those policies are as far as when parents will be notified how parents will be notified what notification will be given to students about how parents will be notified and we deserve a chance to talk about that and to hear how that's going to happen.

Finally I grew up in smalltown Kansas in the 90s I have seen firsthand the harm that happens when students are outed to an unsupportive community and if the general assembly is going to tell our children that they're welcome and their safety are dependent on their gender identity and sexuality the least we can do is make it clear that we care funding an lgbtqa on at every school ensuring that we have rainbow clubs and gsas at every school in DPS this is the least that we can do to ensure that our students know that they are valued and supported and welcomed and loved at their school even if they can't be at their home thank you thank you we'll have Rachel Meyer followed by Ella Jones and Lorena Perez hi thank you my name is Rachel Meyer my pronouns are she her and I was born and raised in Durham now raising two young kids here I have a 2-year-old and a four and a half-year-old so I'm newer to this conversation as I have a.

Rising kindergartener and I'm also married to wonderful trans person and as we are getting ready to enroll our child in a DPS kindergarten we are worried about how our family and our child will come to see our family reflected in books and in the classrooms at schools and how that will be discussed or not and just the simple fact that we exist and this is what our family looks like and how that will be respected in the classroom as all other families should be and I know that many of you are working really hard to minimize the harms of these policies but at the recent DPS School showcase that we went to to learn about the kindergarten kindergarten programs in elementary schools that are in our district I asked the different principles how are they going to treat you know lgbq lgbtq families and I got sort of a wink and a nod which was really reassuring in a way to me personally but totally unacceptable for a school system it.

Can't depend on what school you're at and the sort of opinions of the administration or the principles in terms of whether family is acknowledged and respected and so I feel really concerned both for families like mine and then a much even deeper level of concern for students whose individual experience are going to vary so widely based on what school they're at and so really clear policies really clear guidance and ways to support the folks where it's not being implemented is so needed thank you thank.

You good evening my name is Alis day Jones and I an an 11th grader at charlese Jordan High School a large part of my of my identi is my name my parents made sure that my name was as unique as it could be as they hope for my future personally my first name Ella was inspired by El Fitz Gerald the famous queen of jazz of the 60s sday means spring in various Ethiopian dialects and Jones is just my father's last name but this is still my name nonetheless I'm a name that that is always associated with me and what I choose to do in my life as you've heard SP sp49 would take away this choice choice of mine and both of my fellow peers and what's more it would also put them at a higher risk of harassment and general in general hate speech towards them which they already have to deal with on a day-to-day basis even at my school Jordan which is one of the most or considered the more Progressive.

Schools and so this just all goes to say that I even this is the St I urge you to please fight back against this policy because this what even for a cisgendered person like me this still has ramifications for what I choose to do with myself and much more about the safety of my peers my queer peers and of all of us that fall under derms guidelines in hand thank you thank you and last but not least Lorena.

Perez good evening my name is Lena p is you have seen me here a couple different times I'm a queer Latina parent of the most amazing kid she is a current kindergartener in DBS having time of a life right great time and last year when going in just like the other parents said at the Showcase asking like how are you going to support gender fluid kids some answers in included like well we will follow the legal requirements and that was their complete answer your policies offer what the legal requirements are this year that same principle seems to have grown perhaps because of the education that you are requiring his answer included this year kindness an excellent Improvement I do want to offer and yet please do not require my child to live on the kindness of others your policies help people understand what dignity actually looks like my child exists M family exists we deserve to be in the curriculum I do not envy the role you place in terms like you currently have.

To balance between funding and what does it mean to push back against a clearly discriminatory law federal law Trump state law hold it bite it I don't have the answer I'm not a legal expert but this is not enough my child I am balanced I am forced to teach my child about the ways in which transphobia will come up in her life do better thank you that will conclude our public comment portion of the evening I just want to say thank you to all of our public comment speakers and especially the students it's always a joy when we have students who are in the boardroom with us tonight the next item on our agenda is our consent items we have two items that the board members have reviewed carefully prior to the meeting tonight I move approval of the consent agenda second it's been moved by Miss Rogers seconded by Miss Beyer is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign and it passes.

Unanimously the next item on our agenda is the Board of Education item we're going to have our community safety and wellness task force you all can come up to the podium they as they're falling in I'll just give a little background over two years ago the Durham Public Schools Durham city as well as Durham County worked together to create a task force to think about and reimagine how we do wellness and safety in our buildings as well as in our city and our County this volunteer task force has spent the last two years doing a lot of work listening Gathering feedback and they are here tonight to present some of the updates that they excuse me not present updates present the final report that you all have put together so I don't want to I'm gonna stop talking now and I'm gonna pass it over to you Samuel no you were fine you were fine first of all I want to say good evening to everyone I want to thank the board and.

Dr manga for giving us the space to speak tonight also want to affirm everything that the students came up and said earlier love seeing student activists as you just said my name is Samuel Scarboro and tonight I'll present on behalf of the community safety Wess task force with my colleague Jesse hudon that works that works can and I'll keep some I'll keep speaker notes with me also have a couple other people from the task force that are back there with us and the main thing we want to bring home today is that our organization was convened to enhance Public Safety and wellness initiatives that rely on community- based prevention intervention and re-entry Services as alternatives to policing in the criminal legal system and tonight we'll present three proposals that arose from the work of our violence prevention and youth and schools roundtables that deal with topics such as restorative practices sexual violence prevention and the SRO program so with that I'll pass it to.

Jesse good evening everyone evening would I like your present up as well that would be great all right give us one second we'll pull that up and I'm mindful just being entirely candid we found a typo and I sent an updated version but I didn't see it online so I don't know if that can happen retroactively we can make sure we get the right one up there it's in your inbox love it we can do that for you I'm Jesse hudleston my pronouns are HEI they we you can't get me wrong so long as you're being kind and I do have the range and I'm so glad to be here as Samuel mentioned we've and as you mentioned chair we've worked really hard over the last two and a half years a part of the bylaws were our listening sessions and so I wanted to start there I'll note again that this deck we'll we'll go through it we won't hit every slide it's a tool and so I invite folks to use that.

Tool as you review what we've done and you get in where you fit in if you're following along I'm on slide four though so with our listening sessions we held them in the school year 2122 we had 16 sessions we did our best to engage a range of stakeholders which you see principles teachers support staff parents and caregivers and of course our babies are students in youth and when we listened we heard eight major themes and we'll come back back to these themes as we lift up quotes and as we go through our recommendations because they really bring these words as themes alive I want to highlight one that I think has been embodied today is trust and Care on slide six there's a quote and before I read that quote I want to read the sentence that I think really shapes our in intentions and our spirit for this presentation today we really want to co-create within Duram Public Schools a culture of building quality relationships rooted in human dignity.

So much of that with that theme of trust and Care feels lifted up with this quote from a DPS student who said if you feel like at school is for you and people there actually care and want you to be there then I feel like the whole atmosphere and stuff at school will be a lot better so in this context of safety of policing of alternatives to law enforcement lifting up wellness and so much of what is already in the room we want to just name and Center this intention of building a culture create co-creating a culture working together to make this culture of building quality relationships so our first proposal is is focused on implementing wellness and restorative practices we heard from a Community member that was also one of our Consultants Cecilia palanco and I want to name something that they said in a moment here are two data points that are lifted in the the presentation only 34% of DPS students responded favorably when asked how.

Connected they feel to an adult at school only 36% of DPS students respond and fabr when asked how much they matter to others at school and so it matters this is DPS Panorama data that slide is slide number nine thank you for following along as best you can and so in this context of trust and care it matters that so few are saying that they feel that trust and care and so what do we do to implement Wellness practices how can we impl Implement wellness and restorative practices with more Fidelity next slide and decrease some of the decisions that are happening that normalize disconnection and normalize punishment Cecilia mentioned that the association between RPC and ISS is real and it's incorrect ISS is not restorative for the record okay and so the reality is though as this DPS teacher mentions when talking about how what was ISS is now being renamed as restorative practices they said I don't know how much restorative work actually goes on in these places and.

So it feels important to name that this is an area for improvement this is an area for growth and it matters how we Implement these practices with care with accuracy it's important to name as well that if we are actually building relationships and sustaining those relationships when harm happens when someone makes a mistake there's actually a relationship to restore and so if the relationship isn't there if folks already feel like they don't care it's that much harder to actually bring something back to repair to Restoration in that same spirit I appreciate that Dr bulock was here and I know his decision to depart is a huge loss he's offered so much and I'm hopeful that another person of Peace will fill his shoes professional development in during Public Schools matters in addition to his feeling of that position your feeling of that position I should say one of our recommendations is noted on slide 13 to hire a restorative practice director or administrator in the central office to increase that professional.

Development for the adults that are serving our young people particularly the professional development related to Wellness and restorative justice this teacher said everyone in our school should be trained in restorative practices these are practices that don't just benefit our young people it's personal if you really get it it's going to change how you parent it's going to change how you volunteer it's going to change how you show up for yourselves and I believe hurt people hurt people even with the best intentions and healing people heal people people who are committed to being restorative will offer that in good faith to others lastly I so appreciate again that Cecilia named the wellness retreats that's just one example of the kind of Partnerships that we'd love to see happening on slide 14 we recommend men exploring Cooperative programs and interventions that can occur in and out of the school environment some of you might remember that one of the recommendations we made initially was around wellness retreats and we expanded that because we recognized that there's.

Not only one way to provide these kinds of transformative experiences both for young people and for the adults serving them I'll pass the mic back to Samuel who I think can share about the youth consent workshops that we want to lift up as another example of an ontime intervention that can make a big difference for our young people and for DPS as a whole absolutely so I'm basically going to touch on the goals and structure of these workshops highlight data and public input and a lot of this stuff is on slide 16 like just the general bullet points that I'll be hitting and then also uplifting other recomend recommendations that could be useful in Pre preventing sexual violence both in our schools and our broader Community if you go to that next slide just has a brief overview of the goals of the programs we're kind of operating off of the central premise that sexual consent education is necessary for a more comprehensive understanding of sex a 2016 nationally representative survey by Planned Parenthood found.

That most people have not received any education about what consent is they don't know what it looks like or how to do it and we think that holding these youth consent workshops would give students and potentially also give staff members as well these meaningful things such as improving sexual literacy sexual health and overall Wellness providing young people with the tools and resources to protect their sexual autonomy and then also preventing acts of sexual assault and sexual harassment if we go to the next slide just has a couple bullet points on some data that's specific to Durham over half of the dispatches from the Durham Sheriff's Office for sexual assault cases were to our schools and this was according to data that we got from the the the Sher the sheriff's call data that we got when we reached directly to the office and some of the most affected schools were Jordan which a lot of the students from here today come from Northern giens and my alma mat Rogers herd which was very.

Surprising disheartening to hear and also according to the news and observer reported rapes have Rose 16% roughly in Durham between 2020 and 2022 and it's important to note that with sexual assault most cases are not reported to law enforcement so the numbers are likely higher than reported going on to the next slide I want to talk about the Durham youth listening project this was a program that was created with the aim to essentially Elevate young people's voices in their own talk about their needs their dreams and what they think about the resources in their community and one of the takeaways was that young people wanted the schools to improve practices and policies to create a culture of safety respect and acceptance and we think this ties back to that overarching idea that Jesse brought up of creating a culture in DPS that focuses on building quality relationships and we see providing that providing these youth consent workshops falls directly in alignment with that going to Schoolboard policy just want to briefly highlight that.

This aligns with the appreciate that that it aligns with the second priority of the Strategic plan talking about providing a safe and healthy school environment that supports the whole child and integrating developmentally appropriate systems structures and processes that promote student health and wellness at the school and District level as in line with policy going on to the next slide about Jordan students against sexual harassment they showed up I think April I think they showed up to the school board April just wanted to highlight them as another vantage point of input from young people one of the students in particular said that until DPS steps up to create timely processes that include the complaintant actively protects students helps victims of sexual assault heal from their trauma and prevents further cases then DPS is failing its commitments to it students and really honing in on that point of prevention these consent workshops will be an opportunity to do that I want to go forward there are also a couple other slides with different.

Quotes from the students but I want to go forward to the general recommendation of itself so like basic information of when this could happen perhaps during the next school year like during the spring semester or perhaps the following school year we're thinking that these workshops would probably best held in like health and PE classes and it'll be important to have them in gender neutral settings facilitated by field professionals that use a variety of approaches using different media to engage students and make sure that it's a valuable experience and it's not just another thing that students are sitting through one of the things we're also trying to stress is that we want students to be involved in the whole process so in terms of organizing this in terms of reaching out to people we want students to be Advocates like actively involved in that process not only because it's important that they're receiving this education but also it helps again to Foster that idea of having a more active student body and empowering students to become.

Leaders in their communities like a lot of the students earlier are and just kind of going to the last points of some potential partner organizations which is on that next slide there are a variety of places that we could reach out to one of the places I worked with directly most for kind of drafting this was planed Parenthood Durham they're willing to provide services for free so that's a place where you could easily reach out to and then also kind of going into the closing some further recommendations that would help in preventing sexual violence in our schools and in our community would be offering these consent workshops to teachers and staff depending on the program success thinking about expansion to middle schools and then also figuring out ways to improve the sexual sexual assault reporting system and accountability systems under the title 9 office also have a copy of a sample curriculum if you all are interested and I can definitely email that to you after today.

Or tonight so thank you I'll pass it to Jesse for the final proposal I'll mention before I jump into revising the SRO program I think with the youth consent workshops that's a great chance to lift up the theme around collaboration and communication as well we the best of what we got we got to use what we got you know and it feels like there are so many assets and so many folks here that are not enemies they are not adversaries that actually really care and it feels like a huge opportunity and responsibility to figure out how we make it easier for adults that want to serve youth to be in a position to do that with care in partnership with DPS and the youth consent workshops feel like another great chance to actually Implement Wellness and restore to practice with care revising the SRO program is our final recommendation and proposal for tonight I'll name that the theme of the role of Sr was another focus Point based on our listening sessions I want to.

Start with our review of the program materials and then hop into our recommendations the program materials were very clear that sro's first primary role is to enforce the law and that matters I think we think this educator said caring supportive adults who are there to support the teachers and the students is very important and that can be in the form of course of an SRO but it doesn't necessarily have to be and it feels important to to lift up the ways in which sro's who come in and are committed to the Oaths that they've sworn and are committed to doing that as best they can enforcing the law pre PR present a particular set of impacts in the community we've heard from this DPS parent that they felt targeted they felt intimidated right I've seen circumstances where parents and students feel harassed by the police just because of who they are because they are latinx family these kinds of experien is where people you look at slide 29 where people feel like they're being watched.

The student says there are conflicts between the teacher and the student this DPS principal mentions Not Just Between the students and so this principle says our restorative practices coordinator actually could do a circle with a teacher and a student to try to get a at to try to get to what the conflict is is growing about it's interesting to me that we haven't had a situation at least we didn't hear a situation where the SRO was in a position to provide that kind of restorative practice and we hold that in this healthy attention of their oath to enforce the law this caregiver wrote or said and it's written in the the the deck honestly I feel like it's 5050 I don't like the police at school sometimes things happen somebody wants to shoot up the school or bomb threat there are a lot of things that can happen at school and that's what the police should be in charge of sometimes they abuse their power and they don't know how to do their work.

Well my opinion is 5050 yes and no h it's it's clear to us that it's a mixed bag that there are there are lots of different opinions about the role of SRO and how are they helping how are they harming our responsibility as a task force was to present alternatives to police releasing and law enforcement and a big part of that again is thinking and lifting up restorative justice as a concept when implemented accurately is able to again create a context where quality relationships are being built and sustained and when mistakes are made when there are real problems people are actually able to be in circle and address those issues together and we're not penalizing and punishing people with that in mind our recommendations are as follows one to ensure that all SRO operating in DPS prioritize use of discretion in ways that are neither punitive nor criminalizing and that do not hinder DPS restorative justice efforts there are many situations where SRO cannot fully participate in restorative Justice based.

On the oath that they've sworn and so we're not expecting them to go outside of that we're wondering though what it looks like for them to hold space to honor the restorative practices that can take place with other staff with other adults and even with other young people who can be assets who can hold space with one another and address some of the issues that are happening in DPS I'll go back in name to really brief ly that a principal named that the SRO is letting us know what's going on so I do understand that there are situations where the information that's being provided can help you all as Leaders other Educators other principles to make better informed decisions and there's a lot of power that DPS staff and other adults have and it it feels like an opportunity to instead of giving up that power to an armed person who is going to use their training and enforce the law because that is their primary role to think alternatively and imaginatively and wonder what.

Does it look like to hold space for something that's actually more restorative the second recommendation is ensuring that the Durham County shariff's Office shares public data transparently upon request and stewards its discretionary power more Cooperative with community members I really want to highlight here the the sharing public data transparently part based on the feedback that we got we obtained the data not because it was given to us easily but because people are really smart again there are a lot of assets and folks were able to scrub public data sites to get the data that we needed and that's how we knew about the sexual assault data not because it was given to us but because we took it because it was available to us and it matters that we're not able to access that kind of information it matters that we're not able to communicate to parents and caregivers and other folks who do care about what's happening and we want to partner with folks but it's hard to do.

That when you reach out and you don't get the feedback that you're wanting and so we need your support it matters that the the way that the the program is set up it's set up so that in the event that a staff member or student or a parent wants an SRO to be removed and requests that there are steps that can be taken but if there's resistance if there's a culture of I won't use that phrase but if there's a CO if there's a if there's a culture of covering your behind right and and protecting the organization and the institution what can happen is relieving young people and adults who care in the balance and so we really want to ensure that there's more transparency with those public data requests finally we want to see formal Partnerships between DPS and the Duram Community safety department many folks know about the heart teens that come in and provide a care in crisis situations and that's great and I'm so glad that that's been expanded I'd love.

To imagine and we'd love to imagine what's possible to see those Partnerships deepen so that there are specific kinds of Partnerships that you all get to be a part of making happen that's specific for young people and specific for the adults that are serving those young people I want to lift up again what Cecilia named earlier what would it look like if there were five people that a young person could name what would it look like if each staff member could name five other people that have their back and I recognize that for some an SRO might be one of those people and we have to take seriously that for some people for many people many of our young people sro's are not on that list and in fact they're source of harm and we're not seeing that with the community safety department we're seeing them provide the kind of care that is in alignment with the restorative practices with the wellness practices that we want to see lifted up in DPS.

That are in alignment with the IC plan that are in alignment with several other recommendations and reports that have already been presented to you over the course of the past five to 10 years I'll conclude our time with this quote it's something that I come back to regularly I came back to it several times throughout our time Gathering as a task force and it's a quote from Reverend Dr paully Murray a beloved ancestor who says and while I could not always suppressed the violent thoughts that raged inside me I would nevertheless dedicate my life to seeking alternatives to physical violence and would wrestle continually with the problem of transforming psychic violence into Creative Energy there's so much Creative Energy in the room right now we've heard it earlier and it is precisely that commitment I think to resisting the default that we all we all internalize sometimes to just wanting to hit somebody because you're mad and you allowed to be mad and how do we figure out together.

Right we may not be best friends but we're not enemies we have real enemies we're not adversaries all the time we have to figure out how we actually work together to transform the violence into something creative into something restorative we heard that consistently and I think it's clear that a lot of people do care and we have to continue working together to figure out how we make that care visible concrete and reflected in the policies the practices and most importantly the culture we're not ready to take sro's out the culture is not ready for it and if we do it and things go wrong the culture will just say oh see we told you it was not ready but we need to work together to actually create a context where we're co-creating these quality relationships and that I think is our presentation we'd love to create space for questions thank you for hearing us thank you for your leadership in dur Public Schools thank you Jesse and Samuel thank you both for coming to.

Present to us tonight but the many other members of the task force I think some are here and some may be watching and a many who were not are not here tonight thank you thank you thank you because we know this is a labor of love I'll open the floor to the board members for any.

Questions we'll start with you miss. Valoras it's a it's an honor to have to have you both in this work and to have you both present gosh my microphone now you know there's there's so many points of connection with this work and what it means to be a holistic school system that really addresses the needs of all students safety is at the core right and the recommendations that you brought to us are definitely in line with conversations that we've had we have different iterations of this board during the time that I've been here have grappled with how do we change anou you know that needs to give us access to data how do we incorporate that into school Improvement teams that are looking you know at that data for their schools for their school communities and how do we kind of use the levers that are already in place in dur public schools and a lot of this you know was written and I I I mentioned you know.

Kevin Prim has sent like an email withou revisions and I was like I'm pretty sure he's he's happy to kind of see that you know there's alignment in terms of like more data is important right and it shouldn't be that hard to get data not from a public body and so I I just want to give you all you know just all the commendations all the you know the yeah the the Applause that you deserve you know for speaking things that are sometimes complicated in maybe a political sphere but this is not about politics and we don't play politics over our kids these stories that you highlighted there are actually faces that I know names that I know addresses that I I know of families including children who decided not to come back to school after they were approached and harassed and I mean profiled you know by an SRO and so these are real things that have happened it's not a it's not a it is not a secret and it is it is.

Something that is out in community and that happened in community and has been addressed in community and one of the asks of the parents is dignity I love how you said dignity because the biggest thing that enrages a mother and I say that as a mother myself is a stereotype and trying to wash and and just completely dispose our kids and call them a like lie on them and say they deserved you know to be harassed because they were doing things that they did not do and so we continue to have this issue also in the community with the during police department and the ways that when they're looking for somebody sometimes they mix up names and actually I've had that situation this week right so it's not just one office of law enforcement it's all throughout our community Duran Police Department the Sheriff's Office and also the city's implementation of the safety you know the the the community safety heart team and everybody else right like everyone has to keep in mind dignity and.

That you know at the end of the day to be a restorative Durham will include the community coming up with the programs you know to support and also the school system as we have already started with restorative practices and you really highlighted the work that we have to do to make sure that it is not just in name not just in spirit but actually implemented you know so that people can actually see it tangibly and so we we continue to do that and I look forward to more conversations with all of you and thank you for highlighting that there are many organizations that are addressing the needs of Youth I think Durham has faced a crisis of kids that have died and it has been gun violence but that gun violence didn't start out of nowhere the conflicts that we see playing out are conflicts that have been enacted and the law of physics kind of says what to every action there's an equal and what opposite reaction and so we have to.

Continue to you know realize what what are the things that are affecting our youth so that they are acting out with violence maybe it's violence that has been enacted on them in many different ways and so I just commend you for this work I tell you this is not easy work because everybody has maybe a different vision of how they carry this work and I think your call for everyone who cares about this you know to continue to link up and kind of see what are the different ways that each you know Community organization that DPS the school Improvement teams are working on this that theou is getting revised that the board continues to be you know a Vanguard you know to make sure that safety and dignity is upheld for every single student in DPS I think we you know this is this is a a moment of thank you a moment of gratitude for me thank you thank you I just want to appreciate what you're saying in name for the.

Record that it's clear to us that there's not a oniz fits-all like I don't imagine what Hillside will do is going to be what DSA does is going to be what CMA does right and we want to be creative we want to invite people to be imaginative and create Partnerships and create programs that are culturally relevant and specific for the student body that's being served and I think there's a way to see that kind of specificity in each School while still being reflective of a DPS that cares about those quality relationships it's possible and it's happening and we can do better thank you thank you Miss viars Miss Beyer so I just want to start with just deep gratitude to you all as two of our five Representatives to Mr Cason and Mara who shared the work and and acknowledge the labor of love that you all have given to this community you know when chair Umstead worked to push this resolution and get this moving with our board with the city with the.

County none when we start aou work like this we don't know what will happen at all and I know those of us that attended the unveiling were so happy to celebrate with you and want to know that the to the community at home that this is available online there is an incredible bilingual report that is detailed that is full of art that is very much the heart of Durham and you've brought to us tonight a challenge and three of the recommendations are targeted towards dur public schools and we Embrace that challenge and that work going forward but I think there's other recommendations that you've made that includes city and county but will very much overlap and be impactful for the work that we are doing and leading here and so I thank you all for that I I challenge the community to continue to hold us accountable to the recommendations that you brought forward the one question that I had for you all is on the notion of consent workshops.

And if you all pondered and discussed that as workshops versus actually us incorporating that into our K12 curriculum well personally I think that is something that could definitely be implemented the idea of the workshops was initially to have something I guess not necessarily as like an outside mechanism but as something that is coming from different Community Partners to come into the schools but if that's something that the board thinks is most impactful to implement into the curriculum we would love to have meetings to support that process and like I was saying during presentation just making sure even though I'm not a DPS student no more a freshman in college but making sure we have students at the table like my main thing is making sure we're engaging our students and empowering them because I think sometimes we infantilize our students but they have a lot to bring to the table and a lot of really brilliant ideas so just I would love to work co-work on that process thank you so much I would turn.

It over to colleagues but just deep gratitude to you all and and thank you Miss. Lewis similarly to the comments already shared much appreciation and gratitude to the work that you have done the commitment over these past two years and could you imagine if we didn't have a seat at the table when this started in planning the Board of Education didn't have any seats we fought for that so that we could hear what safety and wellness looks like also for our school community and later in y'all's process you all added the youth listening sessions and these are U incredible recommendations that didn't come just from the task force but from True Community engagement and you all started coming out the pandemic and I remember how hard it was to get those listening sessions but you believed in it and you knew that it was important to get this qualitative information and Report there's so much that wasn't presented tonight 100 page report came out of this and I will say the Baton was passed from.

The race Equity task force started this work to this community collaboration and the task force that you all have brought before us today as well thank you thank you thank you for This Way Forward you know we we've heard so many comments today about the legislation that's causing harm about the way forward with school buildings and things of these different projects and what I get from your from your presentation is the heart of the student and their sense of belonging and what's going to help promote their academic success so beyond you've done the work now is for us to be accountable one of the things I liked about your report I saw and in some places there are times that you're asking for these things to be implemented I know I saw it on one of your slides Samuel but I would just want to encourage you make sure that the places where the governing bodies give leadership to the requests that have made and recommendations that there's a place of accountability when.

You would like to see it done so those things can be followed up with from here not just that this just sits on a desk somewhere but that true work is coming out of it that would be my only recommendation thank you M Rogers thank you all so much for this presentation and for this work I appreciate it being in the space when y'all were having conversations with Comm Community about the work of this task force and what we all need to do as a community going forward I've had numerous conversations with so many members of the task force I saw your recommendations that you presented here I do want to acknowledge and appreciate that you all named the THM Public Schools Black and Hispanic student achievement plan as part of the full work scope of work and that our Administration is already doing the work to start that process we are committed to this and we're committed to making sure that we have the resources in place to do restorative practices.

With Fidelity and to re-engage our community in what restored practice really is thank you so much for leading this work and reminding us how great Durham can be and how much we can do together I really appreciate you miss Carter Aon I won't take up much more of everybody's time but also want to express my gratitude I know the immense amount of time and effort involved in collecting this type of data convening people and really like pulling together the recommendations and Distilling them into the points and the and that you've done for us amidst a 100 page report so thank you so much this is incredibly valuable I'm excited to start implementing and really appreciate your work and I think in particular I think the leadership that you've recommended for restorative practice Administration that's going to be really valuable to help us assess the current state of things because until we know really get a really good sense for what things look like we can't work to improve how we're doing things.

Right and similarly with more data we have a more complete understanding of where we are right the Sheriff's Office data any piece of data here so always in favor of expanding our capacity to have data so thank you so much again I'll lift up that briefly I'll lift up briefly that we had community members that supported us on our Roundtable committees both for bence prevention violence prevention and youth in schools and that was feedback that we heard directly from two DPS staff members one who's currently still with DPS staff and one who has left recently really wanting to think about investments in staff that would allow for more professional development I was as was mentioned but also thinking how do we set that person up for Success because if you just hire one person and they have no real connection across during Public Schools it it they're they're they're set up to fail and again that's why I think we don't want to rush in and say you should do this as soon as.

Possible we want you to think strategically and we would rather you wait a year or two if that means by year three the culture is shifted a bit more and it's set up in a way that there's some comprehensive and infrastructural support to make sure that those people who do that important work can be retained can be compensated well and can be set up for success to really generate the kind of outcomes that are in line with the Strategic plan are in line with what folks are saying represent our values that move us in the right direction so we hold that with Open Hands we hope that you do it sooner rather than later to your point trusty Lewis around timing and this work continues and so we hope that you all will continue to engage with us as elected leaders and we hope community members will continue to engage with us this work continues like we said earlier there's a lot of space for collaboration and communication and a lot of ways that.

We can help show that we really do trust and care for one another well thank you Miss Chavez I also want to thank you for this excellent presentation for your work and Leadership in the community and in with the task force itself you reminded me that I believe that schools can be places of of healing and and so I that idea I think is very much woven into what you presented and I like like what you said about healing people that healing people heal people I think that's a that's important for us to focus and not only on the harm that you know we can cause but that we can also extend that healing you your presentation your report made me think about having a trauma informed approach a harm reduction approach just some things some kind of bodies of work that I'm thinking about as we you know talked to talk about this and kind of weave it into changes that we you know may want to make going forward.

I really appreciate the the quotes throughout the work you did to gather that that information from the community and especially from students the focus on listening and I wanted to mention that the idea of the these different partners that you suggested Falls very much in line with our the part of our strategic plan that is about Community engagement and having more Partners for for all of our schools implementing restorative practices fully absolutely we need to do that and I also appreciate the attention to sexual harassment I think we don't there are many areas in which we don't necessarily talk about that enough and how it affects students and how it affects people in general so it's important to pay ATT attention to that but thank you so much for everything and I do look forward to the ongoing conversations to talk about how we can continue to weave in this Rich body of work that you provided us thank you Miss Vadar just one quick thing and a question nccu has the.

I think you already know this the social justice and racial Equity Institute anel Brown and Scott Holmes and there was a whole opening at nccu and they were talking about all the ways that you know they're providing support for restorative justice efforts here in Durham and one of the things is I know that we as board members meet in subcommittees and we've met with our director of student Support Services Dr madx Perry and that is something that you know Dr madx fa is very supportive of of any of these connections so as you do this work in the city just think also about our HBCU first of all my Mo but you know definitely just think through ways to continue to because they have certification programs and I can already envision our youth imagine our youth you know figuring out like it's in how in a law school and you know maybe you don't go for the JD but you get a certification so there's ways that this work can be operationalized and in the.

Same way that people go for professional development these are ways to also build capabilities and capacity not just you know during school hours but it also beyond that and so I just I just wanted to give you all that and I guess my question was have you thought of connecting with NC see you and and and and some some of these folks who are leading in that work I'll name that respectfully our task force has finished okay that's a good respectfully and this work continues we're here we're happy to be here and so I hope if there's someone from Central who's connected with this institute definitely will reach out to the board right I I hope that I hope that folks who are interested who are people of Peace who are committed to this kind of restorative work that provides alternatives to policing and Punishment will get in where they fit in you know someone at Hillside you're an Alum at Southern your baby is at Rogers her get in where you fit in.

And I think shavings really do make a pile and so there's no shortage of ideas but who's going to do it and respectfully I have a full-time job and two part-time jobs I'm not looking for more work to do and I'mma show up where I can right and the lgbtq advocacy that's my Lane you gonna hear me talk about paully Murray that's my Lane arts and culture and youth those are my Lanes that's why I'm here young people asked me to serve in this way and so I hope that that idea and other ideas that have come up that folks will find ways to actually get them working in each school like I said every middle and high school has its own needs its own culture we want to make sure that the principal and assistant principles are down for the programs that happen we can't come in hot and just say oh you need to do it like this or you need to do it like this them there'll be.

Internal resistance in so many ways we don't want that I don't want that and so if there are folks that are interested in working with Central I hope that we can figure out together how to make the right connections happen so that that can happen with efficacy right with somebody's got a line item a discretionary budget to make things happen but I don't want to speak out of turn so I want to be realistic and practical but I'm hopeful that we have a lot of assets locally we have a lot of creativity and we have to take care of one another the Raley right now they own something they own something else and I trust Durham that's why I'm here that's why I'm not going nowhere and I trust and call our people to get in where they fit in we all have work to do and we can all make a difference to make sure sure we're taking care of our young people who are enrolled in public schools and our.

Educators and staff that are serving them as best as they can they are not our enemies we may not agree we may have some things we need to work through but those are not our enemies we need to take care of one another so I'm hopeful for that you want to say something and we probably gotta go because I got a long meeting no I absolutely want to underscore the idea of it taking a village but in terms of central obviously my mom went there so definitely a special connection with the HBCU and actually for the consent Workshop proposal one of the partner organizations that was listed was nccu's women Center so that could be a resource to reach out to along with like a lot of the other organizations that were listed specifically for that proposal but you know there are a lot of resources for a variety of the proposals we provided tonight and then for the other governing bodies for them to do with with those proposals so thank you.

Just gratitude and you know one of the things we talked about with our our chair is that 100 pages is not going to cover all the things that will happen and so it is on us you know to we waited on this we didn't want to move we have not changed theou we said we're not going to do it without getting your recommendations so now you've given us the recommendations there's more work to be done it's going to look in alignment with what you've done but there might be other parts that were not in that report you know as we develop more relationships so we just want to thank you for that thank you both for coming I'm going to keep it very very brief because much of what I what I want to say has already been said and and reiterate this is the beginning of the work my brain is already starting to think about implementation of what happens next and I think there's a com conversation.

For us as a board and administration around timeline and working with our city and our County as well to understand how we moving together because I too choose dur and I love being here because of what I know is possible in our community because of the way we align our resources because of the way we dream and imagine and so I really look forward to this work and I hold both we have a lot of resources and and a dream and a vision and we have work to do together right collectively so I just want to say thank you'all again we will continue to have this conversation as a board and continue to talk with our Administration around what's next so thank you.

The next item on our agenda we have our chief of staff with some Pol policy updates thank you madam chair good evening board members Dr manga community members you please pull up the PowerPoint this a brief recap if you recall board members you adopted five policies back in November and then then you pulled one of the policies policy 3540 the Comprehensive Health education policy on the at the November board meeting as well as policies 1310 and policy 1735 for additional review and commentary because you weren't satisfied with what had been brought to you what what I had brought to you and wanted to make some additional edits and so those policies are all online we did at six o'clock make some technical changes to those nothing substantive just want to make sure the community is aware of that but the board has wrestled with these policies we've discussed these policies and they're online but I do want to go through next slide please a couple of of the things just briefly.

And then I will be M asking the board for a motion to adopt these policies with a waiver of second reading next slide please some of the things that we have done in Durham and they're not going to be comprehensive but I do just want to lift up some of the work that this board has done and has instructed Administration to do in relation to the lgbtqia plus community and the supports that have been included in that one of them is professional development the board had we had a boardled lgbtqia trainings two of those for several hours where we also had administr senior leadership there and the plan being kind of the train to trainer obviously the work always will continue but I want to lift that up in light of a lot of the comments that I heard tonight and a lot of the concerns that I've seen in emails and from our community regarding where this board stands with regard to the parents Bill of Rights and its support of.

Lgbtqia plus community and our our community members staff students and families another thing that this board has done and again this is nowhere near comprehensive is staff Equity training Dr Bullock we've talked about him today he created a training consulted with members of the lgbtqia training got some occasionally that was when Equity was with me got some feedback we tweaked it and made some corrections and it's he tweaks that every single time because one of the things that we all know is things are evolving right Society should be evolving and so we want to make sure that we stay on The Cutting Edge of what is happening in the equity space as far as that goes and I'm going to be very brief as I indicated before one of the last things I'm going to talk about before I request the motion is next slide please gender support plans and this is all available online so people that are watching or looking can take a look and kind of see this is a.

Template for what we use and there's gender support Plan and there's also a gender transition plan it's similar to this but I just wanted to kind of talk about the gender support plan because the transition plan is obviously much more intimate but this is what it is that our school system and DPS provides to students and families when they are indicating that they need support in their gender identification or gender identity Etc so I just wanted to kind of go through next slide please and it's four total pages but there's a lot of work that we do I know that the board has provided a lot of input on these policies and it has been a you know kind of a difficult path for you in order for us to in compliance with this that you've been challenged you've challenged us as I said you pulled it off with what I brought before and said it was it it wasn't where you wanted it to be and.

So I just want to kind of lift that up to the extent that I can to the community that the the challenge and the struggle that this board had in making the changes that are in these policies that are posted online so with that I would Madam chair ask for I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any but I would ask for a motion to wave second reading and adoption at this meeting thank you thank you Dr Giovani and for the public who's watching and many of you all have emailed us and showed up to give public comment we have read these policies over and over and studied and researched and looked at law and statute and turned it on his head and back it down and consulted with so many different folks and trying to bring a draft that is going to be supportive of our students in the best way we can to mitigate harm and consider all the other supports that we're putting in place within a school.

Building to support students so I I really want y'all to hear we we unfortunately can't share all the things all the conversations we've had we would be here for days about the policy and how we've been working on it and how we've been brainstorming but we've done a lot to really get to the place that we are today and I think I said this in a previous work session what we do know is when there are oppressive policies we know how to put push back and Raleigh is where we need to push back there's an election season coming up for many of the folks who are in our general assembly and it's important that we take our energy and also put it there so we can have some different policies and procedures that are going to protect our students all of our students and our Educators I'll open the floor to board for questions or comments or a motion Madam chair we we do have an update later on.

The lgbtq UIA task force and perhaps that's a place to have further discussion about some of the recommendations that some of the speakers brought tonight because those were also discussed there but I did want to uplift kind of some of the misinformation that was shared in public comment some of the the feeling that while our attorney told us we're not able to change state law we are able to set policies and procedures that protect our students our families and our staff and we will continue to let policy 1735 be our guide guiding Northstar if there are others that have comments I thanks go to miss.

Chavez all right I do want to say a few things before we make a vote on this this this policy pains me greatly and the stress of this policy has lived in my body since August so I know it lives in in many other people's bodies I just want to say a few things this it's it's just it's very unfortunate perhaps not surprising that this has come down to us from the state this is my community and this to have to make a vote on this pains me a lot I want to say that I'm in this seat because of trans people and gender queer people and and to in the thought of I just had a baby the thought of sending my child to school who has a queer family with this law in place it'll be a few years but pains me greatly this board has wrestled in every way that I think we know how with this I I truly appreciate our Administration for being on this journey with us Miss Giovani.

We have yeah we've had yeah many conversations work through many things to try and get to a better place this is partly difficult too because you know I I've said this before but in in education programs Master's programs Administration programs that there was not until recently you know lgbtq students were not discussed necessarily sometimes they're still not and so this wasn't necessary necessarily an area where people learned in their teacher Ed programs to how to support lgbtq students but now you know we are deeply invested as a district in doing that and and so we have to in the face of this ramp up our efforts even more I do appreciate you know everything that Dr Bullock has done in his in his office and you know with his staff to really support those efforts it's a great loss to not have him with us anymore I want to say that in wrestling with this policy and these this set of policies one of the things you know we are.

People have had a chance to read them the piece around gender identity in not being able to have instruction around gender identity sexuality and and sexual activity so one of the things we wanted to you know to put in into the policy is clarity about what instruction and the difference between instruction and representation and and so the representation is important and I'm going to you know keep saying that to you know for family structures for identities that doesn't mean we're teaching about these things and and also you know want to say and I think I'm speaking to I mean we heard these kids speak today speaking to them others in you know in in the community that the I really believe the coming out process is very personal and people should have a right to that I do think the notification piece is I personally Emily Chávez think it does violate Title 9 but there's not legal standing for to for that at this time the campaign for southern.

Equality has made a case around that but we are we do have to comply and the I want to say this law is already in existence and so and so we are moving forward I am moving forward knowing that and and and so what we are doing is working with the administration on procedures and I appreciate the work that has already been done to think deeply around how to support lgbtq students in the schools and I also think we have an opportunity to support parents in supporting their kids because most parents want to support their kids but sometimes when their kids come out it's scary to parents and we need to understand that so so that's you know some of what need to be thinking about here and maybe I'll save the rest of my any other comments for the task force piece but those are some of the things I wanted to say and as I said speaking a lot to to my lgbtq Community thank you thank you Miss Chavez any other.

Comments from board members M Carter Aon I will only add also that this has been very painful and this has been very difficult for us and our values have not changed and this is just a charge for us to continue to do better and better and better at supporting our children and making safe affirming spaces in our schools and the work does not the policies are one thing we know that what I'm eager to do is put the procedures in place and the guidelines and make sure that every single one of our staff and our students know that we are supportive of all of our students especially those that are most marginalized including but not limited to our lgbtqia plus community members so I'm eager to go ahead and provide the guidance that I know our Educators have been asking for and I appreciate the recommendations that have come to make sure that there's liaz on at every school I think that's a really solid one and also an anonymous.

Reporting system so I'm eager to continue talking to staff about those types of things as well miss vus we continue to work with our Administration I think you know I highlight the Strategic plan as much as I can because that is definitely like the road map that we have to make sure that you know Priority One which is academic achievement all of these hinge on making sure our kids feel safe you know priority to which you know definitely talks about the whole child so this is a moment of a moment of lament I think it is a moment of lament in the sense that things are happening two school districts across the United States which are creating the types of is olation and the types of fears that are contrary to Children thriving and I Echo what my colleagues have said in in terms of how we have grappled with this as people who are from the community as people who have loved ones from the community as people who are.

Also parents as people who are also community members as people who are accountable and to say that we have grappled it's it's actually we we have grappled both physically in terms of hours in terms of meetings but I think emotionally there's an emotional tool and you know it's it's been really reassuring that my colleagues and I have been in phone conversations you know we' we've talked about this over and over we we we grapple with this in leadership and that is the hard thing of leadership it is it is hard to know when we are told that we got sworn into office and one of the first things that it says is you are sworn in to uphold all local state and federal law the ask for us to say we're not complying is not an option in the sense that we can pretty much step all step down from our seats I mean somebody can bring this the statement and said you swore you got sworn in to uphold laws I I spoke to.

Somebody during one of the meetings and I said sometimes intersectionality is is weaponized you know and it can be weaponized because you're more than one identity and that supposed it's supposed to dilute who you are and that's not true it hurts all the ways and you hurt in many more ways and it's actually compounded and so I just want to name that that there are many intersectional identities that have been oppressed for a long time and that there are policies think about policies about children in cages their Humanity think about policies related to deportation and separation of families think about policies that pretty much deputize sros to be able to demand whether a person is here legally or not think about policies that also say you know what happens to bodies think about policies that say we can go endlessly right all these policies are inherently causing harm and so one of the things that I do know is that I am very glad to be a part of this.

Board with caring folks who care about the education of children and we have grappled with this because we are also understanding that there is an inherent risk for a school district of our magnitude in terms of looking at all this and saying let's just wait till January rolls over but there is something else with that there's trust that our superintendent understands where this board stands that our Administration knows exactly where this board stands and that every DPS educator needs to know the direction this board has taken with policy 1735 which is we are one of the very few districts that actually has a policy Dr Tan jaavan is that true you are you are the only board that has an actual policy everyone else has it in guidelines or procedures and so thank you so thank you so much for that we are the only board that has the only District that has a policy and that was work that I commend all of you who are out there rainbow.

Collective for change folks who have worked as Educators and I've named so many folks Jack turnwald Matt Hixon you know so many folks who have worked with us I mean I'm not I'm not trying to leave anybody out but we we are the only district with a policy and so what we ask our community to do is to let our Administration work to make sure that our kids are safe work to make sure that these policies that are aimed at causing harm and at restricting things don't cause further harm in in the sense in how it's implemented and so what we're trying to say is that this policy does not immediately out a child who has a question and it was important for us to say that you know like questions and and folks having their first amendment rights First Amendment rights are there but we have been very intentional about how we are approaching this and compliance with law is in a way not just coping out and not just like giving.

In it's actually a protection mechanism as well because we know that we can do this work and I trust the leadership I also want to highlight if in case Community folks don't know that our attorneys Daron Smith Daron Smith I don't want to put your business out there but you are the advisers the legal advisors to many districts around the area and so for somebody to compare us to another district and say other districts are doing better I want to see that I want to see it I want to see that because in reality the legal council that we have while it may be different and I'm not speaking for Thon Smith but we have one of the most involved legal council that we can have who are actually working with other districts and grappling with some of and they're grappling with these questions too and we actually got a chance to see them at the Greensboro North Carolina School boards association meeting where we could all kind of come.

Together with a few of them not all of us but you know we were able to kind of do that and and I commend also my colleague millison you know having those convers we were there were quite a few of us having those conversations and taking advantage of those opportunities you know to mingle and greet other board members so what I'm saying is that this is a complicated thing but it's not something that we are doing because we don't have the guts if any of you know me and know any of the fols here this is not about us not having guts this is about us arriving at a sensible period where we understand that January is rolling around and that we trust that between January and the rest of the months we are going to figure out as a district how to affirm our kids and make sure harm doesn't happen we have those levers we have an office that looks at grievances and maybe there's ways to amp up advocacy and there's.

Waves to continue to you know continue to listen to the ways that harm is actually happening but we have to start somewhere and our legal council has also been walking with us step by step that we have to start somewhere in order to even continue to build out the kinds of supports that our district needs thank you thank you Miss Lewis so I just want to say thank you to our Administration our team Dr Giovani Dr King for all your hard work our attorney Mr Malone and his team as well we were very methodic and intentional as you explained all the steps we've taken to get to this place and I just want to say this is same thing that Miss Cara ala said this gives our staff Direction with clear policy and processes so that we're all on the same page one of the things that struck me this evening I think Miss U Beyer touched on it there was some miscommunication that I was hearing from our community members about this we've.

Wrestled with these policies we probably can recite them at this point please continue to reach out to us let's keep the conversation and communication going that engagement is important that people are having the right information along the way that's all I wanted to add thank you Miss leis she took the words out my mouth I was going to say I think as we work on these policies and move forward we do need to have a place where people can report and I encourage folks to keep in communication with us as a board it's new it's different but we also know clear what our expectation and our values are and so we need to be in communication so that when things happen we are able to fix it where can revise we can edit and we can support folks to make sure that our kids and families and educators are in the inclusive environments that we desire so I move that we wave the second reading and set these policies as presented to us.

Today can you list the policies Miss Lewis I sure can got multiple policy 3540 policy 1735 d435 D 7235 and policy 1310 42 second it's been moved by Miss Lewis second it by Miss buer is there any other discussion all in favor say I any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously thank you with that we're gonna take a quick we'll do five minute recess just to give us a chance to stand up stretch our legs use the restroom if you need and we'll be back here at.

96.

All right we are back from that quick recess thank you to so many of you who are hanging with us tonight we do have a pretty lengthy agenda but so many important items as we do the work of the school system so the next item on our agenda is operational Services we have Durham School of the Arts design development and presentation I'mma pass it over to you Mr Johnson Mr. Davis good evening board chair Vice chair board members greeting to the superintendent executive cabinet level and administrator leadership and thank you to the community who is present here this evening I am Frederick Davis Senior executive director for Building Services for Durham Public Schools operations this evening I will be your narrator for the purpose of providing you information that supports moving the design development of the new Durham School of the Arts into the next phase of construction documents based on board policy the superintendent or their designate must present an update to the board prior to moving into construction.

Documents this phase will allow DPS Administration to move closer to erecting a new School of the Arts we have with us today our design team O'Brien Atkins and Perkinson will with over over four 40 plus years of Designing public and K through 12 institutions they will present how they've handled the problem in a sustainable and design efficient way followed that we have our program management team of Kate Services as well as our construction manager at risk team of Bal for batty montif construction and right build International that will come to you providing you information on real cost data that helps determine our budget I will then conclude by providing you additional information that was requested through col collaborative engagement with the community as well as an update should the board make the decision of moving towards construction documents as well as a status update of the overall 10year CIP and the bond next slide please so first I want to start by how DSA and the 10-year CIP is related to.

Our priority goals for the district priority five states that by 2028 we will increase cas through 12 student enrollment to achieve 100% utilization of seat capacity at school levels approximately increasing our enrollment to 35,000 this school among other schools will increase that and help us reach our goal we find this outcome by developing strategies one is conducting data-driven decisions based on FCA or facility conditions assessments conducting quantitative and quality facility conditions assessments that is our guiding tool to provide health safe and technologically current environmental conscious facilities and then we have our learning environment guidelines or legs that we review and upgrade specialized learning spaces including classrooms media centers common areas to facilitate learning Foster collaboration and support Innovation these things will be direct addressed during our presentation today next slide please and with that we'll begin our presentation on Durham School of the Arts next slide and so to reorient it how we got to this point I bring your attention to October 21st it was on that day as we.

Were Contin down the path of renovating the existing Duram School the Arts we hired a third-party consultant to do what we call a facility cost index risk assessment to make sure that the public dollars that we were anticipating receiving were used in an efficient manner based on that discussion the board decided that it would be an efficient way to use money to do a new construction versus the cost in comparison of a renovation not only cost was one of the Distributing factors but transportation concerns logistical conerns concerns as well as growing concerns of having students in a unsafe unpredictable environment for five to seven years based on that decision the board decided to move towards a new construction project we began RFQ elction where we looked at several design firms across the country in the state and we selected and recommended a Brian Atkins and Perkinson Will based on their numerous experience in K through2 facilities public facilities as well as schools for the Arts we began the.

Kickoff in June of 2022 with a parade of meetings that you see there I just want to highlight a couple of them for you we've had numerous department head meetings which help us establish the program which you will see here today we also had a budget review during our schematic design phase where we looked at how with the construction manager at risk how we can cut cost to make sure that we are being efficient but not jeopardizing the program that was stated by Administration we then heard from the community about the lack of community involvement we then provided several opportunities to engage and hear some of the issues concerns that the staff may have we then came back and were able to address many of those concerns we then had additional Community meetings separate from staff to highlight the many amenities and the many state-ofthe-art areas that would be into the new construction and thus we're here today the team will provide you an update of the design development and we hope.

That the information that we provide you will move us to the next phase which is construction documents the construction documents pH allows us to continue to refine our design updating you on cost as well as making sure all the program needs has been successfully manag next slide please and with that I will turn it over to Miss Barbara Crumb with Perkins and will who will highlight some of the many features of the New Durham School of the Arts thank you and thank you for letting us present this to you I know it's a long night and I'll try and be brief there can you hear me now got it thank you thank you I will try and be brief I feel terrible for you all staying this late but thank you very much for the opportunity just a few things about the high school we are thrilled to be part of this the high school middle school and just things that I think make a huge difference in.

Really moving from where you are to the new site we are really designed this Consolidated campus and one of the issues we found with touring the existing building was all the security and the the doors and the numbers of ways people can get on campus we've really designed a courtyard that would be secure that kids can be in all the time but it will lock down after kids come in in the morning so it will have a single outdoor Courtyard a Consolidated campus also a music and theater building both of which have adjacent art rooms so you know at the existing campus art rooms are way across the campus from the auditorium dance rooms are in the different building so here you'll have a music building that has all the band Orchestra piano lab guitar classrooms and the new concert hall all located together similarly the theater building we'll have the dance the drama of the coral Tech theater Tech classrooms a black box theater 150 seat black boox.

Theater and a 500 seat theater and again the adjacencies are so important so those kids can go from stage to rehearsal room and back and forth similarly you know we have not neglected the Athletics there's a gym building that has a high school gym and a middle school gym and again the supporting weight room training room offices and separate locker rooms for the high school and middle school students having heard all the conversation about the separation of middle and high school we have put them at the opposite of the gym so hopefully they will really stay separate the other thing that we found when we looked at the existing building is the counselors and the assistant principles are all over the building we have located the counselor suite and the aps very near the students the counselor Suites right off it's ajason to the cafeteria and the media center so again the student services are terribly accessible to the entire population next slide please when we started this job you.

Know we had some user user groups when we started and one of the things we sort of felt was the importance of the buildings the main buildings the performance buildings the cafeteria being off a courtyard having us kind of making this Courtyard making this secure space but we sort of looked at it as a community of creatives there was a place that all of these creatives could interact where you would have cross-curricular activities and really a real place to show your craft so we developed this Courtyard that had the main buildings on it it has the theater building the art the concert hall building the cafeteria Media Center building in the gym any one of which can be open 247 any which all of them could be but again they're independent buildings that you can use and the community can use anytime and above that we floated two rings of high schools of of classrooms and in reality we put the middle school on one level and we put.

The high school on one level again separating them and they have different stairs they won't be using the same bathrooms they can have different operationally cors so basically the middle school is separated from high school next one please It's a Wonderful site it's a Greenfield site it did have some old buildings on the top on that flat area and it does have a good bit of topography which really worked to our advantage of being able to put the theaters down in the land and therefore they're environmentally we use less Land by doing this and it also keeps the Heat and cooling of those buildings less so we built in the middle of the site we do have Wetlands to the South which is a beautiful sort of feature that I think we talked to the science people about using as an outdoor classroom and great topography that you'll see we've nestled in the parking in it does have a couple easements and again we've stayed away from those easements by building in the.

Middle of the site we built in the middle of the site because it was the flattest part but also we feel strongly about going vertically that touch the land as lightly as you can take down as few trees as you can and really build a Sustainable Building next one please and so you'll see the site plan are those four buildings in the bottom and the ring around them and of course one of the things we dealt with is the issues of cars and traffic and we did a loop row that takes all of the traffic off of Stadium Drive and Duke Homestead so you don't have what you have now chopping all the traffic on Duke Street you'll come in off a Stadium Drive and the loop goes all the way down to the South where there's parent drop off and pickup and faculty and and and parent parking at the top you come in from Duke Street Duke homestad Street and the students would come in that way so they.

Don't mix with the other traffic the buses also they will come off Stadium Drive and drop at the top the site at the media center and the cafeteria so again we've worked really hard to make the traffic patterns seamless and really work to separate student and adult parking next one please just to reiterate sort of the stacking of the building that lower level has the main big box theater and the as I said the theater the cafeteria the concert hall and then the gyms and then up above we did put the art rooms on the second floor because the media center the middle school doesn't take as much classroom space as the high school we have the art rooms there one of the reasons we put them up there was for the natural light we one of those rooms have the North and South light which is best for art so it made a lot of sense to put them and let me say I heard a lot of the conversation before.

We have on that floor the looping the sixth grade Loops there are two sixth grade cohorts of five of four classrooms each two seventh grade cohorts four classroom each and you could do the eighth grade cohorts there also the eighth grade as have some math classrooms upstairs so we did that also but basically all Middle School teachers will have their own classroom because the four classroom looping and there's even a fifth for each for the sixth grade coart there's a fifth for the seventh grade there's a fifth and for the six for the eighth grade there's a fifth so basically the Middle School classrooms Middle School teachers will all have their own classroom and as I say the middle school is really isolated from the upper school there are stairways that come down to that art Arts quarter that high school kids could use and we talked about having them operationally just High School stairways so those kids won't go on the halls with middle school students next just to reiterate that's the.

Plan of the courtyard we're doing this sort of wonderful path that goes all the way through and it'll pick you up on the bottom from parent drop off pick you up on the top from Bus drop off and take you all the way through this Courtyard and you see that sort of heart shape shape is an outdoor Amphitheater that you'll see in a minute in a rendering next one just a second through here again to sort of explain to you what opens on the courtyard you'll see on the left hand side is the concert hall it's a cut through the concert hall and you're coming in off the courtyard on the balcony level and as I said to you using that land to sort of bury our our big performance spaces so they're not so high up and they're also buried in the ground and you get the extra height in there that you need so similarly the theater has a similar section and on the other side is the cafeteria and you see.

The two levels of classrooms up above everybody oriented towards that courtyard that it really is the social center of the school next one and just to show you coming in from the Bus drop off coming down towards the building and the building does have fences that would be closed off after 8:30 or after kids come in and then you have to go through an office to get into that courtyard so once school starts the courtyard is Totally Secure next and that's that office that you will come in you'll go through that office after the the fences are closed in the morning and then through that office you'll get badged and get sent into the courtyard or into whatever building you need to go to next one and this is my favorite this is the courtyard and we really Envision this as being an outdoor learning space you know an outdoor socializing space a pre function space for the theater and the concert hall and any gym activities and the other thing we talked about is.

Really it's a sculpture garden hopefully we students will be able to display their artwork here and really use every part of this Courtyard next one please and that's just the lobby beginning to show you the lobby into the concert hall and how it relates to that courtyard so that you can have pre function outside or inside we also thought about performances in this space and we were treating it acoustically so you can have musical performances in these in these lobbies next please one of the conversations that we had a lot about the classrooms and you've heard a lot about this the count of classrooms we said that you know in every school that we're doing these days we really try and do collaborative space for teachers and it's space that teachers when they're not in a classroom can use and it's space that they can collaborate you know we we are seeing English and history teachers collaborate Math and Science teachers physics and history teachers all kinds of collaboration so a space where they can.

Collaborate it does have this planning these kinds of planning rooms that we're doing have lockers they can leave their personal belongings here they have a copy or they have you know the microwave and the refrigerator so it's all that sort of stuff but it also has a sort of private space at the end that you can close off if you you want to work by yourself if you want to meet with a teacher if you want to make a private phone call if you want to meet with a student so we're thinking that these spaces doing number of things for the faculty and we have them on each floor in both corners and then we have one downstairs in the gym also so we'll have I think four or five planning rooms next just to reiterate as someone said to you earlier you're going to see the slide well here it is you know this is the slide that talks about the number of classrooms and you know let me.

Reiterate again that every Middle School teacher will have their own classrooms and the high school teachers again you know it may be POS it may happen that two or three or four of them float but basically we will have 108 instructional units and we assume that these instructional units are used 85% of the time and that means that some of those music rooms aren't used all the time some of those dance rooms aren't used all the time and basically if you took an average of 25 students in each of those and the bandry may have 40 50 or 60 students a smaller you know debate room may have 10 or 12 so we always use average of 25 if you took those numbers 108 times 25 students is 2700 students and we say you know they're not used all the time and this is typical School planning so that's where we're getting that number of almost 2,300 student capacity and so the other line that you're not seeing there is we looked at.

The current school and the current school does have 111 teaching spaces but 17 of those are less than 650 square feet which means you have really under you know rooms that you can't use the DPI the Department of Public Instruction you know has a standard of like 750 700 to 750 and none of our classrooms are below 700 and most of them are 750 in the range of 750 to 800 so again although they're 11 and 100 instructional units in your existing building a lot of them are unusable or certainly you couldn't do a real class in them next one please I'm going to let Stephen Harris talk about sustainability hello everybody I'm Stephen Harris and I represent the O'Brien Atkins of the part partnership with Perkinson will and real quickly I'm going to hit some sustainability points this building and the design team is very sensitive to the environmental impact in the wellness of the students and we are looking at these following features U first of all we're going.

To have a high performance envelope the the building is going to basically have U enough installation and windows that allow it to maintain a very good energy use and so we are targeting an eui Target of 30 and that's energy use intensity and just for reference the average National is north of a 100 so 30 is a very good Target and it meets the the school boards Target to approach Net Zero by 2035 we also are right now and currently looking at a study to look how we can use our roofs for solar panels which will also contribute to that looking at our interior spaces you'll saw from the renderings that Barbera showed that we have a lot of Windows that contributes for contributes daylighting to the all the spaces all the student spaces will have access to natural light and Views to the exterior which as you could see we had a lot of nice like Wetlands forested areas and there's plenty of studies that I think everyone probably in this room.

Aware of that the the enhancements that this gives to the students as far as Focus and even academic performance when those things are available so we're proud that that is those opportunities are in this building I do know some of those opportunities are lacking in the existing facility Barbara mentioned this a little bit we Tred to minimize the impact on the site by going vertical with the building so we were reducing the amount of trees that we were taking down this list says low VOC materials vocc is volatile organic compounds and that's you know that your asbest and Lead that's probably in your existing facility this new facility will be built of healthy materials that students will not have to be exposed to that so and then this is a brief list but I do want to also note that we are targeting three green Globe certification green Globe is a certification system much like lead which most folks are familiar with with that has a a comprehensive list of.

Items that we analyze and we make sure that we use and three of course is at the upper end so this project is going to be a top tier sustainable project for Durham Public Schools thank you next slide I'm going to transition to Calvin Stevens thank you with Kate Services I'm moving back up I'm Calvin Stevens with Kate Services I'll be giving information from myself as well as our construction team big thing I want to do kind of start out is if you saw the dates we said earlier about when we started this process when our company came on board we were given a budget that we've tried to do our best at meet and I want to commend the construction design team first off for one biggest piece construction costs have risen 18% over the last year and we've been able to maintain our overall stated budget even though it was above what you had wanted and passed into the bond we did State 18 months ago this project would.

Cost approximately $241 million as the program still initially the program some items that were added which push to put the money they put our budget there but we've done a great job of keeping that budget over the Year we're actually within $1.9 million of what we thought this building would cost last year so I I commend the team of making contining adjustments to get us to this budget for this school so if you look at the cost of $241 million is the all the soft cost carrying FFN money as well as the construction cost in the budget as well as adding the bid alternates of athletic fields up for the confer Concert Hall as well as a middle school which again added to the budget but again would be acceptable alternates as a total possible cost of 256 256 million this is not guaranteed because again construction costs have we have seen a small downturn I don't want to say construction costs are coming down if you're doing any work at home but I will.

Say we've had five months of deescalation in some construction Commodities which may give us say which will help us maintain this budget cost as we move into the construction phase of construction next slide please it's very small but this is going to give you some idea where we compare in in other districts our team balford B Mon teth and Wright build has built over 30 schools in the state of North Carolina most recently Apex High School prior to that they built Willow Springs High School prior to that school at high school after school high school after high school so saying that with our construction cost we feel very good about where they are today as well as a later slides will say about where cost could be if there if there's any s long delays we're right in line with other high schools the biggest piece of this school in comparison to other school districts and again we've we've worked in these other school districts and they've been very happy to give us their budget.

Numbers they've broken some of these schools to in pieces mainly because again these budgets are just getting absorbing there is a high school but School District right now in planning is $350 million so and that has a medical piece to it but again schools School prices are going up and of course anything that has that component for extra education outside of the typical curriculum is going to give you a slight increase in square foot price and you'll see there our school our our school has a significant of different pieces with the Performing Arts that add to our price but quite honestly we're cost in line and again I'm basing that cost off 2200 students not of the full capability of the school the school has capability of 2700 or so so again if you went to a cost per student cost it would actually be very much in line with a lot of other schools Happening Here throughout the southeast Charlotte meinberg school at the top just passed their bond those were just planning.

Numbers so in all honesty I doubt if they build them for that price because again their budget like our budget was two years ago so we'll see where their $200 million schools end up in today's money themselves so with that I'll turn it back over to freder to kind of talk a little bit more about the the renovation aom that he had us price next slide please so we did some further investigation as Mr Steven said mentioned and basically solely on time and budget we believe that a pause or a further look at a renovation office or option would again delay any construction activity as well as cost upwards of 372 million this is based on the approved program that was set by the district and so what that means is if there were some changes in the programs yes an option that does not fulfill the 31,000 students performance could save us some money but I just want to make sure that we understand that this is an to Apples comparison and when you.

Bring in other fruit then you can't compare them and So based on square foot cost a renovation versus new as we stated in 2021 the more feasible and efficient option would be for the progress of a new construction next slide please again before you today is a recommendation to move into construction documents will again continue to refine the design and constructi ability through the partnership of our design and construction management team and we hope as we continue to move forward we will bring for you a GMP for submission of site demolition and once that begins we'll bring for you another GMP for building construction and we anticipate as we continue in this current schedule to be substantially complete in summer of 2026 with the opening of fall 2026 next slide please so I just want to provide you a a capital Improvement update as DSA is only one school of the many schools in our 10year CIP and I want to pause to say in the last three years we have.

Designed and constructed four schools and for a district who traditionally has not made any improvements with over 20 plus years you ought to thank yourself as a board to really move the needle forward to ensuring that all of our facilities are 21st Century Learning environments and so as you see here these are the projects that we have successfully completed following this same process and we hope that per the direction today we will start the bids in March we will begin construction of Glenn Elementary which we passed last fall and then we will look at the other many needs of the district re-evaluating where we are based on the construction cost of Durham school the Arts next slide please so again we've always stated in Building Services that we operate off of time scope and money today we gave you the scope the design development from our design team we gave you the time which is the schedule where we are here we gave you the budget and so with that we recommend that we continue.

To refine the design with moving to construction documents with that we'll take any questions thank you Mr Davis and team thank you all for being here I apologize we have you here at such a late hour but we really appreciate the information that you provided I think you mentioned this a little bit in the beginning but reminding folks that in 2019 we had this facilities assessment done where we had consultants and experts go and look at every single building look behind the veil a little bit to see what was needed as far as prioritizing the needs in our building and that's how DSA got on this 10year list because of the great need to renovate the building I'm sure Mr Davis could go into more details about all the things listed on that we don't have to do that tonight but that's kind of how we got to where we are in in prioritizing DSA on this list so I'll open it up for questions from board members Miss Rogers thank you for this presentation.

I'm appreciative that y'all are all here can we get sort of like a ballpark of how many times or or how much money has been invested in the current DSA site we have over as exec director of building service we have over 200 plus unstainable work orders for DSA some of those are reference to Heating and Cooling in spaces that classrooms are taking place however due to inefficient they're actually storage rooms so we can address some of those facility needs as you look at a building that was built in 1921 and 1950 some of those materials are no longer in service and so instead of being able to replace a material with the exact material we have to unfortunately put plywood in its place until the time that we can actually do something new and so at an antique car at some point you make a decision as you continue to pour money into it is it more cost effective to get a brand new car to drive into the future thank you that's helpful.

I guess my other question was Major renovation when was the last major renovation done at DSA the current DSA so if you call it a major renovation about two years ago we did some upfits such as building envelope some new windows a roof on just the main building as well as we use some eser dollars during Co to change out some of the 100 plus fan core units those are these units here that are in each classroom and that you look at if those go down that takes a service call A disruption in the class that we have to go in to fix those in a new building we have a centralized unit ways to not disrupt class if we do have to maintain those systems so hopefully that answers your question that answers my question perfectly I'm really appreciative of the presentation as a DSA Alum I'm really excited that it's we have an opportunity to do something different as a board member as a parent I know that classrooms and school buildings are.

Supposed to be gateways to the Future and you guys are building a gateway to the Future for these future students of DSA I look forward to supporting this work thank you Miss Lewis yes thank you for this presentation of these updates and also the historical where we've been Qui few quick questions are the students in the current DSA building current Middle School and High School do they ever cross paths as that's come up as a concern yes they currently commingle and how so as many of the Arts classrooms are in the main building you know we have the former car building that has most of the Core Curriculum but they as witness today students at the sixth seventh eighth grade level that must matriculate into the main building that has 9 through 12 okay and thank you also for sharing the renovation cost to do apples to apples comparison and I know that when we were looking to before the board had looked at Northern to do a renovation.

Before deciding on the new build what does your apples apples comparison include guess the risk associated if you're to do a renovation what could happen what you could find right so those numbers are combin real and unknown numbers anytime you open up a ceiling or a floor there was uncertainties and in this market whenever you don't have clearcut directions a con contractor will pad that number to cover their own profit and overhead no offense to Constructors out here but that is the truth so when there's unknowns you can't put a real dollar amount on it and so you will inflate that so that you cover your cost if and when there's some issues and we know from a 1921 building there will be issues okay and then shifting to the possible new school traffic pattern s has been looked at and talked about as well what about bike accessibility bike pass and walk pass is that include in the design so those are offsite Road improvements we're working with our City and County transportation departments.

To put together a list of those off-site Road improvements they will come before the board in those alternates and so we are working to establish those but that will be a budget number that we will make a decision on following through and can you tell me more about the plan for the 800 seat Concert Hall what are the possibilities you thought about so it's a public good and so we would use it through the DSA curriculum but we also want to take advantage of our community and so we look at it as a potential for facility rentals as well as other community engagements and then with the with the courtyard it looks like the the gate is translucent you can see through it doesn't look like it's so I want to make sure that it stays a part of the design as well being open and looking at the pictures it looks like a college campus Innovative a place that students want to be very thoughtful even the theater in the in the center.

Of the court so I know that when we were looking at the plans and designs for Northern there was a lot of concerns from the Arts drama Department so I just want to be mindful keep the final plans with those things in place that you've heard before when we've been here before with Northern as well and the planning room it feels like almost like going to a coffee shop just changing your work environment a bit if there's a reframe allowed I hear you to that's what other school districts are doing now moving more towards planning joint spaces like that and also having some privacy that is correct yes with within those okay those are my questions thank you thank you Miss Lewis are there board.

Members SP so I want to thank the team that's been working so hard on this and I want to thank the speakers that came tonight and those that have been emailing us I I want to be clear that I don't think this board at all goes down a path and doesn't think of all the ramifications and the options and the we do acknowledge that the cost of construction has gone up we do have plans some of which have been discussed here and some which are forthcoming about how to continue to work on the elementary schools there are middle schools that need work there are more elementary schools there are other high schools Jordan High School needs to be replaced in in my opinion and and those are big projects they're coming I want to also acknowledge that we have worked tirelessly with our County budget staff and and Board of County Commissioners to build strong trusted relationships some said was it it was our one of our meetings six or seven or eight years ago.

Where PTA parents from from DPS from DSA took Board of County Commissioners over on tours to show them the conditions and show them some of it you can't enjoy until you've smelt it I mean it is there some of the HVAC issues are intense some of the wood covering Brown funky pipes with stuff I mean I think it's it's concerning the the current state that we have 1800 students in and frankly the project is overdue and I'm so glad to see it here if if you all would talk a bit about how teacher have been included and the week-long residencies that you did specifically with DSA teachers do you mind speaking to that a little bit for folks yes we've had several meetings again at the pre function pre-design and schematic design in order for us to develop a program we had administrative heads of each department meet with the design team to understand how they currently are teaching and how they currently work and I can assure you that the design team.

Has done a successful job of maintaining how they currently work we're providing new innovative ways of working we have also had other updates to inform the teachers of the new design we've come back in a collaborative method and adjust the design based on some of those goals that were attainable while staying within the time scope and budget of the project could you speak to some of the the the architect I are you calling yeah she went to yeah yeah yeah a lot of.

Meetings when we oops here we go again when we started the project we really did spend four days up here meeting with in in that wonderful old building mini whatever you know doing doing four days and meeting with representatives of every group you know all the academics the science the English and math and everybody the administration the counselors music core all every one of them and they really gave us a list of what they wanted and I know somebody said to me when we were sitting outside today you know what did you what say something good about what you heard interestingly enough after we came back from those meetings and we finally shared the plans the music people were thrilled the theater people were thrilled all of the Arts people were thrilled with what they got they said you really listened and so we did that second meeting and yet we still got some comments from them that on the second round of two days up here and we went.

Back and we did a third round so we met really with the major stakeholders three times and then we met you know the other meetings that he was talking about with the staff and the community but we did three really in-depth sort of User Group you know sort of review and approvals I appreciate you all describing some of that I think from from being in Durham I I can say we can never do enough Community engagement and so I think there's lessons to be learned going forward about how we could even do better but I I do appreciate y'all listening and revising along the way it does feel like there are some new spaces that will be in this building that aren't in the current one largely concert hall and and the Acoustics of that I think will be different than say Weaver do you have some thoughts about that and all right we we have had a lot of specialty Consultants on this and we have a fabulous acoustical consultant.

Out of Chicago and he's worked really hard to make that concert hall and the practice rooms the performance teaching rooms the band room the course room or whatever have that same sound so when you are learning that as in one of those teaching rooms when you go into that concert hall it sounds exactly the same and we really you know these are very high-end these are guys matter of fact that theatrical the the the acoustical consultant is called Fresh told Acoustics and the guy who's working with us is working on the Obama Library so they're very high-end and they're really good about isolating everything you know and they're isolating noise from the outside as well as inside you know they talk about that you know between spaces but also any sort of ambient noise from Highway or train or anything I love the design and the openness of the design I love that you've put those performance spaces so that you could have simultaneous performances going on or rehearsals without without them disturbing each.

Other I do believe that that it's it's just a gorgeous design and the amphitheater in the middle I think will be the common space for for the community and I I just I'm excited about all the work that you all have done what Mr Davis can you remind us what you're Mo what you're asking us to approve this evening yes so a part of the design team's contract is to move us through design we've done pre-planning we've done schematic design we have just showcased the design development and so the next phase is called construction documents this is when the team again refines the design in terms of its constructibility it's cost for the work true measurements to really give us a detailed cost per square foot and so we're asking to move into that phase in order to show up our numbers as well as show up our schedule to have this ready in 2026 and just to be clear is there any any input in that refinement for the.

Concerns that some of the Educators have expressed yes so we currently have a bi-weekly design team meeting that school administration as well as operations and academic services are a part of and so during those bi-weekly meetings the design team as well as the construction manager risk have input from those stakeholders to make sure that any other concerns they may have during this process are being adhered to thank you that's super helpful other questions or comments from board members Miss Carson just say a couple things at risk because it's past my bedtime so hopefully this comes out clearly thank you so much what what other folks here don't see is that we've been bugging Mr Davis with questions all throughout this process so he's been very patient with us thank you for continuing to be patient as we try to make the best decisions for all the students of Durham and I really appreciate the community sending us emails and calling us and coming here tonight to share concerns this is difficult and I think.

The unfortunate reality is that we just don't even have close near the funding to support the needs of all of our schools my kids are at an elementary school that could use a lot of help right now too right but we need to provide support for schools in the order in which they need the support most right so a rigorous process has been undergone and we're following that process here we don't want to Patchwork fix what's going on at DSA we want to provide a campus that can support the needs of our students for the next 50 years if not more this is a unique opportunity to provide Arts educ education to those who might not otherwise be able to access Arts education right so Public School experience for those who can't necessarily afford private violin lessons or painting or Pottery this is really important to us to be able to provide this school so all that said this is challenging we don't have enough money we recognize that but we want to.

Be able to provide the best DSA for the future of Durham I would it is very important to me though that we take into consideration some of the concerns from the Educators about space I know that you already have been so just to make sure that as we're refining this that we address the main needs and make sure we're planning for the future I also have concerns about the separation of middle and high school students I appreciate the question from my colleague board member Lewis and your response to that I would just like us to continue to consider I have a fourth grader I can picture her like in this space in a couple of years and like what that looks like around an 18-year-old I hear the concerns so to the extent that it's possible that we keep our middle and high schoolers separate I think that would be great and I think that's all for now so thank you again and thank you all Mrs Rogers thanks I hear everybody's.

Concerns about the separate spaces for middle school and high. School respectfully we have middle schools and we have high schools and if you don't want your kid in school then perhaps a secondary school with sixth through 12th grade isn't the right place to be in 1995 when what was in dur Magnet Center opened it was a 68 school and parents weren't given an option as to whether or not there would be a high school added it was added nth grade then 10th grade then 11th grade then 12th grade and if parents weren't okay with that they had to transition to a school that would fit the needs of their students I know that sounds harsh I'm not saying that sixth graders and 12th graders don't deserve their own space and that they should be there together or that they should be fraternizing I'm not saying that what I am saying is that we have ample staff that can help ensure the safety of those students all students at all of.

Our schools but most especially at DSA because that is a community upon which they have built and that Community will travel with them should the Educators choose to go there and that Spirit of what it means to be a bulldog will continue to thrive in whatever space that DSA is occupying we want students to be able to have access to all the photography and the music courses and the B classes but what we know is that sometimes intro level courses don't fill up and there is some in mingling in some of those elective courses we have to make sure that we're having conversations with our students to teach them what is Right versus what is wrong and what is acceptable in school spaces regardless of the age of students I think DSA is going to be DS a and we have to be okay with that we're not changing you know an an Administration has some flexibility there can be some lunch and learns where people are learning at lunchtime and everybody's.

Not all the all the time in the cafeteria or in the courtyard and flex some spaces in the same ways that over the years they Flex spaces at the current DSA I also want to remind us that Equity is hard to Define but it's even more difficult to execute so when we say that we are not being Equitable by not making sure that students are getting the elementary schools that they deserve we need to take that fight to the state and to the federal government so that they're fully funding the capital needs and we're not putting that pressure on our County Commissioners so that's work that we all have to do together to make sure that all of our Capital needs are met but in the meantime we have to remember that these students deserve to have restorative practice spaces that are actually restorative that aren't closets without windows that our EC students deserve to have the best spaces to learn and to be in community with the general education population we have.

Work to do to get there and it's going to take time for us to get more funding for these other buildings and we've always done this this way we've always set out to do a project and sought out more funding to do the next thing we have to dream big shoot for the moon land Among the Stars let's do this let's take care of these students because they deserve better thank you Miss Rogers miss valaris good evening thank you for bringing this to us tonight has been a night of a lot of different topics that have that are not easy and we have also had conversations about the options on the table and the work that our Administration has done you know one of the questions that comes up is what would happen to that piece of land the Duke Umstead if we don't do what we said we're going to do for the last decade we said we're going to build a school that's been out that's been publicized that's been talked about that.

There's a school and I just thought about it in some of the conver I can't even remember which of you honestly we were just talking about it might have been maybe Emily you know we were talking about what school would go there it was it like if it was Jordan right if we wanted to build a new Jordan would it make sense to situated at the duk Umstead or maybe it was batina it was you it was batina look at this we we have so many conversations but it was all of you but the reality is that logistically it would not make sense to you know to address a different school that is not on the 2019 it's just all these factors like timing of the 2019 assessment report the factor of a school that is is an art school and I also just want to appreciate my colleague Emily who actually has a background in going to an art school and you know actually just the vision of increasing that opportunity for 2, it.

Says 2,200 but we're we're saying 2,000 but corre the reality is that the building actually would accommodate 2,225 students possibly that is correct and we're and I also love the approach that y'all have where y'all are like we're not going to top it off to 100% we always leave a little bit of room because we never know about adms and how they change throughout the year and we get charter school children who all of a sudden decide that they would rather be in DPS these are all factors that our Administration is considering and I know Dr mubenga you have made it really clear you want our kids to come back if anybody left DPS you know we want to be able to tell you listen we're trying to give the best to the kids we're trying to have state of the art you know performance centers when I was looking at that picture I thought about the Duke Concourse if you've been to the Duke hospital I've actually played.

Music there and folks are passing by and it's just a whole surreal kind of experience to kind of have the sunlight and have the kind of things that are helping kind of increase mood and we know that a place actually is conducive like this is not exactly that kind of place this building doesn't speak to me about art although there is Art wait wait I I take that back those paintings right there you know what I mean but imagine like being an art school in an in in a building from 1920 so I will tell you that I appreciate and I want to name Mr John copel for meeting with all of us and I just I just I have a lot of gratitude because the level of work that a Community member you're you're not on staff you're not being paid for this and the level of commitment that you've had to think about these questions and to come up with you know suggestions and.

To bring them to us and talk to us about them like it is something that that needs to be highlighted right when community members have such dedication and they bring to us you know their recommendations their suggestions their conc concerns many of the concerns are around the cost and the opportunity cost of building one state-of-the-art wonderful futuristic kind of school a school for the future but for the present and future versus renovation and you know what is the opportunity cost like what what doesn't get done because of that so I've grappled with this and I want to tell you that I also in talking to colleagues and also just putting this out I actually consulted Ai and so so my question to AI was if you have a school building that was built in 1920s and you had the choice to renovate the school from the 1920s and you know this of course is on top of all the meetings we've had with you and asking you questions and.

You telling us about the things and talking to our colleagues but so I asked AI like about the 1920s and you know what what are some considerations what are pros and cons and I just want to read them because actually this is exactly what we're grappling with so the pros of renovation says preserves history and architecture may be more cost- effective than building new and reduces waste and environmental impact and I think that Durham cares about environmental impact and it also talks about existing Community connections those are things that I can recognize that why it makes it so hard why so many of you are here and it's already like almost 11 o'clock you know there are Community connections there's there significance and value to what has has transpired there some of you went to that school some of you live around that school you know so I I understand that but the cons of renovation though are that it may not address underlying structural issues that is a nightmare.

When you talk about mold and you renovate mold and it comes back and you have every two years you have to do Patchwork things to address spores and all that that is that is a nightmare the cost the underlying cost of structural issues of a building that is from 1920s and you may change the beams and you may change different things and you can pretty much say you're building a new building so you're still doing environmental there's still environmental impact to building new on top of an old structure but sometimes it doesn't pan out in that way it also can be disruptive to students and staff I think that disruption is also something else that our Administration factored in and may not meet modern educational standards that piece right there I I grappled with because modern educational standards I think about Duke building central tower and having for example Leed for you know the you know the the Trent Seaman building and the Nicholas school and how like building new and building according to.

Sustainable measures which I appreciated that is is an important thing to think about and you know there are pros of building new that it's about meeting educational and accessibility standards thank you AI but also incorporating modern technology and sustainability features which we covered in this in this presentation and here's one that touched me particularly touched me when I forget your name I'm so sorry but you talked about safety Barbara Barbara you know I spend most of my days I I I promise you if I show you my phone I will show you my phone six o'clock in the morning sometimes moms wake up and it is the hardest thing when they're like I'm sending my kid to a to a high school that has posed a significant like has gone through significant safety concerns DSA is not has not escaped that and the media has jumps on these stories immediately and DSA was actually featured in newspapers because of a safety breach and I know this is these are not the kind of things.

That we want people to know DPS for because we care about this we carry this you know we're glad that. Things safety of the safety of our kids is I think the most current and most visceral thing right now that everybody's experiencing and how to keep our kids safe and the fact that you you're Your Design keeps in mind like restricting access and kind of enclosing and creating an environment where everybody who's there is supposed to be there or at least we have better measures and kids can kind of go out into the courtyard and I think lunch and I hear the thing about one cafeteria but this district has worked Mr Davis knows that since the pandemic outdoor you know eating spaces and how to do that how to how to make sure that we have the infrastructure for outdoor eating Outdoor Learning has been a big part you know teaching kids about their environment their connection you know erby Creek Watershed Association you know conversations that include them and.

They have also reached out there's emails going back years so I think that the Safety and Security measures and also addressing growing enrollment and changing demographics that was a piece that I can't remember again we were talking about the DSA as it is right now the demographics kind of show us a pattern that is not that doesn't conform to the patterns of many other schools in terms of racial demographics in terms of equity and there's a history there of access to even pools and a pool that was cemented you know to restrict access to that pool so that's a part of that history of that wonderful building campus actually couple of buildings that actually has a history for some people it's a beautiful history of love but I've also held space for families that you remember when that pool was cemented and that was actually a statement to say we restrict the use of this pool to people that are incoming because there was a change in demographic that was.

Happening in that school so there's a lot of history there and so the the the pros of of building new addressing enrollment changing demographics right now we're serving we're not serving 2,225 students roughly 1800 1800 students St and we're going to build capacity for 2000 and we also know that costs are going high and if we delay this another year the costs will even go higher but I do I do think that we'll continue to do cost benefit analysis I think that Community input that has happened is good and more of it is required my only thing with the design is to continue to I guess continue to keep keep keep the communication with the folks who are here who are dedicating their time to make sure that this is the best place for the kids some of the the educators are here tonight and you know it's it's a school night and and I I just want to commend also like the community around Thea that loves this place so.

Much and how to continue to show continue to show that collaboration and and willingness to hear feedback so anyways AI was one part of it communication was another part of it but also just historical thing that a school is going to the Duke gums side side and what better school than to match it to a 2019 assessment plan and not wait any longer because the price of building a school a year from now is going to be. Astronomical right I got a few questions sorry I'm G keep it brief can y'all explain the bid alternative process I think I bring one of my my contractors up that's great I can explain it but you've heard a lot from me so yeah real fast a bid alternate is when the contractors bid the project they're building the building as as a total and the bid alternates are options our options to actually help us quantify what those exact dollar amounts for those items are as we move forward with the project so if for example the.

Cost comes in lower things of that sort we can continually make decisions if from the meetings another aspect that that maybe needs to be added to the project comes up again we have to have options for Value engineering to make a decision at a later date rather than confin to say are we going to have this definitely yes no whatever these items are we can we can make those decisions at that time along with other items that may be identified throughout the project but those those are big box items that we we wanted to quantify to actually have exact amount of what they would cost so it helps us actually identify exactly what what a a project actually cost can you stay right there because I have a question for you as well since you talked about you all do construction and you shared a lot of the other projects you're working on can you speak a little bit to where you seeing Renovations versus new projects and in the other places that you work.

Well what what we've seen here at DPS is when we have new construction we get a lot of interest from subcontractors the biggest thing that dictates prices Mr Davis said earlier is our subcontractors none of us in here have actually have a shovel or hammer or anything in our hand we we go out to the market if we all know all handy men and service contractors have every opportunity in the world to work anywhere they want to work so when it comes down to the renovations cost there to a point where they say okay I don't know what's behind that wall I kind of have an idea but I'm going to make sure I add some renovation cost so construction is dollar for Dollar Hand for and nail is going to be exact same cost today but the contractor is going to say since there's nothing on this table I know exactly what it's going to cost me to do the work since I don't have any idea what's going to be.

Behind that wall and the fact that renovation takes long longer they actually have to add in their labor cost because again I'm paying I'm paying electrician $25 a day 25 hours hour today if the job takes three years I have to then say okay how much am I gonna be paying my contractors in three years from now oh $45 a day okay and I don't know what I'm going to do all right when I bid this job I'm gon bid it at $60 an hour just to cover myself just in case there's something I don't have because again our contracts don't allow our contractors to add to the add to it unless we add work so they have to protect themselves and again being a licensed general contractor myself if you ask me to build your house I'm going EXA ex am dollars on your field you can say build me a house but you can't see what this actually house is going to be then you have to add that cost so.

Renovation has that aspect of unseen circumstances and it typically cost you you know 15 to 25% more just on labor cost because again you don't know which what you're getting into thank you that's helpful I think this question is for Mr Davis we got some emails around tennis courts and athletic fields areas I just wanted to could you highlight a little bit why the choice to put the fields that are there versus not having tennis courts yes thank you for that question so currently the existant DSA has a operating tennis they play softball and baseball offsite as we looked at the site planning again as a design team showcase is a very tight site and so as we began to look we originally had baseball on the site but then as we started to refine and and have Community engagement about title n we decided to have baseball and softball and thus because our portfolio is so vast we have opportunities should it be needed for the northern existing high school that.

Has tennis courts as well as the existing DSA will have those tennis courts to a time yet to be determined of what we do with that school for educational purposes but currently baseball and softball students at Durham school of arts are traveling that is correct for their practices I'm assuming in games that is correct okay so that will be similar just with a different team at this point in a new building and I think I'm not a tennis player but I think there are less students that would be impacted from moving to tennis versus a softball and baseball which I think are nine individuals so yes thank you that's that is helpful I think one of the things that was helpful as you all talk through this and you shared like every Middle School teacher will have a classroom all day and then some of the high school will float and it feels like there maybe was a missing conversation in between it feels like it might not have been but.

Some of the one of the public comment folks said we created a mock schedule and we couldn't figure it out like how we would put our school into the new building so I just want us to continue to talk with each other so that staff can figure out oh okay I didn't see it before but I can see it now how this building fits just so we I think there's some anxiety it sounds like around that and it feels I mean you all are experts you built a lot of schools so there's a lot of thought that has already went into this process I'm gonna pass it over to miss Chavez and that might have a few closing remarks thank you I'll try to be brief thank you for this presentation one of the things that I thought was especially helpful was the slide about the comparison and of cost with other schools in North Carolina that have been built so so yeah thank you for that data and I will.

Say also we have heard concerns from community members and we have tried to address those with you all ask qu a lot of questions and a lot of different a lot of different questions have have come up which makes sense because this is a very new new project new environment you know a lot of change so you know people's classroom whether teacher or student is often like a home away from home so it's you know kind of really talking about changing that kind of second home environment in some ways so I think you know as other colleagues have said I just want to say I think it's important for us to continue to communicate maybe make a just a very clear communication plan about engagement with the community to make sure people feel informed going forward and I know that there have been lots of conversations and you know we want to keep that up to make sure people feel that they're a part of this process as.

We move forward but I you know feel ready to support this and I and I thank you for all the work you know that's gone into it and and we will continue to to figure out what we need to do to move our other projects forward and support that work as well so thank you I'll close this out I think the design of the new school is beautiful and I'm excited to see what it looks like in action and just really appreciate the time and the dedication that you all put in talking with our Educators and students and families I think the other question that hasn't been maybe explicitly asked but it's talked about is what happens at the current site right we have a couple years till that happens this new school won't be ready until fall 2026 but we know that we have a really engaged community that is interested in figuring that out too and I would love to see our Administration maybe even start thinking about having conversations in community.

With folks so we can we can start that process we know it's a beloved site and and what can we do there that can hope continue to have some of that love that we care for in that site but also maybe have some new uses so that is far down the line though because the new the students won't leave that building until 2026 any other questions or comments from board members Miss Beyer yeah I just wanted to have you give a explicit conversation to the notion of the fourth floor and the change between the four story building and the three-story building and the number of classrooms that were moved to those interior corridors if you don't mind yes as a part of our schematic design value engineering we decided to be more efficient in the original four stories we had tremendous amount of unused space and so the design team along with the construction manager RIS were able to be more efficient in the design and bringing some of the services.

From that main floor down to the third floor as it means for cost if we were to revisit that four floor again that would be additional time as well as right now that cost was around 16 to 20 million so would further add additional funding to the project and so you you all are not recommending that as a bid alternate cor correct u j the the dropping the floor was the type of corridor the project was before when it was taller it was a single loaded Corridor me you had a wall to the exterior one side we had classes on the opposite side my and sat down and said that's very inefficient let's drop it down to a let's make him double loaded quarter doors where you have classes on both Sid so dropping that floor we didn't lose any classrooms by dropping the floor it visually looks different but in all actuality you went from classrooms on one side to classrooms on both side which brought the building down so nothing changed I.

Know was Dr a lot of conversation but that is that's a discussion that we had made on the project project manager staff was it add two corridors rather than have a single classroom let me further just make sure Mr Stevens is very Inus as 20 plus years of construction so he provide you a little bit more detail U but we have over 40 plus years of design and construction experience and so that alleviates any fear or concerns that we're not being efficient in our design programming and construction and so I can assure you that we hear the community's concerns we hear administrative concerns and we're presenting to you all the information that is based on fact and real life experience thank you for that I think that Clarity helps I think I think what I hear you saying is those Center classrooms there used to be a hallway that was looking out the windows at the courtyard and now there are classrooms on both sides of that hallway and that are all.

Daylighted on the interior as. Well is it time for a motion is. It I don't have to I'm move approval of the design development package that authorizes staff to move forward with construction document phase for DSA second it's been moved by Miss Rogers and seconded by Miss Beyer is there any other discussion all in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously thank you thank you all right keep it on rolling the next item on our agenda is a budget resolution for 2023 2024 Mr lur good evening Madam chair board members Dr mainga as we bring to you budget resolution this evening this takes you off the continuing resolution that we had at the end of last year saying we would spend at the same level and not anym the budget resolution does take us into the the current fiscal year before I get into that I just want to let you know that this week we we received our second award for our achievement of excellence and financial.

Reporting from the government Financial finance Officers Association so we're very excited about that a lot of work goes into that not just in finance but across the district in the schools in the Departments within the administrative departments to make this all happen and it's about accountability and transparency that we're all about so I just want to give you that bit of good news as we start the the presentation annually we have to bring this to you to ensure that we are starting our budget year off appropriately it has to be a budget balance budget from that standpoint that means revenues and expenditures are in agreement As you move forward this is something that has to be approved by the board on an annual basis to to begin what is really just the start of the budget a lot of changes still yet to come with the late budget passing in October puts us in a situation again where things starting off are going to be changing at a later date we're going.

To have adjustments from the state we're going to have adjustments coming down constantly in the next two months we have then we have to start doing our in information processing with the state regarding transfers for restart schools transfers for our ifes our International faculty exchange to provide the funding so that to support those programs so all in all we have a lot of different things that are just getting ready to start and the in the important thing is is that all these items are going to I don't know what's going on wrong with my computer tonight which is going to go be going on in the next two to three months as we get to the point of starting to talk about the new budget year as we go through the the next budget cycle next slide please just want to give you a few things that that transpired in the state budget that came in late teachers and certified instructional staff beginning to pay for teachers went from 37,000 to 39,000 $22,000 increase.

That's more of a hit to the local side than it is to the state side because we pay our highest paid teachers out of state funds on average year-over-year the increase is about 4% is all they're going to all that's happening across the board up for that they range from 2% to 7.7% based on lure types of Personnel as far as that goes It's All About years of experience but the years of experience teachers did not get any sizable gains in their salary increases compared to the beginning beginning levels again psychologists speech language pathologist audiologists they continue to get a $350 increase above the beginning teacher they're getting it at a higher salary based on their U their salary schedule but that is part of their overall salary schedule from the state assistant principles get 19% more based on the actual teacher salary schedule again that's a 4% increase average principles same 4% pay increase July through December they're based on their 2223 average daily membership and from that standpoint they will.

Continue to be there until next month at which time the evos growth and scores will be used and it also look at the average daily membership for the purpose of determining what level they'll be on so they'll be on possibly increase in ADM or decrease in ADM has an effect on their salary the growth score have a have an effect on their salary as well so it depends on if they met not met or exceeded so those changes do go into effect in January we're getting the data in now from the state so we'll be moving forward and making those adjustments accordingly next slide please when we look at the classified staff pay raises State provided 4% salary increase for 22 23 24 determined teacher bonuses are also out there based on ebos scores top 25% in the state and top 25% locally will'll get bonuses you also have CTE a p and IP test results that also earn staff teachers bonuses as well so those are all paid in.

January so a lot of things as I mentioned we're going to be continuing to happen as we move forward state determined principal bonuses again top 50% of evos results Statewide receive bonuses based on the 23 2223 scores it's a one-time bonus ranging from the top 5% at $15,000 to top 50% at what does that say $1,000 well I can't use my screen for some reason so I'm reading from this B DPS determin staff bonuses remember you we provided one to use up the remaining Sr funds in S2 funds of $1,500 and also that will be another bonus paid next week for the $500 that you approved at an earlier board meeting to ensure that staff was compensated well so I mean it was a nice little gesture just before Christmas it's going to be just Before Christmas but anyway it will be going out next week next slide please other key items benefit costs again have gone up 25.0 2% for retirement rate employer health insurance did go up additionally up to 7,557 from.

7,357 time area so it's just continually increased next year they projected their retirement rate to go down which is kind of interesting but they have another opportunity to make those adjustments health insurance is supposed to go up over $8,000 next year students with disability again we want to point out that they're only funding at our 133% of average daily membership because we have a cap on it and we have over 14% of our students have IEPs so it's important to remember that we're not getting full funding for our students at that point we're we're one day they'll get the cap right and we'll get more additional funding also your English Learners we always like to point out that the cap remains at 10.6% and we have over 15% English Learners in the district instructional support changes these are allotments that were one category they're splitting them up into two we used to be able to pay our counselors teachers psychologists out of one category so we had many options to pay our highest paid.

People now they're splitting it they're changing it it's basically a 5050 split the reduction is going to be to for creating a new one for psychologists and I also counselors and social workers they're looking at it as a mental their approach to a mental health allocation but it's not like they're giving us a lot of additional positions for that they're just splitting it out defining our opportunities to or taking away our flexibilities to use funding the way we need to use it and and that has been a continuous thing coming down from the state so that is one big change that occurred this year in that regard next slide please I just wanted to put up teacher salar so it would be available to people showing the the beginning teacher salary schedule going up to 3,900 again locally we are putting in $6,450 per per beginning teacher therefore giving an average salary of $4,450 per beginning teacher from that standpoint it's important to understand this year we're looking to increase that the.

Supplement to ensure that our teachers are competitive with the surrounding counties next slide please as you remember in the spring we went to the county to receive additional funding $10.8 million is what we were asking for $9 million for salary increase benefit increases for our classified salary study as well and 1.8 million for Charter Schools it was approved and we received all that funding which is a great thing for the purpose of us moving forward but the thing is charter schools are costing us more and more each year so getting the additional funding on top of the the request is is what we needed to to put us in a better position as we move forward there was one change that the general assembly did this year virtual charter schools are actually getting the same per pup amount as every other charter school and splitting it with the district that's about a $450 60,000 increase in Charter School costs coming forward this year is anticipated it all depends on on the.

Monthly enrollments that come in but they were significantly higher this year overall from that standpoint but I just wanted to point that out as well next slide. Please so this year last year we ended up having $9.6 million in fund balance I'm only appropriating rate at this time $1.5 million in this year's budget we're increasing fund balance up to 10.95 is the estimate that we have right now as we wind down our audit with that said it a lot of it's due to our ability to have lap salaries and spent funding from that standpoint on an annual basis excuse me next slide please so as we talk about the budget resolution I mean it's about the revenues that we expect to receive from the state local federal government as well as our Capital funding and our Child Nutrition funding as well the state comprises of 55 % almost 60 56% of our overall General revenues local is 36.3% from that standpoint Federal is at 7.9 Capital is 64% of the special.

Revenues you got two different colors over there the general fund local and federal recurring is what we call our general funds and the capital outlay funds as are looked at as special revenues and over there you'll see that we have Federal covid revenues as well at $72 million this year that we are in the process of spending down by September 30th of 2024 next slide please in the budget resolution your budget is funding over 5,037 full-time positions we keep adding some every day because of intervention needs at the schools using Esser funds to to to provide those types of positions to spend down those dollars that we have to use for learning loss and ensure that we're in a good place teachers make up 47% of the full-time positions instructional support another 23% 16% for School Operational Support Personnel remember for the most part the state funds instructional positions operational positions are are delegated to the local districts to support the local operations of of supporting the schools in every way.

Shape or form from that stpoint so you have 3,118 that are from that we're going to be paying from the state dollars we got another 1 1,362 from local and and then you have some smaller numbers in the federal funds Etc majority of you your positions are teachers and then instructional support positions from that standpoint so that's what your breakdown of your personnel look like across the district next question next slide please by budget resolution by expense in purpose your expenses look are looked at as your school-based support instructional support positions is $391 million that we're spending for that type those types of positions Capital Improvements we got a bu of $213 million from that standpoint overall you got over 385 3,855 positions in the schools school-based Services from that standpoint then you have remaining in Operational Support which are your which are your custodians and operation positions to maintain our buildings you also have administrative and instructional positions of 169 School planning Services is your area that has Child Nutrition as well as.

Bus drivers in it and then you can see instructional technology has 53 positions as well as we outline that giving you the 5,37 positions next slide please by expense object $31 million is going into salaries alone then you'll have benefits which is another 120 $120 million and capital Investments which is your Capital outlay $237 million supplies of materials we're showing at 58 million right now purchase Services which are your contracts so on and so forth another $57 million so all in all the majority of your funds of course are going into salary and benefits at 70 over 78% which is has been normal for many many years from that standpoint next slide please at this time I'll entertain any questions and this is up for approval so we can move your budget forward and again we'll be coming to you with the budget amendments through the spring and into later towards the summer time with the final one being in August is usually when we bring it to you to close out the.

Budget thank you Mr lur for this thorough update board members questions. Comments I would just offer gratitude to staff and especially recognize the award that you spoke of and all the meticulous detail that your team brings and especially the payroll staff as they've kept up with all of these changes and not to cut off anyone's discussion but I would go ahead and make a motion that we approve the budget resolution for physical year 2324 second it's been moved by Miss buer second it by Miss Lewis is there any other discussion from board.

Members I'm going to continue to just let the community know that I do not like that cap of 10.6% coming from the state for ESL students and also for our children with disabilities like these cops are just I mean I'm I'm going to continue to to to say that and I think you know the the allocations and and salaries that we pay are are our our staff and the dedication that they show towards these the most vulnerable in our in our school district I I can understand why we spend so much of our money 54.4% of our entire budget goes to salaries but 7 it's 78% of non- capital and I saw that and and that's a big amount but it it's worth it when we think about the limitations of what we can actually spend to support our R and Rule students so I will just continue to lift that up and hope that there's going to be a day when that that cop is not going to be there that's.

Actually my wish if I can actually say no caps on on students that are vulnerable but I appreciate you bringing this information to us and always keeping that in mind because I do have hope that one day that's not going to be a part of your report and it's not something you can help it's it's the state no but I want to point it out each and every time we have an. Opportunity it's been moved and properly second there any other discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously thank you thank you Mr wasur board I just wanted to take a point to recognize the hour is late Dr Bullock has stayed with us though so I think we should do our LGBT T qia Task Force update because you really have to do a last presentation with the board before you exit and so and then I would ask if you if I need a motion to amend the agenda to move our.

Resol a resolution to the January agenda work session like to make a motion to move the resolution to the about the Black and Hispanic achievement plan to the January work session second it's been moved by Miss Chavez second by Miss Carter Alton is there any other discussion all right all those in favor say I I any opposed passes.

Unanimously all right good evening board Dr mubanga I won't be before before you long we just wanted our the task force on behalf of the task force we just wanted to provide some brief updates on the work of the task force and also this is serving as an opportunity to also make sure our community is aware of the efforts that we are taking to you know really work in advancing our lgbtqi plus and gender supports policy so I wanted to be able to provide you just you know some brief updates on on some of the work that we've been accomplishing on that task force if you could go to the next slide please so to quickly review and I know Dr Giovani also mentioned some of this in her presentation earlier you know we started convening we we named the lgbtqi plus task force back in January after our board well after our Board of Education in January passed our policy from their DP has moved forward to create a committee task with.

Strengthening and further developing the policy so the Board of Education along with Dr mua's cabinet participated in multiple trainings to help participants deepen their understanding of the lives and experiences of people in the lgbtqia plus community and to consider opportunities as policy makers when I was named as one of the task force co- facilitators my department immediately started our work to identif identify our co- facilitator late in the spring we interviewed several individuals and named Nicolo roodi as the co-lead for the group Nicolo was here earlier and sharing some thoughts on the work of the task force and you know thinking about what the work will look like moving forward with me transitioning out of my role Nicolo currently serves as the assistant director of the lgbtq youth center of Durham and as a community develop development consultant if we can go to the next slide so the task force the original topics for the task force included identifying available resources suggesting strategies and tactics for curriculum recommending opportunities and prioritize topics for professional.

Development one of the ways that has manifested in DPS is our Equity 601 training focused on creating safer spaces for our lgbtq plus students and staff and also sharing logistical considerations and experiences regarding students such as family school relationships bathroom use accessibility and other policy topics if we can go to the next slide We've also been working on team building within the group and promoting intersectionality awareness and inclusion and providing feedback on information shared by the administration regarding opport unities and constraints in implementing aspects of the policy we're also hearing and responding to updates on the impact of state and federal legislation reg regulations and court rulings on DPS next slide please so as we've been participating in these sessions in the fall we've engaged in a number of activities we've done some deep analysis of the current policies we did a SWAT analysis to gauge the strengths of our current policy weaknesses opportunities and threats of course thinking about you know threats Beyond Durham Beyond DPS that might hinder the implementation of the policy.

We have also had discussions of ideas in the policy that stand out things that we're already implementing it's been really useful to have teachers media coordinators principles at the table to share things are already happening things that are working and things that we can build upon we've had discussions of queer history to better understand significant people in the lgbtq community there's been an opportunity for us to talk about intersectionality and people who shared multiple historically marginalized identities and for the task force to really grapple with that intersectionality and thinking about you know students that identify as lgbtq in our district where we have seen in our data that over 70% of our lgbtq identifying students are students of color U we've also ideated the vision of the task force and what our impact can be to create safer spaces for lgbtq identifying students and all students from historically marginalized communities and we've also done an analysis of lgbtq resources from school systems across the country next slide please and So based on our discussions.

As a task force there has been advocacy around providing updates on the work of the task force again we've been meeting all semester but we really thought it was important to let the Durham Community know that this task force is existing we're meeting we're getting great attendance the majority of our board has participated in multiple multiple meetings and also just to think about making sure people are aware of the potential topics and resources for professional learning knowing that you know we're we're we're thinking about where we can go from here as far as districtwide professional learning and making sure that we don't become stuck in what we've already done but but continue to push forward We've also been considering strategies like posting resources Graphics infographics in schools to celebrate diversity and create safer spaces for all students just thinking about you know their there's so much we're learning about our students and their experiences whether they be a part of lgbtq community or students of color or other the historically marginalized.

Communities and what can we do to put information up to show more love more support kind of flood of our schools with just this support with the diversity that we have the benefit of enjoying as DPS and finally continuing to think about within the policy we have we've named the identific if ation and training of at least one faculty or staff member at each school to serve as a support person or a liaison for our lgbtq plus students what what what movement can we make even in the midst of current legislation what are some of the things that can be done to continue to move this work forward so again we have noted there are a number of things that can and should be done and we can continue to move those things forward despite some challenges we may be experiencing so next slide is just a thank you now open the floor for any questions you may have or not you know thank you Dr Bullock for your.

Work on the task force and to the all the Task Force member who show up it's Tuesday on the evening after work to to lend their expertise their thoughts and their lived experiences any questions or comments board members Miss Travis I will just take this opportunity to thank you for your leadership in this realm as a one of the last things that you have worked on in this role I really I really appreciate it and being able to overlap with you in this setting for this time but I look forward to what we'll do you know moving forward and I'm I'm very grateful that we've had this task force at this time that everything kind of came together TimeWise as we've dealt with the with s sp49 and and all of that so thank you thank you m Beyer also just gratitude upon gratitude for your leadership and for your bringing your expertise into this space with such love and care these are not really questions for you because we'll.

Miss you but maybe Dr King Dr MinGa I think some of the points that folks made tonight are really important ideas that have been brought forth about some way for anonymous reports to be made of concern about identification and listing of all the gsas qsas and who's the contact at at each school where those exist and and highlighting and celebrating those what was the third somebody's and and then and then clear procedures on this this notification in ways this can continue to keep students safe I know Dr giovan you told us at the task force you were working on an infographic that the whole committee loved and you have that sort of drafted with your team so that might be exciting for others to hear about too that is correct Mrs Beyer and we are the next meeting was initially scheduled on the night of evening to shine February 20th 2024 just a shout out for evening to shine so we will be moving that meeting but it'll be ready I'm.

Actually going to work with if you recall some of the task force members to kind of get a final draft to bring it to the next task force meeting but we do have that draft almost finalized thank you great it was it was nice clear language and and very accessible to everyone as far as co-leadership have you all had a chance to have that difficult conversation yet and so we all know that the position of do to Bullet has been posted next month I think as we go into the process of finding the replacement Dr King will bring you interim position that will be able to sit on the place of that Bullock while we're going to the interview process or selecting the right person so we're going to have a plan in January thank you thank you so much Miss vus Dr willick thank you for bringing this to us and I will note that this is you know a presentation that includes the work that has happened.

Up until this point and it's it's it we talked about like the timeline of like reports and sometimes like at the end there's like presentations but you made sure that you know that the folks in the community knew what had happened and transpired and so it's it's a it's earlier on in the process and I just thank you for for that intentionality and that care and I I also feel I will be remiss if I don't say like you know so much work the guidelines that you crafted even before we had the policy even before we had the task force there's been work that you've done for years to elevate and make sure that Equity is is a part of everything that we do and so I just want to commend you also for the ways that you have you know continued to just pivot in whatever ways you know to keep kids safe and and to highlight inter intersectionality which is a very important thing so I.

Just thank you for that and I also I feel it sad that you're not going to be in this role anymore but you have also you're you're Duram all the way and you've said you are here and so you are you are here and I guess you know that's something we can talk in a different setting in terms of what that might look like Dr Bullock is here you know in the community right but yeah just a lot of gratitude and a lot of love a lot of us have learned so much from you and your your dedication and so this is this presentation is one of many presentations that you've given to us and I just wanted to just show my appreciation for all the work that you've done and the ways you have built a department from scratch and have been doing this work for a long time thank you thank you.

NOP further comments thank you Dr Bullock for your leadership we really appreciate you we look forward to seeing you in different ways as a parent and Community member and continued advocate for our students so thank you all right thank y'all right board I'll take a motion to go on to close session for the reason stated on the agenda moved seconded it's been moved by Miss Beyer seconded by Miss V DZ any other discussion all in favor say I I I any oppos please use the same sign it passes unanimously and with that we are in closed.

Session.

We're back in Open Session Dr mainga excuse me before we go to Dr mainga I have another business to take care of thank you madam chair I'd like to make a motion to amend the Clos session motion previously made to add for the purpose of formulating school safety plans pursuant to General statute 14331 181 A8 and to amend the agenda to add an open session item to approve the school system safety plans second it's been moved by Miss buer seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion all those in favor say I any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously Dr MinGa Madame chair I'm here to seek your approval for the Personnel report as discussed at the close session move approval of the Personnel report dated December 14th 2023 it's been moved by Miss buer seconded by Miss vadz is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I I any oppos please use the same sign I exuse it passes 61 with that we are adjourned.

Happy excuse me I'm sorry the safety plan a second sorry we need to re can you miss. Baral approval of the school system second it's been moved that we approve the school system safety Plans seconded by Miss buer is there any other discussion all in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously and with that.

We are adjourned have a happy winter season and happy New Year y'all we'll see you in.

2024.