Good morning. Morning. The Durham Public Schools Board of Education organizational meeting is now in session. Um the first item on our agenda is a moment of silence.
Thank you. The next item on our agenda is election of board chair and vice chair, Dr. Lewis. Thank you so much, Chair Rogers.
Good morning, everyone. Next item for business is the election of the chair of the board of education. In a moment, I will call for nominations for the office of chair of the Durham public schools board of education. The board will follow the procedures contained in policy 2200.
Nominations do not require a second. If more than one person is nominated for a chair, the board will vote on nominees in order of the nominations. The first
person to receive the majority of the board members present is elected chair. At this time, nominations are now in order from the floor for the office of board chair. Are there any nominations? um nominate Millicent Rogers to remain as chair.
Are there any other nominations? Nominate Bettina Umstead. There any other nominations? Hearing none.
Nominations for board chair are now closed. Have Millicent Rogers and Bettina Umstead nominated for chair. This time we will take a voice vote on each candidate.
Those in favor of Millicent Rogers as board chair say I. I. I. Those that oppose say no.
No. No. That's two for I and four for no. Those in favor of Bettina Umstead as board chair say I.
I. I. Those that oppose say no. Okay.
Bettina Umstead has been elected chair of board of education unanimously with a vote of six to zero. Congratulations Chair Umstead. I'm happy to pass the next section of the agenda to Chair Umstead.
Give her a round of applause as she take her seat. Uh, thank you board colleagues. Nominations are now in order from the floor for the office of vice chair. I'd like to nominate Joy Harrell Goff as vice chair.
I nominate Millicent Rogers as vice chair. All right, we have a nomination for Miss Harrell Goff as well as Miss Rogers. Are there any other nominations? All right, we'll vote. We'll vote again similarly as we did for chair. All of those in favor of Miss Harrell Goff,
please say I. I. I. Excuse me.
All those in favor of Miss Rogers, please vote. I I there's no majority here and there's a 33 split on one of these nominations. So, it's my understanding if there is a split vote that we need to keep continue voting. Is that correct, Miss Dubes?
Right. So, I'll reopen nominations do a show of hands as well because the voice votes are a little hard to we can do that. So, I'll open the floor if there's any other nominations. We still have Miss Harrell Goff and Miss Rogers
on the floor. Let's do this one more time. Miss Harrell Goff, if you're in support of Miss Harrell Goff, I ask you to say I and raise your hand. Those in favor?
I that is two in favor. Um those opposed please use the same sign say I and then also raise your hand. I I yes oppose I that is four. So that motion fails.
So those in support of Miss Rogers, we'll do this one more time. Those are in support, please raise your hand and say I I I I. That is four. Those uh opposed, please
raise your hand and say nay. That motion carries. Miss Rogers is a vice chair with um Thank you. Congratulations, Miss Rogers.
Thank you. Are there any comments, Miss Rogers, you'd like to make, colleagues? Thank you. Um, I have enjoyed truly working with my colleagues on this board for this year and um, I'm just excited about the power that we have on this board and looking forward to where we will continue to to move Durham public public schools.
It is it is important that all of us continue to work together um in in doing what's right for for children. And so, uh, I just want to commend Mrs. uh, George Harrell Goff on the stance that you just took.
That means a lot of how you just conducted yourself in this. And I'm really really proud of of of you all, you as a colleague and and how you just stood and so that's a good example of how to move us us forward. And so, thank you to the colleagues. Miss uh Carda-Auten.
Um I'm excited about this next year and seeing what the leadership team can do. Um as I was thinking about as I was reflecting on the last year and thinking about what I wanted to see in leadership this year, um some things have come up for me. And one is the importance of seeing leadership. We all know that leadership is service, right?
We take our time, we give lots of time and lots of energy to our work on the board. That's more um the case than ever for board leadership. So, when you're in a
chair role or in a vice chair role, you give and especially the chair role, you give endless amounts of time. You're on call. I imagine it's incredibly stressful. So, I want to commend um those who've served in the role of chair um for what they've done here for the board.
Um, and I also, um, when I think about what's important moving forward, I I want to make sure that we focus on building partnerships both across the board, but also across the community um, with the other leaders in our community, with our community members, with our staff, and with our students. Um, I also want someone I want to make sure that all of us on the board are willing and open to seeing ways that we can do better both for ourselves and as a unit. And I think that's going to help us move forward in ways that really support the
work that we're supposed to be doing, which is serving the students and um that are here in Durham public schools. So excited to see what this new leadership team can bring and um very happy for this board right now. So thank you. Thank you Miss Carter.
Anyone else? Um thank you all for your vote of confidence. I think we have important work ahead. This year has has a lot of celebrations.
We welcomed Dr. Lewis in for his first year. Um, we also had brought in new senior leadership staff and had lots of celebrations from students and from our schools and really amazing work happening. And we also had some challenges this year as we continue to navigate budget crisises and make really tough decisions.
What I see ahead is us thinking about how we collectively put our strengths together to be able to do what's in the best interest of our scholars, the young people that we're working on behalf. How do we advocate for, protect, and do everything we can also to fight against the systems that don't want our students to succeed? And
I think when we do that collectively together that we can really be a strong voice for our students who need us, for our scholars who need us and the work we have ahead. So, I think we have a lot of work to do, but I look forward to doing it in collaboration with you all. Yes, Dr. Lewis.
Um, just want to take a moment to to reflect and thank uh Vice Chair Carter Autton um for her service as a board officer. um definitely welcoming me and spending a lot of time with me as a new superintendent uh as well as chair Rogers and that role and certainly appreciate both of them and their leadership uh this first year and look forward to um leadership going forward there as um Chair Umstead stated there is a lot of work to do um and although we have made some gains and uh made some great strides and there has been some challenges this past year super excited about where we're headed in the future um with this board. So thank you so much Thank you. I'm looking forward to working with all of you pouring getting some of your wisdom from the past year and working with Chair Rogers as we excuse me vice chair Rogers as we chart a path forward. Um we'll move to the
next item on our agenda. Everyone's good. Review and approval of 2025 2026 BOE meeting schedule. Move approval of the 2526 BOE meeting schedule.
Second. It's been moved by uh Miss Rogers, seconded by Mr. Tab. Is there any other discussion?
I wanted to question um uh to see if we could add the Junth holiday to our um holiday schedule. June 19th for Junth is um we could put it on this on the board schedule. I we would need to check the calendar from academics to see if it's on the districtwide calendar. And I see some shaking heads meaning it's not on the district-wide calendar. So, um that could there'd be a little rub if we add it here, but it's not a holiday for the district. But that's something we
can continue to look at and revisit when we look at board uh district calendars. All right, we can table that. But it should be something that we add in the future. Okay.
Any other discussion? Just clarity on that. So, are we saying that we're going to it's going to come back for us to look at or are we saying we can look at it in the future as next next time? I think the Oh, I I think what what I heard was we can take a look at it for our 26 27 school calendar uh to ensure that it does make its way to the board calendar as well.
Yes, that's what I understand. So, is the concern that it's not a recognized paid state holiday for staff? Is that the And so perhaps we could even just create a different designation of a Durham holiday or or a uh I guess but we don't want to create confusion for staff. Is that Yeah. Yeah. I really
appreciate you noting that Miss Herald Gooff that um that's an important one in Durham and the county I believe and city offer that as a holiday for staff. So hopefully there's a way for us to look to do that as well. I believe they do. Um, we have calendars approved for 2526 but not 2627.
Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So, when we bring the 2627 calendar, um, we can do that.
And, and if there's a way to make that happen this year, I'm leave that to you all though to bring that recommendation. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor say I.
I. Any opposed? Please use the same sign. It passes unanimously.
The next item on our agenda is a consent item. We have out of county tuition rate. Move approval of the consent agenda.
Second. It's been moved by Mr. Goff, seconded by Miss Beyer. Any other discussion?
All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? It passes unanimously. Without any other business, we are adjourned.