Board of Education · Regular Meeting · March 21, 2024

good evening everyone try one more time good evening everyone good evening thank you all for joining us the Duran Public Schools Board of Education meeting is now in session at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who's joining us in person as well as virtually the purpose of this meeting is to inform our parents staff and constituents about the work aligned with our mission to embrace to educate and to empower every student to innovate to serve and to lead tonight the administration will be presenting information to keep you up to date on the operations of the school system as well as the Strategic plan the interpreters for tonight are Martha Romo iges and Vanessa Pena Ramirez thank you all for taking the time to join us the next item on our agenda is a moment of silence we'll do that now

thank you the next item on our agenda is celebrations I'm going to pass it over to miss Cooper that again good evening board members superintendent Moore DPS colleagues families and durm Community great things are happening in durm public schools and that is evident from our very healthy agenda of celebrations this evening with that we'll jump right into our student ofth month recognitions in just a few moments you will be introduced to four three excuse me exceptional DPS students each student will receive a student of the month certificate a DPS spark pin a laptop from triangle e cycle and a very special gift from the DPS Foundation please welcome Erica Wilkins executive director of the foundation to share more about that special gift thank you Mrs Cooper um I want to speak to the students so I know are back there the dur Public Schools Foundation

is dedicated to supporting and championing our DPS students families and staff we are proud ongoing sponsors of the DPS student of the month program we see our students of the month as examples of our Duram community and what happens when you when a combination of resources reach students families and School staff and so we want to support each of your continued learning and growth Zoe Andre Cameron knows on the way and Nancy who will be joining us later or I hope can see this um with we hope that you will use this $500 gift card to further your educational passions whether they're academic or in arts college or moving into your career we are incredibly proud of you congratulations thank you so much Miss Wilkins our students of the month will be acknowledged by their principles in the following order first Dr Lori Bruce

principal of JD Clement Early College High School followed by Miss Crystal Taylor Simon principal of Middle College High School at durm Technical Community College and Mr Jerome Leathers principal of Southern School of energy and sustainability good evening everyone I am honored to present one of the Josephine dubs Clement Early College High School's best students Miss Zoe Rollins that will be graduating two months from Tomorrow Zoe's a hardworking and self-disciplined student that has faced many challenges over the past four years but has demonstrated great resilience in overcoming them she often communicates the strong influence of her father who is here tonight through his personal

5 grade point average Zoe was inducted into our National Honor Society was recently voted as president of her senior class and in addition to working a part-time job throughout high school she serves her church in the dance ministry child care and other youth programs she is an avid chess player keyboard artist and dance choreographer Zoe has a plan to major in history or psychology with the intention of eventually attending law school right now she is battling the important decision of where to attend college amongst her numerous acceptance letters and I believe we're down to the last two options North Carolina Central or Howard University can't go wrong with either of those choices Zoe represents the promise of Early College High School program intentions and the impact of not only

her future but the possible futures of generations to come as principal representing the entire staff of the Early College High School school we are so very proud of what Zoe has become and all that she will contribute to impact the world when she leaves us Miss Zoe Rin

e good evening I am principal Taylor Simon and I am the proud principal of Middle College High School at Durham Technical Community College greetings board members and greetings superintendent um I am so proud this evening to present to you Andre Robertson um Middle College High School this senior is going to be the first in some of the things that we're having at Middle College High School this senior will be a member of the schools first and Durham public schools first ever

class of super seniors in grade 13 so during that time he plans to complete an Associates in arts towards the pursuit of a degree and career in journalism Andre is an active member of his school and home communities he is a Maverick Ambassador and has participated in several of the school's recruitment night events he just has a way of sharing his story with families so that they understand the impact that Middle College High School can have on their lives he's currently a part of the Durham Bulls Explorer post 50 program which allows him a unique opportunity to gain experience in the field of Television broadcasting the Duram Bulls post 50 is supported and sponsored by the durm Bulls Fox 50 and capital Broadcasting Company in addition to his high school

classes his ambassadorship his internship and his social life he still finds time to participate in athletics by participating in the North Carolina FC Recreation soccer team Andre is a remarkable student who's always willing to help others in his school and his community and we are thankful that Andre made the choice to come to middle college and we cannot wait to hear all about his successes once he graduates thank you

5 National Honor Society no troubles at all um always with a smile this may sound funny but every time he smiles I smile because his smile brightens up the

room um I've seen Cameron in leadership roles in the school and in the community they've packed bags they've P packed boxes for different organizations and different um during different holiday seasons um he was a leader on the team this year and I'm being modest about his team his team made it to the final his basketball team made it to the final eight this year in the state playoffs and he was the team captain and one of the team leaders on that team and so I share with him I share with you Cameron Daniels because his story is a story again you wouldn't know but he has his mother here who has stood behind him 110% I remember her calling me three years ago because Cameron was in the ninth and she said Mr L you sure he's going to be okay out there at Southern I said I think he will right and so he fit the mo but also supporting of his father who passed away a year and a half ago and so with all of these challenges that this young man has had to face in the past year or two I am compl completely

pleased with all that he's accomplished and what he's going to accomplish in the future so this month student of the month for southern School of energy and sustainability and Daren Public Schools Mr Cameron day it's no secret that our students Excel inside and outside of the classroom our

next honores are outstanding student athletes who are the best of the best in the state in indoor track and field and Diving our DPS state champion athletes will be introduced by their school leaders and will receive a spark pin tonight please welcome ovester Grace athletic director from Hillside High School and principal Dr William Logan followed by Robert Duncan Riverside High School athletic director and Dr Gloria Woods weeks great evening so I have the pleasure of being able to present two Stellar individuals uh I'm glad that I'm able to do this simultaneously uh because they're both deserving of this recognition first uh right beside me I have Mr Desmond Smith who is a senior here at Hillside High School he is a two-time state champion uh

6 grade point average uh he is a member of the AVID program at Hillside High School and he definitely exemplifies what it means to be a scholar athlete and embodies the core values that we appreciate him doing at Hillside High School and right beside him we have Stephanie Aya Jackson Aya is uh as she's affectionately known amongst her peers and her teachers and her family uh for me it is a astonishing that she's able to accomplish this feat she is the 2024 Indoor state champion for the pole

0 grade point average she's a part of the she's a part of the school's IB Program um where uh she will be sitting for her exams in the spring uh she's a member of the student council where she serves as one of the officers I don't know if it's the senior class or the student council in general but she is intimately involved in all of the happenings the positive happenings at our school and so without further Ado ladies and gentlemen again it is my pleasure to be able to introduce again Desmond Smith and AIA Jackson AIA is here with her mom and dad Mr and Mrs Jackson they can come board as well thank you

yes good afternoon everyone I'm Robert Duncan the athletic director at Riverside High School here in Durham uh North Carolina I have the pleasure tonight of honoring and announcing to you guys uh one of our best student athletes at Riverside High School student athlete Vivian B is a junior at Riverside High School she's the 2023 2024 fora State diving champion and her sophomore season she placed third in the state meet this year she came back fighting an ear injury and pulled through to win the state championship we are very excited to have her back next season for a senior campaign she is currently committed to Princeton University Vivian is coached by here coach Nathaniel Hernandez

our head swimming coach is Stephanie Brennan on the other side our principal here is Dr Gloria Woods weeks and she's also here with her mother Stephanie Brennan um just thank you guys for having us here and giving us an opportunity to showcase and highlight one of our student athletes here at riverset High School okay

our celebration of Champions continues please welcome the 2024 North Carolina Junior Top Chef champions from Northern High School Ro Terry Aiden lenford Solomon Garcia and Miles Bates are members of the NHS culinary team that Clinch State honors with a delicious and Innovative recipe our board was treated to that winning chicken taito dish this evening and I was also told that this dish is coming to a DPS cafeteria near you soon so stay tuned their state level win means that they advance to the final round of competition in Nashville in may we are consistently in awe of their Culinary Artistry to honor their Victory the team will receive spark pins tonight and we hope that they wear them proudly in May when they compete kudos to Chef Peter Brodsky and the northern culinary arts team for their leadership and for building a program that equips our

students for their very Bright Futures congratulations team thank you thank you

and now for our teacher and employee of the month recognitions our teacher of the month is sponsored by the North Carolina University tennis program the tosside chapter of Omega Sci-Fi fraternity Incorporated and DCL Consulting LLC and our employee of the month is sponsored by the office of P of human resources for our March teacher and employee of the month the theme was mediator this is an individual who is skilled at removing obstacles in communication assisting in the identification of issues the exploration of options and facilitating mutually acceptable agreements to resolve dispute our March teacher of the month is Becca clingaman from JD Clement Early College High School Miss clingaman earned her undergraduate degree in English education and her master's degree in secondary education from Harding University near Little Rock Arkansas she is in her sixth year of teaching high school English and her second year of

teaching at JD climit Early College High School in that short amount of time she has become an indispensable member of the School Community this year she is on the school Improvement team she leads the staff Wellness committee and she is the adviser for the yearbook Club Miss clingaman is a natural leader a creative Problem Solver a master of puns a beloved member of the school and an all-around exceptional educator she has also been named JD Clement teacher of the year congratulations to Rebecca Kingman DPS March teacher of the month so one more part good evening board um we would like to congratulate um Miss clingaman and would also like to um recognize Dr Bruce for uh recognizing

Miss klingman's exceptional Talent so miss clingaman was um surprised a couple of days ago by our uh women's tennis team at North Carolina Central University and we would also there's a two-part deal here so on behalf of DCL Consulting LLC we'd like to present you with a small token and recognition of your exceptional work congratulations you're welcome our March employee of the month is deja fle mckin vento social worker from student Support

Services Deja f is characterized as a hardworking and dependable person anytime she is called about students she is always willing to help she goes out of her way to make families feel supported Miss fle Works tirelessly to support families in transition or families who are experiencing homelessness she often jumps into action to meet families needs and arranges housing and other necess necessities to support them throughout their time this work in our district often goes unnoticed but is significant for our students and their families Miss fle is truly appreciated and she is an asset to student support services and the DPS team congratulations to Deja fle dur public school's March employee of the month

please welcome Terry Phillips director of classif professional development to present our new national board certifications and renewals good evening everyone thank you very much I'm so excited to be here and introduce these wonderful Educators to you so I'm just going to get right to it um first we have who uh teachers who are receiving their certification for the first time national boards we have Melanie waznik yeah I'm G to say all the names even if they're not here Jessica odm from Charles Jordan High School sorry Melanie is from Durham School of the Arts gotta say that gotta say that Jackson low Durham School of the Arts Alice Bowser Sandy Ridge Elementary School HRA Brogden Easley Magnet Elementary School Laura Brady Riverside High

School Moren Kur Durham School of the Arts you can tell which principles were're able to make it tonight Scott Michaels Middle College High School Paul Pope Charles Z Jordan High School Rachel Moran Rogers her Middle School William Oakley Riverside High School Briana Saunders Charles E Jordan High School and Felicia delier from George Watts monor magnet we have a longer list of people who are um renewing their certification which is also Quite a feat and we are happy to bring to you to Allen from Spring Valley Elementary

School Anthony Amos Durham School of the Arts Amy beard Southwest Elementary School Sarah Cade Riverside High School Stacy Elliott Durham School of the Arts you can do the whoop whoop even if they're not here Nicole emert ignite online Academy Emily Erikson Riverside High School Sharon Ferrar Johnson Northern High School marie green city of medicine Academy Amanda H Easley Magnet Elementary School Mandy Hayes Durham Public Schools she's in central office uh blly Hutchinson Lakewood Elementary School go Lakewood all right Julie Keaton hillindale Elementary School School Jill low hillindale Elementary School Crystal Mangum Brothers Parkwood Elementary School Joanne mcaden Little

River School Liz Moffett who is sitting at home watching no she's not she's um doing something but she wanted me to make sure I said her name Liz Moffet Duram Public Schools Jessica Morris hail Southwest Elementary Teresa Parkinson Easley Magnet Elementary Emma reim Durham Public School central office Rebecca Stone Riverside High School Jordan Watson Durham School of the Arts and Holly Woodard Durham School of the Arts thank you so much for your support last but certainly not least our DPS spark pin recipient not all superheroes wear cape sometimes they drive school buses bus driver di Washington demonstrated incredible bravery and quick thinking on February 16th when the bus she was driving caught on fire she

remained calm ensuring the safe evacuation of all 28 students aboard her bus her Swift actions undoubtedly prevented a potentially catastrophic situation from escalating we C celebrated Miss Washington at Brogden Middle School among her students staff District leaders and community members a few weeks ago but we cannot say thank you enough for your actions that day we want to express our deepest gratitude and appreciation to you for your courageous and heroic efforts to ensure the safety of our students you Miss D are our hero congratulations and thank you so very much she is accompanied by her husband tonight who is also a DPS bus driver and you might remember him because he is our bus driver who also serves as a substitute who jumped into action to help our students with critical learning

needs this is a DPS power couple and we are so grateful for them this concludes our celebrations this evening you can't hear it at home but we hear go girl in the hallway um what amazing celebrations of time to celebrate our students and staff and Community who are all doing excellent work in Durham Public Schools so thank you all for that the next item on our agenda is the superintendent's update with that I'm gonna pass it to interim superintendent caddy Moore good evening Madam chair members of the board and DPS Community I'm pleased to provide an update this evening regarding regarding the work underway across our district to ensure success of students in Durham Public Schools last week Durham Public Schools was honored with the 2024 Public Health Partners Award presented by the North Carolina Association of local Health directors the district was recognized

for its partnership with the Durham County Department of Public Health and our Collective efforts to support the whole child we'd like to extend our gratitude to Public Health director Rod Jenkins and the health department for nominating dur from public schools for the award and to our own senior executive director of student Support Services Dr L Maddox Perry and Lead nurse Trisha Howard for their leadership 20 Carrington Middle School students were invited into Google Durham Google Durham's Bes that apostrophe s is in the wrong place Google Durham's building with Google event on Monday to build their own computers and dive into the exciting world of hardware and software engineering the building with Google initiative is part of the students at work program a North Carolina collaboration between the North Carolina business committee for education and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction students at work aims to bridge classroom learning with real world career opportunities across the

state we are grateful for business partners like Google and experiences like building with Google that offer firsthand insights into the exciting world of tech careers for our students the DPS Elementary after school Lottery is live this is a new process for DPS that offers opportunities for families to reserve daily after school care the Lottery application has been extended that window is now open until April 19th interested parents can visit the DPS website for more information or contact Community Education with any questions DPS will administer the spring Panorama survey April 3rd through April 26th this survey allows students to reflect on their social and emotional skills and provides valuable data to the district because of the parents Bill of Rights the families of students in grades K3 must now provide consent for their child to

participate so please make sure we've reached out to parents um via text emails calls to let them know they can also reach out to School directly but they must provide consent for their child to participate in this pages of my stuff has um there it is they can call the school there's stuff went missing it's back now in addition kindergarten and welcome events are happening now at schools across the district I invite our current and prospective families to stay tuned to DPS social media and the upcoming events calendar on our homepage of the website for more information I also encourage families to take advantage of these opportunities ities to assist in jumpstarting success for the upcoming school year next week is spring break for traditional calendar schools and our yearound schools are on intercession break I'd like to wish of all all of our students families and staff a safe and healthy break we look forward to everyone returning energized and ready to finish the school year this concludes my remarks this evening thank

you thank you the next item on our agenda is the agenda review and approval Madam chair I would like to request that we add the superintendent firm selection as part of as B for Board of Education and move all the Board of Education items to the bottom of our agenda just before close session Madam chair were you can add it or okay um to add resolution uh for black um youth in Cris resolution brought by Dr Wanda Boon where would you like to add it missar we have um an opportunity to do that under Board of Education um but we can also we can do it earlier if you want there a preference on uh since we mve the Board of Education items to the end of the agenda is there a preference

to do that earlier I mean the other option is academic services yeah all right so we'll add it under academic Services I'll make it let's make it a the new a and we'll make growing together B I know we have guests that are here for that item want to make sure that we're care of that okay so we have some amendments to the agenda take a motion to accept those amendments I move approval of the agenda as amended bement moved by B and seconded by Miss Chavez to approve the agenda as amended is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is our Board of educational monthly meeting minutes from January 22nd and February 22nd

2024 Madam chair move approval of the minutes from January 2nd 2022 2024 and February 22nd 2024 second it's been moved by Miss Rogers and seconded by Miss Carter Aon is there any other discussion just a quick Amendment one one of them actually says January 25th and I think that's just a typo at the top at least when I open my copy if we could just clarify that before um they get published but it's just a minor typo thank you it should be the 25th well it says February 22nd on the I think we may need to correct the title on the agenda the the date on the agenda but on the actual minutes is correct is that what you're saying yes so so let's let's hold this item we can push it to our next um meeting and

so that we'll have an opportunity need to clarify that I appreciate it I just yep thank you okay so we would need a motion to move that to another agenda yeah yes but let's go to public comment and then we'll come back to the minutes all right um the next item we have is public comment before we get started we'll do a quick review of the rules uh first please take your name and if you are speaking for an organization please state your name and the name of the organization second speakers will be asked to present their comments within one minute when the yellow light comes on on the podium you will have 30 seconds left to begin winding up your remarks when the red light comes on it will beep which indicates your time is up complaints about names 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 and will consider your comments but we do not engage in a discussion with our speakers I'm going to read the first part of this one more time I know we've got um a lot of folks who are in the Halls um and in an overflow room as well so I just want to make sure everyone can get a review of the rules so first please state your name and if you're speaking for organization state your name and the name of the organization second speakers will be given one minute to present their comments when the yellow light comes on on the podium you have 30 seconds left to uh finish your remarks when the red light comes on it will beep and that indicates that your time is up all right we've got a long list of public comment folks I'm going to call three at a time and you may go ahead and come up to the podium so we can go in order so we have Crystal Moore Quinton heeden and and I please please

forgive me if I mispronounce your name correct me at the podium denan Cherry Madam chair can I ask that we note um how much time we spend on public comment tonight I believe that our policy actually calls for 30 minutes of public comment and just I think we need to start tracking whether that is something that um that we can maintain or need to look at again or yeah going forward thanks that sounds good we can make sure we do that we we we have been pretty generous and are not uh using that 30 minute Mark so it's something that we can keep track of tonight so we got Crystal Moore Quinton heeden and Denine Cherry if no Denine Cherry will have paella G I apologize I can't read the [Music] handwriting all right all right go ahead my name is Crystal Moore and I'm going to be conceding my time to Quinton Haden when hden uh Riverside High School

IIA um in EC we are not to predetermine our decisions without hearing from all parties but on February 22nd this board did exactly that by ignoring six weeks of public input by now you have solved your budget crisis with a vote that cut pay to 1500 dedicated employees as named in spark mail these employees now must search out for new revenue streams to supplement their incomes that you gave took back and hope you can keep the promise to do better in the future My Hope Is that we look to that future DPS is already losing employees I have witnessed personally five Employees leaving in less than a week though please replace the flowery insincere words with with action in the spring budget by replacing it with a pay scale with a competitive living wage at every step

level and I know we've been talking about repairing our community and repairing the trust by doing this you can repair our community and our trust and heal our schools it'll also restore the respect we have for each other from workers to board members because at the current moment the current lackluster of the board is also is that the interest shown by these public comments by cutting the short time because we have so much to say but little time to sa thank you start hello my name is esperan called me Pella as you mention as you said and first I want to thank you for serving on this board I understand how difficult your work is but please uh long time ago we had the same problem I'm from Durham

for DSA I'm sorry uh we had a similar problem with George wats Elementary School where basically they were going to build a new school because it was too old and we engaged the whole Community even an architect from Raleigh came to help us and we show the school board that that it could be renovated for it was less than the amount that a new school will cost so please pause this issue and hear from more places I just heard for a community once and that was it thank you very much for hearing me just keep a pause thanks thank you welcome the name chair I'm Sherry Barton Henry I'm for um Durham for DSA and I'm going to seed my time to Dara Sherry I don't have you signed up Cheryl Cheryl sorry okay and then you are seing your time to who there okay can you hold one second

is there Denine Cherry want to make sure I get to the right all right there we go Cheryl I apologize Cheryl go ahead hello my name is Dar Baldwin I'm a former student of durm School of the Arts and with d for DSA again when I was a student being downtown was very helpful to me fostering a sense of community and Independence as a young adult there were plenty of students who had after school jobs that they were able to get to with public transit get home by bus by walking other than a school bus and riding bikes and I think it's a great situation for everyone including DPS since there are less there's a busing issue unless things have changed about that recently and it seems like moving to Northern High I mean northern D would be a little bit more exasperation of an issue that's a

big problem right now um as a mentor I can see how much work needs to be done to the building I'm mentoring some students at DSA right now and I it makes sense to get a new building but while I was there while I was a student the car building was renovated and we were in trailers for 2 years we just had to kind of make it work for them and it just made it better for all the kids who came after us but it seems like a waste also to build a new building while um instead of repairing the old one and if the building's going to be repaired anyways it seems like just more money being lost for no reason and there is a lot of history in the building both good and bad but I think new students and new community coming in and sharing those spaces would improve the Derm as it is to so I think we could all please pause assess and engage that would be helpful

for every woman Community thank you thank you the next three we have Matt copac Jenna Crawford Samar Simmons Matt copac Jenna cwur and Samar Simmons hello rather than that it's Matt's mom okay Mary I'm Mary copac I'm here for Durham DSA and I would like to seed my time to Sarah ball danberg thank you okay okay I don't have y'all here on this list I might have not gotten to you yet so let me um Matt I have Matt copac Jenna craw and Samar Simmons are the next people on my

list okay right all right this is a it's a little bit on a different we have a I'm just going to explain to folks who are in public I mean who are in public who are at home to see what's happening we got a different signup sheet they got entered into here so we're going to go to this other signup sheet but it is a different format than the other I just want to note that but it seems like this was done in a certain order it sounds like the public comment speakers okay so we'll we'll move to this sheet and we'll go from there we'll work on these processes to make it a little smoother next time yeah and just important also to

note that for people who are signing up for public comment we ask that the person who's speaking to be here to make sure they can sign up all right so now I'm gonna go back to this list and we'll have Mary go P come on up I apologize Sarah B danberg that's not how it was listed up here first and then Eva hery Eva is in the hall okay so Eva come on in Eva and then Teresa derell blackington will go ahead and tell you come on in all right I'm seing my time to Sarah thank you hi I'm Sarah Bal damberg I'm here for Durham for DSA I am a parent of two DSA alums one of whom is now a DPS classified worker whose salary has dropped by about $112,000 since January 1st building a new DSA on a new site may have seemed like the right call based on information you had when this first came up but of course A lot has changed since then the finances have changed costs for

the new DSA campus have skyrocketed there's still a lot of work to be done on salaries for classified staff barring a tax increase we are entering some lean budget times for the county there is a misconception that because capital and operating expenditures fall into different parts of the budget they don't compete but of course everything you spend comes from the county and the taxpayers and it all competes our trust has also changed we're facing a historic lack of trust that only serves the aims of those who want to divert resources from public schools we have the unresolved situation with our classified staff and barring one hastily arranged meeting at DSA there's been almost no engagement on this issue despite how many people care about it teachers staff students Neighbors at the present site and at the new site DSA folks and not DSA folks so what if you could do something to potentially ease the financial troubles and also build back some public

trust please pause assess and engage thank you yes Eva hermy I'm G I'm actually gonna read the whole list I think y'all are also organized as well Eva hermy Teresa blackington Brian sh me shm or shitman I'm sorry I cannot I can't read it uh Sniderman Sniderman Jane wheeler and zer Z Zer Julia brown john Hodes Coppel Maggie Sergeant all right thank you um as you know my name is Eva Army and I'm also representing the durm for DSA Coalition um I am a

former DPS student a former DPS teacher current DPS parent and daughter of a DSA graduate formerly Durham High School it is my understanding that unfortunately DPS cannot build a new DSA and afford necessary repairs to the four T1 elementary schools the board has the power to consider an option for DSA that would allow us to do what's needed for DSA Club Morehead Mangum and Bethesda without going back for another bond that asks voters for the same thing as in 2022 there appears to be another option and I kindly ask the board to please pause assess and engage the Durham community on the DSA topic thank you for your consideration good evening my name is Teresa Dal blackington and I'm the mother of two children at Club Boulevard I'd first like to thank the maintenance team who managed to get my daughter's classroom to under 80 degrees for the first time this year um that's much

appreciated still I remain frustrated with the district for the years of defer maintenance on our school clubs in serious need of renovation we have limited working toilets the water pressure is so low that students can't drink from The Fountains the teachers don't have working projectors the HVAC needs to be replaced not constantly repaired and the list goes on the district is aware of the need Club was scheduled to be one of the schools renovated with the most recent Bond money however we've been told that renovation has been put off indefinitely due to the DSA building plans this is unacceptable we understand that the district has funding issues but we aren't asking for the bells and whistles of lions Farm or Murray massenberg we're asking that our students basic needs be met that they have a safe functioning building where they can learn please consider how the funding DPS does have can best be thank you hi my name is Brian I'm the parent of two kids at Morehead monu I'm here

because I believe that if you think something is wrong you got to stand up and you got to engage I've been here with my kids protesting with Dae and classified uh staff because I believe trust has been lost now I'm here because I'm part of the stopping of the DSA or pausing on DSA because I think the decision will affect Elementary Schools Kids teachers for years and years to come Morehead has been plagued for years with with insufficient space regular gas leaks and kids have had to be out of their school for multiple months because of uh maintenance systems issues the budget for DSA new construction has exploded if it goes forward it jeopardizes four elementary schools I want to find a path to trust again and $250 million budget for new construction thank you thank you thank you uh Jane wheeler

and zerel Zer zerilla there you go Julia brown john Hodes CLE Maggie sergeant and then I'm so sorry atheria atheria all right okay good all right come on up um my name's Jane wheeler and I am seeding to you ready okay um so I am a 20-year retired DPS teacher 21 years in my neighborhood which a diverse working class neighborhood and I am speaking out for my community which is Duke kimstead Heights which is close to the proposed DSA um we have been I feel ignored and disenfranchised in the the conversation and process regarding

conversation about the new DSA you have not met with anyone in the community though many people have asked multiple times as my I have also um your DSA budget has doubled to 240 million taking away funds promised in the bond for other schools you need it the new DSA will have negative impacts on the infrastructure of our neighborhood our roads are narrow there's no shoulders there's ditches along the roads and the kids are expected to cross Carver Street to go to their student parking lot cross into traffic on Carver Street there's no light there you've no light in your site plan so um if you could renovate DSS for much less money I would do it um it doesn't make sense to build this humongous School in a neighborhood that doesn't support the infrastructure for your school and I feel you should look into it some more um I ask the community will pause and think about this and plan accordingly and take all the facts into consideration I appreciate it thank

you I'm Julia borelly Brown and I'm seeding my time to John hajes Cel two hyphenated names 30 seconds per name hi my name's John Hodes Cel a former DPS parent a current DPS grandparent and a and a city planner who cares deeply about making all of our schools great places to learn uh you've been told that there there is no renovation alternative other than a very costly overly complex and disruptive uh 10-year-old master plan but there is comprehensive Renovations are expensive which is why the improved DSA concept we think deserves evaluation focuses on adding dozens of brand new classrooms while focusing renovation on the things that need fixing the HVAC the plumbing the wiring the fixtures the improved DSA concept would result in no instruction in the lowest level of the main building no moving students back

and forth while work is done it would link all buildings by secure internal connections and would provide room for expanded enrollment most importantly it would free up probably about a hundred million to renovate the elementary schools included in the 2022 Bond it would demonstrate tangibly to the County Commissioners that DPS is looking at hard choices to address County Financial constraints constraints that affect the schools the issues with the current campus whether parking access security are solvable at reasonable costs they're not fatal flaws and there are better ways to address the very real needs for administrative space there is a way to address your concerns meet the needs of our current and future students families and teachers at the current DSA site we simply ask that you pause assess this alternative fairly straight forward and engage the community after that assessment thank

you Maggie Sergeant I'm Maggie Sergeant I'm from Durham and I'm here to support DSA and I seed my time to miss Booka Bena good evening um my name isia Manuka and I'm a DSA parent I have two high school students I'm a DPS employee in an exceptional children's classroom I'm a Club Boulevard Elementary alumni mom and the duom neighborhood resident uh what we you have heard tonight our parent students teachers and residents who deeply care about our Public Schools including DSA we are not asking you uh for anything uh urgent um not an Abrupt change of course um very humbly we're asking you to please pause assess and engage please pause uh don't be any more work for a new DSA campus

yet please uh please assess set aside a limited time to assess an alternative plan for improving DSA where it is uh with the staff the consultant and the key stakeholders from the community please engage H dedicate time limited time for Community engagement for for all voices to be truly heard and please ask yourself uh what if you could fulfill all the requirements for DSA and fund the Four elementary schools for their Innovations without another Bond and if you truly listened uh what would you learn if you paid attention to all of us staff parents residents talking it has been an incredible uh one week to see 440 people sign a letter that you will see and um this is a small indication of just how many people care about improving DSA and we are all St stakeholders in this in the end we are

only asking you to be curious tell us what needs to be true for DSA to remain where it is thank you for your service and attention in this matter thank you I'm going to call the next group of speakers you all can come on in Matt copc Jenna Crawford Cur excuse me Samir Simmons Gea Mahajan Dr Wanda boom ready to go uh good evening board my name is Matt copac uh I am a DPS parent with two kids at Club Club Boulevard Elementary and here with dur for DSA as well uh you're going to hear tonight uh about u schools in disrepair about pleas for classified worker pay and a need for school lunches you're also hearing from people who love their schools their students their teachers their kids and their neighborhoods all asking to be

heard what if all of these perspectives could lead to the same answer on DSA we know you're all operating in good faith and have a lot to consider on this and other issues however we feel that the original renovation plan and the lack of community engagement over the years has made a proper analysis of the choices for you difficult I believe that there is a chance to unlock desperately needed funding rebuild trust and make a well-informed decision by pausing assessing and engaging the community you have very little to lose by learning a little bit more thank you Mr copc thank you good evening my name is Jenna Crowther I know I've been here for and I know I am probably um a bit of a broken record at this point but I'm here to talk about the challenges and miscommunications that have impacted my family and continue to impact my family during the roll out of growing together

um including just today received two conflicting pieces of information I would be happy actually delighted to chat with y'all about that um but tonight I come with a simple request tonight you will hear from the growing together team an update is on the agenda this evening and please fully interrogate the information that you receive tonight ask questions and then hold them accountable for fully answering questions it was really difficult um during the last working session to sit quietly while the groin together team painted an implementation picture that's not reflected reflective of my family's lived experience please listen ask questions and push staff to give you the full truth not their version of the truth thank you so much hi my name is Summer Simmons an EK EK po parent earlier this week I received an invitation to serve as a DPS parent Ambassador in that moment my heart sink because in good conscious I cannot endorse the broader DPS agenda In This

Moment let me be clear my child's Journey at ekpo has been nothing short of wonderful but that's a testament to the unwavering dedication of the Educators and staff who are on the ground with them day in and day out repeatedly we are shared by the board and DPS central office that we are striding toward a brighter future but look around and listen to what people have said does this really feel like we are growing together tonight you will see growing together data slides that if I brought them into a boardroom or an executive team I'd be fired where is the data that shows the percentage of students who received a lottery seat if only 10% are placed come a August is that really a system built on choice or where is the data showing and referencing the 3,000 hard shift Cher requests that had DPS has received thank you thank you I'm going to call the next group of speakers again come on inside Gia Mahajan Dr Wanda Boon Norma P Pao Pao Luna Gomez Daniela

Flores Joshua bar Barona and Tasha Williams I'm G do it one more one more time Gea Dr Wanda boon Norma paa and you all can come on up to the to the line on this side of the room right here Luna Gomez Danielle Flores danela Flores Joshua baruna and Tasha Williams yeah Dr Boon you all can go on this side right here yeah right and did you sign up to do public comment okay all right never mind all right Dr Boon will you Dr Boon will you be do you want to speak about the resolution tonight then then this will be the time all right okay thank you thank you Gea thank you my name is geara Mahajan and I'm a parent of two kids at Eko today on March 21st the following is true thousands of

Staff who are discouraged and in despair because you didn't pay them promised wages hundreds of Staff who plan to leave DPS to work in surrounding schools next year thousands of Elementary School families who are struggling to navigate and over-engineered school reassignment and redistricting redistricting plan for next school year hundreds of families who plan to leave DPS to enroll in private and charter schools and or to home school next year a community that is frustrated and fed up with your lack of good governance ideology good luck with your superintendent search Hello I'm Dr Wanda Bo and I'm here to receive the resolution black youth in crisis I'm so appreciative of the work that um Durham Public Schools does the board does many of the partners that signed on to this resolution one of the reasons that we call it a crisis is because in Durham um over 40% of middle

school students over 40% of high school students made a plan for suicide and that data comes from the youth risk behavior survey so um our organization in partnership with others have committed to work together to help solve this problem and to support what you're already doing in Duram Public Schools thank you you have that Dr Bo it is added to the the resolution's been added to our agenda tonight so we will read it later on in the agenda and we'll make sure you get get a copy if you want to stay you're welcome too but we'll make sure we send a signed copy to you as well thank you and I will stay okay thank you Norma p p Luna Gomez double my time yes we do have an interpreter present as well

okay C thank you for fixing this good evening everyone my name is

Norma poro and I'm here here with ses we are here today to thank the board who are supporting the cep process and to Miss Moore the board sorry for listening to us I am the mom of Maya who is five and alesandro who is 11 since they were born I've been very committed to the quality of food we eat at home I know that this directly affects their physical and mental health we also thank Durham can for their support of DPS families again I want to thank you for deciding to submit the C application to the federal government the benefits of free lunch for all students are so many not only will we have the opportunity to improve the quality of food but the research says that students in schools that participate in C have higher academic and overall achievement it is a great accomplishment thank you actually the comment I'm going to read is going to be in Spanish and English umz so

bu Gracias my name is Luna Gomez I'm a DPS student today I didn't come to complain instead I came to say thank you for finally recognizing that children need good food thank you my name is Joshua Barona um I'm a DPS student I'm just here to say that we could finally get food from for kids at my school that don't have that that don't have food on the lunch table cuz I've seen a lot of kids with that problem thank you Joshua hello uh my name is danela Flores I'm

here with the Sando raes and basically all I can do right now is really talk about my own personal experience I went to Riverside High School back in 20 2004 and my parents didn't know about the lunch application and couldn't give me money for my school lunch thank goodness I had good friends who would share their lunch with me I don't know maybe out of pity I didn't care I was hungry 20 years later do you think that it's possible that there could be children facing the same situation as I did sitting down by themselves looking at their friends lunches thinking I wish I had their lunch I'm hungry I believe so let's end this hunger today sign the C application now thank you all right next we have Tasha Williams Tasha Williams all right Liz

5 million to improve the quality of food uh in in our lunchrooms um for everyone and I see the rest of my time to Reverend

Blake my name is Dave Irish oops oh go ahead and I see my time my name is Jan Williams Durham can and I'm here to say thank you and I seed my time to Reverend Blake all right all right Reverend Blake you got three minutes I won't need them thank you good afternoon good evening my name is James Blake I'm the pastor of Fisher Memorial United holy church here in the city of Durham and a member of the strategy team of Durham can and a co-chair of the clergy caucus tonight we 105 Plus members of Durham can and our associate we thank you for your support of community eligibility provision thank you for the passion that is expressed around the issue and the compassion that this commitment shows to the students of DPS by faith I say thank you for feeding all of our children the impact of C will

5 million will be instrumental in improving the quality of food and the cultural diversity of meals in our school system once again in advance we say thank you in the Christian faith there's a scripture found in Ecclesiastes 9 the race is not given to the Swift nor the battle to the strong the wind actually is to those who endure to the end while we are thankful to be at this place we still stand ready to carry this issue C over the Finish Line the Finish Line means that all of our children are fed the children who are our future deserve to see their Community organized in support of them and as school leaders prioritizing their needs and I along again with 100 plus persons tonight along with our member organizations

thank you for championing this cause thank you thank you the next group of speakers we got Kai Christopher Barbara Tapper Danielle Irvin Carlos Perez Asia Pope I'mma call that list again for the folks in the hallway come on up right here Kai Christopher Barbara Tapper Danielle Irvin Carlos Perez and Asia pop my name is Kai Christopher I teach at the Quality Education Institute of Durham on Elm Street but uh also have uh Mr Chris's creativity lab is a creative writing literacy program for third to fifth grade um it's based on journalism this is called creativity with journalism each assignment is a section of the newspaper and so here's some

examples um the first the the front page section is a dream a goal setting assignment talking about the best day of your future the business bu section is uh uh an innovation or an invention to help your community the food and dining section is your favorite homecooked meal and then they use uh the family member is a a a restaurant symbolizing the family member and so each exercise goes through these brainstorm exercises which is an idea development exercise based on descriptive and narrative essay uh Concepts and so it's you letting them practice essay skills but using their creativity and their imagination to do it and then it ends with them writing their own all right thank you Mr Christopher thank you hey my name is Barbara Tapper I'm a physical therapist at Durham schools um I'm here to talk about the com controllers post on the board of

education website this week if you allow this presentation tonight it will be a reflection of how little you care about your staff taking away monies again bullying classified staff disregarding them disrespecting them at this point really I just want to throw in the towel really you win you continue to take money from us and disrespect us emotionally abuse us for what end hopefully to hire new graduates instead of seasoned therapists you paid someone to give you results that you wanted versus a Hil study that spent years comparing us to other counties those result you didn't like those results they were a market rate for us so you paid someone else to give you results you wanted money that you spent money you have spent that you didn't have $500,000 in superintendent fees com controller fees fees to hire a new superintendent thank you hi my name is Daniel irin I'm also a

physical therapist here um also the wife of a DSA teacher and um the mom of two really cute future PS students um this year has been an emotional roller coaster for me and many of us here um I came from Wake County 5 years ago when I came over I lost $800 a month that was my fault for not checking into the salary differences between counties um but I wanted to be in Durham schools because I live here and my kids are going to go here and um we were given hope this fall that uh we were going to get a raise that made us seem valued and seen as pts and OTS as well as making our positions here market value and I was so thankful and felt like it'd be okay to stay here long term and still support my family with two Public School Employees um however with the decision I'm now making 10,000 less a year than I would have than I would would have been if I had stayed in Wake County right now my morale is low it's super low across the board and it's really hard to um keep doing my job I also spend a lot of effort defending our dur public schools to those that

don't thank you Mr pet before you go you can come on up to you can come to at the podium I'm just going to read some more names all right the next list of names are Josephine Cobb Naya Watson Alison Swain Susanna Diaz Sonia Sonia thalheimer Denine Cherry Beth Clifford Courtney Keller and yetzer Pendergrass yeah R I said I messed that up I apologize I'll get it right in the next one all right Mr Perez hi Carlos PR I'm sing my time to Asia good evening my name is Shakira Asia um and I'm here on behalf of the class and I'm here um on behalf of the classified staff as well as Dae um tonight classified workers will be making an organized public comment on

behalf of our members we are here to remind our board members and our community of the shared values that we all hold we believe we are all on the same team and we must work together to do everything that we can to protect our students and our communities the state and the private sector are systematically defunding our Public Schools no one is going to stop them but Us action that needs to be taken as of now today is we have to take responsibility for the whole turnover crisis that is already affecting our schools reinstate Hill offer back pay to enable workers to stay and be able to pay their bills call on the county to rise to the occasion respond to the scope of the crisis the BCC needs to fully fund our schools in next year's budget thank you good evening everyone my name is Josephine Cobb and I seed my time to Nikia Watson hi my name is Nikia Watson I work

at L's Grove um Middle School I work in the ca I came along with this long speech but um from my understanding is from from me being out there in the hotness with only 5:30 surviving on one bottle of water it's kind of like disrespectful for us um when somebody says something about public speaking we go to work every day we show up we feed these Keys We Serve these kids for us to be crucified it's feel like it's just like crazy um another thing is um I just feel like this budget didn't need to be fixed I was what I make now I was making in another school district and that was 2015 that's ridiculous doing the same job and less hours um I just feel like I'm just over exhausted I can't talk

much I got a brain for it and and I just feel like this be fair this be fair that's all I ask is be fair and be reasonable we show up we get it's so much stuff that we deal with in the day that y'all probably never see and never deal with when if yall was to come to the school all I'm saying is be just be just you know we go we serve these kids every day happy smiling and it's just like for this little paycheck I can't even get a one bedroom apartment near pay utilities um and that's all I got to say have a nice day I'm Alison SW and I seed my time to Susanna Diaz hello um my name is Susanna Diaz and I am an interpreter parent leason at the

MRC I'm here with d AE tonight to remind us of two shared values high expectations and Equity these values require consistency in what we say and do before approving The Hil study board member Natalie Beyer said I just want to celebrate that yes we are the second largest employer in Durham and yes our folks this is 2200 employees they have been incredibly patient they have been waiting two years for this and these are some of the folks that are working the second and third and the fourth jobs and so let's extend all of our gratitude to them for their patience and their advocacy because their bills didn't wait while we were working on this and I'm I'm here to advocate for all the positions and all those um people who were affected by um this mistake and um uh we believe that living out our share values looks like not letting classified workers wait any longer to receive the

pay and respect we deserve and by the way danela Flores who just spoke before she is my daughter and she went to Riverside when um in 2004 and I was working as a teacher assistant at halt Elementary so back then um I couldn't afford to pay for her lunch but um and thank you for considering and bringing this to the table thanks I'm Sonia tallhamer and I seed my time to den Cherry hello hi my name is Denine Cherry I am a school nutrition manager at broaden and thank you for I'm a c of school also I'm here as a proud Union Man member to tonight to remind us of two shared values high expectations and share responsibility as an evid of a living wage for Durham

sorry if I name wrong Melissa Rogers said also have to remind us and our million view viewers online that North Carolina is not the best at paying their Educators so being then compared to other parts of the state and saying that we are off the charts we can and should want to do better and I think this is what the vision is in our durm community as a cafeteria manager I get up early in the morning and work hard to make sure the kids have good food and everything runs smooth and on time and that every kids eat it's no small test to do this every single day even when we're down staff members and we have to do several jobs to get the job done even when the equipment is broken and it takes more time to do tasks I think we should pay we should get paid for what we are worth and what we are worth a whole lot we believe that living out our shared

values look like using our Collective power and decision making to go above and beyond our people we should use our local funding to go above the State Maximum as we have before and our neighbor District could currently do this is D we should be setting in the standards hi my name is Beth Clifford and I seed my time to Courtney Keller Courtney before you go I'm gonna read the next names all right uh next we have Beverly mcneel Christy Chávez Laura San Brian Callaway and Daniel Ellison so Beverly mcneel you can come on up to this side please Christie Chávez Lauren sartan Brian Callaway and Daniel ell I'm at 156 I might need all two minutes

okay hi my name is Courtney Keller and I'm a physical therapist with 27 years of experience I'm here with a DA tonight to remind us of our shared value a child- centered approach decisions that harm our staff harm our students and our community on February 22nd before voting to approve the 11% flat rate and effect issuing a pay cut to over 1300 employees including myself Miss Lewis said there are good better and best Solutions and I want a solution that decreases harm and has a greater positive impact with assessing our long-term Solutions we agree the board hired a group to spend time and taxpayer resources to conduct the hill study to make our salaries competitive I thank you for that implementation then there were issues funding the hill study with the current budget I blame many in the room for those financial errors in January some of used letters removing salary increases in years of service a controller was hired and is making his recommendation for classified salary

with Al duris Mr comproller there are a lot of numbers to Crunch remember I'm a physical therapist I'm a daughter of retired Carter County Superintendent and I'm not an accountant but my math skills can prove that your recommendations for the most experienced pts here at DPS will make about $1,700 less per month than the hill study we'll make less than 300 than Wake County pts and believe it or not we will make $200 less than last school year before the hill for the 11% flat increase rate as Miss Lewis said she was looking for a good better and best solution these Solutions may be bad worse and the worst we from the Dae custodians IAS interpreters PT OTS believe that living out our shared values look like holding the county accountable for an equal wage funding please give public schools the money we deserve thank you can I leave these numbers for you all yes you may you can leave them on

the corner right here and please pronounce your name so I can get it correctly um my name is JZ thank you no problem yes um my name is jera Pras I'm actually going to read a statement uh from Sharon BR um she's a cust Ian at Lakewood Elementary and she's unable to be here tonight um she started with Dae I'm sorry DPS in 2017 and I'm just going to read a direct statement from her from here on out in her words I'm here to remind us of a value I think we all share Equity making sure all of our people are taking care of especially custodians because we are always on duty in February board member Jessica Garden Aon I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name said my primary interest is making sure we don't leave people unable to pay rent or pay basic bills by actions that we take tonight

that's my concern I'm hoping we can find a way around that I really agree with that Miss Paran Aon said because my co-workers and I really need enough money to get by all staff especially classified thank you thank you hi my name is Beverly Neil and I am a former Durham Public School student the daughter of a Durham public school teacher and was a Durham public school teacher myself um I'm coming to you to fully support the idea of free lunches for all students when I came here I had been teaching in Allentown Pennsylvania which was undergoing a massive economic IC depression due to the absence of two of the biggest Employers in town I had children who were hungry all

day every day during a a short period later the school district decided to make free lunches available to all children within three weeks I couldn't recognize my kids they were so different they stopped fighting they were interested in learning this is really really important thank you thank you Miss mcneel hello I'm Christy Chávez physical therapist back again maybe more uh disheartened this time than before after seeing the proposal I've quickly looked at five different job categories and two of those five the maximum amount recommended by the com controller are less than the 2223 salary schedules and you know we had what 4% roughly from the state last year another 3% and what's recommended as a Max for next year in two of the five I looked at is

less than last year's Max that makes me think turning down a job outside of DPS this past summer because of the hope of heal was a big mistake um I don't I I mean I on me we're closely related PT wise to um speech and that's about $ thousand dollars less a month if I total up what I could have made thank you hi my name is laurren Artin I'm a DPS parent a PTA president I'm also a public sector employee so I understand budget constraints d schools do great things they do great things because your employees give their Blood Sweat and Tears to do their jobs some days literally and they're telling you they're

leaving parents are accepting Charter and private offers right now I get emails from parents in my school Community every day at this point honestly it's hard to blame them they're stuck on weight list they have uncertainty around access to after care when school gets out at 2:15 families and employees are curious we are wake curious we are Guilford curious we are orange curious there goes student enrollment there goes the budget and that means more position cuts school districts have a few necessary functions one maintain your schools two staff your schools and pay your staff three enroll the students in those schools those things aren't working we're not asking for bells and whistles we want roofs that don't leak we want IAS we want Fair pay we want transparency thank you hi I'm Brian Callaway and uh I wanted to thank the board uh for making it Crystal Clear how broken our electoral politics are in this town what yall did to the uh

3 million would have fixed this for your salaried workers that that's like a $50,000 a year person being asked to find $185 and got 500 in the bank thank you Daniel Ellison oh one more time Daniel

Ellison all right that concludes our public comment for the evening we're going to next have our consent agenda items consent agenda items have been reviewed by the board in advance we've got got several items on the list for today with approval of the consent agenda second it's been moved by Miss VZ seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I all those opposed please use the same sign it passes 60 the next um item on our agenda is going to go to operational Services we're going to start with the 2023 annual comprehensive financial report good evening board members and Miss Moore hope you're doing well this evening I believe each of you have already received a electronic copy of the June 30th 2023 audited financial statements uh the annual comprehensive

financial report will be fairly lengthy of over 130 pages so each of you should have um received a short 14 page financial statement summary this is what I'll be going over with you this evening uh it summarizes the areas of the financial statements that we feel are the most important um or of the most importance to you in overseeing the finances and budgets of the school district if anyone has any questions as I'm going over it uh please feel free to interrupt me at any time but our audit basically covers two main areas we perform an audit of the actual finances of the school system which includes the amount you see in the report and an audit of the school systems compliance with state federal laws and regulations which primarily relates to state and federal uh Grant funds received by the board uh within the detailed financial statements there are four letters um we issued pertaining to these audit areas the uh these four letters are summarized on

page one of the handout you received and on um pages one through three of the detailed audit report is the financial statement audit opinion letter which is a clean unmodified opinion that's exactly what you want to receive this means that we feel the numbers and disclosures presented in the report are reliable and that the financial statements are free from any material misstatements um now there are there's an internal control and compliance letter we do not issue an opinion on internal controls but we do report on material weaknesses or significant deficiencies that are detected and during our audit we noted one significant deficiency and one material weakness which which we'll discuss a little bit later and the reports on major federal and state programs those are both clean unmodified opinions as well uh there are a lot of various compliant steps were're required to test we were required to perform more extensive compliance testing um again

1 million

4 million now the fund

5 million that was allocated in January 20124 to cover the classified salary increases and 300,000 that was allocated in February 2024 to cover Dr manga's buyout and both of those items were reported on page 49 of the financial statements as subsequent events but overall the local current expense fund appears to have an adequate level of fund balance and cash Reserves at June 30th 2023 for a District's this size we do continue to caution that you know or advise that you know fund balance and cash reserves are needed for cash flow purposes and emergency or other unforeseen needs that could arise um there are some charts on pages three four and five that you can look over that uh gives you a visual three-year comparison of cash balances fund balance

4 million yes okay thank you I want to make sure I heard that correctly thank you any other questions before we move on thank you okay and then we'll pum uh go over to page six and look at the local special expense fund now this schedule again is a three-year summary

7 million okay and then we'll flip over there no questions we'll flip over to page eight and look at the school Food

7 million compared to the prior year which is roughly your the loss in the program now the decline in profitability over the prior year was primarily due to a decrease in revenue from USDA reimbursements as a result of the US a discontinuing free meals to all students as well as the higher emergency reimbursement rates that they had given those had uh dropped in during 2023 as well and there was also um an increase in food cost and salaries and benefits now we do want to caution that if profitability in the program doesn't improve the program could handle a similar loss um to the 2223 fiscal year in the current 23 24 fiscal year however

7 am I reading the yes ma'am okay and so okay it just goes to the the a lot of other conversations that we're having on on wages and and this um Gap so I could just add add one piece to

that it is just important to note that because um T nutrition services is an Enterprise program the funds that they generate through the meals that are served and then the reimbursements that are received and the paying students is supposed to pay for their Enterprise um and when and a perfect example is when salaries go up and in this case also food costs went up and the reimbursements from the federal government dropped all of those um made it so that they ran at a negative um their existing fund balance supports it and could for a little bit longer but um the biggest hit was and it probably looks like it was in the salary range because if you're not making the funds through paid meals or reimbursements to cover the increased salaries you have no choice but to either use fund balance or kick in local dollars there any other questions just back on the other one because fund balance is always a topic and it's was a

topic recently with our discussions with the county can you remind us the percentage that you as Auditors recommend for us to hold in fund balance as best practice well that that is a a very load to convers or question because there's not there there's no real industry St because every district is different how they get funded the level of funding from the county all of that differs so there used to be guidance as far as municipal is you know at 8% but that again there's a lot of factors that go into that that differ so what I think you would have to look at is similar size districts districts in your region and and try to and you know and come up with what those fund balances as a percentage of of expenditures are and then there's various different ways to look at that so that is something if y'all are interested in having us look at we most certainly could put together a schedule that just just let me know we can we we can make that happen if that's what y'all want so we have done that in the past but I'd be interested in seeing that

looking see some head KN to see that be helpful yeah and the 8% of what which total are you eight% like I said it would be like you know essentially the easiest way to look at that is like local expenditures but again you know I don't say that as an industry best practice or anything again it just differs from District to District I just know that LGC has never given guidance on it um and again that was what they had for municipalities but municipalities have tax living Authority that you guys don't so again it is a very kind of loaded conversation and and something like I said if y'all want us to do that we we'll certainly put together a schedule and get that to you to see how how DPI does or I'm sorry DPS does compare so do that thank you that would be helpful Miss leis I think I think Miss MOA answered my question as far as the Enterprise and where the funding would come from so I'm just want to make sure I'm understanding this chart with the deficit from 2023 in the school fund service School Food Service

9 million loss again your your cash balances would be down to just under $200,000 thank you yeah so that that's all we were saying on that so there anything else okay if we go to page 10 um we'll look at findings and question cost now there's not necessarily much information um provided there in the financial statements um we have more detail on page 7 2 but um as I mentioned earlier we noted two findings during the audit the first related to various general

ledger accounts that were not properly reconciled during the year and outstanding uh contract summary schedules for construction and progress were not maintained or provided in a format to allow for um proper financial statement disclosure the SEC the second uh finding related to a budget violation in the local current expense fund where expenditures incurred were 492,000 ing that those were completed and done so properly so that is kind of price SP but again that second finding kind of relates to the first um but we

will follow up with these findings as part of our June 30th 2024 um audit yes ma'am Miss thank you um I'm just curious um when it comes to reconciling especially for construction costs um we get like change order reports and I'm just wondering if there's some variability with the change uh order reports in terms of gauging and Recon I don't know if that's a factor mean I'll say that that Finance does actually pretty a pretty outstanding job at at reconciling your Construction in progress as far as that goes the when I mentioned the construction in progress that was more we have to disclose outstanding contracts that are that the board has entered into and then how much of that is spent how much is remaining to be uh paid and just to make the financial statements um more usable and so again that schedule that schedule itself was we had trouble getting that and we ultimately did it ourselves um in order to to get that and then had it approved by um management but but as far as that goes

with those construction progress and the change orders because that gets reconciled with the county and and they're doing a pretty good job about that so yeah I do have a question you mentioned like page 80 something 88 and we have the document that we have um is only like 14 pages will we get the larger yes so yes so we're we're currently waiting on a few items uh just to finalize the uh the act for and um again you know this this was just approved two days ago I think by the LGC so we're now in the process of once we get those final few pieces of information we'll get the final product or final thing to you but if are you looking at like the finding specifically or I if you're think you mentioned the page number that that reference cross reference to and don't have the big one it was about the findings the findings would be page which on the I don't know if y'all should have the financial statements that we have that would be page 72 yeah we don't have that oh y' didn't get that y' didn't get the full

financial statements okay I'm we up to page 14 just a summary page is what I got you okay okay it'd be great if we could get that additional yeah yeah here did you have that right we'll work on we'll get yeah and it might not have been uploaded because you know in fairness it was like I said when we when we sent it it wasn't approved so maybe it was just an oversight on that but but like I said it has been approved so thank you no problem any additional before you do you have you have some additional presentation yeah yeah a few other items and then so there is a required communication letter which is Pages 11 through 14 on the um this packet uh the summary and uh that is a uh detail specific audit items that were required to communicate to the board about the letter basically has boiler plate language um it discusses that there were no difficulties or disagreements encountered in dealing with management during the audit however it does me

highlight some material misstatements that were detected by our audit and were that were corrected by management that's exhibit a on page 14 summarizes uh those adjustments that were needed are there any questions on that before we and then we um also perform detailed testing of receipts and dispersements for the individual uh schools noting no significant issues so it appears that the school bookkeepers are doing a good doing a good job we typically note minor areas where improvements can be made uh during our school Audits and in testing and other operational areas um usually these comments relate to best practices um that we've seen from other districts we audit where we think that maybe improvements can be made in the district's current controls and procedures and we always try to communicate these best practices and recommendations uh to management uh for

them to share with principles bookkeeper or other relevant staff within the district but uh we really do appreciate the finance staff uh for their help in getting the audit completed um does anybody have any questions for me before we wrap up yes ma' bys just within the context of uh budgets um there's been that question about about Vehicles the fleet the um acceptable or best practices in terms of like uh models that are permissible is there anything that you saw in terms of like um you know uh some of these Corrections um and some of these changes anything related to how we're um um approaching I guess best practices with vehicles and Fleet I mean we we we didn't have anything related to that thank you so much it's it's just the conversation that's come up in terms of like State Fund and what kind of models since there are so many um options right I I got you yeah and that's one where I think that's a discussion maybe to to look out to reach out to other again other districts and see what they're

doing that's not something that we typically would look at um as as part of our audit so thank you for this report um for page 14 the corrected mement ma could you just walk me through that a little bit not everything but um these are the these are the correct amounts or these were these are basically Journal injuries so we have to you know do a debit and a credit to the the accounts the corresponding accounts are there and um so again these were accounts that needed to be adjusted that were materially off um whenever we whenever we got the the trial balance and and looked at the general ledger and so we had to give these uh the management to to review make sure that they agreed with them and then they ultimately posted those interest so those are all these entries have been run through they're included in the report that's why we can say again that you know the the report itself does not have any material misstatements in it these were just items we wanted to bring to

attention that were material um that we had to make these adjustments that that needed to be made okay so these are I was gonna say if I could summarize if I could summarize that in a little bit different language um these rep places where the budget codes that were used needed to be rectified and the dollars put in the right line items yeah some of them like like if you look at that first one for example those were purchases of of equipment that were in expenses that needed to get moved to fixed assets just for example yet right so that everything in the debit side adds up to what's on the credit side it shows that it was put in the right place so the error was not the amounts but the the um might be classific yeah I mean say some some of these are and if y'all have any specific questions feel free we can most certainly explain them but correct it it would it's more about classification and where where items were put using the right code yeah yeah exactly and is there just to make sure

that doesn't happen again is there some um correct yeah um that that's a part of the process that we Undertake and and it what what he's saying in terms of the collaboration with finances they are recognizing that so that they can not do it again okay okay thank you but are there any other questions but we really do appreciate you all allowing our firm to work I'm sorry yes Miss Roger thank you um Madam chair thank you for this report um can you speak a little bit more to um that contract that you found that hadn't been approved the 480 in the construction oh well well no the the 492 that was just that if you so y don't have it I do apologize let me so that

49280 was where expenditures exceeded what had been approved by the Board of Education and certain line items and you know just without going too much but there was like instructional service regular instructional was overspent um some amount specially pop ation so it's it's really just the budget codes themselves had been overspent um as far as the interest and and again when goes back to that first finding of when accounts are not being reconciled timely then it makes it possible to get towards year end get past year end and then you you you've got budget violations so that that's just where staying and doing those reconciliations would have possibly led to bring in a budget amendment to the board to approve and and and whatnot so again those are that's helpful so it's more than one instance as opposed to 1400 and right yeah it's not a contra no no it's not a contract it's just it's simply budgeted the budget when yall get the budget there's a bunch of line items and whatnot to make that up so again

those specific items there was about one two three about four different budget line items that that just went slightly over yeah yeah exactly that they did go over one I mean of the 492 180 most of it was in instructional Services regular instru that was $ 44855 the rest of it were smaller you know less than $30,000 items and that's if you want to make a note it's on page of the financial statements when youall get that it'll be on page 34 um details that out thank you so much that's really helpful all so usually we have a completely clean audit so it's um disheartening to have any findings ever um but it is um great to see Financial folks in the room I'm looking at three um are you all working together um to bring recommendations or or is that more of our staff and our com controller on changes to policy and processes so that

we never have have happened what happened in their own Public Schools again right I mean that would that would be more about as far as the the detail what what y'all are going to do to address it that'll be something with the with the staff now if they you know have questions about that as they're trying to implement it they're they you know they know they can certainly reach out to us and we can you know provide Insight or even if there's you know certain processes they that they realize maybe need to be improved we can we know plenty of districts that they could reach out to and and individuals we can recommend that they talk with um and that would help them provide guidance so and am I right in characterizing these findings as relatively minor and unrelated to this classified yeah they're yeah they're they're not related to that at all I mean again I think these are as when we did our um extension for the audit and there noted you know there were some I think issues with as far as like software implementation and things like that going on so it it seemed to be that maybe there was some Focus there um versus here so and that's what also

delayed the audit so again I think this just a you know systematic or you know it's you know examples of of what can you know what can happen there so thank you that's helpful yep well we appreciate you allowing our firm to work with youall this year and we look forward to working with youall again next year thank you this is for approval to accept the umat for Action I don't I don't think it's a an action item but it is one that it's you you accept it um there's not an action related to it and I don't think you have to do anything CES has a for approval up here so I just want to make sure that we're following along all right so we'll move to our next agenda

[Music] item uh the next item on our agenda is the classified compensation report Mr Crutchfield you're welcome to use the podium there's also a seat right here if you want to U Miss beside Mr King if you want to sit you can also do your presentation from there fine all right if I get too tired I'll I'll move over there so uh last month we talked a good bit about where we might try to head and so uh I've now had a month to to dig more deep into your classified salary issues so first slide please so one of the biggest issues facing every school district right now are new state salary ranges that become mandatory July 1

2024 a lot of school districts are are grappling with that because well a lot of them are gra grappling with it worse than you are because a lot of them H are are not paying as well as you are right now it does become illegal to pay less than the new State Range minimums for as of July 1 20124 it becomes illegal using state or federal funds to pay more than the new State Range maximums it is legal to pay above the state range maximums using local funds but it's not something that I personally would recommend because it adds a layer of complexity to your payroll management and it risks errors that could result in law violation audit findings so uh you just had some a report on audit findings and and I'm

gonna diverge from this just a second I was an auditor for four years and then I received audits for 38 years at Winston Sal for scy County schools there is nothing more complicated than the financial management of a school district in North Carolina it is almost impossible in my opinion to have an audit report that has no findings it really is uh if you if you have an audit report that has no findings I would begin to question the competency of the audit so uh you know again you you don't want to see major findings and that the the law violation of budget overages is easily fixed it is something that I do plan to help with in the next few months and so the things that were in your audit are things that I definitely would like to to spend some time with your current

Finance staff on so next uh next slide so my what my process was the last month I did an in-depth study of the 2022-23 DPS classified Spa pay schedules I did an in-depth study of how to utilize the good market rate work of the previous salary study and I did an in-depth study of merging both of those into the new state salary schedules I have had some experience in two or three other districts in the past six months of helping them convert from their old pay schedules to the new State schedule so it is something that I I I was not unfamiliar with next slide please there were some really good things about your previous salary schedules and a couple of things that concerned me they suffered from two major issues primarily both caused by the

state's $15 per hour minimum mandate but partly caused by historical Decisions by DPS those two problems were a significant classification comp compr compression and significant variation in Step increments and both of those create significant challenges in any attempt to reclassify pay into appropriate market rate schedules and I will also point out that it's the state's $15 per hour minimum plus DPS is decision to pay above the state's $15 per hour minimum that caused Your Child Nutrition program issue and it is a serious issue and it is something that uh that will not be corrected unless some other actions are taken now the C I'm very familiar with that also and

there's been a lot of discussion of that today the C can help you significantly but it depends totally on participation your participation does not increase it will not help you your participation increases it will help your overall financial situation of Your Child Nutrition program next slide please on the first page of your handout I've talked about significant class classification comp compression I've shown the percentage increases in range minimums between each of the 22223 classified paygrades which historically were roughly based on the previous state mandated pay grades and prior to the state mandated $15 per hour minimum the standard standard percentage differential between the state pay grade minimums were

53% and you can compare that to the two and a half to 4 and a half% and see what significant compression has occurred next slide please so some examples of the grade minimum differentials excuse me from grade 56 to 57 was 65% from 59 to 60 was 64% from 62 to 63 was

5% differentials between pay grades next slide please so after the state mandated $15 per hour minimum the state approved pay grades for grades 50 through 62 all had the $2,600 minimum pay and that's what a lot of school districts are using this year is that $2,600 a month minimum pay for all the positions in those pay grades 50 through 62 but Durham Public Schools did two

very Comm mendable things you increase the pay grade minimums for the lower pay grades above the state minimum and you tried to provide at least some differential between the lower pay grade minimums both of those are very commendable these actions though took significant local money since the state allotments that funded the classified employees were based on the $2,600 per month minimums but your actions help put employees in the lower pay grades at close to Market pay rates even in a county like Durham where your cost of living is higher than the average cost of living across the state so some examples of the state and the Durham Public School minimums per grade your gr uh the grade 50 the states 2600 as I mentioned Durham's is

2773 grade 54 State 2600 Durham 2846 grade 56 2600 State 28 8290 Durham grade 59 2600 DPS 2 2938 and grade 62 State 2600 Durham 31290 you look at at those comparisons your grade 62 employees are earning are earning at least $400 a month more than the state minimum so that that is huge and that's why where I can't come up with the conclusion that you've put a lot of local money into your compensation unfortunately there was one problem with all that you did not similarly increase the

minimums of the middle and upper pay grades probably was going to be too costly to do so that action or actually in action plus a number of years of no legislative pay increases for classified employees left your employees in the middle and upper pay grades below Market pay rates significantly more below than the lower pay grates and that made me come to another conclusion most likely one of the reasons that DPS is granted year foryear service credit for previous relevant experience is because otherwise it would have been difficult to employ candidates for these middle and upper pay grade positions the fact that you're giving year foryear service credit moves them up enough on the pay scales that you can recruit in those upper pay grades next slide please and then the second issue

26% and all the way up through grade

63 the step increment showed the compression caused primarily by the state's $15 per hour minimum mandate and funding again in a lot of school districts in North Carolina there are 20 or more steps in grade 50 that are at $2,600 per month you at least put some differences between your steps that uh the state would not necessarily have funded so some examples of the Durham Public School step increments again from step one to step two they were always the same in each pay grade so there were no differentials in any of your pay grades between step one and step two steps seven to eight you'll look down the list for each of those pay grades and you'll see it ranges from a low of

52% so every North Carolina school district has experienced that compression of Step increments as lower paid employees were receiving 10 plus perc legislative increases which was three or four times higher than the higher paid employees and most districts could not afford to match those increase rates for the higher paid employees including Durham Public Schools you could not afford to match those and many districts like I said as many as the first 20 steps in the lower pay grades are the state minimums and DPS at least provided minimal step differentials after step

5% increments and other words when I was doing this analysis your step increments are all over the board there is no consistency whatsoever and that's not unusual in

North Carolina school districts because the state keeps doing things that mess up your ability to manage a stepped schedule next slide please Terri can I ask a question real quick sure I'm going take I'm going to say that in what I think it means okay 2600 if you do the math is $15 an hour right right right so all across the state of North Carolina as this as the $15 an hour was made the minimum right every District went to all their scales to see who was below 15 made them all 15 didn't deal with everybody else right um and and and go higher but it meant that whether you were on a whatever employee you were whatever band you were in the amount between one year and the next year now was divided by much was not divided by anything in many cases Sav $15 an hour

for the first 20 years of your career right but it but when it did that for multiple categories whether you were a cafeteria worker or custodian or or any other classified employee if you were also at 2600 then the difference between you and the others became much less also or non-existent right um and then whatever the inent was before basically disappeared right correct okay and Durham Public Schools did something to try to correct that it's not a lot right not not not enough to deal with compression all the way through right but certainly in better shape than what you see many districts now where they have all kinds of bands at for all kinds of years of experience at 15 correct thank you so I I I drew several conclusions including that using the Duram Public Schools 22 23 schedules a step is not a step is not a step whether it's being granted upon initial hiring or being granted as an

5% steps and you were given five years of service credit then you had seven and a half% above the minimum so it's there's there's not a lot of equity there so another conclusion I I drew is that sticking with the 22 23 schedules was never going to be Equitable so you were very wise to try to come up with something different but moving from the 2223 schedules to an equitable pay plan was never going to be easy or inexpensive so it was always going to be difficult and it was always going to be

expensive to try to correct all the issues even though you had already corrected some of it to some extent at least and for many years the use of experienced steps by North Carolina School Districts has proven to be less than equitable given the actions of and funding or lack thereof by the general assembly I'll just throw out another prime example of of one of the things that happened to public school district pay schedules based on General Assembly action one year the general assembly in its Infinite Wisdom provided ,000 a year increase for every single employee every single classified employee without even thinking that for some groups of employees you have 10-month employees and you have 12-month employees custodians is a perfect example so you divide a th000 by 10 and

33 per month we had to double our number of steps because of that action we had to have a a group of steps for 10-month employees and a group of steps for 12month employees next slide some additional drawbacks of experienced steps the state has not included funding for classified employee experience steps in over 30 years it's actually been almost 40 years most districts do not have the local funding to pay for an experienced step annually on top of the legislated increase even if some additional local funding is available experienced steps lock the local board into a set amount of increase each year when the amount of funding available likely is variable

from year to year that's a very important point if you want to easily Implement additional pay for your classified employees if you do it by steps you're locked into a set amount every single year other if you do something otherwise like use percentages then you can change the amount of the increase to whatever you want or have have available and then the other problem is employees do see experience steps as Promises of future pay increases next slide please so then last month you voted to do an 11% increase across the board I'm sorry I just need to I just need to say that out loud myself

so putting in Step increases and you know you and I were playing with some math numbers a little while ago right if your budget for salaries is 100 million and you're putting a 1% in every year that somebody gains a year of experience um going up 1% every year if the same group of employees moves into the next year would automatically cost you in that budget an extra million dollars the next year correct right okay and what you're saying is rather than putting in the steps what the board could say that every year as part of their budget process they want to increase the schedules by 1% right rather than putting it in steps do it as part of the budget process every year correct okay and some years years it could be some years you might want 2% yeah and this could this doesn't have to be tied to whatever the legislature may or may not do correct okay thank you yes and you

know let's say you do ask the county for to go up 4% one year but they only give you 2% of funding then you're not locked into that 4% decision like you could be if you were using steps okay so you gave you you granted an 11% across the board increase that I don't guess your employees have seen yet just a day okay uh I figured it was close but okay I figured it was close but so uh and as I mentioned earlier your lower pay grades were much closer to Market rates than were the higher pay grades the appropriate way to implement reclassifications from a best practices standpoint is to compare the previous classification or grade minimum to the

new classification or grade minimum and Grant that percentage increase to each current employee in the classification on the handout starting on page three I've used the previous studies's market rate data as a starting point and merged it into the new state pay ranks so next slide on the on those handout Pages I've indicated which old classifications or grades are going into which new classifications are grades and what the percentage differential is from the previous classification minimums to the new classification minimums if you look at that entire list and it's a long one the calculations show clearly the need for higher reclassification percentages for the higher pay grades and lower reclassification percentages for the lower pay grades so what that really means is your 11% across the

board increase is going to more than accomplish the necessary reclassification increase for the low pay classifications and not completely accomplish the necessary reclassification increases for the higher pay classifications is that is that point clear I'll make sure that point is clear I have a question about that but I can hold it orad um I guess I am I understand what it means but I'm confused because because we with the the salary study that we used that was [Music] putting new you know measuring against Market rates so does that mean from that the previous salary study the the the October letters that that

none of those um for the people with the beginning of their career and in the lower pay grades none of those were Bel what am I trying to say sorry what none of those were um I thought that some of those were above 11% a lot of them were above 11% so that's why I don't understand yeah okay let me explain it easily uh the minimums in that previous study were the same as or essentially the same as what I'm recommending and the so the percentage differences between the minimums was pretty much the is pretty much the same the difference is those step that step compression I was talking about the schedules that were implemented converted all those

5 5% steps though it not only accomplished a reclassification it reconstituted all those previous step increments to a much higher step increment and and and and and that is also because the board chose to not implement the recommendation of the previous study with regards to experience and instead wanted to maintain the experience step and so that anded up making it cost more and therefore cost more and or generate higher salaries both well and well and to do it the way it was done in October would be absolutely ideal it would be ideal to do a reclassification and to reconstitute those step increments to something that was more that was that was granting more

compensation for those step increments it just ended up costing a significant amount more than you had in the budget okay so when you say the 11% um accomplishes the necessary reclassification increase plus some for those lower pay grades which means in effect that you are Grant you you have granted some add additional money for those step increments not as much as the one and a half% steps the step okay because the step is not the steps are still the same as they were previously right okay okay I need to intercede again um you're contemplating in this particular recommendation placing employees on the step that they're on

grants that experience with a smaller increment between the years but I think as Mr Crutchfield gets further into his recommendation it is the placement on the schedule that is key to the implementation of the schedule and then the differential really becomes more conversation the 1% on the year's experience really becomes a conversation about where people enter into the district as new employees and where they are placed based on what the recom he is making less so what happens year-over-year with staff that are that are stay here and their salary yes yes okay seems like there's also some conversation that folks had because there are a lot of folks that got 45% raises and felt those were actually Market rates and Market competitive right and what it really was was they were having all their steps reconstituted

79% I've actually bumped that up a little from your old study from the previous study the previous study had

that at less than 4% differential uh sorry when you say previous study you mean the study done before the hill no the the the hill the hill study because I the 56 is where you're you're classifying teacher assistance and I think competitively you needed to be a little higher than they said for Teacher assistance ask another clarifying question before you um it from what we've heard so far it looks like you're um making things fit within our budget and within the um requirements by the state but um as you're not necessarily right this moment but as you're going through can you help us understand a little bit more about like how everything aligns with the market rates like comparable to other neighboring districts with what you're presenting to us uh go ahead so this is this is where I I think the the schedules are that

79% increase but if that is less than and the 11% we would bump them up that scale to

where they get an 11% increase I'm not clear are you all clear you say that a different way but what we're trying to what what I'm trying to do is say every employee is going to get 11 uh 11% more than last year's pay or the reclassification percentage whichever is greater so in all those first three old grades 56 57 59 the reclassification increase is less than 11% all of those employees would would keep the 11% that you've already adopted in the placement they would not be placed with at those percentages they would be placed at 11% higher than last

57% increase which is more than the 11% and this is not the new schedules in the sense of the are these the schedules within the existing funds of available plus the 11% or does this scale contemplate additional dollars this scale

contemplates additional dollars okay there's no way not to need additional dollars if you're going to pay some people more than 11% more than last year so thank you for explaining that so when I look at that you said 56 57 59 the old grades um because 11% is because those are less than 11% um they would get the 11% right does that put do they get that 11% on the nc5 grade or is there another proposed grade that they would get we would calculate the 11% on the old grade 56 57 or 59 and then move them into the NC 05 06 ranges at that rate of pay at 11% at 11% higher than last year and then new people coming in and new people coming in would start at the minimum or the minimum plus experience credit gotcha thank you yeah

and then would another benefit of doing percent increases over time rather than steps be that um no one stays in the hold harmless Frozen kind of category but that everybody moves when everybody moves together is that that that is correct there's there's one qualification on that if you approve go ahead if you approve maximums on pay pay grades then once somebody hits the maximum they would top out and they would be hold harmless again but let me mention one other thing you heard from a number of therapists today and you know what I have done in my proposed new grades is I've had a 40% differential between minimum and maximum which is pretty much best practice in the industry today but the state pay ranges have as much as 60%

between minimum and maximum so if you have some people in certain pay grades that are really really experienced and you want to increase the maximum more than the 40% above the minimum you can do so as long as it stays within the state Maxim and the therapist is one category where that would happen you could increase the maximum above what I'm recommending without exceeding the State Maximum so those maximums were just I just calculated them based on best practices we can adjust those as long as the state maximums are not higher or rather not lower not lower I'm sorry what were the what was the diff percentage differential in the previous study pretty much the differential in the minimums

5% steps whatever that calculates to so that would have yeah so that would have been about 45% compounded when you do that compounding okay thank you so you somebody asked what the break point would be between 11% or more below 11% and and above 11% it's about it's about old pay grade 60 old paid grade 60 I think is like 10 and a half percent or something like that and 61 goes above 11% the next slide please so uh this is where I I talk

about the greater of unless the board plans to reduce the pay of those employees whose reclassification increase would be less than 11% which I'm not recommending that you do the following impact should be noted a complete reclassification based on this proposal would cost more than is currently available in the board's local budget each employees increase would be the calculated reclassification percentage or 11% whichever is greater and I have used a very nice app designed by your techsavvy CFO to calculate what my proposal would cost and it is approximately $8 million more than the 11% by itself that would be the cost of the

actual pay increases plus the matching retirement and Social Security cost on those increases but like I said if if you're going to increase some pay more than 11% and not decrease any pay below 11% it's going to cost more than you have in your current Year's budget one question for the folks who we're less than 11 so we would need to go to 11 correct would they end up in a whole harmless at some point or they just keep increasing they would keep in there would be plenty of room on their schedules for them to grow after that okay if you have a 40% differential between minimum and maximum there'd be plenty of room for them to grow and then you know the variability of your current step increments makes it

really impossible to arrange steps Within These new pay grades that would equitably accommodate all the possibilities of individual employee pay amounts that's another reason why I strongly recommend that you with your new schedules you eliminate steps and start uh doing all salary Administration by percentages next slide please so some recommendations the new pay classifications or grades in the handout starting on page three titled based on the state time titles with minimums and maximums that fit within the state mandated mandated Amounts is my recommendation for classified pay schedules for 2425 again if you have some categories of employees with really really experienced employees you can look at the maximums

that I've recommended and increase them as long as they don't go above the state maximums when there's a letter to the right of the grade number an AB or C it was necessary to change the minimum or maximum to fit within the state mandated pay range and generally that change was uh to fit within the State Maximum so again you could have a few uh very experienced people in a few paygrades new pay grades that would be above the maximum and you would have to decide do you hold them at the maximum of the new pay grade or do you pay them the difference with local funds and I don't like paying the

difference with local funds because it really does you know I'm afraid that there would be errors at some point that could create a law violation but that is always an option of paying those folks the difference with local funds next slide please more recommendations while every employee would be placed on the appropriate new grade based on all their previous experience plus the calculated reclassification increase or 11% whichever is greater I still recommend not having steps within the new paygrades the most Equitable and least error prome method of administering all salary actions for classified employees is through percentages percentages above the minimum for new hires with relevant experience and percentages above current pay for any type of general or experience-based

increase next slide please if uh if when you have fully funded the classification increase if the board obtains additional funding for classified employee pay I recommend adding some banded percentages based on DPS years of experience to help compensate for years of Frozen steps for example you could Grant an additional 2% of pay for each five years of DPS EXP experience and so if you had 10 years of DPS experience you'd go up 4% if you had 15 years you'd go up 6% and that would get you closer to accomplishing what the original implementation back in October accomplished but you could do it incrementally you could get there with

smaller amounts of money over a longer period of time if the board does approve the recommended actions on the previous slides I'll be glad to Draft salary Administration policies Andor regulations to equitably administer classified salaries in DPS I think the board should adopt salary Administration policies or reg or regulations so that everybody can see exactly how you are administering their pay and as I recommended last month I recommend that the board take official action authorizing the pace schedules and methods in place for July 1 2023 through February 28th 2024 as a separate action so that that becomes your official pay for that period of time and I know this is a lot of numbers

I know this is a lot of of uh analysis so I'll be glad to try to answer any questions yes I'm sure we have a lot get us started started with a really um um simple one I recently heard that the state considered increasing nurse pay for Academia so it's not 4 K through 12 they actually want to um set you know ra I'm sorry raise the minimums um um or provide a percentage increase as well I think for nurses that are in universities and it was very interesting because you know I don't know what study they did but I do know that we hear from our nurses as well that we are not paying them competitively um some of them have a lot of heart to be here but they're also like they could make much more money we know in the Healthcare System they make a lot of money but the Healthcare System also uh pays their president $1 million and upwards so so

there is that it's not a comparison I mean we are a school district that has been underfunded um there's Leandro monies that haven't been given to us but even beyond that I mean the Leandro is 30 years old if they were to do an analysis right now I mean we're trying to catch up to 30 years right and so right now the need would be greater so when it comes to these State man um reevaluations um they're pretty much like raising the floor correct right and and and and in some ways we might be doing equitably from some positions but some positions we not doing e because they may either undervalue the salaries of certain folks and in other cases they might you know value it value more and I'm wondering are there any Trends because we have different stakeholders in the classified pool it's very diverse and for example we have like custodians who you know have also said you know does the state care about custodial salaries did they raise the floor any you know any or they just raise certain you know so I just

wonder if there's any it on yeah I've I've been watching it for almost 40 years now and before the $15 per hour increase there were several actions by the state Personnel Administration to reclassify certain positions for example OTS and PTs have been reclassified at least four times over the last 30 years teacher assistants were reclassified up a pay grade it's been a number of years ago but they were reclassified so yeah anytime that happens that then applies to every school district in the state and the the school districts have to accommodate that the thing you mentioned nurses the new state schedules do significantly bump up RNs but they don't mention anything about LPNs there's nothing in the new state

schedules at all about nurses below the level of RNs so I just was going by The Hil market rate study in terms of the LPN nurses if I if I could just uh ask a I guess a question sure clarification based on the conversations that we've had as we were going through some of this information which I'm not sure that this was part of the presentation so okay do anyway um implementing what you're proposing as you are proposing is an additional cost to the district correct of somewhere in the vicinity of seven eight million yeah8 million 8 million for the people who were employed March 1 right so for the current employees based on this recommendation the additional

cost to implement which you are what you've outlined would be about $8 million corre and if the district the board wanted to make any changes or adjustments tws to what you have recommended obviously that alters the cost and I'm going to guess likely up not down because that's how great the need is right I agree okay all right just I just want to put that out there so that you have an idea I'm going to start over here m car a and then we'll come down this way um I just have two questions um and some of this is based on what we heard in public comment tonight um how do the salary scales compare to neighboring districts and are any employees making less than they were last year now and will any employees make less with the proposed changes than they did last year everybody is as of tomorrow making it at least or is M well

not at least everybody is making 11% more than last year everybody and to and to clarify last year 2022 2023 correct year correct and in my proposal uh they would be making the greater of 11% more than last year or the reclassification percentage and so and then The Hil study did all the market data analysis that you needed and compared you to lots of other districts but also looked at the cost of living factors in Durham p in Durham County besides that so all of that you you received a good study on that and that's what I've based my classifications

on I do think that um in some cases just from bird doging here and there there I mean you've got a a couple of neighboring districts that are kind of outliers in the state yeah um orang wake and so um so I I would not be surprised that some of the schedules don't reach what those districts um are paying Chapel car or orange and wake and then the other issue there is how have they administered step increments in those other districts so I I think you would find that there are maybe some very experienced employees who would make more in a neighboring dis District but it's not that the salary schedule there is any better from a minimum to maximum standpoint they've just granted or percentage increase for for experience so yes I mean there if you shopped

around uh certain employees could probably find higher pay in a neighboring School District yes helpful I just as we're thinking about this before we approve it it would be it's just helpful to see how we compare in major areas because these are our competitors and I better for worse like I mean if we're losing our staff to these other districts to the extent that it's possible and especially our most experienced staff right not something that we want but right yeah I mean people are confusing market rate schedules with other compensation issues the market rate schedules just show you a minimum and maximum that is competitive within your area how you administer people between the minimum and maximum is a totally different

issue ask a followup question on that I mean one of the things we heard really loudly and clearly from a lot of folks is around addressing that compression at the end of the scale and wanting to really ensure that our veteran folks are able to stay in DPS right they want to stay here right so if I'm and I'm maybe I don't have a question because I'm talking I might answer it but if I hear you correctly what I'm hearing is that some folks as they get to their later years and more veteran status might make more in DPS and while some might be able to go into other districts to find a hire possible yeah okay yes I'd be curious to know which roles that is and I know that might get complicated um there's a lot of different classifications well again I I think the therapists are a primary category that I think it would be good probably to increase the maximum from my

proposal by another 10% or so it stays within the State Maximum and it it makes sure that you're very experienced folks don't look at it and say oh I'm going to take a pay cut and that that was actually the example that I was contemplating when I was saying earlier especially in those places where we are below the State Maximum that the board could choose to be more expansive than what the schedule is that Mr Crutchfield has presented and that would be an additional cost but would be more in line perhaps with the board's right goal yes Miss leou did you have okay thank you for this presentation and welome us through it um in a way that we're able to answer ask questions along the way to get to this point now um the variations and the steps was curious to me you did explain how some of those variations came about so I'm definitely interested in setting policy that

prevents those variations um as you had talked about uh so we can get continue to keep that Equity across the tables it feels like we there's a lot of things that have to happen for this to go through there's the grades that now have have a number in a letter that change would have to be made that correct we have to make a decision about how to cover increases year over-ear we have to make a decision about the maximum those are all policy decisions and also the decision about yeah that was a year-over year for variability to um stay the same is there a order of operation because I see it comprehensive but one does impact the other how how do we get to making those policies decisions so that one doesn't impact negatively with what against what we're trying to do well your Finance staff can can look at you know how to

implement the recommendations and they can they can see any exceptions jumping out at them in terms of those maximums and I can help them once they find those exceptions to try to make sure that we can fix that but like I said in one of on one of my slides it's it's very possible that you won't be able to increase the State Maximum in some of those categories and that you might have to use local funds on top of what's in the what's in the official schedule okay I have two more questions with the changes in the grades potentially if that's something that we choose to do is our finance system able to handle that change and I know we were getting into um implementing a new system coming into the 21st century I'm not sure how far along we are with that process and can we handle those

changes I know your current payroll system can handle the changes I'm not familiar enough with the new payroll system which has not been implemented yet but my guess is since it's a modern system that it can handle it well the old one can handle it yes the one we're trying to get away from yes okay and then my last question is about this um $8 million 8 million new with this current recommendation is there a way to get to the8 million in a tiered way I know we talked about compensation studies being implemented over a couple of years is it possible to um do this is it all or none no it it is possible to to do it incrementally yes and I can I can work on that if if you want me to thank you all right I have a few questions um

I wanted to say before I forget I would also like to see those um comparisons with other um with other districts can is that something we can we can receive um I think we can do the men's Maxes piece um with other districts if you and I mean I don't know that it's um and I don't know how much of that is in the previous study but because I think what you're asking specifically is mins and Maxes in all of the categories that we're talking about against peer districts or approximate districts yeah yes and interestingly some districts have all of that posted online right like Wake County Schools does so it would be very easy to get it from them other districts you would you might have to dig some okay well that would that would be

helpful from districts that we lose teachers or lose uh staff to I think um but but again it it really only tells you half the story yeah because you can't tell how they've administered moving people within those ranges okay I mean there's like there there would be a set of sort of corollary questions yeah what do what do do they use a step system do they use a bandit system what are there fixed increments are there guaranteed movement from one year to the next those are all sort of correlated questions right that are embedded within the men's and Maxis and do they Grant experience credit for new hires at year for year or one year for two years or one year for three years or so I feel like we received that that information for nearby districts about the years of service and how they take that in but yeah I'm interested in all of that but if we had just the mens and Maxes um that I think that would be helpful to to

understand the landscape a bit more um I'm also interested in um in seeing some examples where we could compare last year's salary this year's October salary this year's March salary and next year's salary based on this proposal it would be helpful to see that in a few different um different positions Mak sense and so we can wrap our minds a little bit more around what this is really looking like for people when they um are looking at these numbers for their personal situation absolutely um thank you and then I wanted to see where are the new state pay ranges can you just point us to where those they're on NC dpi's website okay and just as a corollary to that the the things that you saw on the slide with nc4 nc06 are the DPI

classifications right um and I think in terms of parity across the state and peer districts and all of that moving to those that that methodology that using those grades is very helpful right with us of course establishing what the men's and Maxes we know what the men's are and the Maxes are but how we Implement in between um I I wanted to let's see what um I wanted to ask what if we want to increase the minimum wage because there's talk of of increasing that to $24 an hour which is I'm not saying we have money for that right now but that is quite reasonable um for living um here and which is 49

people um I mean we want people to move incrementally up um but is there ever a World in which there's a way to um I guess I mean I think this is what Miss Mo has talked about happening before but like cap things at the tops you know to a certain degree or is there another way around that that doesn't affect compression but how can we bring people who are at the lower end of the scale up the the problem with with that is you really need to bring everybody up the same rate within each category if you bring some up to from your probably current $18 an hour to $24 an hour that same percentage should be applied to everybody within that pay grade if you do that you're going to push the people with lots of experience

above the State Maximum and then you're going to have to be having some State funding and some local funding paying a lot of your employees what that looks like to me is that going to that high of a of a minimum wage is going to create a living wage for everyone but will significantly compress within the different schedule ual how high you can go without exceeding the State Maximum right and and cause a different kind of compression where uh for example the the um monthly maximum for a Transportation safety assistant on the DPI schedule is 3709 a $25 an hour wage is 4,400 a month so you just exceeded the maximum for one category and there there may be a few others that that's but but and

then when you look at those maximums for others that are may already be starting somewhere around 25 and what their maximum is with not much change or year over-ear you just have a lot of employees that in the past have there have been differences in what the pay scales were that are now all bunched together which is though the reality of Durham and how expensive it is to live here how expensive how is and you know our city and county governments are both now costing out 22 and $25 an hour and how they get their employees there and so it is critical for us to have a long-term plan to move our employees at those same levels and those same rates and frankly shame on North Carolina North Carolina needs to pay Educators classified staff better it's all on the state and there's a there's always going to be a limit to what we can do locally but we still have to Aspire to stay

where folks can can afford to live in this community and work in this community so yeah both and yeah well and I I'll just have to to say this it was like pulling teeth just to get the state to agree to go to $15 an hour minimum and just a little history as so I think I'm remembering this correctly some of how when we Durham moved to $15 an hour is how we ended up with all these variables in between steps because it was like we have a certain amount of dollars we want to move um our minimum wage up to 15 and so then you ended up with a lot of these weird increments in between because we had to figure out how to get what we wanted within a certain dollar amount and so we could end up in that same place again if you if you don't have enough money to inre everybody exactly and that's what that's what happen exactly so that is my question though is what is our minimum starting wage under

your new scenario Mr grro I have not calculated but I can that that would be helpful as as we bring and I I forgot to start with thanking you for this work and bringing it so quickly and showing us the complexity of it and I want to thank all the speakers that came tonight and um acknowledg the um the hurt and the harm that that has been um caused um to our own employees which is the last thing that this board would have ever wanted to have happened um one of the things we liked in the Consultants work was an EC differential is that protected in this yes it is and um actually it's protected and increased slightly great and then the 8 million um would just be to do what you've said does that build in a raise in 2425 or that is holding Folks at the rates that of this new study I've just

I've just shown you what what would be implemented if you were only implementing it right now you would have to ask for money for the legislated increase for next year on top of that which we think is 3% is that what you were modeling is that yes yeah yes so I'd say it this way if if if the if the schedules that Mr Crutchfield has presented represent more than 11% raise that's what folks would get if it's less than 11% they would keep at least the 11% they already have we already know there's another 3% coming from the state so that's not in these schedules at all so that's coming on top of whatever happens here um whenever we make decision um and any changes that the board wants to see and how we might implement or create the schedules that have a budgetary impact would be added to that as

well and if folks think that they're Max is too low like the therapist what should they do if if specific employee groups well we we can we can uh check that okay when when we start the implementation process we can like I said we can find those outliers and as long as we can increase the maximums without exceeding the state maximums it would be a non-issue and remind me for teachers in Durham do we cap them at their 30-year pay or do we they are capped in terms of the state base pay I don't know whether you cap them in terms of supplement or not I think it'd be interesting to look at look at how we treat Educators and most of the districts would cap them both in supplement and in base pay yeah what do you what do you see my last question is as next steps and a timeline for this it's the question of how much

we put in the budget request is that part of next steps well that's why I wanted to get to you as quickly as possible so that you could have an idea of what you would need and uh so yeah like I said we can start running run some trial or or not we but your Finance folks can start running some trial conversion runs for individual employees to try to find out what where those outliers were and that needs to happen between now and July one when you would have to adopt the new schedules if I could just say that with regards to um the superintendent's proposed budget and then the board's proposed budget that is um a request to the Commissioners to to implement what Mr Crutchfield is proposing would be an additional $8

million in local funds if we contemplate beyond that that there may be some work that needs to be done in some of the ranges where we are not at the State Maximum and we want to do that um or if we want to um build in funds that would contemplate keeping steps year-over-year versus or or requesting an additional amount every year that functions the same as an experience step increase but comes as a request every year versus being built into the schedule then then those dollars those would those amounts would impact above the $8 million request let me let me just clarify something real quick the app that I used for the calculation for the 8 million did not cap anybody so it went ahead and calculated the greater of the 11% or the

reclassification increase so it did not have in it built into it a cap at all so the 8 million covers that part okay okay thank you M Rogers want why don't you go ahead and go um thank you madam chair Mr Crutchfield thank you for this presentation um I feel like we are making progress and getting um ahead and trying to make these changes um I'm GNA look to Miss Smith Mr Malone Dr Giovani I think that on the recommendation slide you have um a request for us to take action to pay to authorizing the pay schedules and

so our minutes from January 25th show that we did that through January do we need to do that for February I think the board has already finished out the year you've brought everything current through the end of February and you made the 11% increase to get you March April May and June so I don't think you need to do anything to finish out this fisal year okay okay I just wanted to make sure that we got that because that's what the minutes reflect um okay uh my other questions have already been answered but I did have one last question and I just want to make sure that I am understanding this correctly um and that is when we talk about I know

this has been asked a lot when we talked about talk about the 11% nobody's going down from next year but it is Poss I that the board could say we want to make the classification change for or yeah change where people fall in the schedule for next year starting July one and in our budget ass make a an additional request for a percent bump for everybody yes okay and you and your slid say that implementation would happen July 1 traditionally we don't do the implementation until the state passes their budget like most leas but it's retroactive to July but it's retroactive to July we would still do that I want to make sure that people understand that whatever gets decided

would be effective July one right but it the only the only way to know what it is July 1 is for the legislature to not make make any changes to the Appropriations Bill and maintain the 3% for the Commissioners to determine exactly how much it is that we are getting and for the decisions to be made about how what we get and what we already have is being utilized um and even then it it takes some a couple of months be the earliest I've ever seen schedules actually adopted is around the end of September um so you're always backtracking a little bit but that is the normal Cadence we we did uh I was able to get schedules adopted in for sight at the end of July twice in my 38 years okay I just I just wanted to be clear and make sure everybody understood yeah that we weren't like withholding pay or any of that stuff in July that's helpful um I look forward to seeing what

we accomplish together I think that's an important Point Miss Rogers for folks who are listening and for our employees what you are currently the right currently will be there until something shift once we find out the bud the state budget and that kind of information um I I have I would like to see us this is just for discussion and for information so it's been a really rich discussion I would like to see us explore maximums that hit the State Maximum we should just get that uh especially those going to be reimbursed by the state I am curious if I am interested in coming to dur public schools and I want to know where I might be paid how do I how do I like I have five years of experience and I'm coming in as a classified person like how do I figure out where how much my salary again percentages I think are the easiest way to administer that and in for Scythe we had a board policy and

regulation that specified exactly how that would happen yeah because but I'm I'm not sure that staff currently who want to respond to the to our proposal can understand where they fall right and I think the step the the nice thing about the salary schedules and the way the steps look people were able to kind of try to see where they were even though we know there's a lot that that goes into that and so I'm wondering how we can not we haven't made a decision but as people are trying to look to respond to how can we get it as clear as possible for employee so they can understand where they might fall on this and that that might be really hard well I think I think there are a couple decisions that have to be made first like you know he we Mr Crutchfield is presenting mens and Maxes he has not presented schedules that include steps or ranges or whatever it is that we might want to have moving forward um and that is that's an important point if the

if the board wants to continue to to use um years of experience and a rollover every year where you increase by one and there is an increase in Pay um it's important to know that that's what you want to do because that's what you've done um there is an increased cost that you are committing to without having the funds identified year over-year to do that you are anticipating that you will F all right that you will find the fun funds could be through existing dollars in the district could be through an additional request for local funds from the commissioner it's possible that some years depending on the EB and flow of employees in and employees out that the amount Remains the Same but you don't ever know that until after the next school year begins so you're really in order to be fiscally sound you'd have to request that amount every year that is reflected with the experience um that's

the only way that you know that you have it will request and get it and appropriate it so but whatever you adopt I would strongly recommend that you give every employee a pay statement that shows exactly what they made in 2022 23 exactly what they're making in March of 2024 and exactly what they're going to be making in July or whenever of 2024 and and that pay statement they can go back and check their pay stubs or their pay notices and make sure that it's accurate and then you administer by percentages is it was my recommendation if you're if you are if a basic tenant of moving forward with any schedules is to maintain a commitment to increasing regardless of what the

legislature might do then it really is that the how you do it right um whether you bake it into schedules and make the commitment with the and and because otherwise because if in a year where you don't have the money or don't get what you request you end up freezing schedules all over again and you don't want have to do that I think that's why Mr crutch is saying you don't commit to it that way but either way you're making a commitment you you're going to need to make a commitment to either putting it in a schedule that you show or in a request that you make every year even if it's the exact same amount right I wonder if it would be helpful to see some sample schedules I think we I think in order to do that we have to also decide how we want to we can we can show the schedules that have the 1% differential that do the mins and the Maxes we can show that

schedule for every year and the purpose of that schedule initially right now would be about placement on the schedule where do you get placed based on your years of experience and based on what that schedule shows the decision on how you move on that scale would then depend on what kind of a commitment the board makes around what that looks like every year where the let me just mention and where the fun no matter how you put steps within the ranges I've proposed you will not move people over there based on their current years of experience because a lot of those people will get 11% more than last year which is which will put them somewhere on that schedule other than the step that they were on in 22 23 right so it will be confusing no matter what you do that's right and I think I'm trying to figure out how do we make it less confusing that's why say the pay notice

is the way the pay notice is the way to do it which my only concern is that that means that we need to approve it so that everyone can get the individual thing individual statements versus having an opportunity for people to be able to engage around this process now um I'm wondering if there are other districts that do the um and I don't know if W Force life is one of those examples that if you could give us some maybe other districts we can just go kind of look at their website about how they present their salaries um because I I'm I want to make sure that people can look at this and understand what's happening and that's where I'm wondering and I think a lot of conversations I've heard with folks like I want to know what I where I would fall and what I would get paid and I know the minimum maximum doesn't quite they know they fall somewhere in there um but that I don't know exactly how to do that but that feels well again the the board policy or regulation helps people who are planning to work here

right be able to figure out where they would follow on the schedule the the existing people the only way I think for them to to understand it is to do that individualized pay notice but no one would be getting less than what they nobody would be getting less than 11% more than they got last year yeah right right right well and and and technically we we know another 3% is coming on top of that right right so can you do you mind um because you have three handouts that are online that some of them have titles that just to clarify what they are the one that says handout page one is is kind of a historical document of the 2223 minimums minimums correct and the percent change on that one is what does that number reflect from St incre is yes the increase from grade to grade grade to grade yep grade to grade

27 you're actually what you might want to do is add a column that says if it's less than 11 then it's going to be 11 right that right clear that up so that nobody's

right right yeah yeah that's helpful thank you yeah and my handouts Pages three to six are my recommended schedules but with possibly some adjustments in the maximums and the question of how you get placed on the schedule is something the Board needs to create a policy around well you know my recommendation is showing you how I would place them if you agree with that that would take care of placing your existing employees your policy is needing needed to show new hires how they would get placed on the schedules I I think I I understand and I want to figure out how we can get something clear for people who are currently employed right um but that sounds like it's really a one to like

it's an individual process y I'm afraid so um okay I think that's all my questions for now a lot will already asked I actually have one school district that contracts with me to provide an individualized pay notice every year that's which I think is an excellent idea I think the pay no over year is an excellent idea I think there's a there's some when you also think about pay equity and the idea that schedules are very public and people can know where you fall on like that part I think is another piece that I I think I like but I and I understand why we would need to like why this proposal is the way it is but that idea if I can go and look and see where I should be I think it's just a helpful Clarity piece because and I think and then to your point the proposal and policy around how you place people to get really clear right because

I think what we also have heard over the last couple months is it's not clear how people had gotten placed on their steps before and how experience was counted and that kind of thing and that feels like an important thing for us to clarify um in policy as well uh Miss vodis thank you uh Mr Crutchfield I have a um a little bit of a question um I'm understanding that we want to make sure we stay within state laws and that we don't go over State um maximums I mean that's that's we don't want to have to get in trouble and the state comes and tells us you know um but that's with State money I I was just going to say I don't think I don't think the issue is that you cannot exceed the state maximums I think are issues with where the funds come from to do so and then some other little pieces around the accounting of it that become tricky yeah so and and I

understood that what what I'm saying is that's with State monies like the state if we allocate State funds towards any position and we're over what they recommend uh over their maximums then we're liable because the state is going to say you used my money right um in a way that didn't fall within the threshold or you know range um bands the range right um however locally and and and I'm going to go I'm going to go to this because this is this is actually um uh I'm going to give you an example so locally we do think about supplements you know um the local funds it's a percentage and then you know for teachers it was like $800 or something like that not a whole lot of money right um for certified teachers for classified staff there's a there's been the question at the county level like you know what are the supplements look like and and here's where I think there is a

a need to do it a Durham a Durham um initiative and I know I know it puts us on Shaky Ground when we don't have the pro the promise that we're going to have local funds to fund initiatives but where I'm going is that there are local initiatives that are very very much Durham um that don't exist anywhere in the state so I'm going to go to my comment earlier about nurses because this is important a lot of nurses have expressed that and I just wanted to tell you that just even Googling right about the budget um it says that um the state decided that nursing faculty so not so at that level of higher education uh colleges faculty will um their salaries would would be increased by 10% that 10% it says and other faculty at the school of nursing may receive pay races up to 15% so the state decided that there's this group that needs a 10%

everybody's getting 4% everybody's getting 4% but then nurses particularly they they singled out to say nurses should make 10% some of whom um that are in the um School of Nursing may receive pay raises up to 15% I'm GL the state is looking at that group but there are there are groups that are not there's not enough data about their market value um for example in Durham Public Schools based on the population we have multilingual families that is a very Durham concern um not concern as the the wealth of families but more about the concern that we're being Equitable in terms of providing services for multiple languages and growing trends that our department you know when in their last presentation showed that there are some friends of languages that um are going to require Personnel like kto is a growing it's it's it's still in the smaller um Let me let me say the word in the lower uh percentage um on that on on the percentage range right but but it's

growing I mean the growth rate is pretty is is is something that that um the MRC has been tracking and so we we understand the state and what the state thinks the value of but I don't see a comprehensive study that they've done again custodians interpreters for example um the the the need for interpreters the need for instructional assistance I do know that they you know the state did address that but we have to figure out local Durham initiatives based on what Durham cares about that may not be the same in either smaller sized counties or Les less diverse uh counties and in that way I'm not going against the recommendation to be careful and to be you know conservative in a way about like how we make promises about raises or make promises about supplements or anything that is going to address the demand for this particular skill set here locally geographically here in Durham so I'm I'm not trying to say let's sign up for something we we we

don't know if we're going to have funding if if the if the county is going to continue to keep that commitment but I do think that it is important for us to differentiate um what has the state acknowledge and what has a state not acknowledged where is a state where are those minimums and maximums you know um equable and where are they not based on the particular demographics of a demographics of a school district in Durham for example well and and the new state pay grades do cover a a vast variety of of employees interpreters are included there are lots of employees that are included the state did a study but it was done about three years ago because what they're implementing now was actually published the first time about three years ago so it's a

little bit out of date and it is definitely not geared to specific localities so you know anything that you want to do on on top of that is a Durham Public Schools decision the the main reason I I just don't like over 75% of your classified employees are paid with State funds primarily or all of State funds I've been around too long I'm a dinosaur but at least one time in my 38 years the state gave a legislated increase but they did not increase the maximum at all on their pay scale so if you just did the 2% or 3% legislated increase on their previous year's pay which is what most school districts would do with their payroll system if somebody was already at the State Maximum last year

and you increased it 2% when the state didn't increase the maximum you have violated state law the only reason I know that is because it happened to me in Winston Salem forai so I mean that's my that's my fear is if you start having a local pay on top of the state pay you could end up accidentally violating a law I had to follow up just to that because uh one of my colleagues asked about EC and how the intent was to provide EC um you know just just better pay right um because we're we're really needing EC report um and and Personnel but and you said that based on the state new grades it looks like they they did um they do they do align with with our intent to raise that particular constituency but I have a question about um some of the durm initiatives like restorative practice coordinators some of whom already have different titles

but if we were ever to move to uh increasing these efforts of restorative practices which is something Durham is committed to we don't really have you know that the benefit of a salary study that accounts for initiatives like that that are very Durham um and and interpreters just like EC like is there do you have any any sense of of whether you you're saying before that they are receiving an increase but I was wondering in terms of EC and these are the two caps that we have statewide where we feel like the state is not you know with those caps is limiting our ability to fund this kind of effort um what is what is the state of EC um sorry of ESL just just like EC do you think that they're their minimums and maximums are the estate does give you a a range option for interpreters so it's not just one a single pay grade they say that I think it's either two or three pay grades they give you for interpreters and we have put yours at the highest thank

you any more questions I do think board there's a lot of recommendations here and I do think we need to make sure we give Mr Crutchfield Direction on what we want to see happen next this Rec this is a um information for discussion so any direction or feedback we should give that to him today so we can bring this back and make decisions on what we would like to see done so I just want to open it is there any other feedback or direction we would like to give Mr Crutchfield as he can continues on this work I mean addition to what folks have already said and you're going to summarize what you've heard you heard a lot of the surrounding districts you heard a lot of the what's our minimums and I heard a lot and I don't know that I can summarize at this moment let me take a Sab at a few of them all right um some tables that show mins and Maxes for some neighboring and competitive districts and then um and maybe a couple

of questions if they have readily available information about how they implement the schedule um which is you know placing for years of experience how much differential between those years or steps or however it is that they pay have they been granting step increments in years when the state didn't right give um I think there is uh that you also want him to uh do the work to revise some of this uh men and Maxes Max and what that would look like yeah um I think a couple of outstanding questions would be um do you want him to establish schedules that show the 1% per year without any really decision about how we're how we're implementing year-over-year what happens with that one% but just so that people can sort of either find themselves on there right well and that's a little fuzzy of a question to because you could it could

it could it could serve for um it could serve to inform people as to what those salaries would look like from year zero to year 30 um but I think the additional sort of addendum piece that that Mr Crutchfield suggested about a a pay notice would you call it pay notice and it could be a proposed you know a no a pay notice based on the proposal that's in place not an actual one but it could be a proposal and I mean there's some there's work to do there it would help people be more informed right about how they are responding to what the change would be before the change is made and you know you want feedback that's the way to get some feedback and that would be conditioned on getting the whole eight million or 10 million extra right that would all be and that's there are some assumptions in what that those and that would probably need to go on the notice um the assumptions would be that you're being placed on this

schedule based on the current years that you have been B based on what your C current salary is and what based on the years that you've had whether or not it corresponds to the years on the schedule right right I hope that made sense it made sense to me when I said it but I don't know if I can say it again the same way um and uh and the assumption that that pay notice is predicated upon an additional $8 million that would be needed to be uh added to the current budget for classified salary schedules those would be a couple of assumptions well and I've already created salary schedules with the 1% steps okay I have that we won't have to pay for that again [Laughter] right but the but then you can take from that the information you need to create that pay notice with all those little caveats and qualifiers on them um but I think really that is the way that our staff will know where they land um and

there are a couple of other little things like the the 3% that we expect that's coming that's outside of whatever happens with the $8 million if that's where we land um but I think those are some those are some helpful things show the schedules show the pay notice um not make we don't have to make a decision right now about how we do year-over-year but but but I'm going to say right now the cost to do year-over-year assuming the same set of employees move from one year to the next is about a million dollars based on our current for each one% for each one% it's a million dollars for each one% correct so well I I think that that possible pay notice is is a great idea if you really think that people are using bad information to decide to leave you right now the more information you can get in your in their hands the earlier you can get it in their hands the better I think make the pressure

more meaningful right because that's a good thing yeah yeah I really like that idea with some really clear language around if the school district's local budget ask is fully funded this is could be where you are without that additional funding this might change but I think that could help because I do think people are making decisions about what where they're going to be this year and and where they might be interested in looking and this is the time where transfer portals have opened up and other and you know folks are hiring for the upcoming school year so I think trying to be as clear um to our employees and give as much information as possible I just think is helpful to all of our Educators um okay so that feels like you got some direction Mr Crutchfield and well some of it will be for me and some of it will be for your Finance sta I think that's right Miss Le did you have a question as well okay

sorry one thing that that's been a problem in operations for a long time and I don't know if it's a case where the Max's top out would be the consideration of the uh Transportation folks and the skilled trades so if you can look at those like areas specifically as you look at State Maxes and whether those are lining up with with the needs and and hoping to keep people after 30 years as well I think those are so critical okay all right thank you Mr Crutchfield we look forward to additional information coming from you um Bard I would uh suggest that we take a 10-minute recess and then come back we also um I would also suggest before we take that recess that we make some changes to our agenda um and have the transportation overview of the 2024 initiatives and growing together update um moved into our April 11th work session

I would yeah I would move that we make those um changes yes sorry and I'd just like to kindly remind us that we need emotion to get a reset yes ma'am we want to consider just moving the transportation the next one but keeping TR together now since we asked for that we can my my um my request for moving was just around the time I think we'd be at midnight having that conversation so we we can absolutely keep it but I just want it to be mindful of where we were with time I mean the slides are out for the public um the information is there um I'd support moving it to the workst I say up to the board I do it does look like we have some folks in the audience who waiting for that presentation so I do want to apologize for that or what let's do this let's take our um um let's take a mo a motion to do our

10-minute recess and then we'll come back and make a decision on that one move to go into a 10-minute recess second been moved by Miss Roger seconded by miss viar any other discussion all in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign passes unanimously thank you e

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e I was gonna say good evening or good night everyone uh we're gonna our recess is now ended so we're back in session um there was before we went to recess um an idea of taking two of our agenda items items and moving them to our work session in April that includes a transportation overview of 2024 initiatives presentation as well as a growing together update do I have a motion for from the board to amend the agenda Madam chair I make a motion to amend the agenda to move growing together updates and transportation updates to our April work session the second it's been moved by Miss Rogers seconded by Miss Lewis is there any other discussion all those in

favor say I I those opposed please use the same sign uh so it passed it passed that was one n so it passes 51 I just want to uh apologize to all the folks we know that we had Transportation folks who were here waiting for their presentation as well as some community members who wanted to hear about growing together update we know how important um both of those really are but also want to be kind of mindful of the time that we have and want to have a want to dedicate time to have a rich and robust conversation about those items and so really feel like having that at our April work session will allow us to have the opportunity to have the robust conversation needed we also know that there are a lot of concerns around growing together implementation we've heard a lot of families emailing us and we ask you to continue that engagement um it's a new program it's a new implementation and we're finding out many of the flaws in that process and also hearing about maybe some of the disconnect between the intent of the policy and the intent of the board and then what's actually happening with family every day and as we know we're

getting ready to go on spring break people are making a lot of choices please do not hesitate to reach out to us so we can make sure that we can be in communication and try to support families as you're navigating this new system um Miss Cara Aon did you have a comment I just wanted to verify that one advantage of moving this presentation to the next meeting would be that we have even we have updated data at that point like this won't be the same presentation it will be data that is even more advanced along in the lottery process thank you for that yes that's that would be great that these presentations are put together the Friday before or have sent the presentations are sent in the Friday before the board meeting it does kind of the date of it's probably a little even older from now we got it all right great so with that we've amended our agenda the next item is community eligibility program DPS implementation plan I'll pass it to Miss Moore thank you as our folks make their way up here to the podium to get ready for for their presentation it's going be Matthew and

Dr Palmer and dri tner thank you I I just want to sort of start with a A Brief sort of overview um I'm really happy about bringing this recommendation to the the board this evening um I can tell you that it's it's one of those things that I I started having conversations about and worked really hard to try to bring visibility to in a previous District that didn't get there um and so to be able to move this work here and and really just bring folks together and give them an opportunity to ask each other questions and review each other's knowledge to get to a place where um uh we're ready to move forward with a recommendation and and to also thank not just the board but the community members in particular um you know this this particular presentation this initiative this where we're headed is is very reflective of a community that really does work really hard day in and day out uh to try to

build the capacity and invest in all of its citizens and I just think that's fabulous so um and then just as a you know after those nice words a little word of caution um we are bringing a recommendation specifically about implementing C districtwide there are a number of things that run parallel in terms of discussions to that that have come out as a part of this like savings and what happens with the savings and how we use those moving forward or discussions about um uh quality Supply you know Staffing and some other things that are all really important and things that we've got to look into as we do this implementation but tonight's focused area of discussion is moving forward with implementation and what that would look like districtwide so I'll turn it over to Matthew and deret thank you superintendent Moore good evening Board of Education and the Durham Community um this evening we will

lay out uh some background information with regarding Community eligibility provision program data that we have available both within nutrition in our federal programs and recommendations moving forward this is the combined effort of our departments in nutrition and federal programs we're excited about that this is hard work and I want to be clear about that this is hard work for the administration and it is for the community as well we'll get started then with the next slide this is our why it is very straightforward we serve as children and you heard from some of our children this evening uh in that regard that is what this work is all about and thank you superintendent Moore for setting us on our course for tonight's agenda there are many things we need to do to improve service for these children one of them is the availability of food for all children at no cost of families that's what tonight's conversation is about next slide please our desired outcomes are such to review nutrition data definitions and

calculations outline the community eligibility Provisions program we're going to do a Light review we will share data you will hear in this presentation and in others we are forward leaning with sharing information this is a Light review we'll walk through that um but we will not read line by line in the data slides in addition we'll lay down a road map for dpsc at a district level and considerations there within next slide please with regards to our definitions and calculations words matter and Concepts matter one of the challenging aspects of this project is that there's been some misunderstandings from the word go right and in particular understandably territory departments trying very hard to all do our best to service our children the definitions we're laying out are going to try to rectify and clarify some of those points next slide please the allows for free breakfast and lunch for all children at a school level

or at a district level for those that participate in the program it is reliant on the identified student percentage rates those ISP rates are an indicator at a state federal on local level with regards to low income poverty measures I will remind the board these are the same met tricks that we use when we talked about diversity equity and inclusion for the implementation of growing together our Lottery application programs and weighted lotteries next slide please ISP is calculated through two inputs our direct certification rates those include family poverty indicators such as snap eligibility tanif Medicaid Medicare that also includes local student verification data that our office of school nutrition collects such as foster care rates students and and families experiencing homelessness enrollment in Head Start and early start programs as well as the children of Youth as well as children whose parents are migrants so we collect all of that

2 3% ISP districtwide I want that to sit for a moment simultaneously we have the lowering of the threshold from participation from 40 to 25% and our increase in poverty here in

dur with participation in the program what's required of that simply put thanks to the leadership in federal programs we are already doing exactly that which is required to rank order our per pupil allocations starting with our lowest income come schools to ensure that they're getting the most money there was some misunderstanding there and I want to rectify that here we are already doing some of the very best practices that is required to participate in C example would be a school with a higher ISP rate would correspondingly get a higher per people allocation lower ISP rates would commensurate with lower per people allocations next slide please the benefits of participation in this are direct to our students and all students free breakfast and lunch free of charge in addition the cost and administrative burden to our families our schools and our school system are lowered no school meal debt no collections no asking

8% as a group Next slide please currently today with the expansion from 2223 to 23 24 we added

nine schools you can see those that are total one receiving and those that are not we have 28 total CVP schools as of today that is exactly half of Durham Public Schools School population next slide please we've been asked to share available data cost and benefits as it relates to school nutrition by there again we have 28 schools participating in the C program this Academic Year of those that increased in joined that c program from 2223 to 2324 the increase in participation in our breakfast and lunch programs grew by 18% for those schools that is comparing October 22 to October 23 data at a national level when we look at how does CP do across the country we see nationally at a minimum 10% increases

across the board next slide please participation also allows for durm which has been instituting the universal free breakfast program to recover those Investments that we've made which account to almost $600,000 a year back into Durham Public Schools through Federal reimbursement next slide please avoiding having to collect free and reduced lunch applications saves on mailings postage envelopes the personnel and requirement to mail and collect that information in addition the negative meal debt that we've accured annually as a function of there again board policy and Community Values and preference to not collect that negative meal balance we have incurred that cost in our budgets the revenue gained the meal reimbursements are reflective of increased participation we've been very conservative here we've only used that national average of 10% remember again

5 million next slide please with that let me hand it over to Dr Danner to walk through the title one considerations Dr Danner thank you Mr Palmer good evening superintendent Moore and board members prior to presenting tonight's information regarding C and funding applications for Title One schools an email was shared with Elementary and Middle School Title One principles tonight I will share how tital one schools are identified as well as to as well as the distribution of funds to identify schools next slide please prior to completing the yearly ncdpi Title One funding application the district considers three options for

6 multiplier which may increase the number of tital one schools and also reduce tital one funding per school next slide please when there are changes in poverty percentages tital one identification is

likely to shift schools with poverty percentages higher than 75% and not identified as title on such as Lake View view which you will see later in the presentation the district must show comparable Services meaning state and local funds allocated to this school is greater than the tital one allocation additionally distribution of funding occurs in rank order using a prup allocation times the number of lowincome students next slide please before I share what funding may look like for tital one schools during the 2425 school year the information on this slide is a projection based on 2324 funding with a projected raise increase in the administrative and districtwide initiatives and indirect cost the district receives its title one allocation in May from the state department out of the

8,377 120 6,518 1,960 of these dollars comprise prek Staffing teaching and learning coaches students experiencing homelessness and Foster Care Transportation directly impacts schools the projected remaining amount of 6,314 280 is distributed to schools next slide please the information on the next few slides highlights the breakdown of school funding outlined as follows ranking of Title One schools using direct certification data only projected per pupil allotment by poverty bands and projected teacher allotment per School the per puple allotment ranges from $825 to $536 you will also observe that Lake View a non-title one school falls into

5 FTE will be supported with Title

One school funding Mr Palmer thank you Dr Darren next SL please oh a road map forward we are to go districtwide C how do we do it and what are the next steps next slide please to reset providing Equitable access to free breakfast and lunch it's fairly straightforward with regards to elig ability all students would eat for free in the morning and in the afternoon in addition students that are migrating schools and including the opening of the new school Murray massenberg would be eligible to participate in addition reducing the administrative burden allows our staff to focus on what's most important which is to serve our kids we need better food we need local food we need to reduce our food waste these are all realities superintendent Moore you named it in the opening remarks is the focus of our team

in addition participation in this does not lock us into a five-year window or anything of the sort it does however allow us if those District level C and ISP rates change over time we have increased enrollment which is the long-term plan for many of us in the room right that this gives us a fiveyear window to work within at any time we can go back reapply or adjust schools on an annual basis so the five years to adapt before having to renew ensures that we have districtwide free lunch and free breakfast for 5 years should we choose to revisit that at any time on an annual cycle we can again to repeat my opening remarks with regards to alignment in the Strategic plan this is conforming to many of the diversity equity and inclusion goals that we discussed over the summer with regards to Growing together it ensures that our resources are going to the students that need them most next slide please in summary I want to thank Dr Danner and Administration and the board

for support in exploring this we've been talking about it for a year but this is the first time that I've been able to speak publicly about it on a personal level this matters a great deal to me I started as a teacher in the classroom I know what it's like when kids can't eat I admire and appreciate the support from everyone in administration to figure out how could we do this and what would it take I'm taking a risk on a personal level but I think you need to know this matters to all of us working with Dr Danner has been a privilege on this project because we found a way to work it through I know we're not talking about growing together tonight but I want to say this right here growing together isn't about residential growth and the 5,000 kids that are coming to Durham in the next five years growing together is about mindset how we think about working with each other that is what it's about our timeline we need to collect data in April we need to look at what those numbers are we need to submit them to the state and to the federal USDA portal

and then our final submission and decisions need to happen no later than June a recommendation and what we're asking for is your support to proceed you're not asking for formal approval this is not a board action but what it is is a next step with that next slide please we're here for any questions and comments so if I could just to sort of summarize um the district submitting the application does not require board approval but we know how important this is to the community wanted to elevate it bring it forth as a presentation and ask for board's support to actually submit that application and take the next steps forward more for those comments Dr Danner and Mr Palmer for the presentation board questions or comments Miss valis you know I I appreciate this

presentation that brings kind of both sides of the coin um a reference Like A Tale of Two Cities kind of comes to mind um in terms of visualizing this initiative here in the district um it is A Tale of Two Cities because I find areas where folks are kind of seeing some of the same things but then there are other things that folks are are not seeing and I see it for for both sides um and I'm not trying to pit one side against the other I'm just trying to bring a little bit of nuance to this because we are at a point right now where we've been presented with essentially two different narratives tonight I'm not trying to I'm not trying to say that you're all I'm not trying to say you're wrong I'm not trying to say that there's any misrepresentation anything you said I'm trying to say that there were two different things that came to mind um for example the staff recommendation I'm going to read the slide option one and in that

blue part it says data only based on ISP so this is essentially looking at the data that is provided about the our constituents their demographics right um 31 Title One schools we have 23 Elementary eight middle compared to 35 schools 28 Elementary 7 middle um 31 versus 35 um for elementary and middle there's one newly identified Title One school and then three out of the 31 Title One schools will be grandfathered in for additional year so then the next one is very interesting it says five schools who wore Title One in 20123 to 2024 will no longer identify as Title One these schools are Creekside Mangum Club Boulevard Morehead George Watts I

want to tell the PT get ready um the reason why is because these changes in terms of schools that will no longer have the flexibility of using title and funds for positions I'm going to give you an example when I was doing the pilot for Community Schools we were trying to bring a community schools coordinator the rate was in the 40s that was very low for the qualified person that needed to come in and you know what that principle did said I'm going to do what I what the number that they told us and then supplement with Title One funds and there's been ways that administrators have used Title One funds to supplement positions if those five schools who who use Title One funds for parent engagement we use Title One funds to supplement positions and being able to recruit talent because 40,000 you know for Community Schools coordinator is not was not a lot and that was kind of like what was going at that time with a new initiative and it was like Title One money that actually made it so it would no longer be in the 40s but it'd be in the 50s so title one makes a difference

for some schools and to say that there's no impact on Title One funding is true because right now we see a shift we see a change like school school for Creative Studies is going to get some money So eventually it evens out but how it's going to change and shift the availability of instructional supports and funds is very clear from this slide and that is one side that is one side of the coin where five schools will no longer be Title One um identify as title one and they could have impacts in how they use Title One funds for for so Creek Side so some Club Boulevard parents who came tonight who love Club Boulevard know title when funds are used and those ptas um Morehead George Watts Mangum and Creek Side so that's one side of the coin the other side of the coin is that as you were trying as the folks who were trying to get us to this point and they they couldn't do it any sooner and I I I can sense the frustration of wanting to do something that is good for kids like that that sentiment is so admirable and and I think that at the

end of the day kids are kids are cost kids are more valuable than books kids are more valuable than you know anything and yet what is interesting is that there was a change at the federal level and I will not hold anybody on this board or anybody in administration to not keep up with every little change that happens at the federal state level and that change was a 25% that was from 40% to 25 when did that happen did that happen this year or last year if if I can just get some clarification as to when did when did the conditions become so that school districts that are essentially who used to have to be above 40% to qualify for districtwide CP now at 25% when did they go from 40 to 25% that's this year right yeah this this current school year that's this year I want the community to understand this because there have been a lot of assumptions made about our Administration and about the work that

we're doing that we have missed opportunities in previous years it is very unfair to have a narrative that is false because we can say we're 46% now but that might shift even with growing together every year we have to look at the numbers and we have never been in this beautiful vibrant uh condition of 46% this is happening this year and so the the tale of the other the other side of the of the coin and the other Tale of Two Cities the city that wants C and wanted it yesterday years before knew that this was a possibility and yet I have witnessed the administrators who understand that remember what happened in November was it November when you had the joint board and County Commissioners meeting the last time that we heard about this topic and it was presented there were numbers that were said cost $12 million if we wanted to do away with the application it would cost us under the conditions of understanding that we didn't meet maybe the federal guideline for C because this changed this year it

became 20 20% 25% now but that wasn't the condition under which our administrators were considering the implications of what this would mean and so they were thinking along those lines it's going to cost us money 12 million if we didn't use a lunch form or maybe 3 million if every single student in DPS used the lunch form those costs were because of the conditions and so I want to give you an example right now there's Federal Regulation about Chlor peras how many of you know about chloras or ever heard of that that has changed over the years it used to be that there were regulations and it was done away with because it's so toxic in our food and in agriculture and you know what happened legislatively at the national level now they have reinstituted tolerances so that now our foods do have Chlor pufos and unless you keep track of those Trends you would know that so I think The Tale of Two Cities is that our Nutrition department understands those changes they have to track them that's their job that's what we pay them to do to keep track of those Trends Dr Danner

he's keeping track Dr Stewart you're keeping track of your the work that you have come here to do and you said you were going to do something about our lowest our kids who were getting un who were underresourced because the state cops us and hurts us in that way and that you were going to do something to raise the acade academic achievement so that there's nobody at the very bottom nobody should be below 10% nobody should be at 15% we need to raise that ceiling up so that no student in DPS based on Identity or language or you know whatever cultural concerns constraints or cultural descriptors should not be suffering and being at the bottom and we wanted to bring that up because it is dignity of education and and what changes the world is education and there are students who remember who their mentors were and who their people and you said you wanted to come and you wanted to make sure every child received resources and there was an El Prep Academy that happened on

Saturdays and that eel Pur Academy used folks who had this is where my heart hurts because I've actually heard about those people who were hired under Esser funds but essentially some of that work could be Title One work and you know there are some schools that participated so essentially we're saying that that there is no cost but that's not true there's implications and we just saw that in The Tale of Two Cities in one part in the academic spere we will lose prek um in some of those schools because some of those schools actually Morehead they won't be title one anymore and some of our prek instructional assistance at those schools at those schools like that's the title One funds that they're not going to have anymore Dr Danner can you tell us a little bit more about these five schools that will no longer have Title One if I could let me just jump in a bit okay I'm I want to just provide some expansion and clarification around some of the themes so I think it's important first to note that the five schools that

were Title One in 2324 were actually grandfathered for was it grandfathered in 23 24 or were they just they're not eligible because of the numbers and it has nothing to do with C with districtwide implement mation of C their free and reduced lunch not their their um their ISP it's below is below the 35 which is which is the federal requirement so they're coming off no matter what we do with c um and then the schools that are grandfathered are grandfathered for one year to support the transition because they no longer have the ISP as well correct okay and so I think it's and that is and both of those happen in the normal flow of how we identify and de identify Title One those schools that are on the cusp are in and out I mean I've been I've seen it happen where they're in for a few years out for a few years back in for a few years out for a few years because they're always right on that cusp but that is related not to the districtwide C implementation but to the fact that

their numbers are fluctuating and we may see some more fluctuation of numbers as we Implement growing together as well so that's something that's on the horizon also as we as we move forward um and then I just need to also clarify that with regards to the federal requirement dropping from 40% to 25% a year ago when we were considering this we were in that 40% range so it that is not what kept us from applying last year last year I think what kept us from applying was really the conflicting stories you were getting in the data on whether this this would cost us or not cost us and really that required bringing people together into this same room to have conversations understand each other's definitions and programs well enough to get to The Meeting of Minds to where we are today um and so I think that is you know that is just a testimony to collaboration and and asking questions um and just to keep pulling the onion

layers back until we get to to what we need to but we we could have moved forward a year ago um but we didn't have we had we had in terms of the eligibility we could Mo for a year ago in terms of the understanding of the impact and being able to figure out how to mitigate that impact we were not there yet um we've done that work in the interim there's been a strong commitment to get this moved forward and and that's that's where we are now so the two points just want to appreciate that point my question around this the whole time was how do we maximize the federal dollars I don't want to leave any dollars on the table so this feels like an implementation plan that does that it it will do that and I and and I'll just say one thing if you go back and take a look at them you know the the slides with the schools and the FTE and the dollars allocated and that sort of thing there there may be there are there are going to be shifts in the amount of funding that schools are getting because how the ISP is calculated differently the overall part we are still getting the maximum title $1 that we can get as a district um and th and there are some

places where some schools who were who were receiving funds based on 100% of their students we don't have any school schools that are 100% of their students anymore because of how we're counting it so we'll need to deal with that moving forward and and those are the allotment meetings that are happening that have been happening as principles have been receiving their allotments and seeing what the projections for title one looks like so that they can fully advocate for whatever their needs may be based on any changes that are happening um but it it will mean some changes and uh but we think that we can mitigate the negative impact through information and options um and we think that overall uh this continues to ensure that our highest need schools are getting the highest amount of dollars per student with a different way of counting them just wanted to just Express such gratitude to um folks figuring this out um I know that that food security is such an important justice issue and Equity issue

and I know that um you all have plans to work on food quality and this is one building block of enabling you all to do that but how wonderful to be able to tell our community that no matter where you live under growing together as we grow together every child in Durham Public Schools can eat free breakfast like we've had for years which Durham led the way on and free lunch um and that I just look forward to to seeing how this um positively impacts students academic achievement which the data is just profoundly deep on so thank you all Miss Le I Echo those same sentiments um it's been what I wanted since I began on this board free lunch for everyone often brought that up in our legislative meetings um and I am I am grateful that you all have been able

to work together and come to a meeting of the minds of how to make this work using Federal funding um to hear that Federal has moved from 40% to 25% is U refreshing to know that that makes it even um more ready for us to be able to take this step in this direction also the hear about our best practices for rank order per pupil is also um reaffirming for me as I hear this presentation I like Miss viadas was saying we've had four presentations now one here two at the Joint meeting and then another one now um between C and title one over the past year so to get to this place feels good to move forward I still have a question about some of the hesitation around infrastructure I think Miss Moore you spoke to that a few meetings ago a possible phase

in plan with c P before the two departments met together and and you made a comment that we have to have the right infrastructure for us what is some of that infrastructure that we want to make sure we have right well for one the financial modeling needed to work for us right and modeling the financial the numbers we had to run the numbers we had to make sure that that that made sense um I think we also have to um make sure that we're ready to also continue to capture the data that we've started capturing around participation rates um you know there's a couple questions that have been asked about will this potentially impact seing could it impact um lunchtimes you know those kinds of things and and some of those decisions so I think we're always going to make sure that we have the staff that we need in the schools based on the number of meals that we're serving um and that if that shifts then we'll have to shift with that um but I think it also is important that

um that we as we have are serving more students because that's the whole the goal here um that the impacts for example on lunchtimes in schools there there are boundaries they have to be served between 10 and two um and depending on the size of your cafeteria and the size of your school and the decisions the principles make about how to implement the lunch schedule that can be tricky so and you know CNS Works through all of those variables um and and so I think that is infrastructure has to do with the decisions the principal is making around the lunch schedule at the school the opportunity to make sure that we have um the the Staffing the lines all of that I think will take care of itself you know we've had questions about food waste um that's a catch 22 um kids don't kids have to take a plate they don't have to eat what's on their plate that's always been true um but schools also prepare meals in anticipation of kids that

sometimes don't buy meals so there's food waste there so in you know it's a catch Point too because you if you're serving more meals you'll have less waste in terms of the number of meals that are prepared that are accessed but you'll also have the kids who decide they just don't want that Apple um and so you may have more apples that are that are wasted so you know my next band wagon will be composting but um yeah I don't have time I don't if I have time for that one but um but but yeah but I think that that that schools just have to be ready for the changes in who's um who's getting lunch and and how they do their lunch schedules um and and then CNS just needs to be ready for what that means for the food choices that are there are coming out the Staffing that's available and but I think longterm this is actually absolutely what we need to do yes and I just that that capturing the data the participation rate that was the one that was really sticking for me and even our com troller mentioned the participation rate um and just I appreciate this

transparency as well because I'm very um nervous around infrastructure and making sure that we're not progressing too quickly before we have the infrastructure or even spoken I know you're talking about doing allotments yeah but that our principles have begun working on the have they have they given input to what this lunch schedule would look like well I mean that's that is totally a sight based decision Vision um but I think that the conversations we're having now where you know Dr King is listening and Dr Stewart is listening uh will provide an opportunity and platform to answer questions from principles about what that means because I think they just have to go back and take a look at it uh I will say one other thing about infrastructure and and I just feel compelled to say it we are going to need to pay attention and we would anyway whether we were implementing districtwide C or not we are going to need to pay attention to the equipment in our schools um so I think that's another rung that at some point we we need to contemplate in terms of what

kind of an investment that requires and like I said that's far beyond just C but I think it goes along with wanting to increase the capacity increase the number of meals served the appetizing nature of those meals and and the equipment that we have and that we use every single day is a part of that now I just say I'm happy to move forward with the things that you all laid out as the next steps with the c yet of having some updates around this infrastructure and how you all are planning to give a comprehensive support for our schools and making sure the infrastructure is in place and and what the need is like what is what's going to happen year two three 4 around around the um equipment Staffing and things like that as well all the things I know you're already taken care of I just want to put that out there that to know that you ought to keep an eye on that infrastructure and planning for it M thank you for this presentation for working on this I think human uh food is

a human right and I um and once I understood that this would not impact um Title One I really had to dig into that um then I'm I'm all for it so thank you for the proposal and I'm I look forward to moving forward with this um and one of my classmates a couple weeks ago did a presentation about a similar um policy they have I think in Minnesota and so I've been meaning to forward it to you I I'll share it with you but um it was talking about the many benefits and um of of a a universal free lunch um including the impact on families and decrease in family stress and that kind of thing so um yep happy to support moving forward thanks one uh um I'll be brief um I'm excited about this about feeding more kids and um and really excited also to reduce any stigma

around school lunches by offering to all kids this is just something that's done not just something that some kids do and um and lots of things about this I just wanted to verify and I apologize if this was covered but because this was a concern and initially so we've talked about how title fun one funny does not decrease and we talked about how per pupil allocations will be higher in schools with higher ISP rates right so does that mean that the title one funding will not decrease for our schools with the highest percentage of children experiencing poverty it does not mean that because in some cases in the previous manner of counting students we had schools that were counting 100% of their enrollment towards their Title One allotment with this method methology that doesn't use the free rust lunch applications anymore but direct certification and the other local identifiers that were mentioned on one of the slides the most you see is around 79 or 80% and so the per the what if

6 multiplier which would take a school to 100% And that would increase the funding band and so our PPA structure will change and that's what's happening in the example I showed you

5 fds total

so the schools will shift some but not much in their teacher projected allotment but I can share the information it' be helpful to see where they are now where what the projection will be for the upcoming year um is spus you know the media has been covering this and and and their headlin say no cost but no cost does not mean no impact and um and I think the the overall cost over long term is something that um that I'm interested in especially as it relates to C um um as it relates to prek expansion and one of the things that um that is that is just very interesting to me is like when it comes to prek expansion there are some schools that haven't traditionally um because we we're still growing that Universal program we haven't yet used tital One funds to fund all the prek um folks but that's one Avenue by which we could actually move the needle for prek and and I think there's implications to me like no cost is not the same thing as no implications

of what we can the opportunity cost of what we can do like in terms of growing these programs that are that are Universal and so my only ask is that the same way that we are applying for um c as a federal initiative that we actually leverage federal grants for expansion of prek in the same study in the same way like I'd like to see something like this for us to be able to fund what we currently are not moving the needle on which is prek and implications for allotments at schools um and Title One funds not being able to cover all the demands that we have just a I hate asking questions I don't know the answer to um the prek commitment out of title one is a different line item than the FTE and positions that are being provided to schools in terms of their individual ISP times the PPA correct that's correct and

those aren't changing because we currently do use L One funds to support prek there are special ed funds that are used to support inz prek there are slots through the Durham program that support prek so there's like a really Blended funding model around prek and the current amount of funding in title one that supports prek remains yes thank you the only uh other comment that I had is about ISP being Based on data that is provided from the county uh Department the health department and some of the initiatives um like Snap EBT do you realize that there are families that don't engage the system in that way they do not so we're going to be missing here's here's the thing I'm all for it I've been for it from the moment I met with both Javan and I met with them over gun violence in March around sometime after March and then I met with them in June and I was saying C is something I care about I want it to happen I want kids fed but I I the implications and considerations for me when it comes to lunch forms is that we

can actually gather more data about individual cases that are not represented by the data in the county health department because some families are not they don't qualify for food stamps so guess what they're not going to be reflected in that data because you know based on the children that are born and qualified you know although there are some changes I will say that the health department is looking at some things so what I'm saying is that that data the ISP and I heard you oh God NE um but um it's 1140 but this is an important thing and I I do not want to supersede without the considerations that are due that data that we're getting by by it's an opportunity cost of missing data from people who don't engage the social system and so we we our numbers are not going to be what they have been with the actual lunch for people self-disclosed because some of that data is not tracked by the county um Health Department they're not engaging that system fully yeah so I think can I ask maybe

for a followup with ident if my understanding is correct the identified student percentage there are multiple ways that students could be identified that might include snap but I think might also include other options you can answer it briefly or you want to send us some inform additional information afterwards sure the slide does review the calculation for ISP and to miss veds this point we are trying to cast as wide of a net as we can to get a true snapshot of school level poverty the beautiful part is that if a family does not participate in those government services they are still covered with free breakfast and lunch and that is our our sort of takeaway at a nutrition level again there's a threshold here where this is a nutrition conversation into a federal programs conversation and we want to respect that we are trying to cast as wide of a net to get the truest measure of poverty that we can and make sure those kids get the most that we can give them the supports that they need to learn for the goals of the district so that is very much way you see both the

direct certification rate and importantly with director Keaton and assistant director the the local verification the additional considerations that are not part of that larger tanif snap eligibility Medicaid Medicare students experiencing homelessness right Etc so that is that is very much exactly what this is about is to be as broad as we can to be reflective of that Miss V is your concern around ISP and tital one funding is that where your concern is okay that yeah because at the end you know we we so I joined the subcommittee on academic uh we all we all have different purviews the academic piece is something that I'm very protective of and and it's not to knock off any any other initiative that is very important but it's like the consideration for how does it impact the kind of work that is very needed because there have been inequities in instruction and the ways our kids learn and so because of those inequities that we experience here um that those differentials don't exist in other places that you know so it's so

important to be very considerate about implications for schools that will lose um any allocations if if they do thank you so we'll get that follow up information around where what teacher allotments folks have now and what that projected to be and I think that what that means though is we I say we but really Administration is being intentional about how you're supporting schools who might have different allotments based off where we are now that's what I'm hearing that intentionality especially around some of our students who have not historically had as many resources so thank y'all for this presentation um we appreciate you and look forward to hearing more about updates on the program as far as infrastructure par disspation rates and all those things thank you all right the next item on our agenda we're going to go to academic services and we have the resolution for black youth in crisis um this was submitted To Us by Dr Wanda Boon um and so we typically board will read a resolution

um I know that many of us have had an opportun or excuse me I know that many of us are seeing this because we added it to the agenda tonight and I know we made some edits so might Bo I'm looking at you for your pleasure if you want to read tonight if we want to how do we want to proceed let's go ahead and read it okay I'll start with uh you miss Rogers and then we'll come through you want me start with Miss Carter Alton over here I'll say I'll start with Miss Carter Alon goe three wi two black youth and crisis resolution whereas mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of Life realize their abilities learn well and work well and contribute to their community and whereas nationally in 2020 emergency visits due to attempted suicide among all adolescence jump 31 % from 2019 to

5% of middle school students and 41% of high school students surveyed in Durham report surveyed in the Durham report were black and whereas adverse childhood experience a exposure is correlated to higher rates of smoking drug use heavy alcohol use poor educational unemployment outcomes incarceration and involvement in violence both as a perpetrator and victim among Youth and communities of color and whereas opioid overdose emergency department visits are disproportionately higher amongst black residents of Durham County than white non-hispanic residents data is too statistically low

5% were exposed to sexual abuse or assault before age 18 and whereas having a sense of belonging and connection with a larger group who has got your bat AG school church clubs neighborhood Etc are childhood experiences that can result in positive outcomes for you therefore be it resolved that we members

of the Durham Community do hereby commit to working alongside young people in Durham to uplift their mental health needs address adverse experiences stigma and help remove barriers to care therefore be it resolved to use a screening brief intervention referral to treatment SBT model to quickly assess and address trauma and substance use in schools and in communities through a co-develop mental health and substance use professional Consortium therefore via resol resources should be provided by organizations including community-based organizations that are free or affordable they should also be created with consideration of an understanding of Asis and diverse cultures and backgrounds therefore be it resolved that a co-created resilient Community campaign with community and institutions be launched to promote well being and address individual interpersonal Community adverse experiences and Trauma

that may lead to substance substance use violence and harmful outcomes therefore be it resolved that everyone can play a role to increase resilience and prevention by acting on one or more of the seven strategies for Community change therefore be it resolved that we will commit to supporting community-based culturally relevant mental mental health substance use prevention and well-being programs in schools and within the community for young people and their families in Durham sign this 21st day of March 2024 thank you all right for had an opportunity to read it m travez do you want to share a little bit I know you worked to work our Administration to review this yes we um were in U communication with

Dr King and um he was in communication with Dr Maddox Perry to kind of go over these action items here and um make sure that those those are in line with the practices that we that we employ here in DPS um and um and also uh just wanted to clarify that this um this treatment model um presented here is something um that uh Dr Boon uh with her organization uses and um is used as a referral um in referral processes so um we did kind of go over those things to make sure those are in line with the practices and and best practices as madx Dr Maddox Perry um emphasized that we use in DPS thank you have a comment uh yes there's one part of um in in the resolution that talks about uh the Hispanic data being too statistically low to count I will say that there have

been conversations around how that data is collected because many um Latino Hispanic residents are classified as white and that is a reality of a lot of systems that don't know yet how to label and classify so there's a lot of data that goes because this community is multi-racial and there's a variability in how people identify but systems usually identify will would label me as white and I am not white you know they they will will count me in the white pool and so there's there's just the the acknowledgement that we have lost in DPS students black and brown students that we have lost to Su suicide ideation that actually unfortunately we've lost students to Suicide we've lost students to gun violence and they are black and brown and that the data may not reflect again invisible people to some systems right the visibility those numbers are not exact so too stat statistically statistically low does not mean that the stats couldn't be there if there was more intentionality from systems to really gather that

data could we change the title of this to black and brown using crisis to be more inclusive have you all consider that as you worked on that M I think there was um an ask to keep the uh title as as it is with the emphasis that um this in the third section here with such a high percentage of of students um who were who did report suicidal ideation um or attempts um being black and their and the IT origin it originated um sort of out of that concern so I think this we did discuss the title there's been a lot of discussion about this um it was kind of pushed back from from January with all that we had going on so I think um we the best thing is to keep the title as it is thank you nothing

else i' move approval of the resolution second it's been moved by Miss Byer second it by Miss Chavez I would do um would the board be open to me and maybe Miss vodar is working on this Hispanic data to statistically load account line just to shift the language just slightly to be more reflective of the reality of what's happening in in our system so the board be open to that um we can make that we can work on that that would be great all right so it's been moved and seconded any other discussion all in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously thank you Dr Boom for being here tonight and hanging in with us all right so the next item we have I believe is uh we have a chief of staff [Music] policy good evening board members um chair Umstead superintendent Moore you could pull up the PowerPoint Miss Smith

please and while she's pulling that up I'll give you some background as you all are aware typically when I bring policies we Durham IE them uh quite a bit to make sure that they are reflective of the values of Durham County this policy was brought to our attention by um Mr Malone and Mr Bloomberg with dington Smith that our 42 40 policy didn't include some critical language um regarding um some reporting that was required by the state and so I have had several phone calls with Mr Bloomberg and what it is our recommendation and it is included in the um board docs that Duran public schools adopt with one change um recommended by theing ton to the school board's standard policy and so next slide please there will be really two changes the title Chang it used to be child abuse um and let me pull that up real

quick well I can't find it I don't have my glass here we go um what we are changing is it's going to be child the new title of the policy is child abuse and related threats and so what we are doing in darington's recommendation is that one change as you see on there is to add immediately to it um given the severity and this failure to do so immediately has resulted in some um concern from law enforcement so they really are emphasizing that and want school system staff and boards to know that this is um a very urgent and very critical thing that is happening so um it is also I want to share with you Mr Bloomberg shared with me and asked me to share with the board and Mr Bloomberg for those who don't know is Mr Malone's law partner at durington Smith very experienced um board attorney um but Mr Bloomberg did share with me that we you can expect to come back we can expect to bring this policy back to you in the near future as a result of the State Board of Education having drafted um a

new policy as a result of hb42 making certain failures to act on the parts of Staff School staff and administrators to be felonies right so you're talking about a misdemeanor but they're moving it into um a felony and we're waiting to get those updates from the Schoolboard Association but Mr Bloomberg did say that he wanted to make sure that I did going of lift that up to y'all and know that we will be bringing this policy back as soon as that goes through rul making Etc um given the urgency and the importance of this policy it is administration's request that you wave second reading and it is on the agenda for approval and adoption immediately and we would then move forward with providing training to principal supervisors and principles on down the line to make sure that Duran Public School staff is compliant thank you thank you Dr Giovani board any questions comments motions move approval of

the uh policy 4240 7312 child abuse and related threats child safety second been moved by Miss Rogers second about miss Beyer any other discussion all those in favor say I I I any opposed please use the same sign it passes unanimously all right that brings us to our Board of Education items we'll start with Miss Moore and the budget priorities thank you board chair we can go ahead and pull that presentation up uh I am bringing this evening I think this is our third opportunity to discuss and I'm gonna make you do some working make a decision before you leave here tonight so um we'll start with our desired outcomes on Slide three uh we'll as always we will start with at least showing and taking a moment to reflect on the Strategic plan pillars which by the way I updated the language if anybody out there is still paying attention this time of night the language needed to be updated um review

some previously discussed budget needs and priorities and we are going to engage in a prioritization activity to refine the priorities of the board and then we'll finalize the timeline again real quick and take a look at it so our strategic plan pillars when I uh was notified that I needed to update my language I went and checked them and sure enough I did so uh you will see more familiar language that is more recent in terms of academic achievement our in school environments attracting and retaining staff strengthening the different aspects of our stakeholder community and the fiscal and operational responsibility goals I I show this slide because I'm compelled to make sure that everyone understands keep the next slide we're left on Slide Five now keep up man MO is moving through the Pres that's right I'm on Slide Five so um I'm always compelled to next slide yeah next SL thank you uh to show that be before we do anything else really with our budgetary needs for next year there is approximately eight

million dollars worth of needs that are part of legislated increases and you know some of this is good news right it's some raises for teachers some raises for classified staff but there is always a local impact um when that happens and then there are some changes retirement rate health insurance and then of course the charter school paths through um that we are required to uh provide for those students that are germ County students that are attending and verified in charter schools that amount is right at $8 million so I took the liberty over the last few conversations to sort of categorize our request that we've been talking about into three broad categories compensation operations and then Staffing and programming needs and so I'm going to go through those in the next couple of slides next slide compensation so here there are four basic bullets that we that we've been talking about um the teacher salary local supplement increases uh please note that I've taken the amounts off here um I think I just want to focus on

what the priorities are instead of the amounts um the the goal of achieving Master's pay for teachers with relevant degrees which I will again say should something that the state used to do and they took away and they need to BR back um and then a continued focus on increasing classified salaries with the new 2425 schedules you saw some of that work this evening and then a suggestion that that gained a lot of traction from the board was the notion of a salary supplement or differential first ped teachers IAS or bilingual staff and then operations there were two main bullets that we discussed um a need for additional funding for Capital needs this is to add to the existing $6 million that the county is providing already every year on an annual basis and the fact that we likely need at least 4 million um and that's before I learned about the needs in our uh cafeterias so um and then the second item that we've talked about here is uh some funds that are needed for uh instructional technology to replace

Network switches in many of our closets all across or data closets sorry data closets all across late isn't it all across the district and then the third uh category Staffing programming we put a number of things here contined support for growing together including the prek and Global language commitments that we have made a separate prek commitment to opening three classrooms at Murray massenberg um a request for two additional social workers for the district some curriculum materials and renewals for ELA math and Global language and then some funds to support the evening Academy Credit acceleration program that exists at a number of our high schools so those are the three major categories and very quickly the prioritization multiv voting activity that I'm going to ask you to engage in um if everyone would just take um I'm I'm not I'm not I'm not giving you all six of them to begin with I'm only giving you three to begin with do we have time to ask any question

clarifying questions yeah sure and I let me just tell you yeah go ahead before that go ahead go ahead before the before the directions go ahead okay can you remind me when the last time was that we increased the teacher salary supplement and how we compare I think it was two years ago it wasn't this year uh it would have been the year before because I think you've tried to be in a Cadence where you do something to the local supplement one year something to classified staff the next year I don't know how long that Cadence has been but I know that this past year was classified salary so it was not supplement so it would have been the year before and we have fallen behind like a large neighboring District I would just say well that was my other question was how do we currently compare with neighboring District what cuz neighboring District watches what Durham does and then goes along I think it happened a month a month after we did our um also um the network switches what happens if we don't do the network switches just so I understand what that is yeah so the the the bandwidth

capacity to use technology in schools um is severely diminished and you may have systems that go down and that sort of thing oh and I did get a really interesting contact from some Community I've been pitching these Network switches out in the community um and I did have a contact that asked me specifically did we need some Network switches I'm like go so thank you Foundation um but we'll see if that connection works but so I mean you know um it is really what powers our um internet and access points in schools and they're out and Facilities not just schools and as those get older you have to replace them and they're expensive is about $2 million and then I know that prek funding is complicated because it's uh mostly a county thing with some from uh like it can we get more information about like if we don't PRK was up there if we don't put the dots next to that like what happens so I I will say before I I get started let me say this thing before the

directions like I need to say as part of the directions so I'm going to give you three dots you should have them now and I'm going to ask you of these 11 categories to use your three dots in three areas that you believe are the highest priority for you that does not mean that items with no dots don't end up in the superintendent's proposed budget this really is about getting a feel from those that are seated here at the table who will engage in your own process for adopting a board budget to take to the Commissioners uh a sense of what your priorities are I I really wrestle with how many dots to give you um best practice said 25% so that's actually three is actually more than 25% right so um because I want to do four but I was like no that's not best practice so Three Dots and you cannot use all of your dots in the same place so you'll have to spread them out across three different things again this does not mean that items that get no dots

don't show up or that we are not seeking ways to continue to fund those um and that is um that's this activity the costs are all over the place they are not equivalent we're just acting like they are I I think you I think we want to look at priorities regardless of costs right now um what do you think are the the three most important areas um this I will ask you to do a second round of dots the second round of dots will be the same 11 categories three Three Dots and I put them all in the same place and the second round of dots will be for you to contemplate are there areas that you might want to have a discussion about accomplishing them in a multi-year format so one is about what are the three p the three highest priorities that you have and the other one is three areas where you would consider a

conversation about implementing the need over multiple years and again this does no dots does not mean that it's not necessary or needed I'm almost ready all right let me y'all gonna have to stand up to do it so hang on

e e e

e e salary increases six local supplement four and then Masters pay supplement

can we vote for the same thing on this is sort of your this is like priorities that you have regardless of whether they get funded immediately all at once in 28 years however it get what of the things you think are most important this is a little more refined I just want to know are there things that the board would consider having conversations about doing in a multi-year format if they are not able to be accomplished in one year this is assuming they are not able to be accomplished in one year this is not saying that you are okay with taking more than one year to accomplish

e e e

e operations ATS is the highest that's not surprising that's a multi- um and it's also it can be hard to have that big of an influx actually be able F isn't that crazy going together prep P teacher salary oh okay I'm sorry so it looks like teacher uh the in this particular scenario the funding for Capital and operations got four dots and then you had a number of areas that got three

dots the teacher salary increase for local supplement the Master's pay and growing together the prepaying global languages implementation so and then several that got two dots and one dot given that um it's just interesting thank you for your participation I know it was forced but I appreciate it uh thank you Miss Moore so April 11th we'll have a work session we'll be able to see the superintendent's proposed budget which is the next step in this process um we know we had a joint meeting with our County Commissioners um last but last week to talk about what the um our potential priorities so we know folks are eagerly awaiting this process I do also want to name that they

will be a board um budget hearing so the public will have an opportunity to come and share what they their responses to the superintendent's budget um and as well as then the board will have an opportunity to vote after that hearing any question other questions or comments on the I would just also say that I I understand that uh perhaps a survey went out um to some of our staff in schools to sort of have them uh prioritize some things that are School staff members have been talking about and so that I think it'll be helpful to see what that feedback is when it comes in I think Dae did a survey with staff so that'll be helpful information as well we look forward to hearing that and hearing from community members as well as staff around their their priorities for our budget all right the next item we have on our agenda is thinking about the um superintendent search firm we had interviews yesterday to

consider various firms we do have a chart that we could use to do this process um or we could also just name who we want to for your pleasure I know there's a chart that's available if we want to use that Mr rer sorry oops Madame J I'd like to offer a motion um for us to consider Alma group as our superintendent search firm second it's been moved by Miss Rogers seconded by Miss Byer can I have uh any is there any other discussion I'm curious to know what priorities were to help solidify that decision because that's not where I was um I don't know that the decision is solidified I'm trying to expedite our process in going to the motion and and then having discussion after and

um for me I'm a group spoke to what I feel like is important and what I've heard from community members is important um right now to help build trust in our community and to um lean into the fact that we need to hear voices of our community um as we put together a superintendent job description and do it in ways that includes um Schoolboard members elect and in ways that centers the voices and needs of our community and I think that that firm showed up and spoke to their ability to um their ability to use their professional and personal experiences uh to connect with members of the community and I think that our

um our folks would be most responsive to them more so than some of the a other agencies that we heard from and so I'd like us to move in that direction did you have any comments not Natalie just second I'm just um I'm happy to speak to to my thoughts but I but I rather hear what others think I just wanted to get this discussion moving and um and I know we have close session items as well so I I don't want to I know it's past midnight and I don't want to rush the decision and I would like to hear from others um for me the importance is prioritizing the experience that the search firm brought to the table the expansive ability to um draw from a pool what I liked about Alma was that um just

the diversity work that they brought to the table um they had not done much as many superintendance searches as some of the other firms so that would be um one some of my um cautions there and I didn't see a timeline I think that you know hav't been on this board for the duration that we have all been on this board and what we've just gone through and this crisis that was given to us this past year we know what we're looking for and what we're not looking for in a superintendent ultimately it will be our decision I think the experience that we bring with it is important and so having a timeline and I felt like ncsb had a very um strong timeline that got us to a decision by June are factors that I would be um waiting in on the decision um experience and a timeline that um allows this board to um who has the experience in what

we've been through to be able to make that decision for you know again the value our core values that we have we continue to carry forward but just again we have been the ones that have gone through this evaluation tools over this past year remember it's been a long year um in those things that we would want to um evaluate a super Contin on so ultimately it's our decision and I just want us to get the broadest range um that we can get for someone who has a experience this Val darus folks who have been impacted in their pay like the classified um salari staff have repeatedly said we keep spending money right and um is it Justified for us to spend money on a superintendent search firm and we're saying yes it's Justified because it's um it's an important process um and when it comes to um the range of

what folks were charging um this particular search firm was not the most cost effective and I say that very explicitly because the community is watching how we spend money and it there's no doubt three so one person showed up from Alma three people showed up for bwp three people showed up for NC NC Schoolboard Association no presentation was given to us from Alma no brochure no packet a packet was given and a PowerPoint presentation was given by bwp and a packet and a PowerPoint presentation was also brought forth by ncsba the road map um the road M we could there there there are some people who have obviously connections with Alma and I think that that's kind of like where the experience that this that members of this board have with certain agencies plays a role and I will posit that there is familiarity which some

people might interpret as bias towards one of these groups based on exposure but for some of us who have not had exposure to any of these groups the process is very important how we choose this firm because the last thing I want is for the community think this was all already in the bag it is so important for us to be fiscally responsible and to me cost Effectiveness is important as long as we're you know and quality is important I don't want to compromise quality but I'm just saying they were not the most cost-effective firm that came to us and our community is watching this and so I just want to just leave it at that thank you Miss V did you have a preference on a firm you can also say not at this time but I just I'm trying to keep track of where people are I I wanted to see a road map and the only two firms that brought a road map and actually laid out a plan for the community to understand how they were going to approach engagement language

accessibility also not putting a burden on our own staff because we know that we have amazing administrative support for the board but this is something that the search firm needs to have capability to do that work and do the minutes and do the meetings and I do not want our staff overworked when they they're already working long nights and we have them here till past midnight so for me like the road map was not clear I was able to see the road map for bwp and for ncsba Association and um I will say that both of them were more more cost effective thank you uh looking down M Rogers I'd just like to point out that the direction that was given to Alma by our attorney was to not bring a presentation as they requested to bring a presentation and the response was that yeah so that is correct they did

reach out to us um and I I told them that well I told them that the board's plan was to ask questions and that they were not expected to bring a PowerPoint but then I do think subsequently something went out to all of them when we sent them the questions um ahead of time because then we made the decision to provide them the questions ahead of time and and I do think at that point that they were told that they could they could they they could have a presentation is that correct that okay yeah okay great good to know didn't know that um the other part that I would point out is every single School Board member on this board went to training at ncsba so we've all had an interaction with ncsba and any other vendors can show up at any event that we do for professional development and we should be doing professional development and interacting with all

sorts of vendors that do work in the education sphere so I am not going to say that that is something we're not supposed to to do you have other preferences board members I'll share some um I'm still in favor of Alma as I stated the other night and I spent some more time with their application after the presentations to make sure I clearly understood the application submitted by each of the different firms that we were considering as our finalists and as I looked at it again there were things that stood out to me um one is their dedication to mapping out a communication strategy from the beginning of our work together to ensure transparency and widespread participation their engagement as we've talked about that includes interviews focus groups and surveys ncsba saying

they're just going to do a survey online that feels not aligned with how we do things in Durham um and then additionally Alma says they want to and explains how they're going to intentionally identify historically marginalized and difficult to reach groups and do Affinity groups with them that feels like I'm just surprised that's not something that our board isn't supporting fully they can also present data to the board or they plan to present data to the board from those engagements both in English and in Spanish and to the community so the community can hear and understand what's you know what was shared um and maybe most importantly we focused a lot on the community engagement that Alma can do but then their dedic D at also to facilitating conversations with leadership to review the stakeholder feedback and confirm the most important competencies characteristics and qualifications so that's really key taking that feedback it's one thing to have the feedback and put it in a booklet for us to all read it's another to facilitate a conversation with this entire board and help us come together to a really clear

picture as a board not as one person to a second person another person but as seven of us to agree on those key competencies characteris and qualifications of what we want in our next superintendent um they are also dedicated to minimizing bias at every step of the process whereby that didn't feel clear and it felt like that was not going to be the case for the other groups um I I'm almost done also they um the fact that they want to engage community community members in their final interviews of candidates just felt like very different for me and a different way of doing things lastly I'll address the um issue the money issue it feels like while this is while they are charging more they are doing more work and this is an investment in one of the most important things that we can do for our district which is select a new leader for our district that directs where we're going and it feels like an investment worth

making you um I also favor Alma um I I think think the a lot of points have been raised but I like the anti-bias training I think they would embed an anti-oppressive framework or social justice um lens into their work I like that the fact that they could do bilingual um work uh themselves um was great and um they also um were high were recommended um on a sheet I think Miss Rogers spoke to this before but um from Schoolboard Partners there was a um a list of um of experiences that people VAR Schoolboard kind members around the country had with different groups and no one had anything negative to say about Alma only positive things so that also I I appreciated those recommendations um I had not heard of MMA before whenever we got these

materials last week or so um but I've been impressed and so after thinking about it those were uh I I had the sense that they would um be the great the the right fit for us miss buer did you have any comments or preference um I I really am appreciative of all the firms that came I um have worked with um North Carolina School boards Association in the past and um think that we could work successfully with all three um I have a preference for Alma um and I and a lot of colleagues have already stated their reasons why I wish they weren't the highest priced but I but I think that um the facilitation and the anti-bias training and the work with our community will be deep deepest and um I think it will be helpful both to

the seven of us here as we work through this process together but also the two new board members that are join joining um as we work on a realistic timeline that actually has deep Community engagement and allows time for that but also brings in um new board members that will be working with this new superintendent into the process in a meaningful way and um yeah and we don't rush um what is an incredibly important decision that we're going to be making over over some times of spring and summer that are difficult to find calendar alignment between seven or nine people so I look forward to this work with you all thank you I do want to remind us that it is the board's process so we set the timeline and we as we work with these firms we set timeline we set schedule it's you know it is our process right we make decisions and we do a lot of the work to drive the process and the firm is responding to us I think I um to had some concerns around the cost for

Alma and would like to have an opportunity just to consult with our attorney around that contract and what that could look like um so I would ask maybe if well actually there's a motion on the floor before that motion on the floor I want to address a comment about the timeline I find that to be um such an interesting comment about a timeline because the reality is that two of us are outgoing board members who are not you know um we did not seek reelection and it's so interesting um I find that engagement can go on indeterminately to almost assure that neither my colleague nor I who are the only two board members who are not going to be here will not even have a chance it's there just seems to be like if I can sense a little bit of like let's take our time to do all this engagement I'm so sorry that is that is um that is a wonderful excuse to say that you're going to do a long-term engagement and your timeline can be stretched to do it right to do it right is very subjective

and it is very convenient in order to actually curtail the influence that two board members who worked with the previous superintendent you know and who were able to look at the Strategic plan and understand some of the both of us who built things in this District in terms of parent engagement and have seen kind of like have a trajectory people can watch in terms of like our investment in this District so that is a very subjective thing what I did like about bwp is that they offered a 30-day and a 60-day they can do either I could not get that sense from Alma and yes thank you colleagues you can drag it out as long as you want but that's also a political move that is being made as well so again I just want to be clear that we set the timeline we set the schedule right so I don't I don't I can't remember if Alma proposed the timeline in their materials but we set the timeline and we set the schedule and I do think we are going to have to come to a consensus as a board around the timeline and the schedule around what's going to be best for our students and

staff um because we need to think about this transition of this more as well as who needs to leave their current districts and what does that look like and so we will have to have that conversation and be really clear and come to a consensus around a timeline that's going to be the best um for the search and the best to make sure we get the best candidates and supports our needs and and concerns um I just want to clarify there is a timeline in Alma's application um which does have us wrapping up in [Music] June July is so and as Bo chair um said has said like we can determine what that timeline looks like so I don't think this I I don't think that needs to be part of why we're selecting one or another I think our intentionality around this and our recognition of how important this is is what's most important so

right yes sorry M so just for me um Durham does a lot of community engagement and we even heard from The Firm who's doing our comprehensive operations um study um Capital Improvement study that they're not starting from square one because of our growing together engagement we're not starting from Square One in engagement things that we've done so as we are um seeing the direction that the board is going with this vote whereas I do appreciate what Alma brings to the table on community engagement I do want to again emphasize the prioritization of um having a timeline that uh supports the board who has been here doing this work but also as you just mentioned here Umstead the interim superintendent that we have and making sure we're ready for this transition as well so that we have a named um nominee by a candidate you know by um our last meeting in June that would be my

preference any other comments did you I just wanted to um be clear I have been on a search before where we were in this window between election and folks taking a seat in July we were able together nine of us to figure out how to be inclusive and to follow State Statute which actually governs this in ways that we need to be sensitive to and um I know that this board can do that and I know that we can be sensitive to each other and the the gifts and experience um that that everyone brings so um I appreciate it right so there is a motion on the floor but I would like to speak with our attorney in close session what's the best way to do this Mr Malone I I think that what you well so a motion to table this would Trump the

motion that's on the floor now we could discuss attorney client privilege parts of this enclosed and then you could um move this item to after the Clos session to make a final decision I mean there are some attorney client parts of this that we could discuss in close session right yes that would be the only Parts we' want to talk about there would you all be open to a motion to table till right after our Clos session what are we talk we're talking about the the the contract that's what you said information okay I guess I'm curious what is the information that you're looking to you're looking to get before that's necessary before a vote so that we could understand what what that means I would like to talk about things that our attorney client privileged in our r i I would ask um Miss Rogers who made the motion if she would accept a friendly

tabling is that what I'm doing tbling place it on the table motion to table just make the motion that we table this vote and until after our close session to so that we can consult with the attorney second the move by Miss buer seconded by Miss Lewis any other discussion all in favor say I I any oppos use same sign passes unanimously with that I'll take a motion to go into open s i we go to close session for the reason it on the agenda second it's been moved by Miss buer and seconded by Miss Chavez that we go into closed sessions for the general statute reasons named on our agenda is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed please use same sign pass is

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we're back in open session uh Miss Mo well let me before we go to Miss Moore for personnel we have a couple items that we want to take care of we tabled a motion earlier today around uh the superintendent search firm so let's do that item first I'd like to make a motion to approve Alma as our search firm and authorize our attorney Mr Malone to negotiate a contract with Alma second it's been moved by Miss Chavez second it by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed use the same sign I it passes 61 um the next thing that we need to take care of is the minutes that we had U moved in the beginning of the meeting move approval of the minute minutes second it's been moved by Miss Roger seconded by miss buer any other discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed please use the same sign

they pass unanimously Miss Moore I pass it to you for personel I'd like to ask for approval of the Personnel report as uh given to the board in Clos session move approval of the Personnel report dated March 22nd second 21st oh yesterday thanks as amended yes second it's been moved by Miss Chavez second it by Mi excuse me it's been moved by Miss or second by Miss Chavez any other discussion all in favor say I I any oppose please use the same sign it passes unanimously and with that we are Jed