right good evening everyone do it one more time good evening everyone all right we do have a full house in the building all right good evening the Duram Public Schools Board of Education monthly meeting is now in session at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is joining us this evening the purpose of this meeting is to inform our parents staff and constituents about the work aligned with our mission to embrace educate and Empower every student to innovate to serve and to lead the interpreters for tonight are Martha Romo iges and Marty Ramirez thank you all for taking the time to join us the next item on our agenda is the moment of silence
thank you next up celebrations missa Cooper good evening board members Dr maena DPS colleagues families and durm community it is always an honor to stand before you each month to celebrate All Things DPS Duram Public Schools is a phenomenal School District strengthened by the talents and successes of our extraordinary students and staff that should not come as a surprise to anyone present or watching this evening but it will certainly be confirmed by our lineup of honores tonight we will begin with our student of the month presentation followed by a special recognition bestowed upon one of our rock star principles we will then announce our teacher of the month and employee of the month November celebrations will conclude with two spark pen presentations at this time I'd like to welcome Dr William Logan
5 grade point average he's a member of the international bakalor program and uh he's also a member of our our school's uh new Outdoor Learning Club a member of the National Honor Society and he is one of the very few students who has earned uh
certification as a python programmer uh Santiago has aspirations of attending Vanderbilt University where he plans to major major in computer science and so ladies and gentlemen without further Ado please join me and welcome me and congratulating Mr Santiago pjo Kano who is accompanied with his parents congratulations Santiago we are extremely proud to celebrate this moment with you and acknowledge this outstanding achievement and your wonderful accomplishments as a student at Hillside High School in addition to being recognized before our board tonight we have a few items to commemorate the occasion so please step forward I have a few things for you first your official certificate for student of the month we also have a spark pin for you for exemplifying excellence and for upholding DPSS core
values our friends at triangle e cycling are super excited about your future I think Dr Logan said Vanderbuilt it was so we want to make sure that you are powered for Success moving forward E cycling is providing you with a laptop this evening and at this time I'd like to introduce Briana Kennedy chief of programs for the DPS foundation for a very special presentation tonight thank you so much good evening to the board uh thank you again Santiago for all of your hard work here in high school uh the DPS Foundation is dedicated to supporting and championing our DPS students families and staff we are proud ongoing sponsors of the DPS teacher of the year DPS Building Services Employee Appreciation celebration as well as convocation and starting this year we've started being one of the sponsors for student of the month we believe that every child deserves well-funded Community centered
Public Schools rich in materials human resources and programming that supports the whole child's development and we fight for our schools daily with our partners here at DPS um to raise funds and do that work we see the student of the month as an example of our Durham community and what happens when a combination of resources reaches students families as well as school staff we want to support your continued growth Santiago and hope you will use this $500 gift card to further your educational passions whether they are academic the Arts um college or moving into the workforce and just as a point of personal privilege I manage our scholarships program progr so I would love to see your name come through and possibly be one of our Durham promise um scholarship awardees which is worth $3,000 to award your first year Vanderbilt thank you all so much for having us and congratulations again Santiago Santiago it is time for you to step forward and be recognized by our
board and also take a few photos Dr Logan you're are most welcome to join him as well and parents if you are available we'd love for you to come join with the photo as well
congratulations again Santiago our next celebration is unprecedented on Friday November 3rd Pearson out toown Elementary hosted a contingent of State leaders for what everyone thought to be a schoolwide assembly it was actually a surprise announcement that afternoon principal Asia Cunningham received the coveted milin educator award for those who are not aware this is kind of a big deal you see this is an award that one can't just apply for milin comes looking for you and milin educator is one that is Simply the Best of the very best it is presented to those who epitomize excellence in education nationally principal Cunningham is the first educator to receive the award in Durham and joins an elite group of Educators
across the country who make a difference in the lives of students each day DPS and durm are well aware of how amazing Missy is and now the rest of the nation knows how remarkable she is too proud is an understatement please join me in welcoming and congratulating our milk and educator principal Asia Cunningham good evening um I'm still in shock going to kind of pinch myself um it's a great honor um among all the colleagues that I have in Duram public schools and across this nation um to be the educator selected for Durham um it's an honor um and so the fight that we do here for our students to get Equitable outcomes for their lives I I am grateful that I
continue to serve this District so just want to say thank you at this time please welcome Michelle Hayes executive director of talent acquisition employee recognition for our teacher and employee of the mon recognitions good evening chairman on Umstead members of the board Dr mainga and cabinet members once again we will celebrate our teacher and employee of the month this year each month is theme
based for our November teacher and employee of the month the theme is leading by example being that role model this is the individual who inspires you someone who sets a good example and someone who wants students fellow teachers or employees and parents to imitate our teacher of the month is sponsored by North Carolina Central University's tennis program the TS side chapter of Omega Sai and DCL Consulting LLC and our employee of the month is sponsored by the office of Human Resources we're going to recognize our teacher then our employee our November teacher of the month is Miss McCormick McCormick second grade teacher at Forest View Elementary School Miss McCormack's dedication and commitment to professional development and collaborative teach have had a profound impact on our school and community over the summer m m
McCormick took the initiative to participate in the book club focused on building thinking classrooms and Mathematics this proactive engagement demonstrates her commitment to enhancing her teaching practices and staying a breast of the latest educational strategies notably Miss McCormack has been an exemplary player team player actively collaborating with colleagues across different grade levels and our instructional coach her collaborative Spirit has been evident in her involvement with our professional Learning Community where she played a key role in implementing the letters training during our e Ela Ela block furthermore Miss McCormick's Innovative approach to assessment has significantly impacted our instructional strategies in addition to the required mclass assessments she advocated for an implemented a spelling assessment and lifelong reader placement for all students the extra effort along effort
along with the use of the letters phonics and word reading survey in the past for students in the read in the excuse me in the red and boy mclass boym class has allowed us to create more accurate small groups tailored to each students needs Miss McCormick's commitment to individualized instruction is exemplified by her her thoughtful incorporation of additional resources this targeted and personal personalized approach how has undoubtedly contributed to the success of her students in conclusion Miss McCormick McCormack's exceptional dedication to professional development collaboration and Innovative assessment practices make her an outstanding candidate for Teacher of the month award her contributions not only benefit her students directly but also Inspire and Elevate the entire teacher Community congratulations to Miss McCormick McCormick for being named darn public school's November teacher of the
month a couple of days ago the tallai chapter of Omega sci-fi had an opportunity to surprise Miss McCormick uh with an in classroom surprise and uh this evening on behalf of DCL Consulting um we would like to present Miss McCormick with a check just a token for to recognize her teaching Excellence so again congratulations and would also like to recognize principal Boyce for recognizing Miss McCormick's excellent work congratul our November employee of the month is Miss Claudia green before and after
school coordinator also from farest VI Elementary School Miss McCormick runs an incredible before and after school program at Forest View Elementary her staff comes in date in and day out with a positive outlook ready to serve students students are excited about going to our after school care one parent whose kid recently was on the waiting list said that it was like Christmas morning when his kids learned that they were going to be able to start the Aftercare program he continued to say that they were disappointed when he picked them up 30 minutes early a few days after they began the kids and the parents love Miss McCormick and her te team and we couldn't be more appreciative of their effort and positive spirit day in and day out congratulations to miss Claudia green for being and named during Public Schools November employee of the
month thank you very much this evening spark spark pin recipients are valued members of two of our school communities Deputy Paul tivan and Deputy Hershel Moore are school resource officers both have a huge heart for students and are committed to their success they have worked to Foster meaningful relationships with students and that is exhibited in their recent actions to acknowledge student achievement Deputy tivan serves the durm performance Learning Center after hearing about an incentive program at the school to promote positive student performance he immediately stepped up and donated from his own funds a significant prize this is not something he was asked to do but did it out of the kindness of his heart to support our
students Deputy Moore serves Neil middle school and thought he should start an incentive program of his own he meets with students frequently to review assignments progress reports and report cards when students get good grades and show Improvement he rewards them the actions of these deputies demonstrate shared responsibility for the success of our students we are honored to present them with spark pin this evening thank you and congratulations
thank you and this concludes our celebrations for the evening thank you Miss Cooper the next item on our agenda is the superintendent update I'm G to pass it to you Dr mainga thank you Madame chair it feels good uh to see student being recognized and employees being celebrated good evening Madame chair board members and DPS Community I'm happy to share an update on the work being conducted to ensure ongoing success of our students Duran public school held the first of two planned Wellness days on Friday October 27th activities range from Zumba yoga to character development activties activities moral painting and daily affirmation prep rally the day was coordinated by student services department and it was a
success we have a great we have received a great deal of feedback from our schools and staff about how helpful this time was to check in with ourselves and connect to each other we look forward to our next Wellness day in the spring stem was also on display last month at stem Night at the Museum of Life and Sciences more than 250 people attended we have a unique partnership with the museum that's provide families with the opportunity to explore and Lear the night included stem activities a scavenger hunts craft and access to the museum Butterfly House dinosaur Trail and train as you know all elementary students will experience Stand By Design when school begins in the fall of 2024 we look forward to providing more stem Focus opportunities to support learning in the
classroom on Monday November 13 more than 160 members of our latinx community attended an information meeting presented to learn about the elementary student assignment plan and the offerings available to students next school year the meeting presentation was totally in Spanish thank you to MRC director Pablo fedman and Victor ol coordinator of our D and Global language program for leading this important conversation with our families also thank you to our growing together implementation team members for your ongoing work and support of this initiative we are just a couple days away from our Showcase of school schols we look forward to another outstanding event that allows our families to learn about our schools programs and why DPS is the best option for our for our children's success I would like to
m. m. at the Durham Convention Center finally I would like to be I will be remissed if I did not acknowledge this season of Thanksgiving and express my gratitude to our board um I'm grateful my cont was suspended last time therefore I'm really excited it's been really six years we starting our seventh year thank you for the V of cess and also I like to extend my gratitude to our DPS employees students and family for their hard work
advocacy and support of our Student Success we Cann now to do the work that we do with that each one of you I am forever grateful to this community thank you pleas conclude my remarks thank you Dr mainga next we have our agenda review and approval I move approval of our agenda we're moving would you like to make an amendment to the agenda like to make an amendment okay so let's make the amendment first and then we can do a motion I'd like to amend the agenda agenda to remove policies 3540 1735 1310 and 3540 can you repeat those numbers one more time Mr
Rogers 3540 1735 and 1310 second the amendment so it's been moveed that we amend the agenda to remove policy 3540 1735 and 1310 it's been seconded by Miss SP is there any other discussion all right Miss Chávez is joining us virtually tonight so we're going to do a Voice vote I'm gonna start with you miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I Miss Rogers I miss uh vades miss buer I miss Carter Aon I miss Lewis I and I vote I as well the agenda is approved I do note that we have folks
in the audience and I'm sure came to uh comment on those I want to note that we want to do some continued work on these policies and so that is one of the reasons why we are pulling them off the agenda for tonight all right the next on our agenda is the Board of Education monthly meeting minutes from October 26 2023 move approval of the minutes as presented second it's been moved and properly second uh mooved by Miss berer seconded by Miss vad darz is there any other discussion we'll do a Voice vote Miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I miss Rogers I miss vades I vot I miss berer I miss Carter Austin I miss Lewis I and I vote I as well that passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is general public comment before we get started I'll do a quick review of the rules first please state your name and if you're speaking for an organization
state your name and the name of the organization second speakers are asked to present their comments within three minutes when the yellow light comes on you have one minute left to begin winding up your Remar marks when the red light comes on it will be beep which indicates that 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 and or to the operation of the school system finally board members will listen carefully and consider your comments but we do not engage in a discussion with the speakers our first speaker will be and please uh forgive me if I mispronounced your name please correct me when you come up to the podium but Carrie Holbrook followed by Tommy
hunt good evening my name is Carrie hook and I actually was going to speak to the I'm not with numberers here's the SB 49 policy changes and I realize it's not going to be presented today but it is is it okay since I'm here to tell you how I feel yes you my name is Carrie Holbrook I do not represent any particular organization at this time um before I start my comments I would like for everybody first to take a look to the person next to you one way and and then the other way then I want you to look at your hands then I want you to think about your family of origin these are important to know I an educator retired from duke school for 30 plus years I taught public schools in
New York City I got my graduate degree from Bank Street College of Education in 1985 was when I started teaching preschool no 1987 and I was at Seminary I was denied a call to the ministry because obviously I am part of the lgbtq community and I refused to deny who I was I was 10 when I knew that I was a lesbian I did not speak to anyone about it for 10 years until I went to college and that was my junior year in college one gay male friend my senior year in college my best friend keep that in mind and what that does to a child when I was teaching in New York City in 87 we had the first edition of the national anti the National Education for the young na I forget how you say it National Association for the education of young CH children which is
the standard for all early childhood education in 1987 we were started with the first edition of the anti-bias education in our classrooms this my teachers in the preschool in Durham studied several years ago the new version it is 2023 we are in Durham North Carolina when I took an oath as a teacher I took a oath to support all children their whole selves social emotional everything and that includes creating an environment for all children to learn to love themselves honor themselves respect themselves respect their peers respect their community and be change makers that red yes that is thank you so
much you have any additional comments I welcome you can email the board and we'll be able to get them at that email address okay I had more but I talk a lot sorry it's okay Tommy hunt will be next followed by Sarah whill after Sarah will be Abby Bender um thank you for this opportunity to be here tonight to address the subject um with your permission I will read my comments uh good evening my name is Tommy hun and I'm a lifetime resident of Durham I graduated from Durham High School and the University of North Carolina I served in the United States Army in the 82 Airborne Division and I am currently president of the Durham High forever organization I'm here tonight to request
permission of the Durham school board to erect a historical plaque in front of the present building that was previously Durham High School in 2018 our board of directors proposed the plaque mentioned above in order to follow Pro follow proper procedures the state of North Carolina Department of archives was contacted they informed me that they no longer put plaques in front school boards in front of school buildings I should say um due to the high demand uh with that in mind we felt that further procedures were in order and we were prompted to secure permission from the school principal who enthusiastically endorsed the plaque after his approval a
school board member was contacted and he too agreed that the historical plaque was uh in order at that time the board was contacted uh and informed us that all was in order with the above approval the Durham High forever board with a short period within a short period proceeded to raise funds for this plaque uh we uh at that time raised $20,000 uh for the cost of the plaque based on the approval that was previously assumed uh we assumed was in order the plaque was constructed by the southw company in Copus to Texas and shipped to us in 2020 there was the delay in the erection
of the plaque due to the new roof being put on the school and we were told that the grounds would not be suitable uh until after completion of the roof work in 2021 we were informed that the grounds were in satisfactory condition uh for the erection of the plague I contacted his school board I'm sorry I'm GNA have to end your time because you have three minutes if you would like to leave your remarks then we can also the board can read through them after the I be happy to do that okay I leave these Mr uh Mr Ken can you grab those from Mr Hunt thank you with your permission gra I and these diagrams out to the board if you hand them over to Mr King he'll make sure we all get a copy of those there a gentleman is standing right here next to you yeah he'll make sure we get all get a
copy thank you so much next is Sarah white Hill Follow by Abby Bender followed by Dr Rosario Butterfield Rosario good evening my name is Sarah white Hill I use she her pronouns and I'm here tonight as the proud parent of an amazing six-year-old girl in kindergarten at Easley Elementary when my daughter goes and gets one of her favorite books from the school library Angelina Ballerina she is obsessed with dance she sees a character who is very much like herself a little girl Mouse obsessed with dance who lives with her mommy and her daddy my concern is that as you may have guessed I am also here to speak about the policies relating to State Bill 49 my concern is that these policies as
they were initially presented May prevent other children in her class from having that same privilege every child deserves a mirror every child deserves the opportunity to see people like them represented in their media and what's more every child deserves a window children like my daughter deserve the opportunity to see into different cultures different families and I want to make sure that that cultural experience is part of the education that she receives at Durham public schools that is part of why we chose Durham public schools for her education furthermore my concern is that by removing that access to representation from just a select Subs sector of the population from just students whose families fall into the lgbtq community we are exposing the district to potential liability under Title 9 and I would much prefer to see our tax dollars be spent educating our children and not fighting those battles out in court I would much prefer if we
could delay until we see these lawsuits resolved until we have a better idea of what we can do to protect our children's education and to protect the access to representation that is critical for children to have thank you for taking the time to listen to us I urge you to join other compassion at school districts in delaying and in implementing these policies in a way that is going to do the least amount of harm possible thank you hello my name is Abby Bender I'm a DPS parent of two kiddos the oldest of which is non-binary first I just really want to thank you guys for listening to us um we've been showing up and asking for this to be paused and for you guys to put some more thought and consideration into adding these these statements from s sp49 that could be very harmful to your permanent policy
and I do appreciate the time that you guys are taking to do this right um it means a lot to my family it means to a lot to a lot of these kids that are fighting this battle on their own in the school right now um and I just would encourage you to continue to have conversations as mentioned with other school districts like bumham and Orange County it looks like there are some steps being taken to even strengthen protection of lgbtqi kids in the district and just continue to have those conversations so that when things do put in get put into the policy they are as safe and and uh protective for this population as possible thank you so much thank you next up we have Dr Butterfield followed by Andrew branch and NE Allen good evening my name is Dr Rosaria Butterfield I am a retired Professor who did live as a lesbian activist for a decade but today I'm not a lesbian and
as a 61-year-old mother and grandmother I am grateful that during my season of confusion I made no irreparable decisions about my body policy 1735 would apply s sp49 on a case-by casee basis because you do not want to harm children I understand my husband and I adopted two children out of foster care at 16 they came to us with profound histories of trauma abuse and neglect they are now in their 30s with good jobs and families I have turned my life upside down to spare and save children from abuse so I understand your intent but the American Psychiatric association's Diagnostic and statistical manual states that gender anxiety in children desists at a minimum of 7 3% of cases if normal puberty is uninterrupted by social transition cross- seex hormones or surgery the endocrine Society guidelines recommend against socially transitioning a minor because the practice is associated with Persistence of gender dysphoria as a
child progresses into adolescence why because social transition concretizes what would otherwise be a transitory phase there is no good reason to transition a child without the parent knowled knowlege when parents enroll a child in a government school they neither make an adoption plan nor surrender their parental rights or obligations to school officials abuse must be documented not presumed even if Case by case but what is documented per the Washington Post just this week parents are removing children from government schools and opening home schools at the fastest rate this country has ever seen The Exodus spans geography and ideology why even people who are on board with your ideology know that when Johnny can't spell and you have a school board that defies parental rights nobody wins adults fast-tracked into social transitions that snowballed into medical mutilation as minors are fed up and
they're suing D transitioner Isabella aella is suing the American Academy of Pediatrics and her doctors for civil conspiracy fraud and medical malpractice following the law also protects each and every one of you one way to interpret civil conspiracy is a school board that denies a minor the right to parental care in a time of psychological crisis now I urge you to implement S sp49 I know this is a polarized issue Natalie has my phone number she knows where I live she knows where I worship I am so open to you if you would like for me to comment on anything or help you in any way I'm here for you thank you Andrew Branch followed by Neil Allen and then Charlotte or Orga I apologize again if I mispronounce
your name hi my name is Andrew Branch the dinner table is a safe place to talk about things that don't feel safe yall are welcome welcome at my dinner table but this is a school board meeting and that does affect my tone and my words sp49 says you can do things the Durham way you don't need to take those pornographic books from your libraries but parents can see what their child checks out you don't need permission to change a child's name or pronouns but informed parents can choose whether DPS will remain their partner in education and only through age 10 are you restricted in content no matter what representation of different family Arrangements you have through fourth grade and with parent knowledge afterward your curriculum cannot teach a child to disassociate her identity from her body The Logical conclusion of teaching these Concepts is for a young boy with autism who likes pink and doesn't fit in with other boys to ask
questions that need never be asked you don't tell a penguin to search its feelings to ask if it can fly that's not liberation do my feelings tell me who I am or does who I am tell me how to interpret my feelings we erase no one when we tell you the way you interpret your feelings is wrong you say you want to protect kids from harm when a child is baptized in the church we take vows to do the same when our children have feelings or desires they misinterpret with love and compassion we tell them no even if they say you're ruining my life as you explicitly treat parents as threats to their own kids parents will naturally treat you as a threat don't let parents who've only just begun to wake up find you choosing to stand between them and their child when a group of softspoken if direct parents in August expressed a consistent belief of thousands of years that male and female are objective and real not felt or
performed one of you used your moment of privilege to call that perverted and illegitimate you might call it social emotional development but you are engaged in religious instruction true Faith must first be true if Jesus Christ is alive a historical claim then we listen to all he says love one another love your enemies Matthew 19 where he tells those in power quote have you not read he who created them made them male and female we pray you know the full implications for your office of a risen Christ who said all authority is given to me in heaven and on Earth I think you guys are in a bubble and you could do to have coffee some time with someone who doesn't think like you I guess do bullies invite you to dinner next up we've got thank you Mr Branch we've got Neil Allen followed by
Charlotte Ora and then Ani whom Street hello um my name's Neil Allen um coming you today as a father of four children in DPS U my wife works for DPS um I went to school at Northern and grew up in Durham my father taught for Northern for 30 years I'm coming to you today as a parent of children in the DPS system um I it's very difficult for me very emotional and talk about that um my children have uh I mean I didn't always have a son I have a son now so but it's a struggle already children are vulnerable very difficult hard for them to know how to
use the bathroom you where they fit in so I'm just here to say I read through this sb49 seems pretty discriminatory um when you read through it uh you know I went to school with kids their names were Ronald Suzanne they wanted to be called Ronnie Michael wanted to be called Michael nobody had to call their parents to to see if it was okay to call Ronald Lonnie I mean you were scared to death to have your real name read out on the first day of school um but it's hard enough um for parents we have to deal with these issues um and you know we want to be supportive of our children and um sorry this is so hard for me but
um you know we got to deal with all these family issues and family doesn't care for your kids kids anymore or whatever make it easier for the kids that's all I'm saying okay I'm done next we have Charlotte origa and TOA him Street followed by Ashley cou if y'all want to go ahead and line up here you can hi my name is Charlotte dragga I'd like to apologize for my terrible handwriting so sorry um and yeah I also would like to speak to S sp49 um particularly from my own experiences growing up I'm a bisexual transwoman I uh grew up c as a in going to a Catholic School um for elementary school and as a side byproduct of that I didn't have access
to frankly any kind of neutral or positive lgbtq plus representation when I was a child like essentially everything that I absorbed was through popular culture or you know my own religion which at was frankly um at best toxic or you know like it would be sort of a oh look at this weirdo over here and frankly I internalized that it took me until my 30s to actually come out even to myself as a transwoman um so the danger and since I did so I've been happier than I ever have I can't speak enough to the damage that these kinds of policies that s sp49 seeks to enact would do to children and as a cons like as such it's incumbent on you I think to delay enacting these as long as possible frankly the moral thing to do is to not comply I understand that that would put you in a serious bind but as other people have said these are likely to be in Contra
contravention of Title 9 as it is and either way there's probably going to be a fight and I want you to stand on the right side of that thank you taking a little bit from Neil's comments so thank you thank you for sharing your story um hello DPS board members Dr mubanga my name is an swi hem Street my pronouns are she or they and I am a queer parent of two young children residing in Durham I am also the founder and executive director of rainbow Collective for change I'm here today to urge you uh to press pause on passing any policy changes to comply with the discriminatory s sp49 now I'm also thanking you for pressing pause on those policy changes um we have been working with you all for more than 18 months to implement policy and build knowledge community and structures within DPS to ensure
affirming learning environments for all lgbtqia plus students families and Educators s sp49 was intentionally written and passed to do the exact opposite according to a recent legal Memo from campaign for southern equality s sp49 leads to a hostile education environment for lgbtq students staff and families and violates federal law title of nine we you need to do everything in our power to prevent the harm that this law will cause LGBT q students families and Educators lgbtq and gender affirming environments benefit everyone girls boys both or neither and kids with traditional family structures or less traditional family structures these affirming environments celebrate diversity individuality and community and Love of All Kinds including self-love positive friendship ships and love of the more romantic variety these affirming environments
harm no one on the other hand s sp49 was created to harm lgbtqia plus and gender diverse students a group of students that was already navigating less than affirming or outright hostile learning envir environments a group of students that is already at disproportionate risk of bullying discrimination and rejection which in turn leads to high rates of depression anxiety and suicide sb49 is systemic bullying and it is everyone's responsibility to be an upstander for our lgbtq and transgender youth I know the state is watching to see what Durham Public Schools will do and that it feels complicated for you all while this can be intimidating or create worry that certain government leaders will make an example of you it is also a privilege you have the opportunity and the power to stand up for an already already vulnerable group of students families and Educators that is is under attack
also You Are Not Alone we are here to support you your students staff and families in your community support you you have neighboring districts that are also standing up against this blatantly discriminatory law that is falsely coined as a parent's Bill of Rights we can and have an obligation to stand as a united front against this current way of discrimination thank you thank you Ashley K followed by Elizabeth Shatner my name is Ashley gch my pronouns are she they there is no policy that can be written that both enacts Senate Bill 49 and provides any semblance of safety to lgbtq youth in our schools your only responsible course of action is to disregard the law in its entirety and prioritize the protection of students who depend on you for their
safety you may feel beholden to the legislative bodies elected through extreme Jer mandering who create laws intended to harm our children you are not beholden to them when policy makers enact malicious laws knowing they will harm the most vulnerable Among Us it is everyone's responsibility to defy those laws ask yourself what was the intended outcome of this law was it to coer children into being straight ingender through forcibly audence them to their parents and denying them representation in the classroom it will not no bill or policy can change influence or course any queer child into being suset all this bill will do is cause tremendous harm to the mental health of lgbtq children under your protection and potentially expose them to violent and abusive conditions from unaccepting parents unwilling to love a gay or trans child this bill does harm that was always the intent of the bill and the intention of the people who wrote it you cannot enact it to any extent without being complient in that harm yourselves reject the bill and enact a policy that
protects queer youth your top responsibility and the responsibility of the teachers in our schools is protecting the safety of our children please do not abandon that responsibility thank you my name is Elizabeth shatzer my pronouns are she her I'm here to speak to you as a queer woman and the parent of two schoolage children I had the opportunity to watch the live stream of the first comment period on S sp49 and I was excited and proud to see how many members of the board expressed unease concern and moral disgust at what they were being asked to do I did however hear a great deal of resignation I kept hearing people say you have to adapt policies to come into alignment with sb49 what is true that sb49 is the law in North Carolina that does not mean that DPS must adopt policies that align with it our nabal's Chapel Hill carboro City schools have refused to adopt policies that enforce
the anti-queer aspects of this law likening it to being asked to set a house on fire in my home state of Virginia four of the most influential school districts in the state have told the governor they will not accept mandates that harm queer youth I heard you all say you wanted to create the best bad policy you could to minimize the harm to our vulnerable youth history does not remember those who make the least bad policy we remember those who took a stand in said no I will not sacrifice our human rights just because of an immoral law by signing off on any policy that supports sb49 you are consenting to this attack on our children and our families what are you going to tell our queer youth are you going to look them in the eye and say I voted for the least bad version of this or are you going to take a stand and say no your rights are not up for a vote as adults we are charged with protecting our children are we too afraid to do the right thing I'm here to ask you to do the right right thing because I have faith in you all send the message to our children that you will protect them
because they are worth the risk send the message to the extremists in our legislator and our community that queer kids are not going to be sacrificed to further their agenda vote no do not approve any policy intended to comply with sb49 thank you thank thank you I think we have two more folks who have come in who want to give public [Music] comments if you can state your name and if you're speaking for organization state your name and the name of the organization you let me give you a couple more rules you have three minutes uh the green light will show you when you have three when the red light comes on you'll have one excuse me when the yellow light comes on you'll have one minute left we ask that you not share complaints about parents students or staff that's it we will listen carefully but we will not respond thank okay well thank you so my name is Reena Rachel galper I'm actually a former DPS
teacher and a queer teacher who at the time was not entirely safe coming out of the closet when I was teaching in this District um because I perceived that there were some strong feelings against the identities that I was carrying and I'm also a real support through my business joyous shout supporting change makers and in particular folks with marginalized and minoritized identities so s sp49 is not in isolation uh it also is accompanied by HB 574 which prohibits transgender girls from paying on girl sports teams HB 808 Banning minors from gender affirming care so what I want to do is sort of be intersectional in my comments because this particular SP sp49 is not being put across an isolation of other legislation which minoritized and further stigmatizes people in our school system and in our community it is also not a
stretch to see the connections between isolating and denying care to lgbtqia and denying our teachers our Educators the ability to teach about the true history of this country including race and racism you know we have to embrace difference that's one of the reasons why love Durham because difference is our strength and we are only as strong as the ones whose voices are not heard and the people who are discriminated if we turn on them and deny them the right to be who they are then it puts all of us in Jeopardy so thank you thank you and do we have one more speaker in the audience hello my name is Christine marato Sano and I'm a mother of three children one in the DPS system and two of that I have
been homeschooling um for various other reasons but I have a transgender daughter who might be entering the DPS system next year and I wanted to make sure I share what I want to share I kind of knew I was answering the call from the wonderful organization rainbow Collective for Change and so dropping off the kids to gymnastics and dropping off the kids that with friends my daughter has been playing with friends she's been rehearsing her lines for play um with very open families that have been welcoming and affirming from religious some from religious backgrounds some not and and so for me this I have been a teacher in in ad durm Charter School um that was honoring an Atwater back in the early 2000s and I learned learn so much about her and how she helped change a kak's clan leader to um help fight for integration in the schools this is the same thing it's just a different label
we are discriminating against human beings being themselves I have Filipino background and in the Philippines we have no he or she we have just the one pronoun sha gender is a construct my mom growing up she'd always be like hey she she she he we didn't know who she's talking about cuz there we were all like you mean she or he no there's just sha and so I'm coming from a a background of like this is natural and it's normal and we and when my daughter was uh telling us who she is we connected with thousands and thousands of other families and uh we she's been in an affirming Community her whole life her light her eyes are bright she is she loves gymnastics she loves dance she loves theater she loves singing and if she comes into an environment that's hostile to just who she is I am afraid her lights will be blown out and to me
that makes just no sense we choose to live here in Durham um I grew up in Winston Salem went to UNCC Chapel Hill schools I taught French Spanish I have a background in International Development and early childhood education monor education and I had students in my three to six year old classrooms they were clearly who they are at that age I I am very passionate about early childhood and these children know who they are anyway I just wanted to have I came straight from a play group and just wanted I'm so thankful that everybody here who knows all the numbers of the laws were able to say them I I'm starting to learn them but yes I just wanted you to know we choose to live in Durham because of its just Rich history in diversity and fighting for human beings thank you thank you that concludes our public comment
the next item on our agenda is our consent items we have several items a through H listed here and the board has reviewed these items in advance of our meeting today board what's your pleasure move approval of the consent agenda second it's been moved by Miss Rogers seconded by Miss berer is there any other discussion all right we'll start with Miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I miss Rogers I miss valadares I miss berer hi Miss Carter Aon hi Miss Lewis I and I vote I as well passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is our chief of staff we have we'll start with the second reading of multiple policies except for 3540 M yeah thank you would you please pull up the PowerPoint you can go to the second
slide good evening Madam chair board members and Dr manga we are here today to request approval on second reading of policies 3210 policy 4335 policy 4720 policy 6120 and policy 7300 and those of you recall just for um historical purposes we had the first reading at the work session in November and these policies were previously reviewed by the board and I have now presenting them for approval in second reading the five policies that are listed um had preemptively pulled 3540 somewhat myself so but we won't be discussing that those edits but the PowerPoint is available to the public as well and I'm happy to answer any
questions but there were no changes from what was um reviewed on the first reading at the work session thank you m giavani any questions from board members comments some motions Miss Rogers thank thanks so much for putting this together um only because I have a seventh grader do I know that we've already started implementing the survey options can we speak a little bit to the procedures that parents should expect with the [Music] survey so let me make sure I'm understanding your question um based on
the parents Bill of Rights the surveys that contain protected information now have to be opted into two by parents um Dr Al Royster the is the executive director for research and accountability and he and I have worked with the board's Attorneys at darington Smith to ensure that um we are complying with that requirement from the law what Dr Royer has has done is provided information to principles and the test coordinators there's several other changes to the law like it prohibits um social workers and counselors from assisting in any way with testing so there's a lot of different pieces to it but Dr Royer has um uh reached out and we have provided him with that guidance and he has shared that with principles and um other necessary people with what the steps should be for how they share that information with parents but as most things it's an ongoing process and
I'm always happy and I know Dr Royer is always happy to receive any feedback for um if there's are any concerns or any additional way that it can be improved thank you that's helpful thank you Miss Lewis I could just add on to that comment I also have a fifth grader we got the survey to opt in and I had already reached out to Miss Roberts but one of the questions is about the student ID number number and if you could just have all the ways that parents can find out that student ID number on the Google form will be helpful I Know It List school lunch but also she replied to my email to say it's also a power school number or you can call the school there are many ways to get it but that feels like a a barrier for me so other parents may have the same concerns thank you though got it received it it was very easy to navigate until I got to that student ID so uh Miss vodar I also got that um I have
an 11th grader so yes um and and that that is a challenge and I I will say for a lot of families even you know when it comes to power school and even having like their student number um I think uh the confusion that the community has is is this going to be a norm for every survey but you just mentioned you know based on policies anything that touch touches on anything related to the parents Bill of Rights but can you talk a little bit about the expectation because families um who are asking for help with these surveys we need to start preparing you know um I think as as families continue to get these opin forms so it does only apply to surveys that contain protected information and that has been historical that list of surveys containing that protected information has been um in existence but previously it was opt out of those and now with the passage of the new law it is opt in and so um Dr King and I um
Contin Dr Royster um is reports through academic Services which Dr King oversees and we are collaborating um fully I think I've indicated that before and our plan is to kind receive this type of feedback we welcome feedback from board members community members staff members on how we can improve that but what I would say is um what parents can expect is from my expectation and my interactions and just working with Dr Worster especially um for several years is that it will be um very thorough and very clear to understand and also with Mr Freedman with the MRC just being very um proactive so that it's easy for folks that if you need some assistance um with um these surveys and understanding that because um English may not be your first language then that will be provided in what we share I think we're just going to be overshare as much as possible because we want our families to be able to have make informed decisions around
um participating in these surveys thank you ask a few follow-up questions it seems like we sent that via email how else did we share the survey with families with the with parents survey from I would not be able to answer that I'm not sure of all the ways is there anyone we got an answer coming behind okay thank you so the survey begins um Stu students May begin participating in the survey on November 20th and that runs through December 19th we also shared VI that um information so parents could opt in via email and we also sent Robo calls to those grade bands for in parents to receive that information we do have follow-up communication um that will be going out to families again tomorrow tomorrow because they need to opt into that process so they may take that the survey during that window those are things that are continuously happening to make sure that we have as many families um who would like to participate get the information so that
they may do so thank you we'll be tracking how many families opt in I believe we will um we have been working very closely with the office of research and accountability um speaking with Mr Nelson surles and um part of our strategy to ensure that we have as many families opt in as possible is to make sure that we maintain that consistent communication with them and so our Outreach that will happen tomorrow is part of us making sure that we are um monitoring the those numbers and make sure that all families who want to participate are able to do so thank You' all for that I think we can make sure we're monitoring those numbers to ensure if we need to do different types of communication methods right or what we need to shift our way of how we're sending out the survey I think that'd be helpful if we are using this survey data for so much information we want to make sure at least expands most of the district right and we don't only have certain demographics taking the survey I would like to just follow up real briefly on the that last question um I
do know that um Dr Royster recently shared information that kind of a toolkit of sorts for principles and shared with them what the data was on various surveys so that those principles could then reach out to their families as well because you know most families ask their first point of contact is their school and their principal so I'm I can't recall the exact survey that it was that he had requested optin on but I know that he did just recently share that out um with principal so that is something that we are also doing at the school level with principls so they shared um the number of folks who had already opted in is that so I'm not I don't recall okay you know the exact you it was a couple days ago that I saw this um email but it was that our numbers were at X for this survey and that the plan from research and accountability was then to share with individual schools like your school participation you know probably at the teacher level is this number so that principles could then develop you know they each they know their communities so it is
something that we are aware of and not simply relying kind of on the you know as wonderful a job as Miss Cooper and her team do fantastic but we are making sure that we're kind of coming at it holistically you know from the school level the district level because we are aware that you know without that sharing we would not um parents would not be aware of of that I mean it's a multi-prong approach right old school individual School individual FKS and members I would just share we we have anticipated that that this board will will want to be aware of what those uh completion numbers uh look like and I have directed Mr Royster to keep track of that so that at an appropriate time we'll be able to report to the board um the number of students and families who opted in and we'll be able to provide you with information and we'll put that into context uh comparing that to um what those um opin or those participation numbers were like prior to the opt-in requirement Dr King you know us well huh thank you for that I appreciate it Miss Rogers so my follow-up questions
were can we get some information around why that particular number is necessary the lunch number uh because it is required well it was required when I went in we can do that my my my guess would be that it is uh required because it provides us with an individual um um identifier um for students um I will work with Mr Royer to find out exactly why that is and if there is a different option that we might use that might take that uh take might take that difficulty off the table for parents right thank you that's helpful um one of the things that I was thinking about I liked how the spark mail thing popped up on the website perhaps when we log into power school maybe an option where it pops up and allows us the opportunity to enter there I know power school does not
belong to us and it makes things a lot more difficult and um perhaps maybe in the DPS app but I know that doesn't connect to the student so um just some other places to think about where it could pop up think so any other questions or comments Miss berer so I appreciate um the work that's gone in to pull back um some of the most troubling aspects and policy changes um for further discussion by this board the one that still is continuing to to concern me is this 30 to10 about um you know the parental inspection and objection to instructional materials and largely while I know that the North Carolina General Assembly um set this into statute um it is cumbersome incredibly
cumbersome and many of these laws are just set up really to incentivize I believe nuisance Behavior from and and nuisance lawsuits um I'm concerned that we are going to have to spend a lot of time supporting principles um in in making copies of materials or providing things for families to review um where there really is no Scandal or problem or issue in the first place so I'm I'm concerned like are there ways that we can charge parents for material for photoc copies for whatever I mean equally turn it back around Mr Malone are there ways that we can disincentivize some of this um kind of behavior that I think might come from this um from folks that don't even have children in
schools we we provided some guidance to the superintendent on some of that and I can review do that again and work with um M Dr Giovani and and Dr mainga to make sure that we've addressed that but I I think we have provided some of that information in the materials that we previously provided is is this one the 3210 that could pull back and wait for for further review in the future for yall to make modifications to it or do you feel that this is the best that uh we can do with with our legal understanding at this moment so I would I would say this I think all the changes in all of these policies are the minimum required changes to align the policies with the statute now there's you know whether
you'd like to add some information in some of these to clarify some positions um of the board or some other steps that we might take that's obviously a possibility but in terms of I mean what we have what we have proposed in these policy changes would be the minimum changes required to get the policies to comply with the existing statute anything else Miss bar no I'll keep thinking about it I just um I think this there's going to be additional burden administrative burden that I'd like the district to offer the
support rather than the principles having to to deal with a lot of this if it becomes cumbersome they yeah and we won't know how this plays out until we watch it for a while um missad reminded me that it does address that that is only applicable to parents of children that have a student enrolled not random community members that is correct yes absolutely I think what we can ask Dr mainga and staff if you all um can monitor how many requests that we get coming in and Dr King um so that we can get a sense of if we need to what support central office might need to offer and I think you know Dr King and your wisdom we anticipate that we'll want to know as a board uh how many of those requests are coming in I think that would be helpful um I think there are many parts of this that can be cumbersome for our Educators in a way
that uh is not supporting teaching and learning any other comments or or motions this is Emily Chávez and I make a motion to approve policies 32 2 10 4335 4720 6120 and 7300 thank you Miss Chávez second been moved by Miss Chávez seconded by Miss berer is there any other discussion we'll do a Voice vote Miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I miss
Rogers I miss fadar V I miss berer hi Miss Carter Alton hi Miss Lewis hi and I vote I as well they passed unanimously um the next item will be academic Services DPS information and Technology Chromebook update good evening board members uh the purpose of this presentation tonight is to provide the board and the Durham Community an update uh that will explain our current onetoone configuration uh the path that was followed uh to reach our current status and some of the challeng challenges that we Face uh in order to
maintain the onet toone program uh from dayto day and that we will need to be prepared to face as we uh attempt to continue uh with one to one uh going forward as a district at this time uh Miss Jo Malone our executive director for information technology will come forward with the Chromebook update thank you Dr King good evening board members Dr maanga cabinet members um I would also like to recognize um entire DPS it leadership team who is here today uh Mr Paul maumi our director of it operations he will be joining me in this presentation Miss Angela ainson who is our director of it support and Mr Eric Houston he is our it asset control manager um this presentation is before you this afternoon for discussion as well as an action to approve funding for 402 Chromebooks in the amount of
1,893 41 and that is with essr funding next slide please our agenda for this evening will include the following topics we will highlight the road map that DPS took to become a onetoone district and that will be presented by our director of it operations Paul mjumi and then I will return to share some current inventory data that includes information about our District's onetoone Inventory management system and lastly we will discuss technology equity and sustainability next slide I'll turn it over to pop good evening both members of B and cabinet members here um the Strategic plan for 2018 2023 Priority One Go 1D uh talks about teachers leaders and staff using technology as a tool for accelerating and personalizing student learning with this goal in Focus prior
to the year 2020 we had achieved sufficient networking capacity we had standardized devices for certified staff and administrators and our goal was to become 3 to one or two to one uh student laptop rure District all these goals were on track then 2020 happened um next slide please um due to the pandemic we changed gears and presented to you a proposal to get the district to a one toone status l i overnight um this plan ensured that every student had a Chromebook they could take home and use for instruction but also the proposal had policy development deployment schedules and professional development facilitate the success of remote instruction um I would like to extend my appreciation to Tech Champions principles and itchs who work who worked tirelessly during that during the deployment phase and who had played a key role in maintaining our one to1 District to this day um although this proposal got us to a one to1 status a lot of the recommendations such as Staffing and refresh to sustain that status were not implemented and Miss
Malone will share more some of those in the slides to come next slide please at the time we had that's prior to 2020 as went to 2020 we had a total of roughly 18,000 devices in the district uh of which 4,000 of those were in not great shape you know missing keyboards bad uh bad bad screens um and with the blessing of the board purchased an additional 206 devices and that got us to a one to one status each child at the time had a device in good condition for instruction next slide please on this slide we do highlight some of the purchases um that the district has made since 2020 um as stated we purchased 206 devices in 2020 using K act and we P we purchased an additional 1060 devices using S fund fing and last year we purchased 858 devices using combination OFA and ECF funding at this time I'll POS back to
Miss Malone to show us some thanks Paul now before we go into the next slides we're going to be sharing some Consolidated data on the status of our student Chromebooks before I go into that information as Paul did I want to acknowledge and recognize the work and efforts of our Tech Champions our Tech facilitators our media coordinators and our it team members our Tech Champions have been the glue who have been accountable for deploying and managing technology assets at the school level While most districts pushed this work on media coordinators and identified it as other duties as assigned with no additional compensation durm started out Above the Rest Tech Champions have been compensated with extra Duty based on their student ADM ranging from
$750 per year to $1,250 per year to eliminate the extra Duty work on Tech Champions Our IT department has been piloting a method to insert full-time technicians at our large Comprehensive High Schools currently Southern Northern and along with the School of Creative Studies have dedicated it technicians over the next school year we will continue to reduce the workload of our Tech Champions by pushing it technicians into our schools more often and actually automating a lot of our processes that have been done manually next slide please next slide so all DPS schools currently use Chromebooks to achieve one to one except the School of Creative Studies last
school year the School of Creative Studies received a grant to provide students Apple devices you can see here grades six through eight receive iPads in students and grades 9 through 12 received MacBooks all other DPS schools have Chromebooks as their onetoone inventory and then you can see that number as of October the 31st is 34,1 154 devices next slide please so since January 2020 through October of 2023 our district has 9,560 Chromebooks that have been reported missing and lost in the the table you will see how the missing and lost devices are categorized by school levels in talking with other educational it leaders across the state the missing
and lost percentage of student devices range from five to 15% per year the missing and lost Chromebooks in DPS this is a community challenge our missing Chromebooks are being discovered in storage areas at our schools in gyms in our local churches and in our Parks this is a call to action for everyone our audiovisual team is currently working on a commercial that will be shared prior to the holiday break to encourage our staff our students our families and communities to return DPS Chromebooks and Chargers next slide please since January of 2020 through October of 2023 our district has had 16 Chromebooks
that have been reported to local law enforcement as stolen and we have an official police report on foul in the table here you can see how those sto stolen devices are categorized by school levels next slide please our district has removed 21 Chromebooks from our inventory because our repair vendor has identified the device as inoperable due to bug infestation in the table you can see how these biohazard devices are also categorized by school levels next slide please since January Ary of 2020 through October of 2023 our district has processed 19,8 198 repairs on our district owned Chromebooks this is over half of our
inventory of devices in the table you can see how these devices are categorized repairs are categorized by school level next slide so to dig a Little Deeper about those repairs here on this table you can see the top five repair types for our district Chromebooks over half of our devices have been repaired due to screen damage or some type of damage to the cover next slide please so one of the benefits of having a Inventory management system is that we can see and run real time reports on our inventory status additionally our onetoone inventory management system is integrated with power school our student information management system this integration allows our it organizations
Tech Champions principles and anyone who a principal approves to have access to see their schools inventory at any time this table shows by school category the number of students in our schools who are currently assigned more than one DPS issued Chromebook next slide please also the integration between one:1 and Power School confirms that we have 1,221 Chromebooks that are still assigned to students who are no longer enrolled in dur Public Schools this table shows by school category the number of students who are assigned that are no longer in our school district while we have started the conversation with Dr giovan's office the
office of student assignment and Records because we want to close the loop on when a student leaves our district making sure we collect all DPS assets we also continue to work with our schools to make sure that they understand the real conversations with our families happen at the school level next slide please now we will go into technology equity and sustainability next slide this quote from Bill Gates sums it up technology is just a tool in terms of getting the kids working together together and motivating them the teacher is the most important technology is woven into our 2023 2028 strategic plan technology is integrated in the classroom to enhance
rather than to replace instruction in all content areas curriculum and instruction partners with our schools to ensure all students educators leaders and coaches use the North Carolina digital learning competencies as a tool to accelerate and personalized student learning all students receive an understanding of the fundamental concepts of Technology operations and digital citizenship that includes an awareness of their digital footprint online behaviors as well as digital privacy while all North Carolina State Testing is performed online we do have approximately 3,751 families who have opted out of technology and our schools work with that f with those families on how to accommodate their learning
needs next slide please at the start of this school year we implemented a student device sustainability plan our Elementary School principles unanimously voted that our elementary school students could achieve academic success by being technology day users for our Middle High and Specialty schools we have implemented a model to track damage as accidental or intentional as part of this table you can see the action for each occurrence based on the damage type also this year all students and staff are charged $25 for a replacement charger next slide please so to sustain our devices and to recognize students for taking care of their District issued devices the F
following sustainability plan has been developed grades prek through five they will remain technology day users and those devices will be on a six-year refresh rate our middle school students they will keep their device their same device their entire time in middle school and those devices will be on a three-year def5 device refresh rate and then for our students in grades 9 through 12 they will keep their same device during their time and then those devices will be on a four-year refresh rate this will also allow for all schools to have 10 laner devices for their schools as devices are being repaired next slide please so the big question what is the need to sustain one to one and dur Public Schools the action before you
today is to purchase 4,2 Chromebooks you can see here and based on what the previous slides that Paul shared the cost for a Chromebook has increased about $100 a little over $100 this year we budgeted for that you could see the total cost and we have worked with Finance on that funding source as Esser the question for the 2024 2025 school year as well as the 2025 2026 school year you see the estimated number of devices that we have here to maintain our onetoone district at this point in time we have an EXC there because those numbers could change based on the number of missing and lost devices that we have and any devices that are deemed unrepairable again and unknown is this the total cost or the cost per Chromebook is that going to change and
again trying to figure out where that funding source is going to come from next slide please so this concludes our presentation we are now open for discussions and for approval for funding of the 402 Chromebooks thank you thank you Miss Malone and your team for the presentation and all your hard work um managing so many devices so I appreciate that board members are any questions comments Miss vorus thank you so much um director um of it uh Mr Malon I am just really um perplexed with with all the numbers of missing devices and I also understand you know that a lot of schools are grappling with it um grappling with students who have missing devices and I really uh your department with the
thought of uh having full-time Tex champions um in in our high schools right in our Comprehensive High Schools um and you mentioned some of the the schools as Southern Northern and school for Creative Studies um would you when did they start and um um as we look at some of the implementation maybe it's whatever time that it's been what are some of the learnings that we we're seeing and um how is that uh being played out in the school at the school level I'd love to hear the feedback that the school is providing about having a full-time Tech Champion yep so and these are full-time it technicians and so we have them like you said at Southern Northern and the School of Creative Studies um the School of Creative Studies is a little different because again they're using Apple devices um but again having a resource there has been very beneficial um to their school we've received positive feedback from their principal um for northern and southern um again just having that full-time
person there that can be able to help and support with whether it's resetting passwords I'm helping um with computer deployment um so we've Reed great feedback um we're still um tracking the metrics from the number of tickets and incidents that they're having there but again the principles they are very excited to have a full-time person there and really for not for that work not to be on a tech champion this is so great and I'm sorry executive Dr muo please correct me executive director of it right yes I I AP I want to give you your props um you know over time uh we have definitely uh seing changes like there was a time when DPS was not a onet to1 district um and that has happened you know around the time of the pandemic and we have maintained that it doesn't mean that it's always easy um especially as it's a new initiative and people don't understand that sometimes um it seems like you know the change the changes that we see um seem like as though they
it's been like that the whole time and no we we were really a recent District that has adopted one to one but you know we hope to continue doing that and so um I love how you framed it as sustainability um and that is the realest thing because what costs $2 million will will probably cost five to 11 million in in the next few years so I I really commend you you know on on project on those projections because we have to keep in keep track of the trends and you know we start projecting out if we keep at this pace with the number of lost devices and Chargers that's going to eat at our budget um and we will not have I see paulaur always warning us about the funds that are running out that are not going to be here forever um and so that poses a budgetary issue for us but when it comes to our families um your presentation included so many things that sometimes we don't you know I hadn't thought about biohazard we're talking about pests like Pest Control
um we're talking about devices that you know where there's it's it's a biological Hazard right and so um there's a process by which I would imagine the devices when they're received you need ample time to make sure and te's out because you know I wouldn't want to give a device to any of my colleagues um that might pose a hazard right a biohazard and so um all those protocols all those processes um that you have in place include that the time to figure out what's going on with the device and make sure that it is an adequate device for our students students can you tell us a little bit more about um some some of that process I mean there's so many processes you have in place but just even even that can you expand upon that process um so what happens is when a student whe there's a student um they're a family member or either a tech Champion they find an issue with the device they submit a ticket to our it support center So within eight hours we provide a response to say hello your ticket has been received a technician will be assigned um a technician will go out to that
school usually um within I would say two to three days to pick up that device they pick up that device they do an assessment on that device if it is something that they can fix right then they'll fix it there on site if not if that um device is deemed that it has to go out to a repair company then it'll go out to a repair company however we get a device back in the hands of that student and that school to add to their inventory we take that device out of that school's inventory while it's being repaired and so at that point the repair company you know we actually do kind of process metrics on our repair company to find out how long is it taking them to repair our devices and so on General they'll get they come three times a week and so we usually find where they're returning our devices within a week and so at that point again if it's a biohazard they return it to us it's taped up and they say that hey this device can no longer be used a lot of times before the device is out we might not know that it's a bioh hasm again we
have had to send some of our it employees home because again they've had you know just the they've become contaminated from a device and so end up what happens is when they open up the device they see then that there's something inside of the motherboard and things of the device that at that point we have to take it out of our inventory if that is the case they return the device to us we put it in our warehouse we call what we call cannibalize it so sometimes we can use it for parts other times we have to send it out to ew to see if we can recoup some cost to again purchase more devices um so that's kind of how the process works our repair company like I said they come Monday Wednesday and Friday to our warehouse returning devices that have been repaired we put those again back in the rotation and send them back out to our schools thank you um I have one last thing um a little bit of of of two things over the past um few years uh you we we get a lot of uh insight and feedback verbally through emails through
calls um it is very important because we can't know what's happening on the ground without that feedback and that feedback is so valuable and so I thank you know our dur Public Schools Community for providing as much feedback about what's working how are they seeing it on the ground um I want to commend you particularly because you know one of the things that I do as as an as an advocate I'm an advocate at heart is is definitely to make sure that when it comes to issues you know to understand a little bit more about the issues right and so so for example there have been concerns from numerous Educators about the constraints on the devices like not being able to change the screen not being able to download certain software not being able to do things and not only are Educators but also our students have also told us numerous times like this device is such so frustrating and and you know they tell us and you know one of the things that that I that I'd like to do is just you know send you those questions um just outlining here's an issue that I'm hearing from Community um tell me about you know the wireless
system and why certain devices don't connect um you know I learned so much I learned about Pixie phones I learned so much but you're handling not only the the distribution of devices but also the requirements in terms of Wireless Services what devices can connect to the wireless network um what phones can connect to that base under security settings and how all that ties to our insurance premium that we pay as a district because we do not want to become like that District that you know about um that got hacked so these are these are hard conversations to have sometimes when folks email us and many folks and we love these emails we love them because we can't fix issues unless we can name the issue and send that to our admins and and you clarify and so you you've told us a little bit more about um the reason why you have these constraints in the devices but can you explain a little bit more about the insurance the implications of not being stringent like not having that I know we
can go in this about hacking but it's not just one thing it's it's it even affects our premium our insurance premium I understand y um but but on that point one thing that I share is I am an IT leader um but I also consider myself as an educator in this space being in public school system and so with that I'm also a parent and so I see the needs of whether it's you know our students we go out to the schools and they have gang flags and signs or guns on their screen saver of their Chromebook and so when we see that we say is there a educational reason or is there educational purpose for that I'll say I'll go my son he has his favorite rap artist up there that doesn't have anything to do with his work in doing I ready or I Exel and so again I look at that for all of our students um one of the things regarding cyber security when you have rights to change your screen savers and things like that on your computer you also have rights to
download software and again in downloading that software that puts our district at risk because if we don't have the license for that software those companies are going to come after us because we don't have we're not appropriately licensed um also with um Dr giovan's office we have the cyber security is is real and um Dr Giovani can share more of the details I meet with her um to go over what we have to do to be compliant um to again keep our premiums low from a cyber security standpoint here I've managed to um allow Miss Malone to take the blame for all of the um multifactoral um authentication that we've done but that's me and um I've managed to let her take the blame for the um emails the fishing emails but that's also our insurance um company those are mandated and I will say she is to be commended and her team Mr mumi and everyone in the IT department because they our broker and our um cyber
security people commend them they indicate that we are at the top not just for school systems but for industry and I mean that's just the dedication I mean it takes you know you can throw money at something but when people have a passion and care about the work that they're doing it shows and I just would be remiss if I did not share that so um finally got busted with that but thank you thank you Miss Malone and Mr Mambi and the IT team M yes um just want to make few comments as uh we having this conversation my understanding that we're coming for the approval for us to be able to buy more uh Chromebooks but I think there's a lingering question there about how we're going to be able to sustain this program that's uh really a deep conversation that we need to have today um I remember a couple months ago I had a meeting with a superintendent
student Advisory Group I asked a question how many of you know your friends that have more than uh one device all of them raise their hands they have more than one devices at home so it's really concerning to me that we've made really serious efforts to get to one to one uh if we're not going to sustain this I'm feeling really bad about this as we're talking about Ai and all this technology in the future not having enough devices for our students that's concerning and number two as uh DPI is moving pretty much all the assessment uh online if our students are not really used to have those devices on a daily basis is not going to Advantage them when they have those assessment as if you can look at our PowerPoint public SL 20 uh the cost for
next year I think we're good when it come to Sr fund this year but the projection next year is going to cost roughly about $8 million if you pretty much multiply by 500 estimating that uh each Chromebook is going to be about $500 that's over $8 million next year I know the history of going to County Commissioners we have a lot of needs Master's pay and other things just going to ask for close to $10 million just for corn Brook on the regular basis that's a conversation that we need to have thank you to both for allowing us to be able to charge for those charges last year we spent over $300,000 just for those charges um I know they need they need to be a serious conversation when it comes to accountability and for students also to be responsible how to be keeping those devices example I have a grandson that uh is in way County Schools third
graders he has had this device almost for four years now and last time when I saw him he had his device he was playing was doing something then he just closed it quickly I say Eli you're going to mess it up so you have this probably for another two years so it's going to take really all of us to have really serious conversation how we're going to be able to sustain this if we think we're going to be able to get a good $10 million every year to sustain this that's a different conversation that would be great if not then we have to put really measures in place to be able to protect those devices thank you Dr MinGa uh Other M Rogers thanks for this presentation um the question I always ask um what's the urgency look like on this to million doll is a big ask we're not um I would love to hear from Educators
parents about how they're feeling about moving forward with something like this before we make a decision and I don't know that we've had that opportunity so is this something that we can decide on at our next board meeting just clarifying question here are you referring to the $4 million that we're bringing forth that we're going to use out of Sr funds which is going to expire in September so I think we're feeling comfortable because this ISR funds and we got to have to refresh some of those devices to have in our disposal otherwise the money can be used differently I think looking at our priorities we felt this is really a good timing for us to be able to have those devices okay and and also I'll add so some of our devices currently right now again from a hardware standpoint they have a warranty of four years but again some of them have broken hinges um and
the students are still kind of able to use them they're getting by but again they pose a safety hazard and so again this will allow us to take those devices out of out of rotation and put um we can use them like say for example if it's the screen still works we can use that screen to put on another device okay um thank you that's helpful can we talk about tech Champions how many are there what does the turnover rate look like for Tech Champions and their um sort of burnout rates yeah so I do not have the data with me on I do have because again we keep the tech Champions kind of year over-ear so we have a spreadsheet of that I don't have that data with me today but I can actually share that okay that would be helpful okay um on the school level who's been responsible for ensuring that devices are returned and returned properly um so again that would be administrators Tech Champions Tech Champions usually do the deployment of
devices as well as the collection of devices that is kind of being you know the principles but again our it teams have gone out to schools to help with that distribution and collection as well as I've seen kind of other staff members helping because again that is that's a huge team effort is there a form letter that goes home or what should parents be looking for if their student has multiple devices have they been notified that they have multiple devices with the expectation that they should return them um so they there's no kind of form or anything like that that's that's been sent out or anything so again we're communicating with our principles they have kind of the spreadsheet of the um students the multiple devices the serial numbers of those devices um I was actually out at a school last week um because we found that uh one student was using five devices um I went out to that school um the student did not um you know the student like no I don't have these devices um but we kind of just
like did an incentive I said so for every DPS device you bring back I'll give you a gift card and so the next day that student brought four devices back and then he also told one of his friends um who I hadn't even talked to and she brought a device back and so that was five devices that we collected um at one school last week yesterday our team was out at um another school the principal made an announcement while we were there um that hey we're going to do a campaign and we're going to um bring uh Chromebooks as well as Chargers back um we were there while the students were going out to the bus and the car pickup line and this was an elementary school and one of the student came up to say hey Dr principal did you say y'all were gonna give money for returning Chromebooks and chargers and so we all just smiled and we were like so what do you have and he pulled Chargers out of his book bag and so at that point in
time it was just like you know what do we have on us right now to recognize this student for being honest and for giving us those Chargers and those Chromebooks and so again one of the things that I mentioned about like that commercial so our av team we're using kind of footage so one of the things with those students that you know turn in those four Chromebooks I said hey would you like to participate in a commercial to make this bigger for DPS and he was so excited and so we're going back to their school to film to encourage and share this with our families and across the district to say hey if you see any DPS devices in the community anywhere bring those back when they do bring them we do scan them to make sure they're DPS devices because again we have received Wake County devices we received count um devices from um other states Eric sends those back um but again we do want to make sure that um we are in possession of only our devices and we partner with other counties to send their back that's helpful um I was one of the
people who was on the fence about the $25 fee for Chargers especially since when my son lost his charger I had to purchase it myself and then now I have an extra charger at home that doesn't go to anything because we have have use Apple devices so what's being offered is there uh an effort or a way for uh parents to allow students to use their own devices um so again any student can bring they cannot use their own device for testing okay um so they can't use their own device for testing but again our network is set up where they can bring their own device and it will connect to our Network again when it comes down to using kind of canvas and things like that again those that's kind of built into our Chromebook and easy to navigate but again if those families prefer to use their device um our it team does not provide support on personal devices um but again we can provide them guidance on how to connect
their device to the network and access um school systems and is that being deployed by admin ad ministrators on each School level or is that something that families should automatically know well again that's um and Dr Giovani if you could help me because that isn't one of our board policies regarding um kind of bring they have the option to bring their own device and the schools can determine that okay okay um I think that's all my question thank you I'm gonna go to miss Carter Aon and I'll come back to you Miss buer um thank you I am still we've discussed this but I'm still struggling with the number of missing devices that we have not just because that's a lot of money that we don't have to spare but
also because I am concerned about what we are teaching our kids about responsibility and about taking care of things even the stories that you describe tonight are Frank it's just it just bums me out further to hear some of that right um so I am wondering like what are we doing to prevent this from happening I appreciate I'm excited about the um commercial um excited to see that I'm hoping that that works I want to see some data on how well that works and what we invest in in that commercial but then I want to know what are we doing to prevent this moving forward if we're going to commit to $2 million tonight or soon and many more million dollars moving forward um how are we going to stop bleeding laptops and devices in our district and how are we going to teach our kids and families about how to take care of um their things y so I definitely again I think it's it's that continuous education thing um again our
system tells us when we get ready to scan a device device for a student we we see on the screen all of the DPS assets they have so it shows that they have a Chromebook already it shows that they have a hot spot and so it really goes to empowering those who are deploying devices to ask those questions of our students of you know do you our systems show that you have a device already at home and so I really it's really around kind of that Conversation Piece um again this kind of missing device type piece is like you said is reactive um and when we look at that you know currently right now we have kind of some software that's trying to help us to locate some of these missing devices um so again the schools or Tech Champion they report to us hey this device is missing um when that device turns on um we can kind of get some indication of the last student that logged into that device and where it may be and so we work with the principles to say hey this is what we're seeing can you follow up and have conversations with these
students um but really again it goes to really educating our families as well as educating those in our schools who are passing out these devices to our students to make sure that we're just asking the tough questions and not just continuing to pass devices when we see that they already have one um I appreciate that I'm wondering I know Dr mubena mentioned uh a grandchild in Wake County and I've seen some of what Wake County has online in the way of forms like contracts basically that they have their students and their and parents or caregivers sign basically saying that they understand what the device is supposed to be used for what their responsibility is um to what extent are we doing things like that like I hear that education's important but how are we implementing that in a districtwide way and then also like what's our comprehensive plan that's documented with procedures
in place yeah that we're going to be following in our district to make sure this doesn't happen in the future yeah so we do have I'm currently right now where our families kind of opt opt out of Technology that's done in power school we do have a um kind of a one toone device care document that we've shared prior um and again we are working with um the office of public affairs to revitalize our website um so we can basically take a lot of that document and put it in kind of one place um for our families as well as at the school level so again some of that's out there it's not necessarily in a Consolidated place now um but that's one of the things that we're working on um as well is when we start looking at you know how do we share this information you know our parents yes they opt in the technology when we look at kind of the weight County model and some of our other um local school systems you know some of them they don't necessarily have like where you're paying for you know those type things as well so again they're just acknowledging that they do receive these policies or do see those
policies and again that's kind of like in a power school system let me uh complete a little bit of what Miss Malone is saying I think I would suggest our team to be able to come up with a comprehensive plan how we're going to be able to protect those devices um I know we're going to have a robust conversation today I think my plan today was pretty much to let all of us know that uh if we don't stop this blade we're not going to be able to sustain this so it's going to be our responsibility to come with those procedure protocol in place uh we're not going to reinv the wheel I think way County other places they have those as well we're going to look at them and see how that's going to fit to DPS and be able to bring those comprehensive PL how we're going to be able to move forward and sustain those devices thank you um one more uh just concern I wanted to put out there is ensuring that all of our students have have devices so for a one toone District
we've got 34,000 Chromebooks out there now we're looking at buying more plus we got iPads and Mac books but we're still hearing that kids don't have the devices that they need to be able to participate in their classes that worries me and the fact that we only have 10 looners in each school when schools sometimes have over a thousand students in them is that sufficient so I guess I'm looking I'd like to see data on how many kids are currently without a device and you'd mentioned the amount of time it takes to fix a device but what happens in the meantime especially for a student like a high schooler who's got to be using this regularly um yeah I'm worried about inequities there with our kids that don't have access otherwise y let me help to respond to that question as well I think that's going to be a part of our comprehensive plan what we've been facing here was pretty much when principles are putting a lot of pressure on it we need those devices and then it say Johnny has three
already so that's the conversation that we need to have if Johnny you've been giving two already Yes we understand you have to get to Canvas you got to get your assignment what is our decision are we going to be able to give Johnny additional device or JN is just going to be able to use the device while is in school so that's need to be really our comprehensive plan how we're going to be able to pretty much solve this problem I'm gonna go to miss buyer and then I did you have something on this okay I'll come go to miss buyer I'll come back to you oh I want to thank you for um the data that you presented tonight it's a lot um and then I still have data questions so like Miss Carda-Auten I continue to hear that we have a lot of high school and middle school students that are this far into the year close to Thanksgiving and they still do not have a onetoone device so I'd like to know kind of where those missing where those numbers are and when
I heard that 10 loner devices was the solution at at some of our comprehensive high schools there is no way that would even touch I've I've sat at a comprehensive high school and watch them come back with legitimate students didn't break them they break right there there is some of this that is not damage it is it's a it's a limitate breaks so 10 devices would would not not touch that at all so how many students you have any idea right now in the school year don't have a device in middle school and high school I do not have an account on that but again that is something that we can easily pull out of our on toone inventory system as far as the um the staff devices did all of those get deployed in the second wave so the second wave starts um here after Thanksgiving okay so and and forgive me if I totally misunderstood all of this but I thought we were buying this stuff months ago and it was all going to be ready for start of school both year round and otherwise so um I didn't see
that as as successful as I hoped it would be for for our folks getting started to start the year I want us I'm glad you're talking about you know a comprehensive kind of remedial plan me it's on us as and and the adults to teach the students how to care for these and how to how to bring them back and how to how you know to treat them um it's something new for them to learn and during the pandemic we didn't have any luxury that it was like like a frisbee like you know um we were just giving them out and our Tech Champions thank them so much I mean they came in and worked overtime Paul I think you said just I mean they were they were spending scary uh times early in the pandemic in our schools um close together getting devices out but I almost think because we've been at this a while that it might help us to bring a consultant that has
expertise in this and on on device recovery so that we can get the best practices in place pretty quickly and what I continue to hear and I I know you all hear some of this and and some of it comes to us with frustrated Tech Champions and and folks that don't there's a disconnect that I continue to hear with Tech champions in the building supporting students and and the support that comes in different ways from from it so I know y'all have worked on bridging some of that um but I'd like us to continue to create a culture that that opens the door to criticism because that's what comes in Durham we live in Durham people don't bring their praise they bring their questions they're hard questions they're criticism but that that culture that we welcome that feedback because they are supporting students on the front lines and this is so much an equity issue so you know how many hotpots do we have out there is that an expense we're going to need to
maintain those kind of numbers I think are really going to be important I I did the math too Dr being at 8 million in five million that's not small money um so it really is g to behoove us to work on these these policies as best we can as we teach students um how to how to care for this um it also the the notion of making elementary students um just day users we just have to keep that in mind when we hit inclement weather because we can't flip to a virtual day we can't call it a virtual day if a kid doesn't have a device right we can't do that anymore um and that's fine and knock on wood will have no inclement weather we don't need that yeah just one snow day like everyone needs um but yeah so those were the numbers that I was looking for and didn't see just how many kids still don't have them um how many staff still don't have
them and then what can we do to have more than 10 loaners in in those schools when that's that's not enough I mean it's and what is the are are we purchasing these These are so expensive because the repair cost is in that purchase price or software is in that because they seem like expensive Crooks itcl the Google education license as well as it comes to four-year Hardware repair so the ones that we're you're talking about being on a six-year cycle will still just have the four years of repair and we'll be cross like hoping that they last is that the correct yes because they are staying at the school you talked a little bit about device tracking software is that on them now no that's only if they're identified as missing so we turn that on if the device comes missing if the school notifies us that it's missing okay okay um I just look forward to and and I do
think it is a ginormous task that that we've asked you know um staff and schools to do I do think there might be a consultant that could help us um devise some of this policy more quickly and more thoroughly so that we get on top of this this year and not wait till the summertime so I hope y'all will at least consider that going forward yes um it Miss by what you gonna say yeah M before you respond let's go back to student devices I think this came to my attention from the board and we met with all this Comprehensive High School I remember Southern there were short about 200 devices and Jordan was like 40 and I advise or recommended to miss Malon to make sure by the next 48 hours all those schools should be receiving the devices which they did and then on top of that we have a grade that's they're going to have 10 loners that is going to be under the care of
the principal so I'm not aware of any school at this point not having student devices so we're able to resolve it when we had our meeting with those principles so when it comes to staff devices and I'll let you Miss Malone respond so um as far as staff device so again our original project planned that it was going to be in two phases so the first phase include new staff coming into the district as well as we did a staff device verification survey so the first phase of that project included our new hires and everyone who completed that staff device survey again it was always originally broken up into two parts because it is a huge test as well as for the funding for those devices the way that we were getting our funding it also had to be breaking up into two parts and so again we've always said that the second phase would start here in November um and that includes anyone who did not again we have some staff they were in phase one and they have refused
to turn in their Dell device and so again we'll be coming back to them in phase two as well as for all of those staff members who did not complete the staff device survey um and so that's when they'll be getting their device um we have a project plan we have weekly meetings on that and so again um we are communicating U with the principles um giving the tech Champions just awareness and on the days that our technicians are scheduled to be at that those schools they will be running the project to deploy those staff devices um some of the other comments that I noted regarding hotspots um so I know very quickly we got the um Hotpot bill this week for this past month and I think it was like $22,000 again we're looking at there um you know we provide reporting to our principles um on on data usage of our hotspots and so again we are working with um AT&T our provider because again we can see some of the sites that our students are going to um they're not curriculum and instruction sites and so
again we're having conversations with our principles and Tech Champions to have conversation with those students about hey you know this is you know a DPS device and it should be used for educational purposes thank you I'm gonna go to miss Chávez and I'll come back to you Miss Rogers thank you thanks Miss Mone and Mr mjumi for this presentation you all have a very big job um managing um all of this and um and I want to say that you know what I'm recognizing through this presentation is that we are at a point now post pandemic um where we have to get ahead of um the um sort of the um process of making sure all of our students have um devices with this comprehensive plan um I mean they have
their devices but making sure we um kind of uh get ahead of this um as our funds run out um our Sr funds and all of that so um I also wanted to just mention um that in this conversation I was thinking about the digital divide and how that's really the context for this conversation and we have kids who um have had a device since they were Toddlers and you know we have kids who um won't won't have their own device outside of what um the district provides them until they you know perhaps go to college um so um how we support student learning in this context with technology and digit digital literacy I think is really important um so I have some some thoughts and there might be some questions in here but um some of it is reiterating what my colleagues have said um I'm wondering um how the number of devices um or the percentage of um
devices that are um unaccounted for currently um in our district compared to the you know the total number um of devices we have out there how that compares to other districts um and what best strategies or best practices there are um if we have data for instance that um student devices are more likely to um you know get lost over the weekend or over breaks or something like that if there are um strategies to um sort of minimize when um those periods are that devices are more likely to get lost that might be um harder for high school students who have more rigorous demands on um in their in their academic work um but I'm just thinking about you know what data shows us about um about what um different kinds of innovative um practices we might employ to make sure
our students um are best um supported in in um tracking their devices and and um and making sure they know where they are um I'm also wondering just about the number of looners and if it's um sufficient as um Miss Cara uton said I was wondering if we had considered um basing the number of looners on the school population rather on just the standard number um for each school um and then the third thing the last thing I wanted to say was about um what our what the what our students do when they don't have a device and um if we can sort of um if if there's some U leaning on the tech Champions to sort of navigate that um my understanding is their role role kind of more so Bridges um that curriculum and um technology and
um and so are there ways that um we can have a more uh standardized plan to support students when they don't a device um with the support of the tech Champions um so just to kind of um I wrote down kind of some of your questions or comments there um so I was recently in a um a meeting with other um it leaders from other districts um and so that's where I got the information from of some of them have 5% lost um and it went up to kind of 15% loss per year of their Chromebooks um everybody is saying hey this is a challenge that all of our districts are facing all of our districts are also facing the challenge of where are the funds going to come from to sustaining this so I don't really necessarily feel that it's a unique Derm problem but again I think we are DPS and we can have that unique way about how we go after and try to recoup these devices um one of the things also
of you know we don't have the data to say you know do this number of devices get um lost during Thanksgiving or Christmas break or any of those type things um but that is one thing that again in our commercial and in our communication out to schools you know we were sending reminders to say remember you know our elementary school students are technology day users you know please remind um families you know don't leave your Chromebook in the car while you're out shopping because again that increases the risk that they may get stolen and so again just preparing and sharing that information so our principles can have it to share with with their families um again we've gone back and forth about the number of loners what's kind of the right fit for each school really it's just going to come down to if we have like the surplus of devices we can increase the number of laners that we provide to each school um that's kind of you know just you know like a common thing is that so if we have that surplus of devices you know we can give more more schools looners um or
give them you know a greater number of loaners um but ultimately again with the number of um students with multiple devices assigned there is an opportunity for us to go after that to be able to provide more looners at our schools and then um I think the last comment you had just kind of about just the work and kind of tech Champions and I think also miss buers you mentioned this um you know when I think about the collaboration um of the work that we've done with tech Champions um I know when I started DPS it was under operational Services um we made the move to move technology under academic services and I must admit it was probably one of the best decisions that we've could have made because from curriculum and instruction um to it we are really collaborating at a level that we have not in the past um our team again each month um we have Tech Champion meetings and again we take all criticism with a smile and we and we keep moving and what
I found is that you know some some of our tech tech Champions they've been doing this longer than I have and so again we take that feedback but also some of the challenges that we encounter is there's kind of that change curve and sometimes people are just so accustomed and common to doing it this way it's hard for them to see the other side or to Value it and to change so we continue to work with them you know at a slow pace one of the things that Paul's team has been working on feverously is how can we allow our students especially at our high school level to be able to change their own password and to have an equity focused on that so if you have a cell phone it can kind of authenticate to your cell phone but if you don't have a cell phone here are other ways in which they can reset their cell phone and still when we presented that this week some of our Tech Champions are like no no we want to reset passwords we want to reset passwords we want them to come to the library to get their password
reset that and so it's things like that that we're continuing to kind of work through and kind of give options so it can take some of that manual work off of people when especially the technology and the automation is there that can support us and help us thank you so much that that context is really important and um and that's good to have the data or the information to just about the other school districts and I it makes sense that this is a a challenge that many districts are facing um and it makes me think that ultimately we will um want to see what we should be kind of incorporating into our budget um annually to um to account for devices that go missing but hopefully not as many as we have now um because the reality is you know we're you know we're not going to be able to maintain everything every device but um you know
as things get clearer we'll um be able to figure out what what uh budgetary decisions um we need to make to to sustain this program but thank you you are uh forging a um into a new area um in a new time period so I appreciate it thank you I'm g go back to miss Rogers and miss valadares and then I'm G jump in thank you um I really appreciate um you talking about how the Chromebooks are working with academic services and the move from operation to academics I can appreciate that one of the things that I have brought up previously is a better understanding if Elementary School students are day users and they're beginning their testing as Elementary School students how are we ensuring that families are supportive of student outcomes and how can families get access to student curricul and things of that nature so that they can support them in their success and
additional study skills do we have any information about that or can we get that in the future y i I definitely again we have um bi-weekly meetings with um our curriculum and instruction colleague so I can definitely make sure that that's shared thank you um that was one of the them um these 1221 devices that were pre uh assigned to students that are no longer enrolled in DPS um can you tell me a little bit about that do any of our guidance counselors or our graduation checklist have anything to do with how we are recovering Chromebooks from Seniors um so one of the things and and keep in mind um as I looked at that data um the majority of them are not just seniors they're kind of like at at all grade levels um and that's where we worked with the records um Team to make sure that like their data managers as they're processing um you know a student departing that they put that in there that they have access to our onetoone
system so they can see for themselves if a student has a device so then they can ask that family for that device okay I started with seniors but I was going to everybody else and so um the other question that I have um is about the specific devices so they're tied to a particular student is there their way for a family to log in to see what date Chromebooks were issued to their students or um who was issued by like what school if they switch schools and things of that nature because I know especially given that you're saying you're incentivizing uh that some people will bring their little brother and bring them to you and let you have them if you're going to offer them an incentive and can you talk a little bit more about the budget where the incentives are coming from it really um I'm concerned that we are bribing back our devices when we haven't ask for
them back yet yeah um so the number um the first thing that you asked about was how did this sorry can parents log in and get access how do they find out where and when Chromebooks were issue to their students so we do not have a way for parents to see that information and our onetoone image management system so whoever has that there is a audit log and so it it can show us who assigned that student a device and when if that device went out for repair who is assigned to if it changed School inventories but that is not out for like others outside of IT Tech Champions or principles or anyone that they have identified to have access to and then your um your other question related to um kind of bribing or incentives and things like that so is really kind of at that school level so actually the $5 gift cards was actually a local restaurant that gave those to us and so again you know different different
principles that I've had conversations with they know what motivates their students best and so again you know one of the schools they were having some kind of s'mores event with their with their families you know they may not offer anything there may be some principles because again they may look at hey you know we have this number of missing devices at our School we're kind of leading the district and missing devices we want to get ahead of this so they may have that need to say Hey you know we want to incentivise our students to do that and so you know again that's something or decisions that are being made at the school level we're just communicating to our families and the schools that hey this is a need out here we need you to come up with what what method works best for your families to help us to to receive these devices back I can jump in just with some context it's important to remember that um if you if you remember in the slide um we left school one day a few years ago and
the world was one way uh and we showed up the next day and and everything was different um and um one of the things that I have talked with this staff about is we we spent a a a a good bit bit of time where all that we had to try to address those differences frankly was money right um and so we threw lots of money um at this issue um because our world was changing so quickly I think it's reasonable to say that when we were in the process of throwing that money at this issue um everything was brand new and so there was very little uh thought consideration about how we were going to recover these devices at some point What would happen in terms of whether or not we'd be able to even frankly keep up with these devices and so I think it's important for us to remember that the place that we are now in terms of having to think about you know what I think
about is really loss mitigation for these devices um we're really almost back in 2000 right because we're talking about a very new phenomenon that we have to put our hands around I think it's very clear when you when you think about the spare of the- moment uh kind of responses that Miss Malone has used so far to get devices and every one of them have been successful that tells me that when we begin to look at this seriously uh we begin to focus on it and we begin to place some sustained effort around it we're going to be able to get our hands around this this problem um but I think it's just important to remember that it's not a problem that I think most of us or any of us frankly knew would become a problem because we did not know we did not know what what the back end um of of this new reality of onetoone schools and one toone initiatives uh meant for us so what I want to say to to
to this board is that uh we we recognize one of the conversations that we've had um is that we are if we are going to go to come to this board and have this board uh then uh go to uh the its funding board uh to ask for funds to support our maintenance of this program we certainly have to put ourselves in a position where we are able to make clear that we are maintaining and we are taking care of these devices um and so what I would assure you is that we are going to get about that business we had a school I think earlier this week um share with us that uh they needed a certain number of devices we retorted that you have this many devices missing um can you do something to find those devices they went out and almost overnight found half of them um and so I I think the reality is that this has not been a Focus right um for us um and for our schools we know now based on the size of
that number and since the first time I've seen that presentation uh that number has been the one that's uh that I I see at night we know now that we have to get moving around this issue um and and we're going to do that and I think we're going to be successful I think we know going forward forward there are some processes um that we can Shore up I mean nothing will help as much as you know frankly just saying to students when they come in for a laner and in need of a loner hey let me look at this let me look at my screen and find out how many devices you have um um sharing that information with parents which is something that here to for in a systemic way I don't think we've done but we recognize that we need to do now so there's some things that we can do and I think that we can um find some real success uh with bringing these devices back into the fold in a relatively quick manner but more importantly as we go forward we know that this is an issue now and we won't find ourselves here again uh losing this number of devices
um over periods of time so I I think this it's important to kind of share that context about kind of the change in in reality that we've all um faced and it's it's really difficult when you uh when you're doing something completely new to be able to kind of anticipate what the challenges will be um on the back end of of that situation thank you for that um and um you know I I was looking at this number of [Music] 9,560 that's not the number of kids who don't have devices in the district that's the number of missing lost student devic um some of them have already been assigned a device and so if we wanted to start with the worst case scenario that number is staring us about 9,500 potentially 9,560 kids would be without devices because they're missing but
that's not the case the case is that every single time a school sends in the list of missing devices there's some communication between the school administration and your department to try to fix figure out how to solve this and communication is key communication is actually our best bet to get these devices back and understanding is necessary I do take um concern with rhetoric [Music] um and a perception that you're not responsive because I've seen the opposite of that I have seen you go on Durham Association of Educators Facebook thread which has the millions of comments and if I look for your name I assure you there's going to be probably hundreds if not more than that of ways that you continue to stay on top of what is the feedback I also take offense with the fact that our community um continues to
voice the same concerns and issues are not being addressed one of the things that I do is anytime I get an email I ask the person do I have your consent because consent is important to me as an advocate I I've I've encountered fire from administrators I I've been on that end where I'm the antagonizer the instigator I know what this is like and I I take I take you know the code of organizers very seriously and I ask what you know do I have your consent to either number one share this concern just the issue and send that in and then you know based on whatever they answer or do you just want me to hear it because sometimes people just want a vent and they just want to tell us how horrible things are going but they're like don't tell this to the administration we just want to tell you we want you to know how bad it is and then my question to them is if you want me if you want us in my role in our role as representatives of the community to address an issue number one even in law enforcement in any system whether it's a
health system or education system you have to have an issue and you have to have a process to address that issue now I do have confidence that we can get ahead of this issue just like we have done when there was a concern about landlines not being in every classroom I sent that issue to you in an email you know we we we hear this executive director of it Miss Malone we hear this concern that classrooms don't have phones and what did you do immediately you told me what that process would be like procurement to bid to when it was going to be shipped to when and I relay that information step by step to the person who asked me that question and I said there's a delay but I explained that because you took the time to explain step by step how the ordering process go what the contract the bids whatever it is that you all have to do to make sure that everything is accounted for and done with the best practices in hand so what I'm saying is that as I look at this issue I have full confidence
because I have seen you not only address one two three but multiple things and you know and that is the thing to the community if there are if there is an issue tell us you know and tell us how you want us to go about it do we have your consent to share that with Administration I always ask that you know and once they say yes you have the consent to share just the issue but make it Anonymous you got it it's going to be anonymous there's a Code you know that I follow and that you know we follow as representatives and we we say you know typical email that I send you Miss Malone there's a concern about Pixie phones or sorry pixel phones um and so you know and you explained that based on the the type of infrastructure we have in Wireless there are some phones that don't conform to those specifications and so I think what would be really important to us is to really think about this as a life cycle of a device if you Lo if you borrow a book from the library and you lose that book
chances are you have a fine you know in many places now Durham has worked towards not having fines in the Durham County library has done amazing work to try to remove that uh burden on families um and so this is more than a book this is worth more how many books you know with one device $500 worth of device almost $500 it's more than a book well some books are expensive but this is this is no different it's a tool and I think that this is something that takes all hands- on deck and I tell our community if you have a concern if it is an issue we we will be on top of it we have we we will follow that issue it has to be an issue now you tell us whether it's a specific issue about you know we talked about students without devices I'm looking at this number 9560 as missing but it does not equate to 9,560 students not having a device because work has been done um and the administration is working with you to
address that and find Solutions and I do know that um in some schools they are applying for Grants to secure their own devices and that is something that is wonderful because school for Creative Study shout out to the school for attaining that Grant and maybe other schools can also apply for Grants to have their devices but I just say that this is tricky work you're doing you know a great job I see you out there and I see you really responsive and so I just want to commend you for the work that you're doing um and and I see the work that a lot of our adment are doing I'm I'm actually not somebody as somebody who's a community organizer and a Rebel rle Rouser or whatever in IG Ator I I have watched our Administration address issues and I'm not saying that you all are perfect but I will vouch for the work that happens when I see it and many of you take time in the evenings to address issues many of you you know take the phone calls that we have and so this is no different we're going to get we're going to be supportive of this effort you're not alone in this because this is work that really ties into to our
children getting the education they deserve and we do not win by creating narratives and divisiveness when Administration is trying to do this so how do we support you let us know you know um how to increase communication understanding and accountability thank you thank you I'm gonna try to make it real brief thank you so much for the presentation um I agree with Miss Chávez I wonder sorry I'm gonna skip all my thanks and go to my questions um I'm I wonder if we need to do a ra and I I hear you saying we need more devices but a ratio of laner devices to students feels like a thing we should think of consider moving in just thinking about Riverside and Jordan being so large and how do we get them a little a couple more for some wiggle room and I think I wonder too for and I don't correct me if I'm wrong if tech Champions especially while we're in this time where schools are waiting for technicians if they can also be more for the ratio of the sides of the school so
if Riverside has a number of tech Champions per number of devices they have in the school am I is one currently is one Tech Champion per school yeah one well it's yeah it's one per school so like Riverside has kind of a tech Champion but again it it kind of differs because the role say for example of the r Riverside Tech Champion he's a tech Champion but he kind of that that's his full-time kind of role um he is kind of paid at the school we do give him kind of that extra duty but that's his role another example is like Neil they have a full-time Tech facilitator he does this he kind of does that dayto day um so it kind of varies some schools you know it's the media coordinator is also their Tech Champion so they may be checking out books um but then they also may have another media coordinator in there that kind of helps them but then they're like you know no I don't want the tech Champion Sten if there are two people then we divide that Tech Champion stiping for that school so for four schools that don't have a full-time kind of instructional facilitator I think we should consider adding additional Tech
Champions because what I'm also hearing us saying is that we're going to add additional work to Tech Champions around some of potentially potentially around asking questions around where devices are right and so I think we want to make sure that we have people have the support that they need and just sheer numbers of 1,200 high school children who are using a device every day and drugging it back and forth we know that they're going to have more issues right so if a a way to stop Gap that until we're able to get a full person is to have I'm making numbers up so I trust that y'all will actually do some research but five you know Tech Champions at Jordan they kind of help with each grade or however they want to split it I think I just think that would be helpful um and we probably should give our Tech Champions a raise at some point so I'm also thinking about you know we talked about $8 million as the cost of the device but why the time we add in the additional staff that we need to do this and entally giving Tech Champions are raised we're raising costs for this program so it brings me all the
way back to the question I think I've asked asked before like it's the hard question I think we need to wrestle with is do we want to continue to be a onetoone district and I think we need to do some analysis around that um because I just think it I don't know that we can sustain additional 10 million I'm just rounding it up which might next be 11 and 12 million a year so I think I would love for your team to and and the a leadership here to do some work on that I'd really love I know yall talking about creating a plan a system around deploying and and returning devices and I would like to see Tech Champions principles Educators and maybe even some families involved in that planning process so that it's a comprehensive view of kind of what that looks like on each of those levels we know central office has a how you see it Tech Champions have a way parents have a way so how to all of us come to the table to create a really strong plan because I think we have a really big responsibility it's been said already of helping get these devices in because you
know I'm a student you keep giving me a device I might just keep taking it right and and and for a good reason like oh now my you know little sister has something that she can help do some things on and so I think that's important for us to us to do our due diligence around uh showing accountability so I think I really want us to get this question answered around do we need to continue to be a onetoone district before a funding request comes again like I need us to figure that out um because that changes how we fund this program so I thought I I think I kept it brief Miss berer yeah I thought that were great questions um cheram said and I the one that occurred to me as we continue to contemplate this and let the Educators um weigh in heavily on that decision particularly for our youngest Learners I don't think we've really ever had much conversation about the appropriateness of um this Tech with our prek our our K2 um students so that that voice needs
to be heard loud and clear all the other voices that you mentioned and then the the other piece that we're propping up with Federal funding is a lot of these it positions so can you remind us and if you all can't maybe Paul can like how many additional positions are already in this budget this year that we're going to look at coming up to this funding cliff on 11 11 I believe yep and then we were approved for how many fulltime after the 11 they're federally they're funded with s these 11 are federally funded with Esser and I mean we have to revisit all that in our budget as we move forward and then Mr Lor is there I know that the state actually has this responsibility and it's another one of the responsibilities the state is Shing
but do we get any dedicated Tech funding in our state budget and I know there's a lot that they of fines and forfeitures they are withholding that's another piece that could address some of this need but what what is the state plan to District uh they don't allot any funding for positions for these uh technicians um we just get some about $300,000 a little over $300,000 a year plus find the forfeitures uh for technology purchases 300,000 a year for devices and software just technology devices and and use for schools yes and that's for staff as well one we not not staff it's really for technology equip of of sorts do we
get anything for staff being second largest employer in this community no no no yeah so that's also part of the problem and part of the way we will continue to Advocate Statewide thanks Miss V any other questions or comments or motion from our board members yeah my last comment here pretty much the question posed by the chair of the board that's something that we're going to Grapple with and be able to bring a recommendation to our board are we going to be able to sustain it or not and then if not what are the measures we're putting in place to make sure that uh learning continues I'm not even say what are what are the measures we're putting in place to make sure learning it continues like go ahead and start planning in that in that way and and let me be clear too I'm not saying we shouldn't be one to one or some places be one to one but if our earliest us users need a class set versus everyone having one or some of I just
think we need to think more creatively about what that looks like okay Miss car Alon um just one last question which is um when should we expect to see the comprehensive plan about technology like how we're going to keep our Tech and how we're going to get our Tech back and our devices um I I would not like to share with you a date today let me get with my team and then I will get that to Dr King thank you um and I know there's a warranty issue and how many of the ones that you're asking to um sorry to purchase soon um are we going to how many of those are we going to begin using right away and is there a concern that if we are purchasing them now to spend down err funds we're letting them sit long enough that then oh no they're not going to sit it um because again we have some like I said which are like out in schools like if the hinges are broke we're going to take those off so we can use those parts to fix other devices
okay y so no there we they don't see it even though we have 34,000 devices out right now and again because again if we find those missing ones or if we find those that multiple students have those devices we at least will bring those back in but at least we'll be able to replace any of those that may be damaged in the hands of students right now I like to move that we um approve the purchase of 40002 Chromebooks from cdwg I second it's been moved by Miss Lewis seconded by Miss Excuse Me Miss vadz is there any other discussion we'll do a Voice vote Miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I miss Rogers no uh Miss valadares hi Miss berer hi Miss Carter
Aon no uh Miss Lewis I and I vote I as well so that passes 52 thank you all thank you next item on our agenda is closed session I didn't know if there was any summary of followup items but I don't see anything there the summary of follow-up items typically happens at the work session ah well I will move that we go into closed session for the reason stated on the agenda second it's been moved by Miss Byer seconded by Miss vad darz is there any other discussion we'll do another Voice vote Miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I miss Rogers I miss valadares I miss berer hi Miss Carter Alon hi Miss Lewis hi and I vote I as well passes unanimously we're now in closed session
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can someone tell me really quickly who did we're back in Open Session Dr mbinga Madame chair I'm here to seek your approval for the Personnel report as discussed at a close session move approval of the Personnel report dated November 16th 2023 second it's been moved by Miss buer seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion we'll do a Voice vote Miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I miss Rogers hi Miss vadz hi Miss berer hi Miss Carter hi Miss Lewis hi and I vote I as well it passes unanimously and with that we are adjourned thank you all