Board of Education · Special Meeting · February 2, 2024

thank you the next item on our agenda is agenda review and approval move approval of the agenda as presented a second it's been moved by Miss Beyer seconded by Miss Lewis any other discussion all those in favor I wanted to make a point I wanted to make a motion to add a discussion with Dae about the moveing confer model second is uh so we already have a motion on the floor so that was in a discussion point we need to vote on our motion unless we want to have an amendment to the motion I welcome a friendly amendment I wondered where you wanted to add that item Miss travez um I think we could move it to after operation services or we can move

it right before I don't know if people have thoughts either way yeah after like as item five C does that work yeah I guess it's not operation services but or maybe it is um I think it is today feel okay yes I welcome that Amendment right put had Amendment to the motion do you want to restate your motion Miss Beyer yeah I would move approval of the agenda with the addition of a new item item 5c a discussion of something and confer sorry meet and confer thank you so it's been moved by Miss bu is there a second second it's been moved by Miss Beyer seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I

any opposed please use the same sign the agenda passes unanimously the next item on our agenda is a close uh close session is there a board member has a motion so we can move into close session move there we move in to close session for the reasons stated on the agenda second it's been moved by Miss Roger seconded by Miss buer is there any other discussion all those all those in favor say I I I any opposed please use the same sign a passes unanimously I do want to answer your question but I'm happy to answer it over here thank you

thank you for that um we do still have a closed session our agenda that also includes confidential personnel matters and Consulting with our attorney so that's been moved and it's been seconded we voted we're now going to move into Clos session

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all right good afternoon we are now back in Open Session the next item on our agenda is the compensation study discussion I'll pass it over to you Dr MinGa and your team for the presentation thank you Madame chair I have Dr Len and um Miss o they will take over thank you good evening Dr mbinga chair Umstead members of the board tonight we share with you compensation study implementation options we know the past few weeks have been challenging we have had the pleasure in human resources of meeting with numerous employees to discuss their individual situations and we know our employees are anxiously awaiting a fair and Equitable resolution that not only ensures a livable wage in Durham but also a compensation structure that honors our employees before we outline the options let's first review actions that have been

taken to date with with um our fund balance Dr can I pause you one second um actually let's go ahead and do this and then we're going to take a pause before we open up to comment go ahead I'm sorry I apologize thank you we know that recent um actions of the Board of Education have involved the use of fund balance fund balance is simply our savings account General statute um stipulates there is no requirement to maintain a minimum fund balance however best practices um indicate that school districts often strive to maintain a minimum of 8% or enough funds to cover one month of operating expenses based on our current annual operating expenses from local

4 million which constitutes about 1 half of our recommended amount tonight we present to the Board of Education compensation options

aligned to the current budget earmarked for classified employee compensation one is the currently adopted heel recommendations based on state years of experience in lie of the heel study recommendations a second option would provide an 11% increase to the prior 2022 23 salary schedule as we look at option one it is to implement the hill compensation study recommendation to credit classified employees for State experience only this is month this monthly compensation is based on the January 2024 email that was sent to classified employees and it's captured in what is known as the green column in that letter specifically this option includes at least a 4% increase for every classified

2 million as we look closer at option two it would eliminate the heel study recommendations and restore the 2022 2023 salfi um um classified salary schedules with an across the board increase of 11% maintaining verified public in private experience at a ratio of 1: one the 11% increase is comprised of 4% from the state and 7% from local

1 million there were other scenarios um considered um based on adjusting the heel recommendations one scenario reviewed maintaining the scales and adding an award of three for every um one for every three years for external non-state um state of North Carolina experience implementing this option would require an additional $680,000 to implement for the remainder

63 million to sustain next year and the total cost would be just under 94. 5 million

3 million to sustain next year this option or scenario would cost over 99 million dollar annually siarra OG Joe um are acting finance officer and are available to answer your

questions thank you Dr Lin and M oo for that presentation I do just want to make a statement before we uh get into the discussion um the board we also structured the meeting today to have the presentation first and then allow time for public comment so that people could understand what we're wrestling with and then we will come back to this same presentation to make a decision or we will consider this item on our agenda I do just want to read brief statement before we get started I want to thank everyone for being here today um over the last couple weeks we've seen how much Our Community Values are public schools so many of our valued employees have been through a really stressful and challenging time uh our families have been worried about if their children will be able to get to school on time and our employees have also been concerned about being able to pay their rent uh that's not easy and the anxiety that folks have carried for the last three weeks is real it's pable we feel it in this room this has been

hard for all of us especially the folks who is impacted in our whole Duram Community as we get started today we've got some more information that we want to consider about how we'll move forward our decision on what we consider today regarding salaries must meet the test of affordability and Equity here are some of the important details that we have had we've learned that will help us as we think through today the Consultants salary scheduled for classified employees if applied for the full year counting all years of experience would cost approximately 20 million on an annual basis that is 9 million more than what was funded in DPS is 2023 2024 District budget read that one more time on an annual basis that's 9 million more that was funded that was then what was funded in the district's budget for 2023

4 million so that we know so we know that continuing the pay raises that were paid to our classified employees from July through January is not sustainable financially for our district we also now know that many of the raises were very large and here a

few examples of what happened when we applied the consultant salary schedule as it was originally done more than 500 of our employees were placed on new salaries more than 25% over last year's pay from 2223 more than excuse more than 500 employees are placed on that schedule more than 25 employees will receive Sal raises increases of more than 40% from the previous year one class of employees receive raises varying from 13 to 57% and another class receive raises of 29% just think about a little context and we know the state has underfunded Public Schools but they also provided raises of four and 3% um for classified staff workers in a lot of cases there's wide disparities between the raises given to one employee and another and the consultant salary schedule as applied

and that will require more study let me emphasize a point we're not saying that our employees are not worth the raise we know we all right I think I'm on we know that your hard work is uh what makes our school system run you're the heartbeat of our public schools and we know that our schools can't function without you we do know that any option we consider today has to provide a raise to our classified staff members the must we are also saying we need to figure out how we can choose an option um that we cannot choose an option that's unsustainable and that would deplete all of our school systems funds the board asked the administration to bring back options on how to provide our classified staff with pay increases over the amounts paid in 2223 2022 the 2023 year and we ask for them to be fair and within the school

system's Current financial resources that's how we got to our presentation today I want to open us up now for public comment after providing a little context of how we got here so I'm going read the rules for public comment Y give me a second cck quick review of the rules please state your name and if you're speaking for an organization please state your name and the name of the organization second we ask speakers to present their comments and a specified time we're going to do one minute today when the yellow light comes on you will have 30 seconds left to wind up your remarks when the red light comes on it will beep which indicates your time is up complaints about name staff students or parents should not be voiced an open session however we're very interested in hearing your concerns with regard to the public school system safety of our students or to the

operations finally board members will listen carefully and consider your comments but we do not not engage with uh speakers the first person and I apologize you all if I mispronounce your name please correct me when you come up to the podium is shandrea Meyers they have one minute sandria Myers followed by Connie hand the next speaker will be Tammy Phillips so we'll start with shandrea Myers oh my name is Shan J want to give my minute to miss Connie here s can you say that one more time my name is Shandra Myers and I want to give my minute to miss Connie okay so you want to exceed your minute okay thank you I'm Connie hand and I'm gonna give my minutes to Tammy Phillips okay and so that can happen twice according to our policy so miss Phillips good afternoon everyone Dr Mingo members of the board first and foremost I do not

deliver these comments with anger or hate but with passion and respect the media continues to report a mistake or an overpayment in Pay was made to employees let's get that straight with the media there was no mistake a mistake when something a mistake is when something occurs unknowingly however this is no mistake hundreds of employees received emails between 10:23 and 10:30 of this year giving details on what their new salaries would be which had comparisons of their old and new salaries and even had a video explaining how their salary was impacted this was a known discussed conscious thought out process with a decision that took years to make so how can that be a mistake this was an earned and anticipated raise for employees not an overpayment or mistake as reported my co-workers and I are told daily to make it work get it done do what you have to

do fix it with disregard to how we are to make this happen teachers IAS pts are without supplies or tools needed to educate our babies maintenance workers are told to build ramps paint classrooms offices without supplies mechanics to repair buses without Parts some departments are working out of the office trailers that were meant to be temporary but 20 plus years later they have floors falling apart mold growing in the bathrooms and the ventilation mechanics who earn only $23,000 a year our asked with our task with ensuring buses are safe to transport our students we put dedication to our jobs in front of our health and our families every day we work hard and deserve the salary study raises you promised implemented and we received in October and without loss of years of experience you ask for the most underpaid employees are being targeted by a conscious decision you are about to make I feel it is unfair to place our employees in a

position to position to choose an option that is only in the best interest of you all in this room are held accountable for our decisions and actions daily we are asked to squeeze blood out of a turnup every single day and to make things work there's no such thing as saying I can't do it so I ask you to say hold yourself accountable squeeze that turnup make it work get it done do what you have to do do the right thing Dr mavinga said stop saying you can't fix it give us our raises and experience we work so hard for and I appreciate you thank you for allowing me to speak this time next we have Barbara Tapper Katie Magano followed by Jessica Beyer Barbara Tapper Katie mcgonnell followed by Jessica Beyer

good evening I'm a little bit over around the board tonight around the page I have a few different statements to make that are sort of related but unrelated first this is from um parents that I've talked to and it's a quote a board your board is using your own attorney farington and Smith to investigate rather than an independent foric accounting firm where is the transparency in that if you want qualified employees at Durham Public Schools you must reinstate all previous verified I said verified years of service that the Hill salary schedule was written policy with Dae formal participation transparency in another budget issue I'm a physical therapist and we're a revenue producing Department how much money does PT and OT bring into the district and where do

those funds go I want to say happy birthday melis and you must restore The Hil one:1 compensation study you seem shocked that this study did misser thank you my name is Katie mcgonnell last Friday I accompanied my treasured IA to her appointment with HR she gave my gave her per my permission to sit in on the meeting we were told by her HR representative that we I was not allowed to attend we were told it's just not my policy if I changed my policy for you I'd have to change it for everyone I don't even allow spouses I stood quietly and respectfully despite the Injustice because I was in the Fuller building and there I work for you behind this Podium you work for me I am a mother of two students of DPS and a resident of this County when the masses are demanding transparency

without mentioning names it is insane insane that this policy is being practiced by District leaders in HR this is not your kingdom it's my children's denying the people I entrust with them every single day the autonomy over who can sit by their side during a financial crisis of your creation is unacceptable and now that is exposed it stops today thank you we have Jessica Beyer followed by Greg Shand and Molly Bagby I'm Jessica Beyer I seed my time to Greg sand I'm Greg sand and I'm gonna seed my time to Molly Bagby good afternoon my name's Molly Bagby I'm a PS occupational therapist and I'm the mother of two DPS students and a resident of Durham I have a seventh grader key at Rod Herr and a

fifth grader at Pearson town I've been in OT for 14 years and was reduced to step eight in January I'm coming to you today with three concerns and three requests the first the two options proposed by DPS Administration to address the C classified pay situation will not result in the ability to recruit and retain exemplary staff priority number three these two options whether intentional or not will divide more experienced classified staff against newer to mid-range sta mid-range staff they're not sufficient and further disrespect and demoralize our Workforce other options must be considered second occupational therapy is a second career for me in my first career I was an Inc internal control and it systems auditor for Price waterhous Coopers in those six years that I worked for the public accounting firm I was a member of audit teams for many clients including the US Department of Labor I'm deeply concerned to hear that the law firm currently engaged by the board for legal matters was the entity selected to independently investigate this debacle this investigation should be conducted by a

truly independent Financial entity such as an independent accounting firm who does your financial statements accounting firms have strict and enforceable Independence rules to prevent conflicts of interests using the board's Law Firm to investigate what went wrong is a clear conflict of interest and unmend any attempt to rebuild trust transparency is essential for any hope of rebuilding Trust third I'm Gravely concerned about the ability of the Cur current superintendent and his cabinet Dr manga began speaking at both the EC sit in and the first town hall by asking why people are so mad when they still got at least a 4% raise from 2223 the classified pay study was conducted because it was necessary to determine fair and competitive raises that study resulted in significant raises in order to protect equity and recruit and chain staff people deserve to be mad that DPS took away the salaries that made DPS a competitive employer Dr lay met with the OTS as a group and sincerely promised we would get significant raises to make us competitive with other districts nearby

the video we got that's already been mentioned we were ensured DPS was not implementing the hill study recommendations to use only onetoone state experience we felt like we were finally making what we were worth and then DPS realized they couldn't afford US furthermore principles were tasked with communicating this policy change with regard to steps with almost no notice and only partial information that further erodes my trust in this Administration multiple colleagues were told during their one-on-one sessions with HR that this was the quickest way to fix a bleeding budget this is why people feel disrespected distrustful and hurt by what happened our classified staff nothing more than a line in the budget I close with three requests restore the steps and salaries promised in October two conduct a truly independent investigation with the help of an independent firm and three give Dae a seat at the table thank thank you next we have Leslie Riley Heidi

Heidi Joe hin and John strober I just want to remind us that we do want to refrain from having complaints about name staff students and or parents I seed my time to Heidi my name is Heidi Joe hetland and I'm a physical therapist of durm schools I've only been here one year um one and a half years I have 33 years of experience I am now at a step one I'm um a resident of Durham and I have two children who are in or have graduated from Durham Public Schools I came here today to hear three new salary schedules and proposals hoping you see options that would respect the DPS classified staff and that is not is what has happened you have not even presented us with two options what you consider to be one option clearly is not a viable option as demonstrated by the closure of 12 schools this past Wednesday the only option presented restores our steps but does not pay competitive market wages this option requires the staff who received larger

well-deserved competitive raises to sacrifice for the group as a whole shame on you for trying to cause Division and resentment within our own departments the board has presented three nonviable options that are outside of your budget and many of your classified workers have been underpaid for years they do without they pinch pennies they work an extra job or two or maybe even three to make ends to meet to take care of their families and it's time for DPS to do the same reexamine the budget do not tell us paying the wages you promised in October is outside of your budget find the money move money around do out high dollar things such as convocations find money by cleaning house starting with superintendent and header resources human resource trim excess such as dozens of high paid positions in administration shame on you for wasting my tax dollar money for wasting our time here today with this one insulting unacceptable option sham on you for

continuing to erode the morale of classified staff in our mental emotional and even our physical health find the money I am John Strobel and though you haven't announced her yet I am seting my time to Christie hi I'm Christy Clen I'm a physical therapist I'm speaking on behalf of OTS pts and transportation I'm also speaking for multiple other departments where those employees have said their supervisors principles and directors have said don't speak stay quiet don't make a scene there's some that have even threatened to be to write up employees if they're making a scene and speaking out are y'all really okay with management by intimidation so I'm here for all classified all certified all students what's happening is

Despicable the proposed salary options are bad for all current employees it's already been said morale resentment retention none of that's going to it it's all going down the drain quickly resentment within departments is only going to increase you're asking us to pick between two options of do I want to take care of myself look out for my family my retirement my future and screw my colleague or do I want to let's give them a pitiful little something a little bit more than the state mandated and and sacrifice my own for my own future if you're going to talk about we didn't realize somebody got a 57% raise or a 30% raise that is not on us that is on y'all and the option of let's give you a flat 11% across the board it's going to

keep everybody under Fair wages for what we do it's going to have people leaving like crazy we're already short staffed in EC there's classes in position that have been empty for years you're going to have classrooms with no students are y'all going to come sit in those classrooms are we going to put them all together let's put all prek in this one room maybe we can get enough staff to take care of it then reinstate The Years thank you thank you follow the hill study give a formal written policy for a seat at the table thank you next we have Cheryl Cathy followed by Shan Thompson and Morgan Carney Thompson I apologize I feel like I'm coming up here and being redundant we

clearly share a lot of the same thoughts right now option one is it really an option it's caused chaos it's caused retention and it's going to cause um hiring difficulties option two had it been done in the first place we may have been plated but not market value you gave us market value and then you revoked it from some of us we have between four and 50% raises option one and two do not Leverage The Hill study although that not although not budgeted for this offer the third one sorry the scenarios although not budgeted for they offer financial gain for all market value while limiting Discord find the money Financial stewardship is not possible in light of the district missteps especially when it falls on the shoulders of those who are being

mistreated my name Sean Thompson I seed my time to Morgan Carney my name is morg Carney Thompson a few years ago I had the privilege of teaching some incredible stem Scholars at Brogden Middle School currently I support student teachers who are working in classrooms around DPS every single day the public slides for option one presented today State Implement Hill compensation study recommendation to credit classified employees for State experience only this is not what the hill study recommended I do not understand why Administration is framing option one the option that they tried to quietly switch to back in January as Hill recommended only giving step credit for State experience our hands are tied we're just just trying to do what the outside Consulting Group recommended that is blatantly false I reviewed the 39-page report and re-watched the January 12th board meeting both verbally and through their written report Hill publicly recommended giving employees credit for verified experience in the private sector and recommended that DPS create a clear and transparent plan to do so they also recommended not removing anyone's current years of experience I want to

ensure that we are all on the same page about our language the language that Administration has repeatedly used is that this is an issue of employees being overpaid that is also false we can call this a budget error we can call this a financial mixup we can call this a terrible horrible no good very bad policy change but this is not an overpayment issue if the board chooses any option other than find the money to continue paying staff what they were promised in October for the rest of the contracted school year then many of our classified staff will be underpaid from February through June compared to what they were promised hey your staff what they were promised do not take away experienced steps listen to your staff and give them a seat at the table thank you for your time next we have Mary Prince Mike Ellis followed by Michelle Burton Mary Prince Mike ell excuse me Mike Ellis followed

by Michelle Burton I'm Mary Prince and I'm giving my time to Mike Ellis good afternoon um first of all I took the day off and I'm on a vacation day up here fighting for these people in this room with my money um anyway um y'all y'all took my steps I was a step 44 I'm down to a step seven I got a four % raise from the state and uh you guys here on the panel who have have not gave me a red Penny from DPS salary in the last eight years where's the damn money I'm sick and tired of hearing all this I've done to my bth y'all got seven you've got four executiv out here it's gonna be over us I've done the math

1 workers under how many directors do we need to tell grown men what to do every day so I suggest y'all do the map and get our money hello everyone um my name is Michelle Burton I am an elementary school librarian and I'm former Dae president Simone kadu is now the president um we believe in our Union to step back when other step up but the reason I'm here today is because I want to speak about have Dae having a seat at the table um I think that's important I had a long conversation with my colleague today in IIA and it was very they're angry they're mad um there is no

amount of rationalizing or saying you know the policy wonkiness or explaining budgets anything they are mad the way she explained it to me she felt like when the email came um that her life was being taken away her livelihood was being taken away she felt disrespected hurt things like that so I think that it's important that Dae are workers have a seat at the table to understand these budgets and STS thank you next we have Donna ham Donna ham followed by Simone kadu and Kristen Southward Donna ham Simone kadu Kristen

sor good afternoon my name is Donna ham and I'm the manager of the records department for Durham Public Schools we are in charge of all Student Records that's past present and future I've sat on the sidelines for too long now no more I'm not sitting down anymore I came to DPS in 2008 with 24 years of outside experience and that 24 years enabled me to get my job it was valued and now it's nothing I've gone from a 39 to a 15 I'm a senior I don't have any more years to give I can walk out that door right now I'm already drawing Social Security but that's not me I wanted to give to Durant Public Schools a couple more years I made a commitment to Osa

and to Dr Pitman and so thank thank thank you Miss I have some signatures to leave with you you can leave it on that table right there and we'll make sure you get them or you you can give it to uh the gentleman at the other table he'll make sure we get them all right next we have Simone kadu followed by Kristen Southworth and Tiffany Smiley my name is Simone kadu I am the public school Union president and I stand here concerned that the two pay options brought forward today for a vote were unveiled Wednesday evening this timeline did not give DPS workers the chance to provide input and feedback and does not guarantee our classified co-workers will remain in this District which at the end of the day hurts our students by revoking years of experience and cutting pay District administration destroyed any trust they had with workers as such we cannot trust the district to make a decision that is in the best interest of our staff and our students before we have a formal seat at the table our demands continue to be that today

all steps are restored and no pay cuts are implemented and that DPS staff through their Union have a seat at the table via a meet and confir policy this would allow us to see the financial records of the district and would mandate regular meetings I want to be clear DPS staff are unwilling to put up with more disrespect if demands are not met un no unilateral pay cuts no restoration of steps and a meet and confirm policy worker protests are likely to continue happy birthday Mike all right chis Kristen southware followed by Tiffany Smiley and then Chelsea I'm sorry Chelsea rhods Heiser okay um good afternoon board members my name is Kristen Southworth and I'm here today representing myself as an EC parent of two DPS students I ask you to go back to where we were a year ago when near 100 EC vacancies alone and this compensation study was

one way to meet of recruiting and retaining our best professionals with pay increases that provided living and competitive wages equal to the County Employees what is your plan now for retaining and recruiting staff to fill our schools I'm concerned that the options before you today will only leave us with more staff vacancies harming students the two plans that you have set before you are set to divide employees by rewarding one group to harm another that does not Foster the trust that you say you are wanting to rebuild budgets can be changed adjustments can be made and money can be found I'm not saying it will be easy it will require a great deal of hard work negotiating prioritizing and building Partnerships with this community show our DPS thank you Miss southware Tiffany I'll se my time to

Chelsea hello board I am speaking on behalf of the school nurses of DPS but also speaking on behalf of professionals that are sitting on their classified pay scale I want you to understand that the nature of roles for professionals um I'm talking about OTS pts who have a doctorate by the way nurses require clinical experience outside of the school system system by the nature of our jobs we have to get that experience in a clinical environment and we can't get it in a school system so choosing to strip it away from us for not being employed in the school system doesn't even make sense for us so let's focus on nursing I'm really concerned that we have a crisis on our hands as it stands right now option one leaves us without credit for the experience that we have in the clinical areas but option two is an additional decrease in pay for many of us from option one you really really need nurses to stay we are the only healthc Care Professionals in the building with your students and staff every day we have an autonomous role it

is vital to have a nurse there that has experience because we have to plan for emergencies and we have to react with clinical expertise we have a myriad of Demands on us already we have to manage acute problems along with chronic health conditions that continue to increase as our kids come in we are currently having a safety crisis in that we are training non-medical people your te teachers your IAS to do medical procedures in the school because we are so sorely lacking nurses you need experienced nurses and we need a plan to keep them in the county right now I'm begging for you to be creative about how you do that we are the nurses that serve this community during covid in the hospitals we are the nurses the eight nurses that opened the 54 schools in this District during covid for you we need you to take a chance to look at what we need to make in order to stay employed in this school system I'm a DPS parent of a child with an IEP I want a staffed fully staffed by professionals that are highly qualified in conclusion I'm pleading with you to

consider how these options affect professionals on your pale thank you do those options make sense for us the next next we have Amy next we have Amy Bass Ivy ston and Jeff ston Amy Bass Ivy Stan Jeff St I'm sorry Amy B I probably said that I'm Amy Bass I'd like to seed my time to miss ston I'm ay Jo ston I seed my time to Jeff ston good afternoon my name is Jeff ston and I'm the security specialist for Dr Public Schools I've been employed here for 17 years du the reduction in steps I

went from a 13 uh 34 to a 16 I want to explain why neither option one nor two is acceptable and will not stop the walkouts if they are accepted problem with option one and eliminates non State previous years of experience the same experience you required us to get hired it also locks us into the new step as we do not get annual step raises here so if we're to 16 now we'll be to 16 10 years from now our Board of Education strives hard to make DPS a place of equity and equality for students and staff option one destroys that environment problem with option two if you take the salary adjustment away we will never get it back in the last 15 years we've only received three percentage increase raises that increase our annual salary and and moves forward to contributes to our retirement in the last 15 years we've only received a eight and a half percent raise over those years history shows that we would need to work 30 more years from today to receive the fair compensation and equal

pay that the composition study clearly shows we deserve think about that for a minute how old will you be in 30 years in 2054 in 2054 we will finally get paid for what we were worth in 2024 let that sink in the miscalculation of funds is needed is not our fault it's a miscalculation between our HR department and our finance department their error does not devalue our worth here are here are two options that we would like you to consider the best solution would be meet with the County Commissioners and ask them for whatever additional financial assistance to keep our compensation at the level the hill study had valued it at and then we keep getting paid for this since July mainga and the board it is your duty to go to the County Commissioners on our behalf that's what we pay you to do option two if the County Commissioners deny the needed additional

funds we keep the H the the hill Compensation Plan and DPS pays one year for two years experience of non-state experience until June which gets us through this budget year and then in July with the new budget we go back to the hill study where we get one for one for our experience allow you know these options will allow DPS to hire qualified staff moving forward it will make DPS an attractive and desirable place to work it will not penalize current employees and it will boost morale these options will show your staff that you have heard them and you value their experience more importantly when the July checks come in and DEP positive it will show all DPS employees as well as our community that DPS cares about the people work for them and that word trust it will not be a meaningless word

anymore next we have Katie Murray Jeff Seline and Ryan con uh Katie Murray seaing my time to Jeff Cen hi Jeff sein Durham Public Schools Hub Farm it is inconceivable that this is the approach you are taking there was much talk in last week's board meeting about transparency accountability and healing instead of using this opportunity for an attempt at Truth and Reconciliation you are choosing to ignore the voices of United DPS staff across our district the two options you intend to vote on after this public comment are lacking in imagination and effort while neither is adequate the first option is laughable after three weeks of pro test you are proposing that absolutely nothing will change about removal of steps the second option tosses into the garbage a costly years in the making salary study and does nothing to combat wage compression address cost of living concerns or make DPS more competitive my co-workers and I

have watched hours of board meetings from 2023 and read through both drafts of the Hill report presented to this board for consideration while there is discussion about steps nowhere is there a formal recommendation to discontinue the policy of and I quote awarding private sector experience credit based on actual years of verifiable service for comparable job duties those are Hill's own words stop blaming them for your change in policy what you should be doing right now is scrambling to find funds to cover February's promised paychecks and spend the next two months participating in open and honest discussions with workers while conducting a fully transparent goodfaith investigation you have told us very little we should not have to consider any compromise until we know what actually happened and who is to blame and I have 30 seconds left so let me just say this y'all throw out all these numbers out of context like we're gonna be scared Away by 57% who knows what that person was making if someone's making $10,000 a year and they get a 57%

raise good on them next my name is Ryan Kemp and I secede my time to Christie all right Christie right before you go we have followed by Kevin Primus Brian apoll sh shman and Malcolm gay thank you good afternoon Madam chair board members Dr mubenga my name is chrisy massic I am here as a Durham County taxpayer I have been watching you say you need to be fiscally responsible yet you spent hundreds of thousands on a fiscal study only to need another company to fix decisions you made after reviewing that study that is taxpayer money that is not fiscally responsible failure to give DPS classified staff the steps you already granted and the raises

you already promised leads to an exodus of these staff members from our schools and not just classified staff because working conditions without our classified staff are miserable that is not fiscally responsible HR personnel and building administrators worked hard to staff our buildings this year and now we may lose staff members and the financial tools you've given us to recruit new ones wasting time and money is not fiscally responsible understaffing leads to families pulling their students out of DPS and sending them to Charter Schools taxpayer dollars follow them where do you find that money it is not fiscally responsible understaffing opens DPS up to more lawsuits that will come out of the budget for our district where do you find that money it is not fiscally responsible this is taxpayer money I do not want the taxes I pay funding things you've messed up I want the taxes I pay spent ensuring that DPS is a great place to work and learn because as a taxpayer

I know the whole Community benefits from strong schools and we get that by respecting and valuing our people thank you for your time good evening my name is Kevin Primus I have basically zero to add to everything that the classified workers have said I think um everyone just appreciates the education that we're getting about what's really happened I want to speak to and make two suggestions regarding the meet and confirm um I'm a parent and we would really like to have uh I I'll speak only for myself I would like to see some parents or parent organizations represented because I think there could be other ways to handle moving forward uh communication when we're not going to have school I think it's hard on some parents who are finding out the the morning of or the or the day of day before that there's no school everyone doesn't have paid time off so it would

6 million that's owed to Durham County schools from Leandro case the Supreme Court has spoken they have they have adjudicated this money is to be given to Durham we need to talk about LeAndre for the next 20 thank thank you Mr BR following Brian we'll have Malcolm gay Christina Baldridge and Jackie waag there what you call ni okay all right okay my name is malol gay um I'm electrician with the U man Department um uh 24 years experience when I got here I've been here three and a half years and believe it or not in the state of North Carolina they have a certification just

to do electrical work in north public schools um without that experience that I have and training I couldn't even get that certification so I can't touch any wi I couldn't touch any wi in public schools anywhere any schools in North Carolina so I do have that certification so my experience means a lot um I know my experience is valuable here at DPS and I want to get paid for as I already classifi and P he do um I have saved believe I have saved D pass in three and a half years I've been here a lot of money so I want to get paid for therefore I want to get paid for all the com get paid for my years of conversation and to me that's why I refer to as a non-negotiable as for the rais last year we all classifi employees want to see that reinstated thank you Mal Malcolm we have Malcolm oh I'm sorry okay then we have Brian

then Brian all right so Christina Baldridge followed by Jackie waag followed by GE mahaj thank you all for being here um and thank you for continuing to listen my name is Christina Baldridge I'm a parent of two children at Forest Elementary School I'm also the PTA president there um one of the biggest struggles I have with this meeting is that you are asking us and these people who have put their blood into their jobs for our children to accept a budget that you successfully came up with in a week and a half while the house is on fire but couldn't come up with the budget during normal times how do we trust that this math Works how do we trust that the nonsense you just shared in two slides is something that we can move forward with and protect this District without any sort of public transparency and bringing in experts outside experts which this District seems loathed to do every step of the way we cannot build trust a couple other things I just kind

of forgot my stream right there um um one of the big questions I have is you throw out a lot of numbers with a lot of percentages I want to know the Delta between what we're spending now we're already budgeted for and what we're act thank thank you Miss Baler Jackie waga followed by gear Mahajan Laura stin and Brian Callaway good afternoon and okay Jackie Wagstaff and that's all I'm GNA say everything that has been said here today has been enough so I'm going to come at you from the perspective that I believe that the fault of this mess is on the board members and when I heard the Dae say they needed to seat at the table they got five already up there and I don't see why you need all of the seats you got five those are the people you need to hold responsible because it was your

policy that you voted on in Jan January that created this mess these people don't deserve this they deserve better I understand this very well because I've been there and I've been there so I understand this and the good part is I'm here now I'm retired I got plenty of time to say the thing that I need to say so I want you to get this right and I mean get it right my name is G Mahajan and I have two par two students at DPS I find it fascinating that to correct Central Administration in competence you demand your classified workers for forego long-deserved raises why not foro your own compensation require the superintendent to forego his remaining annual salary and pay your workers additionally why not require all central office directors who manage classified staff to forego their 7% raises and pay

your workers I see that there are County Commissioners in the audience why not request a bailout immediately and pay your workers why not accept any County oversight stipulations that demand transparency and pay your workers why not recruit public sector Finance experts from Carolina and nccu to complete a thorough analysis of District accounting and pay your workers and finally if I haven't been clear enough pay your workers the salaries that they were promised enough is enough my name is laurren Artin I'm a DPS parent of two students one with an IEP one with a 504 I'm a Durham County resident and taxpayer and I seed my hi I'm Brian Callaway a former classified maintenance worker it's good to see a lot of my cooworker old co-workers uh not under these

circumstances though uh it is uh it is Groundhog Day uh and every day it's another disrespectful idea from you and the executives here uh you you got to pay what you promised that's simple as that um and these aren't even raises that we're talking about this is bringing people up to market rate this is paying people what they deserve simple as that uh the fact that it only costs $3 million you have that you have that in fund balance the county has told you over and over don't carry heavy fund balances so use it use it right here use it for the folks that you see right here um and asking the county for seven nine million whatever it is next year yall ask for more than that on an annual basis anyways um so just make that your ass this coming year uh but uh it's going to cost you a lot more than $3 million if you go against your word um and uh I do have some questions about just the board um you know yall yall uh y'all went to rightful Beach for

three days this past summer for a retreat that we paid for um you know you you do work for us I don't know if sometimes I feel like the hierarchy is confused a bit because uh the board is very deferential to staff you oversee staff you know I've heard I've heard Bettina I've heard you say that you have extreme faith in the staff it's time that that ends you need to open this have an investigation that's transparent we want to we want answers want to know who knew what when the whole nine yards and if anything less than getting full pay happens tonight uh it's we all need to know House Bill 737 from session 2003 has already been written to allow for recall elections in Durham thank you that brings us to the end of our public comment so we're going to come back to our operations awesome item which which is the classified salary study there any additional comments from

Administration not at this time we're just here to answer the questions all right uh board members if we can get the slides go ahead and get the slides back up because I'm sure there'll be questions board [Music] members I'll get in there I let's start with Miss bu good evening everyone I am so thankful for everyone being here and um

bringing your hearts and your um stories to us we have been struggling because this was not what this board intended and we find ourselves in a difficult place that we need to to listen to you all as we lead forward and we hear you our pressing matter right now is that we know it's important to make sure that February payroll rolls on time and I wanted to have um staff speak to the timing of that as we work on um how we move forward and and how that is

forming this discussion um as we start talking about these things um this evening what is the deadline for our payroll staff as far as when they need um information to move forward on the calendar we have it set at noon on February the 6 is when we typically open up the payroll and they begin entering their data in so Tuesday and this represents nearly a quarter of our payroll and that are impacted by this so that's the the pressing nature of why this came quickly and without much um notice um and we don't want to do anything that jeopardizes February payroll February is a short month um I find myself just contemplating what we intended when we started this

work and it was to lift everyone to start at at least 17 an hour that took years to to um find funding for and it also was to deal with some of the market issues and the um compression issues that hadn't been addressed since our study in 2019 and so those were the intents I believe of this board as we worked together with you all it's painful to hear that the options we have that are within budget don't feel acceptable to either one of either of any of you and I'm interested I

I have questions when I look at spreadsheets about the Val the validity of the compensation study that the Consultants provided but I have interest in seeing if this board could find a solution for February while we rapidly work towards a more Equitable salary study that that addresses some of those issues so that's where I start my thinking about how we move forward i g open it up to colleague Sorry Miss Rogers thanks um thanks for this presentation um does Administration have an option that they prefer for as part of the recommendation I think that's a tough question uh to put me on the spot this should have been a

conversation for us to have privately uh excuse me let me express myself here I'm not going to put an option there that is going to cost money that we did not have a conversation before um I know it's going to take conversation with k manager and County Commissioners I wish that question was posed earlier so that we could have those conversation do I have a preference yes I do but uh I don't want to put it out there which is going to cost additional funds and I'm not really in a position to do that that's helpful uh policy 210 says the superintendent shall make recommendations to the board as required by law and board policy and otherwise determined appropriate by the superintendent superintendent shall also assist the board in making sound decisions and meeting the requirements of law by providing information and advice regarding all matters that require board action on October 12th miss you asked us to trust you miss

Rogers and so I'm asking can we ask about the what's on the uh yes I'm asking which option is preferable and I want to know more than 500 employees were placed on new salaries of more than 25 % of last year's salary should those five people decide to leave DPS do we have a recruitment plan I also have asked earlier ahead of this meeting it could be helpful to see how each option impacts the highest and lowest paid employees and I'm told that's pending and I'd like to see a clear demonstration of how each of these options monthly payroll compared to the previous six months payroll and that's also still pending so I'd like more information to make a decision and I feel Rush In This

Moment additional comments from our board members Miss Louis thank you all for being here thank you for your public comments thank you for options and solutions as we figure this out I understand your frustration and there's been a lot of confusion that's raised a lot of questions what is true is that we need a salary study to address compression it needs to create equity and it needs to create years of experience the board has to make [Music] decisions based on honest factual information we approved a budget that allowed for a salary based on

8 million increased funding Miss Beyer she shared what we intended lifting the salary for living wage addressing compression and money market value my thinking about how we move forward here includes both truths to honor years of experience and making sure we are making physically sound responsibilities and choices that fit within the budget that we've been given and approved I would like to ask some questions for clarity to help me make a sound decision this will be addressed to HR and finance can you clarify Dr Lin the hill study recommendation about the decision between state only and years of longevity in the recommendations for

heel the heel recommendation was for it says specifically in the report DP s longevity years there is another bullet that clarifies that was designed to clarify that in the case you know districts have their own decisions to make so a lot of the bullet point that is referenced a lot is about clarifying verified years of experience but the compensation schedules were built based on DPS longevity years which really means State years of experience please order please I have a few more questions po clarity thank you for that when you talk about steps and years of experience for an organization for

instance does losing steps result in loss money based on this hill compensation study and can you give me a specific example I'm sorry could you repeat that question again I want to make sure I understand because I know we're talking about steps and grades and I want to make a point about grade second but first for the steps does the steps what does steps mean in years of service for an organization what does that mean for Durham as we were given an option for number steps and letter steps okay the letters the letters were salary grades the letters were for salary grades but to speak to steps in general steps do not have to equal exact years of experience but they do need to equal the identified formula so you've heard us make references the one to two one to three darm traditionally has done one to one okay so as the hill study was

implemented for longevity which in turn means State experience does that result in a loss of money if someone was on a step 44 to a step 40 it could um it is a difference in a loss of money depending on how that is applied so so if we are looking at having traditionally a one: one and someone goes from a 44 to a 40 that is a well that's not a good example because we have a capped out right but let's say someone goes from 40 to 15 there is a difference in the amount of that money and then the other question that I go ahead the other question that I have is regarding the grade it was important for this board to do differential pay with our b c staff correct and with that

differential pay if we were to choose option two what would happen one of the things from um the implementation of the heel recommendations was to create a distinction for ECI as the um scenario two or option to eliminates the heal compensation study so that would elim eliminate that distinction between our quote unquote regular IAS and our ecas it's important for me to hear the numbers what's within our budget and also what the consequences are with either choices and particularly the unintended consequences that would happen is there possible when because we also did a reclassification of um positions correct some people had a a a

significant increase according to the salary study and I want to understand if that was position to position or were there POS were there some that was from position to a change in position and their new responsibilities some of the significant increases when you look at them by percentage do increase a reclassification do include a reclassification of that salary grade So based on the Consultants looking at the work of that individual they may have moved that position a salary grade okay um and so when you when you move salary grades and you adjust the steps that does create in exponential increases because there's a increase job responsibility right and so you could see significant um increases some of the numbers that were mentioned earlier for

individuals who were reclassified to a higher salary grade so that option was taken into account under option one that example you just gave us an option one and if we choose option two we would be losing that decision that any any salary grades um movements would be erased um because they were be eliminated as part of the elimination of the heel study thank you and then miss oo did I get it right CL o Jo Miss o Jo I had a question for you in here well before I come to you back to Dr real quick can you share what held harmless means ifre increases are not given okay part of the recommendations for the study is every employee would see an increase and that increase would

85% then maybe they would be assigned what we called a hold harmless so that they could still have that minimum increase hold harmless is designed to mitigate any changes you may have from year to gear when you're moving reclassifying or any of those sorts of actions with salaries for individuals that have a hold harmless what that is really designed to do is not keep them at the exact same salary but future increases may not be as the same rate of other employees but we still have to remember if someone has a hold harmless assigned to that line they're still being paid more than like employees of the same salary grade and step because

of their whole time harmless line so if someone is at a 16 and I'm just throwing numbers out there just to show the difference for my understanding if someone is at a 16 at 30,000 but based on a money market rate the market rate 30,000 is an honor until they're at a 20 then that's four years that they're held harmless they keep that pay but they could because they're already making more than what their step is right they could be held but let's say Let me give it an example another way okay let's say the state comes back and gives a 4% increase okay again and you have someone who has a hold harmless line then what you would do is the person with that home harmless line based on looking at your budget for that year looking at all your hold harmless lines for that year those individuals they may

not be able to get the full State four% increase and whatever other increases you have locally you would reduce that and still give them three or whatever you would have to work those numbers with your budget my last question is about retirement does these steps affect retirement benefits the only way steps do not affect retirement retirement is based on your year excuse me I need to hear we want to make sure that we can hear the answers steps do not re um affect retirement retirement is based on the time that is reported it that is reported to orbit on a monthly basis from payroll in addition retirement is based on your top four years of compensation so that that is what it is based on thank you um and I may have some more questions but I want to stop there I do

want to ask some Finance questions but I know I've taken a lot of time to get understanding um to make a decision thank you Miss Cardon um thank you Dr lay for answering all of those questions already I have a few more for you um do you um so as we're thinking about the hill study and and really we're faced with a decision about among many whether to continue using the information provided by the hill study that we paid for to what extent do you feel like your competence in the findings from the hill study and in what it what it accomplished like to what extent can we trust the information provided by the hill study from your perspective I feel like there are things to consider on all sides I do think that

there was a lot of good that came out of the Hill study as far as really trying to make um sure that our employees have a livable wage I understand that the complexities of the situation that we are in but I do think that from the moment I took this position I have heard concerns about salary I have heard lasting issues from prior salary studies I have heard concerns from employees about feeling like they're not competitive with other um whether it's City County government um corporate for certain things I think of particular areas of empy employment when we're looking at technology and all of that so from that standpoint I do feel like there were lots of good recommendations that came out of the Hill study I think that there are also complexities that we have to address just as as much as you

have when you come out of any um study I think as it solved some inequities I think that there were also some things that were created from the the implementation of the recommendations that we still have to address so um I hope that answers your question um um you you gave the definition like the official definition for the word longevity do and that term was used by the hill study when it was presented by the hill study in January of last year was it clear to you what the word longevity meant and do you feel like it was clear to the board at that time what the word longevity meant I think that it was was clear with

h with Hill's recommendation I cannot speak for how the board interpreted that that's that's fair thank you thank you um did Hill recommend that we implement this implement the recommendations using longevity and was that what was communicated to us in October that was the plan for what we were going to do the heel recommendation even talking to the Consultants was for longevity years do and when we discussed this in October was this what we discussed do

you have additional questions about one of our presentation for today feels relevant but um to follow up on some other responses that you provided how long does hold harmless last and I'm sorry if it's just me trying to still understand that but you it depends on the whole harmless you can't just say it's not just an across theboard um practice um when you are looking at that you really have to consider what you have if you're a district that has a tremendous amount of hold harmless when I first came into durm there was a long list of hold harmless amounts that we began to have to look at and consider there were some that were addressed in the prior compensation studies and employees received letters from prior compensation regarding those hold harmless lines so it really is nuanced by looking at how many you have the impact on employees and what your B budget is as you

evaluate it on each year okay thank you um one more uh question I know it's it was clear during comment tonight and I think it's it's very clear at least in my mind that we the experience that people bring into the district is very important it's valuable and it's something that uh frankly we need I mean the examples from nurses from our across the board this is just um so can you um please can you tell us a little bit about like how do other school districts in North Carolina handle this and um yes that that would be helpful thank you so even more recently um I have called area colleagues and kind of worked with them on what they do regarding experience in Wake County for instance Wake County does not Grant

external experience for um non-state experience for their classified person except for very very few positions okay so that's one example we have other districts that excuse me oh I I thought I heard a question a follow-up question um we have another neighbor District that um looks at years of experience and they place a cap on it they do one to one up to a certain cap we have another District that um has another formula that they've kind of um it's a more complicated formula that they use and they have additional bonuses and stiens that they add to address that so you really can see the whole gamut the majority of school districts in North Carolina do not um recognize external nonstate experience because they don't

have the resources to do so but you do see a lot of formulas of one to two two one to three putting a cap on the number of those years of experience it's really based on the district thank you that's helpful so we've talked a lot about hold harmless and I know I think it's a term that actually causes more confusion than it um creates I I think you all view it as a safety net that someone who someone is lifted up by it rather than than falling back in scales and that everyone advances but can you explain can you tell how many folks are in in this group are in that hold harmless category because someone had said 600 that's a finance question

sorry um it is in the range of 600 um and it's more of a I think a joint question there are epas that we get that have the whole harmless on it when it's sent down from HR um the whole harmless is that Finance typically puts on is when we have this Benchmark like 4% and we see an employee falling below that Benchmark then we add the whole harmless line to their assignment profile to ensure that they get the minimum raise that's been promised can you talk a little bit thank you so much for joining us and and um being right in the midst of Durham lending your talents um to us can you talk a little bit because it seemed I've seen examples where it's pulled out on people's checks as a separate line item can you at least from the payroll side of things and finance tell folks why that is and and yeah so we currently use supac or cidic it's a a legacy Erp system that it runs on a Dos based

system so we don't have the functionality to add an additional piece of salary to that assignment so the whole harmless goes in as a second assignment say we have a custodian that needs a $100 hold harmless we have to put the custodian assignment in with their stpp and grade and then we have to put a payline gross in behind it that's labeled hold harmless to get in there we can't add that to the line that says custodian because the system is just um it is nearing the end of its usable functionality and we are in the process of upgrading our system to syus Ed but um it's just a limitation of the system when it comes to run and payroll thank you but the fear that that's going to be taken from someone or that is in some special category that that rumor I've heard can you clear that up for folks I do understand that whole harmes in the past um had been treated as if they were held in time um my first

experience with whole harmless is were when they changed certified I pay and they told principles and such they would have a whole harmless at that time um my experience with whole Harless is unclassified is a little bit more limited so as far as DPS is practice with hold Harless say ala is gonna be able to speak better to that because I won't be able to give you the historical um usage of it hold harmless is not designed to be for someone's entire employment timeline and so I think that that would help address your question hold harmless is designed for a period of time to help mitigate the impact for employee do we have FAQs out anywhere for like that we've put in writing yet on any of these issues we do not have FAQs particularly for hold harmless we were actually talking about that as a team and working on building those specifically around the questions we have had in meetings

with employees around salary and so I do think that that would help a lot with um kind of the conversation around these types of subjects and we as we talk about um steps forward can you all just give us a idea of of your Staffing in your departments both in payroll finance and nhr as we deal with really complex personal issues with finances and how we can support staff going better better going forward I want to yield to finance first as they are because I think payroll being on the front line of these things we are very cognizant of staff and the newness of staff and how many staff members there are but if you want me to go first for HR and V okay okay I will go ahead for our um HR administrators and our HR staff most

of the functions that are related to the implementing a compensation study rests in our staffing area I have three HR administrators that split every school and Department one of those HR administrators is also the ve the head of Staffing as a whole and so in addition to having um split assignments for every hire that comes through that has to pass through them for vetting that person oversees the whole Staffing area on top of that I have um texts that serve each of those I have a total of five teexs that serve um the Staffing area as well as a rehired um retiree um a couple of rehired retirees who are helping us stay afloat but those are not full-time permanent um positions

so if you track and I don't have the numbers right in front of me but I've I've shared some things from you with you from the HR side before the amount of increase in volume from turnover recruitment if you look at the history of our vacancies and that staffing has been consistent um since before my arrival in DM Public Schools payroll has five texts and one deduction specialist and a payroll supervisor which is Vicky go um she's on the classified scale um and that is it um and myself I spend a lot of time supporting the payroll department when it comes to um Advanced calculations some of the spreadsheets that are needed to do the upload so um they are stretched very thin

um a lot of the payroll entry is manual and it requires a lot of attention to detail um we have not been able to um tap into retirees and those are a lot of experience and because the system is so old and such a legacy system it's really hard to find someone who has experience in using it um we have a relatively young team a relatively new team I would say that more than half of the team has been there for Le than a year um and they're all learning this system and learning all the nuances of entering in payroll so um compounded with a lot of the additional customer service skill uh needs um they are they are handling quite a lad cheerfully um they're good staff so I just want to add to that question just a quick followup while where you're speaking now can you tell us um the process for payroll to switch over from the old system to a new system how much longer would that be and I

guess that's a new system needing to be coded as well about how much I'm sure that's a hard question too with the additional responsibilities you've had but in general how much longer will it be to get that system switched over we're working with our sister Department um of HR um on some timelines um payroll really was striving to move forward in Spring um we're looking at some options about using the position control which interfaces payroll with the budget so that salaries would be accured in the question of how much budgeted for salary and how much is utilized would be a quick answer so um I was in conversations with syllogist yesterday about how we could at least tie our position control and our payroll into the budget before we completely roll the system over so it may be that instead of one doing one big roll out we're going

to start rolling out features that are going to contribute to our workload and the transparency and the things that we need um J July 1 I think is what we are striving for that um one I I don't want to belabor with the the details of a new system but just to quickly understand on the HR side there is a key piece which is connection to DPI lure and so as we're working with a new system we have to make sure that we're going to be able to have systems talk and communicate effectively with one another so that we have no breaks particularly with the latest um recruitment seasons and all of that we really have to test this system to make sure it works before we launch with all of that being said our goal currently is to work towards a July 1 launch but I want to say also that is not the best

time for HR to have a launch and so we are trying to adjust and um make sure that we can make this as smooth of a transition as possible do you um some people have asked about kind of a I just want you to speak to it I don't think it's feasible but I I you know tell me if it is some people have asked could they pick this each employee pick option one or option two that to hold them whatever works best for them can you speak to why you support or don't support something that's a hybrid like that that would make a payroll run and I'm not the payroll expert but I can't even fathom how complicated how much more complicated that would make it because even with the setup when you talk about a payroll window opening that is based on scale so I don't know how

you run to different but maybe you can speak to that we have the pay tables I think that when it comes to setting the employees up I don't necessarily see how that would be prohibitive where the complication would come in is when we did raises in the future and you wanted to do 4% are we going to allow the employees to switch back if we are looking at an option that has a different cost to it how do we control the cost five years down the road um just what a it's going to be harder to calculate long-term implications and to um project budget with two separate plans out there to which the employees get a chance to choose I would wa add one other piece

um board member Rogers when you made that request for a number of pieces of information that is very very important information that contributes to decision making if we implement it where employees could choose anytime you made a request for reporting it would make that reporting not only way more difficult ult to create but to be able to make meaningful decisions out of that reporting would also be difficult because you would have to figure in these kind of two different systems with what you had with employees so I would just add that piece to it's not only what you put in but it's also what you're getting out when you're looking at reporting yeah it sounds like really difficult to model and predict um I know you all are um struggling with this and struggling with the the same way we are

um I wanted to um speak a little bit about why in the past I've uh been a champion and going across the street to the Commissioners and asking for money asking for money to fix it and why I think this one's different and it and I'm sad about that we are um as we investigate and you'll see later in the agenda that we're hoping to bring um outside Financial auditor comproller that reports to this board it's an agenda item as we've started to investigate we've started to have more concerns and we need to investigate those fully transparently and

accountably we will do that and bring that public but we're going to need um that expertise going forward you've heard our staffs right now that are um that are juggling and I want you to to you know treat them you know the payroll staff with the same love that you treat your co-workers they're part of the DPS family too they didn't do this some of them are impacted by this um but these are not this is not a a one time go get the money and and fix this rainy day thing this is how can we do what we intended to lift you all to keep having steps where you can go up and you can know what you can predict and you can plan and so um as we continue to work on this we're going to tr we're going to do the best we can um and we're going to do that with you all but

um we have other concerns um that's all I'm gonna pass it over Miss Chávez is joining us by zoom and I know she has some additional comments m travez Miss travez so sorry still having trouble with mute yes um hi there I um I'm now joining you all via Zoom due to um Child Care needs um I do wanna we cannot hear you can you hear me now can you try again can you hear me now can't tell if you're speaking Miss

Chávez um all right back do you want to go I want to waste your time I really do not want to waste your [Music] time we have some options on here and I think it's very clear many of you don't like them and I understand why they don't seem fair and um also there's an an inherent problem with all this that you're supposed to take our word for it and U and I think that that's what I want to address tonight so this morning at 9:00 in the morning I showed up to a Panera Bread on

Ninth Street and if you were anywhere in that area you probably saw a couple of people emotions were high the frustration was felt felt I don't know who was in the other section if they could fear feel sorry but it was it was very intense and what came out from those conversations were many many things that to me reveals like a crack into something that is deeper than what we can even try to approach tonight but that there is definitely a demand for transparency and I do not want us to get caught up with this without addressing transparency so many things were said and there were a lot of grievances I'm talking about years of accumulation of grievances folks have talked about experiences in central office folks talked about all kinds of things

including being pulled from their work what their job description says to do a gazillion things and I think that it's been said tonight the hill study was able to bring up you know the inequities in terms of roles in terms of exploitation if you might say for some folks who feel like they have been doing many many different jobs and it also brought up something about differential accountability and differential accountability sometimes means that there is somebody in the district that is having to prove do I said this this morning and I messed it up because English is my second language but dot the eyes well proses and do the eyes right I got it so there are people who are held to such scrutiny because the results that the state wants to see are very clear they want to see student achievement go up and there are people in this District that are held to high scrutiny where none of this would have ever happened and that is the real

truth and that is not the only truth because I don't want to waste your time scrutiny is important and when you are again behold into a context of student achievement and grades and all that we DPS has shown updates on that but then there's something that remained dormant there was an a complete area and I want to tell you the truth about this we are seven board members and we are not allowed to meet as seven board members in any meeting and administrator the administrators here what is your biggest challenge trying to schedule us right trying to schedule if there's uh anything there has to be three board members at the most usually two and that is known some of you already know that and we'll convene two at a time we are in subcommittees and I have been seeing and tracking the agenda items that my community has asked me for they have

asked for number one ESL students coming up and I'm not going to I'm I'm not trying to go on a deviant on a on a detour I'm going to come back to what I'm offering tonight um there have been clear things when I meet in my subcommittee meetings that I know and I will tell you I have talk to the administrators Dr Pitman you know who is who is in that subcommittee Dr Stacy Stewart in that subcommittee and uh Linda Toran and we just had Victor ralo talk about this is the first time this district has ever purchased Global curriculum for the languages for DLI and all it's the first time and keep in mind we have growing together together and we're expanding all these offerings it's the first time we're buying that curriculum but we had reading curriculum math curriculum we spent money to normalize that Matt SE you're in the building and this was something that um or at least he was in the building or I think I see you curriculum was the thing right you were you're championing like reading curriculum like before we didn't have reading curriculum now we have reading curriculum math curriculum and there is a whole thing about academic

achievement but the Strategic plan that Dr benga brought in 2018 had five pillars and one of those rightfully so your anger is righteous because pillar number five is what fiscal responsibility so dingas on this fiscal responsibility that's one of the fifth pillars we could be doing well in academic achievement we could be doing well in implementing social emotional learning we could be doing well in recruiting you know even getting teachers from International teachers who are able to Leverage particip ipate uh and global global teachers and visas and I can go on but fiscal responsibility is one and I'm going to tell you this tonight because many people have asked me Alexandra and they say they say Alejandra Alexandra and they have asked me and they said how in the world does this happen and um how was this even allowed to happen

and so I'm going to ask a series of questions and it's going to requ ire emotion but I want to put it on the table I do not want to waste your time because I think the timeline is important and so there is a general statute 115 C and I'm trying to find it dash1 23 B and I hope I can find it but I believe that that is it because I have actually been thinking about that General statute and the idea for that General statute is that it says that if there's any thing that's going to jeopardize I'm quoting that if there's anything that's going to jeopardize the Integrity of the board we actually have a right to decide whether we want to wave something that would not come to light but that is up for a vote and so

8 so what figure was it and when did who know when did they know and where were they and I asked that because this morning in that meeting there were people who brought to me that we have been very um as a district uh differentially

giving privileges of remote work to people and even though we passed a policy to address that there are supervisors who would never allow their employees this all from this morning their Witnesses for this meeting that all this was shared in a public setting with public folks who said I have a medical condition where I need to go and get medical treatment and I have asked my supervisor for medical consideration when it comes to remote work and they have said no you have to show up and so there's differential accountability and differential expectations and I think as a board we have to own that that we did not really fraud into and that includes all of us so when people say what is your responsibility board I'm going to be the one because tonight you know when I was talking to people tonight I I I I felt like this morning's conversation and every single week I feel like I'm getting roasted over the coals and it is not a comfortable feeling but this is

something a legacy I want to leave to any future board member who sits in my seat because I'm not running again and so I want this information to be taken into consideration for anybody who's going to sit in the seat to learn from our mistake and learn from what we did and did not do and to also understand that in the midst of political games that are being played and people who like people and people who don't like people there is truth and the truth does not have to come from your favorite person person so does anybody know General statute 115 c-123 section B I think that that statue says that anything compromising the Integrity of the board um that there is there is a reason to to wave so my my question and and I'm going to put for a motion is that we I move

that Administration there are people here who know I move that Administration reveal the first month that the discrepancy between how much this study would cost and what it actually was and is the first time that that came to light and who knew about it and when did they know about it so that gives a time and where were they if they is one or two people where were they and I'm going to start with I guess my motion actually so so you know we learned about motion so actually that's my intention but the actual motion is to go into the personal file of the Chief Financial Officer Paul

8 and the actual figure the actual number so I put the motion to declassify to open personnel file to pull who who in this case it's paulaur so I'm making it easy when did he know that this was not going to fly and it was going to be a complete complete and I'm not gonna I'm not only going to stop there there's a couple of motions after this so do I have a motion colleagues if it's not seconded you won't get it if it's very simple who what when in this case it's paulaur when did he know

that those numbers were not what they were I would like to ask our attorney to weigh in on this question since it does involve General statute So suon that obviously is Personnel information that you would not really be at Liberty to disclose even if you had the information so um in this particular case if the motion's not gonna have a second then it you know we could it could die in that manner anyway I'm gonna go again is there a second what happens if the motion has a second can you explain please well I mean I guess the the bottom line is that even if you were to get the information we'd have to decide whether or not the information could be disclosed under the Personnel laws my immediate thought is that the

answer is probably no but we would have to take a look at it I have a question for you Personnel confidentiality there are laws around that I get outside of releasing Personnel records there's an open investigation that also addresses who what when where right is the open investigation still open or when will it be resolved that we can discuss what's in the open investigation avoiding General statutes around personnel and confidentiality so the investigation is open um we hope to be completed soon we also have to have a version I'm sorry the the investigation is still open we hope to be completed

soon um there will be a public facing version of this that should provide answers to many of the questions that the community is asking um but it will not provide Personnel related information but it we're hoping that the information that um the board will be able to provide at some point will answer many of the questions that the community has asked we are planning to create a version that will answer as many questions as possible be because there's differential accountability I'm going to try this motion with a second with another person and I'll watch it die as many times as I need to but I want you would understand some of you have asked for the truth you are watching this is for for the students in DPS this is for the people in universities doing case studies about governance and what does it take to really do governance in a context of Bureau Ry which you are watching play out just tonight so motion number two I motion under

General statute 115 C- 321b in order to maintain the Integrity of the board to release information related to when Dr mubenga knew that we could not afford and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna just say this knew that there was a discrepancy between the number that was shared publicly and the actual figure which you can figure out if you do the math in these slides you can figure out something's way off so do I have a second I'm also gonna ask our attorney to weigh in again just because we're bringing up a general statute yeah I'm pulling the statute up I would like to read from it to add Clarity to your question hold on one second

let me have one second so while while uh while our attorney um Rod Malone with barenton Smith is is looking into the general statute the things that I've heard in the past couple of I can't believe it's still it's it's January was was when um my jaw dropped my my my jaw didn't drop literally but literally but it was a feeling my heart sank and um the conversations that I'm having with folks are around how could this possibly happen in a district that has the level of budget and resource ources and smart people because if you do an average of the educational background of this board and some people have you know taken this to patriarchy and you know it's women that's what happens to women good joke no I mean there's so much that

has been said right about how can this happen with Dr mua how can this happen with you know his focus is math right and then you talk about Paul lour who's been in the district for 13 years you don't have a 13e career unless you've proven your chops or did you I want you to know that my motions about when about who when and where is because this morning in that Panera Bread somebody said to me do you realize that there are Shadow workers and people who have been able to do things and not be accountable not even have to go to our stores and not even have to show up and and see each other's faes when I go to the store I see some of your faces some of you stop me and when I'm out in the community people literally come to me and I mean this is what it means to be here be here mentally physically spiritually grounded here and to know that there's no way I can ever go anywhere without having to

face the hurt and so many other emotions that have come up throughout this whole entire process and the question is how did this happen give us transparency because the way forward is going to be dictated by what happened and so the way forward includes for example something like what our new Director of Finance just shared which was an old system how many knew did we did anybody in the subcommittee of operations and administration know that there was an old system of HR and that's why people were hitting us up all the time saying I have HR issues and I don't know Dr L I got to give it to you like your department I hear more about people visiting your department than any other department and and so what I want to say is an old system and now we're hearing about a new system and we are in the age of artificial intelligence when you have predictive modeling that could tell you about Labor trends that can tell you about wages that can tell you about

Flags it'll build models for you and tell you this is not going to fly and so it's time for people who are out there watching this as a learning experience Ed Educators and people who are in universities doing case studies is there is there a benefit to considering number one what accountability looks like what does it what what does the differential accountability look like in a district what does technology do um in terms of like being able to have the best products and not just in curriculum because we have bought some of the best we've actually spent good money and that that's from the presentations the subcommittee in academics which I can speak to that we spent a good amount of money in curriculum and we need to do the same for HR and and for everything so I don't know Rod are you ready for the statute yes I mean the statute does allow for the board to

direct to direct the superintendent to um to I guess you read this total to um prepare a memorandum setting forth the circumstances upon which the board could disclose certain information that's confidential to protect the Integrity of the board um in a situation like this I think the board would review that information in close session and make sure that it believes that the information to be released would protect the Integrity of the board but the statute would allow the super I'm sorry would allow the board to direct that action um and we can work with um the board chair if the board's interested in pursuing this to to work on a a way to have that I thank you for

your interpretation but when I read that we have the opportunity to do that right here we don't need to go into close session um and that's the other thing about representation don't blame broad he he works for the board so he's always this is his job I'm I'm talking to my children and my grandchildren one day they're going to look back and this is where I want to tell you no what I'm saying is that the the board could could make that direction but that the board would want to review the information in yes Rod yes I understand that we can do that right now or we can do in close session but I'm telling you about the Legacy right everybody here is going to have a legacy and we're not sitting in these seats just to play play at board members so the community has asked for accountability and they have even said I heard tonight they want to do recall elections you have a right to do that if you want to there are some of us who've been here on the board for a long time and we've grown accustom and we've grown to like certain people think about if

you look on TV and you see the good cop with a donut he's not chasing after the people who are terrorizing he's sitting there eating a donut and you you're like oh but he's a nice police officer he's the one that he talks about his wife and his wife fakes pies and she brings them over and we just like him so much and that is also human behavior and sometimes there are people who are here for a long time and we learn and we grow attached to them that we don't hold them to the same accountability that we hold other people and so we need to talk about differential accountability and political games that are played because the politics is and the word on the street is Durham is all full of politics everybody looks at us and says what a wasted opportunity to really do great things when you have people infighting because of their political clicks but that's for another day my motion my third motion is about this board I motion under General statute 115 C- 321b in order to maintain the Integrity of the board to release information

related to when the superintendent first communicated to board members that includes all seven what what were the dates so there's a name there's a time and there is a location and I think motions usually I don't know I mean I don't have Council right now to know if I need to do seven different motions but we are one unit as a board and I do believe that I can make it under this board motion this motion if I can get a second that information related to when the superintendent first communicated about this issue to the board whether individual board

members the name the time and the location can I get a mo a second for my motion I'm going to ask our attorney to weigh in as well so here's what I would think you may want to consider we will have this um evaluation investigate investigation completed soon as part of your review of those materials the board could use this statute to authorize the release of portions of this that may otherwise be deemed the Personnel record to protect the Integrity of the board um I do think that it would be better for the board to be reviewing the information and to decide specifically what information you're going to release um the the statute does require that a memorandum be prepared setting

forth the circumstances um which the board believes or the in the superintendent or in this case the board would believe justify that so we'd have to pull all that together for you um but if if the board were to um look at the actual investigative materials decide which portions of it you want it to release to protect the board's Integrity then we could certainly do that I think that would be the cleanest way to do it um and you know we could could certainly you know you'd be in a position to do some of that at the next board meeting is there a motion that we would need to consider if we wanted to go along way I don't think you need a motion tonight for that because when you review the materials you can you could direct us at that point to prepare the memorandum and then at that point you can you can vote on all that in open session at a at the next meeting okay

thank you Mr M I I'm not done with my comments so we just watched all these motions die on the floor because the truth that you want will have to go through many revisions and consent from each single each of us by our attorneys who are doing their job by the way uh the attorney is doing his job the attorney works for the board not for the superintendent right and so he works for us and so he's he's making sure that he kind of keeps us and y'all I got to be honest I do not want a lawsuit and I have been threatened by even being on this day with colleagues who have H you know kind of try to show an upper hand I know what I signed up for but I want you to know the community who has been asking and has been upset and has talked about trust and I've told you systems are not to be trusted precisely because they are riddled and conting they have

so many contingencies related to bureaucracy and to how governance how the cheese gets made and that is knowledge that I intrinsically know and that's the reason why I'm stepping off because I do know that there's a lot of work that has to happen and I'm not stepping off today if some of you might be thinking I'm finishing my term and um enjoying every day of it and I am also letting folks know that there's a lot of change that has to happen not just to Durham Public Schools but to school systems across the country but particularly North Carolina when you have so many inequities that have been listed and somebody mentioned $70 million that are owed to Duram Public Schools we want that money and so what I do want to say is that as we continue to work towards more trans okay let me be careful because transparency is is again it's relative truth is relative based on these processes that we have going on over here but I want you to know that this board is working on things you will have

a complete investigation at the end of this but the families that I talk to every single day don't don't care about a very polished canned report they want to know why did you fail my kids and why did you fail my family and some of them I've heard have been doubly failed because they're also DPS family and so they want to know how can we trust that the system is going to run because the level of trauma we went through the pandemic was huge and now this seems like another wave of trauma when you have uncertainty about whether a school will open or not and so I also want to address folks who thought that was a great idea I want to address you because you showed muscle and you show showed might and you showed that organizing works good for you good for you organizing Works my question is who does it not work for who did that action not work

6 to I'm so caught up in your words but I know it's over 20% I think it's 25 2 I think it's

9 and so that is the work that is happening with a director who is accountable who meets with her subcommittee who understands that Saturday there was a Saturday school a learning school many people don't even know there was a Saturday Academy and so there was a lot of initiative so this is definitely the blame is all around blame us as a board because there should be no way that there wasn't in any checks even in subcommittee meetings or even in this meeting that we did not really check on years of experience and steps we have to own that as a board and so and then Dr mubenga also when it comes to differential accountability Dr mubenga you were brought in by a board previous to my I was not here I I did not hire you but I worked with you from the moment you set foot in Durham because I knew as a community organizer my community wanted to in with you and you showed up to superintendent forums you showed up to community meetings you did a whole listening session when you came in and what you heard was we need to bring scores up but there were other

inequities about discipline and so you you got the vision for that but the community feels let down because they feel like even all these gains and even though we've been quoted by the New York Times for you know showing an upward Trend and academic achievement this financial disaster that I'll call it um happened under your watch and it happened under all of our watch and so that is also something else that we are Reckoning with and um and I just want folks to know we we learn to love people there are people who have done amazing work in some regards but we have to look at that VIN diagram of the SWAT analysis right the strengths and I I know that this department does SWAT what is what is SWAT strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats our strengths you know we have a strong superintendent in some regards and the data shows it strength but there's also weaknesses Dr mubenga your

your you your way of handling somebody like Paula SE 13 years in the district and you know all that is is something so then there's also I'm I'm okay I'm going to get to the other one opportunities what are the opportunities that the Durham Community is willing to give us and that we are willing to give ourselves in terms of making this right and I've heard from you that you want to keep your pay even though we have talked about the fact that that is not within our budget um some of you have talked about keeping your years of experience and that is something that we have to consider as well but there's something else that I heard today and it's not just about the money it's about dignity it's about making sure that every department is operating efficiently that we are doing what the first strategic plan we ever had here started in 2018 when Dr mubenga came here and we need to make sure that every single one of those pillars continues to have those metrics that show us how to be excellent and so governance and um

operations and fiscal responsibility all fall within five um and so so I'm going to wrap up here I just want to let the community know that there are threats the last one is T and the threat is that a couple of years ago many of us were really worried about two schools that were going to be taken over by the Innovation school district and some of organizers here I got to credit Dae Dae stepped out and made a call and everybody including my boss right was out there at Glenn and I have actually been to Glenn and that school has thrived and it is nowhere near what it was when it was about to be taken over by the Innovation school district and that is truth that is when organizing works with people and we all show up but my plea to organizers is organizing to show that you can win good for you but organizing to consider that there are vulnerable kids

in the district that didn't do anything wrong and don't deserve to be penalized and some of the people who were saying well one day it doesn't matter well some kids have missed a week and a half and some of them can't afford to miss a week and a half because they have not been able to catch up to where they want to be and we cannot afford to do that to our kids and so I'm saying I'm not knocking your game this is all about organizing and being able to show your strength and your might and I commend you for that because sometimes you do have to check the system and you have to show and speak truth to power that is all very powerful but let's be responsible let's be responsible there are children there are families kids who were left alone and if Child Protective Services catches on to that there are families who will forever be affected by the choice and so I just want us to know that we need to organize in way that we save this District that we bring in outside Council like you have said that we have an ombudsman I recommend even before we get to the next one an

ombudsman somebody that is neutral not a conflict of interest not an employee who wants to figure out how to get a better salary somebody who's an independent person who can speak and represent the interests of many political groups that are active around education because germa has many and families and families and ptas and sit teams and parent advisory which is also an initiative that has been rolled out that was shared by our Communications Department about the parent advisory parent advisory opportunities and so that is what I have to say it seems like you're not going to get the truth t tonight but it seems like our attorney said they're going to be working on and they have been and I know they have on a report to give to you and my recommendations let's leverage technology let's also make sure that there isn't differential accountability and check us on the board we have to own this was on our watch this entire salary study was something we all supported and yet we

did not ask all the questions that needed to be asked and yet we did not require as many presentations as this study should have had and that is on us thanks Miss Vadar uh next Miss Chávez has a few questions I'm gonna go back to her all right um I hope you all can hear me all right I am okay I am I want to bring up a few things one I just want to lift up what Alexandra said with this by that I said about transparency um that's it's just really iterated again and again that that's uh a value that a value in a practice that is um is very

needed all right I'm on the phone here but I'm now I'm showing my video so okay um so I want to I want to talk about my concerns with the um the the the options going forward and what's happening right now so so one um I have a number of concerns about where we are moving forward for February I'm concerned about morale I'm concerned about uh just staying staffed right now um I am concerned about people who made commitments with the money that they were told they would receive from housing to medical needs and I will say that my concern is also um and has since I learned about this particularly for those who are who make under 50 or 60 k um many under 40

um and I and so I want to I want to see if um I want I want to kind of offer um a an option for just moving forward with February and um perhaps taking more time to decide what happens in March through June through the end of the Academic Year as mentioned we are intending to hire a comproller that's the next agenda item that person will work for the board and report to the board and help us to get a very clear picture and understanding of our finances which is desperately needed right now someone to um support that work and um I do I do want to say um Miss uh Sierra oij o Jo you have been doing an amazing job um stepping in so we appreciate your work

um and and we also look forward to having um a controller who can uh be more even more a direct line to the board now I want to ask if we were to to keep pay the same at the same rate that it is for February only what would we need to do in order to to make that happen do you mean this do you mean the pay that it is right now or the pay that was in Octo implemented in October can you repeat the question can you can you clarify your question Miss ch when you said what what pay would you like to see in February yes yes I am asking if we kept the pay the same as what people were told they would

make in October as the pay that we have kept the same for for January those salaries if we were to do that one more month where could that money come from um I know that we don't have it budgeted we know that um but I we're just in between a rock and a hard place obviously because things have been um people are deeply upset about this about this discrepancy and um and there [Music] are I mean people spoke on it tonight we're getting emails non-stop so I do want to I want to ask what the feasibility of keeping the pay the same for February would be with the intention of then having a little bit more time to figure

out how we can um how we can move forward for March through June um as well as start the plan for the 24 25 budget does that make sense currently it's around $700,000 a month of additional funds um to do that I would need to collaborate with our budget staff Dr boa to see what options we had available as we analyze the budget and understand what funds are already allotted and whether or not we have all of our obligations already covered thank you and I know that payroll as you said needs to be entered starting noon on Tuesday so that is not a lot of time and I know our board has um

5 million doll without good supporting

documentation without the detail that we um that that we and the community and the tax payers need um I I was going to follow up and ask um you know when we did the coordinators and directors and the meeting that everyone's been rewatching the October 12th the 7% that those staff received was that above and beyond the 4% State raise is that a is that equivalent to the option two that you've brought tonight do you know the option two that was brought tonight actually gives a higher percentage to those classified employees so it gives an 11% raise but can you

okay so the question is do you do we know with certainty that the coordinators directors the 7% that we approved because the hill study was way too high for coordinators directors on up for that group of employees was that a 7% or was that a 7% plus the state 4% of 11 the calculations that I was part of was that that 7% was going to be locally most likely funded the perception of the four plus seven um is kind of a unique idea um the state does offer a 4% suggestion for I think what I want to clarify the question first um board member buyer are you asking was there an additional amount above the 7% paid to any on the

coordinator level or above I want to make sure I'm understanding your question yeah so there's so much confusion and and angst about how messed up this is and how unfair it feels and people are looking for guide guide stones right so there's a lot of talk that the state gave me a raise of 4% so if DPS has me at that in this new green box thing then you're not even giving me a raise out of local money you're just giving me what the state gave me all right wa okay I'm just thinking out loud and so one guidepost that people have been looking at is going back to that meeting where you all said and brought coordinators directors Hill recommendations were way too high so we're coming up with seven and I remember going where'd you pick the number I don't feel like I got a great answer but we got we moved on from there um so yes I am trying to understand in option two whether that

is I actually I'm trying to understand the coordinators and directors did we give them 7% did we give them 11 and then if we gave them seven inclusive of the four from the state then at least option two feels more generous in as an option as a placeholder um as we consider these options going forward those administrator salaries were a flat seven inclusive of state and local there was nothing above the 7% thank you Miss Chávez did you finish your comments I just want to make sure she was I'mma come to you Miss travez okay um I was that finished my comments for

now um but I wanted to to well actually no I have one more comment then I wanted to hear what other board members thought about this um or just how you all are thinking about moving forward I think that what I'm hearing from from many people from from teachers from staff from uh from parents from Dae specifically is that there is a desire for collaboration and um and communication about um our plans moving forward and I I do realize that the um the the options were posted on Wednesday people haven't had a lot of time to digest them or ask a lot of questions and I I'm feeling like this is a time to build community accountability and that's part of the

reason why I'm interested right now in the possibility of buying us a little bit more time I know it may seem like February I mean shortest month of the year it's going to go quickly and it will but we I do feel like we could have some more conversations this month to get us in with more information um and to get us kind of in a in a better place to make a an educated um more solid decision that is also fiscally responsible for March through June and we are in a very difficult place again just with what we have um B what I mean what people feel that they have been promised and now are losing and I think I'm I'm concerned that we are losing staff that they're quitting and um or thinking about it and um and so

that's sort of where my my line of thinking is and how I got here um and why I'm asking the question but I would love to hear what other people think thanks um actually have Miss Mr did you have anything to add to M the comments before I just think State allotments can be um complicated and that the 4% that people hear is not exact what they think it is especially as it applies to how um salaries are split out and how they're covered so um I'd love to have some more in-depth conversation offline um or online but just to prepare some information and get that to you all so that you truly understand that there's not a guaranteed 4% for every employee and then a 7% that we add to it that it's a guide given to us by the state and we are funded but there's still a lot that

a lot of variables within that as to whether or not it's a position allotment or a dollar allotment and that so so I just don't want you to think that it's an even split and if I've got 100 employees here um 4% of it is automatically covered by the state so just for transparency I'd love to get some additional information to you thank you um Miss card I know will you have a followup question for Miss Chávez or allor right go ahead I just trying to thank you so much for clarifying that I think that's going to be really critical as we move forward and it's part of why like that type of information it feels like just one piece of what we're still missing like I'm find I feel like this is deja vu a little bit like we're being asked to make a really big decision without enough information to make make that decision

um and I don't want to I felt put I personally I was only speak for myself I felt pushed in October and I really don't want to feel that way again I feel like we need Clarity on our finances um as my as our my colleagues have stated um and we anticipate we're going to have more of this once we have our com controller on board we also need to know as we talked about earlier what aspects of the Hill study we have confidence in and what aspects um are recommended by our experts here in HR whether we need like a new add-on salary study to supplement what we know from Hill um to figure out what we really want to do and get to the heart of what we intended like to honor years of service to also honor dedication to DPS right um to make sure we have folks uh that have an ability to get a raise every year and to lift up our lowest paid workers um and make things more Equitable and also to consider Recruitment and Retention

even more than ever um as we do this so anyhow I just need more information before I make major changes though I'm kind of leaning in the direction of U my colleague board member Chávez um to keep things as they are for now because I also hear that Miss oo is stretch thin with her team so if we ask her to plug in whole new numbers for February and then entirely new numbers for March that is doesn't feel good either so it feels more consistent to keep what we have for now have more information and make a decision um moving forward that is just more informed and where we're able to be more fiscally responsible but also attentive to the needs of our staff and respect the value that we give our staff I think I just want to jump in here we've had a lot of like Rich discussion today it's reminding me of like there's so many lessons learned from this experience that all of us I think think need to learn how to what actions we're going to take next and how we're going to move forward like we did the salary study in

the traditional way that public schools do we had it presented at our meeting and we didn't you know we had public comment and we voted on a thing right at some point and I think that like we're learning that that process does not inclusive enough of the employees and the staff in the community who want to be a part of it right but in the back of my head I'm remembering that like the first is when rent is due uh groceries are due and people are on the other end of this decision are people are like trying to plan for their life right like we have kind of in this debacle I don't even know the right word for it people have been yo-yoed a little bit back and forth and so while I think like we I want Community input I want a deeper stud I want a new study I want us to sit and wrestle with all the complexities of this decision but I also want our staff to know how they're gonna get paid for the rest of the year like I want them to be able to make those decisions and so I just like I'm I'm I'm we've been

wrestling with this for all this week and I hear the desire to want to do something for February and then not sure about March but I also think there's an option where you make a decision today we do the work we can ask for a budget increase from the county we can also think about what in our own budget can work and we can make changes moving forward but I think to leave batina says today to leave today and not give some clarity to our employees about how they can plan their lives which they were so clear about that the January decision did not give them enough time to plan their lives this to me doesn't feel like the responsible place for us to be and so I know it's tough I know we want more information um I'll just speak again for myself I know that the 2223 salary study with the 11% raise is not great but it feels like it resets the game for us to do the work that we want to do and I know again it's not it's not where we want to be but it gives us the opportunity for people and it honors

years of service it gives us opportunity to do the work to get to the raises that we desire that our budget can sustain and we can do the work to move forward and that's I I've wrestled with this decision all week but I think to me the clearest thing to do is be clear with our employees about what we can do and make sure that we develop a new plan moving forward that could shift right to go up at some point but I just think that is where the tension I'm sitting with so I think it honors years of service we can also give folks a opportunity to have a raise and we continue do the work to figure out where we want people to be moving forward which could change in June July if we do that work right and so that's what I'm just want to be clear about where I'm sitting at today there any U Miss Rogers so I had a clarifying question about um what Miss Chávez and Miss carteron were speaking about right

now the salaries that are entered into the system are set at we we made some exceptions for January so the steps that in the system right now are based on and and salary so when you're go to run payroll what do you need to do to run payroll and if we make an adjustment tonight for February would you then be required to go back and make another adjustment how would we handle it how would you handle that work would it double your work the timing of last month's decision was after payroll had already halfway come through so it required us to do some special adjustments to get it in So currently the master file is sitting with the hill group with Legacy steps that was paid to employees in November and December because we were not able to

update the master file that's that's kind of one of the things that we need to decide to do um based on your decision is what what are we putting in the system So currently it sits as it was when we made the adjustments in October November December um and we're waiting to know what steps and what rates to put in now thank you Miss Lewis all right um I remember the hill saying that um they gave us recommendations based on what our district could afford and as we are considering another formula is it as simple as just adding years of experience on to what the hill already said or do the numbers need to be run so that we can know what we can afford we can take um our existing information and be able to make changes from there so if I'm understanding you

correctly there's no like revalidation or anything like that that employees would have to do for their experience in order for us to make adjustments but do we know what that number is well we have longevity years when you take the longevity years and you take their step and you subtract those in some cases in talking to employees as we've been meeting we can make those adjustments and so for the majority of our employees I would say yes in our individualized meetings we have had individual circumstances that adjustments need to be made but those are the minority not the majority okay so I'm G to just address a couple of things that I've heard from our public comment um although we don't respond to public comment I just want to affirm commitments the belief that if we if salary steps are taken away that we will never get them back I am committed to making real meaning of your steps and compensation as Miss Beyer said we will

give you transparency as we have an independent study an independent audit and com controller to give us an accurate Financial assessment we cannot make decisions that are not physically sound their era does not devalue our worth you are worthy beyond your compensation this work that you are doing is truly a calling thank you for answering the call I see you a true living wage compr compression fair market wage is what I am willing to continue to work towards this board is continue to continuing to work towards with honesty and integrity you should not be jerked

5 million to be moved from the fund balance or reserves to cover the area from the issues from the classification study I already knew what our fund balance was based on what was said in previous conversations and I felt comfortable to make it right with that

8 million that

was requested from our Board of County Commissioners that was approved we need more time for our com troller to give us an accurate assessment of our finances you are more than your compens we are committed to a solution with a new board approved Scale based on payroll Staffing to revert to option two in the manual in the manual entries is a lot to ask but we'll make it happen if we need to but truly centering on what can we afford for now just for now I would say that we have to keep was was presented to us in January 2023 and presented in our budget request to the board accounting Commissioners we have no control over taxation as a school board and we have to work with what we have it doesn't seem fair but this is where we are and

we are holding those accountable that put us here our board passed a budget and it was not implemented according to what we were told that's why made the decisions I've made did you have a motion in there I would I was just gonna um thank you for all of that and framing that in context the the other thing that helps me and that I want to make sure that you all hear is we are uh right up to budget season um this is when we start planning for next year and um I agree with chair Umstead that as we get com troller in and as we um get more clarity anything that we can find our first and foremost priority is is our impacted

staff and we are we will be in budget conversations with the county in the next two months and I hope that we will accelerate I I hope we will use what is good of the the compensation study that we have go back in and have focus groups with the impacted employees as quickly as possible and and work with an independent um Financial Consultant to actually get us a better one for next year and and moving forward and if if we're able to find funding for then then then that will happen but um I talked too much I would move approval of option two can I clarify through when uh let's so we have a motion on the floor let's get a see if we get a second and then Jessica I'll come back to you for

discussion I'll I'll second that so it's been moved by Miss buer seconded by myself Jessica you have a discussion sorry Miss can we put um option two back on the screen and Miss Cardon that might answer my question I just can't remember if it was on the slide or not you can go you can go ahead and ask it I just want to get the motion the question was we've talked about a number of different we talked about wanting to quickly look at things again and maybe make adjustments so I'm just wondering if we were to agree to option to we're agreeing to option two through when I mean I think when we in Implement a salary study it is until we are able to or excuse me when we Implement a salary schedule it's until we're able to create a new schedule find the funding to support that schedule so for now that is until we are able to do our work to do a new study get a new schedule and approve

a new schedule is is there any other discussion is is there any other discussion from the board members I'll just call the question one more thing I understand the hesitancy around the budget I do because we don't have all the information we need this piece just feels like we need to clean up the mess but we are also responsible for Ms I just feel like we got to figure out how to make this work I think Miss Cardon I don't I don't

disagree with you in the meantime while we figure out how to clean up the mess I want people to be able to plan for their lives I just want to be honest about that part and that feels really important to me for people to be able to like plan for what we do I think we can talk about we can like we have been clear about we want a more transparent process that we wanted input from folks we need to do if I if I could have the if we we can put this salary in schedule and fast forward on that work let's get started to today we have a budget that we need to add we have a budget request that needs to so so let let's be clear that we have

a lot of work that we need to do and salaries excuse that the we have to continue to do our meeting so if we can continue have the comproller is a coming up genda item so we'll be able to talk more about that but I think in order for us we have to do the work like we can't just create a schedule and so in order for people to be able to plan I think it's important for us to make a decision and then we can do the work we have a budget uh coming up to our County Commissioners this year right that process starts soon we can't make we can decide if we can want to develop a timeline that we could think about doing something sooner rather than later but we have to be honest about the work and that work also includes figuring out where savings are in our current budget if we're able to look at our current budget and find savings we can consider what we'll we do with a new salary schedule moving forward that's the that's what I'm

proposing Madam chair I call the question so the question's been called I'm going to start with Miss Chávez we have to do a Voice vote Miss Chávez no uh Miss Chavis can you say your name Sorry Miss this is Emily Chávez and I vote no thank you Miss Rogers no missz we can meet every week every single week to solve this oh no we can vote next week Miss Miss V what sorry what was your answer no okay thank you Miss SP hi uh Miss Lewis I'm not confident that we know where we are financially to do 11% across without the exact numbers I vote no

Miss Carter Aon no so I vote I so that the motion fails five to two I move that we adopt option one based on the budget and salary study we were given back in January 2023 and we know that our budget can afford it so it's been moved by Miss Lewis to go with option one is that correct M uh does there a second so so with no second that motion doesn't can't carry is there any other motion or discussion about what to do how do we proceive moving forward so I have a question before that um we've talked about payroll running

and the timeliness of that is there any possibilities when we meet next Thursday to have further information and and push that deadline back at all or is that just impossible next Thursday is the eth I I think that payroll can work with that I I think that's something that we should be able to we'll work with the programmers and see what we can get in place ahead of time and I think next Thursday a viable option could we meet earlier than 5:30 then if we're going to look at next Thursday to make that a viable option so they have the rest of Thursday to work and going into Friday I don't know if we can figure out meeting times we don't do that very well but I would move that we table this discussion for tonight second was been moved by Miss buer and

second it by Miss Rogers that we would table this discussion until when I said four tonight so um yeah when would you like to resume discussion please the eightth B that we table this discussion for tonight and resuming on the eth uh it's been seconded by Miss Rogers any other discussion from the board friendly amendment that we move the meeting to 9:00 am. I think let's uh second yeah I I I think we should have a meeting at a time that folks can be here I understand the need um for warning I understand the need for warning to have to have a decision so that payroll can get started on the eth I think that's an important thing to honor our folks who are going to work our folks we going to work really hard to make sure that this can come into fruition but that's really important um but I also think we know we have

Community who's very interested in being here so the motion um so that sorry you did offer that uh excuse me did you you did ask for a friendly Amendment but I guess that's sorry I'd rather not accept that friendly that's okay all right so miss Rogers made a movement that we table discussion and wait until Thursday February 8th uh sorry Miss Beyer made that motion Miss Roger seconded that we'll do a Voice vote I'm gonna start with Miss Chávez hi thank you Miss Rogers I uh Miss vadz no Miss Beyer hi uh Miss Lewis can't keep kicking a can down the road I about know uh Miss

Carter Aon sorry to clarify this is whether we are waiting to to resume this discussion next week yes on February 8th at our board meeting uh I and I vote no so that motion does carry though four to three um and so that means we would table this discussion and pick it up next week I I just want to be expressly clear with our board that people have to plan for their finances and we have to make a I batina believes we have to make a decision next week so that people can plan for their lives like that is vital and that's really important what is the direction of administration if we're waiting to next week what information do we need to make a decision next week yeah Miss I think it's an excellent

question Miss Lewis if there are questions that board members have for administration to be able to get the information that you need to be ready next week um I would ask that we send that to them as soon as possible so that Administration can be prepared for the conversation on February 8th if there's any direction that we would like to give tonight around what we would like to see on on February 8th I think that's also great as well so we can be clear about what we're moving into I would I will have plenty more um information I'll be requesting but one piece that's important to me is if we are going to be um if we're going to be trying to use money that we didn't originally allocate for salaries where's it coming from and what is the cost of that meaning what are we saying no to when we say yes to this any other comments from board members I don't have any comments about where we are now but I do want to come back and recognize that uh trusty viad

has brought up some points around the investigation I do want to um make a motion because I I hear you and I would assume that the three questions you asked would be in the open investigation and report and memo when we get to it um there's a process in place already for that information but I would like to make a motion in respect of trusty VI's charge and that each one of those motions that she U captured is shared in the memo that we release after the investigation is closed second let me just clarify your motion is to make sure that the memo the three questions that Miss viader has posed is in the memo when it's released you by memo you mean the report investig the report investig yes the report investigation that the attorney said will be shared discuss of what will be released the three questions okay I have an amendment to add a timeline an actual timeline uh to

to that so I let me jump in there I think it's important Mr Malone shared earlier that there's a process in order for us to follow this General statute and so I think we have made very clear what the requests are what we want to be public and transparent about and we've committed to that and so I think let us figure out how we make sure we do the memo and the to follow the general statutes to make sure that we can give the transparency and the clarity to the audience that we want and I wasn't asking for the general statutes to be and that's why I didn't second the motion because I wanted more clarity about confidentiality with Personnel record the three questions was when did paulaur know the first time the second question was when did Dr MAA when did Dr Minga know the third question was when did the board members know from Dr Minga those are the three questions that I would like to be included in the memo and I'm making a motion so that the public is aware that we want to be transparent we want to have the

transparency that you're asking for so yes the Memo's coming through this open investigation but those are three specific questions that Miss vietta has posed to us board uh so that's my motion that's been and second it and uh call for the question is there time for discussion no not the question go ahead discussion I'm sorry can you clarify your motion one sorry one more time for me I just want to be clear about what we're asking I move that we respect trustee via data's charge that each of the three questions listed is answered in the memo that's coming through from this open investigation okay okay so so there's a motion on the floor we either need a second to this has been seconded by Miss bz but I think it's discussion now I apologize so I my discussion would be this board will be 100%

transparent with the investigation and the materials that you all deserve and any implication that anyone would not be I find troubling this board will be transparent honest and accountable to our community we will do that in a way that respects the rights of employees as we bring forward information and there is no conspiracy so we have emotion on the floor has been seconded I am committed to making sure we are as transparent as we need to be and also want to make sure that we protect Personnel information that we have U required to do by law so I want to be clear about the support for one to be transparent and that so we have a motion we have a second and and I

say it's not about being um conspiracy or anything like that or that there's a question that will be transparent what I'm doing is responding to the community the community who says we don't trust you we want transparency we need accountability these are things in charges that Miss Vel has brought that she's heard and been truly connected to the community in the way that's important and I know these things will come out I want to honor her request in that way um so that the public is clear the ones who are asking who what when where that these things are forthcoming 100% I'm prepared as a board member to answer any question right now but I mean there's no I I'm really concerned that there was a lot a lot of language that tried to seow distrust in this space as we are working forward and so we are not hiding anything from our

community as we lead forward this is hard leadership we didn't want this for our employees we didn't want it for your families we don't like making impossible decisions on your behalf so I look forward to Bringing full transparency with the lawyers I definitely agree that we're going to bring full transparency that's been made clear tonight several times so the motion is to to is that to honor so you want to make sure that that those items are in the report I just I'm sorry I want to be clear maybe we can get Mr Malone to be clear about what we and the timeline those items are already in the version that we're putting together so I don't think there'll be any issues so that version is already in the in excuse me those items are in the version that the staff is work excuse me our attorney is working to put together and that's why again transparency for our community is

8 the number that was given to the community is not the number and that is very clear anybody even our kids can tell oo yeah you didn't do that math right and where was that person that he

8 was not the [Music] number that matched I we I think we need to be very clear on what we're asking

for there because of the investigation yeah Miss Le sorry go ahead Mr Malo as your motion is to ensure that that information makes it into the report is that correct yes okay I just Clarity is important for us and so we want to make sure we understand what that information is Miss Carter Alton you want to know exactly what Miss uh vus will said okay Miss vodar can you repeat that last part one more time okay I do send emails to myself and messages to myself under General statute I do want that included and I'm looking for it okay I just wanted my motion was not about the general statute I want to be clear because right now it sounds like we're creating confusion three questions were easy when did paur know and who did he communicate with who did he communicate with when did Dr banga know that there

was a trouble in finance and when did Dr manga tell the board so trouble in finance yes those are and Mr Malone I don't know if he was on mik he said that was are forthcoming and in honoring Miss viera's request and the three motions she made ear earlier I just want to get it on record that we're going to have those things in there it doesn't in it doesn't hurt our investigation it does not violate Personnel Personnel well and then it is according to what the employee answered and what the board member answered so that is all kind of that is in the report so we would work with our attorneys to make sure that what we release is the information that can be released publicly but we hear that the motion is the desire to make sure that information is in the report if I'm if I'm clear about your motion is to make sure that what you those three things you just stated are in the report correct yes okay so it's been moved it's been seconded we're going to do a voice Voice vote excuse me we'll start with with M

Chávez this is Emily and I vote I uh Miss Excuse Me Miss Rogers Miss Rogers Is Not Sorry Miss V I vote I uh Miss Beyer I uh Miss Lewis I miss Carter Alton I and I vote I as well so that passes unanimously with us tabling that discussion until February 8th the next item on our agenda is the finance controller the board has been really has um as we've learned more about this situation in our finances is very interested in having a comproller someone who would beat our eyes and ears in our finance office we know that we have some great staff members down there but also want to make sure we have the checks and balances that have been demanded by our community um so board members any questions or thoughts share about the comproller

so I'm just excited about um having the talent having someone experienced having someone independent and having someone that reports to this board that's very important to all of us in our conversations and um I look forward to um to the EXP expertise and the um the information that we will learn that will help us support our our students and staff in the coming days I would move the and I've lost the name I've got too many piece of paper Mr Malone his name was Carrie Crutchfield I move that we appro appoint Carrie Crutchfield as com troller to the Durham Board of Education think we need to direct our attorney to work with him I would direct our attorney to work with him to engage them on behalf cor yes we sorry yeah we would um work with him to do one of your standard service agreements um to

provide those services for you I that's what I move thank you Mr M move by Miss buyer is there a second um before the second I have a the discussion about something El Community said that they don't want anybody affiliated with The Hil group or with DPS there needs to be a clear nonon Dar can we just get a second before we go into discussion sorry I don't I'm happy to hear your point I just want to make sure we get we have a motion on the floor I actually want that answer before there's a second because if he's connected to DPS or the hill group then what is that doing for us so let's let's get a second and then let's have that discussion all right so it's been moved by Miss buer is there a second second seconded by Miss Carter Aon so Miss V valadares please um I want offer a friendly amendment that we vote on this controller only with the contingency and condition that he is not connected or affiliated with DPS or The

Hil group or anybody who has had any hands in this salary study that is my Amendment would that Amendment be SEC uh yes as discussed thank you so miss Beyer a motion on the floor amended as well as Miss car often second it is there any other discussion we I'm sorry we do not accept questions from the audience I apologize I am sorry we do not accept questions from the audience is there any other discussion from board members all right Miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I miss Rogers I miss vadz I miss Beyer hi Mr Carter Aon sorry I miss Lewis I and I vote I as well so we look forward to being able to share more about the information that we

get from our contoller the next item on our agenda sorry I would just direct the attorney to work with the administration to terminate any existing contracts with Hil Consultants as soon as allowed within the contract documents second it's been moved by Miss Beyer seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion we'll do a Voice vote Miss Chávez Chávez and I vote I miss Rogers I miss Beyer I uh Miss Carter Austin I miss Lewis I and I vote I as well that I need a vote I I Alexander vies votes I did I I'm so sorry listen we are low on sleep we are maxed out we start meetings early so please bear with us I am so sorry that was not my intent um the next item on our agenda is let's

let's take a five minute recess let's come back is that okay or do y' wantan to no are is that okay board if we take a five minute recess we have two more items left only five minutes so that means 801 will we come back f

e

testing so we can see her saying testing but we can't hear her testing testing testing yeah it's coming up there but yeah it's not coming through on the speaker

I'm about to yes there's one right now

all right we are back from our recess the next item on our agenda is an item that was added tonight um about meet and confer I know that that has been discussed by many of our educ our educator Association has made that a request that they would like to um work with the board to establish a meet and confirm process so was added to our agenda tonight I would propose that we um begin working with the Bae to decide what the meet and confer process looks like that we would also collaborate on who is involved in that process we heard a clear um request from parents to also be included in that process so we would think about how we could be inclusive as we do the meet and confer but also make sure that Dae is a partner and other workers in our community um we would could move as quickly as we would like as a board to start that process to develop and imagine what that would look

like um in notice meeting so we'd have full transparency around that any questions or other discussion or motion from our board members I have a discussion question meet and confer is a model that is used in states that don't um and the attorneys can can say this that don't allow collective bargaining however it is a process for accountability and better collaboration um I don't think I don't think that that's that's um that's the only thing we need to be worried about because collaboration is happening but I think what needs to also happen is creating opportunities for various contexts and being that Durham is so political and there are many political groups organizing around education in what way can we welcome the meet and uh confer model that da has brought to us and open it up to a cross-section of Durham that is not just

one political activ active group that drives memberships and and has memberships I'm just I'm just saying memberships are one of the things that I'm concerned about because there are people who have told me they've had to pay the fees um that feel a little heavy for for for some of our staff as well but I don't want there to be an implicit message that in order to be at the table with me and confer you have to be a part of an of a group a politically active group that charges memberships unless da is willing to wave all memberships then that might be something I'll consider because then you know you don't have to pay to play but if you have to pay to play I have a I have an objection to that and so what I'm saying is can we come up with an accountability body the way we've done committees that meet and that have to have minutes of what they do and make that committee include Dae and others and and not have a particular group that has a membership or or charges fees for that thank you Miss viar for that I

think I would my interest is not to commit to the full like and we we need to commit to a conversation to understand because I think your point is valid and we want to make sure that we are um deeply kind of understanding what we want to develop through this process and so I think that we could have a a commitment to a meeting so that we can develop what this looks like um we do have board policy around ad hoc committee so we can look at that and understand how that might work with this process and interact with this process as well um but that would be my request from our board tonight as we commit to a meeting and figure out what we can do moving forward it's clear that our I mean our Educators we hear you it's clear you want more uh input into our work and that is something that we can continue to think about how do we create more structures for we know we public comment is not always always the place for that input so how do we create a different structure to hear and listen and engage with our Educators excuse me in our community yep

um I want to thank members of Dae for bringing this to us um it is clear from some of the public comments tonight and from some of the work that has been done historically here in Durham that most of us already have relationships with the teachers union and I appreciate the work that the union has done in Durham I want to make sure that we are um following the law and are setting up ourselves for um success together so I make a motion that we um start a conversation with the AE around meet and confer um and have our board clerk Miss Smith to send out a doodle poll to schedule such a meeting second move by Miss Rogers seconded by Miss Beyer is there any other discussion on this item can I call the question um

so just just for clarity this is a conversation about meet and confer with only Dae or are we opening it up to different activists organizers people who are all advocating for the same thing to make schools the during Public Schools better so are we saying only Dae or Dae Plus because not everybody's a DA member and um membership is is is definitely something that I'm I'm thinking stands you know there's something about membership drives and if you track how many people have just joined Dae this month as a result of what you've seen I mean you'll see some Trends and I just want to make sure that the community is also having an opportunity to have a conversation about Educators so how about my motion is a conversation with Educators from a crosssection of Dae an amendment I make anend V can you say your Amendment one more time please my amendment is to do a meet and confer holl uh conversation sorry let me let me let me do this again I

move that we host a conversation with Educators from DPS so you have to work in DPS who are from a cross-section of different politically active advocacy groups that are all involved in education but I I do think that it needs to be our own employees our own staff being a part of this committee so that was a friendly Amendment offered to the motion is there additional discussion I hear you m car atin um I I really think it's is important that we are expansive about this um and I do think that what we need to remember is the focus on the Educators right and the value that something like this this could bring which is incredible it's not just like us letting them into the secrets it's like there's value to both of us right like shared understanding on each side we need to hear y'all more but also it'd

be really helpful for y'all to understand some of the challenges um that we're facing as we look to make budget decisions and then there's the added um benefit of then when we make the decisions together we're all responsible for the decisions that are made so anyhow I look forward to all of that what I would say is I would I appreciate that Amendment but I would say Dae and other Educators or Dae and Educators throughout our district and that's my preference would M um what do you think about making sure that they are because there are a lot of people who have decided their calling is not in the classroom and their calling is and and hey that is amazing if you are an activist and you have already done your years educating kids and you want to be out um the Andro 70 million they owe us we need you um but my my concern is that this is a conversation that is pulling in people from Chicago and other areas around just the organizing portion and there is a

conversation that needs to be localized to this community what does that look like for Durham so I want this committee to make sure that it honors Educators who are in who are here working with us um and that this is not a politically motivated committee it is a committee that is here to use political experience expertise and other kinds of expertise and talents for the benefit of making this better making our district better and so Educators that are currently working in DPS from a cross-section of and you can include Dae plus um other I know that we have many different uh folks that are organizing an advocacy so yeah if I want to let me not clarify what you meant by Educators I assume that you meant all DPS staff that's I consider anyone who works in DPS and educator but I'm not sure what you meant so when you said Dae and Educators was there just clarifying what you meant by the

N there are I think that we need to think about I hear what my colleague saying like I don't think we want people that are external to to Durham that are a part of this um there are members of Dae that are not currently Educators though so that's where the I see I understand what you're saying um so any meeting that we have with the board is a public meeting so this would allow an opportunity for anyone to attend the meeting and I want to remind us that we're asking for a conversation to start a thing not to do a thing but to start something right and so how do we um we can keep it open we can keep it um with our Dae Educators as well as members who are not who are not in da sorry so sorry saying that um you know before we we go forward also we heard a request from on tonight about parent teacher advocacy there's ptas there's also School

Improvement teams and this conversation and what it impacted and the impacts were not were felt throughout the entire system including families and some of are doubly affected because they're not only DPS families but they're also DPS Personnel they're they're DPS family doubly right because their kids come here and they also work here and so I want the parent fees to be included in this meet and confer and if there's a way to include again advocacy from Educators um from different cross-sections of of groups that have been organizing around improving our our system yeah so I believe in order for in order for us to do do the work that we want to do we need everybody at the table this is about durm public schools like we need our public school system to thrive we the people in this room we the parents who are communicating with us who are sitting at home the children who are asleep getting ready to go to school tomorrow like all of us need to be Collective about what we do moving forward about the turning point that we

need to make to ensure that our schools Thrive and so to me this conversation is about including those Folks at the table it is members of Dae it is about our parents it's about our Educators it's about community members because we all have a vested interest in our Public School thriving right like we've talked about that over and over again Public Schools thriving is what makes a community Thrive so but I would like to see us have this conversation have Dae and other members of our valued members of our community at the table to develop what we need to do moving forward I don't know if that's a friendly amendment to what was said or I'll make a new motion to that if that if that amendment is accepted did did you already move move somebody already made a motion I can't remember who it was now with this amendment right with the family with the PTA somebody will accept my I can't remember who I uh well okay if you haven't made the motion I'll make the motion to there's already a motion on the floor then I second so who made the original motion sorry just remind I made the original motion if

would you accept my Amendment you can say no that's fine too I want to say no that's you can I want to say no because this is particularly to um impact employee relationships this is not to be the other stuff and we are invited lots of places I've been to sit team meetings and PTA meetings and anybody that calls me and ask for a cup of coffee we show up for we show up at every meeting every time we've already agreed to weekly meeting meetings that are open to the public where people can come and give public comment and then they can follow up with us via email and we will go to them every single time so this meeting confers particularly for educators all of our staff and administration and maybe board members and I'd like the conversation to start off with the group that brought us the proposal and then we talk about how we

expand the seats at the table so that it's in a very guarded way and we are getting the outcomes from those conversations that we hope to have so so there's a motion on the floor I just had a CL point of clarification here so I totally hear you and I agree that there are Educators who are involved in ptas they're involved in many groups there are many Educators participating in different cross-sections of advocacy and organizing there are many groups organizing and so I'm fine with it being Educators from a cross-section of different groups Dae we have ptas that include some of our Educators who may not be da members I just do not believe in exclusion and to do a meet and confer only for one particular group and we're talking about Educators and so can we open that up to have that conversation with folks from different cross-section of politically political organizing around education and dur every material I have read on meet and confer the meetings are open they are open they are

public so there's no exclusionary you know so but yes I understand what you're saying but if we I think what we're asking for tonight is to set a meeting to have a conversation just to be clear and in the conversation we can get to the details of the thing I do think the meeting needs to be public and everyone needs to be invited to the conversation and I think the conversation does need to talk about who needs to be at the table like that's the conversation that we need to have it's kind of like we're having a conversation right now and we need to like have the conversation with the folks at the table because I we need to have multiple people at the table so there's been a motion on the floor can we repeat the motion thanks Miss Rogers sure um I move that we set up a conversation with the AE leadership that's a open meeting ask our board clerk to send out a doodle poll so we can get that scheduled can you clarify when you said open do you mean Dae and like like da

Plus board meetings are public meetings it will be a public meeting Dae and their representatives will come to the table with the documentation of meet and confer we will have some backup from our attorneys so we can talk about what meet and confer looks like in their second did I second that it's been moved by Miss Rogers second about Miss buer is there any other discussion from board members Miss uh Lewis do you have any yeah is this when you say that we're going to have a doodle poll is it a board meeting with all seven of us and meet and confer so this is a set up a conversation set so is a conversation how what's the format we don't know the format and I don't know that we need to decide the format tonight I do think we would do a poll to see how many board members can attend and be up to board members to be able to be there but I would want to pick date that most of us could be able to attend if that's your interest yeah I got you um so yeah I I have a a couple points um so I just want

to for the record I did not get the meet and confer documents until Thursday evening I am just getting caught up on what the meet and confer is so I would appreciate getting documents earlier on especially if the board is being held accountable for not responding in adequate time also the Mee and confer as you shared chair Umstead this is no a lot not different from things we've done before we've had a zerob based budget committee that actually changed into a budget process Advisory board that concluded in 20178 this budget process Advisory Board it had Dee members such as Brian profit Michelle Burton board members such as Natalie Beyer Matt Sears um former board member uh Frederick Raven current board member Emily Chávez along with many Educators um people from Finance um Ellen recal Steve hrew U Michelle Burton so again this is not beond what we've done before to have this I'm very much open to these conversations I would like Clarity on the structure of what's being asked because I don't want to um be held

accountable for something that I don't have any awareness of that's happening um and then the last thing um as a point of reference as far as working with our Educators I just want the record to also reflect that on March 23rd uh March 2023 I mean um Dr Minga specifically than Dae president Michelle Burton for her input for um for where we were in our budget process and also again in October um or actually in January talking about having worked with our working with our teacher Association so I just want to be clear we have not not worked with our teacher associations and as we talk about um having the different meetings we've had I believe all of us have met with them but specifically with the meet and confer uh just letting the record reflect I did not get information until Thursday evening and I have read up on it I'm agreement with it because it's not something that we haven't done before any I think that's important to note

that um that many of us got this information yesterday um I think we want to have a conversation and what that looks like I think I would like to see is that we can have proposals on the table we can have the people around the table that need to have the conversation we can facilitate it in a way that there's equal voice at the table um that's what I would like to see because I think it's going to take a lot of back and forth to make a decision about what to make a decision that will need to come to the full board about what we might want to do so I have a point um I want to take a point of personal privilege that will not take but three minutes the first thing is that there are many different ways to organize and even within a broad membership driven politically active group there are many subsets there are many leads in within Dae some of the whom organize instructional assistance some of whom organized you know um when we were trying to bring the the custodial staff here inside there were

people who came to Dae and brought that dbor Bailey I remember I remember that dbor Bailey went to the human relations commission and she did not go as the president of Da she went as Deborah Bailey with two other folks and they spoke at the HRC and that's in the minutes because I was actually sitting in the human relations commission at that time and so I just want us to continue to think and be very intentional about starting this right and not giving preferential treatment to one particular politically active membership driven group there are many Advocates some are Grassroots who have been doing work in education and I have heard these conversations happen over and over that in Durham politics is politics rules everything there's politics about every single aspect of life and education does not have a monopoly and because it does not have a monopoly and because there are many people who have been doing work for years even some of whom might have joined Dae this year but that work that they've been doing for years needs to be honored and they need to be at the table so that there is representation from

different across section of different Advocates including instructional assistants including folks who have been in the custodial Department who already lead their own efforts but may be a part of the so it it's an end it is not an or it is you can be a DA member you know and or so so sorry it is an and to add a plus to that so it's not just Dae because there are other people who might share um membership with da or not and I don't want them to be excluded as well so we have to start this right from the right foot making sure that it is Educators advocating along the lines of Education here in Durham public schools and it is not preferential treatment to a membership driven organization that has been politically active and done great things but they one of the shows in town so we are asking we have a motion on the floor it's been second it can you repeat your motion I'm Sorry Miss rer I think it changes sometimes after you say it so if you can repeat it one more time so we can be clear about where we

are my motion is for doodle Pole to go out to the board you really are changing your motion every time it's okay though I'm sorry well for us to set up a conversation about what meet and confer looks like for Durham specifically with thee at the table sent out fire click all right point of clarification sorry can you define what meet and confer it is uh it says it is an alternative to Legal negotiating legal negotiating so legal negotiating should include a cross session and I just want to clarify you're saying only Dae or you're saying Dae Plus all the question Miss uh vadis I think we want to have a conversation so we're not going to make any decisions in the meeting right it's have a conversations whatever is decided has to come back before this full board to be voted on like that's important right so we know that that's what we got to do moving forward um whatever the meeting is it's a public

meeting so we'll make sure that everyone is invited I do in the conversation want to talk about who needs to be at the table like that's a really important part of the conversation um um so we have a motion it's been moved it's been seconded do we have any other discussion by board members Miss Chávez hold on I just want to say that let's see okay I do think I think it's important to start the conversation with date Dae because they brought this to us and I think you know I want to say with this week it's been it's been a long week for pretty much everyone in DPS um as a board member it was a tough week and um and I in meeting with Dae um organizing members last night I had a better sense of how they came to

the decisions that were made around around the walkouts and I I did appreciate hearing um hearing people's thoughts perspectives um the questions that they raised and what I have Come Away with thus far in my understanding around this meet and confirm model which I still need to learn more about but um I do like the principles of it around transparency and um and collaboration I think that I I believe in collabor and I believe in in relationship building and right now we uh desperately need to rebuild trust in a variety of ways and I I think you know I like other board members I think every board member we invite dialogue um with those who

seek it um with us and um and try to you know get a lot of different input um from the community um so that we can use that in making our decisions and um let's see I wanna I wanna I I want to move forward with this motion because I think that this is an interesting model for us to look at and think about how it would expand um the conversation it's a structured way my understanding is is it's a structured way of having input from this organization of the Educators and possibly others and and I think that would be beneficial um to us I know you know making decisions myself I'm one person and I benefit from having more perspectives more input more experiences

of other people to learn from and and we all do and we see them um but this is a structured way to do that um and um yeah and I think that it's a way of sharing power as well and um I'm interested in in doing that um in my term so that's why I you know made the motion to add this to the agenda this evening and um I know that people feel very strongly obviously they've spoken about it tonight and we've received communication about it I do think more more um conversation is needed for all of us to really fully understand it and I know we want to be thoughtful and um do our due diligence and getting to um a level of understanding before we pass anything and and so I do look forward to the

conversation and um I would just say and I don't know that this needs to be part of the motion that we we look toward doing that probably not in this coming week I think we're going to be dealing with the budget decision um but maybe in within the next um two or three weeks and I don't you know not push it off too far those are my comments thanks uh M Tris we're also ready to vote would you like to kick us off Miss Travis you ready to vote yeah um we're doing this audio thing and I miss I miss you saying that it's okay I'm sorry about that Miss Rogers uh Miss VZ hi Miss Beyer hi Miss just miss Carter Austin hi Miss Lewis hi

and I vote I as well that passes unanimously we have a Personnel action before um our next item on the agenda there's a motion for a Personnel action we want to make sure that we can appoint a new interim CFO move approval of the Personnel report as presented February 2 second been moved and properly second any other discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed please same sign um before we go to our next item on the agenda I just want to remind us of like our charge and our work like the night we had a really rich and robust conversations that the community got to see we're tussling between what feels like impossible solutions to a really challenging problem and as I came and I was coming here today I kept reminding myself about this is about Durham Public Schools this is about our system as a whole it's about the 32,000 students who will be showing going up tomorrow and

over 5,000 employees will be doing the same and how do we make sure that as we think through these decisions and as we plan as Weare for the week that we keep them at the center of every single thing that we do so I think about the people that I know who are waking up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to drive the bus to make sure kids get to school I think about the students who are going to class want to make sure oh it's Friday sorry I'm used to it being Thursday y'all I'm used to Thursdays uh so who going to sleep they're not gonna wake up tomorrow but on Monday they'll get on the bus that they're going to be working with the OTS and PTs and EC staff right all that is essential to the work that we do and we got to keep it in the center like that's our charge and that's our mission so as we think about what we need to do getting to Thursday let's not forget about the students who are counting on us the employees that are counting on us the parents who are counting on us who need our school system to thrive in the future like that's our charge that's our mission and I want to make sure we're clear about that as we leave this meeting tonight

and think about what needs to happen moving forward all right the next item on our agenda is a closed session for the reasons stated on the agenda um would include confidential Personnel matters Consulting with our attorney move that we go into close session for the reasons on the agenda second it's been moved by Miss Beyer and seconded by Miss Rogers is there any other discussion we'll start with Miss Chávez this is Emily Chávez and I vote I miss Rogers I miss varez I miss Beyer I miss Carter Aon Miss Lewis I and I vote I as well passes unanimously we're now in Clos session

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we're now back in Open Session and with that we are [Music] adjourned