Board of Education · Work Session · April 11, 2024

good evening everyone Ador Public Schools Board of Education work session is now in session I should actually do that now at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is joining us this evening the purpose of this meeting is to inform our parents our staff constituents about the work aligned with our mission to embrace educate and Empower every student to innovate serve and lead the interpreters for tonight are Martha Ros urgiles and Vanessa Peña Ramirez thank you for taking the time to join us and now we're going to take a moment of silence and we are in the month of

April and there are many many things that we can uh Elevate but I want us to take a moment to elevate everything that is held here in Durham all the communities all the people who came before us all the people who are actively working to shape policy and drive change including Advocates and all the families and staff and stakeholders everyone who makes DPS what it is let's just hold space and take a moment of silence and now we're going to go to agenda review and

approval Madam chair I would like to make a couple of amendments to the agenda y'all stay with me because I'm going to chop it all up I would like to change item three to make it academic Services starting with the school library month Proclamation followed by growing together update I'd like to keep item four operation services but move Transportation overview first and then the superintendent budget next and then I'd like to make item five Board of Education DPS draft legislative agenda thinking about reordering this um item to make sure some of our folks that were pushed back from the last time get to go earlier and um staff can make sure they have their presentations done earlier do I have a second oh can I add one more thing to that I will also add to add after the Clos session superintendent search um update or point of contact after the close session

yes second we move to um so I would move to amend those items on the agenda okay it's been moved and properly seconded uh by our chair batina umet and also by board member Amis Rogers um I believe we are all here so everyone who says I say I I any Nays all right passes unanimously and with that we are moving to move approval of the amended agenda yes we move it's been moved and seconded by board member millison Rogers and seconded by board member Byer and all in favor say I I all opposed all right passes unanimously and the agenda agenda has been amended our next board um agenda item is a Board of Education meeting uh minutes from March 7th 2024 do I have a motion move approval of the March 7th

meeting minutes second it's been properly moved and seconded by board member uh Byer and also by board member Javan Lewis um and all in favor say I I I I passes unanimously and the um sorry and also yes and all in favor say I that was unanimous but any nams nope all right passes unanimously um and we are up to General Public comment and I do have a statement that I need to read it's about public comments rules and it's a quick review of the rules first you must state your name if speaking for an organiz ation please state your name and the name of the organization and second speakers are asked to present their comments in a specified time you will have three minutes when the yellow light comes on you have 3 minutes left to start winding up

your remarks when the red light comes on it will beep which indicates your time is up complaints about named staff students or parents should not be voiced in Open session however we are very interested in hearing your concerns with regard to public education safety of students or to the operation of the school system finally the board members will listen carefully and consider the comments but we do not engage in a discussion with speakers our first speaker is is uh Laurence hartin and I do want to ask if there's anybody who did not make this list who wanted to comment yes sir what's your name Marshall Williams okay will add you to the list Mr Marshall Williams yes okay okay good evening um thank you for listening me to me tonight my name is Lawrence tin I'm a DPS parent of a first

and fourth grader both with identified disabilities I'm committed to DPS because I believe that DPS is the best option for kids like my own I'm also a PTA president as school that's heavily impacted by growing together and it's my privilege and responsibility to raise their concerns to the school board and to central office our teachers are having to learn a whole new curriculum IB that is not clearly aligned with what they are currently required to teach they have to throw out all their lessons and all of their assessments they have to start from scratch those of you who are Educators know how much work that is they are expected to go to weeks of training on top of everything else in case you haven't noticed your teachers and staff are working extremely hard and they're extremely tired they're implementing something that the school community did not ask for and from the loty data that DPS has made publicly available that nobody is asking for at the other Elementary School in the district that's currently implementing the same programming at other schools enrollments have declined considerably due to the

redrawing of lines for example club ofir and Glen have lost a lot of student population these teachers are being encouraged to go door Todo and find students to enroll in their school or to opt out of a different DPS school to enroll in their school we knew a year ago that teacher positions were going to be impacted by this initiative yet it seems as if we haven't planned in advance for that at a minimum HR should be helping these teachers transfer into positions at other schools and that's assuming the teachers want to stay in DPS at all from the parent perspective I have heard from many families at our school Justice week um that are leaving the district these aren't threats of leaving anymore they're actually accepting offers um at our school we have families who have accepted offer some Charters at Central Park at exceler at Voyager these families mentioned that they're frustrated because they're stuck on weight list at their current School their neighborhood school or their old

neighborhood school they don't know where to register for after care when school gets out at 2:15 so they're taking the offers that are in hand one parent recently told me that they are stuck in the quote unquote DPS Lottery disaster and would rather homeschool than wait any longer I hear families accepting offers at da Duke School learner triangle day school immaculada and so on the market is going to respond more privates will open more Charters will open um to take all the GPS families who are leaving um finally I've made this comment privately to many people in this room but now I just want to say it publicly this is an area of my expertise professionally I would drop everything to come and help central office think about how to make this better next year how can we make it better when middle schools and high schools come online and it would mean the world to me to help this community I care about thank you um our next speaker is Mr Marshall

Williams Mar Williams I'm a concerned citizen about the high schools number one is um you have built three European high schools and the school you're building now is not too far from Merck Mo and Mer Mo used to be a afroamerican high school and to me you talking about equal opportunity I do not consider equal opportunity when you can be three of them other schools and not one for another one for afroamerican which was there if you on the board of education you have to know your educational part about the schools system and so that's the reason I'm here speaking about this whole Community talking about equal opportunity but I don't see it look in your community I don't see any more afroamerican business as I used to but you say you equal I don't see as business and like I mentioned before

they want to get rid of heelside but the afroamerican community fought against it so I'm saying what I'm paying my taxes to get other folks Rich who haven't contribute anything this right here was started when even when I was a child they wanted to get rid of our institutions and now you're doing it not with the gun with the pen like in 1889 in wington they had the Uproar now like I said you're not doing it with the gun you doing with the pen so yes I would like to have some done about Merck Mo just standing their Idol now you made a what Junior High School Elementary High School of it but you buiding three other institutions I cannot understand it so when they talking about pay your tax I'm saying for what for who that's my point of view and thank you very much and may God bless you in the name of Jesus thank you Mr Marshall U Mr Mr Williams I'm sorry um and that concludes our general public comments uh we're going to move on to our consent items

and we have uh a couple of them contract with imagine design and Production Services um contract with Turner in t uh townend and materials procurement with Motorola Solutions are there any um discussion uh points anyone wants to make before a a motion move approval of consent agenda second been properly moved and seconded by uh board member Rogers and board member by and we're going to any discussion all right well we're going to do um all in favor say I I any opposed passes unanimously and with that we are going to move to our amended um item in this case we are um beginning with the school yes the school library month Proclamation under academic services and we are inviting Miss Linda to tan thank you Dr

Tan thank you good evening superintendent Moore chair Umstead and DPS Board of Education we are excited tonight to celebrate our school librarians as part of school library month our media centers are vital part of nearly everything and every aspect of instruction in our schools serving as a place for students to seek information and discover compelling stories and narratives that spark learning about the world around us we are extremely proud of the work of our school librarians who teach the skills of locating and using information through traditional resources and new technologies provide literature appreciation activities and guide and encourage content and recreational reading for each of our students in Durham Public Schools importantly our teaching Librarians also facilitate access to information and resources for

the staff at each of our schools the school library truly serves as a hub of learning for both staff and students and we greatly appreciate the work of our school librarians I'm going to yield to you members of the Board of Education to read this year's School library month Proclamation thank you Dr Tan if we can get the school uh Library Proclamation on our screen and that way we can just go ahead and take turns um let's start with board member Rogers Proclamation School library month April 2024 whereas the school library is to ensure that students and staff are effective users of ideas and information and whereas the school librarian's role is to provide the leadership and expertise necessary to ensure that the school library is an integral part of the instructional program of the school and whereas the board of education has entrusted the school librarian in each

school to teach information literacy skills through traditional resources and new technologies to provide literature appreciation activities and to guide and encourage academic and recreational reading for every student and R lifelong learning agency begins and is systemically developed through the school library curriculum of the elementary and secondary schools and whereas the school library contributes to the individual growth development and belonging of all students while fostering both excellence and equity in education and whereas the school librarians of Durham Public Schools dedicate themselves to work for Quality School library Collections and programming that supports classroom instruction and welcomes honors and encourages all students and now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of Durham Public Schools does Haik Proclaim April 2024 as school library month and calls upon School

administrators teachers students and residents of Durham County to recognize and support this action and to participate throughout the month of April in the celebration of school library month and we will have our signatures attached to this resolution and thank you for bringing this every year this is a yearly resolution um we want our kids to enjoy the resources in the libraries to make connections with the folks there who know everything that there is to know about what's available to our our students and families and staff thank you so much for bring this to us thank you thank you and with that we're going to a motion we're going to approve this resolution and I will entertain a motion like to make a motion to approve the proclamation for school library month it's been properly moved second and seconded by board member MERS uh Chavis and also uh m board member Carda-Auten and um all in

favor say I I any opposed passes unanimously and with that we are going to move to the uh second item on under academic services and that is the growing together update Miss VIIs if I could uh make a couple comments real quick so the reordering of items has some folks not here yet and um so I think we may be able to start growing together but we may have to rearrange the order of slides a little bit um and do some slides and then oh he's here okay he's coming up all right well there we go I hope he's didn't speed so if you wait just a moment when we'll get started um in just a moment um I do want to uh provide space um if there's any comments that my colleagues have as we as before we we hear this presentation we have all reviewed materials and um just wanted to

give a little bit of time now for any comments and we will also have a discussion throughout the presentation we can go ahead and pull the presentation up right so this evening board we we give Mr Palmer one more minute he's about to walk in but we are pleased to bring to you the uh information that we were prepared on the 21st to share but mostly tonight we'll be focusing on the growing together work around enrollment and also the lottery and how some of those demographics are are playing out there is some supplementary information in our board packet for you to review around

our data slides that were in slide format prior to tonight this evening they're there as uh resource documentation so at this time I welcome Mr Palmer to the podium and we will get started just as a also quick addendum this tonight's presentation really is a direct result of the number of questions that were asked about disaggregating some data and collecting some things from the initial presentation a month or so ago so we're working to provide some of that information this evening and this is an ongoing and important initiative that's getting ready to start off so by no means I think we're done but uh we wanted to be responsive to the last time that we met and talked about all this thank you superintendent Moore good evening board members D community uh it's a pleasure to be here provide some high level overview of our enrollment data as it relates to projections for 24-25 we are going to focus at the

board's request on Elementary and so this evening we'll walk through the preliminary projections this is again as we seat the lottery and as we process transfer requests uh that will lead into an update from Miss Marshall on our application Lottery status touch points for families and then our availability availability for any discussion so up front we want to say that for the projections for 2425 we have been historically here in durm for the last three years at 31,000 students we project for 2425 to be right at that level as well that's important when know we want to talk school by school but at a district level we're stable especially as we've come through the global pandemic when we talk about students we also have to talk about seats and fitting the two together is much of what our work is within School planning and within growing together on the bottom part of that fraction the seats part that is the seats in a grade A School in

a district the top part of that are enrolled students that is overall for our boundary schools for application schools how many students do we project by school even by grade within the schools so it's a very delicate process of bringing together the boundar students within dur Public Schools again not only at a school level but at a grade level the rules for growing together res setting the board with stabilization for grades four and five Legacy attached siblings that are younger as well as the history of honoring the DLI enrollments transfer requests and EC placements we are currently now in that Lottery and transfer approval window as we go through that process it is very much rightsizing to make sure that we're not over assigning some of our schools particularly at our smallest schools where enrollment is a very delicate process so the core question that we've had is how many students do we

anticipate for next year a projection is answering that question but there's another question we also have to be mindful of as we answer the first one which is what do we look like in five and 10 years out remembering that growing together was not intended solely for 2425 but for the next 5 and 10 years as durm continues to grow as we see the cranes on the horizon and the skyline we have to be looking at both parts projection is an annual student by student and class level analysis the forecast is taking us out over many years it's looking at Cy birth rates it's looking at new homes and new neighborhoods that are being built we're asking that we are able to come back next month and talk about the longterm but today we'll just focus on the Pres the projection for next year now historically we would use a cohort retention model which is to say what percentage of my kindergarteners become first graders by classroom by grade by school and for the district however with growing together we have a lot of moving Parts as discussed we have our boundary

students we have those that have applied in the lottery we have Legacy students and siblings of Legacy students students that have been a part of an active DLI program all of those have to factor in so what we've done is map every student across during Public Schools not just at a school boundary level but at a neighborhood level and that's important we understand attributes of that neighborhood such as median family income percentage of students that are attending their boundary school so we have understanding now in a much more nuanced way across dur public schools in dur County of decisions that families and groups of families or neighborhoods are making really block by block that for the grade K3 projection is the method that we've used this year that really gives us the highest level of certainty and Resolute answers that we can give in partnership with the office of student assignment in addition for grades 412 we use that industry standard cohort retention which is to say the percentage of students that are nth graders that may become 10th graders in Years Gone by

we've used exclusively the Cort retention rate but because of the delicate nature of growing together we've been very intentional to account for every student with that let me hand it to miss Marshall to give an update on the application Lottery thank you Mr Palmer and good evening everyone so at the last work session the board asked that we share information regarding the 2425 Lottery applications highlighting the racial demographics of applicants as well as provide an update um on our overall lottery for application schools oh sorry so here you see the overall demographics of our uh school district for the 20 324 school year and here you see the overall demographics for lottery applicants for the 2425 school year I'll give you just

a second to take that in and we also wanted to Pro provide an update regarding the application School Lottery so to provide context 82% of Elementary families will attend their assigned school and these are students that are um that live in their boundary these are the Legacy students that Mr Palmer just shared our Rising fourth and fifth grade students our DLI students as well as siblings of those Legacy students and any pre previously approved hardship transfers and so of the 18% of families that did apply in the lottery uh 31% were all the very first priority in the lottery and these are families who are seeking program continuity and are currently attending a monory and IB or a yearound school and with this we are pleased that 82% of these students with that first priority have been seated and or offered

a seat and we will continue to pull students from the waiting list until June 30th for our yearound schools and uh July 31st for our traditional schools and in this section we wanted to respond to a great question that was posed regarding the number of touch points that that a family would need to encounter as we approach next school year so in the following slide we provided a guide for parents as we prepare to transition into the 2425 school year so for a family the very first stop would be to verify your school assignment what school will your baby go to next year and a family can do this by using the school locator tool that is uh that you can find on our website by contacting their Schools Enrollment teams they are ready and willing and excited to share that information with you and of course the office of student assignment you are welcome to call the office of student assignment we can help you identify that school and as a reminder our fourth and fifth grade our

current Rising fourth and fifth grade students are we assigned to their current school for that um stability as they complete their elementary school years and then the second step is optional for our families seeking DPS after school care and as you all know that Lottery is currently open and will close on April 19th then the third step is to either complete the new student enrollment process for our kindergarten students or new toor Public Schools families or for our current families to complete the back the annual back to school form and the new student enrollment portal is currently open on our website for the 2425 School year and the annual back to school form will become available in the coming weeks uh it'll open up in May for our year round schools so please be on the lookout for more information about that and that form really helps us prepare for next year and then the final step is the fun step um where we are inviting our families I know you're hearing about

those welcome events that are happening across our district at our elementary school students we invite our families our new Families Our returning families to go hang out at their new school to hang out at their school um get to know your fam your community and your school and um and really enjoy that time together and of course all through that time if you're offered a lottery seat you are welcome to accept or decline that seat and with that I will pass it back to Dr Pitman so I'm gonna invite Mr Palmer to be at the ready and we are open for discussion or questions from board members board members any any discussion may I ask a couple of clarifying questions myself if you can if you can go back to this the slide with the touch points the one through four amongst the questions that have

been asked I think from some families are uh what happens or at what point or when um are you able to do some other things that are sort of associated with this process like if you don't like or don't want the school that you're assigned to and you don't have a lottery a way to go into the lottery if you want to do like a hardship transfer where does the hardship transfer uh come in and um I can't remember if there was a related Transportation question where families have to ask for something and at what point does that happen there I I can certainly respond to the hardship transfer the uh transfer application when is open and opened March 1st and we prioritize those students through May 1st um so those are families who may be interested in applying um for hardship transfer right and hardship transfers are um it is a it is a an a process available to any family but hardship transfers I I think it's really important for people to not remember that the word hardship comes in

the front of that and there are some statutory language that goes along with what it means to be a hardship transfer and it's not that one thing um overrides any other thing in terms of those but you know you're talking about what's in the best interest of a student based on special circumstances and what's best for the district and the schools based on the district and schools needs and sometimes those don't align and so that's why the word hardship is in front of it and hardship transfers ultimately come to the board um for a final decision just a little clarification since those have come up as wellard member of byon yeah just along those lines um M Marshall can do you have any idea of whether you're seeing more of those submitted than on a a typical year and whether we should kind of start blocking time to be able to hear those when we get to the month of May um yeah I have been taking a look for my own pleasure but and yours as well but uh we

are um we there is there are more right now we have around 300 in uh the the hardship transfer portal uh around this time usually we're trending around 200 so there is an uptake and families can find that policy on our website I forget its number but you probably have it it's 4132 4132 see you're awesome anybody else um said I just ask a clarifying question about the ships when um this buyer asked about should the board be blocking some time off so when should families expect if they want to get to the I'm appealing to the board time frame wise where does that come yes so we were working very diligently so we also have another transfer um opportunity to op opportunity to opt out the program opt out transfer so we processed those first we have completed those thanks to um Miss Bingham in our office and so we

started processing those hardship transfers so families just start getting we have until June 1st for those responses but families will start to notice um those those email respon um those decisions from the office of student assignment coming into their emails um in the coming weeks um and I will also comment that the um policy has been translated into Spanish and I do know because there was a question about accessibility in terms of language uh access and um uh we do have those policies that have been translated and I'm G to make room for my colleagues any other comments yes board member Rogers thank you for this update I also have a clarifying question about the transfer portal so you said there 300 families there now uh do you have any way of know or 300 requests do you have any way of knowing if any of those students are

connected so they're 300 across the K12 um um so that I've received across K12 when you say connected are you saying as in siblings or often there U just just knowing the landscape often there are siblings that are um but I have not recorded that information but I that's fine that's helpful thank you um I really appreciate the presentation I appreciate the touch points and the ask about Transportation so I look forward to um hearing that but I also made that request for the transportation team thanks thank you so much um it's great to get these updates I really like this um the data slides and I had a few questions about those if that's okay um the um the first is that there's h a few schools including some application schools that are projected to be significantly over enrolled we'll start

with them maybe um can you tell us a little bit more about like how does this happen with our system and what are we planning to do to make sure that we're supporting those schools like the most uh it looks like the the greatest overc capacity will be Lakewood for example that's 79 projected to be 79 students over capacity so how are we supporting the needs of students and staff in those sure thank you for that question board member Carter Alton um I want to clarify with regards to capacity and what's presented there um two different concepts one is what the state affords us with regards to our overall class size averages for grades kindergarten through third grade again to reset the board in the public that's 18 for kindergarten 16 for first grade 17 for second and third hb90 also affords a district at a classroom level to go three over so there is a plan capacity so that we we've been targeting that legislative level of 18 16 17 and 17 so if there's been any discrepancies

on presented capacities I want to clarify the planned capacity is intentionally focusing on compliance with hb90 at the average we do have a maximum capacity which is more than that when you roll that up over those grades so when you add in those three by classroom that's the absolute maximum capacity before we start putting two instructors in one classroom to stay in compliance I want to be clear about that as well so the Lakewood is a great example lakewood's plan capacity as you were aware is 354 but its maximum capacity would be 390 that allows us to go beyond that if we need to what it is saying specifically is in those instances where we are slightly over that is a reflection of Prior board priorities in particular honoring historic DLI program at Lakewood that's 81 students right as well as linking siblings so in the spirit of implementation of growing together there are a variety of addition extenuating

circumstances that families qualify we have accounted for every one of those children so if we have an older sibling in grades 4 five and a younger sibling in grade K3 we've attached them and ensure that those families can stay together so long as the older sibling is enrolled in the school that's approximately 500 students across the district that we've accounted for student by student sibling by sibling so in instances where we're over you're often seeing that those board implementation rules if you will from of 2023 particularly at Lakewood which is a small Municipal City School part of a larger school system but it really comes together at that point so liid is an example there the other two that I think noted um in particular for example you know we are recognizing that through going together we have boundary Plus lottery assignment right so we are Feathering that together we're comfortable in saying that we'll be in compliance with that maximum capacity well at the

same time recognizing that we are going to need to pay a particular close eye on hb90 compliance which is a twice annual affidavit that we a district review with Power School enrollment to make sure our class size averages are in Conformity with the state mandate I know that's a lot but I want to make sure I give you the full answer there thank you now that makes sense and um yes so the and I I recognize I think it is important to note that a lot of the issues that we're seeing right now are the result of board decisions that For Better or For Worse you know benefit some families and they're making it challenging to implement some aspects of growing together right now um and but I guess part of my question is like how are we like do we add trailers do we cut move like how are we supporting those schools to make sure that there is actually space in there for all the children that are going to be in there your and one of the important things I'll I'll kind of answer a bit expand and contextualize

the question in my response in that when we've been looking at Lottery seats who've been factoring together it may even be helpful to go back to the slide that shows students over seats because on that Top Line shows you all the inputs that we're considering of boundary students Lottery assignment students growing together rules transfers and EC so we're factoring all of that in the maximum capacity gives us that breathing room to go above but we've been focused F on for Student Assignment particularly with Lottery and transfer requests we've been focusing on accounting for boundary and growing together implementation rules and then the remaining seats at that plan capacity is what we've been using for lottery assignments to ensure that when school opens for 24 25 we're we're targeting that plan capacity in accordance with hb90 that does give us some breathing room at a classroom level if a family moves in mid year that we're able to take that in stride and still be in compliance without having to add an additional teacher or an additional

classroom okay thank you that makes sense and I I really appreciate all of your work on this your entire team because I know this is incredibly complex so thank you for navigating this including some of the decisions that the board made that you're having to navigate now um just one more question which is um on the flip side so then we have some schools that are projected to be underc capacity and some of these are application schools and many have a weit list could you just help us understand those numbers a little bit better up to you um importantly in the presentation that you have we had plan capacity which is the overall number of students K5 that is not inclusive of prek or EC separate setting placements name that up front what it also is not fully able to say in a singular data point is that those capacities really do lock in at a great level so you may be looking and saying if we were to pull a school for example um WG Pearson with a plan capacity of

438 and an enrollment of 352 at the grades K3 we are we have a weit list at those grades in grades four five because again legislation doesn't mandate class size at the upper grades so in those instances where you're seeing some room there I'll name for example WG Pearson or Burton or Watts that there looks to be capacity that would be in the upper grades and GR four and five at the grades K3 we are fully assigned in those spaces and so hb90 doesn't afford us to be liberal with the assignment of students at an overall building capacity it really is down to the classroom and then the grade so miss Marshall as we're processing applications and transfer requests is looking what is both the plan capacity and the max capacity for first grade at a school identifying all of the students that we've named and seeing are there any remaining seats and that's when we can begin to pull in a lottery application or approved transfer okay thank you that makes a lot of

sense board member Lewis it sounds like a jigsaw puzzle just the right bit with the right numbers and the classrooms and the lottery and the boundary so thank you for all your hard work on this in this presentation um with the additional magnets I know that our goal was to increase access and I know also that it's going to take two or three years years maybe five to see the impact of these changes across the different schools particularly with the um fourth and fifth graders within their schools so it's going to take a little bit of time but I am wondering about you had mentioned the 31% priority um what percentage where's my question um can you share what percentage of Elementary School families received their first choice last year and how many received their first choice this year as the data point of yes um and I may not have that that information

with me I can U I do have it um so uh 60% of our K5 applicants have received their first choice in 2425 um last year it was 43% so a 23% difference and increase to get their first choice um is amazing and that's really important when parents are applying to you know they they are very intentional to make those um determinations of first choices that matters with the siblings and again the jigsaw puzzle all together so it will be a while till we see those intentional changes um I know it was important to this board for fourth and fifth graders to be leac in their school based on you know covid what grade those children were when Co hit and we were um at home and just developmental needs and I know that that has created um additional work and you guys have done an amazing job in trying to get all those pieces together um with this Matrix in that I am still

one of the forewarnings we had about this was the impact it may have on Transportation so I'll also wait to hear more about transportation and what that looks like with these uh children and can you remind me and I think you said this earlier speaking of the transfers how many um do you how many were opt out transfers um eight we're we're in the 80s um I think it's today I I looked um and we may have been up to 88 as but most people are still choosing to stay where they are and how and you may not know this but how well are we doing with those open houses I would call them I'm sure what's the better word what what are we calling them with the weeks of walk with the welcome events welcome events how um well attended are those I can I Look to I don't have that information to be honest but I I Look to miss Cooper if there is any

information good evening everyone um one thing that we are really excited about is um the support um number one that the DPS Foundation has provided in allowing our schools to do greater engagement with our families this early um prior to this beginning of next school year and we've seen a lot of activity if you're frequenting the DPS homepage you'll see a listing of all of those events and we publish on social media weekly all of the activities that are happening I can tell you I don't have hard numbers right now what our attendance looks like but the opportunities have increased and that has also encouraged P families to come out and engage and so we are also assisting with planning districtwide events specifically we have one schedule for next week for our year round families and their um numbers are increasing for that to help them with the transition for the upcoming school year so I think the good thing is because we have increased the number of opportunities we are seeing more families but I would have to get back with you to get a concrete number on what that looks like thank you for making that available

thank you DPS Foundation um for just being a amazing partner with us so thank you that's it for my questions Vice chair Chavis just like you read my mind I didn't even say anything but um I yes I do have some questions so I wanted to know and thank you for all this data really appreciate the disaggregated data that's really helpful um it's a lot to dig through and and it just it just gives a a a richer picture of what's going on I just wanted to know um I think my biggest question is what do you feel like is working well with the loty process and what would you what do you feel like needs to be improved um going through this um especially this year as we prepare for growing together with your kind of assessment I think one of the I I think back to uh superintendent Mo superintendent Moore's words the glows and grows um we are very

excited about our new platform which we've gotten really good feedback about the ease and the um the the um the ease and usability of it from our parents um we were able to have to offer um three lottery assistant uh application days on Saturdays we were at staff development ready to to assist families those numbers weren't um as high as they usually are and we heard back but the applications were still there there um so we were very excited about the use of the usability of that uh new product um we are still it's still pretty early in the process we know that there are things that we can we will learn and we're actually going to take some time this summer to evaluate and bring some folks to the table and be able to have those good conversation and really talk about the glows and grows so there's more to come but it is it's pretty when I think about what's I can't you know what could we make better there there are things that we want to sit back and

hear from from our we have some soft data from emails but we want to hear from from families from our schools so just really taking the time to evaluate that from a more comprehensive u in a more comprehensive way and be happy to share that and look forward to sharing that if I could add one thing to that I do think that um our our most important ambassadors always with this type of change are going to be our building level administrators because they are the ones that have the relationships with the family and they're doing the work at the school I do believe that as we move forward how we capture their feedback on how we can better build their capacity to own how this is working and what it means for them and their families because that's who families pay attention to and listen to and that's where they go um we we need to make sure that our district products website tools are good and that they work well and we get feedback on them but we also need to make sure that we're building the capacity of our principles because I think that's been a little bit of a sticking point as well not all of our principles are as comfortable or understand as much about how this is working and what it means and and so

they're experiencing it for the first time as well so I think that's going to be a place where we really need to get feedback thank you that's helpful um and I guess my other my other area of question is around um looking at the data around the um percentage of Hispanic or latine family who are participating in the lottery and I wanted to know if if you know if this where is the percentage um if it's comparable to what it's been in the past um this with the population overall of our dis of our students um being uh or sorry the Hispanic um uh population of our students being 35% of their overall student body um it says 24% participated in the lottery and I would also you know offer the caveat that maybe people are also very satisfied with their neighborhood

schools and that's awesome it's not that people need to um obviously participate in the lottery but I do wonder about that access point so I just wanted to hear a little bit about um and I know you all are always working on ways to expand language access and um just accessibility in general um but um do you know if it's comparable to the percentage of Latin students that we've had participate in the past and um what do you feel like have been the most effective ways of increasing that that percentage or what would you like to do differently and I also recognizing you just said we'll hear more after the summer so yeah thank you for that question um I was able to take a look at uh just some general information over the past four years and U regarding our families that speak Spanish they are U we're very comparable over the past four years between 23 and 25% of those applications that we've received since

2021 the 2122 school year um between 23 and 25 so and we're at 24% this year um as you know we work very very closely with the multilingual Resource Center um our ESL registration Center uh with the targeted um days where they are Monday through Friday during the application window they are they have open door policy uh appointments their Saturday very visible for those Saturdays for families who may uh work during the week so they are indeed Partners throughout the Lottery application window and and bringing families in I also look to um as we think about next steps and how we continue to U engage our family I'll I'll again know Miss Cooper is like H but I'll pass that over to her she is our um our leader in that I will briefly say um we will continue our conversations with um the office of student assignment our partners at MRC we know that

communication is something that we can always improve and that is certainly what we intend to do moving forward to make sure that all families have opportunity and access to participate in the lottery should they choose to thank you all those are all my questions thank you our chair umid up two on the demographic overview that's K12 is that correct not just Elementary but K12 students who are applying for transfers yes that was case for for the lottery for the lottery and then the other sorry not for transfers for the lottery that's right the other question I think that's come up from families and it's related a little bit to what superintendent Moore said around communication as families are navigating transfers and hardships and that kind of work how are we supporting princi principl to be able to communicate with families is that all going to your office what's the right way to tell families they have questions they're not unsure they don't know what to do who should they be talking to I know we we talk about the enrollment teams a lot we have um really

built up our enrollment teams just had a a a meeting with them principles are leaders in that in that um on that team but every school is staffed with an enrollment team and we are providing updates just this week um U our mckenny vento office presented on how to support families who are moving into the to schools how to and reminding them of all of the upcoming changes so we are really building the capacity for our schools through that enrollment team and the leaders of that enrollment team are the principles and they are uh we also have we provide those updates during their leadership meetings so we are doing as much as we can to build them up of course they call we are right there with them um providing any kind of help and assistance technical assistance um so they know that they can reach out but really when we're thinking about schools we are leaning into those enrollment teams thank you for this presentation um

I'm going to comment on a sticky point and this is about the board here um we have a process by which families can appeal um any decision say for example they um go to a student assignment office and um they want to transfer into a magnet program and I saw some faces I know this is a sticky thing because policy says you know that transfers into magnet uh schools is is not something that um that we currently support and that is our policy um but I just I've I've been hearing from families that it's not a practice uh because it is policy that we don't do that however this board has power to wave um policy for a time period I don't want to throw this curveball right now I just want us to hypothetically hypothetically consider um what would that do to the processes

if we were to under a statutory as we're implementing the first year or two um and again this is this is hypothetical because this board every single one of these votes right like we have had these requests over time and we navigate this when folks appeal they they follow the process and it comes to us but I just want to hear from [Music] Administration what do you anticipate um and and and not too many details because this is not but just just in general like you know um what would that feel like instead of just just the concrete facts yeah I'm I'm going to try to take a stab at what you're asking make sure before we start answering um and a clarifying question first if a parent uh is interested in a transfer to a magnet program and board policy currently says you can't do that if they

fill out the transfer application anyway what happens so Administration doesn't have the authority to approve right um so it would denied in our in the office of student assignment and then they could request a board level appeal then they would uh appeal to the superintendent's office and then to the board eventually to the board so the process is already there um and and I think that's the the point that I want to make clear is there's board policy says you can't do it but that doesn't mean that parents I mean if I were a parent I would not be reading board policy um so I would apply anyway and then I'd be told no and then I should under be told what my due process is in terms of the next step and the next step so there's already a a a place for how that happened we've seen examples um we have actually folks who look at our board doogs will see that we have had examples of folks requesting be transferred into a magnet um program but I think in terms of implementation as so many changes are happening all at once um this board is very receptive to the work that is

happening and how there's attention to detail and so many things that are um dependent kind of um connected but waving that policy um will have to be on a case-by Case basis and I guess I just wanted to just mention that because that has been a request from community members who say is that the whim of this board and and and this is obviously going to have to follow that process that folks have already followed with the office of student assignment um but I'm not going to put you on the spot in terms of like no don't do it Miss V right parents can't appeal to the board and it wouldn't be waving the board would just need to make a decision on each individual transfer so not not necessarily waving policy per se because the process is there but then the board makes listens to an appeal and makes a decision on each one of those transfers and that I love this state statute that Miss Moore referred to that guides each and every transfer as an individual um but you know having

um had to say no a lot a lot of times on that policy specifically just to be clear to families and not to give false hope to folks in the community the reason that I say no when it's very hard to do is because I want our process to be fair and every time that staff is saying no it's because making that decision on behalf of an individual family puts them in ahead of others on this list um and so um our staff says yes when Capac capacity is there our staff says yes when transfer meets policy y'all's job you love to say yes I mean you just you do no one likes to say no to families um but it's it's maintaining that that system of fairness and that that's the reasoning behind a lot of difficult NOS that I've struggled with in the past thank you any other further

comments I had questions if you're finished with your yeah yeah thanks so I really appreciate the um presentation I appreciate the data behind it and and the complexity of the work you all are doing I want to acknowledge that while these are numbers on a screen these are children and families that are very much dealing and struggling with change and um know that you all are bringing that heart um of of approaching families as individuals and the the stress that they are under um and I think we have put our principles in some difficult places because our principles also want to say yes they want to keep students that are there they want to keep teachers that are there they want to keep their enrollment high so I wonder and you you answered a lot about how the K3 class size is is limiting what we can do right as far as projecting and growing but I want us to look for ways that we might

be able I'm not happy with the enrollment at 31,000 neither are you all that's that's not our vision for the district are there places and ways and specific schools where we can stretch do more Outreach in a targeted way um some of these schools that are under enrolled are there resources that the board can allocate to help with that that door to-door knocking is because we know that Durham public schools schools are actually the best place for children in Durham to be served to meet their needs and so um Are there specific schools on on the bottom of this list where you think that we could Target extra resources to help their enrollment Matthew before you answer if I could just add one additional piece of context to to the question I think um a piece that comes first really is understanding whether all of the schools that have a negative it to automatically say that's not that's a bad thing

ver versus the fact that you may be staff may be looking to as a part of the growing together initiative lower that enrollment to have space for growth that's occurring in the community or or other factors and so I think I think what you have to look at is are there schools that are dropping in enrollment that that are um not the intended uh outcome for those schools and that would be where we would want to focus the efforts that that you're talking about that's super yeah that's super important and the places where it says retire trailers I mean yes that's our long-term goal but I wouldn't ever advise retire retiring trailers anytime soon knowing how difficult they are to get permitted and back up so mobile classrooms cabins as my daughter's fifth grade teacher called thank you takes my breath away to talk about data here because because there's a lot

in the question Miss buer and superintendent Moore I I do want to I do want to lift that up for a moment six of these schools are significantly over capacity today in fact the ones that see the largest decreases in enrollment I will name it for the board and for the public those are intentional with regards to three factors one they are already Beyond in their current 2324 enrollment beyond the capacity for hp90 the plan capacity right so I would name Bethesda Park with three exhibits of that number two Bethesda and Glenn are actually under renovation Glenn literally with Cru on site today our sweet spot for utilization enroll divided by plan capacity is about 85 to 95% that affords for the absorption of a family that moves in midy year or any variety of factors that will change enrollment we do not want to be at 100% I realize there's you know we talk about efficiency are you using every seat we want to be able to breathe for our camp is because an over enrolled

campus isn't just about seats that's carc lunch periods and Beyond uh I would also go beyond that and talking about H which is another renovation campus forthcoming at 620 with a plan capacity of 584 Hope Valley at 634 with a plan capacity of 556 there are students today that are in Mobile classrooms that this is very much designed if you go back to the prior strategic plan 5c fiscal and operational responsibility we're trying to get our children inside of brick-and mortar classrooms this gets us there mpy certainly I I hear you with regards to the the challenges of bringing mobiles onto a campus but also there are challenges with teaching children in those mobiles too and we are very intentional about saying there is no perfect plan but this is in many of these instances if we're to go through the enrollment decreases those are with intentionality either through accounting for future residential growth hopefully sunsetting mobile classrooms

and being intentional about onboarding programs particularly our DLI programs which are going to take time for us to get there so it is allowing us room to grow into our residential developments it's 160 in the county those are neighborhoods not 160 homes it's 25,000 homes it's 160 neighborhoods Andor Town Homes Etc I can go through that with you miss miss buer briefly but I would say in general there is not one's school that we have not been very intentional in working with school leadership we've been doing intensive program supporting our yearr round campuses as well as all of our elementary schools full day workshops on enrollment projections capacity not just for this year but for the long term recognizing if we dial that up to 100% Today next year could be more complicated to those students matriculate the step from kindergarten to first grade we lose two seats per classroom goes from 18 to 16 and then

back up to 17 and 17 and we have to be in compliance with that so in no way do I want to sidestep the question I think that that we need to be thinking about enrollment in Durham Public Schools RIT large the new strategic plan has a goal for 35,000 students enrollment today is stable and the applications that you heard as you've heard are cross the board strong in our application schools I couldn't single out a school but I can say our planners student assignment and the entire growing together team is working school by school with those student enrollment teams and the school leadership on campus to say what does it look like this year and what does it look like in the years ahead so I hope that's helpful super helpful um and I look forward to just um continuing to work with our CIP plan and our County leaders to go ahead and consider land banking things in the future that actually will um allow us to plan and build for future growth because that's where growing together takes us I

would love in the future to see more about the EC and prek enrollment around the district I think that's an important piece of this that we don't talk enough about but um to know where those specialized um programs are but I so much appreciate your leadership Miss Marshall on the transfer and the optout it concerns me sometimes that we have families that might want to stay in that K3 ages that might want to or K2 I guess might want to stay at their school because they love their school and are are you seeing applications come in for that where they might be setting themselves up not to be in the right secondary plan down the road and just be kind of delaying a change that might come later I am still early in the um reviewing of the applications many of them um and of course I'm looking for them to meet the policy uh 413 too uh but I'm sure there are that there are some that indicate the love for their school is your

question I'm sorry if about miss the question so I just wonder if there's places map by map where and address by address let me see if I'm making sense um where they want to stay and not go ahead and and move a younger child but actually if they went ahead and moved them now rather than waited till middle school they would be with a cohort where they continue on to middle school high school um are we looking at each of those on a case-by Case basis and making sure families understand getting next year's transfer might put them in a more stressful position as they age through this yes when I even in current transfer because we're still processing transfers even for this year uh really thinking about how it could uh the impacts of future years and having those conversations with parents as I as they come to me I do Reach Out by phone and uh make that make sure that clear to families and how um things and changes in the future um could impact families so certainly on a

Case by case um as I read the read the transfers and if something comes up those families are contacted thank you U Miss Cardon I forgot one um more question about the data and it's the um it's about the elementary application Lottery demographics by school um thank you for putting that together just one clarifying question um is this the applications received or is it the accept those accepted into the seats at each of these schools that's but all the applications received okay so these numbers are applications received on slide 16 and proportion in each demographic group okay thank you I have um just checking if anybody else has a comment I I do have a comment about prioritization this is something we talked about already previously and uh in the agenda review uh with board small group board members um when

it comes to prioritization uh there's sibling prioritization there's all kinds of prioritization that has happened um the question I guess is for those families who were previously in a school that was a considered a neighborhood school and now that school has become a magnet um essentially they're having to do you know the application but they it used to be a neighborhood school they used to have access to it um can you tell us a little bit more about all the considerations in prioritization um that are also being considered and also where this one with Falls within that prioritization work um so we did prioritize um families that are currently attending their schools um they so the currently attending program were the first priority then our siblings and then there was a priority that was offered for current for students that are currently attending their schools so those families may see themelves listed

higher and if they rank that school as their first thank you so much for that and to anybody that I talked about weighted um just if you would just explain a little bit more about this is prioritization but you have really mapped out all the different ways to support families and and and have backups so I don't know if any of you wants to speak on that distinction so the way we do right now uh we priority we use priority and in the coming years we'll start looking at weights with our socioeconomic um waiting and looking at different um how variables um multiple variables may impact the lottery but um in this in our current and previous years we've used priority um yes I just described in um in our lotteries Thank you very very much yes I I I appreciate that if there are no more uh discussion items um this item um is an update and

we let me just double check here um only here for discussion so we're going to move on to our amended agenda that is um oh yeah that is now operation services starting with transportation to start while the team is getting settled and apologizing for our um know many of you were here very late last session we didn't get to your presentation so I want to apologize for that and thank y'all for coming back

today good evening again board members superintendent Moore um we're delighted to bring you an update for our strategic initiatives and ongoing efforts to improve our quality of service for our students that request and require Transportation yellow bus service this presentation is not just about the yellow bus it really is about all 31,000 of our students making sure no matter what mode they choose to get to school that we are focused on making sure it is easy for them to get to school the magic happens in the classroom um I want to introduce director Joe Harris he is a 29-year veteran of Durham Public Schools his staff is with us this evening they are combination an All-Star team of seasoned veterans and rising stars in transportation I'm going to hand it to Mr Harris I know they prepared and are excited about this evening Joe take it

away thank you so much Mr B good evening to everyone to aboard to our superintendent Moore to everyone gathered here um tonight um thank you for this opportunity and we're going to go ahead and dive into this information here tonight so if we could we can um get begin here please so we will again our agenda tonight will be transportation and Fleet Services overview strategic initiatives achieved in progress and the future next slide we start with our transportation of Fleet Services overview next slide this slide names the team specifically those who will speak with you tonight but they are but a portion of more than 300 exemplary classified staff all Opera in critical roles that keep students safe and in the school next slide please oh why getting from home to school there is a at least a

six-step process to getting kids to school on time the family has to enroll that has to be updated in power school we sign them to a route and our mechanics are up at the crack of dawn to ensure that these buses are safe and are making sure they're Road ready for our families for our students who are ready to board them and all before our dedicated employees who are our bus drivers and our safety assistants begin the day of picking up our most precious cargo here at dur Public Schools our students and drop them off and it's time to start their day next slide please what do we do student ridership Fleet Services Community Transportation the difference between yes in power school and daily ridership 19,000 assigned students 13,000 using the service on a day every student in during Public Schools starts as a pedestrian and we'll

come back to that what it takes next slide flexibility and adaptive leadership it takes a lot of skill and Leadership definitely flexible and adaptive management of daily call outs everyone jumps into action in any work capacity wherever it's needed whether it be routing answering phones driving a bus taking a student picking up a bus going to an accident Scene It Takes a team you have to be proactive we plan and we prepare training and all those things when we talk about and look at this slide here we talk about training we all know that there was a bus fire which involved one of our school buses with students the training that Miss Washington received that every bus driver receives was represented in a great way when she was able to make sure that all the students as well as herself

were able to be safely evacuated following procedures that she had been taught in professional development and Prof professional learning that goes on within the transportation department we have dedicated people 247 commitment to service whether it's nights and weekends breakdowns emergencies early mornings nights weekends service calls for local vehicles that are broken down that's what we do we make sure that everything that has wheels it is taken care of within the city with their Public Schools next slide our strategic initiatives next slide here you'll see outline the Strategic plan and how it relates to transportation services our Focus here is Workforce retention recruitment representation and consistency of service next slide

please when we talk about historically what we have been and where we're trying to go you look at you see on this slide it outlines quite a bit of information you'll see historically over the past few years that work that has been done with a few strategies that next step and moving forward highlighting some of the things that have been done where you talk about reduced Mish B schedule alignment historic boundary adjustments keep in mind forthcoming moving in in place projects Workforce Development school bus technology manage student ridership and bus stop safety review next slide key performance indicators here when you're talking about key performance indicators highight the difference of pre and postco rers ship dropped but demand didn't 19,000 ass signed as I talked

about before but 13,000 on the day of record using the service buses run late because we have a number of unique situations mckenny vento students attending outside of boundaries special needs students these all increase the length of routes when you have limited resources and a driver shortage in spite of it all we're operating effici and safely with a 96% on time arrival 96% during time of supply and demand and at this time i' like to hand it over to miss Christian Brookshire who will talk about when we talk about every student beginning as a pedestrian good evening my name is Kristen Brookshire and part of my job as lead school planner is improving the trip to school for for our students who arrive by walking biking and taking Transit so going back to the slide that Mr Harris showed about the at least

six-step process in children getting to school um that very first step was families choosing the mode that works best for them and their own unique circumstances oh next slide please thank you so for families that choose the bus we are improving language access through a partnership with the multilingual Resource Center to be on call early in the morning to help better serve our families who speak Spanish um and for families who do who choose not to ride the bus and for our bus riders as Mr Harris mentioned who do start their day as pedestrians one way we support these trips is through our safe roots to school program and with the latest round of grant funding we are able to support expanding our offerings up to uh up through grade 12 uh support families in planning their daily trips not just special events like Walkin bike to school day um and embark on a crossing guard location study that will evaluate crossing guard post and additional locations where there may may be an unmet need and this is something we're doing in partnership with the city transportation department and the police

department next slide please and I'll invite Cory Bamberg up to talk about deepening our pool of drivers who get our students to school each day way down thank you Kristen my name is Cory Bamberg I am the administrative lead for student operational Services uh um Workforce Development is as we've seen baked into our strategic plan and um we've heard from director Harris some of the very real consequences when we lack the resources to focus on that goal um so to that end we launched project love the bus 100 uh bringing together the office of public affairs human resources and transportation in order to build capacity across the operation our goal is to hire 50 new bus drivers as well as get 50 commitments from our existing staff to come on board earn the

CDL and join our team of ready willing able drivers either in a supplemental sub position deep in our bench um another big piece of this project is process review and we found one of our largest barriers is credentialing amid a National skilled labor shortage there's a bit of competition um so we can wait months to get an applicant into a DMC classroom or we can choose to be proactive and grow our own um so we will introduce an in-house licensing and training program within Transportation uh in cooperation with ncdmv and this will shorten our time to hire significantly um and it will also help to nurture the staff we have now um we really believe in school transportation as a career path and we want to put that to work uh for everyone our commitment

extends to fostering a representative Workforce and not to be that guy but we ask students and families to trust us with their literal lives so we have to engage with them as equals we are actively exploring methods to improve communication across language barriers um and have developed a plan to intentionally work with Durham's diverse communities to ensure that they have access to the career opportunities that we can offer and so that their students can be best supported next slide please so in case you didn't catch that we're hiring uh we are so eager to meet the dedicated folks who yeah want a stable schedule and a living wage that we want to offer but who also care about getting kids to school safely and never hauling

ly drive DPS um fill out that form and we will get in touch with you right away and just uh to be clear we are in the process of translating this and other resources into at least at least into Spanish um so stay tuned for that that is definitely a part of all of this um thank you and now I would like to introduce Mr Trevor Arnold um who's here to highlight some exciting new technology good evening board members and superintendent Moore my name is Trevor Arnold I currently serve as the transportation technology coordinator on

behalf of D Public Schools a brief overview today I'm going to speak a brief overview over the smart guard system that we are introducing to dur public um this program is to reinsure the safety of a child for parents as well as help with writers ship numbers simply knowing where your students board and on the board um in the mornings and afternoons as well as it will be time stamped using a uh RFID reader and a white card secondly the program will help with providing accurate writers ship numbers so that Transportation Personnel will have a close and accurate number of staff to in place for daily operations in the morning and afternoon as well and lastly this program is it will be piloted with one of our SE secondary schools this will give me a chance to run any kinks and or issues um that may arise while using the card scanning on and off the bus uh next slide please um this slide right here will give a brief uh demonstration of how the card looks on the bus and what it would

look like for a child to board all right and with that being said next I'll call upon Annie fullwood the assistant director of Transportation specializing student ridership good evening board members superintendent Moore I am Annie Forwood assistant director of Transportation over student ridership my main goal is to improve our customer service to our stakeholders as well as meeting and exceeding our 5B goals for 90% of our student bus riders to arrive safely and on time to school daily as Mr Harris mentioned we have

31,000 students 19,000 students assigned and I have an average of 13,000 students riding daily the work that Trevor is currently doing with our spart card initiative um will help me to manage and Report accurately our student writers ship to the state in North Carolina we use the edog transportation information management system known as Tims okay and we use that to help manage that information I have a team of three route planners who are providing year round service updating and improving current routes preparing for the new school year as well as summer program programming we strive to provide efficient routing for safe and ontime arrivals and we do this with the challenges we face with our current driver people man people power issues December 2022 we introduced the edog parent portal to put bus information in our stakeholders hands

providing bus assignments substitution and delay info as well as bus tracking recently we added real time transportation information in the hands of our school administrators um with the edog school web assistant this will allow the school to use this information and see it in real time to be able to get this information to the parents as we navigate that 24 to 48 hour when students are requesting Transportation next slide please now this slide is just a snapshot of the edog parent portal subscribers we currently we have about um 17 to 18,000 um subscribers for our um Parent Portal app next slide now I'm going to pitch it back to Kristen to speak more on improvements to school accessibility thank

you this part is still interesting um so the distance from home to school is the number one indicator for mode Choice the growing together regions that you see on the map were designed with Transportation access in mind families will have access to most of what they need in terms of EC programs magnet programs and prek within their region which reduces ride times the pin drops on the map show our area bus lots and how they're well positioned to serve the regions next slide please as soon as students leave their home they're pedestrians first we review bus stop locations for safety and a standard level of service across the district standardizing stop locations will ensure that stops are recognizable for parents with students in multiple grade levels or schools and when we have standard stops that we know will be used every year by multiple students that gives us the opportunity to identify and lift up safety infrastructure Improvement priorities with our Community Partners

and for students who need door service because of safety factors we continue to provide that service so next slide and I'll bring uh invite up Mr leak to talk about operating a safe Fleet and how that truly starts 30 days before our students even get on the bus good evening board members and superintendent Moore my name is Anthony Lee assistant direct of Transportation this evening I will give a brief overview overview of Fleet Services DPS has 24 dedicated bus and Fleet service technicians ensuring all buses and vehicles are safe let me pause there are safe that's my number one goal by performing daily inspections repairs and scheduled Services under the management of John strobo and chandrea Myers Mr John strobo was appointed to serve on DPI inspection committee next slide DPS was awarded $20 million from

the EPA for 38 EV school buses charging stations and infrastructure EV buses will will improve indoor air quality reduce noise for our bus riders and reduce Community Air Pollution Control next slide please we have been working closely with DPS building services to ensure that charging infrastructure is in place at all all of our locations academic I'm sorry um administrative buildings and Regional High Schools we will continue to partner with the necessary expansion and charge infrastructure with Building Services to Port ouro next slide please DPS met the EPA clean School Bus Grant criteria because we are a large district with Title One funding schools and we already have charge infrastructure in place next

slide and now I would like to invite Mr Harris back up thank you Le so now as we talk about a community student and family Partnerships next slide please so as we summarize and look ahead to the 2425 school year our our goal is to increase our hiring of employees for the Department of Transportation and decrease the right times and support growing together implementation and improve representation and support all students regardless of of Transport next slide please so pray participation here you will see that we have information in regards to student ridership request the important thing here is to make sure that everybody notes is there are dates that we are requesting information to be submitted to make sure that students have a bride on the first day of school it is outlined here with the yearound schools of May 24th

2024 specialty schools as well as traditional schools on June 17th 2024 with this information being readily accessible at the times and dates outlined it helps us to ensure that students are able to receive a ride on the first day of school so we can make sure that we have things in place measures in place the time to be able to work and do the things that need to be done so we can give service to our families and also too just as we talk about different things in parent and Community participation the love the bus 100 project that Miss mamber talked about the support she said it very well we are hiring we're looking for employees every single day if you're interested in helping get us kids to school safely then join us if you want more information we aren't just looking for drivers we're looking for every need within the transportation Serv services department at this time we'll take

questions and discussion board members any discussion I just wanted to take a moment um before um the discussion since I didn't see anybody raise their hand immediately um but when it comes to uh the slide that what it takes can we can we put that on the screen um it actually has a very important picture I mean many has important pictures um but I just want to highlight uh bus driver missiona Washington who was honored um she was also honored uh recently by our our mayor the mayor of Durham um at the state of the city address and um she was given flowers and I will say um that I got a chance to just thank her um and just tell her how can I help you know like this is the opportunity right like we we we give people their hours and um and and just asking how can I help what do you need

do you have enough monitors do you have Subs do you have and I started just going off you know asking her what do you have and um and you know she she did say she would follow up with me but I'm I'm wondering um are we checking on making sure that our bus drivers have monitors Subs can you tell me a little bit about that and also let's keep loving Miss diona Washington she is a a Shiro you know hero sh um and uh and has put us has put us on the map um in terms of responsible uh on the spot responsible action that is keeping our kids safe even in the most unsafe of circumstances yeah thank you so when we talk about um employees and we talk about Safety assistance yes we um we Supply buses with Safety assistance uh depending upon the need of the students that ride a particular bus that's how our Safety assistance are assigned um so to make sure that we meet our state local federal guidelines for some of our special needs students and some

of the areas where we um have some challenges yes so we are doing all that we can I um have an open door policy it does not take a you have to set an appointment you you come and I'll talk we'll have conversation I'll go out and talk with people I'll meet people out we I'm out of the schools and that different things having those conversations trying to make sure that we're keeping the morale boosted and high at the times of these because of course we have a lot of people that are competing for our employees with different things but if we can try to do our best to keep morale and keep camaraderie together you know that's one of the most important things when people feel appreciated that goes a long way and that's not just for bus driver safety assistance when people feel appreciated they'll do things for you that they wouldn't ordinarily do when they don't feel well I'll go ahead and go to work anyway just because I want to make sure that my children good make sure my students don't have to wait for a sub who may be a few minutes late we try our best to make sure along with this staff

here every day that we treat people like we want to be treated and set an example at the end of the day it's always my goal to make sure that I treat everyone with respect and dignity because I want to be able to lay my head down at night and know I've done the right thing thank you so much Mr Joe Harris and thank you for for everything you do I'm going to pass it to my colleagues and I see Vice chair Chavez ni comments I really want to say I love that energy thank you so much um that is a that's a a philosophy in a practice so I I truly appreciate it um I want to say um yeah your your presentation got me so jazzed I was like maybe I should drive a bus we'll be glad have you I don't think you all I don't think you all want me driving a bus that's not my calling but um but I am glad that it is many people's calling um and and you have a very impressive team thank you all for this presentation really excellent um and it's just nice to see more of the people behind the

work we there are so many people behind what happens every day um so so thank you um I wanted to say I really love the the love the bus 100 initiative that's awesome uh I Innovative um so that's that's really great I had a couple questions um one is could you speak on what are the most common reasons that buses are late so when we talking about one of the most common reasons that buses are like is because of the subpool um when we talk about you think about a subpool for for inside the classroom there is there may be Subs that you can call upon that they can schedule ahead of time when we talk about supply and demand within Transportation it's um we working very hard to replenish our subpool our subp right now is at zero because we have those employees in actual roles right now driving every single day so when we

talk about a late bus it has to be that we've everybody here has already been sent out they've already they're driving you know we're doing everything we can do to try to cover runs it's because of the call outs um on a particular any given day which in it um seems like on Fridays and Mondays it may be more in other days but those are that is the main factor that determines whether bus runs late or not you sorry M Mr just that means that many of our bus drivers are driving multiple routes to cover for when Subs are we don't have Subs available that is correct um we have some some bus drivers that are driving six seven runs per day when not talk about six runs I'm talking about two for one particular school in the morning to for particular school when we talk about our tier system where we've already been able to place elementary middle and high scho school on the um flat surface as far as times across the board that has helped us as well because at one time we had Elementary that was at one time

another time and another it was across board so now we use all those time together in our favor um just to to kind of give you of insight of what why we said it works for us when you've got a student that goes to mer Moore if you got a student that goes to Glenn Elementary School if you got students right in the same area and they go to school at the same time guess what we we do is for what they Place those students on the same bus they drop off at Glen they navigate on to mer Mo where in the past those two schools were on a different bell schedule so that has helped tremendously and along with the other efforts and the things that we're doing currently is helping us to improve that service as well thank you that's that's really helpful to understand um and my other question is about bus monitors and I um I shared some data just this afternoon that I had gotten from Mr Johnson thank you um for that data I was circling back to it it it looked like um there are more bus monitor Subs than there are bus monitors is that correct or no I had I

didn't see that um or maybe I got it some somehow no I don't know it it it got flipped numers got numbers got so um the Lin actually flipped should be flipped okay I was just confused by that but now I understand and um yeah so you've answered all my questions thank you so much thank board member Lewis did I ever tell y'all I used to have my CDL Hydro buses a activity bus about 30 years ago uh we talked about this and um but I I do want to know like the process What It Takes and you're looking to hire a 100 new drivers with that getting a CDL I know we had some problems previously with getting the test test and um paying for the test and then there's drug testing that has to happen what is a turnaround for when somebody applies to be a bus driver to coming through the process

what timeline is that that's the magic question right now um when we start the process it depends upon if an a potential employee already has a commercial driver's license with the pns endorsement already or if we're talking about a brand new employee who has never driven anything bigger than a car so when you talk about that step of the later you have to look at the time of scheduling for class class is only one time per month okay and then those slots are limited because we share those slots with surrounding counties okay classroom only holds certain amount of students and we share those slots okay also it looks at the time of getting into the DMV we all know the household that that has been you know' been seen trying to get employees into once they pass class of three days four days I'm sorry of class work then they've got to get a permit that means they've got to go over to the DMV get

the permit they've got to hold that permit 10 days 14 days yeah 14 days before they're able to do anything as far as training once they hold it 14 days then we have to get with our scheduled trainer and see what the first availability is and right now currently we have one person that's working two counties and right now the scheduling is about month and a half month and a half two months in some cases for employees to go through that that um behind the wheel training so when we talk about that we we could be talking just a few days if they already certified but if not it could be a couple months apologize part of we trying to do goes back to what was mentioned earlier about working with DMV to try to develop our own internal program where the training can be done through the transportation

department um Mr Palmer has been spearing at him and Mr Harris um we've been kind of put on the back log of trying to get it done Miss Moes tried to help us with that push that process through but hopefully sooner than later we'll be able to have our own trainer so that person not shared with other counties which was expedite the process that Mr um Harris is talking about thank you for that and then I know that you said the bell schedule has helped with um reducing some weight times when there's call outs and those needs now that we're moving towards the regions with the bell times has that I know you're starting to do the mapping for that and the routes and who's requesting Transportation now within the various schools um um would that support a decreased need in drivers has that been so we're still in have high need in general but is that how does that help so it will when you just look at it just

kind of a broad overview certainly it will help um I can give you a specific example when you have students that live at the northernmost part of the county at closest to the person County Line and they attend school at Ron Harris you know how long it takes to get from there to R and Harris so when we're routing you can only put a few students on that bus because TimeWise you can't do anything else but when we talk about growing togethers and having regions those ride times will be cut and that will help us with demand because well we normally have to put two or three buses to accommodate because of distance we won't have to do that so in in a broad what would you to ask your question yes it it is looking to be positive for us in that direction of when we talk about supply and demand thank you that's all I had thank you thanks so much um yall somehow you

have me excited about Transportation too and I didn't know that was possible but this was amazing tonight thank you all for being here and um for sharing all this information with us and so much of it was exciting the in-house training program um is going to be super awesome I love that you're working to improve communication and navigate these um language barriers the spark card is really um Innovative and I'm excited to see where that takes us and all the safety inspections you're working on to make sure our kids get to school I know that takes a lot of staff and work um and excited about those electric school buses too um I just had a couple of questions I guess I wanted to hear more um maybe others know this already and I'm just new to this but the 19 ,000 enrolled in power school and 13,000 writing on a given day can you tell us more about that like how that happens and what you all do to navigate that and what we're doing moving forward sure you you want to take Miss Forwood I'll be more attitude I one

I so with with a student assignment when we have 19,000 students assigned to a bus they may not actually ride every day or it may be an AM writer or PM writer it could be that we have dual custody students who are assigned to a stop when they're with their par with their mother or their father so we're showing all of these assignments that can be used at different points in that students um the students need um but when we do like a daily snapshot of how many students are actually writing that's where we get that 30,000 13,000 number from of just a snapshot of a student count during the um during the day okay so it's just a natural product of the way that things happen not a problem that you're having to figure out okay thank you that's but we do want to we strive though to actually show

accurately within our Tim's database how many students are actually riding the bus our number we want our numbers to be closer and show if I have 13,000 students riding daily that's what I want to really report to the state because that shows our efficiency that shows that we are managing our resources properly that increases our um that increases our look at the state level it gives us a rating it increases our rating so that it increases our money from the state so that we can run the the system like we need to thank you that makes more sense too because I imagine there's families that might sign up and then decide later also that like they not going to ride the bus but they don't notify anybody so they're still on that yeah they don't notify anybody but when we do spot checks I'll have my authoritative Source or my bus drivers so they'll send information to update their routes we'll update the routes and we'll remove students from the buses we'll change their designations to know

um parents normally don't know that that's happen until after weeks of not riding the bus they send their son out to catch the bus and the bus no no longer comes to that area or the bus driver may tell that student you're no longer on my route sheet but it's really simple once that parent hears that information they just call the school and say hey can you change my designations back to yes and then 24 to 48 hours that student will be added back to the bus so it's a cycle it's a daily I have reports that come in where one day the report may have 66 kids on it when we're at this time of the year whereas at the beginning of the year we may have over 100 kids on a list that are requesting Transportation or it could be um change of address or you know just trying to get back on the writers ship so it's a daily thing of changing and updating the routes per the request as they come in and something to keep in mind M called Al to your question and tie back

to earlier board member question in reference to buses being late keep in mind we do a lot of individual stops and not Community stops which if if we don't address the issue of hiring a 100 plus bus driers soon we're going to have to look at that as a district because when you make every individual stop for 45 seconds to a minute uh at every house that puts his drivers in a unique situation you know as far as being late with traffic and everything else so in the future are we going to have to look at that absolutely because if you don't do community stops that means you're making five stops within a short radius um from you know from the bus area standpoint so it's something that we're gonna have to look at if we don't get better participation as far as hiring additional bus drivers yeah and that's spart card initiative will help us also to manage that ridership and to see those things and reported accurately thank you missp just wanted to follow up on on that but so much gratitude to you all to the whole team to actually coming and

coming again to to present to us um and showing how much work early mornings late at night weekends goes into um keeping students moving safely to school and and so much gratitude if you can extend our gratitude to your colleagues that that are watching at home and actually doing other things at home um I wanted to follow up on on Miss Cara Auten's um question and wonder if we actually need to look at our policy about how far students walk to a stop especially our our secondary students and if there's work that we can do on that policy um because we know it's healthy for kids to get moving and uh we don't want to compromise safety but um wonder if that policy might need to be looked at um in the coming months as we go forward so that we can maximize kind of the efficiency um I don't I don't

think we've looked at it in a really long time that's correct yes that's some going to think things that we've talked about that we um are actually working with through Mr Palmer and Mr Johnson looking at different things and you know kind of a like our bus stop safety review those that is one of the things that has been noted as possibility yes that'd be great I just want to indicate a willingness to dig into that if that that's helpful to you all and especially it seems to align with with the growing together work um as we're hiring and loving the bus or love that bus yeah are we're hiring part-time If people could just work mornings we're hiring afternoons If people could just drive afternoons absolutely certain days of the week we're hiring all working we're working with every piece of a schedule that someone can bring that will help us and we look at it as that some of our children to make sure we can get them to school and in their seats and ready to learn on time and we have a specific sub hiring as well that folks could be on a

list and just help yeah thank that would be great and um as we communicate these new dates to folks to try to get um things planned better I assume y'all are working with Miss Cooper or will be in in communicating that to families is correct and how are we reaching out to um preschoolers or folks that are new to DPS that we don't necessarily have them yet so when there are events um one of the things noted that countdown to kindergarten and things of that nature we make sure that we are in place and we are there with information to help families that will be coming into the district to make sure that they're getting what they need and they get handouts they get live bodies to ask questions and get answers to their questions great thank you all so so so much I really appreciate it Mr Harris our chair Umstead I'm

said I do have the two questions questions and thank y'all again for all the work you do to all the folks who are not present here but we know also make sure that all these the buses run on a regular basis and have overly done more and more to make sure our kids get to school on time can the spark card also be connected with student IDs I know that we're trying to move towards more kind of access points for students to get in and out of buildings and so I was wondering is there and then we might not know the answer to that today but a possibility to combine those two so that we don't students don't have to have two cards walking around so that is something that we're working with other departments um across the district to try to see if that is something where they can have kind of a One-Stop card that will possibly do um everything that needs to be done within the district and then my second question I know we've had in the past a lot of routes that just didn't get picked up like we had some students and families who are really struggling with you know students who were just left and not not

needed away to school where are we this year with routes that maybe aren't getting picked up so we have not had days where it's just continuation of routes not being picked up we haven't managed to get by but we're at the point where we've kind of exhausted all of our Avenues as far as when you talk about routing so um the staff and I I just can't shout them out enough the staff has worked really hard to get coverage done when we talk about division offices and we talk about those people at 5: in the morning working hard to try to make sure that does not happen talk about the people here stepping in when I talked about answering phones so other people and Personnel can go out we have not had those days where um there has been just we don't have any rides for you now yes I will say that has happened in the past but we're working very hard to make sure that does not happen with our daily work

and the things that we're trying to put in place to make sure that we're taking care of our students I appreciate that I I hear Mr Harris that people have seen you on the bus delivering students to and from school well you you know in in a lot of things and uh I drove many years before I started to progress um I I've I'm a firm beli that you at the lead by example I can tell you from every step I've set at every seat within the department and I can talk to you about what happens at this process and that process and this process but it's not about me again it's about the staff the phenomenal staff that we have those those Personnel that people out in the division our mechanics everybody it takes a team team effort to make sure that we transport these students to and from daily I really appreciate that and I'm glad to hear we're able to improve I think I'm just going to put another plug in you can get your training done while you're working with DPS you can get your CDL I think DPS will pay for it is that

correct DPS will pay for your CDLs because we know next year as we try to make sure those Legacy students can stay at their school we're going to need additional bus drivers so just thank you all so much for your presentation this is the team that you might get to work with like what a better um what a better advertise what there's not a better advertisement just want to say thank you'all for that thank you so much um I also want to Express gratitude and if anybody missed that that was uh uh mentioned and uh you know you are you are listening I remember um years ago in a joint board and County Commission meeting um this is under a previous administration we're so happy to have you um Dr Johnson to take on this work there there were conversations about how to get uh the in-house um CDL uh licensing and some of the constraints with that and and I remember mentioning that I've seen nonprofits kind of partner with community colleges is towards doing those programs like if if

we need to expand Partners like that's just something to consider because there are Comm I think Lenoir maybe Lenoir Community College um has created programs like that um where they have worked with um even fleets you know like uh like some smaller Fleet um kind of options just in case those are needed as well so we're definitely in the right direction uh the other thing that I wanted to comment on is um you know the RFID and that kind of lands in that uh AI predictive analysis piece and anytime we are encountering this kind of technology I just want us to always be transparent about what are we really tracking um because this is tracking it's it's it's it's definitely um our students are going to have an R ID card but what about the buses so the buses will also um have the same technology and so it'll be able to tell us where where our buses are um when it comes to predictive analysis uh there's always the question around um you know what what what data

is being collected as well so I just want us to just be mindful of of transparency in these things as we continue to develop this especially if we're going to be linking that to student ID cards and access to buildings um to what level are we you know definitely benefiting from predictive analysis and data that is going to show patterns and usage and utilization everything else but then also what else is it collecting um so just things to be mindful of and the other um the other piece with that is that edulog um I have received a lot of messages over time from families about edulog and um first of all it's taken some families didn't realize that we stopped using here comes the bus right and so then they started like asking for the the um the instructions for edulog and I refer folks to that and I'm grateful that you put it on the website because I'm like here's a link here's the link here's how you do it but families have told me about glitches um families have told me that sometimes their information is not showing up and there's a perception that

edulog has more glitches and I'm not trying to say anything about the vendor I'm just saying these this is feedback that I've gotten from families maybe more glitches than here comes the bus and I'm just wondering if that was if that's something that you continue to hear or maybe it was a period of time when maybe there might have been an upgrade or something happening yes so um at at times and when there have been upgrades or there have been um data when not data glitch but glitches where things happen of as far as transferring of the data to make sure that you are getting the alerts when the students are are arriving as far as the bus and that radius in that Circle um Mr Arnold was actually working with um them every single day any concern that we get it goes over it's documented a tag number is given to it tracking number and he handles all of those and it's tracked every single day so we are working when we get those calls when we get those complaints we work with them to see what is going on and what we can try to do to make it better thank you so much

yes also are working with training our staff to make sure that they are inputting because you know information that goes in if it's not in correctly then the user will see the wrong information so when we get those um calls that um parents aren't seeing their information or not seeing their students then it falls back to going back and making sure our assistant managers and managers are inputting information correctly um and just making sure that they follow the steps to get it done right so that it translates to the parents okay and I work with that also on a daily basis to make sure that parents also get their um account set up we I go in and make sure that all accounts are approved as quickly as possible thank you so much um I want to just also thank your collaboration with MRC that was definitely in need families were calling and and there were some limitations in terms of language um there's also the acknowledgement that

that department is everywhere at all times they're here late at night and they're they're early in the morning and so just continue to just keep in mind burnout of staff and that's just something that I I continue to be mindful of but um I think we have all commented on this and just wanted to double check we're good so we're going to move on but we want to thank you for this presentation and definitely thank you for all the emails that you answer and your receptivity and what you shared tonight thank you team we're going to go on to the superintendent's proposed budget for 2024 and 2025 good evening board members uh I'm going to start this evening by um just reading aloud into the record the letter from the superintendent that's at the beginning of the budget book and then we will move into the presentation as Durham Public Schools embarks upon its next chapter as a district I'm pleased to present the superintendent's proposed budget for the 2425 school year the budget bold yet

4 million which is an increase of faced with the expiration of the elementary and secondary school emergency relief better known as Esser one-time federal funds while the needs of our students and Educators continue to grow Additionally the district has been challenged by the implementation of

8 million to implement market rate salary increases

5 million has been requested to support maintenance and repairs across the district the next area is legislative

9 million of the funds in to charter schools in Durham per state law PRK support Durham Public Schools is excited to open Murray massenberg Elementary School in August 2024 the district is committed to expanding opportunities for families with the addition of prek classrooms at Murray massenberg this proposed budget requests $716,000 624 to support these

2% of our schools met or exceeded growth goals 20 DPS schools are ranked in the top 20% of the North Carolina schools for academic growth Durham public schools in partnership with Duke health and Durham Technical Community College have received a grant to open a new Early College focused on health careers the New York Times featured Durham public schools in a recent article touting The District's pandemic recovery 10 schools were recognized by magnet schools of America as Schools of Excellence or schools of Distinction principal William Logan of Hillside High School was named the Wells Fargo North nor central region principal

of the Year Pearson toown Elementary School principal Asia Cunningham was the recipient of the coveted milkin educator award in my brief time here I have been impressed by the spark that this District embodies as the board continues the important task of identifying the next superintendent it is also imperative that we put forth a budget that supports the Excellence our community expects and that our students deserve it should go without saying that investing in Durham Public School schools is an investment in all of Durham advocating for the needs of our students and employees is a constant reminder that we are all accountable for doing our part to ensure continued future success thank you for allowing me to read that into the record I'd like to go ahead and get started with the presentation our desired outcomes for today um we want the board to receive and review the enrollment ejections and budget impact in 2020 24 25 those are

the initial slides the board will re receive and review priorities in the superintendent proposed budget for 2425 you will review the full local budget request as questions or discussed needs and you will receive updates as well on DPS revenues expenditures and personnel and then the board will review the budget timeline and next steps a little procedural point if I might as I get started um I'm going to ask if it's possible to listen to the entire presentation and then be prepared for some questions and discussion after and I'll and I'll get to um some uh ways to sort of engage in that when I get to the end of the presentation beginning with enrollment Trends and and projections what you see here historically going back to 12 20123 is the EB and flow of enrollment in DPS the numbers at the very top reflect overall enroll in Durham County the yellow line reflects Durham Public

Schools Enrollment and the red chart red line reflects Charter School enrollment um you can see that Charter and SCH en School enrollment has been steadily increasing kind of plateauing maybe in the last couple of years it's actually anticipated be perhaps a little lower next year um and then Durham Public Schools Enrollment is remaining relatively flat for the last three to four years with a little bit of a dip for next year we you see reflected in the overall um bar on the right uh I think it it's important to put this in context because the funds that we receive in the B Durham Public School System the local funds that we receive from the Commissioners fund everything in the blue line next slide please a few words about enrollment projections and budget impact um we do not anticipate a lot of local savings in 232 24 from this school year uh from school allotment adjustments based on

the enrollment projections because we were down a little bit from our projections but we have a lot of allotments Beyond formula and so we don't expect that we will Garner a lot of savings from things like vacant positions and that sort of thing in that area Additionally the 2324 cost of implementing the classified schedule that was approved from July of February and then the schedule approved beginning in March for the rest the with of 22 3 will impact local savings options State funding is expected to be stable next year and um the reason for that is that beginning next year school systems will be funded in what's called inar which means that DPS will receive for next year funds equivalent to our month to ADM of this year and they are guaranteed that funding for the entire next school year and then the following year when enrollment uh enrollment allotments come out it will be based on the following Year's month to ADM what's

really helpful of that is that in the past when you had your month to ADM you could lose some of the positions that you had thought you were keeping and most districts try to figure out way to ways to keep those which is a local strain on the budget if you do so that will be helpful the the funding Anders will be helpful if the Duram Public Schools Enrollment increases beyond what we see we will receive adjustments that increase during that current year local funds will continue in the next couple of points you see on a regular basis these come up every year local funds will continue to be needed to support positions and fixed costs at schools um they don't decrease all of our costs don't decrease if enrollment fluctuates um sometimes enrollment can go up but you're not gaining depending on where it goes up you may not gain resources everywhere and sometimes it goes down but you don't but you need the same number of resources you had to begin with so additionally it it it is important to note every year that we

must use local funds to absorb adverse impact from recent legislative changes and this is the class siiz law that you heard about earlier today if a school exceeds its class size limit in a K3 classroom during the course of the school year after enrollments and allotments have already been distributed to schools school districts are expected to aot additional positions which comes from local funds in order to make sure that the school remains in compliance with the class siiz law limits and you see those numbers there 21 19 and 20 that's the plus three has been added to that so an individual class size in K3 can go plus three but the district average across the entire District must remain within the established guidelines of 18 16 17 and 17 for every kindergarten class that goes to 21 we need one in the

8 million request to fully fund the new revised schedules for classified staff to bring DPS classified staff in line with market rate salaries in the dur area this work began last year and is we're expecting to continue it in 2425 we've mentioned already 5% salary

8 million will be used to increase beyond that the covid-19 or Esser funds does expire in September 30th we have until January or the end of December 31st to spend it but it must be planned for and

encumbered anything that's been established with Esser in the past few years does not continue into 2425 with regards to any of the Personnel or non-personnel Rel related items um eser funds as we know specifically were used to support operations maintenance needs capital impr improvements during this time and those funds will no longer be available either and then it's important to note that the reason that we would be providing an additional three to4 million to our charter school is if we receive the 26 million that we are asking for from the county our approximate per Charter School enrollment is around 19 or 20% so the more we get from the county the more you can apply a 20% lens to that that then goes to Charters because our per pupil local increases next slide please these are the the meat of the request um at the top you see the legislative items that we do not have a

6 million we are requesting a teacher salary supplement increase of $800 per month per teacher that's what we've modeled and and I want to explain that that 800 month per month per I mean not per month 800 per year sorry big mistake there 800 per year for Teacher yeah big mistake um per year for teachers um is about 12% on a beginning teacher salary

but it's a lower percentage on an experienced teacher salary because experienced teachers have a higher salary um so um and adding the additional um uh $800 would make the beginning teacher salary supplement end Duram as of right now anyway the highest in the state not knowing what other districts might be doing um and the supplement you know we are fortunate to be in a district where our community and our commissioners have supported a local salary teacher supplement um it is imperative for there to be local funds that provide support to our teachers um but it is increasingly a pressure that local school systems and the Commissioners are bearing in their communities because of the lack of action at the state level another item here directly tied to compensation is a master's pay uh request to have funds to pay approximately 200 teachers we modeled this back in the fall for Relevant master's degrees uh this is a practice

8 million is a good uh indicator and amount to ask for to fully Implement what the Durham board and the community has been trying to to do with market rate for classified staff and then a few other items the charter school requirement I've already mentioned you see uh that amount there 20% of the total durm K12 uh enrollment and So 20% of our locales the prease seats at Murray

massenberg are 76,000 that is to fully fund three classrooms at Murray massenberg I should mention that that amount could fluctuate because we have requested seats from from Durham prek um and if Durham prek provides us with some slots then there's a reimbursement that will lower that cost um we have asked for 45 seats from Durham prek um each prek classroom should have a um class size Max of 18 um we know that that is a blended classroom that will have some special needs and some non-sp special needs students um so what we asked for from during prek is the anticipating that we know that we'll have some fund some other students that are there that are funded from other places um I I should mention if we were to get the entire 45 slots that we're asking for that number goes down to about 70,000 um Capital funding for building up keep I mentioned earlier that because

Esser funds are going away um and we have gotten into the really good practice of trying to as Larry says it touch every school every year with something the ability to do that really is not there without the Esser funds that have supported it in the last few years um and this is an area where you you remember from our earlier conversations I think it would take at least 4 million to actually get us where we need to be on a yearly basis and that number is fluid I didn't want to ask for all of it at one time and based on some board feedback this was something maybe we could stage over multiple years um I believe this is maybe Year One of at least the three year ask should it be fully funded and that total comes out to just over $26 million next slide please this is a different way of looking at the same numbers um so you can see there the Baseline in terms of um our operating funds received from the

5 million we're currently receiving six um and again that totals to 26 million it's different way of looking at same numbers next slide please it's important to note also where we receive all of our funds from you can

9% 210 positions and then we have some Grant funds and the number of positions that are on grants and so the total there you see 5,37 staff next slide

please looking at it by fund Source a little bit I wanted to do this one just a little bit different it's almost exactly the same as the one before except for I've added a maroon slice of the pie so the maroon slice of the pie I just wanted to to highlight separately from the rest of the funds what percentage of our overall funds are passed through to Charter School at this point in time and that's 7% of our overall funds it's closer to 20% of our local funds but 7% of the pi next slide please by purpose when you take a look at where our dollars are going in terms of the purpose um school-based instructional Services Capital Investments Operational Support you see the different slices of the pie there again I have separated out the charter it's the same amount of money it's just organized separately in terms of where it goes I think it's important to note that um things like administrative and instructional Port support includes people in schools Operational Support

includes people in schools or bus drivers or cafeteria workers um so a lot there's more than 60% that's actually in schools uh because large chunks of the other portions of the P are also services or people in schools next slide please here if you take a look at where our dollars are going from a different sort of lens um between salary and benefits that is about 80% of the non- Capal budget and so and I think the the farthest Colum to the the right is the best comparison because when you're looking at percent of total you get mixed up in building dollars and stuff that you can't really use any other way anyway so 80% of our non- capital budget is in people and the reason that's really important to note is when you have to make difficult decisions and you don't have enough funds to do something it is very difficult to do that without impacting

people um purchase services a lot of this is also in in direct to school as well supplies and materials just about all of that money is in schools um and then Capital Investments and transfers are large amounts but small good next slide please same thing again um in a in a piie slot in a pi instead so that you can see the distribution um definitely the maroon and the blue people in schools and in Central Services 80% next slide please little bit on Personnel summary to know who our folks are um you see that about 2500 are classified as teachers almost 1,200 as instructional support um teachers is about 49% of the DPS staff instructional

1% this is DPS leadership centralized director super visors I I

9% 97 folks next slide please again um here you have uh the same information put in a different Personnel non-personnel bucket so that you can see where the funds are going next slide please same information again from the pi slide earlier in a different format next slide please couple of items um for the budget calendar as we move forward we are now in the middle

section um after this evening uh the board has scheduled the public hearing on the superintendent budget for April 18th that is a little bit of a different Cadence that we've had in the past I think a lot of times in the last couple years maybe the public hearing was held tonight when the superintendent's budget is released but I I think it is a better practice for it to come after the presentation because folks would have been providing public comment prior to the presentation being made um and in order to meet our friendly neighbor timeline with our commissioners to make sure they the county manager has time to incorporate the board's ask um we've scheduled an additional special date just for the budget hearing for the public on the 18th a week from today and then the board will uh assuming that questions are answered any revisions that need to be made ready uh be ready to adopt the board's proposed budget on April 2 and during that same timeline we will be

conducting and finishing um our final allotment meetings with schools that have already started and then for May and June really the the the focus there shifts to the county um the man the county manager proposed budget the work sessions that they have established their public hearing and their budget resolution at the county level that will let us know on June 10th what portion of our request um they will fund and then after that um likely um end of June or it could be after that depending because it's also depends on when the legislature completes their workos okay if I'm going to say that then forget June um sorry uh we will need to present an interim budget resolution to the board because we will need to continue our work beginning July 1 even though it is likely that we will not have final numbers on some things normally that interim budget resolution sort of holds harmless fundings from the year before that we know we have um until we know

what the expansion budget is going to look like that concludes the information that I am presenting this evening um I would like to talk a little bit about how we engage in some Q&A next so several of you have already looked through some of this information started looking through the budget book and sent some questions our way um some of the things we've been able to to answer fairly quickly some of the things are going to take a little bit longer to answer um I'd like to spend a few minutes today may be doing that but I want to start with any questions that are clarifying questions about the presentation itself and then I'd also like to say that I think that um the questions that have already been sent via email and we would expect you to continue as a board to take a look at what's in the presentation and in the budget book and continue to send questions I'm sure community members May reach out to you as well and and want to express concerns or questions support about different kinds of things um I what I'd like to to do is to ask with the hearing happening

on the 18th a week from today and knowing that we will have another opportunity to speak with the full board on the 25th um prior to adopting the budget uh I'd like to ask maybe that the board send us questions uh send them to me um I will develop an FAQ type document where we group and categorize questions get answers to them you know talk about where it is in the budget book or provide this the answer to it um and make that part of the public record as a part of our meeting on the 25th I'll include any of the questions that have already been sent into the board that we've been either responding to or U still waiting on responses for so that everyone can see the questions that are being asked and the responses spend a little bit of time on that on the 25th um I know that you have to digest what you're hearing tonight you may have some immediate questions but you may have more questions after you leave and take take more time time to take a look at it so um no no expectation that we resolve everything this evening and that we have

some time to collect questions and um provide those responses to the board board do we have any uh discussion um points or [Music] questions start with uh okay chair umid I I do thank you um superintendent Moore for that presentation I really like when we have this budget presentation how we're able to separate school-based staff instructional staff how much of our budget is going towards salaries I think all of that is really important um to remind our public of and to remind us of the budget book which I know a lot of people are interested in where how is DPS spending their dollars and the budget um book which is a draft form right now on our website and our packet really gives you Department Department line by line how the funds are allocated in DPS there's also one for the past year that's available on our website as well I have

um two questions for you superintendent Moore we had a much longer list of priorities when we first started this process and I know some of those included curriculum materials and other resources that might be needed as we're doing growing together and other initiatives so can you just speak uh quickly to how you all are thinking about identifying funds for some of those absolutely so so the items that we've discussed as priorities previously that do not appear in this ask most of them we are looking for alternate funding for or have identified alternate funding for um in particular um we will uh have positions that are supporting growing together that we are looking to fund from the McKenzie Scott Grant um for at least a year so those funds will cover and ensure that we are meeting our commitments to that in initiative um the instructional materials and resources we are I've asked Dr King to scrub his budget and rep prioritize and to to find

try to find some places there to make sure that we're meeting those needs as well because some of those are materials that are required for some of the work that we'll be doing next year in our schools um the things like the network switches in the closet I'm trying to identify Al alternative sources of funding for um and uh what else was on there I'm trying to remember the other things uh we we have not identified one of the things that was specifically requested was two additional um social workers I believe it was we have not identified funding for that at this point um but the other but most of the other things I think we identified either a source or have or have it in progress so thank you I appreciate that um I think it's important and note the ways that we're currently looking at what we have and how to stretch to meet the needs that we have for the upcoming year the second question I have is related but a little bit different around the classified salary

proposals I know we had that presentation a couple weeks ago and had a lot of questions and thought about engagement and I think there still are a lot of questions from our employees around where might I fall in this budget ask and how does that all work can you just speak a little to what next steps are coming sure when it comes to that salaries so we do anticip at that the cont controller Mr Crutchfield will attend our next board meeting I think the charge that we he had at the last one was to do the work to bring schedules forward and then to provide a way for staff to be able to find themselves on that schedule and quite namely what was suggested was that um and and this is a big lift here but I think it's a necessary lift to actually answer the questions that all of our classified staff half about where do I land here to take a look at for example a column that shows for each individual staff member what was my 2223 salary what was my October 2023 salary when we

implemented the classified schedules that were that were implemented by the board with the full salary schedule um what was my salary in March 2024 when the board switched it to 2223 plus 11% and what will it be based on the schedules that Mr Crutchfield is is putting forward so that people can see that all the way across and understand the impact um you know 70 I think it was almost 70% of the staff based on the 2223 plus 11% saw a reduction 30% saw an increase um so I would anticipate that that number everyone will see an increase because everyone will see at least 3% um because of the legislative uh rays but then beyond that and if the starting point is 22 23 plus 11 everyone will see the 3% and then uh I think it's important that that the reason we need to do these individual sort of calculations and charts for for folks is

that if per chance your 22 23 plus 11 is higher than where you might be placed on the schedule based on your experience because that's how you will be placed on the schedule based on your experience but if 2223 + 11 is higher you would stay at 2223 + 11 and go from there um so it's just it's just going to be really important that that that individual piece of work gets done for people to see it and we anticipate that at the next meeting thank you I think that's really helpful I know that was some of the questions I had during that presentation um that is on the 25th so if people want to engage with us or are there any plans engagement with staff members around that presentation board members are is that a question sorry yes yeah okay okay so I I need you to thread that through a little

bit longer in terms of what that might look like based on what you're asking not sure what it might look like but I think um opportunities for you shared about opportunities that staff will be able to see where they fall on the schedule that's really important I have a feeling that people will have questions based on knowing where they fall on the schedule and how's all this work right what this me this Max what are y'all saying so will there be an opportunity for dialogue or info session with classified staff will be impacted by the CH and before you jump to the answer like I'm Al like people need the information but it also depends on us getting this full ask for us to be able to implement so I don't want us to overpromise to folks again I think that's really important for us to be so let me which yeah maybe all is a little tangential to the current question but I just wanted I know it's connected as I think that um once once we see what the contr controller brings forward and how

an individual staff member engages and understands or or has we are going to need to provide a way for people to ask clarifying questions or specific questions to themselves um so that they can appropriately advocate for what they like about it or don't like about it um and I think uh to board member buyer's Point um once we know what the Commissioners are able to provide I think that um decisions will then have to be made where staff will bring a recommendation on what to do with the funding that we do receive and I think that there will an opportunity there as well for engagement around if we have to narrow the priorities further and I and I say that because I think it's important to note that 26 million is already narrowed priorities um that uh we have to narrow it further that how would we prioritize then so that's that's like a whole

second conversation all over again appreciate that um those questions and I do think as much as we can be in dialogue the better the timing seems interesting right because we want to talk about this proposal and say we don't know we we got to wait till the budget is approved yet so I think we might need to consider what that timing looks like um it's a bold budget I appreciate the way you've laid it out and this is DPS is priorities and needs um a lot of this is salaries and we want to make sure we can maintain and recruit really great Educators and keep them in our schools we know that when you're here over many years years that increases your ability to know your students know your community and do really great work here so it's bold and I appreciate how you bled it out thank you board member Byer thank you I just uh so appreciate um the presentation and miss oo's work on this it is a lot of work to get us to this point um I look forward to submitting questions and um I appreciate

the process that you've laid out so that everyone will see questions and that gives time for um the community members to to get questions to us um one thing that I do wonder is as we go forward in these conversations both both the county and the city if if we or Mr Crutchfield can look at specific job categories that might align across um public agencies so that we can show um that their their work continues to to to take care of their own employees has kind of left our people people behind and and we know it's the state's problem we know that's the conversation we're going to have with our Durham delegation next week but um I think it would be helpful to them to see um those any comparable positions that we can social workers um nurses to administrative staff anyone that we can show them I think that helps them understand it as well um and I I I'll just share that um I I have had some

8 million that is being requested for the classified salary schedules is about the work of moving to market rate that is not the same as achieving a minimum living wage those are separate things um and if if you're looking at something more like 20 or $25 an hour as a minimum wage then the best way to implement something like that actually has it cost more because if you're going to do that at you know if you're going to move to $25 an hour as a minimum you need to address what that flows through all the way through the rest of the bands of the organization all the way through the top level of the leadership um otherwise you find yourself dealing with compression where all different types of folks with

different types of qualifications needs training Etc are are being paid the same and so you it costs more to implement when you go to 18 19 20 $25 an hour if you're going to do it well you take care of compression on the front end and the and the county is aware of that disposition that I'm trying to leave planted out there so I do still think that the our minim minimum starting wage in every category is an important thing to show them as well though that um and I appreciate the leadership they've taken in in you know lifting their own employees and they have um raises built in this year again I think they have 5% raises built in to their model so far thank you thank you I do have um while my colleagues uh I'm looking around to see if anybody has anything to say right now but

um going back to my um colleague in board chair Umstead and talking about the U growing together and the positions I just want to um I wanted to continue to elevate that because that has been a long time Inc coming um to actually do effective work with growing together I mean you do need these positions especially along uh our language um teachers who help us meet that that requirement and I just have a question about title three I I noticed that it's in the budget book and it's and that is also an Avenue um by which we can get some federal resources but I just want to hear a little bit more since it's not spelled out in the local budget but local request um but we did mention Mackenzie Scott grants um I just wanted to hear a little bit more about like the commitment is are we are we fully committed as fully

committed as in the last conversations um using McKenzie Scott or whatever it ways that we're going to make it happen I just want to hear if that's still the the situation so the the commitment to the resources required to implement growing together are are going to come from McKenzie Scott or from existing resources um we are moving forward with full implementation it is important to know that when if you're putting positions on McKenzie Scott as a grant there will come a point where that becomes a local ask because you have to build it into your continuing budget so that's coming and um but at right now we're trying to make sure that as we balance multiple sources of funding that we are finding the places to make sure that we're able to move forward and that's full steam ahead thank you so much for that board members uh board member Aon um thank you for

this going to try to keep my since I've sent questions and I'll sent more I'll try to keep these broad um so I just want to clarify um for me and the public too this like relationship between decisions about and timing about the compensation for classified staff and the budget ask um we have a number of decisions we have to make around that like do we do the steps do we do the percentage increase what include like what does a EC differential mean who does that include um who does Masters pay include things like that so we'll be making those [Music] decisions um when will we be making those decisions and I know that's a tricky question but just so our staff can know when they will then have that information so that they can then plan around that so I think um you're going to be falling into more of a normal Cadence with regards to um when increases are implemented that and is is such a it's a

push pull right um the fact that a lot of times the legislature takes a little longer to finalize their budget because this is the second year of a banial budget they've already established raises but they can always go in and make changes and they usually do make some kind of tweaks and changes um hopefully up but I will tell you that if they go up that does have an impact because we've already made a a request for the local ask but there will be more local dollars that are needed to meet any raises that they might put beyond what they've already said so that's that push pull right you want them to pay teachers more but that also means that we have to pay more local dollars that we didn't ask for so um but I think that the normal Cadence is usually in the fall September October once the legislature is done you know we'll know by the end of June where the county is headed when the legislature is done with their work when they convene after they convene and they close out um we'll then have to model okay so based

on what they did you know how much do we need do we shift what we were doing with our local dollars how do we achieve whatever the legislature might do with the local funds that we were given do we need to change anything so um while people will know what we anticipate the schedules to be those are all always subject to change and final salaries and final schedules don't get ever get adopted by the board until the fall sometimes September October um and then implemented retroactive to July 1 so it's it'll be a little while before we know for sure but a key labor is no KN in knowing where we're starting point is is what the county is able to do thank you that's helpful um and to follow up the um do should we expect the uh Mr Crutchfield our next meeting will be will bring different options for again he talked about like a percent increase

between years versus steps like should we expect to see options or I I think um I can certainly ask him to make sure that he's clear on what that looks like um you I think it's important to note that he this the schedules the primary role of the schedules as he is bringing them is how you place staff where do you place them on the schedule and then increases beyond that as they continue to work for us are can be separate from the schedules or tied to the schedules depending on how the board wants to implement um the notion that every year you gain an additional step due to a year of experience and that your salary goes up to that next step is the the practice that Durham has had and it is a practice that I believe based on how it's been implemented has never been asked for explicitly as an increase to the budget

8 million you are looking at at least an additional million per year just to move people from one year to the next in terms of experience and that happening in a step base and then on top of that whatever the legislature might do so so it's a it's whether you make the commitment to do that or not um you could say we will ask for 1% every year as opposed to saying you'll move from

one step to another every year which is six one half dozen of the other it's the same amount it's just how you communicate it and and how you go about getting it you it it's just whether you set the expectation or you make it an Ask every year and by making it an Ask every year so is it only going to be 1% every year if you build it in and people automatically are moving from one year to the next what if there's a year when you might want to do more do you ask for 1% more or are there or would you rather commit to asking for 1% every year and maybe 2% on another year or 3% on a year the legislature doesn't do anything um and the the timing of all of this is really wonky too because the school boards are almost always doing their work before you know what the legislature is going to do so I think it's the details of he'll bring the schedules of how to place but the decision on what happens year after year in terms of whether employees automatically get a raise the board asks for a raise depends on what the board decides

to do okay and we'll be reviewing And discussing at the next meeting but probably not making a decision on that I yeah I don't I don't know that that that that decision has to be made immediately people need to know how they're going to be placed um I think people would like to know um whether or not the board reports committing to whatever that might be every year in and in whatever method that may be um it doesn't have to be made to adopt the schedules but I think people do expect to know board um board chair umad just add one more thing just a reminder that our budget hearing is um next Thursday April 18th I think it's at 5:30 5:30 in this room so anyone who's listening and has comments and wants to share them with the board please come you'll have an opportunity to share your comments and the board will listen so just a reminder that's next

week okay can I make one sort of closing comment on this um as a part of preparing this budget and working with the county budget staff um and just my prior experience in working with budgets one of the documents that I turn to on a regular basis to understand um the state landscape for funding um is a is a document that's created by the public school Forum every year is the local school Finance study um they've been doing it for a number of years and they present their data for all hundred counties in some very interesting ways uh I think it is a document worth looking at um and taking a look at how Durham's Stacks up with other counties in the state of North Carolina with regards to how funding is implemented here couple of things to look at for example it'll tell you what the tax rate is Durham does have a higher tax rate

than many other counties it'll also show show you um what the capacity is in the district based on property tax valuations and whether or not there's greater capacity than perhaps is being access it'll tell you the the one thing that I really really and it ranks you in every category from one to 100 so you might be the you know you could be the highest tax rate in the state and then the lowest under a category that I think is really important which is called relative funding effort relative funding effort really calculates how much of the fundings that the school system is receiving related to the other types of uh funding that county has priorities for because the county provides the school district funds but the county also um provides funds for County supported things you local law enforcement Health and Human Services Parks libraries that kind of thing um

and so when you see how much in other counties goes to K12 versus what goes to K12 in Durham or when you see what the tax base is in Durham versus the tax base in other countries and you can create comparisons because you can look at neighboring counties you can look at other counties that are about the same size um but I think the relative funding effort is a is a really good one to look at and I I've actually I spoke to the county budget staff about making sure they looked at it too thank you superintendent Mor uh board member P yeah I think that's a great thing to remember and chamste said you're on The Advisory board for the public school Forum I wonder if as such it might be helpful just to go ahead ahead of our conversations and send that document to the county staff but also to the Commissioners um invite them to EGS and issues like you invited us I think um that will help shape that conversation with them and

and inform their their hearts for our children like they already are stirred and get us on the same page thank you thank you board members I can certainly do that connections um very important and we have we have our chair um I want us to uh if there are no further comments this was for discussion uh we can move on to the legislative agenda which is item number five and um with that I pass they pass it on yeah I can kick us off on that um the Board of Education and our Durham delegation meet on a um every year before the session begins to kind of talk about what our priorities are as a school board and what kind of education issues as well as others that we'd like to see them move on for this year um Miss berer led a team of our board members and thinking about some items for this year how we'd want to organize the meeting that we have I think it's next Wednesday April 17th in the morning as well as

some priorities that we would have for the legislator uh I'll pass it over to Unis Spire thank you um just a gratitude for the small group that's working on this this is just a starting place um for our conversation tonight if you all have other edits there is a living document behind it that we would all be glad to to edit and incorporate um there's also it start the the draft legislative agenda starts on page three it's the third and fourth page of this handout there's also some suggested um kind of ideas framing our mission vision and core beliefs for for folks also maybe some suggested highlights or slides that we could see if staff might pull together in a brief kind of introductory kind of conversation for our delegation I know I will be out of town but I look forward to you all having a great conversation

so welcome any thoughts and I know that Miss Lewis and Miss Rogers do as well miss Rogers Lewis um thank you it was it has been a pleasure to work on the legislative agenda I think that um it takes us back to the reason we're here our advocacy for our students both in Durham and in North Carolina we started off this document rooting it in the mission and values of Durham Public Schools wanting to make sure that we are um keeping our delegation up to date with where we are on the things that we are so the specific asks that Miss buer looted to our workaround growing together and our strategic plan as we've updated those documents since we've last had um meetings with them to talk about the work that we're doing with school

utilization rates and um what we're trying to do to improve student outcomes and educator working conditions in Durham and what why we need their help um so that's where we started we'd like to get some information and updates from staff our requests [Laughter] are um a CP update um a short a really short growing together presentation for administ uh for the delegation um employee data by classification yep okay um with special attention to what we're doing for EC and ESL students um we have some examples if we need to send that too from what other districts have done and including that demographic

data um perhaps an update on Bloomberg Grant and our graduate ation data from 2023 and now the we're open to feedback but um our priorities include supporting um the needs of Derm students support diversity equity and inclusion increase funding for certified and classified staff and so each uh section has a bullet point has several bullet points um support student outcomes by investing in the whole child that privatization that undermines North Carolina public schools and Implement a funding plan to support growing together um and key points I think that need to we should highlight is increase funding and cert for certified and

classified staff we really want to restore funding for one to one instructional assistance in grades K through three and we want the state to do that um so all these are asks of the state we really want to protect you know our top priority is our diversity equity and inclusion in public schools and we want to get make sure that our legislators are supporting Educators as the experts in their fields to be able to uh select curriculum that reflects the communities and the diversity of our communities board member by um Lewis yes thank you for that overview um this is really gratifying work to do and get ready for this um meeting the one thing that I do remember that has been important to this Durham delegation as they when they've come is our truancy rates and what um resolutions are being had there so we can get that data point um to be shared as well um also as much

as they can support with the c updates that being federally funded um what can the state do to support some of the things that we know to be possible pitfalls uh or challenges with implementing a universal lunch such as equipment and how they could possibly support um those efforts and then the last thing um that I thought about today with the presentation around transportation and um doing in-house training if there that um request could be added as well thank you thank you board member Lewis um any other comments I do have a comment um I guess I'll go and well you ready okay board member Chavez I just want to say thank you I don't have I don't have things to add I think this is a great list um I like Miss Lewis's um additions and uh I think it it's you've zoomed in

on some of the things that if they were changed outcomes would be different and there's data to support that so um yeah so thank you all for working on this thank you and m r said CH R said yeah thank you'all for putting this together um I have one thought around um this is it probably needs some more research but just protecting school board's ability to be able to do do really great work and so I I don't know exactly what the policy language needs to be there but I think it's important that like the school boards are locally elected by their communities to do the duties that we are given and how do we make sure that we as a school board still have the ability um to do our really great work around curriculum around superintendent around funding all those different pieces that feels really important um and then in the the fifth

bullet y'all have Implement a funding plan to support growing together which I know is like I'm is D specific and larger picture okay I'm wondering if it's um if we just need to shift the language a little bit to support students in schools or I wor Smith it and think about it a little bit more but I think about the Statewide Capital bonds and the ways that we need the technology fees that we don't have right like there are ways that the state should be funding more opportunities um for our schools and that includes with house bills around class sizes funding those right so funding some of the current bills on the books to ensure that we can use State funding for expansion of classes for expansion of of teachers based on the legislation that currently exists so yeah we were trying to put a lot of things in different buckets per you're uh limiting us to five buckets um I just word Smith it to Implement a funding

plan to support students in schools as we grow together are you that that that sounds good um thank you for bringing this to us I um want to start with prek um in many other States including South Carolina they have like state-run prek programs um North Carolina has a version of that but when it comes to scaling it I I really appreciate you all including um funding for programmatic equity and accessibility um I want to shout out the work of Isa to do an actual report that provides um some of the barriers that families encounter and they talked about Transportation language access the screening process can be much better imagine doing screening over the phone versus in-person screenings we need capacity to have you know staff to actually give that Personal Touch um to be able to set uh our students our our our young students on the right track including screening for services that

they may qualify for I mean that is a very important touch point and um this is definitely something the state can can can do and I'm also interested in kind of seeing Federal programming around around this um federal grants that are about 3K um I I really want us as a district to participate but I also want to make sure like we continue to put this at the state level um with our delegation the other thing that I really appreciate also is acknowledging arbitrary caps and I think I'm a broken record on this but I love the fact that it's clear it's arbitrary this is not necessary um and to name that that it's it's the cap on um English language Learners and it's the cap for students with disabilities and we have always talked about the fact that they're not commensurate they don't even match our demographics um and even though there was a slight increase for students with disabilities it's still not meeting the

needs and so thank you for elevating that and our Derm delegation definitely I think um they can Champion removal of caps and then the other interesting uh there is a cap suggestion for Charter Schools um and that's reinstating that so it's to say we we we want to be able to give our students the services that we know our schools can provide um and I I just think for for including that and everything else that that um that is being included the the one that I'm also um one of you said it and it's about instructional assistance was it miss you Miss Lewis [Music] um Miss Rogers um instructional assistance so the state hasn't really been supportive they they limit the number of instructional assistance that we can have and so it's we've been kind of holding that at the local level thank you for elevating that you know we have to have all hands on deck certified

staff and instructional assistants are also part of the pipeline and I know that our HR department Dr Lin there's so many pipeline programs that we have going on in terms of instructional assistants who decide to go to nccu and do the ta ta teacher program some of them will go to the dream um program and get their M the mat program and so we we need to continue to support our instructional assist assistance um I do know that they have engaged us over time for years they have met with us and told us their wishes about salaries being able to in a 5e span get to $24 an hour right and and we think about that like incremental and some of the increases that we've talked about um to give our instructional assistance uh the kinds of of of of um remuneration or what do you call it re re in uh we want to be able to pay them and we do need that to restore that funding so that we have adequate support coming from State funds as well um so there

there's so much in here but thank you for lifting up diversity intersectionality um multilingualism uh Equity all all the things so I'm I'm just very honored wondering if there's any uh comments that you have superintendent more or a legislative agenda I think understanding that um we're talking about the second year of a BAL budget and they're historically we'll want to get in other quick so I think it's important to align on what you want to ask for um and what you want to propose or have your delegation focus on um and then you know I also think that if there is conversation that the delegation has or that you as a board have with other boards perhaps for review view around what those legislative priorities are sometimes um a collective type of a request or need

is is also a helpful thing if they can if the legislature see that it's coming from multiple districts thank you um word chair Umstead like talking a lot tonight but I do have a [Music] question there was specific policy around increasing supplements for districts that left out Durham and I think I would name that's explicitly in our our legislative agenda right um to the point of all the other conversations today around really it's the state's responsibility and so we need a supplement increase from our state and so I think I would name explicitly maybe pulling the language from that that bill and put that here and to remember what they called that except attack blue counties is that what it was no um we'll we'll figure it that's I can do some looking for you can figure it out uh board member

card um uh first I'd like to thank my colleagues for working on this I know this is a lot of work and this is an amazing um uh amazing set of needs that you've laid out here that all resonate I love all of the ones that my colleague board member byad has lifted up were ones that I was going to mention I will not repeat repeat them again so this all just feels really powerful but I did want to follow up on what um inter superintendent Moore was saying to see if I'm understanding correctly because it makes sense to me that like should we be doing more work to focus our ask like this is all really important really powerful but is it uh what is this saying if we focus on everything we focus on nothing like do we need to make a more targeted ask and do we need to partner with our um neighboring or aligned districts on some of these to make the asks more powerful um I don't

know what others thoughts are on those or so I will say a lot of these align with Chapel Hill carbar and Wake County we did pay attention to the work they're doing because we also want to take some of these requests to the NC School Board Association um legislative ask as well so we did some of that work if there are others that you w to add in please feel free to share that's helpful to know just wondering as we think about this moving forward if we can like come together and say like these boards are asking together for these specific things with our delegates that's a good point um I I will just also lift up Community advocacy uh that has happened around you know language access around inclusivity especially with students with disabilities that we have um broad uh engagement um and coalitions that can also jump in and you

know um take that to the state and so we're really grateful for Advocates um grateful for all levels of um advocacy and um the NC Justice Center also comes to mind as well in term some of the work that they also do so I think you know we we can definitely continue to plug in and and connect all the dots in terms of people who care about this but um this is great work I'm wondering if there's any other comments before we move to the next item I think we can uh if this is AD meable to the board leave this as a draft present it next week to our delegation and then maybe vote on it on the 25th and send a final copy if we have any additional thoughts just so other people public other folks can engage with it and we can make sure we send over the final copy to the stff sounds good thank you thank you for bringing this to us okay so our next item now that we've done item number five um is yeah we're going to go into

close session so I'll entertain a motion I move to move into closed session for the reason stated on the agenda second it's been properly moved in seconded by Miss Cardon and um board member Cardon board member buyer and we are going into close session thank you uh vote well we're going to vote all in favor say I I any opposed all right thank you passes unanimously and we're going to close session

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now we're back in Open Session and uh I'm going to pass it to superintendent inter superintendent cat Moore thank you um I'd like to request the motion to approve the HR appointments as discussed and closed move approval of the Personnel report dated April 11 2024 second by board member Byer and ment Rogers all in favor I hi any opposed passes unanimously and board one more we had added one additional item at the beginning of the meeting to have the point of contact person for the alma Advisory Group and just want to make sure that we could take care of that before we left today was there I know I think any recommendations I know the chair and the vice chair have the ability to serve as those point of contact folks that sound okay for everyone you need a motion for that think so we don't need a motion for that that right I I see head nods the public

man have able to see that there are head nods happening thank you all I just want to make sure we cover that additional agenda item I'll take a motion to adjourn so moved second all right all in favor I all right uh any opposed passes unanimously and with thank you