Board of Education · Work Session · February 6, 2025

good evening everyone Welcome to our meeting um our dur Public Schools work session um is now in session and at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is joining us this evening the purpose of this meeting is to inform our parents staff and constituents about the work work aligned with our mission to embrace educate and Empower every student to innovate serve and lead the interpreters for tonight are Martha Romo Giles and Vanessa Peña Ramirez thank you for taking the time to join us at this time I will pass it to our chair U Miss Rogers good evening everyone uh in honor of Black History Month I'd like to take a point of personal privilege um to acknowledge Black

History Month I wanted to share a quote from George Washington Carver a farmer a scientist an inventor and an educator how far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young compassionate with the Aged sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong because someday in your life you will have been all of these the work of so many school districts seems like a common phenomenon but the work in durm is extraordinary and with that comes critique in response to similar public criticism George Washington Carver was faced his reply was when you do common things in life in an uncommon way you will command the attention of the world so let's remember that here in Durham Public Schools we are are doing things in an uncommon way thank you chair

Rogers the next item on our agenda is a moment of silence at this time I invite us to reflect on the circumstances of those affected by violence threats of violence and loss of resources here and around the world as well as our power and agency to continue to build connection Community um support and vision for our children's Futures thank you the next item on our agenda is agenda review and approval Madam chair I would ask that we move item 3A the resolution for Dr E Leonia Allison to above general public comment just after the Board of Education meeting minutes second okay it's been um moved to move

um uh the resolution for Dr E Leonia Allison um to under or above public comment and been seconded by Mr tab is there any further discussion all those in favor say I I I and it passes unanimously so the next item on um and then we need to approve the rest of the agenda move approval of the agenda as amended second thank you the uh amended um agenda has been moved um by Miss berer and seconded by Mr tab is there any further discussion all right all those in favor say I I I all those opposed use this same sign it passes unanimously and the next item on our agenda is the Board of Education meeting minutes from January 9th

2025 move approval of the minutes from January 9th 2025 second okay the meeting minutes have been um there's been a motion by Miss buer seconded by Mr tab is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I I any oppos use the same sign it passes unanimously and with that we will move to our resolution for Dr E Leonia Allison and I will pass it pass it to board member tab thank you very much board member Chavez um it is such a honor to be able to recognize such a Durham Legend a Durham icon uh who spent a lot of her time working here within Durham Public Schools helping out children being an advocate for all children I got a chance to know Dr Allison when I first came to Durham uh and started doing my student teaching at

Hillside High School in 1984 and that's how long I've known her since 1984 and she was very instrumental instrumental in me taking the full-time job in 1987 with the a lot of Demands and stipulations of how things should should should go and I'm just so honored to have to have known her for as long as I have it is my pleasure to bring to the podium in recognition also of black history month and the resolution for Dr Allison attorney chair Floyd mckiss who will give some background for her as being chair of the Durham committee on Affairs of black people uh thank you chair Rogers members of the school board Mr superintendent it's a real privilege and honor to be with you this evening on this splended occasion where we're recognizing The Life and Times the work of Dr leavon Allison uh

she's somebody who virtually everybody in Durham knew and I knew her from the time I was my gosh about sixth or eighth grade in fact it goes back to the time when this building was actually a school building and a voting Precinct was operating in the basement of this building known as the Fuller School Precinct and I can remember being out there on Election Day with a little tally where you would sit there and mark down how many people were coming you go one two 3 four and you'd strike it with the fifth person and you'd see how many people were turning out to vote even back in that day that time in that era Dr Alison was visible Dr Allison was moving around Durham Dr Allison was trying to make sure that progress in Durham was being made by electing the kind of leadership that we needed not just here in this community but across the state of North Carolina she was a champion when it came to education she was somebody who would was in the Forefront years ago and

supporting the merg of the Durham School Systems Durham city school system and the Durham County School System understanding that was in the best interest of this community in terms of providing access equal access to the opportunities for every student in this community to achieve their greatest potential she was somebody who didn't mind standing up and speaking out forcefully aggressively assertively for those things she believed in if she felt that suspensions weren't right in Durham County Schools she was going to come down here and let you know and suggest what need to be done to address that issue and she felt that integrate testing was not the appropriate thing to do and there were better mechanisms and tools and resources that were available she was going to come down here and let you know what her thoughts were about IND School testing or in grade testing I should say she was somebody who did not hesitate to say that when it comes to this community we want to make sure that African-American students get the same

access as all other students he was concerned about disparities and performance when it comes to education she was forceful and aggressive if I think back now when she chaired that education committee for the Durham committee there was nobody with more courage nobody who did their homework more person who never missed the school board meeting she was going to be here watching and observing like a hawk everything that you did and if you didn't do something right she was going to let you know and she wanted to make sure that you voted right and voted the right way on issues and her that meant voting the right way cuz she told you to but that was Dr Allison he was somebody we all loved somebody who we all respected somebody who not only impacted education here in Durham but across the state of North Carolina and somebody who was known in Washington's in the hallways of Congress where she

got up there and let everybody know where she stood not just on education issues but issues related to voting rights issues that dealt with civil rights a whole range of issues that she was passionate about so with this beginning of Black History Month and thinking back about her contributions here in Durham I thank you I commend you and I appreciate the fact that you are recognizing her for her contributions for her Legacy but more importantly for the very high standard that she has set that we should all aspire to if we want to do just an a little bit of what she did in contributing to this community thank you so very much thank you chair Floyd mckiss thank you so very much we'll Now call to the podium her son Dr Vincent Allison if you come to the P we'll Now read the resolution ENT

record resolution of the Durham Board of Education honoring The Life and Legacy of Dr E Leonia Allison whereas Dr e Leonia Ingram Allison a Fearless advocate for civil rights education and Community empowerment dedicated her life to ensuring Justice and equality for all with an unwavering concern for marginalized communities and whereas born and raised in Durham in Durham's historic haah Community salutatorian of her class she excelled academically at the historic Hillside High School before earning her Bachelor's of Science and physical education from Hampton University and her master of arts in health and physical education and doctorate in higher education Administration from New York University using her wisdom to uplift future generations and whereas Dr Allison was a tireless Champion for Durham Public Schools relentlessly advocating for educational equity and the fair treatment of all

students and whereas she was a staunch supporter of the Performing Arts at Hillside High School advoca for the construction of a larger band Suite to properly accommodate the size and Legacy of the renowned Hill Hillside band ensuring students had the space and resources necessary to uphold its tradition of excellence and whereas as a dedicated educator for historically black colleges and universities HBCU she mentored and empowered countless students fostering academic excellence and Leadership among young African-Americans and and whereas Dr Allison's leadership as chair of the Durham committee on the Affairs of black people for 14 years strengthened African-American political representation ensuring that elected officials were accountable to the community and whereas she was passionate about educating high school students on entrepreneurship equipping them with the

Knowledge and Skills to start their own businesses and ensuring they understood the legacy of Durham's black back Wall Street so they could carry it forward for future gener generations and whereas she was a staunch defender of voting rights leading voter registration efforts mentoring political leaders and playing a key role in establishing a voting Precinct in North Carolina Central University to ensure student access to the ballot and whereas Dr Allison was a bold and fearless voice in shaping public policy serving as first vice chair of the Durham County Democrat party and Advising local and state leaders on issues of racial equity and Justice and whereas her contributions were recognized and celebrated by those who praised her lifelong dedication to Justice and equality and whereas Dr Allison remained a mentor Advocate and force for change attending regularly

Durham school board meetings advising younger activists and ensuring that the fight for justice continued Beyond her own Lifetime and whereas on January 7th 2025 at the age of 94 Dr Allison's passing was a profound loss for the city of Durham and the nation her enduring Legacy of Courage service and advocacy remains a guiding force inspiring future Generations now therefore be it resolved that we the Durham Public Schools Board of Education honor the extraordinary Life and Legacy of Dr E Leonia Allison recognizing her unwavering commitment to Education civil rights and social justice and expressed our deepest gratitude for her her immeasurable contributions to Durham and Beyond be it further resolved that this resolution be presented as a lasting Testament to her impact ensuring that

her work wisdom and vision remain an enduring inspiration for the future dur Public School Scholars and leaders adopted this day Thursday February 6th 2025 I love oh do we want a motion I make a motion that we adopt the resolution for Dr E lonia Allison to record a second he option of the resolution has been um has been moved by Mr Tab and seconded by Miss Umstead is there any further discussion just want to add um when I was appointed to this board Dr Allison sat right over here in this corner and she called me over and said uh asked me a lot of questions ask me what kind of education I had but the last one was what are you going to do for black children and so every time I come into this room I think about her asking me

what are you going to do for black children uh you're right she'll call you and she'll tell you what she thinks and it's going to ask you some really tough questions and I appreciate her and all she's done for this community and the leadership she's shown um and the reminder for me to make sure we're thinking about what we're going to do for children and black children in particular so thank y'all at this time we'll have final remarks from her son Dr can we we'll take the vote let's oh is there any further discussion on the vote on the motion rather all okay all those in favor say I I I all those opposed say use the same sign it passes unanimously and with that I'll pass it back to Mr tab thank you so very much at this time we'll have any words from her son Dr Vincent Allison I'm I'm gonna be very brief because um a lot has been said and and you've already um really expressed how I feel about my mother I want to thank the board um on on the

resolution on behalf of my sister who can be here tonight Karen Michelle Allison Davis for her leavon Al or Dr Allison number one which she used to always say after I got my degree she was always number one I happen to be Dr Alison number two couldn't help it but anyway on her four grand children Christopher bran CI and Melissa uh we want to thank you so much in entire anyone thank you so much you know when I first up here I saw the timer clock and that's I'm not sure if you saw me chuckle but that's what brought back memories because my mother when she was at these meetings she didn't she didn't look at that clock and and invariably I would get a phone call you better turn on the community Channel your mom's having a day and I call said okay she speaking truth to power that's her job um so hopefully her Legacy will live on hopefully we can carry the torch you know my mother never did anything for

accolades honors or a Wars she truly loved this city and she truly L loved this community and she truly felt that Justice was deserved by everyone so hopefully we can move forward keep her Legacy alive and keep doing things so we Elevate the community of Durham and Elevate our children in Durham public schools and throughout the nation so thank you again I appreciate it so much and I want to also Floyd want to thank you for those generous comments that you made um uh you know you y'all went back and forth a lot but uh and you know we all respected each other but we can all speak the truth to each other and I just want to make sure that we continue that that we can have good dialogue so we work for the betterment of this community the betterment of our children thank you so much I appreciate it thank you that was an inspiring way to start the meeting and we will we will

really um uh try to feel Dr Allison's Spirit as we continue on tonight um thank you so much for joining us Mr mckisic and um Dr Allison all right um and Miss Byer yeah just a moment to especially thank Mr tab for his leadership and drafting this resolution and um bringing this forward to us this evening thank you so much Mr tab absolutely all right so now we will move to our general public comment and I will read the public comment rules quick review of the rules please state your name if speaking for an organization please state your name and the name of the organization second speakers are asked to present their comments in two minutes when the yellow light comes on you have 30 you have one 30 seconds left to start winding up your remarks when the red light comes on it will beep which indicates your time is up complaints

about Nam 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 the operation of the school system and finally the board members will listen carefully and consider the comments but we do not engage in discussion with speakers and with that um I will call our first person Chad helli of course please pardon me if I mispronounce your name hi my name is Chad hafley I'm here as a parent of students at Hope Valley Elementary and Rogers her Middle School um hi it's me again I came to your last two meetings to ask you not to implement express bus stops for Rogers her and other schools in December you approved Express busing for some schools in the 25 26 school year it's now February and this year's magnet Lottery period has come and gone there's still no information about how an Express model will work July will be here before we

know it families need and deserve a concrete draft plan to react to the transportation update slides on tonight's agenda don't even mention the express plan my number one request is that you not Implement Express stops at all it decreases equity and access eliminates major reasons that families use school buses and generally makes it harder for students to get to and from school responses to your community survey about the idea were almost universally against it but if you ignore this and go with Express stops anyway tonight I'm asking you direct questions I know you can't resp to me here so I'll email them to you as well these need to be addressed publicly and immediately where will the stops be what times will they operate what are the expectations of parents at pickup and drop off what will DPS do to minimize the impact of express service on equity and access and how are families with two working parents supposed to get their kids home this is all basic information that we should have had weeks ago when the magnet Lottery was still open without it families couldn't make informed choices if you can't answer these basic logistical questions by now you shouldn't use the system at all

implementing the express stops is the wrong choice it's a permanent solution to a temporary driver shortage don't throw away the benefits from the growing together changes don't go into this without seriously evaluating the impact I acknowledge the world is a lot right now there's a lot of crises there's a ton of fires to address but please talk to families involve Us in the planning process don't forget that you made this decision come July thank you thank you our next speaker is Rachel Owens good evening and I want to say a happy belated School Board appreciation month I missed it last month so have you belated um my name is Rachel Owens and I teach science at Northern High School I am also a member of DPSS energy advisory Council I'm here with a group of students from across our district along with students from Duke University I will let them convey the bulk of our message this evening but I just wanted to say how proud I am to be a part of

this group of student Advocates activists and leaders I am here tonight to remind you that we are here to help we are here to assist DPS staff in fulfilling a promise that you made in 2021 to move us toward a cleaner Greener Future Part of That promise and stated in your resolution is the goal of formulating a road map to this future in the form of a climate action plan you have staff at the ready that are willing able and have experience in this fairy task and we've even come bearing gifts our student leaders have provided you with drafts of a plan ready to go please hear them tonight they are working hard to ensure that their future is safe and secure as we know you are as well we appreciate good intentions but what we need is action a climate action plan thank you our next speaker is Owen Ambrose

good evening my name is Owen Ambrose and I'm a junior at DSA my peers and I are all speaking on behalf of the sunrise movement first of all we would like to thank those of you who attended our visioning session in December last week you all should have received an email with resolutions that we wrote with input from our community if passed these resolutions would make Durham Public Schools one of six districts Across the Nation to pass Green New Deal policy and would make us a national leader in sustainability the speeches you are about to hear from my peers and fellow members of the community will address eight of the items proposed in our resolution all of which aim to prepare for and mitigate the consequences of our ongoing climate crisis we hope to work with each of you to ensure the passage of these resolutions thank you oh sorry I I didn't say that into the mic thank you and our next speaker is on Bueno right hi good evening I want to thank each of you for taking the time to

meet with us this afternoon my name is Andrea Bueno and I'm also a junior at Durham School of the Arts uh but tonight I speak to you as an officer of dsa's National Honor Society and a representative of our student body not too long ago I had the opportunity of visiting the new Northern High School it's a lovely building um and as I looked around I just got to imagine what the new DSA building would look like I've seen tiles fall from the roofs cracks expand on the walls and faculty succumb toic building syndrome so I'm sure you can imagine my excitement at picturing the facility that future students will have access to in this new project but as I looked into that project uh one thing really stood out to me and that was the lack of Provisions for clean energy um we were made a promise of 8 % clean and renewable energy by 2035 and 100% by 2050 yet the new building doesn't seem to really include Provisions that work

towards that goal so we're here to ask that the school board cease construction of new projects until they're able to implement programs specifically clean and renewable energy that will work towards that 80% goal we understand understand that these are not simple asks they take time money energy and planning but we hope that you will look past the words what we're asking for and really appreciate the opportunity we have to leave an impact in something much larger than any of us here so thank you again for your time thank you our next speaker is Aiden Mendoza good good evening my name is aidah Mendoza and I'm a junior at durm School of the Arts the greenhouse gas protocol has defined carbon emissions using subset definitions known as scope one two and three emissions what we

think about when we think of these emissions and carbon footprint usually just clean renewable energy only cover scope one in order for the durh PB schools to become a green School District we also need to um reduce scope to emissions indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy such as energy sourcing from Duke Energy and scope 3 emissions all other indirect emissions that occur in the company's value chain such as item purchasing and sourcing I know this seems like a lot and trust me it is the elimination of emissions at all levels is a daunting task and that would require drastic systematic change however that doesn't mean we cannot stop cannot start the process small steps now can help eliminate an unable issue in the future which is why we propose a complete I we propose a complete a comprehensive environmental assessment of all district facilities and operations to quantify during Public School scope one two and three emissions and the risk that the climate crisis

13 million people die per year because we don't utilize technologies that we already have hearing scientific statistics is one thing and hearing about lost lives is another I wonder how many disasters will it take before we act how many lives need to be lost before we act how many

times are we going to let this pass before we act I'm not alone in this opinion the sunrise Hub at DSA has been asking the same question they have been acting attempting to make a difference this Tuesday 45 students at Riverside High School agreed and pledged to act we started our own Hub another group Committed to acting next I need you to act we refuse to sit idle and I believe that we can make a difference I believe we don't have to sit here watching people suffer I believe we can act and I believe in this resolution I believe that the school board's action will help I believe in this step and because of that I believe that the school board must create a plan to achieve 100% clean energy by 2030 and 100% carbon neutrality by 2040 districtwide without the purchase of carbon credits or offsets within 18 months excuse me of the passage of this resolution please

act thank you thank you our next speaker is Elena Blackwelder evening um my name is Elena Blackwelder and I am a teacher at DSA and I also supervise the sunrise Hub there um and it's easy to dismiss climate change as something that will become a problem in 20 years or to say that wildfires don't happen here floods aren't really that bad here or we don't really get bad hurricanes in this area but that last one is what people living in Asheville North Carolina said before September of last year Asheville was considered a safe haven for climate change because of its unique position in the mountains but on September 27th 2024 hurricane Helen devastated Western North Carolina with floods washing away whole towns destroying roads and killing more

than a 100 people climate change is causing more natural disasters at higher intensities and in different places Durham could experience a climate disaster like Helen and we would not be prepared Duran Public Schools currently does not have a climate disaster plan in the case of an unexpected natural disaster our schools should be equipped to distribute resources such as first aid clean drinking water warming and cooling centers and electricity that is why we ask DPS to work with local and state governments nonprofit organizations Business Leaders students teachers and parents to create a comprehensive districtwide climate disaster plan Within 18 months of the passage of this resolution which establishes steps to mitigate the risks of the climate crisis that the current climate crisis poses to our school system and in the event of a climate disaster use schools as centers for Community response and relief thank you thank

you our next speaker is Kayla cabera good evening my name is Kayla cabera and I am the student body president of Durham School of the Arts as the climate crisis becomes increasingly prevalent for our futures we need students to be educated on how to best combat the issue encouraged to advocate for environmental justice and prepared to enter careers that help mitigate the effects of climate change I have learned from a curriculum with a focus on climate change and even then I was only gaining a surface level understanding of the truly detrimental state of our world and the continuous systematic climate oppression from our governments and Corruptions that they intentionally attempt to hide not only this but climate change is rarely discussed outside our science classrooms despite its prevalence in other subjects as it embodies societal issues like systematic

racism and economic inequality the poor climate actions of past Generations leave this crisis and the responsibility to solve it in our hands but we can't begin this fight if we aren't provided the necessary education and resources and it is your responsibility as leaders in education to Pro to provide them we need the school board to establish a committee inclusive of students teachers and local climate experts to write place-based standards incorporating climate literacy into curricula across all grade levels and subjects audit all science textbooks for inaccuracies and inadequacies relating to the reality CA causes severity and solutions to anthropogenic global climate change and study opportunities for high quality professional development for all district faculty relating to climate literacy this committee will provide a proposal on implementing these standards to the board within two years of the passage of this resolution thank you

thank you our next speaker is Sarah O'Brien hi my name is Sarah O'Brien I live in Durham and I have two children at Durham Public School System um I work in the field of transportation and uh specifically bicycle and pedestrian planning engineering and safety and in the 20 plus years I've been in this work I've seen more and more agencies seek out planners and Engineers with experience specifically in bicycle and pedestrian Transportation as local state uh local and state governments create full-time positions to address the unique needs of these modes positions that largely did not exist 30 to 40 years ago this is just one example of the types of jobs that are likely to continue to be in demand as our country shifts away from a car Centric culture which is just one strategy to address climate change and its devastating impacts within the transportation sector

alone Duran Public Schools needs to provide students with the resources to find jobs that are based on combating climate crisis especially in those fields that become more in demand our children need to be prepared to take on the challenges that my and previous generations are passing onto them to solve DPS needs to engage with and listen to what employers are saying they need from perspective employees to build a competitive Workforce therefore please support sunrise's resolution to partner with local and state governments businesses nonprofit organizations unions and trade technical schools to expand Pathways to well-paying jobs combating the climate crisis in Career Technical offerings DPS must rise to meet these needs to ensure this generation is well equipped to battle the climate crisis thank you our next speaker is Eloise

edar sorry Eloise hi my name is Eloise and I'm a student at Riverside High School which recently started Ed a club following dsa's footsteps um of the sunrise movement um as stated in the proposed resolution the climate crisis is increasing the cost of food disrupting hourly and seasonal employment unemployment oh yeah employment and increasing unemployment overall which will sorry which will exacerbate childhood food insecurity especially among low-income families and communities of color as the climate crisis works it becomes increasingly crucial for the DPS system to step in we are so grateful that the kids in DPS are now offered free breakfast and lunch but our work cannot stop there we must ensure that this policy remains implemented despite setbacks we must strive to improve the quality and sourcing of our meals and we must do so for the sake of increasing nutritional value and decreasing scope to emissions this is why as the seventh action item listed in the green New Deal for Durham

Public Schools we ask TPS to continue to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students within three years of the passage of this resolution adopt a plan to provide local sourced and sustainably grown breakfast and lunches to all students we know our demands are steep but they demands because they are necessary thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Sarah Rodriguez hi my name is Sarah Rodriguez and I'm one of the leaders of the DSA Sunrise Hub in the current Duram public school's strategic plan for 2023 to 2028 these five items are listed as priorities for goal oriented improvements fostering academic Excellence recruiting supporting and retaining exemplary staff providing a safe and healthy school environment that supports the whole child cultivating meaningful and authentic Community engagement and conducting business administrative and operational functions

responsibly and equitably we believe that these ideals directly align with the ideals and proposition positions of a green New Deal for schools responsible operations function responsible operational functions include the redu reduction of scope one two and three emissions part of providing a safe and healthy school environment is ensuring the cleanliness of buildings and the nutritious value of meals part of retaining staff is a similar promise ensuring that their place of work is safe and secure part of cultivating Community engagement is connecting students to Green jobs in their community and part of promoting the academic Excellence of our students is ensuring that they are well-versed in the dangers of the climate crisis and equipped with strategies and practices to face them some of the current goals in the Strategic plan lean towards these green initiatives but we need more we are aware that amending the Strategic plan is a tedious process and most of our demands are not appropriate for a plan only spanning over the next 3 years this is why we resolve that Durham

Public Schools should start by incorporating climate change mitigation adaptation and Disaster Response in the annual superintendent evaluation beginning this year with the larger aim of implementing such goals into the 2029 2034 DPS strategic plan we believe that we are working with the same purpose to fight for a safe and bright future for DPS students and we believe that in the face of the climate crisis one of the largest issues Humanity has ever faced a green New Deal is necessary for that promise for such Futures thank you you thank you our next speaker is Lucia Harrington hello my name is Lucia Harrington I'm a junior at DSA and a member of the sunrise movement um thank you for all you do for our schools and

thank you for listening to my peers and fellow community members um um students in our school district are calling on this school board to take climate action we need to transition to renewable energy we need a climate mitigation plan we need to teach students about the climate crisis and prepare them for future careers before the next hurricane hits before the LA fires become our own before heat waves Force children inside for the summer permanently before snow days lose their magic and instead become something to fear we have four years left to reduce emissions before higher global temperatures make the worst climate impacts inevitable we know it will be difficult but a green New Deal for schools would be Monumental for DPS we appreciate good intentions but what we need is action a climate action plan a green deal for schools thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Charlotte perlam

hi I'm Charlotte kurlin and I lead a team at Duke University's Climate Coalition focused on expanding renewable energy initiatives specifically solar energy in North Carolina I want to thank you for your time and for your ongoing commitment to a sustainable future for Durham Public Schools when I spoke to you last we discussed the importance of creating a climate action plan that integrates renewable energy across the district since then I've been inspired by the continued passion from students Educators and community members alike but as we know we need more than passion we need action I look forward to having open conversations about a realistic route of implementation for a climate action plan this is an opportunity to in integrate clean energy into our schools reduce our carbon footprint and most importantly provide our students with Hands-On learning experiences that will shape them into the climate Leaders of Tomorrow at the Duke Climate Coalition we are committed to helping make this Vision a reality I stand here tonight to reiterate that we are ready to assist with res Arch analyzing economic benefits and navigating the logistics of

implementing a districtwide renewable energy program this work is not just about energy it's about the future we want to create together for Durham and the generations that will follow mine we appreciate good intentions but what what but what we need is action a climate action plan I'm excited to see the progress that we can make together thank you thank you our next speaker is fiser malan hello I am fiser Malin I am also a student at Duke University with the Duke Climate Coalition I want to first start off by saying another belated School Board appreciation uh month and I am speaking to encourage Durham Public Schools to implement and execute an action plan to achieve the renewable energy targets that is called for in the 2021 clean energy resolution and a lot of the

students who have spoken so far have already done an excellent job highlighting why this work is important why climate change is scary and why it's real and why it's happening right now so I wanted to highlight a few reasons why this work is particularly feasible and I think that the the case for this is clear to start the commitment is already in place with the 2021 clean energy resolution energy managers have already been hired and they have technical expertise to do this kind of work the financials are compelling this is fortunately an area where Improvement can pay for itself and does pay for itself so by prioritizing renewable resources and Energy Efficiency we can improve student health minimize greenhouse gas emissions all while saving money and then there are resources to support this work there is money from federal and state governments nonprofits and the private sector to fund a lot of this renewable energy and

Energy Efficiency work and finally there is an eager Coalition of students and staff and teachers that would be happy to provide support and work in collaboration to make progress on making a plan to achieve those renewable energy targets therefore I hope we can be in conversation about how to work together and make this happen and as always we appreciate good intentions but what we need is action a climate action plan thank you very much for your time thank you our next speaker is christe Clen hello I'm Christy Clen physical therapist um member of Dae and uh I sent the board in several administrators an email over the weekend asking things I've asked in public comment would like to find out if Legacy pay can legally be removed from classified paychecks not if you want to but are you allowed to

8 for classified was actually spent and we would like a list of positions what the previous pay grades were called compared to what they are now so we can continue to look at specific numbers to see what is happening um Miss berer wrote me that she's confident administrator will answer my email she has way more confidence than I do because historically my emails go unanswered um Mr Teter said uh last board meeting that he would be willing to look at uh pay scales going forward if that's something that he is asked to do by the board and administration I would love to have a commitment that that is going to happen um you know the last two years I believe the state has mandated a 4% and a 3% raise for classified so at the very least if you throw out the hill study at the very least it seems like classified folks

should have a 7% raise but yet when we look at current Pace scales that's not the case for my grade otpt the max rate now is 8% less than it was in 2223 the state is say we should get a 7% for two years um over the last two years and we're now down minus 8 I don't understand that math um also DPS needs meet and confer a real meet and confer notada let's invite anybody that wants to come but one that has a majority representation in that um I think you'all gotten a letter from multiple attorneys that that is legal am I out of two minutes thank you okay our next speaker is Dr Jennifer Girish

hello Hi how are you I'm no stranger to the board my name is Jennifer geish I'm a behavioral scientist and Health Systems researcher I'm here though in the capacity of the durm advocates for exceptional children uh committee on suspension um we're so excited that a strategic priority to be is on the agenda we're eager to hear the update tonight um I have four and a half pages of things that I wanted to say to you all I've also emailed it uh my my co-chair also emailed all those to you there's some really great questions that we hope that you ask tonight um especially about the way the data are represented and the plan solutions that are there and potentially how we can use data better to to Target solutions by our self-proclaimed data geek of a superintendent uh Dr Lewis who we've had the opportunity to collaborate deeply with and we're so very very thankful and grateful for the time that you've given us um I wanted to start with saying that public schools are the only place where students with disabilities are guaranteed full and equal access to

education in fact we want to recognize that here particularly inlight of the forces that are pushing against ending Public School let's all be clear there are forces trying to push to end Public School my children and other people's children with disabilities will have no place to get a proper education if this happens however we need to do our part right now to protect the children that we have in school to make sure that their butts are in the school system we so appreciate you adding students with disabilities to Priority 2B we need to do more the data you see we show you we went from number two overall suspended group to woohoo the most suspended group in the data that they're going to show you tonight that's super not cool and nothing for us to be proud of and also as I've brought up to you multiple people in this group I'm not so sure I believe those data um I'm not so sure that we're tracking it as effectively as we could and I know you can talk to many

thank thank you thank you thank you thank you for the information and for sending it to us um we had someone else sign up named Sarah O'Brien But as Sarah O'Brien spoke is that a different Sarah [Music] O'Brien oh okay all right in that case that concludes our public comment and the next item is our consent items just let me say thank you to everyone who spoke and we love to hear from our students really means a lot all right consent items move approval of the consent agenda items a through e second all right it's been moved by Miss carteron seconded by Miss berer is there

any other discussion all those in favor say I I I any oppos use the same sign it passes unanimously and now we will move to academic services and begin um with a CTE Proclamation so I will hand it to Mr Harris good evening board chair Rogers members of the board superintendent Lewis District leaders and Community stakeholders today's Cutting Edge rigorous and relevant CTE program prepares youth for high wage high skill and high demand careers an established and emerging Industries CTE month is a public awareness campaign sponsored by the Association for Career and Technical education that takes place each February to celebrate the value of CTE and the

achievements and accomplishments of CTE programs across the country throughout the month of February our CT program will celebrate and promote the CT programs in our schools and potential careers in Durham and across the us over the last year we've done some exciting work in CTE we welcomed all eighth graders to our second accelerate career event where middle school students engage with employers to see what career options are available here in Durham County we started the process of redesigning how middle school students engage with the CT content with the implementation of our career and college ready labs and we increase the number of students participating in work-based learning experiences throughout our different programs I want to thank our CT Educators and support staff for the tremendous work they are doing to provide career opportunities for the students in dur public schools and tonight the CT department is excited to put before you a proclamation declaring February 1st through the 28th 2025 CTE month in dur Public Schools I want to personally thank you on behalf of our teachers and staff for your continued

support of CTE and our schools and at this time I invite you to read the proclamation aloud thank you very much Mr Harris and I will invite Mr tab to start and we'll go down the line here to read the proclamation where's February the first through the 28th 2025 has been designated as Career and Technical Education Month by the Association for Career and Technical education and whereas Career and Technical education offers students the opportunity to gain the academic Technical and employability skills necessary for True career Readiness and whereas students in Career and Technical education programs participate in authentic meaningful meaningful experiences that improve the

quality of their education and increase their engagement and achievement and whereas Career and Technical education provides students with career exploration opportunities earlier in their educational experience which enables them to make informed and beneficial decisions about their academic coursework and pursue established programs of study and career Pathways and whereas leaders from business and industry Nationwide report increasing challenges is related to addressing the skills Gap and connecting qualified professionals with available careers and critical and growing CTE related fields including Health Care energy skill trades Advanced manufacturing cyber security and information technology and whereas Career and Technical education prepare students for these and other fulfilling careers by offering integrated programs of study that link secondary and postsecondary education

and and lead to the entainment of Industry recognized credentials and where's Career and Technical education programs ensure that employers have access to a qualified and thriving Workforce ensuring America is a strong and competitive economy therefore be it resolved that the Durham Public Schools board of education does hereby Proclaim February 1st through 28th 2025 as Career and Technical Education Month and urge all students and families to become familiar with the services and benefits offered by the Career and Technical education programs in Durham public schools and to support and participate in these programs to enhance their individual skills and productivity signed signed the sixth day of February 2025 thank you board colleagues at this time I will accept a motion move approval of the Proclamation

for Career and Technical Education Month second thank you the um approval of the Proclamation has been moved by Miss buer seconded by Mr tab is there any other discussion all those in favor say I I I I all those um opposed use the same sign all right and with that the proclamation is approved thank you very much Mr Harris Dr Pitman thank you all right and our next item is our strategic plan priority number two and I will pass it to Dr Pitman thank you and good evening board members superintendent Lewis um members of our community this evening we are pleased to provide an update on the Strategic plan priority number two from provide a safe and healthy school environment that

supports the whole child I would like to acknowledge my colleague Dr Tanya Giovani our Deputy superintendent of administrative legal and compliance Services who co-chairs the priority leadership with me on the next slide please this is a just a quick refresher of our mission our vision and our core beliefs around educating empowering and um embracing every student to innovate serve and Lead as well as our vision to ignite the Limitless potential and our core beliefs for all children tonight throughout our presentation of priority 2 you will hear evidences woven throughout that lift up all of these next slide please so tonight is about priority 2 the second of five and before we begin we want to do a little bit of a refresher on where we ended last year and there's a new long launch of a document called The Benchmark summary quick reference on our

next slide and this summarizes where we were at the conclusion of our first year next slide please there we go where we were last year this data has been shared with the board but this is a a more at a glance and in-depth look at priority to what I'd like to do is talk briefly through each one just to dust off our cobwebs before we jump into the actual update from our strategic plan goal leads so as you can see priority 2 has four goals and what's going to be interesting about this goal one although on one single line really has three goals metrics embedded within it it speaks to the goal from last year 2324 to spend time developing measures of fidelity and measures of Fidelity in two areas one around our cultural Frameworks and the second around our social emotional curriculum so last year this goal team

spent time developing those measures of fidelity and for the next four years they'll be implementing those measures against the uh curriculum and the so and the cultural Frameworks so you will see a metric now lifted up at 88% which is their Baseline this year that 88% of schools this year at least will have measures of fidelity with their implementation and each of those two areas and then over the L the course of the next four years will'll reach 100% for goal 2B the percent of black students students with disabilities and Hispanic students over the next four years would be 5% or lower just want to remind the board that in September of this year of 2024 you approved into this goal metric the students with disability suspension rate so we won't see a data point Benchmark that had been reported last year but will be going forward just

2 and was met and then for gold 2D this one is a little bit complicated it has four data points within the one box and it speaks to two surveys one we're going to be looking at participation rates in each of those two surveys and the survey would be the student climate survey which is administered to grades 5 S and 11 and the other is our our Panorama seal or social emotional learning survey again seeking 95%

7% of our

students responded to that and so we look again to our social emotional survey where overall students feel that they belong at their school and we had set a benchmark of 61 and we did not meet that Benchmark but rather 52% of our students reported favorably in that regard so so let's talk about what's happening on the next slide here are the four goals quickly just as a refresher let me just set the stage of what will happen with each of our goal presentations so we have four goals and four goal team leads and co-leads there each of their presentations will be two slides the first will will refresh you with the goal and show you their team membership and the second will highlight what is in progress what's in place and what are the next steps there is a lot of information on those slides and the the teams have lifted just select pieces that are in bold that they are going to speak more in depth intentionally to with you this

evening each of the gold team leads will also highlight the work under way including their successes whether they're on track to meet their Benchmark Target some of the challenges that they're facing and some of the ways that they are addressing those challenges so at this time i' would like to invite Dr lever Maddox Perry our senior executive direct director of student Support Services to lead the information on go 2A Dr madx Perry thank you Dr Pitman and good evening Dr Lewis Madame chair Rogers board members and community members next slide please by 2024 DPS will develop measures of fidelity for implementation of a research-based cultural framework and social emotional learning Curriculum by 2028 100% of dur Public Schools will

Implement a research-based cultural framework and social emotional learning curriculum with Fidelity just wanted to refresh what the goal actually States at this time I'd like to ask the goal 218 to stand thank you um and we're excited to begin our update of priority 2 with Goal 2A next slide please in place in progress in next steps goal 2A is focused on the foundation of all the work towards attainment of each of the other priority two goals high fidelity implementation of cultural Frameworks namely restorative practices and capturing kids Hearts as well as the embedding of seal curriculum into all DPS school schedules is the base for building a safe environment for all students the efforts our team including the principal advisory members continues to take in

conjunction with the DPS Community are towards fostering holistic Wellness systemwide the collaboration with leadership services on an aligned tiered support model allows schools to receive personalized support professional learning and coaching based on their specific level of implementation the use of a restorative practices checklist as well as the seal implementation rubric helps guide the honest conversations and discussions about ways to move the needle two noteworthy Endeavors with local partners are number one with the Center for Child and Family Health now we have a plan to train all DPS relevant staff members in trauma informed practices that includes follow-up sessions with school administrators throughout the school year and secondly in partnership with peaceful schools we will focus our restorative practices training with them for administrators around Fair process and how to be

restorative in the face of having to issue disciplinary consequences these highlights will ensure we build our implementation each year towards the 100% by 2028 by increasing the DPS team's capacity for cultural Frameworks and seal curriculum next slide please okay we are on Pace for goal 2A to achieve the Benchmark for 2024 and 2025 however there are challenges that we have taken proactive steps to address for one time remains a commodity in Educational Systems and is the only nonre renewable resource for us as Educators time for training and adequate support for school staff remains a continual challenge another prominent challenge is the creativity required to avoid initiative fatigue with all the needs in our district we are fortunate to have programmatic resources available

to address some of these needs it is through skillful collaboration and active listening that we are hoping to adjust as necessary to avoid overwhelming School staff with the new thing full seal implementation requires lessons to be taught by classroom teachers for a specific amount of time 15 minutes a day in elementary schools and 45 minutes a day excuse me a week in secondary schools we need contined alignment with our partners in curriculum and instruction as well as research and accountability to ensure that schools and teachers can prioritize seal instruction and that schools do not receive competing messages is about allocation of instructional time at this time I would ask Dr Melissa Watson to come speak on go to

be we go back one side please thank you very much good evening it is my pleasure to be with you this evening DPS focuses on the physical emotional and mental well-being of every scholar by helping schools create safe respectful and inclusive environments we integrate social emotional learning Mental Health Resources and restorative practices to meet the holistic needs of our Scholars ensuring they feel valued and supported in addition we now use data about students with disabilities as a metric for this goal this revision was made in September 2024 will members of gold team 2B who are present please stand next slide please we as a district have made a

commitment and I want to highlight just a few of the practices that you see on the on the slide here in place for instance to build Upon A welcoming School climate within our schools several provide Affinity spaces for Scholars of color in lgbtq I A Plus offering positive culturally affirming experiences School staff receive training on updated guidelines and strategies to create inclusive and supportive environments in addition staff receive professional learning on evidence-based practices to enhance scholar behavior and all EC staff and school administrators are required to undergo training and nonviolent Crisis Intervention to effectively prevent and respond to challenging behaviors schools are encouraged to send teams to participate in this training ensuring that diverse staff members are prepared to respond and provide support as needed

and progress another strategy for reducing recidivism at New Directions our alternative to suspension site involves engaging scholars in a leadership series facilitated by appointed to lead leadership skill development empowers Scholars to take ownership of their actions and make Positive Choices next steps in alignment with the DPS Sports decision to revise DPS policy 4301 go team 2B will gather feedback from Scholars staff and families to Ure that the revised DPS code of character conduct and support reflects our shared commitment to restorative practices focusing on repairing harm fostering accountability and nurturing stronger relationships at this time I would

invite my team member Mr mik W safield to speak on gold to see good evening and happy National School counseling week to all of those watching when students feel safe supported and valued at school they are more likely to attend school regularly and are better equipped to engage in learning build meaningful relationship ship and overcome challenges this is the focus of gold 2C and I would like to invite the team members to stand could we move to the next slide slide please and the next slide please in place our school social workers leverage our partnership with the elab spaling conflict resolution center to support students with chronic absenteeism and work with their families

to identify and remove barriers to regular School attendance the conflict resolution center uses an appro a restorative approach mirroring our DPS values to create an action plan to help remove barriers to create an action plan to help students resume regular School attendance to date the DPS CRC partnership has served over 100 students and families in progress this year School attendance teams led by our school social workers were asked to focus on tier one everyday ontime attendance awareness this effort expands September attendance Awareness Month activities year-long and incorporates our commitment to restorative practices and social emotional learning creating School environments in which students are eager to belong some of the creative activities include social media campaigns perfect and improved attendance recognition and

attendance focused Spirit weeks student Support Services created the tiered support guidance for attendance and the attendance standard treatment protocol which serve as support which serve to support school teams to organize and direct interventions and supports throughout this year school administrators School social workers and other key staff will have professional development to better understand how to implement these new resources it is no secret that school bus transportation has been a challenge this school year however this is not the only reason our students miss school while going through the med mediation process with the conflict resolution center our students facing chronic absenteeism have shared the following reasons for missing school family circumstances including lack of supervision and divorce so socioeconomic challenge Alles like neighborhood safety and housing insecurity and mental health

conditions like School rated anxiety since we know that our students and families are facing these challenges our student support services department has a wide array of resources and support to address these areas in addition we are constantly searching local state and national resources to that will help enhance our students ability to access their education and live full and healthy lives next steps as you know improving our overall attendance rate must be a collaborative effort with our entire Durham Community moving forward we will create strategic districtwide attendance campaigns and increase Community Education next you will hear from Amy Miller director of integrated academic and behavior systems good evening so next slide

please here you see our team and the goal for 2D I would ask for the members of goal team 2D to stand at this time next slide please so the Panorama seal survey is administered twice annually to all students in 4th through 12th grade and students with families that opt in in kindergarten through third grade despite a Relentless effort by multiple departments to increase optins the Panorama seal survey as well as the DPS student climate survey participation is down since optin was initiated with the parents Bill of Rights passing in 2023 we have also just concluded the administration of a smaller survey of students in grades 5 7 and 11 called the goal 2D student perception survey which does not require parental opin but does ask all students to

8% in grades 4 through 12 where opt-in is not required for this reason we'll focus on Trends obtained only from the Panorama seal survey not the student climate survey on the Panorama seal survey you'll see an increase in our overall sense of belonging in the results at all grade levels for context sense of belonging is defined by Panorama as the extent to which students feel that they are valued members of their school's Community grades 3 through five is on track with meeting our strategic plan goal but grades 6 through 12 is currently off track diving

deeper into the 612 results we see lower favorable responses to this question for English language Learners and female students and higher favorable responses for our students identified as academically intellectually gifted some challenges we have with this goal include low participation rate and the difficulties with favorability ratings in terms of grades 6 through 12 we have addressed the participation rate for the climate survey with the creation of the new 2D perception survey for theal survey we have had conversations about whether the survey for grades K2 is something worth continuing in light of the low participation in addition we have continually reassessed our Administration window to ensure it's the optimal time for student participation to increas student sense of belonging in grades 6 through 12 we will continue to work on increasing implementation of oural curriculums and cultural Frameworks with Fidelity in

addition the student Support Services team is collaborating with the ESL team and the office of equity Affairs to find ways to effectively increase sense of belonging across all student groups in grade 612 a behavior standard treatment protocol was rolled out this year to support schools with the implementation of consistent evidence-based Behavior practices for all students and in addition to continue this work we're working with schools to interpret and use the data from the surveys through seal resource implementation mapping tools and data analysis protocols this is currently being installed in an online course for school staff and we've helped numerous School staffs use resource mapping tools to match resources from panorama's platform Playbook to find actionable strategies to increase student sense of belonging okay so to conclude we see each goal within priority to as inextricably linked by enhancing the

implementation of our seal curricula and strengthening our cultural Frameworks which is 2A we anticipate a positive impact on student attendance 2 c a reduction in out of school suspensions 2B and an increase in students feelings of belonging to D with this integration in mind we now welcome Dr Tobias from Durham School of the Arts to share how they use the Student Success platform we have to increase performance for each of our priority two goals good evening everybody thank you for the opportunity it is nice to come up and talk about um what we are actually doing in schools uh we use pan Panorama extensively at DSA we we were one of the first early adopters um and initially I had the faculty trained in one of our beginning um work days on the strengths and the weaknesses of Panorama so they

immediately embrace it we started looking at the student surveys and we were not excited about our results especially for the sense of belonging which were which came out at about 40% of our students had a sense of belonging we did not like that that became a schoolwide theme for US based on our Panorama result our school Improvement team has kept this as an equity and culture goal for the last two years and we continue to work on sense of belonging and we look at our Panama data at um midpoint and at the end when we get the results our goal is to improve our sense of belonging score on the Panorama so we Infuse different things within our school to make sure that our students feel like they belong we also use panorama to look at critical attendance needs the attendance data that we derive from Panorama drives our attendance committee the team of

counselors the social worker and myself meet with our students that are critical on the attendance list and we make attendance plans which we put in Panorama Panorama data drives our mtss meeting we look at students that have a variety of critical needs which ranges from academical behavior and attendance we look at that data that is provided and the team makes recommendations with teachers to assist our students we also place and monitor interventions in Panorama teachers of course also look at Panorama to get a whole school approach to their child because it gives such a wide variety of data points when we meet with our parents one of the first things I do is I open up Panorama and I look at where the students Falls academically behaviorally and with their seal and attendance because those are key data points outside of our EOC or EOG reports

that are important overall it's really a great tool because it has such comprehensive data and we use it all the time to ensure that we're looking at all the needs of our students and their well-roundedness in our school thank you so much for this opportunity thank you that concludes our presentation update on St priority two thank you so much thank you information all right thank you to everyone who was here tonight part of the the multiple teams that make up Priority too all right so we um you know the board is now on a timed agenda so um we have in this section about five minutes left so maybe we can just try to keep our comments or questions 10 okay we have 10 minutes um we'll try to keep them breathe into the

point would anybody like to start CH Rogers thanks everybody for this presentation um I'm appreciative of the anotal data on Panorama Student Success I'm underwhelmed by the fact that we selected our least ever school to present about this and we're not highlighting how it benefits the most marginalized students in the district I would love to see some more antidote antidotal information about how um this

is how success is being measured at schools that serve our most marginalized students and I say that as a Alum it was not diverse then it's not diverse now it is it is a work in progress and I know some of this work speaks to that um but would have loved to heard how it's really impacting um in spaces where we want to see uh faster growth absolutely thank you Miss berer I want to um thank the the team that is here that is digging into some of the the most challenging work um but the the some of the most important work that is going on lift up um National School counseling week and all the work that um those folks do often behind the scenes every day and um so so appreciative of their

partnership um and acknowledge that we have work to do I think Dr L would be the first to to own that and admit it as a data nerd um and wondered um specifically when we talked about addressing policy 4301 which I was excited to see that a team is working on kind of who's working on that and um if if parents or others might want to contribute ideas who who should they share those with um because we know that that is do for an update but also has to be informed by Educators I know when we worked on it before it it needed 18 months and then the group working on it the 45 people work on it need more time so I just um wondered kind of if you can put voice to how that's going and um what the next steps in that are thank you so much so um I think the initial revision of

4301 was in 2017 2018 and since that time I think we're in a different place and what we need to address with the uh with the current um code of conduct and discipline policies are going to be Andre addressed through absolutely engaging with our students we have time set aside to um meet right now with our superintendent student Advisory Group who also represent larger groups of students um around what their needs are we often get feedback from them we also have 2B and a principal advisory that works with both uh 2A go 2A and go 2B who will be providing us feedback on that um in addition we'll be working with some of our um Partners on ensuring that we've embedded the restorative practices into that um we initially hope to bring uh a revised 4301 that is um excuse me I should say a revised code of

character conduct and support um um by April 7th for your for your approval that is our goal so if folks have feedback if they're listening if they have concerns does that go to you as as leading that absolutely you can reach out to me uh through any of the platforms accessible to you thank you and your look your phone number is right here in the it's right there yes thank you so much I know that that is so important to to uh our community thank you um thank y'all for this work and for the team of folks that are here this evening I think this goal is so important and tied to our first goal around academic achievement if students feel like they belong in school they will come to school which means that we can be working on some of that academic work that we know is vital I see lots of head nods in the audience y'all can't see that online but I appreciate that affirmation I do have a question about

to a I think and you uh Dr madx per you talked about the restorative practice checklist you talked about this Fidelity indicators that were working on and I know this will be an anecdotal but what are you seeing the impacts of that being so far in schools so anecdotally um both of those tools this is really the first year that we have had them um piloted with um some of our stop violence high schools but um what we're seeing is a renewed confidence in being able to not only engage in um textbook implementation but having what is almost like approval to practice it by having the checklist we've utilized that as almost a self- assessment and schools are able to honestly look at their level of implementation and select their own

um coaching and areas that they want to grow in relation to those indicators thank you that's really helpful I think I would love and this is batina would love to look to the other board members if and we have a presentation about this next that we kind of get a little bit more around you know this many checklists have been done this many walkthroughs have been done this is what we've seen kind of the impact um to be I think that would just be helpful to understand how schools are using the tools sorry I have another question for you too Dr m next pair um and I a couple follow-ups on that too because other while everybody's taking notes I'll just keep rambling um but the other thing I think about is how can we get students um especially in our middle and high schools but our elementary schools as well involved in thinking about this goal too right so if we have a restorative practice checklist like how are students also thinking about this is what I see this is what I don't see in our classes in a way that I think can be really um they feel owners ship of some of this belonging which I think is

really powerful as well K SMI I'm said asked for um a checklist [Music] around say that again for me uh when this presentation comes again if we could have some more details some more data around how many checklists or maybe how checklists are used how many walkthroughs are happening with principles that kind of information I don't know if it's data or what the right way for y'all to present that to absolutely duly noted um M Miller wanted to speak today I know you asked the question specifically to me but I think she probably is the more informed on a part of the process that's unique to her work with um our restored practices leadership team so we're just um for restorative practices as the cultural framework we are just um working with our restorative practice District leadership team that we have together to um put together based on the Baltimore city schools

implementation Fidelity assessment they use for restored practices um and that includes what we're really excited about is you interview 10 students during each of those walkthroughs so you interview 10 staff members and 10 students so it'll be a really unique opportunity to see that hear that student voice about what are they seeing and are they actually seeing restored practices implemented in the classroom yeah that's wonderful um except I'll ask this oh that's the question that chair Rogers was asking just to do we have consensus around that collection of data um or presentation of data for the next um presentation on this okay all right sounds like we have consensus and interest in that go ahead um you some Dr Max Perry mentioned this about the right person to answer is around one of the challenges of time

which we know is always an issue uh but how to prioritize time for seal along with the curricular needs of the school and I'm wondering what a Next Step might be on how do we um prioritize some of the work that we need to do around seal um support for our students so one way that we try to prioritize time is very carefully and uh I think um Miss Warfield can speak to that because of some of the work she has been doing with some of our partners and I don't want to miss yes so um many of our SEO curriculum use uh the data that we collect here at the school specifically the Panorama data to create a scope and sequence to help align the lessons that are going to be presented with the needs um evidence in our school level data those that are not specific to our

Panorama data provide scope and sequence related to just trends that are seen in data um we remind this time of the year right especially with the infinite campus roll out our schools are creating Master schedules so we put those expectations for 15 minutes a day for elementary 45 minutes a week for secondary back in front of those um School level uh administrators scheduling teams um to ensure that they are aware Ware of that we collaborate with our curriculum and instruction Department to make sure that we're not providing um competing messages uh to ensure that it is a priority um one of our principles said yesterday in the meeting that um you know academics will always be the priority but we might need to ensure thatal doesn't feel like it's competing with academics as a priority board member upset I'd also add one one of the things that we're working on in um cni um is some more clarity around those

kinds of issues specifically around uh time very often and in the past uh those Notions of how much time should be spent on subject areas to include Seal have been uh more in the area of uh suggestion right uh we are you know strategically rting up those expectations and so one of the things that will be a part of of what we roll out to um um principles this year as part of the projects that we're working on C working on NC is some more directive language about those times and U some more statements about you know those expectation those being expectations as opposed to options that that will also be a bit of what we hope will come out of the work around the um code of student conduct one of the things that we that we have noted is that while this board has uh expressed uh support for restorative practices um

provided funding for restorative practices um positions uh there is no place in board policy currently where um engagement with restorative practices is actually a requirement right um but those are some of the things that we're working on in terms of uh shifting right our stand and our our posture from a scenario where we are suggesting that it would be awesome if you do this to being very clear about the fact that we believe it's important for you to do this and so our expectation is that you will do these things in each School Dr King is a followup is that part of the reasoning behind the calendar shifts that we approved on consent tonight it looked like some of the plcs were moving from Fridays back to Wednesdays and there were some more intentionality about teacher work dayss earlier in the year more protected teacher learning time well that that more reflects the fact that you know a couple years ago when those calendars were created uh for and I wasn't here so I'm not sure why

but we only had three pre-service work days um in those calendars um and um it is uh utterly impossible to do the work we need to do both at the district level and the school level um in three days so uh you'll remember that last year we went through that same process where we added additional pre-service days um in terms of the the shifts of um um uh early release days um if I'm very honest we we we we were concerned and I probably should say I was concerned that that the way those days were structured in our calendar in the past gave some mixed messaging um uh an early release day scheduled on a Friday um suggest uh that one might be invited to uh begin the weekend early um and so we wanted to shift that uh that model so that those days um uh when we place those in our

calendar it is very clear that the expectation uh is that we would be doing professional development not um starting early weekends or or early holidays if you will and you know it it if I'm honest it puts a principal in a difficult spot when school ends 3 hours early on a Friday um to have to kind of maintain the standard that I really do expect you to stick around um for the PD so we want we felt like shifting it uh would help create a a more definitive message about our expectation right thank you yes I have one more question thank you Dr King that was really helpful I like the shift from suggestion to expectation um I and this is along the lines of even what you were just saying Dr King I feel like there's a we see an issue where of digging into the reasons for that and then using um our resources to address that so in talking about The Chronic absenteeism so want to mention here are the reasons that we're learning from the conflict resolution center and here's what we're doing to address that

I wanted to know for the suspension category if we feel like we have clear reasons why we thought suspensions are going up and what are the particular strategies that we might be using to address them I know there's some that might be whole District but I also know individual schools are going to have different strategies as are supporting students but I think that trend is concerning um that we're seeing it going in the wrong direction so I wanted to know really clearly um what we were doing to address them well I I think it's difficult to to ever um get beyond the anecdotal when we start talking about causes for suspensions uh because they they are are so varied um and in honesty I I think the most important thing we can do um around um messaging around reduction and suspensions is frankly messaging to our staff to our principles particularly that it is not our expectation that every time a child can be suspended um you will be suspended I I can tell you

very often when when we have conversations with principles about suspensions one of the things that they very seriously worry about is whether or not folks um will be concerned about their seriousness around student safety you know if they aren't particularly Stern around some sorts some kinds of behavior and so we want to begin to communicate with our principles and we are beginning to communicate with them you know the understanding that we we recognize that school is a place of learning and sometimes that learning um and certainly really more often that learning um also is is reflected in the need to help students learn about behavior and so um we feel like it is absolutely appropriate um for for our principles to see um inappropriate behaviors as opportunities um to help students learn about behavior and that there will not be negative consequences uh when principles um decide to take us seriously um on um our suggestions about

our value around restorative practices um and so I think you know so far um the expectation establishing that expectation the other thing that I think has helped so far that we've that we've done this year is uh requiring uh consultations uh with principal supervisors around suspensions for our younger students um and so just making sure that principles um walk through that process with their principal supervisors to make sure that we've considered every particular option um as it relates to um what we might do other than a suspension in a given situation um and and and at risk of opening a can of worms we are seeing um data from our especially from our elementary school in our data meetings um where I can tell you we are seeing some some pretty good success in terms of uh suspension reductions particularly at the elementary level so we're we're we're um cautiously optimistic about what that data is going to look like this

year Miss Cara Aon thank you so much for this presentation and for all the questions so far and additional um information that that yall have shared um um I don't have a lot but except I was I was curious to know we received a presentation in May of last year that had um that in looking back at was really helpful to have more granular presentation of the discipline data and I was wondering if that's something that it was gr more granular than it was um presented the data over time is that the ideal time of year to receive that kind of data in in May and if so could we expect that um again this year with the same type of presentation where it breaks it out by Trends over time and then um long-term suspension versus short term and yes is um that time of year I would argue that a little bit later is better because um the reason for that is there

is there is a verification process that are that our dat that our discipline data goes through um it takes place a little bit later um than than May and that process allows us to um um that gives principles the opportunity to make any changes that they feel like need to be made to that data based on you know what things that have actually happened in the school and that data is cleaned um so I think May is certainly better than February but probably you know June is probably an even better period um because that allows us to make sure that that data has gone through uh that verification process um and it is you know um you know as right as as right as rain if you will excuse me that sounds great then and June feels better at least to me then like August like starting the school off with a discipline data presentation maybe finishing it um with more data and I was curious to I guess I had some um some questions that came

that um durm advocates for exceptional children raised a couple of issues that are curious to me too which and maybe this has been discussed before one is how we Define students with disabilities for the purpose of this data can you remind I'm sure it's a reminder you've told us before but so I I I shared with um um Miss Chavez earlier that I I'd like to take that question back um those things become very very technical and I would like to um look at uh the guidance um uh both from the state and within board policy so that I'm absolutely clear about uh what the response is there um I have a sense uh but I want to be 100% sure before I share with you what that is okay thanks so much and um and this what's reported here is all sus it's students that were suspended at least one time but it's all all types of suspension is that right reported um right in the

presentation tonight the s2b so when we say suspended we mean um doc it is um shortterm suspension rates short-term only so that not that data metric now the schools and the data teams are looking at all the in school the longterm and everything but this data metric is for the short-term suspension okay so not including long-term or in school suspension in this goal metric right right okay all right that's helpful yeah and um as you were talking earlier Dr King it um about uh School the support you're providing for elementary schools in particular for um support and guidance maybe for when they use suspensions and how that um happens I'm and we heard tonight about all the different ways that we're implementing some great social emotional learning curriculum to try to create more positive environments in schools when there's a child that's having a behavioral challenge that

so they've had the positive stuff they're having a behavioral challenge I guess I'm curious to know maybe in the May uh June update a little bit more about or maybe when the revisions to the policy come to us like some of the other supports that are in place for the school level staff like who's working with that child to provide them with the support they need um to avoid being suspended but help support the behavior that's happening does that make sense I'm absolutely yes is I'm yeah I was just wanted to kind of follow up on Miss Carter ain's point but it maybe a little different I would like when we if we have a June presentation on this though to get a I know suspensions are coded right so get a sense of what those kind of top three or top five might be and get a little more in the like this is what we noticed our Trends and these are what we're doing to address those Trends cuz I just you know

I went back to find that presentation I was like like oh we still didn't talk about what the things were and I think we need to know as a district what are our students being suspended for that are Trends and then what are we doing District wide to address that you know is it fight is it conflict is it those um disruptive behavior or what's the other one that they use that's really subjective disrespect insubordination yeah we really get into the equity work around you know who decided that this was insubordination or disrespect right and so I just I want us to keep pushing on actually looking at some of those reasons and those Trends so that we can be clear around what we need to focus our efforts in in the school as a school district as a whole all right um I'm gonna make a few brief comments I don't have any questions um and then we'll move on to the next item um uh thank you for presenting on the many strategies and the evolution of these I look forward to hearing more about the evolution and what works and what you know what you might have found doesn't work um

and um and thank you for also the update on U the revision of 4301 I'm excited about that um I I wanted to say I asked for some additional disaggregated data around race and uh gender and thank you um Dr Pitman I know you'll bring that I I know that other colleagues are interested in that as well and so um that'll be provided and shared of course with the whole board um and um um I'll just say I'm yeah I'm also I I would like to look at the data around black male students with disabilities um because I'm interested in our intersectional data and looking at who is most affected um by some of these disparities um I also appreciated the questions from the Derm um advocates for exceptional children um Jess or Miss Carden highlighted some of those um but thank you all for this work it's really important it underscores everything else

that we do so thank you thank you all right now we will move on to administrative services and we have an update on the current year budget challenges with Mr teer this is also budgeted for 30 minutes so we'll see how we do that's 20 minute presentation and 10 minute question all right I got you okay I need about five yes so good um okay so good evening uh board chair Rogers board members Dr Lewis uh as promised uh in the budget calendar we would come back to you with another update uh on the current year challenges and um just kicking it off on the next slide uh just lifting back up uh the feedback uh that Dr Lewis received in the listening and learning tour didn't know if he wanted to say any more about that other than that they we're just keeping that front and center um the

next slide um is somewhat of a repeat uh from the previous uh presentations um but with a few adjustments to reflect some things that we're contemplating at the senior staff level about how we might grapple uh the current year challenge uh so the uh the first section uh all the way down to that first bold line uh reflects uh where we left off in our our previous conversations um the the bottom section of this reflects some things that maybe we had started talking about what we were not quite prepared to present to you this evening um one of those first items WR as some conversation around the McKenzie Scott uh donation in Durham Public Schools um and the possibility of some funds that can be realigned and and leveraged uh to help troubleshoot the the current year challenge um this particular dollar figure so the 3,859 694 um it represents line items in that budget um that have no activity up to this point in the current school year

and so that was sort of our first level of focus uh to review to see what we might be able to do um and to be clear we're really stressing the word potential here because we are still having some conversations with folks on staff about some things that might have been planned to happen um in February or March that Jeremy doesn't know about uh and and that we want to make sure we honor some things that had good intentions so um we we may see this number pivot a little bit um but wanted to to keep that out front and center um as we have conversations about that um as the year progresses we will um we'll continue to focus on other line items in the budget um that maybe had some activity but it came in cheaper uh than the project manager had perhaps budgeted and we can look at recouping some dollars there so we'll conduct some analysis a little bit later on that but um started with the lwh hanging fruit here of the items that had no activity um as of this point in time so we're pretty deep in the year and pretty close to our spending deadline so um some of

4 million that has accumulated um in our fund six uh that's earmark for prek where we may be able to make some readjustments between local to this funding source to free up temporarily some local dollars uh in this current year uh so again this is another item where we're having some conversations uh with the folks uh that that handle prek just making sure that everyone feels good about it but um feeling feeling good about those resources being

available to help us for this year um the next slide uh we touch on uh just high level overview of some of those categories that are associated with the McKenzie Scott dollars um there are some there are some fairly large line items there um so that that Topline item right are things that are unbudgeted U I understand from some history here there there may have been some plans for that at one point in time that were put on pause um and so a little over $1 A5 million dollar there uh the next line item down that's a million dollars is very much seems like a placeholder uh I think there was some and specifically it's parked on a membership line and so that just made us feel like that this is truly a placeholder in the budget and it and it may be something that we can tap into uh to help solve the current year problem um you know and obviously the numbers descend from there um and we're we're having some very thoughtful conversations about those line items and and what's in the works with those um

ahead of this meeting uh received a couple of questions about some specific projects that were of particular importance and we wanted to make sure uh that those items were taken care of so we did specifically receive a question about the $150,000 commitment to the theater at Hillside U we were able to confirm that that work did occur um ahead of this evaluation uh so those dollars are not um Tangled Up uh in what we see here on the screen and then there was also some concern about the vehicles that were earmarked for CTE programming specifically I'm being careful with my words I've been advised to call them mobile classrooms of sorts uh and so that includes [Music] programmingsoftware those are just two specific ones um that we had questions about uh ahead of this that I wanted to make sure we addressed as a part of the presentation um the next slide is just a just another

9 million investment uh in classified pay and again just want to verify you know at the podium that we did invest those dollars in line items uh for for classified pay and and it lines up uh with with what the needs were in order to administer the changes with classified pay for this school year so just wanted to lift that one up in particular and we we've talked about these others um just sort of in closing before we uh take questions um just a reminder of on the next slide of the of the upcoming deadlines um in our budget development process um you February 17th uh is when we're looking for requests uh from senior staff and they've received those workbooks and looking forward to evaluating and costing out those things that come forward there um our central office leaders are having some very serious conversations under Dr giovan's

leadership uh about what we can do uh to continue to evaluate positions that are in our departments uh and and how we might rearrange things on our teams things that we have vacant on our in our departments that we might want to reassess uh so we'll have uh some some good convers there and hopefully find some opportunities to continue to improve and tighten up as we Shield our schools uh from the decisions that we need to make uh we are very excited uh for a public hearing on February 20th uh and we are uh putting in motion uh some activity through the dollars and decisions series that you have heard about previously that we're hoping will provoke and encourage uh some meaningful input from the community uh at the February 20th meeting um so we'll just share it's a good time to share that next week uh there will be um a communication that goes out to our community a thought exchange of sorts uh where they'll have an opportunity to communicate to us what they see as the top five priorities uh for Duran Public

Schools budget next year um we look forward to working with the board on February 20th as well to hear what your priorities are uh so that we can get some early insights as as we work as a staff to develop the superintendent's recommended budget um March 3rd um we're planning to have presentations from cabinet members uh and have a little more um sort of dialogue around the requests that we received and then ultimately we're looking to have that book in front of you by March 27th um for you to um have conversations and we'll have another public hearing at that time as well so with all that said I'm leaving 11 minutes and 47 seconds for questions thank you so much all right we're gonna start with chair Rogers what time is the public hearing on February 20th I think we would need to agree to that uh I think um I have always sort of operated with them happening about 30 minutes before uh the the regularly scheduled meeting but I

leave that up to superintendent and board leadership I just saw it and put it on for 5:30 ahead of a 6:30 just as a placeholder just now but I a half an hour doesn't quite seem enough for Durham understood chair Rogers more questions I think that Mr tab's question is are we deciding that now um the time the time and does the full board need to be here I that would be or just a quum at least a quorum absolutely okay other questions are we going to decide oh I say can we decide is it 5:30 on the 20th is that 5:30 everybody some thumbs up okay I see a quum of Thumbs Up um

okay I can't commit yet sorry all right just on the scheduling thing are you all going to propose the second hearing date to us or and so at this point in time on the budget calendar we have that uh identified as March 27th uh so that'll be so this meeting on the 20th we're looking for input ahead of us developing the superintendent budget so that we can have that uh input and then on March 27th our vision is folks will be reacting to ultimately what we produced and and we can start uh receiving that f back so March 27th would be our Target there I imagine we'll do the same time or aim for the same time on March 27 5:30 would wonder if we would want to do it on a different day could we hear more about what that

might look like I know I have the experience of what we what it looked like last year but what your vision is for the format of that and did I also hear that that's the primary opportunity for board members also to provide some input right so on on the meeting on the 20th uh we're looking looking largely for people to share with us what their priorities are and what what what their concerns are and I think Dr Lewis was maybe you're good I'm sorry I was just going to say it's my understanding the budget hearing is just for the public and then you said on the 20th at the meeting you would ask the board members to share their priorities that's right but then the second public hearing is for after the superintendent has released the budget people can respond to is that correct that's right thank you so on the 20th we're not um we won't be reflecting on any kind of like um framework or proposal or categories it'll just be open we'll

we'll just be looking for for things that you have observed and and as as you have processed feedback um from your post as a board member what you think might be some good priorities for us heading into this cycle so we have consensus around 5:30 on February 20th and do you all also want to try and Achieve consensus for 5:30 on March 27th or do you want to wait and discuss that later I heard I'm said plead for another day I don't know if anybody else was interested in that I don't think an hour might be enough on that either so that's might be the re some of your reasoning for not making that a marathon for us and staff um I also need to consult and make sure all the cards are aligned for me to get off work get my kid and get

here by 5:30 so committing to both at 5:30 right now doesn't feel conducive to my needs but by all means the board should do what they need Mr T just a point of clarity is this standard that we decide on dates in the middle of the of the meeting without checking schedules it happens occasionally could we maybe go ahead we need at least four people that are can be present at 5:30 on the 20th right that's first need could we wait a little bit and get back to Nicole about that or I'm hearing that's what you might and I feel like I need a little bit more time too make sure my schedule and chair Rogers identified the same so Mr tab are you saying you'd like a doodle Pole to be sent

out I I would suggest with February 20th that's coming up so soon I think we're taking the time to sort of announced that and I did hear a quorum of us are available on that day at 5:30 before the board meeting it sounded to me like there needed to be perhaps a doodle Poll for the the second budget hearing where the Public's responding um what do you all think about that okay yes okay it looks like we'll have other dates in mind but besides the 27th um Isam said suggested perhaps a different day with a longer time because there's more to react to so all right Miss Rogers chair Rogers and will'll work with our board clerk uh Miss Smith to find an appropriate time and date for that week around March

27th thank you all right other questions Miss berer just um Mr terer just gratitude for um the ways that you continue to um peel back this onion and find um ways to make up for our budgeting challenges um also don't want to kind of leave without expressing just gratitude for McKenzie Scott um and her generosity in um giving unrestricted funds which allow us this flexibility um but also acknowledging that these These funds had plans right um and when I see growing together on here multiple times I think we need to make sure that we moving forward are identifying new funds in our coming budget year to fulfill all the promises that we've

made um I believe unless I'm totally wrong that the $1 million there might have been for affordable teacher housing it is a dream that this board has had for many many many many years and housing in Durham has only continued to accelerate the cost for our for our staff and talking to a staff that cannot afford to live in this community is heartbreaking to all of us um and so while we while we access these I think it's critical that we not let those dreams die and those plans die going forward but that we find ways to invest and then the biggest glaring challenge to me are the positions that are budgeted and um while many are sitting vacant I think it will be important for us quickly to have more information on uh ways those vacancies or those position cuts will

impact um students and schools in the future and how we can best um plan for that which we thought we'd already planned for um so I I appreciate your help and I appreciate you bringing additional information that is um giving us more reassurance as we move forward that um we will be able to protect students in the ways that we want to this calendar year um I don't I don't think those were questions they were just may rambling um but thank you for your leadership Miss Cara Aon um I share Miss Buy's gratitude thanks for doing all of this work for us to find the money and I um appreciate that and also the kind of reorganizing and thinking critically about how to make it to to the extent possible where

cuts are not coming from our schools um so thank you for that and um look forward to continuing to see how we can move forward with intention in the next year with a budget that we are happy with isad um thanks again Mr terer for all of the work you've done on this um I think it would be helpful for me to know in the positions and vacancies and y'all let me know board members if we already talked about where those reside because I think as I'm thinking about my budget priorities as a board member that I would love to share with you on the 20th I think it'd be nice to know where these positions live and um what positions we might consider wanting to keep or what or if some I think you mentioned in the last meeting there were a good number of vacancies what positions might we um not F through retri and so that would be helpful I

think for me to have a little B more of that information I think I'm also this is just a a statement that might need a later followup that I say often I don't know if you've heard it yet Mr terer but I think we should really be thinking about multi-year budgeting and so when I look at this and our challenge that we're in with this operational set aside I'm wondering what does that look like for next year and the next year are we working towards getting people back to being at 100 um and so how are we thinking really and inent 100% uh intentionally about multi-year um where we're going to be and then what other um initiatives do we have coming down the line some of that we know we can't necessarily anticipate when it thinks about what the state may do um but there is I remember often sometimes talking about hospitalization we know my increase each year this some of these portions so how do we think a little strategically about this year and next year and what might be coming down the pipe so I think that's something that I'm just thinking about as we prepare

for the 20th all right I think I'm the last one I'll share a few thoughts um I thank you for the presentation for the update um and for uh articulating exactly where the money is coming from with regard to the McKenzie Scot funds um I appreciate the assessment of central office office positions I meant to uh note that last time um I also want to um support the idea of the multi-year budgeting that Miss Umstead brings up regularly multi- years um I think um I think that's that would be a really great way to look at kind of in alignment with our strategic plan where we're putting our resources um for the next few years um and then I just want to say what I'm most interested in I um I continue to see this is a cleanup year thank you for being thorough um but I'm most interested in the systems that you're putting into place to ensure that

our budget going forward will be accurate um tight and and centering of our students particularly those who need the greatest support thank you Miss Caron I just wanted to um build on what Miss um had asked for vacancy data I think and that's of interest to me too and as I'm thinking about and for that same reason as we're thinking about what we need what information we need to be able to um identify our priorities for the budget and I wonder how challenging that is to get to us like if that's possible and along those lines this might be a bigger ask but like something can to um turnover data or um so we have an idea of who's leaving or which where staff are yeah some that could inform also some priorities for the next budget year but again just my ask so not sure how other

board members feel about that I'll ask for consensus in a moment bam me um go to chair Rogers I think that I want the same information that y'all want but I think I have a more overarching question I think maybe for Dr Lewis you might not have the answer right now do we think that the current vacancies that we're seeing are what you're planning to budget for and accommodate for next year or do you think that there's going to be some sort of moving people into positions that are vacant and like shifting of people so that the same positions aren't necessarily the vacant ones and that maybe more different positions are on state funded positions versus local positions do you think that there's going to be some different shakeup that you would use to

inform how much money is in the Personnel budget therefore then the vacancy data may not make sense does that make sense yeah it does I don't want to sometimes the word shakeup can kind of create panic and harm here don't want to use that term but I do uh I will say we will and we can bring this information back we just need to look critically at those positions and take advantage of attrition um also and look at those critical vacancies that we still need to fill IE um EC and so we definitely want to keep those vacant as well but really looking holistically at where our vacancies are um and again talking to our principales to seed is this an area you need to feel or through attrition is it done you know so we we can bring that information back to you definitely in time enough for Budget decisions Miss B or Dr King something to add no okay miss miss I'm trying to also think through like and I know y'all are thinking it through as a team but um the

dollars and decisions decisions as y'all are demonstrating and and thinking of new ways to show how the district where our money goes and um I think one thing we've done in the past years and years ago was to show how much State money goes into certain types of positions how much local we put above that to really be able to to demonstrate to our staff our local investment is going into staff um some of those things that if we're allotted one counselor per 400 students right but but Durham allocates at one per 300 whatever whatever those formulas are um I think some of that information kind of Paints the picture for what we're doing with our local money and then I leave it to you all to bring kind of your best analysis of what biggest impact and

recommendations do you have on maximizing student outcomes with with what we have I I don't know if I'm saying anything or asking a question but I look forward to ways that you show kind of what we're doing and inform best practices and I think I think it kind of like marry the last two kind of board observations together here for a second and and so one um I think when we when we look at our positions and our vacancies uh I think we see a collection of Good Intentions um that sometimes don't have the best outcome um so for example right so Durham Durham for the past few years has very much had the intention of we will have lower class sizes than with the state funds uh and so that that's a tremendous investment it was easy to populate when we had Bounty full Esser do um s for dollars are gone we're tying up a lot of budget line items for positions that are vacant um and part two right is

the teachers haven't materialized and so right so there's that convers right it's that Balancing Act of do we hug to a more normal class size and have a qualified teacher um and so we're solving a budget problem and an instruction SLP Personnel problem at the same time so we're there's that balancing act that we'll walk through and we're starting to have those conversations as we think about enrollment projections and we think about uh how we're going to aot uh resources this year um you know we've had some other interesting conversations about coverage right we've talked about our EC vacancies and and decisions that have been made uh at a staff level that have made it harder to troubleshoot those things that we need to walk back and that we need to solve and uh so it's really wonderful yesterday for HR Finance Dr Giovani EC to sit down and work as partners to figure out how we're going to solve uh some of those challenges around the vacancies and and and make it work um for our students and Durham so um so certainly to your point

uh right there's been a tremendous local investment in positions in Durham Beyond uh what the state affords and and we look forward to kind of telling that story um as we go through the series and and looking at how do we work those levers to solve uh the longer term budget solution and not just this year I I'll just say kudos to our Opa team and and Jeremy they pretty much have season one mapped out and I think where our dollars go is probably episode 4 and then funding S no seriously then funding sources is episode three um are there other questions I heard you say Dr Lewis you'll provide us some information about vacancies and all of that so I think all right I think we are good to go thank you Mr yes ma'am right our next item is policy 7502 salary Administration and I pass it to Dr Giovani I'm sorry I pass it to miss

Hager I'm all right there we go good evening chair Rogers board members Dr Lewis and DPS community Administration presents for first reading a draft of policy 7502 salary Administration and employee compensation this policy is designed to align with and Implement policy 7501 governing principles for salary Administration the board set forth the following as its guiding principles competitive compensation Fair placement Equitable Administration and recognition of relevant experience the salary Administration working group which was made up of various DPS employees included both certified and classified staff from across the district we convened in May of 2024 to begin reviewing other Exemplar policies across

the state one of which included Winston Salem forside School District in an effort to obtain feedback from across DPS we're also working collaboratively with opa to provide an opportunity for all DP DPS staff to review the draft document and provide feedback so this policy is for first reading that we're bringing to you thank you thank you questions thank you any questions Miss buer is there more to add or okay we'll go to miss buer I'm happy to yield to others I just

didn't yeah did I miss somebody yeah okay so I W to um thank you all for um all the work on this I can look at it and tell that it has been um really deep thoughtful work and that you have included a lot of of um District Educators and and staff at the table and in these conversations um you've the definitions are so strong um and I think these are things that that will be critical as we continue to work forward and be clear about what all of you know what extra duty is what extended employment is some things that um are critical for us to clarify moving forward um there's sometimes in here and I don't

know if I'm asking you or you Dr Giovani there's italics in here on number 10 is that supposed to be there does that mean something extra extra Duty refers to work sign is that just formatting kind of thing it's just formatting but it's also still a working document it's still in process um we're still working as a working group to um As We Gather feedback from other DPS employees regarding the policy so it is still much a work in progress this is the first reading and we're expecting it may go to a second and or third reading great and I appreciate you you working with the office of public affairs to to get more feedback and put it in a way that that folks can access it from work or from home to to get share their voices and ideas with us um did I or did I not see that extra duty pay and some of these um payments need prior approval of a supervisor I

was looking for that but I'm not sure that I saw it was it in there that is correct so extra Duty which is something we've been grappling with to get some parameters around it and making sure we've got a solid process and policy around that and so it would require prior approval that is one of the recommendations that's coming forward from the working group okay good good that's on page three section B my version doesn't even have page number must be approved by says superintendent or doy either on n basis or as part of the that when you see it but is that must Beed by the supported must be supported by the employee supervisor and documented in a form developed by the superintendent or designate this typ in request form must submitted by the supervisor must be reviewed and signed off by the finance

department for confirmation that funds are available for this purpose and for the designation of designation of the proposed f funding sources two the stiping request must be reviewed and approved by superintendent design with or without modifications and three the stiping request must be approved by the superintendent or designate either on an ad hoc basis or as part of the board approved schedule for extra duty pay that applies to all eligible employees in the same position classification I guess I was looking for more explicit that it had to be approved in advance because I think that was um on the form in the past but not necessarily the DPS practice ice that that because I had heard that a lot of these were finding their way up to Cabinet during the freeze and they were supposed to have been improved in advance but they weren't the work had already gone on and then the the district was stuck with needing to pay folks um to honor that that so I anyway that that was just one question I had for

y'all to consider and I don't know the answer I just raise it I would just share that that is a we are working on an extra Duty schedule and so that as we discussed it's very difficult for staff in the district to budget if you don't know kind of where that's going to land so that is something that we do anticipate uh finalizing with um Miss Hager and Mr teer kind of working on that and bringing it to Dr Lewis and cabinet to review and it would be posted on once it's approved by uh Dr Lewis and he discusses it with the board it would be something we would post on on the website so that people would understand what those extra Duty schedules like what those amounts are but that is still again a work in progress thank you and then I don't see unless I've missed at a definition for legacy what some people's checks say that we're the wording we're using now is there a reason that y'all didn't

include that or is it I don't we'll probably need to add that when that is a very popular um um question that we get asked all the time and so as we build this out and build the definition things like hold harmless Legacy pay those sorts of things we will make sure that those are added in so that folks know what they are thank you all thanks so much for Mr Tab and then miss Umstead and then miss cardan thank you very much uh on number 10 where it says extra Duty and it says extra duty is an additional duty that is distinct from the staff member's main job responsibility in a job descript description are there points where it does not become the main responsibility because there if you look at job descriptions there's a lot there about job description so when you're asking about main it's just that word there that I

want Clarity in what is considered Main the second thing is in number 11 extended employment it says it's a 10 or 11mth member Works additional months does that exclude working additional hours got we will take that question Mr thank you is I think um there are some thank first of all thank y'all I know this committ has been working for a little bit on this process um maybe almost a year or six months at least so thank y'all for all the work I think this maybe is aligned with Mr tab's question but questions around over time like I know that certain employees can receive overtime certain employees do not receive overtime and it says for me to go to the Fair Labor Standard Act to figure that out if I'm reading it and so I'm wondering if in here can we be more

clear about distinguishing who qual ifies who does not qualify for overtime and maybe that's also something that's in the job descript or your um kind of app track that kind of thing as well just so we're really clear so I don't have to go look um so that was one of the things that I saw that I thought would be helpful for that and then I think um buyers Point around this the stiens or extra Duty I wonder if there's also just an explicit line around this being paid like this your you're thing has to be approved before you can like your submission needs to come back to you approved before you begin the work or something along those lines so that it's clear around what is extra Duty what's not who's going to get it who's not like that kind of tying that in because I might think I'm going to get it but it's actually like

actually no you don't qualify for this because of XYZ or this y that so how do we get that kind of full loop in this as well yes and we did get some feedback on that from Dr King um it had already been submitted we were going over it with him and so a lot of these um positions with the extra Duty these exemp positions are um in his shop so he is working with um Miss Hagar and Mr terer on clarifying that so thank you for the feedback I'm we're taking the notes and then one there sorry there's also a couple links in here that aren't open links so just so y'all both know in the draft there's some links in there that aren't open so you can't um get to whatever is next but I also it wasn't clear to me how people are placed on the current salary scales that we have that have this range um that part didn't feel like it was clearly spelled out here and I want to know if that was maybe intentional or

that's something we're going to keep working on but our current salary skills have a range inside of a I'm I don't know that I'm in this doc per se but if I I'm let me go look it up now but if the salary schedules that we adopted had one step one but there was a range for this step and how do employees know where they're getting placed in that range and how can I move within that range and we can I move within that range right and we've noted that um so there's still um their they're Place based on their experience and so we'll build that out and make sure it's explicit and so part of this trying to have a robust plan uh policy around this so folks can go to the salary Administration policy understand what how during Public Schools assigns a stat

you know assigns their salary they see themselves and that sort of thing they know what extra duty is they know the rules and all of that and so having this really will help folks um be more um have a better sense of what salary placement means here in Durham building out the job descriptions is going to be really important I think it goes back um to Mr tab's point about understanding you know other duties as a sign and those sorts of things so really building it out following you know the last several years with all the conversations that we've had around compensation we want to make sure that this policy that we take our time get it done get it done right receive feedback receive feedback from other staff and from everyone so we're really hoping to um and Mr terer and I are working together so miss CA

missad where you finished yeah I just want to make sure my question made sense though around the thank you around the like the men Max fece that's what it's called not it's not a range it's called The Men We have men's and we have Maxes for each um yeah it's online the salary schedules we approved oh sorry Jessica's got there's mens and there's Maxes for each place you could be and how do we know where I fall like I know that my my previous work history will be in there but what other factors might consider where I fall in that men in the Max and can I move within that minut in the max that seems like I could but how we will take that question back to the working group and it may be um as we continue to work through this as that we also would develop some you know procedures Etc that would where that may be included but we will take that back to the working group and when we bring it back and as Miss Hager indicated you know this is a big policy and this is

very critical to our staff that this be right right and clear and so you know this is not something we're going to be like you know second reading that's it you know I mean however many readings it takes for this board and Community to be clear and comfortable with this we are willing to continue this work and the working group has been very committed to these meetings as well I don't even know how many I mean it's been over we had multiple meetings in a month even so it wasn't just once a month was sometimes every week and then every other week and so it's been a lot of work and they've been really committed and folks are really working hard thank you um I had my main question was the same and just the desire to like connect this to the salary um schedules both for us so that we are clear on what we are approving when we approve it and feel good about it and so that our staff can connect the two and I guess my other

question is eventually and I think you were um referencing this but eventually I like for it to live in policy but well we have something on our website where it's easy to access access all the information when you're newly hired or if you're an employee so you can be like that's where I fall that's how salaries administered I don't have to dig through a um really long policy if I want more information I go to the long policy but okay um and then this forther people that couldn't say it Miss Hager is nodding her head affirmatively so thank you Miss Hager yes and then I um this feels like such a big policy both in the size of the policy and the importance we've talked about it so much over the past year um in board meetings about how it was important for us to get this right and you all have been meeting sounds like a lot to work on this I wonder in the next time that it comes to the board would it be reasonable to have some slides that kind of outline like here's some decisions that were made and here's why

or highlight it appears there was a technical glitch with Bor Ducks which we've had you know I mean it is it happens with technology so Miss Smith did submit them and like some people are able to access the PowerPoint and others are not so I'm a not but other people I mean she sent me a screenshot like if she can see it and miss Cooper's not like there's certain people can get it so there was a PowerPoint because it is so big and that was the feedback that we got from um some other folks that we needed a PowerPoint because it is so large so I apologize I think that um I don't know if you refresh it I don't know really I refresh and wasn't able to get it but I do it was it's a technical issue it was not a staff issue is what I would say thank you yeah just because it's so medium like if I could just have you walk me through some of the like really important pieces so that we um don't

miss the why behind them and the things we need to be thinking through try refes ref refreshing again I refreshed and I got it but so okay all right other other questions Mr T yeah thank you um one of the things that I do not see in the policy is about em emergency approvals and a lot of times um directors and people over programs have to make decisions immediately and they they don't get prior approval but there needs to be somewhere where they can say this is an emergency um this happens a lot okay noted thank you thank

you I will add my thoughts um I also think it's great that you'll add um Legacy pay and hold harmless since those terms come up a lot um I'm glad Miss Umstead brought up the mens and Maxes um because I don't I think they're very subjective so it would be very helpful to know what our rubric is for using them we agreed to use the men's um in the fall uh but for for staff going forward um not from staff coming in from Le spring but um if we're I don't know that I'm in favor maybe that's a salary that salary schedule conversation um I kind of liked when we just landed on one you know with the steps um but definitely if we're going to still use those and there's some way to determine how people fall otherwise I think it can be very subjective you know

you're some your supervisor sees that you know you doing these things but what if your supervisor doesn't see you doing all these you know things um excelling at your job or whatever so um in any case uh there's that and then also I just um I wanted to say as part of the operations review group I did get a peek at the um document that you all are creating around extra duty pay roles I think that's excellent I love how clear it is um and I just wanted to ask I think it you probably won't be finished with it for next meeting but um what is the timeline on rolling that out is like is it next school year going into next school year um because I think it's really nice for every everybody to see if I do this this is what I would get um and if somebody else is getting more extra duty pay here's why it's already been calculated so what's the timeline on on

that or is that unknown I I think it is unknown but what I can say is that the urgency around this policy is not lost on us um certain board members did um share with us that it was important that this policy come and to start moving forward and getting feedback from board members and the community and so as Miss Hager indicated you know it is still a work in progress and you know with Dr Lewis's permission I'm happy to just consider this kind of like an informational roll out and then come back at the work session in March or not the work whenever y'all instruct us to come back with the PowerPoint and these answers to these questions so that you don't feel any pressure that oh this is a second reading and we have to be there since we weren't able to access the PowerPoint in advance I'm happy to whatever the board's pleasure and Dr Le's permission is missad a thought on that um I'm maybe said the work session

on the it's March 7th because my other question or thought and happy to hear from the other board members if we had an opportunity I know there's a the salary the group that's working on this is a cross-section of Educators but I would love for all of our folks to have some eyes on this um we can schedule meetings with durm Association of Educators and get their feedback and so I think that' be an important another step because this policy is so important I think understanding what Clarity is really vital for this and also you know I know we've all gave you some feedback already to figure out but I would love to know how our staff and they read this draft how they interpret it and that might help us see if there are any gaps as well I am happy to work with Miss Cooper um and tap into her expertise and experience with making sure that the right groups obviously with Dr Le's approval um are involved and once we kind of address some of these preliminary feedback tighten up the policy you know and then um tweak the PowerPoint and then kind of work with um

Public public affairs on getting that out and getting Dr Lewis's guidance on who those groups would be so did you did I hear and did we have consensus on March 7th work session not February 20th no we won't be here on March 7th the work session is March 3r so I want to make sure that's clear for the listeners March 13th yes is that okay board members okay all right y okay Miss berer thank you um I notice when I go to the classified salary schedules that they say at the top this is the language we put in at the top and I don't know if it's in the this draft or not or whether it should be each year the board May Grant salary increases as a part of the annual budget process contingent upon state and local funding um I'm pretty sure we have the the the gist of that yes that's the word I was looking for but I I don't know if we want to be explicit and if we do if

we want to mirror that language in both places I'm sure yall have thought about that I'm looking at our CFO and HR folks and they're all again nodding so did y'all want to add anything or any no I think that that's incredibly important so as we particularly as we go through this budget process we'll be trying to forecast how much of a state raise might we expect um and and it's possible we won't know what that is until after the county has authorized our funding and that's just the reality we've had so I think that language is especially critical uh with the disconnect that we have with the state's delayed timeline and what we follow locally um not just in Durham but in other counties yeah and I think I was also reminded of it with you know the discussion M Chavez of the men's and Max is everyone would love to I would love Max I don't but we have to make the math work right the the math and the budget has to work for us to be able to maximize what we can do for for our staff and

um it it yeah and we'll we'll continue to Advocate to the state and we'll continue to advocate for the Federal Department of Education to still exist for our students and our staff going forward but yeah and thank you as I'm s it's my last thing on this I think the there's a question of when you move from the men and Max but then in the way the draft policy says is you get an experience increase which I would assume that might be from the step to step but that's not explicit so the question of how do I move from a minut how do I move in the minut and Max and then how would I move from a step to step would be both we need both of that Clarity got it all right colleagues um seeing no further points of discussion um thank you for this good work and now we will move to operation Services again a 30

minute slot um and we have a transport transportation services update uh with Mr web I'm sorry Dr web thank you ma'am uh good evening board members and colleagues happy to present to you tonight a transportation update with some good news and uh I'll say that again there some good news um I understand and and hear it you will Mr tab um so I want to say that Mr Barnes and his team have really stepped on the gas and accelerated through this process see what I did there um so next slide please and next slide please so a brief update on our progress on the family responsibility zones are in uh in effect uh here's our progress February 6 is day 10 today is day 10 of the F frzs

implementation um the F frz background and FAQs are online um and we just recently we uh presented to you the retention and recruitment plan at our last get together uh we also uh Miss Hager and I tag team again and presented that to all of our principles this week at our uh leadership meeting next slide please uh something we worked for for some time uh rotational coverage ended on Friday the 17th of 2025 January January 17th 2025 on day one and I can give you incidental data about the rest of the days but they it look looks a lot like this 25 drivers called out and four Transportation safety assistants called out for the morning shift 32 called out and drivers called out and four tsas called at afternoon as was our plan moving away from uh from rotational coverage these

absences were covered by members and employees of the transportation department on day one All Buses ran all routes were covered and every day sense so uh everybody is working and working overtime and pitching in uh it says all routes were completely covered on day one 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nine 10 everything is going very well so there's your good news Mr tab thank you sir uh and kudos to the transportation department Mr Barnes and his group and our uh uh dur Public Schools Employees who have a CDL with a passenger endorsement who have agreed to join us in our endeavors more to come there in the second next slide and the next slide after that the router ship and routing updates um bus routes have been modified for Effective operation that's going to be you're going to hear this a lot that is an ongoing non-stop process we'll continue that new riders in this process even though the buses have been running

New Riders have been added to existing routes routing modific Improvement is an ongoing and everchanging activity next slide please implementation of frzs so after one and a half weeks of implementation implementation and I want to share this uh information from um M Brookshire uh that she has shared with me over the last week and a half our staff has observed dismissal at at least nine elementary schools prioritizing the school with the largest number of students who have previously requested bus service from within the disease staff continues to follow up with remaining schools to see if they would like a site visit to discuss concerns for supporting families or choosing walking or biting biking observations and conversations with administrators and staff there has not been a large increase in the number of students walking and there are no safety concerns with car L car rider lines more families are car pooling and kids are getting to school uh School administrators have

been working in kudos to our school level administrator staff they are working through problems individually we and we talked in previous meetings um this is where they really uh the the rubber meets the road there see what I did there again um that our our principls and School staff are working with our parents um and and we've not had since implementation any appeals anything that have come to um Mr Barnes or his staff to in regards to additional um additional uh service request uh wanted to note that we did have um we are working with our our families at Hope Valley to resolve some issues resolving around circulating around some sidewalk issues and concerns about uh construction and ongoing construction so those buses are running until this is complete so uh other than that we received zero appeals since the F frz

implementation um I want to point out too that uh Miss Brookshire and her team are not sitting around and waiting for problems they're reaching out to the schools they're reaching out to the principles and they're visiting to try to um to help with that uh and anticipate any problems not just waiting to be called upon uh say uh so site visits and Communications and with staff and families will continue uh information here about safe routes to school support with several links um uh and then uh want to point out that bike and roll to school day is scheduled for May 7th 2025 uh there are upcoming conversations about infrastructure improvements in our community and the role of crossing guards next slide please driver retention Recruitment and support and we've got that in the right order retention is the new recruitment next slide please so I apologize I have a typo i'

like to correct that now that is incorrect there are not 13 new drivers there are 15 new drivers we continue to grow uh with potential as many as four coming in the next week two the team is working overtime to get this this um this taken care of I would I'd like to Define that for you 15 new drivers since January 3rd nine are current DPS employees six are new to DPS they are all either driving or available to drive as needed they're all approved to work with us in a driver capacity four of them are on the road and training with veteran drivers two have been assigned to division to be given permanent routes the remaining drivers are of that number are back are on the road and signed a route um this does not include Transportation safety assistance previously known as bus monitors next slide please any discussion questions concerns uh

because we don't have a we've not been at it a long time we don't have a lot of data for you but I wanted to share what we had discussion thank you colleagues I'd like to organize this discussion just a little bit we have an opportunity to ask questions of Dr web and transportation team now but then we need to have a little bit more conversation about next steps on advocacy uh with the city and county and our joint City County um meeting on the 11th but I'd like us to direct our questions right now to Dr web so he doesn't have to stand through that whole discussion Mr tab thank you thank you very much thank you for the great news um but I do want to ask you about the crossing guards uh it's on the slide but it's just there as the role of the the role of the crossing guard but that's it where are we in terms of making sure

that that FR guards there I'm sorry okay um okay nope Dr Webb go ahead and answer his question thank you Mr tab um so I understand there's a discussion on that fourth coming from our perspective um we shared with the board uh last week and then again today so it would be at the top of the list the complete list of where crossing guards exist and that is not the perview of dur public schools that is decided by uh the the city that is and and where they go and what we're what we want to do moving forward is a topic for discussion at this point uh there has other than communicating hey we would really like to have more crossing guards um there's not been an initi itive from our perspective um

trying to work with uh with what we have and answering questions related to that dur Public Schools does not have the ability to add crossing guards but I believe where chair Rogers is going in later conversation is going to be discussing options for pursuing that so that has not okay been our Focus thus far thank you Dr web um for clarity Mr tab last week Dr web shared with some members of the board a document from 2014 um from the dur Police Department to reflect where they knew crossing guards were in place that was shared with the full board via email earlier this afternoon in addition um in our leadership circles Miss Carter uton and myself have

discussed this with uh mayor mayor protim as well as [Music] the chair and vice chair of the County Commission Dr Lewis has also had conversations and requests with the city manager around um crossing guards and what next steps are and how we can get support from the city and the county our County counterparts so that work has happened in advocacy spaces that we're already that we actively have conversation and connection in we realize that the document from 2014 is not necessarily reflective of where crossing guards are right now or the needs of the district for crossing guards there were lots of schools that weren't built then you know we have many

different needs now more students different students all the things and so I would like us as a board to take that document and ask if there's any ability for the city to help us by sharing some of the protocols for their training how uh volunteers and other members of our community can act actively become crossing guards where the rates or pay are how we can actively you know work together to recruit the crossing guards that we need in the district um I'd like us to have a conversation about how we can get more crosswalks and bus shelters at our schools so that families can rely on those other Transportation um methods of transportation and not just DPS busing so that we are having

conversations about right now while we're in budget season asking the city and the county to help us by improving infrastructure around our schools and improving um the number of crossing guards that we have available to support around schools but again like Dr web said it has to be through they have to be trained by the dur police department and they don't they wouldn't work for DPS I like to respond to that just in future if we are going to put family responsibility zones in place then there should have been prior conversation about crossing guards and how it works so that all of all of all of it would be together as opposed to some PE people may be saying now we have the W

the responsibility zones family responsibility zones but we don't have crossing guards so I don't know in the last report if that's you know if we have enough or we don't have enough because I haven't seen that right now I understand but I just want to make sure that as we're moving forward and do you know just maybe to Dr Lewis if we're going to put things in place I would really like for us to make sure that all of those you know things are in place that is going to make a difference whether or not someone feels safe or not because they're now involved in the in the walk well I don't want to say walking it's a family responsib resp okay the good thing is that we've already activated family responsibility zones and so hopefully we wouldn't have to do that and they're already active so we don't have to activate them again but if go ahead no I was just going to add

if you recall uh when Mr Palmer was here he shared that um a significant number of families were removed from the family responsibility zones due to some safety concerns um like not having a crossing guard at a certain location so that was considered but I definitely hear you in terms of um what we can do to make sure that um you know we could really look at crossing guards and that was one of the things I was um I wanted to just bring out again and it's a link in the presentation to the 21 schools that are part of the family responsibility zones um definitely appreciative of community members that are stepping up and wanting to assist uh but I think there's been some misconceptions that uh family responsibility zones were impacting all of our schools all elementary schools but there's 21 elementary schools and no secondary schools Miss Umstead I just had a follow-up question this uh the school crossing guard locations um document you said was from 2014 is there an updated document

somewhere or like truly we haven't touched where crossing guards are since 2014 that is the most recent document um that M Miss Brooker has been working very closely with uh with uh several organizations to talk about just those those questions including Mr tab's Question prior to implementation we had some conversation about some Miss Brooker would you come join us and and give us some perspective on that good evening thank you um the document that was shared from 2014 those are all still the existing crossing guard locations so 15 crossing guards at 13 DPS schools all elementary schools except for Brogden there's a crossing guard at at um Duke and Leon Street for Brogden Middle School um so the I know it's alarming to see 2014 but they have been unchanged and so I think it's worthy conversation about how we can revisit those locations in partnership with the police department and how we prioritize new requests for crossing

guards and revisit existing ones um the city uh the sergeant over the crossing guard program actually let me know today that they have reposted the crossing guard job posting um but that's to fill one existing vacancy that's um one of those 15 positions now um but they are leaving it open because they're hoping to build the applicant pool so that they continually receive applicants so it won't just close in two weeks so was there a followup or do we have like anou around the crossing guard with the city I just think like some way that we decide how we want to engage and interact with each other which includes an review of the crossing guards every however many years I think would be helpful um and then how the sites are determined might be a good part of that kind of conversation too I just feel like this is a a place where

we need more collaboration especially as our city continues to grow so much uh new I mean who knows how many new neighborhoods were built since 2014 and how many different students are trying to interact with schools so I I think that might be something worth us considering and I I do I know we talked a little bit about crossing guards really early in this conversation and um there's still more work to be done around that for sure so thank you Miss berer so I think this update was great to hear that we have more drivers I want to extend gratitude to um you Dr web um you miss Brookshire uh Mr Barnes Joe Harris Annie fulwood our whole team and most especially to our d drivers who drive each and every day with um our precious students um I do I was glad when the

students came to speak to us about um climate and sustainability that we can um be proud that Miss Brookshire is with us that safe routes to school is something that we have prioritized in our community um and it is here to stay and pro perhaps probably grow so I would if at all possible like us to go into that conversation with the information about where our most critical needs for crossing guards are um so that we have a prioritized sense of and able to tell the city Hope Valley or whatever that we're that and that we have you know logic behind it I do see the crossing guard posted for anyone that's looking it is in the salary range of $189 C an hour to $247 on the city website and open um as of two days ago so um but

that's that's not a yeah that's not a new one that's existing and um I mean replacing an existing one do you all feel like you have that data I know the city also has Transportation staff and have y'all will are they receptive to those conversations about where these might be needed to be added most rapidly absolutely so um one thing that I've been in conversation with the city transportation department so crossing guards are also a hard to fill position just like bus drivers and some of the other positions within our school system um and so the city of Durham has said that they're open to exploring other methods for hiring crossing guards whether that's Contracting them out there's a few other cities in the state where we have examples how that's done um and so in preparing for that possibility they did ask us what would be the next ones on the list and that's not that's from what we know in reviewing the zones what we've heard from families this isn't the

first year that people have found their way to one of one or more of the DPS departments and asked about crossing guards so um we've shared that with them Hope Valley being the number one and then others and also in coordination with the police department which are the locations that might need reinforcement coming up so they have that list and I can share that with you all at well but that's been part of the conversation with the transportation department but right now crossing guards live with the police department the operation of the program so they have the list about which ones we need next it's not set in stone but it was we were asked if they were to explore it what would be another 10 but that's not set in stone so we can there can be more back and forth on that and hopefully that would be part of the conversation that you all have that was just an estimate of what that would look like um to explore that I think I would love to have that conversation especially as they go into their budget cycle and and plan with us I I see them being great Partners in this I also was thinking about how the county and City have gone

to using a lot of private contractors for security like some Nighthawk or something screen and I wonder if some of those folks might be able to be trained and and um able to perform this job I I was looking at board member Rogers and she made a face so it made I had a followup what Miss Brookshire was just sharing um my followup was is Administration prepared with that information to take on the 11th will y'all be able to bring that or do you expect the board to take it the list of 10 priorities that you've already shared yeah okay and I will say typically it it it's not just a matter of of us taking a list to the city there's some criteria that they use a number of students the mous per hour the volume of traffic the gaps per hour um that that normally goes into play before they assign a Crossing

G I just want to make that clear and also typically the city funds crossing guards and so if we have schools in the county we need to be prepared for that conversation as well Dr Giovani you're going to add something I did just want to add um that a lot of the work that we are doing in Durham is extremely Innovative and um I think thank you Miss berer for listing the names of the people but you did forget a name um Matthew Palmer is the one that got us here like we stand on the work that he did do and also um folks from all around the country have reached out to us about the different things we were doing like they were in the same situation we are in in that rotation coverage that got us through none of us liked it but folks from around the country reaching out to Matthew asking him like how you did that what do the logistics look like same with the F frzs and um I think that you know when you're just working on I just want to point that out and uh lift that up and also um you know whenever you

name people it's always dangerous right because then you forget people so uh charge it to um my head not my heart but I want to mention our bus driver mechanics and our folks that I mean they are up early like those buses break down they make sure they're running they make sure the are safe so they are an integral part of getting our kids to school and I mean and of course I'm doing this and I've always feel like you're leaving out you know teachers Child Nutrition workers so I don't want that's not my intention but I do just want to lift up since we're talking about Transportation uh just the work that you know we thank Mr Barnes for being here and I just want to make sure we um don't neglect to thank Matthew um Palmer and of course all the other team members of his team uh that have gotten us here thank you thank you I really appreciate that that catch thank you that is well deserved thank you no Dr Webb you wanted to add something yes ma'am thank you I I'd like uh if you would indulge me before you move into that level of conversation on

that topic um I would like for clarity to read the F frzs and I'd like to point out that these are elementary schools there are no middle schools that are f frzs there are no high schools that are f frzs for for those who are concerned and and and not been not able to determine if they're affected or not I would like to publicly share that list again Burton elementary Club Boulevard Elementary Creekside Elementary Eastway Elementary Fable Street Elementary Forest View Elementary RN Harris Elementary hillindale elementary Holt Elementary Hope Valley Elementary Lakewood Elementary Morehead montor Murray massenberg Elementary Parkwood Elementary Pearson Town Elementary e po Elementary Southwest Elementary Sandy Ridge Elementary y Smith Elementary CC Spalding Elementary and George Watts

Elementary and those are our F frzs and that is where we are today so I wanted to to share that so everyone heard that again so there to maybe a some concerns that's where we are today so thank you for that opportunity thank you yes a quick yeah also share with Dr Lewis if we could for somehow get a get the list out there that for the schools that are not affected as well I know we have the list out there for the schools Dr L you and I talked about that to make sure both lists are out there so people can make sure they know who which schools are really in it which ones are not yes because that's where the confusion has come as well they hear that they hear the names of the schools and they think that they are affect you know affected

by I just want to be clear the list that he read are the schools that are impacted right so if he if you didn't hear your school name you're not impacted but you're saying on that on on the web on the web page you want to list the schools that are not yeah I think it's important for them to see all see the schools and they can look and see you know which ones you know are impacted by it and which ones are not is I hear that I just wonder if that might actually cause more confusion or a false sense that they might not be considered in the future as transportation needs to look at middle schools or high schools in the future I just don't want us to inadvertently cause yeah I just welcome staff thinking about that yeah I don't know maybe that's just the educator in me saying that be very

clear that's all we can be very clear and the clearer we are the better things can be maybe something to consider Administration um missad did you have questions okay Miss card um the one thing I appreciate the request for clarity and making sure our families have um good information I did like that on the website when you click on the when it shows you which school but also you click on the link and it shows you the map to show you exactly like where and I thought that was clear in addition to communicating directly the family's impact Ed so thank you for um doing that super excited about the positive um news that you shared with us tonight thank you for all of the work that's been done from the teams and for sharing that with us thanks for being proactive too about I had asked about like how you're Gathering data on like how things are going and I appreciate that y'all are going out to school you're not just waiting to hear if

something bad happens you're going out and talking to school administrators and folks um families so that's um great to hear and um glad to hear we haven't had any appeals yet and I'm curious to know how that will continue moving forward maybe that's because there were some changes made in response to some safety concerns so that's good news so far um are we holding off on talking about crossing guards more or okay if I may M um additionally we have started a to track we have a document it's empty right now but it will track those requests and the outcome so periodically if as we can report back to this board if that's what you're interested in we had three requests two reget whatever the dynamic is there um but our our team has established a shared document where that information will be easily accessible moving forward but you're correct we

right now it's an empty list I'm sorry we have one thank you Mr Barnes hope valy well Hope Valley concerns have yes we I mentioned that aside from those but those are kind of far-reaching right now so we're trying to work through that thanks M Barnes okay wonderful thank you Missin yeah I was really excited about the bus driver um updates as well and thank you'all all for your work and recruiting folks to drive um can we well two questions um on the express stops the public comment was asked earlier today around when where are we doing that for next year and can we just get some clarity on where we are or or when we'll get a followup on where that is at upcoming meeting if we need to yes ma'am head nod that we'll get

some updates at a future meeting on if we need to implement Express stops in the future okay that's thank you um the second question was about crossing guards you want me to wait Miss Rogers uh all right um all the schools I believe right now that we're looking at F frz are in the city do we evaluate our count our schools in the county too around needs of crossing guards that might be a Miss question I think they all are in the city I think that came up in a previous board meeting and it's a good question um right now I'm looking at the list I don't think any that have key crossings that are not within the city but it would be good to have that answer for the future um I really did appreciate Dr Lewis mentioning previously about the importance of a data driven process i' want to step back just a one step and make it sound like we don't just have a list that we can pass to the city but in partnership with Transportation staff at

the city looking for solutions that could be quick response that doesn't take the place of a longer data I mean you have to collect traffic data observe students Crossing we have new traffic patterns now that we have family responsibility zones in effect so people are coming you know travel behaviors are changing so this you know going forward this is a good time to collect data to be making those those informed decisions so the list that was provided that we will still pass on was in Partnership of quick response like what could we do if we can move quickly on something thing so that doesn't take the place of a longer process guess I'm wondering what does it look like to do any of those evaluations for schools that are in the county technically in aren't City and I don't I don't actually know jurisdiction wise if we um yes I see a yes in the audience so we do have schools that are just County and not city and so is there evaluation for us as a district to be thinking or I don't even know who on the county side

would manage some of that traffic pieces but yeah so if the role of a Crossing Garden maybe this can be part of your conversation with the multi-party uh The Joint meeting that's coming up our our conversation yeah we'll be there yeah um yeah your conversation yeah oh oh yeah um sorry um but the role like what does Durham see as the role of a crossing guard so you're asking about the county and many of the schools that are and there aren't many but truly within the county they weren't included in the family responsibility Zone analysis or they were at the very beginning and then set aside because right out the front door there's a Transportation safety barrier um and so if the role of a crossing guard is to help it's not to control traffic it's to help students walk and bike across a crosswalker and intersection so um and at what point do infrastructure improvements supersede that and say it's the best designed intersection ever we don't need a crossing guard or do we always need a crossing guard because we want that

person present to be Crossing with our students so that's a community conversation which if a school doesn't have sidewalks or crosswalks or all of that then they're not even considered start with infrastructure so we need to also that infr I'm just reiterating the importance of the infrastructure because I know that some of our schools don't have crosswalks or don't have sidewalks and kids are walking along two lane streets right so how do we thank you that's helpful that help reiterate that we need infrastructure in the crossing guard Miss berer just one quick question M Brookshire one of the things in my mind that we were also asking the city's help with was the getting the G their GIS mapping staff to work on mapping these F frzs do you remember that Dr Webb do you remember our school locator tool that that families use lives on their website and I think that was something that Mr Palmer described previously that but

that might come up as something that in that meeting that um you all are having with the city and um we'll be cheering you on um that we could use their support from their mapping staff as well um so I apologize I don't have that information um but it is a valid question and that's something we can follow up on right and J Rogers um I really appreciate this conversation I didn't think about anou Miss Umstead so I think um if we could get some of those details like ironed out and sort of start the preliminary advocacy on that that could be helpful especially with bringing in I know Miss Brookshire you're planner I know um but bringing in the uh transport city transportation team to help us do these assessments and let not be doing them you know without

them um and so I wonder if all that would be included I do want to [Music] um so I think all of that is great so what I've heard from the board in terms of our advocacy is is there anou an appetite for anou how are sites um for crossing guards determined uh where our most critical needs and who's doing that assessment and when um and the GIS mapping for family responsibility zones I did personally think that we should ask for support for um breast structures shelters um at more of our schools and um the sidewalk and crosswalk infrastructure stuff both from the city and county support is there

anything else y'all want to add to that list might be nice just to show them pictures of the ones that have been done and the progress that we've made on some of those shelters and things and what a difference that makes in school Aesthetics and and safety um because I think pictures speak well but I think that's a great idea um the other and I think it's so if it's okay with y'all that it would be okay if we ask the city for more frequent um bus routes around our schools I don't know I mean I would want to know if our students are riding it you like I I'm all for increasing routes but if students aren't riding an increased route like I it's I don't know if we know if there if that's the barrier yeah yeah I know um one of the city council members would like us to has

expressed an interest in asking for that so that they can it's kind of which comes first the chicken or the egg you increase the routes and then you increase ridership or you try to increase ridership and then increase the routes um I think it'd be worth a ro bus discussion together I don't know the answer I'm not pulling one way or another this I think that's a great list and I would um I'm curious to know what Miss Brookshire says about those um the the city buses and the shelters because they sound like something that could be really useful and based on what you know and the research that youall have done are those things that you would recommend also improved Transit infrastructure I mean that makes it more appealing more welcoming more comfortable so I think

asking for support or more information about how those improvements forth how they're being prioritized going forward I'll say I know a little bit less on the transit side than I do on the you know infrastructure like you know Street projects sidewalk projects bike lane projects so um I think it's a good question and I know that um you know there's a few that are in the queue um at our schools that will be updated anytime like given you know the rway dedication and the construction easements needed for those improvements to happen um but there's there's others that could be improved as well so thank you Miss berer sorry I keep thinking it's the last thing I do think sometimes um it's good to take paper and like we could take some of these examples of these documents that you have worked on for families about about what bus comes near each High what are we calling those Sorry Miss Brookshire let call them Transit guides Transit guides like I

think that might be helpful for them to see other other things that you all have worked on and at least um share some hyperlinks to the robust work that you all you as one person mostly um on behalf of this big student body have done the other thing I wonder is if um we have connectivity between our comprehensive high schools and Durham Tech um for as we look towards future build out of programming there or if that might be something that we need to keep an eye on but um I think this just the start of the conversation but I'm so glad you all are having it yeah all right thank you so very much for all this information thank you and in closing even though um Dr Giovani stole my thunder I'm very proud of the transportation team and the planning team and uh it's a joy to work with professionals and they they are leading with their heart and their head so very proud of them thank you very much that's great thank you what a nice closing all

right we will move to our um believe final agenda item before we go to Clos um we okay we have uh just the monthly change order report which is for information so we have it there that was quick and now I will take a motion oh sorry sorry hold on summary of follow-up items who am I looking toward who who should I look to for summary of followup up items the staff have been taking extensive notes as the board have lifting them up and there are many under everything I I wonder if you want them read into the record or if you trust us to have captured your items but I'm

happy to we're gonna we're going to trust you this time and I'm seeing the desire to do that from my board memb so thank you for taking extensive notes and well we all shared and and tag teamed so hopefully we've done a good job recomend capturing Essence thank you I'm sure you have thank you I move that we go into Clos session for the reasons stated on the agenda second okay it's been moved that we go into close session by board member buer and seconded by board member Umstead is there any other discussion all right everyone in favor please say I I anyone oppose use the same sign and we are now in closed session as another reminder we will not come back out after close session to to um we will come back

out to close the meeting um but we will not stream um so as to let our interpreters um and Tech staff go home thank you can I can I since we are not coming back out and we just had a transportation report just a reminder that next week is um School transportation appreciation week this is love the bus month so we we have many community members and Community Partners that have stepped up in major ways to um just show their support and value for our school bus drivers and um Safety assistance and monitor so this is just another plea to the public to um um celebrate our bus drivers next week and the rest of the year awesome all right and with that we are in closed session e