Board of Education · Work Session · January 12, 2023

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Board of Education

January 12, 2023 · Full Transcript

Good evening everyone the Durham Public Schools Board of Education work session is now in session at this time we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who was joining us this evening the purpose of this meeting is to infer on my Chávez staff and constituents about the work along with our mission to embrace educate and Empower every student to every serve and Lead being challenges for tonight. Thank you for checking the channel to join us at this time we will begin with a moment of silence.

Thank you now we will have our agenda review and approval.

On to General Public comment so I'll do a quick review of our rules state union first of all we're speaking foreign. Second speakers are as to present their comments in a specified time and tonight we have around over 40 speakers so we will keep coming to one minute when the light comes on you move 30 seconds left to start winding up your remarks when the Run light comes on it will beep which indicates that we titles up complaints about staff students or Chávez should not be released an open session however we were really interested in your concerns with regard to public education safety of students to the operation of our school system the board movies will listen carefully and consider the comments and engage in the discussion with speakers so tonight McConnell.

I'm representing the K2 teachers at Little River K-8 school right members of the board the growing together initiative is going to tear apart established School communities and dedicated staff at the Little River K-8 school 23 teachers will be displaced our middle school program will disappear 18 of 18 of the veteran K5 teachers have stated they will request a transfer or seek employment outside of our school district as the Montessori training required is rigorous and as far as we are been told it is also unpaid no one from the board or the school system has provided any details or support to our staff regarding this transition our Administration has been amazing but they can't answer the questions we have if you don't have answers for them it is not their burden to carry your poor decisions many of our families are upset at actively seeking alternative placements such as charter schools for their children we acknowledge this transition is necessary to provide Equitable access to these special programs however the board and the.

District leaders have not included the most necessary component to the success of this District overhaul your dentures thank you you did not have a seat at your table thank you your time is up well thank you for your comment this is not leadership it's a dictatorship we thank you for your comments. Next we will have Kelly helmets hi there I am also a teacher at Little River I've been a teacher in Durham public schools for 30 years I've got two children that have graduated here we go we were told told that our school was going to be Montessori we found out through a parent we were also told through word of mouth again that we would have to have six weeks of summer training to stay at our school with no pay and no CEUs like Miss McConnell just said 23 out of 23 23 out of 23 teachers are losing or having to move displaced now you promise okay we'll give you a job but we don't.

Get a choice where we go or what we teach they when we do have a question we get it's still not decided so let's think let's how much time do I have okay I'm done thank you I just do want to say that we're building a plane without no thank you in the plane without you the next person the next person is Erica McRae hi my name is Erica McRae I am also from Little River K-8 school and I'm representing the K-2 teachers the person US changing to a Montessori school is to attract families to DPS so far this plan is backfiring most of the families who have heard about this want to leave they're already making plans to put names into the lottery and go to Charter Schools we are not hesitant to change we are willing to embrace programs and training that will allow us to improve as a school and a community changing to a Montessori school is not something that we can Embrace teachers are placed in an.

Impossible position even if you have no interest in becoming a Montessori teacher become one or leave even those who would be willing to receive training logistically cannot commit to the required training which involves a two-year commitment including six to eight weeks in the summer we have families we have second jobs and we have sanity to protect this commitment is expected without compensation the entire project is being planned without any input from the stakeholders who have to carry it out we would appreciate the opportunity to be hurt thank you.

All right next I'm going to call the name of the next person as well as the person after that so that person can be ready our next speaker is Julie Applewhite and following Julie Applewhite we will have Janelle Thompson thank you okay I'm Julie Applewhite when we accepted placement at pearsontown elementary the application read as follows a student assigned to a program Magnet School through the lottery will be eligible for the continued enrollment at that school as long as the student remains domiciled in the school system and that enrollment is continuous with the proposed changes DPS is going back on a promise made to our family and our children's school placement was Secure regardless of where we live within DPS boundaries I agree with the justification behind the redistricting but I'm urging the board to consider a more gradual transition this quick transitioning of younger grades creates undue stress on an age level that began school during the pandemic and has not had a stable learning environment third grade is the.

Year that students begin end of grade testing AG placement and we're asking them to be taken out of their community and their friends that they know and love and then take on all these extra tasks and new challenges where is the proof of how this program is going to be executed I see the plan but where is the written transparency with the public about how this will be taken instead of rushing in to it let's take our time and announce to the public what the steps are thank you thank you for your comments and now we have Janelle Thompson followed by James Gupta hi I'm Janelle Thompson and I had a lot written down here but with one minute I don't have a lot of time I want to introduce you to Layla Thompson because Layla Thompson is actually the one who's going to be displaced by this move we are students or she's a student at Moorhead Montessori and we live across the street from Little River so even if.

We were to get into Little River apparently the teachers aren't too happy about it and we don't even know what would happen with the Montessori program Layla what did you want to tell them I'm sorry so with the new plan we would be displaced with no opportunity to come back and we are obviously very unhappy with this choice if it does happen we just want more information we want to know what's going to happen with Little River we want to know what would happen with Layla because yes we are some of those families who are looking at Charter education if this is not going to be something that we can actually do.

Thank you and now we have James guptill followed by Tanya Hawkins Johnson my name is James gutzel I am a working class father of two whose oldest daughter was lucky enough to win the lottery that allowed a mission into George Watson Missouri school which is a six to nine minute drive from our house we do not require missing we live off colia road which means that under the grown together plan my daughter has zero chance of continuing at George Watts if we are lucky enough to ruin a second Lottery to continue taking advantage of a Montessori education which apparently doesn't have any teachers at Little River School her new school would be at Boost is 16-week drive from us I signed it personally it's a 20 plus minute drive with traffic if busing is a major concern in this plane we would undoubtedly be a burden on that system because we would now require the transportation of the school bus I ask that you consider delaying the vote on this matter and honoring the.

Legacy students please thank you thank you we now have Tanya Hawkins Johnson followed by Jessica Hart. Good evening my name is Tanya Hawkins Johnson I am a 20 current DPS employee 27-year veteran and active grandparent when the change proposal was introduced and or mentioned I sat down with the Chávez of my grandchild along with the student to discuss the possible change the possible change of new school new teachers new friends change is needed it's just a matter of adjusting and adapting again after 30 years change is needed thank you thank you Jessica Hart followed by Aaron Medlin hi my name is Jessica Hart my first grader is at Sandy Ridge in his second year at a DPS magnet tonight please remember the proposed 24-25 growing together Elementary rules were first made public after 5 PM on January 9th we all need more time to consider the implications tonight's presentation includes a pre-proposal survey that represents a very small number of DPS families and less than three percent of those able to participate in growing.

Together discussions tonight I'm here to ask you to not vote for this proposal this proposal is in direct conflict with two of dps's four core values consider the merits of this proposal in light of research on school changes and academic performance as well as postcovid mental and academic changes in elementary students thank you thank you we now have Aaron Medlin followed by Travis Morrison hi I'm Erin Medlin and I'm the mother of three children at Easley Elementary I'm also the Easley PTA vice president and I'm here to represent the PTA leadership as well as members of our school Improvement team our goal as parent volunteer leaders is to help provide Clarity for our community Chávez continue to be especially stressed about change after after being changed being implemented after the pandemic when many Chávez are simply exhausted and many children are working to get back on track academically socially and emotionally and hopes to better understand anxiety we were Hearing in our community we surveyed Chávez this week about the proposed implementation.

Rules 133 Chávez responded in about a day and a half we've emailed you the results of those surveys so we're not going to share that data tonight it's not time to go through it but I think you'll see the level of anxiety in our community as a result of that we've also rounded up the questions and we can tell you the majority of questions Center on the timing of implementation many Chávez Express gratitude that second graders could stay but we're worried about younger siblings they're also questions specifically about the lottery process we have to wrap up okay thank you thank you so much.

All right we have Travis Morrison followed by Dr Lauren setting hi my name is Travis Morrison I am the President of the Moorhead Montessori PTA so I want to say the Little River teachers don't kill me and I also want to say Janelle I was going to recruit you for the PTA I have my eyes on you but now I don't know what to do because she may have to leave an ear hat or maybe not I don't know I don't think that the growing together strategic goals have changed in light of a once in a century pandemic that has done incalculable damage to communities and I think that has to be respected I think that growing together has very very good goals to deal with a growing County that's growing in an imbalanced way but I beg of you some of these changes to Simply move people around I don't think they are going to accomplish what you want them to accomplish thank you thank you we have Dr Lawrence our team.

Followed by Christina Baldridge hi my name is Dr Lauren Sartain I'm a GPS parent and the PTA president at UK Poe I'm a professor of Education policy at UNC where I study school choice I served on the working group I understand the challenges and I do not support the plan what would I support shrinking boundaries at overcrowded schools drawing lines that maintain existing School communities as much as possible investing in neighborhood schools so that all students have a quality school close to home reducing the need to bus that's it the proposed plan is very complicated however so I asked you require a DPS to do three things one release data publicly show how many students will be required to switch schools what that means school by school and for demographic groups two go out to each school and hold meetings families and Educators deserve to know what the changes mean families and Educators deserve to know what the changes mean the timeline and how they will be supported three give families individualized notification the.

Rules are complicated don't make Chávez guess until then I ask that you delay the vote thank you easy we don't have to wrap up thank you thank you okay until you until you ask DPS to do these three things and they provide evidence that this is actually a policy that will increase Equitable access to high quality schools and I ask you to delay a vote it's easy to ask individual Chávez to take one for the team rip the Band-Aid off other things that Chávez have been told of that nature but if nearly half of students are impacted directly then these aren't individual stories they are the collective story of Durham's youth thank you thank you next we have Patricia olivieri Herrera followed by Lauren Lamborn hi my name as you said is I'm here yes as a parent but mostly As a student I went to Forestview Rogers Herr and Hillside my immigration story also took me to four different elementary schools the trauma that I faced because of that and.

The ability the disability to socialize and then also parent my children as I try to get them to socialize I think goes back to the effect of all the changes that I had to go I love these changes I love that there are people dedicated to it I love that people are working on this I do ask for more time and please I don't see many Hispanic Chávez here I don't see many public people of color don't take that as a lack of concern or as apathy please take it as a lack of access to the information that was shared thank you thank you and next we have Lauren Lamborn followed by Jeff friedlander I'm Lauren lamborgh I'm stating my time to Asher Hildebrand.

Is is this Asher. I'm Jeff friedlander I'm sorry okay you need to come on now if she's seating if they're seating your time you have you have one I see okay sorry let me go ahead and clarify for you so with seating you have one minute with seating the time that means you have two but that will be it you don't have an additional opportunity for more time later that makes sense so you can go ahead and go now since no you should go ahead now because she went ahead and seeded her time yeah I'm sorry I'm sorry so if you are seating your time the person that you're seating your time to needs to come right after you okay all right you were told the opposite when we talked I apologize I'm sorry about that okay hello thank you board my name is Asher Hildebrand and I'm the parent of a kindergartner at Moorhead Montessori who will be displaced by this plan and a two-year-old who will be reaching school.

Age the year the plan takes effect my message tonight is simple take the time to get this right I know that this redistricting plan is long overdue I know that you have made some effort to solicit Community input on the growing together initiative but soliciting input on a vague and hypothetical scenario is not the same as soliciting input on a concrete plan that will disrupt the lives of thousands of students and until literally three days ago the community was in the dark about the details of this plan I know this because over the last few months at growing together work sessions and in correspondence with members of the board I've asked time and time again if students would be displaced from their schools by this plan and was told time and time again that that decision had not been made so don't tell us that the community has had a chance to provide input on a decision was that was not made public until Monday many important parts of the DPS.

Community including some of those most vulnerable to disruption have been underrepresented in this process and remain totally unaware that this is even happening those who are aware have many legitimate questions that DPS has not answered so if you're truly interested in community input don't be a rubber stamp take a little more time educate the community about the actual impacts of this proposal and give the community an actual chance to provide feedback reassure us that you've exhausted all possible solutions before kicking our kids out of their schools make a special effort to reach out to those who don't have the wherewithal to come to a school board meeting I don't need to tell you that trust in public schools is at an all-time low right now so please don't diminish our trust in public schools further thank you for your time thank you and next we have Jeff friedlander sorry about the interruption earlier and we will have after that Nathan wheeler I'm Jeff friedlander I worry that implementing these drastic changes all.

At once without fully understanding the impacts and ramifications could be disastrous School communities could be disrupted as thousands of students are shuffled around and teachers could resign amid the turmoil we need to understand how you plan to prevent this nightmare scenario children have to worry about things like gun violence climate change and the lingering effects of the pandemic it's no wonder that the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending anxiety screenings for all eight-year-olds yet there has been no mention of the incredible stress these changes will place on our students no data has been prevented proving that these new maps will be more Equitable no plan to staff these new programs with trained teachers has been presented we have no idea how many students will be displaced by this plan and what will be done to ease their transition our kids are our Treasures they are more important than miles on a bus route which is the only metric we've seen used to assess this plan incorrectly I might.

Add a major change like this can't be rushed when the implications are so significant we can't blindly trust the process we need you to show your work improve move the right that you're doing the right thing thank you we now have Nathan wheeler followed by Kim Howard and I'm the parent of a student in application school first off I'd like to start by recognizing the support that you have in the community for the long-term goals of this growing together initiative everyone I've spoken to aspires to see DPS grow in the stated objectives of equality and access I think that Unity around the mission deserves recognition change is needed to accomplish this mission in order for change to be successful there has to be collaboration and Trust you're trusting in our continued support and involvement and we are trusting you with our children trust takes effort and time to build but only a moment to break when my child applied for an application school we were given the following commitment and I quote.

Verbatim from the FAQs on the application page if a student accepts their assigned Lottery seat and begins attending the school the assignment is good for the duration of all grades at that school as long as the student is domiciled in Durham and their assignment is continuous to begin this journey breaking that commitment would be a breach of trust that would undermine the mutual trust and collaboration needed to make this transformation transformation a long-term success I strongly urge the school board to allow Legacy students to finish at their current schools to remain true and trustworthy to the original commitment thank you for your time thank you service thank you we now have Kim Howard followed by Chris Todd I'm Kim Howard and I'd like to see my time to Chris talk okay you have two minutes hello this is Chris Todd I'd like to see my time to our next speaker okay Alyssa Murphy yes that's correct you have three minutes and you will be followed by Sarah askkey my name is Dr Alyssa Baldwin Murphy.

And I urge you to give all Legacy students the option to finish at their current schools I've been practicing as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist for children in Durham homes schools and Clinics for the past 20 years and I have deep concerns about this initiative's implementation plan Elementary School is usually a child's first trusted Community away from home where they develop trusting relationships with adults outside their family no child can make a school transition without bumps and Durham's youngest cohort is already at a disadvantage many having lost or never developed skills necessary to be in a classroom during pandemic lockdowns disruption and frustration can sometimes facilitate growth but Force change is injury and growth stops many Durham children were already at risk before weathering the pandemic for some kids school is their only safe trusting and consistently stable space an elementary schools where needs for early intervention are identified and met because school changes will be destabilizing those who have relied on the stability of their school environments will be at higher risk for.

Mental health crises this is how vulnerable children often fall through the cracks of our systems and the ongoing Children's Mental Health crisis provides no safety net for local children's mental health agencies private practices and hospitals are swamped already and services are harder to access than I've seen in two decades discordant School changes at such a young age will change too much for too many children to retain their resilience I want to talk about the growing and Together part of your plan the growing part of growing together will then have the unintended unintended consequence of injury and harm as it lacks the togetherness that the initiative's plan promises this plan has the promise to provide equity and to unite Durham but please consider that the Urgent ripping a Band-Aid off by forcing pandemic kids out of the schools they are just now settling into will more likely be divisive and a catalyst for mental health and learning crises for many of the families that is intended to support this is not just a professional.

Commentary one of our children suffers from severe anxiety and he has mental health professionals as Chávez it's taken us 18 months for him to settle into in-person school and as long for just as long for us along with school staff to understand how to help him at school to us it matters less if the new school assignment is has a better or worse reputation it matters that his environment remains consistent thank you for your time foreign. Followed by Jessica Abraham Abraham hi there my name is Sarah aske I'd like to exceed my time.

We will we will work on that and address that issue thank you for telling us good evening my Mr Ashley I'd like to seed my time to Jessica hi my name is Jessica Abramson I'd like to seed my time to Claire Dennis okay Claire Dennis you have three minutes and you will be followed by Carol Rosenfeld thank you I am a licensed family therapist and substance abuse specialist of almost 20 years it is my colleagues and my strong urging for you to please consider the impact of the importance of letting children finish out at the schools in which they have started according to the current plan children ages 4 through 8 will be forced to disrupt the relationships created in a uniquely formative time these children were roughly ages one through five when the pandemic started that means that some of these children have switched education and Child Care Centers as much as three times in the past three years and some of them were online for two years at the Tinder age of five.

It is not just speculation that children have been harmed by all of the disruptions that they have faced in the past three years it is fact we are in a mental health crisis with children psychotherapists in Durham are so booked that many are no longer offering weightless spots there is record demand for Psychological Services for children and frequently no place for them to go pediatric psychiatric hospital wings are full hospitalization for childhood suicide ideation already increased 57 percent in the year before the pandemic and it has only continued to grow in the years since North Carolina is among the top 10 worst states for childhood mental health issues and lack of resources for them there's no rope for these kids as we get further away from the onset of coven mental health statistics continue to worsen for children as opposed to improve children spend more face time with teachers and administration than they do their Chávez for many children these relationships make up their core attachment our attachment systems which are forming and.

Reinforcing at this time lay the foundation for resiliency and mental health Wellness for a lifetime time and time again research shows that consistent relationships with adults at school scaffold a child child's ability to learn to thrive to be psychologically healthy and eventually gain employment students from low-income families are even more dramatically affected by the power of consistent School attachments in March 2020 we all had to make sacrifices for our mental health including children to take precautions against an unknown virus what children needed psychologically and emotionally was not the priority now almost three years later I stand Here pleading for you to make the psychological needs of children matter enough you have the power right here right now to affect the trickle-down effect of what will happen if children face another traumatic injury to their primary attachments you have been warned it is a fact thank you.

Thank you unless we will have Carol Rosenbaum followed by Megan Hudson hi I'm Carol Rosenfeld I'd like to seed my time to well I don't know if I can see two than that next the person okay seed to Michael Pike please okay I will also seed my time too which I think my name is kaisan so we were misinformed about the procedure for seating time so we're seating forward so we just to clarify we have let's see Carol has seated her time to me to Michael as well as Kai's son I think we're just at 30.

30 and 31 I believe it was okay I see you yes all right you have three minutes Michael and you will be followed by let's see Megan Hudson my name is Dr Michael Peck and my daughter Karis is in pre-k at George Watts I'd like to speak to you about numbers and Legacy tonight Yale here from DPS about the benefit of disallowing Legacy students to remain in their seats 9782. the student mile saved by disallowing Legacy what you won't hear about is the cost this is a small fraction of the literature of student Mobility which Says student moves between schools are harmful six percent of instructional time are about 11 school days lost per move the cost across the ppsk to four population 682 instructional years the literature also agrees that this cost is born inordinately by students of color and those lower socioeconomic status exacerbating inequity DPS May argue that the equity gain by redistributing seats outweighs this cost but they haven't they don't reference a single piece of peer-reviewed literature or published.

Any methodology to sports that you claim they just ignore the cost the glaring exception to this cost in the literature wake which allows students to opt out there's a bigger number and a bigger problem forty six thousand one hundred and six you will hear this number again and again tonight as the main reason Legacy is not possible the issue is the number is either an utter fabrication or embarrassing error in reasoning this number is the sum of student miles traveled at present and post-districting for example for my daughter Karis to travel 5 miles to Watts plus 10 miles a little river DPS argues that there isn't enough bus capacity to do both but I have news for you a more critical problem is that there aren't enough carences to do both DPS has double counted all of the student miles traveled and applied it to every scenario the real number is somewhat lower than at present supposedly insurmountable hurdle is completely imaginary even if quantum superposition put Keras.

On both buses this is a problem so obviously solved that the solution is enshrined in policy I refer to dps's own policy 4132 about student transfers which was reviewed by Dr pack before this very body less than eight months ago which states unequivocally that transfers are possible by waiving bus transit DPS has claimed that what it's doing is utmost to prevent disruption to families but not only is it not even the basic due diligence it hasn't even bothered to double check the arithmetic it relies upon to deny thousands of students a chance not to have their education disrupted it hasn't checked its own policies for a way to make Legacy work and it arrived at the result it wanted and it stopped looking DPS plan minimizes pain on its own administration of bus services while considering pain on its students families and teachers acceptable losses collateral damage with up to 50 percent of student displaced in DPS's calisthenos snap while the remaining 50 missing their urswell friends the bus.

System was made for the students not the students for the bus system this body must decide whether it's overseeing Durham Public Schools or during public transit you're right doing away with Legacy is unpopular it is unnecessary and it causes demonstrated harm 46 100 student miles is a fiction the costs are 682 instructional years and there are two obvious Solutions in law and DPS own policy DPS Chávez are opposed as five to one the number of legitimate reasons should be abolished thank you zero okay we now have Megan Hudson followed by Kyle Whittaker man I have to follow that I would like to see in my time I'm just kidding I everything that I want I'm here also in favor of allowing Legacy students to complete their time and I don't want to Echo what's already been said so powerfully by so many I just want to have a quick thought and then two simple requests I think so many of us agree that the system needs an overhaul the the.

Lottery magnet system right my children got into application School via the lottery seven years ago my son did in conversations with people in public housing communities McDougall terrorists talking with moms there I I was surprised when some of them didn't just talking about where our kids went to school they didn't know there was a magnet Lottery system so clearly there's been huge problems with communication and and that's continued unfortunately with this growing together process and that's a fact right that there's problems that need to be addressed that we're in favor of making big changes in equity and even redistricting but the other fact is also that we've experienced a once in a lifetime hopefully Global pandemic and I want more time and in-person meetings the next the next person.

Yes good afternoon my name is Joy Malone I am the executive director of it for Durham Public Schools I would like to inform you that we had an audio difficulty with our Spanish YouTube it did cause a one-minute Interruption we do now have our headsets that are interpreting so we do apologize for any Interruption thank you and as director Malone mentioned we're just going to continue with the headsets for tonight due to our difficulties with the Spanish language YouTube stream thank you thank you very much to our staff for working on that all right next we have Kyle Whitaker followed by Linda you hi good evening I'm Kyle Whittaker I'm the parent of a magnet student at Moorhead Montessori who will be displaced I want to follow up with something the previous speaker said to make a distinction between the overall goals of growing together movement of the rules of implementation you know like many others here tonight I support the goals of the broader movement to encourage diversity and equity and more.

Access to for all DPS students but I think that the proposed rules that are as they sit today undermine those goals by displacing thousands of DPS students including my daughter and my I want to quickly read a quote from dps's Chief communication officer from last Spring's Town Hall about the timing of growing together and I quote this is phased over multiple years we will phase this in gradually so that our community can move forward together and grow together in a more Equitable approach to student assignment that was the message communicated to families who engaged let up until last November when hypothetical scenarios were presented and then we saw rules on Monday about how this would impact our families what this community wants please vote to delay thank you thank you next we have one Wii U followed by Teresa Dowell my name is Aaron Cheston I am number 44 and I seed my time to Linda you good evening thank you for your service and your time my name is Linda you I.

Have a seventh grader a fourth grader a kindergartner and a three-year-old we have been part of the Moorhead Montessori Community and we hope and we Aspire for our three-year-old to join and thrive in the Moorhead Montessori Community my family supports the overall goals of growing together however the proposed rules will undermine the goals by disrupting the education community and social emotional development of thousands of DPS children I urge the board to allow all Legacy students to finish at their Elementary School our Moorhead Community is deeply concerned that district-wide Transportation statistics are being used to justify rejecting scenario two which prevents magnet students or program students from finishing out their tender our Moorhead Community is deeply concerned that applying district-wide changes to program schools ignores the program-specific commitment and investment of leading nurturing and inspiring that the teachers and staff provide for their students my family takes pride in our investment and commitment to Durham Public Schools I urge you to further commit and invest in our students please allow.

All Legacy students to finish at their schools thanks thank you and I just wanted to clarify who was the person who seated their time to Linda you okay okay all right next we have Teresa Dell blackington and you will be followed by Jennifer Tran cheese hi my name is Theresa Dell blackington and I'm a Club Boulevard parent and the PTA president and the schools that you lead our children are taught to show their work to provide evidence to give the data yet you have not done any of that you've given us a plan with very basic information almost exclusively about buses and told us to trust you that it's the right plan this won't do my request is simple show us the data how many students are being forced to switch schools whether what are the demographics of these students how does this plan actually increase Equity what does the data say about the impact on academic growth and social emotional outcomes when kids are forced to switch schools mid-career what other options.

Have you considered to deal with the bus problem that is being positioned as the most critical aspect of educating our kids show us that data then let's decide what is best for our children in their education thank you next we will have Jennifer Tabb and you'll be followed by Alan Frey prayer so my name is Jennifer trenchese and I have a first grader at Easley I am here to put in my two cents about Legacy students being able to finish out where they are in school I'm not going to repeat what everyone here is pounding in to the pavement I am concerned about the consistency the mental health of disrupting these poor kiddos that have already had their the entire first part of their lives completely disrupted from covid it seems to me that Durham public schools has got a lot of problems and maybe we need to work on fixing those first you meet kids where they are that's how you help them and so why don't we work on fixing all of those.

Problems before we start throwing in a whole bunch of other problems you're just asking too much from our kids you're asking too much thank you next we have Alan prayer followed by Alicia morelio good evening my name is Alan fryer and I am the parent of a second grade EC student at George Watts Montessori my son has an IEP plan a lot of students in DPS have IEPs do you know how many do you know how many would be affected who are currently Legacy students who would have to move do you know the impact on that on what that would look like we do as Chávez we know intimately what what screwing with those very intricate plans that we have with the teams that we have the trust that we have that our kids have with the faculty and the people on their teams so if if you all can answer that that's great I I would really love to see that so right if you don't know yet maybe.

You should take some time to figure it out so I respectfully urge you to take a pause so we can find out the outcomes and the impacts on this special class of students Beyond respectfully the bus miles which are not as important to me as my AI EC kids learning is thank you thank you and next we have Alicia Morelia. Okay all right next we have Alicia morelio followed by Jim Cheston hi my name is odisha Morelli I'm a parent at Moorhead Montessori well I wasn't going to speak tonight but I'm gonna because I don't like probably speaking but I'll try I am worried that disallowing Legacy students from the main remaining at their current goes to the breach of trust and faith that will drive families into the Open Arms of children and private schools this has been a really hard past few years and the only way we survived was by looking to our community we have poured ourselves into a school and build relationships and our children.

Have built relationships now we may be rested apart and families may live in limbo for a year unknowing of if they can stay or if they must go who will invest their time and offer and Trust into their communities this year while reading who will invest next year and in middle school and in high school we need to be able to trust that our kids are guaranteed a spot at their school for the entirety of their tenure thank you very much thank you and now we have Jim Justin followed by Dr Rhonda Taylor Bullock hi my name is Jim Justin I actually had some prepared remarks but I don't think we've heard enough from teachers I don't think you've heard enough from teachers so I'm going to seed my time to Caitlin McGann.

Oh back and now it's off the cuff I first thank you oh my gosh the support of the community please remember Dr mubanga I am looking at you Mr Sears I'm looking at you oh my gosh Miss Meyer I am looking at you you are my favorite I beseech all of you from these positions of power to stop pushing and talking about this agenda and listen to us listen to us we are going to lose an entire School a beautiful community that my children have been a part of that I am the only reason I'm leaving is because of you please listen to us it's my fear that if you don't you're going to lose the heart of this District your teachers and your families thank you and now we have Dr Rhonda Taylor Bullock followed by Mary barzi good evening my name is Dr Rhonda Taylor Bullock I am the education chair of the Durham committee on Affairs of black people we have been a part of conversations.

As it relates to Growing together I think dating back to 2021 we've had representation on the advisory committee we've been a part of several Community conversations and for us by and large we know that this moment is greater than current than this this moment is bigger than right now it's been in play for several years and even Beyond you know some of my time in enduring Public Schools but we welcome the changes and understand that it's going to be rough but we also understand like the greater impact and the long-term goals of moving more towards equity and when we bring in a racial Equity lens into this perspective we have to understand that racial Equity work is uncomfortable and it's going to be tough and I hope that families who are impacted can recognize that there is a greater good and there's a long-term impact for people beyond our individual sales thank you thank you thank you now we have Mary by Zee followed by Catherine Shore.

Hello my name is Mary barzi I know you all have heard from me a lot via email I'm a DPS parent regarding growing together I joined Chávez and asking for more information and data about the impact on students families and individual School communities how many children from across Durham will be asked to change schools which children I didn't see that in the read ahead I'm particularly concerned about the impact the rules of access may have on our public Montessori programs which as you know are quite popular and quite unusual public Montessori relies on mixed age classrooms materials and Concepts that build in complexity and sequence where it is vital that older students have Montessori experience and are trained to Mentor their younger classmates if a large number of those Elder Montessori students leave and are replaced by students without experience with the materials and methodology of Montessori the Fidelity and success of our we have to wrap up thank you next we have Catherine Catherine Shore followed by Umberto.

Hi everyone thank you for being here tonight and for the opportunity to comment I wanted to just commend you all for taking this really immense and important step in the future of Durham Public Schools I've heard a lot about from folks here and also of the last few years around different crises well we know that there are multiple crises happening at any given time I think it's important for me to remember I'm not a parent of Durham public school students but I deeply care about Durham Public Schools the people who have been in it and the the folks who are there in the future so I guess I want to acknowledge there are multiple crises happening at any given time and what Durham Public Schools board you all have the power to do is determine what you want to focus on and where you want to spend your resources and your your your powerful leverage so thank you again for considering this and taking on this important work and that's my comment thank you.

Next we have Umberto followed by Ann so calling him Street. ESL.

Good evening I as many of you know me I am Umberto Trejo I represent to the Hispanic Center I want to give my thank you to all of you because you're a boy in the ESL students foreign.

I would like to mention that this program access that's taken on the weekend why it doesn't start at the beginning of the year not in December I would like also to ask about that I don't see any principles or assistant principles that are Hispanic we would like to work a little more on that.

Okay. Foreign. I represent to the Hispanic Center and I would like to let you know that we also teach Spanish in case anybody wants to go there thank you thank you gracias next we have announced by Antonio Jones good evening superintendent mubenga and board members my name is Anne sakawi hemstreet my pronouns are she or they I'm the director of rainbow Collective for change I'm a parent of two children ages three and six and spouse to my wife Allison first I want to thank you for unanimously passing the lgbtqia plus and gender supports policy on December 8th this policy sets a long overdue foundation and expectation that all DPS teachers staff and administration are expected to know how to support and affirm lgbtq and gender diverse students staff and families and take actions to create an inclusive environment for all children staff and families to thrive second I'm here to share my support for the addition of a section in the policy that explicitly supports the use of instructional materials and curriculum.

That allows all children at DPS an opportunity to Foster respect and appreciation for diversity and differences including an age-appropriate understanding of gender expression identity sexual orientation and diverse family structures thank you thank you next we have Antonio Jones followed by Victoria Peterson good evening my name is Antonio Jones first of all I'm one of the members of the rules committee a former DPS employee with experience in student data and finance and I've studied this issue academically for the last 10 years as a student of public policy at North Carolina Central University I'm also the outgoing chair of the Durham committee but most importantly I'm a father of a third grade DPS student many of you have never seen this before this is the actual merger plan when Durham Public Schools and Durham city schools merged almost 30 years ago so a lot of the schools that we're talking about that was predicated on keeping certain classes of people out of certain schools so start with that now as we move forward with this yes there.

Are some technical things that we need to work out but by and large this plan is absolutely necessary we can talk about the demographics and we can talk about the bus data and lack thereof but there are some data points that I'm assuming that you will be willing to share but Durham I'm here to tell you this is 30 years in the making our system they will not tell you is fractured okay no can someone give me a minute anyone who what's your name okay okay thank you we have to wrap up thank you thank you we have to move on to our final speaker for tonight Victoria Peterson yes I'm Mrs Peterson but I'm also going to lend my time to Pastor Wilson Williams we're here together stop discrimination against Christian students I'm sorry hold on one second they need to start over hold on one second no no okay only someone who has signed up can speak yeah so with her Peterson Mrs Peterson you can speak but you can't seed your.

Time to someone who has not signed up well what happened we were not aware that you folks had changed your meeting and we went down to so I understand but. Thank you oh God okay all right yes you can have some Pastor Williamson thank you thank you stop discrimination against Christian students the lgbtq policy is against Christian students young Christian children are being conflict about what they are taught at home and what schools present I am a pastor and I know the mental problems students are having in the schools as have already been stated public schools are for education and not indoctrination there is no biology or science to support a person being born homosexual National Training School forum ncu and triple College the foreign.

Thank you all no thank you thank you both for your opportunity to speak you are we could hear you very clearly the microphone allowed us to hear you so we appreciate it thank you all your time has ended we asked for respect in the in the meeting as we have public comment thank you all. Right thank you thank you to everyone who spoke tonight and now we are going to move on to our consent items thank you.

Questions or discussion items I I also just want to thank you for the again the thoroughness of this study and and the and the career recommendations I have one question about sort of outcomes of implementing these changes and because you have worked in so many districts I'm interested to hear what some of the outcomes have been for other districts that have implemented these changes I think pay Equity is is one and we value Equity as a district I think that's a an end in itself that is important but also we're obviously thinking about retention you all mentioned that and the ability to keep people local because so many people are being forced out by the by the house Rising housing costs as evidenced here in the data are there what other outcomes or what key outcomes have you seen in other districts that have implemented these changes well we've seen it implemented different ways and so in one District they implemented it all in one year it has some changes after that and.

They went and they start to have a compression again and so they started the implementation so I guess what I would recommend is if you do decide to do it make it a long range plan not a short-term plan because I think the employees will be frustrated if they get an increase one year then all of a sudden the scale is frozen again then I say here we go again so I would look beyond the immediate implementation and look at the long range and I think you've addressed it to make sure you have a funding source that can help you even if the state can't fund a big increase at least have some something that you can put in there to keep the scale going one thing it has done in a couple of instances is really helped with the relationship with the Board of County Commissioners there were a couple districts we worked with and we're going in they said there's no way we're going to get you know the money and once they.

Were able to show them the justification for it surprisingly they got the money and they were able to do it over a two or three year period And so one of the outcomes was enhancing that relationship with the County Commissioners but the bottom line is the employees are happy I mean but they see they know they know that they're on the scale and they know their their you know subject to get something in an incremental way we had a lot of success in Buncombe County recently in Ash County every time I go to a superintendent meeting across the state a superintendent will come up to me and say we used your study and we had some some success now a lot of districts that are on the heavily involved with low wealth funding that don't have the county commissioner support they've not had a lot of success quite frankly but again they do have at least a plan and they're employees have looked at it and said well hey somebody's going to bat.

For us because he can't ignore it but the thing that makes you so unique is what you know in Durham you're in an urban setting here your competition is Extreme of all the studies we've done you're probably in the most extreme situation as far as your Recruitment and Retention efforts for the employees you have your competition is second to none in a Durham setting and that and it's one thing when it comes from cities and counties but look at your Private Industry you've got RTP in your backyard you know some of the good things about Durham that make it a wonderful place to live are are really you know having your employees to be in in huge demand as you know thank you that's really great to hear those examples and I think we all agree there's no place like Durham so we will try to use this data responsibly and are there any other questions or discussion points just cut me off if you have any other questions.

All right all right I don't believe we're making a motion so we are moving on to the next item thank you so much thank you thank you it's all right our next item is under Chief of Staff Tommy and Giovanni and this is our policy 1735 40 35 7235 the lgbtq ireplus is lesbiansexual transgender queer intersex Allied slash asexual and plus and gender supports policy thank you chair Chavez good evening Dr mabenga board members community members so Mr Malone is going to jump in when we get into the kind of meat and potatoes of it but I wanted to give a little bit of History if you recall the board did adopt this policy on first reading in December and then instructed Administration and Mr Malone to solicit feedback from board members and to take a look at it and make some additional recommendations so the policy has been adopted this is a first reading for potential revisions again I think we kind of settled if it is the board's.

Desire to wave Center Reading again I mean that's obviously an option but what I would like to do is for those that are watching I'm on the board docs site under Chief of Staff but if you are on the pdf version It's Pages 648 through 659 with 648 being the precies and then the policy language being the next 10 pages again that's Pages 648 through 650 39 in the big 700 page packet if you're not on the board docs what I would like to do is to just go through and give a summary of what the proposed edits are and then Mr Malone and I will be happy to entertain any questions is that the board's pleasure okay so the first thing that we would need you to consider is there was a request to delete Allied from the title the acronym lgbtqia Plus in the a some entities use Allied slash asexual and there was a request and I have a list of these so when we go back through.

To delete Allied as one of the potential meaning or words for a the next request was to delete the quote from Walter Annenberg in the introduction paragraph there was some a recommendation to clean up and you look at the initial strikeout language it goes through kind of borrows from the full Equity policy and all of the different protected classes in Durham and to really recognize that this policy is focused on lgbtqia plus and indicating that the safe and supportive School environment is for this policy is particularly for and targeted to protect those individuals and that includes the meaning of the lgbtqia plus acronym the highlighted yellows are from Mr Malone the board did request that Mr Malone did suggest that since these were initially guidelines kind of borrowed from Orange that we make it a little more policy oriented so anything that's highlighted in yellow was simply the attorneys fixing it changing guidelines to policy but all of the other comments are from board members under the definitions non-binary and or.

Genderqueer there is a suggestion to add outside the categories of male and female or man and woman just being more Broad in what those terms May mean. There were several housekeeping and you'll know that where anytime a policy another policy was mentioned I did include the actual title of that policy instead of just the policy number.

I'm scrolling down substantive changes on page seven there is a request to change the word preferred to chosen names and pronouns. And on page 10 there is a request to add and this was there was some conversation around this at the last meeting regarding the curriculum paragraph and the board didn't instruct us to not put it in at that time and kind of work with Administration and Mr Malone to kind of formulate some potential language around curriculum development slash selection of instructional material so that entire paragraph is was requested and it has been reviewed and worked on and kind of manipulated to some extent by Dr Hardy and myself and Mr Malone to try to capture what we thought the board was requesting in this language so that's again on page 10 of the policy so those are all of the changes and with that I'm happy and Mr Malone and Dr Hardy as appropriate is Happy are happy to answer any questions thank you.

All right are there thank you so much for all your work on this are there any questions or discussion points nope Miss buyer no I just appreciate everyone that worked to improve it I think it's stronger and Tighter and more comprehensive I think the only thing that doesn't show that I just love Clarity on is that title or whoever made that suggestion just inform us like I want to be the thing of the Allied bit I would just love to hear learn more and support it that was a suggestion that I made because well allies are important they're not part of the marginalized population that is lgbtqia plus individuals and and so this is a policy specifically protecting and advocating for lgbtqia plus students and staff and and so I felt it appropriate to in this case not include allies who run necessarily fall into that identity category.

Perfect thank you I wanted you to state that explicitly that's what I thought it was but I appreciate you stating it thank you so much I mean oh that's the way it's engaged now oh okay. Mr Sears I would just make a motion that we move this to the consent agenda for our January 26th meeting for second reading and adoption a second. Is there any further discussion I just wonder does it need to go on consent or can we just wave second reading tonight since it's just minor modifications I assume the task force will be getting rolling pretty soon so I just I'm comfortable amending my motion to wave second reading and move approval this evening so then we have a motion to waive the second reading and approved policy is amended chair instead oh second oh all right in that case we will do a voice about if there is no further discussion yes okay all right we're about to do a Voice vote on approving the waving the second.

Reading for the amended lgbtq plus IA plus lgbtqia plus and gender supports policy and so we'll start with Ms Maya Venice hi I'm Alexandra that is working remotely well currently in Texas and my vote is I thank you Ms Rogers aye Ms Byer aye Mr Sears aye Ms Lewis aye chair Umstead hi I'm Emily Chavez and I vote I as well it passes unanimously. And now we will move to operation services with a DPS Transportation overview of 2023 initiatives and Matthew Palmer will join us executive director for school planning and operational services.

All right well good evening chair Umstead Miss Chavez members of the board Dr mabenga and the Durham Community We Have Tonight prepared a presentation to reset our minds to the Strategic plan as it relates to transportation our efforts emanating from that this previous year for 2022 and what lies ahead for us in 2023 just checking for a moment with Dr mabango would you like me to pause for a moment for more members to return we good okay all right chairman said we'll proceed thank you all right thank you all and with me this evening we have director of Durham Public Schools transportation Mr Joe Harris and assistant director of student ridership and transportation Miss Annie fullwood director Harris and assistant director Phil Witter here with me tonight to answer any questions that you may have this is a comprehensive look we know that our community has expectations and we have expectations on level of service for children arriving to school the core function of the school building is to educate children for two-thirds of our.

Children they need that support and assistance to get from home to school so we want to review the progress we've made and the progress that lies ahead for this year with that we'll go ahead and get started in the presentation and then we'll have time to answer any questions you may have next slide please thank you so the overview for today we've got a review very briefly of where we were in the 2018-2023 Strategic plan as it relates to efficiency for transportation we have progress thus far our adjustments for Bell schedules growing together and optimization of runs routes and stops and the remaining challenges student ridership safe access for all children and the recruitment of school bus drivers I did also want to share and I failed to admit earlier we also have with us this me this evening a representative from edulog Mr Derek Graham who is one of their senior leaders within agilogue and if any questions pertaining to Edge log Derek is here to answer those as.

Well Derek is offering also the retired North Carolina Section Chief for transportation with ncdpi so we have a good team here tonight to answer any questions you may have next slide okay so in the Strategic plan priority goal 5e we talk specifically about Transportation efficiency now just to reset our minds here that's a measure the ncdpi puts together for funding purposes for school buses on how good are you at planning on getting your children to school with the resources you have with the bus drivers we've given you with the buses that you have how good are you at loading those buses and getting into the school the short of that is the better you are that ties back to the state allotments okay let's go back to the next slide so it was benchmarked in 2019 at 92.2 percent our goal is 95.8 the coveted years gave us a non-applicable hold harmless rating this year 2223 will be our first year in three years that we're actually receiving a score from the state.

I share all that with you just to reset our minds on the Strategic plan next slide please the strategies that the Strategic plan outlined reducing mileage High utilization again utilization is Riders over the number of students you could fit on a bus standardizing stops route optimization and school programming that would include where children live right evaluating program to ensure effective use of our transportation funds we have limited resources and these strategies speak to them next slide please so to the left you have the strategies identified in the Strategic plan and to the right are different efforts that we've undertaken to pursue those goals one of the things that we'll talk a lot about today is Bell schedules and how that has been the one Saving Grace to allow us to continue to operate with two-thirds of our students requesting service in addition we've been looking at our data within PowerSchool and Tims we've been reviewing Community stops and of course we've been looking at regions and boundaries within Durham Public Schools next slide.

You'll need to tab a few times please thank you okay so one of the questions that we have discussed is the distance from home to school now there again this is the aggregate distance from a child's home to school for every Elementary School in the district you can see that with 14 000 enrolled students the approximate average from home to school for Durham public school students is two miles with the adjustments to Growing together fully implemented you can see that that is two-thirds of that level or approximately 64.5 percent or 18 000 student models notably that's not Network models that is just the total distance for every child from home to school across all children but it also means is that anytime we're looking at considerations for legacy or additional enrollment it is the duplication of that Network even though we might say well this number of student citizens in this scenario and another in another scenario it is actually we still have to drive the same number of miles.

That's an important point that we'll talk about this evening I understand that next slide please with bell schedules previously half our elementary school started at 7 45 and the other half started at 9 15. that would mean that sometimes schools write adjacent to each other would start an hour and a half apart we brought all the elementary schools onto one tier that has streamlined service for us those Elementary routes are our shortest that makes sense the middle school and the middle high schools the 612 schools are on that middle tier and high schools are there again at 9 15. this gives us a 45-minute service interval in between elementary middle and high school next slide please where we were before any bell schedule adjustments occurred our Peak driver demand you can see there was the 850 to 915 window we needed 200 drivers during that time unfortunately we didn't have 200 drivers and if you think back to last year we were talking a lot about service delayed service and inconsistent service that.

Was a big Focus for the board our community our Chávez and our students and most directly director Harris we worked with the board in Spring of 2022 and adjusted Bell schedules to correlate those and it allowed us to develop a three-tiered system that's on the next slide you can see here now the maximum number of drivers that we would need in that 745 in a modeled scenario is 170. we only have 145 today so you can do the quick math on that and see that those Deltas that Gap generates the need for director Harris and assistant director Full would do double triple loads for bus drivers adding stress to bus drivers on top of their existing routes it also requires our core Transportation administrative staff to be on the roads covering those routes which reduces our ability to service families if they inquire next slide please so in top of bell schedule adjustments we embarked on a complete system optimization that's looking at school bus routes school bus runs and school bus stops.

The bell schedule was the first phase of this but we did a comprehensive reset of the entire school system working with public affairs and our academic leadership team you may recall in the spring May of 2022 We messaged every family and asked do you need a ride to school recognizing that that essential service for some of our families is the difference between their child being able to get to school or not so going through all of that and working with the edulog team we spent six months rebuilding our system of transportation service next slide please this is just an overview of what stop consolidation looks like and our considerations around safety we are not blind to the trade-offs between efficiency and Community safety we lead with Community safety and we do efficiency when we can next slide please here you can see the implications for stop consolidation we had well over 8 000 stops where one child was getting on the bus we were able to decrease that by.

827 that of course led to more Community stops but it also allowed us to begin using the most with the little limited resources that we had next slide run optimization and this really has to do with when we are running the bus how many students can we get on there the yellow boxes that are in the positive are showing you that we're more able to fully load our buses now again a lot of those routes are long when we have schools like DSA that are district-wide you can imagine a bus has to go from DSA all the way to the person County Line loading students as they go next slide please here's the amount of time that our students are spending on the bus you'll see the decreases in the length you'll recall that our earliest student before Bell scheduled adjustments was a Pre-K getting on the bus at 502. we've been able to reduce those dramatically long ride times and increase the shorter runs we want our children in school learning.

Hopefully early and on time so they can get breakfast before the day starts and not spending 90 minutes or two hours on the bus getting home we've been able to reduce those longest trips not all of them but we've made significant gains next slide here's just an image of what it looked like in our previous structure with two tiers as if we migrated to three tiers I recognize this is a bit of a nerdy slide but we like data visualizations and this really demonstrates our Peak demands where we reduce service and where we've added service next slide please so that's 2022. we rebuilt our entire system of Transportation operations I want to pause there and acknowledge with the board and presence as well as the community director Harris's leadership this is something that school districts do not undertake we did in the spirit of our services I just want to say director Harris thank you for your work on this we've been able to get by and we have much improvement ahead for us.

Okay I always forget how tall Joe is until he stands right behind me for 2023 we're not done we're just getting started as far as our Improvement for families and students and that is our core Mission next slide please you see here above what we were able to do together in 2022 2023 brings even more creativity and Innovation and improved service we need to come back to our power school and Tim's data plan we have additional 10 000 riders that are actually riding the bus we need to know the specifics on that that'll help as well going back to our neighborhoods using sidewalk layer data Community neighborhood streets recognizing where we place bus stops is very critical for student safety before they're a bus rider they're a pedestrian let's all remember that improving campus access initiatives designed to address the car cues you look at a school like Forest View the car Q length at Force view is a half mile long when we built Forest View in.

The mid 80s they built it to accommodate 20 cars we have 500 student drivers at Forestview they're Elementary so they're not literally student drivers but they do have Chávez who drive them to school that takes up all of Mount Sinai all of curly and a portion of Irwin roads that's what that looks like in addition we have a strategic partnership with go Durham and go triangle on the youth Go pass we're promoting buses accessing not just the yellow bus but the city bus making sure that we have not just bus stops at high schools but sheltered bus stops school bus technology we made a big really a vault of Technology from our two and three G systems that sunset on December of 2022 to a 5G system the modern technology that we need to communicate with our families and Chávez we're going to talk about that and then again we need more bus drivers and we'll give you some specifics on the numbers and our efforts to date next slide please.

So with regards to student ridership we have 32 000 students enrolled 23 000 are currently routed our school level reported ridership however is 13 000. When we do our ncdpi one day counts it's coming that ten thousand ten thousand students less than we've routed for there's many reasons for that we have Athletics after school we have various events that occur for every one of our children every day we recognize that but what it also means is that we're not able to maximally use our resources which again are limited next slide please so to address that assistant director fullwood is going through and working with our Tim's and PowerSchool teams as well as with our school leaders to reset how we're doing student ridership requests and to make sure the what's in Tim's what's in power school is matching up with what we're seeing in the real world in addition we currently right now have significant disparities with school level service we have some schools which receive what we would call neighborhood.

Or door stops in other schools which receive Express stops which means you go to your nearest school and then we bus you in from there we need consistency there too we have heard quite a bit from our families and our school leaders on that and there's a real opportunity there to do more we also need to look back at our walk zones if you can believe it our walk zones were designed in 2002. That's over 20 years ago the state level minimum busing requirement is 1.5 miles our neighbors around us are looking at 2.5 miles we have no minimum busing requirement at this time we do need to look back at that there's an opportunity there next slide please how do we do that well we're collaborating with NC State University and the institute for transportation research and education to look at every single neighborhood in Durham those are our neighborhood planning units that is the core level of analysis we do for transportation but also for Student Assignment we have taken enormous depth.

Of effort to make sure when we talk about a neighborhood we're factoring in the road networks the speed of the roads is there infrastructure for a child to cross the road if you ask them to get on the bus over there can they get there we need to be able to answer that affirmatively and unequivocally as yes next slide please to that end the state of North Carolina Department of Transportation ncdot has just announced a new wave of funding that we're going to be coming back to you and asking for your support on we want to lead to be the first school system in North Carolina to say accessing schools safely whether it's on the bus or the campus is important we need education encouragement and evaluation to that front we need to make sure that children know how to cross the street safely this calendar year we've had three DPS students hit by passenger vehicle cars we can do better to make sure our children are equipped and we.

Are aware of where those instances occur oftentimes it occurs when a child is dropped remotely an apparent asset a student to run across the street we can do better and make sure our Chávez and our students have the skills to prevent that from occurring we're collaborating with the city of Durham on our pedestrian safety projects we have crosswalks the city is leading the installation of this coming year that's an enormous benefit for us it's going to promote our ability for neighborhoods to access schools there are barriers right now in instances where neighborhoods and schools are right across the street from each other but there's no safe path to get there we have to be aware of that name that and have a plan to fix it similarly when you get to campus we also have to make sure that it is safe to move around the campus we have old schools not just DSA but others where the disparity in the sidewalk gaps because of our old trees and city.

Streets has led to disparities with regards to safe mobility on campus we need to be ADA Compliant in the building and moving around the outside of the building and lastly I would point out here our Community Transportation planner is traveling this week but I know she would want me to highlight that we're putting the finishing finishing touches on our car Q disparity study that's going to tell us those schools like Forest View when if you've got a half mile car queue we need to know that there's a gap or deficiency in the infrastructure to accommodate for that what Innovative and creative techniques can we use to improve campus safety and access next slide please so this is the big one for us as many of you know starting January 1st of 2023 we onboarded the edgelog parent portal application it's encouraging to get a lot of positive feedback from staff but certainly and most importantly from our Chávez we've got dozens of emails and calls saying this is a step up let's keep going.

That really is the first step we've also put tablets on buses that give our drivers turn-by-turn navigation automated communication between Chávez and transportation leadership our student ridership program with the spark card and we have to keep coming back to those core metrics our buses getting to school on time and are we loading them as full as we can to be responsible with the resources we have next slide so our school transportation Rider system is called Tims Transportation information management system we're lucky to be here in the state of North Carolina I know we talked tonight about the challenges but one of the benefits is that ncdpi has across North Carolina for Lea provided access to the edulog planning portal called Tims for us in partnering with Edge log that allows us to hang additional services on that so our student ridership data is synchronized and we will use the term interoperable across platforms so that when we're looking at navigation our Rider manifests who's on the bus.

This day who should be on the bus this day if we have a substitute driver does their new route load onto that before this we had drivers that had paper directions or reading through the cell phone this is going to really LeapFrog us into the next level next slide please so the tablets on the buses we can go one more slide and one more slide there we go this is what that looks like as the drivers that arrive for their bus route each day they're able to do electronic time and attendance which patches in with our as400 system and our finance department they'll select the route based on their bus that they're on that day when we have driver shortages you might normally buy Drive bus 212 but today you have to drive bus 150. this will automatically load that updated route so that the drivers know where they need to be and how to get there safely next slide please it also allows for us to directly communicate with Chávez in school-based.

Personnel we've had many times when an instance May emerge and a driver is on the route and we have a community safety incident that flares up this allows push notification from director Harris not only to the drivers but also to Chávez we have a delay in service we're going to be able to communicate directly through that next slide please and this is the big one for us with all of this work with all of this awareness and what lies ahead for us we do fundamentally need more school bus drivers I know you just heard about the salary study and we've been talking about needing drivers for a while but when we bring one in we're also losing others through retirement and other opportunities it's a very competitive market we need 55 full-time drivers and 14 Subs to get us to the 69.

We've been saying that for a while now I realize that but particularly with regards to drivers that have already their commercial driver's license their CDL as well as their designations to carry passengers and for school transportation their P and S with that this is the end of our presentation for this segment on Transportation but we did want to give you a sense of what lies ahead for us for 2023 this is a wonderful moment for us in transportation to really lean into Innovation we thank you for this opportunity and here to answer any questions thank you all can I jump in sorry quick question how are we doing on the tablets on the buses.

Good evening so currently we are working with tablets on the buses there are a few glitches here and there that we're working through but right currently right now all the buses have installed tablets and all drivers are using those tablets every day all right thank you Miss Rogers thank you for the presentation thank you for the work you do to support our students and our families on the buses really appreciative I have a couple of questions but I wanna acknowledge and thank you for putting in the fact that this is a part of our strategic plan and it's not the first second third or fourth priority for us it's our faith priority and so that we're and we're doing this work because it's required by the state and because it makes environmental sense for us to do that my first question is about Edge log and you said it's going to start sending push notifications to families directly specifically what will those messages be and when will that start.

So the messages that will go out will be for delays if there's concern with delays you'll be receiving those push notifications via the platform of azure log as a parent through the parent portal those messages will come instantaneously if there is situations on where we encounter maybe major detours where we send out connected messages now now we can actually go into our system and locate those buses that are in the in that area and families that are specifically going to be affected messaging will be able to go out right now currently we are already using that messages in some place and we look to have their messages fully installed by the end of this week which is tomorrow we are working through that there has been some glitches with the vendor we're working with the vendor trying to get everything going to make sure everything is in place for our families but those messages will be able to go out bus changes bus substitutions you'll receive a notification that your.

Bus has been substituted with a particular bus and bus number thank you that's helpful a lot of people have been asking for that and didn't have a timeline my other question is I guess maybe Mr Palmer question in regards to ridership and utilization you talk about we have 23 000 students routed but really only 13 000 students are writing right now would it be beneficial to the district for those Chávez that are actually not riding the bus to take their to let us know that they're not going to be riding the bus or that something we don't want to do.

So typically when Chávez do not want to say my child is not going to ride the bus they don't want us to take their children off of the bus routes but just like with student enrollment you can't just say that I have 30 kids in this classroom when you only have 25 in the class so we have to remove students from the buses whenever they're not writing we have rules in place if children don't ride 10 days or more they're automatically removed we don't inform Chávez of that but if a child or a parent inquires why my child's bus is not coming by my house anymore we explain to them that because your child has not been riding the bus and then we'll remove you but if you need that service again it only takes that day to get you at it back on and then we go through the normal process of getting you back on the bus thank you Miss fullwood I want to make sure you get credit for that response.

But thank you. One other thing to that point historically we have not removed any students from riding the bus in fact we found it enormously challenging to do so we've tried several case studies even most recently working with DSA when we reset our student Rider numbers from the spring of 2022 we went from 19 000 Riders to 18 000 Riders some improvement but a long way off from who's actually writing as we bring on the spark car for 2023 that will tell us importantly and for safety reasons who's on the bus that day right you can imagine how important that is to know if we have an incident and the safety that commensurates with that as well I'll also add just there again if a student is not currently routed on a bus does not mean they can't get home that day we have mechanisms in place at the school level as we're waiting to reassign them to a bus that will allow for school level leaders to write bus.

Passes that day to make sure that there's no disruption in service for that student what we wanted to be making sure of is is that we're accurate if we have a student that is not riding the bus do we have a system to Monitor and evaluate that that's part of our Innovation for 2023. Thank you and then I guess my last question or point would be at some point will we hear feedback from actual bus drivers and bus monitors about the app and how it's working sure yeah so we actually will be having a session on tomorrow with our transportation committee members which includes bus drivers bus monitors supervisors mechanics Local transportation staff where we discuss things within the department and that will be one of the topics that we have how are the tablets working what do you see what is feedback what are the things that we need to work on as leadership to make this more comparable and comfortable for you as an employee that meeting is scheduled already for tomorrow.

Mr Sears did you have a follow-up comment I did so are we Are We Now using the attendance system we're checking in students one by one as they come on and off so no so not at this time we are not using the attendance system that's going to be included with the spark car where students are able to scan in once they enter the bus and once they exit the bus at the end of the route at the end of the day they'll be able to scan out that's that's the that's the portion of Mr Palmer talked about when he talked about spark cars coming aboard reminding what's the implementation for that next start of next year okay and it can wait till then but we when we rolled out this system we already had some some folks write into us about transaction times and how that could affect the slowing down of I guess swiping a card isn't that hard but yeah thanks.

Miss buyer I just wanted to Express gratitude and hope that you will convey it to the entire team the logistics that you all manage every day and early in the morning and late at night are so so so so so important and we couldn't do it without our drivers and our monitors so I need our community to hear that solid request that we need more we need more and so folks that that no that are interested themselves that know people that maybe could job share and do it in the morning but not the afternoon we're we're open to all kinds of ways of of getting folks their license and and their ability to drive with us doctor was saying have we reached out to both to the city the county Duke any other employers I'm not thinking of to find their list of people that might have CDLs that might be able to do some part-time coverage for us have we had those type of conversations because I think that's how desperate we are and.

Will be in the future we have not but we are glad to engage in that work and to be able to look at those Partnerships I think that that is a great idea that we can definitely follow up on and I just I just love how much work y'all have done even during the school year I know you got some criticism from folks about the two stars on the app and how dare you do it during a school year but I think it's you know I appreciate you acknowledging some glitches but I think it's such an improvement and it's such a such an important upgrade and responsibility for keeping our students safe and I appreciate that you're working on those crosswalks and sidewalks I hope the city will take ownership of repairing and the the expenses of repairing sidewalks around our schools that are not ADA Compliant I hope that chair Umstead can just nudge that when she has conversations with with the city in the future but to me those things are as critical.

As we keep our students safe but thank you just deep gratitude for the folks doing this important work yes ma'am I will make sure that that information goes out in our next newsletter to our transportation employees.

I just wanted to check in with Ms validatis do you have any questions or comments. So I I do I guess the the question that I have in terms of the feedback I have I have a lot of gratitude first of all before I before I ask the question a lot of gratitude for this team I know that Mr Joe Harris you are sole prompt you know with concerns when when community members have reached out thank you so much and you work with Pablo Friedman from the multilingual resource center and and I've seen and I've heard you know just from families in terms of like the questions that they have with busing we have had sometimes concerns there are concerns I'll give you a case in point I know this is this is something that you worked on where the community bus stop we're reducing bus stops we're trying to maximize to do efficiency but also when you mentioned safety it was so important to me to hear.

To hear that and and and and to see that to see that spelled out because we have gotten concerns about a bus stop being one block two into a Hot Zone a Zone where there's been a lot of gun violence as in the case of McDougall Terrace and so how do you handle that how will we continue to work on these specific things where it makes sense in terms logistically you know to create a stop that is a little more Central centralized to the students and and to the area but then when there are particular concerns like lack of super like supervision because they're a little too far removed from a particular building complex particular particular people who are who are there and look out from their window or open the doors and are there with the kids or stand at the bus stop with their children when we decide to move it maybe one one block or two blocks and and there are concerns about safety how are we.

Handling those and I know you have been doing it but I just I just want to know how that ties into a little bit of the analysis and and triaging I'll go ahead and answer that very briefly when we redesigned our transportation system and network that include stop locations as well as optimization one of the things that edulog was very careful about staying early on was that well they can be technical Partners in this the local knowledge of Durham must be reflected in how we design our transportation service there's things our Tim's routers know as community members as Chávez and again for those at home that may not know what Tim's router is quite literally a transportation planner with a technology skill set able to geolocate students and assign them to buses that's what Tim's is in essence local knowledge has to supersede some of the we use these terms you know optimization but what it really means is is that misfired R is to your point our Tim staff have been working and DPS.

For example Ms Blake alone has 15 years of bus driving experience right Miss fulwood 19 years the reason that I'm bringing these things up is that we're going to have to go through and carefully vet the location of bus stops and when communities request for an adjustment which as you're aware we do receive and we fully evaluate that to see is there a way that we can maintain our operational Integrity while accommodating this adjustment and we're always looking for that when we can provide it thank you so much I really appreciate the work that you're doing and the ways that we continue to stay receptive to the community needs thank you I'm Steph I feel like we can't say thank you thank you thank you enough to our transportation team so you all know talk to the Community member said yeah Mr Harris was the one dropping my bus today so thank you all so much for filling in all the gaps and everyone else who's been doing the great work of.

Making sure our kids can get to school I have a couple questions about and I really like hearing about the walk zones I also had a teacher asked me about Southern High School and how there are bus stops there there are neighborhoods there but they're not sidewalks around that school at all I just wanted to know and I'm sure there's probably other schools that fall in that category where they fit on the list of priorities and I 100 agree if there are ways that we as elected officials can nudge on some of our city officials to help make sure that we're covering those areas it's going to be vitally important especially again when neighborhoods are right that the school in the neighborhood are so close that students could easily walk but we're seeing they're not doing that because it's not safe or they are walking and they are you know close to the street and there are several examples of that I could use just and I want to credit our city and.

County Partners as well there seems to be a Durham awareness around the importance of Youth Mobility for a lot of reasons physical activity of course but also we start thinking about being environmental stewards and maybe most importantly autonomy and the ability to move within the community and learning those skills as we go there are I want to come back to a number a third of our students live within a half mile of school right now the state says 1.5 miles but what I'm really saying with that is is that there are opportunities across Durham where we have large numbers of students that maybe live a quarter mile across the street and if we call that an impedance Factor if there's not something there to make it possible for to travel to school it impedes their path it makes it not possible I don't want to go into specifics because part of that is is going you know at a school level but I will say that part of our work right now in.

Partnership with not only the city of Durham bike Durham and other partner agencies is to really evaluate where are those opportunities where with a small investment perhaps from the city county or another partner we could really enable and empower the students if they so chose to be able to get to school on their own or buy another method yeah so we are quite literally going through every single school and of course because of size and scale elementary schools are often nested in neighborhoods and those might be our most accessible opportunity you start thinking about our regional high schools those tend to be larger and of course more kind of at the edge of the county a little harder in that respect but to your point Durham as a community went 50 years without building sidewalks there was no development developer requirement and so as a result we're kind of heavy on the Tails some new sidewalks that don't connect and old sidewalks that need repair yep and it's almost maybe like a chicken.

And an egg I could argue for why we need elementary schools because they're in neighborhoods but I could also make an argument for high school students being older and more able to walk on their own so we need to focus there too but I understand we got a lot of priorities I would love to see in a follow-up once you all kind of do that list who what do we need right so here's who's got good infrastructure here some of the the list of schools that we need support with because I think that would just be helpful for us as well when we're talking to community members who are asking my school needs if my neighborhood needs this where are you all in that process and I will add perhaps unsolicited as we pursue support from the state for funding part of that evaluation is not only who's walking and biking but also where are those opportunities we really need to have a partnership at the table that can say as a community these are.

Our needs when we think about Community infrastructure it is a community problem to your point yeah for some of the new schools that we'll be doing that we're building slash schools that we're renovating is this also a part of that some of those plans doing some indeed what we can do what we can do that's a great example so for example at Northern High School we've ensured that there's go Durham stops not multiple blocks up but on both sides of the intersection with Wellington and North Roxboro that's just one instance if you've traveled in Northern Durham you would know that by biker or foot you would know that once you get to effectively argone Hills which is on the west side across from northern there is no opportunity to go past that you can't cross Roxboro and there's no infrastructure beyond that point and so just for example putting in that crosswalk at Northern High School will provide access to thousands of children that otherwise wouldn't have had it just.

Across the street yep so in our new schools under Dr Monk and mobanga's Leadership we are able to factor that in but historically that has not always been an opportunity yeah I've made two more questions and I don't know if you all know the answer to this we could also do it in a follow-up do we know how many folks have downloaded edulog so far or like a percentage of this many families Maybe. So far we have 9 000 Chávez that have actively requested an account and have been approved daily we take care of any mistakes that they make in trying to get their accounts in and we work on those daily to make sure that the numbers continue and arise thank you and I think the last question I had that kind of always goes all the way back to your beginning of your presentation when you talked about the transportation Transportation efficiency rate and I think there's some people that might say who cares about that rate we.

Should be able to get our kids wherever we need to can you tell us a little bit about why that matters. So when we talk about a transportation efficiency rating we talk about the as Mr Palmer said in the beginning how our students are routed and how effectively our route they are routed how many buses we are actually using to Route those students what kind of travel distance and time distance there is and then there's comparison with light counters and that's how our actual efficiency rating is rated in comparison to countings of likeness and how many students they're transporting how many buses they're using to transport how many miles and all those things and it calculates into an equation that's what gives us our efficiency and that's what eventually leads into our funding how efficient we are the more efficient we are of course the funding that's an important part more efficient more funding again thank you I would also add efficiency and level of service aren't in contradiction here in this.

Instance they actually go together so as our efficiency scores it's not just tied to funding it's tied to how well do we do our job just wanted to point that out because sometimes we get lost in the numbers of of money and we're most interested in how good are we at getting kids to school on time that's our number one key performance indicator on it thank you all so much we know that without that Transportation so many of our students wouldn't be able to get to school and so thank you so much again for the presentation.

Any other questions from the board thank you very much Mr Palmer Mr Harris Ms bullwood we really thank you for all the all the work that you're doing for our students in this way. All right we are going to move on to our next agenda item within our academic Services we are going to have a presentation on growing together and the elementary rules asset to Dr Hardy thank you very much sure Umstead board members in our community and if we could go ahead and pull up the presentation.

Thank you board members tonight we will share information with our board and our community regarding an update with growing together we would like to extend gratitude to our board for their support for our growing together project and its goals diversity Equity access and growth more than three years of work that predates the pandemic and our community engagement and Outreach within our community with an attempt to ensure that we are addressing our structural inequities imbalances and efficiencies that date back to merger more than 30 years ago at this time I would like to take the opportunity to introduce our cross-departmental project team many of which you will hear from this evening Dr Julius monk Deputy superintendent of operational services Mr chip Sutter Chief Communications officer Machina Cooper director of marketing and Community engagement Dr Kelvin Bullock executive director of The Office of equity Affairs and personal professional learning Dr Julie pack executive director for Career and Technical education programs and magnet programs Miss Melody Marshall director of the office of student assignment.

Mr baffey Palmer executive director of school planning transportation and nutrition Mr Phillip day school planner programs Mr Vitale radsky school planner demographics Dr Rita Rathbone magnet specialist and Dr Debbie Pittman assistant superintendent for specialized services next slide please tonight's presentation will include a connection to our strategic plan our journey what we have learned and how we have integrated our community feedback recommendations for the elementary rules as well as next steps next slide please the work of growing together in student assignment is stated explicitly in our strategic plan next slide in priority five you will see in goals 5 C D and E connect to this work specifically ensuring that we meet our class size improve our classroom environments and improve our transportation efficiency next slide please in January of 2020 our board unanimously approved our addendum strategies to our strategic plan School boundaries and student assignment direct staff to look carefully regarding student assignments evaluate our system of choice and develop a plan grounded in equity tonight's presentation is a culmination.

Of this District's thorough examination with a comprehensive plan for our elementary schools due to the content and length of this presentation we have included some natural breaks for us to reflect discuss and answer any questions the board may have at this time I will pass the presentation over to miss Melody Marshall director of student assignment thank you Dr Hardy and good evening chair Umstead to members of our board Dr mabanga and certainly to our Durham community we would like to begin tonight's presentation with a high level overview of the growing together Journey that our district along with our community has been over on over the past three years we can go to the next slide thank you as you know growing together is an interconnected project that has brought together our academic Services Department our operational services department and of course our Durham community and really focusing us on the four goals that you see before you which are to increase Equity to increase access to increase diversity across our.

Schools and programs and to respond to the overwhelming growth and the change that has occurred in our County over the past 30 years next slide please and connected to those goals are the content and programs that are important for all children to experience to position them for success so this is our vision for Durham Public Schools elementary schools and where our district is going there will be significant emphasis on the fact that all Durham Public Schools are Great Schools and that our district is growing Great Schools together there will also be an emphasis on the elementary schools of programs of interest that our community shared with us including Global and World languages year-round calendar options and Montessori programs as well as the alignment of our Pre-K and exceptional children's special programs specialization will take on greater emphasis at the secondary programs while at the elementary level the emphasis will be on experiencing high quality programming and the Arts technology math and science which are critical for ensuring a strong and a strong foundation and exposure.

For middle and high schools where our students interests began to solidify next slide please and I'm sure that you will recall this slide as we continue to bring it back and lift it up to you because it is a reminder of our why why our district has taken on such bold and such Dynamic and such important work that has not been completed in over 30 years and every time we show this slide we come back to our why and they're right there in the middle of that slide it is because of the children and the families that we are so very honored to serve as we embarked on this work we recognize that our current School assignment policies and practices have yielded complexities and in inequalities that families were having to navigate we acknowledged program and resource misalignment across our district the overcrowding and so many of our schools due to the exponential residential growth in our County we acknowledge the disparities of poverty and diversity that exist in many.

Of our schools because of outdated School boundaries and we acknowledge the inequities of access due to the complicated application program our application processes and of course our long bus rides that Mr Palmer just shared that affect the access to our schools for our children next slide please thank you and so we thank you and we thank our community for the actions that you have made thus far in addressing our why in December of 2021 you are board adopted the updated School assignment policy policy 4150 in June of 2022 you approved the new Elementary School boundaries along with the comprehensive growing together plan and in November of 2022 our community loudly voted and spoke to approve and support the 10-year Capital Improvement plan next slide please so as shared in the previous slide in June of 2022 Elementary School boundaries were updated so here you see on the left a map of our current School boundaries and on the right you will find the newly adopted boundaries and the five regions that are.

Outlined in bold for you and these will be implemented in the 24-25 school year and that's a reminder families can visit the growing together page on our Durham Public Schools website to see the new 2024-25 School boundaries and the application programs that are associated with their addresses and I also would like to remind you that these changes will not take effect until the 2024-2025 school year to ensure that families and schools are well informed and positioned for any future transitions next slide please and so here you will see each Elementary School within their corresponding region and as you will remember we received much Community feedback sorry regarding the value of neighborhood schools we heard our community and we heard the value of neighborhood schools so now with the updated School boundaries every Elementary School with the exception of w.g Pearson will have a base assignment next slide please and here on this slide you will see the application program placements within the five regions and we would like to.

Note that we have included w.g Pearson as a year-round option for all regions due to its central location within the county and having all of his seats filled through the lottery this will not offer each region two year-round calendar options to help ensure that our families have access to those year-round calendars and to ensure that WG Pearson is clear next slide please and finally this slide reflects the impacts of equity of access for our application programs and you will see I'm sorry can we believe us give a slide I apologize but this no we can go right back to the slide I apologize but you'll see the this slide reflects our regions and the impacts of diversity on our on our school assignment policies and you'll see that this region that our regions are comparably divided with regards to capacity and enrollment are people of color so diversity and socioeconomic diversity next slide please and finally this slide reflects the impacts of equity of access to our application programs and as you see the.

Number of applications by regions are currently ranging from zero percent in our Eastern region so children and our that reside in the Eastern region have zero applications in their region application sees all the ways of 43 percent in the Southeast region and with growing together you see that the cease by regions will be much more equitably balanced and now ranging from 17 to 22 percent and with that I will pass the presentation back to Dr Hardy for a pause and for reflections so this is our first natural break this is our section where we've had the opportunity to share with our board and our community are growing together journey and the why regarding this work our anchor and connection to our strategic plan as well as the the why that has informed what you will see in the next few sections I want to pause to see if there are any Reflections discussion or questions that the board has regarding this first section Mr Sears yeah I I a few things that I'm thinking about.

That that I don't we we can't recreate the last 18 months of work but I I think you have some data that that you're going to show or release on your website that talk about more of the whys and a couple that just I want to point out that that come to my mind as I'm processing this are getting students in healthy buildings so not only is the bond going to let us rehab essentially make new six additional elementary schools but this plan gets us out of trailers that's that's big and that affects thousands of students I all of my children have been in a trailer I taught in a trailer getting us into brick and mortar buildings where we can better regulate the air better regulate the environment is is pretty critical so that's something that I'm thinking about and the second one is eluding me right now but I really appreciate the the work and the thoughtfulness that has gone into this while I think folks can look at this.

And just say Equity Equity equity and try to balance their their individual circumstances against that this plan is going to do amazing things for the entire District if I came up with that second one I'll I'll speak up again Miss Byers yeah I'm gonna throw a second one out there that I that I don't think we've been explicit enough about with folks is the K3 class size law a very strange unfunded mandate from when 2015 when did that little delight come our way and something that's been that that restricts I mean it has a great name right that you would only have small classes for the youngest learners did it come with more resources or space to put these children in no but the state statutes that that mandate how small those class sizes must be and you know I think folks remember because they've been with us that we went to some schools and schools were doubling up and having their art room or their music room taken away and turned into a classroom.

We've gotten emails this this week from Southwest they they're stretched and and wanting folks to to know that that's not an acceptable way to keep doing school for children so yeah that's a that's a big part of how this made it into the Strategic plan was it's something we have to be compliant with and we are are working feverishly to to do that. Ms Lewis yes thank you so much Miss Marshall and on your presentation to the slides that really stand up for me is slide number 11. again that song is in my heads my how did we get here I tried it the why really why are we here how do we get here and it just it really gives a reflection when we talk about doing this in phases and really the boundaries and reassignments in some of the school neighborhood work started back in 2016. and I remember Mr Palmer coming to our school and talking about the walk Zone what that meant and we talked about the inequities that I.

Created and unintended consequences based on decisions that were made with the merger or with the magnet school so again just take thank you for a slide number 11 taking us through this walk I think about one that faces being determining the highest demand for program the programming that we wanted how we selected the program the value of prioritizations diversity access equity and growth came out of those listening sessions with families and with the community with our Educators so just addressing these inequities and then the next phase even being suspending the magnet rules in our policies so just knowing that there's been lots of phase a lot of hard work in these different phases that's helping us to create the clear pathway for the recommendations coming through and we also knew two years ago in starting this that this would be the phase that will pique most Community interests because this is a phase we're at how does this affect me and my family and I like when I came back in I heard.

Mr Sears saying what we have to look I think you said this the bigger picture is what I got from it when you look at slide 16 and we look at what's going on regionally and how Equity is across in so many different domains that's what's really important that's what we're valuing here for the big picture for these regions so thank you for bringing us back to where we are and showing where we're going Miss Rogers thank you all so much for the presentation I was watching some other room but thank you this really hits home for me 30 years ago I was an eighth grader at Holt and living through this transition where hope transitioned to a year-round school that people love and care about right now and that experience was tough I remember thinking that when I grow up I don't want my child to have to experience a transition during their education career that is not that is unnecessary I remember feeling like I lost friends.

But when I met them in adulthood they never from they never forgot who I was so I think that we have an opportunity here to expand our access to magnets expand the work that we're doing with equity and that we are acknowledging that this is long overdue I appreciate the work that y'all have done in putting together this plan our hope is that it is a plan that will last 10 years it will handle the growth of Durham hopefully it won't have to last 30 years we don't need it to take 10 years to get there students across the district that need what all these Chávez have made public comment about tonight and have written in to us about they are students that need spaces very similar to those and our administrative team has done an excellent job in presenting something that will give them access to that and I want to say that I'm very appreciative of that I do want us to look at what we've done right because y'all have.

Done a lot of things right and I'm really appreciative of that and I'm I'm hopeful that we can bring Durham along with us as we're doing this but thank you. All right I want to check in and see if Ms bayadas has any questions thus far I'm just going to start with you know how with any change any being a closed system as we are closed system in the sense that any anything that we do has an impact and there's going to be folks who are benefited from it and there's going to be folks who are not and we're hearing from many community members about this work so it's not easy work and there's Nuance to it I want to commend you on listening to the Nuance of it my colleague board member Millicent Rogers was mentioning Holt and the engagement and I I know that there has been a lot of Engagement from Holt and especially you know organizers parent organizers who who talk about the offerings from that school your ability to listen.

You know to listen to to communities and to really like do the analysis in terms of here's the plan and yet if there's a way to provide a provision kind of like calculate through the cost analysis do whatever you're going to do right but you determine that there's a way for more than you know one group to win the the a school Community can win you know those those things for me are very meaningful in this process that Nuance is very important to me and we have been hearing from families bringing Nuance to everything from Montessori schools to particular neighborhood schools to programs and like I said this is not easy work and so I just want to applaud you you know in in the sense of taking into account the general goal of improving efficiency of redistricting which is long overdue and I agree the fact that our planning City Planning and school planning hasn't really aligned in many years and I really appreciate the analysis that that we get.

In in in from our admin right from our admins from you all about how to better align that but I do think in this case with with Holt I'm very grateful I'm very grateful for the ability to have nuance and I also want to provide opportunity for more engagement I told my colleagues and as many colleagues as I was able to talk to that and we've had these conversations I mean moving forward we're gonna have to move forward but when is is the question you know when do we move forward and and I think that there are a lot of things that are already in motion and I'm ready not ready tonight but I'm ready to say that at the school level I'd like to see more of this more of these conversations happen at the school level and to feel like you know that that I'm seeing more engagement happening at the school level and then I can I can definitely get 100 behind I'm mostly you know I think that.

I'm over over the hump in terms of you know over the the the I'm I'm definitely supportive very supportive of this but I'd like to continue to see in what ways we are tending to Nuance because this is a Monumental a Monumental undertaking and so I just wanted to provide that that I'm supportive of your work I see what you're doing I commend you for it we're gonna have to deal with you know more of that of that conversation and what it means for families and I think that we do have to have care and concern for how this impacts families and continue to do the analysis that you're doing which is great it really does help thank you all right I have one comment and then we'll let you all proceed if there are no more questions on this section I just wanted to note on slide 17 it's so striking to me that in the Eastern region there are no application seats zero percent in the Eastern region.

And 43 in contrast to the Southeast region has 43 percent of the application seats and the the Eastern region part of it is district one which I represent and and I also understand that we are my understanding is that we're losing students to Charter Schools and greatest numbers in East Durham or in the Eastern region so so I just wanted to note that that was striking to me and looking at this data and the why behind this so not a question any other questions on this section all right we'll let you continue thank you thank you and if we can pull back up the presentation next we will have Mr chip Sutter our chief Communications officer this section really is dedicated to our ongoing engagement what we've learned from the engagement and how the engagement is informing the recommendation that we have regarding our rules and next steps Mr Sutter thank you Dr Hardy and there's a clicker on this Podium and it works I don't have to say next slide please.

This work has been going on for many years it predates the pandemic we came to our board and then to our community identifying the challenge identifying the why and the meetings to that led up to that point while they were briefly interrupted by covid they continued after that more recently we've had more than 50 virtual and in-person Community meetings between in the in the two years between January 21 and December 22. Regional workshops meetings with Community interest groups Direct Mail direct Flyers to families going home on buses more than 12 000 unique visits at engage.dpsnc.net we recognize that we have a long way to go to ensure that all voices are heard and that we have adequate two-way engagement in all of our communities and Ms valeras's comment about about centralizing that and the schools is well taken but this has been the most broad Community engagement this has been the most broad Community engagement effort that Durham public schools has undertaken in the 10 years since I have been here.

It is a testament to the work of the broader growing together team I do want to note my colleague Sheena Cooper who was a key mover and Shaker in doing that work and I want to thank you very much for that but she was not alone by any stretch so there's more work to do but this is the best start. This process began with Community engagement and Community engagement was infused throughout the process of deliberating on and presenting to you the rules proposal that is the focus of tonight's meeting we we began with Community engagement we empaneled a development working group of which I'll give you a little more details in a moment that group worked iteratively taking on feedback and then going back and and going into the lab as we call it and then going back out to the community to parent and Community Ambassador groups then we held those Regional work groups which were very passionate and in-depth conversations some of the most honest and candid conversations that it has been my.

Privilege to have in Durham Public Schools even with people who were very much unhappy about the direct impact on their family we'll talk a little bit more about some of the some of the things that there but it was very Durham in a very good way and I can't wait to be able to expand that to more and more of our communities feedback from the regional work groups came back to the development work group and they helped us develop the draft the rules proposals that we're bringing tonight this is a shot of the members of the rules development work group Chávez school and Community leaders principals experts in the areas of Education policy and planning and again we worked with our ambassadors and individual School communities and District staff to gather feedback and to thoughtfully and thoroughly communicate the implementation plan it has evolved it has absolutely evolved over the last three years as we have done this work and come to this moment the feedback from those Regional workshops was both quantitative and qualitative.

I want to start with qualitative because that was really the purpose of those workshops to have the conversations tease out the themes the stories the ideas and the questions not bringing things to a vote but having back and forth conversation and even debate about what the best thing is for our community and what the best thing is for families and our partners at Research Triangle Institute collected over a thousand pieces of information from those we'll get to some highlights of that in a moment we also took some quantitative data from the workshop feedback surveys of the attendees and Mr Palmer will give you some highlights about how we use that information as well these are the questions we ask those attendees how could these rules impact you and your family what would your reaction be how would your family respond the specific and then asking attendees to look Beyond themselves look to the broader Community how do you think these rules could benefit other Families how do you think these rules could create challenges for.

Other families and you can see the topics of importance on this screen access and Equity movement application Legacy impact on teachers and staff these all came forward in again amazing conversations and these are three representative examples of what we heard these are unedited comments that were made from the from attendees at these Regional workshops in Orange my base school is changing my third grader was a kindergartner when covet hit went online because of covet would then be asked to go to a different school for fifth grade and middle school that's not developmentally developmentally appropriate note that when we went to those workshops we presented the boundaries that the board adopted in June 2022 we adopted and we presented as a baseline everything goes into effect in 2024 2025 how do you react and these were some of those reactions acknowledge that there is a whole community of needs to attend to here not just my family and we will do what we need to do and then green seems like if your family.

Sought out a certain program and you arrange your lifestyle around that program it seems like you should get some extra credit if put back into a lottery for a similar program we'll come back to these themes in a moment but what we heard qualitatively was long-term support for growing together some of which you heard tonight in the public comments a recognition of the value for you the expansions of universal Pre-K and classrooms designed to support children with exceptionalities spaces for the Arts both Visual and Performing Global languages let's not forget that this is not just about Student Assignment but it is also about growing Great Schools together enhancing the academic programming at every single Elementary School in Durham not all of our schools have Global languages not all of our schools have classrooms for the Arts growing together allows us to do that at every Elementary School the second Trend that we heard from our families of course was implementation and change management the personal when possible prioritize Student Assignment placements for families and students.

That are currently enrolled in DPS maintain sibling links so now I'm going to turn it over to Matthew Palmer for a look at the quantitative piece of the feedback from the workshops from the regional work groups and then we're going to go from that work work group feedback and then we're going to look at the operational constraints and and scenarios that put together what our community was telling us with what Durham Public Schools can offer for our community to ensure that we truly are growing Great Schools together Matthew.

Chip is also taller than me that's all right thank you Mr Sutter I want to be very clear that we felt it important to utilize a mixed method research design and our recommendations to our community stories ideas concerns creative possibilities that's through qualitative data as chip is highlighted here the quantitative data was important too we went out on six in-person Regional workshops to say what if dot dot and chips walk you through that we wanted to capture for those that had attended the 281 Chávez who came and joined us at each of our impersonal workshops across Durham this is a meeting in cafeterias libraries classrooms sitting down and having hard conversations after you go through that tell us what you think about the possibilities not about a specific rule but about the possibilities big picture overwhelmingly of the responses that we got they were clustered around certain schools in those certain schools were represented overly in the survey itself out of 281 Workshop attendees we received 200 survey responses.

So our team huddled we have the Good Fortune having on our staff our assistant director of school nutrition planning Dr Lyndon Thayer who's been through the UNC Odom Institute survey methodology program as a part of her dissertation I also went through that program as a part of my dissertation and we evaluated what could we do to bring you all a sense of where Durham sits with growing together the possibilities we were able to construct a weighted School sample to give you a sense of of those that came and participated of those that came and participated and took the survey where are they at 80 responses in the survey were from Chávez that attended one of the over-represented schools but did not come to the regional workshops they were shared through email and other memes so they were responding to a survey that they had not attended we were we had to remove those responses we then had high response rates from certain schools and we were able to normalize that or pull out a weighted.

Sample and say okay if if we can have school level representation where do our Chávez sit so Dr Thayer is here with us this evening if you have any specific questions but let me give you an overview of what we what we received through that analysis overwhelmingly the support for understanding why understanding why we need to take on this work the possible implications for student assignment that growing together will increase the variety of academic opportunities for children as well as the allocation of resources across our schools when we talk about growing grade schools together we have to put the meat to that idea we have to put the ideas to that the response is again increasing access recognizing that that is something that is a shared Durham Community value an excitement about what may be about available not only for some schools but for all schools and All Families recognizing as well that there will be expanded opportunities for families in each of these topics we hear affirmative agreement or positive responses in that.

As it got closer to families individual circumstances and recognizing that families that came out to these Regional workshops were coming out sometimes with very specific reasons as it got closer to individual family impacts that's where we again began to see disagreement in the spirit of being transparent in the spirit of saying we lean into the data and we use the data to guide data-driven decisions with the board with our community the recommendations we bring to you we share this to be transparent to say here's where we come from with the regional workshops on the next slide we're going to get into some yes Miss buyer sorry I don't want to slow the flow but I I with deep appreciation for the way that you all did that sample I think it's also kind of created some distrust with folks online and they would be appreciative of just sharing all of it online like all the sample stuff in the future I've seen so much chatter about this slide in particular.

I have others seen that as well maybe it's just me it's just well so misspire I I just want to ask one thing was that chatter I'm sorry let me leave that right there was there a question or a request for that i i in the notion of transparency I think if we want to share all the RTI stuff all this stuff I mean I get the broader picture that you're painting but I'd you know people can see it all right we don't have a problem we're not trying to hide anything I guess that's my question that that that's how people are interpreting this slide and anyway one of the one of the purposes of a survey and I do think it warrants the difference between the census and the survey remember when we were opening back to school back in 2021 right we had on 96 participation rate in coming back to school that we took on as a census right we tried to get a hundred percent of.

Every family in Durham Public Schools to say tell us where you are on this a 96 survey participation rate is unheard of across the world right but as it relates to this surveys are designed to give you all particularly for electives but also for us as Community leaders a sense of where are things at with regards to the overall sentiment a sampling is designed intentionally to give you a sense not from one person and not one school overriding all schools when we come to where are Chávez sitting with us so the survey was intentional in its design to that effect yeah I think just to jump in a little bit I might worry because you talked about in using the method you did to get to the 30 that there was over representation in the survey and so if we were to release all the information you that over representation would be there and I'm not sure that it would be the right kind of summary and then I.

Feel like you might need to release more identifying information to show that and that feels like it could get really tricky so I I think I understand the concern around transparency I think the way you just explain why the survey was was chosen and why these 30 were chosen out of that I think helps I think there's always more opportunity I think for different types of Engagement and I don't think there's a perfect way to get to the to the answers that we need but that would just be kind of my concern about trying to release it all recognizing that it would be over represent in some ways yeah 100 I just wanted to make a note that that's something that I've I've seen people raise questions about and and from attending those they they were with like people that were similarly concerned about their own child and there was that was in the space and in the conversation heavily as well to borrow Dr mabinga's phrase though well noted and we will be including.

On our website Tomorrow there's going to be an additional upload of some information some brief resource information on the growing together website that is going to include the RTI report itself which was not quantitative it was qualitative so it would capture it captures the stories and the themes but not the numbers I do want to be clear about that but we will provide the RTI report we all we will also be providing some data updates that have been requested by members of the board and community that are a further explanation of our why which includes information about socioeconomics at our various schools capacity use of trailers Etc and so on so more more to come on our website in the entrance of transparency tomorrow thank you and Ms Rogers right now on this but this particular slide has been all over the place and Mrs presented in some ways is there and I've asked some questions about the demographics across schools and across the district of folks that we collected this.

Information from and who attended the sessions both virtually and in person particularly like Aaron Harris is losing their magnet program and those schools in East Durham that board member Chavez was speaking up earlier how much reflection of those folks do we see in this information are we certain that we have heard from them so again miss Rogers I would point out this survey was administered and sent out through our office of public affairs to every Regional Workshop attendee so this survey has been shared with those that came to the workshops this was early days when we were going through scenarios and the possibilities accompanying scenarios this is not a survey that has been administered post-reli releasing of the rules which was only Monday I I'd like to learn more about the circulation of other data sets but as far as this here this is in respect to the regional workshops in November of 2022.

What we can say is that the participation in the regional workshops and this buyer just alluded to this did skew towards wealthier and wider than the district level averages that we know to be sure and the survey participation rates do skew wider and wealthier than the majority of our Durham Public Schools families that we can say as well that's why a school level representative sample is was our best effort here okay I want to be clear about what this says and what it doesn't say what I will also say is that our recommendations to the community and to the board do not hang on this survey result alone we have been out there for three years I have done this work for 10 years and I have never seen a school system engage this level of Engagement with its Community with its schools with its leaders and yes teachers as well trying to work through the possibilities for the future I'll just say again this is one data point.

Of hundreds but we wanted to include it to be transparent anticipating and knowing that there needs to be some trust building here this is a big decision I hope that's helpful any other questions before I proceed to the next slide okay now please continue okay I and I this needs to be said here with this slide so I'll go ahead and lean into it growing together well it is certainly a comprehensive plan and by comprehensive plan we mean that impacts Student Assignment our Capital program School boundaries regions even School nutrition we do need transportation in order to implement it the reasons for growing together were very much what aligns with the Strategic plan from 2018 overcrowded schools under enrolled schools wide disparities in our demographics of our students school by school sometimes at adjacent schools right so growing together has always been about our students and modernizing our school facilities so there's room for those students just as Mr Sears said earlier with taking away our mobile classrooms retiring those those are.

Temporary classrooms not a long-term strategy Transportation exists so that we can Implement any Student Assignment plan that you all may envision through the implementation of growing together what this slide represents is the value of that for our community and we just spoke about our levels of service for our students reducing the home to school miles not having to cross freeways to get to school when we can minimize that being mindful of our neighborhoods of our road speeds where our school is a relationship to our children and the legacies of our neighborhoods we have a very complicated residential history in Durham we are still dealing with the Fallout of redlining from a hundred years ago through growing together we're able to reduce the distance from home to school for our children I'm not talking about bus models there I'm talking about the distance from home to school dropping it from two miles per student to 1.5 secondly with reduction in bus routes what this also does through that closer distance is it allows us.

To have more students on the bus we average 47.5 elementary students per bus in our current day the capacity of a bus is 72 students we're averaging 47.5 routed students through growing together we do anticipate and we have modeled this out to show the reduction of bus routes by a total of 58 bus routes and reducing our need to hire additional drivers down to a manageable level our bus drivers are pushing near on an average of 55 years old as Was Heard earlier tonight it's very hard to recruit and retain bus drivers I want to name that this puts us into a manageable state that said we are not blind to the need to implement this and be thoughtful in our application of it so as we walk through the next slides what I take is my team's responsibility in school planning and operational services to make sure that not only is what we're doing reasonable but is it responsible when we make a commitment can we do it can we make sure that kids.

Are to school on time and there's room for them when they arrive so we're growing together we have the reduction in the home to school mileage the reduction in the number of bus routes that we need to carry and the number of bus drivers will actually need currently today I don't know if director Harris is still here but we fill that Gap the 43 drivers that were short that you see here through running double and triple loads through our central office staff including Miss Smith going out in driving routes because there's no one else to drive them I hope everyone fully hears that reality that we deal with every day so as we have been asked to evaluate scenarios we've been bringing forward what can we do there's the universe of could and should and then there's the question of what can we reasonably and responsibly do for our community and for our students in our schools we've evaluated this across school capacity looking at not only the opening.

Of Murray massenburg in 24 25. that's 800 students right there in the heart of our community we're so fortunate to have had that land bank and we'll talk about that later six elementary schools being renovated and modernizing those facilities many of those Renovations are strategically located in the heart of the future growth of Durham classroom size and I know maspara you referenced it earlier hb90 brought our classrooms down from 20 to 25. At a first grade level 16. now that doesn't sound like a lot at surface but scaling that over 2200 classrooms we're talking about thousands of seats all of this is outside of our control but we do bring it to you to show the depth the Nuance I think that we shared earlier Transportation wise we've been looking at load capacity what can we possibly do to be more efficient to do the most with the resources that we have we've spoken of the limited resources we have and we've also tried to illustrate what are we doing to maximize the.

Utility of those resources so the assignment scenarios that we have been asked to evaluate I'm going to read them here can all students in 24 25 grades one through five stay at their current School can application students stay at their current school and Boundary students move can DPS stagger this such that grades 3 through 5 and 24 25 would stay and the younger Gates kindergarten through second grade would move scenario four could this coming 23-24 year kindergarten students could they get a head start could they enroll early at the new schools for 24.25 could the fifth graders stay and is it even feasible with one year of Legacy for fifth grades those are our current just doing the interpretation those are our current third graders in scenario six could our current second and third graders or in 2425 our fourth and fifth graders could they stay and we reassign our younger students I want to stay again one of the complexities with hb90 is that there's a hard cap on our.

Class sizes in grades K through three that is an important factor as you consider these scenarios scenario one can all currently enroll students in the year 24 25 grades one through five stay this is a scenario we come back to that we've Revisited earlier but and I it's going to take a minute for me to explain this but I think it's vitally important for our community I've seen a lot of I've heard a lot of math being thrown about the internet and I want to be very clear these numbers that you see here on the distance for boundary students in the current year and in 24 25 that Delta nearly 10 000 miles that is not miles driven that's not Network miles but that is is the distance from home to school for our children for all 14 000 Elementary School students that is perhaps the key indicator for us when we think about what does it take the number of riders may be the same in both scenarios but the further the distance you're.

Talking about network coverage in this scenario legacying all currently enrolled students would equivalently create two school systems that have an escalator cost associated with them in the first year we would need 50 additional school bus drivers in the second year we would need 100 additional school bus drivers and it would continue to ramp up because we would be operating parallel school systems the school system that we have now today and the network designed that director Harris and assistant director Full wood run daily and our onboarding slow matriculation grade that would take a total of six years to fully implement the timeline aside from an operations perspective could we commit to it and say can we do this it's neither viable nor sustainable it has an escalator associated with it more and more bus drivers year over year to the point where they're again three years out we're at 150 additional drivers in four years out we may be as many as 200 additional so in this scenario regretful as it is.

Because we do understand this sounds like a very reasonable scenario that complexity and Nuance with it is grave the second scenario that we were asked to evaluate could currently enrolled application students day now I'll speak to the operational constraints but I do want to also lead voice to the widespread disparities that this may generate by providing protected Legacy status for certain students enrolled in an application school which as we know correlates with income and at the same time asking our boundary students to move having said that we cannot assign two students to the same seat what does that mean earlier Miss Marshall talked about how in valuing the importance of neighborhood schools every school has a base area boundary associated with it that means that for if we take a school with 200 students in it that we're all a lot of reassigned and now we have other students that have a boundary right to that school certain seats now we've been responsible in drawing the boundaries and we're going to talk about that later.

But we do point out that two students couldn't be assigned to the same allocated seat in addition we're walking through a scenario here where we're renovating six campuses the greater the complexity the greater the differentials school over school and student populations that's going to factor into schools like like Moorhead that are on our CIP renovation schedule for the next five years with the bond referendum this also does not address the severe overcrowding not just of our seats and schools and the mobile classrooms but I'm going to go to a concept we call Core capacity how many students can the school support Beyond just seats but the lunch line you can go back to a school like Creekside that's had to offer five lunch periods because of overcrowding instead of the traditional three that means students are eating from 10 to 2 in the day that's what overcrowding looks like it's more than just seats it's running the school itself those car lanes that we talked about the half mile overflow at Forest View that's exactly.

The type of scenarios that core capacity speaks to on the seat capacity constraints this is not a viable option again as with the first scenario in this scenario we would be running parallel school systems for transportation we would have a network design for the miles for our boundary students and a network design for our application magnet students it's not it's neither viable nor sustainable in that Dimension as well our third scenario could grades three through five stay or be legacied in grades kindergarten through second grade move that's three grades on each side of it as we were just discussing that's running parallel school systems in this instance for at least three years factoring in again we've heard about the importance of sibling linkages we have hundreds of siblings that would fall under protection in this it would draw it out quite literally in some instances for 10 years I need to be very thoughtful about that and the implications of these nuances that will factor in with us over the decade ahead.

As with the other scenarios this does not address some of the core goals from the Strategic plan making sure we have seats and adequate seats for students and the core capacities that correlate as with mentioned before this Transportation scenario would double our network coverage of the distances that we would have to travel it is neither viable on a seek capacity perspective nor on a carrying capacity for transportation scenario four and we very much understand and receive this scenario request could the incoming 2324 kindergarteners attend their new school again from a reasonable perspective we understand where it emanates from on the capacity side we ver we have students in that cohort for 24.25 that will be assigned to Murray massenburg 800 students in the heart of the county surrounded by seven schools but those seven schools have schools surrounded by it it is a game of musical chairs if we try to accelerate it without seats for the students that would be assigned for Maria massenburg it would put us in a tailspin from.

Capacity and student assignment we wouldn't have the seats for the students that we've assigned at the school until it opened Transportation wise it would also accelerate our need to find 50 drivers as soon as possible we have our stated goals to get us to a functional level today this would add to that complexity by requiring an additional 50 drivers for those students that are that incoming kindergarten cohort class that would be on an entirely different network design than our current students we also do not have direct communication established with our incoming kindergartners the enrollment process for 2324 is open and it's underway we're excited about that but it also means pulling that plug out of the wall and rebooting our entire system of student assignment for 23.24 changing those rules on the Fly for families that have already begun the process and as I think we're talking about tonight the subtle nuances of making sure we can do it lastly and to that point being prepared as growing together comes into full matriculation.

It will take time to get our campuses ready you heard from one school tonight about the lead-up time they're going to need we're going to need lead up time at each of our campuses trying to get this in place for 23.24 is a very high bar trying to get it in place for 24.25 is a bar as well I will say that we have work to do on a capacity level incoming kindergartners for 2324 accelerating their enrollment we can continue to look at options where that might be possible through other mechanisms that are already existing but from a planning perspective we would not advise that from a school capacity level or from a transportation level that brought us back to the lab as as was said earlier what is possible what can we do and how can we prioritize DPS students we recognize that this is a Human Service that we provide we grow children recognizing that for especially for our grades 4 and 5 and 24 25 but currently enrolled second.

And third graders those second graders my daughter is one started kindergarten online we know that's hard could we possibly in some way look at fifth graders could we look at Fourth Graders what is possible and yes there's a broader awareness that there is a community of need here I think you've heard again tonight as well as from our other efforts to collect qualitative and quantitative feedback broad support for the Ambitions and needs of growing together in coordination with the Strategic plan how might we think about for those students that have received an application Lottery assignment to a school how might we think about prioritizing them as we reassign students is there an opportunity there in some way to make sure that we're having continuity of program if you've been on a DLI program if you've been in an IB program or a Montessori program or a year-round program how could we work to make sure there's continuity for those unique programs okay so that was a lot to ask of us so we've.

Been going through it scenario five looking at Legacy currently enrolled third graders which will be fifth graders in 24 25. We've evaluated this from a school seat capacity perspective those boundaries were drawn to accommodate the incoming 24-25 kindergarteners when Murray massenburg opens up it's going to allow us to begin to retire those mobiles and otherwise we would have the capacity to prioritize as well our current enrolled students as we look towards the application process of figuring out outside of the base area who's eligible to go to that school somewhere from a seek capacity perspective we do feel that that is a this is a scenario we could support for transportation it's a high bar we need we're going to need to find 50 additional drivers to support Legacy for fifth graders in 2425 that said if we can update our school and walk zones and Miss Lewis just very briefly when we were talking earlier something that we've Sunset that was contributing to our inequities was priority zones it was priority zones.

Those are now School boundaries we've caught we've made those boundaries but school and walk zones have much more to do with our bus service where are we able to afford bus service and where are we not because it might be across the street from the school and that's very much happening today we have to wrap our arms and have consistent eyes on our transportation Rider data I'm sharing these with you as requirements because we need to do them as I stated earlier but we very much needed them under any of these Legacy scenarios having said that as you know Dr mubenga and the administration have been listening we're out there working with our school communities we're receiving the feedback there was a question asked for scenario six could we look at not only for our currently enrolled third graders but could we also extend Legacy possibly to our currently enrolled second graders recognizing that those second graders have been through a lot they're going to be fourth graders in 24 25 is that possible.

From a school seat capacity as with the previous scenario the answer there is yes we can do that particularly and it is essential that we are on schedule with Murray massenburg from a transportation perspective it amplifies the carrying load that we're going to be developing if we're to look at this scenario it's not just the 50 additional routes that we had from the previous Legacy consideration it will actually be doubling that because those are going to be long routes with low students on a per bus level we're going to have to cover the entire County but only for fourth and fifth graders I say again the requirements that we have here the things that we're saying we need to do are going to situate us so that we can answer this question and say yes it will be hard it will be a challenge for us but we've looked at it and we feel that we can do this to review of the scenarios that we've looked at there are two responsible and reasonable.

Scenarios that we feel are viable and sustainable they will be hard scenario five looking at can we provide Legacy for our current third graders as they grow to fifth graders in 24-25 we feel that's possible it will be a challenge extending that an additional year to our fourth graders in 24 25 where our current second graders there again it will be an even higher bar to clear if we work together we feel that it is possible it will be a challenge I wanted to summarize this because I've given you a lot of information with growing together if we were to go all the way in the vacuum of throw a light switch and what would we save the answer would be 58 bus drivers 58 routes would not need coverage as we consider these additional Legacy scenarios the cost to carry that goes with the number of students that are riding the buses about 1500 students per grade that are bus riders 35 excuse me from our Baseline today of.

145 drivers we would need additional 35 drivers to get us up to 180. Under Legacy fourth and fifth grade it would be an additional 50 beyond that to get us up to 230. that would be a high water mark for us from where we've been in this last few years particularly after covet but we're sharing it again with you to be transparent and to make sure that we have walked you through the considerations these considerations growing together was not designed to address them but they do have to be factored in when we look to implement them the requirements that I've named here I want to go into a little detail just for a second school and Community walks on reviews I've shared earlier our walks under 20 years old we're not using them from the way that we're providing transportation service and we have examples where school buses partially pull off the school bus lot and have to drop their first student off you can imagine what that means for fifteen thousand bus riders.

A third of our students live within a half mile of school we need to evaluate that into the conversation earlier as a community secondly the spark card program the onboarding of student ridership in 2324 we need to know which students are riding the bus and we need to make sure that we're prioritizing students for our ridership for our essential Riders and we've named here we have 140 school bus drivers today we must get to 200 by 24.25 to make sure that this is a viable plan moving forward and so with that I think we're at a good place Dr Hardy please thank you thank you Mr Palmer this section was focused on our engagement and how we use that engagement as well as the data to explore scenarios that are going to inform the rules that you will see in the next section this time we would like to pause to see if any of our board members have Reflections discussion and or questions regarding the section regarding engagement and scenarios.

Great thank you so much for this section lots of data there do my colleagues have questions comments.

Miss buyer just I think that's really important to walk through all those scenarios for folks to know that your team considered everything deeply and still is considering everything and I just think there's just been the misinformation about how transportation is driving this decision of scenarios and and it may be because you those are some of the many hats you wear Mr palmer but I just want us to be explicit that is not the driving Factor it is a reality but it is not the driving factor of which scenario we choose is that fair yeah.

Jeremston I just think appreciation for all of your analysis and walking us through those scenarios I think I I'm concerned about where we're gonna find additional bus drivers do you have and it we might be too early for that thoughts around what recruitment or what we would need to implement if we were to go this route yeah I'm just I'm really concerned about the number we're talking about already we are short on folks.

And I'm looking at that lesson as well it's going to be very challenging I just want to be honest be able to recruit 50 additional bus drivers in these areas is going to be a challenge we're gonna do everything possible we're gonna put all the fonts possible on the table to recruit but I just want us to be really transparent it's going to be very challenging let's listen I would add yes it's going to be challenging but I also think we have to be very proactive and going where I'll give you one example you have probably seen in the news about Amazon and so when Amazon goes to lay off drivers we want to be there waiting to see if we can pick them up and so we have to just look at what's going on in the market and make sure that we're extending we're as competitive with salary our incentives we've revamped some things with incentives that I think will definitely help so it's challenging but I have a lot of.

Hope still for as the market changes for corporate that may offer some opportunities for us I think is I'll be presenting to you the plan for 18 million dollars probably next month you're gonna say at this point we're putting probably about a million dollar on this side for bonuses and things of that nature so we're going to be aggressive to be able to meet the needs of our families but we just really want it to be transparent I appreciate that transparency because I think it's important for folks to know our previous presentation was about how we are working to increase this Transportation efficiency so students can get to school and it looks like we're in for a couple years where that might be really challenging so I'm I just want to point that out as we're evaluating and looking at different scenarios I just want to underscore that also that transportation is an equity issue and as you said Mr Palmer earlier it's about getting our kids to school on.

Time and when they can't get to school they can't learn in school and and so this is this is all about our students I'm also concerned about the bus driver shortage as it exists currently and as we're looking at it in the future and I think the reality that I can say after being on the board for six months is that I just see now under a resource public schools are in general and so we are dealing with that larger context and trying to do the best that we can to to meet the needs of our students equitably and and and fight to give them everything that they deserve but when I when I look at this I you know I have concerns about how we'll meet the need but also you know just want to underscore that that being able to be efficient with our transportation is something that is is critical to number to the running of our school system and making sure our kids have access to the academic and.

Mental health and all the resources that we provide in our schools Ms Lewis did you have a comment okay did you have a question or comment yes I I I do to me all this runs together so I just want to preface my comments that they're not particularly this whole the growing together package that's what I'm I'm I'm looking at the full package with the engagement piece there's so many lingering questions and the scenarios Legacy you know the students that that's that's a big piece but a lot of what's driving that is just concern over the programs so the programmatic aspect of this is not detached from just picking you know having the policy for the Legacy students whether it's fourth and fifth grade there's there's definitely a lot of Engagement around the Montessori programs and families who feel like you know disruption in that learning space and kids not you know having to change from one modality to another and I just want to I just want.

To lift those voices up in terms of the the questions and we heard today we don't reply to public comments but there was there's a lot of frenzy about Montessori training and unpaid training I'm pretty sure we'll get to to more details of what what does it take to switch into our Montessori program and all that but I just want to lift that because I know that the concern the Legacy policy itself is not just the Legacy policy it's a legacy policy that encompasses families who've made a choice for one modality for one learning environment who will have to you know be who will be affected by by the policies and and we we know that there's students and we talked about a closed system in which you know there are gains and then there's definitely where you see the impact and I just wanted to give a little bit of you know just just space for this conversation about the program the programmatic aspects or program aspects of of this policy can somebody.

Just speak to that in terms of you've been getting a lot of Engagement that I just wanted to lift that up as well but if somebody can just lift that piece up about some of the considerations that we have as we're looking into this policy with the programs. We do speak to some of that in the next step section and so I'm wondering if we can address that and it also comes up specific to each of the rules that we that is actually in the next few slides that we'll see if that would be if it would be appropriate to do that at that time.

Foreign okay yeah I know that we have Segways into that and unless anybody else has something but that was just my my comment and and segue thank you Dr Hardy thank you that's great all right any other questions or comments right now all right I think we can move on to the next section thanks thank you so much Mr Palmer at this time I would like Miss Marshall and Dr pack to come forward we our next section is going to take us through really the culminating of the why what we've learned from engagement and the data and now here are the proposed rules for our elementary youngsters and the next steps which includes secondary programs as well as programmatic programmatic options for our children Miss Marshall thank you Dr Hardy and good evening again it gives me pleasure to share with you the recommendations of the growing together Elementary implementation rules the feedback regarding potential rules fall into five categories that you see before you the following slides will present the growing together team's recommended.

Rules and each of these categories the color-coded wedges correspond to the recommended rules so let's begin with student assignment based on what you heard earlier regarding Community input Regional work group sessions combined with the rules development work group input the growing together team recommends that in school year 2024-25 all kindergarten through third grade students be reassigned to their new boundary School however as we outlined earlier there were differing levels of feedback for students to remain as Legacy students the blowing together seem considered as you heard different models of Legacy students and the impact on equity and operational feasibility and efficiency with this the growing together team recommends that in 24-25 Legacy students be given to families of fourth and fifth grade students to be clear this option will allow for current second third fourth and fifth grade students to remain at their current school to complete their elementary school years father siblings of fourth and fifth grade students will have the option to request to stay pending building and classroom K3 class size capacity and.

Transportation will be provided to those students as Mr Palmer indicated we recognize that fourth graders are the children who experienced kindergarten completely online due to the covid-19 pandemic and our fifth graders we want to make sure that we're holding those students stable to avoid having to transition to another elementary school and then on to their sixth grade. So to balance enrollments of of students who live in the attendance boundary of an application school with a demand for the Lottery application seats the growing together team recommends that all current application students who wish to remain in the program that they have chosen not the school must reapply in the 2024 Lottery to ensure as much programmatic consistency as possible priority will be given in the lottery to these students which means that these students will be seated first in the lottery another group of Legacy students that we want to consider are the current dual language immersion students that attend Bethesda Lakewood and Southwest the new DLI programs will be phased in.

With a cohort model starting at kindergarten and will not have upper level DLI programs to support these learners therefore any of the students in these cohorts that are are affected by a new boundary May request to remain at the DLI program at their current school by utilizing the student transfer process. With every school having a boundary including our application and magnet schools families who are zoned for year-round IB or Montessori schools provided those programs aren't a good fit for their families or their students needs we'll have the option to to attend a Traditional School within their region an opt-out application process will be developed and opt out School selection will be determined based on proximity and school capacity within that region.

In the 24-25 school year the growing together team recommendation for the Pre-K Montessori seats to be allotted is for the Pre-K Montessori seats to be allotted through the application Lottery with priority for students who reside in that school's boundary this rule is aligned with the district's current Pre-K assignment process utilized by the office of Early Education which makes every effort to assign Pre-K students to their base school to minimize transitions for those students however because the Montessori schools will now have boundaries beginning the 24-25 school year any and all students not residing in that Montessori School boundary who wish to continue the program would apply in the application lottery for kindergarten with a priority seating for students who have attended a Montessori pre-k program it should be noted that while current Montessori students will be giving given first priority in the lottery students residing in the base will be seated first foreign schools with unique circumstances one being Little River and you heard from them this evening with Little River transitioning from a.

K-8 school to a K-5 Montessori program there is a need to clarify where middle school students will attend as a reminder Little River does not currently have a Middle School boundary rather Little River students are granted a student transfer to remain in their middle grade programs with this students currently in the fifth grade at Little River will be the final cohort with the option to be granted a transfer to remain at Little River for sixth seventh and eighth grades. Another special circumstance that we've shared with you involves our year-round program and as I mentioned earlier w.g Pearson will serve as an additional year-round option in every region during the application Lottery families will be given the option to apply for the year-round calendar in their region as well as w.g Pearson and may rank order those schools and as a reminder families have the option to rank order up to three schools in the lottery and finally we would like to propose an updated recommendation based on the review of community feedback operational.

Capacities and Academic Program resources it is our recommendation that Holt remains on the year-round calendar this would apply to students residing in that school boundary beginning the 24-25 school year and Beyond and for students who apply for the Dual language immersion program in the northern region as presented to you in June 2022 hope will will be the Dual language immersion application program for the northern region and easily will be the year-round application program option in that region with w.g Pearson being a second option for students and with that I will pass the presentation to Dr Julie pack to share with you our next steps with regards to Growing together.

Thank you Miss Marshall and move on to the next slide as we plan for the implementation of the elementary growing together plan there are a few crucial steps we want to make sure that we we inform you about that we are going to ensure to take for a smooth transition for all schools first we'll be preparing schools for the transitions involved in the implementation of the growing together plan that includes the growing Great Schools together where all elementary school students will have access to the Arts and dedicated classrooms World languages and stem on a daily basis also there will be current application schools who will be transitioning to different application programs or to Neighborhood School and there will be neighborhood schools we'll be transitioning to an application School Central Services will work with each school to develop a comprehensive trans transition plan that includes curriculum and instruction Global languages communication Outreach social and emotional learning supports Human Resources professional development finances and student enrollment we also want to specifically lift up the.

Transitions of Little River and EK Poe into Montessori and IB schools respectively and we can speak more to the details of that in just a bit finally we'll be working on the secondary progress for growing together which is in Greater detail on the next slide. So the timeline for this growing together secondary programs will follow a similar similar trajectory to the elementary plan but on a more expedited timeline to ensure schools are ready for the 24-25 lottery that will take place in January of 2024.

As you may remember at the board retreat in August of 2022 we talked about decision points on moving forward with secondary and we have utilized your feedback and have overlaid it with the data we collected through the 60 plus community community engagement sessions we've hosted over the last few years including our most recent recent Regional meetings While most of the community engagement was focused on the elementary plan discussions and feedback authentically included the vertical impacts K-12 of the of growing together using this data collected in historical data such as application Trends enrollment Etc we are in the process of shaping a secondary program proposal to share with the community in the next few months so as you can see on the slide this is the the proposed timeline for completing the secondary components of growing together which includes identifying the secondary programs where are those programs going to be placed what are the boundaries for those secondary schools what are the rules of access and how are we going to.

Communicate all of that out all by November 2023 which is when we'll share all that in our Showcase of schools so a little plug for that and finally you have seen this slide many times we want to bring it back as it provides a nice overview of the work that's to be done over the next few years which includes those programmatic and operational pieces to the implementation of the growing together plan so at this time I'll pass it back to Dr Hardy thank you Dr pack before we wrap up while you were at the podium if you could speak a little to the transition in regards to the question regarding Little River and our Montessori programs absolutely thank you so we did not have a slide prepared for you tonight but just a few talking points so we have been working with little River's Administration since the summer of or since last summer 2022.

And provided an overview and a timeline for the transition of the school which will include professional development the professional development will be on site at Little River and will not be extended long summer necessities and it will we the budget will include stipends for any time that's included outside of the school calendar and the training is it will be taking place over a two-year period so it's an extensive training this the teachers will learn Implement learn Implement over time and so it's not like everything at one time and we have Dr Rita Rathbone has has been a large part of this work with Little River and they have already visited is it was it Watts or Morehead they visited Morehead some of the staff went and visited Morehead to see what Montessori looks like in the classrooms and the in the specialized equipment and and and we are working closely with Dr Hogan's as we're as he's working on this transition so quick just a quick clarifying question.

But that school will in 24 25 start as a K-5 Montessori in all grades because we will have students that are potentially moving from other schools correct so our there will be access to Montessori K5 yes may not be all all classrooms in in the upper grades so it may just be the amount of classrooms that we need to accommodate the students that would be coming but Kindergarten will be kindergarten will be all right Pre-K and right we'll phase in 100 with the K1 I mean Pre-K okay the primary and then as we matriculate up then all grades will be Montessori but starting with the upper grades just serving those students who need Montessori thank you and that will balance the need for the staff too at those levels thank you Dr pack and to our board thank you to the growing together project team this is a project that encompasses the goals and strategies that are included in our strategic plan the goals of developing a comprehensive plan grounded in achieving Equity.

Diversity increasing access and responding to the growth that we have here in Durham Public Schools the new student assignment rules and new boundaries are slated to take effect for the 2024-25 academic school year this evening this item is before our board for discussion and information at this time the team it's hard for me to see them they're all they're all there for us to take any questions and again want to thank our growing together project team and thank our board for the opportunity to share this this evening thank you thank you very much so much work went into this presentation and it's a big team behind who Dr Hardy so we appreciate all the work and now we will open it up for questions who would like to start us off so I was just asking Dr Amiga on the online I have five or six more slides on the that's not in the board docs do you all have that as well are we going through those or is that.

Another item I I can toggle to where you are there were some additional data slides requested by some of our board members and we did share those with our board members to make sure that you would have access to those based on the data that was not part of our presentation this evening however we'll definitely can work with Miss meant to put those on board docs or they're on the website so I don't know if members of the public have seen them because that's where I found them on the GPS site so I didn't know if they needed explanation yes I found them helpful but yeah but for the public watching at home if you if you go to the agenda the district has provided an additional six slides at the very end looks more like five slides but foreign.

Good evening again in working everyone hear me okay all right I would ask for Our IT department if you could queue up the growing together data science perfect thank you we have spent three years coming through data and sharing it with our community and our board and sometimes we spend a lot of time talking about the narrative piece and we need to revisit where we've come from in April of 2020 and this is important is actually archived on YouTube you can go to the DPS YouTube channel and view a four hour download in the early days of covid we did a four hour data we literally said grab your snacks and popcorn and anything you need we're going to go through four hours of equity enrollment the future of Durham Public Schools data now tonight we've got a little snippet of that but we wanted to refresh the board on where we've been across a couple of key metrics one of them has to do with our enrollment.

One of them has to do with the size of our facilities what's over enrolled what's under enrolled and what are we doing about it we also need to talk about socioeconomic status and disparities sometimes in schools that uncomfortably are adjacent to one another so we're going to do a quick data walk with you this is in the posted Mr Sears you said this is online on the board packet okay so we'll go right through it all right next slide please I have a clicker here thank you one of the challenges with having soon to be 32 elementary schools is they're hard to fit on one slide so I apologize for the resolution but I will say this is available and we are Mr Sudderth has confirmed we are going to be posting this on DPS engageddps dot NC portal excuse me the main website to the dpsnc.net webpage the point here in school planning we need to account for the Ebbs and flows of every family circumstances on a day-to-day basis our.

Enrollment numbers truly fluctuate by the day and sometimes within the day right that is the normal course of every school system's reality what we have here is the end of month two enrollment data for every DPS elementary school as well as the capacities factoring in hb90 in the academic program and vision from the administration we have our capacities in the First Column this shows you how many students can fit into the building the second column shows how many students are enrolled in the school and the third column shows just a simple fraction enrolled divided by capacity we call that our utilization why is that important well the one in the ones in red those are at or above 95 that's when we get to a scenario where one additional student the marginal effect of one additional student enrolling in the school could tip us over the state mandate for hb90 K3 class size which would mean one student could be getting an entire additional teacher and you see where that goes if we don't.

Have the classrooms for that additional teacher to the comments earlier we're now doubling up teachers in a room or in other instances and this happens unfortunately in the majority of our red schools we start to have to repurpose art and music rooms right some schools have lost both our goal in school planning is to balance out to predict the future for enrollment and to get schools in the green between above 80 percent and no more than 94 we want to be in that sweet pocket where there's room for some additional students we're not right at the mandated cap of what's possible at any given classroom below that we are struggling with enrollment at some of those schools now some of those schools happen to be application schools and there's other things going on there with regards to managing enrollment but this gives you a sense of where we are school by school across the district or those severely over enrolled schools we've gone through from our Capital Improvement program and you can see here.

Those that have mobile classrooms the blue arrows represent mobile classrooms on campuses remember when we were talking about Creekside when they opened the school they opened it with 10 Mobiles on site and they're still here today 20 years later mobile classrooms are not a suitable learning environment for children particularly in a state that has tornadoes and hurricanes I'll leave that right there our second column scheduled renovation those are schools that are on the capital Improvement program and you'll note here they're all schools that are at or above our ideal enrollment capacity and lastly the orange arrows and for those watching it's hard to see those orange arrows are all schools that bracket and Encompass Murray massenburg Elementary School that's important when we talk about the relevance I want to thank those that came before us in land banking that land in Hope Valley Farms because what it allows us to do is open a school on day one and relieve that severe overcrowding for the seven schools that are around it that's a big deal.

Noting that many of those schools around it also have mobile classrooms an additional data slide and I know one that has been requested of us by program type walk us through the capacity of the school what have you allotted for the boundary and what have you allotted for the lottery is there any way to collapse the text because this bottom number is relevant the lottery assigned seats today are 1719 for our Montessori IB in year-round schools factoring in the growth of our DLR programs and applications across the board that number when we talk about access grows to three thousand and 700 the benefit there is that we're bringing online 2 000 additional Elementary School Lottery seats for access to our high demand programs and we're allocating those resources going back to Resource allocation we're bringing that to areas of Durham that have never had access to those programs here's where we talk about every school being a base boundary in school and it's reflected in this slide thank you.

One more slide for you here.

Sorry Mr Palmer YouTube's not hearing this at all and yeah thank you they say they lost found when we turned off the captioning yes and I also I also didn't get any transmission as well okay Miss fayadaris can you hear me I can hear you now yes it just kind of like the growing together access the the slide that shows Legacy and that was a slide when everything just stopped okay so if it's let's just pause this now is it coming through on the YouTube live stream now okay great I did yeah that's this one yeah yeah okay Miss fire Darius we're checking to see can you see the lottery and Boundary seats for all schools yes the up until this this slide it was everything was going was going well the next slide when you went to the next slide and you were like let's take a moment to look at the so the slide following this one that's when it froze okay we'll walk through this one more.

Time I think so much a refresh of the data would be good for us all thank you. The number of students impacted by growing assignment does depend on the scenario that we're evaluating and that we move forward with when we look at the impacted or reassigned students for 24.25 recognizing those kindergartners in that year will never have been in a Durham public school for kindergarten they would not be reassigned right so that's a thousand and twenty students right there that would not be moved from one school to another as we look at the scenarios that have been brought forth for consideration and recommendation scenarios five and six and let me name those five Legacy are currently enrolled third graders who will be fifth graders in 24 25 or Legacy are currently enrolled second and third graders who themselves will be grades four and five in the Years 24 25.

That significantly reduces the impact of the reassignment of students in addition our team is in the process right now of geocoding the January 2023 enrolled students and geocoding let me break that down words matter that is going through all 14 000 students coming and cleaning addresses placing them on maps look at looking at where they live in relationship to their current school and then all the nuances and complexities and considerations that we're giving consideration to here we need to be able to answer not only the number of impacted students but also as we bring on priority status for currently enrolled students in an application program going back to miss Marshall's words earlier after the boundary students those would be the next student seated so when she says priority student application what we're talking about is having the boundary students understanding who's coming looking at the school capacity and then understanding the additional seats that are available and giving first priority to students that are in that program type and we use that word intentionally okay.

Okay just a show of thumbs board is that cover the the slide that we reviewed here and I think we have one more slide and then we'll be able to answer any questions you may have efforts to talk about socioeconomic status are complex there's a lot of protected class information that's associated with that for example in student assignment policies we cannot admit one student over another based on race and ethnicity just as an example what we can begin to do is understand measures of Family Resources like food stamp eligibility and whether a student has what we would consider to be are they homeless right that might be a mckinney-vento student you can see here school by school the levels of what is called direct certification again that's from the 2004 Child Nutrition and Wick reauthorization act direct certification is our best measure of child poverty at some of our schools those numbers are one out of every 10 students this is before growing together at other schools that's five out of ten.

And at some schools that's as high as seven out of ten these are the school level disparities that our team is mindful of that going back to that 2020 data Retreat that we had in April of 2020 we reviewed measures of child poverty when we talk about diverse schools oftentimes we're talking about many things and many measures of diversity but one measure that is a third party evaluation that the state of North Carolina and the U.S government use is direct certification rates it is our best measure it's it's done already by the state we have to do it in compliance with them but this gives us a sense of food stamp eligibility and homelessness by school at a district level average or direct certification rate is 44.5 or 44 out of 100 children fall into this category that must be said okay those are our data slides we hope that it's helpful for you the board sharing it with the public we want to be very open-handed about how we've been.

Thinking through this and the journey we've been on as a group of this last three years again much of the data shared here is fully explored in additional presentations that are archived on YouTube we have nearly a dozen presentations over our three years working through this project foreign thank you very much this additional detail is just excellent I think that you know answered some of my questions even just looking at the last few slides here so thank you very much board questions comments. Surrounders thanks everybody I'm appreciative of the presentation I'm going to keep asking and really sitting with where I came from and how I got to this space and when I think about the fact that I decided to get involved in PTA because so many black and brown families were not being heard for from and they didn't have representation I really want to push us to do more in regards to those conversations with those families we say we are pushing this forward for equity and I truly.

Believe that we are but are we certain that we have heard from black and brown folks in our in the community with the lower socioeconomic status where we know we have to meet them where they are do we know that this is what they want have we heard from those folks have we had an opportunity to let them know and can we take the opportunity to let them know that if they apply right now during this application period and and take a seat at one of the application schools that they will have priority in the 24 25 school year do we have capacity how do we meet them where they are how do we go to their have school-based conversations about encouraging them to apply for the current application seats for the 2023 school year that is open right now do we know they want that do we know they want you around do we know they want Montessori because what we've heard from are a lot of people who are sad.

That they're losing access to their seats and we haven't really heard from those folks and that really concerns me and has me just unready to move forward even though we need to and this time how can we get there to knowing that we've done all we can to reach these people I also am concerned that we're neglecting East Durham that this is where the food deserts are we all need to remind ourselves that we can't we are coming out of covet it's still a pandemic right but we learned that we can care for each other and comfort each other during covid and we are not giving priority to families and students who are in trailers in Mobile classrooms or is however you say it correctly that we're not concerned that they there are students in our district that don't have access to the same sort of programs and we need to make sure that they know how to get access that we're saying we're trying to grant them in 2024.

Okay when would you all like to respond to that or okay because there was a mic drop literally sorry Miss Rogers one of the things that our team has learned and I will only speak from it from the student assignment and operational lens and then I know that there's components of what you're inquiring about that our public affairs leaders will speak to but we do recognize after careful carefully looking at particularly our application-based schools that having to apply to a school is often itself a barrier for some of our families one of the subtle nuances that we've been discussing tonight that's a bit buried when we bring boundaries to schools particularly to communities that we know to be low resource communities now use an example like Colonial Apartments near Hope Valley Elementary School that's a quarter mile across the way there's 300 students that live there they will have a buy right opportunity to go to a year-round program as an example we can go across the application programs and in each one we've been.

Intentional about recognizing that having to apply is itself a barrier Dr Pittman Miss Marshall have also been thinking about if that program's not for me what are my additional options can I opt out and say I don't want year-round or Montessori we're trying to be recognition and cognizant of there are barriers to accessing our application schools currently to get into the Montessori School you need to apply when your child's three to get in when they're four for pre-k to get in when they're five when they start entering kindergarten which means you're planning two years ahead of time so we do have to your point families that would even live in a priority Zone that now live in a boundary where as they choose to go to the school they have an opportunity to do so without being told I'm sorry you're too late we have heard that time and again the families say I live right across the street from a school that many people want to go to but I can never get in.

Because I didn't know about the rules three years ago by bringing boundaries and making those programs accessible to low resource communities were lowering that barrier to accessing those programs that is one of the intentional designs around growing together to bring resources to communities that may benefit from them the most but also being sensitive to not every program will be a fit for every neighborhood or every family I'll then pass it to Mr ceterith on your other questions with regards to engagement.

Matthew shared some important things about how the design of the growing together program will give families greater access to programs that they don't have to apply to to get to that's one piece of this the other piece of the community engagement challenge that Miss Rogers you've identified very clearly is as we have done more and more traditional Community engagement more and more families with access have access that Community engagement and if we keep doing what we're doing the the lines never intersect one of the things that Dr mabinga has done this this school year as part of a reorganization of our organization is he has drawn a line between marketing and Community engagement engagement we had a position that had the title of marketing community and director of marketing and Community engagement and that the position was designed several years ago when Community engagement was a much looser term it was before the days of participatory budgeting at the city level and things like that the growing together experience has.

Taught us a lot about where we need to go from here in community engagement and another another position has been created that is senior executive director for federal programs and Community engagement it is in the chief of school's office it works with the pub closely with the office of public affairs and that is a Locus for school-based family and Community engagement and that is the direction that we are moving in we recognize the direction that we need to move in and we are committed to Greater communication greater public affairs access and also Greater Community engagement.

Piggyback from. Mississaug we're not able to reach out to our community of Scholars and we're going to do a better job moving forward now that we know that there are more access that's would like for them to know how to navigate the system and trust me we're going to do a better job of reaching out to those communities I think some of the efforts we've been able to reach out to the fifth base community and they're willing for us to be in front of them every two months so that they will be able to trickle down the information to those communities as well so we're not where we're supposed to be but we still have a lot of work to be able to reach it to those communities thanks and we know with certainty that the DLI program at Bethesda is going to maintain until this cohort matriculates.

Is that accurate because it says that they can apply to stay at their school to stay in the DLI program in the rules. Yes the DLR will have a continuous stability at their current School and then we'll be phased out since Bethesda is not that Region's DLI not necessarily the school may continue it it just won't be an application program for other students outside of the Bethesda area thank you all right Ms Lewis okay Ms Meyer what. Is I want to start with thanking our staff team who has worked so so so hard on this and who are also Durham people and even DPS Chávez yourselves and so you all know the complexity of the tasks that we charged you with with we just gave you broad brush Equity we need to improve this we gave it to Dr mabingo we gave it years and years and years ago and we've been steeped in this for a long time and I also want to acknowledge the deep deep strong feelings that our.

Families who are going to be impacted whether it's 2 000 whether it's 200 are feeling and acknowledge that they love their schools and that's what we want right we we built these amazing trusting relationships and it is it's an honor to serve your children so I guess I'm I'm asking some questions around that that people have asked me that I didn't know the answers to and I think it's been so helpful to get more data to folks tonight have you all talked about students with exceptional needs that are placed by the EC department and how that will proceed and I don't mean like a child that has an IEP and receives speech therapy but I mean a child that is placed by the EC Department well the anybody I don't know so the children that are placed in EC separate settings through the EC Department IEP team that is separate from the growing together redistricting thank you that's good to get clarity on I know EC Equity is such.

An important part of this plan moving forward as you all continue to to build pieces of it there's a small another one Dr Packett might be you I don't know who it is so hang on the we have a small a handful of employee like teacher students that are in the same school we have policy written to to actually support that and maybe it's Ms Marshall is How's that gonna roll forward sure thank you our transfer policy policy 4132 offers Provisions for teachers and and honoring teachers to bring their children to Durham Public Schools we tuition if they live in a different County tuition free and certainly for them to bring to the school bring them to the school that they teach we also make high considerations for schools that are close to theirs to the schools that they teach thank you and I assume we'll be doing mckinney-vento children the way we do mckinney-vento children because that is an most important federal law protecting our children that are dealing with homelessness.

Yeah I I appreciate you've given us so so much to think about I may have more questions the the biggest question I think that it's important for us to talk about whether it's in my comments or reals is people don't understand the urgency of the timeline for this and they just received this information it was all hypothetical before and then on the ninth it became very real to a lot of families so who has the most wisdom to bring to the answer to why this is important to figure out the rules I've been telling folks that I think a large part of it is magnet season which is upon us which we've already pushed the dates back a little bit I think other answers other.

The urgency of the speed of this does anybody. I will give it my best shot and then I oh sorry did you want to so there is some urgency around getting the rules out now for our families who are applying in the lottery season for next year especially those students those families with Rising kindergartners we've we heard from the community we want to know going into the lottery it will inform some of our decisions so that was why we were pushing to get the Draft rules out at the at this time but we also want to give as much runway for families to understand and make decisions which we feel like you know we're at 18 months at this point and so it is a a decent runway for people to begin making decisions about 24-25 so I appreciate that is it fair to say am I help me if I'm interpreting this right that everyone that is in a year-round that now will at least be able to stay.

In a year round we'll have plenty of capacity for year round I would think is that fair is that accurate that is accurate yes that exactly so one of the things that one of the data table shows is the number of year-round seats and I think that that's important to recognize that we're both increasing the overall number of seats but also the allocation and access to that geographically across Durham so yes and it but it might not it might be in a different school there are going to be a few instances where I can think of that a student may reside in a different region than their currently assigned School and so in those instances we've already modeled out to say will there be room to ensure that as we prioritize those students remember the first that are seated after boundary students the yes we feel confident that they will be able to accommodate that and that actually those families will have multiple choices between the year-round option in.

Their region as well as w.g Pearson and the same question for Montessori you talked about geocoding those that would that be before our conversation next week would that be well into the future is that what I heard you geocoding correct what we want to bring you is the the specific number of students I recognize that there's a big number out there which is that we are as we look to prioritize currently enrolled program students right we want to bring you the precise number and that's going to take us going and mapping every enrolled child as of January 2023 again we've already done this but it needs to be as consistent and as accurate and up to date as we can give you that number yeah thank you Miss Miss Byer just one addition in terms of timing when we think about the vision slide that was in the beginning of the presentation that really talked about what all of our elementary schools are going to be able to provide our children.

In terms of Arts language expression we really want to make sure that we are in a position that our schools have the resources they need so that on the first day of school of that Academic Year we're not just saying that our schools have these experiences you can visually see and the children come back and say mommy daddy Grandma Auntie Uncle this is what I experienced in my school so we also need that time to ensure that what we are telling you is going to occur in the experience we actually make sure that that happens it would be a challenge if we were to make the decision for example in May with schools opening in July for year round and then August for us to ensure that that's the case so part part of the sense of urgency is timing in terms of communication to families so that they can plan understanding and US supporting them through this application window period but also through next year's application period for us to have communication.

Continue communication with our principals and teachers and so that the academic programs that will be supplementing that Vision are ready to go for July of 2024 and August of 2024. Thank you for that Ms Lewis. Oh there's a lot of places I want to go but thank you I wanted to pay you back from what Mr Rogers was saying in the beginning around how this strikes her personally and the engagement and that importance and that is so important the priority to engage the communities that are less likely to engage and I want to I like I kept looking at Sheena just to say you know I know you've done some very specific Outreach and wanted to bring those things out with specific special interests and communities and we heard from the education committee during Community Affairs of black people their chair and the immediate past chair and the education chair where those engagements have been and what those concerns have been when we talk about the urgency of what.

This means and how long we've been doing this this keeps coming up and what sticks out to me I was telling my husband earlier today to know to apply to the to the to a pre-k program is two years in planning I started understanding more and thank you Mr Palmer people keep moving around for just sharing too but I knew I said it wrong after I said it's a priority Zone and that's when I really became aware what the priority Zone meant and so it's been nine years that we were able to access that my son was in first grade and now he's in ninth grade so when we talk about why now what's the urgency we've been talking for this for years and when you are a family on the other side of a disparate situation you don't have time to wait one thing that Mr Palmer said to me that really struck in these conversations and trying to look at you know how can we meet the needs of everybody.

What's going to be the best and how many how many grades can we grandfather what does this mean and he made a comment that you can one kid if your one kid takes up two seats that's an unintended consequence that's going to keep another kid from have that access who didn't have it before and I was like oh I mean this is really a hard decision and hard some hard things and and Pathways to think about and I just want to commend that our district I heard someone saying you know I've never seen a district take this much time this much you know engagement this much conversation because we really care Durham does things different right big picture Regional wide how are we creating access how are we living into our values how we how are we going to be resilient and figure these things out and be in truly being in community with each other so I just for me the urgency around the communication piece where we are now is 18 months.

For those that were not reaching for those who may not know these things are coming out of pipeline first of all there's not an application this is your school this is your your school this school within your boundary that creates access automatically and that's what we're trying to do so I'm I'm excited about that but people still need to know so I'm looking forward to the plan of what this the impact of 18 months looks like getting people the information to know every month what's in community engagement look like the things we all have already been doing how is this going to be layered in the schools when I look at this like going back to the very last slide that we pulled up and I look at the direct certification rate and I'm seeing you know the schools that are in my districts mostly here at the bottom 99 free and reduced lunch those are the schools that I'm working within that's within my district and I'm talking to those principals and I'm.

Talking to Dr Stewart so what are the needs how are things going how are we Growing Kids what is the attention I just want to know that we're having more conversations with this family and that's all I hear these principles saying family engagement is important so as we're coming through the spring semesters just every opportunity that we can build into things going on in the community already things going into their school already to make sure we're getting this information out on how this plan looks because we've been waiting for this a long time and obviously again these are the Chávez who are on the opposite of some of these disparity data points that we're looking at and as quickly as we can get access available I'm ready to support that and looking at what the next plan looks like in this next phase so thank you thank you for this chair Umstead I'm going to try to keep this brief because it is it's getting late the level of analysis on this plan is.

Top Notch so just kudos to the many many folks who've been working on it I will say I have seen Durham Public Schools growing together a little bit all over Durham at El Centro Hispano at outside of proof in Wellens Village like I've seen I feel like I run into chip and folks and Sheena all the time in the community so I know y'all been out there and I still know there's always more and more work we can do I think what I'm hearing highlighted is sometimes a gap between what's happening in our boardroom in central office and what's happening what's trickling down to individual schools and families and then when I think about the fact that we serve 32 000 families or students excuse me not families 32 000 students that makes sense that sometimes that communication is missing what I'm also hearing though as we're getting ready to embark on this secondary portion how do we take the lessons that we're learning and use that to inform our work moving forward.

Especially since it's on a truncated kind of timeline and so I think that's going to be another vital piece to to what we do moving forward a couple of questions and I think you mentioned this a little bit Dr Peck I know there are families who have Rising kindergartners who are trying to figure out what to do in this magnet application Lottery window and so if you had kind of advice of what to say or do for those kind of kindergarten first second families I think that this would be helpful so they will know and I think that's a question for some of those applications will go to schools that will continue to have a program and some of those applications might be at schools that don't continue to have a magnet program and what what do we want to say to those families so great question and I want to also again recognize and lift up the work that Dr Rita Rathbone is doing with the magnet schools in the magnetic coordinators.

In this area particularly for RN Harris Sandy Ridge and Club who are having a program transitioning away from what they're currently doing and really sorry so and not just them but all of our schools working in their current their new neighborhood schools boundary for 24.25 and and talking to those families now about we're going to be your school starting 24 25 and if they're an application School currently they have the opportunity to apply to get into that school now and so helping people connect the dots that they can use the lottery system currently to move into their school a little earlier if that's what they wanted to do but we're we're working with our schools to empower them to make have those conversations with their neighborhood surrounding their schools that makes me think we might even need some this is financial but some more support for your office for the MRC for all the different offices that are supporting families in this decision-making process that application process is already a little.

Cumbersome and so now we're trying to have more conversations with folks I don't know what that looks like to have a little more part-time staff or support because it's it is so relational and one-to-one and family to family to have those types of conversations I hope that we can provide whatever necessary support is so that families have that information. Two I think two more questions one one of the goals of the of changing our rules was to help simplify the process and it feels like even though we wanted to simplify still may get a little complicated well some of these rules need to change in 24 25 or 25 26 kind of after Legacy students settle and we yeah revisit we need to revisit those policies indeed what we've presented to you tonight are the growing together implementation plan rules which include our Legacy and the complications or the next steps for this transition so indeed there will be more to come but these were the transition rules Miss Marshall can you stay right there.

Next question families might say I want to stay can I transfer can they apply for transfers if they're willing to have transportation and all that to if they're in a family that's changing yeah so School transfers and again this is our policy 4132 looks at children and situations and family situations and Dynamics individually so that I'm looking at those individual circumstances and reviewing extenuating circumstances so we will continue and we always continue to provide that opportunity for families to share their out their circumstances with our with our district to be considered for the school that's most appropriate for them and again those are based on our policy guidelines and policy 4132 and substantial hardships thank you and I think my last question and it might just be something to follow up I know that also one of the goals of this plan was thinking about our exceptional children programs and how do we make sure regionally families have access to programs so there's less kind of Transportation all across the district.

To different places so I wonder if we'll get a pre I know that's a separate kind of piece but if we'll get a presentation at some point about how we're working to align those programs and regions I think for especially for those separate setting classrooms I know that those families are probably trying to figure out what what's happening if I'm in one of these schools that are impacted with this plan absolutely and and we always will defer to our leaders and exceptional children services Dr Bell and Miss Saunders with regards to individual separate setting placements that are they're balancing out the individual students case in conjunction with where their home domicile addresses in conjunction with the school and how they're equipped support that child so that is a second layer separate from the student assignment piece that director Marshall carries and hopefully Dr Hardy I'm not overstepping there but does that suffice it does I just want to make sure that that we are clear I might be attending.

Morehead as part of a special program that is because I have been assigned Moorhead due to the needs that I have based on the IEP team's decision so Student Assignment what we're talking about that today does not impact my placement at Morehead as part of that special program and our Special Education team has been you know tightly linked to the growing together project to ensures when we think about reducing travel for students that may have multiple needs and need a special program that were thoughtful in addition to planning and Facilities to make sure that our buildings are actually able to accommodate our young people and the needs that they may have oh I would love we could have a future presentation about kind of if their shifts and change they're making due to what we're doing and how this is helping support the needs of those separate setting classrooms because we know it's such a specialized program so I'd really like to kind of have Dr Bell and her team be.

Able to share a little bit more about that thank you all for this work I know this is challenging and this is hard and I can piggyback off what Miss buyer said our families really love their schools and that's what we heard today they love their schools and we also have some other really great schools that I hope that families take an opportunity to fall in love with it's our job at the public school system to make sure we have a great education for every child and this is moving us towards that goal so thank you foreign just wanted to add to your question just that the capacities that we've shared with you this evening and with the public those are accounting for pre-K in our schools and those are accounting for EC separate setting classrooms directly supporting children with autism developmental needs or otherwise so we've been very careful in planning that out sometimes there can be multiple needs for one classroom and this plan reflects those needs of our Pre-K and EC.

Classrooms so when we talk about that calibration in these capacities it is being mindful of that foreign and. This is very quick families have been trying to arcgis dashboard like the www.arcgis.com apps and dashboards so they've been putting their address and I've been I've been you know working with a couple of families who are giving it a go some are getting results some are not and it's not a surprise it's technology it's also you know there might be ways that you're inputting address but you have to we have to take into account that there's a technology piece there's a digital divide that makes this process even more confusing and so I just want us to continue to just keep working with our schools I'm gonna just you know this is this is where I you know I really want to see the schools actively having the conversations around growing together actively sharing how does that impact every student whether it has to go in their folders and then.

Also like you know ways to use this app to get the information that that every family needs and so I we don't have a triaging place I don't have a place to send them to I they can open a ticket it's not a DPS technology right I mean it's leveraging arcgis and which you can adapt to any any system like you can you can integrate that so it's an integration but you know do we have any capabilities for support when it comes to families like where is that going to live is it going to be in the MRC is it going to be in you know which department is going to be able to to to help families as they are trying to understand what does it mean for them and leveraging this app or this you know technology to figure out what their boundaries are getting information on the maps and seeing it when sometimes your address doesn't work or this the arcgis is not giving them the information they need thank you.

Our office of student assignment as well which is very well supported by our multilingual Resource Center does a great job of taking those calls building we welcome our families to call if they are having any trouble finding their current boundary school if there's any questions about the future of their boundaries our office is equipped to answer those questions to go through that website with them and certainly walk them through and we welcome those calls and and that support provided thank you so much Miss Melody Marshall thank you.

All right Ms Rogers one quick question so we are talking about Legacy for fourth and fifth graders are they required to keep that seat or do they have an option to go to the school that their kindergartner is going to so all fourth and fifth grade students will be reassigned to their currency so we are those students will be attending their their current school but as with any student there are Apple and I do want to highlight that those siblings will have the opportunity to remain at the school with their sibling with their Elder sibling through this but again we always reference this the student transfer policy and there are times where there will be a need for Accelerated transfers and we have certainly prepared to process those transfers for families who may need to in circumstances as well as Murray massenburg but when there are times when we want to accelerate that fourth and fifth grade but to answer the question fourth and fifth grade students will be reassigned to their current School.

All right I have a couple of comments and questions myself and I wanted to start with just what we've talked about with Communications and Outreach I do applaud the work of your department Mr Setter to to really Reach Out extend invitations to participate in this process and I and I know that it's been going on for a while I also just want to say that I hope we continue to do that and take this as an opportunity to teach our community more about what our programs are I'm really excited about that I'm particularly excited about the extension of dual language instruction immersion instruction and and letting our families know what you know what they can get out of this program what their kids can get out of this out of these different magnet programs is really exciting you know telling our community about ID IB and and and you know a lot of people say that education is the great equalizer so I want us to just.

Keep that in mind as a you know part of this process and and this really is about extending different opportunities to our students including those programs that will be in all of the schools such as Global exposure to to Spanish and Global languages I also wanted to say that I know we have presidents for our schools where we have we have closed them over time tuning is one Pearson Middle School is another that we were talking about and and so in the case of these programs there were you know there there is a precedent for having students move on and and only keeping one or two grades and in those cases to complete the rest of the time I just wanted to see I I guess I I wanted to see if you all had any other presidents that you were looking toward when you know crafting this because I wanna you know there's a history here and I want our community to know this is not this is the first time in.

A long time that we've done a program a shift of this magnitude but we have shifted our students in the past from one school to another and supported those transitions so let me ask that question there. Thank you Miss Chavez we have been both looking we have all become students of Durham Public Schools and by that I mean our own institutional history we must know where we've been to see where we can go right and to that effect I don't know if he's still with us this evening but for example one of our school planners Mr Vitale radsky has gone all the way remember those books Mr Jones was holding up Vitalia has read all of them and more there's 150 books in the North Carolina Durham collection at the Durham County Library about the history of Durham Public Schools we've evaluated that but more recently here within 2019 to today you can look through each of our adjustments that we've made with Creekside to Parkwood Brogden and githans we've been very.

Careful and judicious about understanding the question earlier with respect to why why this thrust now why this rush now to get these rules in the hands of our Chávez that are applying in the lottery for 23.24 one of the things our Chávez have said to us is that it's going to take me six months to kind of process all the information and then a year to plan right and that has ranged across the socio-economic Spectrum I say that to say when you look at the precedent of what we've done with adjustments at Creekside and then again mcgiven's thinking through that in each of those instances we were able to give Folks at least six months ideally nine months advance notice here given the complexity we recognize and we're heeding the feedback from our Chávez asking for time to plan for their new school to meet with other Chávez that are going to be going with them and for those that are also you know there again just recognizing that families had requested time.

We've also looked outside of Durham public schools of course and there's a variety of approaches as I'm sure you're aware of there are what we would call light switch approaches with this say the rules are posted online you may comment for one month and in six months this will be your new school we're trying obviously through our purchase through engagement as well as this evening to be more proactive to give the community an opportunity to understand the complexity of what we're working through and so yes to your point there is some precedence here within Durham Public Schools to recognize that we need to give as much advanced notice as possible and also a recognition that light switch approaches can be problematic because it's a disruption all at once we're talking about two scenarios here tonight that both have Legacy accompanying them and in both the Creekside and the githan's adjustments we had Legacy factors baked into those plan adjustments foreign thank you very much for that background and.

I think it's just important for us to continue to learn about your process and how you got to to proposing this model and and I wanted to make another Point around the particular concern around the Montessori spots so I did the numbers as I said that you gave in the last few slides were really helpful because I can see excuse me how many how do how many Montessori Lottery spots we have exactly which I calculated to be 600 between the two three schools that we will have lots more ahead and then adding on Little River right now we have if I'm adding this correctly 650 Montessori spots and so I know there's a concern with Chávez who have kids in the Montessori program now and with the they'll have priority in the lottery and going into 24 25 but it seems I what I'm noticing is that there will there will likely be enough spots to to include most or all of those students who are currently in a Montessori program.

And again I was comparing 620 20 in 2024 25 to 650 now but keeping in mind that will Legacy some students which I'm sure is actually more than 50 students it's late I'm trying to speak as clearly as possible but that was a question that I had coming in to this presentation so would you want to comment on that sure and and I hope you can appreciate that we must be right in answering that question and any question we must be right is as correct as we can be that's why we needed this time to geocode January 2023 where are we today and we're preparing to answer that question with an affirmation but I must be 100 uncertain so for the year-round question earlier yes in that respect we feel confident the numbers that you're evaluating there remembering again you have your base area that goes in conjunction with that and the majority if not all of our currently enrolled students that are you can see where this goes with the.

Boundary that many of them were in our prior priority zones and so those are actually in the base area side of things we feel confident that not only will we be able to accompany that there will be additional seats as we look across Durham there again I think that is a tonight's data review was a a snapshot I think that's a deeper dive that we could bring you additional data on okay that's that's great to know I think you know I'm sensitive to the fact that many Chávez are very invested in the programs that they've placed their children in in and one of those is Montessori and we also want to part of this is expanding the opportunity to participate in programs like Montessori to other students so so thank you for that I wanted to make one note about just the you know the social emotional kind of element here I know a lot of people have pointed that out and that our students will need some care in the transition.

And so I I know that our teachers and staff will work to do that and make sure that there is that that sensitivity to students who are transitioning schools and so I just wanted to note that but do you have any comments on on that on a plan and I'm sure we'll get into more detail in the coming months but yes we we definitely want to acknowledge any of the transitions that will be experienced not only by our students but also by our staff so we'll be working very closely with our student support services department and really trying to continue to lift up some of the training that our schools have already had recognizing that any transition depending on the gravity of that can be considered a trauma we have many schools because of our board support that have received our trauma-informed training we also have some Mental Health Counselors at our schools also partnering with our community and our co-located mental health and we do have at least one.

Vendor and are really working with another partner to make sure that we're able to provide that in Spanish as well and so making sure that we have the tools to support our students and our staff and their own social and emotional support but their mental health support during this transition thank you so much Dr Hardy that's really good to know that all of that work is on the horizon I wanted to lift up I think one more thing and it's around Little River I do have a concern around the the resources that will go into maintaining our current fifth graders through the rest of Middle School they would be going into seventh grade at in the 24-25 school year and my understanding is that is around 26 students I'm thinking about you know the different subjects that we need for middle school it's not one classroom teacher like Elementary and I'm kind of wondering about the the resources that will be needed the cost of that and and I do question whether it would be.

Better to move our our students on past sixth grade to their assigned middle school or seventh and 8th grade where they would have two years to to you know have that experience I know that when shooting closed Rising sixth grade or sorry Rising seventh graders tuning Middle School was sixth seventh eighth right Rising seventh graders were moved on to their new middle schools Lucas Neal and I think there was another one and so then they those students had two years in their new Middle School I'm wondering if the same might be applied here and given our teachers shortage and just the you know the need for more teachers in general is that a consideration we definitely appreciate your feedback and that is something that we can consider as part of the growing together team thank you all right I think that's all my questions anything else from my colleagues is better did we talk about kind of next steps I know we have a hearing on the 19th is there any is that right yes.

Definitely and Dr mulenga will you share with us yes I don't want to call it hearing I think it's going to be one item on the agenda for you guys to vote on it but at the same time we're going to open the floor for our families to be able to express themselves and then we only have one item that will bring back to you for vote. Yes about voting at the same time we're listening to folks that that are going to probably be in bigger numbers than tonight and and more emotional and I just wonder if it could if that vote could be on the and I am just one voice and it is very late but but on the following you know at our work session but I do really appreciate giving people the chance to hear their concerns and see if there's other things we haven't thought of.

Other board members thoughts about that Dr mobenga do you want to share you might want to go back to saying the same thing I said before or it's going to be the pleasure of the board once we get there if you guys are not ready to vote then if you want to delay it for the 26 that will be a pleasure but the agenda is pretty much for you guys to be able to put on this again the pledge of the board.

Okay so I think we will perhaps see what what the 19th holds for us and if we decide to move forward with that vote after some discussion or not so we will you know keep discussing what needs to happen in order to in order to vote on this I think that concludes this agenda item which was for informational purposes and so I'll take a motion to go into closed session get the summary of follow-up items okay yes pardon me we will have a summary of of all the follow-up items.

Good evening forward the first item for the salary study there was a question to make sure that all the jobs that are actually included in the salary are clearly outlined whenever we post that information there was also a question as to how can we provide a clear pathway for classified staff to move to certified if they choose to do so or to move up in their pay grade and also to identify and remove barriers that may discourage employees from taking advantage of those trainings and certifications that would help them Advance their careers the second reading of DPS is lgbtqi plug a plus policy was waived and the policy was passed unanimously the transportation of day there was a request to provide a presentation for a bus driver and monitor feedback of the edgelog app and also a request for Dr losain to reach out to the city of Durham to see if there is opportunity for those drivers to help DPS even if part-time growing together wanted us to provide more information.

Behind the why such as helping to move students out of the mobile classrooms and in the brick and mortar facilities they need to address the K3 class size mandates as well as valuing what we prioritize which are our Durham values that provide access equity and growth for our schools and communities we're going to work on doing more engagement at the school level to make sure that our families are well aware of what the growing together plan is especially our social and economically distressed families we also want to make sure that the Eastern Durham families are aware of how to gain access to the programs now and for the future we're growing together and then bring back a presentation for separate settings at a future date that's what I have yeah everything Dr Hardy you know thank you Dr Monk and now I will take a motion I'm moved.

Board of Education · Work Session · January 12, 2023

▸Approval of Agenda8:21

▸Approval of Minutes9:37

▸Public Comment10:23

▸Consent Agenda1:06:22

▸Discussion Items2:33:43

▸Closed Session6:17:28

▸Adjournment6:54:08