Board of Education · Work Session · June 10, 2025

Good evening everyone. Try it again. Good evening everyone. There we go.

The Durham Public Schools Board of Education is now in session. At this time, we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is joining us this evening. The purpose of this meeting is to inform our parents, staff, and constituents about the work aligned with our mission to embrace, educate, and empower every student to innovate, to serve, and to lead. The interpreters for tonight are Martha Romoles and Vanessa Pinña Ramirez.

Thank you all for taking the time to join us. We're going to start with our agenda this evening. Uh with the moment of silence.

Thank you. Next we have agenda review and approval. I move we approve the agenda. Second.

It's been moved by Miss Herald Golf, seconded by Mr. Tab. Is there any other discussion? All those in favor say I.

I. Any opposed, please use the same signs. It passes unanimously. The next item on our agenda is the board of education meeting minutes from May 8th, 2025.

Move approval of the May 8th minutes. Second. Been moved by Miss Beyer and seconded by Miss Herobrall. Is there any other discussion?

All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose, please use the same sign. It passes unanimously.

The next item on our agenda is general public comment. But before we move to that, I want to pass it to Dr. Lewis um for a quick um statement. Yes.

Thank you so much uh chair for this evening umstead. Good evening board members, members of the public, those are in attendance and definitely those that are watching. I just want to start by first first um sending my sincere gratitude to our Durham County commissioners on last evening for uh their continued investment in uh Durham public schools um in terms of investing in public education. And I think this certainly is a true testament to um their commitment to partner alongside of us to ensure that Durham public schools is a premier school system um in this state and in this in this country.

We certainly recognize and understand that there were uh tough decisions. There are competing values. Um you know all um been called governmental entities are are facing those similar challenges. Um, but as I shared with them last night after the meeting, thank you for looking in the couches and uh add elsewhere to to find additional funding that they did provide us. So again, I just want to publicly thank on behalf of Dorm public

schools, our scholars, our amazing staff and families. Uh publicly thank our Dorm County uh commissioners, the city manager, the entire finance team. Um it's a long process u but I really appreciate um their support and investment in Durham public schools. Thank you.

Yes. And the Yes, the county manager. Oh, I said city manager. Thank you.

County manager Claudia Hager. And congratulations to her on her very first um budget as the the true not in but the true county manager. Thank you for that correction. Thank you, Dr.

Lewis. Um board members, were there any comments on the budget? I too want to say thank you to our county commissioners. I was able to see the meeting last night and know they had a very arduous process as they were deciding where to put priorities and so really appreciate them continuing to focus on Durham public schools.

So grateful for them and we'll have to do some work today with what they're uh making sure they're gifting us. So we'll have to see that a little bit later in our meeting. All right, sharham. I just uh I don't

think it goes without saying that on top of last year's $27 million investment, this additional uh funding is really a historic amount for of investment in in our students in Durham. And so, um, I know that people might be looking and thinking we're we're short of our our board ask, we're short of the superintendent's recommendation, but, um, when we bundle those two numbers together, it is profoundly um such a strong investment in in our children. So, I just really also want to extend gratitude to the commissioners and them being in unanimous in that vote for us. Thank you.

You Thank you all. Next, we'll move to general public comment. Before we get started, we'll do a quick review of the rules. First, please state your name. And if you're speaking for an organization, state your name and the name of the organization. Second, our speakers are asked to present your

comments within three minutes. When the yellow light comes on, you will have one minute left to start winding up your remarks. When the red light comes on, it will beep and that will indicate that your time is up. Complaints about named staff, students, or parents should not be voiced in open session.

However, we are very interested in hearing your concerns with regard to the public education safety of students or to the operation of the school system. Finally, board members will listen carefully and we'll consider your comments, but we do not engage in discussion with our speakers. So, our first speaker will be Emma Goss, followed by Ray Solo. And please, if I mispronounce your names, please correct me when you get up to the podium.

We'll start with Emma Goss. Name is Emma Goss. I'm a rising sophomore in the engineering program. Uh, Emma, can you pull that microphone a

little closer to you? We want to make sure that we can hear you. Perfect. My name is Emma Goss.

I'm a rising sophomore in the engineering program at Riverside. I've taken Latin and participated in Latin club since sixth grade. I hope to continue to participate in Latin all the way through high school. I chose Riverside because it's the only high school in this district that offers Latin.

Two weeks ago, we learned that the Latin program was going to be eliminated due to budget cuts. I'm here tonight to urge the board to reconsider this decision. Latin makes me a better student in all of my subjects. It makes me a better English reader, writer, and test taker since so much of English is derived from Latin.

And learning Latin history gives me a deeper understanding of global politics today. Participating in Latin Club has given me so many opportunities like competing in statewide conventions and running for office. Riverside makes DPS look really good at Latin competitions. The top performing high

schools are always the privates and charters. And Riverside, it's truly an award-winning program. Our Latin teacher is also the best. Mustita has created a safe space for every student.

Riverside is a huge school and it's important for mental and emotional health to find your community within such a big setting. Because classes are on the small side, we're able to really connect with each other and with her. I appreciate that she knows me so well and I want to do my best work for her. This matters to me.

What language am I supposed to start now as a sophomore? Will I like the teacher? Will I find another extracurricular as meaningful as Latin club? Will I still be competitive even if I can't have a level four or five language class on my college application?

If I choose a different elective for next year, will I even be able to get in since registration closed months ago? This matters to the Latin community. We've already gotten more than 500 signatures on a petition that we created to save Latin. We've made flyers and brochures to recruit more students. We have a

dozen, we've sent dozens of messages to our school administration and to the DPS board and several of us are here to speak tonight. The Latin program has taught us the kind of leadership skills that DPS tries to nurture. I urge you to reconsider eliminating the entire program, especially a program that doesn't exist anywhere else within DPS. Please, please save Latin at Riverside.

Thank you. Thank you, Emma. Next we'll have Ray Solo and then followed by I think it's Cameron Cameron Ao Cameron AO Ray Solo and very few people get the pronunciation right but you've nailed it. Um good evening board members.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak and thank you for the amazing education that you've given my two sons. Uh Peter, a graduating senior at Riverside. Charlie, a uh sophomore also at Riverside. Um my oldest son, Peter,

well, I'm here to advocate for the Latin program. Also, um my oldest son, Peter, graduating from Riverside, has taken Latin since he was in middle school at Lakewood, and I am constantly amazed by his passion for a dead language. um from the Friday morning JCL meetings to weekendl long cretaman events. It it's amazing how much he has gotten out of this program over these four years.

Um enough about me and my kids. Couple bullet points. I probably already know Latin is the root of 60% of all English vocabulary. students who study Latin score higher on standardized test and learn other the romance languages easier. Um, and while no longer a prerequisite for an Ivy League education or medical profession or legal profession, Latin is a major benefit for all of these languages or professions.

So finally, you know, every year students at Lakewood, Excelsier, Voyager, Immaculata, and other middle schools are studying Latin and love it and wish to continue that in high school with with Riverside Latin program gone. Their only options are going to be, you know, Durham Academy or Kerry Academy. And I really plead with you, you know, give them an opportunity to stay with Durham public schools and continue to study what they love. Following Cameron, we'll have Flynn Meadows, Melissa Lido, and Ellie Everett.

Um, hi, good evening. My name is Cameron Ao. Don't worry about the pronunciation. It was great.

Um, I'm 17. I'm a rising senior at Riverside High School. I'm also here to speak uh about the Latin program. It's, you know, come to our attention

relatively recently that we might be losing this program at Riverside, which is quite surprising and of great concern to me. Latin has been a keystone program for me. I came from uh a middle school education where I didn't have the chance to learn Latin. I actually learned Spanish and I switched to Latin and fell in love with it.

Latin has really improved my ability to do well in English class as well as learn a fun language that I really highly value and has been a amazing part of my high school experience. Latin is important and it really supports my growth as a student. Along with being a Latin student, I'm also the president of the Junior Classical League uh Riverside chapter, which if you don't know, Junior Classical League is an organization that is nationally and state recognized. It was founded in 1963, and it promotes the understanding and learning of Greek and

Latin um and all the classics. Junior Classical League is a pretty big deal, uh especially in these circles. And Riverside, like Emma said, constantly places quite high up. Um, which is pretty surprising given that we are a public school, um, dealing with a lot of private schools that have a higher up, you know, a step up in terms of Latin education.

Um, during my as as uh being a member and the president, we have won many many awards. We've won third place as a school. We have won uh multiple curtain or quizbowl finishes in the top three. Um including a novice state championship my sophomore year uh along with other championships and we have at this year alone over 30 top five awards across art competitions to athletics. All these things have shaped who I am and how I participate in my community.

And I fear that if they're gone, which will happen if Latin is removed from Riverside, I along with many others will struggle with the loss of this really valuable program. I understand that these sacrifices must be made, but this program is more important and is really quite valuable to my education and to my peers. Um, I just urge you to reconsider the removal of this program because it's something that I personally hold very dearly and I know many other students hold very close to them. I really hope that we can see a positive outcome for the future of the Latin program at Riverside.

Thank you. Okay. Good evening board. Uh thank you so much for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Riverside Latin program this evening. So I graduated from the Riverside Latin program in 2022. So, it should tell you something when three years down the road when my former Latin teacher calls me called me at lunch today during my lunch break and asks me

to speak on behalf of this program that I don't hesitate. And I don't hesitate because this is a program that really deeply matters to me. And it matters to me because it made a difference for me. You see, the RAT the Latin program at Riverside provides a sense of belonging for kids who don't really fit in anywhere else.

you know, this is this is a niche that is really unique to the Latin program and the sense of community fostered there is just it's really special and I certainly benefited from it. You know, if Latin was a tree, it's the Latin program at Riverside, its branches and its roots would extend far beyond just the fence posts of Riverside High School and the boundaries of Durham County. Just last summer, I was taking a trip to New York and I ran into a fellow Riverside Latin alum, and we actually spoke at length about the Latin program and what it did for us. So, for me, Latin was more than just a way to fill up my schedule. It was more than just an

alternative to French or Spanish. It really was a way for me to meet unique people and create unique experiences and and make connections that will stay with me for as long as I, you know, continue to breathe on this world. So, I ask you to do everything in your power to please save Latin for Durham, save Latin for Riverside, and save Latin for the students. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Leo, pronounced as such. I am Melissa Leto, she her, the Latin teacher that they speak about. I've been in my position at Riverside for 13 years, almost half of my teaching career, over half of my teaching career, and almost half the time that the school has been open. During this time, I've built a thriving, award-winning Latin program that we're now at risk of losing. If we were an animal, we would

be on the endangered species list and work to protect and save it. Riverside is the only high school in DPS that offers Latin where students can continue after middle school. Latin at Riverside is a unique offering that means we gain students who might otherwise go elsewhere. I did some calculations.

I'm a Latin teacher, not a math teacher. This was a a stretch for me. 80% of middle school students who come to Riverside continue their studies through the upper levels three and over. Over the past three years, 40% of Latin 1 students have continued into Latin 3.

And 35% of Latin 1 students have continued all the way to Latin 4, five, or AP. And these percentages are higher than any other language offered at the school. Not to throw my colleagues under the bus. As a queer identifying teacher, many LGBTQIA+ students have found a place and a home in the Latin program. The Latin program does extend its reach

beyond the walls of the school by participation in the North Carolina Junior Classical League, where we have brought home a trophy for winning state competition for 13 years. And the last time I stood before this board, which was in 2018, we were recognized for winning first place. Also, every year students take the national Latin exam and always receive awards of distinction. I am the only teacher at Riverside who provides opportunities for students to participate in international travel, Italy, Spain, France, Costa Rica, Greece, where they receive authentic learning experiences.

My purpose here is to shine a light on the last high school Latin program in our district and to say that it is a program we're saving. A program that supports outstanding scores on ACT and SAT tests, participates in community outreach, offers a place for many LGBTQIA plus students, wins state and national awards, a program that has produced medical professionals, engineers, teachers, activists, and generally well-rounded human beings, which you probably know from all the emails that graduates have been sending you. Surely,

the answer is to cultivate our one remaining high school Latin program and perhaps even grow one at the middle schools which feed Riverside. The power to save this program is in the hands of the board. In closing, I'll share the following message from a parent who wanted to comment tonight but couldn't get off work. Through studying Latin and participating in Junior Classical League, my graduating senior has not only learned a language, but acquired language learning skills, improved his English vocabulary, and gotten more comfortable with Spanish, his grandmother's native tongue.

Studying Latin has helped his academic writing, which gave him an edge on his college applications. Last but not least, Ellie Everett. Hi, my name is Ellie Everett and I am a rising sophomore at Riverside. I love Latin, which in sixth grade was not something I thought I would ever say about a dead language, but it's true and it is so helpful despite what the

non-believers might think. In my English one class, we would get a new vocabul vocabulary list of 15 words every Monday. I found that while I might not have heard the words before, I could get a sense of what a lot of them meant just from my knowledge of Latin words. And it's not just English.

When I see a sentence in Spanish or in French, I can usually pull out a few words and get a basic understanding of them. In addition to its helpfulness in school, Latin has made its way into my everyday life. My 70-year-old My 75-year-old papa took Latin when he was in high school in the 1960s. When I'm at his house way out in the country, we'll sit on his porch eating M&M's and he'll say essayer or some other Latin phrase while I tell him what it means and it makes both of us really happy.

And finally, if we lose Latin, we lose one of the most welcoming programs at Riverside High School. Miss Leo's walls are covered in Latin posters floor to ceiling. It's awesome. I once sent my mom a video for in the

" Because it does. Which sets it apart from a lot of the other classes at Riverside. And that's really important to me because it feels like there's a real effort being made for to help us learn. To an outsider, it may seem like the world won't end if Riverside loses its Latin program, but to us, it means so much.

That's why we're here at the beginning of so summer vacation fighting for it. And also I want to say I remember um a lot of you from voting for you on last year at Lakewood. So I just want to say it's really cool to be here. So thank you all so much for everything you do and thank you for your time.

Uh with that it concludes our public comment. Thank you all. We also love hearing our student speakers. So thank y'all for coming and for your advocacy.

All right. The next item on our agenda, we have our consent items. We have items

A through H on our agenda. Move approval of the consent agenda items A through H. Second. It's been moved by Miss Beyer and seconded by Miss Carter Autton.

Is there any other discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I.

Any opposed, please use the same sign. It passes unanimously. The next item on our agenda is the strategic plan update. We have priority five, building our future strategic plan. Pass it to Dr. Lewis who might pass it to his team.

Just waiting for the team to file in. We'll kick it off with Mr. Teter. Okay.

Good evening, um, Chair Homestead, board members, um, Dr. Lewis. Um we are pleased to be in front of you this evening um with DPS strategic goal number five plan update. And as you can see quite a team has assembled um and so we'll we'll be carrying you through sub goals 5A through 5D um with with various folks presenting on those items.

And so with me tonight is also uh Kenneth Barnes, interim chief operating officer for Durham Public Schools uh and three members of his team. And so we have Eva Howard with safety and security with us, Lori Blake Reed from operations and Mihal Lynch also here from operations. Um and they will present the various sections until you get to 5D and then I'll u be representing that subsection of the presentation if we want to move to the next slide. So just a reminder of the district's vision, mission, and core beliefs. And if we'll keep progressing through the

presentation um to the next slide, just a reminder of the goals and we're touching on goal five tonight um to conduct business administration and operation functions responsibly and equitably. We'll move to the next slide. And so then we get to um the various goals. Uh and so the next on the next slide we'll start um with goal 5A and then I'll call on my colleague Mihal Lynch.

Thank you Jeremy. Mihal Lynch with operations services and um sorry I'm just trying to focus on the screen. So the team as represented there are myself and co-leads and then other uh members of the team some of whom are here this evening. Next slide please. So this then is a report based on the previous uh year's report with updates.

So we talk about what's in place currently, what's in progress and of course next steps. And as described um I can run through these briefly if you'd like. We have all the facilities utilizing low VOC or volatile organic compound cleaning solutions. Uh HVAC equipment is listed by replacement priority order which helps us keep ahead of all of that.

98% of all facilities will be equipped with HVAC monitoring remote systems which again allows us keep a sharper focus on those issues. We note about the opening of Murray Massenberg Elementary School. Uh we also note the ESSER funds, federal funds which uh closed out last end of last calendar year December 20 31st uh funded various HVAC capital improvement projects. Those were completed and then safety and security and emergency management uh initiatives and resources for which we have an additional slide

and I'll defer to my colleague Eva Hard to give you that update at this point. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um, as mentioned, I'm Eva Howard, executive director of safety and security.

Uh, ways that safety and security and emergency management, our initiatives and resources contribute to the strategic plan. Um, we offer school Second, can we go to the next slide? Thank you. Thank you.

Uh, we have school resource officers who are assigned to our middle and high schools. We foster a relationship with our dorm county sheriff's office. We have physical security systems. This includes our access control systems, uh, secure vestibules and badges, secure systems, state-of-the-art, uh, camera systems. We also have emergency communication systems such as our intercoms, emergency radios, and mass notification tools. We have a robust emergency management program and we also have a district

emergency communication or emergency operations plan our EOP and this is reviewed and updated annually. We have regular required safety drills. This includes our fire drills, lockdown drills, evacuation and severe weather drills. And this is also guided by North Carolina general statute.

We work closely with student services um and work with our behav behavioral threat assessment teams. We foster partnerships as mentioned with local law enforcement and emergency services. We also have anonymous reporting tools. This includes two anonymous tip system.

This is Sandy Hook say something and Motorola Texas a tip. Uh these systems are monitored 247 365 days a year. Um, and I'll off also offer some data related to the tip systems on the next slide. We have safety training for staff and students. This includes CPR, first aid, and situal situational awareness exercises. We're

continuingly researching and evaluating security measures that have the potential to enhance our existing infrastructure. As time change and trends evolve, we have security strategies must adapt accordingly to remain effective and responsive while also actively exploring grant opportunities to help support and fund ongoing security improvement efforts. Next slide. Of our tip systems, as of last Tuesday, last week, we received 258 tips.

And this is through both uh systems. Our top concerns are threats of violence, substance abuse uh concerns, bullying, self harm concerns, and employee complaints. Of those tips, 18 were received through our elementary schools, 41 through our middle schools, 176 through our high schools and specialty schools, and then non DPS sites and admin sites. 22.

Many tips submitted are after hours and on weekends which reinforces the need for 247 reporting at sex and responsive supportive teams. Thank you. Thank you Eva. And I'll ask to go back to the previous screen plus one to just uh update you on the prior previous screen again please. So then continuing with goal 5A uh beyond what Eva has mentioned with that extended piece on safety and security in progress we then note about the HVAC capital improvement um and planned uh projects using ARPA funding which again is a federal uh grant uh monitor through the uh county. We uh of course have um the facility conditions assessment which brings with it the learning environmental guidelines uh that FCA brings us uh a reckoning of

all the deferred maintenance across the system and we've I know presented on that in detail before and it gives us a significant tool to be able to plan and define those future capital project needs uh renovation and or replacement of several playgrounds are underway uh with various funding sources and those are current and under state funed programs the clean classrooms for Carolina kids um uh to improve environmental issues investigate and resolve. Then the final part of this slide is the next steps where we identify funding to support the goals of safe and healthy environments across the board to meet with this goal. Um supporting the whole child and of course uh planning for imple implementation of a 10-year capital improvement plan which of course evolves from the FCA legs um study to get to that CIP plan. That completes the

presentation on this slide and I'll defer to my colleagues for the next one. Thank you. Good evening board members and Dr. Lewis.

I'm Kenneth Barnes and I will be presenting Go 5B tonight. I have Mr. Joe Harris here with me. Go 5B states that by 2028 90% of DPS students who ride district buses will have on-time arrival to and from school.

Even with the challenge that we faced in the fall of this year, I believe we will get back on track to meet this goal by 2028. We are adjusting our bus routes to have shorter ride times and most most of our buses will drive within the region next year. Next slide, please. What do we have in place? We are currently assessing our routing for accuracy. We're also reviewing bus ridership for accuracy with students who have chosen to receive transportation

from DPS. In progress, we continue to improve service and efficiency of bus routes to support the growing together initiative. We're also fully implementing the behind the wheel driver training program. In addition, we continue to recruit and retain transportation employees.

Our next steps are to plan, coordinate, review, and imp review review the implementation process of school bus stops and routes. Evaluate all district supported programs including those withus for efficiency and continue to work with district and school level administrators to validate student routership data to improve route efficiency. Jim Collins states in his book good to great that all organizations have to hire people. You want to be a good organization you hire good people. If you want to be a great organization or department, you hire good people and

make sure they're working in the right position and working on the right work. Over the past five months, Joe Harris, Tony Leak, Tammy Phillips, Victoria Pagan, and I have worked hard to make sure the transportation department has the right people in the right positions doing the right work. I am confident that if we continue to work in this direction, we will have a transportation department that Durham Public Schools expects and one that our community demands. Thank you.

So, greetings and good evening, Board of Education. Dr. Lewis DPS cabinet Lori Blake Reed here today to present on the strategic plan priority 5 goal 5C which reads by 2028 DPS will increase K through2 student enrollment to achieve

100% utilization of seat capacity at all school levels approximately 35,000 students. So what strategies will be used to increase student enrollment? Well, currently in place, we have the growing together elementary boundaries and program changes that are in effect for our elementary schools. Could we please roll to the next slide?

Thank you. Um, so the growing together student assignment plan provides community outreach and engagement activities for incoming families and markets. These activities through social media, websites, and newsletters. Our next measure that is in place is our strategic marketing activities and events that are held at school and district levels to include the showcase of schools to highlight the many wonderful options that DPS offers. We also had the new Murray Massenberg Elementary School that opened in 2024 and prior to that we had the new

northern high school which opened in 2023. our strategic measures that are in progress. We have the implementation of the secondary phase of the growing together student assignment plan. This part of the plan focuses on middle and high schools, creating an infrastructure and enrollment and a system of accountability.

We're also developing a library of marketing tools and and materials including 17 videos to highlight DPS offerings. Um this will be in collaboration with uh will be done in collaboration with our office of public affairs. Um the phase construction for Glenn Elementary School in the Durham School of the Arts is an ongoing project. Um also we have the interim facility for the inaugural class of the Health Sciences Early College High School which is also under construction, a renovation project that is designed to house about 200 additional students. A permanent site will later um land on

Durham Tech Community Campus and that will eventually serve 400 students and will be completed in the next two to three years. There's also a long range en enrollment forecast to inform the capital improvement plan. Um this will look at what is likely to happen with student enrollment over the next 10 years to include market share and charter enrollment. And a highlight for this goal that's in progress is our student enrollment increased for the fiscal year FY2425 by 157 students from 31,031 students to 31,188 students.

Our next steps for goal 5C is to audit marketing efforts and develop comprehensive marketing plans for each of our programs. We will do this by evaluating data for outreach and engagement and collaborate with schools to develop marketing plans. We're also planning for the physical expansion of

the prek programs to welcome families early on to Durham public schools over the next five years. This team will work to develop datadriven strategies to increase enrollment in the neighborhood at the neighborhood level. And last, our new student assignment working group will monitor and plan for adjustments to boundaries and school programs. So in closing um this team many and all that are here with me today if you all saw the previous slide um in closing this team will continue the work to increase student enrollment using quality marketing measures, community engagement and student programming and provide Durham families with the best information and educational opportunities for all students.

Next we will hear from Mr. Teter with an update on goal 5D. Okay, thank you. We can All right, perfect. We're there. Um, so 5D says that by 2028, DPS will fully integrate business modernization, including

payroll, HR, IT, and finance systems to align district strategic objectives and business, administrative, and operational needs. It's a lot. Uh and so on the the next slide, uh we sort of provide a snapshot of what progress Durham has made and where we've got to go and sort of what are our stretch goals in the longer term. Um in the current environment, um we have migrated our accounts payable system, our budget system, our fixed asset system, general ledger purchasing and warehouse functions from the legacy AS400 system to the new system. Um and these were sort of the initial throws um in an effort that started statewide in 2021 uh for districts uh to begin to migrate away from these legacy systems and move to web-based cloud-based systems. Um in the near future uh we will be looking to migrate child nutrition uh services our our modules through which we interact with onboarding employees our HR

processes payroll position control and time and attendance um in the shortest order um will be our payroll system that will move next and we have a target of the new payroll system to go live with the January payroll. um this allows us time um to to really plan that out well to test it vigorously and to make sure that it's going to work. And so with that timetable um december, November and December um the payroll will be processed in the old system and in the new system to make sure that the results mirror one another and that we have got absolute certainty that the new system will process it correctly. And so just wanted to stress how much um leg work we're putting into the buildup for that.

uh just recognizing how much that impacts our day-to-day lives here. Um our child nutrition uh team has been evaluating what their options are uh in terms of their software solutions and how they might uh pair things up to integrate with our software. And so we're looking forward to hearing what recommendations

they have for how they'd like to move forward. Um in the HR world, they have a little more breathing room. Uh the the current software that they use um keeps getting an extension on when it will sunset. Uh, and so as of right now, um, the software that Miss Hager's team uses will not sunset until 2028.

So we have time to perfect the payroll product and then make sure that we can have that same degree of scrutiny for the HR product and it's exactly how we would like it to be before her team comes on board with that. Um, the time and attendance component of that will move the same time as payroll. Um, and that's just the system that our employees use to clock in and out. uh and we'll make sure and it's going to go through that same level of scrutiny where we'll be running two timekeeping systems at some pilot sites to make sure that those behave appropriately before it goes live. Um and then in the longer term, our stretch goals are to limit the amount of software u particularly that our school treasurers are accessing at the school level. Uh in our current climate due to where we are in

conversion, our school treasurers are accessing three different softwares. They're using one software syllogist to access the funds that we've allotted to them from the district level. They're using school funds online to access the funds that they have uh generated through fundraising and managing field trip fees and things of that nature. And then they're using our legacy system to keep up with teachers and and other employees for payroll purposes.

So, we know that in January we'll have them down to two systems. And then our goal would be to have them down to one by eventually um moving away from the school fund software and having their school level funds managed in syllogist like their district level funds. Another sort of long-term goal for us is a receivables function. Uh, and so just meaning when the district has invoiced someone on the outside for money that's due to Durham or if we have interdep departmental billing that's going on in the district, we've built a school for a field trip, we've built a school for postage or something of that nature, we have a much more comprehensive solution that's built into our software to help

us manage that rather than manual processes um that we currently have on the side. So um very quick overview of our environment with our software uh and where our business systems are moving. That's the conclusion of our goals. Thank you Mr.

Teter and team. Thank you'all for being here this afternoon and for the presentation. Board members questions comments start with Mr. Tab.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much for uh the presentation. Um this is for Mrs. How I wanted to touch on the safety and security please for um and thank you so much.

You gave information about the uh anonymous tip line. Yes. Um where and when does that data start because you said it was 227 tips is Yes. The start of the school year up until last week. Okay. So it starts at the very beginning

of the school year when the students first day when students come. It's already set. Yes, that's right. It's ongoing, but I just took a snapshot just from the school year, but it's it's outside of of school hours over vacation break.

It's active 24/7, 365 days a year. and we see that these the tips um for this school year is there is there a comparison to the previous school year? I can gather that information for sure. That would be great.

Thank you. Absolutely. All right. And the next question um would be in terms of looking at other technology enhancing for security.

I know you talked about that you all going to start working on that. what is a timeline that we may can get information about costs um for especially our high schools and middle schools. Um so that research is ongoing um and I've I've gathered that information. I have that

information information now um but just continuing to look at various options. Um so whenever it's decided um those options are always being explored. I can get that information. I would know what the options I don't know about the rest of the board chair, but I would love to start looking at maybe the cost of of that.

Dr. Lewis. Yeah. And in addition to the research that the team is doing, they're also researching um you know, new technology.

We're always thinking about safety. What what else can we do to ensure that our staff and scholars are safe? In addition to that research, they're also researching funding sources um as well. So we can identify funding sources because what we don't want to do is present, you know, proposal to this board about or this community about, you know, X enhancement for safety and not have the funding um to support that as well. So in addition to the research on, you know, uh additional measures that we can take to ensure safety in all of our buildings, uh we're also researching funding sources and grants, right? And so once I can get that information um

then I can generate some questions to you way ahead of time so that when it comes to us you would have already had the questions that I probably had for safety and security. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you board members.

Any additional questions? Miss fire just uh gratitude for everyone that is on this team. I think when we did the strategic plan, I uh may have jokingly put this at the end as the fifth priority because it is the functioning, the day-to-day stuff, but nothing happens. We don't have school without everything that you all are doing. And so just so much gratitude for your work, your planning together, your openness to new ideas, um and your willingness to shift and and be nimble, um with the transportation crisis with all that that entailed. Um y'all

are just like so critical behind the scenes and and we don't thank you enough. So I just wanted to express gratitude to you all. Um, stuff keeps breaking. HVACs keep breaking and y'all keep fixing it and and moving those things forward for students.

I think I heard that some of our gyms were out today and lots of schools have broken stuff, but I appreciate all y'all's teamwork. Um, one thing that I'd gotten asked in the community that I thought you might clarify is where the location for Durham Early College for Health Sciences. I thought that was a temporary site out in research triangle park. Can I Is that true, Miss Blake Reed?

Yes, that is correct. That and it is a renovation project. We are upfitting an existing facility at Durham Tech or the the longer term will be on the Tech campus. The longer term will be on the Durham Tech campus. Yes, that's correct. So, they're at like a Moore Drive facility

or something that Yes. 41 more drive. 41 more drives and we're going to be transporting kids out there and it's going to be great. It's just new next year, right?

So, I'm excited. All of all of the transportation folks are nodding their heads. Yes. Yeah.

Great. Thank you all so much. I really really appreciate it and I appreciate the the ways that y'all are leading us forward. Thanks, Miss Chavez.

All right. Um, thank you so much for this presentation. Um, I wanted to, um, I wanted to, uh, reer reiterate a couple things that I've already said, which is that I would just love to see more data and how we're measuring up with our benchmark goals. Um, and I want to um, also say I appreciate the additional data on the anonymous tip line. I was struck by the fact that self harm is listed as number one. And Miss Howard, is that in order of or is it

just the top five or is it in order of um prevalence? It was just the top five. That's not the number one, but those were the top five concerns or tips that we receive. Okay.

I thought that was illuminating that. So, I have to think on it more. But, um but yeah, definitely. Um I think a lot of times we think about violence as outward, which many times it is, but it can be also inward.

Um so, thank you. Um and then I wanted to touch a bit on which one was this around marketing. Um see is this C? Yeah, 5C.

Um so I many tabs open. Hold up one second. Um, I just wanted to say that um I want to support uh really um aggressive marketing as we go forward. I

I love the social media posts about u all the scholarships our students are uh graduating students are receiving. I think it's very powerful. Um, so I I hope um we will continue to showcase our positive outcomes. I think we do that well.

I just want to also say I hope we will continue to do that. And um my hope is also that there's a lot of um collaboration on this piece for you know the very small communications department that works very hard um because DPS does offer the best in rigorous academics and diversity that reflects the real world and we have to be competitive in this market. So, um, so I just wanted to say that. And then with our student enrollment goal, I did want to note our benchmark goal is, uh, a bit higher for this year than we've achieved.

I'm glad we're increasing. Um, but I I have this in my mind. That's,

you know, we set these goals for a reason. The goal for this year is 31,790 uh, students for 2425. Um, so, um, I, you know, I think we just want to continue to support and keep our eye on on that. So, I guess there wasn't a really a real question in there, but thank you for standing up and being available.

Um, and my last quick question is about um is for Mr. Teter. Uh, child nutrition services will decide on their software program. What I was just wondering when Right.

So, I know that um Mr. Keaton, someone else on Mr. Keaton staff have been handling that work and he's sort of picked up um responsibility for looking at those and we've we've talked about a couple of different options and he's asked sort of about my experience interfacing with those in other districts and um I've you know offered my opinion on that. Um so um they have not made a selection yet uh and so we'll have to what we have right

now is still working and it's still interfacing so we've got some time to get it right. Uh so I would imagine by next school year, so not this one that's about to open, but the one after uh we'll be at a place for that. Uh because we've there are a couple of pieces to it, right? So they've got a point of sales system that they use at the school level for when students are coming through the lunch line to provide their lunch number um or or to buy other things.

Um and then there's a separate system that's behind the background that handles the ordering and inventorying. And so the goal is to make sure that they have a product that can handle everything and not try to have two separate pieces and um making sure it's one that works. Uh because we've um we've seen some districts uh make changes um that have not worked well. And so we're trying to be very intentional about that like we are about um our payroll transition.

Yep. Thank you. Um that I appreciate that. it just seemed um important. You know, I don't know how it fits with all the other

changes we made in our child nutrition um area. Uh but I'm sure that it it does fit in together. And then the overall message I hear from that um you know, kind of syncing our systems together and hopefully creating one is if is improvements and efficiency. So, that's what I'm hoping we, you know, we'll hear more about as the as the years go by and those systems are synced up.

So, thank you. Just wanted to add a couple of things. One on the um anonymous tip summary. Uh just to reiterate with the board and the community that every last one of those tips are taken extremely seriously.

Uh and there's um community resources that often go into some of these um anonymous tips. So, for example, if there's a threat of school violence, you know, we just don't wait until the student comes to school the next day and question the student. There is law enforcement um involved and sometimes home visits are conducted as as well. And um um again, you know, you've heard Eva receive a

recognition here, but I just want to again commend her and her staff. I don't think she ever sleeps. Um so sometimes those tips come in at 2 or 3:00 in the morning and and she's on it. You know, I just had a conversation with the principal about they were saying that they reached out to Eva.

It was late after hours. I don't know why they were up, but they were expecting Eva to respond the next morning and she responded instantaneous instantaneously. So, that just goes to show you that we have staff that it's readily available when there's a see something, say something tip come in, please know that we are on that um um immediately. And then on the marketing um is as well.

Um marketing is a is not just up to one department. It's a entire school system, entire community, and there's a lot of great things that are going on in terms of marketing. You know, there are some things that we're doing with our three, four, and 5-year-olds in our daycare centers and giving them backpacks uh to encourage them to come to Durham Public Schools, but sometimes that's too late. Sometimes families already have made up their mind where their child is going. And so, as soon as they come into this world, um we also have an opportunity

for them. Maria, do you mind sharing that? Yes, thank you. Um, so the superintendent is referring to a program that we started with some of our earliest prospective students, our newborns.

We have a program in the community called Family Connects. It's where uh nurses and other advocates visit um the parents of newborn uh children and bring them information, counsel them on things like um nursing and whatnot. But we connected with them and we created a really cute little onesie. I wish I had it with me. Um, but it says future DPS grad and we give that to them with a little brochure about our school district and all of the programs that we have to offer because we know that even before people become parents, when they're even thinking about becoming parents, they're often already thinking about where their children are going to go to school. And so we want them to know that we have a home for them and it's a great home and we're

excited to welcome them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Uh, Miss Cardon. Thanks so much to um, Priority 5 team. Y'all are amazing and keep everything running here smoothly at DPS. So, thank you for being here tonight and for all of the work that you do.

Um, I have three main questions, each for a different person. Um, the first one is for Mr. Lynch. Um, I'm excited to see all of the work being done um towards goal 5A and a number um of the actions that DPS is taking to support environmental sustainability.

And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on what it would take for our district to have a climate action plan. And I'm asking for a few different reasons. One, there's been advocacy as we know from our students and from our community about this. Two, our resolution from

2021 states that we'll have an action plan among other things. And then also the city and county have their own um sustainability and climate related action plan. So it feels like this is something that might make sense. But I wanted to know from you what would be the barriers to this or what might that look like here for our district?

Thank you question. Um with some of the recent projects uh completed and ongoing uh there was adopted um some certain programs that are uh headed in that direction be it lead or fit well or well uh these are different um systems or you know goal set systems that uh head us in that direction. Um, so those either are incompleted projects or projects current that have been current before myself and some of my colleagues got here. So uh I certainly think it's a very timely opportunity to evaluate that which we ought to be doing ongoing but it's

certainly timely with your question to look at those evaluate across those different systems how they are heading in that direction strategically and uh to be mindful of that as we evaluate future needs both in whether it's deferred maintenance, smaller renovations, larger renovations and of course the larger capital projects. So we'd certainly be happy to look at that in a broader strategic manner and come back to you with some thoughts on that and uh certainly given you a temperature take if that's not the wrong phrase on um where we are on those programs that were in sort of baked into the recently completed major capital projects. Thank you for that. And I think part of um my interest is I know that we're doing so much so much more than we're even aware the board is even aware of related to um sustainability, but I'm wondering the extent to which it might be um coordinated via a plan or like that

would outline here's all the things like here's our goals and here's our plans for the next few years all in one place instead of what feels like it's a little bit peacemeal. But is that just my perception of what No, absolutely. And uh I see my colleague Lori coming up who's been working on some of this separately, but uh certainly I suppose that's what I was trying to get to the the coordination of all of that is the vital part to get to that answer, but I'll defer to Lori for some other details. So yes, our sustainability team, they are working in collaboration with the city and the county to look at what a plan for Durham public schools would look like, what a sustainability plan, what a climate action plan would look like.

Uh Mr. DJ Lynch, Dison Lynch, I know he upset me just to saying that, but Mr. DJ Lynch is leading that effort on our behalf and again working alongside um he has already highlighted and outlined uh bulleted plan. Um as you know as you create energy sustainability plan their budget implications, their

planning implications and he is working on what that total picture will look like for Durham public schools. We are for anyone that's listening outside of here. Um also trying to research to understand would it make sense for Durham public schools to collaborate with the city and the county on their sustainability plans. So we're looking at all of those possibilities.

Oh, I love that. Thank you so much. That's really exciting. Should we expect to hear more about that in a few months then?

Yes, ma'am. Oh, and my next question is actually for you, Miss Blakey. Um I was wondering um so thinking about the uh I can't remember it might be 5B but um about enrollment updates. Yes 5C.

Yes. 5C. Sorry. Um so I was wondering I'm curious to know I think it is the case that we'll receive an enrollment update in the fall again. uh a more robust enrollment update in the fall, both to see like continue to see how close we are to reaching this goal, but

also to see where things are with growing together um with regards to implementation and um enrollment in each of our schools as we shift things with the secondary roll out. So, I didn't know if you wanted to speak a little bit to when the board should expect to receive more information about that. Yes, I would like to first thank you for that question and defer to um my great team. If I could call Mr.

Batitali Ratzky up to speak on that. He was so excited to do that. Thank you so much. Um good evening.

Um so yeah, so about enrollment updates. Um there's two kind of main types of uh enrollment projections. So one is like the annual projections and that's more um driving uh a lotments and and and and how uh resources are uh allotted to schools. Um and that's based on day 40 um numbers month two um membership last day numbers that the um that research and

accountability and the NCDPI release each year. So we can't really give you enrollment updates until those numbers are released each year. you know, they do release like um day 20 numbers like month one. So, we could do it at the end of September um is how we did it last year for an enrollment update or and we can also do like basically the beginning of November for a day 40 update which is kind of the official um numbers.

Um and then there's also the long range forecast. So, you know, currently we're working on the long range forecast. Um, of course it's not enrollment update, but you know, long-range forecast, we'll have it this summer, and every year we do a long-range forecast that looks like 10 years ahead. Um, and kind of looks at, you know, based on past trends, what are we, what can we expect in terms of enrollment in the district.

Thank you. That's super helpful. And I don't know, is that something that So, so the plan would be to provide the day 40 or the month two update to the board um unless the board indicates otherwise. Is that

Yeah, that's um that's the plan. Last year, like I said, I think we did one in September, end of September for a day 20 update. Um so, we can do that if you want. Um but it's yeah, it takes a a few like day 20 happens and then it takes like research accountability has to put together that data.

So, it takes like a week or two for them to put that together and then we can get give the update. Um same thing for day 40. So day 40 is usually the end of October. So the earliest would be like the beginning of November for day 40 or the end of September for day 20.

Um thank you. And recognizing that more data is not always better if there's not a reason to have more data. Um I'm wondering and also if it's a burden um from your perspective what's the difference in the 20 to the 40 or like what do you what would you expect to see there or is there any um would there be any reason for us to see day 20 data or um do things change significantly between those two from your experience or um I mean they change

a little bit not not like a lot not substantially I think um usually day 40 is a little bit higher for us the last couple years and it's been Um, I think from what I know, I'm not an expert on this, but like that's kind of what finance uses it. That's like what the kind of the we use as the official for enrollment projections and for like finance and stuff. So day 40 is kind of like the most official from what I know. And day 20 is just like a progress check for that.

I'd want to add though, we made lots of decisions based on day 20 data. So, if you were going to choose one, you you would want day 20 data because that's what's going to drive um um aotments, FTEEs, reconciliation of uh staffing. Uh so, so that is kind of the data that uh where where where the rubber meets the road, if you will. The other the other data is certainly important and certainly informative because it it might suggest to us that there is you know a trend of foot in terms of students who were enrolled in

on the day on the 20th day who who did not you know persist through the 40th day. Um but but the but the day 20 data is is uh is the bees knees as they say. Thank you. That's super helpful.

Okay. Um, I have one more question and then maybe we might talk about that more. Uh, my last question is for Mr. Barnes.

I was wondering um when we should expect to see some data related to um the goal about on-time arrivals to and from schools and what that could look like for the board. I have the data that you have been receiving uh in previous years. Um, and so in 2023 24 the goal was 83%. We were at 86%. 6.

Caveat to that is that is not the on time to and from school information. So actually the data you've been receiving for the previous years is the efficiency number from DBI. So um Mr. White, your new executive director for auxiliary services, his first task is to help create an instrument that would give us the ontime to and from school information that is in 5B.

Okay. So unfortunately uh the numbers reflect the efficiency from DPI but not on time to and from school. We are capable of giving you information about which bus is arriving to which school on a daily basis. We just don't have an instrument that would give us that data for the

entire school year. So, we're working on that and I hope with Mr. Vitali's help that we will have that information or have a program in place that will give you that data uh on a daily basis or weekly basis or a monthly basis, but we don't have that in place at this time. Thank you so much.

It sounds like um that's really helpful and it sounds like there's some really positive movement. So, thanks Mr. Bars. Don't go nowhere.

Can you tell us the difference between what we're asking for in the strategic plan on on time arrivals and the efficiency data that comes from DPI? Why are those two things different? So DPI is going to look at um so the the reason that the number went up this year is because we did not have as many buses and bus drivers taking kids to and from school each day. So DPI looks and said, "Well,

" And so it looks like our efficiency number went up. And it did. Okay. But that's not what you asked for in Go 5B.

Okay. 5B. You ask me for the percentage of kids that are going to and from school on time. And so that's not data that has been tracked in DPS in the past.

has always been the efficiency number from DBI that you have been given. Okay. So, um so it looks like we improved this year, but you and I both know that our bus service was not where we wanted to be uh this school year. So, we didn't go from 86 to 91 with getting kids to school and home on time.

Thank you. Other questions or comments from board members? Mer. Yeah, again it's just another piggyback off of the last statement. I'm just

wondering so um is part of the plan to begin to find because I I said we I heard I'm trying to understand. So we did we don't have the instrument yet to track that kind of data. So, are we getting ourselves prepared for that? Yeah, I stated that Mr.

White's first goal as a auxiliary director is to help me come up with a tool that we can use to to do that. And I suspect with 145 bus routes to three different levels of school each day and 180 days of school, that is going to be a big task. And so, it I'm a math teacher, but I'm not a programmer. And so uh it may take uh getting some extra help in order to be able to create that create that tool for us.

Yes. So we but we will get it. Uh it's just a matter of making sure that we are tracking what we're asking and what we've been getting for the last

few years is not what you're asking for. You've been given efficiency and not on time to and from school. I really appreciate you explaining that um and um highlighting those differences for for me. I I think it's important for you to have the correct data when you're making decisions.

Okay. And so efficiency number is not the on time to and from school and so we're going to get that for you so you can make uh better decisions. Thank you. Miss Ber, you gonna ask about the efficiency numbers too.

Okay, I'll wait. You you can jump in there. So, it seems like transportation efficiency and how we get paid are some of the most complicated things of North Carolina school finance. I'm looking for Mr.

Teter to Yes. None. And I just wonder if we can be I think I'm clear that we do have to report that number, track that number. That's not bad data. It's not

misinformation. It's just different than what's in our strategic plan goal. Correct. Is that okay?

Um and and it's been a long time since we'd have had a primer on how we do transportation efficiency, how we get paid, how we maximize our reimbursement. Maybe in a future meeting it might be helpful for all of us to just be reminded of some of that complexity. Mr. Dr.

Teter, maybe the complexity of the ADM and how uh how enrollment determines what we get paid kind of things like I know maybe it's in dollars and decisions, but I think I could always use a refresher. So, I'm just putting that out there for future um as y'all are leading us through these very strange pieces of data that um matter in some aspects of how we get paid and also are different in our strategic plan, right? That make any sense, Miss Homestead? Is that I don't know. Yeah. And maybe it's

different than Kansas. So maybe Dr. Lewis has had all these refreshers, but North Carolina is weird in so many ways, right? Yeah.

That's all I'm saying. Thanks. Right there, Mr. Barnes, because I I really appreciate you naming the difference and naming the data we were getting isn't what we were looking for.

Is it efficiency also tied to dollars right for Okay. I think that's what Miss Byer was getting at but maybe didn't explain explicitly. Okay. Yeah.

So efficiency can you tell me a little bit talk a little bit about how that efficiency connects? I don't know if there's an expert in the room on that or high level. It is a really complicated process that DPI has for that. And so I can get that information to you. I can get the formula that they use but uh it is not easy to follow but yes it is tied to the money that we get um in transportation the more efficient the more dollars we potentially can receive from DPI. I see

Joe getting up. I don't know is that that's a real high level like that's very simple. Good evening everyone. Yes, that is correct.

So there's a lot of different pieces that put together the actual funding itself. Um we look at the number of students we transport, how many buses we use to transport those students, how many miles and also looks at the counties with the likeness of as far as enrollment and what they transport and then that's put into the funding formula and that's how um our funding for the year is composed. um that it's not always students, you know, mileage, buses, you know, there's a lot of different things that play into that formally itself. But yes, we can get that information together to be able to um get to you.

That's helpful. I think it it's helpful to know, you know, while it might be more efficient for DPI, didn't actually mean that more kids were getting to school on time. Although, it also meant

that we may have got more money from DPI. some potentially. And so we I think continuing to wrestle with how do we make sure kids get to school on time even if it doesn't mean it's the most efficient according to DPI. Correct.

Um so I appreciate y'all kind of tag teaming on that. I do also hope um if Mr. White is working on this that we also open up the door for if there needs to be a different goal. Um because there are people way smarter than me and programmers and folks who probably have some GPS tracking that could help figure this out.

But also if it is, you know, cost prohibitive or something like that, is there a different goal that we need to have and look at that for the future? So I welcome that kind of feedback from the administration on the right thing for this goal. It it may be a future goal, uh, Miss Upstead, but until it's changed, uh, I will work on getting you the information you requested, which is on time to and from school. And so we will work on that for uh, this fall. Uh I am pretty sure that we can probably put together some type of program uh that we can get that for you. Um we can

get it now for individual buses, individual schools, but to tie it all together uh is what we need a little help with. I appreciate that. Thank you. Um I had a couple additional questions at anybody.

Um this is about Hback, so I don't know who the right person is to come up for that one. Um I'll start talking while you move. We know that we've had a lot of HVAC issues in our schools. Spire highlighted some of those today.

And I just wanted to get a sense of when a school calls and says the air is out. What is our next steps? Um, and what can the school expect? What can families expect to hear from DPS as well? We have and I'll be joined by sorry I thought Lori was going to join me but in basic terms we have uh on call technicians who are able and charged with responding depending on when it happens especially if it's out of hours weekends so forth and uh and of course that happens all year round here we are in cooling season but we I first experienced it here in heating season

over the winter which was somewhat aggressive in those early days uh so that is our responsiveness It's as soon as it's known because through our remote systems as was mentioned earlier which we're improving uh we get those notifications that something is down and we have an on call team that goes there. If it's within ours, we of course may hear about it first as a work order or a phone call which becomes a work order from the school administration and we react accordingly to assess and figure out what is the best and quickest response we can make which uh sometimes may with aging equipment may not be the perfect uh or the most the most timely resolution but it certainly gives us the opportunity to to work on it and perhaps put temporary measures um or if it's a straightforward fix obviously do the fix uh if that addresses your question sort of I think there's some more coming from Mr. So I think this is one of those areas

where where our you know divisions work very closely together. Um so essentially on on days when those kinds of events happen there is a dual kind of response. there is the response that these fine folks put together in terms of um getting out to the school and assessing uh what is an issue um and then reporting to us um a reasonable sort of assessment um of what the details are. Um at that point it it becomes necessary for us to make some decisions from the ac on the academic side of the house.

And what we want to look at at that point and what we do look at at that point is you know what are the conditions that the students are in school in? Is it you know tenable for them to remain in school while the repair is made? Is it reasonable to expect the repair is going to be made in a reasonable time? Um, if the repair can't be made in a reasonable time and it's not reasonable uh in terms of a

comfort level for students to remain in the building, then we, you know, have to make some decisions about how long it will take us to um put in place um the necessary structures to get students home. Obviously, it's it's not as simple as it may seem. Uh very often what happens is students have been dropped off at the school and those buses are off to their second routes. And so while we are assessing all of that information and having our conversations, those bus drivers are out driving routes for um that their second tier schools.

And so we'll talk about we did just the other day um how long it will take before we are able to get buses back in place, you know, to to transport those students home. Um if that becomes a necessity. Um and if it becomes clear that that is the appropriate um action, uh we then uh pull u Miss Cooper and her team into into the uh into the conversation to begin the appropriate notifications um and and execute the dismissal along

with um making decisions that we need to be that need to be made along the way about if we need to provide a meal to students before they leave, how we might make that happen. um and kind of how we can make all those wheels turn at this at the same time. Um those are decisions that tend to be made um o over a relatively short period of time. Um but but as as is clearly the case involve virtually every portion um of the school district leadership team in terms of that thinking and and working through that process.

I appreciate that. I think one more point I think it's important like I think about this year when we have the issue at Spring Valley like how do we make sure we communicate some of that process to families so they also have a sense of what the district is working on. I know we might say you know school's closing today at this time due to HVAC issues. You know, I think a lot of families were wondering when's the

temperature that we say we send students home, when's the temperature that we're sending work folks home? Like some of those questions that I think we could probably figure out kind of a template response so that families have a little more information. I think it for some folks that communicated with me, it felt like we're just not doing anything, which I know there's a whole team of people working behind the scenes to make it happen. So, I don't Yeah.

So, I mean, I'm glad you mentioned that one. That one was a a really difficult one, right? Because that was a scenario when we when we knew what the problem was, we knew what the fix was, and we were literally um on a daily basis um waiting uh for the u part to come in, right? Um and from day to day, you know, there were promises being made and you guys jump in if necessary about the part being here today and it it'll be here at 4:00, Dr.

King. and if it gets here at 4:00, we can get it installed and have school in place. Um, and so I I say that to say in all honesty, in some instances, the

information is moving so quickly, right? And and pieces of that puzzle are so unclear, it is difficult for us to give a definitive response to that. It's also for instance just the other morning when we had a you know some scenarios with with um HVAC out at um one of our schools you know there is a temperature that we think about right the challenge with that is you know when I got that call I jumped out because I live in that area I jumped out and ran over to Parkwood we had not yet reached the temperature that we would say is a definitive you know it's definitively time to send students home but it was hot in that building. And if we were not able to uh have that um issue resolved immediately, you know, my my adisement to to Dr.

Lewis was going to be I know it's not at that temperature yet, but it's too hot in that building for those youngans. They they need to go home. So I think what's important for us to share with community members is that you know

these are all kind of real time decisions and you know it is certainly our commitment to share every bit of information that we can uh definitively um share as quickly as we have that information in a way that that we feel like we can stand by it. Sometimes that is very soon. Um like for instance when we when we were able to get the mobile um HVAC unit over at Spring Valley, we felt very much comfortable about what we could do. Um but until that happened, you know, it it was just touch and go.

Um and and I think what we don't ever want to do is is promise parents that we have a solution um that is going to lead to a certain outcome if we aren't in a position to control that outcome um based on our actions as opposed to those actions of other folks um who might be working with us. Mr. Lynch, if you'll come back to the podium. I have a follow-up question on the um

repairs around HVAC. I'm trying to think of the right way to say this. So, give me just one. Um, okay.

Dr. King was talking about what happens in e situations. is administration or your office um monitoring work orders and the progress that work orders are in and where they're getting held up because sometimes work orders do get held up and if I'm not mistaken work orders are public record and parents can request those work orders would they be able to see where those work orders are moving in the process and maybe getting held up and is administ ministration, particularly monitoring that for when work orders get lost in the shuffle. I was embarrassed today to be in a gymnasium with my peers

and the AC has been out since August. " And I'm not, but who's monitoring work orders that get lost in the shuffle? So yes, um they should not get lost. Uh sometimes they do, but uh as a school level administrator, I I would never allow um that to go unfixed, uh since last August.

And so uh when we meet in the retreat this year, we're going to reinforce those kind of things that uh if you have put in a work order and there's what you think is a delay, then pick up the phone and call one of us. Uh not just call the maintenance technician, uh which is what some of them are doing. And Dr. King and I just had this conversation the other day that um even with the Parkwood incident uh if they had a follow the process which is called after hours emergency

you would have got a much quicker response than trying to pick up a phone and call a technician that you think you know right and so um we're going to work on SOPs uh for that um there's no excuse um for the AC at Gibson's uh being announced since last August Um, I know only been in this new role for four weeks now, but I got the text message today about did you know? Uh, of course I did not know because we would have done something about it uh before before now. And so we're going to talk to administrators about in those extreme situations uh to pick up the phone uh send a text message or send an email to um to me or to um Miss Blake Reed at this point now that she's over um bill building bill building services. Uh so we would get a uh get that fixed.

Okay. Thank you. And families will be able to who should they contact if they want to do a foyer request of a a work order.

Good evening. anyone from the community who would like to require request information um that is public to um individuals, they can request that through the office of public affairs. There's information on our website and you can fill out a form online to request public records. And so that is the process for requesting that information.

Thank you. But their first line on defense is to have a conversation with the principal about you know whatever the issue is. Thank y'all for that. I got maybe two more questions on growing together.

Um we know this is the first year of elementary implementation. We'll start middle and high school next year and I'm wondering when the board can kind of expect a presentation on the enrollment number piece of that. I think we're hearing from some schools that you know feel like they were overenrolled or had a lot of students. Now they have less students. And so I'm curious to have a kind of overarching comprehensive

picture and so wondering when that might come. Let me let Vitali off the hook. Um so I think what what how Vitali will help us with this is he can give us some sense of what the projections are for what will be the enrollment in those schools and programs next year. Uh but board members, we can we can provide you with the report about um enrollment um in our schools um uh probably at the at the next board meeting if that would be your desire or or maybe um at your retreat. Um I I would share there there will be some complexities to that because you know we will I think

we'll be able to make some determinations about what that data means but there are some other things that we we won't necessarily be able to make. For instance, we'll be able to say which students moved to a different school um because of or you know because of growing together generally, right? Um but but there may be other movements that some of those students make that we aren't able to um specifically you know kind of attribute to reason the reason for those movements um to um but we can share what the enrollment was in our schools last year um what we anticipated the shifts to be um and what we found um happened uh you know this school year. I appreciate that.

I'm coming to you, Miss Chavez and Miss Beyer. I think I would appreciate y'all being able to send it to us, but I think it'd be helpful to have it in a in a presentation. Uh because to your point, I think there's things that we might try to infer, but we might not actually be

able to infer from the data to have a sense of like what questions we might be asking ourselves, what we might have anticipated that did happen, what might be unexpected. And I I think I would like to hear some more of that analysis from you all because I think people are experiencing it in real time, but there's a um there was a lot that went into the decision- making process. So, and I know that we're only one year in, so nothing is definitive, but there's questions that we might be pondering on from that data from one year. Swing over to Miss Chavez and then Miss Spire.

Weighing just weighing in on that, that would be great to see that data at um either the next board meeting or the retreat. And what would that be based on? Would that be the 40-day from this year or the end of this year? So, so let me not promise the 40-day.

Okay. Uh because, you know, you know, honestly, we don't keep track of that um as closely as we do the 20-day. I I'm certain that we can go back and point to what the numbers were at the 20th day

because, you know, we can use the data that we used to do reconciliations and we can speak to what those enrollment numbers were um at that point and we can certainly speak to what enrollment was, you know, kind of at the end of the year. Uh so we can speak to last year, what where a school ended last year, right? where we projected the school to be um this year um based on what we thought would happen with growing together uh where the school started this year, right? So remember we go from a a portion of the that process where we look at projections, right?

And then we begin to look at it um in terms of the reality which means we look at actual enrollment, right? So, we'll want to look at all those pieces and and kind of draw that that line for you. Well, I I would appreciate that. I think that'd be so useful to see the effects of um the elementary school growing together

implementation. And it'd be interesting to see what schools may be absorbing additional students by the end of the year based on leaving sometimes moving to the area or moving around um but also sometimes leaving charter schools and things like that. So, I don't know if you can make that we c if we can make that assessment, but I I just think looking at where some growth is over the course of the year would be interesting, too. So, thank you.

Yeah, I I appreciate y'all asking for data. I think we need to see data. I think um one thing that would be of interest to me is just the number of applicants rather you know which programs are actually our community is interested in and able to access and how which ones they are not. But I also want to give you all time and the growing together team time to provide that rich analysis um both of of socioeconomic data, uh racial data, anything that you all think, you know, is nuance and areas of us needing

to focus on and and bring that when you're ready. Um because my thought at least about growing together is it took us five, six, seven years to get here and I don't want us as a board making knee-jerk corrections while we're not letting the the plan actually play out. Um and I know some of the the the numbers going down at Glenn, for instance, are so that we could do the construction over there as we're as we're planning for for future growth. um just I want y'all to bring it but also tell the story of where we are in the timeline and and bring the nuance um with it that we need.

Um, so I appreciate that and and I promise we will do that because that that has been conversations that we have had throughout the school year. Um, which is, you know, just the recognition that, you know, there needs to be some time that is allowed to pass. Um, as our

community adjusts to these changes, right? And um and and obviously we're we are grappling with what the right amount of time is um to give the community to adjust to these changes. Um as well as the point at which we need to recognize that, you know, the community may or may not be voting with its feet. um and and and when that might suggest that we uh you know come back to this board and have a discussion about whether or not a particular program um is kind of uh uh playing out the way that we anticipated uh that it would.

Uh so I would just assure the board that those are conversations that we are are are that are ongoing u within our teams. Um and we certainly recognize that that's an important thing for us to think about and continue to look at as we go along the way. And if if I'm not wrong, we have some second chance lottery things this year that we haven't done in the past. I wonder if

y'all want to highlight any of those. Are there any deadlines coming up or that's just on social? Um Melody Marshall, is she still here? Okay, Maria.

Hi. Um yes. So every year there is the late application lottery period. It ends this year on June 30th for the year round schools, July 31st for the traditional schools, but this year we're doing elevated marketing and messaging around that opportunity so that folks can um participate um and help some of the numbers at some of the schools.

So, we've put out postcard mailings for a few of the schools. We've had social media ads and we've done some targeted school outreach to the feeder schools um that are eligible to enroll in those schools, some of our year- round schools for instance. Thanks, Miss Carter Austin.

Um I'm excited about this data that is available and the story that will go along with it. I just wanted to clarify um Dr. King, you said uh where school ended last year, where projected uh my notes where we're projected to be this year, where the school started this year, and then also will date data be available on where school ended this year. Just want to make sure we know what to expect and then also um with what level of granularity do you anticipate and when.

Well, um sure. I I'm praying that Dr. Pitman is taking very good notes cuz I'm not sure exactly what I said. Uh but yes, I I I think um in terms of granularity, I mean, I think what we can speak to is obviously the the the numbers at each of those points and we could certainly I would assume break it down, you know, by social economic status and and and those kinds of things. Maybe not. um we'll we'll we'll figure that out what we we

will provide you what we are able to provide uh that we can be confident is is accurate. Um, so I think what we said is where where schools ended last year, where schools were projected to start this year, right? Where schools actually started this year, which would be enrollment rather than projection. The projection um where schools were at the 20th day this year, right?

which was the point at which we you know did our reconciliation activities and then we can speak to where schools ended um this school year. You get all that Dr. Pitman. Thank you.

That's great. Thank you. Also um interested in seeing as board member Byer named the um like data related to applications and um weight lists and things like that.

see some head nods. So, I think we're good on the I I just want to She didn't make it back. I don't want to make a promise about the weight list piece. Um because that that moves and and I'm not quite certain um how that is tracked, right?

So, if it is trackable, we'll certainly make sure to provide that. Um, I think we can speak to some information about that, but it's a it's a moving number. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

I think I just want to highlight too, I know you can send it to us, but I think a presentation might help us give the story, the questions, and the I think analysis. I can look at the data and have thoughts or questions, but I'm curious to hear from you all's perspective what you know from working with principles and families around what we're seeing. And again, I do feel like it's a snapshot in time. It's a one-year update as we continue to see what it looks like for the future. All right. And then, oh, another

question. Sorry, uh, for Miss Howard on the safety tip system. I know in the past we've talked a little bit about how do we make sure students are aware of the system? And so, could you highlight any things that y'all may be done differently this year to make sure students know?

I think they're using it. It's clear that students are using it, but people know students and staff how to find this the text. Absolutely. This information is shared throughout the schools.

We encourage our administrators to also post it throughout the school. Uh share it through our uh notifications, through public affairs, on websites. Um it's constantly being pushed out in the community and throughout our community. Um and so we just we share it.

They're absolutely using it. Um, and I also wanted to clarify as far as tips, I receive all life safety tips. So there's a separate number of other tips, but all life safety, security, safety related tips are the tips that we receive. Thank you. And I think one just piece of feedback for the team as we're thinking

about this for next year. I'd be curious to if in the presentation you highlighted things in place and then things that were different from the previous year. Like some of these things we know we do every year, like you're gonna have safety text a tip every year, but if we did something different this year based on what we learned in the past, I think it'd be helpful to have that highlighted in the presentation. Um, so just piece of feedback.

Any other thoughts, board members? We'll move to our next item. Thank you to the uh priority five team. And we'll have technology up next. We'll invite Mr. Maji to the podium.

Good evening board chair, board members, Dr. Lewis and cabinet members. Paul Mun, executive director of IT and uh thank you again for having this opportunity to present today's technology update. We're here six months ago and we went with some homework.

So M you move the Yeah, move that mic a little closer to you kind of. Thank you. All right. Um we'll jump into some slides here.

Javin, can we go to the next slide? All right. Um, I'd like to go off by emphasizing that the work we do in the IT department, uh, remains centered around supporting priority one of our strategic plan, uh, ensuring academic excellence and student success and priority five, um, which centers on operational effectiveness and fiscal stewardship. Next slide.

Um, DPS serves over 31,000 students uh, with a district issued book. Um this onetoone model has been crucial for bridging the digital divide and enabling access to learning uh whether in the classroom at home or during transitions like remote learning. Um all this to

make them ready for future job markets um which we've seen that are heavily leaning on the technology side. Next slide. Our current devices footprint has been supported through a combination of local state and federal funds including ASA and ECF. But we all know that ECF and ASA um those are suns setting up already sunset.

Uh however, as of today, 78% um of the devices that we do have in the district are out of warranty. Uh which significantly increases our repair cost and turnaround times. Uh we did highlight where the funding has been coming since we started um in 2020 when we bought the big the big badge of computers. Um we talked about the numbers on the left.

I think you saw those back in December. Those are still steady as is. Next slide. Beyond student devices, our technology infrastructure spans 2 over 2,600 access points. Uh the ones that provide us with wireless, over 1,100 network switches,

and nearly 3,400 phones that are used in classrooms, administrative buildings, u all supporting instructions, operations, and safety across 62 internet connected sites. Uh but unlike our ST devices, much of this infrastructure is refreshed and sustained uh through - federal program which us with federal dollars stories refresh those every five years. Next slide. Um as we continue modernizing our classrooms, our AV technology plays a critical role in supporting both inerson and blended instruction.

As we address the standard meet of student devices, we also must plan for modern AV standards that match expectations of the classrooms. As you see, we currently have over a thousand uh bright links that that are of warranty that over 10 years old um in these classrooms. The newer classrooms that we have, as we highlight in the picture, are these interactive panels right here. We have those in a few schools, especially the newly renovated ones. And the bright links are the ones that you do see in

the upper picture right there that even the parts like we said before it's becoming hard to secure these parts once the bulbs go out. But this is a big um big hurdle that we do have. But I think with Mr. TA we had since the county funded us maybe I'll be visiting Mr.

TA to see how we can get over this h. Next slide. Um our help desk team is the front line of IT support uh for the entire district whether it's for staff, students and school leaders alike. Um by the end of June we would have reached over 30,000 help desk tickets.

Uh I did highlight out the device repair tickets that we receive every month. Um despite these high numbers the departments had maintained a strong response rate. Kudos to the support and inventory teams that are always trying to turn these tickets around very fast. Next slide. Uh again a sustainable onetoone program is isn't just about devices. uh it's about infrastructure support and folks who are behind the scenes uh ensuring that those devices are available and

work every day for our students and staff. I just wanted to highlight the teams behind the scenes. Uh we got the support technicians, we got system administrators, network engineers, database admins, asset technicians and of course the AVTM that always trying to ensure that everything is running as smoothly. So just wanted to give the kudos to them.

Next slide. All right. Um despite the challenges um I want to recognize that our department's efforts in cyber security uh with tools sponsored by the state uh network upgrades um and inventory management. I'm sure many of the cabinet members have seen emails coming to them requesting for them to verify their devices. Um and as and as promised in December the student device handbook uh was completed. The Chromebook care video was completed and at this point I will ask the A team to do go ahead and play the video um that highlights the Chromebook care video about that.

Every student has a Chromebook device to empower their learning. These devices help us stay connected, creative, and ready to explore new possibilities. But they also come with important student responsibilities and expectations. With my DPS Chromebook, I can find everything I need for my assignments.

Whether it's research, videos, or tools for creating presentations, my Chromebook device brings together so many resources in one easy portable place. It's so simple to collaborate with my classmates. We can share our ideas and work on our documents and presentations in real time. Together, we learn how to effectively communicate our thoughts and reach our classroom goals.

I'm learning to code and it's awesome. My Chromebook lets me try new things and I'm developing great problem solving skills now. I'm getting ready for the future of technology in my classroom and my future career. Chromebooks make learning fun and interactive. Students are creating, designing, and solving problems together in their classrooms and at home. Chromebook devices feature a variety of

apps and online tools to support their education and curriculum. It's awesome to work with my classmates on projects. We learn to collaborate respectfully and work well as a team. We can brainstorm ideas and finish assignments anywhere, anytime.

This helps us become career ready and develop strong real world social and technical skills. Exactly. And we learn common practices for safe online behavior like keeping our passwords secure, reporting inappropriate or bullying behavior, and especially taking breaks from our digital devices. If I encounter any problems online with my DPS Chromebook, I know to talk to an adult or classroom teacher for help.

Chromebooks keep students connected to their teachers, classmates, and families, making learning accessible anywhere through a variety of online tools and innovative programs. All the apps I need are right here. I can study, practice math, and even take quizzes. Everything in one place. DPS devices have educational programs and apps already installed.

Students should not add or remove any programs from the DPS computer. If I get stuck, I know to ask my teacher for help. With cloud-based tools like Google Docs, I can work with my friends on projects even if we're not together. On my Chromebook, I'm able to check on assignments, communicate with my teacher, and share my research and work.

My Chromebook helps me stay organized. I can monitor assignments and deadlines all in one place. I also have access to cool presentation tools to showcase my work to engage my class and share with my family. Before students can take home their Chromebooks, both students and parents must review and sign the Durham Public Schools technology required use terms and conditions and the electronic device checkout and checkin agreement.

By signing this agreement, families commit to taking care of their Chromebooks and chargers, using them responsibly, and returning them on time to DPS. A report must be filed if there is damage, and families may be financially responsible for repairs or replacement. Specific details can also be found on the DPS information

technology web page. Taking care of your Chromebook is important. Follow these simple tips to keep your device in great shape for learning every day. Transport your device with care.

Do not drop your Chromebook or carry it by the screen. It's fragile and could break. Always carry your Chromebook with two hands to prevent damage. Make sure to transport your Chromebook carefully between classes and to and from school.

Keep your information private. Don't share your password with anyone. It's important to keep your account information secure. Charge the Chromebook every night so the device is ready for school the next day.

Maintain safe and careful use. Don't eat or drink near a Chromebook to avoid messy spills. This could cause major damage to your device and lead to additional consequences. Never leave your Chromebook in extreme temperatures like in a hot car or freezing weather.

And if you ever have an issue, let a teacher or school tech champion know right away. Follow classroom goals. Student Chromebooks support our learning. DPS

devices are used responsibly and respectfully by every student. Devices are provided for academic learning with appropriate website and online tools. Our scholars are ready for the future thanks to their Chromebooks and the amazing support from Durham Public Schools. With my Chromebook, I can learn, create, and explore anything I want.

I feel challenged and engaged with my classmates because of these tools. I am learning how to navigate the online world safely and positivity in DPS. D public schools is helping us be the best we could be today and tomorrow. Learning how to use online resources keeps me prepared for the demands of classes today and my career goals after I graduate.

We are ready for anything. Technology is a part of our daily lives and having a Chromebook from DPS allows me to pursue my interests and dreams. Durham Public Schools, learning today, leading tomorrow. Hello, I'm Dr. Anthony Lewis, superintendent of Durham Public Schools. We believe that every student deserves access to the best tools for learning, and our Chromebook initiative

is a key part of that vision. These devices open up new ways to explore, create, and collaborate both in and out of the classroom. Whether you're a student, parent, or educator, we're all partners in this journey. By working together and taking good care of our Chromebooks, keeping them charged, handling them safely, and reporting any issues right away, we can spark a passion for learning that will carry our students into a bright future.

Thank you for being part of our Durham Public Schools family. Let's keep learning and growing together. [Music] We'll be posting this on all uh school websites and just circulating around and hopefully that will help inform our families and students take care of their Chromebooks. All right, let's go to the next slide.

Um again um device sustainability is a growing concern as has always been. Um this school year we've so far we al we almost have 1,400 devices um that are either missing or reported lost uh which is over half a million dollars in values as you see on that slide. Um in just April May um if we can roll the next slide. Yeah.

Um wanted to highlight on that right there that just in April and May uh we spent um almost $60,000 on Chromebook repairs. Um we started tracking that this year. So yeah, we just want to highlight that just these two months the cost was $60,000 to have Chromebooks repaired and returned. Uh most of these costs stem from accidental intentional damage.

Um and most of these Chromebooks, like we said, 78% of them are out of warranty. So we have to foot the bill ourselves. Um next slide. And it's like J can go ahead and just play that right there if you if you can play. I just want to highlight out some of the damage that we're seeing out there. Uh some of them are they're not

even repairable. Uh so that's that's how bad this is that the cost will range from $50 to irreplaceable which is you know the cost that we spent tonight which was $467,000. So these are some of the damages that are there. I just wanted to share them with you what we're seeing in the warehouse as they do come in every day.

Um times it gets scary. Yeah, that one is not replaceable. That definitely not. Um Let's go to the next slide. Yeah, we started keeping track of these uh to make sure that we can associate them with the cost, can them with the repairs that come in, but also just to reach out to the schools and say we're

seeing this type of damage coming from the schools. Um but again to help sustain our onetoone model, we are recommending the introduction of a modest annual technology fee beginning this next school year. um $15 for elementary schools um and $30 for middle and high. Um this fee is aligned with board policies and waiver guidelines will be established to ensure that there's equity uh particularly for families in need or having hardships um those qualifying for any other criteria that might be advised of.

Um next slide. Again, we've we've we've been traveling all these schools. We've tried to go to each and every school uh talk to the principles, talk to teachers, talk to students. Uh very good feedback from the group that we had in the video.

Um that is some of the feedback we've seen. But again, this technology fee u is to help us mitigate loss and damage. Um you know, factor into the ongoing device refresh, supplement repair funds, and again uh we just want to partner with

the community. This is shared investment. Um it's it's we just want to engage them, make sure that we support these these Chromebooks together with them. Uh next slide.

uh we did look at very many other districts. We've been trying to do as much research listen out uh the threads that we have going on with NCDPI directors. Every school district is trying to comprehend this cause where yeah every school district is having this issue. So we try to reach out and look at what are others doing.

What are similar districts doing? Some some are charging repair cost and saying you know what if you just damage the keyboard all right give us your 40 bucks that will others are saying hey if you damage the screen give us the 180. Some school districts have the repair paper repair model. Uh some do have the, you know, like the one that we're proposing a flat fee, but yeah, I just want to share that there would have had more slides of these examples, but other school districts are in this and they're trying others that are not are heading the same way to see how they can sustain um this issue. Next slide. Again, I wanted to highlight that, you

know, um this fee is not a standalone solution. Uh it's a small but important piece in the broader sustainability puzzle that we've all been grappling with. Uh it will help us respond to damage more quickly, uh reduce long-term costs, and preserve equity by ensuring all students have access to working and district supported devices. Um at this point, I'll recover of the prices that be before you tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Maji, for that presentation. of all the students and staff that helped you participate in that video. That was very nice.

Um board members questions. I'll start with Mr. Tab. Thank you very much.

Um have you um or your team considered students having insurance on their Chromebooks? Yes, we have. Um it's not something we wanted to go deep down into based on the cost of the insurance for those devices. Uh that's why we p it back to just have

the flat fee which would you know be better than the $15 would be better than what the insurance cost might be. So we didn't dive deep into that mode of insurance on the devices because I mean those kids are used to having insurance on their cell phones and stuff like that. So you know it's another device. So just wanted to put that out there.

Um how are you what's the process of of receiving the um technology fee? So we're planning on working directly with the schools. Um current I think believe they do have they do receive funds for other fees that they do collect whether it's field trip fees or anything like that. So yeah we want to partner with the schools directly. uh we're working with finance to make sure that we set up that that workflow of hey once the fees are received at the school whether paid online or you know parents go to the school um that way that workflow that the fees are you know rotated back into the accounts that we'll use but yeah we're planning on working with the schools directly to collect those fees

at least based on the principles we've talked to and other PS out there uh the goal is to work with them to collect the fee at the schools if and that fee is collected before they receive Yeah, that's the goal. But again, we're not going to deny any student a device. Again, we're this is a shared investment. So, we're not saying that, hey, pay to participate.

No. Um they'll have we're proposing at least 45 days to be able to pay that fee. And even if they don't meet the 45 days, uh we shall still work with the schools to provide that flexibility to families that might have hardships or hey, maybe they want to develop a payment plan, uh we'll still work with them. But yes, to to answer your question, we will not deny a student have a a device, but shall try to work with them to ensure that at least that fee is collected.

So, hope that answers that question. Yeah, as a board member, I I would have loved to have seen that plan already kind of in place um so that I could kind of see how it's going to play out. Um because you don't you don't want half of your

students who have paid and then you got another half of your student body who haven't paid. Um that creates being in the schools that creates some correct. Um and yes to yes but again one we're not going to deny a student the device. So that's one's for sure.

But um again, we were if it's approved tonight, uh we plan on working with the schools vigorously to engage families. Again, um we don't want that, but we're hoping that through overcommunication, over engagement through school administrators that at least we'll get a big portion. We might not expect 100%, but at least we're we're shooting for the stars here. So, okay, I'll I'll end there.

But I would definitely would love for you to um think about students or parents having insurance on their computers. I'm going to follow up on that 45 days. So, if families are offered 45 days to

um pay their fee, whether it's at the beginning of the school year at enrollment or when they transfer in or decide to enroll midyear, is the district prepared to respond to waiverss within 45 days? That's the goal. Yes. Okay.

And I think I asked this in my email, but waivers, are they district level waivers? So, I'm a family. I have a kid at multiple schools. Do I need to apply through each school or do I do a waiver through the district level and then that's deployed to each of the schools that my students is at?

Correct. So, yeah. So, so the, so the form will be a district level form whereby in case you have multiple kids, different schools, you'll be able to indicate that and that information will trickle down to the schools and say, you know, that's been wavered. So, yes, to your point, a parent won't have to go to every school

to ask for a waiver. It will be a district level application. That's helpful. Thank you.

Um, in addition, when students assume they will get a receipt when they uh pay their fees, will they begin to get a receipt when they turn in their Chromebooks and their charging cords to indicate that they have turned them in? Angela, do we do we do that in one currently? Yes. So, they'll be able to do that.

Yes. How do those receipts get issued? I've never been issued a receipt. No, you've never known.

This system hasn't been there. This is new. Yes, we've been the receipt when students turn in their Chromebooks. We've been reconciling inventory, making sure that that's, you know, the device form.

So, yes, if you signed out in the beginning and said, hey, I'm receiving this device, this serial number once turned in. Um, whether it will be email um that that does notify that, hey, you turned in the charger, the device. Yes. Okay. All right. So, let's say I'm

a parent. I applied for a waiver through the district. It's a district level form which means it's not related to my student per se. Is that foyable?

Yes. I think we'll be able to provide that on one another. Yes. So other parents can request a form to see that I issued a requ.

My non-custodial parent could issue a request to the office of public affairs to see that I applied for a waiver for the fees for the Chromebook from our kids. Is that not student? I was going to defer to No, that definitely will be student information. Okay.

Even though it's district level. Yes. Okay. Absolutely.

Okay. All right. I think I'm done for now. I'm going to just uh swing down. So,

I'll start Miss Ber and then Moff and we'll go circle back around to you, Miss Carter. I want to thank you for this presentation and for your work. Um, this is the most clear presentation I remember us getting. Um, I love the video with the students.

Um, and it also just reminds us of how much that federal money got us to this place. And I'm just incredibly worried that we have not I have not been an advocate enough for replacement of of these devices over time. And the bright links and the smartboards I forgot about like remember people some of them are so old you can't get bulbs right or are you still having that they're 14 years old yes so I guess my question is for you and Mr. Ter like can you help us in this coming year to aggressively plan for replacement? These things were supposed to last three

years when we bought them at the beginning of the pandemic, right? We grabbed them in May of 2020. Yikes. Um and so this is a part of how students learn.

Um, I I I just love us to to have a plan going forward where it doesn't feel like we're behind, but it feels to me very much, and I take responsibility for it, that that we're behind. I haven't pushed it enough to make sure that not only the Chromebooks stay ready, that there's extra loaners in place, that there's extra chargers in place because I hear a lot that students lose those, that we put cases on them so that they we minimize the breakage, but they're all out they're mostly all out of warranty, right? I mean, and our teachers can't teach without their smartboards and their whatever

we're calling them. I don't want to call them a So, I just sit with the heaviness of the cost of that. Do Do we have a plan for having I've heard that a lot of our high schools are starting to pull them back into carts so they have enough for testing next year. Is that kind of what y'all are hearing as well?

The the desperation from school level tech champions. I the desperation. We've had that a lot in the middle schools. Uh all the middle schools that we've visited have expressed the need to not have the devices go home.

Um all the Yeah, that we've seen that in the middle schools, not the high schools. U most of the middle schools are saying, can we have the Chromebooks back in the cuts and kept in the schools because that's where I think we see the most damages um in the middle in the middle schools. That's why we see them leaving them in the fields and everywhere. So we've seen that in the uh the middle schools, high schools definitely they want to maintain their onetoone one.

Um that's why we see the most usage. That's why I think they have more assignments. That's why they're getting college readiness. Um

but yeah, to to your point, it's it's the middle schools that would love to have a tweak um in their model that they do have. Do we have guidance on that? Elementaryaries are keeping them at school now. We've we've put Have we put that in writing?

Like families understand that? Yes, elementary schools are day user these are day user programs. Um so they don't necessarily take their um devices home. Um middle schools and high schools are still in the traditional uh onetoone um mode.

I I do want to share that you know Mr. Virginia and I have have had quite a few conversations about um shifting, right, and providing space for middle schools to shift um to a day user model. But there are a couple of things that we feel like we need to work out before we go to that place. You know, what that process looks like um how schools will have to make that um

decision, right? And and how that will look. Um, last thing I did want to just clarify is that it is our regular standard practice to recollect machines uh in the April um May time frame in order to recondition them so they are ready for testing. Um that is not a reflection of any level of desperation.

That is what we do to make sure those machines are in the best possible shape they are in so that our students can use them hopefully without incident during um state testing. Yeah. But did we put a line in them in the budget this year to replace a third of them, a fourth of them, a fifth of them? Is is there a batch coming?

Um I don't remember. Shaking his head, so I guess no. We ordered a a a chunk of replacement ones, did we not? So yeah, so the goal has been always to try at least and replace the missing and lost. Uh when we came to you before you in December, the

money that we had available, I think it was 700,000 was to replace the missing and lost. Every year at least we've seen an average of 1,500 to,600 just getting lost, missing somewhere. Uh so that has been the goal. That was the mode we're in until 3 months ago when everything dropped off the cliff.

Like you said, we bought we bought 20,000 devices in 2020 and at at one time they all dropped off of warranty. So now we're beginning to panic shift, get into this mode of saying, okay, we have missing and lost, but also we have repairs to contain. So that's that's the mode we're in. But again, I'm still looking at Mr.

T. So I think two parts to that answer. One, right? So Mr.

Mr. Majumby's been using his existing technology resources um to to spot fix and then we've had some good conversation about sort of long-term solutions and and to to mitigate the annual costs. Do we need to explore lease options and and how can we

you know how can we fit in u more devices on the front end for a lesser annual cost to get that taken care of? And so I it is high on the list I think for us um as we plan ahead for the next budget ask. I appreciate it and I appreciate that that y'all are looking at this fee, but I'm hoping starting with leading with the waiver for any family that needs it with an equity lens. I'm assuming y'all are going to make sure to include McKenna Vento students, um foster students, like ca broad categories that people know that that um the waiver is easy to receive um in this community because we don't want this to be a barrier at all.

Um but thank you. I look forward to hearing colleagues thought one thing I'd share about what we're thinking about this fee structure that we think will help us with that as an issue. I should say this waiver structure. Our expectation is that we would set a baseline around waiverss, right? And say that this group of

students, you know, given certain circumstances receive a waiver, then we would authorize principles to extend that up, right? So, if there are students that we don't think about, circumstances that we aren't aware of, it would be our intention to empower our principles to um issue additional waiverss. And the rule would be you can't go down. But if if if in in the principal's discretion it's appropriate to offer an additional waiver based on circumstances that he is aware of that we might not have realized, we want to empower them to do that as well.

Thank you. Um my questions I hope are brief. One is what should the public do if they find a Chromebook? Where should they return it? Can they just return a Chromebook to any DPS building? I've been out, you know, I've every now and then you'll be in these random places and you'll see our Chromebooks and so

I'm I'm if if the if the general public finds a Chromebook, they should return it where? The nearest Durham public school site. But yes, to your point, um if you're close to Fuller Building, please bring it to the front desk. They'll receive it.

If you're at a near school site, please drop it off at the school site. We will receive it. So, yes. Thank you.

All right. And then um regarding the day user model um can you elaborate just clarify if um a day user model does that mean that if a child needs to take a Chromebook home that they then check it out that like they don't carry it for the whole year like does the teacher check it out if they need need it for extra homework or something like that or um just clarify that for so yes to your point yes um they use as the devices don't leave the the school site. Um when students come in in the morning, they either in cuts uh in the classroom so they can check it out in the cart, use it use it throughout the day in the school and turn it in. If they need to take it

home, then that's why they have to check it out. But yes, the the main goal is to make sure they don't leave the school building at all, but they used within the classrooms and within the school. Yes. All right.

And then finally around the um um can you speak to any parent who is asking about um the bring your own device and whether that is an option if it's encouraged or discouraged? Yes, it's an option. Uh it's in the student device handbook. Um if there any parents out there where are saying you know what I'm not going to pay the $30 and I don't need your Chromebook. Yes, they can bring their they can bring their own devices. Um I think the only caveat here to understand is one we won't allow that device for testing you have to use a DPS Chromebook but also when it comes to repairs or you know support of that device that's where now it comes a caveat because it's your personal device we're not going to install anything or do anything u but to answer your question quickly yes we have a BOD uh policy that does allow for you to bring your own device um you'll have

access to the internet and go out just like the Chromebooks are you connect to the internet and go browse the internet safely it's filtered uh so yes we do have a BYOD policy. Um, would love for you to use a DPS device. Um, because it's it's safe. We don't know the device coming from home.

You know, whether it's safe or not, what the content on there, we can't monitor it. So, there all those gray areas on personal uh devices once they're brought in. But, uh, but yes, we do we do have a BYOD policy and we do encourage it in case you don't want to use our nice Chromebooks. Thank you.

And that's all my questions. Thank you. I really enjoyed the video. Um so I it's clear to me it seems you're very attentive to how the fee um technology fee will be applied equitably to our families. Um so I just want to also reiterate that that um that I hope this will trickle down to all staff. So

that commitment to equity and so we make sure we're not um you know at all inhibiting the use of our technology for our students and um and also um along the lines of what Chair Rogers was asking about um I think that point about that some families will it will be important for some families to know that the waiver is confidential um for various reasons. So, if that could be shared widely, I think that'd be helpful. Um, and then one question, um, excuse me, uh, where and how do our students learn what defines cyber bullying or cyber harassment? um that just it was mentioned uh bullying was mentioned in the video and um just looking at one of the other

districts you referenced they mentioned cyber bullying of course that's a big thing so this might be a Dr. King question but um no he said no um now I was going to also look at Dr. King and see um if we do have that curriculum um for you. If you don't and it's a followup, that's okay, too.

Um I Yeah, it just kind of came to me just um so I didn't send it ahead of time, but um I some kids I think may not know that they're experiencing cyber harassment or cyber bullying. Um I mean, many of them do if they're experiencing it, but sometimes there are uh pressures that kids experience digitally that they may not be aware is problematic. So, um, that's just kind of a a little a little bit of an aside, but I support the moving forward with the technology fee. And again, I I appreciate the thoughtfulness and, you know, how you're approaching um our expanded technology

um access for all of our students. Thank you. Yes. Thanks so much.

Um, really appreciate this comprehensive presentation. this is um very helpful also in support of the technology fees as you've outlined them and with your equitable approach making sure that this is not um inhibiting access in any way sounds great to me. Um I and the video was great too. I'm glad to see to hear that it's going to be going out um and hope maybe it can go out via different channels in addition to on school websites because not all families access information in that way.

there might be some other ways to get it out um in front of more I assume that the target audience is both the students and the families too. So um and there might even be an way to take snippets of it that are more relevant for some than others especially the care of devices and kind of push that out. Um but my uh my main question

um is when we might be um at what point we're going to be assessing whether we want to continue with the onetoone model especially for our youngest children and this I think comes from uh perspective as a parent of a graduated today kindergartener and a who was in DPS for prek as well. Um who had his own device both of those years. Um and also hearing about um uh deficiencies or uh gaps in access to devices at the at the ages where it might matter more right at high school and middle school level. just wondering when we might be um ready to take a comprehensive assessment of whether our youngest children need to have their own device or whether in a classroom of students there could be some sharing and that could be a way that you know in a resource tight environment we

looking at Dr. King so I think this might be more his purview then sorry as Dr. King is preparing. I will say one of the things that has to drive this is our curriculum instruction.

Looking at our curriculum instruction and seeing what uh supports, materials, supplemental materials, uh technology that may need may that may need that may be needed to enhance um that, you know, and so once we approach it from that curriculum instruction standpoint and then find out what do students need to support the curriculum, what do teachers need from students to support the curriculum? Cuz what we don't want to do is just, you know, what some districts um do is just um you know, have electronic worksheets in front of students um all day. Thank you, Dr. Lewis. I thought I was going to get away from this one. You know what I just want to lift up is is the critical nature of of remembering

what onetoone um approaches have always in my mind been intended to do which is to uh provide us with the opportunity at the earliest stages as possible to begin to close the digital divide. Right? And so certainly we can have that conversation. Um but I but I think it is a a much more nuanced one um than than it may appear on on the front end.

Right. From my perspective, I think what's critical is to make sure that we structure um you know a a program that provides every student uh with the opportunity to continue to have access to a dedicated device. Um and and what we need to be thinking about is is how we structure that from a financial perspective. Um and how we do that in a way that is responsible in terms of the amount of screen time that we place

students in the you know in the space of uh and those kinds of issues. We have made um as a district I think and and in many districts you know around the the country um so much progress as it relates to addressing this issue of the digital divide using onetoone um technology approaches. I I am very hesitant right um to think that that there are very many benefits um to shifting ground on that as an approach. That having been said that is that is kind of my opinion. Um you know I think the reality is that you know some of some of the financial issues at play here are you know may limit our ability you know to continue to do that. Um but but I would certainly want us to make sure that we have um exhausted every possible option right um in terms

of how we address this issue um before you know we in particularly voluntarily um lose ground um on this issue. Um that's probably a little bit too philosophical but but but that's my kind of thinking about that. I I can tell you that Paul and I have that conversation very regularly and and that's always what I say to him is I want to be very careful before we move in the other direction on this because it has been so difficult and so critical for us to move in this direction. I want to make sure that we're clear on it.

If if we ever go to that place, I want to make sure it's the last absolute option for us. Thank you, Dr. King. I appreciate that perspective and I um really appreciate the um that we are working to close the digital divide. That's absolutely important and um don't want to stop that. What I would like for us to do though is to take a look at the latest and I don't also don't mind that my child has screen

time. If I did, I wouldn't have them in school maybe. But um I I think it is useful for students at all ages and we use it right when used appropriately. Um but I do think it's important to especially in this moment when the world is changing to be looking at the research that's out there right as we should be doing for all of the things that we do in DPS but look at the latest research on and what other districts are doing um innovative approaches.

So, I absolutely wouldn't want it to be just like as a cost cutting measure where we're sacrificing the needs of some students to save money, absolutely not. But where it might make sense, where we might be spending money in ways that we don't need to, I think that's important for us to look at that and if it's not necessary and just an assessment in the end, we might be like, nope, totally makes sense to stay onetoone for every single student in this in this district. But I think that assessment is wise as we invest, you know, millions of dollars on into this Um, I'll just piggyback off of that.

That was part of my question, too. And I think I I worry if we don't do the thought exercise that we might run into a place where we can't be one to one because we just can't actually buy devices. So, we've got kids that have devices that are just at the end of their life, way past done, and we don't have the the finances to replace those. So I think I would like us see the do the thought exercise of one to one to see if and we could say yes or we could say yes maybe or I think we'll say yes some variation of yes but what does that look like and how do we plan for it um because I think it's multiaceted that plan two is um one buying the device two having the staff to support the device and was it look like you know our check champion model is is a band-aid in some ways but it's not strong. I think we probably need to think about increasing that stipen at some point because that is the role has increased with the one to one devices. I think there's also is there any other infrastructure infrastructure that we need in order to

support one to one. So should we be buying cases or screen protectors or I don't you know y'all know tech more than I do but if there's some repeated issues that it might make sense for us to make a smaller investment in to help protect a device like that might be worth it. you know, is there school-based chargers that don't leave school? Is are, you know, are there other ways that we can be thinking about how to make this initiative sustainable for the long term?

I think is a really important exercise for us to do and some practices that I would love to see us come up with again sooner rather than later because we have an influx of federal dollars, but those federal dollars are gone um you know, I don't know if we're gonna get those federal dollars at least in the next three years. So, we should be thinking about how we're going to be able to sustain that um as a district and what do we need to do to make sure that we can keep it going because I do think it's vital especially for middle and high school and I think that exposure is good for our elementary school students as well. Um you did note in the presentation, but this is an annual fee. So, parents and families

would need to pay it each year. Is that correct? Correct. Okay.

And then can we get the video in Spanish as well or dubbed in Spanish or if that's an option? Yes. Yes. I hear some yeses.

Okay, great. I think it'd be great. I think this is for parents and for students. So having it in both languages would be really awesome.

Um and I'm really appreciate hearing how that waiver system will roll out for schools kind of this is these students don't even worry about it and then pay um principles having an option to add additional students. So I really like that. Any other questions? Board members, this is on the agenda for action.

I move that we approve the technology fee recommendation presented here. I think it was moved by Miss Chavez and was seconded by Miss Beyer. All right. Any other discussion?

All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Please use the same sign and it

passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Magenta. Thank you.

Next on our agenda, we have our DPS academically and intellectually gifted plan. So, as Miss Parrot takes the podium, um good evening members of the board, Chair Mstead and Dr. Lewis. In accordance with general statute, we are here tonight uh to request the approval of our next three-year local AIG plan 25 through 28.

The plan is centered on six standards um of AIG programs for the North Carolina. At this time, Laura Parrot, our director of advanced academics, will provide an overview of the plan, which must be reviewed by the board and subsequently approved. Miss Parrot, thank you for being here. Thank you so much.

Good evening, Chairman Umstead, members of the board, Dr. Lewis, uh, cabinet members, as we seek approval, as Dr. Bitman just said of our 25 2028 DPS

academically and our intellectually gifted plan. It is an honor to share with you the outstanding accomplishments over the past three years which are key factors that led to DPS's advanced academics being a promising districts for North Carolina under our current plan. We'll also present the expansion of excellence with the DPS AIG plan for 2025 2028 and of course close with discussion or we can skip that part. Um, as SHA Shaak Train, our state director for advanced academics, um, shared during the March recognition, DPS's advanced academics is leading the way in North Carolina and the recognition that we've received at both the state and local level speaks volumes about the impact of our work. While there are multiple practices recognized by the state, we will take a look at the three key areas of accomplishments.

You will notice in the board materials, we've provided an indepth presentation of data and accomplishments, but tonight um hopefully the PowerPoint is coming up. We will just share some of the highlighted slides. So, I'm just going to keep rolling just in case it doesn't come up. I know that you have the presentation in front of you.

Um, so next slide, please. One of our department's core priorities is talent development and really looking at talent development in grades kindergarten through 12th grade. Um, this is an equitydriven initiative that aligns with DPS strategic goal one and the board's resolution to support the achievement and success of black and Hispanic students. Talent development involves intentionally recognizing and nurturing students strengths and academic potential from an early age. as we know

that opportunity and performance gaps are already present at that time. Would y'all like for me to keep going? Do you want me to stop? I'm happy to keep talking.

Keep going. Okay. Okay. Thanks.

I like that motion. Keep going. Keep going, Laura. All right.

So, we really want to make sure that we have There we go. that early intervention. And let's see if we can go to the next slide. And the next that's that's the full presentation, but it's okay.

We're going to just keep rolling. Next. Next. Next.

Sorry. Slide 13. Thank you. If you'll please go to the next.

Right there would be great. Thank you so much. Um, so to the end of making sure that we have the equitable practices,

the office of advanced academics provides a district-wide foundation through our investigations in STEM program, which is now in its third year. Every elementary AIG specialist works with all kindergarten, first and second grade students delivering weekly lessons that build advanced thinking through integrated instruction. And I think most importantly, classroom teachers kind of are co-engaged in this process which often transform their perceptions of student potential. As a result of this, our three years in, we are seeing more equitable pathways into talent development services focusing not just on high achievers, but on students with untapped or emerging strengths. Formal identification is no longer a barrier. All students demonstrating advanced needs receive

academic support regardless of a label. Furthermore, at the elementary level, AIG specialists serve both identified and nonidentified students showing advanced needs, often within the same classroom. At the secondary level, we've expanded advanced course access to support talent development through open enrollment and honors, advanced placement, international balorate, and dual enrollment courses. Again, these opportunities are available to all students, not just those with an AIG designation. So, the K12 talent develop model ensures that Durham Public Schools continues to lead with equity, access, and opportunity at the forefront, delivering on our shared commitment to support every student's full academic potential. Next slide, please.

Right. So if we look at this, this is a snapshot in time on May the 1st. We are tracking the number of students who are served. This is outside of all kindergarten, first and second grade students, which is about 7,000 something kids in our district.

This is above and beyond of our K12 of our third, fourth, and fifth grade students. So on May 1st, that's where we were with the number of elementary students being nurtured. You can see the increase of our black students, of our Hispanic students, continuing to show that we are aligned with strateg strategic goal one and our resolution to continue to increase the work that we are doing. As a result of this uh focused nurturing of students, we've seen a direct correlation between our students nurtured and our students who have become identified.

Next slide, please. So, I apologize because our presentation is not quite in alignment. Can we please go to the next slide? And can we go to the next?

And to the next. And one more. Ah, there we go. That'll work.

Um, so when we look at this, we're talking about our talent development and we're really looking at what is the impact on it over the past three years that plan cycle. 49% in student identification. And with our Hispanic population, we've been able to increase identification by 35%. Again, this was all kind of a May 1 snapshot. And on May 1st, our AIG

headcount is currently or at that time because it's increased 5,940 students, which is 19% of the DPS population. So almost 1 in five students are now AIG identified. So really excited with the work that has happened there. Next slide, please.

So to continue with the equitable access, these are some of the multiple things that have happened that have led to this. Um we've removed barriers such as teacher recommendations for our students trying to get into AP classes. They they no longer need a teacher recommendation. There's been ongoing professional development to shift mindsets. We're really working toward that inclusive AP culture where all students have access to be a part of it. Um, we created a school level equitable

recruitment guide which did a tremendous part of having every trusted adult in the building be part of the recruitment process. Not just AP teachers, all teachers, all coaches, everyone involved. So again, this growth is not merely quantitative, but it truly reflects our commitment to fostering an inclusive environment. Next slide, please.

Uh if we can go ahead and go to the next slide, we'll see a breakdown here of the students who are currently enrolled in advanced courses at the high school level. We really focused on lifting up three of our student subgroups. So you'll see in dark blue African-American, light blue Hispanic, and in the green um our white population. So you can see how we are continuing to work towards a

balance of ensuring that all students have opportunity. Now some students might be included in all three of those graphs. there will be duplication because we have students who take an honors class, they take an AP class, and they take a class at uh central. So, being able to look at that.

Next slide, please. On this next slide, please. So, I'm just trying to be aware of time. Next slide, please.

There we go. So we really want to look at our AP participation and performance growth. Over the past three years, we talk about our plan cycle is in three years. We've been able to increase not only participation but performance.

And that doesn't always happen when an increase in participation is there. We don't always see an increase in performance. If we look at

this in dark blue, these are the results from the May 2023 AP exams. You can see there was tremendous growth in our Hispanic population in our black population. And then last year's growth is uh growth upon growth is highlighted in the orange. If we're looking at the participation, you can really see this is participation in taking an exam.

So there were actually more students who were enrolled in the course who did not take the exam. If we look at the one on the right, this is our students who scored a three, four, or five. A score that qualifies them for college level credit. uh really looking at the UNCC system, how many credits, how many classes they're able to and labs that they're able to place out of.

Also wanted to lift up that college board just began awarding the national AP access award. This recognition is awarded when the percentage of AP exam takers who are under represented minority and/or lowincome students mirrors the school's overall student demographics. So this past year, Riverside High School and Durm School of the Arts both earned the National AP Access Award, which really shows the students, excuse me, shows the school's clear and effective commitment to equitable access for advanced coursework. Next slide, please.

If Next slide. I didn't realize that one was there. Sorry. this we have this other one.

So before we go on there is a slide that we skipped and I do just want to quickly lift up. We don't need to go back. The third area that we had

recognition for was in professional development. Um as stated creating positive strides towards equity and excellence begins with professional development for all teachers support staff and administration. We have to remember that our AIG specialists 80% of their week they are teachers. They are in direct instruction with students.

And so it's important during our monthly professional learning sessions that they are continuing to have um professional learning on talent development on serving underserved advanced learners. making sure that we're looking at our twice exceptional students, our multilingual learners. So, continuing to work on those strong practices for all students to move forward. We've also been very fortunate to have such a close connection with our North Carolina AP partnership. They have

gone above and beyond um awarding us scholarships for AP summer institute for coming here and spending days sitting at a school working with teachers individually so that we're really giving them um all of the support that they need. So now we're at our new plan and because our plan has been so strong there are very few changes. It's really about expanding what we have with intentionality. So, next slide please.

The three areas that we lifted key highlights, we are doing the same with looking at how are we continuing with that. So, in the area of professional learning, we're partnering with the offices of professional learning and curriculum and instruction. Over this next year, there will be a very strong emphasis on depth of knowledge. Our specialists will be working with these other departments to ensure that all teachers K12 are

receiving the professional learning on that. We'll also be working with these offices as we implement the NCDPI honors course and all teachers who are teaching honors courses must have professional development in authentic differentiation and really looking at acceleration extension and enrichment. Of course, we'll expand our CAP program which is teachers advancing potential. It's a 30-hour local AIGD cannot give accreditation or lensure.

But what we have seen is so many teachers who have taken this class and then gone on to take the gifted education practice and passed it and now they're able to serve in our schools. And of course, we're always looking for professional learning opportunities for our AP and our IB teachers. Next slide, please. The next area is talent development. Um,

we want to make sure that we're taking this further with our K2 program. We see so many students whose where teachers have not seen that particular gift in a child because maybe they're not the top reader, but they're an incredible problem solver. And how do we move that? We are going to provide additional talent development for students at schools where AIG identification is below 5% of the ADM.

And then we're going to increase direct service delivery for K5 AIG students from a minimum of 60 minutes weekly to a minimum of 90 minutes weekly. We found that this was already happening in the majority of our schools, but we did want to go ahead and put that into the plan so that that would be protected. And next slide. The final area of lifting up are those equitable access opportunities. We have been so fortunate to increase

what we're doing at our high schools. And so we want to make sure that that continues so that we're giving direct support to all advanced learners. And we are going to partner with career and technical education really making sure that those areas of interest, the mentorships um that those real world studies are being aligned with what our students are doing. And the last slide is um of next steps.

Okay, sorry I forgot this. This is the old thing. Next, so tonight we are seeking approval of the DPS academically intellectually gifted plan and then of course after um you so graciously approve it. We will submit it to DPI for their review and then we'll begin to work with communication of course we'll reach out to family engagement, public affairs, other community partners to ensure that that message is there. So now next slide is

discussion. Thank you Miss Parrot for the presentation. It's clear why we were identified as a school district from NCDPI around our AIG practices and thinking about centering equity and all of those. Um I'll look to my colleagues.

I'm going to start with Miss Chavez this time and then we'll come down the line and around. Thank you. I'm going to keep it very brief. Um, thank you so much for this.

I think this is super exciting. There's too many things to highlight that I could, you know, shout out, but um, it's, yeah, it's awesome. And I just want to say one thing about having more students of color in these AIG classes. They're not they're not as alone as a racial minority as well.

um when we have more diverse classes and um and uh yeah, it's it's just really exciting to see one of our schools. I got to see an AIG class and I was like this is awesome. Great.

Who I'm seeing what I'm seeing them do. Very cool. So, thank you. I'm going to go ahead and move approval um of the DPS academically or intellectually gifted plan for 2025 to 2028 from the um Oh, yeah.

From us. Second. It's been moved by Miss Chavez and seconded by Miss Beyer. Is there any other discussion?

I'm I'm sure they're here. I'm gonna go down, Miss Hoff, and then come back over. I want to keep it brief, too. I just I This is one thing that I really want to shout out.

I'm incredibly proud of our AIG program in Durham Public Schools. And although you know you hear about different districts and different people doing this kind of work, we really do model it when you see it in action. You walk into the classroom, you see the diversity. It is not the same AIG that I had as a kid that that where where I was. And there's still a lot of places where you can go and you don't see this work being done. Um, I think it's really

um what what really is exceptional for me, the thing that really really makes me proud is this talent development in the early early grades early and to seeing that and that's that's a way of shifting culture and getting people to recognize talents. That's that's where equity lives and so I get really excited when I see that work being done in the elementary schools. So, I just wanted to shout that out. Um, and yay for the increasing the the um the direct service from 60 to 90 minutes.

And shout out to all those parents, you know, who and all the students who are saying, "Look, I'm, you know, I I'm ready for a challenge. " And so, I see that in this plan, expanding that, making sure that those opportunities are are um throughout our district. So, really excited for all of that. And I couldn't let it pass without Thank you.

I appreciate how exciting it is. Thank you so much. Thank you. So, also wanted to um be enthusiastic about it and appreciative of your leadership. I know why the state

recognized Durham because um we've been leading in nurturing and leading in identification for a long long time. always think that we can continue to do more public affairs to let back to school every back to school like let parents know how they can self-identify, how they can refer, how to access AIG services. Also put explicit messaging out about twice exceptional students and how we um serve and nurture them. um if it's helpful to you, I wondered if you could send us a list of the schools where less than 5% of the students are identified so that we can help remember to keep an eye on that and maybe them knowing that we're watching will help you kind of um because that that's a really low threshold, the the K12 5% um when we've got a district identification of 19%. Right? So, um, and then the thing I've asked for for a long time that I'd like to keep an eye on is do we have equity

and where we're offering honors AP dual enrollment across our comprehensive high schools specifically. I know we have some differences in some of our specialy programs, but we need to be like if you can share that data offline sometime with us. I think it's really important to make sure that we're using all the tools available, even if a class is small, to make sure that those APs, honors, dual enrollment are available equitably across all of our comprehensive high schools particularly and even those middle school early access to high school credits. Um, help us with any equity needs and that that'll help us continue to advocate for schools that have have needs because our students are spread across the community.

But thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Yes. Thank you very much. Um always exciting when we talk about student achievement and thank you so so very much. U let's continue to keep up the good work and I'm ready to to pass this. Thank you.

I'm so glad my colleagues gave you all the praise. I have some questions. Sure. Uh first of all on slide 24, is there a reason that you demonstrated the data?

um one's on a scale of 40%, one's on a scale of 60%. Neither is 100% scale is the expectation to be comparing those. And I apologize because I don't know which slide that is because we had two power the one Oh, my bad. Could you just tell me what the nature of that slide is?

Oh, okay. Great. The equitable access opportunities, AP participation, and performance growth. Right.

Right. So they're not on the same scale, but you put them side by side as though they should be compared. So I apologize for that. We were just trying to get everything to fit. I think the biggest thing is the numbers that are there versus the scale that's there is looking at how much it increased and so I'm grateful for the increase in diversity. Is the increase in diversity also

reflected in the educators that are teaching AIG? It is. I will, if I may, just throw out that when our college board people were here giving professional development, they made comment of how fantastic the diversity was in that room. Um, I'll also lift up Dorcas Giki, African-American teacher at Jordan High School who has served twice this year on a state level professional development.

Another great shout out for Durm. Okay. And then my last question is, why do you switch back and forth from black and African-American or does it change based on the level of It could have just been the way I was typing it. Um, in power school it says black and I try to say Africanamean and so that's just a mistake on my part in not being maybe it was indict indicative of something. No, it was just me not not following through with being consistent. So, thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Um, I'll keep it brief. Uh, thank you for this presentation again and a lots of things to highlight that I liked. Love the 5%. I also had a similar question um as Miss Bayer around how many AP and IB and honors courses are in our high schools and which ones are in which high schools because I I'm sure there's some work maybe to do on those.

Um, and so we've actually grown that at our schools. Wonderful. um because I would hate for it to be that because I got assigned to one high school, I didn't have access to certain classes, right? So, really think that's a really powerful thing that we should be working on. Um I really loved the intentionality about supporting schools who are under 5% and I wondered in connection with that high school too are we also looking at how many students are we are looking at how many students are enrolled in honors AP AIG and are there goals associated with some of those diversifying those classrooms or um not specific quantitative goals but always the goal of we have high school AIG

specialists who are working really hard to find students who have not enrolled who have potential they're looking at EVOS data and they're having those one-on-one conversations with them. " So really love that inclusive approach. Thank you. But it's been moved by Miss Chavez.

It was seconded by Miss Beyer. Is there any other discussion from board members? All those in favor say I. I.

I. Any opposed, please use the same sign. And it passes unanimously. Thank you very much.

I appreciate it. Board members, would y'all be interested in like a fivem minute recess? I see one no. I see some nods, yeses, though.

So, I see more yeses than no. Five minutes. I'm gonna set a timer. All right.

To bring us back in at five minutes. All right. Thank you all.

All right, thank you all. We are back from a fivem minute recess. I appreciate you all's diligence to the time. Um, Miss Carter Autton, speaking of diligence to time, I would like to make a motion to amend our agenda to move um items 5A, the budget prioritization activity, and 5B, salary administration policy, to our um June board meeting.

Second. Friendly amendment to actually just go ahead and move all um of those items to our June whatever the date is meeting. Can you clarify what all when you say all this fire would you? Oh sorry ABC budget prioritization activity salary administration policy legal services presentation.

We have um graduation starting tomorrow at 9. We're 8:30 call and we're at 9:00. So that's my reasoning.

Rod, can you clarif I'm sorry, Attorney Malone, can you clarify how uh um quote unquote friendly amendment works? Like, do I need to since I made the first um motion, is it me that needs to accept or refute in the world of friendly amendments? Yes. Are there family amendments though?

Well, you have used them. You've otherwise used them. I uh sure. Um, I'd like to uh decline that. Um, and then the board can discuss if we want to remove that other item because I do think that might be that is that decision feels different to me than removing 5A and 5B.

We do have a motion on the floor. Did you second it, Miss Motion? Okay. So, the friendly amendment was not accepted.

So, the motion is to move items 5A and 5B to our our next June meeting, our June board meeting. Um, it was moved by Miss Carter Autton and seconded by Miss Harold Goff. Is there any other discussion? All right.

All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? It passes.

Six with one abstension. I one eye that's coming in. So, seven. It passes unanimously.

Okay. Then I would like to make a motion that we move item 5C from this agenda. I'm sorry. I would like to make that motion.

And if it and further discuss it, if someone will give it a second and then you can always vote it down. Second. So it's been moved by Miss Beyer and seconded by Miss Goff that we would move the legal services presentation. Um any discussion?

Sure. I'd offer a discussion. We have a guest here tonight to answer questions on behalf of the board in regards to legal services. And if the board chooses not to take action tonight, which we are entitled to do, we can have the discussion and know what we want administration to do in next step so that we can have something for our next board meeting that is concrete so that we can make a decision should we choose not to make one tonight.

Is there uh Miss Cardon? Um I also think that it would be useful for us to have an opportunity to have a discussion um mostly in order to decide together what our next steps will be. Um and that provides us with some time to do that before the next board meeting. So that's what I'm thinking, but interested to hear other perspectives.

I'm welcome the discussion. Um what I'm concerned about is the um slide deck that is here before us and the challenges of um having a recommendation um with one firm in place representing the board, another here to answer questions and just significant um challenges with that conversation. So, I don't know how um to best move forward with the awkwardness of what is before us. Um I'm I'm I'm struggling with that.

I I had a lot of questions I s and I saw that others did as well. So, I'm trying to um figure out how to have that discussion in a thoughtful way in a very awkward setting. So, um yeah. And and yeah.

Yeah. Miss Rogers, I hear that. Miss Beyer, I

understand. Um, and appreciate your concerns. Um, I'd like to ask the board, I guess, or you how you would recommend holding an open session conversation with any contractor, law firm, or otherwise without our current attorney sitting with us. Yeah, I don't have the solution. What what I do have is and if you want to discuss it tonight when we get to it we can I think the presentation um and and going through the slide deck we'll add and make this discussion you know an hour hour and a half so and it's on here for 30 minutes um so however you all want to proceed um here we are we'll say there is a motion on the floor we have discussion it feels clear that there's more discussion to be had on this item um and so I I'll go to you, Miss Chavez, but it seems like we do have things we want to discuss. I I will say at this point I I favor a

brief discussion on this. Um, but I do mean brief because I think we should um discuss next steps and actions to take, but I don't think it needs to take 30 minutes. There is a motion on the floor. We can also revisit this as we get closer to the agenda item.

Um the motion was to move 5C. I know it was to a date. It was to move to S5C2 off of our agenda. Is that correct, Miss Beyer?

Yeah. And to the wherever we moved the other ones, the June 24th or whatever that what we're together. It was seconded by Miss Herrell Goff. All those in favor say I.

I. All those opposed, please use the same sign. I So that is six. That motion does not pass.

I don't think I've done that level. All right. So we're going to keep our agenda. We're going to go to 4C. So we

have draft changes to policies. I'm going to pass that over to Dr. King. Thank you, Miss Homestead.

Good evening, board members um and the community. um want to take a moment tonight to share with you uh some draft policy changes uh specifically relative to some special education related policies. Those are policies 7800, 3520 and 4326. I want to share a couple of things at the outset.

Number one, in in light of um you know what we've shared tonight in terms of time constraints, I want to just make clear to to the entire community that the speed with which I intend to go through this presentation uh should not be should not imply that we don't recognize the gravity of this issue. It is a very important issue. It is these are changes uh and revisions um that um we have worked on um as a team in collaboration with our partners at um Therington Smith for almost a year. Um and um while while I'm in at that juncture, I do want to just take a

moment to thank our partners at Therington for uh the work on this um as well as Dr. Bale and our exceptional children's department. This has certainly been an important collaboration in terms of this particular work that we have um done together. And so again, these draft policies uh will be focused on policy 7800, professional and staff development.

Next slide, please. Uh policy 3520, special education programs rights of students with disabilities and draft uh changes to policy 4326, rules for use of seclusion and restraint in schools. And this item is board members for our first um read. Um I think it's important to note that um and I'll actually start with uh policy 7800. The shift to in policy 7800 is outlined there in red very quickly and very simply. uh this policy, this change

to this policy adds special education professional development to those mandated policies to those topics that are mandated for the district to provide provide professional development for each year. So that is the extent um of the changes to this policy. Again, this policy policy 7800 identifies professional development that the district is required to provide each year. Uh this policy change would simply add special education to that list of topics.

That concludes the changes to policy 7800. Uh the next policy, next slide is policy 3520, special education programs uh rights of students with disabilities. Now after policy 7800 shifts to add special education to the list of policies uh that the district must provide training on each year. Policy 3520 outlines what that professional development uh should be specifically and and uh I I just

highlight that the policy requires us to plan a and provide a program of special education training that shall be mandatory to all staff and that have direct instructional responsibilities over students with disabilities or that supervise those with such responsibilities. It also speaks to uh this training um being categorized based on uh the work that individuals who are trained will be do will will do for the district. Um and that special education development training of no less than four hours of instructional hours of each for each uh school-based administrator and other staff who as part of their official duties serve as LEA representatives in IEP meetings. Right.

And that was not very clear, was it? Let me go back. So, it makes mandatory a 4hour annual training for all administrators and other staff members who serve as LEA representatives in IEP meetings. I think

that was a bit more clear. Board members, that in that concludes the changes to policy 3520. I now shift to policy 4326 and make clear that the changes to this policy are quite a bit more extensive. It is important to note at this moment and in this opportunity that these changes um were developed with two broad intentions.

Uh they are to make sure um that our pol that our practices are aligned with current law and to clarify um our um reporting responsibilities particularly as it relates to seclusion and restraints that take place in our schools. And I'm going to go very quickly through these changes and board members please feel free to grab my attention and stop me if necessary. Uh the first thing that this policy does uh for us is to explain and provide um definitions and both permissible uses.

Statements clear statements of permissible use for the following physical restraints, mechanical restraints, seclusions, isolation, and timeout. Policy also shares the responsibilities for staff members reporting to principles or the designate in a school who is designated as responsible for this reporting and also lays out what exactly we are responsible to notice to provide notice to parents about as it relates to restraints and seclusions and those things that we are required uh to provide written reports to parents about. And then finally, the policy calls on uh Durham public schools to reinstate school-based crisis intervention teams, which was a structure that was used in this district for quite some time. Um, and you know, we've moved away from, so we'll be bringing that back. Next slide. Uh, in this slide, and I'm not going to read it, of course, in this slide, the policy does um define each of these terms that are pertinent to this particular um

policy rest around restraint and seclusion. Next slide. And here you see of course the first slide that speaks to permissible use. This slide provides uh the permissible uses uh for physical restraints.

Next slide. Uh this slide makes a special statement about prone restraints and makes clear that in exceptional cases um uh prone restraints should not be used uh except when they are required in exceptional cases and should never be performed by school personnel who do not have current certification in deescalation and restraint techniques. Next slide. The next slide provides uh detailed information about the reporting requirements uh when our schools engage when staff in our schools engage in a physical restraint.

Next slide. The next slide uh defines the permissible uses of a mechanical restraint and makes quite clear and I will share that u mechanical restraints are prohibited when used solely as a disciplinary consequence. Next slide. This slide speaks to the written reports and documentations that are required uh for our staff uh to complete and provide uh when they have uh engaged in the use of these um uh particular um restraints or seclusions.

It's important to note here this is a place where I do want to make just one um comment and please forgive us for having the names of staff members uh on that slide. Actually, you can go to the next slide. Next slide. What's important to note about that reporting is that this is one of the areas that it was really critical

for us um to delineate what our responsibilities were for. For many years, it appears that folks had been misled or unclear about what those reporting requirements were. And so in many instances, in many places across the state of North Carolina, uh we were not uh reporting those restraints and seclusions in the way that the law requires them to. In some instances, I think there had been some um uh some assumptions made because there is uh there are both state level and federal level reporting requirements.

I think in some instances folks had required that doing the state reporting uh kind of uh sufficed. Um, but we we did want to in this policy change make sure we were clear about what those reporting requirements um were for all of our staff members so that there would not be that uh level of um uh confusion and make sure that we provided that in writing for everyone. Um

and the next slide again speaks to mechanical restraint reporting. Next slide. Um, speaks to seclusion. Uh, provides the permissible uses for seclusion.

Uh, I wasn't quite sure. Done with that slide. Back one, please. All right.

And it's important here to note the seclusion of a student by school personnel is prohibited as a disciplinary consequence. I think it's important to note here board members, you know, all of these are are are quite difficult concepts and quite difficult circumstances. Um and and again, you know, the information is is quite clear here that we want to be very careful um about providing our staff members um with very clear guidance about when they can and cannot use um these um particular techniques, who can and who cannot use these particular techniques. And to be clear that even in instances where uh staff members find themselves

in a place where that is contemplated, it is certainly the board's intention that we would seek every other option rather than um these particular techniques um in order to address these issues. uh to that w to which it the board strongly encourages all staff to consider less intrusive forms of intervention and when possible the reliance on members of the school's crisis response team um to address these kinds of um issues particularly seclusion in this particular slide. Next slide again speaks to um notice to parents of an event that includes a seclusion um and does require um that when a principal has or designate has personal action knowledge of seclusion of a student by school staff that does not meet the criteria of the permiss of permissible seclusion um that that principal shall promptly notify the parents guard the student's parent or guardian and provide the name of the school employee whom the parent or guardian may contact regarding the

incident uh so that that parent can um identify and ask questions about that issue. Next slide. This slide identifies um and speaks to isolation and timeout. I would only note there that timeout is a permissible and authorized uh um structure that is used uh for teachers in classrooms to regulate behavior uh within their students and there are no reporting requirements uh related to timeouts.

Next slide speaks to adverse procedures. And you will note that adverse procedures are never permissible. And an adverse procedure is a systematic physical or sensory intervention program for modifying the behavior of a student that causes or reasonably reasonably may be expected to cause one or more of the following. And as you see there is an extensive list um there.

The next slide, next slide simply speaks to the crisis intervention team and our intention to bring that structure back to our schools. Uh the slide and the board in this policy does lay out specifically who should be included um on those teams and the training uh that individuals who serve on those teams uh should receive in schools each year. Board members, at this time I'd be glad to answer any questions that you might have about uh these uh policy revisions. Thank you, Dr.

King and and the team of folks on these policy revisions. Board members questions. U I'll start with Miss Carter Arton. We'll circle down.

Thanks so much, Dr. King, um for this uh presentation and for all of the information you've shared and the materials. Um, I was wondering the seclusion and restraint policy is not track change. So, what are the Did you not get the track change document? Are

Yeah, there should be one in there. If not, I will certainly send it to you. Did I Does somebody else or is it at the bottom? Does somebody else see it?

somebody could find it. Let me know. I have another question though. While you're looking members, I apologize.

I will I will send that to you. It is in there. Right. The um

23 page 23. Okay. So the members I will I have that I will share that with you. My apologies.

We did try to place both a clean copy and a track change policy of each of those policies uh in there. It looks like we may have missed one. Apologies. I'll send that to um well, you all advise me how you would like to receive that and I'll make it happen.

I think it would be helpful to have it um posted online too so that folks in the community that might be watching can I mean the point being to easily see what's been changed and what's not been. So for those who might have an interest and who are watching um and then I was wondering well do you want to highlight for us what is different between the last one and this one that's in the slides. It's what in the sli is in the slides and it

is quite extensive. Um so we we we'd be here for quite a while if I if I did that. And then well I guess then my broader um question is um who and what informed the changes like what are they based on and um who's reviewed them? Do we have folks that are in the schools like our principles, our staff that would be tasked with implementing and then our um families who might be uh affected by these changes like so this is not an item where we would ask folks to uh review and approve because these changes are driven uh by the legal requirements related to um restraints and seclusions. So these changes have been um basically worked through by um legal counsel, our our special education legal counsel um and you know in work worked through with our special education department. So that has been

the process for making these particular changes. Thank you. I guess I'm thinking about implementation and then like how we make sure that folks on the ground are ready to um do this and then how we're going to make sure that they're actually implemented in the schools. Right.

So, so that would be a a training process and one of the things that you you will note in in those changes, it speaks to the specific um professional development that all staff members would receive specific to their particular um role as it relates to special education. Um, and I can share with the board members, we do have a breakdown of what that training is. And so, depending on the role that an individual uh serves in our school, they would receive the the level of support or professional development that they would need to be able to make sure they are in compliance uh with these changes. Um so quite clearly for instance um as we speak primarily to those um restraints and seclusions uh what the policy makes clear is that all

staff members you know would not engage in those practices. Only those folks who have specific training um would engage in those particular practices. So the training that general staff members would need to know about things would be what they are and the fact that you know they are not allowed to engage with them and who they need to reach out to if they need particular help. Those folks who are in roles um uh where they would be engaging in those kinds of practices would receive specific training to what those are um how they are used um and under the cir the circumstances under which they can they can use them. So I I I hope that the answer to your question is that we would we would have to provide extensive training. The other piece you know as it relates to um uh reporting um is that that that becomes a responsibility of our building level staff right and provision of professional development for them in terms of what they are required to report and what their staff members are required to report to them and the

actions they must take after those reports have been made. Hey, thanks so much. I think I'd be curious to know if there are other um ways to put something in place to where we have a system where we're monitoring whether the training's been done. We probably do monitor that and then how we're doing as far as each of the different pieces of this policy and that probably it might not go into policy.

It might be on the back end and some sort of procedures or but that's just thinking about that as we um move forward. And then I was wondering regard related to the um CRT members um they're the ones that are going to get trained in deescalation and restrain use of restraints. I guess that I'm wondering is that enough or are there others in the building that might benefit from those types of things? And if so, what would what are the pros and cons of doing that?

What happens when we only train the CRT members? Yeah. So there so there may be some who who might

benefit from that and we would want to have conversations um with principles about if they feel like there are additional folks who might you know benefit from that. I I think we would want to be quite cautious though um because you know I think we want to be very cautious about um folks who we empower through training to to take those actions right um but I mean I think your your question is well stated and that's a conversation that we can continue to have with our special education uh staff um as well as building level principles in terms of you know who additional staff members are that they might want to be um trained And and I want to be clear um as you as you look at that slide um you know those slide that slide and the policy establishes the minimum staff members who need to be trained. It does not preclude the principal to make the decision that there are additional folks that he feels like are um appropriate to be trained in his or her school. Um um and and then you know engage that

process. Uh to be quite blunt though, we don't want to train everyone because we don't want everyone engaged in these kinds of actions. You mean restraints but not deescalation techniques? Yes, restraints and seclusions but not necessarily deescalation.

Right. I could see where it might be beneficial for all of our staff to be trained in deescalation techniques. Certainly. Thanks so much.

Quite welcome. Mr. Hargo, Miss Beyer, I really appreciate y'all's attention to this. I know um folks have been looking forward to improvements in these policies for a very long time. I appreciate um the the attention to and look forward to the track changes of the one with the most significant modifications, the 4326.

I always love DPS policy to lead with the framing language, the we don't want y'all to be doing this. This is mostly in very extreme exceptions, right? So, I wonder if there's more language from that bottom part. I thought I saw it somewhere near the bottom of the policy where we could put it back up and keep reminding people if you're if you're only getting started and you want to get framed in how does DPS think about these things or whatever.

It's that try to deescalate, try not to use these, try, you know, everybody's got to be trained. But I mean just that framing language of of our equitable practices and our our our limited use of these I I don't know how to frame it differently. I the the other questions I have as we go forward. I'm so glad we're training staff. I know that our derm allies for exceptional children and advocates for exceptional children will be so glad to see some

mandatory um training for for EC folks or students staff working with EC students. Um I I hope that we can do this with SRO's and I know they don't work for us but I am hoping in our conversations with the sheriff with um going forward I don't know bus drivers I don't know where all we need to reach deeply but I hope that um we can do that and have language even about the heart team coming into schools as a as another resource another group of folks that we are working proactively and deescalating and crisis uh response. So glad to see the crisis response teams are coming back to Durham. Wondering and y'all can give us legal feedback on I don't think it makes sense to put beginning in the 2526 school year in there unless there's some reason.

I I wouldn't put dates in policy. It just would be the new expectation, right? But that maybe

there's a reason y'all put that there. That's that very last paragraph of um that policy. But there's a reason. But I but we could take it out.

If we don't take it out, it get to me it gets dated really quickly and it just looks like it. Yeah. Um and I and I like being clear about how these things are reported when they're used and how quickly parents should be informed. um and systems that we set up internally to hold ourselves accountable to doing that.

Um yeah, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I look forward to um feedback from the community on if there's other changes that we should make, but I really appreciate y'all's work on this.

Uh thank you very much. U Dr. King, in looking at the policy, are there opportunities um for training for a combination of

teachers with deescalation and restraints? Um so especially with students who I have IEPs that may be in certain classrooms with um regular what we call regular students but their teacher doesn't come with them necessarily but they but they are in those classes that may their IEP may say that they may have to be restrained. H how are we addressing that in the building? So, so that that is the reason why principles have the discretion to assign other staff members to receive the training. So, for instance, a principal might recognize that, you know, there's a specific teacher that he or she or the school um trust in those particular circumstances, maybe that there's a teacher who is more likely to teach uh those classes. that would be a person that that the principal would add uh to the list of individuals who might

receive that training. Okay. And are these uh is the training physical training or are these like video? Dr.

Bell, can you speak to uh the details about some of these training opportunities? Thank you. Yeah. Um, so we've been for years since I've been in this position requiring all of our EC staff to have deescalation nonviolent crisis intervention training.

Every EC teacher regardless of the role that they're in and EC instructional assistance. Um, your the training is led by our department. We use the crisis prevention intervention training model. Um, there's a two-day initial for folks who need to be initially trained and it's all in person in class.

The whole first and first day and a half is all deescalation. like some people are calling it rest restraint training. It's not that. The purpose of it and the focus of it is to prevent crisis from happening. So the first day and a half we're really getting into, you know, recognizing when behaviors are escalating and strategies to deescalate.

And then that second day, second half of the day is um on physical interventions to keep and the and the sole purpose like Dr. King said is the sole goal of the training is to keep things from happening and ultimately keep everyone safe. So, so are there video training or this is there is a verbal there's a verbal deescalation only video training that some folks have taken. I know like at one point Dr.

Logan at Hillside had most of his staff take that and that is um self-paced verbal training video training but the training that we're requiring for the crisis teams will be in person um for the full two-day for initials and a one day refresher if they they need to do a yearly refresher. Thank you. I just want to make sure people didn't get confused of the that video training. Okay.

Thank you. And and board members, while while I have this moment, I do want to share that, you know, we have consistently as a district offered this training and these kinds of trainings to our staff members. Um what's important about what the step

we're asking you to take tonight um is the board mandating these trainings, right? which will we hope will help our principles um um be in a better position to ensure that everyone that they feel like is um needs to get this training will actually report to and complete this training. So many of these trainings again have always been available but they have not been mandated for all of our for our staff members. Um thank you Dr.

King and your team for this presentation. Um, I think the imple the policy is good, so it mandates it. I think the implementation is crucial and you've highlighted that. And I want I didn't see this in here, but I wonder if there should also be an annual report kind of to the board and to the superintendent on the training, how many restraints, because that has to be reported to the state. So, I think we should also probably have a report of what that looks like in our district as well. And

I say that in a way to keep us accountable and transparent on what's going on. Um, and so I'll look at my board members, colleagues if they'd be interested in that kind of annual report being added to this policy so that we that we all stay on top of this. I see head nods and thumbs. So I'm going to see consensus which might require some edits.

I know this is here for first reading. We could bring something like that back for the second reading. And then I think if we want to do the um track changes, if all that can be track changed in the versions that we get for the next meeting. So you gonna get two track changes.

You get the original track change and you going to get the track change for the for the adjustments. Make sure you, you know, label them really clearly and we can do that. Yes, ma'am. We can.

Track change one and track change two. Exactly. Miss Chavez. Okay. I have some um comments and questions, but first I wanted to ask Miss Mstead, were you saying um what was the reporting exactly that you were asking for? I'm still thumbs up, but

what was it exactly? Anything? No. Uh reporting on the training like who was trained and when it happened, that kind of thing, but also the number of restraints I think is what also we're reporting out to the state.

And so how do we also report that to the district? Um, so, okay, let me I have a few questions. I'm still in favor of that, but um, so when we talk about the training, four hours per year, um, is that how was that determined? The four hours, is that best practice?

Is that comparable to other districts? Um, how do we come up with that number? Dr. B, you want to speak to that?

I mean I and I think I I'll be very clear with you that this was you know we started this process last year. Um and and we kind of had some some back and forth about you know what was optimal, what was and what was reasonable for us. And I think 4 hours is where we landed um in

terms of the amount of time that we feel like is necessary to get what they need um in order to do the the work appropriately. and and and I want to speak to I want to share that that four-hour training is specifically for administrators and individuals who serve as LEA representatives, right? I I think that's the training that you're talking about. Yes.

Yeah. I guess I would add I'm I'm not I'm not exactly sure why we landed on four and we of course I would always advocate for more. I think to Dr. King's point what's reasonable to put in policy.

I think as a bare minimum we would actually love to have more time training people and I hope that's what comes to fruition and we we're poised and prepared to do that and we we've laid out what those trainings would be based on your role. Um but if four is the minimum we can like Dr. King said we can always go above that and require more. Um and I did want to if I can make one more statement I want to be really clear that these seclusion restraint policies are not EC policies. Um, we may lead the work in our department and we do the training, but it's policies that apply

to every single child in this district. I think sometimes people see it as EC policies. Um, probably because students with disabilities are more susceptible to being restrained and secluded. Um, but this applies to every single student in the district.

We just kind of lead the work a little bit. So, thank you for that point. um that makes sense about having a perhaps smaller number in policy that we want to stick to, but also um you know I would of course with every with all that we do hopefully we're basing it in evidence-based practices and all of that. Um uh because this is a very important area.

So if we can if there is more time I know that we talk about all the different constraints on professional development and training. So um but I think this yeah this is a very this is a very important topic. So um and I appreciate that point about um this is not just EC students. I think it's traumainformed work. I think it's you know many things.

Um but we do know some of our EC students which that encompasses lots of different students but they are some of the most vulnerable and some non-verbal who can't you know communicate and I think some of that kind of um comes up when we talk about this or can't sorry cannot communicate verbally some of their experiences but um okay um relative to the training also I want to ask about new staff who come on we know that we have uh like many places many EC vacants ies and so we fill those and also a large percentage of our teachers coming in are doing their residency lensure. So how are we training people in the middle of the year when they come on as EC um teachers or um are we training some IAS as well? Okay, all of them. Yes. So Dr. Bella is with us all the time.

Right here. Right here. She doesn't get to get away. Okay.

Right. And her team. So, um, you know, again, it's important to note that, you know, the staff that do this training is our staff and so we can put these trainings on whenever, you know, we need to. Yeah.

I mean, we've got a plan for monthly training and to have cycles of training repeat to take into account for people coming on at different points in time. We also do onboarding at the school level with our EC facilitators. So there's immediate support right away, but then to come to our formal training, there'll be monthly opportunities and the CPI um the non-violent crisis intervention training is offered every single month. Um and if we need to offer more sessions to accommodate a greater need, we will do that.

All right, that is good to hear. I think that's really important because um yeah, like for the reasons I just said, but um that's good to know that it's it's rotating. Um, so I also, uh, let this is another question. Um, I guess, uh, no, let me table that. I'm trying to keep my comments tight

tighter. Um, I would like to see us, um, add more about data collection in this policy, but that's what I've heard from community members would be um, valuable. And um so and having that reported to the board um annually absolutely. Um but it seems that perhaps there's been some inconsistency in in recording um the restraints and and one uh part of this it says if the principal or designate becomes aware.

But how do we make sure that principal or designate is aware? if there is a a restraint or seclusion incident. Um, and so that's what I would like to see added on here, just some um data points of what we would regularly collect and then that could be easily uh reported out um

to the board. Yeah. So I I mean respectfully I'm you know what the policy requires is staff members who observe these incidents to report them to the principal. Um if I'm honest I don't know that there is a way for us to go beyond that.

Um because it's it's not possible for the principal to know if the folks who observe the incident don't report that it happens. Um so so I just want to establish that as you know kind of just I guess a restraint not a restraint but a a restriction that we that we have to live with and and I would note that you know we we are all aware of um incidents where unfortunate circumstances like this um have happened and we become aware of them. In virtually every one of those incidents, we become aware of it because one of our responsible staff members observes something that was not right and reports

that immediately to their administrator. Right. And so, um, I certainly think as long as we are clear with staff about what it is that is that should be reported, um, to the extent that they observe those things, um, they will be festidious in their duties to report those things. and and what happens if a staff member does not report?

They would have to have some conversations with Miss Hager and her team, but first with certainly with the building level principal and then we would go through the, you know, the appropriate responses to a staff member not um following through with the with the requirement. And is is this is this part of their contract? Um, is this written into contract into um, certified staff's contract? I think it's written in their contract to adhere to all board policy.

Yeah. Okay. Um,

does it say I know there we just went through all this. Does it state explicitly that all staff are required in here to report any incident of restraint or seclusion? I think it lays out the specific requirements for reporting restraint and seclusion. There are some restraints and seclusions that are permissible, right?

It it requires staff members to report those that are not permissible and don't uh comply um with with those permissibility standards. Okay. Um, and I think I would say what you know what we would be happy to you know report to our staff members is if they are unsure it meets that standard they can always report that and the principal can then apply that standard and and you know work through that process with them. Okay. Like uh with this one annual reporting to um the state board of education physical restraints that result in an observable physical injury

to a student. I had a question about that because why is it I mean that's a state thing but why is it an observable physical injury? Why is it not physical injury in general? So the standards could we make them stricter than what is perhaps required at the state and um federal well at least at the state level.

Does that make sense? It it does. I I presume we could um I' I' I'd want to hear why folks feel like it's advisable. Are you commenting on the the the word observable?

Yes. I mean if there's a physical what's the term physical what is the term you use? Physical observable physical injury. Okay.

Okay. If there's an in if it's a physical injury, someone would have to observe it. So, I think that was the intent behind observable, but you're saying you

would like to remove observable. No, no, no. I Okay, I misunderstood then. Okay.

Because I You're saying it was observed by somebody else. I thought it was something that for instance left bruises. Yeah. But if it's an internal injury and you can't you can't always see something that happened or you know um physically on a person's body.

But observable in this case means observable by other human beings. That's my interpretation of it. In our our current reporting all the reports of docu documentation come to our office for restraint seclusion. So we review those and on our forms people are required to indicate if there was an injury that was observed or or reported during the incident and that is something that we document and would follow through with.

I think there's state reportable requirements but locally we do require that to be reported whenever there's a restraint and for every restraint that meets the definition to be documented and sent to our office. Okay. Okay. And then um I just also had a question about I think

it's the seclusion part um where it says parents are notified if it's 10 minutes or more. Um why 10 minutes or more? Okay. Well, it's aligned with state board policy.

That's the So, I don't know why we haven't locally changed that, but I know that's aligned with state policy. Briefly, it's it's right out of the statute that governs um seclusion and restraint. Okay. Um if I could also just add a note, um this language is all about seclusion and restraint, but there's also a separate mandatory reporting obligation for misdemeanor child abuse, which would cover um potential physical injury and would contemplate kind of um injuries that you cannot see, but would reasonably suspect. So I think that requirement would cover the ambit of some of the injuries that that you were talking about before. Um

that yeah that's just another point I think we might want to consider whether um the seclusion needs to exceed 10 minutes to be reportable. Um but I guess my last comment to is just I do wonder about um if there could be more community engagement around the the revision of these policies. So I I mean I understand that they are aligned to state um you know regulations and all of that but is there I guess would board members would there be interest in that or could I mean I'd be happy to move this forward but also look at it would love a deeper look at it with community engagement questions getting puzzled looks I'm miss Carda-Auten and then we'll go to Miss Prior. Um, I'd be interested to hear to hear more about that because that that was where I was getting at with my questions about where did the changes come from and who weighed in on them. I don't but I'm not I haven't

fleshed out in my mind what the whole what my vision is for what it could look like, but it does seem as I was reviewing this that it would be I just want to this is I want to know how this will affect people and that might be the case for every policy, but this one feels that way in particular. So that's where I am on that. Miss Ber then Miss Herok. Yeah, I was trying to explain my puzzled look.

I think that these are really timesensitive to get in the any improvements we're going to get in the student handbook pretty quickly and so I don't know how much time we have for deep deep community engagement, but I do think we are this is first read. We'll have another two weeks if folks have feedback. We certainly have a couple weeks to get some changes or modifications. Maybe I missed what you know I I I think we want this training and stuff to start.

This has been a long time coming and these the anything we've done is an improvement. So that's my look what kind of what it meant. It's

terrible. I was just going to say that um all of the the track changes that were here and everything that I saw, the language was um the language felt good to me. Um and as far as community engagement goes, I think that um we can move a policy forward and still have the expectation to have conversations about policy things that are important to community with engagement. So, um um but this language, I think the purpose of what they're trying to do is very very clear.

Um especially with grouping these particular three policies together. And so um yeah, that's all I was that's all I was going to say, Miss I'm sorry, Dr. King, and then I'll come to Miss Rogers. And so board members, I, you know, I'll be anxious to hear um additional feedback about, you know, this community engagement conversation. Um, and and particularly

from the perspective that I think we need to establish and and Mr. Malone, I may need your help here. Um, I think we can certainly share with the community how we're going to operate. Um, I'm not sure what we do with the feedback that the community gives us when again we're we are talking about policy changes that align directly with state law, right?

Um, essentially there isn't really um a lot of space for us to move in any direction and maintain our alignment with the law as it relates to these policies. Um, we certainly can, I think, make some of these policies more restrictive. Um, but I think there are, you know, some serious implications for doing that. That's one of the conversations.

And Dr. Bell, you might want to speak to this. No, that's some of the back and forth that went on, you know, during this process. Um but we

we'd want to be you know I would want to suggest that me we might want to be very careful about suggesting to our community um that we can make very much movement around these policies that rel relates directly to state law. Um okay well I think I I don't want to hold up the training at all. So, I think we can move forward with this, but I I'm not necessarily seeing where um I mean the state law gives some guard rails and um but I think in my mind we don't only want to align policy with state law. We want to align it with community need and experience. So, um I think that um I mean the Durham Advocates for Exceptional Children are um an obvious stakeholder that comes to

mind. Um and having a conversation with them I think could be useful. Um but there are many other people who might be interested. So I think I would just love to I I've been looking forward to these coming some of these policies coming back to us for a long time, you know, for the year that you all have been working on them.

So, um I would love if we could further strengthen them in alignment with um community need but not to, you know, uh do anything that would c, you know, um violate the law, of course. So, anyway, that's my thinking about it. Um so, I don't know if we need to have more conversation about that right now. Otherwise, I can make a motion.

Uh Miss Rogers has some comments. Okay. I um I do hear what I'm also hearing is when we implement this, how do we know what the implementation is like and how it's impacting people, but also like community members might have thoughts

around what the implementation has felt like for them and their students and families. And so I'm wondering if there's a start this process and we get the training going and is there, you know, durm advocates for children and other folks that convene um in October and November to provide feedback, talk about what implementation is look like and to be able to continue to re revise this policy inside of state law, but continue to make sure that we're doing what's in the best interest of students because I think that's what I'm also hearing come through. state law is going to require us to do one thing, but how do we make sure we continue to make this policy student centered um and thinking about who's going to who it will impact? Yes, I appreciate that comment.

Um I think definitely feedback on the implementation is important. Um and just like what you were saying, Miss said about the um reporting back about um training um number of restraints, that kind of thing. That's the kind of thing that I'm looking for us to add also is some um what is the data that's being

collected and what would be reported back to the board and integrating that and I think the community community members would have feedback about that. I think it could be stronger basically. So I think that I'm I'm certainly willing to push this forward to you know get the training in place. I think that's important.

It sets a a baseline for training. Um but then again how do we a part of our job is data monitoring and um and then seeing yeah what are the outcomes because training is great but then what are the what are the data outcomes that we you know that come out of that and um those give us information about how we how we may want to modify policy in the future. Appreciate that. I just have two more thoughts or questions.

Who keeps track of attendance to know that people have attended the training? I see Dr. Bell getting up. So, I'm assume that's your office.

Yeah, we we keep all the attendance. We have multi-year data of who's attended and who's been reertified. Got it. And so,

would you I'm getting into the weeds. I recognize that. So, you can tell me get out the weeds. Um, I'm going to do that.

When someone doesn't go, who's responsible for saying it's your time to go? Like, you've been it's been a year, two years, or whatever. it's time for you to get back because I I think one of the challenges that you have EC keeping attendance, you got a principal supervisor, you got other so who keeps track of making sure people are doing what they're supposed to do. I mean, I think that has been a challenge, right?

Our our office has not been providing reminders to people. They know when they come to the training that to get reertified, you have to come within the next year and we offer trainings. So, people have to keep up with their own and some do a great job of it and some don't and it lapses. That seems like something that we should make sure that's in the weeds. Procedurally though, we should make sure so we can make sure we hold ourselves accountable for that. And I wonder if there's a line in here about when an educator if you not reporting is a violation of policy that can lead to I don't know there's a connection to another policy there because it's not

explicitly listed which I we know you violate policy. It's a HR um conversation but I think it might be good to put that explicitly in there. We've given you a lot of feedback. This is being presented for the first reading.

Um, Miss Rogers, Missstead, you asked a bunch of my questions about the tracking. And so I have a follow-up question on the tracking, who's showing up to the trainings. Is that procedure going to change now that this is going more mandatory as part of board policy? That's a good question, and I don't think I've contemplated it.

Um, but I'll certainly work with Dr. Bell to think about what we need to change about that policy based on that. I think the great thing about it is, you know, when principles do say you need to go is is going to have a little bit of bite with it now. So, but we'll certainly work around that that that question. And

, Will they be required to do a reertification, a new training or something or another? So, I think it depends on the circumstances of that misapplication. Okay. Right.

Um, depending on the circumstances of that mislication, there there might be much more serious consequence than than just retraining. Um, so so so the answer is I guess yes. hand. Okay, that's fair.

I want to also revisit Miss Chávez's question because I'm looking at the slides and any restraint that results in an in an observable. So this is not it's not when somebody has witnessed. There's a difference between observable physical injury and someone witnessing said injury because an injury can occur that was witnessed that doesn't result in any physical injury, right? Because

we take the test but the results of the test are not the fact that we're actioning by taking the test. So the fact that this physical injury happened and there's no proof or bodily harm that that has happened doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Correct. Um but again I would I would argue that if as a staff member Dr.

Lewis witnesses um an action on the part of a staff member that is likely to create an injury whether it is observable or not. There are other requirements that he report that aside from this policy that still apply. Okay. Okay.

Colleagues, this again is here for a first read. We have given lots of feedback and some edits to Dr. King and his team that they will need to bring back at our next meeting on June 26. I'd like to make a motion that we

approve the first read. Second. Uh, it's been moved by Miss Harold Goff and seconded by Byer. I'll take Miss Beyer.

Okay. I thought I heard two at the same time. Um, any other discussion? All those in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? It passes unanimously. We look forward to those um changes, Dr.

King with some track changes and some page numbers and slide numbers. It' be helpful for us. All right. The next um item is legal services presentation.

Dr. Giovan, good evening board members, Dr. Lewis, members of the community. If we could pull the slides up, please.

And Dr. Giovani considering we had a lot some discussion about this. I wonder if there's a

abbreviated version or no or no I'll do my best. Okay. Thank you. So this is um I think there was some conversation um regarding this.

This is um coming before the board um on cabinet's request for its rec approval of its recommendation to enter into a contract for legal services and service as the board attorney for Durham public schools for the law firm of Pointer Sproul. Next slide, please. I did want to point out that um the back one slide, please. think we there we go.

I did want to point out that there was an original PowerPoint that was published. There were some edits made to that and so I have documented what those changes were just for transparency and clarity. One of them was based on feedback from different people. We added in the timeline of the RFQ process highlighted the primary attorneys at Pointer Spru that will be

working with Durham public schools under the contract. denoted the other two districts that are in the large 12 consortium in North Carolina that the Pointer Sproul also represents and added in the reduced cost to the district and responding to foyer request using the pointer spool model. Next slide please. And as you can see this is the timeline I will and as we indicated previously to expedite it there's really no additional um feedback other than just reading the timeline.

Next slide please. This is again the strategic plan priority five. Next slide. This is the briefly talks about the different things that school boards and school officials have to comply with. Next slide please. And as I stated previously, the cabinet recommends the law firm of Porno Sproul be issued the contract with the board of education to provide legal services to

the board and the district. Next slide, please. And these are the I've highlighted the top three on from Point Attorneys. Grace Pineret, I believe it is, Rachel Nicholas, and Miss Nicholas has agreed to join us um in case the board has any questions for her here today, as well as Katie Cornetta.

And these comprise the education lawyers at the firm Pointer and Sproul. Next slide, please. And I do want to point out that the board was provided with all of the packets. So the background for um Rachel, Grace, and Katie as well as the other lawyers is provided in that packet. So I was going to share that in a little more detail, but given the lateness of the hour um we can go ahead and ex uh move through that. So what we looked at when the cabinet

when we were interviewing, we did two sets of interviews. um as I indicated interviewed four firms got down to two firms and ultimately Pointerpro was uh determined to be the firm that was selected and to be recommended to provide the legal services um for example their support for the board of education which is one of the um primary functions that we were looking at as well they offered an annual meeting with the board leadership as well as assisting the board and various things that the board needs to do and they're including policies, procedures and processes. The team demonstrated an understanding of needing to both support the board as well as advocate for various um visions and desires and outcomes of the board. Next slide, please. One of the most valuable aspects of the partnership that we found in the interview process is that Pointerpro

offered a solid and clear commitment to support the board in day-to-day mechanics including of board governance including policy development, parliamentary procedure and committee work. Their resources including a legal memo library would ensure or assist in ensuring that there is quick and accessible guidance available when it is needed. Next slide, please. Corners were also offered more than just legal opinions. They indicated that they had strategic insight, including insight into the legislative process. Uh, Miss Cornetto was the longtime general counsel for the state board of education and DPI and they also understood that they could leverage some of their relationships from both Miss Cornetto as well as the other lawyers at Pinter potentially getting some of the legislative work and the legislative agenda of Durham public schools move

forward at the in Raleigh. Next slide, please. This is a listing of and as I indicated previously, this was a change from the original in that we highlighted Johnson County and Enslo County schools. So in North Carolina, there's a large 12 consortium.

Uh Durham is one of those as well as Johnson County and Enslo County which are also Pointer Sproul client districts. So we would not be Durham public schools would not be alone in um selecting Pointer Sproul to be the attorney for their district. Next slide please. So in addition to and again I'm doing this expedited in an expedited fashion given the lateness of the hour but in addition to the services provided to the board at board meetings and um hearings etc. A lot of the work that the board attorney or the designated board attorney would do supports both

constituents and administration including the cabinet. Next slide, please. I just wanted to explain a little in a little more detail how the legal services shape how Durham public schools serves its community. During the interview process and assessment process, Pinter assured the cabinet that they can help us serve our constituents with transparency and care. Principal demonstrated a commitment to improving the foyer response times and supporting departments like EC which um we just heard from with national level expertise. They have created a client-only um handbook on 504 which is not um which is a separate department from EC but they modeled that guide book along the same lines as DPI's idea guide book and that is available to their clients just to be proactive in understanding how we make sure that we are meeting the needs of our EC students

and our 504 students some of the most challenging um areas for a lot of school districts. They indicated that one of the things that they were focused on doing was ensuring that districts stayed compliant and informed and ensuring that students, including those with diverse abilities, are provided with the education they deserve when they deserve it and not on the back end. So, really looking to be proactive and not saying that, well, we didn't do it, but in the long run, here's a check for you and we'll try to get it later on. We want to make sure that our staff are trained and we have the things in place to make sure that all of our students are getting the statutoily mandated education on the front end. Next slide, please. With regard to how the cabinet felt that they could also be supported um by Pinterl, it meant access to us to practical tools, procurement checklist, sta uh

standard operating procedures and templates that streamline compliance and support implementation of the board's strategic goals. Cornish indicated that they will provide legal support that is embedded in our daily operations to improve the service we offer to our community and our fellow colleagues. This type of technical assistance is much needed for the cabinet and administration and DPS staff in both developing and implementing practices that can be operationalized practically by DPS staff in moving the district into its future. Next slide, please. In addition, for example, some the HR department, this the the board enters into this contract, um that would allow the HR department and staff to have access to employment and personnel symposiums and other tools that ensure compliance and fair and equitable working conditions for all of our staff

throughout their employment life cycle with DPS. again working they indicated that they would work with various departments but I'm just targeting and talking about HR right now to make sure that the things are in place the guardrails are in place proactively to make sure that employees are treated fairly and again kind of along those same lines so that we're not coming in on the back end saying you know oh this should not have happened to you let us fix it we want to make sure that our staff know and we have the protocols and SOPs in place that make sure that staff are treated fairly and that when staff are treated fairly that impacts student outcomes which made that important to us. Next slide please. And lastly, um as I indicated, u this recommendation is really just about adapting and evolving for Durham public schools. And that is why the cabinet um has come and recommended that the board enter to a contract for legal services to be provided to the board of education as well as the cabinet with Pointer

Sproul. And in your packet there is um a draft contract and a draft letter of engagement. And happy to answer any questions. Thank you Dr.

Giovani for the presentation. Um we had some brief discussion about this earlier board members and to try to streamline this process a little bit because the hour is a late um are there colleagues who are ready to move forward with a motion to approve tonight? It feels weird to ask, but if not, my ask is if not, then let's talk about what we need in order to move forward in this discussion or to make to figure out where we need to go. Um, and that's again try to get us a little tight in our convers our talking points.

M. Chavez, I'll start with you. Um, yeah. So, I think I have I have three points. Thank you for the presentation and the work um leading up to this point. Um I

think uh I I would like to um be able to interview both um top firms um and um and in hindsight I wish we had discussed the process a little bit more um so that the we could have had a conversation about the process um for hiring the firm. But um I um you know take responsibility for not raising that myself. So um I would like to be able to interview both firms. The other things I have questions about our um criteria.

We have the criteria on which all four um firms that submitted um our RFQS were um were rated. I would just love to see the forms even if it's not intimate, you know, interview notes. Um I I think we need some some ratings, some more information on what to go on and how

these, you know, two firms got to the finalist stage. Um the third point I want to raise is that um and we just haven't had a conver had chance to have this conversation had a chance to have this conversation. Um I think you know some in some districts the board and administration have separate attorneys and I I would like us to discuss that and look into it. It's something I've heard about but I want to understand more about it.

Um I have discussed it a little bit with colleagues but I think there's more you know research that could be that we could do around that. Um, so that's the other thing. We could discuss that next time or we you know, but those are sort of my three points. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Chavez. I don't have very much more to add to that. Um, I am interested in hearing more about what administration feels um

the modernizations and the innovation um that they're looking for in legal. I would be interested in hearing more detail about what that looks like and how um their recommendation meets that that um that language of innovative practices for the district. Other than that, that's that's the only other thing I would add. Thank you.

Yeah, I want to start with appreciation for um the process and the work that's gone on so far. Um, I also want to say that that I um I think we could have improved the process, but I don't know exactly how that would be. I think um I would appreciate interviewing both firms. Um they are the two largest firms in the state and that's who I would have expected to come as a finalist. what I wouldn't what I really actually expected was strengths of both

firms and a balanced um view of both firms. Um and and I don't feel like the materials we've seen so far have had that sense of balance. I would like a memo from Theington Smith on who the attorney works for, whether it is the board that hires or uh the district or the superintendent. I think it might go along with the part of the memo that or you know information that Miss Chavez is requesting about models where there there are multiple attorneys or internal legal counsel or how different um models come out as we look forward.

Um I want to be very explicit and clear. Um, I would write a recommendation for our current attorney all day long because I've had 15 years of exceptional legal service and um seen incredible um complex work handled by that firm. Um, and so um, as a board member and and

someone that I think is is a decision maker, I don't bring the same lens of of dissatisfaction that I feel like some of these slides have conveyed. I question the timing of this. Um I I qu I would like to see the existing contract with Therington and whether there's some um addendum to extend it so that we the board can take time to to vet this um a little bit further like um board chair or vice chair or someone to actually physically call references at other boards. And I look for progressive boards that are actually aligned in in leading and driving progressive uh work in North Carolina.

Um, and so I mean I know we've got some staff that have been in Johnston County. That's not where I look for for a progressive um ideology. So I just um I wonder I wonder a lot um and I look forward to just kind of um with this board figuring um figuring this out. Um I I haven't seen

kind of what our budget for board services, legal services has been over the past five years. I imagine in the last two years it's been extraordinarily high because we have walked through the fire that Winston Salem is now walking through. So that's not going to be the only um criteria for me, but um I just look forward to the board digging into this and um having voice um going forward. I I submitted questions when we submitted questions, but I didn't get answers to that.

So I I look forward to questions being answered but thank you Mr. Ch. Thank you very much. Um just quickly most of my colleagues have already uh asked what I was going to uh ask.

I would love to see a comparison between the top two firms of beside each other in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. um that would be very helpful. Um and

also I'm wondering um in listening watch listening to the slides or watching the slides was Darren and Smith given an opportunity to correct some of the things that were outlined in the um in the slides. That's that would be important to me too because I love due process u for everybody. So that's it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Tabakar. Miss Cotton or Miss Rogers. Um um my what I feel like I need at this point is aligned with what my colleagues have shared so far. when I um when I think about hiring, when I've done hiring in the past, I'm like I usually have a rubric and then I compare the rubrics for different candidates. And I would love to see that for each of the candidates or at least the finalist firms um which feels similar to like

some kind of a comparison so we could have more information to weigh. Um, also check I think it's really important to check references after the interviews are done because you want to dig into some of the questions that you might have had or concerns. So I know that there are a number of references listed for both the firms and the applications. We could check to see um if we could speak to uh the um folks that have worked with the firms to ask questions that might help guide our decision. Um I um I do think that um at this point having the full board interview the firms um seeing as how this is the board's attorney that and again in hindsight we should have done that from the beginning but um I think that would be my preference at this point. Um,

hi everybody. Um, I don't look forward to a sideby-side comparison of the firms. Um I think it is in distaste to compare in the same way. Um especially with an agency that we've been working with for 35 years not rising to meet the needs of cabinet recommendation level.

I'm concerned about what that's going to look like. Um, at this point, I appreciate Miss Umstead sharing with me ahead of time that she wanted the board chair to call for references. I wish other people had asked for that

because I did do that and nobody's asked me my thoughts on those references, but I'll keep that to myself. Um, when I read the slides and when I read the response to many of our questions, I do hear the unreiness and I think that um that's important. I'm not dismissive of that. I look forward to us interviewing together.

Um I wish that had been named before. There have been many situations where this board has taken action or asked uh administration to take action on our behalf to do something and not given clear direction on that. Um and so they spent nine months doing a thing and clear direction wasn't provided. I also would say that only Miss Buyer provided

questions for the interview process for the law firm and I think if each of us had done that and there were at least five questions or three questions from each of us uh administration would have seen the board is really interested in having a conversation with the law firms that rose to the top of the list. So, we had many of an opportunity to change the process and give input. Um, personally, I'm fine with whatever law firm we choose. I do think that there were some things in the presentation, particularly a quicker response time on employer requests, um, and some of the advocacy work around uh, state statute that we could benefit from using um, some things that I heard in the interview around supporting the board with parliamentary procedure that Pointer Spur is prepared to do in ways

that Therington has not particularly offered since 2022 anyway. And in fact, um it's frustrating to think that we are asking, uh administration to compare our current law firm to another law firm further over the course of the next period of time because we know that Therington sat in nine months of meet and confer with us and didn't tell us about um a state statute that prevented us from entering into uh meet and confer with DAE. only. We also know that they have sent one attorney that has rules about parliamentary procedure and it's been implemented one way and then they send another attorney another time and it's implemented differently. Um, and so to ask administration to make a decision about somebody or to put together a sideby-side comparison for an

agency that they have to work with no matter what we decide puts their at in a in a compromising situation and puts administration in a compromising situation upon which they have to work. Um, but ultimately I know that when I ran, I ran for students like my kid, all the black and brown students and boys who are in this district and deserve to have policies in place preemptively so that they can get the best outcomes for the district. And we can't keep doing the same stuff that we've done year over year over year. And I hear you, Miss Byer, wanting to write a letter of recommendation for Therington.

That is excellent. I'm glad to hear that that's how you feel as an individual board member. But my concern is that um they could be part of some of the problems that we've had in providing the

best service for students in the district. And we won't know until we try to do something different. I'm concerned when we think about the investigations that has done on our behalf and the lack of accountability that they've taken, but board members have taken hits and members of staff have taken hits, but nobody is talking about the fact that the board and the administration in some of those periods of time were taking advice from Theon Smith. And I think all of that should be factored.

And I would never want to put any of that on a slide or ask administration to put that on a slide because regardless of what we decide, administration has to work with this firm. And Miss Nichols, that's right. Thank you for being here.

Um, thank you. I had a couple questions, but it'll wait till the interview should there be one. I don't have any add uh Mr. Chavez.

So, quick question. So, let me clarify this. There were references done. Yes, I called references today at the request of Miss Unstead.

Can we get um the information that was provided during the references? Someone else can do that in the future. can call those people. I'm sorry, what?

Anybody else can call and provide them. If you had asked me for them before now, I would have provided them. If you wanted to have this conversation, I would have provided them. I can provide them in the future after the interview.

We're we're one board and somebody did references. Let me I got we I think this all speaks to process, which is the question that we've been wrestling with a lot this year. And I think about processes and I we all I take

accountability too for like not talking about this earlier. I think we probably should have had more of a board discussion around what does it look like to hire a board attorney? What does the attorney do? What are we looking for?

What questions do we want to have in our interview? What's on our rubric? Right? And then from the interview, how do we use those questions to ask for references?

We get together with a collective reference se uh questions. They're called and we all get the information. I think one of the things that was missing in this process which I want also just say thank you to everyone who participated in the process and I know you all both present participated in the interviews but there wasn't a like transfer of all the information and I think you know we try and we mess up and we fail and we do it again um it's what we teach our kids right we don't do it right the first time we got to keep doing it so we can get it right um so thank you all for sending in those interviews thank you to administration I know that also took a lot of time miss Nichols thank you for spending all your Tuesday evening with us. Um, but I what I hear is there we need to talk about the process. And so what does it look

like for us to talk about a process that we all feel like we can participate in and we all have information in, which means that some of us might get some of the things we want and some of us might not, but like we all collectively say we agree to what we're moving forward. Um, and it sounds like that at least includes an interview, but we probably need to have more discussion around the questions and what we're looking for and that kind of thing. Miss Chavez. So, yes, absolutely.

Um, and I think there is I I would definitely want to us to interview the two candidates, but also we need to discuss what is shared information. The board needs information. I'm happy to share. I can put it in writing.

Okay. The board needs information to make decisions. And I expected that there would be more information. And that's where I realized we weren't we didn't discuss ahead of time what kind of information we were asking for and um and so um that's that's part of the process

too. So live and learn. We're here. We had a lot going on.

Um but I think now we can correct it and you know so yeah. Go ahead. I'd also note that there's no reference list for Theington that we would need that if we're going to do references for both unless you don't want references for Theington. It It's It sounds like we need to It is actually in their submission.

The packet for Theington that was provided to the board. It's in there. Their references in there. Okay.

Thank you for that correction. That feels important. Um, so I would propose as next steps if maybe um if there are volunteer board members that want to develop a process that we can all look at before our June June 26 meeting, agree to what that process is and then we move forward. And the process might we'll have to include a timeline and it might include resubmitting of materials. We there's an ask to if we would like both firms to come back and participate in that

process, but we'd have to think that through. Are there any volunteers that'd be interested in thinking about that? I'm hap I'm happy to help do it, but I don't, you know, don't need to do it on my own. Miss Harold Golf, I would I would volunteer to help with with that.

I at the at the same time just um laughing to myself. It seems so complex, but I do feel that it's important. Um so I would be willing to participate in that process. Um I also appreciate the process that administration has already been through and the recommendation that they're lifting up. So my questions were only about you know clarifying what they were why they came to their recommendation that I really want to understand that um in in this process but we'd be willing to support it for the clarity of the board. Move

um I will also be part of that. Looks like the the um what are we the state legislator legislative agenda people might team dream team might be back. Um I just don't want to take lead the leads. So thank you.

Just want to add um to to address your question. Um board member G the rationale for the why the recommendation on pointer is the bullet points that are in the PowerPoint. But if there are questions if we want to go deeper in those we're more than happy to do so. Yeah, it was it was um I put it in the like I was looking at the um the questions that we submitted and looking at the responses.

So, yeah, it was just a a deeper a deeper understanding and when I when I did look down and there was trying to just have those things stated publicly and I know we're trying to move quickly. So, they were asking what what would I need to see? I just wanted to bring as much of that discussion public as I could for clarity as to why we would be making such a big

shift um after having been with Bington Smith for so many years and and then why now. So that's that's where that question came from um you know it and the and the center of it was also just really wanting to respect the work that had been done in that process from administration to do all of that. Um the timeline shows that it it wasn't a quick decision and a lot of effort and you know research went into that. I will be completely transparent and say that some things had come that I had not completely reviewed that came earlier and it's you know it's a lot of material.

So um that's that's where that came from. I also add I know um Dr. Giovanni probably went through this pretty fast, but the impetus also was just around best practices and adherence to board policy 6450 and what's in our uh strategic plan. Um, you know, similarly, we're out for bid for banking service. We're out for bid for benefit service, maybe nursing. So, it's just good

business practice to to frequently um shop around. Miss Ber, I appreciate um all of the work that um colleagues have put into this already and the three of y'all that have agreed to continue us moving us forward. Um I just wanted for clarity just some we do have a contract in place. Is there a June 30th deadline or is there time to to schedule these interviews and things?

I mean, we have a contract in place that will that has an extension. Our contract, excuse me, our contract um um is a it just rolls 30 days at a time and it can be terminated by the board at with 30 days notice, but it doesn't otherwise have an end date in it. Um, I I will say that I think our contract otherwise is um set to go up $5 an hour on July

one. Um, we will gladly hold off on any rate increases or any of that while the board sources out. Actually, I think we our proposal was not to go up on our rates anyway. So, um, but yeah, no, there's no magic in June 30th as it relates to our contract.

Thank you. I think we'll probably want a process that parallels somewhat what the administration also went through. I think it's so that the board also has the same amount of information and collectively can feel really good about our decision. Um, so this was for action, but I hear no action.

So, we don't need to do anything else moving forward. We don't we don't have Yeah, there's no action to take. So, Dr. L, I just want to get some clarity.

Se several board members kind of ask some additional questions like Mr. Tab asked if they intended had an opportunity to do some of these things. So, I guess we'll just kind of defer on

responding until the board group reaches back out to administration on our assessment. I guess in more detail. I think Miss Herald Golf for example wanted some more detail on why Pointer SP rose to the top for cabinet over the on various things. So we'll just wait until we hear from you.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes. Sorry, Miss Carter. I apologize. Well, what was Thank you so much.

Um what that just made me think of is do we want as not to put more work on this group that's generously dedicating their time to working on a process and timeline. Um, but I'm wondering if as part of that you might consider or we could as a board consider the like compiling some questions that we have for administration and then compiling some questions that we might have for the firms um for the interview process. So both of those because it seems like in order to feel ready to move forward on a decision and feel really good about it, we might need both of that. I think that's right. I'm interested to

talk to this trio about how we organize that. So yes. All right. Any other discussion on this?

All right. Again, Miss Nichols, thank you. I really appreciate it. Uh the next item on our agenda is a policy committee policy.

Yeah. Back, Dr. Giovani. I don't know if you want to go back to the podium.

could pull this. If we could pull the slides up, please. This is a new policy 2231 policy committee. Administration presents this new policy for first reading.

Next slide please. Just so that those who are unaware, the board did have form an ad hoc committee to discuss the formation or potential formation of a policy committee. And out of that, I believe the it was a committee of the whole. I believe there were four meetings total and this draft was produced um from those ad hoc committee meetings.

The purpose of this policy is to formally establish the structure and function of a Durham public schools board of education board policy committee ensuring a clear and consistent process for policy development and oversight aligned with board good board governance. The purpose is further outlined in the policy and that is stated to serve as a open public body that develops, reviews and revises district policies. It emphasizes collaboration with the

superintendent, students, community, and staff and ensures that recommendations are prioritized in an objective and clear fashion and provides a process for addressing board policy in a consistent, uniform, and transparent manner. Next slide, please. The proposed new policy defines the committee's responsibilities. These responsibilities include re and reviewing all policy request for new policies and requests for amendments to existing policies. It also sets forth the manner in which the committee can request request drafts from the superintendent or his design and also how it reports back to the board after these committee meetings and further maintaining transparency and accountability in the policy board policy process. Next slide please.

The policy also sets forth the membership in the committee. Those guidelines are clearly defined. The committee must have an odd number of members with a minimum of three and they will be appointed annually in August. And again, this is just a highle overview.

The detailed track changes policy of it is posted in board docs. The superintendent would serve as an exeicio member while non-members of the committee may also participate in discussions. They only are allowed to vote if a quorum is not present. Next slide, please.

The draft new policy also outlines how policy review requests are submitted and prioritized. Prioritization is based on alignment with district goals, legal and compliance needs, urgency, feasibility, and as as well as a regular circadian review cycle for board policies. This ensures that the board committee's

work remains focused as well as strategic. Next slide, please. That concludes the slides. And as I indicated previously, this policy draft is the result of multiple meetings of the board's ad hoc committee as a whole.

And I therefore defer to this board on how it wishes to proceed in discussing the submitted draft. Thank you, Dr. Giovani. Um, this was developed by the ad hoc committee of the whole of the board.

So, there's been a lot of discussion between us about this. Um, any questions or comments from board colleagues? This is here for first reading. I think Miss Carter, then Miss Chavez. Okay. All right.

Yeah. Um Okay. So my I have ma two main things. One uh well thank you for this work for getting this together.

Um we are close. Um, I would like us to include in 3B a minimum number of meetings per month, like one per month at least. Um, and also just have a way to add meetings if needed. I the theme of my comments is I don't want to commit to things at the beginning of the year that may need to be changed. So um just something about being flexible um in in that and also I would say the

committee should meet like a minimum of month once a month. And then with section four, um I I think we should push the dates when people submit stuff submit things. Getting late. Um submit items back.

I think July 15th is not super reasonable because that is generally a vacation month. Um and you know for if it's staff you know particularly people who are on the um sort of academic calendar I would not expect them to be you know working on a deadline of July 15th. Um so I would suggest for for that that we ask for submissions by um the end of August for both board and community staff and student students. Um

secondly I Okay, sorry it's too late. This is like um point to A and B. this be um but maybe it doesn't matter. Anyway, my other point is I would just like a way us to clarify a way that people can submit stuff, submit policy ideas um or modifications during the year.

And I feel like that's really important because things come up um the political landscape of the US changes and you want new policies. Meet and confer came to us in February. It would have just missed the January mark um last year. So how can we and you know different groups come with things at different times. So, um I'm okay with having a structure, um but also just want to leave, you know,

some uh leave it a bit porous so that um we can get new um new ideas coming in and it's not kind of a strict, you know, you didn't get on the conveyor belt in August, so you can't get on for this year. So, um I'll look forward to seeing if other people how other Last clarification. Don't you see read that that last chunk about January is where there's another review point halfway through the year? I do see that, but I don't think it's enough. I think that uh maybe quarterly reviews um would be appropriate or just having another way for people to submit stuff, submit thing items um throughout the year without it totally throwing off the whole sort of prioritization list from the beginning of the year. But I don't I don't think twice a year is sufficient for the policy ideas to come to this committee.

I'm gonna go to Miss Carter. Do you have a clarifying question? Let me Miss Carter, do you have a response or you have something separate? I do have a suggestion related to that.

Let me go to her and then because she was originally in the queue and um my suggestion is well what I was um when I was I'm interested in something similar like I want some clear timeline and a clear process but with some flexibility. I noticed that in um in the policy it already states um and new policy recommendations received after the above deadline. Um, so there's already some room for that, but it's not really explicit how that would happen. And so I'm wondering if in addition to pushing the deadlines back, I'm also in favor of that. It felt like July was too early. Um, if there's if they're softer, meaning that like that's the time that we are requesting that um, recommendations come, but we'll

they'll be received on a rolling basis and prioritized as possible. But those that like those that are received by the deadline are the ones that are going to get in the queue first. But like anybody can submit any at any point which is what's already in the policy again. Um but just to make it more explicit.

So there's room there's a structure but there's room for the policies to be coming in. Um and we try that out and see if that provides enough structure with enough flexibility built into it. Um I have other comments but I could stop there. Um if Miss Ro if you if Chair Rogers you want to comment on that.

Um I'm interested in exploring that process more. Also I'm in agreement with moving the deadline. The July 15th feels early. Um Miss Chavez in your first your number one point. um a minimum of meetings per month and a way to add more meetings as needed.

Can you um give a little bit more about that? You said um you hate to commit to something. And when you say commit, you mean you don't want to lock in the committee to lock in to too few meetings or too many? I think that's my main concern is too few because um if you have too many you can cancel one but if you have too few um yeah I'm just concerned that you know then things get backed up because there are a lot of policies that people want to work on and I don't think they should meet like every week or something but I I don't I'd rather have like the space available for the meetings or a minimum expectation.

Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. So, my um another one of the um comments

or concerns that I had was related to that also. I was thinking that in related where it says regular cadence of meetings that does feel really really loose. I was hoping to add something like no less frequently than quarterly. some I mean I would might be okay with monthly but I was just thinking like something to make sure that it just keeps moving or it could be like some setting a min or a min number of meetings per year or a max amount of time they'd go without meeting that wasn't because it's a policy and it's going to be codified into perpetuity.

We don't want to make it too frequent but we want to provide some protection. So anyhow my idea was quarterly to just put something in there um that was a little bit tighter than regular cadence of meetings. Um, and then my other questions were, um, would you mind pulling up, um, the policy, please, because I, so that I could reference some language, Miss Smith? Um, I'm looking at the section on assignment of committee members

3A. Um, so assignment of committee members and there's a clause in there that says with the approval of the board and I was wondering that we mean voted on by the full board and is that implicit in that language or does it need to be this might be a question for uh attorney or so I think we need the actual policy. Oh, thank you. Sorry members.

It was intended to mean that the board would vote to approve the the members. That's what I thought we discussed in the ad hoc excuse me in the ad hoc committee. That yeah, that's what feels comfortable to me. And I as I was reading it again, I was just wondering if that is um implicit in that language with approval of the board. And if it is, then that sounds good to me. And um and then I was wondering what

does it mean when it says the board chair may be appointed as a voting member of the policy committee like who would appoint them but it doesn't um I guess it would feel better if that were more explicit in there because it right now it just says the board chair may be appointed as a voting member of the policy committee which is something I'm totally comfortable with. I just wanted to be clear on like who will do that with the approval of the board. the board approval. Could we zoom this one because that's a different sentence I think.

Yeah. I mean, I think if the full board is voting on the members of the board, if the chair is included in that group, that's who the board's approving. Feel like there was a reason why we put it in there explicitly and maybe it was because the committee had its own chair and the name that the board chair could also be a part of it. But what the board chair could be on the committee but not be the chair of the committee.

Was that why we put it up there? It cannot be exicio. Well, yeah. So, the reason that

it says the superintendent would be exeicio is because that doesn't appear in your policy otherwise that the superintendent would be, but it does say in your in your other part of your policy that the board chair shall be an ex official member of every committee. So, this language was intended to allow the board chair to actually be a member of the committee, a voting member of the committee. Okay. So we're thinking that because the it says by with approval of the board and by that we mean a vote of the board then it is implied that the appointment of the chair as a voting member would also happen in the same way.

if everybody else is clear on that. It just was a question that came up for me as I was reading it that I just want because we've had questions about um interpreting policy. Just want to make sure it's very clear in the policy.

That's all I got. Other comments with I didn't question that before. So it's the committee the policy committee is who is appointing the vote the the board chair to be a voting mill member. I think it's if the board like let's say we're taking nominations and Miss Rogers said I want to be on the committee as well as you and Miss Beyer then we would say yes the board chair can be on it but because in another policy it says that board chairs who serve on committees are exeicio this names explicitly that the board chair could vote in that meeting and not just be an ex official member.

All right. So, it has nothing to do with the chair with if with anybody. It's just inherently making it so that the board chair can vote. Yes.

Yeah, that was my confusion, too. Okay. Is that I said that's my interpretation of what Mr. Malone said.

Yeah, that's correct. Okay. So the board chair appoints the people to the committee but the way you discuss it in

the ad hoc committee is that then the then the board would actually vote to approve the appointments by the board chair is what you said during the ad hoc committee. So instead of maybe it's will be only if the board chair wants to only if the board chair wants to and the board approves it and the board approves them as part of the member of the committee that they're approving. Okay. Mean, why would you say nothing?

As long as the lawyers can interpret it, I'm fine, Miss Beyer. I I don't have strong um edits. I I think we've made a good start. I think if folks need a regular cadence of meetings, I would suggest monthly rather than quarterly or at least monthly. adding that language in there where Miss Chavez liked it there if that's enough for her. But I mean

I think this is great start. I like the Umstead amendment that is there that is kind of a way to kind of keep working through this. Um and I don't see anything that prevents this me this group from calling more meetings if needed to work on a cell phone policy or whatever or calling multiple long meetings, right? Adding meetings that I think that's implied there.

So, I hope it has the flexibility that we need and the regularity, but I appreciate the edits folks have suggested. Um, yeah, it's exciting, Mr. Tab. Oh, good.

Everybody asked everything. Okay. Thank you, Miss Rogers. Okay, so there is a question.

There's um a couple things have been brought up around moving the dates. Can you say when you wanted to move the dates to, Miss Chavez? Because I heard up and I heard down or I'm writing up my suggested revisions, but the dates August 31st

for um policy recommendations for policy recommendation because there's two dates in there. There's July 15th and there was a August date that the board would have approved the recommendations. So if we or would approve the priority list, my my suggestion is to change July 15th to August 30, sorry, July 15th to August 31st to change July 15th to August 31st as well. And then where it says at the end of the second paragraph, September work session, change that to September monthly board meeting.

We are in section four. Four to have all suggests be in by August 31st. That is what that's what you right. All like that's what you stated. Yeah.

Change August 15th and July 15th both to August 31st and then move the date back to the September big board meeting. I I use big board meeting. That's not the right term, but board meeting. Got it.

Monthly board meeting. You're right. Okay. Um I see C, Miss Carter OT.

I see Miss Beyer. I would be okay with that, but it does feel a little ambitious. And I was one I was thinking maybe September. Um I know we have a lot of work to do, but August 30th, we're still just going to get rolling in the school year.

So I was thinking September and then by the October work session the priority list is ready to submit to the board for approval. But all right so I hear August sorry August September and then I heard um September October is that or August and October is that right Miss Car? uh September like move it. I think that Miss Chavez said by August 30th and then for review at September board meeting and I said um by September

15th for review at the October work session. All right, Miss Spy. Yeah, I'm just kind of back to why we were in August and July to begin with because we want this work to get started and you if you push back to I don't remember what y'all just said, but then you get in the fall, you only really get October, November to work. You're mostly out for winter break.

Boop. You get a little piece of of January, February, then you have a spring break somewhere come. I mean, this is the academic calendar we're working and I just I know there's so much and it took us four meetings to get this draft with uh legal help. So, I don't know why that's cracking me up so much right now, but um it's got to get work moving.

I mean, both and uh Mr. Tab or Miss Harold Goff, do y'all have thoughts on the dates? I like uh the first suggestion for August 30 30 August 31st 30 days at Sep. Yeah, August. I like the first

suggestion. August and September. August and September. Fine.

Um I'm a little concerned about August and September just because of the ability to get the work done. And I I worry that by the time you prioritize your list, you only have time for one thing, especially if the com if the policy committee meeting is meeting once a month. I I assume they're going to be more than that, but it just feels like you're not going to. That's my thought.

My other thought was that we talked about keeping like a form open all year. So that deadline is really just to say by this deadline we have all that information because I think it's going to take time to synthesize it and time for that committee to wrestle with where we're going to use it. But the form could be open all year. So we're using that as a cut off just to say hey by this date this is where you get these priorities in and we'll keep looking at that list all year long because we can revisit it in January. But I think especially as we're working on a school calendar year, we might lose some momentum if we're not

ready to go come August. And it's hard my last point. You can still add something if we needed to again throughout the year. But what do you what do you want?

I I like the I apologize. I I think that y'all's dates your suggestions it feels a little late for me. So, I liked keeping the 15th in July and I think it's even ambitious to say by September that we would have a clear priority list. I think it's gonna be ambitious.

It is going to be a mission and um we need to do the superintendent evaluation around that time as well. So, and the policy committee will be the group that's kind of wrestling with the priority list and bringing a recommendation to the board. This is just for first reading. Um, we have laid out some edits, but I do think we need to clarify the date piece so we can give some direction on staff

poll. Okay. I think I need clarification. Am I hearing you say um assum that you like the having the recommendations come in on the early side like in July but then bump the prioritization list till later.

I think ideally I like to keep them both at where they are. And I think I like keeping July because it might give whoever is on that policy committee some time to start even reading through what they get by then. And then August might more come in. you can read through what you get and then you're taking that to the policy committee um and the policy committee could meet in July honestly at the last week of July and start sorting through a list and then could meet in August and start sorting through I can't I can't remember when we appoint the committee but for this year but I just think getting that list started is going to be hard work. we make it more explicit that the that there will be policy recommendations received on a rolling basis because right now it's

kind of tucked in like in a lower sentence like the second paragraph so it's not clear that you can do that and it says the prioritization will only happen in September and in January. So that's the one that's I hear what you're saying about like they can be received on a rolling basis. So, why is it why can't we prioritize earlier? But only if you can um if it really is the case that they can continue to be received and if they're urgent, they can get popped up to the top of the I'm sorry, Mr.

Malone, then I saw your hand, Mr. One of the things that we discussed the other day was that any two board members could come to the board and then the board could add it to the policy committee and could direct that it be added and taken immediately. So the I think that the thought was that if there was something that was urgent that needed to get through the board that didn't make one of these deadlines that the board itself with two members could

direct it to the policy committee. So this was not the only way to get it to the policy committee. I was going to say for me the um the date is almost mute as to when that deadline would be. It could be anytime um because I don't quite understand the cadence of you know how everything is is moving.

So I would be okay with leaving it the way it was or making the change. But um it it feels to me that the cadence of how how this is going to work is something that we would work through as you know as we see it since it is a new policy and it would be a new process for us. Um, so if there be I think we've talked about um the various ways that we can um this is like kind of like a it's almost like a guard rail for like for capacity it feels like of being able to receive recommendations for policy for what policies to work on but it doesn't seem

like it's I'm I am understanding that it is not the only way and that that is kind of the built-in um the built-in way that we can be bringing policy, you know, as things come up, that flexibility that we need to be able to bring it. And so, um I'm fine with leaving the dates as they are. um understanding that if if right now as the policy reads, I am reading that there are flexible ways to bring policy outside of what those dates are. The cadence of how these meetings happen and how that works with with all of the other workflow of the board and administration is what I'm I'm I'm wrestling with now.

And I think that's only something that can that we'll be able to feel once we are starting. And I also thinking about capacity um and thinking about July. July is a

rest period and it takes dynamic rest to have dynamic activity. So I don't want to interrupt July too much with required meetings. So um that's why I like the August date and I also didn't understand why we had to have one for one and one for the other. Why it couldn't be just one date.

It could that could happen. Um, I will also say it your comments make me think too the more that we would add different dates for prioritization, that's a meeting that people are going to be prioritizing versus like working on a policy. So, we should also just kind of hold those two things together. Um, okay.

So, let me see if we can try to do this date thing. Uh, Miss Beyer, since the hour is late, could Mr. Malone bring two options on the dates that we've heard kind of and we could con consider those more like we've kind of had two two discreet things and we could decide it when we're in we could I think y'all might know though

do uh do we want to wait and have two different dates or we could miss Chavez like to take a little straw poll and I just want to say some people are dynamically resting until August 15th and Right. Maybe after school start. It might be. And uh and some of our schools will be in session too, right?

In July. So just holding that tension of all those different things. Um they'll get their stuff in early and that's great. Yeah.

I mean because they can do it before they leave for the school year. So straw poll there's leave the date as they are. There's a I'm going to use August 31st and September work session. All ideas are in September.

Actually, let me back up. Let me back up. Do we want the same date for community and for staff? Yes, I see thumbs.

So, yes. Okay, great. So, we don't need two dates in the policy. Secondly, keep it. The first date is July 15th, August 15th or August 31st.

And just go, I'm sorry. Start out in one of September. Okay. So, let's start again.

August 15th. September 15th. July 15th se August. September.

Let's do that. July. August. September.

What' you say? Okay. But I want August 31st. Not August 15.

August 31st. July 5. July 15th. August 31st.

September. I'm going to ask it individually if you can tell me which one you want. I'm I'm just going to start with you, Miss Chavez, because I'm looking at you now. the 31st.

All right. You want us to just go down the road? Yes, ma'am. Um, August 31st. Which the August 31st?

Mr. Miss Carter Autton. Agreed. Because then traditional schools are in session.

We could do a reminder out to all of our families at that point. Miss uh Rogers, I don't want an email about this on August 31st. You won't get an email August 31st. So, come before then.

I don't. Yes. All right. Uh, so July 15th.

I also like July, but we're out voted. So, um, August it will be August 31st. All right. So, this is again for first read.

We've made some recommendations on changes. Miss Chavez, I I have two other suggested edits. No, I just have the wording. I'm happy to send them in. Um, for 2B I just want to say or sorry 3B I would like to suggest that it just read the policy committee will meet at least once a month.

Period. Okay. And then my other suggestion is to sorry let's pause right there. Okay.

Uh can I have folks if you would like to see the policy read policy committee will meet once a month? Give me a thumbs at least once a month instead of the regular cadence of meetings which could be more often than once a month. I see three thumbs up. So that that wouldn't pass.

That would that doesn't have majority, Miss Chavez. And then your next edit? My next edit is um to add this sentence to four, section four after the first two um paragraphs. Um this sentence, additional policy recommendations, I I'll send it into you so you don't have to write it down. Additional policy recommendations may be submitted by board members, administration, community members,

staff, or students throughout the year, either by emailing the policy committee chair or via an established online form. Uh, thumbs up if you want to see that added. I see three thumbs. I'm sorry, Miss Chavez.

It's already in the policy. Can I just state I'm sorry. Mhm. Go ahead, Miss Baron.

It says that um it says I can't find it now. It's what I referenced a few times already. Um oh, it's the last paragraph. Um um the policy committee chair shall provide the board with an updated priority list blah blah blah and new policy recommendations received after the above deadlines. So it's implying that policy recommendations can be received. What it doesn't do is it doesn't say when they'll be prioritized

and the policy does outline the prioritization timeline which is it looks like twice a year is what it says currently. So, it says they can be received, but there's a I mean, I like the more clear language that Miss Chavez recommended because it is hidden down there in a way that nobody else had or we didn't notice earlier. Just my preference. Is there any other um is there anyone that would like to change their thoughts on that?

Just Well, I I know we're trying to wrap this up. I can bring it back up next time. You sure can. Absolutely.

Just want to know y'all's opposition to adding some clarity here for a first reading. So, I'm happy to take a motion if you're willing, if that's okay. I'll make a motion to approve this policy for first street. It's been moved by Miss Chavez, seconded by Mr.

Tab. Miss Carter, do you have additional discussion? I do. Just very briefly, I thought I had heard Miss Beyer say earlier that she wanted monthly

meetings and so I was curious. I I had interpreted that as being something that you had wanted in the policy. I had proposed something a little bit looser which was quarterly but said that it felt more comfortable rather than just saying regular cadence. It felt more comfortable to put something in there but thinking so I guess I was just curious to know before we move forward completely um Miss Beyer if I misheard you or misinterpreted you.

No, I was trying to I I'm willing to cons reconsider all of these things when we look at this again fresh, but I also um think that regular cadence lets you be more frequent if needed and it lets you be whatever. And I, you know, I tried to put in something at least monthly, but it's fine. I don't have strong opinions about this policy policy. I just want to us to continue this move this forward. So I don't want to beat the one side and the other. Um

any other miss so Mr. Malone and I were um just wanting some clarity. Are you all saying 12 meetings a year? Just there was a discussion on whether we wanted to actually uh write in the cadence of meet meetings and there was not a majority that was interested in this time but it might be discussed in the second reading.

So don't address frequency of meetings right now until we bring it back for second reading and then we'll have and then potentially third reading. Right. Okay. The edit.

Thank you. The edit we are looking for tonight is to have the same date for both groups. Um, and that date changed to August 31st. Um, can I also ask that when this comes back for second read that we can have an example of the form that because we talked about some type of form that people can submit um, requests to and so I think if we could see that it'd be helpful, too.

All right. Any other discussion? All those in favor say I. I.

I. Any oppose? passes unanimously. With that, it brings us to our summary of follow-up items.

Can we get an email of our summary of follow-up items? Thank you so much. Um, that's going to take us to close session. I move that we go to close session for the reasons stated on the agenda.

I second. It's been moved by Miss Beyer, seconded by Mr. Tab. Is there any other discussion?

All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed?

Use the same sign. Passes unanimously. And with that, we are in close session. Uh please be reminded to the public we will not be live streaming after our close session but we will uh go back into open meeting and adjourn when we complete. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon.