Board of Education · Work Session · May 8, 2025

Good evening everybody. The Durham Public Schools Board of Education work session is now in session. At this time, we wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone who 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, serve, and lead.

The interpreters for tonight are Marta Romo Orgilles and Vanessa Pña Ramirez. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Before we proceed, I'd like to note that we are currently missing Chair Rogers uh this evening. I think she may be able to join us later on, but she's attending to a family need.

Um, let's see. The next item on our agenda is a moment of silence. I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the ways that violence continues to impact our school district

and the Durham community, to hold those affected in our hearts and our minds, and to each reflect on the roles that we play in creating and sustaining a nurturing, a caring, and a compassionate community for our youth, free from all forms of violence and full of love. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is agenda review and approval. Move approval of the agenda as presented.

Second. Been moved by Miss Beyer and seconded by Miss Harrell Goff. Is there any discussion? Without any.

All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed, please use the same sign. The agenda passes unanimously. The next item on the agenda is the board of education meeting minutes from April

10th, 2025. I move approval of the board of education meeting minutes from April 10th, 2025. Second. Been moved by Miss Harold Gooff and seconded by Miss Beyer to approve the meeting minutes from April 10th, 2025.

Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. All those oppo opposed, please use the same sign.

All right. The meeting minutes from April 10th, 2025 pass unanimously. The next item on the agenda agenda is general public comment. So, a quick review of the rules.

First, please state your name. If speaking for an organization, please state your name and the name of the organization. Second, speakers are asked to present their comments in a specified time. This evening, that will be uh three minutes for each speaker. 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, which indicates 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 public education, the safety of students, or to the operation of the school system. Finally, the board members will listen carefully and consider the comments, but we do not engage in discussion with speakers.

Our first speaker this evening is Lakshmi and that is followed by Megan Stillwagon. Good evening. My name is Lakshmi Frame Kumar. I work at Forestry Elementary and I seed my time to Megan.

Hello, my name is Megan Stillwagen. I'm a school social worker at Rogers Her Middle School and Hope Valley Elementary and I'm a proud DAE member and I seed my time to Jeremy Howland. Sorry, the next

person. I see Aiden Brunner next. I don't see JB on the list. Sorry about that.

No, it's it's our mistake. We wrote it wrong. Um, good evening board members and Dr. Lewis.

I'm reading for JB Howland and he proudly serves as a school social worker at Carrington Middle School and is a new a proud new member of our public school workers union DAE. Last spring, you publicly committed to restoring M's pay for all staff impacted by the 2013 General Assembly decision, not just classroom teachers. The term teacher was used colloquially in meetings and budget slides, and it referred to all instructional staff, including social workers. That same term was used when referring to local supplements, benefits that we as social workers and instructional support staff

also receive. So my question tonight is how is it that we're teachers when it's time for supplements but not when it's time for M's pay regardless of what your private intentions sorry everyone may have been what you said yes loves to be here uh regardless of what your private intentions may have been what you said publicly is on record and you re cannot rewite history we're glad to see that school social workers are included in next year's proposed budget But it's also telling that the only line marked contingent on funding on tonight's slides is the one next to social workers. What message does that send to social workers and to the students and families that they serve? That they're still not a priority?

That their inclusion is uncertain yet again? How do you expect social workers and support staff to return in August with energy and hope after this school year? We trusted you last spring. We trusted you when you said just four more days in

November and now we're being told to wait again with no guarantees. How do you expect social workers to trust you on this? The only way to begin to repair this harm and to show students that the professionals who serve them matter is to provide retroactive M's pay for this year and a firm unambiguous commitment for next year. Because when workers are respected and retained, students benefit.

Thank you for your time. Thank you. Um, next on the list is Adam Brunner, followed by Gavin Rogers. Hello, my name is Aiden Bruner.

Um, I'm a student at Northern High School. Um, before I say anything, I want to give a big shout out to Miss Owens, my teacher at Northern. Um, she's inspired me to be here. Um, and has got me into

this and is my main reason that I'm, you know, in here and gotten into this. Um my first um my first issue is lunches at Northern High School and how they are super early in the morning. We have two different lunches and the first lunch starts at 10:45 and on early release days in special events like pep rallies it can start as early as 10 in the morning and this is a main problem because school starts at 9:15. At that point most kids have eaten something for breakfast or you know something before then. So they aren't hungry at lunch, which as the day go on, they get hungrier, but can't eat because lunch has already happened, which um they don't have enough energy throughout the days,

which which means they can't sustain a good amount of energy throughout the day. So they can't focus on their classes and school work. Um, I hope this can get changed and students can have a better experience in school. That's it.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, so next up is Gavin Rogers and Gavin is followed by Rachel Owens. Good evening everyone.

My name is Gavin Rogers. Um, I just wanted to give a big thank you to the most impactful teacher I've ever had, Miss Owens. Um, without her, I wouldn't have the courage to stand in front of you guys tonight. Uh, she is one of the main reasons, uh, I'm inspired to talk about this issue. Um, that being said, the school system should be a leader in the state on being proactive on climate change. We appreciate good intentions, but what we

need is an action, a climate action plan. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much. Next up is Rachel Owens.

Hi, that's me. Um, I teach at Northern High School and I seed my time to Matias Matthew. Okay, next up is Matias Matthew followed by Abigail Schne. Hello, my name is Matias Matthew.

Um, I would also like to shout out Miss Owens who recently was nominated um and made a finalist as one of the DPS teachers of the year. So, massive shout out for her. Um, once again, my name is Matias Matthew. I'm a sophomore at Northern High School, a graduate of the Aaron Young Scholar Summer Research Institute and the Health and Environmental Scholars Program at Duke, both at Duke. Um, and I'm here to speak once again on

climate action in DPS. One thing that is essential to note about climate change is that while it is caused by a lot of broad issues in our economy and our na and our national and global reliance on fossil fuels is something that we can definitely make an impact at at a local scale. And with federal government's current climate pol policy being drill baby drill, we need more winds at the local level. The students of Durham and across the state and this nation need to be able to see that climate climate action isn't put on pause when our national and state governments aren't receptive.

We need you all to stand firm on your commitment that you all made in a different political climate through the clean energy resolution of 2021 because climate a action in organizations like Durham public schools is more important than ever. Right now, there's currently a bill passing through the state legislature that would absolve Duke Energy of many of their climate commitments. With this legislation

potentially having a major impact, we need to send the message that climate action, especially from en energy suppliers, is non-negotiable. Unfortunately, most people in Durham can't just choose to boycott energy um companies without having no energy or electricity. So, it is essential that big clients like Durham Public Schools invest in renewables and reduce the money they have to spend on organizations like Duke Energy. This sends Duke Energy a clear message that Durham will invest in renewable energy whether it's with them or without them, pressuring them to invest in climate action in a way that could support sustainability throughout the state.

One barrier to this ideal is that Durham public schools is required to use at least 20% of energy from Duke. But luckily the resol energy resolution states that plans to get to 80% renewables by 2035. And this is still a major development. If implemented, it

would show that climate change is still climate action is still important and essential to the people in Durham. And it is as you can see by the 1,400 SIG signatures 260 of which were shared were received in one day along with the 500 signatures that um we received through the Durham school solar schools petition. The people of Durham do care about climate action and we need to use our power as a school district to show that. The main issue that we've heard is that funding is a major barrier to implementing a climate action plan.

And while this is a certain barrier to c to some but not all climate initiatives for now, it is not a barrier to creating one. One such plan doesn't need to have start um hard dates, but it can begin when we get the funding. And by naming a specific plan and timeline starting when we get enough funding with a specific budget and a costbenefit analysis, it makes it that

much easier to implement when we receive such funding when we have the opportunity to receive such funding and makes getting funding through grants that much easier. This plan should include the pro provisions of the green new deal for schools and other pro proposals we have provided. But we we as students can't do it all. Me personally, I have too many AP exams for that.

And with the energy managers who are extremely experienced in this area and a new sustainability office, making such a plan is achievable. And if we can do this, we can have accurate provisions for renewable energy in the next bond measure for the next big new school like the recent new northern and future new DSA. With the right focus, DPS can have a plan to make the next generation of sustainable schools and inspire school districts and cities throughout North Carolina and the country. We appreciate

good intentions, but what we need is action. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Abigail.

Good evening. My name is Abigail Schneay and I'm here on behalf of the National Sunrise Movement working out of the Durham School of the Arts hub and alongside the sustainability school coalition. On May 1st, as we mentioned at the last school meeting school board meeting, we hosted a study and demon style demonstration in the heart of downtown Durham. Students sat at desks and did homework while also spreading awareness about a Green New Deal for our school district.

We spoke to ABC11, CBS 17, the Indie Weekly, and hundreds of Durham citizens about our campaign to win a Green New Deal for our schools. Within just 4 hours on a Thursday evening, this is the amount of support we received from the public. 260 signatures in 4 hours. That's more than one person a minute. And two, that's 2,260 people who were so supportive of

our cause that they were willing to sign it within just minutes of hearing the words Green New Deal for schools. Shown here are the signatures of teachers, business leaders, movement organizers, mothers, toddlers, the homeless, the wealthy, Durham residents, curious travelers, people from every stretch of life, all united under this belief. this belief in a cleaner future for our students and support for the deal that can achieve it. We ask you to side with these 260, these 1443, and so many more across Durham.

Please work with us to pass a Green New Deal for our schools. Thank you so much. Next speaker is Sarah Rodriguez. Hi, my name is Sarah Rodriguez and I'm here as one of the leaders of the Durham School of the Arts Sunrise Hub. If the Durham community shares responsibility in the investment of every child using a a holistic approach, then we will ensure

that resources and opportunities are informed by equity and that we are intentional about setting high expectations for all stakeholders in their role in educating the whole child. as we support and increase the capacity of administrators, teachers, staff, and parents so that they are equipped to support and develop efficacy in instruction and student learning. That probably sounds familiar. It is the DPS theory of action.

This emphasis on community responsibility and investment is really striking and I think it works. I think you're seeing it work right now. Because of this work and that community, we were shaped into people who will stand up here at this podium and ask for what is right. With more and more of Durham students finding activism through the National Sunrise Movement, we're seeing this theory of action well in action. So, I stand here before you using the skills of action and initiative that I've been taught since kindergarten to ask you to act alongside us for a Green New Deal. The Green New Deal lays the groundwork for how DBS can continue its

mission, continue to care for its students with healthy food and strong scientific education. You've heard us say we have 6 years left until our world reaches an irreversible temperature with disastrous effects. We've been saying 6 years for a while, though. Right now, it's actually 4 years, 2 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days.

For reference, that's about as long as it's been since Tom Brady won the Super Bowl with the Buccaneers. Uh, it's not as much time as it sounds. So, we're asking you to use our time wisely, to continue your work, continue taking care of us, continue doing what is right for our schools. Just please keep doing it with our planet's future in mind.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker is Aster Templeton followed by just so you can be prepared followed by Sasha. I'm gonna leave it at that.

Followed by Sasha W. Hi. Yeah, sorry about that. My

handwriting is not great. Um I'm Aster Templeton and I represent the National Sunrise Movement through Sunrise DSA. So there's a myth about a boiling frog. If you place a frog in a pot of warm water, increasing the heat slowly, the frog will stay put even even as it boils.

This isn't true. Of course, frogs have pretty good survival skills and will jump out as soon as the water gets uncomfortably hot. Of course, they do. I'm sure the metaphor isn't lost on you, but this is actually something that I really like.

You know, humans are excellent at adapting and solving problems when we put our mind to it. like problems like acid rain barely exist today because we did our research and you know acted quickly. However, this is a different problem. By the time we feel the worst effects of climate change, it will be too late.

And Donald Trump's recent cuts to federal federal relief will make it harder to recover. So, we ask you to do what you can. We understand that funding is not easy to come by. Really, thank you for the work

that you've done. The reality of doing anything related to schools and building is that it will take time and it will take money and it will always be difficult. But over half of the Green New Deal is connecting our district to our community and uniting the two to work against climate change. Of course, nothing is free, but these parts of the plan are very low cost.

The choice might seem like it's burning fuel or burning money, but it's not. Finances will always be an issue, but we must determine what we can do with what we have. So, we're asking you to get creative, to invest in our future and fight for us. The only way through is together, and the pot is getting warmer.

Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker is Sasha. Followed by Micah Tweet Meer. Hello, my name is Sasha Wolfrram and I am here on behalf of the National Sunrise Movement working out of the DSA hub. On April 24 on the at the April 24th schoolboard meeting, we addressed the financial concerns of implementing a

green new deal with a packet of case studies addressing the financial viability of green initiatives. In this email, we requested that the board follow up within a week outlining possible times for us to meet with a group of you and discuss and revise our resolution. We ask that if the board has any hesitencies with our resolution or campaign, you inform us of these concerns and the exact actions you would like us to take before we can proceed. We are willing to put in the work, but we need to know what to do.

We have done what you've asked. We've met with operations. We've researched financial viability. We've revised our resolutions accordingly.

And now we need action from you. We need you to use your positions of power to show us and all of students in DPS a way forward. The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to undo over 30 regulations, including those related to greenhouse gas emissions, vehicle emission standards, Clean Water Act regulations, and the Clean Power

Plan. On Friday, May 2nd, the Trump administration proposed cutting billions of dollars in federal funding next year for programs aimed at curbing climate change. Two days ago, on May 6th, the administration announced plans to cut the Energy Star pro program. Since 1992, the Energy Star program has helped US citizens save over $500 billion in energy costs.

Additionally, it has prevented 4 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. In times like these, it is imperative that local action is taken. We ask again that our demands be reviewed within the week and that we receive a response on steps forward, a way forward, a hope for the future, a tangible action. That's what we ask of you right now.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is M. Next speaker is Micah Tweet Meer. Good evening. Micah Tweet Meer, president, Durham Association of Educators, and I seed my time to Ryder Sammons.

Next speaker, Ryder Sammons. Thank you, Jessica. Hi, I'm Ryder Sammons. I'm also a member of DAE.

I'm a uh teacher at City of Medicine Academy. Shout out to my students, Mirian and Maya, who are here tonight, as well as all the members of the Sustainable Schools Coalition and the DSA Sunrise Hub. I see my time to Christy Clem. All right, last speaker of the evening.

Christy Clim. Hello. Thank you for giving us opportunity to speak. Christy Clim, physical therapist, classified employee, member of DAE.

Try to be a friend to every co-worker here. Um, you know, this is my my list. It's got about six or seven words on it. And um I feel like it's the same thing.

Broken record from the last board meeting when the budget was voted on to go forward with that. There was things of course that I don't always agree with in that, but there were a couple of statements made that were very disappointing to me. I was very frustrated with them. And those

were the statements of DAE had gotten us this list of priorities sooner. Like if y'all had only done more, if y'all had talked to majority of people sooner and shared this sooner, we could have done something differently. And that statement is so frustrating to hear because DAE, I believe, sent the email of priorities in February. And I'm pretty sure there's been a classified employee at every single meeting since last January speaking about classified pay.

When did you want us to start speaking up? I think I first sent an email to the board in October of 2023 before the Hill study came out talking about compression. When did you want us to speak up about what we thought are priorities? So to hear things said during meetings that implies this is on

us and if we could have only done something sooner it would have been different. Mama said many a time if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. I'll I'll stop that part there. Um I I I know the the working group policy administration, I'm not getting those words right right now in this moment.

I know that's on there tonight. I have been a member of that group. I appreciate the opportunity to participate in that. I think that's been a huge step in what DAE and employees want, more opportunity to be involved.

Do I think that small working group is the end- all beall? No. But I do acknowledge that I think that's something different than what has happened in the past. So I I do appreciate that.

Some questions still from it. Um there's one part that talks about um contracts and compensation things will be included in record. One of my questions from those working group

meetings and still ongoing is employees we don't have written contracts. So are are employees going to get that where we know exactly what what is in our regular job expectation? And that ties into the extra duty part if we don't have a clear contract then how are we going to know what's considered extra duty? I think the wording is that, you know, in rare limited sit circumstances would extra duty be there and it has to be something that's outside of the normal business day hours.

But we need a contract to know what is or isn't extra duty. We the part that says um extra duties outside of the normal hours. That causes me some concern because there's sometimes teachers are asked to do extra classes. Therapists are asked to take on an extra case load.

OT's have been down 25 to at times a third of their therapists this year. and to see children. They can't see those kids and provide those services outside of the normal school day. But those folks aren't being compensated extra for having one and a half times a full FTE. Like there has to be some clear way

to acknowledge and employees get what they're rightfully deserve for extra work that is done during the normal school day. But a contract is needed to know what that is. If not, you know, we're all using our magic eightball and everybody's magic eightball says something different. Um, uh, I'm trying to get some more information.

I know multiple meetings I've talked about employees, classified folks having frozen pay. And, you know, I've never been I've said in emails and in conversation. If I'm saying that wrong, I would love to be corrected so I can have a better understanding to share that. I'm still hoping I can get clarification on if I'm saying that correctly. But if my pay now is is more than these new extremely compressed salaries and it when I look at the scale I would have to work 12 or 13 more years or maybe I'm in a position where the new salaries never get to what I'm currently making in my mind unless the state mandates a raise for classified that employee will never get

another raise based on DPS salary schedules. That may be incorrect, but nobody has ever corrected that when I've emailed or asked. So, I would love if if that's wrong, please tell me I'm wrong because I want to make sure I'm saying the right information. But if if somebody's current salary is higher than the ERI say they could ever make, when exactly would that person get another raise according to DPS?

Of course, if the state says every classified does, yes, every classified is going to. But from a if the state doesn't give a raise that year, when would that employee expect the next thing? Um, what else I would love to know? Uh, right now classified as a whole don't have anything in the proposed budget. Transportation is in there, but classified other than that isn't. I do totally agree that an in-house review salaries study figuring out how to fix it and not just making quick decisions

that continue to compound the problem. I think that completely makes sense to do. But I would love for administration to say, you know, the money we have earmarked for masters. If the state by chance decides they're going to reinstate masters, I would love to hear.

We thought we were going to use these local funds to do masters, but now that the state's doing that, we're now going to use this local money to do this for classified to make a fix. Um, but if the state does something that we're not necessarily expecting and and we already thought local dollars were going to be used for salaries, then I would love to know now here's the plan of how that local money can still be used for salaries but in a different way for the groups that are being left out right now. Um, Dr. Lewis, thank you for agreeing to meet with the meet and confer team on the 20th of this month.

I believe the 20th is correct before I I don't want to misspe on that. So, I appreciate that. Um, a

first step in sitting down to to discuss things, but I have a minute and 50 seconds. I don't want to waste everybody's time, but dude, I have lots of thoughts, lots of frustration, um, lots of hours that I've spent up here in board meetings instead of at home with family. Sorry, AJ, but thank you for your time. against my better judgment.

Um, I'm hoping to be here in DPS to make it a better place again next year. And I hope collectively as a group we can do more than just pretend that admin employees can work together. I'm hopeful that the policy group can continue and expand and grow from that. And I'm hoping meet and confer can really start to take shape and make impact.

And it needs to be a bigger threshold. It it needs to be a bigger threshold than some small group. I could go get a group of friends together right now. Get enough to start

meeting and then we could push our agenda that really doesn't have to do with the majority in the collective whole. That's not going to be helpful. I could do it. We could make a EC group.

We could make a PT group. I could make a group for Forest View, Spring Valley. We could make 20, 40 groups and then just sit in a room and argue with each other and get nothing done. We need a bigger threshold.

Um, now I'm now now I'm on a whole different thought process. We also um would love to have it changed so that the rosters of who's there that's certified by somebody outside. Unfortunately, I've talked to many folks in the district who have already had backlash from their supervisors because they knew they were part of DAE or participated in a rally. If we turn over a whole list of who's there, that's not going to be good for employees.

Backlash and ugly things already happen. Don't ask for a list of employees names who are now going to have fear. Thank you for your time.

Appreciate it. Nicole, thank you so much. I'm grateful to serve a district where we have such strong advocacy from our staff, but also our students. Thank you all.

The next um next on our agenda is the consent items. I move approval of the consent agenda items A and B. Been moved by Miss Beyer and seconded by Miss Harrell Goff to approve consent agenda items A and B. Is there any discussion?

All right. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda items say I. I. I.

All those opposed use the same sign. Right. Consent agenda passes unanimously. The next item on the agenda is um under operation services pay changes for certified and classified staff who drive

buses. Oh yes, Dr. Giovanni. Thank you.

I would ask Mr. Barnes to come to the podium and if we could pull up the slides. Board members, um Mr. Barnes is going to share with you um some of the the recommendations and requests that administration is making in order to assist us with recruitment and retention of our bus driving staff.

Mr. Barnes. Thank you. Good evening board members and Dr.

Lewis. I am Kenneth Barnes and I have a short presentation addressing pay changes for certified and classified staff who drive buses. Uh, next slide, please. Next slide. This retroactive pay affects approximately 40 staff members. At this time, we have 14 certified drivers who will be compensated at $25 per hour and 25 classified staff members who will be compensated at time and half their regular hourly rate over 40

hours. We are requesting that this compensation be paid back to January the 22nd, 2025. Next slide. All changes have been verified to be within the yearly payroll budget for the transportation department.

The total cost will be determined and confirm with finance and payroll. Next slide, please. This agenda item is for discussion and action tonight. Uh Mr.

Teter, Mr. Joe Harris, and I will answer any questions you may have at this time. Thank you, Mr. Burns. Uh, board members, do we have any questions or comments? I just I just I don't have any comments because I I thought it was very clear um very clearly stated and it's already

been um checked with what's already in the budget. So, um, it seemed like an easy an easy uh fix. Okay, who's next? Don't fight over it.

All right, Miss Byer. So, uh, Mr. Barnes, I want to appreciate you and your leadership and also Mr. Harris who has uh joined and all the work that you all have undertaken to um lead us through this crisis and um want to just show during teacher appreciation week special appreciation to folks that are certified that are stepping up in these remarkable ways. Um I had questions previously but like like Miss Harrell Goff you all put that this can be retroed because it is within the existing 2425 transportation budget and that is why I am comfortable with it and looking forward to approving

it so that um these folks that have helped us through crisis know that that that we are able to pay them a fair wage and and um hopefully they and commit in some ways to continue to help us if needed in the future. Um, and so I look forward to to approving this so that um, y'all can make these adjustments. I assume it will take several weeks. Do you have y'all talked with payroll and have any notion of timing on this after we approve and if we approve this how soon people could expect that?

I would think May checks might be too early. It might be June. I don't know. at a at a minimum, we need to take care of it by the end of June so that it's addressed in this current fiscal year.

So the um our goal will be for the May the May check to reflect the the correct rates and then making sure that the retroactive payments addressed by the end of June. Thank you. I think that that helps to let staff know when that should be

expected and and how payroll is working to set that right. Thank you so much for your leadership, Missstead. Thank y'all for again for your leadership. I have a couple of questions.

Is this for the 2420? I know this is the retro be all for the 2425 school year. Is it do we have a sense of what 2526 would hold or is that going to take some more study for that? Uh we are making several changes now u for the 2526 school year which should uh give us better route optimization.

Um and we are planning on having bus drivers to drive within a region next year that will cut down on time. So uh we probably hopefully we will not need the 40 bus drivers that we have uh at this current time, but um we're hoping that this pay increase will keep them on board in case we need them. Thank you. And then the second question is under um classified staff

members compensated time and a half their hourly rate over 40 hours a week. Is that their hourly rate as a classified staff member or is that as the bus driver? Their regular pay for the job they're doing. Awesome.

Thank y'all for that clarification. I appreciate this. Looking forward to support it. You Mr.

Tab, thank you very much. We'll make this really brief brief. um for those people new hires are in case we do need bus drivers for next year, how are we informing them that this opportunity presents it will present itself for new hires? So hopefully new the new bus drivers or new certified staff.

You can answer both. Well, again, we won't really know how many uh additional staff and we will need until we uh finish our bus routes uh for the for the fall. I will tell you that Mr. Harris and his team is working uh very hard at this point. We have already completed all the routes for um

the year- round schools at this point. And so we are much farther along this year than we were last year with with routing. And so uh by August we will have a good idea of how many current staff members we will require to come back and help us in the fall. Miss Chavez, I'd like to make a motion.

Call on people for discussion. No, that's fine. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the um the compensation for certified or exempt staff who drive a bus um to be $25 per hour and classified or non-exempt staff um to be compensated at time and a half um and for this to be uh retroactive back to January 22nd, 2025. Second been moved by Miss Chávez and

seconded by Miss Beyer that we approve for certified staff who drive a bus to be compensated at $25 an hour and classified or non-exempt staff who drive a bus to be compensated at time and a half their hourly rate over 40 hours a week and for this to be applied retroactively back to January 22nd 2025. Any discussion? Yes, M. I appreciate the the motion having that much clarity. I just want to make clear that this is people that are substituting, not I don't know if we have any retirees that are educators that are working as bus drivers currently or or anybody else that would fall in this category that would get any confusion from the specifics of the motion, but as long as y'all are comfortable that that motion reflected what y'all are proposing, we have Yeah. I just want to make sure that that we got it right and

don't cause more confusion. So, we have not hired any retirees to drive buses since January 22nd. Okay. That I'm aware of.

Good. That makes me comfortable. Thank you. That helpful.

So just to clarify, this is for certified and classified staff who are already serving in our district who are opting to also drive a bus in addition to their sub there are substitute the pool essentially. Yeah. Thank you. And we greatly appreciate that they serve on that substitute in that substitute pool.

Any other discussion? Are we clear on the motion? Do we need to be more clear on the motion? I'll ask Mr.

Bars. Oh, or attorney Malone. Attorney Malone. Yeah, the motion accurately reflected what staff was asking for based on the prices. So, I thought it was clear. I will say that I I did appreciate the

clarification that it is not for people that are not already full-time bus drivers. So, I do think it did need to be that clarity needed to be made. When I went back and looked at the precedes, it was not clear. It could be that a regular best, but I think I liked how you said it, Miss Carda-Auten.

So, I think to Mr. T's point, maybe we could make sure we are clear on what the motion is and what y'all are approving because we don't want there to be confusion on what the rates are for folks that are driving buses as full-time and as substitutes. Do we want to restate the motion? Um, the motion is to pay certified or exempt staff who drive a bus outside of their regular duties to be compensated at $25 an hour. And for classified or non-exempt staff who do drive a bus to be compensated at time and a half, their hourly rate, for over

40 hours a week of work. and that the compensation at both of these rates would be retroactive back to January 22nd, 2025. Okay. All right.

All those in favor all those in favor. Any other discussion? Appreciate the clarity and the uh intent behind that. Um okay.

All those in favor say I. I. I. I.

Hi. And all those opposed. Right. It passes unanimously.

Thank you again. The next item on the agenda is the master's pay update. This I guess it's going to be Miss Harrell Goff who is in the tag team with Mr. Teter.

That is correct. Good evening. administration this

afternoon brings a recommendation for M's pay um eligibility beginning for the 2025 2026 school year to provide purpose clarity regarding eligibility eligibility and budget impact. Next slide please. The why must remain competitive. Next slide.

Thank you. must remain competitive in attracting and retaining highly qualified educators. One key strategy to achieving this is increasing our local M's pay to properly compensate our classroom teachers who invest in advanced degrees. Increasing local mast's pay will benefit our teachers, our students, and the overall quality of education here in Durham. Next slide. Mast's pay really is with a focus on retention, retaining our highly qualified um educators here in Durham.

So, retaining experienced and highly qualified classroom teachers, incentivizing those um with continued professional development, competing with our neighboring districts who also um pay local mast's pay, enhancing student learning and achievement, and overall supporting of equity and growth in public education. Next slide. At this point, we really want to take a look at just budget impact reminders regarding um M's pay here in Durham. Okay, next slide, please.

Um so, this is a very similar slide um that the uh the board um and the public have seen in past presentations. Um and at this point in time, uh while we're awaiting the state budget to ultimately be adopted along with those companion compensation rates, um we have provided an estimate, um that's also reflected, um in the 2526 budget document that the board approved us to pass along to the county. And so

we're now looking at an an average cost of 7,258 uh per educator um as we apply uh that local masters pay. And next slide. Okay, I'll keep going. Um, this next chart is also familiar.

Um, and right and this was um a chart um that was shared in the past just in terms of categories of positions and an analysis around um the the types of employees um that we felt like uh would be missing. Um and so we have an updated uh chart on the next slide. I believe we address or we might have a little more information here on the next slide if we could go ahead and advance. Um so here uh on the next slide um is is a category. So without us having uh clear data um on all of these categories to which it could apply um we we budget conservatively and so we look at uh the

possible um impact if everyone in these categories were to qualify for the master's pay. Um the one space right of social workers um we've done a lot of work in that space and investigating how many of those would actually qualify and so they're a great example to lift up when we look at this companion chart. Um, so it it could have been as many as 20, but we know based on our research there's actually 11 because we've done a very deliberate um dive into social workers as that is an expansion request um in the superintendent's u recommended budget that was adopted at the last meeting. Um these other categories we haven't had quite that same deep dive and so we've got sort of the um highest number scenarios there um in that sense.

Um, next slide. Um, we talk about um, we flesh out some numbers, right? So, those positions that we look at in that previous chart, you know, that would be potentially almost just a few dollars shy of $900,000. Um, if we were to have to expand to 124 positions. Uh, we know it

would likely be less than that, but that would be the most expensive scenario for us. Um and then we do note right that we've already um seeking funding for 11 social workers at 79,838. If we can advance to the next slide. Um this is just um a a chart that we've organized to try to track the history.

Um and so the first column reflects the current model um that we're looking at with the board of education. Right? So these are our 50% uh classroom teacher of record. 5 million currently in Durham. Um that had not quite been budgeted properly and that has now been properly budgeted for um moving into the 2526 year. Um we're looking at um just slightly higher cost um due to the average cost of that program um as well as reflecting uh the 11 social workers um that have been an important part of

our discussions. Uh so looking at 2,678202 potentially for next school year. And then the third column uh just reflects um what the program would look like if it were to expand to all of the categories until we have just sort of more refined data on those categories outside of the social workers. 4 million.

Uh the the current superintendent recommended budget that was approved reflects that 2,678 figure. Um so that would leave us with looking for an additional 754 um 832. Um we've said this before um just in terms of we're very hopeful that the state budget will make this a non-local issue um and and we're we're really hoping that the state will adopt local masters pay and and take on that cost uh moving forward and and then we can have some different conversations around that. Uh so um certainly we're continuing to monitor that. Um Miss

Hager and I feel encouraged um the most we have in years uh just based on the chatter that we get from our professional associations where that's concerned. Um but for now we're continuing to plan um as if we're going to be the operating with our local program. So so just again want to circle into that number right that we would need beyond what was adopted in the superintendent's recommended budget. We'd be looking for a little almost $755,000 potentially if we were to expand to some of those other categories.

Next slide. And with that, at this given Next slide, please. So at this time, given our financial forecast, it is our recommendation that staff that that only staff that have an appropriate masters on their license from NCDPI would be considered um for M's pay if they are classroom teachers and or school social workers. And I know we use school social workers and social workers sort of

um at the same time, but school social workers is what we mean here. And this recommendation again focuses on recruitment and retention. And the next slide, we really just wanted to be really clear um in our delivery just around who we are recommending as eligible um and not eligible. And so what that is what this slide speaks to.

Next slide. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you all.

Board members, any questions? comments. Yes, Mr. Tab, just for clarity, contingent.

What are you you all meaning by contingent? Yes. Um, fantastic question. Um, so, right, so that just just lifting up, right, that this is um the the addition of the 11 social workers um was an

expansion item um in the recommended budget. Uh, and so we will um among other things, right? That's something that we'll evaluate depending upon how much money uh we ultimately receive um from from the county um when the county manager unveils her budget request and and those negotiations conclude. Uh but certainly we're we're it's a priority for us.

We're we're we're committed to it, but um we just want to be very careful to say it's currently not part of the model um and it's part of a proposed budget um and funding request to the county. That answer your question, Mr. Tab, or do you have any followup? Okay, Miss Hstead want appreciate y'all for lifting that up.

And I feel like um typically during our budget conversations, we say this contingent upon, but we did not have not done that as much this year and maybe need to make sure we incorporate that. Right? Our proposal is the proposal, but until we know how much money we'll be able to get from the

county, how much money comes from the state, this is all a plan that we need to put into action once we have all that information. I see Mr. Teter nodding his head, but I don't know if you had anything you wanted to add to that. Well, and I'd agree and I I think it's fair to say that everything is contingent.

Um, and so we're this, you know, the social workers were the one sort of expansion item connected here. Um but depending upon how things there there's still a lot of unknown for us. We're very close to having less unknown. Um but everything's subject to review based upon how much money we receive for sure.

Thank you for that. I'm sorry I have additional question. Um pending the pro what happens with this board today? How would this be communicated to staff?

I think I really like the recommendation of putting it on your license, which makes it really clean, but it might mean that staff might have some work to do to get that on their license. So, how will we communicate this out? Excellent question. We have already started to talk about um how we would roll out the

information, what steps staff would need to take to ensure that Masters is on their license, how they would do that, and just making sure that we're communicating that clearly with all of our new hires or anyone that's currently on staff. So definitely a thorough communication plan. Yeah, glad for that. We probably need to send it out over and over and over again and then make sure it's on our website under that master's pace section so that people are really clear about that expectation.

Um because I think that's just going to be vital. I say this all the time. How do we get really clear and really explicit about what we need so that we don't have confusion over that? Um thank you.

I really appreciate y'all in this presentation and the recommendation. Other discussion? Uh, Miss Chávez, thank you. I am um definitely in favor of the standardization process of having people put this on their um on their license. I

think that uh takes out the work for HR to discover what is a relevant masters. And I think there are probably a lot of um or some nuance situations where that may not be clear and I think um having people just do that through the state is better. Um so I support that. I realize it's an extra cost um to the individual the certified individuals but I think um it you know obviously if it comes with the master's pay um I think it's well worth it. Um and then I also want to say after reflecting on this and talking to some social workers yesterday, I I have given this um some thought and I I do think um while I understand the intention to focus on social worker retention and I'm concerned about social worker retention for sure, um I and you

know individuals who work closest with kids. I um am also supportive of us extending masters to pay to anyone who would have received it in 2013. Um so I think that with that I'm trying to do some quick math but I haven't done it yet. So um but I'll leave that to Mr.

Teter. And um I would be in favor of us even looking at a reduced percentage uh for the master's pay lower than 10%. Miss Beyer has brought this up before um the idea of a lower percentage. And so I think I favor equalizing the um the or kind of standardizing who has access to um M's pay.

Um I do think I I want to keep people in the classroom for sure. Um I also think these other roles are um are deserving. I hope this will be a non-starter because we will have it through the

state. So, um, but I want to name that and put that out there. Um, uh, as to my thinking around this. Thank you.

Did you have a question for Mr. Teter or I do not. If you want to comment, that's fine. Um, but I just that was more me just sharing my where I stand on that.

Thank you. Right. Thank you for the comment and we will um we can certainly contemplate what some of those models may look like and be prepared. Um and and certainly right just circling back to the contingent upon funding question, it may be something we have to visit anyway.

Um but we'll we'll make sure we're prepared to to address um those um scenarios with the board. Thank you. Thank you. Other board members?

Yes, Miss Beyer. I I'm ready to make a motion when everyone else is done. So that's why I was looking for seeing if there was further discussion.

You good? This is on the agenda for action. Yeah. So um and and I guess the point of clarity for me and I I appreciate um the clarification for all these job categories.

I appreciate the the struggle that it has been for and the for staff, how personal uh and harmful some of this year has been for folks that um and and as much as we need to, I continue to apologize for the lack of clarity to staff. I mean, that that was never the intent. Um, and I hope that the state does extend this. Um, that would be a dream and is overdue. Um, so with that, I would um say that that because this is what is reflected in our budget request, I would move

approval of the administration's M's pay recommendation presented to us tonight. Do we I wonder if we want to be more clear on on exactly what we're voting on. I actually when I make motions try to go to the precies and you talk about it in the agenda like in the precies language because I try to have the clarity be from what is presented and not that that was what made me nervous on the last one. So, I just went to I move approval of the administration's um recommendations for M's pay and I think that refers to all the slides and details that Mr. Malone is that adequate like maybe slide I think when you look at the prices and the slides that does appear to me to be accurate.

It's been moved by Miss Beyer and seconded by Miss Umstead. Is that correct? Okay. Um and the motion was to approve the M's Pay recommendation that came before the board this evening.

Yeah. The administration's recommendations for Masters pay. Yep. Okay.

Any discussion? Yes, Miss Chávez. and then I will clarify. I'm going to read the recommendation that is here and I would like confirmation that that is what we are voting on.

It says recommendation at this time given the financial forecast. It is our recommendation that only staff that have an appropriate masters on their license from NCDPI would be considered for mast's pay if they are classroom teachers and or social workers. It says social workers, but okay. It does say social workers, but I think if we're talking about clarity, putting school there is important because there are social workers who work for the

district who are not in schools who I don't think would be elitable. Okay, that is true. So, it should I would insert school. Okay.

Okay. Does that feel clear? And I really do appreciate the attempts by everybody on the board to move towards clarity given I think we're learning from our experiences on this board. So thank you.

Um does that feel okay to everybody and are we ready for a vote or is there any other additional discussion about this? Okay. All those in favor say I. I.

I. All those opposed use the same sign. No. Okay.

It passes 5 to one. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the salary administration policy. Good evening, Miss Harrell Goff. All right. This evening, administration brings a draft of policy 7502, salary

administration, employee compensation for a third reading. This is for information. Next slide please. This policy is to ensure fair, consistent and lawful employee compensation and salary administration.

Um as many as you many of you know um the salary administration policy working group has been working almost a year now really um flushing through receiving feedback and just making sure we have a policy that we that's clear that's going to be fair that's going to be consistent and that staff are going to be able to use moving forward. being able to really understand salary administration and their compensation here in Durham public schools. So, this is not something that we want to rush, but really taking the time to really get um feedback and input from all of our stakeholders around this

policy. Next slide, please. The purpose of this policy applies to all forms of employee compensation, including base and monthly salaries, bonuses, stipens, etc. ensures that payments are authorized by the board of education and excludes things like reimbursements or for independent contractors.

Next slide. Lots of conversation around extra duty pay. So in addition to this um policy work that we're doing, the policy working group will also have an accompanying document that we're still working through which really deals with the procedures around the policy. Um but the policy we want to make sure that we're really tight and extra duty is a place that we've spent a lot of time um just having conversation and really going through line by line again receiving feedback from um our stakeholders and team members lots of

different folks around extra duty. This has brought up a lot of conversation. So again, duties outside of job descriptions performed outside regular hours and really thinking about job descriptions and how those need to be clear. Um, and one of the slides a little bit later talks about reclassification.

Really thinking about our job descriptions and having those readily available. So eligible employees for extra duty pay must be FLSA exempt. And what does that approval process in a snapshot? Supervisors submit extra duty request form.

Finance department, Mr. Teter and his team confirms that there's funding available and the superintendent andor designate reviews and approves. Next slide. One of the um other items that we talked about including extra duty was around stipens. And what are stipens? Guess my three minutes is up.

No, you may continue. Um, recess. Um, so stipens for not only athletic coaches, but for arts, department chairs, etc. And just making sure that these are annual board approved schedules um for those stipens.

So that then we're able to really understand and budget um um for these um things as well as have a payment schedule. So when are the stipens being paid? Really understanding what these are. Next slide.

Documentation around salary adjustments and compensation will be documented in personnel files. So HR and finance process any salary adjustments and changes and those would be housed in the employee personnel files. Next slide. So how are general salary increases? Um again this is similar to

extra duty really flushing out how do salary increases happen? um step increases or experience increases. Really flushing those out and making sure we're clear what the terms are um so that we're all using um similar language around salary increases and how do those happen looking at the salary schedules um addressing um concerns around um the salary schedules and compression and those things. So really important that um these things are outlined in our policy.

Next slide. How are our new hires placed on the salary schedule? So for teachers, those um new folks are placed on the salary schedule based on their experience um which is verified through NCDPI. , Those are placed

on um salary schedules that are board approved and their experience is based on um employment verification of their relevant prior relevant experience. Next slide. Salary effects of personnel actions. We've spent some time in the on the salary administration policy working group just really ironing out how do um how are salary adjustments made?

Some are made based on administrative changes. Some are made based on voluntary transfers. This time of year, folks sometimes will submit a transfer request to a lateral position. There's no change.

Um sometimes folks come and say, I need um you know, I need to take a break and you know, decide they want to take um lesser pay voluntarily. And so really ironing those out and giving examples and making sure folks are really clear promotions. And then finally reclassification policy. This is around um out of the work when we finish

this work part of what will come out of this is going to be a salary um review committee. " So, this would be a reclassification review which would be done by a committee and not just um one or two folks, which I'm really excited about that. Next slide, please. And of course, um, salary administration, we must comply with laws.

So, adherence to state and federal laws, including including FLSA and North Carolina Department of Public Instruction guidelines. Next slide. Anyone with questions? Thank you, Miss Harrell Goff. I wonder before we move to board questions if you well actually it would be helpful

for me um if you could remind us of where we are in this process. So I think this is the third time that we've seen this policy. What are the plans for um what are your hopes for moving forward for both from the board and from the group the working group on this? Thank you.

So the plan really we want to get this out before the start of the new school year before the new fiscal year. Um it's been a year and right now the work that we're really just trying to finalize has to do with procedures. So that accompanying document. So really if we could bring it before the last board meeting before the summer.

I would really want us to wrap this up and for action. I hope I'm answering your question. Yes. Um to follow up though, are there is the working group convene again or at this point? Yes, the working group definitely will need to convene again. Um we've really have now a core group um with um we work really well

together just kind of going through things back and forth just making sure it's really really clear because I think more than just rushing but just also making sure there's clarity and that we're clear um but having that also that procedures document is really important. So yes, to answer your question, the group will be convening. That's great. Thank you so much.

Thank you for the thoroughess of the process too and for engaging that group. It sounds like it's going well. So um so you're seeking um additional board feedback today on the policy and then you're going to revisit this with the group and then bring another version of the policy back maybe for action next time. Yes.

Okay. But ideally before the end of the school year, I'm hearing. Okay. And then um attorney Malone, do we need uh what board action is needed to move uh policy from a first read to a second read to a third read? What are we looking at if any or what should that be looking like?

Well, like your policy doesn't technically require third read. So you just technically need the two read. So um and you've had a first reading. So, at any point when it comes back, you'd be able to approve it at that at that meeting, be it a second read or a third read or however you want to count it.

Should there be board action between each read? I don't think I don't think you need board action since you've already approved it for first reading to to do anything until it comes back and you're ready to actually approve it. I don't think you need to move it to a second or a third reading. I'm asking because there have been some questions about the um process. So, I didn't know if any board members wanted to weigh in with other questions about the process to make sure that we're aligning with um what we should be doing. Um I guess I would add I mean to the extent so there's no confusion with

staff that if the board wanted to make a motion to you know support it at its current point and to have it come back at a future meeting for you know a final reading. I think that's fine but I don't technically think anything's necessary since you've already approved it for first reading. Thank you attorney Malone. Um Chairstead did you want to share something?

Yeah. Just missstead though. Uh, we haven't had a first reading. That's what we haven't approved it on a first reading.

Is that if I remember correctly? I don't recall. So that's what I was ask what I was asking was to move for from one reading to the next we approve we need to approve it just to make sure that from this point forward we are with this policy and others following the appropriate procedures to move a policy along before it's ready for final action but once

we're ready to move it okay well if it has not because it showed up here I thought it's third reading but to the extent it has not been approved for first reading I think you should approve it for first reading at some point and then and then have it come back for second reading or be prepared to wave first reading and approve it um at some later point for as second for second reading. Thank you Dr. Giovanni. Just kind of what happened with this initially we brought it just kind of for information. So that's what Miss Umstead is saying and so I think we erroneously after just bringing it kind of for information jumped to second reading and so it was I do recollect now and so she is correct and and just to keep it clear and to make sure we're following board policy and we have no issue Miss Harrell Goff I mean stop if I'm wrong but we want to make sure that there's full and robust consideration of this we have taken you know a significant time so we are happy

to bring it back for first reading and potentially a waiver of second reading for adoption on May 22nd or bring it back for first reading on May 22nd and then for adoption on June 10th if that is the board's desire. Is are those dates in consistent with Miss Harrell Goff and the timeline she laid out because I thought she needed until June like I wouldn't think that we'd do anything. Oh, I apolog I thought she was saying for those procedures with the working group. I misunderstood.

I think she said before the end of the school year. Just before the end of the school year. So, I would just want to make sure with the salary administration policy working group that we have enough time, you know, to do the work that we need to do and come back with with a robust policy. Um, so school year is June 30th, I think, is where y'all see it.

In my mind, school year was like June 10th. So, that's where there was some confusion. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. All right. We have Yes. In the name of clarity, the February 6 board meeting was the first read. So, is

this now the second read? There was no action at the February 6. Yeah, we did call it first reading at the February 6 board meeting. But did we vote in those minutes?

I don't see any evidence of a vote. While we move forward with discussion, someone's going to look for those minutes and then we will know how to move forward. Yes, attorney Malone. I guess I would just say that the simplest thing procedurally would be to either approve it now for first reading so that you've got that covered um or to go with the timeline that Dr.

Giovani gave, which would be to approve it for first reading and then at the next meeting and then second. But I think if you wanted to go ahead and approve it officially tonight for first, even if it's been even if this is a second first reading, I think you would be fine. And then that gives you multiple options going forward. Thank you. Would anybody like to make a motion or is there

I don't know that we need to make it tonight, right? or do we want to have discussion first before we let's have some discussion and then we can see how we'd like to proceed. Would any board members like to begin the discussion? Yes, Miss Heraldoff.

First read, second read. Um, based on this, um, what we're looking at now, I just wanted to lift up, um, what Christy Clen brought up in public comment about, um, in extra duty pay. Um, this refers to extra duty pay being performed outside of regular hours. um is I would like to see if extra duty play uh the the that that definition could be extended to include um things that are outside of regular duties during the school day um and not just outside of school hours

for example um and and of course that that goes back to you know the question about contracts which I'm still not clear about about employees not having the contracts and not having that stated But um an example of that, I've seen plenty of examples of teachers, you know, and have been in that position where for the sake of the building, you might be in another classroom doing something that's completely unrelated to your regular school day requirements. Um and it's it's necessary. It's needed like, you know, subbing in in other classrooms, positions outside of your curriculum. So, I'm wondering if that could be extended to include um extra duty during the school day outside of your regular responsibilities.

So, that that's something that I would I just want to offer that for discussion for the policy that would come back. Thank you, Mr. Did you want to respond, Miss Harrell Goff? Any

additional I've just noted it. I was I just question for are because there is a definition of extra duty in here did in the policy itself. I'd see you're looking at the slides, but it's defined and I guess the group can work on this and flesh it out more, but it's defined as work completed outside of school scheduled work hours as agreed upon by the employee and supervisor. compensation for this type of work can be a flexible schedule, comp time, or a calculated rate of pay. So that is that's what's defined in policy draft that I'm looking at. Do you think it needs further definition or are you saying that um I think um I would like to have some language added to that definition that could clarify um define extra duty as also um things that are required outside of

the norm during the school day. Um, so, uh, I guess an example that I'm thinking of is as a specialist, you know, you're teaching music, but you need a sub in a seventh grade classroom. And so, you're covering a seventh grade classroom instead of teaching your regular music curriculum, or um, you have to take on an extra class or something that's just outside of your regular duties. that really should be defined in your employee contract.

Thank you, Mr. Heroff. Miss Harrell Goff, you wanted to say something? I did. I did just want to add that right now one of the things you're absolutely right uh Miss Herald Gooff that we can flush this out or expand just a little bit because one of the things that we do um so for example during someone's planning or lunch right a teacher that covers for another teacher when there's not a sub we have a process in place teacher coverage um

that folks can um help out and they are compensated for that time. So really spelling that out. If an IIA, an instructional assistant, um, is pulled when there's not a sub to cover a class, how is that sub, you know, how is that IIA compensated? So, I've got notes here.

Thank you. That's helpful. Did that um, did you have any was that helpful, Miss Go Missoff? Do you have any follow-up questions before we move to each other board member?

Not a question. It's not so much as a question as something that I would like to see. Yeah. So yet I'm I'm fine.

Thank you. Thank you. And Miss Beyer. Yes.

I I appreciate it. I look forward to that going back to this group that is working on it. I have a lot of concern again in the notion of not promising things we can't afford or h haven't budgeted, but a lot of schools run on a lot of Dr. King's nodding at least. A lot of people doing a lot of things

within the school day, flexing and all of that. And so I think this group really needs to wrestle with with that some a lot of that is not extra duty. And so I think getting that clarity will be really really important. I I don't know Dr.

King I Dr. King do you want to say share something? Yeah I I I think Miss Miss Bayer is getting at a very good point and I think we have to I feel like I say this like a broken record. We have to remember that we are in the post ESSER days.

During the the existence of ESSER funding, school districts had dollars that we could allocate uh to those kinds of circumstances. I think the thing that we would need to be very careful about here is there is no fund that exists um for those kinds of dollars in the post esser um time frame. Um and and so

I don't want to say that it cannot be done. Uh I would I would want us to be very careful about what we commit ourselves to doing in that regard. So for instance, you know, we we we we might want to speak to specifically what circumstances we wanted to make that promise because, you know, as much as I would like to say that we could, um, it it is not possible in the post esser era, I think, to compensate every teacher who covers every class when a a person is not um when another teacher is not in school. uh and our and our principles are very good at being creative about how they make that happen uh in such a way that does not uh kind of bust the budget if you will.

Uh but I'd want us to be really careful about that. Thank you Dr. King. Did you have a response to that Miss Herof because I do want to Okay, Moff and then move on to others. I agree. I understand um there's

this concept that I have a hard time articulating around um understanding the need or understanding um understanding the dilemma of something even if you can't really solve it. And so this is one of those situations where as we're working on this policy, I would like for the language to somehow consider that um even if it's not something that we're saying that we can fund, how do we how do we especially for our our educators um create some language that clarifies that we acknowledge that this is extra you know whether or not we're able to compensate it. Um if there is the opportunity to compensate it, it absolutely should be compensated. But if not, how do we

acknowledge the fact that this is also extra duty? So that's that's what I'm I'm challenging uh the wordsmiths to consider that this is a real thing and that um we can perhaps we can find a way to acknowledge the fact that that is happening and they can see it even if we can't fund it. Um that would be important. So, um, just wanted to to lift it up because it is, you know, it's it's something we're talking about extra duty pay and it also it also lifts up the fact, you know, that this um clarity that we still have to work on around contracts that keeps coming up about employees not having clear duties and contracts.

Thank you. Other board members? Yes, Mr.

Tab. Good. Thank you. Thank you for u uplifting um extra duty.

Uh some of the comments that I have, I've shared them before um with Miss Harrell Goff. And I think that there's a lot of just when you're dealing with equity across the schools, it's where a lot of the the issues come because some schools are being able to to compensate some people for doing things out of whatever existing budget they have and where other schools are not able to do that. and then they provide comp time or or some other way of saying we recognize what you're doing. So I think that committee probably should look at how we can make sure that people who are doing the extra things creatively are recognized for what they are doing as opposed to saying

we just need you to do this and then their colleagues from somewhere else is being compensated for it. So that's some of the issues that that occur a lot. So, just wanted to uplift that and I think where you're going with that maybe that's the bigger picture of what's really happening. Thank you, Mr.

Tab, Miss Homestead. Um, I appreciate the team and all the folks who are working on this committee because it's a lot to dig into um for the salary administration policy and I feel like we're making progress and I know we still got some more to go. I um have a couple of questions or in comments. I think slide nine in the um presentation talked about reclassification policies, but those aren't mentioned in the policy. And so that might just be something for the policy group to talk about or how that might be

included for folks to be reclassified. Um, there is a part about classification for people who leave the district and come back, but there's not that part about reclassification. And I think maybe even clarity around when someone might ask for reclassification. I'm I'm making an assumption there's something probably of additional job responsibilities or duties or something goes there.

And I think there was conversation maybe last year around I think you mentioned it too, Miss Harrell Goff, a committee that would review. And I think all that's great, but I just want to make sure it gets in the actual policy draft some of that information. Um the other thought I had was around um the definitions there's the step increase definition but then further down I think that under B and three the step definition and that are a little different. So the step talks about annually moving but under that other definition it's a little different. So we just need to get some clarity between the two. Um, one says it, sorry I'm

trying to click between multiple pages. I think one says that it will happen annually and the other one says pending board approval or something like that. So, how do we just make that the same in both, which I think all needs to be pending, board approval and budgetary um, steps. And then a couple of definitions that are not in here, but I've heard be talked about all the time are holdless legacy pay.

And those might be a couple that we might need to add to that list. um because that that comes up often um within our work and there might be more that I don't even know about but those types of definitions to be included in here. Um and last but not least, I know y'all know probably even what I'm going to say here, but when and I don't know if it's this policy or all of this needs to be on hold because we need to do a salary study, but how will we know will people move within the men's and maxes? I see so much joy in our faces and we still try to unravel this puzzle of how do we get that done and I know if we start a new

salary study it might we have new schedule so it might not be a question but I think a timeline for how we're working to figure that out might just be helpful maybe just for me but for our public too um thank you all for this it's really helpful thank you I was just going to say thank you um for those comments and the other thing that's really important I think um that this is ongoing work. I don't think um I think when we do get here and we have something approved, but I do think this is ongoing work. When we talk about salary schedules, when we talk about um contracts, job descriptions, I think there's some important things and really thinking about how do we start to um we're transparent, but also thinking about the long game, right? So, we get the policy in place, but really thinking about some things like job descriptions are really going to help folks, I think, um, it was mentioned earlier, help folks understand what am I responsible for so

that I do understand, hey, this is outside of my job description and you can really have a conversation with your supervisor if you're saying, you know, this isn't in my job description or when a job is going to need reclassification and we really need to have that review by the salary review committee. So, thank you all. The feedback is great. One more thing to that feedback.

I think to me, I would like to see us do a motion on first reading when it's probably closer to second reading time. So, the edit the draft feels really good to us. And it might also include here's a slide of next steps because I imagine like you said, oh, sorry, this is a living document. So, in a year, you might be say, here are the things we're watching and next year we might bring more recommendations based on X, Y, and Z.

Uh, because I know as time goes on, we'll be like, oh, that definition should be in there. So, how do we keep track of that information? Thank you. Yes, important to note the policies are fluid and um Miss Byer. Thank you. So, I uh appreciate all

the the clarity y'all have added with your questions. I appreciate that that the committee is going to continue to wrestle with some of this. Um something that Miss Umstead said made me think legacy pay, bump, all those things. Maybe we don't need to define them.

Maybe there's some that we're sunsetting and not using anymore and we need to maybe in procedure or somewhere else say this is something we used to use but don't use anymore. Like I don't want us to put definitions that are not as we're trying to standardize and clean up that we're that we're trying to get out of the DPS vernacular. So I I appreciate y'all continuing to wrestle with this. I know um Miss Harrell Goff so appreciative of your leadership and I know you've seen the articles that include some of these concerns and the details that DAE has shared. Um I wondered if you wanted to clarify any because we've had so many questions about contracts.

Um classified staff don't have contract. They have job descriptions which maybe would have the information that that employees are seeking and they want to see and and know what's written, but there are not right. Am I That is correct. Make an opening for you to say anything you want to say about contracts and and the portal for where certified staff can find their contracts and who they can reach out to if they're having trouble in that.

I that might be helpful. Absolutely. So, um classified staff do not have contracts. We have job descriptions um for classified staff.

Um there just want to like it's not there are certain classified staff that do have them. Just want to make sure we Thank you. Absolutely. Um we all have contracts. There are some classified staff um that have contracts um assistant superintendent um deputy superintendent etc. So, there are some

classified staff, but when we're talking about um instructional assistants, um office support staff, um bus drivers, um maintenance workers, operations workers, um those um groups of employees do not have contracts. Um however, all employees have a job description, right? And within that job description, it will outline um what your duties are. um for your specific role um in the organization.

So I do think um as part of this work, as part of this fluid ongoing document that it will be important for us to sort of spell out who receives a contract, who everybody has a job description and everybody should have access to their job description and have access to what the cadence is for um speaking about, you know, a reclassification or review of your of your current role. So, I hope that helps. But we do plan to spell that out. I know Miss Harrell Goff has lifted

that up and that is on our um list of follow-up items to make sure the policy working group that we're able to address those. Thank you. Does that um anything else you want to add, Miss Ber? Uh Miss Chávez.

Well, thank you. Um this is um well I I guess I'm just so excited for us to move forward with this and um I would I agree about um the definitions around hold harmless. I don't think we're using that but legacy pay it seems like we are using that. So um I if we're not I agree with some setting terms that we're not using but just having some clarity that is a that is a thing. what am I getting paid if the scale has changed and you know it's different than what I'm what I was on and all that kind of stuff. Um also let's see for the groups receiving

stipens I have too many tabs open. Let me see here. Uh I would I would just love to see a comprehensive list of all the people who receive stipens. So, I'm glad we're listing them out now.

Athletic coaches, arts, department chairs. Are there any others just so we can know who's all included in that category of receiving stipens? And lastly, I'll just echo um some of what um you know, Miss Herog was lifting up about the extra duty um time and all of that. I just want to say also I think that's important. I do think uh we I think in education generally there is a idea that we expect people to do so much so you know extend themselves because they love children and that's

part of why they're here. But um we we do I I would like us to see I would like to see us have better boundaries around what is expected of people and and like for instance planning time. A lot of people are asked to sub on their planning time. So then what can they be guaranteed as far as planning time?

Um if if we're not going to guarantee 5 days a week of planning time, I mean I guess I'm thinking of secondary more so, but um for the elementary um teachers as well, then are we guaranteeing four days? We should just I I would like us to be clear um about that. And um I think part of this is just addressing inconsistencies and and um making it as as equal and um yeah, as equal across the schools as possible uh relative to what Mr. Tab was saying. So I think that um yeah, I hope we can

just continue to to work that out. So those are my only comments. Thank you. I appreciate the um comments and questions from all colleagues this evening.

You all have lifted up some really important um things here and thank you so much for the clarification um Miss Harrell Goff. That's been super important. I especially appreciate the um you know I think everybody should have somewhere in writing what their job entails, right? So, I think the clarification around contracts versus job descriptions is really helpful and to be able to just reference and sometimes it will just sometimes a job description will state other duties as assigned, right? And that means it encompasses more, but also I think recognizing that we um folks need to know more about what to expect and also not be asked to um just do everything that's needed all of the time just to make it work. So, I think I like the

idea of trying to balance these. Um, I still most my questions are still a bit around the extra duty pay. Some of that's come out tonight. I guess I'm still even just confused by this.

Like on slide four, we've talked about that being outside regular hours, but then an example there was covering classes, but that would be during um regular hours, wouldn't it? And also I guess I'm also not noting that this is only for FLSA exempt employees which would mean this is not does not include salaried employees. Can you speak to that a little bit or each of those Miss Hager a little bit so we could understand that? So I think what what we're really experiencing right now is just just the nuance of everybody pitching in where you know where they need to, right? And so this really grew out of teachers covering during their planning grew out of when we really had a severe like um substitute teacher

shortage and just we you know ramped that up and making sure we have more subs um to cover classes. And so to Dr. King's point, this was something that you know came out of during the esser days and um when teachers were covering during their um planning period or their lunch period and some teachers quite honestly don't mind helping out and say they they look forward to I'm going to you know teach during my planning period but really kind of spelling that out. I think it's important for us to say this is extra duty outside of my job description, but to Miss Harrell Goff's point, how are we also addressing when folks are covering classes or um if there's a vacancy and they're doing grading papers when there's no one there or um that's just another example. So, and just making sure or planning or IEPs. So

that's just the type of coverage um that teachers are providing. So thinking about um if an IIA is covering um what that looks like, but if a teacher is actually covering grading papers, IEPs, um lesson plans when there's a vacancy and there's no one to do that, a substitute teacher isn't going to do that. So a classroom teacher that's already in that building is. So there really has to be really to your point like around boundaries and thinking about how do we really address these things so there aren't those inconsistencies.

And I think the more we can we're not going to be able to do like we're all over the place. You know I think about our days we're like everywhere doing everything other duties as necessary. But it is important for folks to be able to see this is my job description. These are the sort of other duties as necessary, but when does it get outside of that? I think trying to figure out what that balance is and what

that looks like. Thank you. That was super helpful. And the like in the one example that you one of the examples you gave is I've was curious about and that is when an IIA you know in my kids school IAS get pulled all the time from kindergarten classroom to go sub in other classrooms, right?

And so in that case, that person is getting a different pay than what they would if if they're serving as an IIA, right? There's a whole code that's called IIA subbing as a teacher. And so just for that, because it is not just, you know, um just something we do, but it is IIA sub as teachers. Sounds like we need to work on our subpool.

That doesn't happen as often. Um okay. Okay. And then I also did hear loud and clear this issue of um like long-term a lot of this is related to vacancies, but some of it is like if somebody's on maternity leave and staff being asked to cover basically work the job of two people or one and a half

people for extended periods of time. So just that's something you guys are thinking about and Okay. Thank you so much. Um I think that's all my questions and comments.

Does anybody else have anything else they'd like to share? And then we have the question of what we're doing with this. I heard that u Miss said you indicated a preference for this to come before the board with more feedback integrated before we approved first reading. Does that feel okay to other board members or does anybody have any discussion around that or a conflicting preference?

Yes, Miss Chávez. So then we're talking about this coming back twice. So and can we then if we do that Miss Hager can we re like look at the timeline again with regards to when you might be able to meet with the working group and while you Miss Beyer you also

have a question it looks like. Yeah, I guess since this has been here so many times and we just missed passing on first read, I'd rather have a kind of a preference to clean it up tonight and call it a first read so that if we need the nimleness of them only coming once before the end of the school year. I don't know. That's why I wanted to hear from you, Missstead, why you'd rather not just pass it on first or at least clean that up because we kind of missed it back on I'd looked on February 6.

I don't see in the minutes that we've voted it said. Yeah, I guess I was thinking the other way that we can plan for it twice, but if we don't need it after the first reading, we could also wave the second reading, right, too. So, um that's just my personal preference to have it closer to ready. But if the board doesn't want to move it tonight, I mean, I'm open. That's for the board to decide. And then back to Miss Harrell Goff with your timeline because we don't want to crunch that for you.

I was just checking with Nicole. It looks like Miss Smith. Did we bring it back on June 26? Dr.

Giovanni, did you have something you wanted? Is that your desire, Miss Harrell Goff, for them that because I'm have a little concern because your round's going to start, right? Right. And we have to get procedures.

I mean, you've got some drafts, but until I mean, to Miss Umstead's point, it's pretty far along and we've brought it several times, but there's some we've gotten some hefty feedback from several board members that the working group's going to have to work on. So, what do you think? 12th 10th. So, am I hearing then, Miss Harrell Goff, that you bring it back for potential adoption on June 10th?

Yes. When would you bring it? So, just that's going to come back that one time for second

reading. I don't know that I've gotten consensus from the board on where y'all landed on this being a considered a first reading. I think they were waiting to hear from you, Miss Harrell Goff, on your comfort level with the dates. Well, it sounds like you're okay with it coming back on June 10th.

So, given that, what um other feedback we have from board members? I see Miss Chavez. Yes. Um I'd like to approve it for a first read just so it can move along.

we don't have to see it twice. I think it's a lot of feedback but that we gave but I think they could incorporate it and um I don't know that we need to spend the time looking at it twice more. Anyone else? Would somebody like to make a motion move approval of the salary administration policy on first read? Second been moved by Miss Byron and seconded by Miss Chávez to approve the

first read of the salary administration policy. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I.

I. I. All those opposed? Passes unanimously.

A first read of policy 7502 and to come back on June 10. Okay, the next item on the agenda is the facility condition assessment capital improvement plan preview. Who's starting us? Dr.

Giovanni. Uh, good evening board members. I'm standing at the podium today because I'm going to ask um for your consideration. Miss Devon Mitchell was tasked with bringing and creating from scratch almost a capital improvement plan and reviewing again single-handedly the facility conditions assessment. So the um ask that we are going to have she has done a phenomenal

job but the ask we're going to have is that you could hold your questions until she has completed the presentation and then the operations leadership will be able to answer your questions. So if is that okay with the board. Okay. Thank you, Miss Mitchell.

Thank you, Miss Mitchell. Good evening, board. Um, good evening, superintendent. Um, tonight we would like to start a conversation about the current and future state of our facilities.

um how we develop a plan for our facilities and how we um look towards the financial requirements that are necessary to bring our facilities up to um to the standards of that our students deserve. Um I'd like to focus on three areas tonight. I'd like to focus first on the facilities condition assessment and the learning environment guidelines that we hired a consultant team to produce for

the district. um they will be presenting on May 22nd and I would like to introduce that to you so you understand the expectations of that team and what they were contracted to do. Um and then I would like to spend some time talking about what a capital improvement plan is and how we achieve that and what are the components of that. And then finally I'd like to talk a little bit about the timeline.

How do we get there? Okay, next slide. So just to start I'd like to just talk um about language and um some of the common things we see in capital planning. So um there are three terms here.

One is an FCA. That is a facilities condition assessment. That is what we hired an outside firm to do for us. A facilities condition assessment is a comprehensive look at all of the district assets.

So the team that you will meet um has been out to all of our school facilities. They've inspected every aspect of our facilities and they've made an assessment of what the needs are. Um, we have a facilities

master plan, an FMP. That is something that is regularly done by school districts to look on a school by school basis at long-term planning. This is where we look at things like adding buildings, um, thinking about comprehensive circulation strategies when we really want to dial in on specific school needs and factor those into a long-term plan. And then there's a capital improvement plan, and that's what we're talking about tonight.

That plan is a 10-year plan where we take a look at a um itemized list school by school that we develop and we produce uh financial requirements to achieve the goals for each school and we develop a plan to get ourselves there and that's what we are looking at for the district. So that's what I'll be talking about tonight. Next slide. Okay. So at its simplest level, a capital improvement plan takes a look at what we have. That's taking a look at our existing assets and making an

assessment of those. What do we want? So we've spent a great deal of time talking to educational leadership and our community to find out what the future state of our learning environments should be and want to be and we've defined those. And then when you combine those two things, we we look and assess and build an average of those of what is our need.

and our needs will always exceed our wants, but we will look and develop a list of needs based on a criteria um that we that we develop as a team. Next slide. Okay. So um on May 22nd, you will be meeting DLR and TTH um our consultant team that produced the facilities condition assessment.

So just to tell you a little bit about a facilities condition assessment, it is an itemized plan by school for aging facilities and infrastructure. So it identifies a certain type of need of our facilities but not all of our needs. So that plan has a 10-year scope to it looking item

by item at a series of approximately 15 categories that our schools were evaluated on as well as our support facilities within the district. Okay. They also were responsible for technical construction specifications. This is a physical document that supports our construction documents when we go out to build projects and it describes um very specifically how we build systems and what our standards are for those systems.

So they've updated our technical specifications to meet current code to also meet the design requirements of our district to help our maintenance teams um with the types of systems that we employ. And then the third is our learning environment guidelines. So the learning environment guidelines is also a physical document. In the past we have only had a learning environment guidelines for our elementary schools. This is the first time ever that we have learning environment guidelines for middle and high school which is wonderful and important. Um, and what that is is really our road map, uh, a recipe of

sorts for what goes into every school, what the proper sizes are for every kind of space, the adjacencies, how we equip them. And it's an important component of how we build parity across all of our construction projects, across all schools, so that when you walk into a school anywhere in the district, we see them similarly equipped, similarly um, designed and provided for. So those are the items that they'll be covering. If we go to the next slide, the the learning environment guidelines.

Next slide. Thank you. So the there are two important components to the learning environment guidelines. I talked about educational adequacy.

So um making sure that every school is designed similarly but also it a component is model schools. So our district has a model school for the elementary, the middle and the high school level. This is um our goal for the size of a school um and and the components that go in that school. And I'll talk about some of the

deficiencies and some of the um challenges that we have in a moment. Um but an important uh factor in how we design our schools in the future will be the model school. Next slide. All right.

So let's take a look at our current state um and just talk about some of the um some of the physical attributes of the district. If you go to the next slide. All right. 4 million square feet um that was evaluated by our consultant team.

We have uh within the district portfolio approximately 260 million square feet in land assets. And then we have based on the review that was done by our consultant team, we have a current need of approximately $900 million for addressing aging facilities uh and infrastructure. That number um is a very broad number at this point. It

only speaks to like for-like replacement. So when we talk about things like performance or sustainability in our buildings, when we talk about replacing an HVAC system, it would be a like forl like that you see in that number of what's being replaced compared to what we will actually replace things which which are systems that are higher performing um and lower cost um with good control systems. So that number is not an accurate reflection of our total need. It also doesn't include things that are loose in our buildings.

It doesn't include any furniture. It also doesn't include things like kitchen equipment. This is really talking about everything that's fixed in our buildings. The building envelope, um, do we have water penetration, the systems, the interior finishes, the glass and glazing systems? That's what this is addressing in the $900 million. Also, I'd just like to lift lift up on the bottom row um our uh capital improvement plan and our construction teams um have we've we've

worked diligently for the district over the last 5 years. Um in the last 5 years, we have had we have brought on 470,000 square feet of new facilities. That's put 3,300 scholars in new schools. Um we are also having uh projects that are under construction now and that represents approximately 378,000 square feet um of new construction.

5% of our students in brand new schools in the last 5 to seven years um which is a wonderful accomplishment and should be celebrated. Taking a look at the next slide. When we look at the district portfolio of assets, looking at this radial diagram, starting at the top, we're looking at the 1910s and it goes around every 10 years. And you can see where large growth spurts happened.

Um, but the but when you look at the average of this, the average age of our schools is 59 years old. Um, which represent a tremendous amount of need. They're also

schools that were designed and built for a different era of teaching and learning. Um, and so the need is quite great when we go in and look and assess our schools. Next slide. Looking at this bar chart, um, this shows every 10 years along the bottom um, beginning in the 1910s and it looks at the amount of square footage that the district brought online.

So what you see here are two peaks. The red peaks are the 1950s and60s. This is our baby boomer generation, one of the largest times of growth in the United States. And the green represents our Gen Y, the 1990s.

And what's important to note in this is that that the 1990s, we're now sitting approximately 30 to 35 years since that time. So systems age out in that time. A lot of our mechanical, electrical, plumbing systems age out in that time frame. So we have a lot of systems that are coming online

that uh that are starting to age out. Similarly, when you look at the red the red bars and everything to the left, those are things that are 59 years plus in terms of age. A lot of things haven't been touched. Um so we're talking about half the portfolio um about 3 million square feet that's between 59 and 100 years old.

Um that has a significant amount of needs. Next slide. All right. All right.

So, what does that look like when we talk about 3 million square feet? Um, I'm a visual person, so I always like to think about what what what could that be? So, there isn't a facility in our area that's 3 million square feet, but the World Trade Center is. And that's the amount of aging facilities that we have in our district, something of that size and that scale, so that you can begin to wrap your head around the amount of need that the district has in terms of upgrading our facilities.

Next slide. All right. So, here's our bond history. Here's what we here's what the ask has

been over the last 20 years. So, if you look at the first three bars, three to four bars, you're looking at the first the last 15 years from 2000 to 2016, the ask during that time was not uh not so significant. Um, but when we reached 2022, we had a significant need. Um, and we uh passed a bond.

Um and I and what is important about looking at this information is that when you see in in the 15 years that the district the district asked for um smaller amounts of funding that during that time frame we were also having facilities aging. So we've continued to have aging facilities and not had funding to care for those facilities. And then when we have had funding, we've also had to deal with growth or aging facilities that have aged out. And by that I mean facilities that the cost to repair them is more than the cost to replace them. And so we

are left with replacing the facilities. Um and and it's costly. So um important to to understand that um that we continue to have a significant need. Um next slide.

If we also look at our last two bonds, um the complexion of the bonds and what we asked for are significantly different. And if you look at our 2016 bond, the area in dark green is the area of new construction that was in our bond plan. Um, light green is significant modernization and then the blue areas are aging facilities and aging infrastructure work that was done by the district on existing facilities. So in the 2016 bond, we we touched 52 schools in our portfolio um to some degree of uh with some degree of effort. In 2022, the complexion of our bond was quite different. And if you see on the green

that the dark green is new construction um the light green once again is significant modernization. So the largest portion of the money that was given in our 22 bond 2022 bond was to new construction and some given to major modernization and only a small portion given to aging facilities and infrastructure. And we're continuing to study this. We're going back through that 2016 bond to actually look by school by school to see exactly what monies were spent and what were the upgrades that were given to every school so that we can add that into our analysis of what's needed in the future.

Um, next slide. All right. Also, in terms of our bond cycle, um, when we look at the recent history, so in 2016, um, our bond was $90 million. That was a that happened at the November presidential election. Um, which is the, um, the most desirable time to go after a bond. Um, at that time it passed with

92%. Um that bond was bundled. So it was not simply a Durham public schools bond. It was combined with city and county needs as well.

5 billion excuse me million uh bond for the district and that also was bundled. It also was done in November um at a midterm election which is also a highly desirable time for um for going after bond funds. that passed with 83%. What this tells us is that we have an amazing community that supports this district um and and continues to support the efforts of bringing our schools up to current standards.

Um so just a snapshot of uh of what we've been doing. Um as part of this process, we want to begin our conversations with the city and county. Since we have historically bundled our bonds, it's important that we begin to navigate those conversations

with them and talk about possibilities. It could be that our need is so significant that we wouldn't be looking at simply a single bond, but we might be looking at a multi-bond strategy over a series of years. Um, it would be great to get to a point where we have a comprehensive plan for 10 years that really looks significantly at the need and we can plan for that. Um, and then also we want to have trans transparency with our our community.

When we've been out in the community for the learning environment guidelines, we've met with over 4,500 individuals either in person, through surveys, um, or through group conversations. And we consistently heard that transparency with what's going on in our schools and where our funding is going is helpful. And so we want to continue that um, that language of transparency in the community. And I'll talk about that in a few minutes.

All right, next slide. All right, so let's talk a little bit about a capital improvement plan, what's included in it, and how do we get there? Um, I also want to talk a little

bit about some of the challenges that we'll face um with our capital improvement plan. So, next slide. So, what are the things that we think about other than aging facilities and infrastructure in a capital improvement plan? The first thing is um our unfulfilled projects from our past bond.

So in 2022, we have not uh we have not completed all the projects um as part of that bond and so we want to evaluate and analyze um where we stand with that bond. Um secondly is our aging facilities. So we know we're going to have a comprehensive list of of upgrades for every single facility. Those need to be prioritized.

They need to be put on a schedule. we need to know how we're funding them. Um so that analysis occurs as part of a capital improvement plan. We also want to look at growth and future demand. Um so thinking about our strategic plan um goal 5C of that for growing the district. Um we want to be factoring in any growth or any changes

in our student populations as part of this. So that we are thinking 10 years out what is the need and how do we get there? Um CNI goals. So curriculum and instruction.

So this goes to our learning environment guidelines. So as part of any comprehensive plan, we want to be providing those upgrades that address the current need of our learning environments. And that's what the learning environments is designed to do. We've met with all of our lead all of our leads in curriculum instruction in the district.

We've also heard from our students and our teachers and we have a very good plan towards what is required and and what are the areas we want to touch as part of this. Um, fourth or excuse me, fifth is capacity. So, within our district, um, it is important that we evaluate our undersized and oversized schools as part of this process. It's a it's a fiscally responsible thing to do to understand where we have schools that are that are are under this the size or over the size of our standards. um it

it's financially responsible to consider the impacts of those schools as part of this process. We don't want to go in and touch a school that in five years we're going to consolidate or that in five years it has significantly new needs. We want to make sure that we're thinking about a cohesive plan that is designed for each school. Um so the capacity is an important factor.

Also closed schools. So the district um does have some closed schools in the portfolio and I'll talk about that in a few moments. Um also the superintendent. So Dr.

Lewis, any unique priorities that you have, we want to make sure that gets folded into our goals. Um and then central services. So frequently when we look at district plans, we look at schools and we don't look at all of those support facilities and we need to look comprehensively. We do have support facilities that are significantly aging with significant needs.

Um and those need to be factored into our plan. Next slide. All right. So um just kind of

recapping that. So the long range plan um a capital improvement plan very important that we take a hard comprehensive look at our assets and our portfolio. We want to accurately assess our need and our financial need. Um we want to also anticipate what our bond strategy is going to be.

it's likely that our need is quite great. So, we need to develop a strategy that will address that. Um, we also want to facilitate an equityminded pathway across all regions of the district. That's what our learning environment guidelines is intended for.

We're also putting a number of other strategies in place related to design and construction um through those teams that will be building and designing work for us to build out that parody. Um, and then we want to get it right the first time, right? Making mistakes costs money. Not thinking ahead costs money and time and we want to do a proper evaluation that considers every aspect of the plan. All right, next

slide. Okay, so strategic challenges. There are challenges related to the capital improvement plan component. So let's take a look at some of those.

Next slide. All right. So challenge number one. So, in our last bond, there were promises to our community.

Um, and we have we are landing at the end of our bond with a deficit. So, we have not been able to complete all of our projects. Um, we are sitting approximately $200 million short in the projects that were planned in the bond. There were eight key projects planned.

Um, one of those projects um was a new high school. New high schools are incredibly expensive and that's part of why you're seeing um the deficit um is that to build out new schools, a new high school is significant. Um but we will need to analyze and review those projects that are still outstanding as part of that bond. Next, next slide. So we want to take a look at the

projects that are still on the boards. It's been a few years. We're thinking another five to 10 years out. So, we want to look at the long range vision of those projects still sitting on the shelf.

We want to make sure that every aspect of the design is still relevant and that those are priority number one for us. Um, if they're not priority number one, we need to understand where they fit into our larger plan. We also want to think about par across the school district. So, as we think to the future, um we need to think about uh the the need of our high schools, the need of those larger projects and how they fit into our story.

Um we consistently heard when we were out in the community a strong desire to touch every school as part of any future bond. And when I showed you the 2016 versus the 2022 bond, you can see that there would have been many schools that haven't been touched in 10 years. and and so and though and some of those schools may have been touched very lightly in 2016. So developing a plan

that that touches every school is something that's important to our community. Next slide. We also want to be thinking about par during design and construction. So here we are looking at um two of our recent elementary and high schools that um are are different in terms of how much cost per square foot was spent at those schools.

This is one of the important aspects of our learning environment guidelines and part of our design standards and how we enforce those and how we build those into every project so that we can ensure in the future that every project is is equally funded and equally supported. Um I will say that all of our recent projects, they are award-winning. they meet all of our needs in terms of collaborative learning, um, uh, flexible environments, all the things that we heard that were important to our teachers and our students. Um, and that's something that I want to uplift because, um, uh, those designs are are wonderful and they're great goals for us for all of our

projects. All right, next slide. Challenge number two. So, navigating growth.

When you look at our growth projections, our current in student count is somewhere around 31,000 students. We're sitting at around 92% utilization um with all of our facilities. We don't want to hit that 100% utilization. It means we don't have anywhere to eb and flow to grow and expand.

Um our capacity currently in the district is 35,000 seats. Um and we know that there is new growth anticipated and we're going to continue to study that and come back to you. But currently we are anticipating uh an addition of approximately 4,82 students between 2033 and 2034 coming online. Um so over the next 10 years, we're anticipating growth. Um and that's happening from uh over 150 residential complexes and um communities that are coming online. taking a look at um averages based on the type of

construction, the number of units, and what that anticipated student count would be for those units. That number also factors in the reduction of students that would be going to charter schools and private schools as part of this. Okay, next slide. So, if you were to talk about 4,800 students and adding those in 10 years, what does that look like?

So that looks like approximately three elementary schools, two middle schools, and a high school that might need to happen in our district. And we're going to study this more. Um, but that's that would be the impact of that student count. We would need to be thinking about land acquisition now.

It takes time. The process for designing building and um creating space for a new school takes 7 to 10 years. So it's important that this would be in our plan. Um, if we think about that in terms of bond funds, in current monetary value, those schools would require approximately $482

million in today's dollars to um to bring online for the district. So, we want to be factoring in growth as part of our plan and what how that fits in, when it fits in, and what it costs. Okay. Challenge number three.

Next slide. talking about our student population. So, thinking about um strategizing our future when we look at growth across the district. Um it does not significantly spike over the next several years but years, excuse me.

But there are other things that are impacting our student count. One of those is the percentage of students going to charter and private schools in the district. um within the state the approximately 11 billion that is spent every year a billion of that is going to charter and going to charter schools. So there's a significant amount of money that is available that is being consumed by those schools. It would be important for us to evaluate um what how we how we um what our

competition is like and how we address the needs of those students. Why are they moving? Um why are they not coming to the district? We want to be the premier choice in Durham for all of our students and understanding and addressing and building into our plan um uh areas that address this are is an important factor.

Next slide. Similarly, when we think about strategies for our capacity, um we want to look at where we stand. And so if you look at this um this is our current approximately current student count and you can see that in elementary school we have a significantly larger number of students than we have in middle school and we are losing students at the middle school level. And um as we think about uh the strategic plan and as we think about acquiring new student populations in our district, we want to analyze why we would be losing middle school students. We want to understand from a curriculum instruction point of view, do we have a

grade configuration issue in the way we're configuring our schools? Is it some other factor? And we want to build in a plan that addresses um some of these needs of our other student populations um when we look at growth over time. All right, next slide.

So, I mentioned undersized and oversized schools. Um on this slide, I have some examples. Um there are other examples in our district, but just so um everyone is aware, when the in 1992 when the city and county merged and became Durham public schools, there were a number of assets in the in the portfolio that are small schools. It's something we want to look at.

We want to evaluate and and assess. If you look at this dash line on the far right, that is what our model school is for elementary schools. That's around 750 students. Okay, if you look at the line in the middle, that's about 450 students. You can see the

blue, the lines in blue, those are the current student numbers at those schools. The the area in green is what those schools can hold. All of those schools hold uh considerably less than our 750 student count. Um it is a challenge and it's something that we at least want to evaluate and assess and make some um some long range um decisions about.

Next slide. When we talk about the possibility of right sizing our schools and bringing them within our model school configurations, um there are things that we would want to consider as part of this. One would be a replacement strategy that would be consistent across any evaluation process. Thinking about those schools that are aging out first, those with the greatest need first, those that have a very high replacement value. Another thing that we would want to consider as part of this is um combining

consolidating schools, right? Is it possible to consolidate schools? If we look only at tradeup scenarios where new schools could be brought online for older schools, we want to at least consider it. There are synergies in consolidating schools, bringing schools into that 750 to 800 student range.

Um those range from um bringing in opportunities for more resources in our schools, um having regular resources on campus. It also means more collaboration for our teachers, same grade collaboration, co-eing, student collaboration. It also brings synergies to our parents and families, right? So having those community resources, we are a district that has phenomenal community resources.

We met with many of our community partners. having the ability to bring in spaces in our schools for our community partners to do great work um is something that um if we have the larger schools we have the possibility to do that. So we want to at least

analyze um this and see if there are areas of benefit or areas where we might want to think about um reconfiguring some of our schools. And then similarly on the next slide, as part of an object objective process um for evaluation, schools would be evaluated based on our standards. So you're looking here um Murray Massenberg Elementary School is our premier example for elementary schools. That is a school designed for 700 to 800 students.

At the middle school level, our learning environment guidelines identify schools for 800 to a,000 students. And then Northern High School is our benchmark for our high schools at around 1850 students. DSA is an outlier because it has middle and high. It has a higher attendance uh designed for between 2200 and 20 somewhere around 2700. So um as we evaluate that, making sure that we're doing it objectively and then making decisions as a team about how to proceed. So um uh one of the things that

would be under consideration. All right, next slide. We also want to factor in closed schools. So, this was something that we heard about in our community um several times.

When we close a school, we need to have a strategy for shutdown. Um we do have schools sitting out there that um that aren't being used that are growing ivy and um and we want to make sure that um we're providing a future plan for all of these schools. There were a lot of folks that talked about the desire to have, you know, um, early childhood learning centers or community centers reuse. Um, and I know that there's already conversations that are happening about these assets that are sitting out there, but if in the future we consider any consolidation, we want to bring the plan forward early to our community and include them in the engagement um, so that there aren't concerns about what happens if a school closes in our district.

Next slide. Next slide. Thank you. All right. And

then as I mentioned earlier, um as part of as part of this process, we want to have a plan that touches every school. So we want to balance our aging facilities with the desire for new instructional learning. We want to make sure that we when we go in and touch a school that we're not just touching one thing. Um we want to build a plan for touching multiple things at one time.

The reason why is because it's disruptive and it's and it can be dangerous to have a school in a construction site. And so we want to build out plans that that try to look comprehensively at multiple systems as we package out projects. Um we also want to make sure that as we develop the plan, it's shared with our community. So, one thing we've talked about is having a a comprehensive landing place on our website so that if you are a parent, you can see your schools, you can see where your children are headed and see what the plans are. Knowing what's happening, knowing when you're in line for improvements, um is a very

great way to um build trust within our community and to also let them know um what great work is happening out in our schools. So, one of the things that we heard um from our community of students and families was to not not neglect our existing schools and we heard it many times and so this is very important in our plan that we're addressing what we heard from our community. All right. And then the next one is challenge number seven.

So getting modernizations and new construction projects right the first time. So, um, if we look at some of our recent examples, um, Lions Farm Elementary School has been a very successful school for the district. Um, but we're already reaching capacity for that school. So, we want to make sure that as we look at programs, as we look at capacity um, in the future that we are anticipating the type of growth um, that we're going to see in some of these um, areas of growth in our district. Um

similarly, Bethesda Elementary School. It's on our list from the 2022 bond. It is in an area of significant growth in our district and has very little um new seats coming on in the plan. So, this is part of why I mentioned re-evaluating those projects that are sitting in the 2022 bond.

we may need to provide more seats or adjust the design based on what we've seen so that we're not just building what is there um but making sure that it's the right thing at the right time for our students. So bringing the right people together at the right place with the right time and and expertise very important so that we can get this right. And then the next slide. So the goal of all of these things is I'm sorry that I'm sorry the slide before.

So, we want to move from a state of being reactive as a district to a state of being proactive. Our facilities and maintenance teams are wonderful. We have outages all the time um in mechanical

systems, in plumbing systems, um in our kitchens. And and part of this plan is to get us on the right track for regular improvements, get us on a steady, uh a steady flow of modernization work for things that have repeat needs. Okay. All right.

And then finally, the timeline. So, how do we get to the capital improvement plan? Um and how do we use the facilities condition assessment to do that? So the next slide.

Um so the area in red that's uh starting now moving through the middle of June. We need to do some data analysis. So the facilities condition assessment um has a database that's been provided to our um capital uh improvement team. It also is a physical document that's approximately 1500 pages long of analysis of all of our schools. So that needs to be analyzed and prioritized um in terms of our need. The phase one is an interactive time where we look by region of the district um and consider every

option for the schools in each of our regions where we analyze what money has been spent, what the needs are and develop a plan for the goals. We look at every kind of opportunity um in that phase. Um, at the end of that phase, um, we want to come back. We want to talk about those, make sure that we're aligned with the board, make sure that we're aligned, um, with with a plan that makes sense for everyone.

And then we want to go into phase two, which looks at refinement of a plan for every school. And in that phase, we would look comprehensively at elementary, middle, and high school. So look at it through a different lens and compare based on our uh, similar age group schools. um through that process.

On this slide, you're seeing a series of yellow dots um where we've proposed community engagement in each of the regions of the district. Um and and in the next slide, I'll show a little bit different version of this, but we have done comprehensive outreach. Um so, this is something that maybe is on the table for negotiation. Um, as I mentioned, the learning

environment guidelines, we did very comprehensive, um, uh, meetings out in our community and have received tons of feedback about what and where we want to go. Um, but similarly, at the end of phase two, we want to come back to the board and share our findings, um, continue to align with the board, um, our goals and, um, and provide a plan for each and every school. So, at the end of that process, um, as we're starting to complete that process, you see the area in brown. That's a period of time where we want to be estimating.

So, we don't have estimates for things like our learning environment improvements. We only have things that are related to aging facilities and infrastructure. So, we want to make sure that we're properly pricing our need um so that we don't end up in a deficit, okay, as we look forward. And then at the end, the area in gray is bundling the package um preparing it um for the board, preparing it for um outreach into our community, um the website, and also

um uh you know, finalizing our need with the city and county in terms of our bond needs and having those important conversations around financing. Um the next slide is an abridged version of this where you see um a similar cadence of process but what you don't see is quite as much engagement where we would really come back to the board. I'm sorry the next slide. We we would come back to the board at the end of each phase.

Thank you. Um and we would remove the uh the engagement with the community um providing them with an update at the end of the process. So this would be um another snapshot of how we might look at this. It is anticipated that we would be having a comprehensive plan near the end of the year.

So somewhere around the end of December, the middle of January, allowing us ample time to get ready for that March bond. Okay, next slide. Um and who might be the team members, the task force that we

would engage um as part of a capital improvement plan task force. Um it is important as part of a process that we have a broad set of voices that represent a diverse set of needs. And so you're seeing here um the complexion of what that team could consist of. So, um, as you see, a superintendent representative, a cabinet member, we've already had a volunteer.

um board member, we've had a volunteer, finance member, community member, one or two, um city counso representation, um members from our operations and planning team who bring tremendous expertise in our facilities and then other experts that we might bring in and out as part of these conversations um about the facilities. Next slide. um the time that it will take in these collaborative sessions, the level of commitment. Um so we're talking about uh

seven collaborative sessions in each phase. They're each about four hours where we really dig in deep on each school um and analyze each school as part of our process. Um two review sessions for estimating in case we need to fine-tune things based on the costs um and and adjust the plan. um we need to have those estimating meetings and then a board presentation review session.

Okay. And then finally just giving a little recap of what the numbers might look at that might look like and this is very broad at this point. It's just to start to get you thinking about what may be required and why it may be multi-phase. Next slide.

Um we think about three key categories of how we build projects. The first one is tier one. These are things that are mustos. These are our life safety.

These are where we have building envelope failures where we have mechanical system failures. Things that have to happen um where systems just aren't working. So, we talked about that. That's

approximately $900 million and and I can tell you that the first five years of that need is somewhere around $560 million. So, it's a very significant front-end need for the district. Um, tier 2 is is that area where we look at future growth and expansion and where we look at existing schools. Are there trade-up scenarios that we would consider for any of our schools in the district?

Um, as I mentioned to look at future growth and expansion alone that may constitute approximately $480 million roughly. So just ballparking um things we want to think about. And then tier three, um, thinking about those things that we want to get on regular maintenance cycles and thinking about the learning environment piece. So when we touch mechanical systems, we're going to be touching we're going to be touching ceilings and all of these other interior things. We probably want to think about adding some of our learning environment guidelines um, and current needs in the design space um, as part of that. And a rough number for that might be somewhere around $500 million as

we're touching to bring those up to uh not not entire facilities but portions of facilities up to our current learning environment guideline standards. So I think that um gives you a rough estimate of where we're headed in terms of the need. So with that I'm going to just um pause and we can answer any questions um and uh and then look to our future meeting. Thank you so much Miss Mitchell.

You're welcome. All right, board members. Yes, Mr. Tab, thank you very much.

Um, this was a lot. Yes. So, thank you. Uh, each time I had a question, uh, you answered it later on.

Beautiful. So, so that's that's a good thing. Thank you. Um, so in terms of the schools that continue continuously get mobile homes, is that something that we are moving away from? How do we get to adding an addition like a annex to a building as opposed to continuing to bring in mobile homes?

So, it's my understanding that the goal is to always move away from modular facilities. Yes. If we can as a district, we've we've wor You're welcome. We've we've worked hard to to reduce the amount of of country.

Okay. I'm from the country. That's what we say. Okay.

Y'all fancy. All right. Learning modules. Learning modules.

Okay. Thank you very much. That's very I know you understood what I was saying, right? Thank you.

Okay. So, it really it really depends on the capacity need. So, we do regularly look at needs in our school that may be one or two classes where we can think very creatively about using existing space and we do that regularly. It's really when we're looking at those larger capacity needs um that we really would be thinking about new buildings and new facilities.

So, I think there's a couple ways to handle that scenario. Um I will just say that it is another component of how we're thinking about design today. So, as we start to design and develop new buildings, we need to be asking our

design teams to design in for the future if we have future growth at our schools because not all of our schools can handle new buildings and circulation well. And so, we want to include that in a plan. So, I think there's a few ways to do that. Um, but we do want to move away from from modulars when possible.

Okay. Y'all got jokes. Thank you, Jeff. I would just I But ju just for the record, just for the record, when I started teaching, we had to go out to the trailer.

Thank you very much. I would just add um if I may that the u the that aspect and we know from adjacent counties that they sometimes don't build to the 100% need. Um, I've worked in a district where uh they built slightly under the 100% and every municipality we went to were unhappy that every new design had four hatched lines for those mobile environment classroom teaching units, the mobiles or trailers. Uh they are now that district

is moving away from that. Uh so the point is that it would be a choice for the the board to make to build to 100% or 100% plus um or you know to be I suppose fiscally responsible or to be uh to anticipate that growth and uh that that becomes the choice. Okay. Thank you very much.

I will not have any more questions for tonight. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Tab.

Uh, Miss Harrell Gaw, this the presentation was incredibly informative. Um, um really appreciate it. I enjoyed going through it and hearing all the data. There's a lot of things that got me so excited.

Um, so that was um encouraging. Amen to being the uh being the premier premier choice um for our students. Um that is a a thing that has been on a lot of community members minds. We're watching it happen. You know, these charter schools moving in and taking real estate

and building schools, you know, indirect competition to some of our new building projects. So, um and and I already believe that we're the premier choice. So, we just need to, you know, I'm excited to hear that. It's coming from, you know, this presentation.

Um my question is, well, a couple of questions. We have this wonderful movement of young people um through the sunrise movement who are working for climate action planning. And I'm wondering um if you are thinking about a process for including them, some way of including them and and what they're lifting up in the process of this. I think that would be wonderful for a couple of reasons. there they they were here today asking the board and have on several occasions asking you know how do we move this forward how do we make this a part of the regular conversation so I'm wondering if that's already been

considered as um maybe even a little bit more than the regular community engagement strategy that was presented in this presentation but how can we include them in the process of this conversation or in the pro you know in that process of development or at least hear from them prior to that. So that's one part. I'll stop there. Yeah.

So a few comments on that. So um a sustainability plan first of all very important for a district. Um we have used a number of different sustainability measures in the district. There are multiple things multiple plans out there.

There is lead, there is chips, there is the well-building standards, there are green globes. There are a number of ways that we can evaluate our schools. Um, we have recently hired a sustainability champion for the district. Um, that will be part of all of our new construction and modernization projects because there are many components to a building's performance that affects not just the environment but our bottom line and how much money goes back into education. Um, in terms of the engagement of this

group, so we have already had preliminary engagements with them for our Durham School of the Arts project. So, we are engaging them and we want them as part of the conversation. you often find some of the best ideas come from our students. So, we don't we don't want their voice to be unheard.

They're passionate. Um, they have a lot to say and there's also a lot for them to learn about sustainability. There's a lot of complexity in building design, in transportation fleets as it relates to sustainability and other aspects um of design that it's it's good to start to include them in that learning process of what it really takes to reach sustainability goals. So, yes.

Did you have any other comments? I was I was only going to add you touched on everything, but we have met with the Sunrise Club um I believe three times now. We have a meeting with them in the next two weeks I believe and we're going to start looking at their um policies that they have. Um as Devon has said that we are bringing them um would like to bring them to the table as we're going through some of the designs in the

future. Um we've talked with them. Um I had the uh architect O'Brien and Atkins come out and speak with them. They are the architects for the new DSA, talk them through the green globe um uh sustainability uh goals that we've had uh built into the DSA school.

So DSA we're um designing to um level three um if you've heard that on the lead side that's um lead gold. And so, um, they're understanding, um, all of the building pieces and parts that's going into, um, DSA that are either, um, going to improve our climate, going to improve our green, um, gases, um, and also, um, just understanding the pieces and parts of the building that are environmentally friendly. So, we are engaging them and want to keep them at the table. Is there [Music] um I keep hearing them ask us for this for a climate action plan. Do you think

that their their their desire for a climate action plan could be a part of what is included with this planning like AB? Absolutely. Absolutely. and we are um again engaging them to help them understand what that plan would look like, what a plan for um Durham public schools will look like.

Um we are also um we spoke of having a um environmental champion, his name is Mr. DJ Lynch, Dallas Lynch. He tells me don't use that often, but uh Mr. DJ Lynch who is also engaging with them on this climate action um plan.

We are um excited about the information that they are bringing to us. Um and they are learning a lot at the table. We're learning a lot from them as well. So, we want to continue on continue to have those conversations um and engage them and um get to a point where we have a Durham public, you know, our goal right

now is to have a Durham public schools sustainability plan. Um there's a city county sustainability plan that was um I guess that was from back in 2008 that I was actually a part of with the city of Durham at the time. And so um engaging with the city and county and also um bringing in some of our uh students from DSA as well as Northern High School on the um climate action plan. We are moving forward as a team.

That's great. And the second part of my question is kind of related in the same thing. There's a a quieter conversation that is that came to the board at the last meeting around um disaster planning and how our schools are might be a part of a greater disaster planning effort between with the city and the county. So wondering if if you've been having any of those conversations as well if that is part of

um the what we call mass shelters ma mass shelters for the county. We already collaborate with the sh with the county as do other school districts. uh we have I think four buildings that are so designated and that in severe weather conditions uh with our peers in life safety uh security and safety we um get those notifications. We have uh multiple people who coordinate uh when those weather notifications come um uh we um mobilize people.

We do the walkthroughs uh we take care of them from top to bottom. They are stocked with supplies. They are fed with generators which meet those needs for those eventualities I should say. We've mobilized many times since I a few times since I've been here in December. Uh they have not been needed to the full extent but we have followed the protocol every time. um we have done the walkth through and ensured that uh you know a kind of a conditions uh assessment is done so that if um they

were used and then they're demobilized that everybody knows who bears responsibility for cleanup or you know the just the fair usage and that type of thing. So there's a marvelous protocol in place. Uh that model uh if that answers your question does exist and will continue to grow as the system grows and as the the assets grow, the number of buildings grow. It is a careful collaboration with the county.

The question had come up from um from some community members about um an expansion, you know, or if there would be, you know, greater need, you know, with what we're facing with climate and what we're facing with, you know, world conditions. if there was a greater need and if this if we were thinking about that. So it's it's a new conversation something that I'm just following and curious about and I think uh that a larger conversation or expanded conversation I think would be with guidance from the county I think predominantly. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm sorry, my colleague just said and the city. The city I understood.

Some said um this presentation was really in informative. Um also I think was like $2 billion is how much money we have and needs which I'm sure is is mirrored across the state as different school districts are navigating lots of aging facilities. But this is really illuminating. I have a maybe simple question but curious how um field athletic spaces are also brought into this conversation around facilities and needs because we also have heard a lot from community members around the need for tracks or fields or updated spaces for all those athletics. So when our team comes out on May 22nd, our consultant team, the facilities condition assessment assessed all of our site conditions. So it looked at paving, it looked at tracks, fields, all of those aspects of outdoor learning, um outdoor classrooms, um have all been factored into that $900 million number

in terms of improvements. Yeah. And can I ask one more additional question? is you mentioned talked about closing schools and I know we have other sites.

Is that also a part of that facilities conditions assessment around what Old Northern looks like now and what it would cost to if we wanted to do anything there? So that's something that we want to evaluate as we look at every region of the district. Um there are numerous ideas that we've heard about for Old Northern um and how we might reuse that. So we want to have a comprehensive conversation about what we want to do with those assets and it will be all of those assets will be included as part of the plan.

Yeah. I think a clarification uh sorry to your question is that um those old buildings Oh, Northern specifically uh as Devon outlined earlier, it has been assessed as part of the FCA facilities condition assessment for what it needs to um improve it as is. Uh so but then as

Devon outlined for future planning it's a obviously a conversation and a direction to be heard as to what it might become and um you know with future growth plans or alternative uses. I I will just add as it specifically relates to Old Northern, the reason why that campus u moved to a new school was because the cost of replacement was um was less expensive than the cost of renovating that school has significant needs, significant mechanical needs and monetary needs if we choose to reuse that in some way or some portion of it in some way. So, it may be that it's just a portion of the school would be used. Um, there's also been discussion about how we might use the site as a separate element that may be less expensive in terms of how we consider using the school. Just to clarify a correction on well I was going to say Devon helped us understand this before um what Deon said there of course

because we also worked with the FCA consultants there is a calculation one might say um the FCI the facilities conditions index where you evaluate that just as Deon said the reason uh you don't um overinvest in an age facility which is not meeting your needs anyway or your growth p pattern is that you get to that tipping point of exactly as as Devon said, you're better off build a new and then consider a future reuse of this facility which is rapidly coming to the end of its useful life. Yeah. And I to be clear I'm not advocating for anything on the space right now. I think you know even in that there's also issues with the land there right and what you can what parts of the land you can build on and what parts of the land you cannot which was another contributing factor to the move but I am wanting us to make sure we're remembering that we've got to do something with those spaces and what does that look like as we're even factoring into our um thinking about our

plans and capital improvement and there's some maintenance that still has to happen because we haven't made a decision yet and so how do we know what the cost of that even just to keeping the air on and spraying and cutting the grass and all of that. Um, till we make those plans and make and then actually execute those plans because those that you know those grove like you mentioned and other facilities and land that we might have but we have to keep maintaining as well. So, how do we keep those things in mind? Absolutely, Miss Chávez.

Well, thank you. I I really appreciate this presentation. So much data. Love it.

And um so I'll just make a few comments. One um that I would definitely like to see the community engagement happen. I think that's really important. Um and then uh I just w I was figuring out how many middle school students we

would have if it was comparable to the high school number. Um and it is 8,145. So that's when yeah when you take the average number of students per grade I think it adds up to somewhere around 1,200 to,400 additional seats to round out that number to be equal to the number the grade levels that are in elementary or high school. Right.

So it's similar to the number you you just mentioned. Okay. Yeah. you pro you have a more sophisticated I did a quick but either way um I just think that's really interesting and something I hope we'll continue to you know dig into and learn from um yeah fascinating I'm see you know so uh there is work to be done with our middle schoolers and their families um and then um I wanted to just mention that I think that um another slide that really caught my attention my attention was this challenge number before about the schools um that are under capacity

and or not built for the capacity um of a of a model school. And um I just want to note I think it's really important that we have representation from those communities in our community engagement in our process either on the task force or in community engagement um meetings. Um they are most of them are predominantly black and brown and um sort of east Durham to like Hayai area. Um so I I just want to be mindful of which regions of Durham would be impacted.

Did you want to comment? Yeah, it is a very sensitive conversation. I think the evaluation has to be very thoughtful and I also think that when we talk about that we're really talking about it as a trade up scenario for for wherever that happens. You're getting something newer with more resources with comprehensive modern learning environments. It is it is an ad. It is a plus if you are a

beneficiary of that. That is the way we think of it. It is not school consolidation and school closure um at at the price of some and not others. It's it's a premier choice the way we think about how we would address that.

Yeah. And I and I appreciate you bringing all those um benefits up of a larger community. Um and hopefully, you know, I I think ideally it would be like both best of both worlds together. Um, and yeah, I will just say completely agree the community needs to support it.

They need to advocate for it. They need to be in the conversation of choice. Absolutely. Yes.

Thank you. Um, and then uh let me see the other things I just want to mention, they're a little bit I think beyond in this process, but I'm they come to mind and have been coming to mind as I've been waiting for this assessment um to come up. one are just thinking about um equity in different ways. I hope that we will as we think

about creating renovating or creating new spaces have genderneutral bathrooms. And so I'm going to mention that. I just think about all the different communities and populations that the space um changes, you know, affect. And um I'm really glad um Miss Harog asked about the sunrise movement and all of very glad to hear about that work.

That's awesome. um they've done a lot of work. I'm glad they've met with you um so much and um so I'm excited to hear how that will really you know kind of come to life in this too. The other thing I wanted to mention um Breastfeed Durham who we heard from last meeting has advocated just to um uh we already have lactation spaces in our in our schools but to make sure that they are as good as we want them to be um or if there are any you know improvements. So, I'm just thinking about different organizations whom we might invite in that community engagement process or um you know who might have just insights on space uh that yeah that we haven't um

dug deep into. So, uh I think those are all my comments, but I'm really excited about where this will go and I thank you for all of your work on this, Miss Byron. Then back to Miss Herald Goff. So I just want to start with just gratitude to you all.

I know this has been a tremendous amount of work while you have a tremendous amount of other work going on and I know you have been anxiously awaiting this report from Turner Towns and Harry and have just really probably spent over time um digging into it and and bringing it in a way that is um so transparent to our community and and to us about the challenges that we face. Um, I wanted to clarify one point that I heard Miss Mitchell say, you know, in the bonds in the slide number 11. I

almost went wish wish that one was more of a timeline rather than looking like those bonds were regular because they were regular for a while and then we had this long stretch between 07 and 16. And um, you said that we asked for money. This is what we received. after many many many many many years of uh negotiations, push pull, prod back and forth and um to to know that our that our facilities are aging to hear from our folks in some of our newer facilities like Spring Valley that they're having HVAC issues, right?

That that that our maintenance and our our repairs are so overdue. Um, I'm so appreciative of you all um championing and leading this work. I I got so excited when I saw these slides that I volunteered if if there's room for me to be a board member on this task

force because I really really think it is so critical. We have so many tier one needs that that we work in collaboration with with our colleagues in the county and the county manager and make sure that we can get a bond for Durham public schools on the ballot for voters in 2026. And so I wondered if you all had had the chance to have conversations with county manager. Are we going to start having them next week?

kind of what their timeline is and how it fits in with this um project timeline and make sure that we are aligned. Um have y'all had those conversations yet? We're going to start having them next week because they think of this I believe as one part of their comprehensive capital plan um as they look at the vast needs in this community as well. Um I don't know who did it look at to know whether that's still Yes, we will have those conversations.

Okay. We're trying to get something else from them right now, but we will have the Yeah, super super important. And um Well, Miss Ber Mr. Teter has I believe Mr.

Teter, I believe you've had some you and Dr. Lewis have had some preliminary conversations. Is there did you want to add anything on that or no? You Okay.

All right. Very good. Like I I know they know it's coming and I know that they are um receptive to it. Um, but when we look at $900 million in tier one needs, life safety, building envelope, building systems, um, that that is so urgent and so overdue.

Um, and I I am so appreciative to live in a community that is supportive of bond issuances in such a strong way. Um, and I'm so glad that we have done the work of growing together, that we are evaluating that student data and and that planning in a multi-year approach to know where that growth will be. I

think we need to continue to look at models for land banking like y'all have talked about um and do that collaboratively with the county. But um I looked at the number of square feet y'all said we have and we've always talked with the county about what per how do they maintain their square footage in the county and if I'm doing my math right we get a$125 with our 8 million in recurring if we get it from them this year in capital money $125 per square foot right which includes not just our buildings but our parking lots our athlet aletic fields, our offices for staff who are in 30 or 40 year old mobile homes, trailers, right? And so it is so critical to me that we look for ways, as you've said, to touch all of our schools in an equitable manner, but also that we take care of our our staff as well. That

is way overdue. It hasn't been included in any of these bonds. We were talking about looking at Jordan and replacement for Jordan. We were talking about a new elementary school really quickly in East Durham.

And then we were talking about looking for flex space for students or if we have any of our existing space can be used as flex space so that we can do some of these elementary renovations without students impacted. And so the complexity of this is going to require so much from you all. I'm I think it Dr. Lewis, if we need to hire actual consultants to join this and accelerate this and get the community engagement that we want, but also keep it moving, I I think we got to do whatever it takes to to make sure that we get this to the finish line for 2026 and then that regular issuance and of multi-year bond projects, which I appreciate you talking about, Miss Mitchell. I don't know if any of those were questions, but um I I'm so appreciative of the work that you all

have led and continuing to drive these conversations to give it get our students the schools they deserve. Very much appreciate the thoughtful comments. Um they're all very helpful. Thank you, Miss Hoff.

Um, just a a couple of other things just I wanted to lift up out of curiosity and just making sure I'm hearing, but are we also thinking about our bus lots? The the is that included as part of the footprint like is that I mean we talked about the buildings and everything, but the how we have three bus lots, one of them's or and we were talking about the need for transportation to have space and is all of that. Yes, we've already done two studies on the possible relocation of our bus lots. I don't think that they've only been studies.

Nothing has been determined. Um I think those are definitely part of our conversations about how we use some of our space in the district. Um and that'll definitely be um a regional conversation for us. Yeah. And the the the last thing is I'm I'm still very

curious about how our um partnership the the the the ownership of the Holton Resource Center and how that's a joint building is that ALS like are we responsible for the that that entire building that we're sharing with the with Durham Parks and Recre and Duke and I know that it's a shared financial responsibility for maintenance. We have an agreement with the with the city of Durm on that building. we are in charge of the overall um maintenance and other aspects of it, but then they reimburse us some of those costs and then each year both the school system and the county put money into a fund to deal with the um I'm sorry, the city put money into a fund to deal with possible repairs and maintenance and all those things. And at the moment, um, we've been having some increased

conversations about making sure that some, um, outstanding repairs get taken care of sooner than later. So, it's a really good working relationship right now. So, but it's not necessarily a part like um like we're I get that that we're responsible for that now, but is any upgrade or like of the building is that a is that something that's included in that would be included in this plan or because of that partnership that's not a part of this this conversation? Like it's not is it included in this packet or is it something that's separate?

It's not the same thing. So, every conversation's on the table. Um I will say that that facility is not um used uh comprehensively. There are a number of open spaces that could be a facility that we think about for swing space if we're doing modernizations in schools in that area. Um it also we would also need to look at capacity um for that specific area to see if um if we looked at um

reuse of part of the facility. So it will be um a conversation topic. It will be one of the uh schools that we analyze as part of the process. So, thank you, Miss Har.

I want to address a question about the bus driver made the bus lots. So, we are beginning to look at uh possible upgrades for our staff at all three bus lots and what it would cost the district to do that. Thank you, Mr. Barnes.

Just to clarify, Holton was a part of the footprint of the facility condition assessment. Um, Dr. Lewis. Yeah. Let me just first uh send my gratitude to the team and Devin Mitchell for this outstanding report and update to the board and the community. And I really appreciate this notion of moving from um being reactive to proactive when we think about some of the issues that have caused us to

release school early once our buildings on that maintenance cycle and um repairs are uh intentionally scheduled on this cycle and parents, community members, staff can log on to this dashboard to see when will my school get a new HVAC system or or a new roof. that's going to be critical uh to the work that that we move forward. I think this board should be proud and this community should be proud of setting a standard when we talk about sustainability uh with Murray Massingberg being I know the first wellcertified building in North Carolina maybe one of only few elementary well-certified buildings in the nation uh and so that standard has been set in terms of uh sustainability and and creating buildings um that benefit our students and staff in in the entire community. And I really appreciate board member Armstead bringing up our athletics facilities. Had an opportunity to attend a Special Olympics event a couple of weeks ago at a I won't name the school, but their athletic facilities. If we're going to be competitive, we have to invest and our

students deserve um nice athletic facilities. And we did ask um the folks uh that that did our comprehensive um study, did they also look at our arts um settings as well, theaters, band rooms, and yes, that is included um as as well. And then lastly, just understanding, yes, these are big numbers here, right? But keep in mind also these are today's prices, the today's numbers, and so we don't know what that will look like 5, 10 years down the road.

Um, so just want to keep that in mind as well. But again, uh, thank you so much to the team for this amazing report. Yes, thank you. And I do want to acknowledge also that Chair Rogers has, um, been able to join us online.

And, um, Chair Rogers, did you have any I don't have any comments, but thank you all for the presentation. Thank you and welcome and um, thank you so much. This is really exciting work. really appreciate the presentation. Um,

love seeing it and all of the data that you've presented. The age of our buildings and our properties just is really incredible to me just to see it laid out like that. This explains some of why we have some of the issues that we're having right now. And I really like um as Dr. Lewis said and as you had noted this moving um to pre from uh to prevention so we're not playing whack-a-ole all the time with each of the different needs right um so excited super psyched to hear that we have a sustainability champion now and that you are doing such amazing work on that front so um look forward to hearing more about that as that moves forward and is integrated into all of our new builds and our renovations so um any yes miss buyer just I always look for things we can advocate for and our community can join us in advocacy. Um reminder that Governor Stein's budget proposal does um propose a statewide bond and he was just

over in Burlington recently highlighting this need that is so important across the state. Um, so his recommendation would be a $4 billion statewide bond that would give about 35 million per LEA, which we know in rural parts of the state would make a vast vast difference for our colleagues and and um would help us here as well. So, thanks. Any other board members with comments or questions before we wrap up?

Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much again. Thank you all for your time. Thank you for your comments.

Really appreciate all the feedback. Thank you. Okay, moving forward. The next item on the agenda is um under board of education item uh the board community engagement policy. So excited to present this here today. U Miss Harrell Goff's going to get

us um started and then Miss Chávez and I will um continue with the discussion and this is simply on the agenda intended on to be on the agenda for information so we can have a robust discussion about this this evening. So looking forward to that. I'll pass it to you Miss Hargo. Thank you.

Um so we're here on the first slide. I want to say we're here to share with the board a drafted concept for a Durham Public Schools Board of Education community engagement policy for discussion and expanded feedback. And on this slide, you'll notice the quote from the book, Great on Their Behalf, um by Eric Jurnney CrarAel. Um I believe um all the current board members and our superintendent, many of us have a copy of this book and are very familiar with its contents.

And it's it was actually gifted to me by chair Rogers when I was elected to the board. Um, one thing that I wanted to lift from this book is um, Mr. CrarAel really details a universal principle that I feel one would need to

be in agreement with in order to understand the significance of having a an actual policy that would outline a requirement for a very intentional and collective community engagement strategy for a board. And the universal principle that's pretty much out, you know, there's a theme throughout the book is that school systems exist only to improve student outcomes. And therefore, school boards exist to create conditions for improved student outcomes by representing the vision and the values of the community. Um, and of course he goes on to reference that the vision the vision is the responsibility of the superintendent.

The values are the responsibility is what the board holds. And those two things work together. So, as the quote from Mr. CrarAel implies, we're relying on the superintendent to determine how to accomplish the vision of igniting limitless potential of all of our scholars while honoring the values of the community. And therefore, if we believe that a school board exists to represent the community's visions and

values, then we have to be of a mindset that a board has the responsibility to support and model a very intentional and collective board community engagement strategy for the purpose of informing how we make decisions on the board on behalf of the community that we serve. Next, next slide, please. Um this slide is why a community engagement policy. Um so a lot of these things are outlined.

um increasing transparency, accountability, giving community members greater and more equitable access to members of the board, encouraging um reciprocity of learning, meaning that the board is not only educating community members about board roles and responsibilities. We're also being educated by community members on their experiences, their priorities, their challenges within the district. It allows board members to receive the same

feedback. That is um what a policy would do. It's it's a way of uniforming how you know what community feedback we are lifting up in our public discussions. It brings all board members closer to the day-to-day work of the schools and the impact of board level decisions on our students and learning environments.

And the last point is um bolded um because it really speaks to why a board community why board community engagement should be enacted as policy. By enacting it as policy, we set a baseline of expectations for board members and future board members to build cap to build a capacity for collectively um protecting the values of our community and to stay focused on those values and to help our district set goals that will continually improve the student outcomes that our con community needs and values. All right. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about

our process um leading up to or uh leading up to the development of this policy and how we got here. So last year um in the spring a board member at Ka Carta had um learned about a community engagement activity that was um that another district used and she talked to all of the um then board members about it. She also heard Crarabel speak about um AJ Crarabel, the author of the book that um board member Harold Goff just referenced um speak about board community engagement and community conversations. Um and so that began some conversation around board community engagement and in the summer um Miss Cardott and Miss Herog and I all kind of expressed in our different conversations um interest in the creation of a board um community engagement policy. Um so we

informally shared with um some board members and Dr. Louis over the fall um that we were um interested or working on this policy. Um we used a schoolboard part partners model policy to get us started. Um but it is uh it has gone through significant revision um since that point.

Um, and schoolboard partners is an organization that uh that Miss Cardotten and I um engaged with last year through a fellowship and um Miss Rogers the previous year and we all went to this conference last year uh all of the board members in July sponsored by them. But as I said that was just the starting point. Um we uh Miss Harrell Gooff, Miss Carda-Auten and I worked on this policy over the fall. um and made lots of uh changes along the way. In December of 24, we then shared a draft of the policy with all board members and the

superintendent. Um and then in January, uh the three of us met with Dr. Lewis um about the policy twice and in the interim between those two uh meetings uh we he discussed with his cabinet um the policy and shared some of their feedback with us as well. Um and then we decided since this was a board community engagement policy, it made sense to get uh community involvement and feedback from community members and leaders.

Um and so we met with uh 13 individuals from February to March of 2024. Um we had seven seven meetings with 13 different individuals from various uh organizations or working on different projects and um they gave us sort of a preliminary those are preliminary round of community feedback. Uh and then you will see here um in the

board materials a feedback document uh where we have organized the feedback by topic and at the end of that table um in that document all the individuals andor organizations depending on the um individual's comfort with being listed by name or not they are listed at the end of the document. So, um that is who we've spoken with thus far, but as we will note later on, we are still uh interested in collecting community feedback on this policy. Um so, we can go to the next slide. So this is just an outline of the policy itself and um there are it begins with a purpose statement with some of the norms that we are uh would be operating around if we adopt this policy. Uh secondly the goals uh and

then the board commitments. Um first around planning how we would plan mainly for the community conversations and then listing three annual foundational strategies which will be the focus of our presentation this evening. Um and then we talk about accessibility um for these uh different uh community engagement strategies and accountability. Next slide please.

And so with that we will move into looking at these uh three annual foundational strategies proposed in the policy. Um and again um these are some questions to center us. What will be the baseline um foundational expectations for our community engagement? Um and how would we define those expectations in a board community engagement policy. Um that's what we will sort of center on.

All right. So I'll pass it back to Joy. Miss Harrell Goffer. Next slide please.

So, one foundational strategy that um we t that this draft talks about is a board board community conversations. And so, the purpose of this strategy is to create accessible, equitable, authentic, and safe spaces for sharing, learning, listening, and learning. And um I would expand this purpose statement to also include the need for school boards to go to parts of the community that are not likely for various reasons to come to or through our traditional or historical systems of engagement. So the intent for these conversations would be for the board to model through process how to grow and practice authentic, equitable, and accessible engagement that informs decision making in the boardroom.

Um some questions that have come up to consider um thus far are how do we identify can we identify and include a community engagement expert to facilitate a selection of community members to serve on a planning committee? Should there be a point person from administration and if so who? Um what would be the community the committee's length of term or frequency for this committee? the number of meetings they would have each year to get to um for the work and then what would be the most effective way for the board to synthesize and share data from board community conversations. That last question number three is important because um it will impact how authentically the board as a whole considers the community's voice in goal setting and decision-m. The way the conversations are documented and processed will impact how the community trusts the process and

whether or not the community will respect that they have been heard, understood, and considered in business conducted by the board. and I'm passing it on to next slide. Right. So, I'll talk about the board newsletter.

Um, let me also um just note here that in the feedback document again um organized by topic. There are three um topics that have to do with the community conversations. There are two h having to do with um directly with the newsletter. Um, so you can kind of match those up with the questions that we've proposed here. Um, but the the purpose of the board newsletter is to um in an accessible way keep the community informed about board business and major topics coming up for dis discussion as well as decisions that directly impact our stakeholders. And um

we overall sort of a running theme through all of this is um is a kind of a reciproc reciprocal why did I try to change that word reciprocal relationship with um the community that um both allows for their uh listening to them and the community various communities and their concerns and then also sharing information out with the community. Um so some questions to consider there. Um how could we build um how could this newsletter build on communication that's already being developed by administration? There is a board update that goes out. So um we could uh hopefully build on that and then how soon would each board meeting uh after each board meeting would this newsletter be released? thinking of timeline and how that timeline allows people to interact with the information and then make decisions about how they might uh engage with the board at a the

next meeting or a future meeting. And I'll pass it now to Miss Cardotten. Thank you. I'll close us out.

Would you mind um going to the next slide, please? Excellent. Thanks. So, um, the last of the foundational activities that's outlined in this draft policy is school visits.

And then the purpose of this is to codify the expectation that every school in our district receives a visit from at least one school board member every two years. So, this would require that board members visit at least one school per quarter, which provides us with an opportunity to see and hear about the impact of our district level decisions on our school communities. So in talking with community leaders, there was overwhelming support for school visits by board members. They noted, however, uh the need to ensure that these visits did not appear to be evaluative evaluative or punitive um and recommended that procedures be developed

um and applied uniformly. Um we of course also want to be avoid being disruptive of learning on any school visits. Um, I'd also like to share that in my first year on the board, I visited all but one of the schools in my district along with a handful of others in different regions. And I found this to be incredibly helpful as I was learning about um my role and about the district. Um, I coordinated these visits with principles, um, notifying the superintendent, of course, at times that were convenient with the principles, made sure to keep visits to an hour or less to not occupy too much of their valuable time, and was always welcomed warmly by them. , um, firsthand and really informed um, my

work. So, uh, next slide, please. So, uh, our vision, uh, for next steps, because we'd like to have a plan, um, is we are really excited to, um, receive and discuss board member feedback during tonight's meeting. Um, and then we also are um, enthusiastic about continuing to receive community member feedback.

We've created a um, Google form that folks can access via that link or the QR code here. It's also up in board docs and then we um hope to distribute in other ways as well to continue getting community feedback. Um and then of course we want further review by administration and our attorneys um and more recommendations from them. So this is very much um you know this has been on our minds and something that we've been thinking about for a long time but we very much consider this to be an um uh stage and early stages as far as

receiving and welcoming more feedback. Um and then we um were want to put the work into consolidating the feedback received and sharing back at the May 22nd board meeting for continued discussion um if that's possible. that tight timeline might be tight, but we can maybe think about that. Um, and next slide, please.

And then we um just put together some questions that we thought might help guide the conversation today. So I think um first as you're looking at you know the quotes that or the pieces of feedback that were in the slides are parts of the feedback and then as um board member Chavez noted there's comprehensive feedback in a table that's in an accompanying document. Um so we're just curious to know what stands out to you from what we've heard so far. Um, also what do you like about the current draft of the policy and what changes do you think are needed? Um, and then of course anything else you'd like to share that doesn't fall into those large

buckets. But um, so with that, I'll close um, this part presentation and open it up to comments or questions from board members. Who's excited to kick us off? Miss Byer, thank you for uh your work on this.

Thank you for your heart for equity and inclusivity. It's um something I think that we all share. Um, and it's I know it's taken a long time to to get here. So, I want to express, you know, gratitude for you all for um the work that you've put in. And I guess I just want to read into this. It's I mean, the hour is

long. we've been here since 3 or whatever, but um I want to read into your consideration some of the questions I think that I sent to you all um today and they don't have to be answered now. Um but there some of the things I've been struggling with. I've expressed them to some of you as you've worked on this and I know we're trying to bring this into an open meeting space where um all seven of us have impact and input into what will or won't be policy going forward.

So when I look at this policy and I I've seen lots of things we've done for board community engagement, whether it be be our guest, whether it be kitchen table conversations, whether it be forums when we're in crisis. Um I think there's some things that have worked and some things that haven't worked. What I like best about your policy is what I think all educators struggle with is how to

reach the most marginalized students, families, community members that you don't often hear from, right? And I think at the school level, that's what um everyone struggles with and is looking for best practices with. Um, as I'm said and I were talking about that just from her based on her work at Student U, like you know how to get the same folks that show up at school things all the time. What you don't know is how to how to get reach those that we're not reaching.

Um, so I appreciate the heart for that. I still struggle personally and this is my overarching concern and I'll just put it into this space and y'all tell me. You just think about it as we continue forward, you know, in the days and weeks ahead with as we consider this policy. I don't think the community at large really wants to engage with board members. I think they want to engage at their school level with their school communities. And I want us to make sure that we're robustly supporting

the resources and and that are needed at the schools. I think if a school system is functioning, board members, you you you only really hear from folks when stuff's going wrong and you direct it to the superintendent and you fix it. But I think I think we've we've had a lot of years of like negativity and so it feels like we want more dialogue. I think people just want everything to work and they really really want to be engaged and build those relationships.

Not with us. I don't they don't they don't need to build them with city council and county commission. They want to know that that systems are working. So when I when I struggle with this policy, I'm like, do they robustly need to engage with the school board members? I really have a question about it. Um, so then it goes to the question of what resources would be needed to do what y'all are asking for because there are budgetary impacts and that I think needs to be

considered. [Music] Um, when you get into um and then I want to hear actually what administration thinks and what principles think and what our team is already doing. I want us to be informed by the parent academy things that are working and the ones that aren't. The the engagement things that public affairs is leading.

What's working? What's not. I want us to consider using virtual spaces and Zoom and things that make marginalized folks more, you know, make things more accessible to them or make them more safe to engage, right, in these really really challenging times for um immigrant families, for LGBTQIA students. If I if there were one thing that group that I wanted to engage with more, it would be students.

And I think Dr. Lewis is doing some of that. and and and that was lovely in the um town hall that we had the other night to hear from students. I also think like we're a team

and so how do how would we envision any board community engagement without actually weaving it together with our strategic plan, our district leadership and what they're doing. And so to me that's critical that because we we can't answer any questions. we can just listen to folks. So if if Dr.

Lewis and his team aren't there with us, then we're just hearing. But but we and and and that's when we sometimes get into that squeaky wheel governance, which is the worst kind of governance. Um and then just more more tangentially, you get into the list of whose community. I would consider adding guardians to that definition.

I don't understand what it means when you say seek to compensate members or businesses from communities engaged for services when appropriate because I sure hope we pay people. Um, but I guess that's what that means. But I don't know. I don't know what acknowledged communal care that is needed regardless of the

resources available to support it. Maybe I'm just missing the intent of that language. I don't get it. Um, I don't I don't there there's some duties in your draft policy that are assigned to the board clerk that I don't think it's our job to to do that.

We don't even supervise the board clerk. The superintendent does. So, I think some of those duties probably belong more with public affairs if they need to happen or in in other ways with researching accountability if you're talking about surveys. Um, I wonder of these three elements, what is the most critical to you all?

I think it's these conversations. If you had to pick one that you wanted to focus on most quickly, I'd like to hear that from from you all so that if it was going to move forward in a partial way or a piloty way, what what is the most important piece that you all think is is critical? Um, I'm very very concerned about school visits because I've lived in Durham at a

time when that has been done very badly. And then I we previously tried things where we tried to coordinate, oh, I'm going here, I'm going there, and we let people know, but and we built a spreadsheet, but that didn't work either. So, I've seen things not work there. And when you go into a school, you are always wearing your board hat, and they see you as their boss's boss's boss's boss, no matter when you show up.

And so the way that we would ever do that, I think needs a lot of thoughtful feedback from um the superintendent and our and our school leaders. So that it was was or is I I largely go into schools when I'm invited for special events. That's how I engage with schools. I found it to be incredibly informative and not disruptive.

And so if that's not working, but I I tend to think of myself as a pretty engaged um board member. Um yep. Uh sometime y'all y'all seem to like put a lot of child care and food in

there. I don't think that's a always needed for every event. And so, you know, I I I don't want us to overpromise what we can do with that, with interpretation, with all the languages that we want to address. We haven't even been able to get our all of our policies into Spanish yet on the website, even though it's a goal we've shared for a long time.

And so, um, I just want us to actually thoughtfully look at what we actually can do, do it well, if we're going to do it. And I mean, I looked at I thought this might have come from Denver to begin with. and Denver already, if you Google them, are not even following the policy that they passed in 2022 that some of this I think model policy came from. And so I think they overpromised and didn't deliver. I want us as a if we do this and do pieces or any of it to actually be thoughtful about what we can do and what gets us

meaningful engagement. So, those are my thoughts and I appreciate I appreciate you receiving them and and collecting feedback from others as we continue this conversation and where we go with it. Thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate all of that and thank you for sending that via email as well so that we have it um documented to Miss Beyer. Um do either um Miss Heraldoff or Miss Chávez, do either of you want to respond to any of that? Now, Miss Har, I um just want to go back to I I do think that this is an innovative idea to re to ask the board to work on a policy that would um systemize or or set a standard of a specific type of community engagement for a collective board to agree to. So I um

I do believe that the systems that there are many systems of engagement throughout the district. Um, and I want to clarify that I do feel that it's important that as a board we have a set of standards that will collectively allow us one way to hear feedback from the community collectively as we're, you know, in a way that will impact how we make decisions as a board. Um and that is a a principle that in order to do that like we we have to see if board members share that um that universal principle that universal need um that argument for um representing the values of the community collectively. Um, I really don't see any other way to be able to do that outside of a requirement for a certain level of

collective engagement, a strategy for how the board would do that. And I'm looking forward to having the conversation as to how we put that. If the way that this draft is reading is not working, I do believe that there is a way to get to that and that that's very important. Um, and I want to go to the draft quickly.

Um, looking for it on my I have it in front of me. I don't know if we can put it up, but um, a lot of this came out of some of the community engagement that we, you know, the the community members that we have talked to in this preliminary stage. Um a lot of this came up about these four um five under the purpose um these five norms and not understanding these norms. And so I would like to argue that everybody like like um Miss Buyers was saying, everybody is always saying, you know, there's this this aspect of the

community that we're not able to engage effectively. They're not the ones that, you know, are the squeaky wheel that we're going to see. They're they're harder to engage. What are the strategies?

Everybody's seeking these strategies. These five norms that people um if you um scroll down, is it up? Is that the top? Scroll down.

First page. Yeah. Yeah. Go up.

Up. Those five norms. The reason why we put them in this um in this draft come directly from research that our community members from our community have already done deep research into how to engage communities that you don't typically hear from. Um what I find as a board member personally dealing you know being on the board in this way this culture feels very different for me outside of the culture of this board and of of this

kind of governance there is a whole other standard of understandings and they clash. So if you take these dorms to those communities that we are defining the ones that are hard to engage, if you take this, those are the understandings that they have. So what we're trying to do by including these standards that come from these underrepresented communities from that research is to go deeper to really understand what that means and to figure out okay this is a different way their community this community is saying that these are proven this is what they're saying is needed in order to get more robust engagement from those kinds of communities and so I want to keep that in the convers conversations as we're talking about, you know, helping us get deeper into understanding what this means if we don't understand what it means. Um the two that keep jumping out not just from

here but also from you'll see in the feedback from some of the community members that we spoke to. It's um number one and number four um acknowledging communal care um that is needed regardless of the resources available to support it. So, an example of acknowledging communal care with, you know, regardless of the resources to support it. Um, do you remember the example I used earlier?

I I brought this up earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So, transparency here. Transparency is about trust first of all, too. It's one thing to make something visible for everyone to see, but if people don't trust the stuff that they're looking at, then it's not transparent. But anyway, so the QR code we we made the we at at earlier we

noticed we were like, "Oh my gosh, this QR code, this isn't hasn't been translated into Spanish. " So, of course, we caught it. at the moment if it had come and if it hadn't been translated, we can still acknowledge that this has not been translated. So already we're negating this particular situation.

We're not going to be able to hear from this particular community. We've acknowledged the communal care regardless of whether we have the capacity to fix it in the moment or not. So it's that's one way of understanding how you acknowledge something that you don't have the answer to fix. A lot of times though the community as long as you acknowledge it, you know, even though that you don't they see that you're acknowledging it and you recognize that it is a roadblock or a hindrance.

Sometimes they have their own solutions for helping us to meet that need. And sometimes, you know, they just they have grace and they say, "Okay, they're working on it. We can't get

" But they see that we've acknowledged that care. So that's a very simple way of trying to explain that. Seeking compensation for members and other business from community engaged in services when appropriate. Um, where that's coming from is if you're already expending resources sometimes, and this is where a community group that would help us with community conversations and things would be helpful, but if you know you're going to be in a community, sometimes that community has trusted resources that they already, you know, that they would like to recommend. So if you're going to spend money um then what we're saying is maybe sometimes we need to seek you know to see if the community can use that resource because then it enhances the community which is also a support to get them to engage. So, um I say all that to say that this the intent of putting this in here was to

directly address the fact that the intent of this is to do engagement in a very um intentional way to hear from community members that we don't typically hear from. and that these recommendations come from research from members of those kinds of communities that they have done. And so these are direct norms that they're saying if you really are serious, this is their vernacular, their language on what they're saying, consider this when you come to engage my community. You know, this is what we're saying we need.

And so that is why it's in this language. Um, and yeah, so I'm I will leave that there. Um, I I understand that this draft still needs a lot of work. It still needs a lot of engagement. Um, and I just hope that um we don't give up on having one having a community engagement policy as a

board. Um, we don't give up on it trying to put it together because it's hard work. Um, and I would love to see the momentum of this continue and set the precedents for this kind of specific engagement for the board as an example to the greater community of how to do this kind of community engagement when you're making decisions for a community. I'll stop there.

Thank you, Miss Harrell Goff. Um, I'll just add that I do think it's like it feels really important right now to acknowledge that each of us as board members does our own engagement in the community. Like I don't want to minimize that in any way because we all know that we are out there talking to different community members. We're at different events. Um, so this is by no means intended to replace that. Um this is

intended to be additive and the idea part of the idea is we each have communities that we are out whether we realize it or not we have different subsets of the community that we engage with and that's part of you know there's seven of us so we each talk to different pieces of the community and that works sometimes. What this is intended to do is have a way for the board collectively to operate as a board of seven and listen and share with community members together, not separately because we don't always operate or we shouldn't always operate separately as individual board members. If we're here with this enormous task in front of us of representing the vision and the values of our community, we need to listen together to the vision and values of our community. That's part of the intent behind this. And I recognize that for some it it might feel like extra um but it really feels foundational to me and like we cannot do a really good job at what we

have been tasked to do by the those that elected us if we're not being really intentional about this. So again, I don't want to minimize the work that's always that's already being done because I know that we each put a lot of effort into that. I also know that it doesn't I I totally hear you, Miss Beyer, that people might not want to talk to us or hear from us. I do think too though that um we know that folks that something like um public comment is not fulfilling for any like it's not fulfilling for people who stand there at the podium usually or for us who are not able to respond, right?

It's not real dialogue. emails that are sent to us. We receive so many emails, it's very difficult for us all to respond to those and it's usually never in a way that really makes people feel great afterwards. So, part of this is intended to just build um that space for dialogue. And you're right, too, that we're not going to have all of the answers, but sometimes people just want to be heard, as you know. Um

and uh maybe they want to learn more about how boards operate. I think that that's um a lot of what people have not understood in the last years. There have been a lot of advocacy. Um folks don't fully understand what a board does versus what administration does, the role of the superintendent.

So part of part of the feedback we received from community members was it'd be great to have some of that education happening in these in these um communication mechanisms, right? so folks can better understand that and know where and how to advocate because we want to keep we want we love our durm advocates. I'll shut up there and um I know that Chair Rogers has something to say and I know um Miss Beyer uh you have something else. No, I I really really appreciate it.

I really appreciate you all letting me go first. You not being you having put so much of your heart into it. I'm I concerned and I don't want y'all to be defensive about any questions that anybody asks. And I I hoped I think what I I thought was the next step was that y'all were collecting from us. y'all were wanting more

feedback from community and that we wouldn't get back and forth and back and forth so much tonight because I'm hoping that colleagues are free to share their thoughts and questions in an open thing without feeling like it's personal because it there's just still a lot of I appreciate you saying there's a lot of work still to be done and and the hour is late so and I know we had only put this on the agenda for 30 minutes and it needs much more time so I think I just wanted to say before they share their thoughts and questions, it might be best just to kind of mostly collect those now and for us to all continue to think. But um rather than feeling like it's you know that that you have to answer them all right now because I don't think I think it's something we all have to think about together. So I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Um yes. Um, and I think this is an opportunity, some opportunity for sharing and um, for us to build that shared understanding of some of the questions and concerns that are coming up and then be able to also

help folks understand where we're coming from in some way. So, um, uh, Chair Rogers, would you like to go ahead and share? Hi y'all. Um, thank you so much for um, putting this policy together.

I am very impressed to see the advocacy that has grown out of your work with schoolboard partners and the work to towards uh, being attentive to breast pra best practices across the country for um, school boards. Um I am excited for us to pass um a community engagement policy. I've shared some uh feedback with you all throughout this process a little bit. I think uh one of the first things that comes to mind to me tonight is about the way

um the ex the town halls or the uh community engagement events would be recorded and transcribed etc. as a single parent, uh, as an advocate before I joined the board, coming to a board meeting was a tremendous effort. And I remember the first time I showed up at a school board meeting, I had to get a babysitter and I was coming to speak. I had my uncle come with me.

He introduced me to Mr. Tab at the time. And um, I was nervous as all get out. And so when I think about wanting to um engage with uh baby advocates like I was at that time um that don't really want to engage.

What I didn't want to be was recorded. I wanted to be heard. Um, and so I I want to make sure that we're making space for people that want

to share things that are personal and important as a part of this work that we do without them feeling like they're being watched or uh going to be um judged on the way they show up. Um, so I want us to keep that in mind as we continue to go about developing this policy. Um I want to I want us to explore uh what it what all the things that are already happening now and how we can enhance that. I remember uh the first time my parents showed up to a PTA meeting, it's because it was at the school level and right ahead of a chorus meeting.

And so if there are school level events or district level events like the family engagement summit that I saw Miss Umstead at and that I spoke at with Dr. King and in support of Dr. Dana and his office uh where we actually were interacting with members of the

community if we could put some of this work there um and in those spaces so that we're not reinventing the wheel. I also sent some feedback and questions in regards to the click rates and open rates of the emails that the district is already sending out on behalf of the board and on behalf of the work of the district. Because the truth of the matter is the superintendent's team carries out our vision and talks about the leadership changes that the board approves, talks about the votes that the board takes at the board meetings, right? And if we want to enhance that, we need to do that in partnership with uh the office of public affairs and Dr.

Lewis and whomever else he deems is necessary to be a part of that conversation. One of the other things that I really really want to applaud you all on um Miss Carda-Auten and Miss Chávez and Miss Harrell Gooff is the length of time that y'all spent developing this policy. The way that you

engaged members of the community. It was only three of you. And I think about how robust that work could be if all seven of us had that same length of time and not just until the 22nd to engage members of our communities and people we are connected with around this policy and around ensuring that whatever community engagement policy we activate um and make sure that it reflects what all of our communities want and that we all have an opport have six or seven months to engage to making sure that this policy is what we want as a collective. And I'm not saying that long. I don't know that it would take us that long to get there, whatever length of time, but like I'm hearing from Miss Buyer um some concerns. But I would like to um also find out from administration if there's any other event um happening between now and the end of the year um

that we could like pilot a community conversation to see what that would look like as we continue to develop this policy and figure out what works in Durham and what doesn't work. Um, but I'd like to see all of those things happening. I'd like to see what we come up with as a collective because three came up with four pages of policy that is filled with your care and concern for DURM. How much better could seven people who were duly elected be able to contribute to that?

Thank you so much, Miss Thank you so much, Chair Rogers. Um, that is uh, excellent feedback. I look forward to um, more. I'm excited about the possibility of other board members being involved

and engaged in this. Um, and for us to move forward together in talking with community. Um, I love that idea that you've had and and I think that that there's no, you know, I think we want to balance Well, I'll speak on behalf of myself, but I'm I want to balance this um desire to keep things moving forward, acknowledging that things take longer than we might like sometimes. Um, but want to keep moving things forward while also allowing for the space and time to do them really well.

So, I think we don't the May 22nd's not a deadline by any means. or not. I want um I just want to keep things moving forward. So, um look forward I don't know if you had ideas too on like alternate timelines or what board members might be and I know maybe that's this is not an interest of all board members to be getting feedback on this but um would be curious to hear from others. Um, one clarifying question

I had was the um, the message that goes out from um, Office of Public Affairs after our board meetings, which is excellent, that goes to staff. Is that right? Looking at Miss Cooper for more information on her fabulous newsletter. Good evening.

Are you referring to the board meeting summary that um just provides an update regarding the actions that were taken following the board meeting? Exactly. Yes. Yes.

That is shared um internally with our staff. Excellent. Thank you. So I think um you know what feels like lowhanging fruit might be just building on that a little bit like adding a couple links in there for more information and then getting it to families as well which we already have communication channels. Absolutely. We have the weekly spark email that is shared um with families each week and we can certainly begin to incorporate those

updates um into that communication as well. Excellent. That's great to know that's possible if that's a direction that the board wants to we can do that if necessary. Thanks so much, Miss Cooper.

Um other um other thoughts from board members? Yes, Miss Umstead. Um, thank y'all for your work on this. I think the the spirit of I think part of this too is how do we make board members also feel more accessible to community members.

Um, I will say one thing I love about Durham is you run into people all the time. " And so I think there's I think some ways this is like formalizing that process. Um, I think there's some parts of me that has some like thinking about best practices for community engagement of folks who especially have um been historically marginalized and then like community conversations and how do we actually

wrestle with what's the best practice? Um, a lot of that best practice is going to where they are and knocking on doors and being in community in the barber shop with the people of where they already communicate or where they already congregate. And so it's I think there's a tension that I'm feeling and then we might I don't tonight is not the night to get through that, but how do we piece through this and get to what some of those best practices are and and what is outlined here. So I think there's some more work to do on that part.

And I think that there is I mean you know y'all know I always ask about budget and conversations but like there would be budgetary um obligations with how the policy is written out now. So, we I would want to have more study on is this possible and feasible with staff? And I think one of the another group of folks that I think would be really good to engage um that I didn't see on the list was um a lot of our Latina, Latinx community, um immigrant and migrant communities who I think

often aren't covered in a lot of these conversations or aren't intentionally reached out to. And so would love to see some of the outreach there. if I didn't see I don't think those groups represented in that community feedback. Um, I think we did have a really great policy committee meeting earlier today and I wonder if this is something that could be the committee could spend time working through because I think I also just have some questions like Miss Herog you kind of clarified the seek to compensate members but I think we need to work on that language to get it better so that it's clear for folks and so I think there's a we probably could go line by line and think about how do we um clarify and make clear some of this work and so what does it look like for that policy committee to do some of that, to bring the appropriate staff members in from OPA, from Family Academy, from those other places to say, "Here's what we're already doing. " And I'd be curious to know in other districts, how do they measure um or other folks that you've seen do this, how do they measure

effectiveness? Um is it about attendance? Is it about other stuff in that way? Um, and then I I think I'd be hesitant to think about putting this in policy very soon and would want us to maybe pilot and see what it looks like to do some of this work um beforehand and like maybe we schedule a conversation and see how it goes.

Ending I guess if we have budget to do all those different pieces. But I think really figuring out how do we um take the time to wrestle with this collectively together so that we can get some of the best practices in our and our collective brilliance on this document. So I think there's a lot of there's some good here and there's some other work that we can do I think to make improve and make it better. Um and uh yeah so I think there's some work to continue to do especially because this is a policy. We're not talking about a program for a year. And so, how do we really improve this to be good for not for just for now, but for the future?

Thank you. Appreciate that feedback um and suggestions, Mr. Tab. Thank you very much.

Um this was excellent work. Um thank you also very much for spearheading this. Um community engagement is very important to me. Um as most of you all know, I'm always in the community somewhere doing something with the community.

Uh, one of the things that um stood out was like h how do we bring more of the board together to doing community work? Um, and one of the things that I hope that would happen is that as we are in the community that we would invite other board members to come along because I think that's where a missing piece is because sometimes we're we're in our own safe space in the communities but it's just us. We don't bring anybody else along with us. uh and that that way other community people will see other board members in their community. Um

it's kind of like having a buddy system and a a partner kind of with you. Um that's just a suggestion. The the other thing is how some of this work seems like could be extra duty work for somebody. So, I'm just going to put that out there because if we're trying to ask people to, you know, to do other things within this, uh, we have to take that into consideration that that's a budget item.

" Um so I just wanted to kind of uplift that as as well. And the um the the final thing is that um as all have been has been stated that this is a a a good thing for us to be able to do as a board. Um, I do

appreciate that, but there are areas that I think that we need to kind of flush out and or hash out, really work on it. And um, and those uh, statements or questions or concerns have been raised and I think that it would behoove the um, the ones working on this to kind of take those into consideration and let's, you know, do what we can to to make it even a better policy. The last thing is when you have policy um you know you hear all the time um someone didn't follow policy. So if policy is not being followed what steps are being taken for community engagement policy that's not being followed.

Something to think about. All right that's it. Thank you. Thank you Mr.

Tub. Uh, Miss Chávez. Well, thank you all so much for this feedback. It's really helpful. Um, I

just wanted to say a couple things. Um, one, I forgot to mention in talking about process that, uh, we, uh, well, Dr. Lewis had asked us about or we had discussed like the budgetary implications because there's no doubt if you put in new activities into place, it requires resources. So that is absolutely true and um so we haven't linked that but we did come up with um some what we thought were uh the resources needed to put this into place.

So I wanted to mention that. Um, and that includes things that are, you know, like staff time for different things as well as um like funding for food and things like that that are in this policy. So, I wanted to mention um that and of course um Dr. Lewis and administration could have would have more reflections about um you know what

that would look like um for um for administration but um that is definitely a consideration. Um I also wanted to say uh we did reach out to more people or to meet with them than were listed. So some people didn't respond. Um, so the feedback about there's no one from a Latin organization on the list is, you know, I I see that as well.

And so, um, unfortunately, that has not happened yet. Um, we did translate the the feedback form into Spanish. Um, but the policy is not in Spanish, so I'm realizing we need to figure out a way to post that. Um, and so with with that, um, and one clarifying questions question, Dr.

Lewis, didn't you show me how to get our policies in Spanish? Isn't that it? In Boardocks, just the

web version, you can get it in any language. The issue was with the PDFs, the attachments. Okay. So, existing policies like approved policies are in those languages.

Um would it be possible to translate this and put it up on board docs in um under this agenda item like tomorrow or is that is that not appropriate? There's no other I was wondering if there's a public way to make it public in Spanish throughout. No. Are you saying this attachment?

This attachment like to attach to have another attachment that's in Spanish. Um, I wouldn't just want to do this one. If we're going to do it, I want to to ensure our Spanish families have access to all of our PDFs. And I think that was something that we're looking at in terms of is this something that uh Adobe because I think that's what we use, Adobe or whatever the PDF

uh platform is is able to trans transfer into any language. Okay. Yeah. But even with that, you still would want a p like a interpreter review that information, right?

That would be Yeah, that would be desired. I'm also aware that we um you know, three of us brought this so we weren't uh like directing you all to translate certain things at this point because it's not an established or approved policy. Um, so perhaps we could translate it and um and send it out to to individuals as we do more outreach in the next few send in their their feedback. Am I making sense to you?

Can I ask a question related to that? Is it so is it not appropriate to amend a precise after it's been presented? Could we not just add a you know amend the

precies to include a Spanish version of this draft? Attorney is that permitted that we add a Spanish version of something that was that we had posted earlier after can do whatever it chooses in this kind of a situation. I mean it's if you're just wanting I mean, it's you would be choosing one item of all your items to do this for, but you certainly could um do that and post it wherever you would want to post it. I mean, if the board were to vote to do that, the board could could vote to do that.

Yes. There other questions or you still did you have other things you wanted to share, Michelle? That was all that I wanted to say. So, I guess the question of what to how to put it out there in Spanish is still left hanging, but we can pick that

up. Okay. And um I see Miss Beyer and I thought I saw Miss Umstead. Uh I don't know who was first.

And um Chair Rogers has some something else she wanted to share as well. Uh Miss Beyer. Yeah, I I appreciate the interest in getting it translated or getting it interpreted and and having that done by folks that have the level of of um fluency to get it right, which is what I I think we struggle with with policies is making sure that there's a almost a legal uh interpreter, right? Um and someone we consult with far away.

I do think on in that as that is important to all of us. I think that your timeline of the 22nd or whatever and getting feedback that quickly is is too abbreviated. Um but I heard some flexibility from some of you all in in giving it the time more time than that. One thing that would be helpful to me and I don't know if it'd be helpful to others. I think you all met with Dr. Lewis um maybe more than

once about this. I would like to hear not today but in writing maybe from him and his team on what they like about this policy, what best practices they've seen in other districts, what ideas, what feedback, what questions they have about it as we wrestle with it because um I still think there is um I think that that that import that their their feedback and being able to hear authentically parts of it that they think are good and parts that are terrible. I think it would be really really really helpful at this point for this board to consider and hear from because I think we do governance as a team and I want to make space for for their voice um loud and clear and I want to hear what's already going on but also what they think of of this draft. Um and I think y'all have had those conversations but I don't think I have or others have. So, I would appreciate

that. Noted. Thank you. So, you'd like um administration's feedback in writing if they're if they're comfortable doing that and and have thoughts, I would I would welcome feedback from administration and cabinet on on this draft.

Yeah. Thank you. Um and uh Chair Rogers, did you want to go next? Yeah, that's fine.

Um my only followup, Miss Chávez shared that there was some budgetary analysis. Um as any of that information that um Miss Beyer just asked for get shared with the board, I'd like to ask that um that budgetary analysis also be shared with us so we can um process that as we are processing um the pol the policy. Thank you. Noted. and uh Miss Lstein have a little bit of a process question

um because we're talking about getting community feedback and translating, but I also feel like there's like a lot has been uplifted lifted today about um changes that we want to make or clarifications on the policy. And I'm wondering like do we want community input now? Do we want to get a little bit of a cleaner draft and then elicit more feedback? I think there might even be some like or is there even agreeing on the tenants and the foundations and we say okay this is what we want to do to move forward.

I think this I'm trying to figure out what the right way is so that we can kind of collectively get on board and feel good about what we're putting out and getting feedback from. dps things that we use already. So I think there's a maybe some working on how do we align this really well. And then when do we want to get that feedback? Is it is it now or do we want to do some more um get some more clarity on on the

policy pieces and then get some of that feedback? Thank you. Um yes, I think that's important and we've considered some of that. Um and I think it's good to try to figure that out and I think we can try to decide on some next steps that feel good for the majority of the board this evening.

Um, one thing I just that's come to mind as folks are sharing is just um I I appreciate all of the feedback and I think um this is really helpful because I really I want this um to be something that everybody believes in and that everybody I don't want to move forward with something that this board doesn't want to be doing. So, I want this to be something where we have buyin from folks because you're excited to do it as well. Um, as was noted earlier in our um policy meeting um I think by Miss Byer, sometimes having fewer cooks in

the kitchen makes work move more efficiently, which has made it so that we can work on this. And I think that was one reason that was noted for the policy committee to maybe have fewer members in it so that it was a smaller group kind of hashing out things. So just to acknowledge that yes, things like this do need full board input, but sometimes the full having seven people work on something at the same time. Like I'm I'm I'm just feeling that tension and just noting that we want both.

We want things to move and we want full board um input. And I guess um the other thing is I've heard this um idea that there's potential for things to go really poorly. I heard that around the um history around school visits. Um I've heard that different pieces of this will be really challenging. And I just want to note that generally speaking because because there's potential for things to go poorly or because things are going to be really difficult or they're really hairy to navigate, that doesn't feel like a reason to not try to

do things well or to even attempt them at all. So that's been coming to me and just wanted to share that. Um, so yes, Miss Beyer, you had something else before you. I appreciate it.

I appreciate all all of that. I I don't I don't think that we've ever done things great and I'm not going back to some hearkening back to some great time of community engagement. I did remember that we tried having board meetings and work sessions in different schools. We moved them about trying to engage more community.

We took it took our IT staff a lot of work to do that. It took our clerk a lot of and nobody came right and so we whatever we do we need to set it up for the best chance of success and maybe it's a phased process of these these options. I also imagine that what you're what you're proposing with full board engagement that those would be open meetings subject to open meetings law needing to be posted and so therefore also want to make sure that

Therington Smith has a look at this draft if they haven't already that we actually consider their feedback as well. So, so I do question along with Miss Umstead and I appreciate so much the work in the QR code, but but maybe y'all are still at the point of collecting comments and questions and ideas and best practice and maybe it's not quite ready for May 22nd or you know the the urgency. So, I I don't know that we agree on what happens next. Um, and and I appreciate you naming and making space for something that we could all enthusiastically get behind.

Um, because we do and are all deeply engaged with this community. Um, so thanks. Thank you. Okay, I'm recognizing um that it is getting late and I do want us to um feel good about what our next step is.

So, are there suggestions for Yes, Miss Chavez. Well, one one thing is we had on here to have attorney feedback. Is it possible to also get written feedback from from you, Mr. Malone, or from Therington Smith?

Is that possible? As we're also getting feedback from administration. I mean, yeah, absolutely. We we would be happy to review it.

I guess the only question is do you want us to review this draft or a draft after you've made changes, but we can review it at any point. just whatever you direct us to do, we will gladly do it and turn it around fairly quickly. I'm sure I think it might be my thought is it'd be helpful to have your feedback at this point knowing that it some things may change and I guess what we had wanted to focus on and we kind of talked about various parts of the um policy was

starting with the foundational activities or strategies. So, but I don't think we got sort of we got a lot of feedback on those, but maybe that's what we want to concentrate on for our first, you know, round of edits um whenever we're going to come back with those. So, those are thoughts. Go ahead.

And I just wanted to note that it's my understanding um that that we can incorporate feedback that was received this evening and we can keep getting feedback after this from board members. We just can't be we're not going to be able to incorporate that after incorporate that after this meeting. We'll just need to, you know, bring it back and then we can all kind of think and talk about it again. What were you going to share, Miss Ber? I mean, Miss I just wanted to know is there an opportunity for other board members to work on this with you? Um, I think this has kind of been talked about as something you would take back, but I think I'm I mean I'd be interested to

see how you're thinking about the edits and work through that. And so is that an option? That's that's what I was struggling with as well and which was why I was kept thinking if we can get this policy committee up and working maybe that is the place for it to to be words smmith to a place where everyone's happy with it. It does feel like if we give you feedback and you take what you like and you don't like and we or we have questions and whatever it's almost to me make would make sense for us to take your draft and keep working on it like that three more of us or something.

But it that I know won't feel right to you all cuz you've you've poured your hearts into it. So I do I don't know how to do it without all seven of us working on it. Um that that's what I'm struggling with. Um I see Miss Herald Goff and then I think I saw attorney Malone wanted to share something. Did you want to weigh in first or what I was going to say is that we do

have to be careful about open meetings issues as we try to work through this as a group. I mean this is um that's just something to keep in mind. But as you start to formulate a plan, I mean, we can certainly provide guidance along the way, but that's the only thing I would just remind you is that there may be some open meeting considerations as you kind of work on this outside of a public meeting. Um, but you could certainly notice small group meetings if that helped.

Um and then if even if you know some number of you were going to get together and you wanted to notice the meeting uh you could certainly do that and then you will have um ac you know satisfied any open meetings issues. So there is there are ways to get it done certainly. Thank you. Um Rogers has something else to share and then um did you have your hand up earlier than some said or

Oh I'm sorry. Yeah, Chair Chair Rogers can go first and I may not need to make my thought. Okay, Chair Rogers, I was just saying I'm I don't need to say it. You could say it, but like we could also consider a special meeting for this topic or um or bring it to a retreat should we have a retreat in the next few weeks.

But a special meeting specifically for this topic could be called. Thank you. Are there plans for a retreat in the next month or two? June.

Okay. Okay. Um and then Miss Herald, I'm sorry. What was the answer to that?

Um June was the answer to the is there a retreat by Dr. That was Dr. Lewis's response to that. Okay. I couldn't hear it. Sorry.

Okay, Miss Harrell, I was going to say that next steps for me feels like um more opportunity whether it's in a in a board meeting or a special meeting or retreat, but uh more opportunity to continue to discuss moving forward. But in order to to continue the discussion, I'm curious to know if um what I'm hear what I think I'm hearing is that we all do share we have a shared value for board community engagement like collective board community engagement for a process for that. We don't know how that process looks presently um and need to iron that out in a draft. This draft was meant to stimulate conversation and to encourage us to to you know to see if we have a quorum enough of us to that feels strongly that this is a fundamental value that we want to pursue. Um I'm hearing that that we

do agree that it is a fundamental value that we should pursue. um we might not all agree on the um the three pillar principles that we've outlined you know um but that is open for discussion as well but I would like for a next step to be that we continue to get feedback from all entities that we need to get feedback you know to to open it up even to community you know to allow feedback to continue to come and then bring all that so that we can in some form or fashion so that we can continue to have this discussion to move this forward at a pace that feels what did they say? Move at the speed of trust. So, be able to move this forward at the speed of trust. Um, meaning that I'm I'm putting a lot of faith in the fact that we can absolutely do this um if we agree that we want to move it forward. So to me that looks like continuing to collect like allow the

community to continue to respond. Um ask for you know at this stage or if they don't feel it's appropriate yet for administration and um are legal to respond. Um but definitely if board members feel any of this um synergy or if if enough of us do that we continue to either bring it back to board meetings or that we you know it once a policy committee is established we continue to have the conversation but that one of the things is that you know that we we are agreeing that board will continue to work on this. That's that's what I'm feeling is a next step.

Thank you, Miss Heraldoff. Miss Beyer, I I wanted to reiterate a question I heard Miss Umstead say, and I think I we haven't I haven't heard the answer. So, I'm so glad y'all did this QR code, but who owns it? Where does it go? And is it going to all three of you? And is that

any open meetings concern that it's a Google doc, right, that is going somewhere? Is it one of you? Is it three of you? But is that okay?

Is that all I I don't know what is that good? I mean, I just would feel better hearing that from Mr. Malone. Well, I'm not 100% sure exactly what is happening with it either, but certainly why don't we talk after the meeting and just make sure that everything's in compliance, right?

I think it is and we can talk about it, but we just um it's just a Google form that we have access to. So that means it's just three board members, not a quorum of board members. Like we have access to the back end, right? But wouldn't that be better caught by staff rather than specific board members?

Sure. I think we were stuck with the, you know, we Yeah. are not didn't want to use staff resources when it's just three of us and we were trying to do something on our own. 100% get it. But we're here now. We

brought it into this space. I don't know. I mean, I would generally say that information going to less than the quorum of the board does not cause me any major concerns. Um, but I would want to get a little bit more details about exactly what's what's happening and how it's being processed.

But no, I mean, the idea that it's less than a quorum certainly does not cause me any discomfort. it. What causes me discomfort, if I'll say it, is that it's we've got three people that are that have worked on this that are very committed to it, receiving the information, and four people not receiving the information and not a way for it to be shared, right? And so, is it can we go to chair and vice chair so that it I mean, I don't know, can it go to some neutral staff member or something? But it does strike me as a little bit and I understand why you did it and not not accusing anything. I'm just trying to get

it in a more neutral space. Okay. Thank you for um explaining that. Yes, Miss Chavez.

So my understanding because we've had these conversations about Google Docs before is that because three of us are on it uh it is is a public document. I mean, it's requestable and also we'll share it. I'm hearing I hear you, Miss Beyer. I hear and it I think we're we'll think about that and I'll talk to attorney Malone about the issue being that all board members want to see what the feedback that's received um in its raw form.

Um so that's that feels very reasonable. Um, so I do think um, you know, this is a really busy time of year, so I want to acknowledge that. And also that a retreat um, there's probably a lot of other things that we need to talk about at a retreat.

Um, that said, I would like for we're not sure. We don't have a policy committee yet and we don't have a policy to establish a policy committee yet. So that's kind of um plugging away and hopefully will in the next few weeks be established. Um those that are interested in working on this, I would welcome as many people as want to work on this.

We could have a a separate meeting of the board that's noticed for those that want to be engaged in this. Those are some options. Um Yes. I I can't recall what else I was going to say, Miss Chávez and then Miss Hemstead.

Um, so and I wanted to I wanted to say too, this is the draft that we sent out in December. So, it's we have all this community feedback that is in this table um in this document and we haven't incorporated that either. So, you know, there's

nothing. This is still the like original policy with and then we have just the feedback kind of um organized, but um I wanted to move that we hold a special meeting to work on it with a with whomever wants to work on it on the board because I think that would be great if we could um if we could do that. Second been moved by Miss um Chavez and seconded by Miss Herald Goff to hold a special meeting to continue discussing and working on this. Is there discussion about that?

Yes, Miss Umstead. I mean I do and I'm this is not a like this we spent so a really good chunk of time the last couple policy um committee meetings talking about the purpose of the policy. I mean the purpose of the committee and the idea that the committee really can have the right people around the table to have robust conversations around policy and I really think this policy is a great way

to that the first step for that group to have those robust conversations. You can invite community staff can have the time that they need to be able to have their thoughts to come to the table and we could discuss this. So I um to me and and we're talking about July one having that done. So that could be a group that meets in July as we just kind of named it's mid-Marchch.

You know it is a busy time of the year as our schools and staff are preparing for graduations and testing season and all of that. Um and year round programming which is going to start before we know it, right? And so I'm wondering in this special meeting, could we also just put this in the policy committee, the group that we have designed to look at, review, edit, draft policy that we all collectively have been working on together versus having another meeting? Thank you. Other thoughts about that, Miss Chávez and then Miss

Byer. I think this Well, I want to say we don't have the policy committee yet, but this could be maybe a um this could help us to maybe finalize the policy committee policy um by do kind of engaging in this process. similarly to how we would do um a policy committee meeting. Um but I don't think we should wait for that policy to be completed because things just get backed up sometimes and so I don't think it's I don't waiting but I do think they could kind of talk to each other. Thank you, Miss Byron. Oh, I want to respectfully ask that you all that have poured your hearts into this and spent

so much time on it actually um give the rest of us some time to to hear the collective questions that you've gotten from all of us. both the the our discussion tonight which is just to me the beginning of that feedback the beginning of that feedback that that we all need to wrestle with. I still do want to hear from Dr. Lewis and and his team.

I want to hear from the I want y'all to have time to have it interpreted into Spanish um and and to make sure that as much as possible we can get it out into um that community to hear their feedback about places that feel safe. I want to be better informed before we start wrestling with this language. I want to hear from you all and maybe it'll be individual conversations with each of you on really if we could only do one of these things, what will we do like because I don't I'm more comfortable

with the one and two than I am with three. I think three needs a whole lot more work. Um, so I'm just like also respectfully asking you to consider this is exactly the kind of thing that that our policy committee could spend one or two meetings on um quickly and and come to some resolution where we all are deeply engaged. Um right now it feels like a tortoise in the hair.

So, um, I am very much trying to catch up with y'all, understand the what you've written and what your hearts have been poured into and also listen to colleagues as as we move forward. So, um, I'd rather do it in policy committee with you all um, where everybody can be present and heard. I feel like if we call a special meeting, it won't it won't be enough to get it done. It's going to take one or two things because we'll we'll listen to each other. We'll have more questions.

We'll listen to staff. We'll have more questions and then we'll get somewhere where we can get it moving with the urgency that I think you all feel. Um, but I I hope that you might consider that as as the next step rather than multiple multiple meetings during graduation and budget season. Um, that where we're trying to to we'll be called over to the commissioner several times to defend our budget in the next couple of months as well.

So, Yeah, thank you, Miss Beyer. Miss Harrell Gooff. And then we do have a motion on the floor and I had something else and looks like Miss Homestead does too. All right, Miss Herald Golf. Um, I just wanted to make sure I'm understanding, Miss Beyer. So what you're proposing for next steps is to move forward with a next meeting for ad hoc I mean for um policy committee and then to bring this to the discussion for the meeting for policy

committee. So um instead of doing a special meeting the next meeting would be a policy committee meeting but we would then bring this draft also to continue discussions in the policy committee meeting in the policy committee development [Music] meeting. I think the policy committee itself that we worked on today the policy is close enough that we could finish that in our next meeting. we could get something going.

And then I think the first notion of policy committee would be to wrestle with this. I don't know if I'm answering right because I'm running on candy and haven't had any food for a while. So, and it is 10:15 which is the night is young for us, Miss Bum. So, okay.

That's Did that help clarify your question? Then the ad hoc committee still needs to meet again to finish the policy that would establish a policy committee. And then

the policy committee would need to meet and I believe that the timeline established in the policy the draft is that members get appointed to that and then it gets voted on um in the beginning sorry in July. Is it was it in August or July? I think that might be relevant. It was definitely after the organizational meeting then they're selected and then it was discussed today that that might have three members or five members.

So then those people whoever is selected seven or seven right right or seven then they would wrestle with this and then it would come back to the board. So that's what that would look like. Okay. I do believe that's the draft.

I do believe if if we could finish policy draft in in one more meeting, we could wave the appointment or put all seven of us and get it started. I don't think July has to be a determining date. I don't think that's fair to characterize it as such.

I think we can get this work done. I thought we were going to get it done today, but we had a lot we wanted to talk about. So, no, but I was saying that in the um draft policy, I think it says that it's established and the members are appointed, right? And that's what I was trying to clarify, right?

So we could wave that and get going on policy committee because we wanted to have one for a while. So we could do that. We have that authority. Okay.

All right. So we could establish policy committee and then we could wave the committee wave the the policy so that we could move forward with the community engagement work policy work. Um I um I can I can get on board with that as long as things continue. There is this muddy area of um which I don't think it's so muddy.

I feel like we've already opened the door. Commu community can continue to give feedback. Um and every anyone on the board could you know hear feedback about how you feel about this? But um for the

sake of moving forward, I can I can I can meet that compromise. Um as long as policy committee is going to be, you know, as long as we're able to figure out how that works and then wave it so that we can move community engagement forward. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I know that um Chair Rogers Oh, never mind. Um yes, Mr. Tab. So to help move move move this along.

Was there a motion? Yes. Thank you. So you're going to So thank you.

Are you going to withdraw the motion then? I didn't make the motion. You made the motion. Please help us walk through this cuz we messed this up the last time on the floor.

Okay. There's a motion on the floor. The motion was to hold a special meeting to continue grappling with this. Is there more discussion? Yes, Miss Shave. Um well I think that is um if I mean if we're not going to have

a special meeting I hope it goes like this but there are other policies that have to be changed in order to put the policy committee policy into place. So I'm doubtful of the timeline. I've just I see it getting pushed back and then we don't meet about this until August. And um I just I think the the weeks and the months go by.

So I maintain my motion, but if you withdraw your second, then I don't have a second. So um so yeah, that's where I'm at. Okay. Thank you.

Do we want to go ahead and um vote on the motion or did Okay. Yes, Miss Umstead. I just um also just again thinking about like this spirit of compromise, we could also schedule a board community engagement event for the fall. If we all agree that we want to do at least one. I don't I'm not sure we again we

need to talk to staff about there resources available to do all the things that are listed here while we're still working on this policy. Right? So it gets to the idea of like we still want to do this engagement. So, let's schedule something, but while we're still working on this policy, because I do think it's going to take time and don't want to hinder us from getting some things done or having some of these conversations.

So, that's just my offering of figuring out compromise there. Thank you for that suggestion, too. I know that that's been um lifted up from other board members, too, as an idea of like piloting a community conversation as well. might be interesting to do that while we're working to develop the policy so we learn from it and see how that feels and what we might want to do differently the next time. So, be curious to know if other board members are interested in one um continuing this discussion via the 2B established policy committee and planning for a pilot community

conversation for the fall and available resources. Yeah, I'm not as comfortable. I don't think we're ready yet to pilot because there's still language that we need to have about how that how that because part of the part of the draft and this policy is engaging, you know, picking community members, engaging, having them pick the locations that, you know, all this is a part of the conversation that we still need to continue to have so that we, you know, if we're going to model it, we need to model it the right way. We don't even we haven't agreed yet to how that's going to be modeled.

It doesn't look like it might not look like what we're used to it looking like and I want to be able to be intentional. I really appreciate that. But I'm wondering like I guess I was envisioning that we would have many many conversations between us as we're working towards and with administration as we're working towards this pilot in the fall to make sure that it is a robust example of what we want to see

that would then like does it have to be codified in the policy before we try it? I guess is that what I'm wondering? No. Why?

I don't think it has to be codified in a policy yet for us to try it, but I think that we have another conversation we need to have around what that means and what that looks like. So, you know what we're actually piloting. That's I'm I'm wanting to go deeper into that conversation. So, that could be our first discussion and then after that I would be more comfortable saying let's pilot.

All right. We don't have time to talk about it tonight and I I wouldn't want to to pilot that without having that conversation. Thank you. Okay.

U Mr. Tab. Yeah. I just wanted there is a motion on the floor.

We need to make sure that we either kill this motion uh because we I don't want us to not be gerine. Good thing I have a backup chair tonight. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. Let's um Is the motion still on the floor? I can I can remove my So the policy your

policy does allow a motion to be withdrawn by the introducer at any time before a vote. So the person that introduced the motion could withdraw it if she is so inclined. But what about the person who Well, if you withdraw it, then it's gone. Okay.

What about if she just withdraws her second? That's okay. Well, the policy doesn't address withdrawing a second. Okay.

Well, I'm going to leave my motion. Okay. Okay. Is there any additional discussion before we vote on this motion and continue our discussion?

Okay. Um if not, and the motion was for the um policy to continue being discussed in a special meeting, specially called meeting. Um because we have uh Chair Rogers online, we'll do a roll call vote. Uh, beginning with Chair Rogers.

Millison Rogers. And I vote no. Okay. And, uh, Mr. Tab.

Wendell Tab. No. Uh, Miss Beyer. Natalie Byer.

No. M. Miss. Herald.

Gooff. No. Miss Umstead. No.

Miss Chávez. I. And I vote no. Okay.

The motion fails 621. Now there was another idea on the there were a couple of ideas on the table and one was to continue the discussion in the um to be established policy committee. It's been noted that um that feels like the something that might make sense because that's already in progress, provides good infrastructure. Also, I'm hearing some concern about um the timeline there and how long that might take. So, I do just want to acknowledge that doing that involves some trust. um it feels

like I'm I'm open to that and um want to trust the process and I also that's in part because I want to move forward collaboratively with all of us um engaged in this process and in a way that feels good for everybody. So again look forward to seeing how that goes if that's a direction that we want to move in. Is there um any other discussion or anybody else want to make a motion? I guess there could be a motion that we move to add the draft board community engagement policy to the policy to yet to be established policy committee to to be right way to frame that.

the a motion to move the um draft of the community engagement policy to the to be established policy committee. A second if Rod's okay with it. I was looking at No, I think that makes sense. Yeah, I think that's really clean.

Clean as it gets. Uh any it's been moved by Miss Umstead and seconded by Miss Byer to move the draft of the community engagement policy to the in progress policy committee. Um is there any discussion? I see Mr.

Tabs stand up and Miss Beyer. Yeah, this is to the attorney. That language I just want to make sure we're in line with that language. We can say to be determined pol policy soon to be established policy committee.

I just want you to you can clean it up the best way we can clean it up. But it just sounded I don't know how that works. And so I what I understand the motion to be is that once the policy committee is established that this policy is immediately kind of referred to it and would be the first policy considered. I mean that's kind of the way I am interpreting the motion. Well, she needs to if she don't mind say it the way he

said it. I move uh what Mr. Malone said. I second that.

Is there any need? Okay. See, Miss Beyer and then Miss Chávez. So, I appreciate y'all.

Um, I just wanted to acknowledge like I get that this is super important and that there are some deadlines that are looming for some folks um that that are coming in early July. I'm looking at Miss Chávez and Dr. Lewis with their new arrivals. And I I want us to commit to to making sure that we prioritize this to get this done as as much and as quickly as possible. So both of these things, the policy language, it might not be perfect, but we'll get something going and then this this comes to the top of the list. So I just hope that um I hold those those dates and that that importance um of that timeline as we look at dates and look at doodle polls to accelerate both of those and

get our calendars aligned really quickly. I think that's important. I hope we I believe we can do it. You miss Shins.

I appreciate that sense of urgency. Um, I'm going to ask a pessimistic question. What if there's not a policy develop or policy committee that is developed? Nothing would prevent the board from revisiting this and and placing it somewhere else or scheduling a special meeting or setting up a committee specifically for this or whatever you might choose to do.

So, all those options would remain for you down the road. Okay. Thank you. Okay, there's a motion on the floor.

Uh, is there any other discussion? Okay, we'll move to a vote then and um uh begin with Chair Rogers. Rogers and I vote I I

I I I I passes unanimously. Thank you all. Okay. The next item on the agenda is um items for information only, please note.

And then the next item on the agenda is oh summary of follow-up items. Who's that? Anyone? So I'll go ahead and um the I'll start it.

Dr. King. Okay. The first there was nothing for a master's pain.

No a followup. a follow-up for the pay changes for certified and classified staff who drive buses other than as they're full. We got we know what that said. Salary administration policy. There was a lot

of feedback that was gleaned. I won't go through that entire list, but the short form of the follow-up is that it is to come back for second reading on June 10th. And Miss Harrell Goff is going to continue working with the salary working group. Dr.

King, you want to take it? Uh so so the uh board community engagement policy. Uh the items there were uh uh questions about the best practice for uh reaching out to people who are considered uh marginalized. uh some needing some clarity around the language around compensating um staff and and individuals and community individuals. Um request to understand the budgetary obligations uh and what about the policy is

feasible. Um uh uh request to see additional outreach to the Latina Latinx community. um question about how people in communities that are doing this work currently um communicate about the event and evaluate its effectiveness. Um there was also a question about whether or not there might be uh a community an opportunity um to uh take a a stab at a community engagement event in the next few months.

Um question about whether or not this is work. Um is this is this extra duty for for some staff member? Um and and then there was there were the questions around how the process would proceed.

um think that of course the motion to um the motions around the policy that that ended as they did. I think that's it. And then I I'll finish up with the CIP. Um again, there was several comments back and forth just umformational, but the follow-up item is for Dr.

I think from for Dr. Lewis regarding clarification on conversations with the county on the 2026 bond. , and expanding disaster planning. But those were really more just kind of conver um conversational.

But as far as a follow-up item that um the only one would be that 2026 bond with the county and Dr. Lewis, Dr. Pitman, did we miss anything? Thank you. Thank you. All right.

Yes. More discussion. Sorry, just a quick thing. I think I we haven't as a board talked about the collective climate action plan and sunrise movement.

I mean, I'm supporting I want us to be thinking about that, but I don't know if that needs to be a followup of the board kind of having some conversations around directing staff to continue to work on that plan or giving some consensus towards that. Just for clarity, are you so you wanted to be a followup for the board? Yes. Okay.

Thank you. Have a question. Um if I can. Yeah, of course. So with the community engagement policy, obviously several of the questions there are a couple of the questions that are questions of administration, but the other questions I'm wondering are would it be for the the three me board members who brought those the item to answer those questions or admin? I'm

assuming that we could not answer them as as the administration. Great question. Did you I think Yeah, I was just going to say I think I appreciate you capturing them, but I do think they are questions for whoever is working on it, which now is going to be all of us. So I think so or a quorum or whomever wants to.

So I guess if you all have any like feedback on certain one certain of those pieces that's helpful but otherwise I think it is mostly for the board to discuss. Thank you for asking. I kind of disagree like at least what I was hoping was that they would be free to say here's best practices that I've seen in three districts like they're also doing this like here's what works to actually connect with families if they have that information. Like I don't know they read all kinds of things that we don't read.

If there is is like my principles don't want you coming into schools. I we need to hear that. Like I want to

hear both best practices both concerns they have. I just want to I want to be informed by how this would impact schools and school communities as well in a good and a bad way. I just want them to make space for that. I do.

I um this is I'm glad that we're then revisiting this now because I I think the real question is does that do we want that to happen before is the board directing administration to do that before the policy committee um grapples with this? Would that be most helpful or that they join the policy committee or is there a vision for how that might happen in a way that makes the most sense because I hear I I would like to hear all of that as well. just I think when is I don't know because I don't know in the meetings that you all have had whether you've heard some of those concerns or that feedback or or not but I I certainly haven't heard it. So I I have concerns about it. I want to I want to lean into their expertise and how it will impact schools and their work. It's

so I I don't know. I'd like to make space for them as as governance partners in this work. Okay. I just want to be mindful of the work we're asking them to do.

So, but if if others are um okay with this then and if Dr. King is amendable to it, then is does it sound like some of that's reasonable to pull together in advance of the first policy committee meeting some information about like feedback from administration on this and it sounds like um feedback from principles and best practices. Yeah. And I think um board member Byer just gave us the essential question is how does this draft policy impact schools and our work as as a cabinet?

And I think I heard you know bringing some of that information back in writing and also heard getting some feedback from principles. Is that accurate? And then did you have something else that you wanted to share, Miss Umstead, or a question? Yeah. And I don't I don't want to belver this point

because the night really has we've talked about this a lot and there's also just so much other pressing things happening in our district with our students right now. And so I feel like I I would suggest that the actually the policy committee meet first, decide what they need feedback on and get clarity on this is what we need from folks, then send that information out. So it comes back and it's directed because we've kind of gone through what we have and we're clear about okay, collectively this is what we need. That goes out.

It comes back. the policy committee is wrestling with that because I think we talked about a lot of things here today, but what are we like landing on feels like something that we need to spend some time on. Um, and I don't want to send people on a mission to do stuff. We come back, we got 12 more questions when we go back and again, we're in a really busy season in schools and there's a lot happening. Thank you. that does feel cleaner to me

and acknowledge I don't want to have them doing work that we haven't all uh necessarily decided upon in advance um and that might be unnecessary. So that might be my preference as well. I wonder if um in the time before the first meeting though if you know board members can be out exploring having informal conversations to learn and doing some learnings so that when we come to that meeting we have some of that but we've taken the time to do it rather than asking administration to do it right now and then we come together to create a list of what we'd like um feedback from administration on. Does that feel okay to folks?

That feels intuitive. Can I get thumbs up or does this address your or does it not? I want us to be able to listen to it whenever it comes. So, yeah, because Yeah, I'll thumbs up anything. I just um Yeah, I look forward to listening to it

when it comes. With that, are we Does anybody want to make a motion? We are next time on on the agenda is close session. Move that we go.

You a move that we go into close session for the reason stated on the agenda. Second and moved by Miss Beyer and seconded by Miss Umstead that we go into close session for the reason state on the agenda. Is there any discussion? Oh, thank you.

Um reminder that we are not returning to this room after um close session. So this will not be stream the streaming will not continue. Um uh is there any discussion? Okay.

Uh with that we will take a roll call vote uh beginning with Miss uh with Chair Rogers. Millisent Rogers. I vote I. Mr.

Nad I. Miss Beyer. Hi. Mr.

Hoff. I missed I Chavez. Hi. And I vote I will go into close session. Thank you.