Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · August 6, 2024

and what will be needed ahead when we bring together our student enrollment forecast with our facility conditions that sets us on a clear path forward for what we would call a facility master plan that's bringing it all together looking at not only what we need where we need it when we need it and how much we need to budget for that's the partnership that folds into the capital Improvement plan so those three cornerstones our enrollment forecast we touch on today we will not get deeply into the facility conditions and needs assessment that is to come as that work is ongoing but it will position us where in the early part of 20125 we can have a very transparent clear conversation about what our needs are across durm public schools and I emphasize that would include both instructional spaces as well as administrative spaces many of our staff work out of 30-year-old mobile trailers for context so with that at at the core of this conversation is just a simple fraction the number of

kids that we have divided by the number of seats that we have or enrollment divided by capacity said differently we have to ensure at a state level twice annually we have to report out on our class siiz compliance for kindergarten through third grade and we have to make sure that all of our children are in suitable learning environments that means making sure we don't have 40 kids in a classroom to do that we have to be mindful of two factors on the top of that fraction with enrollment with every new neighborhood that gets approved come homes rooftops and hopefully children one seat One Singular seat currently in dur public schools to construct costs $100,000 today on the bottom of that fraction is not only the city considerations above for the development approvals it is the capacity of our schools we have a fixed capacity and we'll talk more later we

are at 35,000 seats and our current enrollment is 31,000 so right now today we're at 89% utilization that's about where you want to be because again this is not evenly spread the development that we'll discuss is coming in certain areas and saturating certain regions of Durham County and Durham Public Schools want to review briefly where we've been and where we're going with enrollment annually our school enrollment team within DPS led by Mr Vitali ratsky our school planner for demographics commissions a group of about a dozen departmental heads to review how many students are going to come next year and that's relevant for Staffing allotment making sure that across the district we're in compliance with K3 class size and the rest of it but it's a very microgranular quite literally student by student assemblage that it takes about 6 months concurrent to that Mr ratsky is

also asking questions like how many students will be here in 10 years and that is very much an artifact and a reflection of the partnership with the City and County Planning Department with us today are director young and her staff to again illustrate that we are working both sides of this question how many kids next year that influences allotments and near-term decisions about utilization do we need to move a classroom and Etc and then the longterm what will we need to do to our buildings to be ready for those students that are coming when we look at a 10-year horizon line we're going to go backwards just to prior to covid we were stable in that 33,000 range and you can see the co Year from 201920 to 2021 we saw approximately a 5% reset within our student enrollment that is actually better than the state level average in regards to enrollment loss during Co it is not something that we want to pound our chest about but it is

the reality that in that time interval districts across the country were losing students to Public Schools having said that since that time period we have been stable and increasing and we're excited to share with our board very soon what these 24 25 enrollment numbers look like but they are on the uptick remembering again that all of the analysis that we're sharing with you today is Trend modeling from what has happened with growing together we have restructured and reformed at a community level the eligibility for schools and we anticipate that this is a conservative estimate when we layer in the 220 residential developments that have been approved at a city council level that equates to 4,800 students Beyond where we are today that's relevant because I want to circulate back to the earlier comment at $100,000 a seat in needing 4,800 seats you can appreciate why this is going to be an ongoing conversation

between modernizing our schools and ensuring we have seats for the students that are to come and in particular the 4,800 students are not uniformly dispersed within Durham County they're in certain regions and areas one of the things that growing together afforded us was now the ability to look at pockets of Durham and ensure that those groups of schools can work together I remember 5 years back when we would discuss if Creekside was over enrolled could we bust students across the county to another school now with growing together we have regions so that we can manage within and I'll talk about the tools that we have at an elementary level you can see where we are today we'll say for 23 24 because those are students that did enroll for this most recent school year recognizing 2425 has opened um and opened at this point uh very much how we had hoped and anticipated there's good news to share back with our board soon as we look at the additional

forecast of when we take single family homes apartments town homes and all the different home types that families do live in and we model that and locate them within 750 neighborhood planning units those are neighborhoods that are defined by high-speed roads so that we can ensure child pedestrian safety is at the four for front of our Student Assignment planning talking about a 38% increase in enrollment in the Eastern region 15% in the southwest region which is there along the Chapel Hill Border in the 15501 Corridor and 133% in the central core what that will do for our overall capacities which I do want to highlight here have already baked in prek at every school we've planned for this we're ready for this but it will mean that our utilization rates by region and you can see the central East Southwest and even North regions we are going to be full across the board and in some instances significantly

over in total at an elementary level you're talking about over 2,000 additional students for Middle School nearly 1,000 additional students but in particular it's acutely hurting us in the Eastern region where Neil Middle School is already full so as those new homes come along Kemp Road and Olive Branch Road we are going to need to think quickly and hard about Middle School coverage for the east in southeast regions there again githens has historically been a point of emphasis for us in the southwest region and it too is at and will be over its capacity at a high school level you can see even more significant constraints many of our high schools are over enrolled today and as we go forward you can see by region we're fortunate here is that by and large the majority of the regions in high schools are congruent which is to say the east region is truly the Southern High School boundary same

with the Southeast region in Hillside and on we go the central region is supported by Riverside High School which does support a portion of Northern Durham as well in North Carolina we are in a unique window for planning I'm a 10e standing member of the American Planning Association steering committee for the public schools Division I lead National webinars on this very topic of with growth management for schools what can we do because we are here in North Carolina there are significant limitations the school of government at UNCC Chapel Hill and again Professor love lady has gone extensively into the school and development regulations of what it means to not only plan for schools but build schools in North Carolina this link on the screen is hyperlink and I would strongly encourage both bodies to consider a review it is a recent June

28th 2024 publication and it gives you a full review and Landscape of where we are for growth management because we are in North Carolina we cannot Levy education impact fees going back to if a neighborhood produces 100 students and they enroll with us we cannot Levy an education impact fee to that developer 100 students at $100,000 a seat is $10 million that is an unfunded approval currently rolling through with the Planning Commission and city council number two one county in North Carolina has an adequate public facility ordinance for schools that is Orange County that said we have no existing interlocal agreements between between DPS the city and the county here in Durham so as developments come forward there's no concurrency or synchronization currently we have no enforcement teeth with regards to if we're out of capacity what do we

do and with regards to capping schools there is no precedent within Durham and there are pros and cons to that uh that was discussed at our last board meeting certainly superintendent Moore is an expert on the topic what what that's left us with and the available growth strategies we do have you can see where we've been as a board of education and as a community this Last 5 Years starting with the Creekside Parkwood adjustment again Creekside Elementary was 400 students over enrolled when the school open there were mobile trailers on site githens and Brogden githens was in a similar position not having enough seats for students and we adjusted that back in 2019 what we learned from those two first two boundary adjustments is that isolating individual schools was Miss missing a larger conversation at the elementary middle and high school levels about the vision for student assignment and academic programming and out of that Genesis became growing together where we said we have to have a

comprehensive rebuilding and restructuring of how we do business and how we think about student enrollment and access to our schools often times we were busting students across the county without Sound Logic for those long rides this is bringing things closer and more accessible and more Equitable for our families and balancing out utilization of enrollment and capacity we've also and knock on wood we're about to open our next school here very shortly in August of 2024 with the opening of Murray massenberg Elementary which did bring much needed seats and capacities to the heart of Durham remembering that the prior strategic plan was asking us Administration to bring kids in from our mobile classroom Murray massenberg and lions Farm Elementary which opened in 2022 are very much strategically directed at that goal Northern High School replaced an aging 80-year-old Northern High School with a brand new state-of-the-art facility and our Renovations that are earmarked within

the capital Improvement plan bring both much-needed modernization improvements to our indoor air quality and added seats particularly in the east region with GL and Bethesda we're trying to prepare for the future but you can see the tensions of modernizing our facilities while increasing the number of seats knowing that there are thousands of students on the way to kind of zoom out and just bring it all home for both boards our team uh is very much trying to work with the fraction that you see ahead of you the enrolled students and the number of brick and mortar seats that relies on us working with director Young and the planning department and her team but also with County fin leadership to identify how many students are coming and how many seats do we have bearing in mind we have to be in compliance with hb90 across more than 2,000 classrooms we are unable to Levy an education impact fee in durm and there is no standing adequate public facility

ordinance at this time so compiling all that together we are highlighting for both bodies how important it is to have that intergovernmental collaboration that we talk about some Brief Review of what our team has tried to do in preparation for this conversation is we have inventoried every classroom in the district much of my time during Co was with a laser pointer measuring rooms classrooms and bathrooms trying to see and assemble the database that had never existed did we have control and a full understanding of our assets one of the things that we learned through that is that nearly three schools worth of classrooms we had ated at pre with over 81 classrooms today and more on the way that's a lot of physical space that we have been in good partnership with the county on to ensure that we're ready to support our pre kindergarten students in addition I referen the development of our neighborhood planning units using those NE neighborhood Road speeds and Road

networks to ensure that within a neighborhood we're keeping families together and at the same time they can safely access a school bus stop or the school self those neighborhood planning units are also good guard rails as a development comes online we can find a comparable match within that neighborhood if it's 20 homes we're looking for a comparison group geographically with those 20 homes to understand how many kids are coming um I do want to acknowledge the deep and and dedicated work not only of Mr radky but also of Miss Christian Brookshire to get us to that place we know more now about durm and durm public schools than we've ever known and we very intentionally are trying to be transparent with this with regards to growth management internally we've set up five regions to make sure that students have access to school high quality school and as new developments come online we're looking at groups of schools that can work together the boundaries that we have now

do reflect our anticipated growth in the future as we open school here shortly you will see some schools that may look under enrolled but there is intentionality to that to afford for the neighborhoods that are coming online particularly in the east region externally we sat at the table through 18 comprehensive Plan update meetings with the Workforce Development and education subcommittee of the Durham comp plan to say we're here I wore the pink engaged Durham shirt that said like all microphones are on I'm note taking with everybody else because we felt strongly that DPS needs to be at the table not only functionally but also symbolically to ensure that our schools are reflected in the comprehensive plan and you see numerous items and values within the comp plan that reflect that partnership some next steps and some recommendations that go with that internal to DPS we are working through our strategic enrollment working group to drive

towards that 35,000 Mark that our board has set as a goal and a benchmark for us and annually we are folding in all the residential development information so that not just once every 5 years but every year we can come back to both bodies and say where we're headed what does our North Star what does the future look like concurrent to the enrollment is our preparations for facility planning and our Capital Improvement plan we are in development for our learning environment guidelines and standards that is our Benchmark for what should a classroom have in it whether it is a Performing Arts room or prek classroom we need a uniform standard not for one school but for all schools that helps us then evaluate the conditions of our facilities we are walking every square inch of Durham Public Schools right now inventorying what's in place and what may be needed that will point us right into the long range facility master

plan that will prepare us for updates to the capital Improvement plan that will layer in both priorities and funding by year and again I've said but it is it is in the room for for awareness we have an ongoing tension and we'll need to prioritize the balancing between improving our existing facilities many of which need significant investment while at the same time preparing ourselves for the future some recommendations for the Duram County but also with consideration to our city partners procedures for development review given school and Regional enrollment and capacities that includes not only an individual development but we have to find a way to encumber or add up all the seats that we've accounted for over the prior approvals with over 200 developments that's a lot of seats that we've already allocated at a community level we cannot lose sight of that when

we look at a singular development and more broadly and this is for the room Community awareness of what this is looking like ahead that this is really the beginning of a conversation there is no easy button and I cannot say that this is an easy path forward but understanding Durham's values and understanding that we are ready for those students as they arrive is an opportunity for all of us to reflect that that mission there is an opportunity as well to learn from our neighbors in Orange and other counties with regards to coordination and an intergovernmental collaboration at that a task force with staff representation that is a reporting body that is transparently bringing this information together and sharing it in a normal Cadence so that each year you have an understanding of the enrollment this year the enrollment ahead with residential developments that have been approved where we are with our facilities our needs for modernization and in particular the conversation that

awaits us for prek class allocations again we sit ready for the conversation and we are prepared but having a cohesive approach to this will help all bodies ensure that we're transparent and this presentation is titled synchronizing but it is really intended to make sure that we're in step with one another if we have homes without adequate schools in place often we are forcing that choice for families that DPS may not be an option so we need to be thoughtful about that as we move forward thank you both chair L and Rogers and any questions you may have thank thank you so much for this presentation this is a really really amazing presentation um yeah and very timely as I know the school board County Commission and city council are actually about to also approve and vote on a housing uh Coalition for the three of

bodies to be working on and this is going to be a timely discussion on how we navigate making sure that our students are have proper and adequate housing as we continue to grow I had two questions do you have handy are you can send it to us later like the ratio of student enrollment in our Public Schools versus Charter versus private in Durham County we're happy to follow up with that information thank you and then um this one was an action item for I think I see Deborah over there the levying can we add to our State Legislative goals that we're submitting on Monday the for school boards to be able to Levy uh Developers for that fee um if we could add that if others the school impact the school impact Fe yeah okay that was my two comments I'll see you I'll start from this side commissioner Jacobs yes and I since I was late I don't know if you brought up chair Alam

that we had discussed potential legislative goals yesterday and and wanted it's a very short turnaround time because we're voting on them on Monday night but we were going to consult with you all on any particular legislative goals that and any language around them that you wanted to recommend that we put forward to the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners so if you have any anything else please pass that on to the the county manager or to Deborah Craig gray who's leading that um try to get it in by Friday because she to submit it Monday so right yeah thank you um but Matthew thank you so much um really um grateful that we have you in our community and for your you know outstanding work really thank you so much um so um I have a few

thoughts um one is I'm I'm a member of The Joint City County planning committee I've been on that now for 12 years before that I was on the Planning Commission for eight years so I know that we have very limited tools but I don't want to underestimate um and I didn't see much reference to that here but I think we should really talk about the role of res zonings and developer profit and res zonings and to try to really think through um that process and where we can try to make some changes and I know Sarah is sitting here I'm always asking you know are we really reflecting um in that process in the staff reports um the estimated impact on the cost per student so I was like took really taken a back when you said

$100,000 per student cuz that is not I don't think what we are are we saying that now okay um so I think that it would be great if you could do this presentation to the city council um I think it's really important that they are because they are the ones who are making the decisions around rezonings not us and they really need to understand um the impact um and also the development community so when you talked about how this is a conversation that we have to bring the whole community in on I completely agree and that means Realtors the you know the I think thinking about um you know Realtors being understanding the growing together plan um and even how do we fantastic that you are tracking the

new developments coming online how do we also have a relationship with those communities in terms of recruiting and letting them know about all that DPS has to offer I think is another great opportunity because we do while it's going to be expensive we do want them to come dur Public Schools versus Charters or private schools so there is also a huge opportunity there around these conversations but um again the impact of needing to provide for the new enrollment which we want it it needs to be um not just falling on the existing taxpayers right and it needs to somehow be reflected in um the cost of development so I hope we can really think about that and again I think the you know we're talking talking about how

this is a Durham City County DPS issue and so the school board I mean the city council needs to really understand the cost that we're facing um I also wanted to raise the issue that I know we for this is for another time but I think it's important that we I hope in the coming year or so we will really have a process a policy around how do we use former School sites as we build our new high schools that are going to come online Jordan High School for one um really how do we have a real thoughtful process Eng with the community as well um about what the policy how we look at those sites and then also the existing sites that are sitting empty like Lowe's grve so I I hope that's something else that you will

with your incredible planning background um help us with um and then the last thing I wanted to mention is um you talked about the that I'm really curious about the neighborhood planning units that you referenced and this idea you know that that the growing together plan is really a growth management strategy um but and then how can that be connected to the Udo revision that we're doing right now and so are there potential uh opportunities as we're revising our unified development ordinances that are happening right now which is the implementation of our comprehensive land use plan are there opportunities within our new ordinances that again we can creatively because that's what we do in Durham come up with creative strategy um that work around some of the other

limitations that we have so addressing some of what we're trying to do through our our new ordinances so um anyway those were just some of my thoughts thank you thank you to this side hey commissioner Carter yeah yes I also thought this was a fascinating presentation and agree that it would be great for it to also be presented to the city council so really just want to emphasize the the importance of that I'm curious about the sapo the um the ordinance that we don't have that you mentioned I don't even remember what it stands for the adequate facilities ordinance um what it what would that look like who does have one did you say so that we could see how it's modeled perhaps yeah the sapo is an acronym for school adequate public facility ordinance and it is

truly intended to be a mechanism for concurrency U so that as a and you could apply that to any adequate public facility ordinance water roads Etc but the provision of public service for education is the schools part of that yep and Orange County has the standing sapo here in North Carolina what would it say well um nutshell like I know it's probably long but like what what what does it uh what does it say what does it do yeah okay we we do have some experts in the room I would point out not only uh I've got some background with it but also Dr lefree has intimate experience having been in Chapel Hood carboro I will give you a an overview but then if Dr the fze wants to expand he would be a subject matter true expert on it um we are in a position where with a facility ordinance like that the additive residential developments that have been approved um

are effec effectively encumbering the capacity of our schools so if we were to say in a particular region let's say at an elementary level there's a th seats between all the schools and we look at the existing enrollment and then those residential developments that have been approved y we model out the number of students that are anticipated to come from those homes of the pending or under construction neighborhoods and overall once we hit that number there has to be some compelling plan funding or otherwise for additional seats to be available in that area of the county or the development wouldn't be approved that that starts to tip into yeah that that is more enforceable than where we are today I see I see I see y our leave that there I think that was the question yeah no that's that's good that's really helpful um I want to be sure that we that I'm correct in thinking we have already changed

something in our ordinance or comp plan ordinance maybe not sure which um where it used to say a development you know wouldn't maybe I I don't know if it went so far as to say it wouldn't be approved but when we're considering the approval of development school capacity was considered districtwide and I think we changed that more to by some narrower region I don't know if it's by these neighborhood units or or or what but when Wendy was mentioning using our ordinances as a mechanism for growth management just you know that that might be an example of how we could improve what we have we've improved it once maybe it can still be improved and maybe we need to look at this sapo thing I mean it really makes sense to me um of course not I know very little about it if you just explained it to me but looking at we should really do an analysis of the benefits and potential drawbacks of having a something like a sap and commissioner Carter I should add to the sapo provides more than simply

how many seats do we have how many have we given out what's left there is also the intentionality and I think a galvanizing force of that ordinance is that it is intentionally bringing together Municipal County and school officials in a annual Cadence so that that conversation is transparent love it and that is the think the thing that at the end of the day that we are trying to advocate for in the recommendations on on the prior slide there which is to suggest that with or without a sapo we can get we're hopeful that we could get at least a growth in education task force that is really looking at this from a from a transparent lens across all bodies so that everyone understands if you approve that neighborhood these are the implications and that's a community conversation well we must do something and that really seems like a very practical recommendation there people are nodding so um is our movement towards making that happen not being on

the leadership of our of our board or is this happening are we likely to be moving in this direction I don't well maybe we haven't discussed we haven't discussed it yet so I think maybe we can have this conversation also with managers so well of bringing this to our board in a separate conversation so we can actually have a broader discussion and decide and then I don't know what for the chair Rogers um the same would be for our board we'd want to take it to the superintendent and give him an opportunity I would also say that some of the Housing Initiative work that we are working on and starting with uh councilwoman cabara should lend itself to some of that work okay all right if I could I think I think it might be helpful also for something like an uh what Orange County has done is to maybe speak to some Orange County officials at school system or at the county level whever how is it operationalized when has it been used can you give us some

examples so that you have an understanding of what they're doing and then because it you may need something different but similar at the same time right so take a field trip so to speak manager so do you think I we we can talk about this in agenda prep as it get close to maybe our September work session we could have that conversation and maybe invite some of the Orange County either you have the conversation with them beforehand or invite them to that work session to be able to provide us more but our schools are at a good capacity place right now um with the percent with your um with your fraction your number of students divided by the number of seats but when we look 10 years out they are all going to be at a point where we're you know beyond the point of comfort or over enrolled and so we definitely have to do something to manage the growth better to build the schools in time to modernize the ones we have you know to stay on a regular

Cadence with our bonds all this is so interconnected and so um I just I I I like the fact that there's a recommendation and it makes sense to me so I hope that everybody will do the work to move forward with that in some way and looking in our attorney Massie to make sure that we stay yeah uh you'll notice that one of the things they mentioned was Prior precedent which was a Durham County case about 20 years ago we had an adequate public facilities ordinance to generate revenue from development and it was challenged as being beyond the authority of the county um I've not had a chance to look at this new proposal or what Orange County has but speaking with the identified expert uh I'm led to believe they have a local act authorizing Orange County to have adopted that ordinance so we'll certainly investigate it further I just don't want people

thinking oh this is easy as the county adopts an ordinance and we're done well we could at least establish a task force you know no no no I'm not it's just this conversation started down a path from that presentation that if we just had this ordinance we'd be rolling and I just want to say it's doesn't necessarily work that simply but yeah I'll reach out to John Roberts at the Orange County attorney about what they have and how they got it um don't know if we'll have everything in place by September on that issue U because we may have to be looking at what they did what they've got and what their experience has been but I did want to put that caution out there because I could see this momentum of oh this is easy and it's all within our control and I don't know that that's accurate and then where the city will have to come into play as well yes ma'am thank you uh School Board member

Umstead can I just ask a clarifying question thank you so much Mr Palmer for this presentation I hear I talking about talking to our Orange um County colleagues and is that on the um the public facilities ordinance question or is this also about the task force because those feel like maybe two separate uh conversations I don't know if they're being tied together but I just want to get clarity on which what we want to move forward with is the Task Force something that we're also interested in or is it just looking more into the other pieces and I apologize for not pronouncing that correctly Miss Hamstead I did want to answer that question but also address Mr massie's comments we are being very cautious about the 200 2006 case Durham land owners versus Durham County we are aware of that case so um that was

particularly around education impact feas going back to what we say we aren't collecting those or we aren't doing that work um our recommendation as you see here is really to continue to work first and foremostly with our City County Planning colleagues on the Udo and the comprehensive plan and seeing what we can do in that space that is much more on the city county side is in that relationship uh the task force uh is a effectively a subset of the Sappo in Orange so it establishes that a task force may exist to that effect um what we are looking at here is a growth and education task force that is intended to serve in a parallel function while Sid stepping some of the concerns with enforceability and might attask for like that also look into other uh issues that are important to the city the county and the school system and and that you know

cross jurisdictional lines and what comes to mind is safe routes to school MH for example uh you know cities build sidewalks we want the district is the one who oversees the policies for children in schools um counties you know so how you know how to make that work better too it seems like a task force could help with planning around other issues besides just enrollment and and school capacity that are you know related to enrollment and school capacity like safe Rous to school that's the one that comes to mind there probably are others right but mik creep more for task force to a commission that has the group working together continuously so I think my question maybe would be what are our next steps when it comes to the intergovernmental growth and education task force because it does seem like it's a little bit I heard there's a conversation at the County Work session but I want to make sure if we're going to are we working towards a a task force or commission or group to be thinking about how the all the issues are connected I think similarly about uh

parks and sa Frost the school and other ways that our bodies are sharing spaces and our I wonder if also the task force and commission that's already being formed if this is something that we could see stemming into that of maybe becoming a subgroup in there of we're already appointing DPS County and City uh folks and I think there are some staff members I'm not sure especially related to the governmental growth but we can always add staff related to that to maybe assist with it and instead of creating two task force committees we can think about it yeah we can think about it and you guys have a leadership yeah I was going to say you all I know there's the city County DPS leadership meeting I don't I think maybe right you guys could discuss that at your leadership meeting yeah yeah any oh Council School Board member

buyer so just want to appreciate the conversation and the work and having planners and what it has brought but also the strong partnership with the county um and and as we look towards the next Bond these will be critical conversations to have um I wonder if we can continue to explore the ability for the school district to work with the county to land bank to plan um proactively 10 15 20 years down the road to know where we'll need sites and acquire them because we know their cost will only escalate um I think it would be helpful for the county to continue to get a report from us in the future about the way that we evaluate an old buildings and whether it makes sense to knock them down versus you know replace or uh renovate in the future those are really important conversations for um our we want our commissioners to understand those complex conversations

that we're um having and um I see all of this as just a strength of Durham public schools in Durham County working together this growth is what we anticipate and how do we plan together for it I also want to make sure that in the next Bond that you all hear that our our staff need better office spaces um and and that's going to be an important part of us advocating for adults as well as students going forward because having uh staff working in 30-year-old trailers is just not acceptable I know you wouldn't want it for your employees and we certainly don't want it for ours but um we just I just so much want to lift up this collaboration that has brought us to this strong place um so that we can continue these conversations together thank you Schoolboard member chavz thank you for this um presentation and this conversation a couple things I just wanted to um comment on one uh just

how the detail about uh the growth in the Eastern region is really really stands out to me and so I'm interested to see how um what plans we will develop around um around that area and um and I wonder if we want to sort of pay more attention as we're um in different areas of the county um and kind of see what that um what it's it's looking like um in that area um I just wanted to say also I am happy that you all will be adding this um education impact fee to your legislative agenda I think that's great and um I I think it brings up a larger question for me of who is responsible for this community and it seems to me and U Mr pal you you would probably know better um that there are more out of state entities benefiting

from this um from owning land and property in this um in North Carolina and in durm specifically and so when people are um benefiting from or extracting resources from this community does it mean that they are also responsible for um the you know the children and families or accountable to the children and families in this community as well um since the pandemic it seems that there are many more homeon and um property management companies um that are not you know paying taxes necessarily um in this in the same way in North Carolina but benefiting and then um also just want to say I would I think um the idea of you know a task force or some concrete next action steps would be would be great um in working on this and I like tying in the um safe fruits to school and um thinking about this um collectively so uh thanks so much Mr

tab thank you thank you Mr pmer for the presentation um are we collaborating also with Transportation because I know with the all the growth that's out there um we haven't experienced all that growth yet so this will be an interesting school year with with how we're working with Transportation I want to make sure they're at the table um because that's going to make a big difference in buses students getting to school so I just want to keep that focus on children as well how they get there yes Mr Tab and and we are fortunate on the DPS school planning team is Miss Christen Brookshire um that works internally to DPS with director Harris on arrival and departure to school every day on the yellow bus and we do think what we would say multimodal from every mode that you could get to school we're trying to ensure that we're prepared for that um within the community as well miss Brookshire s on the what we would call the dccm which is a Durham County

Chapel Hill carboro Metropolitan planning organization that's a transportation body and Miss Brookshire is representing DPS at that table as well regionally and within Durham working with director Egan so we are fortunate to to be at the table uh which is a bit novel for school systems often times we sit back and hope things good happen we are trying to be more proactive uh and intentional about our advocating for our kids thank you I'm glad to hear that that's very important because I know that with parents and and students that's going to be an exciting time for them with all that growth I just wanted to make sure Transportation was at the table as we continue these conversations thank you thank you Mr D that oh Vice chair c okay just I just want to follow what you said um Mr tab um I think that's a great Point um and again we are um doing a

joint City County update to our bike pad plan right now and so I making sure that during Public Schools is a part of that planning because thinking about safe roots to schools for kids and and also School workers we want to think more and more about you know bike and pedestrian um paths as transportation and also our TR Ellen Beckman who is our Durham County Transit planner um again you know right now the it's free for everyone to go um on our buses and we specifically have a youth pass so even thinking about um high school kids being able to get to schools um using public transportation um so so thank you for raising that really important yeah and I think I think that's really helpful for you know right now the students who are more close to downtown

or Western durh but in that Eastern part where we're talking about these growths I know uh Ellen has been having conversations about getting better bus and public transportation out in that area cuz it's very very lacking yeah to that end and with reflection of the collaboration with godor and go triangle actually at this week's board meeting two of the easements on the agenda are to put in permanent bus shelters at our high schools for Transit Riders uh and again that's much of the work that Miss Brookshire does as well is working with she's here yeah um thank you all y thank you Mr Palmer for this presentation next we have expanding access to Early Education thank you and we I see Dr Pitman was to get up and we have 45 minutes for this conversation just uh so maybe 30 minute presentation 15 minutes for

questions well good morning and greetings um chair Alam and chair Rogers and County Commissioners and Board of Education we are pleased this morning to bring information about increasing access to prek I have invited Mr Palmer to stay at the table because much of what we will be able to do to expand our prek options and during Public Schools intersects intentionally with our school buildings and capacity and planning in that regard so for today our desired outcomes we going to give you a brief background some of which Mr Palmer has shared around growing together importantly positioning us to have the conversation around how we might increase our and expand prek opportunities want to share a quick update uh with intentionality around our prease seats where we are currently where we are positioned for planning over the next 5 years to increase the opportunity for additional prek expansion some proposed impacts on the

costs of one prek classroom and then indeed looking at our next steps and then in conclusion I believe we were also um the Commissioners and board wanted an update on the prek data sharing agreement and at the end of our slide deck uh Dr Linda Chappelle has provided some information in that regard so when we're ready for that part of the discussion I'd like to invite Dr Chappelle to the table as well so we're very blessed and fortunate in Durham um as a community to have a board of education and a team of County Commissioners that are extremely supportive of prek and Early Education and for that we do not take that for granted this work started as Mr Palmer referenced with growing together growing together was part of our strategic plan that began 5 years ago and it was with intentionality one of the strategies in there was to develop a integrated plan that was increasing access and equity and with that we also included the

exceptional children's programs and their accessibility to families and not having to drive extreme diff different distances but also the expansion to prek so this has been on our radar as a team and as a district and a community and we are so thankful for that support this is a summary of growing together but I wanted to to dip back a little bit to get context for the discussion as Mr Palmer shared you saw the five regions that have become the new um shape of Durham public schools and with those regions we've been able to increase not only access to application seats but access to prease seats we're better able to position supporting our enrollment and managing that over enrolled and under enrolled situation that we were experiencing prior to the growing together leas uh level set also lifting up the new uh elementary schools Lions farm marray massenberg with both of those schools new preap programs have been in

classrooms were were um designed and are now available to families so as you see on the green square that increase to pre K has been a commitment and so where are we now as of this year when we open our schools in 2425 we will have 30 schools out of 32 elementary schools that will serve prek children 30 out of 32 which is tremendous and right now in across those dist those 30 schools we have 81 classrooms want also lift up the witted pre K center that is an uh highly regarded and esteemed program um full demand is high for that program is centrally located and really serves our community well what's going to be interesting and important for us as we talk about increasing prek access is to understand

what are we talking about we have to serve our exceptional children's um in our our four-year-old and three and four-year-olds who are qualify for those services and currently we have 28 classrooms dedicated for that purpose when we call on this slide they're called separate we refer to them also as special programs but they are uh self-contained and those children come and are served based on their exceptionalities we've labeled another prek General typically and historically the general prek classrooms are those that have been funded through our federal title $1 but through the generosity of the Commissioners and our community with the Durham prek funding sources and NC prek the braiding of those has really allowed stretching of those dollars so today when we refer to um those classrooms you'll hear me refer to them as general prek those are accessed through SC the universal screening process and are most

academically at rest student academically at risk students are placed in those programs those are also a blended classroom model where there will be some EC children or exception children exceptional children's um program placed in there but those are children that can Thrive through an inclusive setting they're able to manage and they more replicate a K5 classroom of inclusion and then we're pleased through growing together we have historically had monu elementary schools at watts and Morehead and through growing together and the high demand from our community and our parents we have opened a third montau program and that will be at Little River Elementary serving the northern and Southeast regions of our community and so we will have 17 across those three programs serving prek children so what's in store so let's take a look at this chart the first row I've captured for this year 30 of 32 so 94% of our schools and over the next

several years pending how renovation funding comes in pending how enrollment settles down we will be able to EXP expand into the remaining two elementary schools Club Boulevard and Hope Valley so in short order we will have 100% of our schools serving in some capacity our four-year-olds I I asked Mr Palmer to stay because these these next rows are all going to be contingent upon facilities capacity Renovations and suitability of classroom space so we have earmarked and planned at the you look at the bottom row possibility of 22 new new classroom sites or places where we may be able to serve children and you can see them disaggregated with General we have uh possible 17 additional classrooms monor with Morehead coming on with its renovation we have year marked two classrooms for that purpose and EC we anticipate the need for three additional classrooms so

overall in a really great situation we will have 103 classrooms now one of the other pieces we wanted to chat about today is what about lure what about pre licensing our classrooms and it's interesting public schools are not required to have licensed prek now some of the licensure requirements come with what are the qualifications of a teacher in a Child Care thank you child care center oh that's excellent um um and teachers in public schools have to have bachelor's degrees so they already kind comply with the some of the qualifications for teachers and IAS but there are other um components of a licensed program such as the classroom facilities the playground facilities and all of that that public schools don't have to comply with however we have um 25 classrooms that do currently possess

the lure and um we would want to be able to maintain those so of the 36 General prek 11 existing classrooms we would want to be able to bring on as prek licensed and then if we do expand those 17 additional classrooms we would want to bring on those currently our monor programs are under the monor uh implementation they follow the monory guidelines but they're not licensed and so might we want to be considering that bringing them under the prek lure and our EC programs as well so as we start to bridge into the cost what are the implications for cost each of these categories will factor into how broad and deep we would want to go with lure through the expansion of our of our programs and the slides are not

advancing thank you so this is a fun statistic if we decide or if we determine that 4,500 children are board annually in our County if we play the math and we have 81 classrooms currently we have a potential to serve 1137 students that would be if every seat of exceptional children was filled and every seat of the uh prek General was full so if we expand over the next several years to 103 classrooms that number would jump to almost 1,500 in Durham Public Schools so with no additional facilities we could theoretically climb pretty close to 1500 out of the 4500 so if during Public Schools was tapped to serve more than that it would have design implications so that as we open new elementary schools we already have the commitment to carve out prek space

class rooms for that purpose and as we're renovating schools we're in uh infusing into those designs additional classroom spaces so that would need to continue if we wanted to go beyond 103 classrooms and then of course the wited center being as popular as it is um might be a a model for us to consider as a community so for full implementation as we look um the considerations that we would want to to keep in in mind as we Factor over the timeline of implementation is continuing to look at our regional collaborations as we have implemented growing together we are monitoring carefully the impact to enrollment in each of our schools and we're seeing our capacities and our enrollment numbers matching up but we're monitoring that as schools open and level set into the 20th and 40th day of school we'll be watching to see how those numbers play out and changes in enrollment could indeed impact where we might be able to place prease or not but that'll be a factor

that we that we uh include item three the classroom Insight assessment Mr Palmer referenced we're doing an in-depth dive into our classroom and facility spaces and there is a renovation plan but the timeline uh is under review and that will of course when Renovations are complete then indeed new classrooms might come on online and then we've classified uh there's been much talk and in need of our community around prek children receiving transportation services prek Children and Families getting wrap around care before and after school and so we Factor those in and we're calling that student services but and so as we start to cost model out what would this look like we've categorized the implications for opening classrooms into four major categories one is the facility and to launch in non uh licensed programs non-licensed schools the facility cost

is pretty significant to open and then it it's a one-time expenditure once we get the programs up to speed and lure just sustaining that would be the cost but the personnel and the Early Education academics of course those would be annual expenses the teacher the IIA the EC Services exceptional children's services and the enhanced criminal background checks for staff uh need to be done on a routine basis and of of course the curriculum materials any renewals or replenishments software licenses EC Transportation when an IEP is indicates the child needs transportation that is a a cost that we must uh incur and of course the uh snack during the day and then the last column on the right again we've captured that as a category called student services what would it look like if every prek program was able to provide wraparound care before and after school what does that Staffing have to look like what do the materials need to be considered and

then school bus transportation can we transport preate children on our school buses at what cost how does that work might we have to do um uh van service all of those factors so we tried to play those numbers and cost it out and hold your breath so um the first number is what if nothing was in place and we had to start fresh with facility ities playgrounds fencing outdoor surfaces um on Suite bathrooms so worst case scenario so to speak or the highest expense scenario would be the $900,000 $980,000 number but for schools that have existing lure and those are 11 of our campuses those cost plummet in that classrooms to sustain um if we didn't have to manage playground areas would launched would cost around 78,000 but down to the 492 and the 492

mostly is are the academic services and the curriculum Services as well as just some minor one-time costs of furniture changing tables bathroom Renovations and minor facility needs so here are those numbers uh for the recurring annual recurring costs played out when you see the subtotal of 240,000 that mostly is th those two Center columns from that colored slide where personnel and Early Education academics and that number is consistent with what we're anticipating for Murray massenberg annually the others if we do push in the before and after school care um that requires special Staffing we've itemized that out and then of course included some specialized Transportation so a recurring annual cost for a classroom once launched and r fitted facility wise would run about that if we were able to manage all of those

components so those are the hard costs some of what we also started u considering is what will the implications be for infrastructure and supporting the expansion of 81 to 103 classrooms with that many faculty those children professional development and learning and we recognize the capacity of our early learning Department um LED with Karen Thompson she is here today our director of Early Education she has a very small skeletal staff which um we would want to be thinking about what is the right balance of infrastructure and support particularly if we start to look at expanding lure for 103 classrooms what sort of support should we be considering and then you can see the cost of living increases and the adjustments um looking at for lure Staffing prek classrooms with I instructional assistants that have that AA degree or are working toward it and 22% of our families that attend

during public schools are or 22% of our children are non-english speaking so that multilingual support is we're adding and pushing in and inviting our four-year-olds our families with four-year-olds in to make sure we are positioned to support all of our families and then um just a gentle lift reminder that prek pre kindergarten services and programs are not part of the state formula to fund schools that they start at kindergarten through 12th grade and so the wondering of if we're pushing in 15500 children or a thousand children what does what are the implications for accessing our counselors and our social workers or specials just kind of putting that on our radar for for uh wondering and consideration uh in May when the board of county commissioner and the joint meeting met and with the board there was mention of having a long uh idea of our

long range plan we immediately assembled a team and I wanted to lift up that team we've if you look at categories of Staff you can see school planning the community engagement Team Building Services construction and Community Education I would like to um recognize in our group this afternoon or this morning Ken Thompson the director and also Kristen Brookshire who's been a key player in this work and we're so grateful as well as Mr Palmer so next steps just briefly the Strategic plan coming out of that and launching growing together lifted up as I shared around the the prek access and Alignment now in the summer we have launched the team is working the new programs at Murray massenberg are positioned to open we've identified some preliminary cost factors in building those estiment and so what we anticipate coming in the fall in September and October is reconciling enrollment and our building capacities and determining with our long-term

longitud and expansion where should we best position our focus in preparation for 2526 with possible prek expansion sites or classrooms and then indeed weaving that and braiding that into the expansion proposal that the superintendent's budget would um lift up and present to our County Commissioners so that's the core of that part of our presentation I'll pause see if there are any questions thank you so much start with School Board member Cara Aon and then commissioner Jacobs thank you so much Dr Pitman um I have a few questions and wonderings um I'm you had mentioned the need to consider expanding um multilingual Services as we consider expanding prek and I was wondering um what services are currently available for our English language Learners in Durham prek sure so

in this regard the multilingual Resource Center is uh LED out of Pablo freed fredman's office and his his um directive and and his staff push in and provide translation support and interpreting support to families the as more families come on and parent conferences are needed and interactions with staff are necessary their team pushes in and makees sure that families and the parents in particular are able to access that information and work to support um to follow up I'm wondering in particular if we um and I just had a my own child in um dur prek so have some personal experience there with seeing English language Learners in the classroom and I'm wondering as we're thinking about allotments and how they might need like the students might need support for um already starting their English language learning um from somebody else from maybe the primary classroom teacher if we have somebody

that's already there in the classroom like pushing inter ping out to support those students as they start to develop that before they enter kindergarten you know it's it's very good point and we find that our earliest Learners particularly in kindergarten and so prek they are language sponges they they acquire language acquisition quite English acquisition quickly um the strategies to help a class Genet teacher be able to reach a non-english speaking child there are intentional strategies that we do provide professional development to help all of our gened teachers but certainly your point is well taken what role might our ESL teachers have to help coach and equip our prek faculty to to be able to ensure that um is something we would be able to think about let me just throw one more log on that fire um it is sort of the contemplation of this is a novel conversation I'm fascinated by it what elll support might look like in a prek classroom it's you know certainly if

current prek uh funding has to come through a legislative or local appropriation because it's not part of our formulas and not a required component of K you know it's K12 when you're looking at uh State funding formulas um elll certainly not even in that mix said of even further our conversation but quite fascinating one to throw into the mix but I think it also begs the question of the teachers and IAS that we do hire for those classrooms and the extent to which um capacity in another language is a a focus or a part or a need that be needs to be considered as well because those are people that we are already hiring so I think there's multiple angles to achieve what we're talking about thank you um I also was interested in the slide that you had about like looking at the numbers and reflecting on the number of potential prek eligible students or like children here in Durham and then working from that number to try to see how many seats we need I wonder um I'm interested in knowing of our

current kindergarten students like are we tracking the number of kindergarten stud students who have come from our pre system and because that would be useful information I think um to also look at outcomes long term but then of our current kindergarten students how many go to durm prek how many are in a private prek and then how many are not being served by any prek and then trying to work towards filling that Gap because we know that and prek supports all the outcomes that we're looking at in our Public School System right there's robust evidence to support that so if we can fill that Gap and make sure that as many to the extent possible all of our students are entering kindergarten with um high quality culturally responsive prek that should be our our goal I think so I guess just different ways to look at the numbers right so I didn't know if you had any like are you is anybody in DPS or with the county already looking at those types of numbers and like trying to see

are we are we assessing that at all with our kindergarten students like where did they come from right and then on the flip side to I'm sorry one more our pre- students where are they going so um I don't know that we can assume that they're all going into Durham Public Schools so are they being served by Durham prek and then going into Charter Schools or private schools but we do have the data of students that enter kindergarten and where they participated in a prek experience or not through a uh entry survey and certainly the capacity of the classrooms prek capacity currently and maybe Dr Chappelle can speak to this as well as Durham public schools has a slice of this Service delivery but also our child care providers that are participating in Durham prek are off also meeting and complying with high quality and coming into that School Readiness into kindergarten and during

Public Schools so all of that benefits but there is still a significant number of families that don't participate in um any child care or um that that are all Al a subset of that so we are not reaching all of the children in our community with with pre kindergarten or Early Education experiences and that is something under Dr Chappelle's leadership and the prek governance Committee of the community is really looking at trying to increase access um increase awareness of families that there is this opportunity at no cost or low to no cost so well another fantastic presentation I just want to say I'm really excited about the work that has been happening over the past few months and I mean during the summer break that you all have gotten to work um that you really heard us um at you know our last

conversations I really appreciate that um and that you formed this committee and have done all of this really important assessment um because you know obviously we don't know what we don't know until we until we know what we're looking at and so um I'm I'm really excited about this um I think one of my questions is the role of um Duram prek in being involved with your committee and maybe we could have um Linda Chappelle come up when it's appropriate because um I think it's very important that Duram prek is at the table with this because ultimately that's the way we're going to fund this um that's the model that we've been using is for us to directly fund the prek through Duram prek um and that's going to be the most effective model for us so I think it's

going it's really going to be very important that um you all are working like hand and glove um on strategies around how we're going to finance this and fund this because not only with the certifications is it important because we want you know highly trained people in the classroom we know that all the studies around pre the most impactful prek is high quality with you know trained educate I mean I'm it's a no-brainer um but also we want to pull down every single possible POS funding source there may be and do the braided funding and I think also and I know that manager is not here right now but you know my brain is always thinking about how how can we how are we going to be able to fund all this and so the Durham chamber is La has relaunched a Durham Community Fund and

you know this may also be an area that we can pull the business Community into the the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce has been one of the biggest advocates in the state of North Carolina advocating for additional State funding for child care right now um and the north car I mean the Durham chamber is one has was one of the early um leaders in in this issue and so this is a Workforce Development issue this is an economic issue especially when we think about the rra care um the transportation this is this is something we are only going to solve together we are not going to solve this problem alone and so I think again you I'm kudos for the incredible work that you're doing and laying out what all the needs are and what the costs are going to be and then I think the next step is thinking about how do we pull and I hate to say it but it

feels like this should be another task force you know we just talked about a task force um you know around um growth and educational needs but I this to me feels like another task force about um you know universal access to prek and we I don't know I'll let Linda also put you all put your two cents in on this but anyway um you know and I'm thinking about how do we fulfill some of the needs to supporting um our um you know Spanish speaking families for you know our um I'm looking at mall back here our early childhood coordinator and the work that Cooperative Extension is doing with families um so hopefully we can be creative and not be completely overwhelmed with the cost so I'll just stop there and at some

point we'd love to have you chime in Linda if I could just make a couple quick comments about this as well um I I thought it was really important after the last couple meetings whereas we've had this topic for DPS to really dig into how we answered the questions how we created the vision and looked at what is our piece in this as we move forward and we've there's been collaborations and meetings that occur with uh during prek and and our staff and that sort of thing moving forward but without having a clear understanding and picture of what's the cost what's the goal what are the components just from within DPS it uh it it leads to either a lack of understanding or lack of alignment sometimes or ability to really work together in sync with full understanding of what it means for our entity you know with with private providers their costs around facilities and and how they do their personnel and those things are sort of baked into opening their Center to begin with and well the same thing with us we just hadn't reported on it

separately so understand those because they they get their funds for how they do their sites differently than how we get our funds for how we do our sites right for us it's really a collaboration with the county because that's it's a local cost and so um understanding greater understanding I think helps create greater alignment and then the ability to really collaborate with our Durham prek partners and others on what that looks like moving forward when there's greater understanding of what that landscape is so I do whether it's a whether it's a amped up version of collaboration that already exists or an additional task force that brings in other partners um I think either way that those are the next steps after looking at where we are today thank you any more questions oh commissioner Carter yes thanks so much Dr Pitman it was an excellent presentation and uh one question that I was uh thinking about is uh just sort of

the this difference between um the preschools that are in the community that are funded through the Durham prek program and other ways and then the the preschools within Durham public schools and um you broke it down into the EC special preschool classrooms and the general preschool and then the monor preschool it made it it sounded like well I don't know how to word let's see it sounded like the general preschool was still mostly Title One or EC you know combo class and that if if a child didn't qualify for Title One services or EC Services would they then be in a monu preschool because you know so many of the children that are in that 4500 um most likely will just be more General but they may not be Title One you do you know what I'm do you see what I'm ask I'm not even sure what I'm asking I guess what I'm thinking is it almost seems like dur Public Schools

prechool classrooms are more for title one or EC uh services for children and then except for the monu and so the other children really might be might fall more naturally within the Durham prek category and so thinking about who administers the expansion you know it makes me think it really might be easier for DPS and make more sense naturally for it to be you know admin funded and administered through Durham prek versus going through DPS let me let me hop into that so DPS controls and is allocated specific funding through title one and we have a legal obligation through child find with our special needs students in the community who are eligible and we are required to serve in pre-k so we're required to implement that programming and provide those services right um you

know during prek is is not is not in the space of this this me this okay it's not in the in that space for title one or EC Services um I'm not sure if they want to be but that funding that funding still has to come through flow through us the identification process who the students are and the services are our requirements right so um it is it is why the notion of how we braid services and how we are strategic about about how we pursue licensed classrooms um for example I I I we still have some work to do to dig into the pros and cons of like a a self-contained EC prek classroom being licensed what are the pros and cons there um because we're already receiving funding through EC uh services to provide that classroom um but in it is really in that General space um where we're looking to expand the number of classrooms that we have that have more

options for how we serve students where the potential collaboration with during prek it's it's a slice of our services it can't be the full Services ever right um and and I think that um and how again where we are able to license classrooms and where that makes the more sense most sense in order to fully utiliz funds that are available because durhan prek is also serving the private provider community so there's a there's a balance and there's a a relationship there uh Title One also I think it's important to say requires that we serve students with demonstrated academic need andc prek is financial need okay so we have different criteria already in who is served where and so we have to take that into consideration as well right um because and I I don't think dur prek is bound by that right

so they braid they they braid funding as well so so I think again uh the conversation is moving forward um uh on both it's it's a it's a it's a relationship between lanes and no Lanes yeah yeah I can see that seems really it really seems complicated so so but again Maximum Impact here she's here you come come on I love this conversation thank you um I think it's it's really this is fabulous work and great to see the district step forward to identify the needs really in a very deep and meaningful way so in the Durham prek umbrella you'll recall that we have a community goal to and over time to

serve 75% of our four-year-old census during Public Schools is a key partner in that obviously now it is not an inexpensive goal we know that we talk about that all the time but we have been very careful to strategically identify available funds and to braid those where appropriate but one of our big priorities is to seek for each classroom to be as verse as possible and so our goal is to have seats in every classroom that is possible have seats that are funded through different streams because of that eligibility piece you'll recall that the local investment the local dollars are universally available so there are not restrictions however the dur prek governance committee has set priority and of course we always prioritize children with great greatest need first but the way that works in an

environment in the public schools is that there are classrooms some classrooms that are self-contained obviously that's based on children's need but the title one classrooms that are braided with NC pre and also brated with Duram pre funding the goal is to have children in those classrooms that have a wide range of assets and so with our un you will recall we have a universal application process that process dur Public Schools is a key leader in the screening of children because the title One funds do require that those children be prioritized academically as the superintendent mentioned and the other programs that we braid with headart NC prek those don't require the same restrictions they have different other restrictions and so what we do when we braid is through that Universal process we identify all areas of eligibility for

each child then in a collaborative way we identify what the best placement is for that child now in parallel the district is addressing those children who are identified with um an IEP in exceptional needs that's a parallel process that's not a general um access process but the title one requirements of course have to be met the NC prek requirements have to be met and where possible we use funding braided to even pay for the same children but we create new seats where possible and that's why when we report out about dur pre we do two things we report on what the local dollars paid for how many seats what those where those were what those look like and then we also typically around February we report all public preschool seats in Durham

inclusive of dur Public Schools head starten and NC PRK as well as the local dollars and so a couple of things one of course Theon is so right that to be the best partner you can be you need to come to the table knowing what your needs are and we all have to be able to advocate for those needs and Fe figure out how these things fit together it is not practical and and my colleagues in the early childhood world will stand on their head when I say this but it is not practical for during public schools to license every preschool classroom it's not needed and it's not practical however in order to pull down outside dollars it is important for the district to have a good number of licensed programs more than they presently have but that does require Broad Investments as Dr Pitman has reviewed and I think that the next step for us as a community program is to really work with the

district along with our other partners to go through what these identified needs are and to have a unified advocacy approach you know the counties going to the state to say this is what we want well in the public preschool space we have to be able to go to our elected officials to say these these are what we are prioritizing and these are what our needs are and this is what we need to afford so and then just quickly really fast addressing when you were talking about the multilingual needs um they are Broad and um we have kind of a two pronged approach right now based on the funding one is that we have heavily staffed Our Family Support Services with multilingual team members that is the interface where families are accessing preschool and that we're very robust in that area in terms of being able to um really meet community members and and be

able to relate and connect the classrooms of course are the biggest challenge because our children have to be first one thing we have been working closely on which you'll see in your dur prek update is we always update you about the apprenticeship program the apprenti program is one strategy that we've prioritized um apprentices for whom English is not their first language trying to build up our team members across all the partners who have credentialed staff that are multilingual I think you know this is a big barrier and obviously a critical need to the weaken serve our children the best way we can that apprenti program is only one strategy and we have obviously with a universal prek goal to serve 75% of the children one of the biggest challenges is Staffing for all the partners private and public that CR that those credential staff and the ongoing support of those

staff once they're in place so those are critical things so I'll stop you know I could talk all day but I won't and School Board Chavez also has a question thank you for this presentation and robust conversation um I have a question about um how we connect families with other resources in prek and um I'm thinking about um information about Tana of Medicaid which a lot of immigrant and Refugee families may not know that they are eligible for um and just other um County Services Social Services um and knowing that uh economic economics economic stress is a major variable in uh child outcome yeah I really like talking about the the idea of referring families and connecting and for that entry portal into prek we have uh childcare referral Specialists who who are the ones who

staff that and their absolute outcomes are tied to assessing family need Beyond just a placement in prek and that's a first step in in connecting we partner across the Community with Human Service organizations is it a perfect process no we can always do better however those referral Specialists that's a completely free service for any family in Durham not just families who are experiencing High need but those Specialists are particularly trained and deeply embedded in the Durham Community to connect families to Services most of our families have other children you know and those needs are great and obviously cannot be met by just having access to a four-year-old prek classroom many of our families need child care financial support at the younger grades and we work very closely through the childcare scholarship program that's funded through smartart as well as an arpa project as well as connecting with the

the uh durm Social Services Child Care Program but beyond Child Care obviously access to affordable housing food insecurity all those different things that families um really and and and and and for example the social emotional support piece you know working with families to refer them to appropriate organizations is a very specialized skill that we've invested quite a bit in thank you to that to school board members Chavez's point also love to see how the school board and Early Education is tying in with our own uh immigrant and Refugee services coordinator Nao who is in our Cooperative Extension cuz that's a really big focus of his work is connecting our immigrant and Refugee communities to services and resources any more questions before we start the pre data sharing Schoolboard member fire yeah just a quick question because I always think this is the state's

responsibility like if Oklahoma could do it certainly North Carolina should and needs to step up is this in U all's um deleg legislative document is there a priority around prek or funding in that already it's interesting cuz I was going to say we should ask Linda to um advise us okay because it isn't it should be I think I saw Deborah had to just step out but she was yeah yeah I'll send you an email okay the North Carolina childcare commission you know they have an agenda that you could review just consider whether you would want to support perfect maybe there's actually some some synergy okay then I'll let you do your well you'll be Rel to know it's quick because again we know that I can talk all day about this and I really appreciate and and in awe of the fact that you allow time to really talk about these issues but um thank you to Dr

Pitman for asking me just to briefly touch on where we are very excited to share that we have made some great progress um because this is a very complex issue you know being able the I come before you as a Storyteller it is our job to tell the story of our children and families those four-year-olds in our public preschool we need to be accountable to the community for how much this costs and we need to show those benefits because we can all talk about all day about how the research really stands and shows the benefits but we have to make it meaningful for our citizens and tell that story for children so I already mentioned again that we have the 75% goal just to remind you where we are as we enter this school year we will hit the 42% Mark which you know for some that may sound like a discouraging number but for those of us who've been doing this a long time it's phenomenal the growth has been amazing over the

last 10 years in particular the last five since the county made such a large investment so quickly um what this data sharing means is you know we have key players at the table Duram public school being the largest obviously but um our Head Start program uh run by families and Community Rising Durham's partnership for children as the lead Agency for NC prek and then our overall local dur pre investment we need to tell that story and student progress presently in the four-year-old classroom is recorded in dur pre NC prek Head Start and during Public School classrooms in a database a teaching strategies gold database it's a common uh database across all systems and there are numerous reports that provide insight into language and literacy development now let me first say this

dur PR is not funded for a comprehensive chronological research review that is a very expensive Endeavor and those that is not funded at this point what we have done is built a program based on evidencebased strategies that are grounded in the research and we hold the programs accountable to those but we need to tell our story and we want to do it as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible and so because we know that every program is presently recording into teaching strategies gold We've Come Together to say hey let's take advantage so that we can tell the story so this summer we began we had a large meeting with a variety of folks um from the different partners and then we've had some additional breakout smaller group meetings to really dive into the

needs and to the next steps so the reality is there's a lot of paperwork and rules and we want to assure that we we are in compliance with all the fura guidelines of federal educational rights and Privacy Act of course but we also know that with each partner we have to have me memoranda agreements with each individual partner agency and in particular with DPS and those agreements will be around ident really narrowing and assuring that we have pulled deidentified student data Okay so we want to develop a plan for data sharing across all the agencies and the desires to report to the community about the progress being made by our four-year-olds in the public preschool as a whole not grouping by site or classroom okay now some people you know

would say immediately well why we want to acknowledge the limitations of this available data okay so a different kind of evaluation would be a different Endeavor this is taking advantage of what our teachers are already doing and the training they've already been receiving on entering this information correctly and for each child on a regular basis so we want to look at the prek participants as compared to widely held expectations for preschool age children okay so to be clear all the agencies are coming together to have a common agreements about what data will be pulled and what will be reported on and a minimum we will report on last school year for those Duram pre children funded locally in the private sites because we have a Readiness for that that's at a minimum

but our goal is to have all agreements with all Partners ready complete and available so that we can report out on the upcoming school year across all programs if we're able to go backwards to 23 24 we will but absolutely our goal is to assure that we're reporting through 2425 and really for the purpose of saying where do we need to put more supports in where are we doing well and where do we really need to support our children better and differently and it's a collective and I can't emphasize that enough this is not a about the private sites the public sites we have a braided program that takes advantage of private license program sites as well as public sites our head start our Public Schools the NC prek investment all of those pieces are moving us toward meeting our 75% goal

but as you see from the cost a do Pitman outlined we are going to have to come to a place where we make hard decisions about how we meet that 75% goal and where best should those children be served the other piece of it is the doter pitman's review and costs all are very uh aligned with the district's costs there are some savings that happen because we are a collective and we braid dollars but that takes a next step of really Ana you know analyzing and uh prioritizing so thanks for the opportunity to update you and we'll keep you um updated through the rest of this school year we're excited thank you Dr Chappelle I know School Board member Rogers or chair Rogers you had a question anybody else want to go first you want me to

go thank you so much for this presentation um I know we have been waiting to hear these kinds of updates it's good to hear that you're already starting um these collaborative activities to um help with the memorandum of agreement um you know help us move towards a memorandum of agreement and getting some shared data happening um can you talk to us a little bit about um was it the infrastructure issues that made it so that this data wasn't shared before or um I think there's a variety of reasons there's a variety of reasons first of all we were building a system to try to grow how many children we were serving and ideally you would have that data upfront but the reality is that many of

our teachers needed to have additional training and instruction in how to properly complete that information I mean I think it's really important to know that you know obviously we all know we're advocates for teachers it is a big job to record this information and to do it well because obviously what goes in is going to drive our our ability to to get something out um so there has been quite a bit of training in the last three years around this issue of how to to appropriately enter that information um I'll be honest when dur pre case started the original Hope was that the kindergarten entry assessments would be um strong and available in North Carolina and those of you who've been in this space know that there's a long and storied history with that and um some of the race the top grant money that was

invested to try to strengthen the kindergarten entry uh some of those things didn't pan out and that was outside of our work but there was a hope and a belief that that information that we would be able to see how children entered kindergarten and relate that to what services they had had prior to kindergarten that was really our Focus this new uh this new strategy is really about what do we have what is available what can we best use right now it doesn't take the place of some desire for future investments in evaluation of our program of our children of the different um the different ways we support Children and Families that's helpful background um which leads me to my next question which I guess is for the County Commissioners um particularly

around uh is it time for us to to um review theou between the Boe and BCC in in a way that in is inclusive of our desire to expand the prek um support in dur public schools that sort of codifies it there so that that's not particularly an Ask every I mean it would be an Ask every budget year but like we are all aligned about the intentions of expanding with a deadline that includes what the county would hope to invest if we were to stay on schedule with this expansion or a timeline of investment particularly in a way that puts students first that we don't necessarily see in theou right now um

just something to think about not something to move right now just if this is a partnership that should be cified as part of thatou I'd almost worry you might receive less funding than you are now without that in the just because I I feel like the Commissioners have been super aggressive with our staff about saying no no no this isn't enough we want to invest more than that this year we want to you know go up some every year I mean I think the dur prek investment I feel like it's 8 million or so this year it it used to be I don't know four or five when I first started yeah your preschool Investments around 10 but through different through different directions yeah just thinking about sort of through Durham prek over the years anyway theou um has more importance in some

people's minds than others and if you know if you guys feel like that it's totally fine with me not that I'll be here anyway but just you know I just think that um this is absolutely a shared value with the current boards but you make a good point you know this current board makeup the makeups of boards change and values change and so that might be a way to keep things consistent um yeah I think I'm thinking about our the portion of it that's a part of our strategic plan to expand um but without State funding for prek where is that funding coming from and if that's the if that's the future we see together let's it doesn't have to be Financial it could be over the course of these years we want to see whatever yeah commissioner Jacobs I just want to respond to um

chair r Rogers um I think that it would be a good idea at some point to revisit theou especially in light of the fact that you all are developing an mou um we I think we would want to make sure that our what our mou supports the data sharing mou that for sure that you all are working on and just whatever what other ever way we need to revise that but um I think I again I'm like blown away it's summer you guys did all of this work during the summer I I just can't believe it again so thank you so much to everyone who has worked on this um it really again I am just amazed that you know this came up in our conversations during the budget and and you all followed up on it and really made it a priority and it's really exciting

um and it's really interesting to hear um I'll be it it's really interesting to hear the the way that you all are working together I mean data sharing Agreements are very difficult in every single sector um and um how to what I hear you saying is you know what what can we use that we we have now um and start again telling the story and I think the storytelling is going to be very important going back to the initial discussion about how do we Finance this how do we really make this happen in our community so I guess you know one thing I was thinking about when you said a report out to the community I think us being really thoughtful on how we do report out to the community and you know to me this is important enough that maybe at some point when you're ready we we have

something you know in a venue like the Carolina Theater and we invite the community to come and hear about what we are doing together around prek and for our children like that H how do we really let people get up and tell the stories and why this is so important because if we're going to try to bring in and manager soel you were out of the room when I mentioned the Community Fund that the chamber is launching how do we bring in the business community and other partners to support this very important investment and you know frankly there I don't think there's anything more important that we're doing um everything we know is is around the Upstream Investments and as much as we can at some point measure the impact you know to um Vice chair um your your um comments about how the data that we have

have you know where kids are coming from and then where where are they going afterwards um because there are there are some stakeholders that want to know okay what are we getting for this investment what is the return on investment and so um you know I know it's expensive but if it can save us money down the road with um you know that's impacting in the classroom later on with remediation or or counselors or mental health support all of that um then it it is going to be a worthwhile investment so um I I do hope in the future I would love to hear down the road what is what what are what the investment is that we need to make in evaluation that's what I hear you saying we don't have those tools but um we know evaluation is important and so at some point but

um again I so I thank you and I look forward to you your continued progress together any further questions thank you so much Dr Chael Dr Pitman Mr Palmer now uh before we move to our last item since we have Quorum now just want to revisit and entertain a motion to approve the minutes so moved move by commissioner Carter second second by chair Rogers all in favor say I I any opposed okay the minutes are passed unanimously now we're turning to our presentations we have the salary Finance update from DPS and we have Dr ala it'll I'll UND do it okay yeah so we kept

shorter anticipating any conversations we'd have earlier and actually as a function of where we are right now because we're still not quite done all right so for today these next few minutes we want to provide an overview overview of where we are in our final budget allocations in particular with regards to salary updates um we're going to talk about some deferred needs again and some plans moving forward on that because I know those are on everybody's mind and then the timeline for the implementation of some of this work and then obviously engage with everyone at the table around any questions um comments that you may have so with regards to our budget allocations we've seen this chart in many different ways this is the final one of where we are where we've broken out really the changes from the last couple of years to where we are now and we've included all the different sources of funding so the general fund budget DPS increase uh which ended up being $20 million this is the local piece with the Commissioners the 6 Mill million from the arpa and the prek support at 716 for

3 million that we've been talking about um which is about 300 shy of the ask um uh tremendous investment from the county in the public school system uh uh gratitude in all capital letters and exclamation points and fireworks going off around it all the same time so there um uh and really what this does to advance the work and the priorities that were presented to the county and to our public um is is just tremendous so incredibly thankful the salary changes in particular so the legislated salary increase and we wanted to provide some context here because you hear a lot about it being an average 3 to 4% or something along those lines but we all know that when the legislature has implemented their salary schedules over the last few years there is disperate impact with regards to where the raises

actually land so um they have front-loaded the impact of raises so that really the only folks getting measurable raises are within 0 to 15 years of experience once you hit 15 years of experience in the north Colina legislated salary schedules there is very little movement in salaries um so the the range that you will find with this average 3 and a half% raise that was implemented by the legislature is anywhere from $820 a year to 2890 a year uh and I and I just want to contrast that with the first bullet of the next section okay the local request for the local salary supplement guarantees $800 a year for every single teacher in the local portion the local salary portion of a teacher salary should be

55 for our highest experienced teachers and that includes the adding the step okay which makes that amount even less quite frankly so now to the to the local action which is really where the action is so to speak right uh I've already mentioned the $800 local supplement increase that

every single certified teacher will get in the school system and then the next three bullets really are the um uh how do I say it it it really is the amazing local investment again uh that is very much a Hallmark of how Durham takes a look at its teachers and its schools the Masters pay uh which is about 10% for all qualifying teachers um there the state does have rules on how that is applied um language around the Masters being a part of what they actually their job category is and what they're doing uh and then the next two pieces which uh uh sort of exist in maybe one other County but not really to the extent that we're looking at here uh an EC and an elll supplement of $200 per month for teachers in our EC and elll areas and

then the other differentiated amount EC self-contained is 300 per month so it's not 200 plus 300 for teachers and self-contained it's just 300 for teachers and self-contained and then all other EC teachers and elll teachers 200 per month um those are tremendous uh investments in our staff to keep our staff and provide our staff with the salary that is commensurate with the work that they do every day and highlighting our most vulnerable students in our community um that is incredibly there's no other District that's providing an ell supplement I can tell you that or differentiated supplement for EC versus EC self-contained so the our next steps here with classified staff we will look to implement the salary schedules that were developed by the comproller um with credit four years of experience so those salary schedules are available on um our

website in a couple different places in board meetings uh you will recall that those schedules set a Min and a Max for different job categories um we did Implement for all of our staff classified staff we sent them at the end of the school year a projected salary letter basically a a tool a projected salary tool which showed them what was your 2223 salary or what was it for your position if you weren't in that role um what was we included what was the 23 24 salary with the implementation of the modified classified uh salary upgrade that was basically Bally in place from for their salaries from July 1 through the end of February what was that salary so they could see that and then what was your final salary for 2324 based on the final action of the board to go back to

2223 plus 11% so I I think I think it's really important to note that while some staff in classified got less with their endof year appropriation and some got more everyone was receiving receiving 11% more than 2223 which is a a substantial Rise um and so moving forward uh when we bring the salary schedules for the board to adopt everyone will receive at least 3% on top of what their final 23 24 schedule was because that is the legislated increase from the state so that's the minimum but some will receive more and in some cases I think when you look at the schedules it was up to 177% more and that is the piece that is more responsive to the market rate schedules that will be implemented and then a final decision for the board to make moving forward will be how will future salary increases be handled for classified staff um are

we looking to every year move Folks up a step so to speak and continue to give credit for years of experience as they move up um and build that into um how we move forward what that would require would be for the the budget staff every year to calculate what is the cost of approximately it's about 1% that comes with every step so what is the cost of 1% if we move everyone currently on staff forward for a year what is that 1% cost I can tell you it's about a million dollars um right now and then the decision can we make that $1 million step within our existing budget based on the EB and flow of people retiring coming in going out or does it need to be part of a budget ask um that is a decision that that that will have to come forward um or does the board just say that classified salary increases will be a function of a uh board action every year a specific request every year

that where they would ask for 1% or 2% or 3% um depend or would it depend on where you are in the schedules for example I think I've mentioned in the last meeting that the this this the implementation of these salary schedules which are market rate responsive is not the same as the conversation around a living wage right so should the board instead focus on maybe living wage increases um and what that means at the really the bottom of the salary schedules and then what impact that has all the way through the salary schedules moving forward is that a different way for the board to look at salary increases moving forward for classifi staff so that's that's still that's a future discussion to be held um but again it's it would be important to note that there's a minimum 3% increase coming for all classified staff and some will be more based on where they land on the market rate responsive salary

5 million request um in our uh yearly Appropriations for these needs and the Commissioners responded through Diversified funding which with actually providing 2 million additional uh which is more than we asked for again unheard of thank you very much um Safety and Security needs that are related to fire safety we've talked about those as well um couple schools that we have on firewatch and a couple of schools where we really need to update our controls in order to uh properly uh ensure safety in our schools and then equipment and

repair needs that are related to the community eligibility provision C implementation moving to uh School districtwide C is a fabulous um uh opportunity for our families our students to receive free breakfast free lunch every single day every single student in every single school um uh tremendous again commitment to uh how we serve our students in our schools uh but uh there are some deferred equipment and repair needs that are kind of running right alongside that commitment uh that uh have been deferred for a number of years and if we really are going to increase the number of students that are uh accessing breakfast and lunch every single day in school we must begin to pay attention to that equipment and repair needs in our cafeterias so work will begin in this area through the additional through the $8 million that have been allocated the 2 million in capital funds and then the 6 million in arpa funds uh we will start some work there but another discussion that we have had with our uh

Commissioners is really do we need to have some discussions about perhaps reallocating some of the CIP bond funds and accelerating um some of these needs through that funding because the the the CIP funds go across multiple years quite frankly even into the next potential bond that we're going to have in terms of when planning and work actually begins on schools so do we phase that out differently to incorporate this need in there um and that's that's to come as well with the board uh looking at how to make a decision there so some next steps um we are are looking for our board to approve the new salary schedules for certified and classified staff by the end of August we were hopeful we could do it this week but it it it's not going to happen this week it'll probably need to happen at the second board meeting in August um I I say that and it's important to say that because that will mean that updated the new salary schedules that our staff

will be paid on will be implemented in their September paychecks um I know that our folks are anxiously aw in whatever that raise is and we were hopeful to try to get it into their August paychecks but not approving them until later in August you don't you just don't have time to implement it for the August paychecks so they'll be implemented in the September paychecks and and I'll just say that's actually earlier than it usually is because it usually doesn't happen till the end of October we're going to try to get it in place for the end of September couple of factors that are necessary there um you know there are some districts in the state of North Colina that have already implemented new salary schedules and I will just say that those districts did not have a $27 million local infusion uh that impacts local supplement EC teachers ell teachers Master's pay and a whole new classified salary schedule so getting those numbers right getting those allocations correct making sure that we have identified the teachers that are eligible and who will receive the EC and elll supplements is critically important

to get that right as we move forward um we have in surveys out right now to make sure that we are capturing all of those folks um Master's pay in particular um they've not had to add their masters to their license for the last 10 years if they weren't going to get paid for it there was no reason to pay $65 to add it to your license and so we can't rely on pulling licenses to make sure that we know who the folks are that are eligible so we're asking teachers tell us um so that we can sort of bir directionally do it we can pull Masters and see who has them but because that's not a failsafe way to do it we are asking teachers as well to let us know so that we can verify that they are eligible and try to get that list right uh we are going to wait to do any retroactive payments until October I think it's important to get make sure we've got the full salary correct uh before trying to do retro payments so retro payments would be processed for the next month and they would be retro to all eligible staff to

July 1 um and it would acally two months that You' be retro in July and August because their September paycheck would all be already be correct and then their October paycheck and moving forward will all be correct so you'd be retro for two months July and August and then after that or alongside that the Board of Education would approve its final budget resolution for fiscal year 25 and it's important that this happened after we've implemented the salary schedules so you have a clear indication of what the financial impact is of those new salaries in the budget resolution solution that the board would adopt um so that's the that is the timeline that we're looking at moving forward um and I think that was it for me happy to answer any questions thank you superintendent Moore and just a quick note I mean you can thank us the board all you want for the capital needs but that really goes to our Deputy County Manager Hagar and

budget director Keith Lane and deputy director David and their teams that really found that extra $2 million the mcgyver in the background thank you for those Capital needs so shout out to them board there any questions from school board members Commissioners commissioner Jacobs um well thank you so much for uh again another great presentation um I I have a few followup questions one is um it would be great I I don't know is the the I appreciate that you are going to be so transparent around the salaries I mean just looking at you know where things were at different points in time um and for people to be able to see that all in one place um is is really going to be really great again to just educate people and

um for everyone just to have all the information I I I clicked on the link in the slides and that it didn't work but is that something that is available now or it's going to be available at some point you mean the salary schedules um well I guess maybe I'm getting two things confused you talked about is the schedule now showing that change over time no no no um so those were indiv visualized salary projections that we sent to each individual employee in the district okay you know with with about 2,000 folks that are in many different categories and and places that was too much to show like everywhere so but we sent it in an individual uh link to each employee so they could see that um because they they wanted to see what was my salary what was it for about 6 months

and then I know what it is right now what's it going to be next year and seeing the journeys the ups and the downs and all of that was really important for folks to have Clarity right um and and and so it what what what will get adopted by the board really is a schedule that shows men's and Maxes it doesn't show each step in between um it just shows men's and Maxes and then the placement of each individual employee based on their years of experience was done within those men's and mexes and then in the future movement between the men's and the Maxes will need to be a board decision okay do you have anything that just shows collectively what you just talked about um where the overall budget was let's say 22 23 for salaries where where it went at this point I mean I maybe that doesn't even make sense or maybe it's not even important at this point there I have to check to see whether or not the

file that the controller developed showed sort of like an average of What the increase was for the different categories like where I am getting the ones that are only 3% and the ones that are 17% that sort of thing so I think that is embedded in something that he has I'll take a look okay if you do have that if you could share that with us um and then when the salary schedule is adopted if you could share that with us okay um what is what is going to happen I guess okay I will just be straightforward about this our our budget staff our we've got David ades over here um assistant director and um our budget director have already sent us um which the county manager shared with us given us a very big warning that we are we're really in unchartered territory with the County in terms of our finances now um and we we already

have to be um very careful we've never been in this situation where we've our fund balance is so low and um just with a combination of where our sales tax revenues are where we are going we are now going to be reallocating occupancy tax that we've depended on um for tourism um so a number of factors like that um so that basically the the the budget that we approved this year for school funding is not sustainable um and I know that you all are going to be working together and the new superintendent like now on a monthly basis to really work together on tracking everything so even I think the decision that you all are thinking about related to salaries um will be very important that

there's communication with our staff about that because ultimately that is going to be something that the countyy is going to have to fund but I'm wondering about even having very active tracking of how funds are being spent because with vacancies for Duram Public Schools what happens if you all don't if you all don't actually need or spend all the money that we've allocated for personnel H what how is that going to work well I think um those are nice those are you it's a push pull there on whether that's a nice problem to have or not um we want to fill every vacancy we want to to utilize the every penny for what it's intended but there are going to be times like with vacancies where you May um generate savings and those savings end up in the local fund balance um tps's fund balance

is the lowest it's been in and I don't know how long and there are is there are good reasons and you all have read about them in the paper um around where why it is uh where it is and so while it it would be important to to look at how we could perhaps regenerate some of that and have a healthier fund balance um I don't think the point is to try to achieve that through not you know we want to fill all of our vacancies um but uh but you will see uh whether or not fund balance is regenerating and increasing because that'll be part of our annual comprehensive financial review now it won't happen just though because of vacancies I mean we are also looking at how we are tightening our belt in all kinds of areas um I can tell you that one step that we've taken just to open this school year is we have only released 85% of the local budget to our divisions and departments um we have not released the other 15% until we are sure

that we are ready to do so based on the final budget resolution that the board will need to adopt and that's tied to trying to um Reduce by around $6 million uh in order to make sure that we are basically living within our means and do not find ourselves in a position to need to either look to fund balance or elsewhere because we can't cover our budgeted needs so um so the short answer is savings is where you see savings longterm is in fund balance um but we should have some fund balance I think for emergency needs as we have had to use over the past year um but uh it is it's it's difficult to I I don't I don't know that you ever intentionally increase your fund balance it just happens because of what happens during the course of the year with budgeted funds so okay well that's really helpful so what I hear you saying is if there are if there is money that

is not spent because of vacancies we'll see that reflected in increases in the fund balance basically okay um yeah and the my another question I had which you kind of started to address is I know you and this will be a lot with the new superintendent coming in but you spoke a lot during the budget process about the need to implement for the Board of Education to adopt some financial management policies and or fiscal policies or just some and you just referred to one of them really but I think it would be helpful in the future for us to know um you know whenever you all adopt them or sh whatever uh to just learn about what are different new changes or structures or policies that you all put into place in the future around around that well I can I can start with a

couple things um next week all of our school-based treasurers bookkeepers will attend two days of training to sort of set some and it's training provided by the north CL Association of school business uh professionals NC asbo uh to to have a foundation around all of our bookkeepers receiving training around the laws best practices Etc that are how you manage School funds um we've not engaged in that level of training with every single one of our bookkeepers in a while anyway all of our principles will also receive two days of training from NC asbo um to set a foundation so two days all all those folks next week uh that foundational training will be used to develop a third day of training for the bookkeepers and for the principles on some Durham specific um programs and policies so that they can extend the

learning they've gotten from NC asbo into their durm specific roles uh and then we have also established the contract to update all of our budget and finance manuals to create an allotment manual um so that we can uh sort of have a reset and updated information for not just our principles and our bookkeepers but all of our Central Services based taffic uh anybody who touches dollars and has budget manager Authority um to have uh clear guidelines around um how to implement and properly uh execute Financial transactions uh it is my hope uh that those manuals will be available online so that everyone can see them fantastic thank you and the last thing I want to mention is you talked about possible changes in the CIP we are actually updating our CIP right now over

the next few months so that this is a really good time for that and I know you all will be working together but just wanted to make sure that okay school board members know that this it's actually perfect timing for anything related to that thank you for Rogers um I first want to thank Miss o who's in the back who's helped us through this process along with interim superintendent Miss Moore um they are making choices and putting procedures in place that people are particularly not used to and it's going to take some um getting used to um um the purpose of the board of education is to make sure that students get an education and so um I appreciate uh commissioner Jacob's wanting to learn more about the financial pieces and procedures and policies that the board's

putting in place but I think in update particularly like the one Miss Roberts SS out to um after every meeting with all of the policy updates that the board um makes should be sent to the County Commission um it's just a basic overview of what happened in our meeting what action we've taken that way you are then getting all the updates that are necessary to the school system and there's not any extra step that needs to be taken except to add you to that list um and then you get everything and not just the financial piece um but yeah that's helpful uh we look forward to continuing to put process and procedures in place and making sure that everybody's carrying those out um so that we're doing the best things for our students for our Educators going forward commissioner Carter yes I I feel um just you know so

proud of our community and our families and um everyone that we heard from during the budget season and so proud of all of us for the partnership that has occurred between the boards and our the staff at the school district and the staff in Durham County um and am feeling very hopeful about how everything is going to unroll and this the school system is going to be stabilized and remarkable and all the families in Durham are going to want to send their children to our amazing schools um I feel a little nervous about two things from the presentation today one and and going forward one is I'm wondering how close are we to getting to the place where the lowest paid staff and Durham public schools are um Market competitive here in Durham you know so Market competitive with the city market competitive with the county I know that's the goal I'm just wondering how close are we do you think so Market

competitive is is the implementation of the schedules I mean we will be there that is not the same as living wage um so like an IIA salary will be Market competitive with IIA on any of the districts that surround here in North Carolina um but an IIA salary is not a living wage and so uh so yeah I and I do understand the difference you're making the distinction there I guess what I'm really asking is the lowest paid employee in Durham Public Schools will that person be making a little bit less than $18 an hour a little bit less than 18 so in Durham County our lowest paid employees is making 19 something 75 or it was 19 I think it went up to thanks any and I think the city may have even gone up a little higher and so I I look at that as our real Market to

be sure that all of our locally paid employees you know it started in you 20 years ago the city the school district and the county all said we're all paying a living wage we we have living wage policies and so I guess now I just hope that City the county and the school system and in particular the county and you know and DPS locally paid staff you know we'll all be making the same lowest minimum wage it just needs to be competitive across all three governmental bodies and we're not quite there and so hopefully you know this movement towards having the DPS lowest wage salary be benchmarked against the county salary will continue um we're getting closer and hopefully that will continue the other thing I'm feeling a little nervous about um is related to all the capital needs that are in within the system um and the possibility of re needing to reallocate some of the CIP bond funds um for needs that we know are very

real and very true and very pervasive at the same time that the cost of Capital Construction is going up you know the increases that we've seen with all of the pro the current projects and so the current uh Bond funded project dollars aren't going to go as far and so just you know how is that going to all be managed and you said that the board's going to be discussing that but I feel nervous about it um and I don't know what else to say except I mean I think it is these are all hard decisions and and um I just you know I I had the advantage of being a short-timer with the ability to elevate some things and start some public discussions without necessarily figuring out what the resolution is the final resolution but I but as I got into the whole budget development process it was clear we we need to elevate these things so that that folks are aware and I and I will tell you that even you know I won't be a part of planning it I do

think that as you look to whatever your next Bond campaign is whenever it is how how to intentionally include not just renovated buildings or brand new school buildings but some of these other Capital needs and life cycle needs in a more intentional uh substantive way will be very important commissioner Carter I'd like to ask has there been a calculation of what it would cost in local funding to get DPS to um yeah that would be our to do not not the Commissioners probably so but and and and let me just say how we would do it might not be the way the Commissioners would do it th this is true um yeah I guess it is because of our policy um and so how would the Commissioners help us get that in local funding for personnel I I think I think staff would

need to do the work of and provide a couple of scenarios um you've heard me say this as well if we if we pay attention to our lowest paid employees to move them to a living wage the best practice is to move that salary increase all the way through the salary schedule not just at the bottom of the schedule otherwise you create compression long term that is so much harder to fix down the road um so I think what our staff and finance would do is say okay if we were to move to 19 1980 an hour um if that's where the county is at 1979 I think is what popped up on your she was I mean it's like right there um so if we were to go to 1979 what would that cost if we moved everyone some percentage it doesn't have

to be the same % as 1770 something to 1920 but what if there was some percentage all the way down the line what would that final cost be and then start looking at at how you want to execute that um and and my experience with how to execute something along those lines really was to not do it all in one year but to do it in a measured approach to say okay what if you move $ this year $1 the next year knowing that that Target sort of moves um as you move forward uh but how do you how do you stage it over multiple years in order to get to where you want to get and how many years is it that you want to Stage it over um and that becomes really a multi-year plan around U moving to a living wage and moving everyone along the lines with it and that is done in collaboration with the county in an understanding of what that budgetary impact would be and what's what can be tolerated over multiple years School member Umstead and then

Chavez um I want to continue a little bit of that conversation I think we do need to think about multi-year budgeting process because I feel also by the time we move we have to move again right uh by the time we catch up we have to move again to make sure we're keeping up with the cost of living and inflation so I look forward to that conversation I also hope that the joint body City County and schools are having this convers ation around salary um because we all are wanting to make sure that we're providing living wage and competitive wages and sometimes one body moves ahead of the others and we all are feeling like we're playing a catch-up game and can we be more strategic about uh moving in lock step with each other I think would be really helpful um I think I'm connecting this also to the capital Improvement plan um that you mentioned commissioner Jacobs I know in the past there's been a lot of conversation around durm public schools and how our plan connects with durm Count's capital Improvement plan and wanting to know I don't I don't we don't need to have that conversation today but maybe in a future meeting how do we

overlay those two because we know these construction costs are continuing to go up we continue to have needs and we're continuing to have that tension in the conversations that we're having around improving our buildings and Facilities um and then I'm going to go all the way back to something you said at the beginning around the legislative agenda because I feel like all of these issues are tied the um dur Public Schools also has a legislative agenda we can can share that with you all as you all are crafting what you're working on because again all of these issues are becoming local funding issues but also need a lot of State funding as well you could get it to us this week we can get it um to you soon my question was actually related to that legislative agenda I was wondering if you had anything specifically about increasing support for Capital needs yeah yeah I think manages well will relate that to Deborah to make sure it's

on our local list as well yeah any other questions or comments okay great that concludes our discussion items and brings us to we have a written Memo from the prek update everyone should have that on their agenda genda um and then we have public comments we have one individual Mr John Hodes Coppel if you would like to come leave this no okay that one that one and Mr couple you have three minutes push a button here okay great well thank you good morning um thank you madam chair and Madam chair and the members of the school board and the county commission uh I'm here to um represent Durham for DSA which promotes Community engaged transformative improvements for all of

our 2022 school bond projects I'm here to note some shortcomings in DPSS rush to move DSA and its effect on elementary school funding which we've been talking about today this matters to both the DPS board and the County Commission because it is the commission that approved the bond vote issues the bonds to pay for the schools and has to raise the property taxes to repay those Bonds in June we brought to DPSS attention that they hadn't begun the process required by the state to move a school something that apparently had escaped the notice of the staff the bond Management Consultant the DSA construction manager at risk Consortium and the architectural firms working on on the project in response DPS Consultants prepared a frankly embarrassing closure study and rushed it to an unadvertised public hearing last

week the DSA closure study that the Consultants hastily pulled together does not meet the requirements of the state statute which specifies and I quote submission of completed feasibility and cost analysis forms to the school planning section of DPI here is the entire cost analysis in that closure study a 1 half page spreadsheet it doesn't even attempt to look at estimated costs of improving the current campus bottom line DPS has not made an estimate of improving DSA just using the cost of moving DSA as the basis therefore in our view the public hearing last week on the closure isn't valid because it wasn't hearing on a valid feasibility analysis and we'll make sure DPI is aware of that to some it is even unclear if the surprise public hearing met the requirements for a DPS public

hearing at no point in this process have staff and Consultants run the numbers on the community option despite the work by experienced School Architects Landscape Architects engineers and planners showing its feasibility its AB ability to increase enrollment and meet many of the concerns with the current campus all at a lower per student cost instead the staff and their Consultants continue to defend and sell a costly path diverting voter approved funding from other schools as we are forced to borrow unprecedented amounts of money to build DSA at historically High interest rates crowding out not only other school funding but dollars that could be used for County CIP projects and for the County Commissioners you should expect that the school board will be back each year pleading for more funding to cover escalating operating costs to cover both the new school and existing schools as people who have continually

advocated for our Public Schools Durham for DSA views last Thursday's hearing the lack of notice the presentation without dated and misleading data and the tone as lamentable with new superintendent and some new board members we hope there will be a new day at DPS thank you thank you so much for coming and providing your comments uh with that that is the end of our meeting time and I will call us adjourned thank you all so much

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