good morning okay let me cut my phones off three and you need one more okay yeah right through there there may be some of the refrigerator there was some in there yesterday it is
um you probably need to get started yes yes yeah it's just it's fun it just messes up your schedule yeah you have to reschedule everything that was good all right okay we're gonna go ahead and get started um yeah we've got three here three and four one two three you need one more are you okay you need one more do you have school you need one more person or what oh um Latina's gonna be late um
so just to let just to let everyone know I'm going to have to jet and if um Wendy's going to stay I've gotta I've got to run to another all right um so good morning everybody and those I haven't seen this year I think I've seen everything um so it's good to have you here and um so this morning I think everybody knows anybody all right have you ever all of you met our attorney
okay did you introduce yourself our attorney good morning everybody my name is Al Andrews I'm a Durham County attorney previously with many places but most previously with the city of Greensboro look forward to meeting you all and learning and helping in any way I can so thank you for having me I understand so let's go ahead and get started on call the meeting to order all the first item is to pull the agenda was there anything else hearing none uh we have the November
29th minutes Madam chair I'd like to make a motion that we approve the meetings from November 29 2022. second um budget discussion sure good morning everybody my name is Paul Leger I'm the Chief Financial Officer for Durham Public Schools nice to meet you um so covid funding was uh the initial request in regards to what um you wanted to hear about today and where we are with our coveted funding um this was on the board docket for last Thursday but I had a few other items
that were on the docket that took a little longer than we expected so my board is hearing this for the first time but they've seen it since last uh last week so turn off my phone so if you remember correctly we presented you this to you last year probably in February about this time uh in regards to where we are with our funding what funding we've received and an overview of of where we are today so remembering um we got all kinds of different sources of funds we've got three different large pots of money which uh Coronavirus cares Act was the first pot of money we received back in 2020 and we got 13 million dollars I believe I'll see it better when I get to it that we've received initially in that regard we also have Coronavirus response relief krissa which was enacted
in December of 2020. oh next slide please oh next slide please okay I'll probably click it wrong there we go I I could see it clearly and it was in the second pot of money Chrissa was enacted in December of 2020. uh in that regard um it takes time for all these dollars to come out but we have received another pot of money in March of 21 it was enacted uh the American Recovery plan arp we like to call these sr1 sr2 and sr3 so that it makes it easier for people because I'm not going to remember Chris or cares and uh R it's too confusing um remember we received these types of
funds previously uh when we had the financial downturn back in 2008 nine time frame we received funding but not to this extent and not to this extent where we're able to use it for different purposes than was back then so um as you see here the cares act money was to expire at September of 22. we had to have funding encumbered that contracts and things of that nature at that point in time we have sr2 which is expires this September which we have to have all our funds encumbered and expended out by January of 24. and then we have sr3 expires in September of 24. at this time we're able to encumber it up at that point you can't encumber for salaries but you can cover for contracts
and other things that are in place in that extent at that extension on those obligations goes to January of 25. so um if you went and brought up this PowerPoint you could press the link it would bring you to the DPI website for the purpose of showing you where where and how much we received in different plots of money at any given time all the different categories that they're funding from a state level as well as other documents that can provide us with with looking at what the needs are at other school districts as well and they they have expenditure reports on their system um I thought I had it right first time okay hmm I want to hit it by mistake or somebody over there so here what we have summarized are the
9 million dollars so um as far as that goes 12 million dollars plus all these others come out to the 13 million that I was talking about in total so all these things had to be used the most flexible pot of money was a 163 funds but as you can see that was our emergency relief funds we use that mostly for our computer purchases so we could go one-to-one also for our wireless uh services at that uh students were able to bring home and teacher to bring home to ensure that we had online learning going on um also had some funds in there for childhood exceptional children other specialized instructional support dollars more on the EC side as well and then some supplemental instructional Services dollars 170 which were I think
we use those some of those were used for the purpose of tutoring and learning recovery so it's all outlined up there that the purpose is that we could use the funds for and as I said These funds were more specific except for PRC 163. so as we look uh I'll go back one and as you can see we actually ended up spending all our money by September 30th we were we want to get rid of the money but we want to use it wisely to ensure that we get the best bang for our buck we did that the big piece of that was of course of the purchase of the computers that was nine million dollars at the time we purchased them so but I just wanted to let you know that the liquidation period we didn't have to liquidate anything because we'd had the money spent before that point in time and here's the professor 2 and 3 that we've been receiving so in this chart
7 million dollars the the thing about these Ester dollars we actually received 171 money we received about 66 000 more as the state starts to wind down and they see that they have money left over
they're going to throw it at us so we don't know where they are in in capturing of all their expenses well we do know where they are because they have a report that they do that's online there you can see each of these categories each of the schools Charter Schools as well on how they're spending the money but we don't know how much they may be sitting on at the state level that they might throw out to the schools and they they have been known to throw it out uh like June 15th when we're trying to close out for the year so I'm waiting I'm waiting for that big big and then they tell us we have to do a revision by the end of June to our plan yes ma'am yeah so identification of missing students we're trying to find those students that didn't come back to Durham public schools that we don't have on our Charter School rosters they're somewhere and we're trying to identify those
T purchasing items you know that again breaking it down to minute so one of the things we were able to do with some of the money previously in the prior uh May of 2020 was fold up some of those smaller pots of money to put into a different line item they gave us the flexibility to do that of course they told us on December 1st that we had to do it by December 31st
and and then turned around and uh we had to make all our adjustments as well as our budget adjustments with the state which is a timely process uh to get that done but um staff we're very capable of spending money moving money to make sure we get the biggest bang for our buck so with all these uh sr3 as you can see the big pot was the 104 577. that we have a flexibility with right and then we get into other other slides oh as uh we get thank you thank you thank you um so that's our biggest part of money and we'll get into those slides a little bit in a little bit so man really quick uh one thank you for
being such a good Steward of these dollars I think sometimes when people see 151 million they thought it was like a lump sum and they're not broken out into these like programmatic areas I remember even when you all well we got the money I kind of sort of did a deep dive on dpis and was just amazed that this is for this but to kind of follow up on something that um chair Howerton State um said I'm I would love to know if you wouldn't mind and I'm not going to believe this because I know that we have people that have to go and I have to go um could somebody and it doesn't have to be missile sewer maybe given an example because I can think for some of the missing children I get what that is like there's some kids one parent lost their job doing covet one parent died from covet now this kid is living with Grandma you know in Sarasota and so we had to put funds into finding out where that baby's at right so I do get but the homelessness one could you maybe give us an example because that's one that I'm not familiar with I'm just curious like
what because this homeless Grant one and two yeah so like what are some examples something programmatic I should have sent you a message for the purpose well I mean so many programs I don't rights of what we're spending it on in its entirety but I can certainly get that information for you Dr Hardy elaborate on that I think Dr Hardy Dr Hardy were you coming up thank you the whole good seat beside me and that's the only one I had that one last night when I looked at it but again good morning a couple of things that we have tried to do to support our students that are experiencing homelessness we do Provide support in terms of lodging oftentimes there are Bill support that they need lodging as well as clothing and sometimes Transportation so we
really do try to make sure that office is supporting any of our families that are in transition and often sometimes that means multiple families being together so resources significantly impacted which also impact that youngster we work very closely with our transportation team to ensure that we don't have additional transitions in terms of schooling if lodging is somewhere else and that child was going to another school to ensure that we're minimizing that and then also making sure that we're offering any student support services that that family may need or the children may need because of their experiencing transitions in their life I only highlight that because I do hope that after this I I don't think everybody knows that that's how much you all are doing so I do want to I kind of want to elevate that because again people see 151 and they think unprecedented amount of money we can spend on anything and they're these categories and look at what you I think people would love to know oh my gosh this is what they did with this and this is why this kid can
still come to class because we got him a ride to school so I just wanted to highlight that for the thing but thank you that was I didn't know that one but thank you yeah stay right there Dr Hardy yeah yeah Julius you come on over here and sit beside um and we did ask foreign
yes you can definitely I can connect with him so that they can either follow up directly with my office or Army kenny-vento office it is really important we also have child fine legislation so we're always trying to make sure that we are finding youngsters and if they are experiencing homeless and in Durham then we have our responsibility to support them thank you can I just real quickly say um I'm having trouble remembering her name right now Natalie might be able to help me but the homeless Services advisory committee has a representative from DPS who serves families who are experiencing homelessness and she's amazing she um is so active and engaged at these meetings and also attends the policy and planning committee meeting and is one of the more I would say active service providers for families and and children who are experiencing homelessness is the services received through DPS so I was really thrilled to see that on there I'm so glad you asked about what
4 million in the big pot which is dropping every day as we get more services in and
7 6 million we have 72 million dollars of that or 70 almost 73 million left it's probably a little bit less than that since this report's done and we've gotten through the end of uh January um so we're spending that uh right on schedule because we have a whole year to go with those funds so um a year and a half to go for those funds so we're in a good place with those we'll be looking at those smaller
programs that we haven't spent that money uh yet and we'll be starting to work with them to plan to get them to either engage in contracts or need to supplies and materials other other expenses that are needed to move our learning loss along Gaggle Gaggle uh I'm gonna I'm gonna leave that to The Experts uh gaggles the system Google jungle uh it's a it uh driven system that monitors our activity uh at the at the district and school level uh to make sure that we're using our computers appropriately is that did I make make a right statement on that one
T budget
as as we move along on an annual basis reviewing what we what we what we're doing what we can get rid of and what we can uh can do in the future within the funds available so excellent please so we have 158 million dollars that we're trying to spend in those big pots yes yes ma'am just real quickly are there any of the programmatic pieces currently funded by Esther that you feel like would need to be funded once the funds expire have you all identified any of those so you're my real friend you're my real friend one we have we have about 158 million dollars worth of needs as we move forward we're not supposed to be able to cover them but just no um
sorry Keith to your question can you manage your um I know most of the time when you got grants folks having a tendency to keep all those programs we are not at that point yet we're going to evaluate what we have and uh what you would like to sustain then we'll get to that point so we'll get back to you thank you and I want the board to know that Dr mubanga is my very best friend um are there things yes remember last year we came to you um we told you we had 13 Workstation technicians that we needed to fund our one-to-one initiative we have those being funded through the Essa program we're going to have to come back for those funds those were the positions we had in the budget we talked about in the budget process for the last two years because we know we have to have those to sustain we don't have the additional
resources for those things so they'll be coming to you in another iteration of a budget request but at this point in time we're using all our asset dollars to to make sure that we accomplish all our goals uh and set ourselves up so we can give you a realistic uh ask of what is going to be necessary as we move forward because again the state funds instruction not very well I will say in my 33 plus years in education um uh it used to be a whole lot better but it's not anymore so we're dealing with what we have on it on an annual basis the other part is um the school district and counties are responsible for the infrastructure and the operations such as it such as maintenance and so on and so forth so that's really what it boils down to is
is those are outside of the scope that the state would be funding it would be nice if they would because they've now got all these school districts that are a one-to-one initiative to ensure that if we have to go back out we can for any reason down the road we have the the tools in in place be reminded I'll always say this when I have the opportunity is our legislature is holding on to 750 million dollars worth of funding forfeitures that's 15 million dollars to Durham County and Durham public schools for the purpose of ensuring that we can do the one-to-one initiative and make things work so again we are and that's still tied up in the courts and we know that the court has just changed uh and it looks like it'll probably be held up for another few years yes let's go yeah I have to have my commentaries so we are going to spend this money
we've already had five audits for monitoring visits from the state from the feds from um office of state budget management and we're only through quarter two of these funds of 2223 we expect to have more monitoring of these funds it is not a fun thing to do because we have to send everything to them electronically they don't understand what we do they don't understand the information we have but this is all through Quarter Two December 31st so um and as you can see we just give you a kind of an idea of the per pupil amounts based on the different uh the three parts of money we have so this is breaking it down into the different types of programs that we're operating we've split it up uh in different areas to meet our goals academic Services of course is a lot of it's for summer learning a lot of it's
for temporary positions in the schools as well as at the district to make sure that we can meet the unique needs of our special population um we had these positions out there for two years this will be the this will the end of the school year is the second year we did not plan to go into a third year because we want to make sure we're not on that cliff at the end of that third year but we might extend some if need be uh if there's a dire need at a certain school but again these are all temporary positions that will be ending up leaving us or filling positions that are vacant currently and right now there's no short shortage if these positions weren't in place we would be we would have a better opportunity of having our classrooms filled but the support that's needed for all these programs going on is uh is one of those things the mental health part so on and so forth is uh very critical
to meeting our day-to-day student needs so yes ma'am how is it really going though in terms of actually filling those positions because I mean it's one thing to allocate and have the funding you know for for these for the 14 million um the temporary School based and also the 7 million for the district-wide I mean we know we're having in the county too difficulty if so I'm just wondering is the money actually going to be spent are there I've had the positions actually been able to be filled so you have a couple of dynamics that are going on here actually we are improving at filling our positions while we still have a number of vacancies we don't nearly we're not nearly in the same place that we were at the beginning of this past school year
I would also say you have to note the trends of filling positions multiple times and so there's cost when we feel positions and then they turn over we're filling them again and so there's that Dynamic that people don't often recognize it's not necessarily that you have the same position that's vacant but you may have a position that you filled actually three times um and so that's something else we are prepped and ready to go for a super aggressive recruitment season we are slated to go out multiple places both within the United States and outside of the United States to get teachers and our other positions field and so we have our whole recruitment plan that we expect to see thank you the best results from that in feeling our positions and being in a much better place this year for or for the upcoming 23 24 school year than we were for 22-23
so but I guess these these this money is supposed to be spent by the end of this year so if there is for instance money that hasn't been spent for those positions what what will be done so every year we have to re-up our plan and during the year we do that as well these are our major buckets that we're working with as we go down the road we're going to be revising our plan to either move it into other categories to ensure that we have the lap salaries being used so we can use it by the end of the year and again we have other plans to expend those dollars that aren't up here for the purpose of ensuring we spend it on it in a timely manner within the guidelines that were provided by DPI every one of these documents every one of these funding sources have specific usage that we have to follow they have on a lot of the policy man on a chart of accounts that we have to utilize to make
that happen important yeah Madam Vice chair I think we are making efforts of recruiting but we also doing some other work to retain the one that we have so we've been uh compensating our employees that's been loyal to us as you all know we have about 5 400 employees and uh our our employees uh last year were able to give them close to uh three thousand dollars just to be able to stay with Durham Public Schools we are very fortunate and we are not the only District that was able to do that up to five thousand dollars to be able to give to our employees and stay there are some other areas of AC special needs students really hard to recruit we're able to start putting a good three thousand dollars on the table to be able to recruit those folks and the math as well and when we get to the point where we had about 20 more vacancies math we're able to put up to three or five thousand dollars on the table to be able to recruit so the money that we put on the set for Recruitment and Retention we're
4 um if the money is not encumbered by the time but we have also other strategies for retention to be able to use those funds as well thank you so as you can see uh this is moving on to the operational Services area where we have 52 million dollars going in there for facility repairs and Improvement we have educational technology we have enhanced School cleaning and disinfecting transportation and for Child Nutrition
the transportation in Child Nutrition funds were put in there to ensure that if if students didn't come back we would have some resources that we could offset some of the um those reductions in revenues for those programs to ensure that we could have staff in place to meet the needs of all the students that are in our before and after school care um Child Nutrition programs as well and our transportation area so all three of those areas really actually receive traditional funding for that we're still waiting for our final allocation on transportation from the state usually done in December it appears that they're having some watching YouTube to get the work done uh so we're still that's a critical piece of our final budget for the year is getting that money from the state and knowing what that final number is right now we have 14 million dollars budgeted based on the estimate
um and we're expecting it to be in that that range because of the salary increases uh well I just really appreciate you highlighting that operational oh you've gone to the next one no worries um I think it's really important for us to to celebrate in this space that's work that we otherwise would have been coming to to the county for the the HVAC repairs the air quality stuff we've built outdoor classrooms you all might see those as you visit our schools our teachers and and students love those and that nine million dollars of tech money I mean I just we would be coming desperately with hat and hand to you all um that we are really doing some significant operational improvements and Dr Monk is on that all the time and his team so I just wanted to celebrate that we're trying to do that very responsibly
9 million or what I discussed in regards to the state so yeah in other words
well the transportation area is really the key key e-cog there in regards to additional transportation funding um you know there have been Cuts over the years at the general assembly um you know it's it's all about them being trans more transparent in their in their funding to begin with and how they go about their process of rolling out the funds to us but uh um Kevin Harrison is the director of Transportation at DPI and he's really the one that could provide uh insight to how they work with the general assembly to try to get funding in this day and age they've been pretty good when it comes to fuel if fuels going up they're willing to provide us some additional but other than that the real key we have in Durham in other school districts is that with transportation funding they have a
67 and that's our first five steps on our pay grade that can be funded other than that we can only charge the state up to that amount and the rest has to come out of local so our local costs continue to go up uh because a living wage goes up right and we have to make sure that we have those local resources available as well so um there's so many things in that regard you can only use Transportation funds for the yellow bus so any activity bus so on and so forth that's paid out of local as well from that standpoint for activities so it's and we have to actually reimburse the state each month for the use of those yellow buses for the purpose of using them for day during the day activities because it's really to and from school that we
can charge those expenses yes so each month at the end of the month Transportation comes up with how many yellow buses were used for usage outside of the normal drive to drive home from school and we have to reimburse the state on a monthly basis through our reporting mechanism and it has so we pay the people um we pay the bus drivers we pay for the bus we pay for the fuel all out of the transportation allotment that they give us from the state and then we have to take and sometimes it's been up to seven hundred thousand dollars a year that we've had to reimburse because we have also in their tort claims which is paying for accidents so on and so forth so but that's the highest I've seen it is 700 000 a year but it's usually around 350 to 450. uh thousand dollars a year that we have to
transfer back to the state for our local dollars is that we have a lot of costs for some of our transportation and our bus drivers over that 18 an hour thanks to this local funding so when I think about advocacy across the state I think about all the districts who can't cover that extra cost and who are also still struggling to get kids to and from school we know we have superintendents we have principals our um director of transportation is driving the bus on a really consistent basis and so I think if you think about advocacy on a Statewide level there's a transportation issue where kids in Rural and in urban can't get to school and we understand if you can't get to school you can't learn there's food access to other resources that students can't have so in the advocacy way that would be a really great thing to see on a Statewide level how are we supporting school districts to get children to and from school yes
the best CDLs if I'm not mistaken take up to six months to receive Dr Moe that was a yes yes ma'am yeah I mean we all remember the days of our teachers and also our fellow students driving buses and things like that so I mean we we do need to look at more flexible policies and I would add also policy wise that in the State Department of Transportation penalizing when schools encourage walking to school
that that is a policy that we also needs to be changed and that um there instead that we it should be incentivized and not penalized um you know when when kids are in walk zones and walk to school or or you know pedal School rather than take the bus I just want to um saw Mr Palmer look up when you talked about walking to school we did just pass a resolution last week for safe routes to schools and we're applying for a grant funding to support just that effort making sure that there is safety and that we are allowing families to be active allowing students to be active and walking having sidewalks and education going forward so hopefully we'll get that grant funding to support safe routes to school and I would ask if you all have resolutions like that that please pass them on to us so that we can support that because okay okay great because that also fits into
our overall you know Transportation goals I think the full board support would be great as we're applying for this grant I think it'll be good for them to see that this is not only a school district but a county also a priority to make sure students have safer routes to get to school foreign and I mean we could do a resolution as well because right now there is in the infrastructure Bill there is funding designated for State routes to school and on the mpo we are making a concentrated effort to go after that funding and prioritize that so that that's something that we all can
500 bonus to staff this past October so we continue to grow resources that have been provided to the teachers as well level strategies they're using it for various programs to work on PD for their staff so on and so forth we have a lot of money set aside there for the purpose of
ensuring that we can provide the services needed to all those students as well as all the support that that's the schools require um then we have some administrative and ancillary Services some budget for human resource initiatives we have a we have tuition to reimbursement for aspiring teachers bringing IAS and providing them coursework to get into the classroom which is the most needed piece of our vacancies at this point in time though everyone at this in in the administrative level would say my people are critical too I understand that but having a teacher in front of a child is much better than having a substitute in front of a child and we can all agree with that and then we had 6 684 thousand dollars worth set aside for covert tracers we're still working with that um get my Cova test every week just to
make sure that we use our investment so as we're looking at where we are where we're headed um looking at our current budget 151 million dollars worth of Esser funding uh for sr2 and three as you can see uh this is just another look at how it's going and again we have a remaining 55 remaining of these funds that are of those two pots of money that we have identified or that were identified by the state that have various usage and not specific usage to it so any further questions thank you so much for this detailed presentation that's it's you know it's it's uh like all of the federal money that has happened
over covid it is mind-blowing I mean honestly we you know 163 million dollars of money coming into Durham public schools and you know the city in the county we've all this is a once in a lifetime thing once in a generation so I know that um you know and then you know figuring out how to spend it and track it and it's it's I know I know what it's like on our end so it's it's a huge task um and I mean I'm glad to see there's still quite a bit of money left um for for the next two years so I guess one of my questions is um do you all are you planning to because for instance okay it went down but a lot of them there was a they're like 98 left for school strategies so um do you do you think that you'll be kind of using it in similar ways or that you've seen seeing that you'll need
to Pivot with the focus or whatever you're thinking about in the next two years um I'm just wondering that in general I mean I know it's very general but just wondering what things are looking like thank you madam Vice chair um we are pretty much data driven we're looking at data as we all know the impact of the pandemic when it comes to Student Learning the impact is going to be there for three or four years so we're looking at data and we're making adjustment as we're moving along as long as a DPS or DPS going to give us the flexibility of using the fonts and every time we sit down we look at data and we're making adjustment accordingly but let me say also this um when we're looking at this funding I think one of the area that we're going to struggle across the state is about recruiting teachers a lot of these local universities they're not producing enough
DPS if we have about 2500 teachers just a turnover of 10 that's about 250 teachers that we have to recruit in a year I was with nccu a few months ago meeting with all our future graduate they're only 16 that should be graduating May I get in touch with ECU they don't have much so we start even going internationally we went to Jamaica we recruited 22 we're going to endures there are about 30 that's they were able to screen for us we're going to recruit so recruitment is going to be really crucial for us there are other districts like Guilford County they're putting a good 25 000 there for a math teacher on the table for a person to study for three years so as all this district is becoming really flexible about putting money on the table we have to be able to be in our A-game as well so we can have staff with that having staff it's going to be really critical then the number two when it comes to academic needs
so summer programming I think the first year we're able to work with a lot of students last year it went a little bit done it's going to continue going down but we have to be able to multiply strategies as far how can we reach out to those students after school which is going to impact transportation and as we have a shortage of bus drivers you're not going to pay them 18 we probably during the summer we're putting a good five dollars extra per hour so that they'll be willing to come and work with us and the same strategy we used to pay our teachers 25 dollars to work during the summer now we're paying them 40 so that they'll be interested to come so we'll be making adjustment before we get to September 2024 uh we are very confident that certain money will be used properly first of all that's again something that we can lift up at the state level this is about you know the pipeline for teachers the terrible wages um but you know Dr Megan I remember years ago at student U you you helped to
announce you know the idea of starting a homegrown teacher program and that that's something I feel like we could partner together on you know the county and DPS um and you know think about how do we incentivize Durham public school students I mean I know this is a long-term strategy but also it fits in with one of our priorities in the county which is Workforce Development and creating a pipeline to good jobs here so I would love for us to really work together on something like that let's grow our own I mean bringing in teachers internationally is fantastic um but you know let's look at a lot of different strategies so we could meet a lot of different goals um and I get it I got I have my youngest child is is actually applying to teaching programs right now but I have to really work on him because you know the salary part was like offensive it's offensive
um let me just react to it quickly I know at some points the community will let you know how we're spending 18 million dollars yes uh so that's something that I'm gonna bring to our board probably in the next three weeks so as far the program that you mentioned that's how we had a dream when we met a student here yes 18 million dollars is going to address that okay then the future conversation will be once the body proved that how we're going to be able to sustain those programs it doesn't make any commitments out here but I think the idea is that there's a lot of opportunities that we can see and helping support some change and so that 18 could potentially be used to address some of those challenges that we're seeing and I think that I appreciate the offer we we definitely want to work together we have a teacher teach uh teacher assistant to teacher program currently that we're able to support
um tuition dollars right for some of our Tas who have been in the classroom for a really long time who know our students really well and now are getting their credentials so we want to continue to grow and expand programs like that and we have to do some of that Outreach outside of the country but clearance also currently here and what we have in Durham so we're doing a lot of that and excited to hear about more Partnerships I know Durham Tech has also been around the table and having conversations around supporting us with that as well it really quick because again I know people have to go I just wanted to follow up on a comment that commissioner Jacobs made um I know for me I you know I get to talk to some of you I'm so happy that you told us about what you're doing with recruitment I do just want to elevate in this space I think that a lot of folks at this table operate in their own silos some people go out into the community some people don't I am encouraged to know that you have been so proactive in your recruitment
for teachers because I know what's going on in the classrooms and the fact that you're doing it but I would really appreciate it you know I don't know if our Pio Europe could get together the community really needs to know that you all are like putting in the labor pains and I don't personally feel like they do know that so whatever steps we need to take to make that happen and I say that I mean our own office you know people said something about our ambulatory services and I know that the two women that lead our work were very proactive last year and paid for these things in advance and nobody wanted to elevate that intermediate you know it literally is a supply chain issue um ECU right now we got 60 counties that don't have a dentist under 60 and ECU says if we graduate every kid out of a dental program we would not make a dent in North Carolina and then you elevate this about NCC you having 16 students 16. I really I almost don't even think people know that that's what the deficit is so these kind of Herculean efforts
that you all are making towards recruitment I am on board with uh Bettina chair Umstead and and chair Howerton and vice chair Jacobs that yeah we should work on something homegrown but I do think we need to do a better job of elevating all the good stuff that you are doing because I I honestly don't think anybody knows and so I know y'all like dang Nama said something nice yeah y'all wait like what bathe yourself in that like no but yeah but I I want you to do that and also I would my last thing I I if you go to the County's Twitter page if you go to the city's Twitter page and you go to the school boards to the page everybody has really great stuff going on I'm pretty sure my colleagues at the city have no idea that that's what's going on and those are awesome microphones I ain't saying they need to come over here and get in our business because they ain't giving no money so I need to get but I do think that that's another mouthpiece because those are people who know teachers those are people who can have students so I I don't know this year I
just really want us to get into business and the practice of telling the good stories that everybody around this table is doing so thank you for that commissioner Burns um there is a lot of good work happening to recruit and to retain our staff our teaching staff and our classified as well I would also want to say um to to what you mentioned um Vice chair Jacobs this is something that you talk about often is housing so along with being creative a long-term plan with our homegrown some more midterm plans and conversations we can have is around teacher housing so we've begun some of those conversations again I'd love to see us bring that back up as far as incentives and affordable housing for our educators thank you for mentioning that and uh so let me before they go to the housing let me go here first um one of the things that when you're
talking about homegrown one of the things that the North Carolina Association of counties is doing is bringing in folks because when you talk about public administration and managing there is a shortage of folks that can even work in County government so the association Statewide is bringing in folks that are mentoring and training people that can do this work and when we when I think about teachers and in the schools I think that that model can also be used in that Arena as well and as far as the teacher housing that conversation came up uh yesterday attorney Andrews is just came on board with us here Armstead and I've had the conversation about the teacher housing but I think our attorney is to talk to
yes attorney that they can get on the same page this conversation we supported we I've been waiting for DPS attorney to get back to the commissioners let us know where he is with documentation and whatever that's where it drops like um and what I've asked is that we give attorney Andrews minute to get up as to what's happening and then we'll see where we need to go with that yeah no pressure but we are ready so looking forward to this conversations make that connection with artists
and um Leandro is is a thing that you guys will continue to lift up and we believe that your rural colleagues will be where the pressure points need to be heard um there are two conversations going on with the association because I'm I'm on the board of directors and we have meetings right Friday and Saturday and some people don't want it to be named they want to name it something else but the overall majority was it to keep the keep the name what it is um but that's going to end up in the in our Senate and conversations are going to be pushed but it is on the agenda of the association that's fantastic I'm so glad to hear that that you all are having those conversations because the dollars have to come and um
[Music] I just I just had a quick follow-up one of my other questions was going to be about the use the plans for the 18 million so um I'm glad if you could keep us updated on that that would be great and the teacher housing issue I really think we need to elevate that and put that on The Fast Track and I think part of that is also doing we really need an assessment of all of the public land that is owned by the city of the county Durham Public Schools it is a huge asset and we really need a policy around that I know I'm like a broken record and I will keep bringing it up because we have to leverage what we have and and I you know I heard a great interview with the superintendent of the Los Angeles School District which I believe is one of the biggest in the country and he spoke about that we you know we don't we could be minimal control over salaries
so we have to look at what we can leverage and they're using teacher housing as as part of their incentive package to recruit and retain teachers so let's get working on the housing piece and let's get something done if I can quickly react I think teacher housing has been really under our radar for the past five years and I'm glad that's how we're bringing this back up and as far our facilities are concerned uh we're gonna come up with the list and I think as we're talking about those facilities that uh DPS has I think we are also interested to bring on the table uh future growth um where can we acquire some additional lands knowing that uh Durham does not have a lot of spaces so we would like to be really proactive in looking at those as well so at some point vast chair of both uh Kenny and both if we can sit down we're going to generate the list of what we have and then have those
conversations I think that would be helpful so I'll follow your lead and as far DPS is concerned we're going to generate a list of all we have and then I'll start that conversation again thank you foreign Erton um thank you the school one remember school board members and staff for your presentation I heard you all talking about um the efforts in recruitment for you know new teachers I was also wondering what efforts are obviously I know you guys are doing this work but just uh to share the pipeline for principles uh what's that looking like what type of investment is going into building up our pipeline for principals because I know it's very limited right now and uh retirement is going to be coming for some of them soon so what we're doing to prepare for that thank you commissioner for that question um I think we are in a good place when it comes to power plant for principles we have 55 principles and we have somewhere around 80 uh APS assistant
principles so we've been really promoting within with that power plant of APs we should be able to have our future principles but we are also collaboratively working with NC State with Nila program every year we've been training our APS and we have also Chapel Hill as well as nccu that we've been working closely and when it comes to replenishing our AP we don't have a problem I think we're working really well but our future principle they will come from the rank of those 80 APS that we have any other questions sir we have one citizen that would like to speak um oh you got another presentation I'm sorry wait a minute let me let me let me make sure that you get also Malcolm you've just wait till we get all the presentations done and then uh we'll have you speak okay
that works for you are you the are you this Neil okay you pronounce your last name it's Connor with a K thank you all right so let's go ahead okay so let's go where we are today with the budget overview in regards to what we've uh where we've been what we where we're headed um and just a couple highlights on here um thank you County Commissioners for supporting teacher supplement increases that has been a huge Advantage for Durham Public Schools though we're not quite at Wake County is it's always chasing the mouse to try to get or the hen to try to get ahead we're at a position where you have increased uh salary supplements two thousand seventy five dollars for a beginning teacher over the last five years bringing it from 4375.
to six thousand four fifty this past this current year so I applied the board and the County Commissioners for moving that forward operational Services just want to say thank you for all the support in regards to getting us our bond we're looking forward to start spending that 500 million dollars uh because it desperately needed and to assist us in getting where we need to be in our schools and also you supported us in establishing our multilingual Resource Center by providing some positions over the year to ensure that we make sure that all all parents and staff and students are being taken care of in our our ever-changing uh School District I mean we're right now over almost 6 000 students I think that are in our public schools that are English Learners that we need to support and we want to thank you for that
75 it could be more we won't know until the general assembly starts dealing with that later in April May June
that's seven that's on that's 740 000 just for that rate increase and for retirement and then you have Hospital Insurance that's killing us as well I mean we're at 7397 going up uh estimated 8350 could be more than that we're still waiting on that that's a million dollars that's a lot of money going into just uh items that are really benefits to people yes but the cost of those are killing uh school districts um and again they're trying to look to get up to 30 percent in the retirement rate by uh 2025 uh they're they'll be there soon um so last year you provided us some money we were able to use three million dollars of the funding that you provided us to increase the salary supplements for teachers up to the 64 beginning level um what we have now is we stated last
8
25 for certify and then four for classified the fund that we're going to get from the state and then couple that with what we're requesting
about four million dollars we'll be able to take care of our our classified employees thank you just quick follow-up on that that's really good news great news actually um Dr my Binger would you say then that with the additional um four million dollars to implement the classified salary study increase that all of Durham Public School staff would then be making a wage that is one on which they could live in Durham minimum wage referred to me well what is the what is the what is the base level I mean I'm just just for our own purposes you know when when we're thinking about our own employees what what is the minimum that we're um you know that we're that we think is acceptable Lindor I'm so I'm just trying to figure that out what are you where
are you all Landing where are we going to land where's the city going to land but uh what we're going to do is probably sometimes uh when we finalize the whole document we'll be able to share that with you at some point um so our bus drivers are 1836 currently um from uh the 17 an hour we gave them an additional increase last year and with the up to 17 in with the salary increase of four percent we were able to get up to 1836. so I mean we're looking for that to go into 19 uh closer to 20 with the salary study again when we do that right more of the push is coming back to local because of the fact that transportation is not going to go up provide us reimbursement up to 19 at most so from
the state so it becomes a everything we're doing uh to make sure there's a livable wage people are in a good place to be able to pay their bills is pushing down on the and on the on the district to ensure that we can um make that become the local expense right bus drivers of Our Lives yeah so those that are at 16 are going to go closer to the 17 Mark um to ensure that we can be in a good place uh with that wage I think a lot of the Durham County employees are starting off at 17 an hour if I'm not mistaken uh your bus drivers are bus drivers in the city are making them more than what we were able to pay um it's just we we can't uh we we have to have people that love students and and want to work for Durham Public Schools instructional assistant is being looked
at um they're going to be on a higher scale than others in that same range they the instructional assistants are going to be placed at a higher scale the exceptional children IAS the ones that are hard to get are going to be on a higher School scale as well so trying to differentiate some of those programs to ensure that we can get the resources in the classroom that we need that we're lacking right now thanks so much for highlighting this I'd like to make sure that as we're having this conversation we're reminded that lots of our staff who aren't making what your staff are making or we're competing with you guys to get people to retain people working in our schools and driving our buses and providing Services nutrition services and custodial services that are important to move ahead and remind ourselves that these
people are are also wanting to be paid enough so that they can live and live well in Durham and not have to live outside of the city or the county in order to support our schools uh it would be good together and see what's happening around in the school City music comparisons oh can you stop thank you for this percentage rate increase what was that dollar amount that we're increasing salaries or that the ask would be increasing salaries for the lowest paid uh employee at DPS because I'm wondering using this rate not including the salary study increase that would come hopefully of how long it would reach for the lowest paid current employee at DPS to reach that livable wage of 23 dollars
per hour in Durham County it would take probably two to three years to get there for liberal oh the 23. 2 billion over uh where they were planning it to be based on the December estimates or November estimates so it appears that they have money to do
things that they need to do let's put it that way and they need to they need to add it on to uh school districts as as well as other agencies yep so uh let's see that's good okay yeah we don't have a lot of slides so if you want me to just go through it you might spur some more questions so um beginning teacher supplement this is where we're looking uh comparing ourselves to Wake County hoping to get ahead of them in the overall beginning teachers salaries they're about 200 more um than we are in the beginning teacher supplement as far as that goes uh they're a little over 6 700 I think we're at 64. 50 um but the gains that you all have made as
you can see from 16 to 17 the blue line at the bottom to where we are today we've taken the linear approach if you look at the dark line for 22 23 it goes up steadily across the board and teachers also get their experience step each year as well so with the supplement continuing to grow you can see the red dotted dashed line at the top where Wake County about 12 13 years they they start an uptick in there in their amounts that they're paying to their veteran teachers again this year we're looking at classified salary study we'll be coming back to you in future years to continue to look at the supplement to be compatible and comparable with other school districts around us you want to make a quick call me too I
mean Wake County has a much lower per pupil allotment than we do so they're they're allocating their their local dollars differently than we are too I just want to point that out right foreign I don't have to say the first thing because she said it but I did um one you know this was a board that you know out the gate and this is gonna jump into the other one but also to this one I came out the gate you know one of the first votes to say how we get to 15. you know how do we get to 16 how do we get to 17 so I don't want that to get lost because I already know you know I know how some people in here move um I just I want to make sure that we we remember that um this work that we did last year on supplemental pay right now in front of me I'm happy that chair Howerton always elevates the County Commission Association because every year they do something called a map book um that map book actually shows how much each County all 100 counties do for
Teacher supplemental pay there are only 10 counties that are even at 6 000 or more like 10. uh everybody else you see 1 000 here and it is the rural County so we've already had that conversation it is your rule colleagues who in no way are going to the general assembly to ask for more money they're absolutely not in Durham right now the ranking it depends on what day you ask because 200 I get what you said about Wake County being 200 more 200 is not going to make people decide on Waco Durham County it's really not like not 200 that's not even gas but we are ranked number five with our supplemental pay um well five or six 20 21 2022 so we still rank really I mean out of all 100 counties so when we're sitting here talking about who we're comparing ourselves to I'm proud of the fact that there are 100 counties here and 95 of them are behind us and I do get it the cost of living up it's higher here but I I do just want to say I don't think I haven't pulled all my board members you
4 billion that they just put back into the kitty I think we know those numbers I really don't think and I think our parents are great Advocates I think if they knew that that was a type of money did you because when you say Leandro most people can't really articulate and tell you five things about it they can and I do hope that that's something that we can do something that we can do from the county standpoint um and say hey parents this is real
here's what we've done here's what the state has not done because we can't we again we have in this and it's very kind of privileged environment because we know what's going on but I don't think 33 000 parents know that there's money that could be helping out their favorite their kids favorite teacher I don't even I think they know they just don't know what that means and so I am hopeful that as we have these conversations I know that the women on this side everybody over here is prepared to Advocate that's not saying nothing about just leadership leadership but I'm saying this is leadership Brenda's in leadership but Tina's in leadership Wendy's in leadership they're going to be in spaces that we're not in so and and Keith did run the 20th during the policy conversation Keith or David did run the numbers to see you know what would 23 look like it looks like I think a four percent tax increase on top of the bond and then also thinking about and I had this conversation with javonia you know we have things that we're supplementing for Opera that's going to run out in 2026. y'all that that's like
a balloon payment weigh-in uh y'all want to get last meeting y'all want to get back on the bond schedule that's going to be waiting for us in 2026. y'all want to pay so think about what 2026 looks like so when I'm whenever I'm asking questions it's because mathematically I'm thinking about everything that's going to hit us like a balloon payment in 2026. so just think about those things right and the critical thing is if the state ever did fund Leandro right it frees up some of our local money that we put into those types of programs and provides us the additional resources needed to make sure that we have more in the classroom for the students so and when you talk Wake County they have economy of scales right I mean that's the other part of that they might have a lower per pupil but their economy scales is so much different than ours yep you have more well no not really it's just a budget calendar as we move forward for the rest of the year and
meet up with you there's also some other documents in here that that talk a little bit more about what's what's occurred where you can go if you want to download some information about Durham Public Schools but we're good um any questions you may have let me just make a final comment here um it's for this salary study is concerned for our classified employees I know some of them may be watching we're going to be able to implement this if any Commissioners be fund what we're asking for also if the state give us the full that we're asking for if we don't get the state portion is going to be really hard for us really to implement this as uh we are forcing this to happen so I just really wanted to make sure uh as we have in this conversation don't want you guys to give us funding say then what happened we did not get a set portion so hopefully our projections based on what the state will be able to give us as
well [Music] and do you also want to add this is uh the draft budget we just got our first um presentation of this last Thursday so our board will also be looking at and considering are there additional asks that we want to mix I just want to make that sure that really is clear when the budget um wait for the train to pass when the budget comes to you later it could be different based on what we see from our Board of Education since this meeting got moved that's why we got a really draft budget that you have presenting here this is a baseline asked exactly thank you honey we felt that the staff needed to have some framework about what it is the need to start to move back so this was the early this was the only time
that's why it's your today and as we go to the the board and and they uh when when and if they ask for requests uh of additional uh support we will provide that to your staff to make sure but this coming out uh in January is a good thing so that we can at least see what we're asking for and the reason why this big ask on the front end students um here and we've got two citizens here okay here are the meeting um yeah I have some questions that probably if I could just if we could get sent the answers later that I just they're not I'm sure things that can be
answered now I do want to point out though that we are going we pass the bond knowing that there there's going to probably need to be a tax increase associated with it and we do have I just in general all of us have arpa resources I do hope that we will keep that in mind with the budget um you know be as conservative as we can be as it impacts our residents who are already really struggling with inflation and things like that um and um but some of my questions relate to that first slide Paul can you go back to that um yeah I'm sorry the one before what yeah that one yeah that one um yeah it would be helpful to to for us to know what are the current vacancy levels with staff um and um I know also just enrollment numbers where where they're at right now and if you have any data on you know Charter
Schools home schoolers I'd love to know what's going on with the online learning program I know again this is all pre-covered you had a brilliant idea Dr mabenga about how to how to involve homeschoolers with the DPS curriculum as well um I know a lot of things got put on the back burner with covet um and just what is your plan and policy around use of lap salaries because um you know that's something that we're dealing with here too right um and um just understanding with Trends what are the you know projective future vacancy rates based on those Trends because again that's going to involve what are the what is the projected ask related to those understanding what the different salary levels will be with the implementation of the compensation study and it would be great if we could also if you could
share that study with us and that's done and just yet understanding what are the salary levels for certified and classified that we're trying to get to I'm also curious of what is the value of the benefits package that Durham Public Schools provides this is again something that we look at at the county how do we better promote the whole package of what people get because people tend to just look at the salary and not the other piece and we've talked a lot about how do we really push that um and um and then I know there was one category that you said you all were going to try to fund it seems out of operational funds or lap salaries related to supervisors directors um I'd be curious to know what is that amount and um and and just to be clear are you also on this slide are you projecting that you are going to be able to also within your budget your funds do the
increase of the 833 dollars for the teacher supplement is something that you all are going to plan on that's because that's what the increase is going to be right for the for the next year how will that be covered is that no oh okay okay mm-hmm okay and then I'm just really also curious about I see there's some performance uh bonuses um just understanding are there any what's going to be happening what do you expect related to that Trend with the state and
um also I just want to point out we our board has now approved over 10 million dollars in arpa funding and the majority of that actually goes to support families and children there's almost three million dollars for the Durham Public Schools Foundation whole schools initiative there's money in there for after school programming at Durham Parks and Rec maternal and child family health I mean basically most of the money in there is going to help support our families um and I just want to throw out their topics I feel like there's so many things that we need to talk about um in our future meetings I just want to throw out number one I'd love to learn about the redistricting plan if that can be shared with us at some point um we've talked about trying to get a handle on what are our current Investments that we all are making right now related to physical and mental
health the county and the schools for social emotional health and support um and then and so we can understand what the gaps are the other thing I had my list was teacher housing and the last thing is I would love for us to have a conversation about um CTE career Readiness and our jobs pipeline we are investing a lot of money into the Bulls initiative and other Workforce programs and um we we haven't heard we have we really need to Circle back to know about the 321 initiative and um you know we can share with you about our own economic incentives policies and how we try to build in connection to Durham Public Schools I really we've got to strengthen what we're doing with starting in middle school and really work together like this on the jobs pipeline because that's going to be the the real solution to our poverty in
Durham quickly I might have a chair if I can yes make a couple comments here yeah the salary study uh we're able to send the presentation to our board your board Clerk she has it we'll be able to share that with you quickly I think we're going to respond to we'll be ready for those presentations I'll say this last year when we came here for the teachers supplements whatever you guys gave us we're short about a million dollars and I really want you to know that we have to go to our fund balance to make sure that's a reoccurring that's how we're pulling whatever we have as a lab salary we have to push it back to that to make sure that we're sustaining that Gap when it comes to teacher supplements but in the future uh Paul this year will be ready to be able to share with you yes we may accrue a good five million dollars therefore our lab salary but we're pushing some back to be able to
address other needs as well so um go ahead one of the things we never know is what is the salary increase going to be right last year we budgeted two three and two and a half percent I believe it was came out to four four and a half percent uh four point two percent for certified so we just don't know we're always a catch-up game and and yes we have to put uh some of that money that we have in lap salaries right back in as you will you all do in to ensure that you have the funding available uh to support your programs ours is a guessing game I don't know that General Assembly will go home early in the long session um you know and if it goes till uh September October it just creates more Havoc across the state uh in trying to implement programs well there are a lot of things that Jacob's mentioned
Umstead and I have spoken about and it's just a matter of when we can get him on the agenda and give the staff Apple time to put the the things and we didn't because we talked about the mental health presentation for today but we thought that it was more important to talk about budget today and uh yeah and maybe the next meeting we can get some of them where you want to go oh there's nothing else I you need to give the services this week um we've got uh is it it's like Neil Connor okay if you could go to which Mike over
there over here and over here and if you're name and address please hello oh yes I'm Neil Connor thank you uh good morning I'm Neil Connor currently serving as a math interventionist at Little River School I have an MBA from Duke University class of 86. I need to read this word for word as I know my emotions make speaking extemporaneously impossible for me the stress of this has my eyes dancing already please be patient I promise that will not take all three minutes I'm here representing myself I've been a substitute teacher at 31 of our schools and I've coached soccer baseball track and field since 2014. additionally I have been a free of charge act tutor to dozens of our DPS
students all of them from Northern High School in my Elementary classrooms we've been reflecting on Martin Luther King's speech I Have a Dream this optimism the optimism of this permeates our classrooms during these discussions once the conversations end I have different words reverberating in my mind I am at a loss I'm at a loss regarding how to help our schools I am at a loss had to help better obtain appropriate support for their social emotional and behavioral challenges often we do not have appropriate number of counselors and behavioralists and our Frontline teachers spend a disproportionate amount of time stopping interruptions and redirecting inappropriate behavior it makes pacing it a prescribed speed near impossible sadly we cannot fill these positions at
present pay these employees more and they'll step forward too often my exceptional students and I love my EC students residing classrooms without adequate staff both in number as well as an appropriately certified proportion Administration fills this Gap along with others it drains the entire School Community I am at a loss when children needing before and after school have no place available may this death better we did it with bus drivers we can do it again I'm at a loss when I assist our cafeterias and look at our healthy choices often absent both breakfast and lunch I'm in a loss when I review the posted substitute opportunities available on Frontline 313 today knowing that only about 20 percent of them will be filled if our Trend persists most of all am at a loss knowing how
best to exert appropriate pressure on those who control our purse strings Leandro is law how do we best approach our state's legislator legislature I am at a loss board members I'm at a loss and as and while it is uncomfortable for me is devastating for our children please tell me how to remedy this situation and lead us to a state of fairness and adequacy for all Durham stakeholders thank you we have an additional public comment speaker Karthik uh Adara morphy I don't know if I pronounced that correctly I apologize hi I'm Karthik Sandra multi I'm a parent of Durham Public Schools students fifth grade and third grade at George Watts Elementary School I wanted to I cannot just speak as
eloquently as my previous speaker but but what I wanted to bring to the board was attention I mean you have a lot of items that you are uh you know very thoughtful uh um information was brought from the administrators and and you had really great discussions but I wanted to add one more discussion to it was the nutrition uh that that happens in the schools um and and we have the kids now transported to the school with the teachers and I think it's only uh that we have to feed them and we don't have to uh you know ask them to pay for it so um I know the taxes are up and it's going to go up and but then that's our our human capital we need to invest in these kids and if we can feed them I think I think we should do it we have them we should feed them and if it means in another Bond put it up for the vote
for the for the citizens to you know tax themselves and and families who cannot pay the taxes we'll have to you know support them but I feel that uh we can we can definitely feed our children when they are in our uh you know midst that's all that thank you thank you uh I think that concludes our public comments and I'll just I know a chair howerson has a step out and I'll just add a cup of something um Eric was late today because I was at the Public School Forums exit issues breakfast and a lot of the things that we talked about this morning around funding and Statewide advocacy was exactly what they talked about in this so I'm happy to leave the primer here but it talks about the top five issues our competitive compensation a teacher pipeline root causes of mental health preparing students for the world they live in and Implement Monitor and evaluate a comprehensive remedial plan so I'll leave this resource here but I'm excited to hear about the joint advocacy because it's going to take pressure from all of us to ensure our children have
what they need no yeah oh sure a couple of Statistics North Carolina ranks 38th in the nation and teacher pay uh beginning teacher pay in North Carolina starts at 37 000 falling 17 below Alabama and well below the North Carolina minimum living wage of 48 346 thousand dollars the other stat we looked at North Carolina ranks 48th in the country on per student spending when adjusting for regional cost differences following more than 400 excuse me four thousand six hundred dollars below the national average our state ranks 50th in the nation on funding effort or the amount of funding per student relative to the state's wealth overall I think they started the meeting saying we're number one a place for businesses to come but this is where we are when it comes to education we have a lot of work to do so I think this joint advocacy
with our boards with our associations will really help move us in the right direction I think with that we can be adjourned I wanted to just congratulate the school board on the critically difficult work and and essential work of the redistricting vote you all just made and Wendy asked for more information on that and that's a great request because it's probably going to take all of us to help our community understand it um but thank you so much it's needed to be done for a long time it's hard some probably some of the hardest decisions I know you'll have to make and I I watched your meeting when you were sort of deliberating over when to vote how to vote where you know anyway I just want to thank you for that and say how important it is and to also Express gratitude for your new lgbtqi student policy which I it would be great if you could also send that to us I did go online and read that but that's another place that you all
are leading the way not just Statewide but nationally thank you all we're adjourned