as you know we have um an agenda day with a lot of important information we'll be talking about we'll be introducing the superintendent's budget i'm wondering if the uh cut to the air conditioning tonight is part of those budget recommendations so I apologize for anyone's discomfort but uh we'll get through it as fast as we can okay so um one of the first things we do at these meetings is um again we have I have a little precy I go through here just to remind everybody that the board of education meetings are conducted for the purpose of carrying on the official business of the Wake count of the Wake County Board of Education the publicly is cordially invited to attend the board meetings and observe the board as it does it as it conducts its official business persons who willfully interrupt disrupt or cause disturbances at an official meeting may be directed to leave by the presiding officer members of the audience should show respect for the speakers by refraining from loud comments or other noises or other disruptions while others are speaking disruptions by any person or persons of a public meeting will be subject to action in accordance with North Carolina General Statute 1431817 so with that I will announce we have seven members here and present we do have a quorum uh Miss Mafy and Miss Rice will not be here for the duration of the meeting um both both attending to personal issues so we'll begin those of you who are able I invite you to stand as we recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible liberty and justice for all all right so the first item on our agenda tonight is consideration of our meeting agenda board members have an have had an opportunity to review is there a motion at this time so moved second we have a motion from Vice Chair Swanson to approve the meeting agenda we have a second from Miss Edmonds any discussion any debate all in favor of approval of the meeting agenda please say I any opposed all right the meeting agenda has been approved so tonight we'd like to start with an important information item uh from finance this is the presentation of the superintendent's proposed budget for the 2526 fiscal year uh both our superintendent Dr robert Taylor and Mr david Neer will present uh Superintendent Taylor I'll kick it over to you thank you Mr chair and thank you all for being at our board meeting tonight as we present uh the superintendent's budget uh I do want to share that uh this budget is for information purposes uh our goal has been to develop a budget based on what we believe uh the revenues will be uh from our county commissioners uh we put a lot of effort into this process it is not a process that we do in a short amount of time it is a continuous u exercise that we do uh this budget is absolutely focused on fiscal responsibility uh as well as program continuity uh uh the big things that we have coming up this year are the opening of four new schools uh we certainly have to look at uh rises in compensation we've uh estimated at 3% raise um again uh that budget from the from the general assembly is is well away uh and so that number could be higher it could be lower uh but most districts are looking at uh about a 3% increase uh as well as uh any program continuity those things that we do know we want to continue as we go into the new school year i will also share with our public that after the presentation of the budget today uh we will take a number of opportunities to talk with our public uh uh not only at the board meeting here uh but three different locations throughout the county where you will have an opportunity to provide feedback to the board uh uh more information will be shared with that later uh after that uh the information that we garner or gather uh we will share that with our board of education who is also responsible for developing the board budget uh that will be submitted to the county commissioners by the 15th of May uh that is when we statutoily must do that and then the county must uh give us their budget by 30 June and that's normally within the first uh 10 days that we receive that so we want to share with our public uh that everything that we've done in this budget is about uh reducing the impact on our schools so that we can ensure that quality education continues and so with that I will uh now uh have Mr neater to go through the details uh of the superintendent's budget mr neater evening Chair Hagerty and members of the board if I could ask There we go um what we'd like to do with you this evening is give you an overview presentation of the superintendent's 2526 proposed budget again as Dr taylor shared tonight is for information purposes only i'm going to go through a timeline in a few minutes to help everyone understand what the various steps are there'll be plenty of time for questions staff responses and board discussion um as well as input from the public so before we actually get into the budget I'd like to give some context and review a bit about the landscape if you'll go back to a retreat that the board held in December of this past calendar year we shared with you a highlevel estimate of needing approximately $60 million of additional local funding to support a number of different initiatives perhaps the one that stands out is the opening of four new schools um to support our operations in the coming year we also are aware that Wake County government's revenue forecast for next year will not support that level of an increase in county appropriation we also presented similar information at your joint board's meeting last month when this board met with the county commissioner board um and now layering on top of all of that we've got significant uncertainty as it relates to federal funding so as Dr taylor mentioned or alluded to this budget includes what we are referring to as strategic repurposing where we look very closely and very through very difficult process about what areas of the current budget we will reduce to create funding for the needs that we've got in the coming year that we do not believe we will at county appropriation to support and if I had to um have one overall characteristic of the landscape and context is that this budget is presented in uncertain times um federal funding supports Wake County schools about 8% of our budget is made up of federal funding just under $200 million but as I believe you heard in the towards the end of your work session today federal funding makes up a significant portion of both the state budget as well as the county budget so implications for state revenues based upon any federal reductions and implications for the county budget based upon any potential federal reductions can definitely have a trickle effect onto Wake County school system um we receive our funding directly from um well from the federal government for things like title one title 2 title 4 IDEIDA funds um as a pass through from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction we've also heard whispers that the state legislature may mirror some of the things that are happening at the federal level and again I'll conclude with what I think is the overarching characteristic only one thing we know is certain and that's uncertainty and I believe that will prevail throughout this budget dei development cycle so we must identify local funding in next year's budget to support the opening of four new schools we don't typically open that many schools all in one year um one could say that's a happy problem or a happy challenge we'll need to identify local funding to support state legislated increases to employer benefits that we as an employer are required to pay on behalf of our employees and the two primary ones are the state health plan and also retirement contribution we while the legislature has not made any decisions or even to my knowledge had any discussion on those rate increases looking back historically we see that we believe they will increase and our estimates are based upon a 5-year look back on history um will be required to identify local funding for any state legislated increases to compensation and we are using a 3% estimate within the superintendent's proposed budget obviously the state could do more could do less they may not do a 3% across the board they may be higher perhaps on teachers if they want if they look seriously at going to the $50,000 starving salary for teachers but all TBD um we also have included in the proposed budget increases to legislative required payments to charter schools we're required by law to pay a portion of every local dollar passing along to charter schools so the amount we've included in the proposed budget is based upon the county appropriation increase because every dollar that the county appropriation increases I think it's right around 11% so 11 cents of that dollar is going to pass through the charter schools while it's in our budget it's not available for our use um the other component of that increase to charter schools is a continuing shift in ratio of charter school students to Wake County students with the percentage shift the percentage of total students on charters is increasing at a higher rate and our budget includes uh funding for program continuity for behavioral health service uh support services for our students those are counselors social workers school psychologists um nurses we had a number of these positions on ESSER funding in the current year and it funded the first quarter of the current fiscal year um th those funds ended at the end of that quarter but again we have to identify local funding if we're going to continue those positions the proposed budget does not include any funding requests for new programs or services and while the proposed budget does have funding requests to be able to maintain the locally funded master's degree compensation differential for our certified staff and it also includes a 3% increase to the local supplement so if the state legislates a 3% increase a certified member would see a overall 3% increase while it includes those two items it includes no other funding requests beyond our estimated state legislative amounts and to contrast for the past several years we've been fortunate enough to include in a proposed budget and receive local funding support to far exceed what was legislated at the state level and over a period of I believe now it's been six years get our starting hourly rate from $11.80 an hour to $17.75 an hour and we've seen results in our ability to attract recruit and retain staff in different categories there also in this budget are no other funding requests for the multi-year initiatives that have been in recent budgets so I'm going to go through a timeline now um tonight we're giving you just the formal presentation a week from today you have a finance committee meeting next Tuesday afternoon on the 25th and our plan for the meeting on the 25th will be to make a presentation specifically focused on the strategic budget repurposing you're going to get a very high level overview of it tonight but very high level you're not going to have the opportunity for Q&A tonight but we intend next Tuesday to give you a more detailed level about just what are the implications of what we have in this proposal and the opportunity for questions and responses subsequent to that at your April 8th and 22nd board work sessions the board will conduct a budget work session and we also have targeted the April 29th finance committee meeting for you to be able to conduct a budget work session and during that period of time board members will be able to ask staff questions we ask you to direct them to senior director of budget Terry Kimy who's over there in the corner um and her email address is in here um and then she will work with chiefs and the other staff to develop responses will provide those responses beginning at your April 8th work session and at each additional work session we'll also post them online for the public to see board member questions and staff responses um a public hearing will be held April 8th at your board meeting to get input from the public and as Dr taylor shared the board plans to hold three additional regional meetings across Wake County to gather additional input from the public the work sessions ultimately are the opportunity for board discussion and direct potential direction to the superintendent and staff to make revisions to the superintendent's proposed budget as it transitions from the superintendent's proposed budget to what ultimately becomes the board's proposed budget we're targeting the board approve their proposed budget at your May 6th meeting and that is targeted in order to be able to allow the board of education to deliver your proposed budget to the board of commissioners by the statutoily required May 15th deadline so now jumping into the budget itself this budget is the first year of a 2-year banial budget so more time will be spent on the general assembly by this um we don't have any detailed budget proposals we've got bits and pieces you heard in your work session there's a bill out there looking at a starting teacher salary of $50,000 per year for teachers and some other things but there's no cohesive budget proposal at this time so as we have in prior years we've included in the proposed budget estimates and they're just that they're estimates or even perhaps forecasts of what we think the legislature might do as we go through this budget development process and we get better information about what the state might do we may make adjustments to better align the budget the Wake County budget with what the state's doing but ultimately we won't be able to make final adjustments to the budget for next year until the state finalizes its budget and frequently that is well into the next fiscal year i think in one recent year was in late November and the board was not in a position to adopt the formal budget till December uh but we will work through that with you um based upon what we know now the state assuming they legislate salary increases would provide funding for state funded employees for that the state would provide based upon historical practice funding for state funded employees for any employer benefit rate increases wake County is responsible for locally funded employees um the state will provide some resources for the opening of four schools but we still need significant local funding the state will provide a principal and certain other positions but after that um for as far as operating costs of the school and other staffing needs of the school it's incumbent upon us to use and look for local funds um the state will provide resources for student membership changes but I want to make a note of that and one of the very last slides speaks to uh potential risk of the budget the state shifted for this year beginning this year to funding in a rears which means they will fund us at the beginning of the year based upon our last year's funding prior to that it they had forecast what our student population would be and our initial aotment would be based upon that forecast student count now funding in a rear says we're just going to do whatever you had last year and then if after the first couple months you actually grew if there is funding available we will increase your aotment we were fortunate this year in that funding was identified but the legislation is such that if and it's really beyond legislation if DPI does not receive the funding for the student growth they're not in a position to increase our a lotment we are projecting student growth so that is a potential risk for us at the federal funding area in the federal funding area again as I shared a minute ago all of our pandemic relief funding is now no longer available for use that ended September of 2024 we are looking for our USDA grants to increase based upon the number of schools um qualifying for C our federal funding in this year's proposed budget represents 8% of the overall operating budget 178 million last year it was 200 million we already have received notice of termination of one federal grant back in late February um we have terminated the grant or we have followed the instructions we received uh and this has in turn displaced staff and is impacting our capacity to recruit teaching staff that's what the grant was aimed at further federal reductions could have a material impact on our student services and support discussion at the federal level continues and very little is known and I'll go back to my mantra of the only thing that we know is certain is uncertainty local revenues a few a few tidbits here um our tuition and fees are decreasing by $2.5 million due to the use of carryover to support the extended care program um John nutrition revenues are decreasing as a result of the USDA grant that I mentioned a few minutes ago but in some ways those offset each other our fines and forefeitures that we estimate for next year are decreasing and that's based upon the receipt of one-time funding in the past year and I believe that had to do with the um anti- vaping settlement so what's included in the superintendent's proposed budget it includes an increase in county appropriation request of $40.3 million and you'll recall I said we are in the $60 million range of additional local funding being required to meet our needs for next year so that's the delta we had to make some strategic budget uh decisions on how do we close that almost $20 million gap the other thing I'd like to point out in this slide if you look in the right column under percent increase under student membership you'll see that Wake County student growth is 1% relative to itself charter school student growth is forecast at 5% relative to itself that's part of the reason additional funds will be due to charter schools beyond just an increase in county appropriation and again I want to share with the board we have some new board members in the public these student count forecasts are jointly done by Wake County government staff Wake County school system staff and third-party demographers it's not something we're doing on our own we have historically used a certain amount of fund balance unassigned fund balance to balance the board's budget um it's been done for at least 18 years as long as I've been here it is a it is a reasonable fiscal practice um the unassigned fund balance as of June 30th 2024 when the last fiscal year ended and the books were audited was just over 39 million which brings it slightly below the targeted 6% threshold of the subsequent year's county appropriation the proposed budget invests $21.4 $4 million of fund balance into balancing next year's budget which is just over that 50% threshold that is in the same policy that says you shouldn't invest more than 50% of the fund balance into a subsequent year's budget and the thought behind that is you could do that two years in a row sustainably um staff is supportive of going just over that 50% threshold we have been supportive of that in the past as well so we will see how that goes but it would ultimately require the board to wave its policy so local budget adjustments these are some of the requirements of additional local funding in next year's proposed budget and they under employee compensation it assumes the state would legislate a 3% increase for all staff um that we would and this is not required by the state that we would continue the local pay for M's pay differential that we would increase the local salary supplement for our teaching staff by 3% those all total $16.4 million of local funds something else though that in the board's propo excuse me the superintendent's proposed budget is making no changes to the extra duty pay schedule the extra duty pay schedule has been based on step zero of the teacher a scale and when that goes up the extra duty schedule goes up making it a living schedule before we had that in place it was a fixed dollar amount but the proposal one of the strategic recommendations is to freeze it for this year at the current levels even if compensation goes up another requirement for next year the as I mentioned employer matching retirement hospitalization and transfers the chart that will require an estimated $14.3 million new schools and school changes again opening the four schools you see here bowling Road Elementary Pleasant Plains Elementary Rex Road Elementary and Felton Grove High School a long- aaited high school to support growth in that area of the county will require just under $12 million of additional local funding we also have two schools changing calendar from multitrack to traditional that has negligible fiscal impact and finally based on student membership changes and funding we provide to schools that is local the four new school excuse me the the additional students would require $2 million of additional funding program continuity we have $3.7 million in the proposed budget of additional local funding to continue two programs you already heard me mention one that is to continue the behavioral health support positions that were partially funded by ESSER funds in the current year but also to provide a bridge year because we are receiving less title one funding and that is independent of the other things going on in Washington we have been providing East Wakeake High Southeast Raleigh High South Garner and Nightdale High Schools Title One funding we want to give them a one-year runway so this $3.7 million number includes continuity there to provide Title One funding that well local funding that would have otherwise been provided by Title One we've got increasing property costs and increasing insurance premiums most if not all of our lease contracts have escalation rates contractually legally obligated to pay and currently both the property and casualty insurance markets both residential and commercial are having significant year-over-year increases and I don't think that trend is going to stop anytime soon then as we get into the actual strategic repurposing of the budget before we get into what it is I want to again give a little context the request to county appropriation in the superintendent's proposed budget will not meet the full needs for additional local funding required next year we are choosing repurposing existing budget to provide funds to fill that gap the superintendent and chiefs and area super two area superintendents representing all the area superintendent had numerous meetings over the past two and a half months nashing of teeth comes to mind um working through what we felt would be the least painful and least impactful repurposing it was not easy um there were some heated yet professional moments and you will see what we arrived at one of the reasons it was so difficult is effectively 90% of our budget goes directly to the schools and I'll show this chart again for size later um 87% goes directly to the schools and another slice of the pie facilities and operations that 3% for all intents and purposes we have to account for it separately based upon what DPI tells us to do as far as our accounting but that's for utilities for the schools maintaining the schools transporting children to and from the schools whether it's on yellow buses or special needs transportation CNS program and and the like so any decisions for all intents and purposes will either have a direct or indirect impact on our core business so the first of these all of these undesirable recommendations for strategic budget realignment one is systemwide and that would remove the employer portion of contribution for employee dental insurance that would become effective January 1 it has to begin at the beginning of a calendar year so if that continues that would become effective January of 2026 and would yield $2.5 million of budget that could then be repurposed in our schools we've identified a number of items that will total up to $9.1 million of budget that can be repurposed and again I'm giving you a very high level overview tonight we will get into much more detail a week from today at your finance committee meeting and be in a position to share details about what the implications are and allow the board to ask questions and answers about these but and this came up during your budget discussions last year when it came time to reconcile the budget removing the building substitutes that were put in place during the pandemic and they would be replaced with regular substitutes a school would not have that one person to go to immediately they would call the subpool um at the high school level remove an additional secretary position and revise the bands for clerical months of employment based on school size at the middle and high schools no impact on positions such as lead secretary data managers bookkeeper registar receptivist or any other front office staff and this would only impact a handful of our high schools again details when we get done next week uh we would reduce resources available for area superintendent to use to a lot beyond formula for our restart schools from $6 million down to 5 million we determined that in the current year $5 million was used to all lot resources human resources and that additional million dollars was for non-personnel that was some of the basis behind that recommendation we're recommending adjusting the AP formula by 100 students per tier at high schools and again at your finance committee meeting we'll let you know what that looks like what schools are impacted the recommendation includes reducing the supply allotment that each school receives on an ADM basis by $5 per student we would redefine the formula for counselors and social worker positions and again we'll get into the details of that um and you can see additional details actually in your budget book i just don't have the time to cover them tonight and you should all have the budget book at your place and this as we speak is posted online for the public to see and they can download it as well um and as I mentioned already the exit duty schedule would be fixed year-over-year turning to central services in the area of chief of schools there' be a $600,000 reduction and even though these numbers are smaller as a percent of the total reduction they're much higher central services as a percent receives about this much of the budget 5ish% so on a percentage basis I believe central office is picking up half of the total a little over half a little under half of the total recommended adjustments even though they only receive 5% of the budget um we would remove what was a planned expansion and a very needed expansion to add a 10th area superintendent and the additional resources that would surround him or her we will look at our magnet area look at a 10% reduction in non-personnel the office of student assignment would have several reductions um in real estate services as well we would we would remove a vacant director of school choice position and we would move student assignment to the building program funding and we believe there's basis for that in administrative services a similar $600,000 reduction we would remove a current vacant senior administrator for talent acquisition that was aligned with adding the 10th area superintendent so it while it's not desirable it aligns with the reduction under chief of schools and we're fortunate that the position is vacant and we would take the remainder out of contracted services in the area of academic advancement we would reduce their budget by 2.3 million that would be through removing 10 digital learning coordinators currently have I believe 18 or 20 um reduce instructional supplies and materials within that central office by 20% and remove five central vacant certified nurse positions facilities and operations would have a $2.7 million reduction communications a $200,000 reduction and technology services a $300,000 reduction i want to spend a minute though speaking about these recommendations and I hate to call them recommendations because a recommendation sounds like it's something we would like to do it's not something we'd like to do i stated it's the least of all the worst possible reductions but as it relates to personnel in these different strategic repurposings we will do everything within our power to look for placing these people in different positions we believe that will be possible in many if not most ideally all um of these situations but that will depend on various things some of these positions we have a contractual obligation to find a landing spot for because they may be on a teacher contract for example but we have a legal obligation but regardless of whether they're on a contract or not as we work through this employees are a business so we need to make sure we can do everything possible to work with them continuing the superintendent's office would receive a $56,000 reduction the board of education a $6,000 reduction and the chief of staff a $400,000 reduction so last few slides just going into the overall budget this shows kind of where it comes from if you look at the pie chart on the right 56% of the proposed budget would be funded by the state 8% by the federal government based upon what we currently know and 36% locally funded now that 36% is not all the county appropriation the county appropriation represents 32% and to get from 32% to 36% we have some other local funding that we receive fines and fort fixures through the Wake County court system any remaining red light camera fees and some other miscellaneous revenues that would all total though for a $2.28 28 billion operating budget and again I want to stress I know we have some new board members perhaps new people in the public listening what we're talking about here tonight is just the operating budget it covers the costs of operating the school system it does not include anything associated with the capital improvement program that is a separate budget and the capital improvement budget is what is used to support the building of new schools the renovation of existing schools life cycle projects um support technology refresh in our schools and some other things so again tonight and through the next several months we're focusing on the operating budget and this again is how it um the budget looks as far as where it's destined to again 87% going to schools 4% of the overall budget but closer to 11% of our local budget going to charters and the way that works charter schools receive their state and federal funding directly from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction they receive their local funding by sending us a bill each month so that's a distinction that's why it looks like 4% of the total budget but they're really getting about 11% of our local funding and then you can see the other categories and we have benchmarked let me just go back to this chart this against other districts in the state and across the country and we find ourselves very well aligned with the vast majority of funding going straight to the schools and the amounts that are being used to support the schools in central office the only distinction I would point out between Wake County and other schools outside of the state is although the percents are similar the total dollars are much larger in all but a couple states in this country per pupil we have some potential risks i'm not going to go through each one of these but I I'll hit a few of them um charter schools it's possible the number of charter students rises more than we forecast we would owe that money to them it's not included in the budget child nutrition services we beginning this year were below a threshold of a two-month reserve and thus cannot charge indirect costs which was a source of revenue general revenues for the school board and our budget we will be in that same position in 2526 we anticipate and it's possible at some point those reserves will be exhausted at that point the district will be faced with having to use local funding to support the child nutrition program that can be offset partially or fully through meal price increases that's a decision a future decision the board will likely need to make and again every dollar of our operating budget that goes to support the child nutrition program is a dollar that cannot be used to support the operating budget no easy answers we all know the federal funding uncertainty we're going to watch that very closely um I've already mentioned to you potential challenges with funding in a rears um a drop down to salaries and benefits it would be a happy problem if the legislature decided to fund even greater increases than an average 3% such as a $50,000 starting salary for certified staff maybe a four 4.5% increase for classified staff we don't know but again those would all require additional local funding that are not in the budget that's why we note them as potential risks and we can get into more of these in more detail again as we go through the budget development process so as I said the budget is online now um for the public to see and very quickly I just want to run through a timeline again a week from today at your finance committee meeting we'll get into much more detail about those strategic repurposings and implications and take questions on that particular area and then on April 8th we'll open up the Q&A to the entire budget same thing on the 22nd and the 29th again please submit any questions to Miss Kimy directly and she will uh take lead in discharging them and again more information on the regional hearings for public input and with that Dr taylor I will turn it back to you if you want to make any closing comments thank you Mr ated and I do want to share with our public that uh when you see the details in this budget it is clear uh that a 60 million plus uh amount was needed to do next year what we do this year uh and we balanced this with uh what our anticipated revenues and so it's clear that uh there's a focus on opening four new schools uh compensation um uh the pass through the charter schools program continuity uh and the benefits uh I will say to the board that uh you will have uh detailed information or questions that you can ask at the March 25th meeting uh and then after that period uh everything will be about working with you as a board to identify any changes that you would like to make uh in this budget uh and so again these are the recommendations uh that I have made as superintendent uh but our final responsibility is working with you as a board um to make those changes that you deem are necessary uh that will continue to move this uh this uh school district forward uh and we do want to share with our public that you will have those opportunities uh as listed to give feedback to us as well uh I can tell you that uh as Mr anita has shared um the we have taken a um a large portion uh of this work at central services uh to try and protect programs in our schools but I can tell you that our principles uh they are in lock step with us to to say to everybody that both central services and schools work uh collectively to do what's uh in the best interest of children and one cannot exist without the other and so with with that Mr chair I'll turn it back to you thank you Superintendent Taylor so board members I know we've been talking about what might be coming this is the first time you've gotten the full document i know it'll take some time to go through it without you know we know that we do have some time for some um you know more research some more questions but uh for the purpose of the information item tonight and knowing we haven't had a chance to go through all of it I wanted to recognize Vice Chair Swanson as the budget chair to talk about any next steps or what we might do as far as more public hearings and public input vice Chair Swanson thank you Chair Hagerty and yes our first public hearing will take place here on April 9th at the boardroom before during public comments we will have two and three in the community um those dates will be the 11th at the Fugquay Verina Middle School the 16th at Abbottz Creek Elementary School and the Southeast Raleigh location will be to to be determined that information will be getting out relatively soon with dates and times but those are three dates that we will have in addition to the avenues that we have here we felt that it was important Chair Heardy and I uh felt that with this budget being as tight as it is and difficult choices we'll have to make um that we wanted to make sure that we got out in the public to hear concerns to share what's at stake um so thank you and look forward to those continued discussions thank you Vice Chair Swanson of course as Mr neer said there's a lot out there that we don't know and you know as your chair I'm going to continue to advocate for our school system with both our state government and our federal government and going out to the public as we look at potential cuts or increased mandates for new expenses from the federal and the state government um with what you all have seen so far and what's been presented specifically just about timeline and next steps do board members have any questions about how we'll proceed okay if not then Superintendent Taylor we will take your proposed budget go through all of it and then following the the process that Vice Chair Swanson has laid out we'll continue our deliberations and of course this document that's been shared with us has been shared now electronically so you can get it on the schoolboard site so anyone that's watching either in person or remotely you can get a copy of the budget and then go through it yourself and then be able to provide recommendations both to the superintendent and his staff and then directly to us as board members all right okay thank you so I'd make another air conditioning joke about all the air being sucked out of the room um but it's only fitting that we now go to public comment so uh moving into the public comment portion of our meeting for those of you who are new we do have a full house today um speakers commenting on items on our agenda are given priority for speakers who are coming to speak to us about items off the agenda and we do give priority to our students as these meetings can kind of run long we want them to be able to speak first um so that they can get home especially if they have homework or other activities couple ground rules all attendees that are not speaking are asked to remain seated we do have a number of speakers tonight so what we'll do is we will take a break after the conclusion of the speakers to let everyone leave if they're not staying for the full meeting um but please especially while someone is speaking don't stand up try we want to give every speaker the opportunity to present without distraction again in the interest of maintaining civility and decorum speakers are encouraged to address their comments to the board of education and must refrain from personal attacks or insults directed at the board individual speakers but spec specifically members of the public it takes a lot of courage and bravery to get up here to put yourself out and make these comments and whether you agree or disagree please show everyone the same courtesy that you would like extended to yourself um any materials you may have brought please share them either before your comment or after your comment by giving them to our attorney Mr malone here at the end of the table um during the public comment period you may speak for up to three minutes the microphones are adjustable go ahead and adjust them before you begin speaking your time will begin once you begin speaking so again if you go up and you have papers that you give to Mr malone that doesn't come out of your time but once you do begin speaking the green light will light up to let you know that your time has begun after that time proceed to speak when you see a yellow light and you hear an audible tone for the first time that's your warning that you have 30 seconds remaining in your time when your time is up you will see a red light and hear another audible tone at that point if you're still speaking I'm going to ask you to stop please refrain because we're going to move on we're going to call the next speaker and they will come up to the podium um speakers are asked to respect the time limit speak no more than three minutes and again because we do have a lot of speakers if there is public support for various speakers that extends the meeting and with as many speakers as we have we do want to make sure that the speaker who ends up last on the list can get home at a decent hour just like the speaker at the beginning of their list that might be ambitious but we're going to do our best all right so with that um we'll begin starting with our students tonight and we have several students and I would ask that you give them your your full and polite attention the first student we'll hear from tonight is Harper Rossy who will be followed by Bailey Owens good evening Harper thank you uh my name is Harper i have been in the Wake County public school system for most of my life currently I am attending Kerry High School i have come up here today to tell you the facts about an extremely contentious issue in our schools no this isn't about the poor state of school bathrooms or the epidemic of illiteracy or the low pay for teachers or how our academic and honors classes create a disadvantageous situation for students of color or those with lower income we're not going to be talking about the real issues plaguing our school system instead we're going to be talking about a non-issue which has been blown up and politicized in order to target a minority which makes up not even 1% of our population the that issue of course being transgender people in sports the president of the NCAA Charlie Baker has estimated that out of 500,000 college athletes fewer than 10 are transgender that is a ratio of 1 in 50,000 this number is across both men's and women's college sports according to the Wake County Public School System there are currently around 160,000 students in this district let's assume for the sake of argument that every single student is in school sports the actual percentage is around 50% slightly lower um assuming we have the same ratio as the NCAA and that every student is in school sports there are currently three transgender athletes across all Wake County public schools this isn't even just in high schools this includes middle and elementary schools as well in fact um a further bit of information I've learned is that between 2019 and 2022 there was a requirement that transgender students needed to uh apply in order to uh audition to join a sports team of their gender only two people sought waiverss to play these sports why then are people coming up here to talk about a policy which affects roughly three people well it doesn't just affect athletes it affects all transgender people this isn't a problem because trans people are taking over women's sports this is a problem because people are using it as an excuse to spread transphobic rhetoric if you change Title 9 you will be giving into this hate you will be telling every bigot that it's okay for them to target trans people thank you on your time our next speaker is Bailey Owens who will be followed by Katherine Stevenson ladies and gentlemen thank you for taking a moment to listen today I want to talk to you about a deeply personal issue that impacts the lives of so many the ongoing battle against anti-trans bills while trans people already knew of the hatred that they face in society so pervasive in every aspect of their life the invasive questions asked about their body the lack of representation in media the questioning of their sanity and the stereotypical gender norms that let's be honest none of us really fit these laws just make it so much more obvious and dangerous more than 20 states have introduced or passed laws that restrict the access of transgender people to public restrooms matching their gender identity anyone These policies do not protect anyone they only create harm transgender people particularly trans youth are already at an elevated risk of mental health crisises including anxiety and depression because of the discrimination they face speaking from personal experience my friends are hurting they are scared i cannot think of a single one of my trans friends who has not expressed thoughts of suicide these laws pervate prep perpetuate stigma and violence transgender individuals are already more likely to face harassment and assault and the bathroom bills make it worse by saying this is okay essentially in states where these laws have been enacted we have seen troubling rise in bullying discrimination physical violence against trans people these laws send the message that they are less than and that they are unworthy of respect and protection but here's where where we come together it doesn't have to be this way we can speak out we can write to our lawmakers we can share stories we can stand up against those who are mar for those who are marginalized it is up to us to challenge the lies and the hatred behind these laws trans people are not asking for much just respect dignity and safety no one should fear for their life or well-being just for simply existing transgender people are our neighbors our friends our children and they deserve the same rights as anyone else and they should be able to access public spaces without fear of ridicule or violence so today I urge you stand with the transgender community be a voice for those who have been silenced thank you our next speaker is Katherine Stevenson and Katherine will be followed by Phoenix Bido hello all right hello everyone my name is Katherine Steven Katherine Luna Stevenson i am a transgender girl at Kerry High School over my time in Kerry in high Kerry High I have realized the true value of places like GSA BSAs and ASAs gsa being gender sexuality alliance aka a place where basically queer kids can hang out and chill and essentially as and honestly any other similar to those have in our schools and around the country i am the vice president of my school's GSA and I am thoroughly familiar with the kinds of people that these students these student organiza that need these student organizations my bad for many of these students they struggle to fit in with the rest of their peers i myself am one of them and places like GSA allow these students to have a safe haven away from the rest of society i want to continue I want schools to continue ha to have these places of safety and maintain policies that protect these legis these pockets of safety however with recent legislation and governmental regulations against things like DEI and minority inclusion it becomes increasingly harder and harder to well keep these places afloat that is why I advocate for you here today to resist these dangerous policies and and because otherwise minority students lives will already become far more miserable than they already are and these students will feel less alone meaning in an unforgiving world in an unc caring system that actively tries to suppress who they are this will lead to increased rates of depression and even suicide in these students that is why we it's so important that we resist these policies and create our own to protect places like GSA i know personally that if I didn't have this place of belonging I wouldn't even be standing here before you today so thank you and I hope everyone has a nice day thank you our next speaker is Phoenix Bilo who will be followed by Marley Dixon good evening board members i'd like to talk to you a bit about Title 9 in 2024 it was updated to clarify that it applied to gender identity and sexuality too i was honestly taken aback by how many people were so strongly opposed to that why would you oppose something that prohibits discrimination are some people just okay to torment although these are of course the same people who want to outlaw diversity equity and inclusion these both come from a huge lack of true information so here's a true story i was physically assaulted and battered at school which I say with a full understanding of North Carolina General Statute 1433 the assault and battery was followed by slurs which was all caught on camera yet when I reported it I was told that I was exaggerating because I was hyper sensitive and I was not allowed to leave admin's office until I agreed with them this is when Title 9 still applied to me and it was very clearly sex-based discrimination nothing was ever done and get this did you know that schools are required by law to send any report that falls under Title 9 to the district coordinator any and all reports crazy considering that I alone have filed at least 20 but the the only report that Title 9 has ever gotten from my school is the one that I filed against admin nobody takes it seriously they were breaking the law and turning their backs on me when I was explicitly protected by Title 9 so I am rightfully disturbed by being excluded because it'll just be taken less seriously i'm sure nobody thought about that nobody thought about the kid who every day hears people say that they want to hit me kick me punch me shove me beat me rape me and kill me did you think about that how about how I was already being ignored when Title 9 did protect me that it's just going to happen more and there's no legislation that protects me anymore i'm sure people like the anonymous teacher we heard from last time didn't too worried about if what's in your pants matches the non-existent genitals on the little stick figure on the bathroom door well everyone with that concern can rest easy knowing that I'll be using the women's bathroom because that's what y'all wanted right of course this does nothing to address the bullying and violence and harassment and my mental health is definitely poor but let's be real that was never the real concern all right our next speaker is Marley Dixon who's follow who will be followed by Jet McNeely hi my name is Marley Dixon i'm a freshman at Enlo Magnet High School and an Enllo PTSA student leader i'm here to talk about the proposed cell phone policy schools should be teaching us how to responsibly use cell phones instead of banning them altogether i believe phones are crucial to the learning experience the banishment of cell phones will be absolutely detrimental to the learning of many students there are many situations where we use phones in the classroom for starters phones are very important for classes that require projects for example in some classes you have to be able to film and edit videos for classes it is virtually impossible to film a dynamic video using a school Chromebook and there are very limited editing tools available on those devices i use my phones many times in a day for other instructional purposes like photographing important information shared on the board by teachers not having access to a cell phone would make sharing important information much more difficult for teachers and students my most personal concern about a cell phone ban is the effect it will have on neurode divergent students i have struggled with anxiety and ADHD since I was very young having my phone on me is something that gives me a sense of security and makes me feel safe i cannot imagine how awful a school day would be if I was constantly on edge of having a panic attack due to not having a way to contact people if I start feeling anxious being able to text my parents in the middle of a school day is enough to prevent me from having a full-on panic attack it's difficult to describe but when I get anxious or start to have a panic attack I feel like I'm being suffocated but my phone really helps me cope with it because I can just text my parents for support on multiple occasions this year I have been able to use my phone to help me calm down which has kept me from having to leave the learning environment due to my anxiety if I were to have a panic attack in class that would be much more of a distraction than a cell phone could ever be my learning experience would be absolutely destroyed and I would not be a successful student there are so many other students like me who need to have something to calm them down when they feel anxious being deprived of such a crucial tool to help with it would be cruel i also have 504 accommodations that allow me to use my phone during school to track my assignments and to have an AirPod in one ear to suppress a part of my brain that is easily distracted due to my ADHD i am able to immediately add assignments to my calendar and set reminders on my phone in real time so I know when I have tests quizzes or projects due using built-in tools on my phone helps me make it possible to pay attention in class and keep up with my assignments and maintain my grades i would not have be able to access these accommodations without my phone cell phones are critical for learning purposes and for being able to stay calm and learn properly without my phone I would feel unsafe not only is a no phone policy unfair to people like me with anxiety and ADHD but it's also unfair to people who have disabilities and it would stunt the learning experience for many people i understand some people feel phones are too much of a distraction in the classroom but banning them will do more harm than good instead we should be guided towards responsible device use in the real world world we will we will do I'm sorry that is the end of your time but you can always email us directly with additional comments if you have them okay thank you uh our next speaker is Jeff McNeely who will be followed by McKenzie Cutler jet my son fell asleep and was not able to come tonight may I have permission to speak in hisstead my name is Gretchen McNeely i think that's fine go ahead thank you very much uh my uh my story is simply that I am the the queer mother of a queer child and uh I am 54 i had absolutely no community and no role models in my situation but I was cisgendered and and when I did come out I had structures and people in place to support me uh my son is trans uh came out at 12 and is dependent upon the activities of the GSA at Apex High and the wonderful students and teachers who have reached out to him uh he has not attempted suicide i I cannot say the same for many of his friends and I do want to tell you that a reminder of something you all know that the the the root of phobia is fear and it seems so silly to be afraid of children who are trying to live and I would ask you to lead not with fear but with curiosity and with love thank you thank you our next speaker is McKenzie Cutler who will be followed by Charlie Pine hello thank you for taking the time to listen to me today my name is McKenzie Cutler and I recently just joined the WCPSS family i am at Alustin Ridge Elementary which is like right down the road teaching in first grade i grew up attending Wake County Public Schools and graduated from the WCPSS future teachers program to come back and teach here the program itself is open to high schoolers who are pursuing careers in education who commit to teaching with Wake County upon completion of their teacher preparation program at whichever university in North Carolina that they attend this program is not a scholarship just like other eager high schoolers that were selected for this program I was one of them it was something I applied for my senior year of high school and only a select few get in so it is a very prestigious program while it is not as big as the teaching fellows program in North Carolina it is still very much growing throughout this program future teacher participants received annual summer professional development stipens beginning the summer following their freshman year of college a WCPSS job offer for a teaching position for which they are licensed and highly qualified but most importantly the opportunity to develop a professional network with WCPSS staff and peer that being said I have a quite a few concerns i know we all don't know the budget where that's going right now but I do hope that we continue that program because it made a really big impact on me thank you thank you all right we have one final uh student speaker Charlie Pine and after um after we hear from Charlie we'll move to our on agenda speakers uh my name is Charlie obviously I'm a senior at Kerry High School and the president of our GSA and I'm here as a student and a proud product of public schools as an advocate for the safety dignity and rights of LGBTQ plus and minority students in our schools across the country we are seeing legislation that threatens the rights and well-being of marginalized students laws that restrict discussions of race and identities limit access to inclusive education and attempt to erase LGBTQ individuals from school environments these policies are not just abstract debates they have real harmful consequences for students like me and my peers school should be a place where every student feels safe where we can focus on learning without fear of discrimination or exclusion however when policies are passed that ban books about diverse identities force teachers to out students or deny our right to exist openly and authentically they send a clear message that some students are less worthy of respect protection and representation this message is not only wrong it's dangerous studies show that LGBTQ students and minorities who experience discrimination are at a higher risk of mental health struggles including depression anxiety and suicide but we also know the solution schools are actively if schools are actively inclusive and affirming they can reduce these risks dramatically the presence of supportive policies inclusive curriculum and faculty who affirm students identities can literally save lives sorry um safe spaces such as GSAs provide a place for these kinds of students to have a place to be authentic so I ask you what kind of school district do we want to be do we want to be one that gives in to fear and censorship or one that stands up for all of its students do we want to ignore the real struggles of LGBTQ plus and minority students or do we want to ensure that every student see feels seen valued and producted i urge you to take action not just in words but in policies continue supporting safe spaces like GSA ensure that teachers have the freedom to discuss history and identity openly and honestly and reject any attempts to strip students of their dignity our future depends on it thank you thank you we'll move next to our on agenda speakers and with our on agenda speakers we'll start first with Jane Miller who'll be followed by Emily Malpass hello port of ed members i'm Jane Miller i'm the librarian at Fquwayina Elementary and I have been a teacher and a librarian in Wake County for over 20 years um I'm here today on behalf of all of our students in Wake County there is currently no policy regarding funding for school libraries and the difference between our school libraries is shocking uh some libraries in our school system receive zero dollars in funding uh while others receive tens of thousands and the location of these schools is not always where you would expect so there there are schools that reside in wealthy neighborhoods who provide their libraries with very little to no funding the problem is that the funding decisions are made by principles and PTAs some of them see the value in funding school libraries like mine i have an amazing administration but some do not and um in every one of our schools the library is the primary if not the only source of books for our students so we have to take that responsibility seriously in addition to research digital citizenship and other valuable programs offered by our libraries children use the library to read for fun and time and again studies have shown that reading for pleasure drastically increases students academic performance cognitive abilities psychological well-being and motivation in school so what does a student need to engage in pleasure reading a high-quality library and a high qualifi highly qualified librarian to ignite students passion and connect them with the books that they will love i know that this is a difficult night to have this discussion but this has been a long time coming and libraries around us counties around us they have policies in place so it's time that Wake County took steps towards having a policy to make sure all of our libraries are funded for the sake of our children thank you thank you our next speaker is Emily Malpass who will be followed by Mindy Coven good evening good evening uh my name is Emily Malpass i am the parent of a third and fifth grader at our neighborhood school which is Lyn Road Elementary my husband and I are also both lifelong products of public schools and universities we're deeply invested as a family in our school and in the movement to shore up public education in North Carolina against decades of deliberate underfunding we've been treading water for years in this state and a federal level tsunami is looming large i don't have to tell anybody in here what we're facing we've heard all of the numbers tonight although I will reiterate that last year alone the general assembly poured $50 million of our money into private school vouchers so just put that there um you've had enough numbers tonight so I want to offer the board a question instead i'm curious what would it feel like to live in the world that you want most and how can we align our budget decisions with that goal some words from the writer Nurgear let us transform our focus from exploitation to regeneration from greed to reciprocity from individualism to community from dominance to love our path forward in the face of oppression and defunding is to invest in community by identifying and meeting essential needs i want to talk about two of those one is uh nutrition is an area I want to highlight um right now the budget presentation is a little bit reassuring uh we don't think child nutrition services are being cut but I just want to cast a light on that that um let's use caution in the proposed revision to the formula for school social workers um at our school aside from pre- reduced uh lunch programs we have a free food pantry um traffic there has doubled in the last month for families um just to keep food on the table and our social worker is the one who connects families to that resource to backpack buddies all kinds of other things above and beyond free school lunch um so just to put that um out there as we consider that revision um I'd also like to talk about something I recognize as part of the capital improvement plan um that is the prioritizing of repairs needed to HVAC systemwide um especially in our oldest school buildings my daughter was hospitalized with bacterial pneumonia last month um attendance is down everywhere due to illness i know we all know somebody who is sick right now um the more we improve the air that we breathe in our schools the safer they are when kids are sick and kids are hungry behavior issues increase decision-making is affected and everyone's safety is at risk with every email about a lockdown or weather emergency we're told and I do believe that safety is the top priority of this school system please continue to make this a reality by prioritizing these meals and maintenance and please tell families and PTAs and PTO's what can we do that you cannot where else can we show up where other decisions are being made that can help us make uh the culture that we need and deserve in Wake County thank you guys so much thank you our next speaker our next speaker is Mindy Coven who will be followed by Megan O'Neal okay hello my name is Mindy i'm here as a WCPSS parent and educator speaking to board policy 40407310 which states WCPSS employees must maintain the highest professional moral and ethical standards in their interactions with students and provide an atmosphere conducive to learning i firmly agree with this policy but have concerns about how the zeitgeist of a zeitgeist of a small but loud and powerful group of citizens is working to require employees to go against forward policy and break these ethical standards and interactions with students how can educators provide an atmosphere conducive to learning and maintain moral and professional ethical standards if they are required to spend instructional time policing children's gender an executive order issued on January 29th is attempting to withhold crucial funding from educational institutions that respect the identities of trans and gender non-conforming students telling any child they should not be seen and they are not welcomed or wanted is emotional abuse a clearly immoral and unethical act that takes away from an atmosphere conducive to learning for any child how am I the parent of a transgender child supposed to send my son to a place where adults and students are encouraged to emotionally abuse him as a sophomore he's taking two AP classes his intelligence is voracious but he is also kind and fair his teachers tell me he keeps the AC academic conversation going in class while still looking at his classmates to make sure they have had a chance to speak are the people fighting to abuse my child able to contribute to their community schools in the same positive way my son is no child should be abused or neglected if I continue to my to send my son to a public school I risk spreading that neglect to every other child in the building in the event that the federal and state funding is revoked causing students to lose crucial services teaching staff and more these cuts affect every single student as educators cannot provide an atmosphere conducive to learning when our schools are already understaffed and underfunded the staffing shortages perpetuated for over 20 years by the blatant neglect of the North Carolina General Assembly are already destroying the learning environment by physically harming our education our educators i sustained a traumatic brain injury trying to run an entire school library by myself and also cover two positions that the North Carolina General Assembly cut the media assistants and technology teachers this injury injury has left me in chronic pain unable to speak publicly without pain unable to read more than 20 minutes i'm a librarian without a and that is with a magnifying glass due to the damage to my occipital lobe i have gone through speech vision and physical therapy because of this injury you cannot ask me to risk my son's safety as well school funding for his school and even his teacher's physical well-being though Rally is the only home my son has ever known I and I am a single mother i am having to look at you spending tens of thousands of dollars I don't have to move to a country with a school that welcomes and supports my child have I not given enough by being forced to live with a disability acquired by the NCGA's ignorance in the needs of the schools and that is your time thank you our next speaker is Megan O'Neal who will be followed by Christina Cole good evening my name is Megan O'Neal i'm a Wake County resident a graduate of North Carolina public schools and a former recipient of North Carolina public school special education services i was diagnosed with a learning disability in 1987 don't do that math um IEPs individualized education plans for those not in the know were not as commonplace in 1987 as they are now without the constant perseverance and advocacy from my mom I would have fallen through the cracks i would have been one of the kids that was told to just sit up shut up try harder we've come an incredibly long way from then to now in terms of what we know about cognitive delays processing disorders attention disorders and the many other nuanced learning differences students walk into our schools with every day i'm so grateful to the people who recognized that I was capable of doing everything I was being asked but just simply needed to look at the material a different way needed more time to process it and strategies to decode it it's an incredible thing to finally feel smart when you are so sure that you were dumb my experience with having an IEP led me to earn my master's degree in elementary and special education with a certification as a learning behavior specialist i was determined to not only help students as a learning resource teacher but to take away any stigma that comes along with needing services our classrooms are different now than they were when I was a kid differentiated instruction is not solely for IEPs it's simply best practice you walk into any mainstream classroom and you can find multiple kids utilizing a variety of accommodations i hope they feel nothing but seen and supported that the sheer volume of difference in how everyone learns means that no one's bothering to notice how the kid next to them does something different during tests or has a different kind of chair or pencil or listening device now I spend a fair amount of time counseling friends through the IEP process when they encounter the need for it with their kids one of the main things I tell them when they are nervous and overwhelmed that their child's needs won't be met is that our public schools will always be the best place for students with IEPs but I worry deeply for those kids now as we look at massive budget cuts at the federal level and as our own state legislature guts our public school funds I know it will be students with IEPs who will get hit hardest i was enraged but not shocked that our newly confirmed secretary of education went on TV last week and admitted that she does not know what IDA stands for the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act is the bedrock of special education in our schools and to not know that tells me that her leadership has no plans to prioritize or accommodate those students our legislature giving millions of dollars to private school vouchers under the guise of parent choice tells me that they have no plans to prioritize or accommodate those students so I look to you there's so much for you to fight for and a very limited well for you to draw from to fund these fights but as the faucets of funding slow down and turn off I implore you to prioritize our IEP students to prioritize our special ed programs when you make your legislative agendas my darkest fears are that those in power and government who do not believe in science or cognitive development are happy to tell kids to go back to a time where they should sit down shut up and try harder thank you thank you our next speaker is Christina Cole who will be followed by Christine Zakardi good evening everyone i'm Christina Cole formerly Spears going back to my family name and I believe people should be able to change their names for whatever reason they choose i am a proud product of North Carolina public schools a Wake County special ed teacher currently serving as the Wake NCA president happy Women's History Month yesterday we celebrated St patrick's Day sending love and hugs to all transgender folks especially kids who are Wake County Public School students i see you and I stand with you you will not be silenced or erased naming these celebrations and affirming certain groups of people is diversity is equity is inclusion tonight I wish to speak on the superintendent's budget proposal the information item and democracy a slight remix on a comment I did almost a year ago to the date i attended my union's annual convention where hundreds of delegates from across the state came together to do our union business through a democratic process it was powerful and reminded me that democracy includes what happens between elections and rooms like this because our democracy is under violent attack by moneyhungry billionaires we've forgotten what it means to make decisions together about what is best for the most of us in our union we often say democracy is an endless meeting we meet a lot we plan we debrief we vote just like you do and you will you will meet for work sessions your board meetings etc around this budget practicing democracy in this room is how we resist authoritarianism and fascism the word democracy comes from Latin and Greek roots from deemos meaning the people all the people across difference cratia meaning power or rule democracy meaning the power to the people the people have the power to rule and I'm grateful for the opportunity to engage in endless meetings in embodied democracy democracy invites us to engage and welcome struggle as Dr betatina Love would say and I'll close by saying as the local union president I will never stand up here and speak for strategic repurposing i hope you'll do your part for the upcoming budget session to welcome struggle to do democracy and ask for what we need in the budget document that demonstrates our values and needs as a local school system despite federal implications and budget shortfalls I hope district leadership and this school board will at least ask for what we need asking the commission to fund what's necessary to maintain staffing levels and fund necessary maintenance and operations costs to continue to address facilities issues and make a plan to fund those school libraries then let the commission decide what they will or won't do and if you make it so we the union will continue to commit to the messiness of democracy and show up at the county commissioner meeting this fall to demand a fully funded request thank you thank you our next speaker Come on our next speaker is Christine Zakardi who will be followed by Katie Rodriguez good evening everyone i'm Christine Zakardi i'm the librarian at Farmington Woods Elementary School and I came here tonight to talk about the importance of funding our school libraries last time I was here I spoke about um funding our school libraries within the existing budget and how it's directly tied to our strategic plan here in Wake County we know from years of research and studies that well sourced school libraries are directly tied to student achievement including increased test scores and graduation rates we also know that currently North Carolina is 48th out of 50 in per pupil spending this past election cycle Wake public the I'm sorry Wake County residents passed the public's library bond with 56% approval and the goal of that is to have 87% of the residents within 10 minutes of a school library of a public library I'm sorry um our school libraries serve every all students within the county at Farmington Woods over the last three years through advocacy to increase funding available from our principal our PTA and um other sources we were able to radically refresh the collection and increase the amount of books circulated to our students by 49% that's almost 19,000 books checked out last year to students alone in our school across a range of topics such as inquiry based research curricular support and independent reading the excitement students have coming into the library is priceless and while there is no dollar amount that will ever sufficiently allow me to purchase enough Garfield or Dogman books for them we need to ensure that all schools across the district are having the opportunity to continue growing and refreshing their collections as informational texts age out well-loved copies need replacing and new items are published that keep our students excited about coming into the library to read the return on the investment is well worth it my high school daughter is currently learning about compound interest in her math class she's learning how to increase her savings and have a high return on her investment the more she adds to her savings account the more interest she earns until she's earning interest on her interest if we look at her school libraries as our savings account funding and supporting them is allowing us to put money into that account the more we invest the greater the benefits we see earning interest on our interest when we support the library more students have access to great books we increase learning opportunities and the library becomes a dynamic and integral part of the student success putting us well on our way to achieving our strategic goals for 2028 of graduating 98% of our students with 90% of them meeting or exceeding the statewide average for growth wake County Public School libraries serve all students in the county thinking about the exponential possibilities for growth that funding our school libraries can prov provide the question isn't should we make a plan to allot existing funding to our school libraries across the district but how can we not thank you thank you our final on agenda speaker is Katie Rodriguez good evening sorry no worries all right so um the superintendent's budget indicates that transfers to charter schools have reached 81 million reflecting a 7.3 million increase for the upcoming school year this substantial allocation raises critical questions about the resources available for our traditional public schools for the first time this year there are no income limits for school vouchers allowing families earning over $260,000 annually to receive a $3,360 voucher for their child to offset private school tuition in contrast families with lower incomes can receive up to $7,460 per child as a result applications for these vouchers have surged to a record high with 55% coming from families that would not have qualified in previous years this shift raises significant concerns about equity and access within our education system um private schools especially those with few or any students who previously qualified have um capitalized on this opportunity um for example there's a Metrolina Christian Academy in Union County is set to receive port $4.6 million in taxpayer funded tuition which is a $3.7 million more than last year when the income limits were in place the top five beneficiaries of the new rules have all seen increases of at least 2.6 million and taxpayer funded tuition for the 2024 to 2025 school year um with high school tuition rates ranging from 11,000 to 21,000 dollars per year um statewide trends reveal that these voucher increas increases are heavily concentrated in urban and suburban areas which further strains resources for rural areas that already struggle to fund their public schools tax tax dollars that should have been al allocated to teacher raises or other programs benefiting public education in our communities are instead flowing to unaccountable private schools at the same time we're giving money to rich families do not need them wake County Public Schools spends less on its students compared to other counties um as we saw in the budget Wake County Public Schools ranks 114 and 106 out of 115 districts in the state and federal funding despite being the largest district in North Carolina larger districts often receive less state and federal support and must rely more heavily on our local sources to bridge the funding gap looking at our per people spending the most recent data from 2021 shows the national average was 14,347 while North Carolina's average was 10,655 and Wake County only spent 9,899 per student um which is 7% less than the state average and a staggering 31% less than the national average this disparity in funding directly impacts the quality of education our children receive thank you thank you so at this point in our public comment agenda I do want to let you all know that we have uh close to 20 more speakers and but we have reached a gap between the off agenda and on agenda we don't have a heavy business agenda so I would like to go through and power on but I did want to give everybody who might have spoken already a chance if they do want to leave to go ahead and uh say your goodbyes now before we get into the next 20 speakers thank you [Music] all right okay we're going to come back proceed with the agenda if you're remaining I would ask you to take your seat and if you are leaving us I would Oh thank you uh direct you to the doorway all right thanks everyone we now are moving to our off agenda public speakers tonight our first off agenda speaker is Margaret Bilo who will be followed by Heather Reading good evening members of the board superintendent i'm here tonight as a parent and community member to speak about the importance of the upcoming International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31st this day exists to celebrate transgender people recognize their contributions and raise awareness of the discrimination they face unlike transgender day of remembrance which mourns those lost to anti-trans violence this day is about affirming their lives and dignity but let's be honest right now being trans parenting a trans child or loving a trans person is terrifying every day we see new efforts to strip away the rights and dignity of transgender people especially children bookbans bathroom restrictions curriculum censorship these are not about fairness or safety they're about erasure when transgender rights are stripped away entire school communities suffer discriminatory policies don't just target transgender students they create a culture of exclusion that affects everyone they signal to students that some of their peers are less worthy of respect they encourage bullying and harassment they fuel mental health struggles increasing rates of anxiety depression and suicide among trans youth and they make schools hostile and unsafe not just for transgender students but for their friends their families and their teachers and anyone who believes in inclusion and dignity for all students tonight I want to express my gratitude i'm so thankful for every single person here who felt comfortable enough or stepped outside of their comfort zone to be present i'm also thankful for those who needed to remain anonymous for their safety or well-being to every ally who is standing besides beside transgender students thank you and most importantly to the trans kids who may not be out who may not feel safe being out or who may not have felt safe coming here tonight board claimed to care about bullying yet rather than addressing real issues underfunded mental health programs staff shortages and the growing challenges students face some continue to embolden the very culture of bullying they claim to oppose you don't get to pick and choose which forms of bullying are acceptable and right now your actions send a clear message all bullying is okay we see board members more interested in manufacturing outrage than in creating safe inclusive schools we see the hypocrisy of those who use their elected title to demand justice for violent insurrectionists who drive while impaired with weapons and ammunition in their vehicle but refuse to support justice for transgender students kids who simply want to go to school learn and exist in peace those kids are who that title is supposed to advocate for you have a choice you can be leaders and stand up for all children or you can align yourself with those who would rather see vulnerable students suffer the choice is yours and rest assured we're all watching thank you our next speaker is Heather Reading who will be followed by Kelly Kuniff good evening in recognition of the upcoming trans of visibility I'll be reading on behalf of a current student hello Wake County School Board while I am not able to be here in person I still believe my opinion deserves to be heard to preface the speech I am a 16-year-old straight white male while writing this I thought back on the times I have been bullied made fun of or even called names due to me being straight or a white male i haven't i have been fortunate enough to not face the struggles and hardships of being oppressed such as insults thrown at me for no reason besides prejudice constant bullying for my mere presence and other factors this is what happens every single day for transgender people i witness it every single day at the high school I attend alongside this from 2018 to 2022 48 anti-transgender laws were enacted across 19 different states this caused um this caused transgender suicide rates to sore by an increase of 72% according to the Trevor Project including that transgender teens are amongst the highest group of people who commit suicide imagine being in the greatest years of your life just to have it taken away because of your choice to be yourself to always live in fear of having your rights taken away despite our ancestors having fought so hard for life liberty and the pursuit of happiness including that why should naturally born citizens of the US be affected for a mere belief in gender a social concept regardless my heart goes out to all those and all those families who have been affected despite my lack of experience that does not affect my view on trans rights and recognition phoenix is my best friend and whenever I hang out with him the stars and disgust we get for simply being around is immeasurably harmful and hurtful no matter your standing in life you should not bring yourself to cruelty based on hatred and violence just because of a mere difference in perspective while I may not be have many rights to speak on these issues I do want my voice to be heard for others that oppress the oppressed i simply wish for all to not change but to understand we are all human we are we are not the same people thank you thank you [Applause] our next speaker is Kelly Knunn who will be followed by Julie Pena hi I'm here advocating for diversity equity and inclusion in schools dei education plays an important role in helping build a better society for all our citizens in the United States all citizens are protected by law from discrimination there are nine protected characteristics: age sex disability race religion sexual orientation marital status pregnancy status gender reassignment dei education exposes students to these concepts which are critical to ensuring that every citizen no matter the traits that describe them have the opportunity to live meaningful lives in our society we live in a multicultural society most citizens of this country are immigrants or descendants of immigrants we live amix pe amongst people from all over the world who bring with them a broad diversity of customs experiences and perspectives this diversity forms the fabric fabric of our society it enables us to create and sustain our development as people think of all the advances of science and technology that have been led by citizens from diverse backgrounds given that diversity defines us why would we not want to educate our children in such a way as to understand and appreciate the experiences of our fellow citizens in a similar way why would we not want to educate our children on the contributions senior citizens can make or the challenges faced by those with disabilities in order to understand and experience of others we need to understand the reality of the lives they have lived dei education assists students in expanding their perspectives so as to understand the experiences of people in the past the of the people in the past does have an impact on the on the life on their lived experiences today education is not meant to assign blame education is a meant to stimulate thought and understanding our nation is filled with experiences that must be understood in order to recognize the impact of some of our fellow citizens today i'm in the later part of my life i've benefited from many priv privileges due to my station in life i've also faced obstacles most notably as a woman in a scientific profession in retrospect I recognize the value of openly recognizing our differences and creating paths of understanding which permit each of us to be seen as the people we are each in our own unique beauty for this reason I advocate for DEI in schools thank you thank you our next speaker tonight is Julie Pena who will be followed by Nicole Baldridge i did bring a visual aid to help with my comments and I do have a copy for the record um no i'm sorry that's against our rules okay she can have it and she can hold it up but we can't have anyone else at the podium but thank you for your offer all right so I'm going to start with a definition victim a person or thing that suffers harm death from another or from some sort of adverse act or circumstance so we have I think a definition about what a victim is right and I've come to previous meetings and there's been a lot of conversation about the actions of board members what they're saying and how they're representing the interest of students and parents um I'm a product of the New Jersey public schools one of the best public school systems in the country i'm also a firstg generation immigrant who went through ESL school i got to where I am because of the love and support from my teachers and my community and I recognize that I wouldn't have gotten there without that um you can imagine my frustration when I came across information online being a critical thinker skills I learned in New Jersey public schools I decided to consult the internet right and so what's concerning to me about this here and I want it to be on the record so there's not questions about what people are doing outside of their membership on this board this sign right here says that our sitting board member from district 1 who Cheryl is here right she's going to an event with a victim of January 6th so as I read that I'm a critical thinker right i just looked up the definition of what a victim is this person is not a victim that's not my opinion i decided to do further research so again for the record for those that are here in person and online please recognize that the person here who is named as justice for J6 victim James Grant J6 victim who lives in Kerry North Carolina the town that I live in where I send my kids to school um is a 31-year-old resident of Kerry North Carolina he played a significant role in the January 6 2021 attack on the US capital he was among the first riers to breach the police perimeter leading to confrontations with law enforcement he was convicted of assaulting a police officer with a dangerous weapon rioting and other charges he's a victim as endorsed by one of our board members but the people who come here like myself who have benefited from DEI policies wouldn't be considered victims we're being told "Ignore this this is victimhood." But the people who stand here who are getting bullied whose money's taken away who are afraid of their immigration status and being taken away into jail we shouldn't think about that they're not the real victims this gentleman is All right thank you our next speaker tonight come on let's let's bring it back to order our next speaker tonight is Nicole Baldridge she'll be followed by Laura Heg good evening board members my name is Nicole Baldridge i'm a resident of Apex North Carolina i have three students in public school and I'm here tonight to speak for my students um my children first of all thank you for all of those people who came in support of our students and our staff and are just loving on our trans students imagine or think about if you've ever cut your hair short as a girl as a as a female had short hair or if as a man at some point in the 1960s perhaps or in the 70s you had long flowing locks and you were proud of them imagine you as a young woman were considered somebody with manly features maybe you have bigger hands you're a little bit more masculine have larger feet things that would be traditionally be stereotypically male flash to you're going through menopause and you don't have access to health care to treat those symptoms there's medications that you can take but you can't get them anymore or perhaps unfortunately you were diagnosed with breast cancer and you had surgery you had a double masectomy and now you want to have surgery to make yourself the person you remember yourself to be so sorry can't do that anymore that's gender affirming care sorry not allowed maybe you have you have cancer and your hair starts to fall and as a female we often because of societal pressures um put a lot of value in that having a full head of hair and so you're embarrassed or you're you're feeling stigmatized because of gender norms at first glance it may seem that anti-trans bills only affect and impact transgender people after all these laws are targeted at gender- affirming care public restrooms their right to exist in society as they are but as we take a closer look we can see that these laws also create a culture of fear and division that harm everyone these anti-trans measures create an environment of increased violence and vulner vulnerability for all women the 19th News reports that anti-trans violence and legislation has increased existing racial and gender violence laws that restrict gender- affirming care or access to public spaces are often wrapped up in a much larger campaign that undermines the rights of women non-binary individuals and other marginalized groups ultimately we are all the victims of sexism and racism even if we experience it in different ways think about the saying "Boys don't cry." It is crucial to recognize that anti-trans laws do not just divide us into an us and them the fight for equality and respect for transgender people is tied to the fight for justice for all people these laws undermine the very principles of freedom dignity and safety that we all deserve and the pre push to restrict trans rights does not protect anyone it only deepens the divide between us and weakens our overall fight for equality thank you that is your time our next speaker is Laura Hey who will be followed by Elaine Thunderberg so thank you to the previous speaker as a manly looking woman who just had a full hyctomy and has been on gender affirming care since basically the day first day of puberty and just had stage 4 endometriosis taken out of my body so I had to have gender affirming care my name is Laura i'm here because of the trans day of visibility i'm speaking tonight on behalf of a high schooler in district 5 they cannot be present here tonight but their words are too important for them to not be spoken and hopefully heard with open hearts and minds and more than anything with basic human decency and kindness towards everyone in our classrooms and greater society marginalized people are being pushed further and further back into these those margins and most of us fear that the leaders of this county or state or country are going to just rip those margins off the paper and throw us all away quote I first came out in my freshman year of high school and I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that information at school my dead name made me uncomfortable and I didn't want to be continue to be called it so my first move was to tell my teacher that I would like to be called something else but because of the new policy put into place that same year she refused to call me by my name unless she got explicit go-ahad from my parents that scared me so I just continued to get called by a name that made me uncomfortable it wasn't until halfway through my sophomore year that I was able to freely get called by my chosen name and that was only because a teacher informed my mother that I was trans without even telling me fortunately my mother was okay with it just imagine what could have happened if to someone who didn't have a safe space at home that could put them in serious danger both physically and emotionally i had a friend who didn't even want to go to class because they couldn't get called by their chosen name since their parents were not at all supportive if their parents were told about them being trans I have no doubt that they would be cruel to my friend their own child this has to change immediately because mixed with the current laws that are going against trans individuals we can't even be called by our names out of fear of violence at least give us one place to feel safe." End quote now I'm going to read you a list of names until I finish or until my time is up these are individuals under the age of 18 or under who were simply murdered for being trans some at school or by their peers it's always important to say their names briana Gee 16 ariana Mitchell 17 paulie Lyens 14 tay Dior Thomas 17 jasine Johnson 18 river Goddard 17 next Benedict 16 thank you our next speaker is Elaine Thunderberg who will be followed by Holly Atkins dr taylor and Chairman Hagerty and board thank you for all that you do for the Wake County Schools uh it's a long meeting i know you're tired so I won't take so much of your time i am Elaine Thunderberg a former teacher and substitute teacher in the Wake County Public Schools the mother of four uh Broton High School graduates and a grandmother of Wake County students with eight great uh eight students and three that pre presently attend Broton Oberlin and Lacy schools i am here to continue what I began two weeks ago and request that you approve and implement an academic Bible history elective for our schools this is not a religion course it is a history course we have seen many unfortunate things disrupting the education of our children today especially the safety in our schools we have seen a rise in criminal activity with shootings lockdowns and test scores falling in his recent state of the schools address Superintendent Taylor uh wisely called for school safety to be the number one priority for Wake County schools s stating that when students don't feel safe they don't focus on instruction as a substitute teacher I worked with atrisisk students who were in gangs selling drugs angry and explosive young people from troubled homes i was called to one school to comfort uh the students in a drama class after the killing of one of their members off campus his mother had been a member of my Bible class in the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women one day I was locked in a classroom with three gang members and a girl who brought scissors to school that day to get even like with someone like her mother did on the street later after seeing many students convicted and expelled from Wake County schools for dealing in drugs I formed the UK Care School for these students to get them back to graduate with their classes we ran it for three months and it worked a year later I encountered two of these students at their workplaces and asked "What helped you the most in this school?" And they both responded "The Bible class." Their lives were changed students need to learn right from wrong to avoid hurting themselves and others and the consequences of breaking the law i suggest this board consider implementing a pilot Bible history elective this spring as an alternative school to evaluate the change in behavior i represent um the National Council on Bible i don't represent them but I recommend them the Bible Council on Public uh uh curriculum in public schools and I have that here it is offered to every Bible history teacher uh that will be teaching the class free of charge and I have it here and I'll leave it for Dr taylor and you can review thank you thank you Miss Funberg we appreciate it our next speaker is Holly Atkins who will be followed by Joseph Deon good evening my name is Holly Atkins pronouns she her and I am the founder and president of Hope for Teens hope for Teens was founded in 2010 and is Wake County's only anti-bullying organization dedicated to the advocacy and support of our LGBTQIA plus youth truncated to Q plus going forward i started Hope for Teens because six teens committed suicide over a 12-week period that made the news which made me wonder how many teens didn't how many students sit in fear every day and get bullied every day because people choose hate over asking questions and being supportive one thing that didn't occur to me is the bullying and exclusion from the adults they would receive we are watching basic rights and human human decency be ripped away by those who don't care to understand and don't want others to care either adults can help change things adults can vote those that I worry the most about can't sure their families can if they're supporting and loving but for many Q plus youth that if can sometimes be pretty large instead of asking questions and getting to know people society piranhas try to eliminate them instead of understanding how important and smart and beautiful they are there is a drive to demonize those you don't know this isn't progress it's bullying and it's ugly which makes those people ugly when 74% of the Q plus youth don't feel safe in their classrooms what do you do when 90% of the Q plus youth report being bullied how is that safe when 86% of the trans youth consider suicide why would you want to try and increase those numbers instead of trying to bring them down the Q plus youth are four times more likely to consider suicide which equates to more than 1.2 million per year in the US and suicide is the second leading cause of death for our youth with numbers like this please pay attention to your Q plus students in your school system you currently have approximately 54,000 high school students per year 202425 report since more than 12% of high school students identify as part of the Q plus community that equates to a little over 6,500 students and if you're looking at transgender which would be 2 and a.5% that's a little over a thousand students in Wake County fun fact adult support especially in the homes and schools reduces suicide rates by as much as 56% hopefully that statistical alone will encourage you all to show your support and advocacy so how can you the school board help these students celebrate them don't shrink from them acknowledge they exist and matter march 31st is trans day of visibility let those students know you see them and support them again over a thousand students in Wake County Public Schools are trans your support matters if you have a longer range appreciation for your students think about becoming a chaperone for our queer prom for high school students to the students I say it does get better we're hoping after 14 years it would have happened a little faster but it didn't look at all the people that were at this meeting tonight most came to support you attend queer prom and see it for yourself it's free for the uh board members I do want to let you know I'll be emailing you the uh registration link for the chaperone attendees if you wish and please make sure that you know what it means to understand and support your neighbor thank you thank you our next speaker Oops sorry about that our uh screen just went black there our next speaker is Joseph Deon who will be followed by Jen Smith i am providing the board a copy of the 1927 Supreme Court decision Buck versus Bell that upheld state laws for involuntary sterilization of persons thought to have hereditary mental h handicaps miss Carrie Buck was one such individual whom the state of Virginia planned to sterilize her defense attorney warned that if eugenics laws were upheld they could be extended to target other classes of people whom the state deemed undesirable even entire races the court ignored that warning and Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes concluded quote three generations of imbeciles are enough he justified eugenic sterilization by the same principle as mandatory vaccination this was the con concept of a living constitution in action bending laws a little bit at a time it came at a time when theories of eugenics social Darwinism scientific racism and Malthusianism were widely held in universities in America and Europe these theories reached the limit of their perverted logic in in Nazi Germany here the NC Board of Eugenics operated until 1974 and hired a black man to go into poor black communities looking for people to sterilize several victims of the NC board were interviewed on UNC TV about eight or nine years ago one was a black lady who lived all alone in her house filled with nice new baby dolls she said she bled all those because when she was in the orphanage she only ever got dirty and broken used ones this this was so sad because what those doctors did to her destroyed her chance to have her own family and now she was all alone today I fear that many troubled adolescents will end up like that lady as a result of so-called gender affirming care wake County must end complicity with this medical scandal by the active psychological intervention of social transition in schools toward this end you must remove gender identity from Title N policies thank you our next speaker tonight is Jen Smith who will be followed by Sarah Jackson hello everyone um thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak i want to say I'm been extremely impressed with all of our speakers our young adults that have had great courage and hope that people reflect on their words um I have two teenagers currently enrolled in Wake County Public Schools i've been a regular volunteer since preschool um so I'm in the schools a lot and I've gotten to know like some of these kids that actually spoke i was like "Hey I know you." And I've watched them grow up and they are good people and I so I decided to come today because I specifically wanted to show my support for trans students and staff because again I'm actually in the school i'm interacting with staff and students i see what is happening um I I've talked to their parents and these are good people i recognize that uh my privilege that I don't have the same concerns for my kids that my friends who are parents of kids who are trans do um we have so much in common that we worry about our how our kids' grades are doing are they hanging out in a good crowd making good choices are they growing up to be young adults and be good for their communities but I don't have to worry about the things that I read online that I hear from other people um that is hateful and ignorant about some basic science um and erroneous about that are statements that are made against trans people and so I feel really lucky that I don't have to worry about that with my kids but I know the people who are the parents of kids that are trans and I know kids who are trans and these are good people that are making our communities better i see their effort i see their work and I am very thankful that I know them so just want to say thank you to those people in my life thank you our next speaker tonight is Sarah Jackson who will be followed by Caitlyn Trader i'm speaking tonight for a Wake County student who could not be here a large majority of transgender individuals are minors so it's hard for them to start HRT or come out to their parents in fear of being abandoned and disowned and even though trans people make up 1% even less than that of the population we are still in the highlight of media and are ridiculed by right-wingers and conservatives it's so dangerous because for trans people that don't pass they can be attacked or denied opportunities in jobs schools and just in overall life it feels odd being shunned turned away and outcast by others even people close to you being transgender isn't a choice you just have a choice whether or not to embrace it which is hard to do when others around you are telling you negative things about people who are transgender what is currently going on not just in the United States but around the whole world towards transgender people is not okay in the slightest bit we have to work together to destigmatize being part of the LGBTQ plus and learn how to live without all this hatred and toxicity and since I have a moment I just want to add that the budget the budget looks bleak do not let that threaten you into sacrificing your humanity that response only leads to a deficit in both funding and humanity if we are willing to forego doing the right thing in the interest of seeking someone's favor that only buys us time at too high a cost instead we will address a lack of funding one step at a time together and we will do it without sacrificing an ounce of our humanity thank you thank you our next speaker our next speaker is Caitlyn Trader who will be followed by Heather Rossi good evening Caitlyn good evening nice to see you all again uh today I am here to address the board regarding the essential rights of our transgender students trans Day of Visibility is on March 31st i want to talk about the importance of this day and go through some things we can do to show our students our support trans Day of Visibility is an annual awareness day that is recognized and celebrated around the world it is dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of transgender and gender non-conforming people while raising awareness of the work that still needs to be done to achieve trans justice let's be clear this isn't a complex issue it's about fundamental human rights some may present this as a matter of debate but I'm here to say that basic respect and dignity shouldn't be up for discussion transgender students are not a debate they're not a controversy they're students human beings and they deserve the same rights and respect as everyone else to ensure our transgender students feel valued and protected I recommend the following respecting gender identity implementing a policy in schools that respects students chosen names and pronouns it's a matter of respect if you can remember your own name you can remember theirs inclusive restroom and locker room access transgender students should have access to restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity if your biggest fear is that a man might dress up as a woman to gain access to the women's restroom you're not afraid of trans women you're afraid of men participation in sports and activities the opportunity to participate should not be denied based on gender identity denying someone the joy of being part of a team because of their gender identity is the exact opposite of sportsmanship comprehensive anti-discrimination policies establishing clear anti-discrimination policies that explicitly protect transgender students from harassment and bullying if implementing this policy sounds wrong to you I think it's time to take a good hard look at yourself protecting all kids from bullying is not controversial faculty education implementing training programs for faculty and staff to enhance their understanding of transgender issues and foster a supportive school climate the more a child feels seen and respected in the classroom the safer they will feel which leads to a successful learning experience change can be scary i get it especially when it involves something people don't always understand however I don't understand it therefore no one else can have it isn't exactly a valid argument in any sense history will not look kindly on those who choose to stand on the wrong side of progress trans rights are human rights and anyone who thinks otherwise is frankly on the wrong side of history at the most basic level we are simply asking people to be kind literally that's it how is this even up for debate how are we a group of people asking others to be kind versus another group of people asking for the right to be cruel creating an inclusive environment benefits everyone it fosters a culture of empathy and understanding i urge the board to prioritize the well-being of our transgender students and to implement policies that ensure their rights are protected thank you thank you our next speaker is Heather Rossi who will be followed by Tina Coltus i've been involved in schoolboard meetings across the country since I was 15 so maybe more than a decade um and I wish that they felt different now than they did when I spoke the very first time i am a parent of a transgender child when I say this the first question people often ask is "When did she tell you were you scared?" If I'm honest I don't really remember when she told me it was years of talking and listening and not really a big revelation um but lots of little ones maybe because I wanted my kids to always know that I'm 100% for them as a teen I watched a church I love fracture over a lack of understanding but rebuild stronger after realizing that love is in fact love i served in the military at a time when people had to cover their identity and saw the damage that it did i knew I never wanted to perpetuate that fear before my kids told me all the things I had already built a life rich with diversity i hoped to be a lighthouse to my kids that they would always know who I was even if they didn't know who they were and even with all of that I wasn't the first person who knew um after all family's complicated kids at school knew teachers had heard a different name other adults knew the school was a place where she could test out her identity and values with her peers and other trusted adults that has always been what school is it's a place to find out that you are in fact terrified of public speaking and how to overcome it it's a place where you can find out that you actually are great at sports or terrible but still enjoy them you get to explore ideas and places and things that were previously foreign to you we've all had teachers who help cement ideas and a world view either by showing us who we were not going to be or showing us what we could be this is the magic of school parenting a t child in a time of crisis is awful every day I have to look at how to keep her safe will we have to change states possibly will we have to change countries perhaps will her life be criminalized already up for vote in Texas can you imagine people being so invested in your genitals that they seek to criminalize you i mean yeah actually I can um this is a world that I'm forced to parent in constantly evaluating if I can trust people i've learned over time that facts don't always matter but I do want you to consider how is another child better off if my child is eliminated from existing how is another child's identity threatened if my child exists thank you to the Wake County schools and teachers and principles and other parents that my kid has encountered for 10 years that every day give her language and value at the last meeting people asked me to be civil and congratulated my child on speaking while at the same time turning around and advocating against her she deserves more that is your time thank you all right our next speaker is Tina Kus who will be followed by Bennett Chapman i'm reading on behalf of a high school student who couldn't be here and she says "I believe there are people who transition because it's genuinely their identity i believe they should be treated as humans like every other cishat white person i feel like they should be accommodated because they're people too it's not an illness it's an identity i know there are concerns but I think it's unfair and unsafe to get rid of certain protections that are in place i remember the LGBTQ panic defense law homosexual and transgender people were killed under the excuse I feel threatened are we going back to that again on top of that so many children have taken their lives because of the fear that they'll lose every right they have and Trump's reinstatement to office made people feel more free to say horrid unreasonably cruel things i have a friend who has talked about death threats and cruel words and people saying "I want to rape him." Think about this if you were just going about your day wearing an outfit that makes you comfortable and may be confident that totally matches your style and you hear someone say "I'm going to rape them." only because you're straight wearing clothes that they don't wear and are a sis hat that would feel crappy i'm sure it would imagine constant insults and slurs being yelled at by girls for using the boys' bathroom if you're FTM trying to accommodate yourself only to go to the girls restroom to be yelled at by the same girls imagine having to walk from one side of a large building to another because it's the only place you feel safe enough to pee i care about trans issues because someone should children are losing their lives whether through suicide or murder i'm going to speak Bible because that's the only language some of you know how to speak you shall love your neighbor as yourself there is no other commandment greater than these mark 12:28-31 maybe this imagine your child your baby tells you that they're trans or gay and then some stranger who didn't even know your child put a bullet through their head because they were trans or gay would you not feel loss sadness there are parents out there who tragically know this devastating loss we aren't back in the 1950s we're in 2025 we're supposed to be the greatest freest most incredible country of the world how can we be that when people are suffering because of hate one in 10 cisgender youth attempted suicide in 2024 one in five transgender youth attempted suicide be a be a decent human treat transgender people like normal people because that's what they are they're humans just like you and me and I can say as the mother proud mother of 40year-old gay male i have lived with fear for my child for over 25 years after he came out and he's a wonderful human being who anybody should be proud to know and it's a terrible way to have to raise a child and I feel for the trans community and the parents of these children just please do what you can to keep them safe thank you thank you all right our next speaker is Bennett Chapman um I understand Lisa Johnson was not here so then following Bennett we'll hear from Grace Nichols uh hello my name is Ben Chapman uh Milbrook High go wild cats yeah uh I am a local library and history professional so I also support the librarians who spoke our neighboring county Franklin is named for the inventor of the American Library and I can't say enough to say please fund and support libraries with IMLS funding being threatened uh there could be some interruptions in services and something to keep an eye out for uh I'm here for a student who invited me to be here tonight um transgender students staff and faculty deserve respect from this board all members have an obligation to at the bare minimum treat all people in Wake County as the equal citizens under the law that we are during the February 18th meeting in prepared remarks Member Caulfield failed to treat non-binary North Carolinians with basic respect she took time to express concern about children being exposed to new ideologies she immediately followed this with an anecdote of a second grade school play her claim was that the inclusion of a non-binary character is an example of social influence and/or seal or DEI maybe um board this anecdote is a red herring of far greater concern is that transgender students teachers and staff in our community are under attack by ideologues when I consider the most dangerous ideologies I don't think of elementary school educators oddly enough um board allow me to be direct the Johnson County Board of Education very narrowly very nearly removed discrimination bullying and harassment protections not only from policies affecting students but for employees of the largest employer in Johnson County we're going to respond by encouraging the Johnson County Board of Education to consider Crown Act protections that this board passed last year because we believe policies should be expanded not curtailed um I appreciate the members who spoke about uh self-esteem and and hair and how it impacts all of us in different ways um I once had long locks uh which was my choice uh I donated them to Locks for Love um with the 30 minutes left I have left I'm going to leave you it's been a long night thank you for listening to me thank you our next speaker will be Grace Nichols who will be followed by Heather Griffin Doseni all right just making sure grace Nichols all right if Grace is here or stepped out and gets back before the end of comment we can add Grace to the end of the line uh next Heather Griffin Doulsi and I apologize if I mispronounced your last name everybody does thank you for the for the time um I came tonight to show our support for trans children in the school system i have two children in the Wake County school system and it's my desire for them and every child attending school to experience our public schools as a place where they can safely be seen heard and valued for the unique personalities and strengths they bring to the table where the adults who see them every day will function as the real heroes and role models in their lives and where they learn that our that celebrating our differences makes the world infinitely more interesting resilient and safe however according to the research by the Trevor Project 47% of North Carolina's trans children and non-binary children have considered suicide in the last year the rate is not inherently linked to gender expression but as a result of social and familiar pressure to deny their reality and too often rejection by their families and at school bullying both in and out of school also plays a large contributing role as a social worker who's worked with marginalized people for over 25 years I fear as what amounts to federally forced eraser of the visibility of trans and gender diverse people our children are at great risk and that those numbers will climb even higher from their already unacceptable levels as all institutions with federal funding begin to feel the pressure of conforming to unjust federal legislation for fear of losing necessary dollars I implore the school system to find creative ways to resist discriminatory mandates that make any child feel erased and finally I come tonight to tell our children that they're seen heard loved and respected for exactly who they are and to let them know that there are many many adults here in the community and at school who stand by their side thank you thank you and then our final speaker tonight for public comment will be Daniel Grant King alrighty good evening it has been a long time since I've been in this room so bear with me as I get my remarks chair Haggedy Vice Chair Swanson members of the board i am here this evening as an educator as an educational advocate regarding our threat the threat currently proposed by our federal level regarding our public schools it is indeed no secret as the current secretary of the US Department of Education has made it clear again that she will follow through with the Trump Vance administration to threaten and undermine funding authority given to our public schools ultimately at the local state and national level but I want to make clear this evening that we cannot have cuts to our public schools why because without our public schools I don't know how the even it would even exist quite frankly I am a product of Wake County schools and product of higher education and so what this does is that we need to continue advocating to make sure that not only funding is there but the resources that go along with that funding to remain so I am encouraging all board members regardless of where you stand politically regardless of where you stand on the political side of the educational realm we need to continue on advocating and holding our legislators accountable i cannot emphasize that enough to hold them accountable for what they promise to do and that is to make sure our students have the sound basic education under the North Carolina Constitution and under the federal constitution of the United States so I'm going to leave you board members with a challenge and a quote by my famous professor and that is when one when the world is silent when the world is silent even one voice is powerful so I'm leaving you to challenge you please make your voice powerful for our educators students and families thank you so much thank you Mr grant King and that will conclude our public comment period thank you so turning to our agenda the next item on our agenda tonight um see we have additional comments from the superintendent i see we uh put those here after the public comment so Dr taylor um we'll turn to you and then we'll move to our consent agenda thank you Mr chair we'll keep it short uh Governor Steinage proclaimed the month of March arts in our schools month and we certainly have plenty of reasons to celebrate here in Wake County we have over 600 arts educators helping students hone their talents in a wide array of visual and performing arts but we know arts education is about more than increasing artistic ability all arts disciplines help students develop their allimportant 4C skills of creativity creative thinking collaboration and communication what's more the arts helps students find connections and community within their schools a critical element in keeping students engaged with all of their school work it's no wonder that students who are enrolled in arts courses are 20% more likely to graduate the great news is that our arts programs are second to none for proof you need to look no further than the Peaches of Gold Performing Arts Showcased held earlier this month are the Gifts of Gold Visual Arts Gallery on display at the North Carolina Museum of Art on March 5th more than 700 students representing 50 different schools performed at the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts as part of the Pieces of Gold an annual tradition in Wake County going back decades through song dance and theatrical performances the district's best talent was on display you can find a video of the spectacular event on YouTube in addition from now through April 13th you can see exceptional student artwork at a special ex exposition exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art thanks to a partnership with Raleigh Arts and United Arts Council of Raleigh in Wake County more than 100 Wake County students ranging from kindergarteners to high school seniors are represented i hope you'll take uh time to pay a visit and appreciate our students creativity firsthand we are indeed fortunate to have so many gifted students who are guided and encouraged by dedicated arts educators each and every day so my thanks to everyone who makes our school school district a more vibrant and dynamic place through the arts before closing this evening I'd like to share this video we have prepared in observance of women's history month we ask several district leaders to tell us about the women who have inspired them these li uh this living history serves as an important reminder of the power of positive role models for young women when I think about female leaders who've empowered me um the first one would easily be my mom um so that's that's a hands down and um thinking just about her my great-grandmother the matriarchs in my family specifically in Wake County in high school um her name is Jocelyn Bradford she was my teacher my cheerleading coach student council advisor um and she just taught me so much about just the power of a good educator definitely Mrs moore at the time was Principal Moore people like her Dana King you know there just weren't a lot of women in secondary leadership and so when they stepped in a room and when they walked into a meeting they had this presence about them that just commanded the room commanded the space so a role model for me would be um a woman called Deborah Jones she was my principal leader at that time I was a teacher on loan that relationship was instrumental to my growth she was the one who really talked to me about making sure that I could articulate my ideas and my thoughts and that I could uh not only support someone uh with where they are but to also be able to give them some really good ideas about where we needed to go she was the reason why I decided to go into administration i've had a lot of people um be absolutely inspirational for me in my career um I think I would certainly start with my older sister who's about 12 years older than I am um when I was a young child I grew up in a very small town in a rural area and she immersed my life with culture and literature so she really um set my sights into a a world that I never knew I could even engage in so I've also had many many women leaders who have been encouraging of me and have supported me if I had to share some words of wisdom to women in leadership I would say that there are times when you may have to prove that you can do the job many women in leadership are also moms it is heavy but it's certainly not anything that women should shy away from because we are more than capable of leading a building and taking care of our loved ones and our family really something that stands out to me is just a concept that in helping one woman you inadvertently help all women there's so many amazing women in our district that we have to celebrate and to just really shout out and then of course just continuing to see women um achieve and and grow to new levels of district level leadership and support it's it's really phenomenal to see i have learned that it is so important to trust yourself and know who you are and know that what you have and who you are is valuable i think that the value that women share with one another um lifts each other up so that we can be successful and be the answer to some of the problems that we have in the world today all right thank you Dr taylor so with that uh the next item on our agenda is consideration of our consent agenda board members have had an opportunity to review the items and I'll entertain a motion at this time so moved we have a motion from Vice Chair Swanson to adopt the items on the consent agenda a second from Mr hershey any discussion any debate hearing none all in favor of adoption of the items on the consent agenda please say I any opposed all right the consent agenda has been adopted we have one item on our business agenda tonight the 2025 2026 instructional calendars and uh this is really I think more of a technical change this was something that had been presented to us in committee and would have been on our consent agenda but for uh some double-checking yes and Miss Anderson Powell is going to uh describe is going to explain those results to us sure thank you thank you for having me and happy women's history month um and so the two calendars two of the three calendars for our early college um high schools um are the same as were presented in the work session so the Wake Leadership Academyy's calendar is the same as was presented the Wake STEM Early College calendar is the same that as was presented there are two minor changes to the um calendar that supports the schools that partner with Wake Tech the first day of school moved from Wednesday August 6th to Wednesday August 5th to accommodate a teacher workday on Wednesday November 12th which aligns with a professional learning day for Wake Tech and that is it and that is it all right so does anyone have any questions for Miss Anderson Pal seems pretty pretty direct pretty uh self-evident so at this time I'd entertain a motion mr i'll defer to Miss I was going to move that we adopt the calendars as presented we have a motion from Miss Edwards i'll second Miss Edmonds motion and a second from Vice Chair Swanson i'm going to look around i'm obligated to ask if there's any debate but I think we're probably ready to vote all right all in favor of Miss Evans motion please say I and are there any opposed all right the motion passes thank you thank you kindly have a good evening thank you and we appreciate the diligence on that all right thanks everyone so at this time what we'll do is we'll move into that concludes our business agenda so we'll hear comments from the board and then we will move into then we I will entertain a motion to go into close session for the items on our agenda um I'm going to change it up a little bit today and I'd like to start with Vice Chair Swanson if he's ready thank you Chair Heggery and my remarks will be very brief and thank you Dr taylor for highlighting pieces of gold it was a outstanding performance and every year we are in awe of the amazing talent that our students um display for us and I think all of them were great but the one that I thought had the most energy that stuck out was Nightdale um the ladies at Nightdale the dance team was outstanding um and so congratulations to all of them and also a great thank you to not just to our partners at the Wake Ed partnership to our arts director um uh Mr tucker and uh Dr norman and and academics team for putting all this together to also to ensure to the public that we can't just talk about going back to the basics without including the arts because for so many of our students the arts is where those students feel seen heard and valued i also want to thank uh Miss H Miss Haywood and the Kerry Kildair Rotary Club and the Kerry Act Inner Club and the volunteers that participated in the beautifification day that took place I think last Saturday at West Kerry Middle School um I was able to go by and look it's a it was beautiful what they've done and it also shows how communities come together to pick up the gap and fill in the gap of our schools and so thank many thanks to them um I also wanted to kind of take a moment to kind of I know we'll have more discussions around the budget i want to keep it very brief but I just want to remind the public that um legally we we are funded by three different pots the local the state and the federal and now what we're seeing is uh due to legislation the the local has been the bulk of our funding and so when folks are saying how can what they can do and how can they do to help fill in the gaps number one is vote for folks who believe in public education um and do your research on that but number two is going down to Jones Street to meet with folks on both in both chambers the state house the state senate um to talk about the impacts that they're going to have what we're going to face um we've passed a legislative agenda that is going to be our guide we've heard from our lobbyists of some pieces but those are pieces that we are doing as board members to to to advocate that's our job is to advocate for our public schools but there's so much more we can do as a community and I also want to say and I've said this every year and I thank our commissioners for filling in the gap because legally they are responsible for brick and mortars that's it but because we have a community that is investing in public schools and invest and sees the benefit of having a strong public school system that is able to recruit and retain strong businesses that is the commitment that we've seen from our commissioners so I thank them for being great partners and thank them for this and I know that no one is coming with this budget everyone's leaving with this budget with concerns there is nothing in this budget that that gives me p well it gives me pause but I also understand that the superintendent and and and staff did their due diligence and we have a duty to to look into this budget and do what we feel is best yes we ask what we need for but we also have to be mindful of the climate that we're in and the economic impact that so many so many of our communities are facing due to cuts and what we're seeing play out in in government at all levels um so there's that and I look forward to having Dr taylor present the budget um great segue there Dr taylor um to my to district 9's uh final board advisory committee meeting for the year that will take place at 6:00 at Kerry High School um and while I'm on that piece for Kerry High School I promised Principal Nolan Bryant that I would give a great kudos to the culinary arts team who won first place in a prize this past weekend which is why they will not be cooking for us on on uh Thursday but I want to give them a great kudos for their hard work and again um looking forward to having Dr taylor and the community come to talk about the budget and again we will do our due diligence over the next couple of weeks to um to pass a budget that concludes my remarks Mr chair thank you thank you Vice Chair Swanson miss Cfield thank you good evening everybody i just wanted to say happy St patrick's Day um hope everybody enjoyed that and happy woman's month um this week um I met with some legislators um down on Jones Street um and would encourage our community to reach out to your senators and your House representatives they've been working quite hard and putting a lot of bills out there um some of the things that we are trying to um advocate for are the education funding bill which talks about our teachers pay um and the calendar flexibility that helps us align with our dual enrollment especially for our high schools um flexibility in spending and the cell phone bills today if you were able to see during our work session we tal we got we met with our lobbyists and they were able to give us an update on some of that so the only thing I would ask is that while they're all getting busy to open up that discussion that everybody reach out to their legislators and um express their thoughts and help us advocate for our children thank you thank you we'll come around the table to Miss Gordon good evening um I will also be brief um I just wanted to uh send a shout out uh to Wilburn Elementary for inviting me well thank you for inviting me for ReadAcross America Week um I got to visit two third grade classrooms Miss Stewart's third grade class and Miss Hash's third grade class um and I got to read to them but my favorite part was actually after I read to them I asked the students um for their perspective on what they wanted to let the school board know um their answers were very surprising and very honest um but I will say that they are they are quite the advocates those third graders um I also wanted to um speak to North Garner's first track meet of the season um I got to attend um and I really want to speak to the incredible power of community displayed at that at that track meet um there were two sisters Maya and Mackenzie Wallace and their mom knows that I am lifting their names here at the board tonight um Maya got a little tired on her last leg of her race and her sister um even though she was not competing in that part she ran alongside her and was encouraging her um even after that the entire track team started to cheer her on and that spoke volumes to me um it it touched me because it reminded me of how much um the board is you know sometimes we can get with all the things coming at us um we can get tired sometimes and we need the community to really run alongside us and support us um and so I really wanted to wanted to lift um Maya and McKenzie Wallace and the whole North Garner track team um up at our board meeting this evening thank you thank you Mr hershey thank you um first want to just say that reminder that we have a BAC meeting at Sanderson High School on March 24th which is this Monday at 5:30 the budget will be the topic um I encourage all uh members of the public to swing on by PTAs especially along with our board advisory representatives um want to lift up uh the early feedback we in this um I'm really proud of this board for supporting the um share pilot uh program which is collecting food that uh can be re um handed back out if we're following all the safety procedures everything's going great a couple examples of the su early success um which is the intended purpose but also highlights how desperately we need to make reforms as a country as far as feeding our our kids uh at Lincoln Heights on Friday 50 bananas were uh collected donated during breakfast of those bananas 44 uh were taken during lunch which is fantastic that's the purpose we're reducing food waste and feeding our kids um at Davis Drive 43 bags of apple slices were donated i'm sorry 49 were donated 43 were taken by other students during the lunch line and there are other examples of that um we're having we have eight schools in total I believe that are doing the pilot program we'll continue to get feedback if you have the opportunity to make it uh to any of the schools as they launch they're almost done they only have a few left but um just a a good positive uplifting start and of course we'll see if it has s sustained success um last uh during our work session we uh good good topic talking about the track meet we had a athletic presentation and I just wanted to thank all the coaches the parents the volunteers everyone who stays late um the custodial staff who cleans up after there's a tremendous amount that goes into our athletics that um a lot of people show up on Friday night and see the game and they don't see everything that maybe goes into it and uh just great appreciation for oh I better say the officials too and uh of course our our um our boss and or our leader and all that uh Mr darren Co who has done an excellent job of um while he's been at in a Wake County the county ad uh and he was at Wake Forest when I was there so I've known him for a while and he's just done a tremendous job and um hopefully in the future when our budget is has a little bit more flexibility we will be able to provide a bit more support to him and on that note with the budget I just want to state that as people have and as speakers did tonight that out of 115 public school uh districts we are 114th in funding from the state if we went up $500 per pupil which would still leave us pretty low that's uh about $80 million and that would alleviate a lot of pressure on the local budget um if we ever got anywhere near the national average oh boy uh that would that really takes a lot of pressure off our county commissioners allows us to do more allows us to have schools staffed as the way um you know the superintendent and his team would like to have them staff which is really what we're we're trying to execute up here and that ends my comments thank you thank you Mr hershey dr ray good evening um first um I want to um just um say thank you to Baywick Elementary uh we had our district 3 BAC uh meeting last month um and appreciate uh principal Greg and the PTA for hosting the meeting and making us feel welcome um I also like to thank Dr crane for facilitating facilitating a lively discussion on our plans for a cell phone policy in our schools um we did receive a lot of feedback from both parents and staff and uh some useful insights and ideas on ways that we can best help our children to stay off the phone and be focused on learning uh while they're at school um I was uh quite ill um at our last uh meeting and I was unable to be at the last board meeting and it appears that other people were similarly um absent um but I was able to watch it on the YouTube channel um I I tried to see it from the standpoint of the public um watching the meeting and not knowing the background behind some of the discussions that took place um so first there was a discussion on naming of the school in Windendell um and as an observer I came away kind of puzzled by the whole thing um because I mean there was already an established process for the board to name a school but because the board couldn't decide the the comm the community was presented with several options but as it turns out the options were incorrectly presented so we had to do it all over again with the right name list of names so the final survey result was Lizard Lake Elementary uh but then the motion was to name it Marshburn Road Elementary so you know as an observer I thought why did we bring this question to the community in the first place um and as Miss Rice had commented the intent of the survey was never to give the complete power to the community to name it but instead it was to gather a um a useful p piece of information uh Miss Rice also mentioned that there was other information that was brought to the board's attention but um that was never um actually publicly stated um it would have been good to know what that piece of information was um Miss Cfield did make an effort to petition on behalf of that community which wanted to honor their community's history um after closing discussion um the board just moved on to the next agenda item um and it appeared that everyone was glad that it was over um except for Miss Caulfield there was no sincere acknowledgement of the efforts by the community to honor its history even if the board was not going to take up the community's preference it would have been nice to let the community know that their voice was heard instead the tone was "Yeah we heard you but it's not customary for us to do this let's move on." Does the board truly embrace the idea of community engagement or is it just a bunch of platitudes or does the board pick and choose which voices that they want to hear from after that I saw the board me I I saw that the um Miss Caulfield made a motion to present a letter from the board to Attorney Jackson uh General Jackson to urge him to take action against P school and to bring attention to the issue of data breach that would potentially expose our personal data to identity thieves and I was truly surprised again as an observer to see that no one not one board member seconded the motion which caused the motion to die but more importantly it did not allow any discussion as to what people thought about the issue what are the pros and cons of legal actions if any is it enough just to investigate what is power school's responsibilities when it comes to security breach what about the school systems responsibilities what precautions should the citizens take to protect themselves all these questions were left unanswered because the motion was never seconded and it was left to die this is an issue that everyone that is affects everyone on both sides of the political spectrum and having our attorney general know that the largest school system in North Carolina has something to say about it was important instead the board chose to remain silent on the issue we als we also um talk about education being nonpartisan but in in this case it appears that the action or inaction of the board was entirely partisan is it so hard to let the conservative on the board take the lead on a proposal or perhaps you just don't want Miss Caulfield to get the credit for it in fact Miss Cfield has actually done the work to lay the groundwork to talk to several Republicans on the general assembly to petition for better education funding and as you recall she was the one asking for all of us to sign onto a letter to the general assembly advocating for $50,000 starting pay for teachers many of you signed it but some of you did not it is nice to know that there is actually a bill now proposed by a Republican Representative Erin Pereé to raise the starting teach to $50,000 yes you may not agree with Miss Coughfield's political views or mine for that matter but at least you should give her the respect uh and take her efforts seriously despite what we may hear in public comments there are big supporters of public education in the general assembly on both sides of the aisle whether people like it or not the Republicans in the general assembly hold the purse strings for education and we need board members like Miss Cfield who have the ability to reach the hearts and minds of those in leadership on Jones Street so we have to face reality that we are not nonpartisan we are bipartisan and we need to we need each other to weather the storms that we are facing right now thank you Miss Edmonds it's pretty short uh congratulations to the teacher of the year finalist um I'm sorry that I missed honoring you here last meeting but I definitely look forward to celebrating you at the teacher of the year banquet in May and thank you Dr taylor for recognizing Arts in the Schools Month i'm going to eliminate that part of my comments a couple of things to share from Wake County Public Libraries um first they have lots of programming for adults and children spotlighting Women's History Month today is March 18th but you know so we're halfway through the month but there's still time to enjoy these free programs and you can find these programs at wake.gov search libraries wake public libraries are also having a bookmark design contest open to all ages four winners will be chosen those are divided into four different age groups and the winning bookmarks will be printed and available at all library um Wake County Public Libraries the submission deadline is March 31st so hopefully you've already know about this but if this is your first time hearing about it get busy um creating march 31st is that deadline and again you can go to wake.gov/summerreading for all the details about the bookmark contest lastly I want to thank everyone who came out tonight to speak in support of our trans students and to recognize trans day of visibility um trans day of visibility as you heard is March 31st followed by week of no silence from April 1st through April 4th this happens during um traditional calendar spring break but you can learn more at glisten.org that's glen.org there is no executive order or law or policy that will erase trans people's existence tonight we saw trans students parents family members and allies speak about their experience and I hope we all leave here with a resolve to stand with them and advocate not just for their rights but for their well-being for their safety and for their joy they deserve that just like any other human being so thank you to all those who spoke tonight especially our students you did a brave thing and I am honored to support you thank you thank you Miss Edmonds i'll conclude tonight again I want to thank Dr taylor and Miss Evans for both lifting up the arts funding particularly this month and the wonderful job we do in WCPSS trying to make arts available to all of our students countywide we've seen the countless benefits which I won't go into here um but especially at budget in budget season it's always good to remember hearing from the students the parents the staff and the faculty in the community how much Wake County as a community does support the arts and arts in our schools um I will also wanted to report you've heard oftentimes from some students coming to advocate for several environmental advocacy positions um I wanted to thank Mark Strickland who joined me at Panther Creek High School last week to meet with the students talk to them about what it was that they wanted to do and and wanted us to do as a school board and then answer questions about what we can do what we can't do and how we might get to some closer to the goals that they were seeking and it was a wonderful conversation uh I know Mr strickland back there was was going uh we we stayed late into overtime but I appreciate that dedication um coming out and listening to our students and engaging them on these important issues they're showing up to our meetings taking time out of their day to do it and I thought just as a courtesy out of respect we we should go and meet with them at at a location convenient to them u Miss Rice was unable to join us but I hope that she's watching and she hears because I want to lift up one of her schools today we had the wonderful opportunity to be hosted by Principal Dorsy at the amazing Hajj Road Spanish Dual Immersion Magnet School and while it's always great to get in Superintendent Taylor was with us it's always great to go and visit our schools we also had the honor of hosting Congresswoman Deborah Ross and Representative Ross took the time to meet not just with staff and students but also families who were visiting the school that day so that we could talk about important programs like prek like title one we talked about special education funding especially through IDA we talked about our magnet programs and we talked about C you know our our community engagement pro or our community eligibility program i'm going to get these acronyms right and how wonderful is it that that was one of the schools benefiting where we could offer universal meals all of those things were especially relevant you all around the table know why because those are all programs that receive important federal funding and I've talked and talked and I'll continue to talk about the 20,000 Wake County public school students that receive special education funding through IDA and the federal government and over the the more than 30,000 sorry $30 million we receive in Title One funding and these are programs that we continue to hear about being potentially moved relocated or eliminated by the federal government title One in particular if you look at some of the advocacy that's taking place at the very best they're talking about phasing it out and in some cases there's talk about well we might provide it as a block grant eventually but what what will happen in the interim being able like Representative Ross did to go to the school to visit the school to talk to the students talk to the parents talk to the staff and see how these programs are working and benefit our families is I think incredibly important and responsible and I invite other members of our congressional delegation who are so interested to come out and visit some of these schools and do their again do their own research do their own investigation and I hope they too will see the benefits that these important federal programs provide to all of our students now Panther Creek High School is one of our largest schools and it serves some of our most affluent families hodgej Road is a smaller school and serves some families that uh have there's a high percentage that qualify for free and reduced lunch at visits to both schools I was approached by staff to talk about important facilities and maintenance needs and even with all of the other program cuts that we're facing and important issues that we see issues that tend to be more hot buttons that tend to generate more people coming out to speak on public comment these were the issues that the staff and in some cases the students came to us to talk about and so we know we have some very hard decisions to make as we go through our proposed budget documents and I know all of you and you've all told me individually and you've you know that that you are going to do your best your due diligence and really come up with the best proposal for Wake County schools and our students and our staff and our the families we serve we might not all come at it from the same perspective but it is important that our budget reflect our priorities and that we do address important issues that are facing our children our children's learning environment and our teachers working environments so again I want to thank you for your dedication and your promise and commitment to go through this very carefully and to work with our you work work with our budget committee and with each other to come up with the best possible budget the last thing I just want to say is that you know as contentious as adults get sometimes you know we have to remember especially in nights like tonight that our trans students our trans children are children first and foremost and it is our duty and our obligation to educate all children in our schools and protect all of our children from bullying and harassment and I'll end with that so at this time that'll conclude our board comments and I'll entertain any motions mr chair I move that we go into close session to address the issues that are on our agenda thank you Vice Chair Swanson i had them all printed out for you too and I forgot to give it to you so that's on me uh we have a motion from Vice Chair Swanson to move into close session a second from Mr hershey all in favor of moving to close session please say I any opposed all right we'll now move into close session thank you very much