[Music] for e [Music] [Music] e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e Mr Godfrey would you lead us in prayer please certainly well everybody join me in prayer if you will father God I thank you for privilege of being here tonight dear Lord I pray father in this new year that Lord we would come a long way and go a long way dear Lord in this board and with everybody in this room working together dear Lord and father that we would put P political Ambitions away and not think about them Lord but to think about what the people of haret County have elected us to do and that's to make the Harnet County Schools the best schools in the state of North Carolina I pray that we would work together dear Lord and we would do the things that need to be done and I pray blessings upon everybody here tonight keep us safe Lord and watch after us for these things we ask in Jesus's name amen amen amen Mr ha would you lead us send a pledge of allegiance pleaseed Ali to the FL United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all thank you you may be seated okay are there any uh adjustments to or amendments to the agenda Mr chairman I have several amendments to the agenda okay tonight um if we can amend item two and item three if we can flip those to make special presentations number two and close session for student appeal number three okay uh action item 13g uh contract with uh steart and Duke PC Attorney Services and 13h letter to the legislature from the Hart County Board of Education concerning teacher pay those would both be under action item action items g& 13 G 13h thank you are there other amendments appr the agenda Mr okay I have a motion is there a second second okay any discussion hearing none chairman votes I AB I gy I motion carries okay so we will now move into special presentations and uh we'll start with national board recognition and that would be Miss Thompson oh excuse just as a point of order yes sir Mr G was your motion to to adopt the agenda as amended yes okay thank you Mr G we good okay thank you okay Miss Thompson good evening board members and chairman pal it's an honor to be here tonight to recognize and highlight a significant achievement in the field of Education our Educators and they've earned the prestigious honor of national board certification as We Gather to celebrate these accomplishments is it is important to reflect on the process and the value of this certification as well as its impact on the teaching community and the students we serve the national board certification is a mark of excellence in teaching the certification is a prestigious rigorous comprehensive process requiring teachers to demonstrate their proficiency and content knowy pedagogy skills and their ability to engage with students in a way that Fosters learning and growth the process includes subm submission of an extensive teaching portfolio assessment and in-depth analysis of their teaching practices all reviewed by experts in their respective fields for educators who are committed to continuous Improvement and professional development achieving this certification represents a pinnacle of their career it requires dedication reflection unwaver and commitment to their students and craft the journey to national board certification is not easy but it's one that results in a profound impact tonight we're here to celebrate those who have successfully completed this process these teachers have gone above and be Beyond demonstrating their expertise and their passion for making a difference in the lives of their students their achievement reflects not only their personal dedication but to the quality of the teaching profession as a whole tonight we're proud to recognize 11 Educators from our district who have earned this distinction I would like to take a moment to personally thank each of the recipients for your hard work your perseverance and your commitment to shaping the future of students your efforts are truly deserving of this recognition and we're proud to have you to teach teach here in haret County I also want to take a moment to recognize the family members of these uh teachers if you'll raise your hand we're going to recognize the teachers in a minute but family members raise your hand please smile do something let's give them a round of applause of all their support we know that that's critical when they when your spouse or family member goes through this process so we appreciate your support and finally I want to recognize the principes who were here tonight to support these teachers principles stand raise your hand don't hide in the crowd thank you as well for your commitment to this process your encouragement as they work through this at this time I want to invite Miss Alicia Washington who is so proudly displaying her national board t-shirt Recruitment and Retention coordinator for the district as well as national board liaison for our district to recognize our newest national board certification recipients and review the qualifications for this um honor Miss Alice Denton from Human Resources will assist her and Mr Matthews will help in the presentation of the plot good evening chairman and members of the board as Miss Thompson stated this is an advanced teaching credential that goes beyond State ler and our district um is committed to supporting our Educators and achieving their professional goals particularly through the national board certification process so in order to qualify for national board certification candidates must have three years of successful teaching a bachelor's degree and a valid State teaching license so our district cohort meets twice a month to focus on key aspects of the certification process including analyzing the standards unpacking the components and mastering the art of reflection we provide opportunities for candidates to share best practices ask questions and receive constructive feedback on written components I just would like to say I have had um I've worked with most of the candidates this evening that is receiving national board certification and they have worked extensively like late hours even sometimes over the weekend you know we're having phone conversations making sure that you know they meeting the portfolio requirements and I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys I'm so glad GL you did not give up that you hung in there and you see you are a national board certified teacher awes so when I call your [Applause] [Music] name please come forward to receive your plag and letter and we'll receive a picture as well with okay all right our first name is Melinda alverado from Irwin Elementary School [Applause] Allison Deon from coats Elementary School [Applause] Gabriella Dio Overhills Elementary [Applause] School Alexander Lawrence from coats Elementary School [Applause] Morgan ler from Weston Hornet Middle [Applause] School Haley Nash Litton shown [Applause] Courtney onor from irn elementary [Applause] school stepanie Russell from Weston Hornet High School [Applause] Katherine Trumble from coats Elementary [Applause] School courney whitew from over here Elementary [Applause] School and Joanna Williamson from Co irn Middle School [Applause] congratulations well congratulations to all our recipients also to the principles and to the families but we know this is a tremendous amount of hard work it takes to earn this honor this is a great achievement so thank you very much for your hard work and what you're doing on behalf of our students here in Harnet County Schools thank you all right moving along to uh spe our second presentation a special presentation rather and that's the nccat buroughs welcome fund beginning teacher of the year and that is to Mr Scott Denton so once again Miss Thompson um we welcome tonight uh Dr Karen suner and she is the Deputy executive director of North Carolina advancement of teaching to recognize one of our our exceptional Educators Mr Scott Denton a dedicated and and passionate member of our teaching Community he's been named like you said one of the finalists for the beginning teacher of the year award uh Dr Su if you would come forward and introduce your colleagues as well I know you have some folks with you tonight thank you so helping me present this award to Mr Denton are is John Kirkman um the executive director of the North Carolina Association of Career and Technical education and Rick Stout who is a member of our Board of Trustees at incat so I appreciate them helping and would Scott Denton please come forward at this time on behalf of the North Carolina Center for the advancement of teaching it is my privilege to announce that Scott Dent Denton excuse me has been selected as a finalist for the incat 2025 burough welcome fund North Carolina beginning teacher of the year award this recognition highlights Mr Denton's exceptional contributions to the teaching profession and his remarkable impact on the students and Community here in Harnett County the beginning teacher of the year award was established to celebrate the creativity resilience and dedication of first year teachers across North Carolina each year more than 7,000 new Educators enter classrooms in the state and this award honors those who exemplify the best of the profession while addressing the unique challenges of beginning teachers at incat we are committed to advancing teaching as an art and a profession and we are thrilled to celebrate Mr Denton as a shining example of this Mission please join me in congratulating Scott Denton on this outstanding [Applause] achievement we are pleased to provide you with a certificate recognizing you as an incat 2025 Burrows welcome fund beginning teacher of the year finalist we also this is a fake one you'll get the real one soon um we would also like to present you with a check for $250 from Empower and if I can you guys to join Mr now this is this I'm looking for the final check yes you're going to get the real one I promise let me do one picture with the three certificate and then [Laughter] we'll all right may I trade in that one thank you con and Mr Denton will be joining us for a week of professional development in Greensboro March 24th through 28th and then we'll do next steps and we hope that as many of you as possible can attend our beginning teacher of the year recognition event on March 27th at University of North Carolina at greensboro's campus so thank you thank [Applause] you I will add that Mr Denton is on our billboard here at the bridge if you get to see him there's a large picture of him Rec for this honor again congratulations Mr Denton thank you very much and uh once again congratulations Mr Denton uh well deserved and a great honor congratulations moving along now to our 2023 24 financial and compliance audit uh Mr C thank you Mr chair coming up to present the uh Financial compliance audit report for 2324 is Josh perier Insurance director with Forest um who is the company who does our audit report um he kind of leads that team uh in the compliance and audit report for us so I'll turn it over to you Josh I'm always shocked to people that see audit report coming up on the agenda and they don't want to hang around and hear us talk about pretty usual um as they're getting our slide deck pulled up on the uh on the on the images I'll just Echo Andrew sentiment my name is Josh perier I'm an insurance director with forars again we're the CPA firm that conducts the financial statement and compliance audit um and we're here to present the results of those audits uh as of June 30th uh 2024 um we're presenting financials today that have been approved by the state Treasures Office and accepted by the federal audit Clearing House um the act for has also been submitted uh to the uh the gfoa and the asbo for financial reporting Awards um before we get into the material I do just want to quickly recognize Andrew and his team for all the work on the audit but more so for their service to the district um their team is wonderful to work with they they make our lives a lot easier than other districts and and and quite frankly the district's lucky to have Andrew so want want to mention him and appreciate him there um if we could move on down to the second slide which is the agenda so here's just a quick overview of the agenda that we'll cover um but we'll first start with a discussion of the audit results you can flip to the next slide please and one more there we go um so the purpose of a financial statement audit and and substantially all the work that goes into to that is to enable us as audits to issue an opinion on the financial statements so we here we've cuded an excerpt of our audit opinion this is considered a unmodified or effectively a clean opinion this is the opinion that users would like to receive and and gives the users reasonable assurance that the financial information is materially accurate uh our entire audit report can be found on page one of the AER next we'll move over to a review of the communications to the board um at the conclusion of the audit there's certain matters that we're required to communicate to the board included in your agenda is our full uh required Communications report here I'm just going to hit on a couple of high level highlights to that that that that's of more relevance to you all um first is the significant estimates we've identified are consistent with prior years being the useful lives of depreciable assets and the proportionate share of the net pension thank you net pension liability uh and the net OPB liability plans uh we also had no difficulties to report nor any uncorrected misstatements um and then also within the appendix to the report that's included in your agenda there's various representations that are made to US during the course of the audit about activities or transactions that occur those representations are generally pretty consistent year to year um again the full list is within that report if you'd like to review it but nothing of significant changer of note there um next we'll move on to the financial highlights um we like to cover these highlights in graphical form because as you can see on your report you got over a 100 pages of financial information you do have the full act for if anyone had a chance to review it ahead of time and has specific questions feel free to to bring those up as we're going through this but we'll kind of go go Slide by slide in some summarized financial data for you so the first slide here and a little small for you guys to see obviously is um showing governmental revenues for the past three years so we'll break this down on the left hand side you'll see 2024 23 and 22 in the green bar that is State revenues so obviously as you can see State revenues are the largest revenue source for the board this funding increased 7 million compared to the P prior year related to increases in the state public school fund program um County and other funding which is represented by the gry bar uh remain relatively consistent as compared to the prior year um slight decrease of 38 85,000 um local County Appropriations which has included this in the general fund increased by 2 million compared to the prior year again if anyone has questions feel free to stop me as I'm going um Federal funding which is shown in the blue bar there um decreased slightly compared to the prior year it's pretty consistent one thing I like to make sure we mentioned you can't see the total there but the total of that blue bar is $43.6 million of Revenue of that 43.6 million 265 is related to Esser education stabilization funds everyone's been talking about it for years that this is sun setting away you haven't really seen the effect of it yet you guys probably had discussions and seen the effect of it this year as you're talking because we're in we're historical data but always like to mention that before we move on any any questions on on these Revenue slides I just want Mr pre but you're saying that uh approximately 26 million of that 43 came from eser will that hold true for 23 and for 22 school years yes yes you're you're seeing a I I don't have the numbers in front of me but you're substantially consistent amount of Sesser maybe a little bit higher Andrew could feel free to chime in on me if you if I'm wrong there but yeah I mean you're going to see a big what you don't have is is the 2020 and 21 data where you would have seen a big dip so next year you're going to see a dip and you're going to really see this fall off pretty heavily yes sir thank you sure this next slide covers expenditures and really it's it's essentially A visual representation of where your monies are being spent each year um so you'll notice that the board spent around 73% on instructional services with the remaining 27% being spent on other operational services this breakdown between instructional and other is based on the mcpi chart of accounts we seeing a slight dip in instructional this year it's really driven by eser spending on items that were classified as Operational Support like Capital outlay funds so you're seeing a little bit of dip nothing overly significant you're above what we typically like to see is above a 70% Threshold at some of our higher performing districts which obviously you're there absent if you pull out I did pull out the Esser items just to see if you pull out Esser in comparative years your instructional spends pretty consistent year-over year any questions there before we move on to fund balance which is everyone's favorite one more question as far as this graph goes uh you know past couple of years uh we build a new school at Northwest Harnet 30 m school or more uh we also build a large addition to Dun Elementary and new Wing is in addition to uh pretty much complete overhaul at Johnsonville not to mention many other construction projects we've undertaken uh could that possibly help Spike that as well 72% is some of we we pull out as much Capital outlay as we can that's exclusively presented in fund four but you're still yes you're still going to see some fluctuation there yes sir thank you sure all right so this next slide details fund balance for the prior three years for the general and restricted revenues fund so I'm going to kind of break this down uh bar by bar so the green bar in the graph represents total fund balance across those two funds which would be your fund two or fund eight refer to otherwise um total fund balance in these funds increase by 3.1 million when compared to the prior year if you split that out in between your general and restricted Revenue general fund increased by 600,000 and restricted revenues fund increase by 2.5 million if you slide one over over the gray bar bar represents the portion of total fund balance which is considered available for appropriation so that's effectively total fund balance less any items which are considered nonspendable which is inventories or any items that are restricted by the state which would be any revenues your fund balance available for appropriation increased 2.3 million which is effectively consistent with your increase in total fund balance and then lastly is the bar you you see talked about a lot is your unassigned fund balance and the general f f um unassigned fund balance increased slightly by 71,000 when compared to the prior Year I'll flip one slide cuz this also talks about fund balance but in a little bit of a different way so this shows fund balance as a percentage of operating expenditures um you're seeing an uptick which is effectively consistent with the uptick you saw on the prior slide but to make fund balance overly simplistic we view fund balance is effectively your accumulated savings account I mean that's what it is in in different terms and so what we like to do is convert this into into operating days as a metric to see what your how long you could operate for um when converted into days total fund balance represents approximately 25 days of operating expenditures and unassigned represents approximately seven days for any new members that probably feels really low I'm sure for Andrew that feels really low that's not inconsistent with any other District across the state um La North Carolina elas operate on a very very small fund balance um and it should be noted that there's no State mandated thresholds for fund balance at the Lea level pause there because typically we always get a fund balance question so okay setting a record here that's fine with me all right we'll flip over to the compliance audit U so in connection with our audit we're also required to assess internal controls and compliance um this is where we evaluate internal controls specific to financial reporting that's what this yellow book report is in compliance with laws and regulations thankfully not much to talk about there's no findings that we have to report as it relates to Yellow Book uh internal control matters and then next we will flip to federal and state programs so we conduct a compliance audit over federal and state programs which are deemed to be major um programs selected for audit vary year-over years based on total spending amounts how recently they were audited and some other other factors um but we noted two Federal major programs that's required to be AED that was tital one in the education stabilization fund otherwise known as Esser also had no reportable findings as a result of our testing in those programs and then lastly we had three state major programs that are required to be audited you can see those listed here we also had no findings um and I'll just mention again that the as a testament to Andrew and his team having no findings is not it's not uncommon but it's definitely not common across the state there's many audits that that we have where we have a Litany of items to discuss on this list so just again a testament to your to your team and the and the guidance that Andrew delivers otherwise that that concludes my presentation I'll open it up to the board for any questions other questions for Mr prier okay well thank you very much thank you so much thank you Mr perier and also thank you to Mr Cox and your staff for your hard work absolutely it yes sir thank you at this time I'll entertain a motion Mr chairman I move that we go into close session pursuant a general statute 143 31811 A1 to prevent the disclosure of confidential Student Records under gs15 c42 have a motion do I have a second have a motion and a second Is there further discussion hearing none the chairman votes I Abate I gy I motion car we're now in Clos session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e following a motion and a second we're now back into Open Session and item number four public comments and we had no one sign up for that so we'll move along to number item number five uh superintendent update and Mr Matthews thank you chairman pal members of the board um just wanted to Hope say I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year I know it was much needed uh time for rest and recharging for sorry much needed time for rest and recharging for our our teachers and staff U we are back and started on second semester uh Mr har and I had the opportunity today to attend the school board's Association new member board training in Raley and plan to attend the second session tomorrow uh I will also be attending the superintendent's executive leadership program is part of of the North Carolina school superintendent Association support for new superintendent in Greensboro on Wednesday and Thursday so this week is quite full uh Miss Tammy Johnson's already uh notified you but I wanted to recognize Miss Sharon gainy who will be the Grand Marshal for the haret County's Martin Luther King Day parade on Monday uh congratulations Miss gy we appreciate you representing Us in that uh also miss gy has a birthday coming up on the 28th so happy birthday Miss G thank you big uh big big month for you uh and finally with January being uh designated as school board appreciation month Miss Johnson also has a small appreciation uh gift for you uh over here behind your chair against the wall uh to thank you for your service to our district students and stakeholders uh and thank you for all that you do uh Mr chairman unless you have some specific questions for me that's all I have this evening other additional questions from Mr Matthews just thank you all thank you Mr Matthews thank you and congratulations Miss gainy and happy birthday thank you sir thank you all right moving along to our next item is auxiliary services and that's Mr Pearson chairman P members of the board just a couple of brief updates for you um we were notified shortly before Christmas break that we did receive uh State funding for SRO Grant which will continue to cover five elementary school SRO positions is something we had had in the past and had to reapply and did get that continued funding so um certainly helps that to for us to be able to staff SRO at every school uh we are waiting on additional Grant notice uh for some safety equipment which would allow us to upgrade um some radio some Access Control some other security layers um if if that Grant does come through so hopefully we'll hear about that soon um beginning in the end of January and carrying through February I'll begin holding safety meetings with each principal at their campus we'll kind of review annually some of the plans update some of the online things that we have to do for the state to stay in compliance and also do some walkthroughs of their buildings to kind of talk about some additional layers of safety that they may want to uh want to see um from the custodial front uh Mr mcdal wanted me to share that he has seen a very positive increase in applicants recently interviewed about seven folks last week has some additional folks lined up and the applicant pool is um much much more stock than he has seen it recently so that was positive news that he definitely wanted to share and then on the athletic front uh the High School Athletic Association has released preliminary uh conferences this is draft number one of new conference alignment which will take effect for the next four years it does look like Triton Western Harnet Harnet Central will probably remain in the same conference together Overhills will likely be in a different conference just based on size now there's eight classifications instead of four so Overhills is going to be a couple of steps up from the other schools but we do do think that three of the 400 County Schools land in the same conference which helps to continue some natural rivalries and and helps reduce travel so we should get an additional draft number two here in a few weeks and then a final draft uh should be set in February that's all the updates I have unless you have any questions for me other questions for Mr Pearson one that I have regarding the new conference is uh do they look as far as like our travel standpoint natural rivalry as you mentioned they look pretty good as far as that's concerned is there something we may need to take a look at as far as appealing and your so it does look pretty good for our uh what's going to be 6A schools what we would used to have known as 3A Triton Western har and um harness Central they looked first draft had them plus southernly Lee County in Union Pines so pretty good conference there Overhills was a a gauntlet Richmond Pernell sweat um Lumberton so uh over Hills is is putting in an appeal it starts there at the school level with them trying to appeal to look at a different option um I think what we're waiting on is they've got to decide as a state are they more concerned about travel or more concerned about the same size schools in a conference and so if they want to pull back on the Trav a little bit then Overhills May would would come back uh this way but they definitely have a tough draw right now okay yeah those are pretty long distance going to Rockingham and laurenburg those places that's pretty big conference uh based on the drafts of like the initial drafts of the conferences is there like a a more local one like perhaps some of the larger faial schools we possibly could move into or and I think that's what they're looking to um you know so ideally you could take Pine Forest and Overhills which are currently in a conference together and try to group a few of those together um so that's that's kind of what their proposal or even coming back into a split conference where it's multiple size schools um so yeah that that uh I said you right now they submit their feedback then D next draft comes out we see if we need to submit it again appeals process will carry out all the way through about March and so um I'll I'll Advocate on their behalf as well to make sure they try to get the best we presly in a split 3a4 with a Harnet and Fa schools primary correct that be uh 7A yeah they're going they're going all the way to 8 a Overhills is just on the cusp of being 8 a so they they be 7A yeah so going to take some adjustment because all our life has been 1 a through 4 a so it's going to be some adjustment 88 okay thank you very much yes sir okay moving along now to curriculum and instruction and Miss Ferguson uh good evening chairman pal and members of the board December was a busy month as you know we had our EOC testing in all of our high schools that went very well our testing Department did a great job and our schools did a great job our school testing coordinators um right now we're in the middle of oury assess assments they're taking place with mclass I ready and NC check-ins so all of our schools um K through 8 are busy with M middle of the Year assessments I shared with you a new diploma endorsement in um December about the Fine Arts there's another uh diploma endorsement it's the citizenship proficiency endorsement it was added in January um December it's been coming along but they finalized it we had to have it ready for our early graduates to offer it to them which we did um but the students must pass a Civics test developed by the north CL Department of Public Instruction and the test will include questions from the US citizenship and immigration service is their naturalization question test pool so how that um endorsement is set up we have a link that takes us to those 100 questions we are to develop a 10 question test from that the test is given orally they are to write their answers it's not a multiple choice test it's a open-ended response we surveyed our Civics teachers of the 100 questions and had them rank up rank them we came up with 10 questions we did offer it to our early graduates to um earn that endorsement they're not required to but we did have some who took advantage of it and we had a couple who passed it you must get um six out of 10 correct to get the endorsement the math counts competition was held on December the 6th for our middle schools Harnet Central Middle School was the winner with Highland coming in second um we continue to have our monthly plc's each month this includes different groups our coaches our El teachers our EC teachers and we offer um after school uh plc's for our sixth Through eth Math and ELA teachers each month as well coming back in January we hit the ground running with PD on January 6 we had co- co- teing PD we had a high school math PD Elementary and uh middle school science professional development we will offer High school science PD this Friday we have partnered with the science house out of NC State to provide the science PD it aligns with our new standards and then of course solution tree for the math PD and we received feedback on that and it was overwhelmingly positive the only um suggestion we received and we understand that the calendar keeps us pretty tight on our days is please don't have PD you know that quick after coming from a break or the change of the semester but as you know we have very few days in our calendar to pick from um the topic for the math PD was unpacking the standards and student engagement it was well received and it was for our math one math two and math three teachers our elementary um and middle school math coaches held PD for our elementary and middle school teachers on fluency and it was another one that was well received so we were pleased with the PD this month we are going to offer a local AIG endorsement so that our teachers will have the opportunity to add I AIG to their ler we are working with Dr Chris Godwin from Campbell University to provide this opportunity to our teachers in our first cohort we have 35 teachers who have signed up to work towards AIG ler and this is um really exciting for us as you know at the turnover we have um a lower number of teachers who are AIG licensed so this is a positive we welcomed our new K5 mtss coordinator Dr Amy madley we know that she'll do a a great job and continue the work of our previous coordinator who retired in December the cni team has held our monthly instructional Focus days to our principles for our instructional coaches and our assistant principles in all schools walkthroughs continue I just want to update you from the state level there's many changes in the cni world as I share with you we have new science standards this year we have to work on the alignment of Honor level courses because of uh the storms in the western part of the State they have extended that through December of 2025 but that'll be a lot of work on our teachers and our schools and our district people to audit every um honors course and make sure it meets the rigor standards and that they're aligned we have new standard course of study for World languages we also will have new standards for K through 12 Arts music visual arts dance and drama for the 25 26 school year and they're now working on Ela standards so for those of you who are familiar with the way this roll out is they usually stagger those that because of Co they've sort of played catchup so we are hitting a lot of new standards that we have to roll out to our teachers K12 all at one time uh that's a lot of PD a lot of resources a lot of training um it's just a lot of work on the district level but most importantly it's going to be another task to put on principes and teachers um learning these standards and rolling them out we have a plan in place but just want you to be aware that all of this is happening at one time state is sort of playing catchup the upcoming events we have our science fair January 30th in the star gym it begins at 6 and the awards at begin at 6:30 so we invite you out to that I gave you some preliminary data at your seats I won't go into detail with you um but I did want to share the first one is our our EOC scores and I've shown you the scores for the fall of 2023 and um this the black and white one and the fall of 20124 now we really can't compare these because these are different cohorts of students but we can we do look for TR if we're moving in the right direction um we want to look for our proficiency to increase across the board so that's what we're looking for and we do see that in many areas the schools can use this to look at projections in proficiency the State warns us about we can't look for student growth that's not what the projection does but this is the data that we have um and also you have to be aware that there could be um the groups testing for example if you were to look at Western Harnet high school if you look at their fall math one for 2023 and their fall of 2024 you might say oh my goodness that's a huge decrease no that year they still had a year-long foundations of math one that most students were in and the only only group that tested in the fall of 2023 was one honors class so that kind of information is needed when you look at it and then I also wanted to share the NC check-ins with you as I share with you the purpose of NC check-ins is to drive instruction is what the teachers are to use to decide which students may need help which standards may need to be taught again which standards they have not taught but you can we do use it to analyze and look at trends for example if you look at the green Row for third grade math when we look at our third grade math from the year before these are two different groups of students but what we can see is a positive trend of proficiency increasing from the year before and that's definitely what we want now if you take the third grade math 2023 24 and compare it to the fourth grade math in blue that could possibly be the very same group of children for in most cases so you can see a positive blue Trend and looking for growth in those children um with our fifth grade you could look at fourth grade from the year before and I did the same thing at 6th through 8th again we don't compare this data the state um uh sort of ask us not to do that for us to use it to drive instruction we do share it with all the schools because they like to look at it and um have conversations so I wanted to share it with you as well to let you know that we are monitoring D data and student progress and those are my updates for tonight are questions from Miss fergerson Grace look good M fer thank you sir I just want to thank the schools and the principles for the hard work that they're doing we know this year we rolled out our um pacing guides and common formative assessments and it's been a huge adjustment we've received feedback on those because we believe that teacher feedback is is important um we believe in teacher autonomy so we'll work this summer to make a needed and suggested adjustments but we do believe like this is really helpful for our new teachers coming in and even our Master Teachers with the quickly changing standards one other question I had was the just to repeat the science fair was at 6:00 on the 30d January 30th Overhills Elementary or star gy star gy not mistake and the award start at 6:30 okay let me change that star gy okay gotcha okay okay thank you very much thank you okay next up we have human resources and Miss Thompson good evening chairman pal and members of the board uh some quick updates from HR we have um 26 base openings classroom openings but some of those are not actually vacant at the time some of those are there's still people in positions that are showing vacancies I just want to be clear about that we just have some of those 19 EC and 34 classified we're a little bit ahead in some areas that we were the previous years our fully hired sites are star in the har County early college uh we want to celebrate uh some accomplishments of our principles tonight so um just so you know that we completed two rounds of comprehensive our schools have completed two rounds of comprehensive evaluations or observations and and so that's a total of 2,130 observations that should be completed by this time and schools have completed 1,990 of those and so we have a 93% um completion rate almost 94% and I want to share with you we have some sites that have done outstandingly well um 90 to 99% are Anderson Creek Andre Coast Elementary done Elementary dun middle Irwin Harnet Central High School um Highland Elementary North Harnet Overhill Elementary Overhills middle and Triton High School and schools that had 100% are U Ben Haven Boon Trail coat IR ele coach Irwin middle um the harn county Early College har Central Middle School Highland Middle School Johnsonville Lafayette lingon sha toown Northwest Hornet and star so those schools deserve a real pat on the back we've made great strides there and we're really proud of the work the principles have done to stay up with that and at the end of the day what that really means for us and we uh it's been important to Mr Matthews as we've gone through this process is that teachers are getting timely feedback on their practice so that's the bigger accomplishment there on with some other just general updates um i' I've mentioned before but we are deep into the work with EPI and participate on working on um coming up with a hiring pool for the next school year one thing that we will do we have sites in our Equity plan that are identified as having a higher number of in experienced teachers and so we always give that group of schools a head on hiring from that um that teacher pool of international teachers so we're working on that diligently we're providing professional development opportunities for those International staff we've customized their needs at both secondary and Elementary levels and our next PD sessions are scheduled for February the uh first Middle School and High School sessions will focus on classroom management and the elementary will cover small group instruction uh we are just about at 85% with our safe schools training so we hope we can get that finished up here in the next few weeks we have 10 classified employees scheduled to Complete bus driver training by March 6th since July 1 2024 we've had 24 classified employees complete training and obtain their bus license but we've had 19 drivers to resign or retire so we're just kind of slightly keeping our head above the the uh the number of retirees but I do want to say that I want to commend our schools and our principles and uh and assistant principles this is hard work you know we started this work with bus drivers a a few years ago and I think our diligence here has uh you know everyone knows that if you work in Harnet County it's a dual employment uh County and that's very important in in the community I was at a public place recently and I heard them discussing bus issues at others counties and someone said but you know in harn County you do have to drive the bus and I think that has been hard it's been a hard stance to take but I think our students have benefited from that and I'm happy to say we're able to get them to school we've made great strides over the last few years so that work has been great from our transportation department our next bus class is scheduled for January 27th to the 31st at Gentry we have 50 employees in the class and uh the employees will work to complete this training process through the remainder of the school year so we hope to have one more class excuse me in May the R&R teams will host a v a virtual information um session for alternative licensed teachers who are eligible for the North Carolina teaching fellows on 1:30 we will work with those in that group meeting as well as in their individual lier meetings in the next few weeks and we plan to send out intent forms next week we have other uh that session on the uh the teaching fellows is January 30th at 3:30 and we plan to host a Pearson um prep session for our alternative license teachers and we're continuing to work with our national board cohort and our Mentor cohort uh over the next few weeks that's all I have unless you have questions for me are there questions from Miss Thompson okay thank you Miss Thompson next we have student services update and Mr White chairman Powell and members of the board inside of your board package you will find the Star Academy report and the district release reassignment report two updates from student services the first winter graduation Harnet County Schools hosted our first midyear graduation ceremony on Thursday January the 9th 2025 at Triton High School over 80 students from Triton Harnet Central High School over Hills High School Western Harnet High School the Harnet Virtual Academy and Star Academy graduated that evening a special thanks to principal Marshall Jones and his staff for hosting this event and Mrs Anne finel for her outstanding work in putting the ceremony together so it was a great time uh we were actually almost at capacity there at Triton and so if the numbers keep growing it's our hope that maybe we can kind of nudge Campbell a little bit to do um a winter graduation at Campbell uh next year um a quick update regarding our Yonder pouches in our last meeting we discussed the distribution of Yonder pouches at Western Hornet high school ohland middle school and star acad letters were sent home to parents on January the 7th and the schools will begin their process of implementation during the first week in February um just some quick updates and and things that we're hearing regarding these pouches for clarification purposes uh for the public and and and as well as our schools Yonder does have pouches for students with documented medical conditions where a device can be accessed immediately if needed and so there is a pouch that is designed for students who have documented medical conditions that they can carry and if they have something that they need to utilize a device for they can get into that device fairly quickly um and so we have cleared that with the um organization and they will provide us those types of pouches for those students if a student does not have a cell phone we're putting a process in place to make sure that those students are documented accordingly so if a parent talks to us and says hey my child doesn't have a cell phone doesn't have access to it what we've asked the schools to do um is to document those students as we go through the pilot just so we can make sure um that we're tracking those um as we should um and then not charge a parent for a pouch that doesn't need to be charged for a pouch in case something gets lost or whatever um and then the third thing uh for our principles they've been asked to continue to communicate with parents regarding what will happen in the case of an emergency I think that's been the number one thing for a lot of our parents is how we're going to respond in case of an emergency while we don't while we hope we don't have one um I've asked the principles to continue to reiterate our policies uh to kind of put our parents at ease um regarding uh their child their them being communicated to in the case something does happen at the school um and so we're working through those things um we're still in the phase um of talking to staff and and making sure everybody's on one Accord with those they actually tried to deliver those devices over the holidays but nobody was at the school so they kind of sent them back so they're sending them back to us and we should um have them in our possession um now to to be able to go through our process to get ready for uh the first week in February implementation um other than that this concludes my student Support Services report for the evening unless there are any questions go ahead Mr W I just want to say thank you for your hard work and um everyone's hard work for the graduation we had it was it was a great night so thank you very much yes sir absolutely are there other questions from Mr White thank you Mr White okay moving along we have our um Financial Services report Mr Cox thank you Mr chair board members before I get started in the update I do want to thank the finance team for the work this past year to allow us to have a clean audit um as you heard that Mr perier presented to you earlier this evening so thank you uh to the finance staff for that here are a few things that we have going on in finance for the month of January um as you know uh it's time for W2s to go out so our team's working on that um for our employees preparing those and get those ready to send out our goal is to have those out no later than January 24th same thing for 1099s for our contract vendors our goal is to have those out by the 27th um our payroll team is working hard to get uh 2025 IRS tax tables load into the system for our January payroll processing um we're also validating um the Affordable Care Act reporting so our 1095 forms have to go out to employees U get sent out on time as well I'll also make a note there that President Biden signed a bill uh just before Christmas that no longer requireed these forms to be mailed out to employees to all employees but rather makes it we have to make them available to the employees upon request but um the state health plan or the folks who work on our ACA this year said we still need to go forward with sending them all out um for this year I'll just make a note that that process and sending all those out is a roughly cost of about $330,000 that we send on sending those 1095 forms out um and then there a few other end of year process that work along that goes along with taxes and IRS requirements uh there are several different bonuses uh that are to be paid in January um they're based on scores uh primarily on scores from the 2023 2024 school year one of those is third grade reading bonus um components are different um but the first one is have teachers that are top 25% in the state and top 25% local scores and we have nine of those which will receive a bonus of $675 and then we have seven who are top 25 for local scores which receive a bonus of $3,500 um another bonus is the fourth and fifth grade reading bonus itself uh top 25% State and top 25% local together is 17 receive a bonus of $4,000 and then um we have 10 who are top 25% local only receive a bonus of $2,000 another bonus is the fourth through e8th grade math for those teachers that qualifi for the top 25% state and local there are 34 of those in the district that's a $4,000 bonus we had three that were top 25% state only which is 2,000 and we had nine that were top 25% local only for another 2,000 bonus uh for them for AP exams uh those who had students who took AP exams they get $50 per score over three or three or above we have 32 teachers receiving a bonus for that and those bonuses range from $250 to $3,500 for CTE credentials depending on how the state ranks that credential it's either $25 or credential or $50 or credential um we have 20 folks 20 CTE teachers receiving the bonus and they range from $75 to $3,500 as well um so those are the bonuses that we have coming up uh something that impacts you as the board recently received notification that changes in legislation now make it allowable for board members to contribute to the state 401K program if you choose to um so wanted to let you know that um and if anybody has any interest in that you certainly reach out to me and we can talk further uh about that if you have any desire for that and that concludes my report unless you have any questions for me are the questions from Mr Cox I'd like to give a personal thank you Mr Cox to you and your staff for the tremendous work you've done thank you so much and pass it on to your employees well thank you thank you thank you very much thank you uh quick question the transition from Blue Cross to Etna um has that been okay from what you understand we haven't heard any issues um with the transition at this point okay still early right it is okay thank you Mr CS okay we have no discussion items so moved along to number 12 consent agenda items I'll Ain a motion like a motion we consent Mr have a motion do have a second second have a motion and a second is a further discussion hearing none chairman votes I AB I gy I God motion carries moving along to item number 13 Action items in a review and consider approval of print shop lease and service contract and back to you Mr Co thank you Mr chair board members uh what this is is uh uh proposal you have in the packet is replacing our print shop equipment and service agreement for the machines there at The Print Shop the lease current lease expires uh at the end of June um The Proposal we have is with novatech for Sharp machines to replace the current Xerox machines we're using aquala purchasing Cooperative to meet our requirements for bidding uh the service agreement is essentially the same as we have with Xerox what I mean by that is the per per print cost is roughly the same as what it is for the current one um but novatech will buy out our remaining six months of our current agreement and we'll be saving roughly $20,000 per year on the equipment lease so over the fiveyear lease the savings about $100,000 um I've worked with Carolina business equipment who novatech uh recently bought out in a previous district and been pleased with their service um they provide ided um we're presenting this to you pending signature by novatech we have a verbal agreement with them um is to not delay the implementation so we can get it done in January and recommend your approval for the the lease and service agreements have to take any questions okay now Savings of 100,000 that's pretty significant uh is this comparable equipment uh it's comparable or better okay thank you are there other questions motion to approve Mr chairman second we have a motion and a second Is there further discussion chairman votes I AB i g i motion carries okay Item B review and consider approval of purchase from Apple Miss Ferguson yes sir I'm going to turn that over to Mr mace This falls under the DOA grant that um he uh helped right and received okay good evening chairman pal members of the board of Harnet County Schools was awarded the dod uh education activity Grant of 1.5 million in the fall the grant aims to improve academic performance in math and science in the military connected middle and high schools over the next 5 years those would be Highland Middle Overhills middle western Harnet middle Overhills High School and Western High School the uh the first year is a planning year and it used for ordering materials planning professional development and hiring staff and so at this this evening we request approval to purchase iPads and Associate products so we will have all the equipment needed so that when school year starts next year we'll have this in place and that's what the uh this purchase is that you see under this item sir okay I'll entertain a motion motion to approve as presented Mr chairman second we have a motion motion and a second are there questions from Mr mace or further discussion covered by the grant yes is it was specified in the grant yes sir thank you yes sir okay chairman votes I AB i g i motion carries thank you Mr mace thank you Mr pal okay next we have item C review and consider approval of get ready from Vista Higher Learning and this says Miss first but Mr ma is still here so I'm assuming we're back to you yes sir this is for our um English language Learners so we'll let Mr mace give you the information on it thank you ma'am um the second approval we request is purchasing uh inhand textbooks and online access for our ESL students in our middle and high schools uh the order includes textbooks workbooks leveled reading kits and also uh online access access over the past 2 and A2 years our ESL program numbers have increased by almost 500 students in Harnet County Schools to meet the academic needs of our ml students we need to provide our middle and high school ESL teachers with a curriculum that focuses on the acquisition of English and we requested approval to purchase the Vista learning for our middle and high schools now have we been using this program already a new program it's a new program we reached out to other school systems find out what they were using this was one that was recommended and then we had them come in gave myself my leads a presentation and then we uh shared it with the middle school and and high school ESL teachers to get their input on it okay is there any Grant any kind of grant that will take care of this or is it General it's General because the the grant that we get for ESL would not cover this at all okay comes out of our textbook funding correct yes okay and this was I guess I don't want to say approve but our ESL teachers they they liked it we had they did yes sir motion Mr chair second have a motion and a second is a further discussion hearing none chairman votes i abat i g motion carries thank you Mr mace thank you sir and now uh item d review and consider approval of K5 summer fair uh summer I'm sorry summer book fair uh requisition and that's Miss Ferguson and Miss Stevens yes sir thank you um good evening chairman Powell and members of the board um I bring to you the 2025 Title One K5 summer book fair um purchase and proposal um this is a districtwide initiative that's reflect Ed in our approved Federal programs Consolidated Grant so I'm bringing it to you because the cost exceeds the threshold since I'm purchasing for all 16 schools and I'm just here to seek your approval okay if you have questions I have outline the description in the on the po3 form but if you have questions I'm happy to answer okay there's a significant difference once in in the cost here or and I'm assuming I know we've worked with Scholastic we have work yes and book Source this would be the third year we've implemented with booksource book source does um a phenomenal job of um implementing but they put they put a lot of Sweat Equity in it and Scholastic offers a huge amount of bells and whistles that are phenomenal but we just can't um get as many books for students in the hands of students and the the quality of the books I think are comparable so that's I'm not willing to compromise on that but I feel like book Source has really delivered for the past two years how was my next question were they comparable so forth yes the books are it's not as fancy how the kids get to select but it's still an online self- select that they can do via a Google form rather than like a fancy Scholastic platform gotcha okay so motion to approve as presented second we have a motion in a second Is there further discussion I I have just one thing um when I Was preparing for tonight and reviewing I got some heartburn whenever I saw the prices um you know and I had reached out to miss Ferguson for some clarification and said BR calm down it's it's Federal grant funding I'm perfect so um thank you very much it is a um Outreach that our parents and our students really love we've done it for about 10 years now and it is written in the grant it is funded by the Federal grant so we're we're fortunate that you approve it each year and they do appreciate it okay thank you thank you okay so further discussion chairman votes I AB i g i motion carries thank you M Stevens okay okay moving along to item e review and consider termination of contract with Performance Services Incorporated Mr Pearson chairman pal members of the board um kind of a unique situation here where we're asking you guys to terminate a contract um as you know we are working on building a Child Nutrition cooler freezer um estimated costs of around $4 million um we had plans and um part of our design there was to use some Child Nutrition funds for about 50% of that Child Nutrition funds are federally connected funds and there's a lot of rules and a lot of pieces we must follow to do that um and so we were told that the by going through the designed Bill process as we were on this um was going to make it almost impossible to use those funds so sought legal advice and uh legal advice is to pause and to terminate this contract to Simply then restart the process not in a designed bill but in a traditional get bids and go with lowest bids and then we can hopefully implement the use of these Child Nutrition funds to offset about 50% of this cost no no reflection of the company's performance simply trying to meet uh you know a unique financial situation we feel like will be more beneficial to us uh to pause at this time and kind of restart the bidding of that project certainly uh and any questions you do have so we pause we're talking about maybe getting the federal money half of it at least correct um we would explore to make sure that we'd get a yes on use approximately $2 million of the Child Nutrition money whereas previously right before Christmas break we got a no on using that money Mr chairman motion to approve for discussion purposes have a motion is there a second have a motion and a second is a further discussion hearing none chairman votes I uh iot G the motion is approved okay item f is let's see review a consider approval of the 2526 six school calendar options based on the survey results and Mr Pearson yes um and the Miss bird is pulling up the survey results for you there um overwhelmingly both the community and the staff were in favor of option two um approximately 71% almost 72% of respondents were in favor option two so a little different than we've seen in some other years where it's kind of neck and neck um a few less votes than we've had in previous years uh yet still around 1,600 votes there and again option two was the calendar option where spring break was after Easter um really that and some nuances in where work days Falls were the two biggest differences in the calendars but um community community response from staff and families was option two is their preference um certainly both options on the table there for you guys to discuss and choose which to which to approve for the 25 26 school year and just to refresh without going back looking at the calendar uh that would still include having Good Friday is a holiday correct and then we have the following week will be the vacation cor that is correct yes sir okay and both calendars students start school on a Wednesday um that was a overwhelming consensus of the calendar committee that they wanted that so both calendars are very similar in that structure other than springberg okay Mr chairman make a motion to approve option two of the 2526 calendar school year second have a motion and a second Is there further discussion thank you for your work on it okay the chairman votes I AB i g motion carries okay uh one second here okay now we've got uh item G action item G the attorney contract okay attorney contract and [Music] Mr Mr Duke so it's presented to the board uh this is the contract for legal services for steuart and Duke pllc um it is uh the contract that was vetted previously uh for Legal Services it is identical except that the entity that that was providing Legal Services is no longer in existence and so this is uh the newly formed Stuart and Duke uh pllc it would be bernon Stewart myself it's for board's approval okay so the contract terms are the same nothing's changed there are questions from Mr Duke hearing none I'll entertain a motion have a motion to approve second is a further discussion chairman votes I AB i g i motion carries then action item uh 138 is a uh letter to a legislative letter Mr fonte Miss gy members of the board um there is a group of school board members across the state of North Carolina who are presenting uh this letter to their school boards for their consideration to send to our legislature um so far the the counties that are signed on to it and have forwarded it to the legislature are Granville Lee Enzo Kataba Craven wake in new Handover and for the record I'll read it into the record and should you all pass it uh we'll each sign it and forward it to Senator Phil berer and representative Dustin Hall uh the letter reads dear Senator burger and speaker Hall we the members of the Harnet County Board of Education are writing to urg ently request that you take action to address the critical issue of teacher pay in North Carolina specifically we advocate for a minimum based salary of $50,000 for beginning teachers as you're are well aware inflation has significantly impacted both our state and Nation over the past year North Carolina Commerce Department reports that the state's median personal consumption expenditure inflation rate has reached approximately 3.8% this inflationary pressure has been widely discussed in the media and reflected in statements from various members of the general assembly unfortunately during the recently concluded short session of North Carolina General Assembly no adjustments were made to the education budget Provisions from the 2023 banian budget which was session law 2023 134 this decision means that while the state has provided a 3% raise for certified and non-certified staff the increase falls short of keeping Pace with inflation in real terms this results in a reduction and pay for many of our teachers who are already working tirelessly to support the all approximately 1.4 million students across our state teachers are the backbone of our education system and it is unjust for them to face what amounts to pay cuts due to circumstances beyond their control as the cost of living continues to rise our Educators should not be asked to Bear the brunt of economic challenges that's why the Harnet County Board of Education joins with other boards of Education across North Carolina and calling for a pay increase for both certified and non-certified staff of at least 5% with a minimum starting salary of $50,000 for new new teachers our teachers staff and students deserve more by raising teacher pay to a level that truly reflects the hard work and dedication of those who shape the future of North Carolina's children we invest in the long-term success of our schools communities and state we implore you to take Swift and decisive action in the upcoming legislative session to provide the necessary pay increases our Educators deserve thank you for your attention to this critical matter we are confident that with your leadership we can ensure that North Carolina's teachers receive the compensation they have earned sincerely each of the board members and superintendent Matthews okay and it's just a a letter that uh like I said School boards across the state are coming together as groups of local school boards requesting our legislator legislature to increase funding for our teachers okay I entertain a motion I'll make a motion that we sign this and send it to them Mr chairman I'll second have a motion and a second Is there further discussion and for the record this will be uh our recommendation from Harnet County Schools uh that we adopt a minimum that the state legislature rather adopt a minimum 50,000 starting salary for beginning teachers and at least a 5% hopefully more but a 5% pay increase for all certified and onur staff yes sir okay chairman votes I AB i g God motion carries and Mr Matthews and Miss Johnson if y'all take care of making sure this is sent to the Senator burer Senator protim burer and speaker H and any other uh probably just should we also send our local delegation as well Senator Bergen and S Representatives um Penny and Pike yes sir okay if you do that as well you just sign one of those copies okay we'll do that okay thank you motion carries I'll entertain a motion Mr chairman I move that we go into close session pursuant the general statute 143 31811 A1 A3 and A6 to prevent the disclosure of confidential Personnel files under gs15 C 321 to consider the matters relating to initial employment of an individual employee and to consult with the board's attorney in order to preserve the attorney client privilege have a motion in a second there's a further discussion chairman votes I AB i g i we're now en close session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e you don't have okay after a motion and second we have return to open session is there any additional business before the board this night hearing none I'll entertain a motion motion to Mr chairman second Mr chairman have a motion and a second all in favor I we are adjourned thank you