to order oh we don't have where's Miss buoy there she is Miss buoy will you call the role we can't hear you Mela can we please have order thank you Miss buy will you call the rle good evening Melissa Mason here Jayy Barnhart here Pat Bradford I am here Jud Justice here Dr Tim Merrick here David Perry and Pete wildbore present thank you I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda Madame chair Miss barnhard I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda to include under new business a five minute discussion a letter of legal action in regards to the power school breach second any discussion uh Mr Perry Miss bernhart thank you madam chair um I would be happy to draft that so we can also adopt a letter to DPI with further but this the letter that I sent you all before the meeting started um is in regards to legal action with py school in reference to attorney general Jeff Jackson uh Dr Merrick I just want to make sure that there is no budgetary impacts of the letter that we're not actually asking our legal team to do any work because based on you know policy 2330 if it's going to cost us any money we have to have it in the published agenda so I'm not just asking to make sure that this is not going to our lawyers for any amount of work Mr Justice she was okay all right uh and any further discussion on that Amendment you can put it behind I get an answer to my question oh uh Miss Bart um Madam chair I believe that this is more Germaine under the actual discussion of adoption of the letter but to my knowledge no sir it would be just in pure dialogue to encourage such thank you thank you okay uh any further discussion all right uh all those in favor of adding the letter regarding the power school brief to the agenda signify by saying I I any opposed that passes 7 to zero we adding that is under new business see uh Mr Perry I have a motion to amend the agenda for approximately 10 minutes to discuss uh a having a town hall before we make any decision upon the AI pilot program and what would that go under sir uh either new business or old business depend whatever the chair's discretion is I'll second that okay any discussion Madam chair m b just curious about the time for this discussion uh 10 minutes I believe Mr said all right so hearing no discussion all those in favor of adding a discussion about a town hall regarding the AI is that correct yes there might be a vote in um signify by saying I I opposed passes 7 to zero Miss Justice uh yes I'm I'm actually asking to take something off the agenda um after consideration and talking to several people involved I would like to remove the um ad hoc committee for bus drivers at this time I'll second at that okay any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed passes 7 to zero uh I will entertain a motion to approve the amended agenda so moved second right all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed that passes 7 to zero point of clarifications just Mr we we have added uh the letter discussion so that would be under C so that' be C and then D would be the AI town hall is that correct yes that is what I have all right continuing on um we are going to have uh I'm going to just announce all of these um first we will have our invocation that will be done by Sam Nolan the associate pastor of Port City Community Church um who will be doing so remotely um and then we will have presentation of colors which will be done by the new hover High School ajrc um under the direction of Captain Lance Gaither and principal Philip Sutton and the national anthem um by Jose shinos montalvin a student at new han High School um and he will be doing the National Anthem with Miss Bradford doing the pledge so if we could all stand forward the invocation hello my name is Sam Nolan and I am on staff at Port City Community church and I'm going to be leading us in a beginning prayer for today to Bow your heads with me Lord we just thank you for today Father we thank you for a chance to be in the spake Lord for this meeting today and for these people that are in attendance father God we thank you for an opportunity to just serve students and families in new han County God we give this meeting to you we just pray for just wisdom to discern Which choice need to be made Lord and which things to go after for the health of our schools and the health of our teachers father God we just thank you that we get to do this every day Lord we get to serve families in our city Lord God and we just thank you for this meeting and we pray this in Jesus name amen [Music] March hell I pledge allegiance nope not yet not yet sorry oh say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we ha at the Twilight last gleaming who brought stripes and bright stars through the paral fight for the ramp parts we watched were so gently streaming and the rocket red glare the bombs bursting in air G Faith proved through the night that our flag was still there oh s does that star spangled B yet wave for the land of the free and the whole of the [Applause] Brave I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all sorry me than you out [Applause] just want to make sure we give a great big round of applause for this brave brave soul that just sang the national anthem good job and if I could have the ROC individuals come back up so we can introduce you I want to see will you stand up right if you could just say your name and yourself I am Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Isaiah Allen I'm the Battalion commander of new hen High School a ajrc I am Cadet staff sergeant holay um a part of a ajrc Cadet first sergeant hallay a part of the RTC program who I am Cadet Sergeant Johnson at jltc the program at new High School oh I am con uh Sergeant Janessa Barton at Newan over jrtc who thank you guys if you could give another round of applause and then real quick did I did I brutalize your name or did I do okay did you want to introduce yourself again yes uh my name is Jose trino montoon I in in 11th grader as a junior at New Hanover High School um Jose was asked this evening to um sing for us he is the only student from our County who was selected for NC honors course which is the Statewide honors course [Applause] all right uh I will entertain a motion to approve the minute Madam chair yes M Brad just one item the last item surely it's a mistake it says the board meeting ended at 7:35 what which is a record in case y'all don't know so I moved to approve all right second all right any further discussion hearing none all those in favor sign by saying I I any opposed passes seven to zero recognitions a l gentlemen um I'd like to start this evening off by inviting Dr Karen suner to join me at the podium this evening she is the Deputy executive director for the North Carolina Cent for the advancement of teaching and she has something special to share thank you before I start with this presentation I have to tell you that this is really emotional for me 30 years ago I was a first year teacher at New Hanover High School and it is really it's it's wonderful to be here so good evening members of the new han County Schools Board of Education would Kevin or Janet please come forward at this time woohoo on behalf of the North Carolina Center for the advancement of teaching it is my privilege to announce that Kevin o Janet has been selected as a finalist for the incat 20125 buroughs welcome fund North Carolina beginning teacher of the year award this recognition highlights Mr O Janet's exceptional contributions to the teaching profession and his remarkable impact on the students and community here in New hanor County the beginning teacher of the year award was established to celebrate the creativity resilience and dedication of firste teachers across North Carolina each year more than 7,000 new Educators in her classrooms Statewide and this award honors those who exemplify the best of the profession while addressing the unique challenges of beginning teachers Kevin o Janet will be attending a week of professional development with his fellow finalists in March on March 27th incat will celebrate All finalists at a recognition event on the campus of UNCC Greensboro at incap we are committed to advancing teaching as an art and a profession and we are thrilled to celebrate Mr ojan as a shining example of this Mission please join me in congratulating Kevin o Janet on this outstanding achievement we are pleased to provide you with this certificate recognizing you as an incat 2020 2 buroh Welcome fund North Carolina beginning teacher of the year [Applause] finalist in addition we invite Matt dominelli on behalf of Empower whose kids attend Porters next school on behalf of empow to present Kevin o Janet with a check for $250 Empower supports North Carolina Educators in their retirement investment plans and I'm thankful for Empower support of Education in North Carolina thank you for being here tonight to celebrate this outstanding educator we appreciate New Hanover County schools for recognizing Kevin o Janet and the incat beginning teacher of the year program thank you anywh have you all [Music] [Music] hold [Music] [Applause] wo all right we're going to keep this party going ladies and gentlemen so tonight we're honored to recognize an extraordinary educator who has dedicated 20 years to shaping young minds please join me in celebrating Hannah Moon from Laney High School Miss moon is the 2025 buroughs welcome fun Southeast region teacher of the year so we've got two all right so Mrs Moon teaches English 2 English 4 and advanced placement literature and her impact extends far beyond the classroom she has served as department chair Mentor Teacher book club adviser and a partnership teacher for pre-service educators wow additionally she is a distinguished member of the 2022 2025 UNCW Master teacher program recognizing her excellence in teaching while these accomplish ments are impressive the true measure of Mrs Moon's impact is the lasting impression she leaves on her students one former student Jack Malloy now studying at Vanderbilt University shared I have worked with many incredible Educators but none have rivaled my high school English teacher from a coastal city in Southeastern North Carolina we are thrilled to watch Miss Hannah Moon continue her journey as she competes with eight other Educators for the North Carolina teacher of the year title best of luck Mrs Moon [Applause] y oh yep yep come on family oh there we go wo one round of applause don't go anywhere just get get comfortable get comfortable all right ladies and gentlemen tonight we're going to celebrate the extraordinary accomplishments of two exceptional student athletes Sophia Cino and Hannah Davis from New Hanover High School come on down these talented young women made history by winning the state championship title for the 4A in chsaa women's tennis doubles [Applause] and at the behest of their dedicated and hardworking coach Jennifer Coleman along with assistant coaches Troy McGee and Edward Coleman if they're here we'd like for them to join us as well please come on Sophia and Hannah formed an Unstoppable Duo on the court their ability to anticipate each other's movements and communicate seamlessly LED them to Victory after Victory throughout the season their trust resilience and teamwork ultimately secured them the first state championship title in their program's history we are incredibly proud of your achievements and the way you have represented our district with determination and sportsmanship your legacy will inspire future generations of student athletes congratulations Sofia and Hannah [Applause] all right we're going to get all right thank you [Applause] woohoo all right continuing on please join me in congratulating an educator who exemplifies dedication and excellence in gifted education Miss Sarah stansky from the international school at Gregory our new hver County School's Aid G teacher of the year Dr L DeWalt director of curriculum and instruction praised Miss tansky as dedicated to her students committed to supporting AIG Specialists and a key collaborator with all teachers at Gregory to nurture our gifted Learners every day her students and families Echo the sentiment seventh grade student and Turner shared you are my favorite teacher you make me feel happy welcomed and like I am important to you you always help me with whatever I need Miss pansky now has the opportunity to compete at the state level for the 2025 ncagt outstanding teacher of the gifted award we are grateful for her passion and dedication to the education congratulations [Applause] have to get some tape on the [Laughter] floor all right we're going to continue on and celebrate a teacher whose passion for experience iial learning and innovation has earned him a prestigious Statewide honor please join me in recognizing Mr Shan Stan from Holly Shelter Middle School who has been selected as one [Applause] of come on you get to listen to me talk about you he's been selected as one of the inaugural Learning Happens here teacher ambassadors by the North Carolina Department of Natural and cultural resources Mr stanik is known for his creative and engaging approach to education he serves as the faculty adviser for the Surf riters Club and the coordinator for Natural History Day last year his students had the incredible opportunity to compete at the national level in Washington DC where their work was showcased in the Smithsonian as a teacher Ambassador Shawn will collab sorry Shawn will collaborate with dncr to integrate North Carolina's Rich cultural historical and natural resources into classrooms across the state this honor highlights his dedication to public education and we are confident that his work will leave a lasting impact congratulations Mr St [Applause] [Applause] all right it is with great pride that we recognize two outstanding students Kylie caner from Laney High School and Kaylee Jones from Wilmington Early College High School for being selected as state nominees for the prestigious US Presidential Scholars Program come on down come we get to talk about you we get to listen to me talk about you okay so Kylie you exemplify the balance of academic excellence and athletic dedication your involvement in dance volleyball flag football track and swim team alongside participation in the chemistry Club Science Olympiad and National Honor Society showcase your incredible talent and drive Kaylee your leadership in the National Honor Society and future Business Leaders of America has demonstrated your commitment to service and academic Excellence graduating with both a high school diploma and Associates Degree you have set a remarkable example of perseverance and ambition we are thrilled to see both of you advance in a competition at the national level and we eagerly await the announcement of the US Presidential Scholars this may congratulations ladies [Applause] congratulations [Applause] woo all right we've got two more folks but these are they're just amazing I'm just saying I'm just love this job all right character is the foundation of a positive School community and tonight we are honor honored to recognize Luis a fifth grader at Mary C Williams Elementary for exemplifying outstanding character and Leadership Luis is known for his kindness patience and welcoming Spirit as a member of the safety patrol he greets students and families every morning with a smile ensuring that everyone starts their day on the right foot in the classroom he leads by example with responsibility and respect he's making his school a place where everyone feels valued and included Your positivity and dedication Inspire those around you congratulations on receiving the character in action award [Applause] yes oh Family come on up family please come on up okay get everybody in all right yeah looking at [Music] her and we have a treat for you tonight we're going to show you the video [Laughter] [Applause] I am doing this new thing in school where I want to talk about more than just being smart I also want to talk about being a good person and your names come up over and over again as someone who works real hard at being a good person I see Louis every morning helping us so much get ready for our day um he's part of our safety patrol um greeting families and students to school and so he's just so consistent and kind and just a quiet leader behind the scenes and I love having him here at Williams always got a smile on his face he is just so responsible and he just trustworthy everybody enjoys talking to him working with him are you guys give him a big old hand hello hello every and and just for a quick little note there wasn't a dry eye in the house after while we were filming that everyone was very emotional and very supportive it was an amazing time all right last but not least Mr Wayne Dingle tonight we are exceptionally honored for an exceptional educator whose dedication to students extends beyond the traditional classroom Mr Wayne Dingle a retired teacher from Noble Middle School now serves a a as a beloved substitute teacher at tras Middle School where he has become an integral part of the school [Applause] Community Mr Dingle is known for his kindness reliability and ability to make every student feel seen and valued he takes the time to learn every student's name building meaningful connections and providing a supportive presence in the classroom his adaptability and unwaver W in commitment ensure that every class he steps into remains a positive and respectful learning environment Mr Dingle thank you for your commitment and your continued service and for making a lasting impact for students and staff alike congratulations [Applause] thank you and before we play his video I would just like to make note that this young gentleman was the teacher of the student he's the let me back up the student that nominated him he taught not only her but her mother okay so we're going to see his video real quick teaching is not really just about subject it's about relationships with kids right it's about relationships and building them and knowing how to talk to kids and knowing how to work with them and that's that's what we want in our substitute and we really appreciate the fact that you're willing to give part of your retirement back to us uh to work with kids because you we we need every good sub we can and having a teacher come inide this wonderful having spent 31 years with the state of North Carolina as a public school teacher I enjoy the students I enjoy what I do I enjoy the relationships and it's my chance to get back and to be active I enjoy this school which is very open to me and I come in everybody knows me here all of the students all of the teachers and it's it's just a good place to be a good relationship and it keeps me active and busy still involved with [Music] youth thank you all for joining us and celebrating these remarkable individuals who enrich our schools and communities every day let's give them one more round of applause [Applause] [Music] okay wait don't go anywhere we got more Good Vibes coming come back up real quick all right so I'd like to invite Miss Veronica onu up here to the front [Applause] um Miss onu is a teacher assistant at Snipes Academy and has worked for new Handover County school since 2005 she uh is commended for her Excellence as well as being known for her words she speaks to her faculty and staff that evoke deep wisdom it was also mentioned that when she stops and laughs her spirit is contagious Miss onu has high expectations of her students expecting their best while giving warm demands like a mother who cares her colleagues recognize that she celebrates hard-earned accomplishments with a hug a smile and reminder that a healthy struggle is worthwhile congratulations to Miss Victoria onu for being this quarter's recipient of the Excellence exemplified award congratulations [Applause] and I believe she has some some special people in her life that are here with her also so I don't know if you'd like for them to come up and join you with the [Music] picture get on in there congratulations thank you congratulations thank you thank you all right next I'd like to ask Mr John Williams to come forward [Applause] Please Mr Williams is a custodian at cottington elementary he joined new Haner County schools in August of 2023 he has been recognized for excellence and has been described as a magician spreading positivity wherever he goes it's impressive Mr Williams is the first to lend a hand take a moment to share a life lesson and uplift everyone's Spirit he is even known to share delightfully awful dad jokes that undoubtedly engag students while creating a warm caring Pleasant environment at cottington it was shared by his colleagues that the joy he brings to staff when we spot those perfectly vacuumed lines on our rugs is unmatched congratulations to Mr John Williams for being this quarter's recipient of Excellence exemplified [Applause] [Applause] and lastly I just wanted to do a um quick introduction I want to give him a minute to get up here um we um are very pleased to recognize um and introduce Mr Travis Mitchell he probably is a familiar face he's been with the school district for about 10 years uh previously and Lead mechanic for maintenance operations roles um as a skilled trades supervisor and we are delighted um to um recognize him today as our new assistant director of Maintenance um with new County school so congratulations and thank [Applause] you all right continuing on I'd like to invite our student voice students to come up hello my name is Lan tamadon and I'm a senior Isaac bear Early College High School hi I'm Bonnie F I'm a senior at hoger High School hello my name is Jack Sherer I a senior at hogri high school and my name is Molly matthysse and I'm also a singor at hogri high school um we want to wish you a good evening first of all I hope you guys had a good um past month and enjoyed all the snow days as always we really appreciate being able to have the opportunity to speak here um so I'm just going to get right into it in previous meetings we briefly discussed our discussed our examination of policy 7300 which address the implications of flag Banning in our community while we recognize the intentions behind this policy our team brought up concerns regarding its potential impact on our schools particularly in how it may affect both teachers and students abilities to express their identities today you will hear directly from New Hanover County students who wish to share their perspectives on the policy and its influence on our school environment the leaders of the student ambassadors have instructed the team on how to properly conduct interviews and gather data in the past two weeks the team has conducted more than a 100 interviews with students and teachers across new hver County Gathering their thoughts concerns Gathering their thoughts concerns and opinions on the flag Banning policy um this data includes perspectives um from teachers across various disciplines providing a balanced view of how the flag policy affects both Educators and students as well um as a range of 9th through 12th graders um from all the high schools with some Middle School input as well this diverse sample allows us to present an accurate and representative analysis on how this policy could affect our school environment as far as the data collection process a series of questions were asked about student and teachers the ambassadors either had the student or the teacher complete questions on either in person or by Google form through this we had over 108 responses from all four traditional high schools and a as well as Isaac bear and Mosley and had a select number of responses as well for middle schools we've also got perspectives from teachers as well from across all disciplines and all four high schools or traditional high schools at least so providing a balanced view on the flag ban and how this flag policy will affect both Educators and students the diverse sample allows us to produce an accurate account of what things look like as far as they're concerned and how overall across the schools how people feel about it so now let's let's get to the findings um after recording the opinions of students all across new H County 79.6% believe that flag restrictions should be revised to allow the display to uh to a larger variety of flags um additionally when asked about the presence of flags in schools 72.6% confirmed that some of the flags being displayed were outside of the approved flag uh flag list majority of students also claimed that the flags either had a positive impact or no impact on them at all also the remaining 27.4% of students claim that Flags uh harm the learning environment when asked about the impact of flag restrictions on teachers 53.7% agreed that such policies negatively affect their ability to express themselves and or deliver course content 30.6 believe that it had no effect and 15.7% were unsure the data clearly indicates that for majority of the students flags have a positive impact and meaningful representation participants were also asked to give suggestions on what guidelines or restrictions are necessary to ensure that the policy remains respectful and inclusive for all students majority responded that schools should ensure that flag displays and symbols do not promote discrimination exclusion or hate it was also specified that Flags should not contain offensive language political endorsements or historical hate group symbols just as offensive clothing is restricted inappropriate or divisive Flags should also be regulated many participants also feel that this policy is a First Amendment violation in an unnecessary restriction they believe that the representation should be fair and balanced allowing students and teachers to have the freedom to express their identity without pressure to participate in any display however expression should remain respectful non-disruptive and free from harmful intent perhaps more lenient and specific flag restrictions would be better for the County's education system um additionally a reporting system could be added in case certain allowed Flags prove detrimental to the learning environment however to reemphasize we understand the reasoning Behind These flag restrictions um yet we still strongly or urge the board to refine the wording Within These policies to be more specific and inclusive good this would allow for Unnecessary confrontation to be avoided while also protecting the reasonable expression of diversity and individuality in the classroom in the future we hope to get more teacher input and highlight student experiences we were also fortunate enough to meet with Miss Barnum who connected with us with the communications team by working closely with the communications team we aim to create content that is both informative and inspiring ensuring that students feel heard and represented thank you if you have any questions we would happily answer Mr Perry thank you for your uh work um I was just wondering if there's a report of the survey findings that you could provide to us so that we can review what you said yeah we will um share with you thank you thank you anyone else thank you guys so much oh hold on Dr Meritt I very much appreciate not just that you're working hard and doing things to communicate with your with your classmates and and and across the district but you're taking interest in policies and how they affect you and how they affect the world and so I appreciate you know it's thank you for being good citizens thank you guys so much oh miss Justice uh yeah and I'm going to elaborate on that because once you're always a teacher um you sound like you are interested in possibly changing this policy or have it looked at again you have two routs you can go to this gentleman here this is part of our policy procedure you can go to this gentleman here and present that information to him and he could possibly bring it to our policy committee or one of us board members and then we could bring it to the policy committee so I'm just telling you that if you are interested in changing it to make it more holistic and practical for the schools which is what it sounds like you're referring to um those are your options thank thank you guys so [Applause] much and for Teacher voice we have Emerald Boyd from Mosley I have slides so it's us awkward like to change the slide because as a teacher I like to move and have a clicker so I'm not used to being at a Podium but hi I it's okay I'm going um I am Emerald Boyd and I'm going to talk about postsecondary transition planning in action you can go that's me look cute um so I'm a special education teacher by trade I have my undergrad from UNCW and my masters from Western Carolina University I'm loud I have the teacher voice um and I also got you can't hear me now better okay uh and I also am national board certified so just some fun facts about me um I wanted to talk about my teaching philosophy and I root that in advocacy um so I believe that advocating for our students is how all of our students move forward and we maintain those high expectations for all of our students including our most impacted students so I wanted to tell you about my dayto day first and then I'm going to tell you about something else that I really love doing as a part of my teaching program um so I am currently at Mosley as you heard and I am with our new Handover County transition program for young adults or tpy as you'll hear us refer to it quite a bit I'm not going to read our whole mission statement but our mission is to get our individuals with disabilities out in the community be that soft entrance into the community so that they are members of the community when they leave us with skills ideally gainful employment and it's a really really great program this year we have doubled um so we have doubled in size and have gone from three teachers to five and now we support 40 individuals that we are working to successful transition into the community so who we serve we serve students in new han County Schools uh 18 to 21 years old and they have completed their traditional four years of high school can you still hear me let me know um and they are on our extended content standards so they are working towards a certificate versus a diploma so they are really our population that needs that targeted intervention for transition support when they leave us so and then our curriculum and Community Based instruction uh we have the luxury of being in our community almost every single day we are out and about working on these five domains so our main domains are independent living community particip participation goodness employment functional academics and post-secondary Pathways so a snapshat of our day we arrive at school we'll do a targeted lesson on whatever we're doing in the community that day and then we are on the city bus getting there and working so we went to the ability Garden this week to learn about planting and we actually plant a lot of the plants that y'all buy plant Sals out in the community that is our program that supports a lot of that but at school we'll do a lesson on that how we get there how we safely get there how what it means to be responsible and why we need to work and is it something we like CU we need to do a job we like right um and then we will make our way back to school debrief and then go about our day so any of our days might be looking at any of these different Pathways but our Big Goal really is that independent living and employment on the Continuum that students are able to next um we have lots of Partners in the community and we're very very happy to have them love to grow them if anyone ever wants to work with us we're a joy I promise um but we have Partnerships across the entire Community we have Partnerships at Kate Fear Community College UNCW especially within Watson but across their campus we're starting to get into wck therapy and we work with health and PE and student services and then broadening we also have employment placements across the county but also within our youan County Schools district so we work within the warehouse and within um some of our cafeterias our students will be working there so really great thing so that's that's my day today that's what I do on a daily basis I support individuals with disabilities it's a ton of fun I have the best job in the community don't fight me I'll win um but we have had lots of opportunities we love to work with Community Partners we would love to add to the list so Shameless plug um and then I wanted to talk about my another part of my teaching that was surprising but something I'm really really passionate about and really really enjoy um I am a part of our New Hanover County emerging leaders and I have been fortunate enough to get to work through this program and I'm on my second year so I am developing a pathway project again Shameless plug applications will be coming out soon for this and I encourage any educator who might be interested to do it but as part of this we get to basically pick a passion project that we get to focus on I love postsecondary transition as you saw it's my day-to-day job um so last year I organized a um family information night that we hosted 20 agencies and we added a campus creation showcase on there where um our different school we had different schools show their school-based Enterprise and what they were doing and sell them to the community um it's coming up again the second annual will be in May and then the second part of this is I decided hosting an event is great I got to learn a lot about the agencies but when I was a beginning teacher I didn't know where to look for information about agencies in the community other than agency websites because it's overwhelming and no one has enough time in their day to be able to do that so my part two of my emerging pathway project is emerging leader pathway project sorry is I have created a hub of online professional development and each of these that has a hyperlink on them hyperlinks to a Google doc that teachers can access and it has videos provided by these agencies about who they serve what they serve and basically information to help teachers communicate to parents and family that this is available and ready to go for them next slide so it's pretty simple it works like this um there's a video they watch it they enjoy they do some reflection and there's additional resources for teachers to access and then work to get PD credit for it and through that um these are the local agencies that have so far been pres or presented for it for the on demand um professional development and then we've also had College professors present and different classroom management to work to transition because the goal for all teachers is we want our kids to be successful outside our classroom so we're working towards that and it's there and it's great and that's it thanks board members did anybody have any question questions comments Miss Barnhart I just want to say thank you I'm very passionate when we have a passionate person like yourself in the district to be able to um share that information is so is going to be so impactful not only to the teachers but our students and our fam so I appreciate that I love to hearing about you being able to help grow the program because that means we're supporting those many those double amount of kids and so I appreciate uh your leadership on this I just want to say that Mr will deor and I would just like to reiterate uh say thank you also I think you know obviously you are a passionate teacher we need more like you uh throughout the school system we have some great great teachers but I mean you know what you do for those students each and every day uh from the bottom of my heart all I can say is thank you it's really fun like I said it's best job in the county and I I wouldn't argue that either um that population is has a special place in my heart and I love every year being able to go to the tpy graduation it is one of the sweetest graduations you could possibly go to um and most personal and so thank you absolutely thank you thanks guys all right moving on our interim superintendence report good evening everybody and I'm G to terrify Miss baggie for a second by going off script before I go to my uh super tennis report we've been here for an hour and all we've talked about are the amazing student and faculty here in this County and so that's what I'm so proud about this District being about is celebrating the amazing work that's being done every day in our classrooms and in our schools so thank you again for for being a part of that but uh it takes us that long to talk about the amazing things that we're doing all right so good evening board members tonight I'm honored to share the incredible work happening across Newan County Schools uh first things first I want to begin by celebrating one of our own assistant superintendent Julie vno Julie if you canet B hold on folks you don't know what you're clapping about yet Julie has been honored with the North Carolina Council for exceptional children distinguished service award and this recognition reflects her unwavering leadership and commitment to advancing services for students with disabilities through her efforts we have not only improved policies but it have enhanced the daily experiences of countless students J congratulations on this well-deserved [Applause] honor we also want to let you know soon we will be having the exciting privilege of surprising this year's finalists for this year's North Car New New Hanover County Schools Rookie of the Year award this recognition is a testament to the talent and dedication of our newest Educators who are shaping the future of our students and we forward to celebrating them and the passion they bring to their classrooms this month we have to recognize several different groups of people First National School counseling week is this week thank you thank you to our school counselors for their unwavering supportive students academic social and emotional well-being feed so I want you guys go home with your hands hurting um February is also Career and Technical education or CTE month we celebrate the Hands-On learning and career ready skills that our CTE programs provide and the staff that guide students success I want to remind you that tomorrow is World read aloud day and it's a reminder to share the JY of reading and storytelling February of course is Black History Month and it's a time to reflect on and celebrate the achievements and contributions of black Americans in our schools communities and Beyond next week thank you next week is SCH school bus driver appreciation week and if you have not ridden on a bus recently trust me you appreciate these people absolutely we want to recognize the dedication of our drivers in safely transporting our students every day also on February 15th is national school resource officer day and we want to thank the sheriff's department and the officers who help keep our schools safe every day as we continue to plan for the future we are in the midst of our budget listening sessions to gather valuable input that will got our financial priorities for the next school year this process ensures that the voices of Educators and stakeholders are heard as we make strategic decisions for the district in the coming days we're going to be engaging with assistant principles and later this week we will do a similar budget activity with the board on Friday by the end of this month I will share the key takeaways and the budget superintendent budget priorities that emerg from these discussions finally I want to address the power school data breach in our ongoing efforts to SPO those who have been affected to assist impacted individuals Experian is providing a dedicated call center to answer questions and guide you through the enrollment process for protection services those affected are going to be receiving a notification letter from power school with instructions on how to access these resources we have more up-to-date information if you like it we encourage families to visit our power school data breach page under the Community tab at our website as we move forward I want to thank each and every one of you for your continued commitment to students and staff the work we do every day whether it's in classrooms boardrooms or behind the scenes shapes the success of all of our district together we are making a lasting impact on students I'd like to also remind you that there is a onepage synopsis of all the stuff we talk about back there on the desk if you'd like to take that home with you we'd like to have you dig deeper into some of the things we're talking about tonight now apparently I invite you to take a moment to watch the video on your screens which highlights some of the impactful initiatives we've been working on across the district this is our quarter in review [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] what [Music] [Applause] [Music] that concludes my report thank you thank you Dr Barnes um and now we will move on to the board chair report uh good evening I hope everyone had an opportunity to enjoy the snow um I'm from New York so it really wasn't that much for me but um I hope everybody had the opportunity to enjoy it a few weeks ago four members of the board including myself and Dr Barnes attend Ed an ncsba Ethics conference it was a very informative conference with many opportunities to connect with board members from other parts of the state and I was Greatful for the chance to attend this month um I had the opportunity to visit a few more schools and I just wanted to share some of the things that are happening we've heard all the big things I wanted to talk about and highlight some of the little things that are happening that are really not even little they are definitely impactful so my first visit was to Isaac bear um and I was absolutely delighted to see several of the amazing teachers we have one that I wanted to highlight was Miss Talbert who teaches 9th grade ELA she brought memes into the classroom and used vocabulary to practice so stud students were tasked with writing words such as lacad isical hack needed and abscond on the Whiteboard next to an applicable meem meme then they were asked to explain their reasoning and I thought this was a great way to improve student vocabulary and apply it to real life um she was just one of the examples and I just absolutely wanted to highlight how she made it relevant for our kids my next stop was to roll in Grace and I I have visited as a parent but this was a different visit as a board member um and it was delightful to hear from staff about all the amazing things that are happening there and one thing that they wanted to highlight was the Mastery class that happened so this was developed initially to ensure that our EC students had the opportunity to participate in electives they enjoyed rather than solely on the four content areas that they're tested on the class occurs 5 days a week for all students but on Wednesdays there is a schoolwide focus on various skill development such as organization note-taking and test preparation the schoolwide focus has been beneficial to the students who attend and has provided cons consistency across the grades and my third stop was to Alderman and it was on a professional development day which was great I got to watch a fantastic presentation from staff members to other staff members sharing strategies and resources and my favorite idea that they shared was the idea of a secret student where a student was picked at random the name was hidden and at the end of the day they kind of calculated how the behavior was and the next day if that student had excellent Behavior had done a great job they got a reward some of it was sitting in a comfy chair some of it was on a special desk but I just thought it was a great way to reward our kids and not have to spend any money but reinforcing that positive student behavior um last Thursday three board members including myself had the chance to watch some amazing amazing math Scholars as they competed in math counts and let me tell you it was very humbling to sit there um sitting through the speed round definitely highlighted the wonderful mathletes in our district with the winner of the speed round being a young lady woohoo from Roland Grace the overall winning team was from Murray Middle School who will be continuing on to the regional competition congratulations to all the winners and lastly I would like to apologize to my fellow board members for not clarifying the flexibility in the committee assignment document I'm not perfect and I'm grateful for the grace extended to me as I work through the beginning Growing Pains I look forward to focusing on the needs of our staff student and families in this community our duty has been and will continue to be on the betterment of our schools and while we may not always agree on the how our goals should always be a stronger District safer schools and the best education this concludes my chair report all right moving forward Ward I'm going to hand it over to miss Barnhart for the call to audience thank you madam chair first up is Reverend Dante Murphy members of the board I stand before you today to demand accountability and transparency and instead of cons hiring or considering the hiring of Dr Christopher bnes I want to propose that you should be discussing his termination it is both strange and suspicious to me Madam chair point of inquiry could you please pause the time Miss Bradford looking at our policy code 23 10 public participation at board members at board meetings it says under item C complaints about the performance of school Personnel should be submitted initially for response to the school system official responsible for the program or the facility or the superintendent has that been done not to my knowledge excuse me Madam chair if that hasn't been done then we're we're not following our policy by making a complaint about one of our Personnel here in an open meeting without following the proper procedure Madam chair since I've been interrupt um I hold on I will allow you to continue to speak so long as you follow the rules of decorum so um you can continue to have I'm not making a complaint against staff I'm making a complaint against V okay go ahead so what is your determination cuz I don't want to be violating what Miss Bradford has raised if you are complain if you are talking about the board then you can go ahead absolutely are you all right with that Miss Bradford as long as you don't talk about one of our person one of our one of our employees okay go ahead uh do I get my two minutes started over can we restart the time okay go ahead members of the board Lord I stand before you today to demand accountability and transparency instead of you considering the hiring of Dr Christopher Barnes you should be discussing his termination it is both strange and suspicious to me that Dr Charles fa was deemed unfit to continue leading this district and we along with us agree with that decision yet you same adamant to quickly now turn the system over to the administration that was handpicked by Dr fa to carry out his deeds furthermore the new head of County board of education has the lawful right and more importantly the obligation to investigate subpoena staff and board members and put them under oath to to resolve serious allegations that I actually outlined and sent to each of you in an email these matters cannot be ignored dismissed or swept under the road failure to act sends a clear message that you are no different than top administrators and former board members who allowed multiple children over multiple years to be sexually abused by multiple perpetrators that is unacceptable the people of this County demand Integrity in leadership we demand that you reject Dr Barnes hiring and move to fin a superintendent who is not tied to Dr Charles fa and put some of this confusion to rest the choice is yours but make no mistake the people are watching and based on how you all get along you'll be watching each other thank you thank you Natasha to Natasha to Leslie posie ex good evening last week you had a presentation about a security system system that relies on AI generated information the presenters made a big deal about how the product doesn't use facial recognition information but one of the highlighted features is that the program can give an alert if there is someone on campus who isn't supposed to be there how can it know who's not supposed to be on campus if it doesn't have a file of who is also facial recognition was on almost every slide in their presentation since all of our students have their pictures taken at some point Point installing that information would be very easy I could go into more detail but instead I'd like to give you an example of AI learning Amazon launched the AI device Alexa in 2014 there were and continue to be lots of admonitions about how Alexa isn't listening or learning she only turns on when you say her name we have an Alexa it's great for music as in a timer we also know that she listens one of our favorite authors is scientist Rachel Carson we even named two family members after her our daughter Rachel is an environmental attorney Carson is a dog Miss Carson comes up periodically in conversations about a year ago I got an alert from Alexa I found a new book by Rachel L Carson that you might like um the scientist Rachel Carson didn't use a middle initial and she died in 1964 so I don't think Alexa found a new book by her my point is AI is still new AI is still still learning the presenters last week made a big deal about not storing information but as I said facial recognition was on almost every slide I urge you to think long and hard before you sign on to Predators I mean Raptor's product thank you Sandy [Applause] Isles for the past 5 years I've been speaking here for just about every month advocating for policies that protect children when I was advocating to ban the use of seclusion restraint the number one question I got was what are teachers supposed to do if they can't seclude kids and now it and now it's what do we do if we can't suspend them and how will they ever learn accountability those are legitimate questions and a big part of my advocacy over the years has been trying to be solution focused I truly believe that if we do what's best for children we inherently do what's best for staff and taking away solution even a bad one without replacing it with something better is not what is best for students or staff which is why I'm so excited that new han County Schools is rolling out reframing Behavior across all of our schools so that our staff have a better solution this trauma informed nor Divergent affirming and neuroscience-based model not only helps adults reframe how they support children but it prioritizes their well-being reframing Behavior recognizes that adults cannot support children if they themselves are not taken care of I understand our staff are overwhelmed and stretched to their Max but I hope that they will Embrace this evidence-based resource I hope they will push past any fears or skepticism and recognize that what we're doing is not working for them or our students we must do something different if we want better outcomes and we must be part of the solution most of all I want this resource to bring staff hope that we can improve the culture and safety in our schools and I want them to feel empowered when responding to challenging behaviors this is not not a quick fix it will take time to see positive results and because of that I hope that new han County Schools will invest at least 3 to 5 years into this model doing so will allow our staff to fully Embrace and master their new skills so that they can confidently and effectively support our children thank you thank you miss Karen Clark I am very grateful to the board for wisdom and to Dr Barnes for continuing as our superintendent the word of the Lord do not be afraid for I have ransomed you I have called you by name you are mine when you go through deep Waters I will be with you when you go through rivers of difficulty you will not drown when you walk through the fire of Oppression you will not be burned the Flames will not consume you for I am the Lord your God your savior you are precious to me you are honored and I love you for I have chosen you don't be afraid for I am with you don't be discouraged for I am your God I will strengthen you and help you I will hold you up with my Victorious right hand everything I plan will come to pass I have said what I would do and I will do it those who trust in me will never be put to shame I will fight those who fight you and I will save your children no weapon turned against you will succeed you will silence every voice raised against you these benefits are enjoyed by the Servants of the Lord their Vindication will come from me there is is nothing compared to what I am going to do for I am about to do something new see I have already begun do you not see it thank you Dr Jamie Pond good evening for the past several years I've attended board of Education meetings and I've participated in call the audience many times I've seen the call to audience go from the time of 3 minutes to two to a lottery system that we have right now now there's a discussion about whether board members should curb groups from taking up too much time for call to the audience what is interesting to me when it comes to this issue is how would this be regulated who is being silenced based on my observations it appears that the board is attempting to silence love our children for at least the past two years I've seen these speakers advocate for five six and seveny olds but unfortunately and again it appears to me that the board hasn't been listening to them so instead they regularly attend and speak if it wasn't for them I'm sure many people would not know these concerning practices and policies in new han County Schools I recommend that you please listen to their concerns and allow for call to audience to remain the same don't infringe upon their rights to organize and speak and thank you for your time thank you Chris suon I had an entire speech written but I'm going be completely honest that is absolutely frustrating that you're going to stop that man while he's speaking like that Miss Bradford that is absolutely frustrating go ahead and look at her go ahead and stop the time go ahead I have every bit to redress my people this is North Carolina General statute right here we have public we have public meetings we're allowed to speak I understand you've been against call audience since the beginning you took away one third of our speaking roles you're trying to take their ability away to speak separately this is ridiculous over and over y'all keep doing this to us I had a whole speech about the AI program and how we need a town hall I tried discussing stuff with teacher voice allowing teachers to be up here and sign up and not have to go through the same call to audience this is ridiculous you want to talk about following the policies now you know you know what I'm talking about this is so frustrating you cannot pick and choose when to follow our policies even with this call to audience stuff God what are you afraid of right now we might have the majority as conservatives but the fact remains one day we might not be in the majority we might be the descending voice up here and you should be doing everything in your power to make sure that voice is protected you're not doing your job I'm so frustrated that this just happened tonight you know how many times I've gotten up here and said something about Dr F I love Dr Barnes I don't even agree with him I want him to be the next superintendent but I will fight for that man's right to come up here and descent amicably he sent you an email because I received it he cced me on the email I am so frustrated I had I had this whole speech it was going to be nice we were gonna play real nice hunky dory tonight this committee assignment stuff if y'all go on a Witch Hunt Watch What Happens I promise you I'm going to make it my mission to expose all of the BS drama behind the scenes n Mila that speaks man who greets with fire I promise you if y'all turn this into a mudslinging there will be muds slung back y'all have a good night thank you Christina Mercer [Applause] good evening whether you believe we live in a republic or democracy the United States has always attempted sometimes better than others to give a voice to minorities over the years one way minorities have been given a voice is through having a day week or month of recognition these observances have helped right the wrong of Decades of minorities being overlooked for significant contributions they've willingly or unwillingly made to the USA in fact many of the contribu are so significant they have found their way into State and national public school curricula for example the North Carolina High School American history curriculum has standards that include the impact of women and other minority groups on American society the effects of domestic conflicts that Target the specific groups of people and how racism oppression and discrimination against minorities impacted America in order to continue to effectively teach our history we must continue to observe and celebrate our American minority groups even if we aren't part of that group some of the most significant months are African-American history in February women's history in March arab-american Heritage in April Asian and Pacific Islander month in May pride month in June disability pride in July Hispanic heritage in September and October and Native American Heritage in November all these minorities have had a huge impact on the shaping of the United States and observing them should not be seen as an interruption to learning but as education itself as a speaker said last month the new federal Administration is interested in putting America First recognizing the minority groups that help to build the nation yet we're oppressed and often still are oppressed is the best way to show that America has placed a priority on recognition and inclusion May these observations teach everyone about empathy as well please support the schools as they participate in these observations thank you Lany Cooper Laney Cooper [Applause] is Carrie Bogart here good evening I'm Caroline Bogard I live and vote in Hanover County I've attended a couple of uh board meetings in the past but this is the first time speaking to the board I'm very concerned about the secrecy surrounding the seclusion in our schools and I find it to be very concerning on November 1st 2022 the board revised regulation 4302 on the rules for the use of seclusion and restraint in schools the revision said quote as of the year 20124 school year rooms designated specifically for seclusion will no longer be operational for seclusion unquote for some reason the board didn't vote to end the use of seclusion in other words kids could still be secluded but not in the locked padded closets so my question for you tonight is where are you putting the kids who are being secluded now North Carolina statute 115c hyen 3911 on the permissible use of seclusion and restraint states that the space must be appropriately lighted ventilated heated and cooled also the space must be free of objects that unreasonably expose a student to harm for himself or others and most importantly the space must be approved by the local Education Agency based on the horrible history of hundreds of seclusions in New Hanover County in recent years the public who funds the school system through taxes and votes for or against you has a right to know the truth is out there and I hope that Dr Barnes will share that information at next month's meeting thank you thank you you twin far here I he my name I'm Sorry Miss Cooper come on up okay thank you good evening my name is malany Cooper I am the founder of speak your peace North Carolina I'm a poet and we create platforms that advocate for social justice through the Arts and the name of this poem is called stay woke in light of black history and all of the ugly things that are happening here in this country and in this County stay woke we are living in an age that systemic racism hasn't changed living in these overt times it's clear no one on the school board represents black children here truly it's been over a decade 12 whole years the numbers always speak 60% of black children are suspended it's 56 and seven year olds to be clear and specific when only 18% of us attend new Handover County Schools is there something I'm missing for those at home who are tuning in when you educate your children on the reality of this system you break the change of their covert Mission which which is the pipeline to prison I want to take a moment to remember all the students that never graduated from New Hanover County schools because they went straight from the classroom to the pipeline to prison I encourage everyone to stay woke anyone who is here who may not be having side conversations with their children to teach them the truth Baba Malcolm X said paraphrasing it you're only a fool will allow for his enemies to educate your children and we are foolish if we think that people on this board represent the black voice stay woke thank you thank you twin far twink bar hello my name is twink bar I taught first and second grades for 20 2 years I live in Wilmington and this is my first time speaking to the board board committees policy 2230 states that the purpose of committees is to conduct thorough deliberations and investigations of issues and informing and recommending action to the board as appropriate well I attended the policy committee two weeks ago and sat right there and it was clear that when they discussed short-term suspension policy 4351 no one had read the policy recently after a 15minute discussion a final revision was approved that states principles or their designes shall attempt to contact parents as soon as possible when a suspension determination is made how could no one know that that language was already in the policy policy 4 4351 already States the principal or design shall provide the students parents or Guardian with notice that includes the reason for the suspension and the principal or design must give the notice by the end of the work day during which the suspension is imposed when reasonably possible but in no event more than two days after the suspension is imposed send policy 4351 back to the policy committee and have them actually read it so they can conduct thorough deliberations and investigations of the issues before bringing it Reverend coju n Tambo Reverend coju n Tambo am I saying that correctly I don't know they here all right Miss Jenny Simmons okay thank you Peter good afternoon I'm Dr Virginia Simmons I've been an educator for well over 50 years now I've been a teacher a professor an administrator I've lived in and worked in three states and nine countries so what I'm bringing to you is I've earned degrees those first degrees were in elementary education English and social studies then the next four were master's degree and they were in behavior disorders learning disabilities gifted in special education and then I did a teaching of a second language I have been honored with the who who in education for the North Carolina tag and um I have an honorary degree from my University which is West Virginia State University which is a historical black University I live in Wilmington and this is my first first time getting to talk to you all and I'm going to look at my notes cuz I love to talk so I got to stay on on the thing okay I want to talk about five six and seven year olds because I've worked with them all over the world in all sorts of situations first of all they're good they're good kids and they're doing the best they can sometimes they make mistakes like I do sometimes they like skills and have difficulty meeting uh the expectations of the classroom like I do sometimes the thinking part of their brain shuts down and it goes into Pro protection mode in the extreme cases when a child is in danger of hurting themselves or others it makes sense to have a trusted adult highly qualified and certified teacher or school counselor or someone who's specially trained work with a child in a specific location in thank you your time up the school Linda [Applause] harutan good evening my name is Linda herian and it is my first time uh speaking before this board I'd like to begin by asking what the difference is between two sentences principles or their designes shall attempt to contact parent Guardians before a suspension determination is made and the sentence principls or their designes shall attempt to contact parents Guardians as soon as possible when a suspension determination is made in the first sentence the parent or Guardian might speak with an administrator before he or she has officially decided decided to suspend the child in the second sentence the parent or Guardian might speak with an administrator after he or she has decided to suspend their child as the mother of three sons one of whom is differently dis differently abled I would have wanted to the opportunity to hear what happened and be able to ask some questions such as were any positive behavioral Alternatives tried with my child are there other behavioral Alternatives that the school could have used with my child it is even possible that the parent Guardian has some current information about their child that sheds light on his or her behavior then at the end of the conversation the administrator can make an informed decision that is based on all the available information information this seems like the only fair and decent approach to addressing a situation of this type that is in the best interest of all involved thank you thank you Bob Boart Bob Bogart evening this is my first time speaking before the board the policy consensus is on the agenda tonight no doubt there'll be some discussion about the short-term suspension policy here's what I predict no one will discuss the out of school suspension data no one will discuss the disproportionate number of black and special education to children that are being suspended no one will ask about the 16 stool schools that have zero K to2 suspensions and how they're able to keep their kids learning in school school no one will discuss the research that shows how suspensions harm children no one will discuss the Positive Behavior Support Alternatives that can be used instead of suspensions someone will remind everyone how hard it is to reach parents on the phone someone will say that using the word before instead of as soon as possible will take away the authority of the principles it's not true some members will not acknowledge that the proposed language is already part of the current policy some members will recognize that five six and seven-year-old are developmentally different from 15 16 and 17 year olds and that actually two different suspension policies are needed hopefully someone will make a motion to send a policy back to the committee where they can have thorough deliberations and investigations of this important issue thank you thank you Reverend Kelly weed Rivers [Applause] hello all my name is Reverend Kelly wheat rivers from the unarian Universalist Congregation of Wilmington I'm here to speak about policy 4300 and out of school suspensions as Unitarian universalists we actually have a lot of different beliefs but we have shared values love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values our deepest common theological Foundation is love student Behavior policy 4300 States Student Admin School administrators will utilize Positive Behavior Support alternatives to suspensions and only use outof School suspensions as a last resort on the topic of out of school suspensions I've been thinking about the 16 schools that had zero out of school suspensions for five six and seveny olds during the first half of this year so my question is which Positive Behavior Support alternatives are those schools using and which Alternatives have been the most effective can these be evaluated and implemented more universally instruction in conflict resolution individual or small group sessions with the school counselor and restorative practices sound much more loving than kicking out our youngest Learners sometimes kids fight as a mom I'm very aware of that when they're only five six or seven years old it makes more sense to help them in school where our professional staff there can provide support and services to address their social emotional and behavioral needs a little more love could go a long way towards helping these kids learn and Thrive thank you thank you Carla Johnson Carla Johnson hi everyone good evening my name is KLA Johnson and this is my first time speaking before the board consider the sentence principles or their design shall attempt to contact parents or Guardians before a suspension determination is made which part of that sentence jeopardizes an administrator's ability to create a safe and effective learning environment first the principal attempts to contact the parent or Guardian a reasonable number of attempts might be two phone calls a phone call and a text maybe two phone calls and a text if the administrator is successful there's a conversation with the parent or Guardian at the end of which he or she decides if a suspension is the appropriate consequence policy 4351 currently says that the principal or design has the authority to impose a suspension now if the administrator is unable to contact the parent or Guardian after two or three attempts he or she decides if a suspension is the appropriate consequence but without that conversation don't be afraid of the word before it simply provides the possibility that the parent or Guardian will talk with an administrator before a suspension determination is made again consider the sentence principles or their designes shall attempt to contact parents or Guardians before a suspension determination is made good communication with parents or Guardians will help to create a safe and effective learning environment thank you for your time thank you Veronica McLaren Brown Veronica this month love out children NC is celebrating four years of advocating for the end of exclusionary discipline we are a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving School Board policies so that all children can stay in school where they can learn and Thrive we're grateful to all the individuals and organizations that take the time to speak on behalf of our five six and seven year olds we use research and data to inform policy recommendations we also listen to Educators parents students other community members and even Schoolboard members and the interim superintendent we recently reviewed the K2 out of school suspension data for the first semester with Dr Barnes and Mr willber and others we appreciate the progress the principles the teachers and staff have made towards reducing the number of suspensions of our five six and seven year olds as love our children We Begin it as love our children begins its fifth year of advocacy we believe that there will be more opportunities to share data and exchange ideas we also believe that the policies should set the high Bar for our students for what's best for all of our students policy should focus on student Achievements not their failures high standard of performance for students should be non-negotiable a lack of funding a lack of resources or a lack of personnel should not determine what's in a policy a lack of funding a lack of resources or lack of personnel should not determine what's in a policy policy should be B based on our highest expectations for our children and the teachers and staff that serve them thank you Nelson Boer good evening in 2018 the Trump Administration implemented the barbaric grotesque Act of separating the children of immigrants from their parents the president did so by his own admission as an act of deterrence so if you think the idea of ice in our schools is abstract you simply have not been paying attention this is the not messing around Administration I was plead I was pleased to read in a recent article that Dr Barnes is gathering information before implementing policy but it's the board's job to set policy so here is some information that might help you do so some while you gather information might insist that you must assist in federal law enforcement immigration that you risk criminal and civil exposure by not doing so and this is of course patently absurd I would uh refer Dr or Mr Perry to uh prince versus us which said would stated very clearly that the the state of Texas did not have to enforce federal gun law some will tell you you lose critical funding if you don't comply but again this is absurd if you look at 2012 uh Cil uh nfib versus silius you'll see that the federal government has no way to use its Federal funding power to induce action on your part these cases and countless other precedents make it clear the choice to allow immigration enforcement into our schools is 100% yours it won't be Trump's fault it won't be isa's fault it will be yours and it will be your responsibility Miss Justice Mr Merck I asking you to put this issue on the agenda and answer and answer a simple and direct question will you allow ice to conduct immigration enforcement operations on new Handover property schools unless you don't want to mess with the agenda I'd remind you that in May of this past year you put a flag item on an agenda for something that happened a 100 miles away Angie KY last Friday the North Carolina Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the look back window of the safe child Act is constitutional giving adult victims of sexual assault two more years to file charges against their abuser this is a win as it allows us to move forward in pending cases and because this is the same act that gave a voice to the majority of Michael Kelly's victims in the previous civil suit against New Hanover County School for protecting pedophiles over students the same school system that perpetuated Decades of abuse by ignoring red flags and complaints then challenged whether too much time had passed by for victims to be able to share their testimony and seek Justice fortunately those Brave survivors continued to fight and their courage was a key factor that led to this Court's ruling many of you will say well I wasn't here then it's not my fault but you are here now and you are responsible for the push back against Title 9 work done previously and moving for forward in an effort to make our school safer the strides that were made to improve title n and protect students are now being attacked in your perverse quest to Target lgbtq plus kids you would rather inflict harm on marginalized students than to keep students safe this was the goal of the victims in the settlement to prevent a repeat of this trauma yet you seemed set on another multi-million dollar lawsuit the number of title n cases have not decreased they're being diverted back to the schools which is what led to these scandalous sexual assaults to begin begin with and you continue to ignore Title 9 federal law I applaud Miss Mason for attempting to be objective in assigning committees but perhaps appointing people in the community that have actually advocated for title n rights and sexual assault victims and have knowledge of prevention from experience my guess is that the district doesn't like the transparency and accountability that their voices would bring in the next round at least we have the safe child act intact and strong case law from the Kelly case to protect students and allow the window for them to process the trauma inflicted by school this school's negligence thank you Peter WT first I want to acknowledge our Elementary School principles Educators and staff for the excellent work they have done to reduce out of school suspensions for five six and seveny olds for the first half of the school year two weeks ago Dr Barn shared some data with Veronica and me it is the best K2 data we have seen to date well done I hope you will continue to offer your staff training that promotes the use of Positive Behavior Support alternatives to suspensions and I also hope your budget for next year includes money for additional teachers teachers teacher assistants school counselors social workers and highly qualified and certified in school suspension teachers oh yeah the pay pay raises and and I worry about your prek their staffs have been gutted money is needed to rehire prek teachers for the positions that were cut and you must address the endless disparity between suspensions of black black students and their white peers next I want to publicly acknowledge that Mr wildbore has met with Veronica and me three times during the past four years for respectful conversations and an exchange of ideas thank you finally this school board has one of the best call to the audience opportunities of any County in this state it's 60 Minutes has up to 25 speakers it's early in the evening and most importantly it's before any policy vote is taken don't silence our voices thank you thank [Applause] you going back around to who is not here in Atasha to and Reverend coou nen Tambo all right all right thank you uh board would we like a five minute motion yet break all right we are in a five minute break please return by 653 thank you is this the sign you guys use for e e e e e e e e board members if you could return to the dis please board members return to the dis and Dr Barnes board members please return to the Das there's only four three that we don't have a we don't have a form can't complain about me this time we don't have a quorum so Dr Merrick Miss Bradford Miss Justice Mr wildor and Dr Barnes all right we have a quorum uh we are back in session um moving on to consensus items in the agenda Mo to approve the consensus items okay do I have a second can you please repeat can you repeat make a motion to approve the consensus items motion to approve the consensus items yeah I'm I'd like to pull a couple before but go ahead see if you get a second then we'll talk I will second it and we can have discussion um Dr Merck yes I would like to pull uh a C and D for individual discussion a can you repeat those a c a c and d d d d as in dog d as in dog okay perfect all right um Mr Mr Perry I'd like to pull G for a very brief comment all right Miss Barnhart I will make a motion to adopt b e and f from the consistes items second all right any further discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed those pass three sorry 7 to nothing um going through in order we'll we'll start with a Dr Merck yeah I see that we're looking at spending another half million dollars on the Ashley track and I love the idea of having a a beautiful uh Athletic Field Etc at Ashley and I think uh our students deserve it but I feel very strongly that with the fields uh at at nor at new han High School being what they are that I think the public needs to hear again and maybe again and maybe again why there's so much discrepancy and why would be spending an extra half million doll another half million dollar on the track as a as a change order when the situation at New Hanover is what it is Mr Anderson yes um sir this is a change order uh report so these have already been done the the board approved the funding change order was processed and the work has been completed I will say on this one the the reason for the half million doll change order was it had to be constructed in phases so the the all along the total of the project was approximately what was it 800 $829,000 so that that's what was anticipated but because the way it was funded a change order had to be executed for the second phase I appreciate that and I want the work to be done I just want the explanation to the public of what will happen you know that to reassure the public that New Hanover high school is going to be getting a track as well uh can no I cannot assure that we'll take up that on another meeting right uh see the 2025 budget amendment Madam chair oh should we vote on one by one we can do that I'm I'm thinking because otherwise all right do I hear a motion to approve a I have so move exactly all right any further discussion all those in favor signify being by saying I I I any opposed that passes seven to zero budget amendment Dr yes Miss bner I just just wanted to speak to I know our board was really intentional about making sure if we found money which I'm grateful that we did to put it back into the classroom and so this really highlights the allocations for teachers full-time assistant um sixth grade guidance counselor some bus monitors and this was done as a result of listening to our staff and being responsive most responsive to the needs that were currently being presented and so I just want to say thank you that was 1.1 million going back into the classrooms um appreciate it as a board member happy to pass this budget mment Dr Merck yeah I was just confused I'm looking for more information and that's why I wanted to pull it off the consent agenda it looks like um uh $3.6 million uh has been reduced from the uh restart budget am I reading that correctly and some of it's being put back in but 3.6 million is being taken out by DPI and we're getting what you know 1.2 million back M yes so DPI is normally late in providing the money to the restart but we know that that money is going to come in so we went ahead and budgeted it in that state1 um so that restart could go ahead and start running their school and doing the things that they needed to do so when that restart money came in we budgeted that in the right program but we had to reduce the extra budget we had in 01 since we knew that money wasn't actually going to come in so it's just an adjustment that we made to our original budget estimate in total it was pretty close to the same but it was just in the wrong program so this is us making that adjustment I love how you guys push money around and then make it work I don't know how you do it but thanks for doing it all right uh I will entertain a motion to approve the 2025 budget amendment move I'll second all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed passes seven to zero continuing on year-to-date contracts and purchase orders Dr Merck this was also you yeah we're looking at um a lot of uh expenditures here uh some that we've seen some that we've talked about um and I don't expect us to to to understand all of what you do but it seems like with this many expenditures shouldn't we have maybe had a quick little uh rundown with that so that we would understand these more Mr Perry um I was just excuse me sorry Mr not my job um yes I I was actually going to wonder if in future reports uh whether you could have a column with a couple sentence explanation of what the expense is or maybe a link to the document so that we can there's a contract so that we can see it um Mr Merck is correct these are all between $100 and $300,000 but if you add them up it's several million dollars or so it's not small change and for future reference to our newer board members when these things come up the agenda review would be the perfect time if you have questions or concerns regarding any of them um to absolutely ask every single one of those questions generally speaking uh Miss barard Madam chair I was just curious um and hearing the discussion of my colleagues if moving forward if we wanted to either have a consistent report or perhaps if we wanted to vote on grants that were under a certain threshold I I just engage in the conversation don't know if that's if that's where the concern is for this um the chairwoman just spoke to speaking at it during agenda review but I didn't know if there was concern about the amounts of being approved without board approval if we wanted to revisit that um but I'd like to pose that to my colleagues now since we're on the topic Dr Merck yeah I'm just looking at this as a this is our fiduciary responsibility to be watching over our expenditures and I I look at this list and go boy I'm kind of stupid I don't know what any of this is and I'm not in any way saying that any of these expenditures are wrong but that as board members we have a responsibility to know where the money's going that that's really all I'm saying absolutely um and I was just pointing out Mr Justice had her hand oh well yes um miss barnhard here just brought up a point so this would be a change in policy as far as we did change the approval limit uh not that we want to I'm just saying that this is what you're referring to is possibly we need to look at that if we have the concern on the board is this what you were clarifying go ahead Miss Bard you can answer that thank you madam chair yes just hearing hearing from the colleagues it sound like there was concern with that so I said perhaps that's where the justification was coming from a different amount is it am I correct in understanding these are all of the amounts for the entire year this not just this month right okay I just I I thought I knew the answer I just wanted to say it out loud um but these are all of the different vendors who have been approved in the last year so I'm grateful to since July okay that's good to know too since July I'm grateful that we get a list um but I would be interested as a single board member to potentially have policy take that up to revisit the threshold amount so we can be more knowledgeable than that M Bradford um I would just like to reiterate what the chair thank you madam chair what you had just said we have these for a couple of weeks we can click on that link we can look at them if we have a question about something we can email email either Dr Barnes or the department head we can get all these questions out of the way before we come to this meeting so if you remember I went through every one of them on the agenda review and you didn't have any questions so that's where we do this part of this that's what we have agenda review for and you're you're you're you're allowed to ask all the questions you want we and the board wants you the the staff wants you to have all the information you can possibly need and then if there's something on there you want to pull off then we we also so we we let the board and the staff know so they're prepared when they come to this meeting for us just to do it as a consensus and it's just a housekeeping thing you guys are brand new except for Miss Justice she already knew this and even though the agenda review is new um but it's it's this isn't the place for it um it was last week Mr Perry I had one other just small thing and um it's not really related to the previous discussion um in on our assembly it says this reports to provide the board with a report on all contracts and purchase orders exceeding $100,000 but less than $300,000 approved by the superintendent or design from July through December um I am looking at just one of these contracts which I happen we voted on in December which is the one uh which is NC uh sound for $127,000 change uh that was actually a um one that we approved we had to approve because there was no competitive bidding process and so my question is should that be on this report your mic is off um yes we have reached our time on this item um so I am going to ask if we need an extension of time we do have uh a lot to cover for the rest of the meeting as well as one other discussion uh under consensus so I would at this point entertain either a motion to continue discussion or a motion to approve I move to adopt D and G as presented I'll second all right Miss Justice okay I was this is discussion I was hearing what you were saying it was just a simple explanation we are new to this process in ways we didn't have the agenda review before even though I wanted it um so if we just could move this at least to answer his question because I was interested in finding out what the answer was instead of cutting it off right in the middle of the question well we do have a motion on the table to approve D and G um is there any further discussion on that hearing none all those in favor of approving D and G signify by saying I I I any opposed nay nay okay that passes five- two Dr bares also it pleased the board I know that Friday we're having a budget uh work session I can ask Ashley to put together a real brief explanation of how these policies get approved and when and why that is the way it is because I know that as a board you don't want to slow down the work of getting the things done but if we can help you with sort of a rundown actually if you can pull that together by Friday I can give it to you guys then that works all right continuing on to policy I'm going to hand it over to Mr wior all right well I make a motion that we approve uh all the items under policy consensus second discussion Miss Bradford I'd like to pull one off of the consensus um policy 42 431 4351 okay any others okay so uh motion was made to approve policy consensus without 4351 all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed that passes 7 to zero going back to 4351 Miss Bradford um not responding to audience comments because I was prepared for this but I found it ironic and pleasantly that um twink bar pointed out that we don't read as well as we could but policy 4351 says no student under the age of eight or under grade three will be suspended out of school except in response to inst instances violating uh involving violations of policy 4325 four reasons there are only four reasons we can suspend children of this age out of school four reasons do you know what they are they are drugs and alcohol they are assaults and threats they are weapons bombs bomb threats terrorist threats clear threats to safety did I miss one those are grave offenses and that's the only reason we can suspend a little person out of school so to say that we need love and understanding and all of these other points but when a child has a weapon or a bomb or a bomb threat or a tra threat we need to allow our principles and our superintendent to do their job and I'm not done um if you look at the law on this which is um anual statute 115c specifically 288 there's powers and duties of the principal a to grade and classify pupils come all the way down to e to discipline students and assign duties to teachers with regard to the discipline General well-being and medical care of students I would say to you that if we have a child who brings a bomb to school or makes a bomb threat or has assaulted or threatened another person or has a gun or Dr drugs and alcohol then you need to consider that it is in the best interest of the 99 students in the classroom that the one be removed without having to jump through a bunch of Hoops I hear constantly and I heard in the um in in in in in the climate survey that we as a board don't listen to our teachers and our principles enough and on this one I'm going with the principles and the superintendent I'm not interested in changing it to anything else it it's the one part that nobody bothers to read they read everything else and say before you know after during whatever but if you've got a a bomb in the school I don't want to take the time to call the parent while I'm dealing with the child and I'm sorry if that's offensive but we have to look after the well-being of our students and our teachers and the rest of of of the entire School environment and if a child is threatening something like this or has a weapon weapon um or as assaulted or threatened a teacher or a student no no I'm not going to vote in favor of any more changes to this policy and I've heard it this has the been on the board two years and two months and this is the third time it's come before us thank you Dr Merrick with respect to my colleagues concerns about 4351 we have other policies already on the books to deal with a child who has a weapon and whether or not they can be um uh held or whether they can be you know uh bound so that the weapon can be removed we have policies to protect children and staff that have nothing to do with 4351 now 4351 also says a child will not be sent home before the end of the day so if that's the case what are we doing with that child we don't think they uh they're they're not safe to be with other children so I'm guessing they're in the principal's office they are somewhere so in other words we have time to talk to the parents those children are somewhere being kept so that they are not a danger to themselves or others and so we have all the time in the world till the end of the day to contact those parents or to try and if we have to send them home because we haven't yet I mean we're not going to send them home a five 5-year-old you're going to kick them out of school go home little boy boy no we can't do that so if you cannot contact the parents by the end of the day you send them home you're still going to have to call the parents and say don't send them to school tomorrow you're going to have to have a conversation with those parents or Guardians why in the world wouldn't you have that conversation first that's all I got to say uh Miss Justice Miss Barnhart and Mr Perry all right having been a principal in these situations I can tell you right now a lot of it's left even though this sounds really definite bomb threats terrorism assaults a lot of this is interpretation of what goes on in the classro it's not that cut and dry um so part of that is so the principal will have to make a decision about what his final outcome will be you've been there too and and I'm you know and we're not even there yet in this discussion because I'm going to definitely promote you should be contacting the parents first cuz for all you know that child's brother had been shot that night before when they came in all freaked out um so this is I'm not saying that's going to happen but there's a lot of factors that you need to put into effect if you're the principal with that responsibility making these decisions and thus all we're trying to do is actually ask to help the principal it isn't all cut and dry it isn't all black and white when you're talking about five six seven year olds and these kinds of this is what you're supposed to do according to what they do because what they do is is still left up to interpretation Miss Barnhart thank you madam chair I wanted to discuss a little bit because this had come over conversation when I was on policy and the conversation became about before a decision is made so there was some conversations that I've had with um some individuals from love our children about the conversation and parents being brought into the conversation and what's actually happening so we had discussions about discipline Matrix and how that comes into play how we get our staff feedback and there's a scaffolded as scaled of if these kind of um instances happened this is the recourse if this happens this is the recourse and there's natural mechanisms built in that address behavior in a scaffolded way of support in hopes that the student Behavior changes to be in a positive direction um that is something we we approve constantly my concern with a with adding the word before lies in regards to consistent expectation and in our school district we should have consistent expectation um we saw overwhelmingly with the staff survey that discipline was one of the biggest concerns for our staff and not feeling like they're supported in discipline and I have pointed out and I have criticized we should not look at the end result and say our staff is doing something wrong but rather we should say we trust our staff to follow policy which is a scaled intervention intentional consequences when there are specific levels of rightfully so disciplinary responses that the school district has but it's everybody came together to create what that looks like so that we can have consistent expectations and I hear what my colleague is saying too I absolutely agree that we have children who are experiencing things that unfortunately I don't believe that children should experience in in many instances but there's still an expectation when they're at school and so I I do hear and understand but I I disagree with um my colleague to the left though to say you can absolutely call before a child is sent home and have a conversation with a parent but it can be after the decision is made because when we start bringing parents into the process of saying can you help decide what the consequences Li and I'm try I'm I'm not trying to laugh um but when we say I I know my parenting style is different from um my friend's parenting Styles and I can only imagine the stories that principles would get to say well let me tell you what I think the consequence should be for my child from the easy extreme to the hard extreme in both directions and I don't want to see that I want to have consistent expectations and to be able to support our staff and I believe that this policy does that I has it has a scaled response it has contact with the parent is absolutely written in here um and so I support this policy Mr Perry being on the policy committee and we had this discussion about this and I thought and I was the one who proposed this this language uh where attempt the contact uh and as soon as possible uh which I think differs from the current thing it's where it's the end of the day uh we're imagining that this needs to happen quickly I mean you might you might need to make a suspension determination right away but pretty soon after within minutes maybe you you need to be notifying the parent or attempting to notify the parent I think all three of us miss Justice and Mr will deore and I think Dr Barnes kind of agreed on the on the language that we we we chose we re this is why it's a consensus item from policy we believe this language is the best of all worlds um would I like some general just from my own personal thing would I like to maybe change some language about a suspension determination can't we just call it a prejudgment and then because right now what we do is there's a suspension determination made and then the parent gets the right to appeal but uh now we're talking semantics though really because they get to appeal if they want to I mean could we say they make to make a predetermination and then then there's a real determination after there's a hearing I don't know but we that's a bigger disc discussion I think for right now right here right now I think this is the best language that that uh equals out all the interest that we have and our a warning to be able to reach out to parents as soon as possible during these situations uh Mr W deore no I've been biting a lip here long enough um so yeah I agree with Mr Perry he he and I were part of that group as well as M Justice and I will say um that I have met with the love our children group repeatedly uh and I do I will say this I want to keep all our children in school at all times that's where they learn that's definitely it but I've also sat in the principal's chair and had to make those tough decisions when you have a child in front of you that's bleeding because another child has has hurt them uh when I met with the when Mr MC Manis and I met with the love our children's group they actually took we actually have the wording in our policy that they that I proposed and that then they uh came in with the uh the C ATS that are in this policy um yeah I'll be honest I I said when I was a principal when I was a sister principal you know you'd love to have a dime for every parent that came in and said well I want to know what you did with the other kid we can't you can't do that we can't do that before uh you can't have a a situation I don't think where you have you know you can definitely talk to that parent let the parent know what's going on but a lot of times a parent will advocate for their child which they should do absolutely 100% my child would never do that well I have a child here well can I question that child no you can't question that child I think there's a lot of areas where get we would get into if we uh said we we have to do that before the area before the determination was made so I think we need to trust our principles we think I think we need to trust our assistant principles and I think the language that we have right here is is the best language that we can come up with um and I think it is sound I think it is it's definitely within uh General statutes in fact it's probably a little bit more um lenient than General statutes are in certain areas uh so I think it is in my my in my professional opinion uh and I think Mr mcmanis I've I've chatted with him in the past about the same policy and he also as a as a principal uh said that you know that this needs to be as it is so so we are coming up on um just about time I wanted to kind of make a brief comment um I know that we've been discussing this policy for a long time um and in that discussion we did pull in principles we did talk to them about what was happening and more often than not and actually every principal that I spoke to um they are contacting parents throughout the process they are already in contact with parents um they are already aware of and communicating with the parents that they can access um we also need to remember that there are parents that we can't access sometimes they may not have cell phones or their numbers may have changed or they may have moved um and so to tie the hands of our tie the yeah tie the hands of our our principles um to to that is concerning so at this point I will entertain either a motion to continue discussion or a motion to approve motion to continue second oh that was the same time point of order what's the motion I was Miss Mr wior I'm I I make motion we call a question second we we already had a question here about an okay point of order we have a motion to continue we have a motion to call it happen at the same time they were simultaneous chair you'll have to decide right I am going to go with the motion to uh approve and there was a second with that if not I second um because we are at time uh Miss buoy could you please call the role Mr Perry I miss Justice no Miss barnhard yes Miss Mason yes Mr wildor uh Dr Merrick no and Miss Bradford yes all right that passes five to two Madame chair I make a motion to extend discussion for five minutes so we can get through the policies for first reading do I hear a second second okay uh all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed that passes and you asked for five minutes chair Miss Bradford regarding the policy that we've just left board members have said that we've discussed this we've discussed it through two generations now um really it's the third time that I remember it coming forward we've done a lot of due diligence on it and so I move right now that this policy 4351 not come before this board again for a period a minimum period of 12 months do I hear a second second okay discussion Miss Justice I'm not even sure that I'm not even sure we have that Authority that's a new one on me there's nothing in policy about that you got your attorneys there left uh Miss uh have you ever heard of something the attorney either of the attorneys I'm stomped but just as an aside I'm trying to think if someone who voted in favor could always vote to reconsider yeah you you could I mean there are ways you can work around if if if there's a a need to revisit an issue um I I don't know that there's a way that you can completely foreclose it for a 12-month period I just I'll I'll withraw that would be an airtight I mean it I I would agree with that if the board votes today to not discuss this or pick it up for 12 months but then next month we decide in a unanimous vote to pick it up I think it would be back on the table um not sure what to say about the initial motion then okay so there is no longer a second or is there I got to look on okay that motion fails moving to to uh propos policy 6129 Mr bore me again okay good um I had such a great time last time you want to say um we this is just a policy for first reading it is about the anti-choking devices uh I think it does answer all the questions that we had about them um I would entertain any questions that we could you know we did cross through such trained Personnel because we do want um it to be you know anyone that can use it there is a very simple um training uh module that you would do just so you know what you're doing with it um I think that again I'm going to just keep uh trying to tell or or recommending that folks you know across the board very much like the bloodborne pathogens training that we used to have I think we still have they they still have I don't have anymore but they still do I mean just a overall overarching training and again I think this is good because it also um you know it was brought up that there are several I think Mr Perry brought up that there are um the uh Red Cross now approves this as part of its training regiment our local heart the heart association am I correct Mr Perry I think I'm right I can't recall on that one okay I believe that's what you had told me was that the the Heart Association does not and that's what our nurses are under but is that correct all right all right thank yeah I should ask I forgot what you do I'm apologizing I apologize for that you know she yeah but um I mean and and as I said before and I'm going to say it again if this you know if these devices save one child over the years well worth it if if they save a lot of children even better or adults or as uh we've had you know a person come up and talk about you know maybe a heavy set child or something or a child in a wheelchair there's just so many things that um you know it could it could help uh in addition to you know the black the back blows and the homic maneuver and stuff so it's not saying one or the other this is a an addition to and Dr Merck did you want to we only have one minute so no I make a motion that we send it back to policy so we can go through the second reading and do all whatever we got to do we don't this is first reading this the first reading yeah we can approve it as is we don't no no we have it at the end of the month we do it next month it's automatic it's automatic aoma I withdraw my motion Dr as uh attorneys as you know my only concern was this is that this identify and protect the staff members as well do you feel like this policy does both of those things allows us to utilization with kids and protects our staff I think so I think it cover both sides of concerns that we have thank you all right okay so and again it's only a first reading so we don't have to do anything with it we just did what we have to do with it I guess perfect thank you there we go all right um update on New Hanover High School Renovations thank you madam chair I'm gonna turn it over to Miss Lawrence uh to give a five minute update on the work at new H Hospital why do I only get five I have a lot of good things to talk about thank you for this opportunity um and I will try to keep it brief um Eddie has a cane behind under the chair is to P me aside if I I be escorted out even better um So currently the work that's underway is what we refer to as phase 2A it was a change order that was approved by the board in December and that if you recall is for the removal and replacement of the eastern and western flanking walls those walls were Beyond repair so we were obligated to replace them if you visit the site you'll see the vast majority of those wall structures removed and then in the next couple of weeks you'll see the new wall construction occurring I'm happy to report that that work is on schedule and for phase 2A and slightly under budget so that's good news on the heels of that we will begin repairs of the South elevation wall That's the wall running parallel with Market Street that faes market that is a part of what we will refer to as phase 2B of the construction and phase 2B will include all work that is necessary between now and August for us to complete all of the repairs interior improvements that will allow us to reoccupy those classrooms for the start of the school year and I will be bringing to you a change order for approval for that phase 2B in an upcoming board meeting but I would like to note that the phase 2B work is a part of the funding is already included in the funding that we've already received from the County Commissioners um I would like to touch on for a moment the security vestule project because I don't think we've talked about it yet if you'll recall last spring we brought to you for approval a contract for construction of a new security vestibule that work began this past summer in 2024 as we encountered encountered the structural issues we had to hit the pause button on that security vesb project we have a contractor a separate contractor who's under um contract to perform that work that contractor and our construction manager who's overseeing all of the repair work they have been collaborating and what uh the agreement that we've reached is the contractor for the security vestibule project in May of this year will recommence that construction and will work through the summer so that um for the start of school we will not only have repairs to the class mushrooms and all the structural repairs will be completed but the security vestibule project will also be completed and that's an incredible facelift for the interior of that space there'll be new Organization for the office and the guidance area um it's going to be fantastic and it's going to be the icing on the cake as we reopen um this portion of the campus in addition to the ongoing repair work we also in parallel are in the process of conducting the facility assessment and the uh Master planning for Handover as funded by the County Commissioners so for the past few um weeks the design team The Architects and Engineers have been scouring the campus they've been through all of the buildings conducting very in-depth analyses um for of all the buildings we've also conducted a number of meetings with various District departments um maintenance technology Child Nutrition safety Transportation Athletics so we've been holding meetings at the school at all of these meetings Mr Sutton and Mr Haney are an integral part of that they invite to those meetings any members of their staff that are important in that process um for example when we met with maintenance they invited the head custodian um he participated in the meeting and he was an an incredible Resource as we discuss the day-to-day operations of the campus um we are also Al scheduling meetings I'm working right now in the Pro uh to schedule meetings with um instruction and curriculum and CTE to talk about the vision for the programs of the campus as we look toward the future um one of the things I wanted to touch on was very important is later this month we've targeted February the 27th as a date when we will be engaging holding a community engagement event um detailed information regarding the times for this will be be published within the next week or so um this will be held at the Princess Street Gym um we're targeting late afternoon to early evening um a as a window of time when we will invite parents um community members um alumni you as the board members of the county commissioner um the County Commissioners will also be invited to come and participate in giving us um information and input on the future of Handover that same day we will hold student engagement sessions during this during the day and then immediately after dismissal we will have a staff engagement um event so that will be a a very comprehensive day where we look forward to getting input from the community from the students from the staff I'm currently working with Mr Sutton on the structure and timing of the student and staff portion um but if you'll pencil in the 27th as a date to participate in that Community engagement we'd very much appreciate it and um we will have detailed information that will be published in the very near future so that concludes my update if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them Miss Bradford I just right now all that scaving up it just it's just so encouraging that something's happening you know before dirt and so on it was a little discouraging but it's really you can feel the change and it's it's good for all of your hard work I'm very very pleased to be a part of this process Miss barnhard thank you madam chair I also just want to Echo thanks to you I'm going to say it out loud because you found us money that we could save from the last phase so hoping that happens but just really highlighting not only are we going to be able to have the repairs done but the best ofal done before the start of next year that is so phenomenal I I mean the start of this year was hectic and that's a nice word to say it for new Handover students and so just really grateful for the team keep working hard save us some money thank you to the County Commissioners for being diligent in this process because it's needed and we are being responsive to the needs and thank you for keeping on track with them any other questions Mr W not a question but again just to reiterate I do thank you for your hard work uh when I went over the other day and you gave me a great tour of everything and every everything's going thank you so much you're on top of everything you're leading the way thank you for doing it my pleasure Dr Merck amazing you know when it comes to construction you don't R you rarely hear that we came in under budget that's that's just so thank you uh hopefully it continues um do you have a a estimate for when the facilities assessment will be complete we are we will have the the goal is by the end of April we will have a completed um assessment that will include uh the master planning imagery as well as a cost estimate um and between now and then we will be having a series of meetings with senior staff and um the staff at Handover to receive additional input we we're going to keep plugging in maintenance technology um transportation Child Nutrition safety all of the teams that are part of the operation of the campus we're going to continue to engage them as we go through this master planning process but the end of April is when we will tie a bow around all that information I I sure hope we'll be able to get very soon to like the the the locker rooms the shower rooms that are so bad that they're not even used they're now storage rooms and our athletes and our uh gym uh students don't take showers at new han high school we need to I can't wait for us to be able to we did that as well and we we that was one of the topics of conversation when we met with Dr Morgan and focused on the Athletics so there's a lot of room and a lot of love that we can give to this campus any other questions thank you so much thank you continuing on to new business uh student cell phone use ad hoc committee Miss Justice i' like over here which makes it a little hard for me to talk so if I start coughing or anything um the purpose of this is that for example uh it's a fact that we've known this the last couple months kids reading MTH skills are worsening new test scores reveal people are asking is it co they go back in time and they so say no um these test scores started to follow a couple years before Co even hit and looking generally at research um it ties in very strongly with self overuse of the schools I can go into a lot more detail for that but I'll just use the teachers words the teachers are making it's making it harder and harder for teachers to try to teach the kids are also being damaged and this is a fact too they've done Tons Of Studies have been damaged sexually emotionally um because of the use of cell phones and social media in the schools during the day uh it's an addiction and it's concerned and are I actually live to and it concerns them they speak about it they know that it's hurting they have trouble talking face to face with each other um let Al not listening and classroom teachers are trying to teach so a couple years ago coule years back you were talking about and I was in the board previously about setting up a committee stum that never came to consideration but now with things getting worse I think it's is time for us to put a committee together and let me read what the proposal is just one page the is only H great detail this is a proposal to create an ad hoc committee to revise new H County Schools policy number 4318 use of wireless communication devices in our schools the goal is to limit the impact of cell phones and other wireless communication devices due to disruptions of the learning environment and also limit their contributions to our students worsening mental health the objective is to improve concentration learning to improve mental and physical health and reduce pressures caused by social media on our children all right the committee and this is I said this is not really huge detail it's pretty straightforward the committee composition and operation voting members will be all committee members I've worked on committees before I know a lot of times here with the school board they say well it should just be the board members I think in this situation where we're going to decide on a everybody should have a stake in it and have a final say um the members will consist of those that most that are most impacted by the use of wireless communication devices in their schools the committee will be limited to 12 members anything over that going have trouble getting work done uh the two school board members were act as chair and vice chair I was ask the two school board members and the two school board members and then we need a recording secretary that would be provided by the superintendent's office the following how many people would serve as members two Schoolboard members I mentioned that already two classroom teachers from the secondary two parents of students two students from the secondary one school administrator involved in school discipline at the secondary one school guidance counselor from the secondary one school resource officer from the secondary level and one school social work the committee will meet this is my goal I hope our goal the committee will meet five times location and time be determined between now and the July policy committee meeting they will then present their findings to the policy committee for further discussion and approval revised policy number 4318 will then be moved out of policy through the usual methodis to the full board and hopefully approval um earlier today U Mr Perry mentioned that should be should be doing this committee through policy I think it's too big of a challenge what's going on in our district and the meetings will will be very detailed um several years ago we went through um a committee that actually decided on our our current address code which actually is a very dress very good policy I could say something about enforcement but the policy itself is there uh and it was F and structured around this kind of set mainly that the policy people with the policy holders on at stay are the ones that come up with the decisions and they ended up doing a lot of research so that's why I'm bringing this to you now it worked very well then you the board um so I'd like to do this with our uh Mr wior well uh Mr Justice I well excuse me not say it that way fellow board member over there I I couldn't agree with her more I mean I think it's very uh sound I mean I think we do you know we we've had this problem with cell phones for this board last board I do want to remind the board we had currently have a uh committee one of the safety committees uh that actually has a cell phone SL discipline so that may be another area we already have we kind of already have that covered actually and I do want to remind uh and let the board members know that that may may not have been at the Town Halls both the uh last summer uh town hall and the um more recent one I believe it was in October um we actually that was one of the three topics that were talked about were cell phones supposed to be cell phone discipline I was actually on at that table and it was cell phones and the time was was ended every time because it is such a big concern for folks that you know that you know and I'll be honest you know as we heard from from the parents uh and from the administrators uh more from the parents as I remember I don't have my notes in front me I was checking to see if I had them but um you know from the parents they were very split you know some parents were out adamant you will not take my child's cell phone you will not ever take my child's cell phone I want to be able to contact my parent my my child at any time on the other side of the equation we had a lot of parents that said just as Miss Justice did you know it's a distraction it goes off then you have conflict between the teacher and the student so there's a lot of concern there I don't think there was any teachers that said hey I really think you know there was a time I'll be honest as a principal there was a time we needed that technology in the classroom we don't need that technology in the classroom anymore so um whether the board wants to continue with the the current way we have it with the uh with the committee the safety commit safety Assi discipline SL cell phone or if we want to do a separate ad hoc committee you know that's up to the board but I just you know want to remind everybody we do already have that you know as part of another committee right Miss Barnhart thank you madam chair I love this idea and I know we're coming close to time on this I'm I'm in favor of having a tiered system of expectation definitely getting the input from our staff and our students is important I'm going to take this a step further I said this I've said this before to miss Bron over there of making sure we have a tiered expectation just with technology in general because for a K2 year-old that expectation should look very different from a senior in high school and so I think that this would be something absolutely worthwhile to explore I agree with my sentiment um from my fellow board member to my left saying that we do um have a Safety Committee that specifically deals with cell phones so I'm not anti this idea but I think to continue this discussion it might be a good idea to bring this back under old business um next month too to H hammer out some more details and have some more conversation but I I would take it a little step further to not just cell phone devices but just technology use and talk about the best practices for our children because I think that's important um as we go through this process thank you madam chair uh Dr Merck so I appreciate my colleague here who says we already do have a committee but I was piqued by your uh concern about how the committee was structured and I really like the idea of bringing in uh a lot of staff and SRO and you know all the the stakeholders that really matter so my question my question would be whether or not uh the structure of the Safety Committee the cell phone discipline would work in terms of structure to bring in all the the people that I I agree we need on that committee um I'm that was a question question I'm GNA allow her to answer and then I'll have you go Miss Bradford well the reason that I think this would be a standal committee because uh the issue is so huge and it's not just safety and dis it's a lot more than just that I was talking about students mental health students learning environment being able to learn um there we could use the information they have already masked we can move it into the committee and that could be part of the information that we'll be used to make our final determination that's great that they've done all that work that's going to save us some work and the final outcome that's what my take would be sorry about the allergies um we are at time so I'm going to make a motion to extend the conversation for five minutes okay we had a second all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed that passes uh Miss Bradford thank you madam chair um first I want to say I am 100% in agreement with the goals I am in 100% with the objectives absolutely 100% in agreement however I listen to what my colleague to the right said um in terms of of a possibility putting it up under safety and again when we create a new committee there's a lot of steps involved that keep from getting right to work if you stick it under uh under one committee we already have you're at it right then however let me put out another option um the past two years we have held a board retreat during the first 60 to 90 days of every first part of the year and we haven't done that yet and so I would would would move you to consider that we get a board retreat scheduled put it on the calendar and then put cell phones on that agenda to have this broader discussion about this committee then in addition to a couple other things that we really need to talk about at length and I can make that in the form of motion if anyone would like to Second it okay there was a motion is there a second yeah okay terrible um I want to make sure that everybody that hasn't spoken has an opportunity to speak and Mr Perry has not yet had an opportunity to speak so I'm going to allow him to speak I'm just wondering um since reading uh the proposal which I am for all the goals too this needs to be worked out and it's uh and I think maybe some kind of dedicated committee is in order um but since since since it says right in it that uh it reports to the policy committee I was wondering if we could adopt it as an ad hoc of subcommittee of the policy committee since it's going to report there anywhere so miss Justice I want to clarify um we need to do this as soon as possible the reason I put the July date was because of upcoming school year um we can't keep pushing it away as far as discussing it in a treat that'll take more time if I hadn't have gone through and I'm going to use this as an example if I hadn't gone through the um best C policy sit with the committee I I wouldn't feel confident that we can't do this and I'll tell you why because it took a lot of work on our part the the school board members part and I ended up carrying most of the work and I think I worked with some of the office people in the office to but it work but whoever's on that committee has to know it is going to be working you have to keep focusing on that you can't let it slide you have to go you have to find people that have to apply you have to just constantly follow up but it will work and I want to get this stuff I want to get this done I don't want to keep it keep it you know w waiting and waiting because we we've got a big problem our kids have got a big our teachers are challenged uh Dr Merck we only have about two minutes I understand that we're actually discussing the motion on the floor to do it during a retreat is that what I'm hearing at this point okay thank you I like the idea however a board retreat does not bring on the stakeholders that we need and the experts that we need and so I'm going to go back to uh what we I asked before the structure that Miss justice has suggested brings in the stakeholders and the experts that we need and so a board retreat wouldn't accomplish that although I think we could we could discuss it at a board retreat 100% okay uh Miss Bradford we have one minute and let me clarify my suggestion to take it to the board retreat was to have this same discussion in dep about how the committee is formed and follow the the steps that Miss justice has outlined I'm not saying um uh just to discuss it at the board retreat and then just be done with it it's a much bigger issue than that and I would remind the chair that I could swear we sat in with principles and they gave us their advice last year or the year before um but the other thing I want to point out and I'm going to point it out here and again in a minute is we have one Focus right now between now and April 15th and I'm not going to come off this bar we have to approve a budget that is going to be acceptable to all of the people all of the families all of the County Commissioners we have that between now and April and I don't want to really clog us up with a whole lot of other stuff until that task is off our plate to just remind you okay um and we have a motion on the table to have a board retreat to discuss this ad hoc did you have anything you wanted to add Dr Barnes if I can if we can also appoint someone from or if I can be allowed to appoint someone from cabinet to provide support for that as well to make sure yeah thank you okay so the motion on the table is to hold a board retreat to discuss the cell phone ad hoc committee uh Miss buoy will you call the role point of clarification to discuss that and other things that and other things have a time we just have to plan it we would have to send that out we'll have to this spoy m Bradford uh yes Dr Merck no Mr wior yes Miss Mason uh yes Miss Barnhart yes Miss Justice no and Mr Perry yes and that passes 5-2 all right so uh we will send out some possible dates Miss burnhard can you grab me top to my marker um continuing to the next next ad hoc committee uh new han County Schools employee performance bonus plan committee Mr Perry yeah good evening um I think we are all appreciative of our employees and the outstanding work that they do uh they are the lifo of our school system they what's make it go what makes it work um the and we need to Value them uh not just with our appreciation and our honors but with with our dollar signs and I believe that especially when it comes I think our County does an excellent job compared to other counties as far as supplementing their wages and salaries however uh uh compared to a lot of other counties is it ever enough probably not but I'd like to also reward all of our employees with the opportunity for a merit based performance-based uh bonus in the future at some point so if they go above and beyond expectations that they're rewarded for that uh now this is a huge job I think most of the people that I've talked to like this idea but this is not something we can snap our fingers and get done in a in a in a couple of couple sessions of the policy committee it is a huge job in order to determine how to judge that performance fairly across whole different spectrums of employees within our school district how do you judge performance for a special needs students teacher versus a Jad teacher versus a custodian or a principal or a teacher Aid it all differs there are some things in here um as far as some general you know ideas as far as uh under guiding principles of the plan um that I want to go over this is not a replacement for salary this is an addition and above and beyond as an extra perk that is going to give us the ability to recruit develop and aain the highest quality employees this will give us if we were to implement this plan this will give us a competitive advantage over all one other4 school districts in North Carolina that won't have this which means we get to keep our teachers now there um and like I said so it's not a replacement and I do think it has to be you know there's going to be budgetary restraints and we're going to have to work through those but it has to be something substantial it can't be a couple hundred bucks otherwise it's not going to do the job um and and it needs to be every employee and the biggest thing about fairly measuring performance this is the bulk of the work that this committee is going to have to do and yes should it be focused on student growth Innovation but it's going to differ a little bit for each different type of employee and a lot of the work of that that's going to take many sessions is to get input from our employees get their Buy in I want them Staffing our committee coming in and giving us their input I want to be able to take guest employees who like to present to us uh not necessarily have a c audience but let them schedule with this committee a time to come in and tell us what they think about this because without their buyin it's not going to work so I'd like to try to get this going I think it's going to probably you know take at least a Year's worth of meetings and i' like to get it an organizational meeting going next month but just to figure out who we need on on that committee not a full-blown meeting I want to work with Dr Barnes to get the right kinds of you know representative sample of our employees on that so we can get great advice on what how to fairly judge performance and then we can wait two months until after the budget process for us start working in Earnest so um I'm happy to answer any questions Mr wior first of all Mr Perry I I keep saying the same thing but I think this is an outstanding idea I mean I think this is a great idea anything we can do to get more money for our teachers teacher assistants bus drivers uh cafeteria workers everyone I think it's a great idea um I would have a couple suggestions uh I've really been looking over your your proposal I think it's great overall well written um but I would suggest maybe the one thing we we have to have you know we we could have this great plan that we going to do all this stuff we don't have the money we can't do it so I would I would recommend that we actually put this as a subcommittee under Finance and I would say U and I'm I'm kind of did some looking at our policies and stuff finance committee currently has two members on it from the board uh it says two or three in our policy so we could add Mr Perry to as a third person in there and he could have that you know CU Miss um I'm not going to brag my colleague to the left I got to work on this my colleague to the left my colleague way over there to the left but she's put together a great thank you she put together a great uh thank you all right anyway she put together a great uh panel a great uh committee that has a lot of folks that are from the uh that would be very helpful in that whole area and as you said Mr Perry I think that really getting this thing off and running hard you know because what is the finance commit I can point that way finance committee doe after the budget is passed and done well there's not a lot for them to do at that time this would be a great thing for them to run you running your committee under uh and you know working with those those folks you could maybe use some of those folks from the finance committee to help you with that um I'm going to I I've said this to you before I really really really really really think we need to have folks with boots on the ground as part of this committee and not bring them in here and then have them back out or call them when as your proposal said um I that's one thing I don't agree with I think we need to have you know I would say like the teacher of the year the principal of the Year those folks need to be part of the permanent solution I'm going to uh part of the permanent committee so that we can have you know a teacher saying hey this is what I think and so otherwise if you bring somebody in one meeting and then they're not there next meeting they got to get up to speed um and I think you know teacher of the year principal the year all those people you know they they were elected by their uh their colleagues as teacher of the year principal of the Year etc etc so I think those would be great people if we could have them or someone else but I mean I think it is really important to pursue the funding first because we' really really you know really like to have a great I I think this is AB absolutely wonderful but I mean if we don't have the funding we'd have the best plan in the world with no no funding so again 100% behind you on this one I think it's great uh but I think you know working with the finance committee would be a good thing too uh Dr Merck well my colleague to the right with less hair than me oh my goodness oh my goodness by immed Anyway said he's t i I Echo his sentiments I think it's a great idea anything that we can do to show our teachers and staff that we appreciate them that they're doing a great job I'm all for it you know it occurs to me that you know if you're talking about giving like uh a $5,000 you know award or $3,000 award I bet your committee could do a lot of work in the public sphere and go out and find corporate sponsorships for for your uh bonuses and it would be the C Cola award to you know for higher learn whatever right so funding is important I think it can be done I support I support you setting up this committee whether it's in finance I I'm interested to hear what you say um did you you have not miss brenford has not had a chance to speak so I'll have her I had a concern under F of The Proposal on our screens and you know and printed about just that um the last the board May instruct the committee to attempt to secure funding of the plan Somewhere In My Memory I remember and so I would ask you madam chair if you would ask the board attorneys are we as board members or committees allowed to raise money or go out and secure money my opinion is no but I'd love to hear legally and solve that problem right now I'm going to pause that really quick because we are at time for this um so I will make a motion to extend time for five more minutes all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed okay that passes five or seven to zero oh my goodness I I think we can get an answer on that rather quickly probably within a day and and pick the law out I I I tend to agree with M Bradford's concern right now okay I was I was oh mford because I am on the pl committee and this is no idea um I would temper what my colleague to the right said oh my gracious all right all right as adoc under and then let Mr Perry you got to put Mr Perry on that committee which is fine then let him run the ball oh yeah under those circumstances but not not not engage the group that we currently have for the tasks that we're currently doing it would it you know you could pull the staff you maybe could pull the same teachers and principls and so on but they were assembled for this task and and and and and it's a it's a different group of people so I I I like the idea um and I would support it and then put then put Mr Perry on the committee and then let him have his ad hoc under then I would support that um I'm not asking to be on your ad hoc either um but you know um you can get at I'm sure but ideal on your ad hoc um she'd be good too um I think that structure-wise that would work and then we wouldn't have to go through the whole process of getting it approved and the language approved and inserting into the policy thing talks about committees and all that we just he he could he could start with ad HW ad hwks are like that yes um Miss Justice hasn't had a chance and then on Mr Perry okay I'm going to speak with a different voice I've been in education over 30 years and worked in many different settings my favorite people are Educators in this world except for the kids and I know that the the most effective teachers are always collaborative this is how we learn um one of the things that's really difficult is the state itself gives bonuses according to Performance and there is so many concerns about how they judge what performance is we're really asking to do something that is very it's almost impossible in ways and I myself have always been a big cheerleader and proponent of collaboration as our most Educators because that's where we do the best in our schools our biggest challenge is not having enough funding for our Educators or be able to hire the resources to support them it would be great if we had lots of money but to the fact is we don't and in fact we were really underfunded so I I applaud the idea I think it's great this would work Wonderful in the business world but educating kids is not a business these aren't widgets and teachers working together are are really their teams and competing amongst each other is something they don't do comfortably and as I said how you do how you going to measure this and where you're going to get the money is huge so I applaud Mr Perry for trying to improve and and and and recognize are hardworking teachers I think I think there's so many hardworking teachers out there and not just teachers other staff members this is going to be hard um Miss Barner hasn't had a chance so I'll let her go thank you madam chair I know we're coming up on again on extended time here um I love the idea and concept what I have learned is when you are discussing with people of asking for money they do not want a half coocked plan and so the idea behind this of getting the input getting the and creating what I would think a rubric of sorts um so that we can have some clear expectation and an opportunity for all to to earn that is is a unique thing that I think would Peak the interest in different different Revenue resources that we as a board if we have one once this plan this is this is an idea and then the plan and the work will happen probably for months and months and months if I'm being realistic here understanding and I know I shouldn't say the BND d word but um you know if 26 we have a bond on the ballot we're going to be asking for a lot of money and just being very direct here and so I don't know if 26 is you know the idea to take a pilot and Implement something like this but potentially looking at the year after but if we have a plan a thoughtful plan of support of indepth uh discussions and opinions I agree with that and I agree with my colleagues of uh and I'll make a motion if I need to do this make a motion to create this under an ad hoc committee under Finance so that this can be explored explored all right do I hear a second do that motion I'll second that okay um we are at time for this we also uh have I just calculated approximately 40 minutes more of discussion items as well as a closed session I know three moment so Madam chair we need to be cognizant of that time um Mr wior just real quickly I'm wondering if we don't want to just delay this discussion and maybe have it at the board retreat so we have more time to do that um so that we don't you know we we could jump on it right now take a vote and do that or we could discuss it more in depth at that time because we are running out of time Miss Barnhart did you want to I'll amend to I will my motion to say to postpone this discussion until the board Retreats we can give I'll second okay all any we we're out of time we yeah um all those in favor signify by saying I I I I any opposed that passes seven to zero resp continuing on um the timing of call to audience um this was brought to my attention to the superintendent's uh attention um and just wanted to kind of bring the discussion forward to the board uh about the possibility of adjusting the timing of call to audience so I will uh open the floor for anybody who has any jump in if I could uh Mr woodor well um I'll be honest I was one of those that was definitely 100% against uh moving it changing it doing anything like that uh you know you think about it when Miss Justice and I were on it before we actually at one point split it and then um you know had the important or the things relevant to that meeting at the beginning uh actually at the time we did uh uh the Clos session at that point so people would come in they wouldn't know exactly when they should be there and then uh you know we had some folks that kind of stretch their their topic so that it could maybe be at um you know 5:30 or 6:00 in instead of you know a lot of times Miss Justice you I mean person to my right over there but she would agree I'm sure that a lot of times it was 11:30 at night that we were uh trying to figure out you know people you know weren't saying because it really didn't make any sense to try to say at 11:30 to be heard so that made no sense uh we have really improved that whole um that whole thing you know we we we will probably be done tonight unless we add a lot more time by 9:00 um and I so I went out and talked to some folks talked to some teachers I also talked to some parents I've not talked to extensive numbers but I have talked to a legitimate number of folks and got their opinions um and you know five you know right now we we have our call to audience somewhere between 5 and 6 o' um and you know they say said to me very quickly and very honestly well number one we can't get there because of the uh rush hour but that's not the most important thing we can't come because uh you know I have to have my child's dinner you know they need to be fed they need to be put to sleep so we can't come we want to be there we can't speak because of the timing our current format for our um call for our meetings would make it very clear you know that this the call to audience would be from 8: to 9:00 um we could try it my my suggestion would be and totally I'm like I said I'm still not 100% on one side of the other but um I think you know we try for 3 months if it's after 3 months we say nope nobody's coming it's horrible it's the worst thing in the world you know then then we go back to what we're doing if we on the other hand try it for 3 months and we do see some of the parents from the students that are actually coming here some of the teachers that you know I put my children to bed but now I'm able to come you know afterwards um I I don't know like I said I'm not I'm not 100% sure I don't know if that would fix the problem and I don't know that there is a problem please understand that we know we do as somebody uh mentioned today we do you know give more time than either Brunswick or Pender County I know we had somebody that mentioned that before I don't think splitting it is ever a good idea because then all that does is have people have to stretch the you know whatever they say but I mean I wouldn't be opposed to trying an 8 to n for two months 3 months or whatever else uh you know we would know that it was that that solid time so and nobody would be has to be out here at 11:30 tonight uh to do it so that's my thoughts Dr Merck uh I have really strong feelings and I hope that I will actually be able to sway you since you're not you're on the T on the table right there after com you said I don't know all six uh candidates for the the board this time round ran on accountability and transparency we publish an agenda 48 hours before this meeting and so our public stakeholders only have 48 hours and then they get to come here and and talk about and give us their opinions and give us their concerns about the things that we're going to vote on if we put them at the end of the meeting then we've already voted what we've told our public is you know what thanks but no thanks now I also have talked to a lot of teachers who and I know this is changing and I give great credit to our interim superintendent Dr Barnes for this but a lot of teachers could come but they are afraid to come the the idea that there has been a culture of Retribution in this district has kept our teachers from speaking up and I know that it's going to change we are Dr Barnes being in the school letting them know he wants to hear them that's going to change I think we'll start to see them even with our current CTA timing Miss Bradford um I like what my younger yeah that's right remember that this meeting is to conduct the business of the board and it's a proven fact that at least five of us have problems once we get to having been here for a certain amount amount of time 8:00 seems to be a really convenient time for some of us to start calling the other people by the wrong name and things like that um no names mentioned there and I want some clarity from from um from one comment are you saying put it at the end of the meeting or you saying it putting it right after we conduct the business of the board we have new business we have old business so if you're saying that then I I could be in favor of that um and I and I and I I differ with the whole transparency because we we have called audience not everybody speaks to anything that's on that agenda but we also now have this new fangled Contraption called email and we get all these emails from everybody the day of five minutes before throughout the week throughout the month so we have a much bigger ability to contact all board and the superintendent any time of the day or night which wasn't there when the state created policy uh the the legislation 115 which is this is set out in there um and we would have to amend our policy to do it um but we have so many ways for people to reach us now that I don't think it has to be before we conduct the business of the board and it would be nice to try it like Mr wior said and and and see how the conducting to the business part goes with the called the audience after that not before the other things that are on the the agenda but but after the business of the board new business and old business that would be my suggestion Miss Barnhart thank you madam chair um with respect to building the agenda it is the board chair's job to do that and so you have the authority to reorganize this agenda however you want I do appreciate the one hour called audience this goes looking at districts across the state very large ones they have 30 minutes tops um I appreciate the Lottery system because there was a period in time that it was a first come first serve and I think that everybody should have the opportunity I know um miss Ma and I have even discussed translator options to bring that in so we can get advanced notice if people are needing services for translating whether that be hearing impaired or a different language um a different oral language spoken so I I also kind of echo the sentiment when we come together to do the business of the board it is our D due diligence to be at our best when we're making decisions and I think that um I think that taking care of that business first is imperative and I do want to say because when we were streamlining the policy so that we had consistent expectation for agenda posting the regular board meeting is posted uh 5 days in advance and 48 Hours as a general statute so this is not something that we're just half-heartedly doing it's We are following law when we are doing that which we are sworn in to uphold and so I um have zero desire to shorten the call to audience of a on- hour time frame but I would say with respect to if it does get moved in the agenda I think it should be before close session because I know that was a big frustration um in previous administration that um called a audience was after a closed session and I think that part was extremely disrespectful but I do believe that we have uh really improve to be diligent about following the timelines listed on their agenda that used to also not be the case um we now currently have time so you can kind of get a really accurate estimate of when things are supposed to be happening thank you ma'am um where are we at time one minute one minute so I'm going to make a motion to extend this discussion for five and only five minutes okay all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed no okay sorry no what that passes four to three good hearing okay let go ahead um wow thank you Mr wildor for bringing up the fact that there is another life after getting right off of school um there's I have my two con that my main concern is with what Dr Merck said is the fact that the public wants to speak before we make decisions and that's why it's logical to hold call the audience first I also appreciate the fact everybody that's up here that went through the process when I was on the board previously that was horrible in fact they intentionally put it after a Clos session to Hope people would leave which was not fair or right and so I Mr wildbore fought to do it the way it is now so now we've got a conundrum because I do believe it is true that there are probably parents and people in school that want to go home feed their kids put them to bed and then come you know that can't come down um to me though I think it's more important that the public get heard before we make decisions so I have a tendency to feel that that's probably the priority over because if they really want to come they will get their kids watched taken care of fed or whatever because you know if you want to have something to say before decisions are made that's the only way you're going to do it it's for that night so there is a conundrum here but I do appreciate you bringing that up and I am glad that we're having this discussion something that did not happen on the previous board thank you and we are at time for that I we just had five minutes was it five minutes sorry I wrote it I wrote it wrong Mr Perry sound like I would like to talk um I I'm I'm I would be okay if we had two segments but apparently Mr wo doesn't like that idea um because I I agree with Miss Justice and Mr Merck that we need to hear from the people about any agenda item items that we are talking about if they're talking about something that isn't on the agenda I don't mind it being later you know that's fine that's fine for it if we would have two sessions like that but if if there's something that's on the agenda we need to hear from them first this is supposed to be government of the People by the people and for the people so we need to listen to the people thank you um and I am I have not had an opportunity to say anything um I have have to say you know listening to my colleagues and the discussion that um I do hear the that there are some parents that may not be able to come at the earlier time um I also hear that if we were to move it um that it would be after all of the decisions are made and there would be um no opportunity for the community or Li limited opportunity for the community to publicly um communicate their concerns with whatever we were discussing whether it be policy or these committees um and that that to me is is a little concerning I know that we can use email um but just so that the public can hear what other people's concerns are so that if they have them they know maybe they're not alone in that um so that would be my my big concern I could I lean toward not changing the timing of it to be quite honest uh simply for that reason but also hearing that if there is if there are families that are unable to make it um that maybe we should consider some sort of alternative way for for that to happen I I I think it's it's worth discussing um and getting more feedback from families parents um teachers as a board to hear what um what their thoughts are that's my to sents we have one minute I will be very quick I I counted no less than six uh teachers or administrators in the audience tonight and every single board meeting we have parents of our Color Guard we have parents of our awardees we have teachers taking pictures of their students who are involved timing is not an issue to get teachers and parents and and students here okay um um and mad chair Miss Bradford would it be possible to move this to our board retreat I'll second that point of order Madam chair with respect policy outlines you have the ability as chairperson to set the agenda in the order you want so I appreciate the dialogue but it is your responsibility to set the agenda that's my point okay there was a motion to put it on the board retreat and a second uh all those in favor signify by saying I no any opposed no Miss buoy can you call the role on that one Mr Perry the motion motion is to put the call the timing of call to audience on the board retreat I miss Justice Miss Barnhart no Miss Mason no Mr wbore yes Dr Merrick no and Miss Bradford yes all right that motion does not carry fails continuing to the next topic um Miss Bradford brought forward uh the grouping of call to audience comments so I wanted to make sure she had her opportunity to be able to talk about that and I was just simply saying that we have a policy that says if and and I do believe the the board chair uh M Mar her correct me the board chair can do this without a board vote um but when we have nonprofits that come with the same topic week after week month after month year after year that perhaps those other people who didn't make the lottery or who just felt like I I don't even need to try because it's going to be the same people saying the same things or if not you talk new people into to coming and saying the same thing um that that that it could be grouped when I go to the County Commission and there's a group of people that want to speak on one topic the board chair will will designate one person to speak and the group gets to actually the group gets to pick who the one person is to speak and I just wanted to consider that possibility so that we allow more more people to speak I don't want to change the amount of time we have I don't want to do any of that I just want more people to come before us and share what's on their heart so that it's not taken up by just one topic or two topics every single board meeting okay thank you Mr Perry I understand uh where you're coming from and I think uh because some people individual speakers might feel like they got to their chances of winning the lottery are not as good when you when a lot of group members are doing it but I believe that this is an unenforceable thing we cannot ask people if they are a member of an organization it's unconstitutional you can ask the lawyers um we cannot ask for a membership list so my proposal and the alternative is let's favor new speakers that we could have two pools of people people haven't spoken in the last three months they get top priority and then the rest and this will give uh new speakers an opportunity and advantage to to speak for us to hear from them that way we don't have to get into this whole dynamic about you know trying to Who's Who belongs to a group and who doesn't Dr Merck first amendment is pretty important here and you know there might be one person who says I want to talk about 4351 and here's my reasons why we could someone else that says I want to talk about 4351 but for a different reason and we have a third person who says I want to keep 4351 just exactly as it is right so now we've got three different people for three different reasons who want to talk about the same thing and every single person's voice is valid how can we try to shut down the First Amendment rights of people to come out and tell us what is in their heart so I don't think that it's either legal nor moral to shut them down um I Believe Miss Justice then miss Barnhart and Mr wamore um yes um we're not even doing the lottery anymore very rarely do we have this problem things have calmed down a lot a lot of it has to do with it comes and it goes and waves um so I don't think that that's a although you know as a good suggestion that'd be very difficult to do um also I am concerned about the First Amendment there is also already a provision in our policy that says if the speaker and I'm not even sure how that would work I mean if the chair decides to put people together okay but I haven't even seen that come up and since they put that in there years ago when I was on the board I personally think we should leave it the way it is it's a lottery system if you need to be which hasn't happened very much at all lately in fact things seem to be a lot calmer these days so that's my say thank thank you again um this is in policy so if this is something that we do not agree with as a board then my suggestion would be um the policy committee to take this up Mr respectfully Mr chairman of the policy committee so we can adjust that um again it is at your discretion as the chairwoman to enforce the policy um but that would be my suggestion if we don't like the policy then we change it especially if it is not legal as my colleague to my is claiming so Mr wi deore well as you took my thunder as it says um but it says in in policy if an usual number of people request speak a majority of the board may decide to request designation of a spokesperson for each group of persons supporting or opposing the same positions so again that's not it's actually not her responsibility it's the board's responsibility if we choose to do so thank you if not as you said um Miss Barnhart we can we can change policy of course but that's we need to follow our own policy and obviously this was vetted by a lawyer before and it's not against the First Amendment so with all due respect to anybody who said it was it's not um I haven't had the opportunity to speak so I'm going to say just um I was also looking at policy and seeing that but it also says if an unusually large number of people request to speak it doesn't say from a group it just says an unusually large number of people request to speak and you're referring back to my on the right um we have had we haven't had the lottery we haven't needed the lottery the number the maximum number of speakers is 25 tonight we had 21 I believe um and so we haven't even hit that Max and it is the majority of the board that does make that decision Miss Bradford did you want to add anything I would just like to have Madam chair I would like for you to ask the board attorneys um to render their opinion on the First Amendment and the legality of the policy that we have and so on because we've had some things said here tonight that could be misconstrued and I agree with Mr wildbore uh with you I was going to tell you first the the policy that we've got that allows the the board to um set reasonable rules and to designate a spokesperson tracks North Carolina General statute 115 c-51 the statute allows that one of the interesting things about it is that the right to speak for the public at one of these meetings isn't a First Amendment right it's set by Statute just like the general assembly doesn't have to allow people out of the you know audience to stand up and speak during their sessions you don't have to either North Carolina General statutes what does it but to Dr Merck's point and and I think also one of the other some of the other members pointed that out once you do start allowing the comments you know then the first amendment comes into play and and the issues about Viewpoint discrimination but you are allowed to set reasonable rules to govern these things that's why for example you can govern for decorum and tell people that you can't make personal attacks on on folks when you speak and I thought a couple of times we got close to that line tonight um but um when it comes to the designation of a spokesperson again the statute seems to allow that and it's it's not so much Viewpoint discrimination is it is a a time management issue um to your point though you couldn't say everybody in favor or oppos to policy B you're limited to you know three minutes but everybody uh everybody else who wants to talk about I don't know uh some change to the curriculum you're allowed to you know have as many folks as you want to it just your rules need to be reasonable and even handed but you are allowed to manage for time and I did want to point out one other thing that question you stomped me a minute ago on the Roberts rules and Miss Justice you were correct uh Google AI verified that there's no direct way under Robert's rules to postpone something you know to say you can't reconsider it but one kind of workaround on it is that you can postpone something to a Time certain for reconsideration so you could say you know right um now the thing about that though is that you've put it on to be reconsidered at that time um so you gotta you got to think about that anyway I just I did want to clear that up for you that we and we are at time for that um continuing uh the summaries of call to audience comments Dr Merrick thank you um what I've noticed is that oh yeah we have a trust deficit with the public we have a reputation problem and you'll notice that a great number of the call to audience uh Folks up here are not telling us what a great job we're doing they're concerned they don't like what they see now I voted yes for interim vice president be U inter superintendent to become king no I mean superintend you know but the public was very very upset they feel we we pulled the rug out from under them with that decision and did not give them a chance to speak what I'm asking for is so simple and it's so little is that when someone gets up to do a call to audience as is done in many many many different municipalities we simply have the minutes described very very briefly they talked about policy 4,300 and they recommended this okay I gave you an example uh in the in the documentation and the reason I'm doing it is because as an executive coach I do a lot of conflict resolution and we have conflict with our general public they don't think they're being heard they get up there and they say I saw you looking down or laughing or talking to your friends you weren't even listening to me and by putting it in the minutes we're letting them know this is what we heard and in conflict resolution what can happen is the they come back and they say that's not what I said and I'm not I'm not I'm not opposed to that I think that's actually a healthy thing that they say what I actually said was this and then we can we can amend the minutes in a matter of 30 seconds and if they don't like that we can do it again but that's how conflicts become resolved is that you listen to each other until you know you've been heard so while putting it in our minutes they know they were heard it's simple yes it will take I'm Sorry Miss buoy it'll take you a few extra minutes to write down the basics I did it tonight by the way it didn't take long so my recommendation is that we ask our minutes to include what has been said very very briefly by our call to audience members and what their recommendations are um Mr Perry and was there a motion that didn't sound like a motion did it no I make a motion for all of what I just said that's a very long motion can you yes I make a motion that we uh Empower uh our secretary to include a very brief description of of what is said in cult audience with with whatever they recommend and that's part of our minutes I second that okay Mr Perry I actually agree with your sentiment and why you want to do this we should be listening and I just don't know if we want to send the right message that we're listening but I don't understand how a summary written by Miss buoy is telling us that we're listening it just tells the public that Miss buoy is listening so I would suggest if we're going to do this at all and I'm not saying we should I think maybe we should take turns at doing it ourselves and uh once every seven months thank you Miss Barnhart thank you madam chair I appreciate the sentiment um and I am going to disagree with my colleague on the right we are listening but the reality is when we're making decisions we have to get input from everybody and that just doesn't even come to an agreement all the time on this board um so just because there's a disagreeance does not mean that somebody was not hurt it means given all the information that we have access to as elected officials that are the decision makers here which is what our minutes are supposed to represent is the decision and The Business of the board um by adding the conversation of the call to audience into the minutes with the concept of maybe they're going to constantly be amended month after month or time after time oh that's not what she said not it takes away and distracts what we are here to do which is the business of the board and so absolutely hearing from the public is part of the process but is not the only part of the process um so I just want to say that I do agree with the sentiment but I did I was reading and I appreciate the documentation I enjoy reading and prepping for all of the meetings but in here there was an allegation saying some may misconstrue that maybe we're breaking the law by not putting the public comment into the meeting minutes and so Madame chair if you so um feel feel so inclined for our attorneys to address that if we are breaking the law of not having a record of but that that's kind of yeah Mr generally speaking you could use just the video recording for your minutes because it does give an accurate you know Rec so no I don't think and as an aside um you do have the video of these things so you have a a perfectly accurate recount of what people said that's one of the problems if they want to characterize their speech it seems like their their um call to the audience signup sheet would be a place to um for them to put that in their own words and then you can review their the think that would be my take on it but um I believe also someone on staff told me that we have close captioning I believe on the on the video minutes which helps for people that are um hearing impaired um for example just a thought but yeah we're allowed we're certainly compliant um it's a policy choice for you guys so we are at time so let's vote and there is a motion on the table sorry I'm sorry just uh in regards to the motion the board can't direct Miss Buie to do something um they would have to direct me to do it I'm not really willing to have someone else characterize those mints if you board as the board decides to do that then that will be something I do myself my concern with that is if I hear something that's erroneous or incorrect putting something in the minutes that is wrong is one concern and two I I don't feel comfortable with our staff being sort of badgered by you you didn't summarize me correctly so thank you um hearing that Dr Merck would you like to amend your motion I'd like to amend my motion by saying the sign up sheet should include the person's name a a brief description of the topic and a third column which is recommendations and and then it all fits right into the minutes and they they get a little bit more of a chance to tell us what they feel I'll second that and then it's in their own votes well I think you already second but can point of clarity Madam chair the motion that we're voting on now is it literally just to copy and paste the the signup sheet into the minutes that it's already done we're already doing that but into the into the minutes correct that's what you're suggesting okay with the additional those additional columns I second that somebody has second okay sorry Dr BR is taking my candy um Miss buy will you please call the role want a clarification I motion is thank you read the motion is to add another column to our signup that has actions that need to be taken or recommendation recommendations recommendations and more space for not just the a one-word topic okay right but a description of their call to audience and the recommendation okay so the motion is to add another column with recommendations and extend the ability to describe their comment to the sign up Miss buoy would you call the role Mr Perry I Miss Justice yes Miss Barnhart yes Miss Mason yes Mr Vore yes Dr Merrick yes M Bradford no all right that passes six to one all right that's good moving on to the letter of legal action regarding Power School Miss Barnhart thank you madam chair um as I informed you all uh and we had the discussion of having a letter of legal action so this letter is drafted there was some small syntax errors and I did want to bring up one thing because a colleague had mentioned it but I didn't feel good about striking it without full board discussion um but basically this is attorney this is addressed to the Attorney General Jackson to pursue legal action against Power School and the data breach that has affected tens of thousands of individuals in our County alone but across the state of North Carolina did not think that it was most prudent for us to use our attorney dollars to try to Sue and per and take legal action however since this affects the mass populace of North Carolinians I think it is absolutely necessary and so if you look at the third column it talks about urging into investigating um legal action and so the items where is it to address with the attorney general um that we seek legal ramifications to hold Power School accountable for their negligence and to secure appropriate remedies for the hundreds of thousands of individuals affected across our great state we believe that power school should provide comprehensive identity protection and credit monitoring for all affected individuals for at least 48 months we further request that your office for excuse me stricter vendor requirements to ensure timely breach notifications and stronger cyber security safeguards mandate improv security metrics to prevent future breaches and ensure Power School complies with all applicable data privacy laws including fura and so what a colleague had brought to my attention is power school is offering two years of credit monitoring and currently that process is taking place by Power School directly as notifying the individuals of that breach um for me personally I could go either direction however I think it sends a message to our attorney general understanding I don't like two years personally so I think if we are in agreeance that we want to push for something excuse me something stronger for our constituents that we're obligated to do that I do believe that if we take the charge in this I think that other boards will try to pick this up because this is a massive data breach this was outside our control we are mandated by DPI to utilize power school and it's absolutely devastating um and we are going to be doing our best to be responsive to the situation however I'm trying to be remain professional here I do believe this is the best way forward to have a Target Focus so that we can get I mean the biggest bang for your buck if you will a going after a huge um massive breach that is affecting hundreds of thousand people across the state so I would make a motion to adopt this I'll okay I second um because we are coming real close to time um is there any discussion can we keep it I'll second call question point of order Miss Bradford um this isn't I don't think the final letter it doesn't have the date on it Miss barnhard and it doesn't have those changes that you told me that you were going to make in terms of housekeeping the ey the we and the date so I don't think it's the final copy or is it my apologies Madam chair I there was three syntax issues board members that I addressed and I will resend to make sure that the most updated copy as we all see one was dealing with having a date which would be February 4th 2025 the second syntax issue instead of saying I am writing on behalf it says we are writing on behalf of the new han County Board of Education and in the last paragraph um there was some dotted lines those just got took out because the formatting wasn't wasn't um was not working with me so um I will resend that right now to everybody okay so so I would make a motion to adopt the letter as amended with those small syntax errors second okay all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed that passes 7 to zero um Town Hall regarding the AI I make a motion to postpone this discussion to the next meeting because we have close session do I hear I added this to the agenda we voted to add it to the agenda do I hear a second um you need a super majority to postpone it postpone it till the next meeting to bring public in talk about could I offer a substitute a motion to move it to the board retreat we're going to be busy okay so there was anybody want to put it to the board retreat rather than wait a whole month isn't this Moote okay we have I should have hold on a motion on the floor we need longer discuss we have 12 minutes so the motion on the floor was it seconded Miss Barnhart motioned that we postpone this till next month was there a second I make a point point of order I need a second and I'm waiting for a second second you wanted to point of order um does this Mr Perry hang on I'm sorry I may have misspoken I thought I was seconded Mr Perry Miss barnhard I'm waiting for I I withdraw my I'm waiting for a second hearing none Mr Perry it's not postponed okay just quickly and I'll try to make this quick I just this is a very momentous decision as far as this a AI pilot program it's my firm belief that once once AI comes into through our schools it isn't leaving and we need to get the input of our parents our teachers and our community whether we're going to do something this is a generational type decision this is not something we should enter into quickly so I'm asking that we host a town hall we can get the community's input ask the folks from everan to come if they answer the questions of our community so that we can make a wise decision on this we were from my understand we talking Mr wior we already have one scheduled for March maybe we could just move that one up and use that I'll second is there was that a motion was yes the motion can you restate it please I motion that we have a a a expedited Town Hall uh on the AI pilot as soon as possible with evidon Personnel being there and to delay any vote upon approving ever as our AI pilot program until after that I second that I second M Bradford I love the idea but I don't want to follow the three table format we've been following for that um Mr Perry's suggesting that we have public in and so on so I I I I don't want to follow the the typical Town Hall we've been doing this last year or so I don't think that's the right format for that I'm open to any format you like so with with some discussion on how the format goes I would be in favor of this okay just a point of order just a reminder that the board chair sets the format of that that's not something we do correct all right call the question I'll second that okay we're going to vote on calling the question that requires a super majority so all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed passes 7 to zero now the motion is to have an expedited Town Hall regarding a i all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed that passes 7 to Z um anyone have any correspondence announcements uh the Board of Education will hold a board budget work session on Friday February 7th at 1 uh general public will have the option to view remotely on YouTube the policy committee will meet Tuesday February 11th at 1 um general public will have the option tow remotely uh on YouTube both of those are occurring at the here Board of Ed Center the board Capital outlay committee will hold a a meeting on Friday February 21st at 1 pm here at the Board of Education Center uh Board of Education will hold an agenda review meeting on Tuesday February 25th at 2m here at the board of ed Center and the general public will have the option to view remotely the Board of Education will hold a board budget work session on Friday February 28th at 1 p.m. here at the board of ed Center general public will have the option to view remotely the Board of Education will hold the March regular board meeting on Tuesday March 4th at 5:00 pm here at the board of ed Center the general public will have the option to view remotely on YouTube and yes Miss Bradford finance committee was again on the 26th February the 26 okay okay all right I will now entertain a motion to go into close session second pursuant to General statute 43-31 18.1 C I'm not reading it all tonight y'all it's long uh we have a mo a first and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed that passes 7 to zero we are en closed you 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 I'll second all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed passes four to nothing we are adjourned all right folks have a good night good luck tomorrow dri