[3:40] Test.

[3:51] [Captioner Present]

[6:27] >> Good evening.

[6:27] I called the Chapel Hill Harbor City Schools Board meeting

[6:30] to order.

[6:31] The first item is approval agenda.

[6:33] May I get a motion to approve the agenda?

[6:37] >> So moved.

[6:39] >> Second.

[6:40] >> All those in favor say aye.

[6:42] Any opposed?

[6:43] The next item on our agenda is to go into closed session.

[6:47] May I get a motion to go into closed session for the purposes

[6:50] stated on the agenda?

[6:53] >> So moved.

[6:54] >> A motion from Meredith.

[6:57] >> Second.

[6:57] >> And a second from George.

[6:59] All those in favor say aye.

[7:01] Any opposed?

[7:02] Thank you everyone.

[7:03] We will return to 7:00 as close as possible.

[7:07] Thank you.

[1:08:59] >> evening everyone.

[1:09:00] Welcome back.

[1:09:01] As you can see it looks a little different in front of us tonight

[1:09:04] because we are swearing in our newest board member

[1:09:06] and so with that I'm going to turn it over to Judge Brian.

[1:09:10] Thank you.

[1:09:12] >> Thank you so much.

[1:09:13] It is an honor. (indiscernible).

[1:10:08] As a member of the Chapel Hill City School.

[1:10:15] Board of education.

[1:10:17] So help me God.

[1:10:21] Congratulations.

[1:10:27] [Applause]

[1:11:42] >> And when you're ready.

[1:11:43] Board member Wu, you can press the button on your mic

[1:11:47] and I believe you've got some comments to make.

[1:11:50] >> I want to say something.

[1:11:52] Now my head, it went totally blank.

[1:11:57] It's unbelievable.

[1:12:01] This moment is bigger than me and I

[1:12:06] have to thank my parents, my son, my, both from Glenwood

[1:12:15] and the Asac.

[1:12:16] Also my church.

[1:12:18] Without you guys, I wouldn't be here.

[1:12:20] You guys give me the courage and all

[1:12:22] of the support I need for me to take this step.

[1:12:25] I also I want to say that this moment reflects

[1:12:28] a lot of work that has been done by many people that

[1:12:32] came before me.

[1:12:34] On the board and behind the scenes.

[1:12:37] I take this job very seriously and I'm

[1:12:40] going to listen and learn and care for my community.

[1:12:44] I'll do my job with honor and humility and care.

[1:12:49] Thank you.

[1:12:51] [Applause]

[1:13:00] >> Thank you.

[1:13:00] I'll give board members a moment.

[1:13:02] I know we have a proclamation and a resolution

[1:13:06] to read tonight.

[1:13:09] So everyone could take a moment to get those open.

[1:13:56] Board members, for the first proclamation,

[1:13:59] if everyone could read to and we'll

[1:14:03] end with vice chair Fedders.

[1:14:06] I'll start with -- >> Thank you.

[1:14:10] The first proclamation is Ansi Disability History

[1:14:14] and Awareness Month.

[1:14:15] School Board resolution call to Action October 2026.

[1:14:19] Whereas the North Carolina General Assembly

[1:14:22] passed Senate Bill seven five 3 in 2007

[1:14:25] designating October as Disability History and Awareness

[1:14:28] Month in North Carolina.

[1:14:29] Requiring local boards of education

[1:14:32] to provide instruction on disability history

[1:14:34] and awareness.

[1:14:36] And whereas the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

[1:14:40] was founded on four principles.

[1:14:42] Inclusion, full participation, economic self-sufficiency,

[1:14:47] and equality of opportunity for all people with disabilities.

[1:14:51] And was enacted to end disability based discrimination.

[1:14:55] And whereas most families are likely to be affected

[1:14:59] by someone with some kind of disability

[1:15:02] and to whereas to ensure the full inclusion of people

[1:15:05] with disabilities into society, it

[1:15:08] is necessary to expand the public's knowledge, awareness,

[1:15:11] and understanding of the history of disabilities,

[1:15:14] and the disability rights movement.

[1:15:17] And whereas October is recognized nationally

[1:15:27] as disability Employment Awareness Month,

[1:15:30] and whereas designating disability History and Awareness

[1:15:33] Month in North Carolina will increase public awareness

[1:15:36] and respect for people with disabilities

[1:15:38] who comprise a substantial percentage of North Carolina's

[1:15:41] population, teach future generations the people

[1:15:44] with disabilities have a rich history

[1:15:46] and have made vulnerable valuable contributions

[1:15:48] throughout North Carolina and the United States,

[1:15:51] and ensure future generations understand the disability

[1:15:54] as a natural part of life and that people with disabilities

[1:15:56] have a right to be treated as individuals above all else,

[1:16:01] and whereas In the 2026, 2027 school year, chapel Hill

[1:16:15] Carrboro, city schools, is serving approximately 1425

[1:16:19] students with disabilities,

[1:16:21] under the individuals with Disabilities Education Act,

[1:16:25] and whereas Chapel Hill Carrboro City schools

[1:16:29] teachers, related service providers, and staff,

[1:16:33] are working collaboratively using effective teaching

[1:16:36] approaches and related educational intervention

[1:16:38] strategies, to support the unique learning

[1:16:41] needs of all students with disabilities

[1:16:43] and whereas in seeks, approximately 94%

[1:16:53] of students with disabilities spend their time

[1:16:55] in the general education setting where inclusive practices are

[1:17:00] promoted, and less than 6% of all students with disabilities

[1:17:04] receive services on alternate standards,

[1:17:07] and whereas I'll see each e s students with disabilities need,

[1:17:15] deserve, and have the potential to excel by receiving support,

[1:17:20] understanding, acceptance, and meaningful inclusion

[1:17:23] in the life of their school community.

[1:17:29] Now, therefore be it resolved that chapel Hill-Carrboro

[1:17:35] supports and promotes the interests of all students

[1:17:38] with disabilities at all times and further supports

[1:17:40] Disability History and Awareness Month

[1:17:42] to increase appreciation, respect and inclusion for people

[1:17:45] with disabilities.

[1:17:46] And be it resolved further that CHCCS

[1:17:50] school principals administrators and educators are encouraged

[1:17:54] through education and other appropriate activities,

[1:17:57] programs, events, to promote the highlight disability

[1:18:02] History and Awareness Month in the state of North Carolina,

[1:18:05] as well as the value of people with disabilities

[1:18:08] bring to their specific schools and communities.

[1:18:15] >> We have a resolution we are going to read.

[1:18:17] If each board member will read one.

[1:18:20] I'll finish up.

[1:18:22] Thank you.

[1:18:27] >> Resolution regarding the impact of the 2026

[1:18:29] constitutional amendments Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools.

[1:18:34] Whereas on November 3rd, 2026, North Carolina will consider

[1:18:40] amendments to state constitution that would affect state

[1:18:44] and local revenue authorities and whereas constitutional

[1:18:48] amendments are more difficult to change in ordinary laws

[1:18:53] and require 3/5 support from both North Carolina House

[1:18:56] and North Carolina Senate, as well as a majority of voters.

[1:19:02] And whereas tax rates and fiscal policies

[1:19:06] should remain flexible in order to address

[1:19:09] urgent local and state needs, and therefore

[1:19:11] should be governed by legislation, rather

[1:19:14] than constitutional amendments, and whereas the proposed income

[1:19:19] tax amendment would reduce the maximum personal income tax

[1:19:22] rate from 7% to 3.5%, limiting the revenue

[1:19:26] options available to future elected leaders,

[1:19:29] to fund essential services, including public education.

[1:19:34] And Whereas the proposed property tax amendment

[1:19:36] would require the state legislature

[1:19:38] to set limits on how much property tax

[1:19:40] revenue local governance may raise,

[1:19:43] reducing the ability of local leaders

[1:19:45] to respond to future revenue needs

[1:19:47] and whereas Orange County provides

[1:19:51] significant local funding for Chapel Hill cover city schools

[1:19:54] and limitation on the county's ability

[1:19:57] to increase property tax Levy revenue could reduce

[1:20:00] future fiscal flexibility to respond to enrollment

[1:20:03] needs, employee compensation, school facilities, student

[1:20:07] services, emergencies and other educational priorities,

[1:20:11] and whereas the Chapel Hill proper city's Board of Education

[1:20:15] has a responsibility to advocate for sufficient and sustainable

[1:20:19] resources for our schools and to raise concerns

[1:20:22] about measures that could limit the state and local fiscal

[1:20:26] flexibility needed to support students, educators, employees,

[1:20:31] schools, and families.

[1:20:32] And whereas preserving state and local

[1:20:35] fiscal flexibility is important to the ability

[1:20:37] of state and local governments to respond

[1:20:39] to changing educational needs, economic conditions,

[1:20:43] emergencies, and future investments in students.

[1:20:46] Therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education

[1:20:49] opposes these amendments to North Carolina's Constitution

[1:20:52] and encourages voters to vote against both the income tax

[1:20:57] and property tax amendments.

[1:21:00] >> Thank you board members.

[1:21:13] I was looking at our clerk and our next item on the agenda

[1:21:16] is public comment period I'll go ahead and read this

[1:21:19] and obviously if anyone did not sign up and would like to speak,

[1:21:23] then you can speak but the board appreciates and encourages

[1:21:26] public comment period members will listen to comments

[1:21:29] and may ask or make clarification questions

[1:21:32] or comments but there will be no general discussion related

[1:21:35] to the public comment period comments should relate

[1:21:37] to the education and safety of students

[1:21:39] or the operational school system.

[1:21:40] The public comment time is to discussion of educational issues

[1:21:47] or operation of Chapel Harbor City schools.

[1:21:51] Speakers may offer criticism of school operations and programs.

[1:21:56] However, the board will not allow personal attacks.

[1:22:00] Obscene, abusive, or defamatory language, will not be tolerated.

[1:22:05] Speakers will have three minutes to make their comments tonight.

[1:22:08] Tonight we do have a work session item on the agenda.

[1:22:10] So any speaker who would like to make public comment related

[1:22:13] to the work session topic will make those

[1:22:17] after the presentation of the work session topic.

[1:22:19] Not during this general public comment section.

[1:22:22] You are recognized.

[1:22:25] Please come forward to the microphone.

[1:22:26] Directly in front of me.

[1:22:29] State your name and if you're speaking for an organization

[1:22:32] please identify that organization.

[1:22:34] No one signed up in advance, but if we have anyone from a teacher

[1:22:38] organization or student group.

[1:22:41] I see Mr. Link is here.

[1:22:43] You can come forward and speak and we will open it up

[1:22:46] to anyone else who would like to make a comment.

[1:22:50] >> Thank you very much Madam Chairman.

[1:22:51] My name is Brian Link and I'm the president of the Chapel Hill

[1:22:55] Carrboro Association of Educators.

[1:22:57] I rise this evening first to congratulate our newest board

[1:23:00] member, on your appointment to the board.

[1:23:02] You are joining a terrific group of individuals

[1:23:04] who along with our administration

[1:23:06] are doing fabulous things for our schools

[1:23:09] and I want to thank all of you so far for a successful

[1:23:12] and relatively smooth opening for the school year.

[1:23:16] 2627.

[1:23:17] Given everything going on locally

[1:23:20] with restricting but also across our country.

[1:23:23] I really appreciate your remarks this evening

[1:23:26] about it's bigger than any one of us

[1:23:29] and we will all work together.

[1:23:30] Our organization looks forward to meeting with and working

[1:23:33] with you as we have with every other board member here

[1:23:36] to do what's best for our students going forward.

[1:23:39] Speaking of which, I want to thank the board tonight

[1:23:42] for both its proclamation and resolutions.

[1:23:45] It's a fitting that we're getting an easy update

[1:23:48] this evening from the superintendent.

[1:23:50] With North Carolina Disability Awareness Month.

[1:23:53] It's also very fitting that you guys are coming out

[1:23:56] against a resolution against the 2026 Constitutional amendments.

[1:24:01] Precisely because funding is desperately needed in order

[1:24:04] to ensure that all of our students

[1:24:06] are supported equitably.

[1:24:08] I'm going to use the word equitably

[1:24:10] tonight because I also want to draw attention

[1:24:12] to an item that is otherwise under the consent agenda which

[1:24:15] is item five E and that there are changes being made

[1:24:18] to nine different policies and procedures

[1:24:20] and I understand once again that this is not

[1:24:23] this board's intention but you are being legally

[1:24:26] advised to make those changes, precisely

[1:24:28] because of the decisions and actions that are happening

[1:24:32] in our General Assembly.

[1:24:34] It is all the more important, as we

[1:24:37] saw, judge Joel Brown who would always

[1:24:42] remind us in October that it's important to be registered.

[1:24:45] Get out and vote.

[1:24:46] We as a community need to be responsible.

[1:24:48] For making sure our voices are heard

[1:24:52] and our representation is heard in the North Carolina General

[1:24:55] Assembly.

[1:24:56] While I understand why you have to do it.

[1:25:00] Our organization remains opposed to those who are not

[1:25:03] going to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion

[1:25:05] are a part of our school systems and we thank the administration

[1:25:10] and this board for doing everything you possibly

[1:25:12] can within the law and within your oaths

[1:25:15] to ensure that all students and all families needs

[1:25:20] are met going forward.

[1:25:22] With that, it is an honor to be back for this 26, 27 school

[1:25:27] year, and we of course look forward

[1:25:28] to working with all of you to meet the challenges

[1:25:30] and needs that our students and staff face.

[1:25:33] Thank you very much and have a wonderful evening.

[1:25:40] >> Does anyone else wish to make a public comment tonight?

[1:25:45] All right.

[1:25:47] Thank you.

[1:25:48] If anyone wishes to make a public comment

[1:25:50] or send comments to the board, the information

[1:25:53] and our email address to all boards is on the agenda

[1:25:56] and found on our website.

[1:25:59] Board members, our next item on the agenda

[1:26:02] is our consent agenda.

[1:26:04] May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

[1:26:09] >> So moved.

[1:26:11] >> I have a motion from Meredith.

[1:26:13] Do I have a second?

[1:26:15] >> Second.

[1:26:16] >> I have a second.

[1:26:17] All those in favor say aye any opposed?

[1:26:20] Motion carries.

[1:26:22] Thank you.

[1:26:23] Our next item on the agenda is our superintendent's report

[1:26:28] and we are getting our update on our exceptional children.

[1:26:34] Thank you.

[1:26:43] >> Good evening.

[1:26:43] Members of the board.

[1:26:44] Members of the public.

[1:26:46] I want to first thank a couple of people

[1:26:49] that we work alongside for our EC update tonight.

[1:26:53] I have our EC director here of compliance.

[1:26:56] Erin Watts.

[1:26:58] Doctor Katherine Pritchard.

[1:27:00] Our director of instruction.

[1:27:02] Miss Harris who is new to the team this year.

[1:27:06] Director of Related Services.

[1:27:08] And also our Act teachers that are not here tonight

[1:27:12] but do this work very tirelessly.

[1:27:14] We cannot do this work without them along with our school

[1:27:17] and district leaders.

[1:27:18] I'm joined tonight to present with Miss Vonda Robinson.

[1:27:22] Our Senior Executive Director and she

[1:27:25] would join me for the presentation this evening.

[1:27:28] In terms of our vision this is not new.

[1:27:31] We are repeating this to you this

[1:27:33] is our vision for our work with our exceptional children

[1:27:38] and that's the work of compliance.

[1:27:41] Which we stayed in that lane for a very long time and then

[1:27:43] we began to think really differently about specially

[1:27:46] designed instruction.

[1:27:47] You'll see that we're beginning to see some

[1:27:50] of the fruits of that work.

[1:27:52] We've had that vision.

[1:27:53] We've restructured a couple of years ago around this vision.

[1:27:56] Our goal has really been around access for students.

[1:28:00] Opportunities for students.

[1:28:02] And ultimately thinking about their lives beyond their time

[1:28:06] with us.

[1:28:07] When they leave high school our students

[1:28:09] are even more equipped to do the things they want to do

[1:28:14] and the things they want to do.

[1:28:15] We're happy to be here tonight because we

[1:28:17] want to share some of the work that is in progress.

[1:28:19] And the work we have been seeing and accomplished together here

[1:28:24] tonight we'll go over for you our EC child Count information.

[1:28:28] Student numbers, we will also speak to you

[1:28:31] a little bit about student success of the updates.

[1:28:33] In terms of where we are with our instruction

[1:28:36] our goals where we are with our discipline.

[1:28:39] Where you will see our students with disability

[1:28:42] in terms of attendance as well.

[1:28:43] You will also start to speak with you about innovations

[1:28:46] and programing and how we look to enhance stakeholder voices

[1:28:51] and the work that we're doing.

[1:28:54] You all will see that this evening.

[1:28:56] Our goal, ultimately -- should I sit down now?

[1:29:04] [Laughter]

[1:29:05] my team told me to make it quick.

[1:29:07] So.

[1:29:07] In terms of EC child count, one of the things we'll start with

[1:29:12] is just our overall picture in terms of demographic

[1:29:14] for our district.

[1:29:16] You'll see last year around 10,700 students

[1:29:20] and that's the makeup in terms of student groups.

[1:29:24] More specifically when we start getting

[1:29:26] into EC, what we're looking at is our amount of EC students

[1:29:31] and what you can see is shares data from 2024 where we had

[1:29:36] about 1300 students, closer to the 1400 side

[1:29:40] and we do a December child count which the state requires from us

[1:29:44] and then we do our own internal, April child

[1:29:48] count it's really natural for that number

[1:29:50] to go up through the course of the year

[1:29:51] because students are getting evaluated.

[1:29:53] We have more students.

[1:29:55] Students come to us.

[1:29:56] You'll see that trend is the same for each year.

[1:29:59] In December you'll start a little bit lower.

[1:30:01] By the time April comes you're a little bit higher.

[1:30:03] What we have now for you in this last column is just where we

[1:30:08] were at in the 20th day for this school year.

[1:30:11] We are at 1425.

[1:30:13] We did break that out by our pre-K students only

[1:30:17] and that's 28 students.

[1:30:18] Again come a very typical for pre-K

[1:30:20] to be a bit lower right now.

[1:30:22] It is the beginning of the year.

[1:30:24] And also their 20th day is a little bit different than

[1:30:27] our 20th day because they do a staggered entry.

[1:30:30] We pick up students along the way.

[1:30:32] That is where we do a lot of our child find.

[1:30:37] We anticipate each of these numbers

[1:30:39] will be higher by the end of the year.

[1:30:42] You'll see here a little bit of a profile for our EC students

[1:30:46] that more male students are in and receive

[1:30:51] our exceptional children's services.

[1:30:54] That's been kind of consistent for many years.

[1:30:57] However, you'll also see the student breakdown by groups

[1:31:00] as well.

[1:31:01] We did pull out that we had 56 students that were identified

[1:31:06] by the end of pre-K. Last year.

[1:31:10] You saw we had 28 at the beginning of this year.

[1:31:15] Typically we'll have another 20 to 30 that will come to us

[1:31:19] and that number will go up.

[1:31:21] In terms of our April 2026 child count, we then took that number

[1:31:26] and began to break it down by the designation

[1:31:29] area of disability.

[1:31:31] You'll see autism, developmental delay.

[1:31:34] Our Ed.

[1:31:36] Learning disability.

[1:31:37] O I. Which is speech impairments period these

[1:31:42] are the areas of designation.

[1:31:43] Some of them are a little bit lower.

[1:31:46] We're not able to put them on the slide

[1:31:49] because they would be so low that you would get

[1:31:54] individual student information.

[1:31:55] We then break this down by student groups in terms of race

[1:31:59] as well.

[1:32:00] We take a look at this.

[1:32:02] You'll note that our learning disability

[1:32:05] group is the highest designation group

[1:32:07] that we have in this district.

[1:32:09] Do you have any questions?

[1:32:12] I am looking at you, I want to make sure.

[1:32:15] I can pause.

[1:32:17] Yeah?

[1:32:18] No?

[1:32:19] Okay.

[1:32:20] Specific learning disabilities, my understanding

[1:32:24] is that what that means is once performance

[1:32:27] is much lower than one's general intelligence is

[1:32:32] measured by various tests.

[1:32:36] That's a very layperson definition.

[1:32:40] But the reason why the gap might exist is a big mystery.

[1:32:46] We don't really understand why it occurs.

[1:32:49] I feel like the interventions would be --

[1:32:54] it would be hard because you don't know what

[1:32:56] is explaining for every kid.

[1:33:00] >> Several years back we used a discrepancy model where we

[1:33:04] compared those to areas.

[1:33:06] Cognitive ability as well as achievement.

[1:33:10] We don't look at it in that way anymore.

[1:33:14] We're really not comparing that.

[1:33:16] Students with learning disabilities or students who

[1:33:20] have average to above average intelligence, that's

[1:33:23] not the issue.

[1:33:24] The issue is along the lines of interventions that are

[1:33:27] being provided to the student.

[1:33:29] We have lots of students who are identified as having dyslexia.

[1:33:33] In the public school setting, we use

[1:33:37] the term learning disabilities, for the math

[1:33:42] and for the reading.

[1:33:43] We could go deeper.

[1:33:47] >> One of the things you'll see we support with this is

[1:33:51] we've made big bets at.

[1:33:53] I always call it that.

[1:33:54] Around our instructional, design instruction.

[1:33:57] This is an area that would support our students

[1:34:01] with learning disabilities and you'll

[1:34:03] see autism there is really our second and kind of highest

[1:34:06] for the district.

[1:34:07] One of the things we also did there

[1:34:09] is have a good amount of our professional development

[1:34:13] has been in that area for our autism.

[1:34:15] You'll see that is paid off.

[1:34:17] I'll go a little bit later and talk about discipline

[1:34:19] because we've seen some reduction in that area as well.

[1:34:22] In terms of student success updates,

[1:34:24] one of the things we did is we are

[1:34:27] going to show you specifically attendance for our students

[1:34:30] with disabilities and you will see that we are

[1:34:34] making some improvements there.

[1:34:37] On average, students who attend our school are listed here

[1:34:43] for the satisfactory attendance and that number is up.

[1:34:46] One of the things I'll say is that when more students come

[1:34:49] to school, more regularly, sometimes they have

[1:34:54] more discipline challenges.

[1:34:56] You will see that in our next couple of slides.

[1:34:59] Doesn't always have to mean that.

[1:35:01] But the chances do go up.

[1:35:03] One of the things you'll also see is, as a whole,

[1:35:09] our district has improved in terms of attendance.

[1:35:11] That's been very nice to see.

[1:35:13] We also talked about that being a really big win

[1:35:16] with our students with disabilities

[1:35:17] because there are times when students will have disabilities

[1:35:20] to the point it will inhibit them from coming to school.

[1:35:24] And in that instance here we're actually

[1:35:26] seeing that number go up.

[1:35:28] We have resources here for our students,

[1:35:31] that they are feeling a sense of belonging in our schools.

[1:35:34] They're making their way to school.

[1:35:36] There are some ways we can look at that as a positive as well.

[1:35:40] In terms of our percent proficient,

[1:35:42] overall, the score for our students with disability is up.

[1:35:47] It's about 2.2 percentage points up.

[1:35:50] There are some areas that we continue to want to look at.

[1:35:54] We they do trend with what you'll

[1:35:57] see with all students in some instances.

[1:35:59] We had a conversation about that Tuesday.

[1:36:02] An area we want to continue to look at.

[1:36:04] What we're doing there is continuing

[1:36:06] to partner with our colleagues and instructional services

[1:36:10] division because we really want to make sure

[1:36:13] that we're looking at our tier one instruction being

[1:36:15] very strong.

[1:36:16] These students are in classes with their peers.

[1:36:19] We want to make sure all students are come

[1:36:22] and get the support they need.

[1:36:27] There's going to be a tighter partnership

[1:36:30] with our instructional division as we continue to move forward.

[1:36:34] The other things you'll see in terms of our office referrals

[1:36:38] for students with disabilities.

[1:36:40] While that number is up, it is also up for our students

[1:36:45] with disability, it is up about eight instances.

[1:36:49] These are unique referrals individual students

[1:36:52] who received at least one discipline referral

[1:36:54] and that is up about eight students from last year.

[1:36:59] One thing to note about our office referrals

[1:37:04] is it's not necessarily an exclusionary practice.

[1:37:07] When you look at that 179 that these students were sitting

[1:37:12] at suspension or they were at out of school suspension

[1:37:16] it can mean they had another kind of consequence

[1:37:19] or another level of support or intervention.

[1:37:23] It was something that was noteworthy.

[1:37:26] The next piece we looked at is our percentages of students.

[1:37:32] We tend to keep an eye on this as well.

[1:37:37] If our students with disabilities

[1:37:39] are receiving discipline referrals

[1:37:41] at a higher rate than their non-disabled peers,

[1:37:43] that's a concern.

[1:37:45] I will say that, that is the case sometimes.

[1:37:50] They are receiving referrals outside

[1:37:52] of their non-disabled peers.

[1:37:55] We are receiving students with disabilities a little bit less.

[1:38:01] The next piece we begin to look at

[1:38:04] is the unique referrals by category.

[1:38:06] The one thing I want to point out here

[1:38:09] that I'm particularly proud about

[1:38:10] is the autism number is down.

[1:38:13] In terms of discipline.

[1:38:14] One of those areas we've had a lot of focus on.

[1:38:18] We heard feedback from the board and other stakeholders

[1:38:21] that we really needed to make sure we were not just training

[1:38:26] our staff but we needed to train our non EC staff.

[1:38:29] We'll hear a little bit more about that.

[1:38:32] That is beginning to show in our student outcomes.

[1:38:36] The other area you can see is higher.

[1:38:40] Our learning disability area.

[1:38:42] That gives us an eye about where we can continue to focus at.

[1:38:45] If you have some of those challenges,

[1:38:47] how are you still being challenged in the classroom,

[1:38:50] and feel yourself successful there.

[1:38:53] We'll continue to look at that.

[1:38:55] With that I'm going to turn it over to Miss Robinson.

[1:38:58] She'll share more about >> Good evening.

[1:39:03] First of all I wanted to thank our superintendent and the board

[1:39:05] for inviting us tonight.

[1:39:07] We're really excited about being a bit earlier in the evening.

[1:39:12] I'm especially excited because this is my anniversary month.

[1:39:16] I came to Chapel Hill three years ago, in October.

[1:39:21] Very special.

[1:39:22] I'm going to be talking with you a little bit

[1:39:25] about our disproportionality.

[1:39:28] Significant disproportionality is a designation

[1:39:31] that is monitored by the state and the federal government.

[1:39:35] We are looking at performance indicators

[1:39:39] for how are we serving our students and are we being fair

[1:39:45] and are we being balanced when we're doing that.

[1:39:49] We presented information last spring

[1:39:51] or maybe it was February last year to the student Success

[1:39:56] Committee.

[1:39:57] We have been continuing with that work

[1:40:00] throughout the end of last year and into this year.

[1:40:04] This will be our second year in this status.

[1:40:08] Districts are expected to maintain 3.0

[1:40:13] in terms of our risk ratio.

[1:40:20] Currently our risk ratio, it's a little bit higher than that.

[1:40:24] I do have good news, we are making progress.

[1:40:27] We're moving slowly but we are making progress.

[1:40:30] We have been disproportionate for over three years.

[1:40:34] Once you've been disproportionate

[1:40:36] for three years, there is a status

[1:40:39] that you go into which is called significant disproportionality.

[1:40:47] Currently we are disproportionate into areas.

[1:40:51] In the area of discipline, and that's

[1:40:55] for out of school suspensions for black students.

[1:40:58] The good news is we started out, when this data was first

[1:41:03] being looked at, at 4.16 but we have been

[1:41:06] able to reduce that number.

[1:41:08] We're trending downward.

[1:41:10] It tells us our strategies are working.

[1:41:14] As Miss Reeves mentioned, we put some significant focus

[1:41:19] on working with general curriculum.

[1:41:21] We had a training this summer that was very well participated

[1:41:25] in.

[1:41:26] I'll talk a little bit more about that, a little bit later.

[1:41:30] I also want to mention we are disproportionate in the area

[1:41:34] of intellectual disabilities.

[1:41:36] Also for black students.

[1:41:39] When this data was first collected, that three year

[1:41:44] cycle, we had a risk ratio of 5.72 in 2024

[1:41:48] and we currently have a risk ratio of 3.24.

[1:41:53] Many of our activities, we did a lot

[1:41:59] of planning a lot of self-analysis last year.

[1:42:02] We kind of got a slow start and people were getting

[1:42:05] concerned about that but we have some really good data

[1:42:08] about what our roadmap is and what we need to do.

[1:42:13] We formed a disproportionality team.

[1:42:16] A district disproportionality team

[1:42:18] that was made up of district leaders,

[1:42:20] teachers, just a variety of folks from various disciplines.

[1:42:27] We identified four main areas.

[1:42:31] Student engagement.

[1:42:33] Parent engagement.

[1:42:34] Data review.

[1:42:36] And professional learning.

[1:42:38] We were able to do quite a bit of professional learning.

[1:42:42] We have some really good training modules

[1:42:45] within the district.

[1:42:46] We're also looking at our process

[1:42:48] and looking at our procedures.

[1:42:51] As I mentioned before, we're looking at discipline,

[1:42:55] we're looking at eligibility for intellectual disability.

[1:43:00] These are some of the activities we had planned for this year.

[1:43:04] Also with the greater emphasis on teacher

[1:43:06] support and student support.

[1:43:09] Innovation and programing.

[1:43:12] We could go on and on and on.

[1:43:15] And we know there is not a whole lot of time.

[1:43:18] Three of the things we want to highlight

[1:43:22] is our EC AC Transition Academy which serves

[1:43:26] our students who are 19 plus.

[1:43:29] Up through age 22.

[1:43:32] There is a focus on job readiness and life skills.

[1:43:36] We had a parent reach out to us to say,

[1:43:39] we really want you to consider inclusivity and make sure

[1:43:44] that our students come up while they're

[1:43:46] getting this targeted support, that they're also

[1:43:48] able to participate in all the activities

[1:43:51] that their peers are participating in.

[1:43:54] Yearbook, graduation ceremonies, prom,

[1:43:58] because every parent wants their child

[1:44:00] to have the same opportunities as their typical peers.

[1:44:04] The other area we were focusing on,

[1:44:07] and this is really a state mandate but we're

[1:44:09] taking a closer look at it.

[1:44:12] Expanding the continuum of supports.

[1:44:15] Knowing we have some students who

[1:44:16] needed a self-contained environment

[1:44:19] and we have some students, the majority of our students

[1:44:22] are in the regular classroom period

[1:44:24] but then there's a host of other kids in between.

[1:44:27] We're going to be continuing to look at innovations

[1:44:30] and we've talked about quite a few things

[1:44:32] that we might want to put in place.

[1:44:35] The third thing I want to highlight

[1:44:36] is the advanced teaching roles.

[1:44:39] ATR.

[1:44:39] You may be familiar with the regular Ed slant of that period

[1:44:46] but we will be focusing on our special education teachers.

[1:44:51] We'll provide leadership opportunities and compensation

[1:44:56] for them to participate.

[1:45:02] For those of you who may not be familiar with advanced teaching

[1:45:07] models, it is a program that offers

[1:45:09] school districts and annual opportunity

[1:45:11] to apply for grants to design and implement

[1:45:15] new organizational and compensational models.

[1:45:18] This is an effort for us to promote retention.

[1:45:22] To give teachers opportunities for leadership roles.

[1:45:26] And to compensate them for doing that.

[1:45:29] A lot of coaching and side by side.

[1:45:36] I mentioned that.

[1:45:46] We have pardoned -- we have partnered greatly and I'm just

[1:45:54] looking back at my colleague and partner in crime,

[1:45:56] Marcella from the snack team.

[1:45:58] We've partnered on quite a bit of community activities

[1:46:03] and trying to get families and so

[1:46:07] I want to encourage all of our parents

[1:46:09] who may be watching out there in the audience to become involved.

[1:46:13] We need your support.

[1:46:14] We need your vision.

[1:46:14] We need your insights.

[1:46:15] We look forward to partnering with you in a broader way.

[1:46:20] We still have some positions available.

[1:46:24] If you have time to participate that would be great.

[1:46:27] We partnered with Special Olympics for quite a bit.

[1:46:30] We had a wonderful mock IEP meeting

[1:46:34] which was really a great way for parents

[1:46:36] who were new to special education

[1:46:37] to have an opportunity.

[1:46:38] Some of our other partnerships, I won't go through all of these,

[1:46:43] but I will say some of these are part of UNK research grants

[1:46:47] that we have participated in and so it helps us build capacity

[1:46:51] in some of the areas of anxiety and self Dysregulations.

[1:46:55] We have partnerships doing internships

[1:47:01] because we're always trying to encourage others

[1:47:03] to come into the district and to choose us as a place

[1:47:08] where they want to work.

[1:47:09] And then a little bit later we'll

[1:47:12] talk about the collaborative.

[1:47:14] We're really excited about that and you

[1:47:18] will see a host of people who are involved.

[1:47:20] We had multiple perspectives.

[1:47:22] We've been looking into the Autism Nest program which

[1:47:26] is a program out of New York.

[1:47:27] We've had a couple of conversations

[1:47:29] with representatives and that's one

[1:47:32] of those innovations we will continue to see

[1:47:35] if we can make that happen.

[1:47:39] Many of you may know that pre-K moved under EC this year.

[1:47:46] We're trying to be much more intentional about sharing

[1:47:50] the resources across pre-K through 12th grade.

[1:47:55] We had EC administrators meetings.

[1:47:59] That has been really good.

[1:48:02] Just talking about some of the targeted things

[1:48:05] they are interested in.

[1:48:06] We met with them yesterday and they shared with us,

[1:48:09] these are the things we really need support with.

[1:48:13] I mentioned the EC collaborative.

[1:48:16] So, the collaborative group that we're so excited about.

[1:48:19] We had three meetings last -- well we've had three meetings it

[1:48:25] is a multidisciplinary team.

[1:48:26] We get to the end of the slide deck

[1:48:29] you will see how many people were involved.

[1:48:31] At various times.

[1:48:33] We had board members.

[1:48:35] Principals.

[1:48:36] Teachers.

[1:48:37] A host of people.

[1:48:41] We engaged in lots of problem solving.

[1:48:45] Doctor Christy Stanley was our facilitator.

[1:48:48] And she took us through that process.

[1:48:50] Our next step through that is to take the information

[1:48:54] that we gathered that we talked about, that we prioritized

[1:48:58] and then finish our actualization plan which

[1:49:02] is going to be the actual work we will

[1:49:05] be doing to address our areas.

[1:49:12] This is just a quick view of all of the stakeholder groups

[1:49:18] that we have collaborated with.

[1:49:21] Last year and the beginning of this year.

[1:49:25] This is kind of odd that we are kind

[1:49:28] of straddling two years here thinking

[1:49:29] about what to share with you, we have been very busy.

[1:49:34] As you can well see.

[1:49:36] One of the areas we really wanted to focus on

[1:49:40] was the EC staff survey.

[1:49:41] And I believe we also shared this out.

[1:49:44] And smaller groups.

[1:49:49] We had 65 people of 187 to participate

[1:49:54] and we went from school to school

[1:49:57] because we wanted to give every teacher, every related service

[1:50:02] provider, psychologist satin, giving an opportunity to share.

[1:50:06] They were eight open ended questions and this is

[1:50:10] just one of the questions and I believe in being transparent.

[1:50:13] It's not perfect but we are moving in the right direction.

[1:50:17] As long as we are moving forward,

[1:50:20] I'm always going to feel there is hope.

[1:50:24] Fostering those relationships with our teachers and school

[1:50:27] based staff.

[1:50:28] These are some of the things we feel like are going well.

[1:50:33] You'll see collaboration again and again and again.

[1:50:37] And then the professional development professional

[1:50:41] learning opportunities.

[1:50:43] Staff feel they need more communication.

[1:50:48] As I mentioned from the slide earlier.

[1:50:50] They want support with student behavior

[1:50:53] and that's why you see some of the things happening with autism

[1:50:56] and happening with our autism and behavior support specialist.

[1:51:01] They have concerns about teacher workload.

[1:51:05] We have worked hard to address that.

[1:51:08] Some of the planned remedies we have for some of those things

[1:51:12] is to increase our pathways of communication

[1:51:16] making sure we're giving the schools more.

[1:51:18] Being able to spend time in the classrooms.

[1:51:22] Parent professional training so that the support staff that's

[1:51:26] working with our teachers are able to take some of the load

[1:51:29] off.

[1:51:30] And then, let's go learn, which is an initiative

[1:51:33] that we are using in an online platform

[1:51:37] that we got some grant funding for.

[1:51:39] So we're doing a pilot of that.

[1:51:45] I will not read all of the professional development.

[1:51:49] I mentioned earlier the teacher training that has general Ed.

[1:51:54] You'll see we tried to diversify and make

[1:51:57] sure we met needs based on survey results

[1:52:01] based on conversations.

[1:52:04] Our administrator institute I mentioned earlier,

[1:52:08] building strong EC department.

[1:52:11] What is it that you need to do because that will help us

[1:52:14] with recruitment and retention.

[1:52:15] We feel it's important to provide strategies to help

[1:52:20] keep our teachers in place.

[1:52:23] Supervising the EC a C program.

[1:52:26] And then looking at how do we know our students

[1:52:29] are actually receiving educational benefits?

[1:52:32] Our data is telling us one thing.

[1:52:34] What are the things we need to be looking at?

[1:52:37] Neurodiversity.

[1:52:39] I mentioned the EC is.

[1:52:46] They're being trained to do some of the clerical things

[1:52:51] and the data collection.

[1:52:54] To free up the teachers.

[1:52:56] These are the things we feel are working.

[1:52:58] Last year we said these are the things that are not yet

[1:53:01] actualized.

[1:53:02] But we're seeing growth and progress.

[1:53:05] Now we want to focus on how can we maximize

[1:53:07] the things that are working.

[1:53:16] Thank you.

[1:53:17] Oh I didn't ask you if you have any questions.

[1:53:21] >> This concludes our time with you.

[1:53:23] I know I have presented before for various things

[1:53:26] and so we wanted to bring you in a little bit to some things

[1:53:29] that we are still problem solving around

[1:53:31] and so our EC teachers have been difficult to hire.

[1:53:35] Our teachers in general but specifically our EC classrooms.

[1:53:40] In some ways our caseloads being low,

[1:53:44] that increases our allotment needs.

[1:53:48] We need more teachers because we have,

[1:53:51] we carry a smaller caseload.

[1:53:53] That's something we have been trying to problem solve around.

[1:53:56] Also continuing to access funds.

[1:53:59] While we did not hit some of the slumps.

[1:54:02] Where we had to offload lots of people

[1:54:05] because we didn't necessarily hire people

[1:54:06] with those funds come with what we did do

[1:54:09] is we purchased programs for students.

[1:54:12] We're looking for ways to sustain those programs

[1:54:15] and resources we were able to purchase for students

[1:54:18] and lastly, I'll end with this piece

[1:54:21] that we met with our work group around

[1:54:24] and they say we need to do a better job marketing our EC

[1:54:29] programs really show and telling what

[1:54:31] is going on in our classrooms.

[1:54:32] I'll leave you all with a little something this evening

[1:54:34] that we're working on in collaboration

[1:54:36] with our communications team.

[1:54:45] >> Progressive VC services means we are looking outside of what

[1:54:48] our traditional norms have been.

[1:54:49] Adapting our instruction.

[1:54:51] Adapting our delivery.

[1:54:54] To provide opportunities for students

[1:54:57] where they are in places it looks

[1:55:00] like co-teaching because they have opportunities to experience

[1:55:03] the standard course of study opportunities

[1:55:05] to participate with their peers in regular classroom.

[1:55:09] And also we see supports that are necessary.

[1:55:20] >> Extra eyes for the classroom.

[1:55:22] >> The optics are also important to to have better results.

[1:55:25] If I were to take a group and work with them,

[1:55:29] I'll make sure they're not just EC kids, but some other kids.

[1:55:33] I'm not going to choose students that

[1:55:35] are struggling because there's a guy that only

[1:55:39] works with struggling kids.

[1:55:41] And

[1:55:41] >> Including them looks like involving the students

[1:55:43] and everything that our general curriculum students are

[1:55:46] participating in.

[1:55:47] Sometimes we have to make accommodations in order

[1:55:49] for that to happen.

[1:55:50] But they have that entitlement, as well as our other students.

[1:55:54] As we know, our students spend 80% or more

[1:55:59] of their time in the regular Ed classroom.

[1:56:01] It's really important that our teachers are fully equipped

[1:56:05] to help our students be successful.

[1:56:09] >> I think it was realizing that some things that were

[1:56:13] well-intended were more trouble.

[1:56:15] So I was creating systems for students

[1:56:18] to check off how they clean up their centers

[1:56:22] or how they manage their materials

[1:56:24] and I wasn't really thinking that if I gave this

[1:56:26] to a student who was on the spectrum,

[1:56:29] the student might think they had to do everything on that list.

[1:56:32] Realizing that I had to think in a different way,

[1:56:37] and modify tools that I thought were helping,

[1:56:39] that was really helpful.

[1:56:41] >> This year one of our innovations is that we have

[1:56:43] a transition academy.

[1:56:45] Transition Academy is for students

[1:56:47] who are 19 and older who have not been in public school.

[1:56:52] They have learning opportunities outside

[1:56:55] of the school experiences.

[1:56:56] We help students be ready and prepared to enter life

[1:57:00] after high school.

[1:57:01] We are so excited about a new year.

[1:57:04] We feel like this year will be the year where we will really

[1:57:07] see some positive growth and positive changes in our program.

[1:57:20] >> Okay.

[1:57:21] With that, will answer any questions that you will have.

[1:57:24] >> Board members, I will start.

[1:57:26] Whenever I see somebody who has a question, go ahead and --

[1:57:32] Meredith?

[1:57:33] >> Thank you thank you so much for the presentation.

[1:57:35] I'm excited about some of the new initiatives

[1:57:37] that we are embarking upon and I've really

[1:57:40] enjoyed being part of the work group

[1:57:42] and have had some really productive conversations

[1:57:44] about things that are working well

[1:57:46] and things I think we can improve upon.

[1:57:49] That's been really gratifying to get together

[1:57:52] with all these great minds and hear about all the exciting work

[1:57:55] that's being done.

[1:57:56] There's a couple of things I want to reiterate and highlight

[1:58:00] and a couple things I have questions about.

[1:58:02] One thing you mentioned at the very beginning

[1:58:04] of the presentation and I want to make sure the public was

[1:58:07] aware of, looking at the numbers,

[1:58:10] we all know that our overall enrollment has been down.

[1:58:13] However, our enrollment in kids who are getting EC services

[1:58:18] has increased.

[1:58:20] As the percentage of our population

[1:58:24] who are receiving services increases,

[1:58:26] I think that just underlines the need for this work and to really

[1:58:30] think outside the box and be able to provide

[1:58:33] the supports that our kids need and the supports

[1:58:36] for the teachers as well who are teaching our kids.

[1:58:38] I did also want to talk about, one thing I wanted to highlight

[1:58:44] is the under identification of female students

[1:58:48] female students with disabilities

[1:58:50] often present differently than male students.

[1:58:52] I think they get overlooked because girls

[1:58:55] tend to be taught to behave and sit in their seat sometimes

[1:58:58] I think we don't identify them as needing

[1:59:02] supports they may need.

[1:59:04] I was curious to know if anybody had any thoughts on how

[1:59:08] we can specifically target our female students who might have

[1:59:12] disabilities and some of the strategies

[1:59:14] we could use to make sure we're not

[1:59:17] missing kids who do need services to be successful.

[1:59:23] >> We had an autism series that we did.

[1:59:26] There was significant emphasis on how girls presented.

[1:59:31] I think that is a training that would be beneficial to all

[1:59:36] because students tend to mask.

[1:59:38] Girls do.

[1:59:39] We know that they do.

[1:59:41] We have been taught to sit and be quiet and as long

[1:59:45] as we're not creating a disruption,

[1:59:47] sometimes we get overlooked.

[1:59:49] That's one strategy that we're using.

[1:59:52] Certainly as we are looking at data, because when

[1:59:57] we start talking about disproportionality,

[1:59:58] it is not just boys, but we have girls

[2:00:04] in there as well creating opportunities

[2:00:08] like Buddy systems.

[2:00:10] I think young girls come depending on their age,

[2:00:15] they need peer models and they also

[2:00:16] need adult models to understand that it's

[2:00:20] fine to say that you need help but we also

[2:00:23] have a responsibility, even as educators to be really

[2:00:27] monitoring our data and making sure

[2:00:29] that when we see data that is going in the wrong direction,

[2:00:33] that when we see something we do something.

[2:00:39] >> Thank you.

[2:00:41] And then, the attendance slide was interesting to me.

[2:00:45] I was just wondering, there's a lot of reasons kids

[2:00:48] with disabilities have attendance problems

[2:00:51] it could be some of our medically fragile kids

[2:00:53] have medical issues that need addressing

[2:00:55] and so they're not able to be there.

[2:00:57] There's also a large number of kids,

[2:00:59] and I think it's increasing, but I

[2:01:02] don't know if I've seen more chatter about it,

[2:01:04] but school refusal is such a big deal in this population,

[2:01:09] especially with our autistic population of kids.

[2:01:12] Just wondering, on school refusal, specifically,

[2:01:16] what are some of the strategies that our district

[2:01:18] is utilizing to kind of reach those kids and families

[2:01:23] and provide those supports that they might

[2:01:25] need to get them into school?

[2:01:28] >> I'm going to go ahead and take that one.

[2:01:32] Our teams are really good in that school system at problem

[2:01:38] solving around that period especially engaging

[2:01:41] with our autism and our behavioral supports.

[2:01:45] Team.

[2:01:46] And we have had thoughts and strategies and lots of problem

[2:01:49] solving going along with that.

[2:01:50] When we see somebody that has school refusal,

[2:01:54] we start by trying to engage with the parents

[2:01:57] and talk about what the root causes of that are.

[2:02:00] We do social stories.

[2:02:02] We'll go out for school visits.

[2:02:05] We've -- (indiscernible).

[2:02:18] >> One of the things I wanted to raise,

[2:02:19] this is a bigger topic that we can talk about going forward.

[2:02:22] But targeting medical school in particular,

[2:02:25] that's one of my big interest.

[2:02:28] Not only on the population, but in general

[2:02:31] because of some of the numbers that we'll

[2:02:33] see later in our accountability presentation.

[2:02:35] Suggests we have some work to do in middle school.

[2:02:39] I think there's a lot of courses,

[2:02:42] whether it's our social studies courses, our science

[2:02:46] courses, our elective courses, where there's a teacher

[2:02:50] and there's 20 something kids in the class,

[2:02:53] a number of whom might have disabilities

[2:02:55] of various varieties and the teachers I think

[2:02:59] are feeling unsupported, a lot of times,

[2:03:02] in reaching those kids.

[2:03:04] The population might not know that in our English and math

[2:03:07] classes we do have some co-teaching going

[2:03:09] on which really helps those kids access the material

[2:03:13] and so I was just curious if any,

[2:03:16] and again I don't mean to put you on the spot,

[2:03:18] you don't have to necessarily answer this tonight,

[2:03:20] but I would like to have some discussion going forward

[2:03:22] about what we can do in those classrooms

[2:03:25] to better support, not only the students,

[2:03:28] but also our teachers who often don't

[2:03:31] have a background in special education

[2:03:33] who are trying to help kids access the general Ed curriculum

[2:03:37] and really could use some additional support.

[2:03:42] I was just wondering if there's been any thinking in that area?

[2:03:49] >> I think that's a wonderful point and definitely something

[2:03:52] that inclusive training and professional learning is

[2:03:56] so important.

[2:03:57] One of the things in my conversation with ISD has been

[2:04:01] we have now, we have finished with our comprehensive review

[2:04:07] corrective actions and we are now open to collaboration

[2:04:11] and being able to partner with ISD a lot more with trainings

[2:04:16] peer October 9th training we have a lot of different

[2:04:19] collaborations going on with the teachers there.

[2:04:23] So, the specific thinking about science and social studies,

[2:04:29] we can definitely offer strategy instruction

[2:04:33] for those teachers yes, I would love to partner

[2:04:37] and put that in place.

[2:04:45] >> One more thing I wanted to add,

[2:04:46] our autism and behavior specialist,

[2:04:49] they are also working closely with teams and have built

[2:04:53] neurodiversity teams to work on focusing on some areas that we

[2:04:57] are having some struggles with in middle school period that is

[2:05:00] something they're doing throughout the year.

[2:05:02] Supporting.

[2:05:03] There's a book study that they're

[2:05:06] doing and actually looking at data

[2:05:08] and how they can apply strategies

[2:05:12] to support students that are having some behavioral >> Thank

[2:05:17] you.

[2:05:17] I just wanted to thank you for highlighting

[2:05:17] all of the partnerships and collaboration

[2:05:20] that you're doing with external groups.

[2:05:23] I'm sure it's no surprise to any of you,

[2:05:25] it really makes me excited to see the fact that you're

[2:05:28] talking with people in other districts

[2:05:29] and talking about innovative programing.

[2:05:33] Like nest.

[2:05:34] I've been beating the drum for nest or programs

[2:05:37] like that for a long time.

[2:05:39] I'm happy you're looking into those

[2:05:40] and seeing what lessons we can really take

[2:05:42] to our kids and our district.

[2:05:45] The other districts around the country

[2:05:46] are doing a really good job.

[2:05:48] There's no need to reinvent the wheel

[2:05:50] and there's already some really great programs out there.

[2:05:53] Not only looking at our local resources

[2:05:56] like teach and the university education departments

[2:06:00] and other things but also things that are around the country

[2:06:03] because there's a lot of really cool stuff going on out there.

[2:06:06] I really appreciate it.

[2:06:15] >> Hi, I have a question in regard to the teacher survey

[2:06:17] and first I would like to thank you all for putting all those

[2:06:20] efforts to our EC students.

[2:06:23] And none of those achievement can

[2:06:27] be achieved without those teacher in the front line

[2:06:31] and we want to make sure that they are well supported

[2:06:35] and get all the resources they need.

[2:06:37] One thing I noticed from the slide deck is that only about 65

[2:06:43] out of 187, that's about 35 ish percent of teacher responded.

[2:06:52] I wonder if there is a way to promote this percentage.

[2:06:58] Make the essay, the survey more successful to the teachers

[2:07:03] and also maybe consider some change in survey design.

[2:07:11] Make them so they can respond to these questions better.

[2:07:17] My concern is that with the lower percentage of responders,

[2:07:23] we may not capture all the concerns of the teachers.

[2:07:28] Yeah, that's my question.

[2:07:32] >> In addition to the survey, I mentioned that we would have

[2:07:37] roundtable discussions and obviously we know we are always

[2:07:41] trying to establish trust and that may have been a part

[2:07:47] of the response when we gathered around the table and we met with

[2:07:51] folks face to face, we did get very honest feedback from them.

[2:07:57] But I think that the next time we

[2:08:00] do a survey we could consider the design

[2:08:03] and maybe that's a follow up question we might ask.

[2:08:06] If you didn't fill out the survey,

[2:08:10] can you share with us why.

[2:08:12] What were the barriers to filling out the survey.

[2:08:15] Thank you for lifting that up.

[2:08:17] I appreciate that.

[2:08:21] >> Thank you for the presentation and I would like

[2:08:23] to follow up with board member Wu about the survey for just

[2:08:27] a moment and saying that I appreciate that you're going out

[2:08:32] and speaking with people and building relationships and I

[2:08:35] would definitely recommend you all do your next survey to maybe

[2:08:40] have some that are not just open ended.

[2:08:43] Even though we know that's the best data we can get.

[2:08:46] We also know, as you said, our teachers are very busy

[2:08:50] and that may be a barrier in terms of them wanting

[2:08:52] to take the time to have a thought provoking answers

[2:08:56] to fill them out in that way.

[2:08:58] And have somewhere they can make some of their information

[2:09:01] in a better formatted way.

[2:09:04] Even though, when they're sitting across the table

[2:09:08] and everybody may want to communicate and even build

[2:09:11] relationships, there may be something that still don't quite

[2:09:14] feel they can express themselves in the way

[2:09:16] they really want to, when they're

[2:09:18] in front of their peers and management

[2:09:20] and things of that nature.

[2:09:22] Having a more anonymous way may actually

[2:09:25] allow people to be their true selves,

[2:09:27] so to speak so they don't feel they're calling anyone out.

[2:09:33] I would just recommend or suggest

[2:09:35] that you give them that opportunity

[2:09:37] since that is such a large number of 122 people who

[2:09:41] didn't respond that's a lot.

[2:09:45] But I commend you.

[2:09:48] We can't finish anything we don't start.

[2:09:51] I definitely commend you with that.

[2:09:54] My next question was to speak to the disproportionality

[2:09:58] of the out of school suspension with black students.

[2:10:01] I see the numbers are going down.

[2:10:04] And so I would like to ask, are the referrals going down

[2:10:10] or are the response to the referrals changing which

[2:10:13] would of course have percentages of students going down

[2:10:18] but I'm wanting to know, are the groups

[2:10:20] to the referrals being handled or just the numbers looking

[2:10:24] better because I want to know what the groups are

[2:10:26] and the methods that are being handled and are we even

[2:10:30] looking at the different categories and place

[2:10:34] marks for the referrals?

[2:10:36] Seeing packets where certain areas and certain staff

[2:10:40] are having more referrals with certain students

[2:10:43] and as you stated that there are some girls who mask differently

[2:10:49] with disabilities, we know some different cultures

[2:10:52] they do as well.

[2:10:53] There may be students who are having

[2:10:56] some issues of disabilities that may show up in that way.

[2:10:59] Can you speak a little bit to that, please?

[2:11:03] >> I don't have data and figures for you today.

[2:11:05] But I can tell you, in year two, our emphasis

[2:11:09] is on working with individuals, individual schools

[2:11:13] period we will be drilling down.

[2:11:15] I don't want to frighten anybody.

[2:11:17] But we will be looking at teacher patterns.

[2:11:19] We will be looking at, actually talking with the students

[2:11:22] because that's where you get the real story.

[2:11:26] Not vilifying anyone.

[2:11:27] But if we don't have conversations,

[2:11:30] we won't really truly know.

[2:11:33] In their individual school plans,

[2:11:35] every plan for the folks in the cohort,

[2:11:38] the schools in the cohort, especially designed

[2:11:42] to meet the needs of their schools,

[2:11:44] we will be meeting quarterly with the building principals

[2:11:47] to look at their data, starting in October.

[2:11:51] This is a great month.

[2:11:53] We will be then having conversations with them

[2:11:59] about how we're going to talk with teachers.

[2:12:02] I don't believe people are intentionally suspending.

[2:12:05] We also see patterns of where the discipline referrals are

[2:12:09] happening.

[2:12:10] They are typically happening in the classroom.

[2:12:12] The regular classroom.

[2:12:13] That was one of the highest areas.

[2:12:15] I was expecting it to be those Non-structured settings.

[2:12:20] It wasn't.

[2:12:22] We know if we foster more co-teaching then

[2:12:26] if you've got two adults in the classroom that might be a way

[2:12:30] to mitigate some of that as well and we

[2:12:32] know that oftentimes behavior, behavior is communication.

[2:12:37] There's something a student may not be getting.

[2:12:40] We believe we have to analyze it from both angles.

[2:12:44] Not just teachers but also students.

[2:12:46] Those are some of the things.

[2:12:51] >> Thank you very much.

[2:12:53] We also notice behavior as a response.

[2:12:56] They are definitely communicating.

[2:12:58] They may not be telling you what they're not getting,

[2:13:01] but they're telling you exactly what they're not getting.

[2:13:06] >> Absolutely.

[2:13:07] >> Thank you for the upbeat presentation.

[2:13:10] I always appreciate your optimism and that's great.

[2:13:13] I was sitting up here feeling very old

[2:13:16] because education for all handicapped Children's Act

[2:13:20] was passed in November of 1975.

[2:13:23] That's next month.

[2:13:26] 51 years ago.

[2:13:27] When it was passed, I was a special education teacher

[2:13:31] at the right school in Durham North Carolina.

[2:13:37] I have seen the growth of this.

[2:13:39] It's really exciting tonight we are actually

[2:13:41] talking about how to meet the needs of students

[2:13:44] with disabilities.

[2:13:45] 50 years ago it was did they even

[2:13:48] have a right to be in school.

[2:13:51] That was what spurred the federal law.

[2:13:53] One of the things the feds did was

[2:13:55] they said it took up to 40% of the cost of education

[2:14:00] of non-disabled students, is what the real cost would be

[2:14:05] for students with disabilities.

[2:14:07] But then they never funded it at 40%.

[2:14:10] The highest it's ever been was 18%.

[2:14:13] The federal government.

[2:14:15] I point this out because I'm leading

[2:14:18] to a suggestion and a question here.

[2:14:20] Just last year, when they funded their $15 billion

[2:14:25] or something to the state, that's about 10%

[2:14:29] of the projected cost.

[2:14:31] The costs are left to the state and local government

[2:14:36] and you mentioned this, the numbers

[2:14:38] are going up while enrollment is declining

[2:14:42] and so I am surmising the costs are going up.

[2:14:47] Period.

[2:14:48] And I think I know it wasn't the focus of your discussion tonight

[2:14:53] but, it would behoove us all to have a session sometime

[2:14:59] on the real costs of educating students with disabilities.

[2:15:03] As we look at our budget, we really have an understanding

[2:15:07] of -- it's not just people asking for money because they

[2:15:12] want to do something new.

[2:15:14] It's real issues and there's just not money there

[2:15:18] or there's not enough.

[2:15:19] It's been a question for 50 years.

[2:15:24] What do we do.

[2:15:26] I just wanted to point that out and thank you.

[2:15:30] You're well aware of it.

[2:15:31] I'm not telling you all anything.

[2:15:34] Perhaps we could get together.

[2:15:37] The board can be, I would like to be fully informed.

[2:15:41] What are our real needs still, where are we

[2:15:46] working, what needs do we have?

[2:15:49] >> You might add in, the 13% cap that the state puts on.

[2:15:57] >> The actual number of students that could be identified

[2:16:00] >> Correct appeared to be eligible for the additional

[2:16:02] funding.

[2:16:08] >> Miss Reeves just reminded me.

[2:16:10] Chapel Hill was selected to participate

[2:16:11] in a research survey.

[2:16:14] A research project.

[2:16:18] They selected three schools within our district.

[2:16:21] The topic, that reminded me of that, the topic of discussion

[2:16:25] is special education spending.

[2:16:29] Looking at what we spend for regular Ed versus what we spend

[2:16:34] for students with disabilities.

[2:16:36] First we were a little --

[2:16:39] I think we will get some good information about that.

[2:16:42] I do want to take a moment to thank Jonathan

[2:16:47] who's been very kind to us.

[2:16:50] We meet biweekly.

[2:16:52] We are having ongoing conversations

[2:16:57] about how we can bring more resources into the district

[2:17:01] and how we can leverage resources we already have.

[2:17:05] I'm not brown nosing.

[2:17:06] I want to thank Doctor Tri.

[2:17:09] Because he is spending a lot of time

[2:17:12] with leadership talking about our return on investment

[2:17:15] and looking at the practices that have always been in place.

[2:17:19] Whether or not they are yielding the dividends

[2:17:22] they need to yield.

[2:17:23] I think there's good work going on.

[2:17:26] We always can use some picture points, s.

[2:17:34] >> Thank very much for the presentation.

[2:17:35] I really like the video.

[2:17:38] I like the multidisciplinary task force

[2:17:42] and I like the partnerships a lot.

[2:17:44] That's really great developments.

[2:17:45] I have 3 or 4 really small questions.

[2:17:49] To follow up on Vicki's point about the disproportionality,

[2:17:54] does this mean these are the only two

[2:17:55] groups of students that have discipline disproportionality?

[2:18:03] >> We are monitoring all disability categories.

[2:18:07] Because the state monitors this as one of our performance

[2:18:12] indicators, they are looking to see

[2:18:16] how ever the disproportionality is leveling out.

[2:18:20] For some districts, it may not be

[2:18:23] black students it may be Asian students

[2:18:25] or it may be Hispanic students.

[2:18:27] I'm not sure if I'm answering your question.

[2:18:33] >> To answer your question, no, they are not the only areas.

[2:18:36] And our next presentation we talk about accountability.

[2:18:47] >> And then slide 33, it was also following

[2:18:50] on board member Wu's question.

[2:18:52] Wanting a more positive, trust field school climate.

[2:18:57] Can you just say a little bit more about that.

[2:19:07] >> Okay.

[2:19:08] So, I wanted to rewind us back a few years ago.

[2:19:10] Three years ago we embarked on a restructuring

[2:19:16] and there were lots of big feelings centered around that.

[2:19:20] It has been work for us to reestablish trust.

[2:19:26] We made changes.

[2:19:28] There were things that needed to happen.

[2:19:31] Because of the way that our data looks and outcomes for students.

[2:19:36] I believe that that may have been part of it.

[2:19:40] We unpacked all of the responses and did it by district

[2:19:46] and looked for commonalities.

[2:19:47] We also looked at individual school responses.

[2:19:51] I do not recall anyone expanding on that.

[2:19:55] Other than to say we need you to come when

[2:19:58] you say you're going to come.

[2:19:59] We need you to communicate.

[2:20:01] And we need to know what's going on.

[2:20:04] We think the teachers are sitting up

[2:20:07] watching board meetings.

[2:20:08] They're not always doing that.

[2:20:09] One of the things we instituted last year

[2:20:12] was at the end of the year, kind of giving them a summary,

[2:20:17] these are the things we have worked on.

[2:20:18] These are the things you've been involved in.

[2:20:21] I do want to take a minute.

[2:20:23] I know I'm probably getting Eyerolls because I'm going on.

[2:20:26] But I do believe that we are moving in the right direction,

[2:20:32] building trust.

[2:20:33] I think if we did that survey again,

[2:20:35] it would look much better.

[2:20:37] But, change is hard and when change happens, and you

[2:20:43] have comprehensive reviews that were

[2:20:46] many things that were happening, and so people felt it.

[2:20:50] But I think we're doing better in that area

[2:20:54] and we are communicating more.

[2:20:56] That's what I meant by saying, they may not

[2:20:59] be watching a board meeting, but we can send them

[2:21:01] a summary to let them know, these are

[2:21:03] the things that are happening.

[2:21:04] We're really excited about ATR.

[2:21:07] We hope there will be teachers that will be interested in --

[2:21:13] because we have some phenomenal teachers hiding away

[2:21:15] in classrooms doing their thing.

[2:21:17] We want to expand that and make sure we

[2:21:19] are providing quality services for all of our students.

[2:21:23] Not just some.

[2:21:26] >> Thank you.

[2:21:27] That's really helpful.

[2:21:28] My last question is about professional development

[2:21:30] opportunities and I'm happy to see

[2:21:32] that people are getting training and demand triggered anxiety.

[2:21:36] Is that kind of what we're calling PDA?

[2:21:39] Okay.

[2:21:40] Good.

[2:21:41] I think it's a huge problem.

[2:21:44] Issue slash problem.

[2:21:45] It doesn't necessarily fit neatly into any other buckets.

[2:21:56] >> I just have one question also on the lines of professional

[2:21:58] development.

[2:21:59] It's always an area I'm interested in

[2:22:02] and because we have easy students dispersed

[2:22:05] throughout our schools and our classrooms,

[2:22:07] I'm just curious about the rate of participation

[2:22:10] for our non E-Z staff because I think that's really important

[2:22:14] and it sounded like hearing that one teacher come the art

[2:22:18] teacher comment it sounds like it's paying off,

[2:22:21] but I'm just curious, what does that look like?

[2:22:23] Are they required to do it, how frequent, how much.

[2:22:27] We don't have the answer, don't worry about it.

[2:22:30] I'm wondering, are we also using data to look at the teachers

[2:22:34] who do participate.

[2:22:35] What is the student outcome data look like for them.

[2:22:39] What does referral out outlook data look like for them

[2:22:44] the whole range of training.

[2:22:47] Are they doing less referrals because they are a lot more well

[2:22:52] versed in kind of understanding EC

[2:22:54] students a lot better than maybe in here, we might just

[2:23:00] do the required 1 or 2.

[2:23:01] I know I ask a lot of questions about a lot of things.

[2:23:06] >> I don't know if I'll remember all of them.

[2:23:08] However, I think the fundamental piece

[2:23:09] is the teachers we see coming, are

[2:23:13] the teachers that are dedicated to ongoing growth

[2:23:15] and opportunity for themselves and for their students.

[2:23:18] Yes, we do see outcomes there.

[2:23:21] We also offer, because of our specialist,

[2:23:23] we go in and offer coaching and support after trainings.

[2:23:27] They're not just doing acid and get.

[2:23:31] There's a follow up in some way shape or form from the autism

[2:23:34] and behavior people.

[2:23:35] From compliance.

[2:23:37] From instruction.

[2:23:38] We've got a wraparound service if you

[2:23:40] will to provide that ongoing support.

[2:23:42] We don't have required sessions for the Gen Ed teachers.

[2:23:46] That is a choice that they come.

[2:23:49] Sometimes depending on the disproportionality schools,

[2:23:53] they are asked to attend by their administrators.

[2:23:55] But we are looking at data to help

[2:23:58] inform who's going to be going.

[2:24:01] Especially with the disproportionality.

[2:24:04] We're digging deep within that data to see.

[2:24:07] And yes, we're also, because of some of our initiatives,

[2:24:10] we're doing that implementation plan of looking at pre data

[2:24:14] and looking at post data to see what our outcomes are doing

[2:24:19] and we're digging deep with the programs

[2:24:21] that we're using to see which students are growing.

[2:24:25] Specifically for students being taught with an evidence

[2:24:28] based program and those that are not.

[2:24:35] >> I just think that's so important.

[2:24:37] People know I work private sector.

[2:24:37] We have mandatory training.

[2:24:39] I think that's something, I know teachers do a lot.

[2:24:43] They have a lot of training.

[2:24:44] There's a lot of that they get ongoing.

[2:24:47] But, if the data is supporting it, why wouldn't we do it?

[2:24:52] I think also, maybe we think about changing

[2:24:55] year to year because students come into a teacher's classroom,

[2:24:59] it changes from year to year and so

[2:25:01] I hope we're thinking about when we talk about the specialized

[2:25:06] instruction for our kids, we probably

[2:25:09] need to think about the specialized training

[2:25:11] for our staff as well.

[2:25:13] >> Another thing our teams collaborative are going to be

[2:25:17] working on this year is developing that three year

[2:25:19] implementation plan for our teachers and new teachers are

[2:25:22] not just new to teaching but new to our district.

[2:25:25] What is it that they maybe had training on in another district

[2:25:29] but they needed this district.

[2:25:31] We're looking comprehensively at that as well.

[2:25:36] >> Thank you.

[2:25:40] >> I want to add that last year our staff did receive training

[2:25:42] at the beginning of the year through our vector courses

[2:25:44] and then all new staff had to do it this year.

[2:25:47] We have done some of that and to answer your second question

[2:25:51] about whether or not it had any impact on discipline,

[2:25:54] I don't have any hard data on that,

[2:25:55] but we do have some numbers, not numbers come up

[2:26:01] at some qualitative data that says yes,

[2:26:03] because we have had several teachers that

[2:26:06] have taken specific class and worked

[2:26:09] with our autism specialists and specific

[2:26:12] because they had it in their classroom.

[2:26:14] We did see a significant decrease in referrals.

[2:26:22] >> Thank you.

[2:26:22] That's great.

[2:26:23] Any other questions?

[2:26:24] Go ahead.

[2:26:29] >> I definitely want to commend everyone for the teacher

[2:26:32] training that you've done and I want to give a shout out

[2:26:35] to the EC AC.

[2:26:37] The coffee shop they have at Chapel Hill High.

[2:26:41] The roaring mug is excellent.

[2:26:45] If you are administrator or staff

[2:26:49] member that has someone out there come those young men come

[2:26:52] a young people that love to see you come in,

[2:26:54] they did a wonderful job.

[2:26:56] It was wonderful to see them.

[2:26:58] And I actually got to see some of the student photographers

[2:27:02] coming in and taking pictures of their opening day

[2:27:05] with all the balloons.

[2:27:07] I can't say enough about how wonderful that was.

[2:27:12] It provided me -- it reminded me of being prepared.

[2:27:17] Which is absolutely wonderful place we have.

[2:27:21] I think that was just wonderful and I just

[2:27:24] wanted to give a positive shout out.

[2:27:27] Thank you.

[2:27:33] >> Go ahead.

[2:27:34] >> As was mentioned earlier, I know the General Assembly has

[2:27:37] limitations around diversity equity and inclusion,

[2:27:41] but we're also experiencing disproportionality around

[2:27:44] discipline for black students.

[2:27:46] I was wondering if someone could speak to whether you all

[2:27:50] are or staff fielder any limitations in terms

[2:27:56] of programing that you could do in support of addressing

[2:27:59] disproportionality or if you needed any additional supports

[2:28:03] on our end.

[2:28:04] Your thoughts about that.

[2:28:06] >> I did reach out to DPI.

[2:28:08] Just to find out what our guardrails would be and they

[2:28:10] said we still will proceed until something happens federally that

[2:28:17] tells us that we explicitly cannot.

[2:28:20] We are being a little bit more intentional about our language.

[2:28:25] This is a federal mandate.

[2:28:28] Ava, thank you for nodding.

[2:28:32] It's a federal mandate.

[2:28:34] We've got two positions kind of opposing one another.

[2:28:39] Until something happens, we're going

[2:28:41] to continue to do the work we need to do for our kids.

[2:28:47] >> Thank you everyone.

[2:28:48] Thank you so much for this presentation.

[2:28:50] Yes.

[2:28:50] We do have staff out there watching.

[2:28:55] They tell me.

[2:29:04] All write.

[2:29:05] The next item on our agenda, a work session item.

[2:29:12] It's our 2025, 2026 district Accountability progress update.

[2:29:22] Okay.

[2:29:26] Doctor bales is going to come up here

[2:29:31] >> I know if I stood up -- >> All right good evening doctor

[2:29:36] bells.

[2:29:37] >> Good evening board.

[2:29:38] Welcome.

[2:29:39] I'm excited for us to be able to share.

[2:29:44] I know many of us have seen this presentation

[2:29:46] a couple of different times.

[2:29:48] We have a little different flavor to this one.

[2:29:51] Looking at our accountability.

[2:29:54] This past year, so, overall we're

[2:29:59] going to be looking at our accountability outcomes.

[2:30:02] This one overview, looking at our area of focus

[2:30:08] for the year, so we wanted to start with ten zero

[2:30:12] zero zero foot view to start off.

[2:30:15] So I think it's important to note, that again this past year,

[2:30:21] we did not have any schools that were considered low.

[2:30:26] Every one of our schools are with four of our schools

[2:30:31] improving by a full letter grade.

[2:30:35] The number of schools that exceeded growth, increased

[2:30:39] overall, in this piece, the number of schools

[2:30:43] exceeded growth increased and then also this next piece

[2:30:47] was something Bengali was able to help us look at a little bit.

[2:30:51] We had five of our elementary schools.

[2:30:54] 35 scores.

[2:30:56] Of being an A school this past year.

[2:31:00] What that means, is, if we were to have more proficient tests,

[2:31:05] and think back, we had many tests that are one point away.

[2:31:11] We had some schools that were close to seven.

[2:31:15] Some that were 35.

[2:31:16] But to be that close, to know in reality there's

[2:31:19] probably 35 questions.

[2:31:22] For these schools.

[2:31:23] That allow them to be in a school.

[2:31:26] Overall, our goal this past year was to have a proficiency

[2:31:31] increase of -- very close.

[2:31:36] 2.8.

[2:31:37] Knowing we still have lots of work to do.

[2:31:40] Seven of our eight members did increase in overall proficiency.

[2:31:45] Within each grade level.

[2:31:48] One of the things we really wanted

[2:31:50] to track this past year as well, was our high school scores.

[2:31:54] Our high school students demonstrated

[2:31:56] positive academic gains within the block schedule.

[2:32:00] That was not something we were going

[2:32:03] into saying it was necessarily going to increase scores

[2:32:05] but to know that the work our teachers

[2:32:07] put in this past year, and the students

[2:32:10] as well, with the new schedule to have

[2:32:12] positive outcomes for our students, to have increases,

[2:32:16] it's tremendously proud of us and proud of our teachers

[2:32:19] proud of our students.

[2:32:21] We're excited about that.

[2:32:22] I'm going to hand it over to Ben Cauley

[2:32:25] our director of Reporting and Research.

[2:32:28] And he's going to take us through a couple of graphs.

[2:32:38] >> Bob kind of Stole all the highlights on me here.

[2:32:40] I'm going to take you on very high level

[2:32:42] through a number of the accountability measures.

[2:32:45] Beginning with school growth.

[2:32:48] Let me kind of walk you around these charts.

[2:32:51] They're all organized in the same way.

[2:32:53] They're banded by groups.

[2:32:55] In this case, the categories are how the Eva statistical model

[2:33:00] categorizes schools in their overall growth measure.

[2:33:04] So we've got not met and met exceeded.

[2:33:08] Left to right we've got the 2324 school year.

[2:33:11] The 24256.

[2:33:12] In the gray bar, in each of the several charts,

[2:33:17] will represent the state challenge.

[2:33:19] The first is a percent of schools

[2:33:22] that fell into each of these growth categories.

[2:33:24] You'll notice we had 77.8% of our schools on a meet or exceed

[2:33:29] growth in the last year.

[2:33:32] They exceeded number is higher than the state average.

[2:33:37] Now I'm going to kind of dial it up to the letter grades.

[2:33:43] The growth percentage of the formula is only 20%

[2:33:46] of the overall accountability model.

[2:33:48] Following this slide we'll go through a lot

[2:33:52] of the proficiency.

[2:33:53] Charts.

[2:33:54] We only have three groups here because as Doctor Wales

[2:33:59] mentioned, we didn't have any schools that earned an F or a D

[2:34:03] letter grade.

[2:34:04] We've got A B and C letter grades.

[2:34:06] The majority of our schools scoring

[2:34:08] or I guess earning a letter grade of B. 83.4%.

[2:34:13] All of our schools are either an A or a B and as Doctor Bales

[2:34:18] mentioned, we were very close to having a few more schools earn

[2:34:22] A's.

[2:34:22] The other side of that too is the growth for those schools

[2:34:26] was improved by a little bit and it

[2:34:29] would take even less of the scores that he mentioned.

[2:34:33] Now we'll kind of dial it back down to the 80% of the formula

[2:34:37] and talk about percent proficient.

[2:34:38] In this case we're going to start

[2:34:40] by talking about EOG scores across courses and across grade

[2:34:45] levels.

[2:34:45] The categories here on this chart

[2:34:48] are split up by reading grades three through eight.

[2:34:52] That's where they give EOG.

[2:34:55] Grades three through eight.

[2:34:57] Then science just fifth and eighth grade.

[2:35:00] The only two with Science.

[2:35:02] Again, I'll point out on this chart over the next few charts

[2:35:05] you'll see if there's a ribbon, if one of the columns

[2:35:10] denotes a ribbon, they went over 3% point increase

[2:35:15] from the year prior.

[2:35:17] In this case it was reading.

[2:35:19] Grades three through eight went up 3.6 percentage points.

[2:35:25] This next chart is still EOG.

[2:35:29] But rather than talking about its composite across all tests,

[2:35:33] but now it's split up in groups.

[2:35:36] This has got reading, math and science all put together into it

[2:35:40] across groups.

[2:35:40] You'll see ribbons over several of our categories here.

[2:35:44] Groups scored above three percentage points higher

[2:35:48] than the year prior.

[2:35:49] And as Doctor Bells pointed out, for EOG scores,

[2:35:53] we were 2.9 percentage points higher overall

[2:35:57] across all groups.

[2:35:58] And our other three groups that the state breaks out,

[2:36:02] I guess, economically disadvantaged

[2:36:06] students, multilingual and students with disabilities.

[2:36:09] We had a big increase in our economically disadvantaged

[2:36:13] students.

[2:36:13] 4.9 percentage point increase from the year prior.

[2:36:18] Now we'll move on to the EOC breakdown

[2:36:22] and of course testing is English two.

[2:36:25] Math one.

[2:36:26] We broke out specifically math one in high school.

[2:36:29] We didn't include math one over middle school

[2:36:32] and then we have math three and biology.

[2:36:35] If you notice, that was the year the test was reformed.

[2:36:40] So there weren't scores for biology that year.

[2:36:44] 23, 24.

[2:36:45] But science did increase in proficiency.

[2:36:48] More than three points from the year prior, last year.

[2:36:52] Now we'll do the same thing we did with the EOG scores.

[2:36:56] They're a composite of all the EOC scores

[2:37:00] but now divided by student group.

[2:37:03] We have two groups.

[2:37:04] Black and white student groups that scored higher

[2:37:07] than the three percentage point goal

[2:37:10] that we had from the year prior.

[2:37:12] Finally our last three groups before we

[2:37:15] talk about graduation rate.

[2:37:19] Again, 80 ML and s w d, and in this case

[2:37:26] it was the editors group that scored three percentage

[2:37:29] points higher.

[2:37:30] We have the four year cohort graduation rate.

[2:37:33] This is the on time graduation rate.

[2:37:36] Couldn't fit the ribbons on this one.

[2:37:37] But the Latinx group did increase their graduation rate

[2:37:40] by 35% from the year prior.

[2:37:46] And it's also higher than the state average.

[2:37:49] Which is nice.

[2:37:51] Now our final three groups for four year

[2:37:55] cohort graduation rate, again, editors, ML,

[2:37:59] and students with disabilities.

[2:38:01] You'll notice a massive spike in multilingual students

[2:38:04] from years prior.

[2:38:06] 12.8 percentage points in Graduation rate.

[2:38:16] And students with disabilities as well, 5.9 percentage

[2:38:20] points higher.

[2:38:21] >> This is just our discipline and this will be a more

[2:38:24] comprehensive look.

[2:38:25] We are not looking at all students, not just

[2:38:31] students with disabilities here, you'll

[2:38:32] see the number did raise slightly last year.

[2:38:36] By about 20 or so students we saw more disciplined.

[2:38:40] I'm attributing that to when we get to our attendance slide,

[2:38:43] we did much better with attendance.

[2:38:45] Not necessarily the case but, that is one possible piece.

[2:38:49] You will see in terms of student groups

[2:38:54] where we made some traction at was

[2:38:56] with our black female students and our black male students.

[2:38:58] Last year we looked at the data and it was down quite a bit

[2:39:02] from years past.

[2:39:03] One of the things we will continue to do

[2:39:06] is look at some of the things we put in place there and try

[2:39:09] to make sure they mirror some of those strategies

[2:39:12] for our other student groups as well.

[2:39:15] This is your earlier question.

[2:39:19] Vice Chair Peters, in terms of disproportionality,

[2:39:23] it is just for those particular groups?

[2:39:26] No.

[2:39:27] You'll see that multiracial male, multilingual students

[2:39:31] and students with disabilities.

[2:39:32] These are other areas where we see disproportionate suspensions

[2:39:35] and again, I'm saying suspensions,

[2:39:37] but it's actually just discipline.

[2:39:39] It's not necessarily suspension.

[2:39:45] We look not just at the discipline data

[2:39:48] by incident we also look at what students are saying to us

[2:39:51] and we do that in a couple of ways but one of the ways

[2:39:55] we do that is by Panorama student Survey.

[2:39:58] We ask students, what is your experience here?

[2:40:01] Do you feel a sense of belonging here?

[2:40:04] Do you have a good relationship with your teacher?

[2:40:06] We know these are all pieces that can mitigate discipline

[2:40:10] when you have a good or favorable experience in school.

[2:40:14] You're less likely to have discipline issues.

[2:40:16] These are the kind of questions we ask our students

[2:40:20] and you'll see here, there's some things

[2:40:23] we'll continue to focus on this year for our planning

[2:40:26] and programing.

[2:40:27] Our teacher and student relationships.

[2:40:29] Specifically at the high school level.

[2:40:31] One of the things we are beginning to talk about

[2:40:34] as a team is teacher student relationships

[2:40:37] aren't necessarily natural for everyone.

[2:40:43] How do we give adults the skills and sometimes students

[2:40:47] the skills to have those relationships with students.

[2:40:49] The other piece we want to take a look at

[2:40:52] is a sense of belonging.

[2:40:53] Specifically at the high school level

[2:40:55] thinking about how do we get students engaged

[2:40:57] in clubs and activities and other outside of school

[2:41:01] activities because we know that's where students begin

[2:41:04] to feel that sense of belonging if they don't get it

[2:41:06] in the classroom with a teacher, how do you also get that?

[2:41:10] We believe in working with those two,

[2:41:13] we'll increase the school climate.

[2:41:16] And our partners with panorama, in terms

[2:41:21] of our elementary school, it looked really nice

[2:41:24] in terms of the national norms for those numbers.

[2:41:27] With attendance, and we are here again,

[2:41:30] this is an area we elected to work on.

[2:41:33] Probably our second year into the strategic plan.

[2:41:36] We didn't initially have a goal around attendance

[2:41:39] when we went into the strategic plan.

[2:41:42] But our board at the time and our district leaders

[2:41:45] felt like it was important to have one

[2:41:46] because we were coming out of COVID

[2:41:48] and there was some reculturing we needed

[2:41:50] to do with people around school and attendance and being here.

[2:41:54] We did end up making goals around attendance at that time.

[2:41:58] You can see that really once we started making those goals

[2:42:01] and being more intentional with that,

[2:42:03] the work with our school social workers,

[2:42:06] support staff, then our attendance

[2:42:08] for satisfactory attendance has gone up

[2:42:11] and then what we want to see is our severe and chronic

[2:42:14] attendance gone down period that has been really across the board

[2:42:18] and for every student group as well.

[2:42:21] We're moving in the right direction.

[2:42:24] The other piece here in terms of attendance,

[2:42:27] you'll see just our overall attendance period probably two

[2:42:31] years ago we started to put in place an actual goal

[2:42:34] for attendance and what that was was

[2:42:36] we worked with our research and data division

[2:42:41] to determine what were the strong attendance rate

[2:42:45] and what would make a student have better outcomes

[2:42:48] in school period that's when we hug our head in terms

[2:42:51] of attendance goal.

[2:42:52] We are at 85% there in terms of our students.

[2:42:56] You'll see that number has gone up.

[2:42:59] We focused a couple years back on lots of incentives

[2:43:02] in terms of parking passes and exam exemptions.

[2:43:06] Lots of other carrots for students the research

[2:43:11] will tell you that as well.

[2:43:13] Some of it is carrots that will help students come to school.

[2:43:16] The other piece we focus on with our elementary school age

[2:43:19] students is that there's a lot of parent engagement.

[2:43:22] The other thing is, and we mentioned this

[2:43:24] in terms of academic data, we have some schools

[2:43:27] that are almost very close to the gold standard, which

[2:43:29] is about 95%.

[2:43:31] We have probably about five of our elementary schools

[2:43:34] that are very close within 1 or 2 points of 95%,

[2:43:37] in terms of their attendance.

[2:43:39] In terms of attendance, the work we will continue to do

[2:43:44] is we have an attendance campaign

[2:43:46] we're working with collaboration,

[2:43:48] with our communications team.

[2:43:50] It will be on the radio really soon talking about our message

[2:43:53] in terms of your presence matters at school.

[2:43:56] Our social workers, a group of our social workers

[2:44:00] will be their, in addition to our director of Preventative

[2:44:03] and Wellness services, who's new to our team.

[2:44:08] She's formerly our assistant principal over at Chapel Hill

[2:44:13] High School.

[2:44:14] We will also be reviewing the parent notification

[2:44:17] and the alert process for absences.

[2:44:20] We want --

[2:44:21] one of the things we did a little digging around is you

[2:44:24] don't get an alert until probably 6:00 that day in some

[2:44:27] instances for parents around absences.

[2:44:29] How can we make that a little bit more in real time.

[2:44:35] We want to make sure we give more alerts to that.

[2:44:39] We're giving some more attention to that process.

[2:44:43] In terms of our attendance teams,

[2:44:46] our schools received a Pre-list this year.

[2:44:49] Came into the year knowing who had chronic and severe absences.

[2:44:52] Met with those families prior to the start of the school year.

[2:44:56] They have case managers.

[2:44:58] Attendance letters.

[2:44:58] There's a lot of collaboration there.

[2:45:00] Our next steps for these two respective areas

[2:45:04] are to just continue collaborating

[2:45:06] with EC in terms of our disproportionality work

[2:45:09] until we know that they'll drive some of our discipline

[2:45:12] down as well.

[2:45:13] We want to ensure there's some fidelity to our interventions

[2:45:16] in the code of conduct.

[2:45:17] We're kicking off our attendance campaign

[2:45:19] and ensuring the schools have clear goals around attendance.

[2:45:23] Avid, our partnership with instructional division,

[2:45:28] there is a stranded Abbott with around relational capacity.

[2:45:34] Not everyone understands what it means

[2:45:36] to build a good healthy relationship with a kid.

[2:45:39] And sometimes kids that don't look like you.

[2:45:42] How do we really make sure that happens.

[2:45:44] We're going to continue to do some work around that.

[2:45:49] And lastly, I was just there today,

[2:45:53] but our CARES team, different community outreach programs,

[2:45:57] how do we continue to increase our outside school partnerships

[2:46:00] to ensure we have greater wraparound services

[2:46:03] for our students.

[2:46:04] That's some of the work we're looking

[2:46:05] at around school discipline.

[2:46:07] I'll end with this slide Perkins our strategic plan.

[2:46:10] This is the year we are going to sunset our strategic plan, 2027.

[2:46:15] A lot of work has been done around some

[2:46:22] of our strategic actions where we target some cases

[2:46:28] and talk a lot about what has this board been

[2:46:32] able to accomplish in the last five years.

[2:46:34] We can imagine why some of those things are off target.

[2:46:39] The goals we met are about 68% of the goals

[2:46:42] we set out to achieve.

[2:46:44] We have met with the strategic plan.

[2:46:48] And that is more than a notion.

[2:46:50] A lot of times school districts don't necessarily

[2:46:52] actualize all of those pieces.

[2:46:55] We will begin to sunset that plan.

[2:46:57] Some of the work that is still outstanding

[2:46:59] will likely roll over into the work we continue.

[2:47:09] >> Thanks for the water break.

[2:47:10] We wanted to take a quick look back.

[2:47:12] We heard a lot of people ask, how are we doing since COVID?

[2:47:15] We wanted to add a little bit of context.

[2:47:18] Since we left for COVID and came back,

[2:47:22] our Ela and science assessments have changed.

[2:47:26] Just to note, we are not necessarily

[2:47:29] comparing apples to apples as we definitely

[2:47:32] do know these are different cohorts of students.

[2:47:35] When we put this in here, a student

[2:47:38] who was a kindergartner during that 1920 school year,

[2:47:41] is now a seventh grader.

[2:47:43] When we are looking at this data,

[2:47:45] it's important to note that none of the students that

[2:47:47] are currently in elementary school

[2:47:49] were impacted by having to leave during a time period

[2:47:54] when we look at our schools, eight of our schools

[2:47:57] are above the 2019 proficiency levels.

[2:48:00] Three additional schools are more than one point.

[2:48:02] Elementary schools on average have returned to 2019.

[2:48:09] In reality, there's one outlier school.

[2:48:12] For the most part, we're above that average

[2:48:14] for our elementary schools.

[2:48:16] Our secondary schools do happen to remain three points

[2:48:19] below 2019 averages.

[2:48:20] To kind of look at a reference from the state,

[2:48:24] there are about five points lower

[2:48:25] and there's a couple of grade levels

[2:48:27] that might be actually on level.

[2:48:30] We're doing a little better than state average.

[2:48:32] The district is high performing.

[2:48:35] There's a lot to catch back up.

[2:48:37] We're encouraged but also know we have a lot of work

[2:48:40] to keep up with.

[2:48:41] As we shared last year, one of our focus this past year

[2:48:45] was on our multilingual learners and our students

[2:48:48] with disabilities.

[2:48:49] These were our TSI schools.

[2:48:52] Those are designations based on either achievement, growth,

[2:48:57] so we had seven of our 18 traditional schools were

[2:49:03] identified as -- for students with disabilities.

[2:49:07] Three of the schools were also identified

[2:49:10] for multilingual learners.

[2:49:13] I wanted to share a little bit about what

[2:49:16] that looks like in terms of some of our other student groups.

[2:49:19] If you're looking from left to right,

[2:49:22] we look at the number of students that are enrolled.

[2:49:24] The number of that group that are either in a student group

[2:49:29] or being a student with disabilities

[2:49:33] and that percentage, the reason I wanted to show this,

[2:49:38] in terms of being intentional about our work

[2:49:42] with our multi-language learners,

[2:49:43] and our easy students, making sure we're

[2:49:47] being very intentional with the professional development

[2:49:50] we have.

[2:49:50] The focus that we have.

[2:49:52] I know we have a meeting tomorrow

[2:49:54] to really talk about a PDU we're going

[2:49:56] to be running with principals in October.

[2:49:59] You can see there's a lot of overlap within those student

[2:50:02] groups and when we're looking at the overall data,

[2:50:05] we are focusing on those two groups

[2:50:08] and being very intentional with those.

[2:50:10] We're going to see some increases in those other student

[2:50:13] groups as well.

[2:50:14] I wanted to give you an idea, as a former math teacher,

[2:50:19] you can make data look pretty good or really bad.

[2:50:22] However you want to kind of look at it.

[2:50:25] With all the data we have, there is something very positive.

[2:50:30] Even our school's, when we were looking at the schools, that

[2:50:33] maybe didn't meet growth last year, three of those students

[2:50:38] did increase the number of students that were proficient.

[2:50:41] That being a little bit with our ML students,

[2:50:43] when we look at just our ML students,

[2:50:46] this is the same type of graph that Ben showed,

[2:50:49] on the right is our state averages

[2:50:53] and when we look at that we go okay,

[2:50:56] our ML students are not at the same proficiency

[2:51:00] levels on average as our students throughout the state.

[2:51:03] If you look at the bottom left here, look at our growth scores,

[2:51:08] overall our ML students are meeting growth

[2:51:10] and in math they're exceeding.

[2:51:13] In science they're exceeding.

[2:51:14] In reading they're meeting.

[2:51:16] There is positive data.

[2:51:18] We're working with the kids and we're getting them

[2:51:20] where they need to be.

[2:51:21] That doesn't mean the data on the right

[2:51:23] is the only thing we have to look

[2:51:25] at because we're going to flip that a little bit

[2:51:27] on our next slide.

[2:51:27] When we look at our students with disabilities.

[2:51:30] They're doing a tremendous job again,

[2:51:32] this is not to sit here and say there's bad data.

[2:51:35] It's to say there's good data in everything.

[2:51:37] If we look at this, across the board for almost

[2:51:42] every single one of these subjects,

[2:51:44] we are pretty above the state average, in terms of proficiency

[2:51:49] period looking at it from this last year,

[2:51:51] we met growth in math and science.

[2:51:54] Did not in reading.

[2:51:56] And did not overall.

[2:51:58] Again, positive data to look at in terms of proficiency.

[2:52:02] Growth is something I know we're continuing to work on.

[2:52:05] It's kind of the flip story for ML students

[2:52:08] and our students with disabilities.

[2:52:10] It does give us an opportunity to make sure we're

[2:52:13] intentional about the work.

[2:52:15] Last year when we looked at those TSI schools in particular,

[2:52:18] we saw about a 50% increase in the growth measures.

[2:52:22] Three out of the five schools, both for ML,

[2:52:27] and two out of the five for students with disabilities,

[2:52:31] and then we showed a 70% increase in achievement

[2:52:33] for those particular schools.

[2:52:35] Remember this data that I showed you was across the district.

[2:52:38] We were able to move a lot of that data.

[2:52:42] I want to talk a little bit about,

[2:52:45] because I know EC had their shots.

[2:52:46] I want to make sure ML people have a little bit as well.

[2:52:50] We piloted avid, Excel, and, the last couple of years,

[2:52:55] at some of our secondary schools.

[2:52:56] When we look at this data, we're going

[2:52:58] to say those are high numbers or low numbers.

[2:53:00] I don't know what that really means.

[2:53:02] Overall we're looking at our students who are ML.

[2:53:06] Their overall increase, you see gained at least 0.5

[2:53:12] in the composite proficiency levels.

[2:53:14] On average for students that are long term MLS,

[2:53:17] you're looking at either a zero to a point two increase.

[2:53:21] When we're seeing increases of 0.5, 0.6, overall increasing,

[2:53:26] those are the things we want to see with those students.

[2:53:29] Going more in depth, students that were in the Avid Excel

[2:53:35] program, and then students that were not, and again, avid Excel,

[2:53:40] it's kind of like a pipeline for our students in middle school

[2:53:43] to eventually move into the avid elective in high school.

[2:53:47] ML haven't necessarily had the growth that we

[2:53:50] would like to have seen.

[2:53:51] By the time they get to middle school

[2:53:53] we are trying something different.

[2:53:54] You see improvements in reading.

[2:53:57] Reading growth of more than 0.5.

[2:53:59] 52% versus 31% if you're not in avid Excel.

[2:54:06] Each of those measures shows an overall increase.

[2:54:09] This was a pilot program the last two years.

[2:54:12] It is a program we have extended across all four

[2:54:14] of the middle schools this past year.

[2:54:17] With all of this, we can sit here and look

[2:54:20] at all the positive things.

[2:54:22] But we also know there's always work to do.

[2:54:25] When we're looking at narrowing our focus,

[2:54:28] we want to make sure we're providing that structure

[2:54:30] and support for those schools that didn't meet growth.

[2:54:33] While those proficiency scores did go up,

[2:54:36] I can tell you right now, each one of those principles

[2:54:39] is not happy with not meeting growth for a year.

[2:54:41] As a principal who has had that before,

[2:54:45] it kind of gets your blood going.

[2:54:47] We're going to do something really different.

[2:54:49] I can also tell you, for some of those schools, the year before,

[2:54:53] they exceeded growth.

[2:54:54] They know what to do.

[2:54:55] There's some circumstances in each of those schools.

[2:54:58] They have some of those things.

[2:55:00] But it's an opportunity to make sure we are increasing.

[2:55:03] Like we shared last year, we're really

[2:55:06] prioritizing our third grade reading

[2:55:09] which is really high when we look at proficiency.

[2:55:13] Maybe not so much when we're looking at growth.

[2:55:16] Also looking at our eighth grade math and math one proficiency,

[2:55:20] I know everyone on the board knows that's a focus of ours

[2:55:24] and when we looked at our data from the last two years,

[2:55:26] we've had about a seven point increase in each

[2:55:28] of those subjects.

[2:55:29] And we're meeting growth.

[2:55:32] But, we're not to the levels we want to be yet.

[2:55:35] As we do every year, making sure we're

[2:55:39] making a very intentional focus on each of our student groups.

[2:55:43] And then making sure we're monitoring.

[2:55:46] We have an amazing director of reporting.

[2:55:50] Academic coaches.

[2:55:53] Working with principals.

[2:55:55] To really dive into that data and make it make sense.

[2:55:59] I think our coaches meeting was done at three.

[2:56:04] At 345 they were still in there looking at the data,

[2:56:07] we are excited to get more in depth in that data.

[2:56:12] If we've got 35 tests that can make

[2:56:16] us go from an A (indiscernible).

[2:56:26] Again, using growth and proficiency data

[2:56:29] to determine what additional supports are needed.

[2:56:31] You've heard about it a lot.

[2:56:33] But really making sure we are focusing on our big rocks.

[2:56:37] How we teach.

[2:56:39] How we support.

[2:56:41] How we organize.

[2:56:42] Just a reminder to the board and the community.

[2:56:44] We spent the last year really diving into the principals

[2:56:47] and this is year one of our three year plan for that.

[2:56:51] We're also excited about our new standards.

[2:56:54] As I say every time.

[2:56:55] Thank you last time for the science adoption.

[2:56:58] This spring you will see an Ela adoption.

[2:57:01] We had about 80 people when we should have had 30.

[2:57:05] We had a lot of people in this room, this week, diving

[2:57:11] into that work.

[2:57:12] What do we need to have to make sure we're

[2:57:14] going to be as successful as possible

[2:57:16] with our students moving forward.

[2:57:18] Again, focusing on avid, districtwide peer continuing

[2:57:23] the shifts with PLCs and MT s.

[2:57:27] At the next board meeting we'll bring back

[2:57:29] information about our curriculum management plan.

[2:57:32] With that, I will open it up to questions.

[2:57:45] >> I've got a few written.

[2:57:50] >> I can start.

[2:57:51] I had a couple questions on attendance

[2:57:51] and then maybe I'll come back around.

[2:57:52] I love that attendance is improving.

[2:57:56] Right if the kids are there, there's

[2:57:58] more opportunity for all the things to happen.

[2:58:00] But I think that's a great starting point,

[2:58:04] we really want to get the kids to love the creative ways

[2:58:09] and we're seeing that growth because then we

[2:58:11] can provide the students with what

[2:58:14] they need whether it's intervention,

[2:58:16] social emotional support, the whole thing.

[2:58:19] I'm excited about it.

[2:58:20] Obviously that means the team is going

[2:58:21] to have to now work with more students on a daily basis.

[2:58:26] Providing them the tools they need.

[2:58:29] I'm curious at the high school, I've always wondered about this,

[2:58:33] how are we looking at attendance now that we've got all the --

[2:58:38] we've had these options, but now more students are participating

[2:58:42] in things like Durham Tech and like UNC and some of those

[2:58:47] classes.

[2:58:48] They're going to have more study halls potentially slotted

[2:58:50] into their schedule.

[2:58:51] I've observed this personally where the kid had two study

[2:58:55] halls because they were taking the max of Durham tech classes

[2:58:58] and things like that.

[2:59:00] Is that dinged against us or how are we treating it because --

[2:59:05] or study halls aren't factored in?

[2:59:08] I'm just curious.

[2:59:10] Just making sure we're not inadvertently

[2:59:12] digging ourselves with attendance,

[2:59:14] with some of these additional pathways for students.

[2:59:18] >> I do not believe so.

[2:59:20] I don't believe we are.

[2:59:21] We do take attendance in those sections.

[2:59:23] But I think what I hear you saying

[2:59:28] a little bit is we're starting to get into period attendance

[2:59:30] and what do we count a full day when

[2:59:32] we look at attendance period that's

[2:59:34] kind of what that question is.

[2:59:36] Right now it's a half day is what

[2:59:39] we consider like you've been in school

[2:59:41] and that's how we get to that number.

[2:59:44] >> I'm just curious.

[2:59:45] You see kids taking more and more

[2:59:47] and I don't know what the max is,

[2:59:49] but if they end up with three periods allotted for,

[2:59:53] because now they're taking so many derm tech classes

[2:59:56] and like you and see on campus, they

[2:59:59] would end up with potentially three study hall classes.

[3:00:04] That's just something for us to think about.

[3:00:07] We might find ourselves with a lot

[3:00:10] of kids who are taking advantage of all those pathways, which

[3:00:13] is great.

[3:00:14] I just want to make sure --

[3:00:17] I was wondering if somebody who got a lot of attendance

[3:00:20] calls every single day.

[3:00:21] I had to throw out the ones that were like red herrings

[3:00:24] and focus on the ones that were actual attendance calls.

[3:00:31] Melinda comment it looks like you've got a question.

[3:00:36] >> Also, about attendance, I think the stuff you're doing is

[3:00:38] great and I also appreciate you're not doing not great

[3:00:41] stuff.

[3:00:41] I think there's a lot of research about what works

[3:00:43] and what doesn't work.

[3:00:45] You're not doing any of the stuff that doesn't work.

[3:00:47] That's great.

[3:00:48] I had a question about math one.

[3:00:50] I had to look at those two slides

[3:00:52] a million times to figure it out.

[3:00:54] It seems like they went up for a career in college ready but down

[3:00:58] for overall proficiency.

[3:00:59] Is that right?

[3:01:00] The number of kids who got fours and fives went up.

[3:01:04] But the number of kids who got --

[3:01:14] >> Math one is very difficult to look at.

[3:01:15] My team would have said please do not present any slides.

[3:01:19] But the slide deck was focusing on our high school students.

[3:01:24] When students enter into sixth grade they get the choice of,

[3:01:28] do you want to start in math six or advanced Math six?

[3:01:32] If you go on the advanced math pathway,

[3:01:35] you take math one in middle school.

[3:01:37] If you're on the standard six, you

[3:01:40] would take math one in high school.

[3:01:43] That's where that divvies out a little bit.

[3:01:44] We probably have 55 to 60% of our students

[3:01:48] that self-select to go on the advanced pathway.

[3:01:50] Where I do think across the state

[3:01:53] we're looking at more, 20 to 30%.

[3:01:57] It is a different data set to necessarily look at.

[3:02:00] In one respect I'm glad we are pushing our students and saying,

[3:02:04] make sure you try this.

[3:02:06] Early instead of later on telling them.

[3:02:10] There is a lot of talent mining in fifth grade.

[3:02:15] And the beginning of a sixth grade.

[3:02:17] To make sure we have the students on the right pathway.

[3:02:20] Not to minimize the scores that we have.

[3:02:23] It is encouraging to see that when we break it down.

[3:02:26] We have had some growth.

[3:02:27] Again, we want it to be the same as we're

[3:02:31] seeing in the other grades.

[3:02:33] >> Sorry, a quick follow up.

[3:02:35] One of the things that seems great about the block schedule

[3:02:39] is more classes.

[3:02:41] Are you getting more kids taking foundations of math one,

[3:02:45] and if so, do we see that as having a positive impact

[3:02:48] on the math one scores?

[3:02:51] >> We did not have more students take it.

[3:02:53] Again, that may be something as we're

[3:02:55] looking at that data and diving a little bit

[3:02:57] deeper to say like if that made that impact.

[3:03:00] Maybe encouraged a little bit more instead of self-selecting.

[3:03:10] >> Thank you for the enormous amount of data but I think it

[3:03:12] was really good for us and the public watching to hear all

[3:03:16] of this.

[3:03:17] My first question --

[3:03:18] I want to say thank you for working on the attendance calls

[3:03:21] because that was a bit of a mess when my son was in school.

[3:03:24] Actually got one day he was home sick and we didn't get

[3:03:28] a call, which was interesting.

[3:03:30] One of the first questions I had one

[3:03:34] of the things that came up earlier,

[3:03:35] was the idea that data block scheduling,

[3:03:38] we may have fewer disciplinary referrals

[3:03:40] do we have any data to show that yet, or is it too early?

[3:03:51] >> I know we've looked at it, just at a glance.

[3:03:52] A lot of the discipline referrals

[3:03:53] that were in previous years were during class changes.

[3:03:59] Those opportunities are not there as much.

[3:04:02] We traditionally don't see the behavior

[3:04:05] within the classroom itself.

[3:04:06] There are occasions, but it's really during,

[3:04:10] there's 1600 kids in the hallway time.

[3:04:14] >> I also have a question about the panoramic survey data.

[3:04:17] Particularly at the secondary level.

[3:04:20] Are we able to compare that to other schools

[3:04:23] in the state that are maybe doing that survey?

[3:04:25] I'm curious about how ours looked to other districts.

[3:04:33] >> I think what we can do is more national,

[3:04:35] because it's more of a national assessment.

[3:04:38] Not everyone has to adopt Panorama.

[3:04:48] >> I would like to piggyback a little bit on what Melinda just

[3:04:51] said in terms of panorama.

[3:04:52] I've often wondered why we are using panorama here

[3:04:54] in our district as opposed to the Risk Behavior Survey.

[3:04:59] The DPI has set up.

[3:05:01] That's something I've been wondering for years.

[3:05:05] Orange County schools use at.

[3:05:07] A lot of our other districts.

[3:05:08] I know there are lots of other numbers

[3:05:10] and lot of our other districts.

[3:05:13] I know there are lots of numbers and data pieces and points that

[3:05:17] you can get from looking at that that it is recommended and --

[3:05:20] there's a lot of health and wellness and tell some stories

[3:05:24] that students really -- maybe not the way that panorama is

[3:05:29] accessed.

[3:05:30] I wonder is there a cost difference?

[3:05:33] Would there be a savings if we use what DPI has?

[3:05:37] As I have it prepared?

[3:05:39] Are there answers to questions that we may not

[3:05:43] have been asking that we need to be asking by youth risk?

[3:05:47] I will say I'm asking that for a reason,

[3:05:49] to say that I'm in spaces where youth risk --

[3:05:53] every two years and there's some organizations that actually wait

[3:05:57] for those numbers to come out to see if there's grant funding

[3:06:00] to help districts work on those things that come out with those

[3:06:04] statistics.

[3:06:07] >> I was asked to look at that this year because we did move

[3:06:10] away from the youth risk assessment prior to my work

[3:06:15] here.

[3:06:15] One of the things that we have --

[3:06:20] and that would give us a more state look at things.

[3:06:23] We also know they use it for grants.

[3:06:25] There was a decision to move away from it because during

[3:06:29] a time when we were -- the parents Bill of rights --

[3:06:34] we should not be asking some of those questions.

[3:06:37] We initially moved away from it.

[3:06:40] And there was also an idea that we didn't

[3:06:42] want to be given two surveys.

[3:06:44] That was the other rationale.

[3:06:46] We worked with our attorney to make sure

[3:06:49] that our Panorama questions now mirror

[3:06:51] some of the questions in the youth risk Behavior Assessment.

[3:06:55] It's still going to give us a challenge that we're not

[3:06:58] going to have the data in terms of North Carolina,

[3:07:00] so that will be one thing.

[3:07:03] We do have a little different, more tailored survey this year

[3:07:08] and that we're asking some of the questions --

[3:07:10] that our student services has worked with.

[3:07:13] >> It is accurate that when the parents Bill of rights was first

[3:07:17] passed, the youth Risk Behavior Survey didn't align with

[3:07:22] the legislature had to go back and amend the law to allow that

[3:07:25] behavior survey.

[3:07:27] But in that interim there was a lot of concerns from districts

[3:07:30] not wanting to run afoul of the parents Bill of rights.

[3:07:34] That doesn't mean you can't reconsider.

[3:07:37] >> Have we not already stopped using it at that point?

[3:07:40] I think so.

[3:07:42] >> A little bit of both.

[3:07:46] >> 2017, somewhere in there.

[3:07:54] >> Any other questions?

[3:07:56] Well, thank you so much for the presentation.

[3:07:59] It was a lot and obviously I know

[3:08:02] they expanded presentations attached to the agenda as well.

[3:08:05] So thank you.

[3:08:06] This is a work session item.

[3:08:10] And so I can read the spiel about public comments,

[3:08:15] but if anyone would like to make a public comment on the work

[3:08:18] session item --

[3:08:20] I don't see anyone.

[3:08:23] Thank you so much.

[3:08:26] Yes, you can email us.

[3:08:30] We always read your emails.

[3:08:37] And our last item on the agenda our committee reports.

[3:08:42] I know a couple of our committees --

[3:08:44] since our last meeting, so I'll give you

[3:08:47] a minute to let me know when your next meeting is.

[3:08:51] Can I start with student success?

[3:08:54] I think you guys were the last who had a meeting.

[3:08:59] Anyone can jump in.

[3:09:03] Yes, student >> We had a preview of the accountability data.

[3:09:12] So we got kind of a bit of a slightly deeper look at it

[3:09:19] than we did today.

[3:09:20] It is obviously something that's going to be

[3:09:22] on all of our agendas always.

[3:09:24] It's one of the most important agenda items that we have,

[3:09:28] talking about our student achievement numbers.

[3:09:31] Sorry, I didn't hold it up.

[3:09:34] I didn't know I was going to be called first.

[3:09:37] >> Sorry.

[3:09:38] I wanted to give everyone else time to get their next meeting

[3:09:41] dates.

[3:09:42] >> Sorry I'll pull it up real quick.

[3:09:44] Board Committee.

[3:09:46] Students success.

[3:09:50] >> Can I get -- can you give me a plug for the --

[3:09:53] >> We didn't meet since the last meeting.

[3:09:56] We're meeting October 13th at 5:30 p.m.

[3:09:58] Virtually.

[3:10:00] >> And then we've got two policy committee members that came

[3:10:04] and looked at your next meeting.

[3:10:06] >> It's on October the 20th at 530 and it's virtual and I want

[3:10:11] to speak to what Mr. Mink said come with that yes we had

[3:10:15] the group of policies that came before us today and yes sir,

[3:10:18] we understand that we are doing things that were required to do

[3:10:21] by the law but we most certainly are not stopping to do the work

[3:10:25] the best way that we can to support our students,

[3:10:28] so thank you for highlighting that.

[3:10:32] >> Student success, next meeting is on 10/27, 5:30, virtual.

[3:10:42] >> Any updates for your liaison?

[3:10:45] Any other sharing?

[3:10:51] Go ahead.

[3:10:55] Sure.

[3:11:01] Come back to me.

[3:11:04] Any other sharing?

[3:11:05] Oh yeah.

[3:11:06] Go ahead.

[3:11:09] >> Excuse me.

[3:11:10] I went to another place for a minute.

[3:11:13] But yes we had our first meeting and the community Advisory

[3:11:16] council -- it was a wonderful chart start and thank you Doctor

[3:11:21] King and the folks from SC STate who came out.

[3:11:26] We had people from across the district and the principals

[3:11:29] and teachers and staff and two mayors and community members

[3:11:32] and two students that are on.

[3:11:34] One student was present.

[3:11:36] And we really were starting to look at what we're going to be

[3:11:39] needing to do that -- there will be some community conversations

[3:11:43] that we will be going on.

[3:11:45] We will have more reaching out and pulling in.

[3:11:49] It was a wonderful conversation in which they listened.

[3:11:52] We know we'll be making a transparent, inclusive work

[3:11:57] to be done as we're doing the redistricting

[3:12:00] and as a young lady from SC State said,

[3:12:05] 50 years ago it wasn't done this way.

[3:12:07] It was done with men in the back room with papers and pens

[3:12:10] and drew the lines and gave the maps to.

[3:12:11] That's not what we're doing.

[3:12:13] Will do our best to make sure we serve every child in the city

[3:12:17] schools to the best of our ability.

[3:12:20] We don't want anyone to think they're not --

[3:12:22] at any of our elementary schools would be a wonderful place.

[3:12:25] Will do what we need to do to make

[3:12:27] sure there are welcome staff and teachers when these kiddos walk

[3:12:30] into those places and that is what we're

[3:12:33] going to be here trying to do.

[3:12:35] We'll be providing feedback and looking to our community and we

[3:12:39] want you to talk to us so that we can talk to them so that they

[3:12:42] can do the hard work by drawing the maps and we can get on one

[3:12:48] accord to push the CHCCS to the way that we know

[3:12:53] our superintendent has a vision to go with this next strategic

[3:12:56] --

[3:12:56] >> Thank you Becky.

[3:12:59] I want to give a reminder to the greater community.

[3:13:02] We started and we're in process with the redistricting work

[3:13:07] and you can go to together.org and that's our landing

[3:13:12] page for all this information.

[3:13:14] There's a community survey that is going on right now from now

[3:13:18] until October 9th, so please complete the survey.

[3:13:21] You should have gotten an email.

[3:13:23] There's two community meetings next week.

[3:13:26] The first one on Wednesday October 7th from 6:30-7:30 pm

[3:13:36] at Chapel Hill auditorium at road and the second is Thursday

[3:13:40] October 8th from 630 to 7:30 p.m.

[3:13:42] At Carrboro High School at 201 Rockhaven Road, those who might

[3:13:46] know.

[3:13:47] I'm sharing because some of our elementary parents

[3:13:49] might not be at the high schools yet.

[3:13:51] Any other sharing or updates from board members?

[3:13:54] Go ahead.

[3:13:56] >> Thanks to the PTA Council for continuing to organize board

[3:13:58] office hours.

[3:13:59] We had some yesterday and it was a nice turnout

[3:14:01] and those are a good way to have additional conversations.

[3:14:11] >> Any other sharing?

[3:14:12] Well again, welcome.

[3:14:13] Hopefully this wasn't too much of a first meeting.

[3:14:16] We tried to keep it moving but again,

[3:14:19] thank you everyone and with that, our meeting is adjourned.

Board of Education Work Session

Agenda

Transcript