Chatham County Schools Board of Education Meeting

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okay want to get your mics too please okay well move back to open session thank y'all for being here my apologies we were running a little late uh if you notice uh Miss Carlson uh is unable to be here with us tonight and Miss Turner is feeling under the weather so we'll go with uh Miss Wilson Mr ham and myself tonight and go ahead and do the our um things on our agenda here um Mr ham I'll turn it over to you please and at this time in our own personal way uh through thought or prayer uh let's have a moment of silence thank you let's all stand for our Pledge of Allegiance please Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you good job I used to tell my classes that once in a while so too so thank y'all very

very much uh do I have a motion to approve the agenda so moved second got a motion second all in favor with an i i i any oppos like sign do I have a motion to approve the Personnel agenda so moved second all in favor with with an i i iOS like sign thank you uh do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second all in favor with an i i any opposed like sign thank you uh Dr Jackson were the superintendent announcements and comments please good evening Mr chair and thank you um uh for the sake of again time this month we will dispense with our our connections report and and uh have you place it as a part of the minutes I will say lots of great things going on in the district and I'm so very proud of our students staff uh for the work that's happening every day to deliver on our promise of of uh helping every single parent um um realize the hopes and dreams for their children um it is my commitment moving forward to every time I get this opportunity to just say very simply to our kids and to our families um we love you all okay the um I will move forward with the next I'm sorry sir well I just I was just I think I see so much stuff um go back and look at that PowerPoint because there's a picture of Dr Jackson and I in there uh making guacamole and um to let us see what the students go through in some of their culinary classes and um it was um enlightening so quite the adventure it's more like it but I I do want to take

this time to say that um during this time each month when I get just a few minutes to say something I want to be authentic and transparent and just say to all of our students and families I love you for who you are and for what you bring to our school system um I'm going to move uh to our next item and that will um national board certified teachers good evening Mr chair members of the board I'm Dr Kelly baton assistant superintendent for human resources this agenda item relates our strategic plan priority 3 faculty and staff earlier today this afternoon in fact we recognized um almost 100 staff members from across our school system who received a state performance bonus during the month of January next yay there we go uh some numbers on the screen for you just to reflect on this if you'll look each one of these gold numbers represents the number of Staff who received one of these honors this includes everything from a third through fifth grade recognition in Reading uh fourth through eighth grade in math advanced placement um students who have scored um within the three or above and then CTE these are industry recognized credentials so the staff members that have been involved in that 14 staff members in that category chadam continues to lead the way in terms of progress and we're able to monitor that through the success of our staff members so this was a great event to be able to recognize them also this afternoon we recognize a newly received national board recognition so there were three staff members you see listed here Chris Hart Bobby Robertson and Jennifer sailor they're now um part of the elite group of national board certified staff members in chadam County you also see additional names um they went through revalidation of

their national board credential charity Clark Amy King Cameron Vernon Morgan Brewer Heather bman and wi Youngblood so we were pleased to recognize them um numbers as well that I leave you with today we have 19 additional staff members who are now in process of pursuing national board certification for the first time so we hope to see several additional names next year that uh with our new three members we have 59 current staff members who are national board recipients over the course of the national board program chattam County's had 138 staff members who've worked with us who had this honor at one time or another so again pleased to celebrate them this afternoon thank you we'll have our spelling be recognition good evening Mr chairman members of the board I'm Dr Amanda Moran assistant superintendent for academic services and instructional support and this item aligns with Priority One curriculum and Innovation as well as priority 5 um we're really fortunate in chadam to offer a number of Scholastic opportunities for our students to participate throughout the school year and tonight we will be celebrating our spelling the winners in chadam all of our schools participate in grades K through 8 and they have school level winners that then uh move on to the district level and that took place not too long ago at se4th high school and so miss Londa Hester our executive director for Middle grades will introduce you to our wonderful winners good evening Mr chair and members of the board as well well as superintendent Jackson on January 3rd 30th we held our annual spelling be and

that was at Sea worth high school we had 28 talented students that participated in the be they were representing our elementary schools as well as our k8s and our middle schools after 15 rounds Micah debolt an eighth grade student from Margaret B Pard Middle School emerged as our runner up and beatress Allen a fifth grade student from Perry Harrison Elementary School won the be she beatric will move on to the Carolina Panthers Regional spelling be which will be held at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte we're proud of both Micah and beatric and wish beatric the very best as she moves on to compete and represent chadam County schools at this time I would like to introduce you to Micah and beatric congratulations again Lu congratulations great Lu congratulations to miss Hester just out of curios honestly I I couldn't be there that night what what was the winning word I can't remember sir because I couldn't spell it anyway but that's I bet beatric remembers remember winning word oh I'm don't know sure if I can say it we we're all spelling Unison now cofin y I love that good evening Mr chairman members of the board and superintendent Jackson I'm Chris Poston senior executive director of Excellence opportunity tonight we have the

opportunity to recognize miss Lynn Munoz and Miss maryan young as our Excellence opportunity Champions our Excellence opportunity commitment aligns with our strategic plan Priority One curriculum Innovation and strategic plan priority three faculty and staff um I'll ask them to come forward Miss Muno um we are still saluting um staff members who submitted projects that align with our excellent opportunity commitment I want to share some information about Miss mun's project as the school counsel at per Harrison Elementary School Miss Muno has secured a grant to support C's which stands for students empowering academic success a group focused on leadership academic growth perseverance and social skills one of its key initiatives includes two book studies um designed to encourage discussions on leadership behavior and academic success um it's just amazing to see the growth in the students she has data to support her her work and the smiles and the students engagement is really um commendable so we salute you and congratulations Miss Munos thank you our second staff member is Miss Mary Jean Young from P Harrison thank you for your extra efforts thanks for all your hard work thank you and Miss Young's Grant um is enhancing literacy development by establishing a reading and writing Center equipped with essential learning materials and activities to strengthen vocabulary she is the multi bilingual teacher at P Harrison um and she's working to build foundational literacy skills and also to support collaboration between school teachers and parents so thank you Miss Jong sure good evening everyone members of the

board I'm Jessica Pion the public information officer tonight I have the privilege of of informing you about our characters of our champions of characters excuse me so as reflected in our school's code of Civility we invite students staff and Community stakeholders to submit student names for the category that best fall under their champions of character um word of the month our core beliefs become observable behaviors by by teaching and modeling and encompassing our habits of character and all we do in doing so we Inspire learning and empowering all Learners to be productive citizens in January our word is collaboration Scholars who collaborate work well with others to get things done and for January's champions of character we selected a group of three students um whom we whom we refer to as bonley school's Dynamic Trio and I will ask the recipients to come on up so Colin Palmer whan Bryant and McKenzie Gregory are the dynamic Trio I said Duo excuse me um I can count thank you for coming so I'm going to read what uh your nominators wrote this group shines both in and out of the classroom their nominators shared that this Dynamic Trio exemplifies collaboration in the classroom and in their extracurricular activities they take initiative to ensure every task is completed and are well respected by their peers they ha and distribute 40 weekly food bags for families in need they volunteer during recess and lunch to serve others and they coordinate concessions for sporting events while excelling academically let's congratulate these students for being exemplary collaborators outside of the classro as well as for their support of our community I have these in order oh my gosh I do you guys are and they even line up in order thank

you you do eat lunch do you eat lunch okay good good oh I'm going the wrong way well I went the whole wrong way didn't I there we go next I will talk to you all about the power of one award for Feb uh January excuse me so each month we select a staff member from the district who has a powerful impact in shaping the direction of someone's life um and someone who exemplifies the true power of one we are thrilled to recognize Miss Amy cheek as chadam County School's January Power of One recipient there you are Amy's dead o excuse me Amy's dedication as an EC prek instructional assistant and bus driver is truly inspiring she goes above and beyond for her students and colleagues offering kindness care and unwavering support every day in fact Miss cheek was nominated independently by two different individuals so I'm going to read to you what they both wrote Amy cares deeply for her students and other staff members she works in the EC Park and loves everyone no matter what happens she handles it with Grace and calm she seeks out ways to help others and uses her talents in addition to being an IA she drives an EC bus as well I cannot say enough to express how wonderful Amy is and your second nominator said Amy is always going above and beyond not only for her students but for her co-workers as well she's always willing to check in on people brightening their day with her kindness in her role she is consistently helping kids meet their needs and giving them love and support as a bus driver she's always updating parents of changes and delays and she is an amazing person Amy thank you for making a difference in so many lives and your impact has felt far and wide and we are very grateful to have you um in the chadam county schools family thank

[Applause] you Danny did you hear what I I told her you need to take her out to eat now okay we'll move along to um our public comments section now of the agenda um just remind everybody that's speaking I think we've got seven uh you have three minutes and of course if you want to leave what you're saying um if you've got it on a written copy or can send it to miss Sloan be great if it runs over or anything like that so we'll we'll try to stop you there but and you'll be presenting right here at the podium uh the first speaker is John Clark IV hello good evening my name is John Clark and I am a third grade teacher at chadam Grove Elementary and a proud member of the ccae I came here tonight to both highlight and applaud the possible proposed restoration of Master's pay for educators who fall outside the state's 2013 grandfather limit when I decided to become a teacher while at College in 2016 I remember hearing non-stop from professors and peers how North Carolina education was a highly competitive field that required the utmost dedication qualifications and certifications this spurred me to continue my education and get a master's degree to assure my standing in this supposed highly contested job market fast forward a few years into my career and I found myself in a peculiar

situation I had the same credentials same accolades and the same job but my co-workers earned much more just because I was younger and got my Master's Degree after they did what the state did was a clear an obvious attack on education their reasoning if you can even call it that was that there was no correlation between a teacher having their master's degree and their students test scores that sent me an alarming message that the state of North Carolina will look to save money by stripping potential new educators of a reason to teach here the Master's Degree graduating classes in UNCC college system shrink every year for this reason and mainly this reason last week when I knew I was coming up to do the public comment I did some number crunching and I found out how much money I could have had if the state's mandate just never occurred uh that amount was a lot more than I thought uh it was a staggering amount for me specifically uh $28,600 of just base pay and adding that to Master supplement that number stores well past 30,000 that's just the amount missing just from the seven years I've been a teacher in North Carolina and um it's a life-changing amount it's a down payment on a house in a literally impossible housing market for a hopeful first-time home buyer it's money needed to start a family and grow roots in this community that I would love to do um it's money that I would have selflessly reinvested into my classroom to ensure my student successes but all that's gone because enough people at the state level are either too dumb or too insecure to realize that a highly educated teacher is a highly qualified and yes Highly Effective Teacher as we all know fewer and fewer graduates are entering the education profess profession due to a multitude of factors The Well of new teachers is running drier and drier each year with the restoration of Master's pay I think chadam will further cement itself as the district that attracts the dwindling resource of new highly qualified Educators last year I stood here and I said that I wanted chadam County to be a beacon of light for educators a place where we valued and are valued and respected last year's actions with the supplement was a clear incre well was a clear sign of that

respect and appreciation this year the restoration of Master's pay will be yet another bright Beacon lit letting all young and highly qualified teachers know that chadam is here and chadam wants you here I still remember Mr David Ham's words saying that we should always shoot for the stars and supporting our teachers and right now I think those stars are within our grasp thank you um and next up Brandy Varner I was just gonna and you did that wearing that shirt too I'm so Happ hello all right I'm no stranger to the podium either um I'm coming here as a parent today um first of all to thank you again when I I was so excited when I saw the budget heads up and that Master's pay was on the budget agenda uh because I work with John and I have also had the pleasure of being a parent of a student in John's classroom so I watched my daughter who had an IEP for writing in her first few years become a writer under John's master's degree level tutelage and she still to this day sends him her books that she writes so he can look them over um so I can't thank you enough for keeping teachers like John here and bringing more teachers like John to teach my child and all the students that I teach as well um the other thing I want to bring uh as I mentioned my daughter had an IEP she got it in prek and we got to live the dream we got to see her exit her IEP and begin to flourish in regular education and that would not have been possible at all without the team that was is behind her um without her teachers Jennifer and peaches also both Master's educated teachers um pushing

for that for that IEP and without support from the wonderful Miss Lance at Perry Harrison um I think she teaches in the class room now but she was EC when Rosie was there um and with the fabulous Alisha dunk who is now at county office she taught Rosie in EC Sarah bonenberger who's still at chadam Grove and Miss Davis who's currently a a classroom teacher chadam Grove H every parent deserves to have a team like that working with their EC student every parent in chadam County deserves to live that dream to see their child move forward exit the IEP and Thrive and then move on to get teachers like John to push them even further forward so as the parent of a neurodivergent child and a gened teacher who works with children EC I'm just standing here asking you all to also in your budget consider bringing those incentives for EC consider ways we can keep high quality EC staff and bring in more um it's meant the world to me and my family and I know it means the world to all those other parents who have EC children and I want nothing more than for all of them to have the wonderful experience we've had with chadam so far thank you thank you uh Nia Marsh Pope good evening evening um yes my name is Nia Marsh Poe and I am an EC resource teacher at JM High School um as an EC teacher my day starts about 7:30 a.m. I am the inclusion math resource teacher

that pushes into the math classes at the high school in a typical day I am co- teing with Math teachers from first um through the fir for the first three blocks with a planning period during fourth where I can plan assess and and plan and assess and conduct meetings but as a special education teacher I am often working longer days than the standard eight hours a day according to the education department National center for the education statistics special education teachers are paid averagely slightly more than General teachers because of our special training and our very special characteristics that we offer to our children so however my typical day goes a little bit different than what I just stated it starts out in class but then I have I am having to assist with testing from our general Ed teachers assisting students in their classrooms assisting students with their posttransitional goals um even the slight goal of just making sure paperwork is ready for college also administrating star and core testing throughout the day and putting out little student fires that can come up through their behaviors um with students that have IEPs so this is all done in between PLC meetings and my case low meetings and all this may seem like a lot and it is however but I imagine just for you to imagine the intensity intensity that it can grow when you don't have an EC resource teacher for every allotted amount of students that needs to be there and so this is something that weighs on all the schools here in the county with our vacancies so the weight of these responsibilities becomes much heavier and on these days my daily

workload of assess of assisting the students adapting lesson plans and developing IEPs are pushed to after school hours so perhaps if we are as an EC teacher were paid more then these responsibilities will be easier to handle and I would feel more appreciated throughout the day um and also I work a second job so it would also ease the um ability to not have to work a second job thank you Sherry Austin hello my name is Sher Austin I am a EC assistant at Jordan Matthews High School just imagine yourself in my shoes this is a start of my day I get up at 5:30 a.m. I get dressed and come to school and be arrive around 7:10 it's 7:10 in the morning I wait on the I wait on the EC bus to arrive to get the students off the bus and I take them to the C cafeteria for their breakfast the students are fed and after the breakfast I I will take them to the [Music] bathroom back to the classroom and the work day begins the students give their the students are giving their computers out to start their assignments in the classroom we work on one onone some days class are going smooth and other days are tough as a ECI I feel like there are many tasks we are required to do as far as to help the students or students students or students that I work with each day I

need your I need my they need my help as a i ECI needs their support from the district and I like to feel like I am appreciated and valued as a ECI we should get paid due to so much that were that is required on my job I work a second job due to the fact my ECI job doesn't pay enough after 8 to nine hours a day at school my day isn't over I go to my second job and make the end to make my ends meet if the ECI were pay more maybe I would not have to work a second job I know I am not the only ECI across the district that feels this way I know right now there's over 20 EC vacancies across the district dist I am asking for myself and my colleagues that we need more school school board to fill our values and to stay on our jobs at the end of the day I feel like I have accomplished and I have needed and and that I am that I am needed by the students and I would like to just say as I was saying imagine you working in my shoes as ECI thank you [Applause] uh kren lingren good evening thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak my name is kistin lingren I'm a proud teacher at silers City Elementary and chadam County Parent um thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of teachers across our district who like me have made the commitment to earn a master's degree in their chosen area of certification when I decided to become a teacher I chose to earn a master's

degree in ESL choosing to gain specialized knowledge and expertise to be as prepared as possible for this profession was an investment that I feel makes me a stronger more skilled educator I love my job I hope to do this important work for as many years to come as I Poss possibly can I want to teach in chadam County I grew up here this is my home and my community I knew I wouldn't get rich doing this work and I felt called to do it anyway so I made the decision to be as prepared as possible by taking the extra step of earning my masters and I'm thankful for the salary supplements that you have worked so hard to get for all staff now thank you but I'm faced with a new dilemma if I go over the county line to wake or Duram counties a shorter Drive since than I currently take every day to get to work I would receive a master's pay supplement in addition to the other supplemental pay they also offer I want to stay in this County I love it here but I need to do what's necessary to support my family and if I can get a substantial pay raise the next County over then that leaves me with a difficult decision to make one that I believe many teachers in our County also struggle with we all know that teacher retention is at an all-time low and that it's getting growing more difficult to attract and keep qualified teachers by reinstating Master's pay you're showing teachers that you value their commitment to their profession and you make chadam County more competitive with neighboring counties that have already reinstated Master's pay I'd also like to recognize that you shouldn't have to do this the North Carolina General Assembly should be considering this for all teachers in our state but I come to you to ask you to do what they have as yet been unwilling to do by restating Master's pay you not only recognize the value of our Advance training and retain committed Educators you also encourage

further professional development for all teachers which directly benefits our students thank you again for your time I so appreciate the work y'all do for our teachers our families and our students uh Maria pedo I think I pronounced that correct good okay good evening Mr chairman and members of the board I'm here tonight as a parent of Syler City Elementary and a proud product of chadam County Schools to advocate for the support um staff who serve our exceptional children especially our bilingual staff uh for three years my son Vince who has autism has been a student in chadam County schools and during this time I've witnessed the incredible impact of our teaching assistance and AIDS they do far more than assist in the classroom they create opportunities Foster confidence and make inclusion possible these professionals show up every day with skill patience and dedication they see each other's potential and bring out the best in our children yet their compensation does not reflect the value that they bring and we have an obligation to do better uh our bilingual staff that is in the classroom is making connections connections not only with our students but with their parents and with their families uh they are our bridges to those people who may not speak the same language as us and I urge um this board to approve supplemental pay increases for our support staff not just as a gesture but as a commitment to retaining our incredible individuals and ensuring that we attract more like them

this is an investment in the people who make our schools stronger and when we support them we support our children and when we invest in them we invest in the future of Education in chadam County thank you for your time and consideration I trust that you will make the right decision for our students our staff and our community thank [Applause] you and the last one I think Stephanie pow good evening my name is Stephanie Powell I'm a resident of chadam County and I consider myself a Public School advocate it is no secret that given the federal and State's war on public education our most vulnerable students are at risk many of us are doing what we can to combat this attack on our Public Schools however we all know that our actions and influence are limited at the federal and state level that is why we need to remain laser focused on protecting our children at the local level and you as members of the board and Dr Jackson are the local level for chadam County our troops who witness the effect on our children are our teachers they are on the ground performing their mission to educate our children they know what tools they need that is why I urge this board to adopt a budget that reflects our teachers assessment of actions needed to protect our most vulnerable students incentive pay of 2500 a year for EC teachers and assistants and incentive pay of $1,000 per year for bilingual classified staff we cannot wait for someone to save our children who desperately need our help please support the request in the ccae petition we and you must act thank

you I'm gonna say this don't take it the wrong way I I appreciate the claps I just worry that when we get somebody that we don't clap for we're going to boo and I'll have to shut that down so just just wanted to remind you of that anyway anyway so so just want to let you know um we'll move on to information items the um ncsba board policy manual updates 2000 series first reading Dr [Music] Moran good evening Mr chairman members of the board as you know we bring to you each month a new series from our policy manual we're working with the school boards Association uh to do a complete overhaul this month we have the 2000 series which is board operations there are 26 policies for review um in this particular audit um some of these require minor changes such as slight wording shifts or just alignment with um changes in legislation and then some of them have more substantial shifts and I'll call your attention to a few of those the color coding in the chart that is linked in your materials um if it is in green it means that our our board policy is already up to date so you'll see some in green um there are a couple that are in red which means we are suggesting to repeal those policies and I'll Point those out in just a moment um if it's in yellow it is a policy that is not currently included in our manual and if it is in yellow it is something the school boards Association would like us to include at a later time so just a few that I'll call your attention to that are of note policy 2120 and 2121 have some substantial edits and these are to revise any language related to um board code of ethics as well as

well as conflict of interest and most of these are statutory requirements in federal law so you'll notice this one has quite a bit of of markings in it the other one I wanted to call your attention to is 20 130 this is board member compensation the school boards Association manual and and required policy or recommended policy excuse me it takes out the language of any specific dollar amounts and it just suggests that our district would follow any pertinent law um related to Schoolboard compensation so um our prior policy you would have seen actual dollar amounts there and so it's their recommendation to take those out um the other one policy 2410 this policy has some significant impact to other policies so if we decide to um accept this as written which is about policy development it would require us to also resend policy 2420 2440 and 2450 so that might be a little confusing in the chart so essentially if you agree to um approve this particular policy you'll notice further in the chart there are three in Red so it's not that we're getting rid of those policies because they're no longer applicable it's just that that new policy has all three of those kind of included in one um and besides that the majority of the other policies are statutory um changes and then several typos things like that but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have anybody have any questions thank you Dr Mor all right we'll move on to um Item B changes in arts requirement and new diploma endorsement so this is a an exciting change um the law that changed in July

directs the State Board of Education to require One Arts education credit to be completed at any time during grades 6 through 12 and this goes into effect with students entering grade six in 2022 23 which means students who will be in grade nine next school year now the good news about this is we have a robust arts program here in chadam so unlike some districts we do have Arts programs in all of our middle schools and of course our high schools so the vast majority of our students will be able to meet this requirement in middle school the only um caveat is that for it to count in Middle School it has to be a class where students are meeting a minimum of 90 minutes um during a a week and the vast majority of our schools do have that so we think that most of our students who um are in our schools during Middle School will have this requirement met even before they go to high school students that come to us after the fact we will have to make sure that they take a course in high school if they've not already had that um so that is a little bit of a shift there um along with that we also have a new um opportunity for students to receive an endorsement on their diploma you may recall in previous years we've had diploma seals for a variety of things like our dual language program biliteracy seal so the new one is an Arts opportunity for students and in order to be eligible students have to complete a minimum of four standard course of study Arts courses meaning it can't be a local course in basket weaving it has to be a course that is in the standard course of study they have to have a GPA of 3.0 or higher in each of those cours and a minimum of 40 hours of Arts related extracurricular activities and these have to be activities related to Arts that are not a part of a current course that they are in or they're not receiving a grade for those particular activities so we will be developing in the next uh coming weeks a process for

our students to be able to Monitor and track that and we hope to have many of our students have that as a diploma endorsement um one other note you'll see in your artifacts is that this will not not be on the official transcript this year this is not something related to chadam County this is a state issue and kind of this the change over to the various new uh systems with power school and Infinite Campus starting next school year it will be on their diploma what we hope to do this year is they will have a seal that we will put on their diploma it's a like a sticker like we've done with others and we will also give each student who is eligible a letter that they could use with universities as well so the other opportunity is another um endorsement for students diplomas and this one is for an improved citizenship proficiency diploma endorsement and this requires that our school district will develop a process for students to take an assessment and they can do that up to one time a semester and these questions they have to answer at least six out of 10 questions in this particular assessment the questions specifically um are given to us in um a document that we can utilize it is um the citizenship proficiency um equivalent test and so I will not quiz you tonight but if you want to see the types of questions that are in um the document that we have to pull those questions from you can see those in your attached artifacts they're not some of them are not very easy some of them are not easy um but you know some of them will say things like what does the Constitution do um what is an amendment um if the president should have to step down who who takes his place um it ask about different parts of of the government um who signs bills to become laws things of that nature but the full um battery of uh quiz or test

uh questions that we have to ask are in your packet um and so again we will have to in the coming weeks develop a process by which each of our high schools will afford any student who is interested the opportunity to receive this particular endorsement and again they have the opportunity to do that one time per semester um so at this point in the year they'll have um one opportunity to do that before they graduate this year um all right any questions on any of those just just to make sure I mean it appears to be but it's entirely voluntary this it is entirely voluntary um for both of those um diploma the Arts and the citizenship um students are not required to do that and we don't um Force any student to do that um we let students know these opportunities are out there and then make sure that there's a process for them to do it and there's is there an Associated module that they study or is this just of their own can you elaborate about that a little bit yes so there is a packet um that's included in your materials that we would make available in our course guide for students um now that this has all been released um and it has in here links to all of the materials that students could study ahead of time so the questions are not hidden from the students um but it's a it's a rather lengthy packet of of questions I want to say it's a little over a hundred questions I think but it's you know right there for them if they want to look at that question on the 90 minutes I know some of our schools have trouble maybe with the rotations getting that's what two 45 minute periods or three 30s or whatever and I know some of them maybe don't get but maybe two 30 minute periods so we're going to make that available at our school I know you mentioned that our schools will take care of that so I I take it they will in Middle School in particular so we've always had a requirement um that the courses should be a certain length um

for each grade span I think the challenging part has been at a couple of our schools where you have a music teacher who's also the band teacher and so um we've had to get a little creative there but we have already started having scheduling meetings with our middle schools to make sure they know that this is something that we're trying to make sure we um have all of our students have the availability to be able to reach that in in their Middle School courses um at this point I don't see any reason why we would not be able to do that um but our some of our middle schools the the schedule gets a little bit be creative yeah you have to get a little creative particular in our schools that have dual language programming which stays in a cohort Avid which stays in a cohort and then band stays in a cohort typically so you have three programs kind of all competing for those elective slots so those those do complicate just a little bit it's great that we have that many special programs in our schools but it does kind of um create some challenges in the schedule but mandates yeah that changes things you're right thank you any other questions okay and we'll move on to professional development update and Dr Maran you're still there so go ahead yeah I'll be hanging out a while tonight so um one of the things that we wanted to make sure that we gave you an update on is just you know kind of where we sit with professional development we know that we um spend quite a bit of of funds in our district to support professional development we also have a calendar that supports this and so this evening we'll share with you just some general overview about how our professional development is aligned in our district the types of funding we use the types of providers that we have um and a few other other areas so um how do we align professional development in our district um one of the first things is we have to align with any legal requirements so there are um at times things that are required by law um things like state requirements um for letters training which you've heard

us talk a lot about over the last few years we also have to align to any particular sanctions um there are times in audits or program reviews or in any type of settlements that we might have a required training that is requested for a specific school or even the district so we do have to make sure that we're meeting any of those requirements we also have academic needs and data what what is the data tell us that our students need if we see that all of our students are struggling with non-fiction text or fractions for example then we know we need to provide professional development to our staff based off of that data we also look at our strategic plan priorities we also look at school Improvement goals you know what are our schools saying that their areas of focus are so that we can support that at the district level we look at curriculum shifts and we know we've had some shifts in our science curriculum so we've tried to provide professional development for our teachers in that and then we also look at feedback from staff what are staff saying that they desire and usually we do that each spring and I'll share with you a little bit more about that in a moment as far as funding we have a number of ways that we fund professional development but the bullet I want to make sure I point out there is that if you recall and I don't remember how many years ago Dr Jackson may but the state took away professional development funds for school districts so we have to get pretty creative um we have a pretty healthy professional development budget here in chadam and we use a number of different um funds from across a lot of different areas so you can see there we have some local funds for professional development earmarked in our chadam County Schools budget we also have other funds for programs in specific uh groups of students like ESL ml EC CTE all of those different types of students but we also use some of our federal funds Title One title 4 title two and we also seek out a number of Grants we work really closely with chadam Education Foundation and other Community Partners um they've been

particularly supportive of our Avid um program and professional development to support that we support our staff with these funds and what you see here is a dollar amount um and it's an estimate for this school year but it's 576,000 and that's just the the numbers that um Miss Smith and I were able to kind of gather up that were specifically in the code for professional development we know that we also supplement those dollars and we look outside of those particular funds so the number is actually probably higher than this this also is um funds that we've used for conferences and um substitute funds to support professional development but um I think that really shows that we have a commitment to making sure that we are um providing high quality professional development to our staff some of the types of professional development I'm not going to read all of these but we have a number of different ways that we do this um you're going to see in a moment how we do this virtually but we have in-person and virtual we have full day professional development and some times half day depending upon the need of the particular program we have credentialed opportunities so we have um opportunities that teachers can receive credentials during professional development one right now our Librarians have been working on Magic School certification that's a new AI platform that we're using here in the district which gives teachers AI tools to use in the classroom and all of our Librarians have been working to receive that certification we have school driven professional development which means the school is complet completely in charge of the topic the time the presenter and we also have District driven meaning that we select the topic and um the materials used for the professional development we have conferences that we will send staff to um this year we sent all of our arts and music staff to some of the Arts conferences in the area we also had some of our staff present and perform at those

conferences and I already kind of shared what are some of the reasons that we have professional development and you can see again that list there of what are some of the the types of things that we are required to do so virtual professional development um is something that I think is one of the benefits that came out of the pandemic I think we learned that we can do some things um creatively virtually that we maybe otherwise had never done so um you may recall at our most recent professional development day it was also an inclement weather day but instead of having to make that day up at another time we pushed forward and were able to provide our staff with quality professional development um and so some of these sessions that we did were synchronous and some were asynchronous um those are big fancy words but basically some of them were self-paced um and teachers could click and could watch things and respond to things on their own time and some of them were sessions that they had to be online at a very specific time with an instructor we use the tools of zoom and Google meets um to be able to do that we also had teacher leaders it was really exciting as I was jumping across from Zoom to zoom or Google to Google um seeing all of the different teachers from across the district who were um teaching their their fellow colleagues we do provide cus for um our professional development when it's a virtual day that's a question we've received recently and we always make sure that our virtual professional developments are aligned as well we do ask that um staff keep their cameras on wherever possible so that we can make sure that our staff are engaged and we also use the tool for the small groups or um the discussion rooms so it's not all just sit and get we sometimes have teachers that will go off into these rooms um on these tools so that they can have discourse and collaborate together and I'm going to show you some data here in just a moment from that that professional development day as well some some of the types of presenters that we have we have guest

presenters that are National local um experts we also sometimes will have product vendors come in um most recently we had the vendors come in and showcase a product we have called gizmos showing the teachers how to use it um it's a tool we've had great success with but we were seeing that usage was just not high so we asked that vendor to come in and and re kind of establish um how to use that tool we also have student panels from time to time um and student leaders who come in and work with staff we have teacher leaders I mentioned that already we also have many of our academic staff who have a number of different things that they are experts in that they will go out into our schools and present um and so sometimes it might be that the district has selected a topic but sometimes a school may say I'm really interested in I'm going to give you an example that I've done Affinity groups I I'd like my staff to know more about that well that's an area of expertise for me so I've gone and I've been able to do that for a number of different staffs across our district so we have kind of a a menu if you will that our schools can select from we also are a part of the pek Consortium you've probably heard us talk about PC that's the pedmont Triad education Consortium and the benefit of this is that it is a number of school districts who um are a part of this group and it helps us kind of get the um effect of being able to pull resources and so you'll see some of the presenters on the far right there um are some amazing International and nationally known presenters um one particularly that we're interested in right now is Michael redig who's a national EXP expert in how to do school scheduling to maximize student um results we probably would not be able to afford um Dr reig to come out to chatam for a single event and so being able to capitalize off of that particular Consortium has been really helpful for us to get our teachers in front of some high high name uh individuals and presenters so I'm not going to go into calendar law that is definitely Dr batton's area of expertise but you do

know that our calendar is is pretty locked in in a number of areas and so we have a certain number of days we have to provide our staff we have a certain number of days that are required for students and holidays all of those things are kind of locked in but there is not a really a statute about how many days of professional development have to be provided but in our calendar we've tried really hard to make sure that we have five required School professional development days those are days that the schools can choose to utilize however they would like we also have five required professional development District days and most of those days are not all day long so typically um the academic staff do not have trainings that are all day an exception to that might be something like letters that we don't have control over but many of our teachers are able to have a halfday professional development with us and then have time in their classrooms as well we have 15 optional work days that staff can also pursue their own professional learning so they can could do online professional development independent studies work with their PLC teams or um other types of conferences and those are um also on our calendar we also have this year one of our optional work days actually coming up on the 17th is our disc which is our digital learning conference um it is focused on AI this year and is a part of a digital learning Grant we receive from the state of North Carolina um so we welcome you to come out to that it'll be at c4th high school all day um and I think I have a slide here in just a moment there there it is for that um we have two key Keynotes coming Mr Eric CTS and Miss Amber Ivy who will be presenting and then we have a host of teachers and other staff throughout the day who will have sessions we have our robotics team who will be performing our um neon Krakens so it's going to be a great day of learning we have great prizes um and it'll be a fun day on a professional development

day we also send out to staff usually about a week to two weeks ahead of time just the information that shares with them what to expect on that day so you can see the the spreadsheet here and it just shows where is this taking place what time what do you bring what are the materials you'll need and then here's the link you complete for your cus in your survey so all of that is kind of in one document the state of North Carolina requires for lure renewal um ceu requirements so you can see here um all staff are required to complete 80 hours of professional learning in their 5-year lure cycle and so 10 hours of professional development equals one hour or one ceu so 80 hours total and then you can see depending upon your job type there are different types of professional development you have to have one of the questions we've received most recently is why did you not give digital learning credits for that session um and the state of North Carolina took that requirement away this past year so now we provide for any type of digital learning or technology um area if the if a staff member takes that course we give them either a general credit or something that's in their particular subject area but you may hear staff ask that question um so we always are going to give a ceu for everything that is attended but it might go into a different category based off of that um the literacy requirement is one that you'll see up there for grades K through five um and that that usually is the one right now it's not been hard because of letters but that often has been one that has been a little more challenging for some of our staff to get we utilize the Frontline system in our district so that staff can upload their own certificates if they go to a professional development outside of chadam they can upload it into the system for approval um and it's a great way for us to also track and monitor CE so that nobody is going to get up to the lens your time and be caught off guard so um our HR team does a great job of

keeping track with that and sharing with staff what they have so um each spring we do a survey and we ask staff for feedback on a couple of different things we ask for um feedback on professional development software that they are using what would they like to keep or not keep and what type of support do they need from us in academic Services um we also use the data in Frontline to see the types of sessions that staff are uploading into that system to see is there something we could be offering in house that folks are going otherwise somewhere else to get we look at all of that data from the surveys and from the data we're seeing in the system and then we decide what do we need to adjust for the upcoming year and what what is this data telling us about the services that we're providing and so I want to just end with some um exciting feedback um you know this was a quick turnaround our staff had the professional development day planned and then really within less than 24 hours we said let's we're going to have to drop and and pivot y'all and we're going to have to make this virtual and so we got some really great feedback in our survey from staff we had over 600 staff respond to this survey which is a really high response rate because I believe we have 760 is uh certified staff Dr baton is shaking his head so that was a really high response rate for a survey um this is how they this is kind of their exit ticket on how they get their cus um and you can see there the session objectives outlined were met 95% the materials were were of high quality 88% the session was useful and practical 87% you can also see in the center there we asked them how is this align to our district goals only two people said they did not know what our district goals were so that's pretty exciting our staff members know your strategic plan um and 80% of them felt like it was very closely aligned to the goals in our plan you can also see there the session increased my understanding of the topic

85% I was able to ask questions 94% the session was relevant to my role in The District or my school 95% and you can also see a pie chart there of who um completed the survey there were not as many high school folks that participated that day because this was a day that the high school teachers were switching over to their new semesters they did not have professional development that day um they have it in October typically so that's why you'll see that one as smaller and there were just some really nice um comments left from staff thank you for making this a virtual session due to the weather it was much appreciated to not have to get out and on the roads today I live in a rural area and the roads um were not clear again thank you and then you can see some of the other quotes at your leisure but um we were really excited about this we really do read every single comment that comes in occasionally we'll have someone who says nobody reads this anyway um and I will make sure that I reach out to that individual and their school principal to say yes we really do because um we go over this data with our staff and if we see that there are Trends or places where um folks are not happy with a training we typically will make some adjustments and I'll say guys this wasn't great we've got to fix it for the next round um so we're really proud of the work that we do to provide high quality professional development I think the fact that 90% of our teachers this past year met or exceeded growth speaks to the high quality of professional development that we provide as well so that's just an overview but I'm happy to answer any questions you had those those are pretty good test results right there yeah we were y'all y'all need to be proud of that we were proud of that day it was a um it was a great day basically the 95% it pertains to me basically because most time PD they walk out our people let me change that Gary walked out of times when when I might have said that so I'll say that personally there um as far as sharing and I know PD you

do that but also that's in the plc's too where like the you know a master teacher like we had several here today that they're able to share some of the good things that they're doing so that our other teachers that's more in the PLC but also pd2 I guess if some of them are teaching some of that too right so we have a number of teachers in our district that work closely with our academic Services team to provide professional development um if we have a teacher who is exceeding growth every single year we're going to get that teacher in and have them teaching other folks in their same area um we also have schools that will create faculty meetings and they'll use their own staff to provide the sessions or the rotations for staff um within their own schools so we do use a lot of teacher leaders here in chadam to provide training and anybody who is ever interested in doing any type of sessions they reach out to us Mr ham did you hear that no sir huh no sir well you want to repeat that for Mr ham he might be interested in doing that I'm not sure I might be um I'm I'm more interested that I was asking Dr Jackson that if I excuse myself just for a minute does that stop the meeting because it only leaves two I about that see that was a good question it does so uh she just said that if you want to present something just let her know and they'll open it up for you so I would like to present that we take a f minute break for 5 minutes thank you stretch a little bit okay your voice okay yeah I was I thought it was just me but then I turned around and everybody was doing this I was like

and IED but we're okay okay thank you what' you do I'm old and I jumped in a jump