Regular Session

All right. We'll go ahead and call our regular session uh county board of education meeting for Monday, September the 8th, 2025 to order. Do we have a motion to go into close session for the items listed on the agenda?

Moved. Second.

Got a motion and a second.

All in favor with an I.

I. Any oppose? Like sign. Thank you.

Okay.

My apologies for making you wait. That's probably my fault is more than it was the rest of the board. So, my apologies for for the lengthy close session. Uh,

something went wrong. Please try again.

It sure did. Sure did.

Something something did anyway. So, we're good. But, uh, and I'm I supposedly wasn't in trouble, but I I I probably talked longer than I should have anyway. So, thank y'all for your patience on that. So, we'll consider ourselves back in open session. Thank you all for being here, especially our young people. Thank y'all very much. Uh, and I see some people over here we've seen before. Uh, nice to have y'all back with us. Um, and we will begin uh with our moment of silence. Of course, whole lot of things, school moving and um whole lot of movement going on. So, uh we we want to uh take a moment to uh think about all the things that are going on in our schools, all the great things in particular. And uh if we could just hesitate for a moment of silence. Thank you. Thank you. Let's all stand for our pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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.

Uh let's see. Do we Thank y'all for that. Do we have a motion to adopt the agenda?

So moved. Second.

Got a motion and a second. All in favor with an I.

I.

I.................... Any opposed like sign. Do we have a motion to approve the personnel agenda?

Moved. Second.

I. Any oppose? Like sign. And do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Second.

Got a motion.

We have a second.

Yes.

Got a second. All in favor with an I.

I. Any opposed? Like sign. Thank you, Dr. Jackson.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, and thank you. Um, tonight we will start using uh the video format for the superintendants um uh power of connection, communication, and uh community. If you will go forward, [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat.

Kudos.

But we thank our public relations team for putting that together. And I also, it's nothing like seeing a proud father in the crowd. One of those pictures happen to be the son of someone sitting in the back in a gray suit who's just very, very proud to see his son on that screen. So, I know that those things, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, the opening of school has been amazing and we've been off to a really, really good start. So, thanks to the staff and everyone that uh has uh put forth just a tremendous effort to get us off to a great start. We hit regular regular types of bumps, but we have made it through. And I'm just really really proud of the work that's going on in each of our schools and our and and in the classrooms. I visited every single school and I can tell you that um instruction began day one and our teachers and our students and our staff and our parents have worked together to really just launch another great school year. Okay, so thank you all. That's my report for tonight.

The convocation was wonderful. the the talent that was displayed

from our students and our

teachers

uh band leaders, music leaders, they they did everybody did a really really good job. I was really impressed. I'm well I'm all I'm always impressed anytime I visit our schools anyway. But that was exceptional. Really good job. Thank you, Dr. Jackson. Thank y'all for the that was really good. Um, all right. I don't have anything up here, so I take it no public comments. So, we'll go ahead and move in to information items. And we've got the uh OE update. Mr. Blice, Mr. Dudley, and Mr. Godfrey. I think he acts like he's been up here before, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah. [Laughter]

year update regarding um growth and of course we've worked with O for several years. They have information to share with you today and but more importantly we're here to answer any questions that you may have and give you the best information that we have on that. I'll turn it over to Mr. Dudley and Mr. Pap, Chair Leonard, other members of the board. It's a pleasure to be joining you all this evening and to be revisiting some of the work that my organization has conducted on behalf of the school district. We'll begin with a brief reintroduction to our organization. From there, we'll be looking at uh revisiting the land use study that was conducted last year, both the process and the results, including the resulting membership forecast, which includes the school level forecast, which we call the out of capacity table. From there uh we'll also have time for a discussion as well as Q&A at the end. Uh our parent organization is called ITRI or the Institute for Transportation Research and Education. It is part of NC State University and housed on NC State Centennial campus in Raleigh. It has been conducting research related to transportation in the state for over 40 years. Our smaller group OE is an unbiased third party evaluation research group that helps depoliticize school planning. We do that through the services that you see listed in bold there. If you'd like to learn more about us, we have links to our site there. As you can also see, we've had the privilege of working with quite a few districts over the history of the program. And with that, I'll hand it over for a

few minutes to my colleague, Mr. Godfrey, to recap the land use study. Mr. Godfrey.

Well, good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Uh you have seen this presentation before but for the audience uh we uh at ORED believe prior to making any school facility planning decisions it's important to speak with public officials and local experts. Uh here is the interview roster from the land use study we conducted this past year. We want to take this opportunity again to thank all those uh who we spoke with and participated in this process. So, we learned a lot about growth and development around Chattam County and obviously the pace of residential development has been considerable. Now, we will return to this subject in a moment, but uh in the time since we've conducted this study, new residential developments have continued to come into local planning offices. They continue to be proposed and planned. But a significant constraint on development has been uh the wastewater or sewer capacities. Uh a big number you'll always want to remember here in the coming years 2027 is when uh sewer improvements are expected to be completed in both Pittsboro and in Siler City. That will uh open the doors to additional residential development much of which has already been approved but is waiting for this capacity to open up. When you say 2027, do you do you mean early in 2027 or late in 2027 or is it too uh too difficult to determine right now?

Difficult to determine right now. Construction is underway on both projects. Um the infrastructure is a component we look at and Tri River water has been a big subject here in Chattam County. The regionalization of water and sewer has I think uh really um enabled uh you know a stronger pace of uh improvements. Absolutely.

And so on top of the uh infrastructure and this residential development we've been seeing and will we are expected to see is uh significant economic development exceptional economic development. Now Wolf Speed up and running. We know Vinfast has been delayed. However, right up the 421 corridor, uh Toyota is shipping out batteries as we speak and certainly any number of those folks um can be living here in Chattam County. Uh a great place to come and work and raise a family. So, uh with that said, we'll return to the subject of homes of residential development. uh in working with our planning partners and uh combing through public records, we create what is uh called a development inventory. And this is a full accounting of all homes that are still in the pipeline, residential developments that are either approved or proposed but not yet fully built out. and we uh gather this information and tally it in GIS geographic information systems for analysis. So as you can see here in purple, we have the various residential developments in that pipeline around the county. We actually handle Chattam Park and all of its components separately. So, on top of Chattam Park, what we're looking at here is uh 51 pending residential developments and over 10,000 homes still yet to be built. Again, look for the year 2027 for uh that to really begin taking off. So, with this data in hand, with the re residential development inventory in hand, we are able to project future student populations. And uh to speak more about our forecasting and analysis, I will hand it back to my colleague, Mr. Dudley.

Thank you, Mr. Godfrey. As we've covered before, the most meaningful and most reliable metric for forecasting enrollment growth is resident lab births, the best leading indicator. And intuitively that makes sense because a large share of the births within the district will become your kindergarten students five years down the line and accordingly those age up through the rest of the cohorts. So any demographer is going to keep a close eye on resident lab births and a one or two% change per year in a sustained fashion is significant notable even. So when we saw the 10% jump that occurred in 2022, that jumped off the page to us. And what we learned in the most recent data available since then in 2023 is that 2022's data was not a fluke. This is showing the effects of residential development already notably within the county. That's just one data input that we include as part of our work. The next is of course your membership, historic membership, and this gives us a sense of the momentum that's occurring within the district. So what's presented here is at the very highest level just looking at the district total of K12 membership but we also look at this at the school level. We also look at this at the by grade level and by grade by school and acknowledge and uh move forward trends where it's appropriate. So that's something we examine in detail at the highest level. Again what you'll see is some ups and downs here postcoid modest recovery in the time sense. The last uh specific sort of uh data input that we use as part of our forecasting work is how we model Chattam Park. Now given the magnitude of Chattam Park, we want to be clear and transparent about the methodology that we use as we uh forecast how many students are going to come from Chattam Park at its full buildup. So speaking more generally, more broadly when it comes to forecasting the enrollment from any particular development, there are two things you need. You need an estimate of when those lots or units are going to come online

and then you need an estimate also of how many students to expect per lot. So that first component, we receive that information from Chattam Park and Preston Development directly as far as the timing of when new lots and units are going to come online and that's split up by several different u data inputs including the seven phases going through 2040. As far as modeling how many students come from those particular lots, well, we use Brier Chapel as a proxy. We've been able to look back over its full development timeline and see how uh new students have come online from that development as new lots have come online as well. So, those are the two critical uh inputs that are used for us to be able to model forward how many students are going to come from Chattam Park. That takes us to our first out of capacity table here. And I'm going to quickly move to actually the second one here because it includes Chattam Park. So I know you all are familiar with these, but again these are called our out of capacity tables and they're a quick visual way of being able to see where your facility needs are and where they will be in the future. So working our way from left to right, we have the name of each of your schools, the capacity of the school, the adjusted capacity, which takes into consideration the classrooms that are dedicated for prek usage, then the membership of your school, and then looking forward over the next 10 years, we have the forecasted number of students that you can expect at each of your schools. What you'll notice here about the coloring is uh that's based on utilization. When I say utilization, all I mean is it's the number of students in that cell divided by the capacity of that school. What that means is that if you see a school that's in red, that indicates an overcrowded school. And so this can be essential information for your planning processes. Uh looking at district at the the big takeaways here, you'll see growth at all levels. You'll see growth at all levels with or without

Chattam Park. So, Chattam Park is a big major driver of the growth of what you're going to see in the coming years, but it's not the full story. Uh, you'll also notice at the end here, and you have access to this as well, the final two out of capacity tables are grouped by zone, sort of by high school attendant zone with Northwood and C4th grouped together to give a sense of where growth is occurring within the district. And you'll see it well, the growth is everywhere. Uh, but the varying magnitudes are illustrated well in those final two. I know this is a lot of information to be presenting. I recognize it's not new, but I wanted to give the opportunity to uh just pause for questions before we move on to our concluding slide

question.

Yes, Mr. H.

Uh I can almost see the number. uh monur projected for this year um

177

I read it at home 176 and then um

that's right

yesterday was 138 and for a school that small to have that big of a difference is uh I remember years ago I'd say your projections and stuff for the whole county you missed by two kids. And I remember saying, "Boy, y'all y'all messed up because you you missed it by two kids." Well, now it's maybe the opposite because that's a and I know Benfast was playing into the the possibility and all that and houses and developments going up, but um in in the process, you know, when you have that I don't know what the percentage is, but when you have that big of a difference in such a small school,

um most of the other schools are dead on, you know, but but that one particular one is interesting.

Well, it depends because we've got two different projections. Um when we look at the day nine numbers, the that projection says 168 and it's done a little differently. Am I correct on that? How that's projected that's ours by Am I correct on that? How is it, Dr. Batten? help me out.

Okay. Okay. That's a difference. And see with O y'all said what? 176. So there is quite a bit more. But there's others, David, when you look at them. Uh SA Elementary is down. Silope is down. Um numbers wise, you know, of course JM is too, but um I'll let you get back to his answer. I don't know. I'm just rambling, I guess.

Well, I appreciate the uh the input here. I mean, I think this is getting to uh really I think what is one of the best parts of what we do, which is diving into the numbers and getting to understand, you know, at a high level detail exactly what's going on in these situations where, you know, there are the numbers can be off some. Uh Monure, that's a curious one. So certainly look forward to looking into that in more detail once the full data is available once we're locked in and actually at month one and we have that ADM available and then we can look at in more detail at at some of the other data sources that that come along with that. So

do you figure I'm sorry David do you figure like the new opportunity scholarship in your you know it's just been offered the last few years is that part of your projections. So, as far as that scholarship in particular, there isn't an explicit sort of uh like dial for that, but it is something that we're aware of. Okay. In combination with

other Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

And this is brick and mortar. We've got more capacity that you have in the other table. So, we're Okay.

Correct.

Yeah. Absolutely. Any any additional questions on the out of capacity tables here?

Okay. Uh I will move on to our concluding slide then.

Okay. Now uh there was one item that we wanted to express and I think this may connect back to actually one of the previous questions. So when it comes to this type of work, there is uncertainty, right? And it's uh an important thing to acknowledge as well. And what we're looking at on this slide is the importance of water and sewer infrastructure as my colleague uh spoke to. So we know that new residential developments drive enrollment growth and we know that the constraints of water and sewer infrastructure can contribute to where and to what extent residential growth occurs. And so what you'll see in this graph is the blue line, the lower line corresponds to the actual um the numbers that were presented as part of the out of capacity table. Meanwhile, the purple line indicates the number of students that could actually be in the district in a very feasible sense if that metaphorical pipeline is opened up of the the uh capacity of sewer and water capacity. So the purple line is entirely feasible. It's too early to say at this point, but we're talking about a magnitude of over the next 10 years a growth of about a thousand additional students. So it it is of high magnitude. It's something that's we're closely keeping an eye on. And again, 2027 is that key year to keep in mind as we're looking at improvements to that system. So uh we're here and

we're glad to answer any questions you have. That concludes the the end of our presentation. So in short and pun intended, in 2027 the floodgates will open.

I think that's a viable assessment.

Well, CH Park made the comment that they're going to have everything ready, the homes ready. All they have to have is the infrastructure, the hookup to the line. So am I correct on that, Mr. Bice? Wasn't that the statement we heard? And so that would be pretty quick once the pipeline is open that that the houses would then be up for sale or they might be up for sale but not up for residents residency until it's open but they're they would be yeah occupancy. Thank you. So they would be so it would happen pretty quickly then that we could have an influx of students even you know in the middle of a school year depending on when that happens. So that that becomes an interesting challenge to see how many new students might move in in mid year depending on when it's completed. Do you have any thoughts on that for us?

I I just want to stress that it isn't and as uh as large of an impact as Chattam Park is by itself, we're also talking about other developments in Pittsburgh. We're also talking about Solar City. So it's not just and I mean it

s city is to me the when we talk about the water and sewer and Mr. Dudley and and Mr. Godfrey touched on it a while ago is the the 2027 date is not just on the eastern side of the county. It's on both sides of the county and we've never had that before

that is huge. And Chattam Park while Chattam Park is a big chunk and they are they're huge

but there's so much more than that. And what we don't know when that water and sewer kicks off is how many new things are going to pop up.

You're right.

And that's why it's good that we're

doing and do studies every other year now and not waiting four or five years to do it again because we've got to stay ahead of that kind of growth. Any other questions?

Thank you'all very much. We appreciate the input.

Thank you. Okay, we're at Let me get there. Policy review item B. Am I looking at it right? Nope. Excuse me. Item B is now I'm looking at it differently here. Okay. All right. is 2024 2025 accountability results overview and school support plans overview.

Yeah, I think I'm right on that now.

Good evening, uh, Chair Leonard, members of the board, uh, Superintendent Jackson, uh, stand before you tonight with a lot to celebrate, uh, in our accountability results for 2425. Um, we are leading the state in multiple areas. Uh, and we'll learn more about that tonight. Um, and each school has a success story that we're going to go through tonight. Um, and there are four kind of main points. Every slide in this presentation that you're about to see has something to celebrate. We didn't do that on purpose. It's just the way it worked out.

Um,

I just told Dr. Jackson, you should have had a little audio thing. It's showtime. There's a lot of good news.

Yeah.

And on the point of one Chadam, every student in Chattam County, regardless of where they live, which school they attend, they're pretty solid school. And we've got some things to show this evening for every single school. Uh dual

enrollment, one academy, uh graduation rates, AVID, any student who wants to earn a high school diploma has that opportunity here. And that also is shown in the data. And most importantly, we're not done, right? We've done a lot, but we have a lot to do. and we're going to talk more about that. So with that, I will turn it over to Miss Ree and Mr. Poston to share our data and next steps.

Good evening.

Good evening,

Mr. Chairman, members of the board, and Dr. Jackson. Thank you for taking the time to allow me to um present tonight. Chris Poston will be joining me and interjecting here and there. So, we'll this will be a shared presentation. So, um, the first thing that we're going to just review is the accountability model and what all these numbers mean. Going to talk about some district and school specific data. We'll definitely highlight a lot of the celebrations and successes and Mr. Poston will discuss some next steps that we're thinking about as a school district for continuous improvement. So, um, there are some words that you'll be hearing tonight. Uh, one is a school performance grade. A school performance grade is something that the state of North Carolina has um a formula for. 80% of that grade comes from student achievement scores just pure end of grade assessments and the other 20% comes from growth score that is conducted by um SAS and it's called EVOS. We'll also hear the words uh performance composite and that is just the percentage of student test scores. uh grade level proficiency is the test score that a student needs to attain in order to attain this level of proficiency for each grade level. And then there is something called college and career ready score which shows that the students um if they scored on the higher end of the performance measures. So as I discussed there's um

there's an elementary and middle model and then there's a high school model. So the high school model takes several other indicators into consideration and into the model. So in high school they take not only the end of course scores from English 2, biology, math 1, and math 3, but they also look at ACT scores, work key scores, English learner progress, math course rigor, which is what level of math instruction students um get to at a certain grade level, um growth, and graduation rates. Um, for elementary and middle, they're just looking at reading, math, EOG, math one scores, science in the fifth grade and in the eighth grade, English learner progress, and then growth. Are there any questions about the model? So, the highlights, this is the fun stuff. So um 100% of our schools met or exceeded growth which is a fantastic um celebration.

Um so um in fact only one of three districts in the entire state had all schools within its district meet or exceed growth. And we are one of those three

and next door to the other. Am I correct on that? Yes. Um, but we're also the largest. We have the most schools than the other two districts that were um

I thought Orange was one of those.

They don't have as many schools as we

Oh, they don't. I was think I always thought they did more. Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Um,

be clear, it's Orange County.

It's Orange County and not

Oh, I knew that. I just I just figured they would be larger than us. Okay.

Yes. So if we look at this um pi graph, you can see um this is a comparison of Chattam County schools to the entire state of North Carolina. So you can see

that the blue is the number of schools that exceeded growth. The purple is the number of schools that met growth and the gray in the state is this number of schools that did not meet growth. So you can see how large of our pie exceeded growth compared to the state. And this is where we are number one in the state. So, we have, yes, percentage-wise, um, percentage- wise, we have the most the largest percentage of schools that exceeded growth than any other district in the state of North Carolina. It's It almost makes me want to cry. It's It's really sensational.

Um, so, um, I kind of dug into these next two slides about how our elementary and middle schools did. So this is elementary, KA and our middle schools. So this is our math growth because EVOS also provides us with how we do in math and how we do in reading. And this is our math growth. And you can see that um how many schools exceeded growth in math and how many met. And then we just had one school that did not meet in math, but overall still met growth because they did really well with reading. And if I look more specific at the reading growth, um you can see that too many buttons to press. um that we have 92% of our schools met growth in reading and then we had one school exceed and that was Chattam middle. That's that purple slice right there. So I think that's something that we should really celebrate because that's a testament to all the work that um the teachers and the school staff did for that school.

So this slide is um it's just a comparison of the growth indexes of all of the schools. So as I said um really growth is a statistically negative -2 to a positive two. We have no schools that were below a negative -2. So if we look at this we have JM that was a negative 1.7 but that's still considered meeting growth. And then we have Chattam middle

that had the highest growth at um 5.47. And this just lists all the growth um indexes for all the schools. And one thing that we don't probably speak about enough, but every year I do come and ask you for your um permission to use the um accountability model for alternative schools. And so accountability is our one alternative school in Chattam County schools. And um they changed their status because they're not included in the normal school grade. They have different statuses. and last year they were in a declining status and this year they're in a maintaining status. So again, testament to all of the work um that Chattam County is uh enforcing and just how well one academy is doing, which is really fantastic. It's ensuring that all students in Chattam County have a pathway to success. I guess a point to make here is that um 2023 that was their second first or second year in existence. So, okay, you you got to get your feet wet and you you chew on the bone a little bit and then you see results the next year.

Yes. Yes. and they had a 100% graduation rate. Um, which is again a testament to just that now there's there is a pathway for every student in Chattam County to get their high school diploma. And I think that that adds a lot to that maintaining grade. Okay. So, we're going to talk a little bit more about um school grades. So this is another um comparison um representing how Chattam County schools and the number of letter grades that they had compared to the grades across the state

of North Carolina. So we had 52.6% of schools receive a letter grade of a B where in the state only 21% of the schools across the state receive this letter grade. Um, and the percent of C and D schools in Chattam County is significantly smaller than the number of C and D schools across the state. So that's what we want to see. We want to see more A and B schools and less C and D schools. And we have no F schools last year. Um, this graph represents a comparison of school grades to last year. So for example, last year we had six schools that had a letter B and this year we had 10 schools that had a letter B. So the the um maroon colored is this current year and you can see the increase in the letters that we wanted to see an increase in and then a decrease in the other ones. Um this is just another graph to just get more specific about each school's uh performance grade and the integer. So the number that you see that's in white that's inside the bar is the actual um integer grade. And then that's on a 15point scale. So on the left you can see uh depending on what that integer falls um they re receive that letter grade. Um so you can see here we only had one school that fell below that threshold of a C, right? But they exceeded growth too. So that means that we're moving in the right direction. You can see how close we have. We're getting more and more schools that are inching up to that a level a. And then this graph represents the school performance grade integers for our high schools. So clearly there's only one school here that's a C. But Jordan Matthews grade, you can see it's a 59. It improved by three points. So last year that number said 56. So if we just think about if you're adding three

points, four points each year that you're soon going to end up on the other side of the that B threshold. And then this is just a high point for each of the schools and how many points they grew in that school performance grade integer that I was just talking about. So um it's clear that we have a lot of schools that have increased their overall scores. This is just the schools that increased by four points or more. I was running out of space. So, all of our schools improved, but these are the ones that improved the were more noteworthy and kind of stood out as having the largest growth. And you can see Chad and Middle went up by 14 points there. And then this is a just a graphic to show all of the schools that actually changed a letter grade. So um the the letter grade on the bottom the C um at Bennett became a B the F at Chattam middle became a D. So the graphic you can just read this.

Okay Chris is going to share a couple things about these next slides.

Good evening Mr. Chairman, Minister Dbor, Superintendent Jackson, Chris Poston in assistant superintendent of instruction. I'm so excited to share this data with you. We want to break down and look at um the feeder patterns. Um in Chattam County schools, we talk a lot about every student making sure that every kid can find his or her pathway either in the arts, athletics, and tonight we want to celebrate academics. Um our fetal patterns have done an amazing job reducing the predictability, making sure every kid get what he or she needs to be successful. And we want to show some of those highlights. So, we'll start out with the Chattam Central feeder pattern. Um, and thinking about our schools there. Um, as Miss Relossky said, our, um, Chattam Central went to move their letter grade from a C to a B and they exceeded growth. But you

can also see the tremendous work that all the schools in that feeder pattern did to um, support students. The next feeder pattern is the JM feeder pattern which is pretty phenomenal. As Miss Relossky mentioned, um Chadam Middle went from a F to a D. Um Silk Hope um did not meet growth last year but they exceeded growth this year um which is tremendous. So thinking about all the successes in that feeder pattern, our um two elementary schools um Virginia Cross and Soly Elementary um not only exceeded growth and Virginia Cross has um had just a strong track record of exceeding growth, but they also moved their letter grade from a D to a C. They're super proud um thinking about making sure every kid um finds success in our school district. And lastly, we want to look at the Northwood C4th um feeder pattern. Um again, tremendous growth. Pard went from a C to a B. Um and thinking about George Moses Horton, they moved from a C to a B. Um and George Moses Horton exceeded growth. Thank you guys for saving me over there. So, in thinking about our whole strategic plan, we really believe in one Chadam. And so thinking about making sure that every kid um has barriers removed for he or she can succeed. Making sure that every student find his or her pathway. Um and we have been so fortunate to be able to do that in the area of academics. So here you can see all of our schools, not just um certain zip codes, but every school in our district um finding the things and the tools they need to make sure all of our kids succeed at high levels. And so um we're really excited about one cadam and making sure that we continue this momentum of growing and again as Miss Rick Klosski mentioned number one in the state for growth

and that's 116

school systems 15

115 school systems and we'll um go into our graduation rate again but right now we're at 90.4% graduation rate um highest um as it has has been in a while in Chattam County schools. So, we're really excited about that. 90.4.

So, now we're going to review a little bit of trends over the last several years. Um, so this slide, I love this slide because it's it doesn't seem like it seems slight, but it's it's really significant. So in 2021, which was the first year after COVID of the testing, our overall grade level proficiency for every single test in the that we take in Chattam counties, we had a 48% grade level proficiency rate percentage and now we're at 60. And what I love about this is that it's just it's just inching up and just inching up. And um this is a comparison of the overall grade level proficiency comparing us to surrounding counties. So it's been very similar in the past where we are usually hovering right around third. Um and when I look at this data I think it's really important for us to understand the socioeconomic status and statistics of the other districts that are above us. So Wake County and Chapel Hill, like Wake County, I think is maybe a 26% free and reduced rate. Um Chapel Hill is about 22 and we're about 45. So even though we might face more um hardships um financially and families might have more needs or different needs than those two counties, we're meeting the needs of students. That's really exciting. Um, Orange County, which is the next county, they're at about 42% free and reduced. So, they're closer to us, but um, we're still outperforming them. Um, this is exciting, too. I feel like

every year this gets bigger and bigger. So, this is all of the different tests and where we land compared to state average. So we with every measure we are above the state except for math three and English learner progress. So those are the only two tests that you'll not see up here. But knowing that we've exceeded and in every other test is is really exciting. Um all the work that's gone into reading and now think that we surpassed the state average in every reading assessment is something to celebrate. Um again for all tests all test scores between three and eight we rank 12th in the state out of 115 districts. And then for biology we rank 14th in the state. So I keep waiting to when this slide is going to end. I think Dr. Jackson is too because but the state still compares to how we did pre- pandemic precoid and so I feel like maybe that's something that's noteworthy. Um the media might still be addressing this as well, but it just goes to show that um pre- pandemic proficiency, our overall grade level proficiency was 62.4 in 2018 2019. Then the first year that we came back from the COVID pandemic, uh our overall proficiency was 47.9 and now we're at 60.3. So we're getting there. You can tell me anytime when you're ready to move on from that slide. And um this is just the assessment. So this kind of digs into the um the different assessments so you can see where we're reaching or exceeding those pandemic levels. Um so the sixth grade students for example miss kindergarten and first grade. Um the ninth graders missed uh fourth grade I think it is. So um it's interesting that we're starting to outperform those areas. So that means

that all of the work that we put into ESSER and uh recovery from learning loss and all the tutoring and all the things that we've tried to put in is has helped us and helped our students. So this um I was trying to figure out a graphic, you'll have to tell me if it works or not of um how to explain the third grade reading proficiency. So um I started with the number on the bottom. So this past year we had 78 third grade students that had some sort of indiv individual good cause exemption. So perhaps they have a disability or perhaps they're new to um schools in the United States and so the state of North Carolina automatically says we're just we say they have a pathway because there's other things that over time we can we need to address. So that's 78 students. They automatically are kind of considered proficient or taken out of the equation. Then the students, the third grade students all have an opportunity at the beginning of the school year and then at the end of the school year to take a beginning of the grade reading test or end of grade. And in Chattam County last year we had 316 students that passed that. So if I take the 78 students and the 316 students, that's a total of 59% of our students. Then those students, third graders can um get a certain score on an M-class assessment or dibbles. Um they can take an alternate exam. They can attend summer school and have opportunities over the summer. They can do something called reading portfolio passages in the classroom that occurs throughout the year to prove their proficiency. And we had 156 students who met that pathway.

So if you take the 78 plus the 316 plus the 156, we're at 82.5. I just think it's important to note that that 78 students, you know, the 82.5 is going to change because that number on the bottom is constantly going that's not going to be static ever, right? It's there's always going to be some years where we might have more students who are new to the country. We might have more students with disabilities and that kind of thing. And this chart just basically takes that information and puts it into a chart. Um, it's also posted on our website. Uh, but the North Carolina requires us to put up what the Department of Public Instruction has created and it's it's could be a little bit more confusing. any thoughts on I know third grade reading for the state that's one of their points they're looking at in particular uh any ideas on why maybe uh other than this is the first year they've ever taken it and that type of thing that might be causing that uh as a former language arts teacher I always thought well some of the reading passages are different in different classes is or or what I mean by different grade levels and sometimes you catch one that's quite different. I just wondered any ideas any thoughts.

Um well

put you on the spot right away.

Right. I mean a lot of it has to do with background knowledge too, right? So it's like I know third grade teachers say there's

and that's even more so with reading in particular I would think.

Exactly. like there's a passage on the ballet

there were not a lot of my kids have been to the ballet so it's hard for them to contextualize the context of the information

because this is the next slide which is the dibbles data it's kind of a good segue um so this is more of the skills for reading right so do they can they read fluently can they decode words do they know how to spell

these are the ones are taking the dibbles they take every how often I hear

it a lot I can't remember

minimum of three times a year okay so it's on The state requires it from kindergarten through third grade three times a year. And then they do take for students who fall below a certain score. There is a requirement that they kind of monitor their progress and their growth throughout the year. So it is it depends on the student. Some students are experience the assessment more than others, but they're one minute measures. They're steeped in research that been around since the 80s from the University of Oregon. Millions and millions of students use it. So that data is is very healthy um and robust and um this compares our dibbles data just overall K3 because this is what we reflect on Mr. Leonard when we're thinking about where our third grade reading is. We go here and we say what is this data telling us and then where what are our next action steps and what do we think we need to address. Um so you can see the blue is the number of students that are actually like uh surpassing the threshold of what dibbles would be considered on grade level. So the maroon and the blue are on grade level or above in a way or at not at risk. And you can see for us it's getting um it's getting bigger and that blue is getting larger. So, we do feel like our K2 instruction that would indicate how well students do on grade three is is robust and it and it is meeting student needs and we just have to figure out yeah that test it's an enigma.

Well, also like to add

we're on year three of implementation of foundations um districtwide. Um, in the past, schools have been allowed to kind of do what they um wanted to do as far as implementing um phonics and um phmic awareness instruction, but we're in the year three. So, I would love to see the data um at the end of this school year. Um we also have had um e the reading program 35 last year and this year we're implementing at K2. And so I think that'll also um give us a really

consistent curriculum across um K5 and I think we'll see the gains in that third grade reading profession.

And fourth grade jumped anyway too in reading, did it not? So that's kind of iron, you know, after they have an opportunity to take the beginning and end and then an extra year of that practice too. You know, that kind of thing. I wonder if that's not part of it too. So

shifting a focus from reading skills to like reading for content. So that's a transition that students experience around that third grade as well. But to um Mr. Poston's point, the EL curriculum that was adopted is designed to build background knowledge. So hopefully now if we're instilling that, you know, we we did it for the tested grades, but now if we're doing in K2, they're starting in kindergarten, then hopefully by the time they get to third grade, they're going to have more experience with a larger um interesting information um as well as continuing foundations and analyzing this Dibbles data.

Yeah, I hear eel a lot. So yeah,

because we're right around like 70% and I would say that our elementary schools monitor this very closely to um to maintain that status. So hopefully we'll see that eventually translate to our third grade reading proficiency on the previous slides.

Thank you.

And then the next two slides here are charts you can find on our website that just lead uh list each school and what their percentage was. And to your point, Mr. Leonard fourth grade seems to always kind of spike up. Um what's great now is that once they hit that it's kind of maintaining and we have students leaving in the eighth grade at 62.2% which is a a really nice footing for their high school experience. Um and it's you know well over the state average which is exciting as well. And then here's our um 38 math proficiency. same. We're just far exceeding the state. Um that eighth

grade number, it's like we always get stuck on it. And um that eighth grade number represents both students in a regular eighth grade math classroom as well as eighth graders that also took math one in the eighth grade. So it actually is two assessment sets put together. Yeah. And then for science this year they reormed the science test and they actually rewrote it and so the questions are very different than our students have ever experienced before or our teachers have experienced and usually when that occurs we see a little bit of a dip in our scores. Um we went down a little bit but we are still well above the state and uh that fifth grade science we're five points above the states it's really exciting. So, it just goes to show that our teachers are paying attention to the standards and information that's coming down from the state and the professional development they engaged in throughout the year. Now, Mr. Poston is going to take over and talk about the high school indicators.

Thank you. Um here we have um you can see all the areas that Miss Reclauskin mentioned at the beginning. um how we as a Chattam County schools, we are above the state average in every area with the exception of NC math 3, we are below the state there. Um but that's will be one of our focus areas for the upcoming um school year.

And help me out with that. I was talking to Dr. Burton I guess before the meeting and she was explaining math three something about if you've taken math one in middle school you count math three as

yeah so

help us out.

So really the state of North Carolina carol Carolina is saying each high schooler has to have one math data point in high school. So if there are students who took math one in high school although they

that's theirs then

that's the school's data

and then they the students have to take

the math 3 test but that data point is not included.

I got you. Okay.

Doesn't count it because they've already counted their score for math one. So this math 3 data is only for students that took math one at the middle school

because they've not taken any hadn't got that for. Okay. That makes sense. I understand better now. Yeah. Thank you. because I I think it was for a long time they didn't do math three then they included it because they realized they were missing a group of students

and they didn't have that data point for them.

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, thank you.

We mentioned our graduation rate. Um we're at Chattam County Schools. We're at 90.4 the highest ever in Chattam County. Um and where North Carolina is at 87.7.

Can I back you up one?

Yes sir.

Just the math rigger math course rigor. Can you explain that a little bit? I understand it a little bit, but I want to make sure I'm

clear. It's that one right before the graduation rate.

I'm sorry.

So, um,

shows greater than 95 basically.

So, um, the state of North Carolina looks at the students that are in the

our level. Okay. and they look at all the students are in the 12th grade year and they say of those students, how many completed math three?

Okay,

and all of our schools have. So,

okay,

95%. So, that's what they're looking at. How many 12th grade students have completed math 3?

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, Mr.

Oh, no. Any any additional question? That's great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clarkson.

Again, our graduation rate 90.4. Um, and here I'm really proud of our demographic groups and thinking about ma making sure we meet the needs of every student. Um, here our students with disabilities are um students with disabilities or EC students or um gosh, my eyes are great. Our African-American students, all of our demographic groups um grew um and thinking about um

surpassing um the graduation rate from last year for that demographic group. The one group that we're working on are Hispanic students. Um there was a decrease there, but thinking about 7 um 7% for um black kids. Thinking about our economically disadvantaged students or EC students. Um really proud of the growth there for for four-year graduation rate.

Chris, make sure that that we we're clear about that last slide.

Yes, sir.

Um I'm sorry.

And correct me. That's comparing them to their state peers or is that from last year?

So the um

count their state peers. Is that correct?

The purple line and the blue line is comparing their state peers.

That's right.

But the um the arrow with the plus or minus sign is change from last year in Chattam County.

In Chadam County. Okay.

Like um this like we had 7.7% more um black students graduate with four year cohort than we did from the previous year. Does that make sense?

Yes. Got several data.

Sure.

I didn't want it to get all mixed a lot.

It can get confusing. Thank you for that. all this stuff. And and I think it's important to really um recognize that um you know, all of our kids are are are finding their way and compared to their their peers across the state. Um you can compare them to their their their their peers and see where that they're fairing well here in Chadam. That was my

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Jackson. Again, um thinking about the goals and guard rails that Dr. Jackson sets for every um high school and for our district, um our schools meeting the 90% graduation rate. I think I've heard rumors of 95 moving forward, but I'm just really excited about um where our schools are and how each year we're we're going up and we're improving.

Um at the end of last year, we had 921 college acceptances um from our students who um graduated. Um, and those students earned $33 million um, in total scholarships, which is pretty amazing. Um, and our AVID students accounted for 73% of that money and they earned around $24 million. Um, this is really powerful here. Thinking about I'm a father of two um, Chattam County Schools graduates. Thinking about the college credits that our kids take to college with them. Um, our kids last year earned over 4,000 college um, credits um, through dual enrollment. So, our kids are leaving our high schools um, with college credit, hopefully saving their parents money um, with college tuition and graduating from college early.

Spoke to a parent last week, I guess it was, and their student went in as a junior where I can't remember where they were going, but they went in with enough courses to uh, to be enrolled as a junior. So, uh,

that's big time. Of course, I know there are some other schools that we compete with that always prioritize this and sell it, but uh public schools do a real the traditional public do a really good job of this. I don't know that we need might need to sell it better than this. I don't know. Yeah.

And thinking about $600,000 of actual savings for families of students who earn college credits to your point, Mr. Leonard through our dual enrollment programs. So here in thinking about our four-year graduation rate, looking at our graduation rate over time, thinking about each school um how our schools continually improve um year after year. Um I think Dr. Stanberg mentioned this earlier though we are extremely excited about all the progress our um district has made. um elated. Um we still will

continue to um work hard, do the things that we know is right for all kids. Um for um this year, we're still looking at our multilingual students and their progress, making sure that we're able to close some gaps there. Thinking about our Hispanic graduation rate, um eighth grade math, and to your question, Miss Leonard, in regards to math 3, um we are always focusing on third grade reading. And I really think the foundations in K2 that um our schools are now providing and also our EEL curriculum that's now K5, I think we'll see an increase in those reading scores um and again overall growth in reading. So those are some areas that we'll focus on as an academic services team and thinking about um action steps for continuous improvement. Um we talked today with some of our team members about some things that we did well last year that we want to keep doing. Um ML supports in schools. EAL curriculum that we've mentioned um the continuation we had the state kind of mandate letters training but now is our time to make sure that we're using those best practices those research b researchbased practices um and we're reviewing those and PLC's and also at our PDS um math 3 exploration analysis making sure that our instruction and curriculum is aligned to those standards Miss Rowski and our um ASUS team members um really participated in each um with each school with their database MTSS as problem solving, coaching, and support. And so, we'll continue that. Um, and so, and in thinking about that, we want to shout out our um district team, our um school coaches, our school principles, um our teachers, all of our staff members really um making this data come to life and all their all that they do each day. And then thinking about um as we end this presentation, a quote from Dr. Jackson, our superintendent. Um may I read this or Oh, okay. Um it says, "This year's results tell a powerful story of

what's possible when a community believes in its students. Um excellence is no longer the exception in Chattam County Schools. It's the expectation across every feeder pattern, every school, and every classroom. Our students, our teachers, and our families are proving what's possible when innovation, equity, and high expectations come together. One Chadam is truly working for all students.

We're here. [Applause]

Um, and I'll probably jump on this. This is jumping a little bit. I know, you know, you you pick up the newspaper. Well, excuse me. you don't pick up many newspapers anymore, but you online and you see the what is it USA Today or one of them where they start ranking high schools, you know, and those type of things. I know that's AP courses, right? And we offer AP courses at all of our high schools. Um, Dr. Jackson, did I not did I read that DPI is now going to pay for the testing starting in October? Did I not see that Mo Green or Superintendent Green had made that?

I I do believe that they believe there's a loophole um in the budget that if in fact we have a continuation budget back to um last year's appropriation, then the funding for AP is in that appropriation. So, um, Superintendent Green has told us to stand, uh, stand ready for that decision to be coming in in a few days, but that's what they believe is going to happen because if in fact it went back, if the budget reverted back to a continuation budget of what was in place last year because the state did not approve a budget, that appropriation was in that budget, which means it should be available to us. But we'll find that out very shortly. Okay. So that we're crossing our fingers on that.

Sorry to jump on that. I just thought

well we're on

Makes

sense.

Yeah, it did. It did.

I thought I'd say it. Thank y'all. Any any questions?

Just congratulations everyone.

Thank y'all for that very much.

Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.

All right. Uh item C. Um

item C policy review first reading uh Dr. Batton who has changed his first name in his emails but or Google has done that to you anyway right

that's right

all right

okay good evening Mr. chair, members of the board. Uh I am Kelly Battton.

Uh my father is Colon Batten.

Gotcha.

And he has taken over my email, it seems. Um an item uh for you this evening for first reading. This is a policy review. So we've continued our work with the policies to lead schools, a web-based policy reference manual. Um, our particular work with the North Carolina School Boards Association um has led to some updates. Okay. Um, and in particular for this month um some items that we have for first reading. U first policy 2230. This is board committees. Um, our current version is from 2007. So there were some substantive changes we needed to reflect. Policy 6320, use of student transportation services. Our current version is from 2013. So, we had some changes we needed to make sure to update. Policy 7811, plans for growth and improvement of licensed employees. There are legal references that we needed to um reflect in our policy. And then finally, um for review, it also includes policy 4361 to repeal. This is

currently long-term appeals. uh we last reviewed that in uh 2006 and that particular structure is now included in the updated policy 4370 which is student discipline hearings and as a board you updated that June of 2024. So that updated policy now includes the long-term appeals process. questions anybody? Okay. Uh we'll move on to item D and that is first reading on that. So we're good to go there. Okay. Uh and we're still on policies. Dr. Batton, NCSBA summer 2025 uh policy update first reading. Uh again this works so we'll continue to stay in partnership with the schoolboard association for these updates. This particular set um we've got documents that the cabinet team will review in particular the introduction of a new policy 4318. This is regarding wireless devices in schools. So this is part of state statutory requirements. Um we've begun discussions around these two options. Um, one is more restrictive, one is least restrictive. And Chattam County Schools has been ahead of the curve on this with last year's introduction of the yonder pouches in schools and then um a district-wide implementation. So, we've got some groundwork already in place to be compliant with that. In addition, there's 12 additional policies that are included in this summer update. In large part, these are legal updates um based on general assembly um statutes from the summer. And then there are some legal references as these policies do cross

reference quite a bit. So that's what's included in this particular set. Any questions? All right. Uh, we'll move ahead to action items. You're just full of policies tonight, aren't you? Action items. Policy corrections. Item A there. Go ahead, Dr. B. Uh tonight for an action item, we have two policy corrections to bring forward. Again, through the review of the policies, what we do is continue to circle back and make sure that the information that we have put into our online manual um is accurate, reflects that policy 4230, communicable diseases. There were errant legal references. So, in the policy that's posted, it includes some striketh through. Um that was just the draft for review. So um we bring forward the action to correct that. And then finally policy 4202 which is also cross referenced as 5029 and 7272. There's a typo in the heading. Uh currently if you look online you would read something about service and animals in schools. Um that is not correct. It should be about service animals in schools. So just

significant word

significant difference. And so we want the policy to be clear. So those are two policies for action this evening.

Do we have a motion?

I move that the Chattam County Board of Education approve the policy corrections as presented.

Second.

Got a motion and a second. Any discussion?

All in favor with an I.

I. Any opposed? Like sign. Thank you. Thanks, sir.

Uh, item B, 2025 2026 budget resolution, Miss Smith.

Good evening, Chairman Leonard, members of the board, and Dr. Jackson, Britney Smith, interim CFO. Um, tonight in your board packet, you have the budget resolution for the 2526 school year. Um, as it is right now, all of our funding hasn't dropped. Um, we still expect some state funding. Uh, quite a bit more federal funding, and we'll kind of go through that a little bit. Um, but all of the others are pretty much in place right now. Um, so just going through our funding sources. Um, as normal, our state funds make up about a little over 50% of our budget, total budget. Um, local is about 38%. Federal's one and a half right now. It will increase a little bit more and I'll show you that increase in the next slide.

What I'm going to catch you on something now, I'm trying not to.

Go ahead.

What was it? Do you off top of your head know what it was last year? percentage um it was probably about two and a half three

okay so that's how much has you dropped I got you okay thank you

um capital outlay is about 1.9 child nutrition 4.7 and then our other local which is our fund date is about 2.6 six. Um, as far as our federal planning goes right now, the only budgets that have really been approved are CTE and um, our two of our EC budgets. Um, the rest have not been approved yet. We have the planning a lotments. Um, the budgets just have not dropped or they have not

been approved yet. And that makes up about 2.8 million. So right now we have a little over two million posted. So more than half will still come. And you can see the different title one, title two, title three, title four, and migrant are the the five big pots that still have not dropped. Any questions on that? Any federal funding?

How do you closely monitor our school enrollment? what they give you each month. Is that what it is? Just trying to keep up with And does it come in at They all send it at different times, I figure. Am I correct on that?

You do. Um, of course, by law, we're required to send their funding.

You don't have You've got a very tight window, am I? I do. Okay. So, normally we have our funding from the county by we usually get it the first week of the month. usually by the first Wednesday or Thursday. Um law says that we have to have it sent out to the charter schools by the 10th of the following month.

So

So you get it all filters in

during that time period.

So we've got gotten a few invoices already um as far as charter schools go for this year, but not enough to get good numbers yet.

Okay. They'll start coming in hopefully. Um, now that they're on most of them are on year two of Infinite Campus. Last year was kind of a nightmare because they were all in the first wave. So, I'm hoping that their reports look a lot better this year and come in a lot more timely than they did last year.

Thank you. Um so that was kind of jumping ahead on one of the the um points that we were um going to point out for our fiscal planning for this year. Um we're trying to reduce

some non-essential non-essential spending. Um we've implemented some spending controls and um put in a 25% holdback on all non payroll items um particularly in our state and local budgets. Um and some federal a lot of the federal is payroll only. So it's kind of hard can't really do that with with payroll lines. Um we've reduced 10 central office positions. Um that's through people moving to other areas um and and things like that. Um adjusted some of our local commitments. For instance, the the student meals at our nonC schools are being charged um for those that do not qualify for free and reduced. Um, and then just some supplemental programs, some softwares and stuff, things that weren't being utilized fully. Um, we're like we've talked about, we're closely monitoring that chart, that charter school enrollment um to make sure because with our heads up, we only requested the the 12% but we ended up quite a bit over that this past

close to 13, was it?

It was. and then just trying to maintain our staffing and instructional capacity and not making any changes to to those areas. Any questions on any of those items? I have a question about um about money and having when it drops because I know in the nonprofit world dependent on grants, you know, there's the time when your grant starts and then there's the time when the money drops. But we know from year to year like okay it'll this money will drop two months after it's

supposed to kind of thing. Um but and so we know to kind of plan for the delay if you will. So, but with everything going on and the you know the way things have been changing for the federal part and of course the state part with the budget uncertainties just wondering if those drops appear to be happening in a time like a a predictable manner for you or if the drops are looking precare like the lack of drop is looking precarious or just how how we're doing on you know the safeguards if the drops don't happen when expected and things

right so um normally We we don't see a lot of especially title one. We don't we don't usually see an approval on it until sometime in October. This year they've actually extended the deadline and um through the end of September. So I don't know if that's given them more time

to get things approved or or or what. Um we our EC funding was approved which was surprising because that's usually one of the last ones that is approved too. So, I was actually surprised to see that one approved as early as it was. Um, CT is usually approved one of the very first. Um, but then, you know, with state, you'll just get we've got the bulk of the money, but now you're going to see what they call those kitchen sink aotments come through. It's just all different the random things that start dropping. So, you won't see that summer school a lotment drop until usually December. Um, so that's a larger one. Um, trying to think right off the top of my head. That's the one that's coming to my mind. Um, that gives me a sense of things.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any other questions? I move we approve the 2025 2026 budget

resolution as presented.

Second.

Got a motion, a second. Any discussion?

All in favor with an I.

I.

I. Any opposed? Like sign. Thank you.

Thank you.

Item C, resolution, arts and education week. Mr. Poston.

Good evening again, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Superintendent Jackson, Chris Poston, interrum assistant superintendent for academics. I bring to you tonight the arts and action resolution, arts and action week. Um, arts and education, excuse me, week is September 14th. Chattam County Schools has a strong tradition of supporting the arts and education with students excelling at local, regional, and state level competitions. We are extremely proud that Chattam was recognized as one of only two districts in North Carolina named among the best communities for music education. Our district continues to partner with the Chattam Arts Council to provide annual artist residencies and since 2023 we've also um welcomed artists year Americaore members who are serving as teaching artists alongside our art teachers. Um this year we have two artists um who will hopefully enrich our students in our schools by helping students build creativity, citizenship, and 21st century skills. We're also um extremely um proud of our arts program, our facilitator. Um we've also worked to eliminate payer positions in most of our K8 schools to ensure they have consistent programming. Um and we've added additional stipens in our unified pay structure to recognize additional contributions of our art educators. Um, National Arts and Education Week established in 2010 by Congress invites us to advocate, educate, and celebrate art. And in Chattam County Schools, we continue to advocate for strong art programming, educating our community on the values of art and celebrating student achie student achievement through the arts. Um, the arts are not just enrichment. They're essential to student success. Um, and central to the culture of our one Chattam commitment. Thank you. I move that the Chattam

County Board of Education approve the resolution for Arts and Education Week September 14th through 20th, 2025 as presented. Back in

Got a motion in a couple of seconds.

Thank you for that, Mr. Postman. We uh really the students well we we saw a lot of convocation with the arts. So that's that's wonderful. Uh there's no other discussion. We'll go ahead and vote. Uh all in favor of the motion with an I, please. I. Any opposed? Like signs. Okay. Thank you. Um announcement. Next schedule board of education meeting is Monday, October the 6, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Do we have a motion to adjurnn?

So moved.

Got a motion.

Second.

Got a second. Uh all in favor with an I.

I.

I. Any opposed? Like sign. Thank y'all. Thank you all very much for being here.

Thank y'all.