You're watching Cable 2. I'd like to call the buildings and grounds committee to order. And looking around, I think everybody's here except for Richard. And I'm sure he's on his way. Okay. And yeah, Alex is not on this committee. So >> Okay. So we have actually two items as far as discussion and the first one is the North Carolina driving school contract proposal and Dr. Karen Brown. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, Superintendent Moore and members of the building and ground committee. I am a teacher at heart, so I'm always standing on the floor so I can connect with you. So, if I'm wiggling around, that's why. So, the last time we were together, we met to put together a six-month contract extension. Remember, there was an addendum there. Well, that time is about to to be ended. So, we will need to have something ready by January 1. There are several contract changes that we want to talk about and propose today. Once the draft is put together, you'll be able to see that. But today is certainly an exchange of these proposal items. Um, we met and as in we as Lauren Richards, John Mann, and myself since our last meeting, we've met with Vincent Driving School and North Carolina Driving School. We are proposing to move forward with North Carolina Driving School um for our biggest contractor because essentially Benson is just too small to service a district as large as as ours. We are aware though that how does small companies become big companies? You give them an opportunity. So that is part of what I'm going to talk to you about as well is potentially bringing them in to piece some contract components for them. Um, we've been with the North Carolina Driving School, as you can see, since 2004. They serve over 40 school districts, um, including our neighbors in Guilford, which I will refer to often because we're going to move into a similar contract as what they're offering at Guilford. And please stop me if you have any questions along the way. So, to look at our funding real quick, we get about $29 ADM for every student. We in this district charge $45, but we also have a waiver process. So students are unable to pay. We're able to wave that fee. So if you look at that, that's a little over $250 that we could potentially collect to provide driver education. These rates at the bottom is what we are currently paying per student for driver education. So $70 for classroom instruction, 210 for behind the wheel, which is ideally 280 right at 280 per student. The funds that we get from the state help us cover that gap. It's all stateed funds and it helps pay for um everything within the contract including vehicles, repairs, and we'll get into some of that as well. So with state allotted funds, we've purchased over the years 41 vehicles. We have 41 drivers driver education vehicles. If you remember the last time we were together, we talked about the need for more instructors. With a district as large as ours, we were really working on trying to get more instructors so we had those vehicles ready. We are still struggling with the DMV providing classes to get folks certified. Um, so we're going to propose some changes. Right now, we're currently operating in our um 30 drivers with our district vehicles with 11 spare. That's too much. We really only need three to five vehicles spare there. Um, but our proposal is to reduce this fleet. So, since these vehicles were purchased, all 41 with state funds, we can send those to state auction to be auctioned off. Once those vehicles are auctioned, whatever we get, we pay a 6% fee to them. Whatever we get back comes right back into driver education and must be spent for driver education. And I'll tell you how we're going to plan to spend that. Um, do this mo this model of slowly phasing out our vehicles and sending them to the auction will give us more of a turnkey model that Guilford is using. So currently, North Carolina Driving School is providing a turnkey model to Guilford, a district almost as as large as ours. Correct. So we know that they're capable of doing that. However, they are planning to purchase about 15 of our cars as they go to auction. Um we have given them our fleet, all the information about the fleet. They know they've been wellmaintained, and so they're going to plan to purchase some of those to help them turn this over for us. Um eventually the plan once those vehicles are sold to the state again we're going to go to a turnkey model. So Guilford will be providing maintenance, insurance, fuel repairs. The only thing that we will need to pay for in that component is just the drive right textbooks. So we're going to reduce all of those fees, ask the driving school to provide it. Um and all that we'll be providing is the textbooks. Of course there's going to be a fee change on some of that. So, let's look at that. For um the first few months that we go through this, we're going to be operating in two different rates. So, at the top, you see our owned vehicles right now is 280 per student. But, as we slowly sell those vehicles off, we're going to have students in driving school vehicles and Winston Salem vehicles, right? NC driving school and Winston Salem. So, if a student is receiving training in our vehicle, we'll still continue to pay 280. And we're negotiating these fees. Lauren's helping me with a lot of that. Um, if it's a vehicle that the driving school is providing, then the rate obviously is going to be a little higher for us moving forward because now they're providing all of the things that we were doing before. um our transition plan. We're going to slowly sell these off and we want to partner with the North Carolina Driving School to make sure that they get the cars that they want. So, we're going to we're going to do maybe five or six cars at a time just to ensure that they are getting the cars that they need to provide services for our students. Um and then the others that they are not interested in will just go in general auction as well. Again, the proceeds come back to us. Um, so how are we going to track this? How are we going to know what students are in which vehicle? Essentially, the cars are assigned to instructors and I get reports every month on what the instructors have done, their their monthly report of student interaction or student completion reports. So, what I'll do is go back and make sure that this instructor has driven so many students in a Winston Salem vehicle versus so many students in NC driving school car. And that's how we will do a monthly report to make sure that we are paying the correct fees for all of that. Long-term benefits, um, obviously reduced, uh, fleet ownership costs. Um, getting that turnkey service model. We currently, um, do not allow driving on Sundays when everything is turned over and the vehicles are owned by the North Carolina Driving School. They can drive anytime they want to. Sunday afternoons is a great time. we've missed out on that because we don't have garage personnel that can be available on those days. So, I think that will help us close the gap on some of our driving because they're going to be able to offer more opportunity for incar. Our sweet spot is the a three-month behind the wheel wait time. This is important because I'm currently concerned how long our students are waiting to get behind the wheel instruction. Um, we talked about this the last time I was with you. Um, after 30 hours of classroom, it the sweet spot across the state is around three months wait. I've checked in with everybody, but at some of our schools, Atkins, Glenn, East, our larger schools, they're looking at up to five months wait time, six and seven months. I hear that. I have heard folks are frustrated with that. So, we're going to try to work on that with these extra funds by bringing in Benson to help us. Um, let me talk a little bit about Benson and then I'll go to that. Ideally, what the NC Driving School cannot provide due to instructor shortage, we will have a second contract with Benson Driving School who will then reduce that behind the wheel time. Benson Driving School has shown that they can do behind the wheel. They've worked with Wake County. They've worked with Brunswick County schools. And they come in and they only do behind the wheel. So our goal is to look across all schools. If we get beyond that three-month mark, we're going to bring Vincent in and contract them to to reduce those weight times because I I worry about what our students remember five and six months out from classroom and now we're putting them in a vehicle. So what can we do to make this a better program for students and families? Um some other contract changes, a conduct clause. Um, it'll be similar to what we put into SSC. We'll make sure that the driving school staff expectations are the same as our WSSCS standards. So, we'll make sure that that goes into this new contract. Um, there is an annual rules of the road presentation that Dion presents or someone on her team every year to NC driving school staff and if we contract with Benson, they will also receive it to make sure that they understand all of the things that we expect from them in this contract. Um, vehicle use and maintenance. For me, it's very important um, and Lauren and I have talked about this. if we turn over our vehicles to someone that those cars are maintained and in good shape. I would not want my child riding around in a vehicle with 300,000 miles. When's the last time it was maintenanced? What are you doing? We've always had our team looking at that. So, we want to make sure we're very detailed in this new contract that we're going to be checking behind and checking that as well. And we may put something in there and this is this is where we are looking for some feedback too on requirements around cars that we would like to see our students in. I'm not talking about is it a Toyota or a Ford, but we're requiring vehicles to be 100,000 miles or less, something to that manner. Um, again, if we exceed three months districtwide, same model they've used in Wake, we're going to bring Bits and Driving School in for behind the wheel instruction. And reducing our fleet and reducing all the things that we've had to pay for is going to allow us the funds to bring Bits and Driving School in to make this happen. Um, another change that we're looking at is the the non-appropriation clause. So, in previous contracts for years, it's always been an additional 2%. If North Carolina Driving School is going to ask for that additional 2%, they have 60 days to let us know and then we will discuss it. So, it's not going to be an automatic we're going to pay you 2% increase every year. Any questions about those? Okay. Yes, ma'am. >> We are going to negotiate that. >> Okay. >> I can get that to you. So the difference in our car $250. $35. That is something that's been proposed. The state will allow us to go up to 65. So, we could do that. We also need to keep in mind that there's a large population of our students do receive waivers. So, they receive driver education for free in our district. So, we'll have to do a lot of um looking at our data on where that will land in revenue. Um, as far as the fees, That's true. Very few folks are going to want a vehicle that already has a break in the passenger side. So, it will likely just be driving schools that are bidding on those. I mean, some of you may want that for your for your families, but we're banking on that. And I'm also All right, you want one? I'll let you know when they're going to to auction. Um, I'm going to be very strategic in if you want these six vehicles, I am sending them on the 6th of December. They're going to be up for auction to try to give them the best opportunity to get them. They've also made it clear to us that they have multiple avenues to purchase vehicles. So, they will make their best effort to to get ours just because they're in such great shape, but they don't have to have them. So, does that make more sense? We'll we'll work to get it to them. >> Yeah. and we're banking on other people not really bidding on vehicles to have the extra brakes and things in them. >> Little reminder, let's make sure we're using our mics, folks. Okay. >> Um I do have a question, Dr. Brown. I know um in the information we are paid by ADM >> and I know that that includes private charter. the 4,669 students that we have as far as enrollment, is that just us or does that include the charter school? >> That includes everybody. But if you look >> um over the last several years, we're really only serving around 3,500 and we're trying to identify what's taken so long, what the discrepancy is in those numbers. Some people are tired of waiting. They take classroom and they go private. Um I think we're losing a lot of numbers that way. Um, others aren't they they don't they aren't prepared to to drive. Um, a fear of of having your license or just um their families aren't equipped for that yet. >> Are there any more questions? So if if that number includes everybody in the county then um or students in the county, would it be better for our school district if people were opting out and go and paying private because we would still get the money but we wouldn't be paying for the service. Could analyze that both ways. Ideally we want our students to take it through us. Um they're going to save money by taking it obviously through the school district with North Carolina Driving School because private rates are between5 and $600, >> right? They Yes, they're going to get through it faster. Hands down. I I don't think I can reproduce a model that's as fast as a private school, a private training school. However, by working with NC driving and bringing Vincent in, I think we can do better than what we've been doing. >> Okay. that either way, every student that does it through us, we're losing at least $40 on. >> Yes, that's correct. >> I I I'm just trying to be clear about what what So, why are we not doing this at a break even? >> That's something that Lauren and I could look at and get back to. >> I'm not saying we need to get rich on it, but we every student that opts to do it through us, we're losing more money. >> So, we could propose to raise fees to 65. The only thing I would add to that at the moment is is each year at the end of the year, you're currently not expensing all of your state dollars. And so what Karen is trying to do is ensure that we're providing good quality classroom instruction, also better driving time and maximizing the use of those state dollars so that we're not giving them back. And each year she's kind of scrambling at the end of the year to get to that point. So we might need to increase the rate if the contract numbers change, but we might not. and we haven't completely flushed those numbers out and we will when we come back and bring you a contract. >> I I really think that's what I was going to say is we every year there are some inefficiencies in the formula and the number of students where we scramble to spend all of the funds. So I think that we just need to continue to monitor that and obviously we don't we're not going to want to run a deficit. If we're running a deficit then we would have to identify local funds to pay for it. So if if that's what we see getting ready to happen or whatever, then we would want to take a look at our rates, but we've not run into that at this point. So >> that's why we have a very nice fleet of 41 vehicles, those extra funds at the end of the year that have been very wellmaintained >> because you have to use the money for something. Yes. >> And so if you don't want the money to go back, then what we've been doing is purchasing additional vehicles, but we don't really need the vehicles based on the model that we're moving forward. So >> So that cleared up one thing. So, we do send the money back if we don't expend all of the money given to us. Yes. In that particular year. >> Yes. But we have not done that in the last four or five years since I've been on this team. We have found a way to use them. >> Any more questions? >> Thank you, Dr. B. >> Thank you. >> Our next discussion item is modern well modernization of residential attendance bound boundaries. So, we're gonna have both Dr. Effie McMillan and we're gonna have Frank Pontano. Yeah, that's fine. Can we just Can you check to see if they can hear us? Okay. Can you hear us? >> >> Okay. Spencer and Nabil and Paul, can you hear us now? >> Yes, we can hear you. Can you hear us? >> Yes, we can hear you. >> I can hear you, too. >> All right. >> Great. >> Ready whenever you are, Kevin. Do you want me to control the movement of the slides from up here? Okay, perfect. >> >> All right. Good afternoon board. Uh we are excited to be with you this afternoon. I know it has been uh few months I think since May or June since we last talked about our residential boundary modernization project planning project. So we wanted to bring you the final analysis that we have completed at this point. With me of course is Frank Pantano. Uh Tisha Davidson is here to represent transportation. We have Derek Graham in the room as well who is with Edulog. They currently work with the district but we did a contract specifically with them through RFP process um to help us do some analysis around transportation which was one request by the board online virtually. We have with us our partners from Plural Connections Group Northeastern University uh Drs. Nabil Gelani and Paul Rigggins. Um and also from Edgelog virtually is Spencer Jenko. So if there are questions that are specific to them, we may ask them just to come off mute um to be able to answer the questions. All right. So we're going to jump straight in tonight. Um Miss Moore, did you want to kick us off? I'm going to turn it over to Miss Moore to get us started and then we'll jump straight into um our findings and analysis. >> Yeah, thank you for that. So, I wanted to um I think this was my first board workshop um where we had a discussion of where we were. We had a set of maps that had been released and had gone out for public comment. And I think we were probably oh, I don't know 30 minutes into the presentation where I had just been listening and I was like, "Okay." and I stepped in for a few minutes to basically just sort of um what I was hearing and seeing. There were a lot of questions and concerns. There were a um not necessarily a clear understanding of where we were, what we were doing, um what the steps were that were left. there didn't seem to be good consensus from the board around what I would call ownership of this initiative. And so it it seemed like we were in different places. Um, I do believe that might have been one of the first times I noticed that there were, you know, folks looking specifically at feedback that was being given by folks that weren't in the room about what we were seeing on the screen and the extent to which that was um, either influencing, determining, or driving some of the questions or their concerns that we might have about what was going on. And there there just didn't seem to be alignment, what I would call alignment and coherence around the why behind what what this work was and why it was being done, why it was important or needed and a really clear understanding of the the four different pieces that drive the work and and how they interplay with each other because this this work was driven by a couple of facts. First, it's been a very long time since we've done a comprehensive review of our boundaries, maybe few decades. Um, and there have been changes in the community since the last time we did a major review of our boundaries. Those changes include some things that are happening in the in overall and across the state in terms of families access to charters, private school vouchers, the rise in homeschool during the pandemic and the students that didn't return to public schools after that change. So some changes there, some changes in demographics ac across the community. Certainly in the last 30 years, we have seen changes in the demographics in the community. Um and that includes uh gentrification, neighborhoods turning over, the birth rate declining. There's a number of things that are all a part of this. Um we also now are faced with right now around 35 schools that are underenrolled and another 10 or so schools that are oversubscribed. So all of those are pressures on our resources in the district. When schools are underenrolled, we are paying dollars to maintain facilities and staff schools that are not at capacity. When we have oversubscribed schools that are overenrolled, we are putting a stress on those facilities and the core core resources in those facilities. And you find yourself doing things like starting lunch at 9:45 in the morning and ending at 2 o'clock in the afternoon um because you just don't have the space. You're stressing out your your your bathroom facilities, your classroom spaces. You're wearing out the building faster. You're costing the district more money with overenrolled schools just like you cost the district money for underenrolled schools. So in in all of those cases, as you're looking at boundary discussions, are there opportunities to look at where are our families living right now? What is the impact of the birth rate on what's happening in our school communities? What is the impact of potentially new construction happening in some parts of the county but not other parts of the county having on our our current residential boundaries? And are there updates that can be made to those residential boundaries that better distribute students in our schools? Maximizing our space that's available. Minimizing the need to contemplate how many schools do we need to close, right? Um if we spread our students out better, um can we reduce distances to schools? Can we be more efficient in our transportation routes? All of these are things that are part of what's complicate contemplated when we look at residential boundaries. If we are distributing students in a way that makes sense, if we are um maximizing not just the distances but also things like split feeder patterns, there's I think there was a lot of feedback from the community and families about split feeder patterns and can we not improve those. Um there are a lot of good and necessary reasons to take a look at this work. I do want to also say that in the community there has been some I don't know conflation around residential boundary work means the end of the choice program and that is not the case. Those are separate and distinct efforts in this community. There is nothing about choice that is part of this discussion. The you know the the the opportunity for families to make choices about the schools that their children go to is really an important component of the history of this district. And and some people feel a component that has been what has supported the district in maintaining a higher market share than you find in some other large districts and large communities in the state. Winston Salem Forest County Schools has a higher level of market share than you see in the large urban districts and people really do believe that choice is a big component of that. Choice however is opted into by less than 5,000 students in this community which is about 10% but it is an important 10% that you want to keep on on hand. So, so I just wanted to make that point in terms of the drivers around why we are looking at this work alongside the separate question of what does this mean for choice. This is none of this work is about changing or modifying what's happening with choice. So I want folks in our community who access choice, folks in our community who believe in choice to understand that that is still in place that there's no there are no changes contemplated here as a for choice the choice model and program with this work. Um however we do need to look at how many students would this impact we current students. Um, and then I want to give one caveat to the current students that this impact because I did some of this homework in the last couple of weeks in preparation for this meeting. So, I just got to say y'all got some generous grandfathering stuff going on here. Okay. Very generous grandfathering rules. Um, we we do not move students once they start a school until they complete that grade level span. super generous. Can I say that again? Um, what happens in other districts that do this work more regularly is the decision on who might have to move is usually driven by how many years you spend in the new assigned school. So, if you're going to spend more years in the newly assigned school than you have in the one you're in currently, then you are going to move, right? So, um, like K2 stay K2 moves, but 35 stays where they are, you know, that sort of thing. So, if you're going to be staying in your school more than in moving, see, that's that's sort of the lever that gets used. Um, but your rules right now as they stand um leave a student where they are through the end of that grade span. Very generous. again. So, um, even if we at whatever point we move forward with whatever we do with residential boundaries, your current policies and procedures and AR don't move students while they are in a current school. So, it's going to take a while for the impact of these residential boundaries to actually start taking hold and showing up. So that just wanted to put all of those pieces, everything I could think of and throw it in the kitchen sink as we get ready to talk about where we are right now. Um the grant that has driven and supported a lot of this work ends at the end of December unless there's another extension that can be gotten which I don't know if there is. There could be if we needed to. Um >> but I do think that that given the amount of time that has passed since we did largecale work in this area, it is important work to be looking at right now. I think in particular how this work moves forward will inform decisions this board needs to make about whether or not any other schools need to close or the decisions you might need to make about no we don't want to do that but we may need another 50,000 in a future bond to fully renovate raise and rebuild a school in a certain site. I think this work goes handinhand with that. Um so I hope that as you listen today that we are um listening to what work has already been done, what type of feedback has already happened, where the plan stands right now and what the next steps are that we are asking of the board. I think there are two things that we are asking. First we are asking for a policy revision that would require the board to look at this work at least on a five-year renewal basis. So every five years we would be looking at our boundaries and examining whether or not any changes need to be made. And that's one piece that we're going to ask for is a a policy um revision that we could take a look at policy. And the second piece that we're going to be asking of the board is we are ready to move forward with developing an implementation timeline based on where we are. We are still at least 27 28 away from actually implementing anything. Um but we would but we need to move forward to have plenty of time to do any sort of an implementation of changes. So reminding of us where we've been a little bit around the compelling why for the work putting in all caps this does not eliminate the choice program in the district exclamation point and what the ask is of the board moving forward from this. So I'll turn it back over to F&T. >> Let me just emphasize one other thing. >> Yeah. that the these funds cannot be used to buy down our debt >> because that has been >> said the funds we got for this cannot be used to offset our debt because that has been a major >> interesting where people's heads go. >> Yeah. No, this is this is a specific grant done specifically for this work. Um and I think if I remember it I might get the four things wrong. You might fill them in for me. You're going to talk about them. But there are four specific object objectives around this work. And then the last thing I'll say about the objectives, the four different sort of priorities that we are working towards in this work. They are not fixed priorities. They are not weighted priorities. It's not like 25% this, 25% that. The priorities shift based on what the move is. In some cases, the move around proximity might be the driver. In another case, it might be about feeder patterns that it's the driver. In other cases, it might be about transportation efficiencies. These are fluid priorities that all work with each other and sometimes against each other as you make decisions about what you might do with residential boundaries. So, I just wanted to talk briefly about sort of the fluidity and dynamic impact of the priorities as we take a look at them in a little bit. There's another quick thing I think Alex go. >> So I just I wanted to make sure we clarify the the second ask around the policy. So this the ask is is for the board to authorize staff drafting a policy amendment, not to actually pass that amendment this evening. >> That's correct. Correct. We're just talking about going and drafting a policy to bring back to the board. >> Right. Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Moore, for um setting the context and stage for the conversation uh this evening. So, I will uh just kind of pick up the pace just a little bit so we can get really into the the meat of of the discussion. Um we did receive a two-year planning grant um to embark on this work that has not been done in a comprehensive way in about 30 years, so the early 1990s. um using those federal funds did allow for us to have robust community engagement and for the community to play a huge role in shaping what you're going to see today. Um and to really outline the priorities and the focus that they wanted to see come out of this work. Um so yes, we've had lots of changes. It's been a long time. We've had tweaks to our boundaries. um very much like Cook closure and having to make shifts because of that or when Lewisville Middle was open and needing to make shifts. But even when we made those shifts, there are always ripple effects that have impact and we have been experiencing those impacts um from just minimal shifts that has led us to some of the current landscape that we um are seeing today. As you know from previous conversations, two years we went through four phases. So we're in phase four right now. So just to do a quick quick recap um for our scope of work and timeline, we first started out with wanting to do an analysis of our current boundaries and the impact that those boundaries was having on students experiences, transportation, and a number of things. We had two rounds of community engagement. Uh so the first round of community engagement, if you will recall, was completed by urban strategies. That was to provide an unfiltered way for communities to tell exactly what they were feeling, thinking, hopes, desires. Um and they were also able to complete a survey. And we spoke to parents, staff members, students, and community members who may not have students in school, but maybe they graduated, have lived in the community for a long time, or just have a really uh vested interest in what happens with the school system. Um all of that through a very iterative process has led us to where we are today where we have consolidated maps based on um all the feedback that we received. What I will say just um just as a reminder, anytime you engage on this type of work around a very complex issue and you're wanting feedback, you can't honor every single thing that everybody wants and everybody gets exactly what they want. But one of our goals for this process was to look for the emerging trends patterns that came out of the conversations. what were the things that were lifted up the most and what would make the biggest difference of impact for our system as a whole. Um and the other thing when we comp created the dashboard that was updated throughout the process was to be able to allow people to see how their decisions were being utilized and to even see where we were getting voices from the community. So through our community engagement uh process these are some of the stats. So, we talked to and heard from a little over 18,000 people. We had lots of conversations across the community with 189 um in-person or virtual contacts with the community and came alongside community events um almost 20,000 people gave direct quotes to the surveys or um from their experiences. As you know, we recorded that first round of conversation. So over 170 hours of recorded information. Um you can see how many people visited the website. I would also say on the the map dashboard we had anywhere from 13,000 to 34,000 people that interacted with that dashboard over the um over the entire engagement process and just depending on where we were in the phase kind of determine what those unique numbers were. Um so lots of engagement and multiple efforts to engage people um particularly in places where we were not hearing uh enough voices. This just gives you kind of the breakdown um and more detail of who we heard from and how many we heard from. We exceeded our goals in most cases for how many people we wanted to connect with um over each phase of of engagement. I think I skipped something. Okay. Am I turning over to you now? Oh, this is still me. Okay. I'm sorry. So, as you heard Miss Moore say, these are the two things that we would love to be able to move forward with the work and what has come out of the community conversations. Um, them being leading voices in what shaped where we are today is to be able to move forward with developing the implementation plan and timeline for that. um we would need a full school year really to do that and to be able to communicate with families and support families um and to talk through all of those things. Lots of engagement would need to happen. And then yes, because it has been such a long time, this was and we intentionally chose the two-year planning grant just because of the time frame that has been since the the last major overhaul of boundaries um in our district. Um and hearing from the community to be able to move forward with bringing a policy recommendation back to the board that we would do this review on a at least a five-year cycle. um so that we can stay um up to date with the changes across our landscape. Um and so the other thing that we heard here too is that so it's not such an abrupt disruption, if families are aware that this is coming um with this type of cadence, then they're more aware of um the changes that might impact them and be able to plan accordingly. So, last thing I'll say before I turn it over to Frank is of those 18,000 people that we spoke to, these are the seven guiding principles that came out of the conversation. What was asked um by the community is that these seven things be the guiding principles that help us to shape what the new boundaries would look like or proposed boundaries would look like. These are the considerations. So, you can see all of these things that are listed here. I'm going to turn it over to Frank because he's going to talk a little bit more about those and just uh more of how these things influence um where we are today. >> Thank you very much. Um so, yeah, I'm going to talk some about these specific seven things. Um there are two different types of values and principles here. Some are things that were um Superintendent Moore mentioned sort of sliders that could be adjusted and and things that could um go up against each other as far as driving distance versus feeder patterns and all those different things. Things that you can see a change in. But then there's other types of things that are sort of um non-negotiables like we can't overcrowd a school, we can't put too many kids in one school, we can't put six 10,000 kids in one school, um we can't put two kids in one school. So, so these you'll see some stats later about four that really are the ones that were able to be adjusted. Um, so I'm going to go and show you our map creation process. Got a lot of pictures here. Um, I'm going explain what these pictures are. So the bottom left is where we start. First thing we did was community feedback and we took that community feedback. We used a nice big computer, a little person working on making some first drafts. Um, one thing I'll say as an aside is that throughout this whole process, throughout the grant applications, through all those things, we were incredibly intentional about wanting to be transparent with the community through this process. We wanted to show them every step of the way. We said, "Okay, we're going to show you our rough drafts, warts and all. We're going to show you all those things as we go through." Um, and so those first drafts went out there. There were three different options. We got feedback on all of those. And once we got that feedback, we said, "All right, we need to consolidate and revise using that feedback." So you see the second section there. Now it's more people still computers helping us. Um and we're getting a revised and consolidated set of draft maps. And you've all seen those as we went through. Um we did one more round of feedback with the community with you all with everybody. And we said okay let's make some final tweaks. And now the final drafts that you see today on the website are this bottom part. And this was mostly people trying to go through and say all right we need to adjust this neighborhood. We need to adjust this neighborhood. we need to adjust this number. Somehow the computer put too many kids at this one school. We can't have that. Let's work with our transportation department and say what does this mean for routing? Like does this make sense for a bus to go up and down this street? So all those really specific changes happened in this final draft section. So I talked about going from seven to four. Here's the gains that we were able to get on the four. Um so the updated attendance boundaries have these overall impacts. Um the average distance saved from school to residential address is almost 1.2 miles. Um the average distance right now is about 3 miles. So that's a huge 30% decrease in the distance people have to go when their kids forget lunch. All these different things, buses don't have to go as far. That was one of the the main driving principles when we talk about modernizing boundaries. That was what we're looking at fixing from the very beginning. Um and of course the community was also interested in that. Um we did have a improvement in socioeconomic diversity. Um the original grant was called fostering diverse schools. So the two original goals were just the modernizing boundaries and um increasing social economic diversity. And then the third hidden goal which wasn't actually hidden was we want to ask community what other goals we wanted to add. And so then we were able to add all those other ones um from the start. This one I'm particularly proud of our our partners and and all the hard work we did to reduce feeder pattern split. So when the community said what what's the most important thing we heard over and over again, I hate that my child gets to leave their friends when they're going from elementary to middle or from middle to high. These these feeder pattern splits are terrible. We had 40 feeder pattern splits in our district with the current maps. We have 27 under the new so a 31% drop. Um, why do we have so many theater pattern splits? We'll talk about that in a minute. We talked about like when we add Lewisville Middle, we only updated the middle school maps, which is closed Cook. We only updated the elementary school maps. That created a whole bunch of feeder pattern splits. This work can fix those. That's why we need this comprehensive look. Um, and this 11.7% students reszoned. Um, minimizing disruption was a request of the community. We didn't want a lot of change for the sake of change. So, we worked on getting the best bang for our buck for those other things with each move to move as few students as possible. And even when I say few students, we're not really moving students. We're moving addresses. We're drawing lines on maps to affect addresses. And because since choice isn't going away, all those things, those students, especially with our generous grandfathering rules, are welcome to stay at their current school through their grades span. Okay. So, I do want to take a minute. Some of these you've seen in workshops, but I do want to make sure there's some new ones um to kind of drive home what kind of changes were made. These are some specific examples where there were just kind of strange things. If you look on the left side, um you've got Lewisville Middle right on the edge of its own boundary and the road actually does connect. So you had people that could walk to Lewisville Middle that weren't zoned to Louisville Middle had to drive eight miles down to Metal Arc Middle. So we fixed that. In fact, um I'm I'm a systems thinker. One of the big things that that I looked at when I took over student assignment was why do we have all these people applying to go to a school? And the most common reason people either try to get a special transfer or try to do choice is because they're actually trying to go to the school that's closer to them. And so um some of you all have been in board hearings people bring maps like look how close I am to the school. Right? So that's something that we're really looking to fix and this was a sort of an easy fix that we could make. Um similarly, Mel Springs was this sprawling sort of octopus zone on the left. Um and not only that, but it also splits students into six different high schools talking about feeder pattern splits when the average is two. Um with the update, it feeds into two like other schools. So that's a fix that we're looking at. And if you can imagine like bus routes going out into those weird tentacles, um you we'll hear more about that later as far as how that can help with efficiency. Got an interesting thing here. Uh Reagan Northight North students driving past Reagan. So um not literally past Reagan, but past the turn for Reagan. Um you can see where um Reagan zone extends. I do want to say on this slide, um the total number of students zoned to Reagan is going down. So with the with the change from from where from today to later, the total number it's because you know like what's the old thing about like politics or something? I don't know. um farms don't go to school, kids go to school. So all of that area is very rural and so it's even though the boundary looks a lot bigger, it actually has fewer um residences in it. So Reagan's going down and it's also helping so that kids aren't having to go really far to get to Northfor site. Um, so Reagan West, another another change where there about 300 high schoolers that were 2 to three miles from west, but they were zoned to Reagan 7 to 10 miles away. So boundaries were adjusted to accommodate most of these expecting routing capacities. So there was another question about what about West? West does go up slightly. However, over the past three to four years, West enrollment has dropped by over 200 students and it's mostly their residential students. So, so West has actually gone down over the past three years. Reagan has gone up. So, this will also help with that issue that we have here. Um, and so, and also the 2 to three miles versus 7 to 10 miles was a huge help for our um for our school to residents distance. Um, another example, Piney Grove and Walkertown. You can see that big section right there has a road that goes right down to Piny Grove. It's actually called Piney Grove Road. Um, and so now Piney Grove Road is going to Piny Grove Elementary. It's closer. This was a big one where these kids were already going to Piney Grove Elementary. They were doing it through choice. Now we're saying, you know what, you're right. You do probably belong at Piney Grove based on um distance. So that's another fix that we're able to make with this. Um Flat Rock much closer to WY Koke. Um about 200 middle schoolers are zoned to Flat Rock, but they are much closer to WY and Ko Middle Schools. Boundaries updated to reszone. Um, this is another one where you can see there's this flat rocks way in the south and it shoots way up north. The current boundary on the left shows a really far distance. You'll see this again with transportation efficiency. Sort of chopping that part off can help with distance, can help with efficiency. Only got about three more of these or so. Parkland. Um, this is another issue. Uh, I mentioned west going up. Ideally, west wouldn't go up. Ideally, west would not go up. Ideally, Parkland wouldn't go. Parkland's also over capacity. Um, if we could snap our fingers right now and create a high school between Parkland and West, we would need it. We need it for capacity right now today. But it's a bump of students. We have lower enrollment in our lower grades from 8th down to kindergarten. So, it's it's a pain now. It's a it's we feel it now, but as they metriculate up, that overcrowding at both West and Parkland will be fixed. And you can see Parkland was kind of spreading out a little bit like Flat Rock was as well. Um, also it was almost 3,000 students residentially assigned to Parkland. Um, so that's why it was so overcrowded. Um, so that helps that it'll give space for those residential students if they do choose to go to Parkland, they can stay at Parkland. If they want to take advantage of the IB Magnet program that's funded through the uh, MSAP grant, there'll be space for those magnet students there as well. Okay, so this last time I talked to you all, we were talking about um Cook's boundaries. You can see this has an overlay of Cook's um old boundary on there. Um and this is one of those examples where because of the change, we ended up probably overs subscribing Brunson. We also ended up creating all these feeder pattern splits um because we didn't adjust middle and high. So with all that comprehensive look, this change is able to fix those things. Um gets rid of the three feeder pattern splits that were created with the closure of Cook. Um so all the nearby zones are updated. It also fixes things like um where the old Ashley and the new Ashley even whether or not new Ashley is built e both locations are within Ashley's zone. Um so a lot of things that were going to need to be fixed anyway. we're kind of baking into this process so that we don't have to look at it again. Although it would be good to look at it in five years. Um, so this is another one. Feeder pattern splits even when campuses are shared or adjacent. So we know WY magnet and Reynolds High School are across the street from each other, but that doesn't necessarily mean someone that is zoned to WY is also zoned to Reynolds. Um, and there were many examples of that. And so those things were fixed. even schools that were literally had shared a parking lot um would have different uh feeders and so we fixed those feeder pattern splits as well. Some of those 13 splits you saw go away was this. Okay, so those are the some specific examples. Obviously there's other small things throughout the county that we also fixed. Um those are just sort of the big glaring ones that I want to bring to you all's attention. Um, we talked about like the the domino effect and you try to change one little thing, it's going to affect lots of things. Um, so this is why the comprehensive look was important. So here's our change to high school residential zones. You can kind of see in the picture how Reagan's zone got geographically larger, but it did not get student capacity larger. Um, you can see Taber expanded. You can see Reynolds shrunk a little bit. So you can see some of the changes. Um, high school didn't have as major changes compared to some of the other grades spans. Um, middle school, one of the big drivers of the middle school changes was the u mineral springs middle and flat rock we talked about with the sprawling sort of um, I don't know, gerrymandered looking shapes going different places. Those you can see are gone in these pictures. Um, and there's some other changes. You can see Lewisville is no longer right on its border. Um, and different things like that. So, um, little bit of Kernersville Middle was shooting down and that makes more sense for her to go to Souththeast, for example. So, those are overall look of middle school. Um, elementary school had lots of changes too, although not all not every elementary school had lots of changes. Um, there's some that stayed almost exactly the same. So, what was interesting was if if a zone was already pretty compact and students weren't having to go really far on any of those sort of offshoots, they stayed very similar. Um, I think an example would be maybe Sedge Garden Elementary. You can see that shape stays almost the same. Um, a lot of shapes stay the same, but there's a lot of adjustments. And of course, we had to make adjustments for um for the closure of Cook. So, you can see that the center of our city has um and and one other point too, although everyone here being part of our community knows this um the center of our city is really highly populated. So, of course, you see there's a lot more dots right in the middle, right? So, so that we did have that question like why are there four schools or why are there three schools now so close to each other because that's where all our residents are. So, we really need um that capacity in the center of our city. Okay. So, I am now going to pass it over to our um Oh, >> yes. Yes, I can take questions. Sorry. Um, I just had a question about neighborhood splits and the feeder splits. I know that that was a big thing and I know that that was something you guys worked really hard on with our partners to look if they said a neighborhood was split down the middle say um if that is continuing to come up. Are we continuing to address it or is it kind of this is the best we could get and if it's split now there was really nothing else we could do. Could you kind of speak to that? So I do want to say that I don't want to say that there's no way that we could make any changes from this. So these aren't fin they're final in that here's something better than what we have now when we go to implement we're going to look at all those things yet again right. So so whether or not I mean I don't want to speak too much to an implementation plan that doesn't exist yet but um when it exists it's going to be in pieces sort of like the cook thing like here's the changes that are going to happen tomorrow like that we have to send. So at that point we absolutely can relook and say okay are we cutting a street in half. Is there a street that really probably should have like maybe in a previous draft it was one place and then in the final draft it didn't end up there and why did that happen? Maybe there's a good reason but maybe it wasn't a good enough reason. Maybe there's a way we can put it back. So so those are things that we will be able to look at while we do implementation. >> Leah Crowley has a question. >> Yeah. So, I know you're saying that, you know, farmland doesn't have a lot of students, but if you're taking from a school that's under capacity, which I think North for Scythe is, >> we're at capacity. And I'm just trying to make sense of how can you have uh even if a school like West was down 200 students, you're still over capacity. So, now you've added to their boundary like that that's it's not adding up. >> Yeah. So, um I I can get those specific numbers to you, but but I will say that Reagan did drop um >> but it's still over capacity. >> Uh not residentially. No, >> it was over 2,000 students last >> a lot of that is are people choicing. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right. >> Okay. >> So, like the res the biggest residential zone that we had in our county before any changes that we make for high school is Parkland. Parkland is the most overcapacity residentially assigned students by like a thousand students and >> but they're not all going to Parkland. >> Correct. But there but there's enough of them going to Parkland that it's still over capacity. >> So, we're talking about a couple different things here and that's what's making it confusing. We're talking about actual enrollment >> versus capacity versus projected >> enrollment with the new lines. >> I I just >> and all the tools that we provide our families that are options because right >> you can you can choice based on magnet or programming. >> It's also based on capacity. >> Yeah. And that's the problem. >> So so that's the board, >> right? >> Okay. you guys sit in those hearings. >> There you go. >> But they're over capacity before they ever even get to us in the hearings. Let's be real. >> That's not that's not the board. >> So, I will say so I will say one one piece that was um that bears digging into a little bit here. I think and I but I don't know that we have we can talk about it right now is when you look at the distribution of students and how they get places, you've got around 5,000 that are using the choice process to choice somewhere. You have another 5,000 that are sitting in a category called other, right? And I can tell you other other is they moved. The vast majority of the other is they were at one point living in the zone for that school and because we never tell a kid you need to leave. If they've moved across town, we don't say, "Hey, you need to now enroll in a new school." They keep going to the old school as long as >> So that's your that's part of your sort of I don't I don't know if you call them grandfathering or not. That's >> part of our stability policy. >> I feel like we have we have it's one of those things that we have done this for so long that it's now we're paying the price for it. So, we became the district of like Burger King, have it your way. We let people have whatever they wanted, but now we're at a place where we can't continue to let them have the Burger King way. Like, they we got to bring it in a little bit. I I just think that um there's a balance between being responsive to families, communities, providing viable strong choices, healthy program supported magnet schools, um things so that so that families have lots of options and choices, but those options and choices must also support the district's fiscal needs and fiscal stewardship. ship around efficiencies with transportation, um, underenrolled and overenrolled schools. I mean, all of those things have to come into play when we're making decisions about what to do. And and while there are processes for individual families to advocate for something that's best for their child, when staff hears that appeal or board hears that appeal, there are a number of pressures that are at the table around how to make a response about what to allow or not allow. So I think that um alongside parallel paths of this work is a review of magnet programming. It is supported. I do believe there is an infusion of local that is needed to actually support magnet schools beyond the life of a magnet grant. Um I do think that um as we look at the families that are moving from one address to another address and allowed to stay where they are, we've addressed one piece by no longer providing transportation because that was very inefficient. But another piece may need to be in the future when you're looking at this. Do you need to contemplate changes to your grandfathering? There just so many pieces that work um alongside of each other in parallel paths that all end up in the same parking lot. >> Vice Chair Bohan had a question. >> Thank you. So I I want to make sure I'm clear on the right mechanism to address the issue around if a if a school is zoned in a way that sort of balances it residentially but the school remains over capacity or is over capacity based on choice. What? Because I I think that it's we is is the decision on whether or not to assign additional kids there via choice based off of the capacity that's left over. >> Yes. Yes. So what what may happen? So for instance, because there were going to be lower number of students that are um now assigned to Reagan, they might have a similar amount of choice students allowed in and you could still drop your your numbers. But west you might have to not let in 300 kids. You might have to let in 100 kids. Uh and so th that's the extra that's the any extra seats beyond residential would be through choice or through magnet. >> Sorry, just as a followup. So then how do we how do we get to where we have had schools that are several hundred students over capacity? Is that because we haven't continued to let students in on choice, but the residential students have increased? >> Yeah, for the most part, yes. There's also a lot of advocacy that happens. Um, for instance, under previous um district leadership, there was there was a an idea that anybody who's worked for the district, no matter where they worked, should be able to go to whichever school they chose, even though our policy does not state that. Our policy states that you can go to the nearest school. So there's a lot of little things like that that you know I would just I was just following. Yes. Have it your way. So >> we we started that during COVID as a teacher retention or a staff retention tactic. >> Correct. >> Was before then. But anyway, >> okay. >> So, so there are little things like that, but there's but those are things that I can those are things that in the student assignment office I can clean up and I have been. So if you look at the reason why West has dropped 200 is because I stopped just letting everybody in. I said, "Listen, there's only room for 200 kids. I'm not going to let all 360 in." So it's it's it's slowly been coming down. And so we can keep doing that and these maps will help me do that. >> And let me just throw one other log on the fire on the other side of the equation. Um in elementary schools, um regardless of the mechanism, we've got to pay attention to K3 class size. Um, and if if if a determination is made that adding a child at kindergarten or first grade now means you have to hire a whole another teacher. >> Yeah, my eloquent way of saying no. Go >> ahead. Miller, >> first of all, I appreciate all the work that you've done. It's very impressive, especially those overall impacts. But I believe these maps, did they come out on Friday or Thursday? >> They they come out. >> Yeah. >> Whatever day >> whenever we got the materials to you all because that's public at that point. Yep. >> The feedback that I've gotten from community members is that we're moving on this too fast. They haven't had time to look at these maps. Um they would like for Dr. Fipps to be involved in this, which he will be here in a couple of more weeks. and the community is still focused on the budget deficit. So, this is like a real jump for them right now. A very quick jump. >> I'll just say, let me just say real quick. Yeah, let me just say real quick. We'll talk a little bit more about as we move into the next part of the presentation, but just to to clarify >> what's being requested of the board today is to to move forward with developing an implementation plan. the final approval of boundaries, maps, and timeline is months in front of you. So that is I mean it's going to take a year like Effie said to do this work before we're looking at voting on something. So um but we but there's a there's we're at a place where we either move forward and start developing a timeline and the processes um whatever additional feedback needs to come onboarding a new superintendent all of those things need to happen for sure um but and it is why but I want to make clear today's decision is about moving forward with number one potential policy revisions and number two developing the implementation plan for what this work looks like moving forward in the next year. because the proposal number one on there said um approve the maps. >> Yeah, >> that's what it said. >> Now, that's not what it says on our agenda. >> Yeah, >> but up there it said proposal number one approved. >> So, I think it's the current the current version of what we have out there is what's contemplated in the implementation timeline, but it is not the final maps, right? >> Um the final maps don't happen until the board does the final approval. So the implementation timeline and the work happens based on what's in there now. But that doesn't mean that it's final because it's not final till you vote on it. >> Right. And that was my point to board member things could still change. Things could still change throughout implementation. >> Question. Go ahead. >> And do we want to continue on with the presentation real quick before we continue with question? >> A couple of questions. I have two questions. One is, have boundaries been shrunk for magnet schools to create more room for magnet students? That was kind of hard to tell on those maps. >> Yes and no. It depends on the school. So, some some some magnet schools um an example of magnet school that already had an incredibly small boundary um was Winston Salem Prep had a very small residential boundary um for that purpose, but it didn't have the magnet enrollment. So, it's getting some more residential students. still not filling it with residential students because we want it to be a successful magnet program. Um but most most schools that are magnet schools are having extra space. Um Paynees I mean Aken doesn't have a boundary but um Reynolds all the schools are getting extra space to be able to hold magnet. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And then my other question was had we looked at what the effect on title one status will be for all these schools. >> Yeah. So we have and did you want to answer that? It's minor. >> Yeah. Currently we have 52 schools that are identified as title one um because our threshold is at 50%. Uh given the minimal shifts in boundaries, there should be little to no impact on that, but that can also change over time. And so as we continue through the process and work on implementation, we would still have to monitor like addresses, shifts that come within that boundary um to determine if there would be any impact. But as of right now, there wouldn't be uh really any impact to schools that are identified as title one and impact their funding in any kind of significant way. Okay. Um, and so I was about to pass over to our um our I did want to preview this slide really quick just some some um transportation level impacts from a fiscal perspective. We're looking at how these can save money. Of course, if schools are closer, it's going to take less miles, less gas, less all those different things. So, so these are some numbers. I'm gonna I'm gonna let the experts speak to them a little bit further. Um, so I'm going to pass it to Derek. Thank you, Derek. >> Thank you. Um, so, uh, thank you for the opportunity to be here. My name is Derek Graham. I'm from, uh, Kerry, North Carolina. Spent my entire career in North Carolina. Uh, I'm joined online by Spencer Jenko, who is our optimization consultant at Education Logistics. He's uh there in Missoula, Montana. He's actually even west of there. Um, and so one of the things that that we were asked to do is just kind of take a snapshot of before and after and what would happen if, right? So we do a lot of that in transportation. And so, uh, we grabbed a a copy of your latest routing data from the very beginning of this current school year, right? And so we've been looking at that snapshot. What happens if boundaries change according to the, you know, the maps that you've you've seen? what's the transportation impact of that? There are a lot of other things that that change in transportation. There are efficiency measures going on in your transportation department right now, but we're looking at this snapshot. And so, and and and Spencer can share a couple of examples of what that has looked like in going through that process. But basically, it results in uh 1758 miles per day saved, right? So, over 170 whatever, you know, school calendar uh which is 7.3%. I mean, that's a um you know, that's not a small a small number when you look at the the number of miles that uh that the Winston Side County Schools buses run in the course of a day. Uh if we take that mileage and we multiply that out by the uh by the mileage rate that the state allocates for or not allocates, but that the state computes for uh for your school district. uh it's you know somewhere $800,000 maybe to to a million dollars in uh in savings when the mileage is reduced by uh by that amount. Uh there are some there are other impacts again looking at this snapshot before and after it is a uh 2.35 estimated uh improvement in the state budget rating. Right? And so the state budget rating comes from Department of Public Instruction. And that rating is the percentage of uh of total transportation expenses that uh that your district gets from uh from the state from state funds, right? And so that um that's that's definitely an improvement there. And that could result in, you know, $300 to $500,000 per year uh in state funding going, you know, going forward based on these uh based on these changes. All other things equal and I have to say that right because like I said, things are always changing in in transportation. Um >> just to just to clarify, you are talking about the efficiency rating. >> Yes. >> Right. So this it improves the efficiency rating which then improves how we draw down dollars from the state so that we don't have to use local funds for the expenses we're going to have anyway. >> So uh let let me let Spencer take you through just a few of these examples and then u I'll come back and and kind of summarize what that does to that to the efficiency rating and and potential funding. >> Thank you Derek. Can everyone uh hear me just fine? >> Perfect. Wonderful. Wonderful. So, what was mentioned a few times earlier in this presentation and the term I want to build off are the octopus tentacles of these different boundaries that currently exist in your district. And throughout the whole process, you know, the boundary revisions were being done and when we were handed the boundary revisions, we had to take those boundaries, apply them to the schools. They had to reassign students that needed to be reassigned, you know, stop assignments, do run assignments, do route assignments. And from all of that, we were kind of looking at just where all these boundary chunks that were traded. We call them boundary chunks because there's little chunks of boundaries that were given to some schools, somes that were taken from others. You know, it was about almost a hundred chunks that we kind of had to look at that were getting traded between elementary, middle, high schools. And with this first example we wanted to point out with Flat Rock Middle is that a lot of these, you know, boundaries that you guys have currently at your district, you know, made us feel like we were working with octopus tentacles that would reach out way out from where the school district boundary should normally be and go into areas that really to us were like, okay, well that doesn't necessarily make sense to us, but we know that there's a reason for it historically. So when it came to applying these new boundaries, seeing where you know the students, the stops, the runs and routes adjusted in the case of this first example with Flat Rock Middle School, I mean, we saw a significant reduction in total buses that were required. Um, a lot of student assignments of course would not change because it's not like we're, you know, reassigning everybody, but for the students that were impacted and the bus routes and runs that did get cut, you know, we saw an improvement in driver time. you know, buses were taking less time to get to school on average. Uh, buses were able to be more filled up because you weren't having to send buses into the far north or, you know, out into the far outskirts or even just crossing major thoroughways, which will slow down transportation. And what we saw here was, you know, not buses were more full, mileages were reduced, and even student ride times for many cases improved. um in some senses, you know, the students would be attending a completely different school that was now a lot closer to where they lived. So for the average, we saw that, you know, ride times and mileages specifically went down. And when looking at it across, you know, the whole district, you know, those add up over time. But in the case of Flat Rock, this was at least one example where it was, you know, pretty egregious about how far the buses are having to go out versus what the new boundaries were being proposed as. So that's the first example right there. Um I was going to go jump onto the nest next example if people were ready for that. And it really talks about much the same that I'm just talking about here where you know mineral springs is another example. we have this part of the boundary that extends far out to the western side of the district and historically that probably made sense and it had benefits. But with the new maps trying to improve upon everything, we basically saw that entire western arm cleaved off. Those students reassigned and what was rebalanced with the uh with the school allowed for fewer runs, shorter runs on time and distance and just generally a more compact, more effective routing system because buses are just not having to travel way the heck out there to go uh service these students that in many cases are now attending a school that's closer to them. And while the middle springs or I would say the middle schools were probably the largest examples we saw of these changes. I mean it was of course across the whole district that we were seeing these chunks traded here, chunks given there and boundaries just seemed to kind of fall into more of a a logical pattern at least when it comes to us as a transportation arm that looks purely based on the maps and where the students are regarding the boundaries. not necessarily demographics, but transportationwise. And what we see transportationwise is a system that cuts out a lot of the excess mileage that was there before as a direct result of those boundary changes. Now, are there any questions right now for either me or Derek? >> No. >> All right, we'll go to we'll go to the uh to the next slide then and and uh kind of talk about some of that impact. And I want to I want to emphasize this, you know, this snapshot, right? So the analysis that Spencer did basically, you know, assumed that we're loading the buses about like we're loading them now, right? That's one of the big unknowns and especially when you go through any sort of change is which which families are actually going to choose the bus service, right? And so that is u that is a bit of an unknown especially in the in the areas that change. But um uh we had some of some areas he quote unquote I can't do air quotes with holding the microphone but the the uh you know part of what uh what we do is to overload there there you go like that. Okay is uh is overload overload the buses so to speak because we know that in a certain area of the of the community you may assign you may assign 90 kids to a bus and 50 of them are going to choose to ride. That's that sort of thing. So uh so anyway the the impact for the for the state transportation budget rating the the efficiency rating that we've uh that we've been talking about is uh and without going through the whole you know the whole half a day seminar the way that the state develops your budget rating is uh is by calculating the cost per student transported and by calculating basically the number of buses per per 100 students is the way it's defined but basically how full the buses are and how efficient you are with dollars per uh per student for doing the transport and that that goes in to this uh to this formula with you know with all 100 counties and comes out with this uh with this budget rating. So basically the the budget rating is the percentage of costs that are reimbursed by the state the following the following year. But now when you go through something with efficiency initiatives, so whether it's whether it's uh redoing boundaries where kids live closer to school or way the whether it's uh you know maybe even adjusting bell times or changing up the routing to to tighten up the writership, any of that kind of thing. Any of those efficiency initiatives, they they accomplish two things. One is it improves next year's budget rating, right? because the state um you know the state is a year and maybe now even two behind in the data that they're able to use to predict predict what the budget rating is going to be but also when you do those in those uh efficiency initiatives you're saving you know local money real time right so as soon as you implement something that um you know that has kids traveling f or less and you have buses that are traveling less and all of that those are real savings things right now. It eases the strain on your budget as soon as you're able to shorten up the those rides and and that mileage. So, uh that's kind of the way that the um that the initiatives based on efficiency would work. uh one you get you get you know real savings presumably from your local budget uh right away when you implement some of those things and then down the road you know the next year your budget rating would improve from the state and and you know hopefully generate you additional state resources. So >> so thank you so much Derek um for the transportation analysis piece. So we do want to first of all just say thank you. I would be remissed. I know I have Frank here with me, but it this has been a collaborative effort. It has been a team of people who have been working very closely together for two years including Frank Tisha Ronaldo Branson um Homana Tashbar Amanda Lay um our project director who is no longer with us Whitney Middlebrooks who have met every Wednesday since for two years working collaboratively pouring through all of the feedback that we have gotten from the community, spending countless hours out in the community talking to people um about what they would want to see come out of this process um in this planning phase of things. So, I'm very appreciative to just not only the team but just the engagement across the board. I and the bill Paul our our research partners they've been with us every step of the way. Um we had a phenomenal steering committee. I know it's hard to commit to two years but we had people that stuck in there the entire time. Um even though some people may have had to roll off but they also were instrumental with getting us connected to community to engage in these conversations. We know the work is needed. You've seen already what the impact would be if we were to implement uh sooner than 27 or the 28 uh 26 27 2728 school year or at whatever time frame we come come into after planning. Um but the work is needed. We hear it from the community. Um we've heard lots. There is a full report that also gives a breakdown of the things that we've heard and recommendations that have come out of those conversations, too. So, if you have not had an opportunity to read that, hopefully you will take the time to do that um over the next several days and feel free to reach out to myself or Frank or any other member of the team to ask questions about some of those findings. So, with that, are there any other questions? >> Steve. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, just a couple on slide number 24. >> This one, >> the one with the yellow. Yeah, that one. Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um, my question is this. the 2.35% and the arrow goes over that would be you're saying 300,000 to 500,000 per year in additional dollars coming into the >> that's correct >> district >> the middle one of 850,000 to a million dollar per year that would be savings internally in the district correct And those are those are estimates. I guess >> those are rough estimates. And Derek um correct me if I'm wrong, they're pretty conservative estimates based on um exactly what Derek talked about how things change. And so even as we would move through this process and get ready for implementation, we will still need to continue to do our due diligence on analysis um without doing this work every year without looking at and having a pulse on things on a annual basis that leads up leads us up to that five-year review process. we continue to lag behind what is needed for us to be fiscally responsive and to be operational efficiency that is necessary for our district. >> So just a further question madam chair. So for when the final plan when a a final plan is done um those numbers will they could potentially adjust some but given where we are right now and the boundaries changes that we are proposing this is the rough estimate that we would have is in terms of savings because of reduc reduced mileage because if you notice in our boundaries they're more compact than what they were before. >> So that that amounts to a savings of if you combine the middle um yellow schema and the bottom one that so that'd be 500,000 to to use the top figures that'd be 500,000 more coming into the district from the state than previously and then that would be a million saved internally. So that would be a net gain of a 1 to use those two larger numbers a net gain of 1.5 million. Is that am I asking that question properly? >> That's correct. And that doesn't take into account um the things Superintendent Moore talked about as far as utilizing buildings more efficiently. >> Yeah. I have one of one other question. Go ahead. And you may not have this is a question that's intrigued me for some time and and you may not have ascertained that during this during this process and you may not ascertain it during during the final stage but um may I ask this question were you able to determine or find the percentage of student I don't know how to quite how to ask this question the percentage of students in the Winston Salem for South County school uh system that are Winston Salem City residents as opposed to the number of students that are for or county residents. >> We didn't necessarily >> Yeah, >> we didn't necessarily separate it that way because we looked at it as an entire system. >> Yeah. >> And didn't we looked at it as a system, all 81 schools um together. I mean, those are numbers we could definitely pull of how many are served in our inner city versus, you know, outside in the rural areas or the county part, but we really approached this through a systems lens and looked at the whole district as look just looked at the whole district. I understand that and and one could one could put in Lewisville, Clemens, Kernersville and those that reside within um u municipalities or villages and that sort of thing. Um but that could be that figure could be ascertained by somebody somewhere. could >> I'm sure we could look at the different municipalities and how many students I mean I'm sure we could but >> yeah and it depends on what you're looking for so because because we can we can take every single child in this district we can look at their address and we can determine based on their address whether they are that municipality or that town or that village or the city or that sort of thing. But that >> the extent to which that actually tells us where they're going to school is a much different question. um because they they're all over the place. Um and and so I think I think it depends on what you you know we can we can find out what what an address means in terms of how the distribution of our students is. Um, and then I would just say the larger a district gets, >> the more you balance and especially when you have like um suburban small towns that are growing and like things are happening and that sort of thing. the more you have to balance what your district lens is around the work versus specific towns or municipalities because um and I'm going to say something that sounds offensive, but I'm not trying to be offensive. No such things as um what's municipality? No such thing as Clemens schools. no such thing as >> Kernerville schools. I understand >> we have Winston Salem Foresight County schools and I and I just think we have to remember that's our obligation. That's and that doesn't mean that Clemens isn't important. Doesn't mean Colonel Lo isn't important. We obviously want to to be responsive to our entire community's needs. But you make decisions based on on the fact that this is Winston Salem Foresight County Schools. Perhaps let me clarify my questions for Madam Chair and it'll be the last that'll be my last question or comment. Um we're in the midst of a of a fiscal crisis as well. So my my question is for the implications of the fiscal challenges that we have and that is under state law as I understand it um uh the income to this district and to all districts within the state come primarily from the state primarily from the county and about 10% or 12% of ours is from federal. Um there's no mandate that uh cities or municipalities contribute to the school systems in which they reside. That and there is also no language as I understand it uh impermissibility language that prohibits them from accomplishing that. So what I'm the the the the uh the um reason for the question the reason for the question is we'd like to invite uh all those municipalities and those villages and those communities that are part of our community as a whole. We'd like to uh invite them to to um participate um in the exciting process of resolving our fiscal crisis that we had before. >> Oh, for the fiscal crisis. Thank you. >> Thank you for that. Um we do have our partners online and so uh we >> let me just say >> we got one. >> I wanted to answer uh board member Wood's questions. about 67% of our students um have addresses in Winston Salem, the city. >> Okay, >> there you go. >> Chair Kaplan had a question. >> Okay, just real quickly that when we got dinged about 2 million for the inefficiency, is that uh are we going to be saving that? Like are we not going to get dinged do you think anymore? Is this 3 to 500 per year? >> A piece of that? >> A piece of that. And there's so so my understanding is that we were somewhere in the high 70s. We believe we're somewhere maybe in the mid 80s after the changes to removing choice transportation. Um you have districts that are over 90% in terms of efficiency. Um the so every that two to 2.3% represents anywhere from 3 to 500 additional that the state would pay towards our costs so that we don't pay them in local. So the the higher your efficiency rating, the more the greater the percentage of your expenses that are paid by the state funds. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> So let me go let me go back to where we are decision- wise. Are you you got that? Two two decisions and you can take them in whichever order you prefer. Um, I guess I don't know if it's a it's a vote of the committee members on moving forward with revising policy language to bring to the board for consideration later around regularly reviewing boundaries. Decision one. And then decision two, uh, moving forward with having staff work to create an implementation plan based on the current work that will come back to the board, um, for further review, further tweaks, further feedback as needed um, prior to any kind of vote to implement anything. So, can I make a motion that we um amend the residential boundary policy requiring a boundary review every five years? >> That will come in our action items. Right. So, we need to wait till we get to that point. >> Okay. There. >> Okay. I I want to also thank the staff because you all have really worked diligently over two years and you all have engaged more I think probably more community than anything else we've had. So, thank you all so much. >> Thank you so much. >> We're going to move to our action items. Is there nothing? >> Okay. Okay. >> Go there. You want You want to go there? That's all. >> Right. So, we're going to our action items. We have three. The first one is consider the proposed changes for the new North Carolina Driving School contract effective January 1st of 2026 for full board approval at our December 9th, 2025 board of education meeting. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Second. >> We have a We have a motion and we've had it seconded. Any questions? All in favor? That's unanimous. Our second action item is consider the approval to move forward with developing a modernized boundary implementation plan. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Do I have a second? I would like to second it and I think I can. Can I not? Okay. So I second it. And any more questions? All those in favor raise your hand. Okay. All those opposed. All right, it passes. Our third action item is consider the approval to amend the residential boundary policy requiring a boundary review every five years. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion and we have a second. Any questions? >> I do have a question. justification. >> You're on the committee, so you go ahead. >> So my question is when would this start? When looking at the implementation plan, do we do the implementation plan first and then we start tack then we start the five-year timeline or the five-year timeline start now? >> Yeah, the five-year timeline would need to start after you have a plan. >> We have a plan. Okay. You had a question too. >> So I just want to just clarify because I know this is the way this is read is a little bit different than what was said earlier. So the the there will be the development of policy language that will be presented to the board at a later policy committee meeting that will be subject to our approval regarding this change. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or unreadiness? All in favor raise your hand. All those opposed. It carries. That ends our action items. Our announcements is the next building and grounds committee meeting dates will be voted on at our December 9th, 2025 board of education meeting and will be published for the public. We can now adjourn our buildings and grounds committee. Um before announcing the beginning of the policy committee, it's been an extended period of time and probably with this committee and probably will be with um I've seen several head shaking. Can we take about five minutes about a five minute break and then we'll then we'll convene following that. All righty. We'll convene >> as soon as everyone's ready, we'll convene the U policy committee and um soon as we get all our members here, uh chairs here, Sabrina the vice chair is here. Alex Bohannan is nearby. He's somewhere, I'm sure. Um, Richard Watts is making his way here quickly as possible. And Madame Malia Crowley is also here. So, so here we go. Um, we have our discussion items, four items, and then four action items as well on those. I think they're all on those. Yes. Yeah. So for discussion items, review new policy 3435, the audit committee about which we've heard some things already and we're about to hear our esteemed legal council the Jenkins presentation. >> Good Oops. Good afternoon. Actually, I think I'll use this. I'll use this one. >> Good afternoon. So, the first policy that um is on your agenda is a review of the audit committee. And um there are a couple of additional revisions to this version that I want to summarize for you. And this really comes out of your feedback from your board retreat that you had a few weeks ago. Um so the first change in the purpose here, it was really intended to just solidify and make clear that this is an advisory committee. And so their role is to advise the board on different courses of action to take. But this committee does not have any real independent power to make any decisions on behalf of the board. They will convene do as directed by this board and then come back and make recommendations. So there's a couple of places in this policy as well as towards the bottom where it talks about the duties and responsibilities of the committee where I just tried to make that clear. the pro probably the most substantial change here is um if I can figure out a way to show the comments. So at the board retreat there was some discussion around how the membership of this committee will be uh established and I believe there were kind of two ideas that were circulated. One is that the committee would consist of seven voting members which is how it's proposed now. However, who um who appoints those members or who selects them is a little bit different. Um, I believe there was been there was some discussion about some of them being selected by the county commission and some being selected by the board. And so in the first option here, if you're able to see, I'm proposing language that would give four members of the committee appointed by this board and three members appointed by the county commission. Or it could be reversed. It could be four by the county commission, three by this board. Or the second option I believe that was discussed was establishing sort of a nominating committee and a separate committee would review all the applications and then make recommendations for the seven to be appointed. And so that's probably the most substantial change in this newest version of the audit committee and one in which I would need feedback from this committee on how you'd like to proceed. >> Okay. Um uh Dian, so we need to vote today to decide which one of those that we want to use. Okay, committee members, >> let me let me let me say a couple things. Yeah. So um so we are we I have heard from several board members a desire to bring this policy sort of to a close with regards to what we want to do in order to ensure that as the um folks who are doing our financial statements audit conclude their work around the end of December the same time that the other Maldin and Jenkins concludes their internal review around the end of December although their report likely won't be public until February but as these kinds the things are happening that we are positioned with a policy in place to try to have an external audit committee in place to review that work re review what the office of the state auditor has already done review what's going to come from our financial statements audit for forbis and mazars and to review what is likely going to be coming out of Malden and Jenkins a lot of folks here um uh and their review as well uh and so the sooner we get the policy going the sooner we can start the selection process process. So, so yes, we would like for the board to determine one or the others of these to put in policy. I do want to say make one statement about the second piece. The second um that came up in the the conversation um around establishing a nominating committee that would be agreed upon by the board, the school board and the commissioners that would then review the applications and present a slate to the commissioners and the board for adoption. Takes sort of the review of the candidates away from the board or the commissioners and has an external group do it. Um there was a lot of traction and energy around that. I think what I want to be careful about is committing the commissioners to something that they haven't necessarily agreed to. So they have this they have this they have seen this re these revisions to this policy. They got it last week. Um but I do not yet have feedback from them on on whether or not they have any specific interest in um a nominating committee. And and you know nominating committee could be a lot of things. I mean, you could ask the chamber, right? You could answer, you get with Greater Winston Salem, Inc. to be the folks who review all of the applications for them to have some folks come together or some other modality. Uh, but I do want to be careful about how we commit the commissioners to something that they haven't weighed in on yet. >> Thank you. Thank you, Madam Superintendent. Let's have a little conversation about it and see which direction we go. I think our vice chair has a question. My my question was on number seven and maybe I may be incorrect but on number seven don't we need to take out selected by the superintendent since we struck through that above. >> Sorry. Yeah. >> Oh yes. Yes. That's correct. >> That's all of them. We're moving that. >> I will I will fix that. Thank you. >> All right. >> Um my question goes back to the um either or choice. Obviously I wasn't at the workshop so I missed some of the discussion. Um how are we what is the difference I guess in application process in the two like there is no difference. It's all the same. It's just who is picking the people that is >> yeah who's making the recommendation for the seven. That's the only thing that's different. Yeah. One of the things that we did talk about was we wanted to make sure that the commissioners and the board had full access to all of the applications. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. >> So, we talked about the second choice not being um accepted yet or feedback from the commissioners. How about the first choice? Were they good with picking, you know, three people or four? I think that should you vote to distribute some members of the committee to be chosen by the board and some to be chosen by the commissioners that I think that um the feedback that I received was that they felt that they needed a they wanted a greater sort of representation from the commissioners than the one that was contemplated in the original policy. I don't think there was any negative feedback or push back on this board about increasing that there. I don't think there was any negative push back around removing the superintendent choice either. So, we ended up with just seven and and how you'd want to split it. There are folks in the community who would love for all seven to be from the commissioners. Um I think that you do want to be careful about your statutory authority and obligation around this work and what that looks like. So, if you were to choose the first option, that is your call. they have agreed to support the district in um in how in being a part of helping select members for the committee. So you could I think the first one doesn't require them to say yes, we will do it. I I I don't think I've contemplated that question because I I think they were aware of and I think they you may have some commissioners who may want all seven. You may have some who are fine with the three. You may have some that don't think you need three. Who I mean who knows where they all land as a body. They've not really I think they may have discussed this a little bit, but I don't know that they've had um a discussion that led to like all of them being of a mind on what it is that they want to say to us. I don't think they've gotten that far. Um I just think that this the second one the second one just you want to make sure that they are okay with that. >> Just just um just a question Dion uh under the first proposal there. It's it's a um wording question that is where it says four of the members shall be appointed by the board. Should we say the Winston Salem for South County School Board or does that need to be there? >> Or Board of Education. >> Board of Education. Yes. >> WSC board of education. Okay. >> Yes, we could we could add that for clarification. >> Okay. >> Okay. Sabrina, >> this is just my opinion on this. Um I really would prefer the the first choice of the seven and then the four and three or however it's um done. I I really want I know that people are upset with us. I know that we have lost trust but our job is to do the work and and if we can't do the work, how do we earn the trust? So I don't I don't think giving up responsibility is what we should be doing. we need to take it, own it, and but do the work. I don't know. That's just my thoughts. >> Other other comments or other discussion >> among >> Well, you know, I think if we opt out for the second one, it's going to prolong the whole audit committee and we'll be here maybe two or three, maybe next year trying to figure out who is going to be on the nominating committee and this thing will get very bureaucratic. So, I would say one even though I'm not on this committee. >> That's okay. Thank you for your valuable input, Mr. Bar. Other other comments. >> Um, do we need a mo I guess we need a motion for this particular >> So, if if the general consensus of the committee is that you like that option, then that's what you could vote on at the action item of this. >> Okay. >> And let me just say one one last thing. So I mean you'll get to that decision at the end of the meeting when it's time for that. But can we be on with can we go ahead and look at the paragraph on selection of members again and just we may need to make some additional tweaks based on where the board lands um with the policy. So we're >> this first paragraph will change um based on the feedback here that it will change to reflect this first option here um number one and then the voting member from the superintendent's appointee has been removed >> and then this one here will also change um based on your feedback and so the only other option is still there still will be one non- voting member appointed by the superintendent which presumably will be the chief finance officer or their design. Um, and then the board finance chair will serve as a non- voting member as well. >> And so if that's the option that this committee approves tonight, I will make those changes >> um accordingly. >> Okay. Any questions? >> Okay. Thank you, D. Go ahead. Only other change to this process, excuse me, to this policy is adding an additional again clarifying paragraph here at the beginning of the duties and responsibilities to make it abundantly clear that this committee serves in an advisory capacity and they have no independent authority to make any action on behalf of the board. >> Okay, Leah, have a question. Yes, to that point, could we name it the audit advisory committee since every other committee that we have that is not comprised of board members is has that word in it like the facility advisory committee, the parent advisory committee? Sure. If that's the will of this committee. Sure. Okay. >> That the general consensus on Okay, Dion, you get got that. >> Yes, sir. Okay. Any other questions for me? >> All right. >> Okay, >> good enough. Let's move on under the direction of u our legal counsel. Let's move to number two. Policy 5148, emergency epinephrine. Is that Did I pronounce that right? >> Yes. Um so this is a very quick and easy update. Um in earlier this year, Senate Bill 600 was passed by our north by our legislature that made a number of different changes, but it also updated the name of the EpiPen. And so it had previously been described as the emergency epinephrine auto injector device. However, it's been changed to delivery systems. And so as you see the majority of the changes in this policy are just updating that terminology >> and removing auto injector and replacing it with delivery system. So this is really more of a technical change um as opposed to a more substantive one. And then we of course updated the legal references and cross references at the bottom. This uh North Carolina uh general statute 115C-375.2A is the bill that was updated that reflected the new change. Dion, can you can you just um um advise the committee again what what that legislation does and and specifically the way it impacts the classroom teacher. >> So the Senate bill 600 included a number of changes not all of which are applicable to the schools. Um but the one that is the impetus for this change is they changed the descriptor used to describe the EpiPens. And so essentially instead of calling it referring to it as an emergency epinephrine auto injector device, they changed it to a delivery system. I think it's also because they now have nasal epinephrine that the health department is going to be giving to the schools and so they have to say delivery versus auto because it's a different >> type of medication. >> Yes. >> All righty. Any other questions? Yeah, Rich. >> Not a question but a concern I've raised previously and I'll raise it again in the policy. Please, as we implement this policy, make sure we're not overloading front office staff, our clerical folks and false to administer these procedures because it's easy to choose a person, but when that person becomes a diabetic person, they the person and there's four or five things that a CPR person, they it's really overloaded for that one person to handle all of those plus the daily medications. So just a reminder as we looking at to the when we're choosing the persons for these positions that we kind of spread it around and not just make it one person. >> Understood. Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you, Richard. Any other questions? All righty. Let's move on to number three. Policy 3330 contract administration DM. >> Okay. So this al the changes for this policy also stem from discussions at your board retreat that you had a few weeks ago. There was some discussion around having language in the policy that references our contract workflow. There wasn't extensive discussion about it. However, I'm proposing some language to kind of get the conversation going to see if this kind of fits what you were thinking or if there's some other language that you would like for us to consider. And so in this um policy, the revisions are towards the end of the policy. this paragraph here just signifying and I'm sorry about the formatting why it's coming out like that. It's probably because it's in editing mode. Um but just ensuring that all contracts must be approved by the school attorney's office as to formal legality which is the practice now. However, I've added this pre- auditing paragraph as well and this one um to I think Mr. Mr. Bar, board member bar raised the questions about contracts that um involve the expenditure of funds needing to be pre- audited before obviously before execution that's required by law but also before coming to the board for approval. And so this language here was added to address that concern. And then in the final section of the paragraph I included this section here about a workflow. Um obviously we have transitioned to Tyler. We had a workflow before, but Tyler um is a new electronic system and an electronic workflow. And so I included some language here that essentially says the superintendent shall um establish a contract approval process and workflow and all contracts must go through that process. There's been some discussion about perhaps developing an AR that fleshes that out a bit more. We can certainly explore that as well, but um this is meant to address that. >> Or a finance manual for central services. All right. The vice chair has a question. >> I'm on it to say the vice chair go first. Okay. >> Again, I missed the conversation. Sorry. >> Are we Have we addressed thresholds at all in this contract? So, thresholds are addressed earlier in the contract. Um, uh, let's see. Oh, sorry, I passed it. So one example is principles have the authority up to 25,000. Um obviously the contract has to be approved by our office but they have authority up to 25,000. And then the other area where thresholds are addressed is here where the superintendent has authority >> up to 100,000 um >> for unless it falls into another category. So other than that though, we did not make any changes to thresholds. >> Did we maybe talk about that? I just I mean I feel like lower um we got to this place somehow with things being done and spent and you know I don't know. I just feel like if there's a way to >> I don't know that any of that impacted our financial situation. It wasn't it uh >> I mean we had contracts that weren't even put entered into so you know not even entered into the system and those were huge contracts and that's what we know about. I don't know >> like wasn't that more from central office than it was from individual schools? >> I I this goes for this is this is for everybody. This isn't just about the schools. This is about the superintendent. It's about I mean it's about how much spending power is given to people with authority and is this a time where we need to address that? >> So let me say yeah I think that um >> you know it's an interesting it's a dynamic relationship here between what's in policy and um and where we've been in the last year. um your your threshold could have been 500,000 or 50,000 and if you're not following your policies and you're not following the procedures that are in place then you still end up where you end up and the threshold is kind of immaterial to to what it is that you're doing. So what's I think that that is a big point of the internal controls review that's getting ready to happen is with the new ERP system with the new workflow that we're identifying with the changes that we're making in policy will we avoid the kinds of things that we have found ourselves that were past poor practices or practices even just violating policy quite frankly uh moving forward um the threshold is in line with what you see in most districts in terms of especially larger districts. It's not out of line. 100,000 is standard. Um I think uh I think whether or not you want to reduce it just increases the things that you see um that come to you for review and approval. So um I mean ultimately it's your call whether or not you want to reduce it. The point that really I want to make is that it is the the threshold is a factor. What's more important is that staff, schools, central services are accountable for following the policies and procedures that are in place. >> Okay, do you have a question? >> Yeah, that was actually align like kind of where my question was going to go. I have two. I I'll ask the first one first because it's about accountability. So for like where typically are or is language around accountability for the violation of board policies located because we have general kind of personnel policies around what we expect from staff in terms of behavior. Um but for some for a violation of this policy as an example, do accountability measures need to be codified in this policy in particular? Do we need to say failure to adhere to this policy will result in disciplinary action not to not including or whatever termination? Like I feel like I I need an understanding about where that accountability is because otherwise it's sort of it reads like you can violate the policy and then it's just up to whoever or whatever about what happens. Yeah. >> So, under policy 4116.11, which is our um p it's in our personnel policies, that's the policy, and the the title of it is is skipping my mind at the moment, but that is the policy that sets forth the various um potential consequences and the type of behavior that could warrant some sort of accountability measure, whether it's a reprimand or something more severe from if an employee commits it. If you do add language, which you can, in this policy that says violation of this policy could subject an employee to discipline pursuant to policy 4116.11 because that's the policy that sets forth all of the various things that could be done that could result in discipline as well as talks about our gradual disciplinary model as well. And so if you do that, that would be my recommendation. Um, can can we go ahead and have that come for review to the policy committee because it sounds like maybe that policy is where we need to be having some discussion versus on this policy. Is that >> I I actually would recommend like since it's sort of because I think we as a board have the ability to be able to shift like because it's policy. So, I don't I don't see why we couldn't have do what um DeAndre suggested and because in my opinion, I would like it to be clear. If you're referencing this policy, I would like for you to see at the bottom or somewhere where it it directly says violations of this policy will result in in so that so that it's clear that we as a board are taking violations of the policy seriously. So if you if you if you don't follow the established routing process for contracts or if a contract is not pre- audited, there are consequences and that's very clear. You don't have to you don't have to read it and then potentially re know to reference another policy in order to like identify whether or not that's a violation or not. I have to just think it should be clear within the body of the actual policy itself. But that would have to be for every policy or else one could deduce that this policy isn't as important as the policy that has the ramifications in it. So an example could be and I just I just pulled this up here just for visual under 4116.11 which is the um policy for suspension dis demotion and dismissal. It has a section that talks about reason for personnel action and it lists a number of different examples of things that could lead to some sort of disciplinary consequence. It's possible that we could kind of do a a mixture of both. Reference the language that Mr. Bohannan is referencing in the policy in the contracts policy, but then perhaps include a link to this policy and add something here that references a violation of our contract principles or a violation of policy 3330 or something like that as a reason for personnel action. Um that that is one way you could address. So the language is in the contract policy which is what Mr. Bohannan wants, but then it also is a part of our kind of larger scope around personnel discipline. Can you work on that portion? >> Sure. >> And bring that back to policy committee. >> Yes. >> I got a question. >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> No. Go ahead. >> Is there anywhere that we address want to make sure I'm politically correct that we address breaking up contracts so they all fall below the 100,000 threshold. >> So that is not explicitly referenced in the policy. Um, that's some language that could be added. >> I would like to see that because I think we saw a couple of cases where things were broken up so they never came to the board. >> Okay. So, so some sort of language that references >> um so I think I think I think what we probably should do is is >> and y'all are going to shoot me for saying this. I'm not I'm talking about staff. I think we need to pull the multiple contracts that we have with multiple vendors and see the extent of what it is that we think may or may not be happening with regards to similar services broke up broken up into I mean is that actually happening? Is it a once or twice here or there kind of thing or is it a is it more often sort of thing and and I think you do also have to be careful about like the genesis, right? Because you may have one department that issues a contract with someone and then another division or department that issues a contract with someone. It's different buckets of money, different places. You may have multiple schools that do something um with the with the vendor. So, we would need to be really careful of our review of because you'd need to look at it through vendors. You'd pull the vendor's list and then see how many times and how many contracts we have with them. And then you'd have to dig into what were the services for and determine whether or not it looks like you know and something happened in >> like you approve you approve whole slates of contracts sometimes in June or May or so for the next school year because we need the contract approvals in place and they start with a threshold that and um or we may do contracts that start with a threshold at 90,000 but at again and that would be below what requires board approval. But at any point that that contract goes over a h 100,000, if you add to it, then it has to come to the board for approval. And I think that is happening, right? >> Yes. And and also just to clarify, the the $25,000 threshold as well is for consultants and professional services. And that's regardless, that's not just principles, that's any entity. Mhm. >> I think an example of what um Trevonia is speaking of is one that just came to my mind is there was a time when we got the a list of contracts and there was a moving company. It was all for the same month, same moving company and they were all just under a hundred. If you added them all up, they should have come to us, but because they all look separate, they never came to us. So, I think it's the same project. >> Okay. So, I will say though that um there have been times where a because all these contracts have to come to me for approval before they go further. If there is one that I see, for example, let's say it's a professional development at the same school for the same time period, but let's say one contract's for English and one is for social studies. I will go back to that person and say these need to be combined because what it appears is that you are trying to avoid taking it to the board because those two separately fall under the threshold. So I have done that myself. um if it appears as though there's this intent to try to >> and and I think what I'm saying is I I I think it'd be helpful to write to review a policy and make any changes to have some data upon which we see examples of what happens so that we make the changes to policy intentionally. >> Yeah. Um Dan, can we add a little more homework for you? Can you navigate that that for us? We got a little more discussion I think. But can you navigate that for us and bring that to the back to the policy committee and adjustment like >> they're asking I think what they're asking for is can we take a review maybe use last year I hate using anything from last year but using last year as an example or a template for multiple vendors pull the list see what we see and see what we can bring back. >> Yeah. Sure. >> Okay. Alex and then Leah. So, um I know that we at one point requested um and someone just referenced this. This is a monthly report of contracts that are under the required threshold that are issued for our own purposes. I think this is a probably a good balance with like addressing the thresholds is it's not to me a concern about needing to approve contracts that are lower. It just is an understanding about the contracts that are issued. So, I would like for us to go ahead and codify that those reports are required monthly. Um, so that that's in policy permanently. Um, and it's not a thing where if staff changes or if you know something shifts that like it doesn't happen because nobody remembered that that's something that the board wants. It's in policy so it can be read and referenced. So, if you look at the new sub paragraph C where it says reporting because this was updated the last time we revised this policy to say that um it's a monthly report and we actually lowered it. It was of 50,000. The board wanted it lowered to 10,000 and so as of right now you should be getting >> So are those contracts new? So so is that monthly we're getting a report of new contracts that have been issued that are over 10,000? So when you say new, do you mean >> I'm I'm just asking based off of the way like is like how would that manifest? Is it every month we get a list of con of newly executed contracts that are over 10,000? >> Yes. >> I think you are getting that >> over 10. Yeah, under 100. >> Okay. Because over 100 would come to you. >> Right. Right. So under 100 over 10 is what's on the list that you're getting every month because over a 100 would come to you for approval. >> Yep. That satisfy. Okay. >> We've got about we got about 10 minutes left. Okay. >> Um I'm sorry. >> I still get >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. >> Um do we anticipate any impact on the time frame for getting work done should this policy be approved? Do you are you referencing the part about the pre- audit before um it comes to the board? >> Yes. I guess with the changes made to this, do we anticipate that it will take longer to get work done? I >> I would hope not. I think people are just going to have to plan >> accordingly and back their timelines up uh a little more in anticipation of that. >> And I'm not sure where like a where a time frame would come in. I do feel like people are going to need guidance. And I I think there also needs to be expectations on uh when people can expect approvals to come in. I mean it go it goes both ways. If you're asking people to get approval, you have to be timely and getting approvals and that should be so we've done a little bit of messaging already around some things like um you know budget transfers and amendments. you know, telling folks you got to back that up in terms of when you want to start spending money because the process we have where you see everything twice before you approve it. And I'm breaking that protocol this evening. Um, uh, ma means that it could be three weeks, four weeks before somebody who's put something in actually gets board approval to then begin spending. And folks just need to know that in their timeline. So we've sent some reminders about that to folks so that they understand that. Um and similarly with with you know with any of the contracts it's the same sort of thing. You can't execute until you get the approval if it requires approval. So um I think shoring up that messaging is something that we have been doing. Uh very very quickly >> very quickly this came up when she said that this is the reason why I think we need to look at our July calendar and see if we can find a meeting for the school board to meet in July so that we are not holding any contracts up for approval. If we meet in at least once in July we can at least be in front of that process and not behind the process. So something to consider in our school board calendar. >> Yeah. Just very quickly we we've got about 10 minutes or less left. So um is Dr. with Paul. >> Yeah. Yeah. Can is there is there any urgency for us to take action today or can we move this to December? Can that be okay? >> Right. >> Okay. Is that is that city with the committee? Well, just a question because if if we're looking at communication, I think the earlier the better and I think if we can find a way tonight to at least have it up for discussion because I think putting this off for another month will definitely constrain our communications. Okay. >> With families. >> All right, let's let's go ahead and finish up this. And um >> so, Mr. Wood, it sounds like there's perhaps still some more review that needs to happen for this policy. And number three, for for pol for the contracts policy. >> Yeah. For number three. >> Um and so might I suggest that when it comes to the action portion, either table it or or something then I can bring back um information >> at the next opportunity with all your >> question. We got we got a motion from my best chair. >> Oh well, not right now yet. >> Well, we're going to move on. We're going to move on to um the action items once we got one more. >> Once we determine Yeah. once we determine um number four. So, so do we want to do we want to try to >> let me go ahead and give Paula at least the 10 minutes that we have to sort of give an overview of where this is. Okay. So that so that we can move forward. >> Yeah. Go. >> All right. Policy 3250.2 um sets all fees for the district. We normally bring this in the spring. We're bringing one kind of out of order, if you will, because we've had years of kind of back and forth around a situation we need to handle. And so, I want to try to give some background context and share the recommendation and how we arrived here and try to see what discussion questions you have for today. So, the purpose for this is just to ensure that private pay preschool um is financially sustainable. We've had some conversations and I think you all have heard them in different spaces around prek specifically downtown I think mostly being self- sustaining. it is private pay. But I also want to talk about a little bit of historical context and what has been shared and we've we've had a hard time finding documents, but we've had um conversations with the prior principal Jane Atkinson as well as the current principal Andy Lester Niles to try to pull the piece together about where we are. We continue to see rising cost around um the tuition revenue and and in the past local has had to offset the revenue that we did not receive for operating the program. We want to align this to countywide rates for private pay so the program can sustain itself but also have opportunities to periodically review it for tuition increases etc. So just a little bit about the program specifically. I'm going to talk about downtown, but there's also some private pay blended funding within the special the um special children's school and children's center as well, but that's connected to a CFC contract, which we'll have to have some more negotiation and conversation around reimbursements for them for that agreement, which is a whole another piece of of conversation as well. Um the program has four classrooms at the downtown school. It serves three and four year olds. It is fully enrolled and it was licensed as of this summer. The evolution of the program, the preschool part started in 1992, though the school began operation in 91. It started through the partnership with Reynolds American, but families for preschool originally paid for half day, $250 for tuition and 400 for full day. The district then agreed to all lot two teachers for the program as a part of that partnership. The tuition that was paid by families was intended to cover the TA staff for the program, but the tuition over time had some raises by the board that came from the downtown school. This is a little different just because we need to set this for the district if there are any programs and have some consistency. But at the time when this kind of agreement was negotiated, the district did not allow specials for the downtown school. So the downtown was considered to be the experience like the Y um the public library that students could get access to without paying for additional teachers. We no longer do that. We now all lot specials for um the schools we do for all schools. So in 2019 to 20 23 the tuition moved from $400 to $600 which is the current rate but that $600 tuition does not cover the full um price to operate the program for staffing. And of course in our current budget crisis and our situation is having us to look more deeply at what that actually costs the district. And you'll see that breakdown in just a second. So over these multiple years, the district has incurred helping to offset that price for staffing. These are our employees, though this is a private pay tuition program. Um full enrollment shows that families value this that those slots as soon as a slot is open, it is filled. The tuition structure just needs some sustainability. So um I mentioned it doesn't cover the staffing costs. The recommendation that I'll talk about is to move the tuition price from $600 to $950 beginning in the 2627 year. That is a jump and we do need families to have time to adjust for that jump. We also want to look at additional subsidy opportunities through DSS. Our license gives us that first gateway, but the more licensed stars that we get will allow us to of course receive reimbursement for more funding for families who weren't able to pay that full tuition. Um, us getting licensed first this summer was that first step and we have a team that's working on that to help us. So by 2026 27 we'll be able to do that. The market rate in our community shows that range from $900 to $1,200 a month for that age group for tuition for preschool. And so we've already communicated the potential for increase. Families were told the possible increase could go up to $1,200. We have a meeting with them next week to talk about this further at the downtown school as well. So staffing costs for 2526. actual cost for the staff that run the program is almost $400,000. If we look at 2627 and factor in a roughly 7% increase for benefits, that'll be about 423,000. And at 48 students for 10 months, that net um charge that would come in is about 456,000. So that would offset and pay pretty much almost to break even with just a little bit of difference. So sustaining this model, we want to not have to use district funds. One, we don't have that available and we we are at that place that we have to look at what the tuition looks like and eliminating that deficit that the district has been making up over time. So the recommendation is to move from 600 to $950 a month for tuition in 2627. It's competitive knowing the rates in our district. This will eliminate the subsidies, make it viable, align to the district goals, keep the program available for families that want it with high enrollment for 2526. How are we going to cover the costs? There is enough in extended day funds that can cover what is the deficit for this year. That is the only reason we are not asking for a tuition rate increase right now because we have already done the calculations and what they have remaining in extended day and we have to wipe that out to cover out the the staffing. Um, and then giving the families time to plan. So, I know that was a really quick update, but I hope that was clear kind of where we are. Definitely. >> One or two quick things. >> Thank you. Um, you know, private pay prek is also something that is not common in terms of something that districts offer families. Um, we've had it for a long time here. Um, I think it is I think it's thriving. I think it's in demand. I think maintaining it is important. I think making sure that it's, you know, fiscally sound is also important. Um, and I would I would encourage us to think about a private prek program similar to how we think about child nutrition where they're an enterprise program and they have to earn the funds in the sales and the reimbursements of the meals in order to pay the salaries of the staff and the expenses of the location. That it's very similar in terms of its orientation and what we're looking at here. um our other prek programs that we have that we're required to do for students or that are funded through title one or EC funds um or uh smart start and NC prek those those are different this is a completely different program and so I think I think what you know Dr. Dr. Wilkins is bringing reflects where we are as a community. The fact that we it's not something that we really should be subsidizing, but we also want to maintain both the quality and the demand of the program in the community. So, I think that's about as low as we could go. Um, we'd have to keep an eye on it. Um, but again, we also it was really important to try to, you know, we went back and forth on do we raise it now? What do we need to do now? we've turned over our rocks trying to figure out how can we can make sure we can pay for it for the rest of this year so that we don't have to make the change for the families until the next school year and that was the piece around making sure that we're ready for a meeting next week to provide some messaging based on board direction this evening. >> Okay, any further questions? >> Dr. Wilkins, have we had any I know the meeting's coming up. Have we had any kind of preliminary feedback from this letter that was sent to parents? And also second question would be how are we really coming along with a three star rating? >> So in progress so um because of the government shutdown and furlow they just opened up today for NCDCDE and I know Laquita had a um meeting with them today to kind of work on that process. So that's your second question. Um and then we will also work to do the before after care piece because that's a separate application as well. to your first question. I spoke to Andy Lester Niles on Friday. No parent questions have come in at this point. There is a link available for families for prequests before the meeting and then we'll have an updated candid conversation together as well. >> All righty. Thank you very much, Paul. Appreciate it. >> Committee ready to move to action items. Uh number one, consider approval to post to post the policy 3435 audit committee for full board approval. >> This will be yeah with the changes around the selections that were made >> with the and I I'd like to propose that we do a 43 board of education to county commissioner makeup of those nominees and also insert the advisory. State that again to the committee >> 43 board of education to county commissioner. >> Okay. >> Um ratio on the advisor and then add the name advisor. >> And add the name advisory. Okay. Second. >> All right. And with with that let's make that an amendment and >> she just motioned. >> Yep. That's the motion. Okay. >> All right. Second it. All those in favor? Wait. I'm sorry. Further discussion. >> No discussion. >> All right. All those in favor raise your hand. It looks like a All those opposed. All right. It looks like 100%. Uh consider approval to post policy 5148 emergency. Anybody want to say >> move second >> for public comment? Second. All those in further discussion. All those in favor? All right. It looks like the 100%. Consider approval to post policy 3330. >> I'd like to table this motion. Second. >> All right. Further discussion. All those in favor of tableabling the motion until future date. Okay. That passes as well. Um and the IV number four consider approval of the tuition increase at downtown school preschool. >> Move approve. >> Second. >> Second. Further discussion. All those in favor? All right. Looks like that's 100% too. Uh announcements. Next policy committee meeting dates will be voted on at the December 9th board of education meeting. this meeting is adjourned and we >> can I get the superintendent's advice too on getting can we amend the this evening's agenda to include the uh posting the policy of the audit advisory committee because again this is a time-sensitive thing that they are in place as this information is all coming in at the end of December I hesitate to wait another month before we even start we need to even post. I mean, we've posted before. >> I'm not sure if we need to post it. I was going to ask that question. Since we've posted it for comment, we've gotten feedback, we've made revisions, I'm not sure that we need to do anything other than just approve it. >> You do not need to post for public comment, >> right? >> So, can we can we make a motion once we get in tonight's meeting to amend the agenda to include that to approve tonight? >> If if that's the will of the board, you can do that at agenda review to amend the agenda to add as an action item. Yeah, >> that is there going to be enough time between now and then to have like a final draft to be able to put up >> I've already updated it. >> Okay, perfect. >> All right, >> this meeting is a journ. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. I would like to call the meeting to order. May have a motion to go into close to discuss a personnel and to discuss a legal matter pursuant to the statutory provisions listed on the agenda. Do I have a motion? >> Move. Second. >> So I have a motion. Can I have a second? Any discussion? You're none. All in favor? Thanks. 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