All right, I am going to call our student achievement committee meeting to order. Um, and today we are talking about two very important topics very timely for the beginning of the year. um our um school climate and culture and our school mental health plan. And so uh before we get started today, I will accept a motion to approve the student achievement committee men committee meeting minutes for May 26th. >> Madam Chair, I move approval of the minutes. A second. >> Okay, it has been properly moved and second. And um I guess we need to take a vote. So all in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. Nay. We are good to go. The committee meeting minutes for May 26th have been approved and I will turn it over to Dr. Wilson. All right. Good afternoon board members. Um we are excited to have some time here today to really talk about a topic that I am personally highly invested in at this point in time. Um today we're going to we have some some friends with us as well and we'll introduce them even further towards the end of this this topic but Mr. John Powell is with us from Campbell Law, Amory Atkins who is one of our principles and Ken Jorgensson who is a director of um alternative ed. So they are also here with us as we're going to begin this conversation today. So we're going to begin um talking about shifting our school culture and we when we do that we really want to recognize that this is at its heart mindset work. Real transformation goes far deeper than actually adopting a new terminology or layering on a technical process. It is vital that we are clear about what this work is and what it is not. And it is not a single event. Um like a one-off workshop or not just anything that we want to make sure is in a particular format like the mechanics of holding a circle. And it is certainly not a checklist where we simply trade in old compliance rules for new ones. In addition, we must address the misconception that many people have around restorative practices that perceive that there are no consequences to behavior. They do not remove consequences. Rather, they define the lens through which we operate. Shifting how we view and apply those consequences to ensure they are educational rather than punitive. Instead, this shift demands something much more significant from us. It requires time, persistence, and ongoing coaching. And it asks us to look closely at our internal beliefs and move away from a punitive mindset towards one that is truly educative. Most importantly, it demands a relational focus where we choose to slow we choose the slow intentional work of building and repairing authentic relationships over quick fixes or systematic expediency. So I share this slide every time. This is not new for you all and I've shared it with administrators multiple times over. Um when we look at our students, we have to remember a fundamental truth and that truth is that every behavior tells a story. Too often our instinct is to view view behavior simply as something to be managed or as an act of compliance or defiance. But if we stop to listen, we realize that behavior is a form of communication. It is a student's way of telling us about their history, their needs, and their experiences. And understanding that story, truly grasping the students perspective is the absolute first step toward meaningful change. When we shift our role from reactively punishing an action to proactively interpreting that story behind it, we change the trajectory for that student and for ourselves. We stop asking what's wrong with this student and start asking what has happened to this student. That shift in perspective is what allows us to move away again from systematic expediency and toward intentional relational work that creates real lasting change. This framework also you have seen before and it is in it is intended for us to think through as we are talking about moving the needle on school climate. We must anchor our work in our comprehensive behavioral health framework. And this framework isn't just a list of initiatives. It is a system of care that connects several vital components. At the heart of our approach are three foundational pillars. First, we prioritize social emotional learning where we equip students with essential skills like resiliency, empathy, and self-awareness. Second, we focus on classroom management, establishing effective routines and engagement strategies that create an optimal optimal environment. And third, we establish clear schoolwide expectations, shared norms that foster a positive, consistent culture of responsibility. These things should happen for every student every day. To support those, we want to layer on two critical responsive systems. We use the restorative and trauma-informed practices to foster empathy and resolve conflicts through an approach recognizing that um we have to repair harm in order to get growth. Finally, we we provide a tiered behavior response to ensure that we can offer customized flexible support and interventions based on each student's individual need. And by integrating all of those elements, we aren't just reacting to behavior. We are building a proactive system and supportive ecosystem that supports every student's ability to thrive. So as we look toward the implementation of a restorative mindset, we must keep one principle front and center that building a strong school climate and culture is slow and strategic work. It cannot be rushed and if we want it to last. Our road map relies on a disciplined process ensuring that every step we take is in alignment with our core values. We don't try to do everything at once. Instead, we need to prioritize action in a tiered approach. We start by focusing our efforts on some students, building capacity and testing our practices before extending that dedication that dedicated attention to the few who require the most intensive supports. By pacing ourselves in this way, we will ensure that the work we do today creates a sustainable and positive environment for years to come. As we move forward with this restorative blueprint, it is important to recognize that we are doing more than just adopting a new program. We are fundamentally changing the DNA of our school climate. We are shifting away from a system that res relies on reactive and punitive measures and moving toward a restorative blueprint that centers on relationships, intentionality, and equity. This transition is anchored in our behavioral health framework as I already mentioned which integrates that social emotional learning and consistent expectations into a cohesive system of care by viewing every behavior as a story rather than a disruption. We are equipping our educators to look beyond the surface, address the root cause, which is ultimately what this is about, and provide tiered support that every student needs in order to be able to succeed. Ultimately, this blueprint is subst is is sustain about sustainability. It represents a slow strategic discipline path towards a culture where students are held accountable. Yes, but through a lens of repair and growth rather than through exclusion. We are building the infrastructure through trainer networks, capacity building and collaborative planning to ensure that this restorative mindset becomes the standard and not the exception for the schools in our district. It's critical to clarify that restorative practices is not a single activity or a specific program or a prepackaged intervention. It is not just an act of holding a circle. Nor is it a checklist that we can simply complete. Instead, restorative practice is best understood as a continuum, a spectrum of relational approaches that range from simply daily interactions to more intensive community building and repair. Because it is a continuum, it cannot be implemented as a rigid practice. It must be cultivated as a mindset. This mindset is the foundation upon which all of our practices rest. It is the shift from asking what rule has been broken and then what is the punishment to what happened and who was affected and what is the needed repair for the harm. When we view these practices as a mindset rather than a program, we stop chasing the perfect format and start focusing on authentic responsive interactions that build true community. To understand the power of this restorative work, it helps to visualize this engagement window. And if you picture a grid where one access represents the level of support that might be provided and the other represents the level of accountability that we expect, we can clearly see the four ways we interact with students. When we offer high support but no accountability, we are often doing things for students which can unintentionally foster dependency. Conversely, when we demand high accountability but provide no support, we are doing things to the student which creates resentment and disconnects them from our community. Our restorative goal is to exist in that high support, high accountability quadrant. This is where we work with one another. It is the sweet spot where we hold students to high standards of behavior, but we simultaneously wrap them in support they can that they need in order to meet those expectations. When we operate here, we aren't just managing behavior. We are engaging in a partnership that fosters growth and personal responsibility. So with this foundational principle of this restorative blueprint that is our strategy, we know that that must be grounded in the lived experience of those it affects the most. So those people are our educators and our students. And that's why throughout the spring, this past spring in 2026, we prioritized some authentic collaboration um and held sessions with both the superintendent's teacher advisory council and the student advisory board to seek their input and feedback on what might be a transition to a more restorative environment and a restorative mindset. These conversations were vital and we weren't simply presenting a plan. We were actively listening to hearing their perspectives, their questions, and their insights of our school community leaders. Their feedback has been instrumental in shaping our approach and and ensuring that we move toward this new climate where we are doing so with a strategy that is not only robust but truly reflective of the needs and voices of those we serve. This inclusive process confirms that we are not just designing a system for our community that we are building it alongside them. So as we transition from the conceptual phase to active implementation, it's vital that we ground ourselves in the principle that building a strong school climate is slow strategic work. It cannot be rushed and if we want it to be sustainable. Our road map for moving this work forward is built on three pillars. Process, alignment, and action. And we are intentionally avoiding the trap of trying to change everything all at once. Instead, we are using a discipline tiered approach. We start by focusing our efforts on some students building capacity, testing our practices in real time before we extend that to the few who require the most intensive and individualized support. And by pacing ourselves through this process, we ensure that our efforts remain perfectly [clears throat] aligned with our values. This isn't about implementing a new practice again. It is about building a sustainable foundation where our processes lead to meaningful action, ensuring that the work we do today creates a lasting positive envir environment for every student in our district. So as we scale this work, it is vital to acknowledge that we the the strength that's already in our foundation. We have a rich and established history with Campbell Law Center and the Krinus approach which have been instrumental in defining our understanding of restorative values and community. We are not moving away from that work. We are building upon it. We are bringing also the curriculum based inter um international institute for restorative practices approach alongside. As this graphic illustrates, these two frameworks are deeply aligned at their core. both honor the same principles of relational repair and respect. However, by integrating the IRP approach, we are gaining a strategic advantage at scalable curriculum and explicit evidence-based modules. This integration provides the infrastructure we need to take these practices which were previously practiced in some locations and implement them systematically across the district. essentially marrying the heart of the original foundation with both tools. By balancing this technical structure with our relational depth, we are building more than a program. We're creating a robust infrastructure that ensures restorative practices becomes the standard sustainable way that we operate across the district. Both approaches to restorative practices are both driven by the same foundational belief that we must separate the deed from the doer. In a traditional punitive system, the behavior and the student are often complicated. When a student acts out, we treat the child as the problem to be fixed or removed. Our restorative work flips that script. Whether we are using the deep listening of the kranis circle or the structured conferencing in the IRP model, the goal remains identical to address the harm caused by the behavior while affirming the worth of the child or the student. We aren't just creating a more efficient system. We are building a community where we can hold students accountable for their actions, taking full responsible for the deed without ever discarding the doer. This is how we move away from exclusion and toward to and toward true restoration, ensuring that our students learn from their mistakes without losing their place in our school family. So, as we transition our discussion on to implementation, it's important to acknowledge that a restorative mindset requires more than just good intentions. Um, it requires the infrastructure to turn those intentions into daily practice. And we are now moving from the why of why we're doing this work into the how of the district-wide execution of this work. This work is already underway. And we aren't starting from scratch. We are leveraging the deep expertise that has already been cultivated. This infrastructure is the engine of our strategic roadmap. And we look forward this fall into the spring of 2027. And our as we look forward to that, our focus is clear that we are moving from an initial an initial foundational capacity building to active professional learning, ongoing coaching and deliberate systemic scaling up. We are getting ready to put these systems into motion and ensuring that the restorative mindset we are championing championing becomes tangible reality in our schools. As we evaluate our foundational readiness for this work, we are guided by the research of the National Implementation Research Network, NERN. This research teaches us that systematic strategic change is not a quick fix. It is a multi-year journey. It is also again not an event. We are treating this implementation with the rigor of a scientific process understanding that we must move through the distinct stages to ensure our foundation is truly solid before we attempt to scale. We are purposefully navigating those those stages from exploration to initial installation to initial implementation and then to full implementation. sustained system integration. By embracing this multi-year framework, we avoid the adoption trap where a new program is simply added on top of everything else that everybody's already doing. Instead, we are focused on implementation, which means that we're realigning those district infrastructures and practices and professional support systems so that these restorative practices become the way we operate. Not just another initiative on the to-do list. This is about building the necessary capacity and commitment today to ensure that by 2027 and beyond, this restorative mindset is an embedded permanent fixture within our school culture. To bring that to life, we have intentionally focused on building deep sustainable capacity across our district. We aren't just launching a program again. We're cultivating a network of expertise to ensure that we have staying power. So our f foundation is already strong. We have trained 94 staff members across key divisions like student support services, special education, instructional services, and the magnet programs who have completed comprehensive awareness training. Beyond that, we have invested in specialized skilled training by developing a 10-person mediation team in the Kranis model with ongoing support from Campbell Law. Looking ahead, our strategy is clear. We have established a network of 10 core trainers um who are able to facilitate and coach the use of the AP model and we have trained uh school teams. We will be getting ready to train school teams specifically focused on our low performing schools as we move this from our current work into the fall and into the spring of 2027. Um our internal preparation uh leads to active coaching, targeted professional learning and finally systematic scale up scale up. Um and we want to make sure that we are able to build the infrastructure internally to sustain what we will need to do for the district. This summer, Lisa Alred and I have been spending most of the summer with school leaders um in the behavioral health summer retreats. Um and as we have participated in that work, we have uh first asked our schools to pause and evaluate their readiness for this work. Um we know that systematic transport transformation isn't just about having a plan. It's about ensuring that we have the right conditions and the schools to sustain it. So we know that um that has to be that can't necessarily be done from the top down, but it must be built upon a foundation of readiness. So we have asked our leaders to consider um and evaluate their readiness. We haven't been asking them to just check boxes. We've asked them to dig into these pillars that actually talk about sustainable change in their schools currently. That we want them to look at the beliefs and attitudes of their staff, the current health of the school climate and the depth of their leadership commitment to this work. These conversations have been crucial and we are looking forward to seeing their their engagement in the process um of the right conditions to start to support this restorative shift. If the school is not quite there yet, we are asking that they begin making some of those transitions this year so that they will begin to take to be ready to take that on in the in the 2728 school year. It's hard for me to believe I'm saying that. um building their capacity and fostering buyin and strengthening their culture so that when they do launch they're ready to go and they're set up for success. So as we move from the two discussions around our compelling why and what our implementation strategy it has been focused on, we want to move to our implementation roadmap to really talk about the reality of the classroom. And it's important to acknowledge that this isn't just a theoretical future. It is work that is already happening in many of our schools um and in many locations and with our partners. So, for the past couple of years, I've had the privilege of partnering with John Powell, who's an attorney and professor um with Campbell Law and is the leader of the Campbell Restorative Justice Clinic. John has been a true architect in helping us getting this off the ground. um and he brings a wealth of experience and not just the legal expert but as a practition as a practitioner who has walked this path with Wake County as well as with others. Um I am excited he's also a stars one of our stars in education. So we're going to give John an opportunity to share. >> Thank you so much. Um I love being in a room with her. Don't you? She is inspiring um to hear her talk about this stuff that I've been working on for over 20 years and to see the way that the plans are to grow what's been a dream for me and to make it sustainable uh is very exciting and so Michelle to you and your team I am so grateful. Um this has been a dream of mine. We started our clinic in 2003 out of my frustration of being a criminal defense attorney working in a system that believe it or not is not designed to make people's lives better. You are designing things to make people's lives better and I'm all about that. So I'm grateful for that. My frustration in going to court every day was that uh the questions were what law was broken, who did it, what punishment do they deserve? Punishment was the primary almost exclusive tool and um it comes out of a retributive mindset and I'm so glad that you are starting with a different kind of mindset and I think that's where we need to start with our kids and our parents and our communities. So out of that frustration, I was introduced to restorative justice in a criminal context. And so I had a professor, a new professor that came to Campbell. I was a practicing attorney in the criminal system. He and I met over coffee one day and he said, "Tell me what you do." And so I voiced what I do and I voiced a lot of my frustration. He said, "You ever heard of restorative justice?" I said, "No, I haven't. Tell me about it." and he told me about it and I had one of those light bulb moments. I said, "This is the answer to my frustrations." He had a desire for Campbell Law School to have a clinical program which they had never had before. I had a desire for the criminal system to have a program that served people's needs, which they had not had before. So, we kept talking and our dean and our chief judge put together a task force to figure out how to do this. And about a year and a half later, we made a proposal. We found the money through the governor's commission and um they agreed with what we proposed and we opened the clinic and we started with the juveninals that were in the juvenile court system. So we were exclusively a juvenile diversion program. Juveniles would come in, their cases would be evaluated and they would be referred to us if they thought they were appropriate. We got three cases in the first semester. I thought this is going to be a great failure. Three cases in the first semester. I'm also teaching law students how to do this work. three cases. Um we worked those cases, we were successful, people began to talk and that happened in the way can school system too after we moved here in 2009. The next semester we had about 12 cases. The next year we had more than we could set a stick at as they say where I was raised. Um and so the powers at B found a way to expand what we were doing. Tony and I, the guy that introduced me to restorative practice, had been co-directing the clinic up to that point that didn't asked me to become the full-time director. So, I became a part-time criminal defense attorney in the full-time director and did that for the next two years. And then I closed my law office. Still have my license. If you get a speeding ticket, give me a call. I can still I can still represent you in that. Um, but transition to full-time director of the clinic. Um, one of my frustrations as an attorney was seeing kids that were being sent into a criminal legal system that they couldn't navigate and the parents didn't have the support to navigate them either. And a lot of the referrals were coming out of schools. This is back in the day when schools believed in zero tolerance policies and they were sending kids into the court system. uh which to me was very frustrating and very sad because the court system was not equipped with ways to make these kids better and make them successful. So we wanted to create a way that kids could not even see the court system. So we went directly to the schools after doing this work for a while and seeing that about 60% of our cases that came from the court had been sent to them by the schools. I went to the schools in Horn County and said, "Let me tell you what we're doing and see if you'd be interested in this." The person I was talking to was Don Andrews who happened to have a son on my little league baseball team that I was coaching and so I had his ear on the sidelines and he thought this was a great idea. So out of that conversation we started to get referrals from the school system. We did that until the law school moved from blue street [clears throat] in 2009. The first person that I met in your school system was Karen Hamilton. And I have to tell you the story because if you know Karen you'll say yep that's Karen. She came to see me and I talked to her for about five minutes. She put her hand in my face and I went, "Uhoh, what did I just say to this person?" She said, "You don't need to say anything else. I'm in." And [snorts] that's when she she said, "We're going to shop this around. Uh we're not going to give this to everybody right now." I said, "Good, because we need to start slow." And uh she talked to principles and we started working with Lian and Horsquare. And from that it just grew exponentially. And so I'm just very glad for that. I will tell you though, Michelle has taught me a lot. And one thing that she taught me that kind of solidified in my mind last week as we were doing a presentation for an elementary school is the difference between the informal restorative justice practices and the formal. I've lived my life on the formal side. So on the end where the harm has already happened, we go in and we do facilitated dialogue to help bring victims and offenders together or we're doing the circle process to build community. Uh those are the formal processes. She has helped me to solidify in my mind the informal processes. That's part of what is going to make this go and and and make this and it's very similar to the circle that helps you not have to do the facilitated dialogue because conflict doesn't happen as much when you do in the circle. the informal practices is going to help you not to even have to do so much in the circle because it's going to be taking care of those things and building that that relationship. So, um we have expanded tremendously. I don't just work in your school system. I worked in the court system and some of us were sitting in a room yesterday much like this room because we're on the school justice partnership. And I will tell you that one of the encouraging things to me is we are not only uh honored to be invited into the Wake County school system to do this work, but we are invited into the juvenile court system and the adult system to do this work as well. And some of the cases that do find their way into the court system, for example, when a child does the idiotic stuff on social media, uh, showing a gun and making threats to kill people, they get charged with felonies and they get most of the time they're they're charged. They're in the court system. They also are in your alternative system. So I get two crits of them because we're working very very heavily in what this team has put together to help kids that are sent away from their base schooling to an alternative setting. We we've been very involved in that. But even in cases where they're not, they come to me from the juvenile court system. And so we're able to use our restorative practice to help these kids understand the harm they've done to bring them together with school personnel and others that where they have done the harm and to come to resolutions about how that harm can be uh rectified and uh we just almost always have very positive results. Uh Michelle warned me if I went past 8 minutes she would not talk me anymore. I want her to be my friend. So I'm going to stop talking for a second. >> Thank you very much. So while it's vital to have that legal and academic framework to guide us, it is a true test of this blueprint to see what it's actually going to look like in the threshold of the school. So I would like to transition to a leader who demonstrates that restorative work just isn't a part of how she implements. It's in the very fabric of her building. So at Herbert Akins Middle School, the restorative mindset is not a separate initiative. It is lived out in every interaction from the way uh staff start their meetings to how families are engaged in the community. So I would love to welcome Amarie Atkins. >> Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to share all the wonderful things that our school community has done and built over the last four years. Um as many of you may know the white. There we go. So we opened our doors. Um we're the newest middle school in Wake County Public School System. We opened in July of 2022 um as a multi-track yearround school and created this vision with the staff took some time and effort to put this together to really think about what an experience would be for a student who enters our doors. And so as you can see um we include the entire learning community to collaborate and facilitate equitable outcomes and growth through the social emotional which in turn would provide us academic opportunities for our students. And so when we came together to build the culture of our school and the community and bringing together these are the main things that if we were to say we call them big sticks because we are the Nighthawks and we have a nest for our Nighthawks and so our big sticks were the positivity project which pairs very well with restorative practices and we do a lot of collaboration and co-eing. I had the opportunity in the spring of 2022 as we were working to build the systems and structures for the school to partner with John and some district staff to think about what it would be to build a school community um along the lines of restorative mindset as we are referencing which it truly is. We called it restorative practices more at the time. Um, having been in multiple school districts and then multiple schools within Lake County and middle school, I saw a true need for how are we going to keep students in the classroom? How can we keep them there to learn? And so, um, through building the systems and structures and referring back to something Michelle brought up earlier is all that foundational work that it takes in our daily work and we have to talk a lot about classroom management, our schoolwide expectations, social emotional learning, tiered behavioral resources, and that restorative and traumainformed practices. These are just a few of the things that happen daily at our school. Um, all of our staff are circlekeeper trained and we partner with um some district staff who are circle keeper trainers and when we opened our doors and part of our kickoff was to have part of John's team there to um work with our uh staff. Um, we do continually offer mediation training so that we're hoping to have staff within the school be able to mediate for the students. We even um I don't know if it's out there, but we train our students on peer mediation. Um, the students probably, this is just in general, engage at least one circle per week. Some of them are for community building and sometimes circles are used to address like content or classroom practices that are taking place um in the different classroom settings. Um we do a lot of cokeeping uh where two staff members may work together to plan or to hold uh circles with students. We have included our families in evening events um or in um when we have PTA meetings, booster meetings, etc. of kind of that community building, keeping it very much low level so that we can get to know one another and find what we all have in common and also build that all of us have a story and a lot of times our stories are very similar to one another. Um we do a lot of um staff meetings have circles or inclusive activities. Doesn't matter whether there's five people at the table or a room of a hundred. Um we do have counselor referral forms. Our counselors play a large role in this. Um our counselors are in the hallways on the same floors as our grade levels. Um they are not in student services area. They are with the students um every day. Um we do a practice called flooding. And what that is is so a teacher has an opportunity to meet with a student if there's been any type of harm or something where they see um harm between two students that might have been created or something starting and a counselor, an administrator, another staff member may go into their classroom and take over the teaching um and instruction for a while with the students and they step out and work with the student and that way it take keeps them with that relationship with their students. so someone else isn't coming and taking that away from them. Um, as we know, we talk a lot about um, an example I use with the staff is if I call somebody out at a staff meeting, nobody would want that, right? Or ask somebody to leave, how difficult would it be to walk back into the same space with your peers if that had happened. So, we do a lot of that where the adults are working in a in a way with students so that it feels safe to reenter spaces. Um, we do that positivity project which is really emphasizing the strengths within us all, our character strengths. It matches and goes very well with the restorative mindset practices. Um, and I do I'm going to talk a little bit about our alternative learning center. But before I do that, if we have had to remove a student, as Michelle mentioned, there are consequences to actions, right? Some of them we don't like as much, but there are consequences. We re-entry plans are very common. Um and it could be different staff members working at different levels on re-entry plans. It could be they had spent some time in ALC or alternative learning center, maybe an inschool suspension, out of school suspension, but we always try to create a place and a space where it's safe to reenter so that we're not getting students coming back with multiple um infractions, you may say. So, one of the things we did with the alternative learning center, which is something we all have, and I think we'll segue into that in just a moment, is um we call ours the aviary. So, when we first opened, the teacher that I had hired for this was all about restorative mindset and practices and helping get us going. And she called me um because, you know, we didn't have a school for the first few months until we opened, right? and she said, "Hey, um, I've been thinking, can we name the ALC something other than ALC?" I said, "What are you thinking?" Um, and she mentioned, "I'd like to call the aviary." Now, this works well in our school because we are nighthawks. They're are birds and aviates are places where birds may go if there's harm or something to, you know, have some repair, restoration before they return to their natural environment. So, we call it the aviary. I don't know that anyone in our the students at our school know what ALC would even be. It's just the aviary to them. Um and so we've done a lot of work there. I just want to mention um our aviary teacher ALC teacher is trained in trauma-informed practices, circle keeping, mediation, and he is able to train the rest of our staff. He spends a lot of time outside of the apiary because our hope is that students are not in the apiary and um working with teachers or working with students in collaborative spaces. Um we have less than 5% of our students receive an out of school suspension. Um when we opened our doors, it was probably double that. So we're doing a lot of things and some wraparound uh strategies and to create that mindset to support students so they can stay in classrooms and learn at high levels. And we do a lot of work at our school along this strategic plan. This is very much aligned to um the learning the lever three and um students well-being and resilience along with you student well-being and hoping students come and attend school. Some of it is about how safe do you feel coming into um the school setting and so that is our hope and desire to improve continuously on those as well. >> All right. Thank you so much for sharing with us a little bit about how that is woven into the fabric of what you do every day. So, I'm going to pivot to a um to a critical area of our work and now we're going to talk a little bit about how we're supporting students who are navigating our alternative education settings. We know that these transitions often involve a disciplinary reassignment and are frequently some of the most fragile moments in a student's educational journey. For the past two years, our alternative education department has been deeply focused on transforming how we handle those moments through a specialized pilot program. It's my pleasure to introduce Mr. Ken Jorgensson who's our director of alternative ed cabinet. Ken and his team um in close proximity or partnership with uh John Powell have been navigating a new model that we've have around restorative reintegration which is which Amarie just kind of mentioned. Um, it's a vital pilot program currently operating with eight of our schools and it shifts the focus sharply away from serving a reassignment to actively restoring harm, fostering family healing, and building a structured, responsive transition plan for the students to return back to their base. So, I will turn it over to Kim. >> Thank you, Mrs. Woodson. And good afternoon, board members. Uh yeah, I'm uh happy to be here for this opportunity to share some of our current and ongoing work. Uh this aspect um as it connects to restorative, I think many would consider it a tier three level of support. Uh we're talking about students that have received a disciplinary reassignment to an alternative learning program and the work that is going on while they're there and helping them transition back to base school. Uh I think as has been mentioned today, it's important to acknowledge uh as we saw in one of those slides that top right um is the ideal state for restorative work where there is a high level of accountability but also a high level of support. And so these um students have been held accountable for the behaviors at the school. Um they received a recommendation for long-term suspension. They served a 10-day short-term suspension. Uh but in lie of a long-term suspension, they received a disciplinary reassignment to one of our alternative learning programs for a period of time. Um knowing that all of these students uh when that time is ended, they will be returning to their base school. Some of these incidents uh as you can imagine can be uh significant or egregious. They might entail physical aggression, assault, uh a threat to the larger school community, or could be a student that has previously received a recommendation for long-term suspension and already spent some time at our alternative learning program. So, in those incidents, it's not hard to imagine uh that a relationship is fractured. There could be harm done between some stakeholders. And part of this program is to help and teach the offender uh some empathy and and understand the harm that they may have caused to their school community by their actions. The some of the goals of the program uh overall is to decrease some of this recidivism we've seen. Our data uh indicates that some students uh may get a disciplinary reassignment to an ALP, return to their base school, and then after a period of time receive an additional recommendation for long-term suspension. So, we're really trying to get involved with the student and the family uh to do some education and uh better decision making processes to help limit that that pattern. Um it's quite a collaborative approach. You'll hear throughout this how uh committed we are to including the student and the family in this process. Uh so it's collaborative between again the student and the family, the alternative learning program staff is involved while they're receiving the disciplinary reassignment and of course the base school staff member for that partnership and a preparation to return them back to base. Um in addition to the consequence they receive uh their support are implemented uh to promote the student with some better self-regulation skills uh a more thoughtful decisionmaking process and the opportunity for a proactive deescalation of future incidents that may arise in the students uh life. So ultimately, I think we're trying to again uh decrease those disruptive behaviors while promoting a safe learning environment back at the faith school. Uh, and not only are these skills and strategies appropriate for students receiving a disciplinary reassignment, as Principal Atkins shared in Herbert Akens, this can be I think the skills that we're growing in our staff can be applied to students returning from a short-term suspension uh or returning from an ALC assignment back into the core classroom or perhaps no exclusionary out of school suspension at all, but just some repeated disruptive behavior. behaviors that are negatively impacting their own achievement and that of others, we can use some of these skills to improve that behavior. So, how are we going about this? Um, all students that receive a disassignment to an ALP are uh the collaborative approaches to build the student success plan and that has input from the school, the student, the family, and the ALP. uh where we set clear goals, expectations, and possibly most importantly uh clear re-entry and transition back into the school plan that we heard from Herbert Akens as well. Again, there's that high level of accountability, but not leaving it just punitive and a consequence. We also provide a high level of support for the student. Um some of these instances where uh some relationship was fractured or there was harm between stakeholders uh we hold a collaborative meeting and that's a pretty intense um and impactful I should say uh session with the student, the family, the ALP and the base school. Uh they're all involved. We want to understand the harm and the impact that occurred while focusing on the future um and that returning to base. And ultimately, it's about rebuilding those relationships with the student, the family, and that base school that we know the student is returning to. Uh once we hold the collaborative meeting, the student is at the ALP. uh we're continuing to build relationship and then we get ready for a transition back to base meeting where the same stakeholders are involved and we review that clear plan and ongoing support for their success back at base. Um, and then again, while they go back to the base, we have staff at the base school. We're really utilizing the ALC teacher uh to check in consistently with these students for support and let them know there's someone that can help them uh deescalate any future incidents that might arise. As you can imagine, um this is not a a really easy or quick process. It takes time to collaborate with all of these entities and get them together. Um, that's why we're very fortunate and blessed to have this partnership with Campbell Law to help us uh implement these procedures with students and schools and parents. Um, knowing our environment with our budget and just staff, everybody has a lot to do. Um, we're working to utilize our current resources to to grow this and build this capacity. All of our middle and high schools are allotted with this alternative learning center position. Um, the ALC program in general um, works to build relationships with students, teach some of these decisionmaking skills, and decrease these disruptive behaviors. Um, and so we're tapping into this critical resource uh to support this work. They are involved. The ALC teacher is involved in all of the collaborative meetings. They're involved in the transition back to base. While the student is at the ALP, they are checking in with the student, uh, building that relationship, and then of course upon the student returning back to base, um, they're tasked with checking in with the student periodically. Uh, but I think one of the big factors here is letting the student and family know during these meetings that there is somebody back at the base school that cares about you, that is involved with you, and that should a similar incident h or rise up or happen that uh got you to the ALP the first time, there is a person to come to to help you um deescalate and navigate that a little differently to stop this disruptive pattern of being assigned to an alternative ative learning program. And with that all, I'll turn it back over to Mrs. Woodson. >> So, as we conclude, I just want to take a moment to look at that big picture. Everything we've talked about so far today, from our strategic roadmap to the researchbased infrastructure and implementation to these stories that we have about um work that's already happening in our schools with regards to restorative work. We want to be clear that real success looks like and that it's going to require us to be here for the long haul. That systematic transformation, as we have noted throughout this process, is not a quick fix or a single year initiative. It's a multi-year journey. And for this restorative mindset to truly take hold and become the standard for our school climate, it needs to be have unwavering support, sustained commitment of everyone in this room, but really even in our larger community. We must realign our support and especially when the work becomes challenging or results take time to manifest, we need to make sure that we're standing alongside our schools to make sure that this works. Um and we are excited about the promise that doesn't um require that our students have to be excluded from their their schooling experience that they can enjoy the environment they are in and that we will support them in that as they as they continue their journey through through their education their K12 education. And with that we will gladly take some questions or discussions. Absolutely. I will turn it over to my colleagues for questions. I'll defer. Did you have >> one? Oh, I can wait. Okay. >> No, go ahead, Mr. >> Thank you. So, I was just curious and there's a couple people might be able to chime in on this. One of the things that it would seem would be very important in this process would be the the credibility of the facilitator in these situations. and you know if it's I was unsure like with the it sounds like there's staff training of the facilitators but then I also heard it sounded like you could have a situation at your middle school where the staff member opposing the discipline is then also the one that might lead the facilitation process and I just didn't know if that creates any kind of like bias or conflict or if that's referred to like a disinterested facilitator or neutral. Um, you know, if if the grievance is something where a student feels they've been treated unfairly by the administrator or by the teacher and then that's also the person that's trying to lead that process. Does that create any problem? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, I would say no. Whoever's been involved in the situation or maybe worked through it, did an investigation consequences, they would not be part of they may be part of the process, but they would not be facilitating it, right? They may be part of repairing the harm, maybe just not leading it. Um, and we do have a few staff members that have some extensive training. Um, and our ALC teacher being one of them. So, he does not impose consequences. So he's able to facilitate, you know, mediations, you know, the meetings where we're re-entering things like that. And an administrator maybe or a teacher could be part of it, right? But usually they're not facilitating. Usually the staff with teachers, if they're facilitating things, it's more of a community building type of opportunity. >> Okay, that helps. That helps me understand a lot better. Thank you. And I think we're trying to move towards a train the trainer model because we need enough people. That's part of why we're needing to do this. We got we have to create the sustainability. So we've so far we have we have a team that has some trainers. We have um some other individuals who just have been here for many years who have been trained. But then we have created 10 trainers this summer. We have two more sessions this fall where we'll gain another 20 trainers to be trained. So, we're trying to have them have the credential, but also have enough of them to be able to sustain. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Um I'm I'm very excited to hear um that the department has chosen to utilize this model. I must say this publicly um for one particular community member that is probably saying about time and that is for Miss Geraldine Alshami um I must [laughter] say that she has been asking and begging and pleading the district to look at this particular model um for numerous of years um in her ways of only Miss Jeraldine can say and do right so thank you all for doing this. Um I do have questions that align Connor with u Mr. Haggedy which is um around credibility um of the of the persons doing the restorative model as I heard you all talk a lot and I'm very familiar with this model um and one of the people that I love and trust that knows this work has done this work with me for decades ago which is someone you know Jennifer story um who is absolutely yes that's my girl and um and so I'm excited about this, but I am wondering, you said you're about to go into implementation phase and I'm thankful for our Herkin story. Um, I'm only my only concern is just like Mr. Hagerties is the training of of our folks and what does that look like and how we're and it's and and and know not just the I have to do this for work this the work that I hear that you're doing and the fact that you're able to be here as an uplifter and and you shared about your numbers decreased. Um I hear when you all are presenting I hear a lot about student student. I'm trying to figure out what about staff staff staff. Um because only staff can help this transition. The student is the person who we have to support but it takes the mindset shift of the staff to actually make the program work. I heard you mention that um you don't want to rush. I do need to know what take it slow actually means and look like um for me um considering a person that um have been his district for its entirety and um to see something like this come about. I don't want to say that um we've been in existence for 50 years. I don't want it to be another 50 years um before we actually get to see some great implementation plans. So, I know I've got multiple things that I'll probably have to email you about um and not take up all the time, but again, my primary concern is my amazing staff people who have to go through these transitions and how are you supporting the staff who may have their own belief systems, but how are we helping them understand this is not they can keep their belief system, but there's a certain outcome that we're looking for um that has to happen. Um while you still get to remain who you are, but there's an outcome in education that's expected and what's necessary for our model. I wanted to make sure that I said this out loud so that our so that what is our core belief happens or our mission is um particularly to make sure um that every student will be prepared to reach their full potential. And I believe that we can only do that if the student feels that they are emotionally safe. And so, how are we helping staff understand that students have a right to feel emotionally safe in their school? >> So, I I very much appreciate what you're saying and I would 100% agree with you. As a matter of fact, interestingly, throughout the summer as we were sharing this slide and talking with school leaders, we talked about the fact that doing this with just your staff is probably a good move to start with because it is about the adult mindset. There's no doubt about that. when I'm talking about a mindset that's what that's who I'm talking the mindset has to be with it is the adult mindset has to be in place um and sta and and leadership has to self assess and we are going to ask them as they are entering into this to self assess where are they as a leadership team with their school climate and with their staff beliefs as they enter into this work um I don't know that we can define for you how many schools per year we want to do right now. But I would agree with you, we don't want to go beyond a few more years, right? We want everybody on board in the coming years. We are um we are looking to make sure that we do this in a strategic method so that we don't spray and prey, but we also don't want to delay the the the the ultimate goal of making sure kids are in an environment where they feel like they can make mistakes and still be restored the next day, right? Um so we are we are definitely moving in that direction. So that is why let me make sure I went the wrong way. Um that's why I wanted to share this slide. We we have tried to make sure we built internal capacity so that we have the infrastructure to sustain it when we get when we advertise and make sure that it is out there. We will start training some schools this spring. perception. We we believe right now probably starting with about 10, but we would probably exponentially grow that into 27 28 into the following year and the year after. Um, but we would like for them to have some of those readiness skills um in place as we're getting ready to to move with that work. >> One last question. >> Okay. Can I I'm sorry. Can I just piggy back off of that from the school level because as you were talking, you are correct. We've been doing this. We're we've just entered year five. It is continuous professional learning. We are constantly reflecting, going back, looking at data, working with students, sitting at the table and brainstorming. Um there's no arrival, right? It is just consistent and constant work at all times. Thank you for for that. Um the last question that I I just wanted to ask is um you mentioned as you were reading um and as you just said about helping principles asking them um are they ready um or can they be or they need to know they need to be ready by next year. Um, I'm I'm I'm really wanting to know what does that look like for you all in that implementation process of is to me what you're what we're doing and this work and the level of necessity it is is and when you say I'm asking them will they be ready or can they prepare it's almost like there is optional space um and it almost feels as if I think it's it's equally as important if there's a new career curriculum that has to be learned and when um I know you guys are already working on those things right around the new standards um it's never an option it is this is what we have this is the new curriculum this is how we have to learn it blah blah right are we doing that or we're saying well it's something that we want to build on but if you're not okay with it right now we'll try to get you next year I need I hope I'm making sense I'm sorry. >> I think so. Um I I don't disagree with you. We do not want to make this optional. >> Okay. >> We do want to we want to make sure that they are preparing their staff and their school to be in the best place they can be before they get there. Right? So if they have not had a discussion as a leadership team about do I first of all as a because if we ask teachers to engage in this and the leader the school's leadership doesn't believe in it right we're not going to go anywhere right so we've got to get them to start first reflecting on do you have your school leadership on board with what this looks like before you can possibly ask your teachers to engage in this work and when you haven't done that work already that's what you need to do right now so that we can be ready to And the last thing is how are we going to measure and have accountability after that? And then I have nothing. I am Miss Rice is going to be quiet because I'm happy that we're here. Um I just need to know what does the accountability look like? Dr. Taylor. No, I mean Dr. A [clears throat] Miss Wilson just said, "But if leadership is I know that you're on board, of course, cuz they're at this table, but I really would love to know what leadership and accountability looks like and what chief of staff will do with preparing area suits to help principles be accountable to what needs to happen and what it needs to look like. And then that community engagement factor of what it looks like for parents to understand what's happening and how we can begin restorative practices with parents upon the infractions that's happened with school culture that we've already experienced. So that's it. I'm done. I promise. I will say we we already have data research and accountability involved in the pilot that's happening with alternative ed. Um we have been tracking that data. Carol Moon over here has been an amazing person who has watched what's happening with all of those students. Um, and so we are we are involved with that and they are aware of this larger work as well. So we we are already down the road of trying to make sure that we do have a model in place where we're going to be able to capture that information. >> Thank you, Mr. >> Before you completely back out of the conversation. >> I'm trying to be good. See, you don't know me well, but I'm trying to be good. I just want to thank you for bringing Deralding's name into this room. Uh she's an amazing person, a force to be reckoned with. >> I'm so glad that I've known her for so long and work so been able to work closely with her at some time around restorative crisis. Thank you for that. >> Oh yeah. Thank you. So I think Dr. Ing has a question and then work for Ed. >> Um yes, thank you. Um first of all, I really love that that term the aviary. I think it's a nice uh ring to it and um you know we we've talked about the importance of words in the past you know what those words mean and and so uh having a a kind of a friendly tone to it definitely makes it more uh people will be more willing to engage. um question I do have and I'm not as familiar with restorative restorative practices, mediation. Um the um you know there's always kind of like two sides to um to the story and two sides to the two parties involved in certain certain actions. Um a person who allegedly harmed someone and and then the the person being harmed. uh and sometimes the one person being harm may be a staff or some sometimes it could be another student. Um so in those kind of conversations that you guys have in terms of the restorative practices um are is the stu perhaps the student who is being harmed is that student that who is being harmed involved in those kind of uh uh conversations or should they be involved in those conversations? Um, could you comment on that? >> I'm happy to. You may want to more, but um, >> you go first. [laughter] I'll see what you say. >> Um, absolutely. And in many cases, and I think John will will highlight that those are the the the the victim per se is often the person who needs the opportunity to to make things right. Correct. Um, so they are absolutely a part of this. That's that is that is what when we talk about repairing harm and I can be very simplistic. A couple of first graders who somebody they're on the playground and somebody hurt somebody else's feelings. It's important for the for one student to be able to learn how to say I'm sorry or I didn't mean that or what kind of what happened here to understand and it's also person important for um the the the victim to know that right so that they can build relationship with each other once again and they can move forward. That's that's the entire goal is that we want to build that bridge back so that we can can maintain relationship and go forward from there. you want to add to that? >> I think it's excellent. Uh, and this it kind of goes back to the voluntary nature or the nonoptional nature of this, but there are two different levels to that. Um, and I learned this practice through the criminal work that I was doing. So, in criminal law, not in schools. Um, and one of the principles of restorative justice is you would never force a victim into a process like this. you could not force them to sit down and have a conversation with a person that has caused them harm. And that's always been our approach when we're working with kids in schools, too. It's a voluntary thing. Um, and and the process is healthy and provides safety and protective factors because you don't just bring people into the room. There's a lot of preparation that goes into this at every level. And to prepare people to have that conversation, you meet with them individually and you let them know you don't have to do this if you don't want to. It's amazing how just that statement puts people at ease and they're like, "Okay, let me hear more." We promise confidentiality within the processes so that the powers that be are not necessarily going to learn, especially on the offender side about things that you've done wrong and broken the rules and that sort of thing. So you give them the freedom to admit wrongdoing and you give the victim the freedom to say no, I don't want to do this. And a lot of good can be done even if they never come together and have a face to face meeting. A lot of good can be done in the individual meetings and share information with each other as much as they will allow. We had an example of Emo High School years ago where I felt like we were failing because about half of those kids were not meeting the people that they had had a conflict with. And I was actually going to the AP that was sending us referrals to apologize for our failure. And he met me in the hall before I could open my mouth. He said, "I just want to thank you for what you're doing. I don't know what you're doing, but it's great." And I said, "Well, I was actually coming to apologize because so many of your kids are not meeting." He said, "It really doesn't seem to matter. The ones that meet is great. The ones that don't meet are getting information that's very helpful to help them to work through this through this process." That's a much longer answer than you probably wanted, but uh for victims, that was your question. It it really needs to be volunteered. And that and that was my one of the concerns that I I have and I've I've heard from other people who who have the um concern that you know if if uh a a person who's being harmed is drawn into a meeting that they don't necessarily want to be involved in that they could be potentially traumatized more uh in that setting. Um so that's kind of the thing that I'm you know I want to make sure that we are clear about um and it's also goes towards that um to returning back to the base school aspect of it. You know if there was a student who was who who were harmed um initially that precipitated that person to go to a alternative learning. uh and then the the plan is to go back to school based school. What is the process in terms of preparing everyone including the person who is being harmed? How how does that work? How does that play out? >> Um I think much what's been shared. So voluntarily if um I know I've seen it um firsthand with a student and adults at the school. Um, I think our adults are most often willing and to repair the harm and get together and talk about what happened. Student to student, we rely on a mediation process. Again, voluntary and willing. Um, whether or not that happens, if a victim or even an offender, they need to be uh be willing to do this process as well, then it's part of that transition back to base plan and just a clear goal. we wouldn't have to have a victim of participation in this to put out a clear plan for this uh students return back to base and supports. Often an administration might look at depending on the situations of scheduling and hallway transitions for safety. Um so a lot of those things I think come into play during that strategic return to base uh plan. And how much heads up do they uh would the be informed of of a person coming back to the school base school? >> Um who the the >> like the >> the victim to say? >> Um you know I don't know that I can speak uh to to that specifically if there's anything telling the victim or their family. Um I know that we don't share with them what a consequence was. Um, but uh I would suspect that there are, you know, like I said, things put in place to help. I I just don't know if that gets articulated clearly to the victim and their family. Um, I just can't speak to that. >> I think I can speak to it a little bit. Part of the process in talking to the kid that has caused harm is would you be interested in having a meeting with the person that you caused harm to to try to rectify things before you go back into that school. Um I mean we think that would be a good thing but we have that conversation. If they do then I I reach out to the administrators in that school and I say this person that caused harm would like to rectify that in some way. Do you want to have a conversation with the child that was harmed by him or her and see how they feel about it? See if they want to have a conversation with me, if I'm going to be the facilitator in that case, to understand what this is all about and and and get at it that way. >> Thank you. That's all questions. >> Thank you. I have four, but two of them I think are quick. Okay. And one I can just turn into a 2B 2B. All right. So um if we could get a list of the schools that have been train completed the training and the reason I asked that is because I know many if not all of us are starting to do our beginning of year school visits and I'd love to know if any of mine I've got 19 schools in my district cuz I'd love to ask them about this. So that's the purpose of the question. I know you're still on your runway. Um and then uh Mr. Hershey texted he's listening in. Are there additional costs? So, I heard you say that the funding for the um core, excuse me, the um ALC teachers, that funding is in place for all middle and high schools, I believe you said. So, above and beyond that, is there >> that question? >> Yeah. Yes. And I'm sorry to say I I actually wish I had said this at the very beginning. Lisa Alred and I have been on this journey together. Um and we have had some special education funding to fund some of our training that we have had in place and also the training that will be happening this fall. Um so that has been a benefit for us. Um at this point we we have that and then I um also through student support services am uh funding a contractor that is helping to support the work with our alternative schools to make sure that we are coordinating all of those meetings for students who need to be able to go back to their base. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. I might um send a followup about that because I worry about next year. I know we're all worried about next year's budget. So um so my for my last two I've got to pick I would say so this is the one that you can like we can circle back and have a different another discussion but I am interested in how we're building trust with the students during that um return plan um because you know we understand that um families come from many different circumstances and backgrounds and education levels and in some cases I'm sure there's a lot of um intimidation factor, you know, for the families to really fully be willing to participate. So, I would like to hear more about that, but I know we're tight on time. So, the question I would like for you to answer if you can, a lot of this is actually not new for Wake County Public Schools. So, I I was listening carefully to try to understand um what is new about this. I heard you say that you're leaning on um things that are already implemented and that you know we're me we're leaning on um expertise and realigning infrastructure, but I know we've had restorative practices and maybe the problem is it's been isolated in certain schools. Um, and I know we had not that long ago parents accusing the district of doing um, teachers doing inappropriate unlicensed counseling sessions cuz they were running circles with with students. So, can you help me understand that a little bit more? Is it just that wasn't >> systemic? I think that it was not systemic. It has certainly happened where there was someone who was knew and connected with the Campbell Law Center. They got a training they they implemented but as we've had turnover of of administration and a variety of other things we just have not had a systematic process. So what we're seeking to do is to build the infrastructure so that we can have a systematic process. >> Okay. >> Right. So that's that's the first part about that. I think the second question about about circles and and and informing what's happening there, that's part of why we wanted to do this, right? We want to demystify that process. This is not something at all where we want we want literally um I was a language arts teacher and I al often would have a circle in my classroom and we would be talking about content, right? I'd be talking about the author of the novel that we're reading and we would in a circle have a discussion. That's a Socratic seminar in many cases if you look at instructional pedigogy there. There's also opportunity to just in circle build community with one another. Absolutely. >> Um it is not necessarily to do uh I mean that's the whole goal is we want kids to feel like they are a part of a community in their classroom in their school. uh so that they are a part of of what that looks like whether they sit in a circle or not. >> I agree. [laughter] I know I know that that was a foolish accusation but my point was I know that circles have happened in the Wake County school system before this. >> Absolutely. >> So I was just trying to but I got it. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. So, um I I I was reading through some of the things and programs that they're talking about in here. And one of the things that I really liked was um routines, expectations, and engagement because I think each one of those is so important, especially for our kids that are developing and trying to learn by not only who they're seeing, their mentors, and their peers around them, right? Because, you know, they kind of feed off of each other and repeat behavior. So when you see things like that, I think it really helps our children develop on a positive path. I like what you said about the re-entry efforts because I think that's probably one of the most vital things um that they were sitting down with all the parties or at least if they they were open to do that. Um because I don't know how you would either like reset or heal to go forward and start again on the right foot. So, I think that that's really important for our kids to learn that that possibility is always available. Um, you know, and I I kind of practice that at home with my kids. Like, you may do something wrong and you're definitely going to have the consequences, but we're here to talk about it. Like, this doesn't define you, but your action was not okay. Um, so I think that's really going to help our kids kind of stay on the right path. And I wanted to um just kind of brag on Beaver Dam Elementary School once again because I think that that was such a a good positive thing um in our district that um they used their restart funds. They had teacher assistants and teacher coaches that work directly with the families. And that's kind of where I'm going with that and keep bringing that up because I see that not only does more people in the classroom, helping the teachers stay focused on the class, but allowing the kids who are either getting distracted or falling off a path or having academic gaps that is causing frustration for them, there's somebody there to be next to them to help them through that so that they can stay on track. And one of the biggest things that was like a testimony because they went from an F to a C, which we'll just reiterate is harder to recover from an F than it is to go from a B to an A, you know. So that was a pretty good thing for them. And one of the parents testimonies was that it not only helped her student in the classroom and their academic success, but it also helped them at home. So I mean it's it is important to have our families engaged in this and be part of that process as much as children because we were saying you know it's important for the children. Um so I have a couple of questions and I'm not sure this is really more clarifying because of the answers that you had given. Is this a pilot in one school that we are starting or is this are we just creating this as a whole district change? >> What was this timeline? I'm sorry. Forgive me. Um, we we are seeking to to move this to a whole district systematic process. So, this is kind of how we would do business. Some schools have it and Marie's already got it going on in her building. So, she would not necessarily be a part of the training that we would do. However, we are the expectation is that all schools would be would be moving in this place. >> Okay. So, the reason I ask is cuz like we pilot a lot of things, right? We're even piloting taking one-on-one devices out of elementary school and we've been doing that since the day of time, but now we have to pilot to see if we're going to do that. Um, but are we is there any data that shows that this works and how it works in our schools? Like we have the program which is relatively new. um what are we using to measure these things to >> a variety of data sources and we'll talk a little bit more about that in future meetings but but we use the bias data which is looking at student wellness as a whole that is teacher survey data but we're hoping to expand that this year as well too parent and students um we also look at our um we have the uh teacher working condition survey which does give a little bit of that we do have a student survey um and then We also in general are going to try to look at discipline referrals, right? And the amount of um the amount of teacher referrals even that are a part of that and what those discipline referrals will look like. So on that note, that that's one of my like the notes that I was trying to understand if our goal is to not have suspensions, right? because that's that's clear data. But, you know, that is our goal to not have our kids out of the classroom. How do we keep track of that? If if we're not suspending kids because of this behavior or escalated situations, what data will we have? I mean, you you gave me the B the B. I get that in the and the teacher working survey, but how do we keep track of >> So you would look at what suspensions maybe exist prior to the implementation of that and then the number of suspensions that might occur after we begin that process. >> Okay. So that is going to lead to my next question if I could follow up. How are we including our teachers in the conversation? Because that is a struggle that we hear all the time is that they want support from administration. They're trying to teach their kids in class and if something's going arai, they don't have the extra bodies to help do like what I was saying talking about before with uh Beaverdale Elementary. She had extra extra people there to help. So, how are we including the teachers in this conversation? >> So, this past spring, we went to the teacher advisory council to get input from teachers. So, we did do that already, but as we would as as we would roll this out, just like Amarie talked about, we would um we would spend we're going to train their staff. We're going to spend time with those teachers and talk about the mindset shift that needs to occur in order for for this to really take take root. And as we said earlier, honestly, a lot of this is is work that can happen staff to staff, right? We want to have that that same framework amongst adults as we do with children. But when we move that to the students, our goal and and hopefully those those staff members will come to a place and understand that this is important work and it and the ability to understand their students better and get to the root cause will cause them to require to have to do less disciplinary referrals at all. Right? If we don't address the root cause of why the action is happening, we'll never be able to solve the problem if we just try to react to it. >> Okay. And then my last question is just more about the cost. And I think um Miss Edmonds was kind of but I think you talked more about the sources than the actual costs that we will need to worry about with budget because it seems like some of these programs are like professional development. So that has a cost and staff and implementation all that. >> Yeah. So, so there is I will have to get that from Lisa already because that that funding is coming from special education as far as the actual cost. I can absolutely get that for you. Um but but again we are trying to create sustainability with that. So we are training trainers right now so that we don't have to have the same level of ongoing costs as we go forward. >> Thank you. Thank you. And we are way over time. Um but I know um Miss Rice has a followup. Miss Rice, can you do like 30 second? >> Uh yeah, just to say thank you for the work that you're doing with the teen talks that I'm doing um that starts on Thursday. Just to know that this hits the heart of students. What I shouldn't be revealing this, but one of the questions in the emotional of the eight dimensions of wellness space, the student literally talked about um is it truly helpful to make a child who is being bullied talk to a supervisor in front of said bully. So students are concerned about how that restorative practice looks like. So the students listening, please don't smite me for revealing their eight questions based off the eight dimensions of bounds framework. And I I too have this is a very near and dear topic to my heart. Um I think this is really the heartbeat of of what what we do every single day for our for our students. Um so I'm going to hold my questions for an email that I'm going through. >> But I did want to say we talk a lot about um you know this being a mindset like a shift in the way that we are thinking. And I loved your um your story, Principal Atkins, I think. Yes, I'm sorry, Principal Atkins. Um, I love your story about how you all um you call your alternative learning center the aviary. And I would like to see as a district we move away from calling in school suspension that and we shift our mindset and move from a from less of a this is problematic to more of a what are the possibilities here. I would love to see that district-wide. I know I'm not talking about putting lipstick on a pig, but I think that is that is something that we can start right away that helps us as adults start to change our mindset and then in turn start to change families and students mindsets. Thank you, Miss L and your team. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, next up we have um we're going to talk about our student wellness physical book. Yes. Yes. Thank you very Thank you. much more than ever before. >> Yeah. I saw someone at a conference. All right. Good afternoon. We are going to begin with strengthening student wellness and talking a little bit about our school-based mental health plan. Oops. I may not be able Dr. with it. >> We're seeing how this is working over here. >> We'll just do like Dr. Taylor and say hit it. >> All right. So, some of our desired outcomes this afternoon are to communicate about the school-based uh mental health uh plan and how it aligns to policy SHLT 003. We want to highlight the district's collaborative approach to the mental health services and we want to make sure that you can see some of the data associated with that as well today. And this of course align strategic plan really thinking about priority two and behavioral health. And of course that's just what we've been talking about all all uh afternoon. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Michael Pesh who is our director of school social work. >> Good afternoon everybody. So see everyone again. Uh it's that time of year where we present the school mental health plan and uh we've been doing this now. This is the fifth year that we are presenting the school mental health plan as required by the state. The intention of the policy is to ensure that the school district adopt a plan that supports students with the mental health component of behavioral health. Uh this policy does not oppose any additional um skills or work that's outside the scope of what our specialized instructional support staff and other staff in the building are required to do. Um >> it it's not working. She's >> all right. Gotcha. So uh the compon the components of this plan there's nine of them. We're not going to go through each and every one today as we do each year. We just kind of highlight the ones that are most relevant to the direct work students. And the ones that we're going to focus on today are going to be uh the components about reporting to NCDPI or early intervention, mental health, social, emotional health and wellness component, the referrals, uh treatment and re-entry plan, suicide risk protocols, and stakeholder engagement. So, we're going to start out here with this one, which is um on the right side of the screen, there's a component about reporting to NCDPI. The report is due each year on the 15th of September, and it's part of the healthy active children progress report and school health policy. Uh the plan is revised every five years and our next, like I said, our next revision is due this September. Um the first one we turned in was in 2021 for the component about early intervention for mental uh social emotional health and wellness. We wanted to highlight a couple of the programs that we're we're using across the district. First of all, we have the second step program. This uh program helps students build social emotional skills nurturing positive relationships, managing emotions, and meeting goals so they can thrive in school and everyday life. We also have the check-in checkout system and um this is a tier 2 or tier three behavior intervention tool that also helps to build relationships with students. We have the teen mental health first aid program which helps students to learn to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges with um themselves and their and their peers. Uh the training gives teens skills to have supportive conversations with friends um and to get help from a responsible and trusted adult. We also have youth mental health first aid which is now required for all of our um CAST personnel and there are plans to expand that implementation to other school staff. And then we have uh the say something program. Uh that's in order to be in compliance with North Carolina state law that requires schools to offer a safe and anonymous reporting tool for students. This reporting system was implemented in with middle and high schools in 2425 and it teaches them how to one recognize the signs and signals of at risk behaviors especially with social media. Um when and how to speak up and get help by talking to a trusted adult and then three how to records anonymously through the system goes to the crisis center using a mobile app or a website. Um and then also we can go back one more. I have uh I think I have your protecting >> protecting our students and that is uh another law that was focused on improving student safety particularly against sexual misconduct. This was signed into law in October of 2023 and it requires schools to show students in grades 6 through 12 age appropriate videos about sexual abuse and again they are also directed to trusted adults in schools or also the say something app. Um this is the second year that we've been doing this and um we've we've sent out the messaging to year round schools in June and then again to traditional in July to get ready for the students returning in August. That video has to be shown to the students uh within the first 5 days of school. So we're not doing this work alone. Uh for the next component, stakeholder engagement. We have a number of community partnerships mainly uh we have a close relationship with Alliance Health to coordinate mental health services uh to students including the care coordination program, re-entry program. They also help with trainings and uh program planning. We have a number of community uh committees and collaboratives to help guide the work to serve students and families. We have parent representation on some of those committees. And then we also have student voice that's been lifted up. We've talked about that for the past couple of years through the youth mental health advisory group using our high school students uh that provides input and feedback around mental health issues, needs, and services. Um and then we have been able to meet the suicide risk protocol requirement for many years. This was in place well before this law passed. Um last year though, the program um was launched with an enhanced suicide assessment and prevention protocol. That training includes resources needed to recognize, screen, and intervene to support students managing suicidal thought, feeling behaviors. We have procedures to appropriately respond utilizing evidence evidence-based tools and guidance to effectively facilitate suicide risk assessments. Uh communicate clearly with the caretakers when we do these assessments and then document document the concerns and follow up appropriately to refer them to resources outside the system. we have been able to do um we have over 700 specializ in instructional support personnel been trained with these protocols across the district. And then I finally need to mention SB I mean HB 605 which became effective in October of 2024 which requires the district to establish the multidisciplinary behavioral threat assessment teams in schools. Uh 19 conducts uh threat assessments when students communicate a threat or engage in threatened behaviors that warrants further evaluation. Um, this bill also required an anonymous record report recording system and say something meets that requirement as well. and the component for referral, treatment, and re-entry. Um, for families who have a student with a need to connect to mental health services that are beyond what we can offer at the school system, we have the alliance school-based teams which provide one-to-one care coordinators to be able to obtain mental health services in the community for any barriers that they may be experiencing in getting those. Um we also have the the re-entry plans um that we offer assistance with and schools are trained to use uh for students as they are in acute care facilities or impatient mental health facilities and they're returning to school and we want to assist them with the continuity of care as they return and bridge back to the school system. this program. Um, we do we would do this and make sure that we do all that we can in the school. Even if parents don't give permission, we would do all that we can, but to get the detailed information from the facilities, we do need parent permission to get that. Same for students who are in what we call psychiatric residential treatment facilities. That's a little longer term stay. We call them PRTs. Um we attend regular meetings with parent permission uh for students who are in these facilities to plan for the time when they'll eventually be discharged and returned to school. Um and then of course we have our school-based mental health program. Um and that's we are now um starting it says here on the slide 150 schools but we actually have that bumped up to 160 as of today. So we picked up 10 10 more schools. We're very close to getting all schools um with this service. We have seven new vendors this year. We lost a couple this year, but we picked up even more. So, we have a total of 14 vendors. Two of them provide exclusively teleaalth services. And um we are hoping to get into all the schools by the end of the year. Again, we have one single program coordinator that manages all of the vendors and all of the schools. So there's a little bit of a bottleneck there and that's what's resulting in us having a a slower expansion of all schools. And here on the next slide, you'll see the 14 agencies that are currently um providing the services. And I can say that I think I have all of them except for one that's still routing for signatures with our agreements, but they're all ready to go this year, which is great. We've done that in the records feed. Let's see. And to remain on target uh with the strategic goal, this the student support services team is actively analyzing a range of da d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d da metrics and including social emotional learning data. We're tracking progress on goal 5, which is by 2028, we want 90% of students to demonstrate competencies. We have behavioral health data using the Immus 2 to identify students who benefit from additional social emotional support. Um, attendance and discipline data go into this as well. As we know, there's root causes to why students are having some behavioral difficulties and not coming to school. Some of those root causes are around mental health. We have student survey data that we can rely on and also access to support services, monitoring the ratio of specialized support staff. And I'm going to get into a little bit about how many we have and what our um retention rate is for those staff. And then uh how we use this data data. We identify needs uh with it uh to be able to pinpoint where students and schools require targeted intervention. It informs the interventions that we do use in the schools and it helps to allocate resources uh as we are assigning staff to the schools. Um, for example, with social workers being in one or two schools, we are able to use the data to see where they need to be placed uh on a full-time basis versus part-time. And then, of course, we want to monitor the service delivery. We disagregate the data by student demographics to ensure all students are getting what they need when they need it. We want to give you a sample here of some of the data that's been um given to us from the BIM 2 from this past uh spring. So um on this first slide um our district goal states that by 2028 90% of students will demonstrate growth in SEAL competencies. Um in this one we have self-awareness. They um we did screen more middle schoolers this year. It was an increase of nearly 5,000 from the spring of 2025 to the spring of 2026. So we do have statistically a much larger sample which of course changes the numbers. uh there was a significant decrease in self-awareness among middle schoolers and it could be that grades six through eight last year were engrades K through two during COVID. So just kind of keep in mind that that's who's in this group now. >> Um on the next slide, this one is self-management. Elementary students saw a substantial jump in self-management skills last year which we hope they will maintain and continue to grow. For the next one, social awareness fluctuations up middle and high school. Not statistically significant, but we are moving in the right direction. Two percentage points up in the for the whole district. And then this next slide for relationship skills is where we've seen the biggest jump in secondary, which is an improvement on historical trends uh for relationship skills being the weakest area. And then for responsible decision making uh steady but very little change here as well. And then this next chart is um just a few data points. Um starting last year DPI is asking us to they've given us a huge list of different things they want us to collect 80 different data points of activities that all of our specialized instructional support personnel are doing. And um so we submitted that. But just to give you an idea of some of the things to highlight, school counseling, for example, they saw over 235,000 individual counseling sessions, over 4,000 small groups, and almost 30,000 classroom lessons. School psychology had about 1374 parent conferences, 94 individual counseling sessions. And for school social work, we had 27,834 attendance contacts. We helped uh we had 67 682 basic needs contacts and for all CIS um staff we did 759 suicide assessments, 107 threat assessments. Uh we had 268 alliance healthcare coordination referrals and school-based mental health referrals at 1697. This was triple from what we had the year before that. So with that, just see what questions or comments you all have. >> Okay, I will open it up to my colleagues first. So we'll this time we'll go this way. So I'll start with Miss Evans. Thanks. Just real fast. That last slide you said the schoolbased mental health referrals. That's for the 14 vendors. >> That's right. >> And it tripled in a year and one person coordinates off. Okay. >> Correct. Yes. >> That's correct. >> Yes. Thank you. What started out as a pilot was working great with one person, but now with that many referrals, that many vendors, brewing schools. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Um Yes. Uh thank you. Um just real quick. Um so the be the bless be um um so that's an evaluation by the teacher of the student. >> This one is right now is the teacher um component, right? There's three parts to it. There's a teacher, there's a student, there's a parent. And this one is is for the teacher's report. And that's based on how how long of a contact or experience with the student. >> I believe it's within the month. So, it's a screener. So, it's really um the teacher's assessment or screening of the child on certain areas. So a lot of them are >> just want to make sure that they're they've had you know good enough time >> exposure to you know the you know pray by day you're going to have interaction and the windows there's a fall window and a spring window. So the fall wouldn't be like right now it would be like several weeks into the the first semester. So there's some time for the teacher to get some student. >> Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's it. Um, I wanted to ask a question in regards to we're talking about me mental health and there was a lot of um like programs how we we're we're exercising at second step checking check in check out see something say something and all of the partners where does our vape alcohol and drug aspect of this fall in cuz that is part of mental health I mean it creates it or cause of it is definitely affiliated. So how does that align with these partners, parents and students >> and we would agree with that when we have our DRC each week too, right? Um when we have these incidents come but I don't know Dr. Murphy if you wanted to speak to that about and how >> excellent question we're actually in the process in working with uh Brian Blending in um our um healthy living curriculum. We are establishing partnerships with um Stanford as well as Duke at this time um to get that program off the ground. We're going to be working closely with D process and looking at the data of the places and what have you and then making connections with those students to possibly make referrals for those external services. >> Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Um, and just outside of referrals, I think being proactive with like education and kind of catching it before we >> get to that is is kind of really a concern for me. >> So, I don't want to speak too much on Brian's behalf, but a part of the jewel settlement, there will be a core curriculum that is sponsored by Stanford curricula, that's a standard Stanford curriculum that will be in place. I believe it is fourth grade through 8th grade. All grade levels. Fifth grade through 8ighth grade. Thank you. All grade levels. And I think there's opportunities in high school as well. Um where there will be that that there will be preventative curriculum that will be in place as we go forward with that. And then and then at to what Dr. Northley is referring is that if we have students have who have repeated behavior, then we're going to look at how do we provide a tiered response to that through additional supports for additional education andor potentially what might need to turn into additional referrals. >> I think it's really important when we talk about mental health, it's it either leads to it or it comes from it. So, it's it's huge and I would love for if we can have him come in and speak about it and just kind of give us an update about what that looks like and how we're implementing it in schools cuz I also think it's important for our parents to hear about it. I mean, there's there's a lot of misconception even just about vaping, >> you know, and misunderstanding and lack of resources for our parents. So, thank you. >> Um, thank you for this. Um, just a quick question. the last slide. Um I know that there were a handful of suicides last year. Um were any of them uh given a suicide assessment before it happened? >> Dr. Thompson. >> So that's one of the things that we were looking into. I guess it's a terrible term to say like a post kind of thing. >> Yeah. Um so my crisis specialist is actually going through the data to see if any of those students had contact. what was the contact, what were the outcomes in terms of referrals. So that is something as a team um or our focus this year is on suicide prevention, not just within the school but informing parents in the community. By the way, September is suicide prevention month. Um but we are going back and taking a look at that because as each of those cases have come up it has asked us to really think about what is our suicide prevention and suicide prevention is not just about teaching kids. >> It's about educating community, educating parents and educating staff. It's a three-legged stool and going back and taking a look at that and seeing where those things are and then trying to triangulate some of that data. Right? If we're making referrals to schoolbased mental health or to alliance, where are they landing? It's a much big creative piece that we can handle, but we do at least want to nail where are these students and where are some of the things. >> Thank you. >> And Alliance also does that research as well because it's it's important for them to know as well since they're sharing our students as clients. >> Thank you. Yeah, I want to thank you for this work. This is one of the things that was and you might remember like we came on the board this was a huge priority of my Paulco was in this position and the state came out and actually mandated that we do this from the state board of education but you know we've had a student health policy and it was good to see a student mental health policy become implemented. So I'm glad to see um this report. I'm glad to see the metrics that you're able to track and keep and show progress and weaknesses. The only feedback I had is this slide which we've come back to to build on Miss Edmond's point. When you show these services that we're providing for the students and you show the retention rate just for context, it would be great to see the number of professionals we have in each of those roles so that we can better understand their their workload. >> Sure. Yeah. And we do give the actual loan numbers to on the state, but I can put that on here for next time. Thank you for that feedback. And I will say that um retention rates have bumped up a little bit from last year, which is great. Um people are kind of more settled down than they were right after CO. Um and right now we have about three vacancies in the social work department. I believe psychology is fully staffed. >> Fully staffed. This is great news. Um, and how many? Three counselors. So, we're really in a good spot. Um, but I would put those wrong numbers here. I know that particular like with social work, we have often times more demand for workers than we can fill. Thank you. >> Well, we all know that this is one of my favorite subjects and that's very important. I have only just a very few questions. Um, one I wanted to look at when we're talking about the attendance rate. Where are we or how are we doing with our truency? Like how are how cuz I noticed you said there were 27,800 27,83 um 834 sorry attendance contacts. I'm assuming that contact was just a letter that was sent home. >> That could be a phone call. It could be a letter. It could be a meeting at the school that encompasses all types of conferences and contacts we would have with the family. Um, truency specifically, I don't have the exact number of students who would be categorized as truent. I'd have to get that number for you. I do know that our chronic absenteeism rate is still hovering around 18.5%. >> Um, which is where we're trying to focus more, but um, I could get the truth numbers for you. >> I I would appreciate that. um and if I have to send it in an email. I know this I know when we dealt with mental health before I've asked the same question and I still haven't gotten my truency numbers. And I also wanted to look at which was important to me. I always have to lift this up because I was in community um in a vulnerable population neighborhood um and spoke with families and multiple families were walking up to me asking about mental health support and um Dr. It's not about you. And I was I was cuz you have tons of emails to try to answer. And I was trying to get some answers and it was just taking a little bit too long. And I found the person in our mental health which is um Tanetta. Uh and uh she says, "Miss Rice, no problem. Hold on. What it is? I got you." And within an hour, she had it handled um to connect the family to the appropriate resource that was necessary and needed to do the referrals. And so I know that you said that's 1,697 referrals and only one person handling those referrals, which I'm assuming at the time is her. Um, is absolutely amazing. Um, wondering what levels of support do you all actually give someone who handles 1697 referrals? I'm assuming within the school year or within um, it's only 10 months of school. Um, but I know that that's a huge thing, a huge need, and if probably if families knew that there was even more support in school that we, like you said, they said it doubled or whatever, tripled. Uhhuh. Um, with that, and so um, just curious about how are we supporting the staff that's been doing that work, um, that loves that work. I get to be a part of her on shack and so I get to hear the reports out um and the things I've also seen her in community um uh sharing information with with families in the past and so um that's a huge undertake. It's important to me because getting a referral is everything. Um so I am interested in in how we're supporting um her. I'm assuming she's still doing that work. I don't know. >> That would be Britney Bass who's our program coordinator. She's the schoolbased mental health program coordinator >> and um she is like I said the only person doing that work >> um >> she is a 12-month employee. We did have a um compensation review case that we put forward last year and it got denied to expand those services. >> So how can we support her? She's an amazing >> uh worker, let me tell you. She she she she's really able to get all these things going single-handedly. She has a couple of contractors who help her process some referrals, but there's again a huge bottleneck. Um, but the way to support her is to be able to help more than one person do this job. >> Interesting. Thank you. And then the last thing that I'm going to ask that I've asked before, you mentioned about the referral process period. You can't work with families unless they have the signed documentation. The last time in a different committee meeting, I asked about this work around the referral process. Did we create the docu sign document needed to make this make it seamless, more seamless for parents to get you the paperwork back for the referral process that a lot of I heard the last time it it gets it doesn't get completed. And so did we get to accomplish making sure that we created a new process or an improved process, not new, but an improved process with making sure that parents get it signed in in a least um taxing way, I guess. I don't know how to say it, but um so that they can we can get the referral back for them because it's really about signing the document um instead of waiting printing and and I think it was like a multi-prong different people um so that you can create something that where that document might help. So I know it was some um moving parts to it of the different people who had to sign because this is different than that. So um I'm just really looking for how we can do that. um to be able to help families considering we've got 759 suicide assessments done and the work that uh Dr. Thompson is trying to do around that. I think it would help if we can help families get better instituted with our largest provider which is Daybreak. >> Um and we were able to do that with their help. Um it's something you have to do collaboratively because they have consent forms. I think that's part of what we're talking about. we have consent forms and because we had the most number of referrals coming in through that large agency, we're able to to pilot it with them and it's working and in place right now. So >> So Oh, so it'll be easier to do it with the smaller ones. >> So um what the the difference is is so for example, there's a cost to using Docuign >> and they are incurring that cost. We are not. They can do that. Some of the smaller ones can't. So we're going to have to come up with something to be able to offset that cost. um I think it's a couple of dollars per form but but still as you start adding that up it can be quite a quite a cost for an agency >> and or for us. So um we are we at least started it with one of them and we're going to be expanding that as we can with those agencies that can do that but it's helped tremendously and there's a there's much more checks and balances on that now. So like I get a copy of it as well. If a parent signs it immediately I get it. that can help make sure that's getting rounded to the person who needs to see it next to that child of service. >> And I I know money is always a challenge um and an issue um but that is our vision that every student will reach their full potential. You can't reach your full potential if you're not well. And so I'm hoping that we can come to some level of a resolve and find another alternative that makes it a little bit more simpler for families to get that support. That's that's all honestly all I had. Thank you for this amazing work. Um it's fantastic. >> So I know we are right at time right now and I want to make sure that we give the policy committee their time. Um so if there are any additional questions I I as well I'm we will make sure that we email them to you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you.