Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Can you elaborate on the state of our bus drivers? It's an exciting thing. What is the state one? Um I don't know and and I haven't heard the results of What is it? Do you know, Jason? June performance. Okay. Um That'd be great. Yeah. So, bus driver recruitment remains strong, but resignations continue to be a concern. Um frankly, I don't think we have the momentum that we we've had in the past. Not sure what that is. And then later on today, you'll be receiving a kind of climate survey uh that Jason took of our bus drivers and other staff. So, I think that'll be interesting for you all to hear some of that. Um as it stands today, we have a total of 41 new buses at Rock Quarry Road, and we're expecting another 20 and 30 in the next few weeks with 10 of those being propane. Um that will give us a total of 25 total propane buses in our fleet. And the additional comments from the mechanics and the guys at the shop are very favorable on these units. The reason the new buses aren't on the road is we're waiting for title and tags and that takes a little time to work through DMV. Mechanic vacancies remain about the same as they have been. I think last month I reported we had 16, 19 or so out of 60 some. Um we did make an additional purchase of fuel recently and continue to monitor the pricing and the lab. I'm sure you all know that things are still in in flux with the the markets. But we continue to keep an eye on that to make sure we're having enough to get through the year and also to um start beginning of the next school year. And lastly, our new director of field operations is Christy Estes. You all approved her a few weeks ago. This position has been vacant for some time. But Christy's a long-time employee with the district. I think maybe 35, 36 years. She's been here a long time. She's she's she's wide and experienced and deep, too. And so she's our new director of the field operations and will be assisting Jason as we move the department forward. So we're it's great to have Christy in that position. Um For M&O, obviously, with the heating season is thankfully behind us and that brings more challenges with the warm weather and and HVAC. Uh M&O staff will continue to respond to uh the events that we have with the limited staff. I will note we are less reliant this year on outside vendors than we were last year. Um, just to where we are with budget concerns at this time of year. Overall staffing levels in M&O remain pretty constant. With CNS, um, they are beginning the process of validating CEP schools for next year. Um, there are some hope, optimism, uh, that maybe we could add additional schools. But, I wouldn't take that to the bank until we get the numbers and see where things shake out, but they are working through that. And then, the week of April 27th, concluding with Friday, May 1st, is uh, school lunch hero week. So, that's when, uh, schools, uh, hopefully, along with CNS office staff will be celebrating our school staff uh, all throughout the week. And as I understand, there are uh, lots of cool things planned, such as spirit walks and and theme days, uh, that'll be taking place at the schools. So, uh, I hope you get out and see some of that. And, um, if you all get a chance, it might be something you would be interested in as well. And then, jumping to, uh, two things at FPC. Um, we recently had our first round of bidding for the security projects. We did not get enough bidders. You know, we're required to have, uh, three bidders. So, we're thinking through right now. We have the option to re-advertise and and rebid and open them. Uh, and we may very well do that in the next week or two. That will tell us kind of where we are and and how fast we can move forward and how far. >> So, can you explain what happens if we don't get enough bids? Well, we can open them the second time. So, the first time you don't get three, you can advertise and and open them, I think it's 10 days or so. but we can open with one bid at that point in time. And that's the same those are bidding rules throughout. And then Mr. Hershey, I mentioned to you before the meeting and I I know that some of the FDNC staff may be surprised when I say this, but you all mentioned some months ago about information and and different ways of communicating. And so we have had some staff that have been building some dashboards. Okay. There's all kinds of stuff out there. We found some things that are are really really simple that that don't look great to ones that are There's one in in California that is really great and it brings a lot of accountability to the the data that is presented. Um and so I think and hope and believe that in the in the coming months um maybe we'll be able to share some of those thoughts and ideas with you. My hesitancy in sharing this with you is that um it could be expensive. But at the same time the positive of it is that it could also be integrated into the the other planning aspects that are going on now with FDNC and school planning with the ArcGIS stuff and navigating You all seen a little bit of that, I think. Um and so we're we're looking into that. There's some um we have a a pretty robust system now uh Kahua that contains a lot of this valuable information. And the thinking is that we could take and and gather that data and present it in a format that would be easy to understand but most of all informative to both us, the schools, and the public. So, just know that's in the background. It is a a a It's not pie in the sky, but it's something we're working towards. And it's been going on for for some time. We're just kind of vetting some things right now. There's some jockeying going on internal about what we do and and why and how. So, just know that that's going on and be glad to answer any questions. I'm going to ask the first question. I don't know if my colleagues have any yet. For the fuel purchasing, do we the school systems get any kind of break on it? Are we paying the same taxes? Do we need to put a bug in NC the North Carolina General Assembly that this is having a major impact on public school systems? Yes, yes, and yes. And in fact, I did not get the chance to do it today. I was going to reach out to Kevin Harrison. He is the section chief of DPI over transportation. Um I know at one point in time they had a fund for uh purchasing of fuel. I I don't think there's any money in it this year, but I'm still going to email Kevin. And and and again, I'm sure he knows this that everybody in the state's in the same boat. Just to see if there's a light at the end of the tunnel for any help that that we may uh try to get from them. Um I'm not sure there's money actually budgeted in that account this year. And it really isn't for somebody like us who is a big district that has, you know, ample resources. But at the same time, uh any help that we could potentially get from the state and and helping us with this could be appreciated. Any other questions for operations update? All right. Thank you very much. Moving on, if I could get a motion to approve the March minutes, I would appreciate it. So moved. Second. Um Chair, I just wanted to put on mean, it's just a mild correction cuz I wasn't on there and I wasn't meeting. I did I just realized when I pulled it up and On the March minutes? Yeah. Yeah, I don't think Sorry about that. That's okay. I was not at any of it. I can I accept that as a friendly amendment to the motion? Um sure. All right. Yeah. So, motion to approve the minutes as amended with Ms. Caulfield's amendment. Anyone else? All in favor say "Aye." Aye. Opposed, nay. All right. Ms. Poling? Ms. Poling? Okay. Glenn was called away on some urgent family business. He wouldn't be here today. He just wanted me to give his apologies for being absent. All right. Um as you know, we met with you in March to talk about some schools that are currently underutilized that might benefit from a calendar change to reduce their capacity by either going from multi-track year-round to track four or multi-track year-round to traditional. So, today we're going to bring you initial recommendations. What we did between March and now is canvass the community, went in had some thought exchanges as well as virtual information sessions, um and gathered a lot of feedback from the community before we would finalize any specific recommendations. So, the goals for today are to review that feedback with you and then to dive into the specific recommendations we're making at this time and then of course outline where we are in the process and what to expect next. This work aligns with board policy 4150, particularly section A1D on operational efficiency, and in three core areas of our strategic plan, family and community engagement, equity-focused practices, and effective operations, services, and facilities. As a reminder, this is the tail end of the planning for the 26-27 school year process. We started that with last year's forecast. This is the We've made an enrollment plan, we looked at capped schools, and now we're looking at what else can we support before we start work on the 27-28 plan. Because you have a lot of slides, kind of ask as we get to certain points. Get open it up for questions. All right. Okay. Thank you. So, we