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ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOLS Superintendent Randy Bridges stated that the Orange County School System is facing all of the same issues. They are also facing the challenge of how to recruit and retain quality staff and are committed to increasing the local supplement. They are addressing a need for early intervention with the pre-K population. At the present time the Orange County School system does not have either a Head Start or a Pre-K program. They are interested in including both of these programs in the curriculum. A survey was distributed to parents last year in which they indicated a strong desire for a foreign language in the K-5 program. After the opening of this next school the School Board will begin to look at decreasing the number of students per class. DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS ON ORANGE COUNTY AND CHAPEL HILL-CARRBORO SUPERINTENDENT'S PRESENTATIONS: Neil Pedersen pointed out that they have a very ambitious ten-year program. This past February they reviewed that plan again and are considering further reduction in their projected class size. It is difficult to make progress in class size reduction while at the same time the school district continues to grow and new schools are opened. They will revisit this issue again with the School Board this year. Chair Gordon asked the Superintendents to create a chart by grade showing the state standards for enrollment, what enrollment is for each grade and what the target is for each grade. Also, a breakdown of teacher supplements based on years of experience would be helpful. Commissioner Carey referred to the Low English Proficiency (LEP) report which indicated that there were 8 teachers in that program several years ago. He asked how many there are now? Superintendent Pedersen stated that there are eight now. The LEP Task Force recommended adding an additional 4 teachers to that program. They are not sure that they will be able to fulfill this request but they are committed to making progress. Roger Waldon mentioned that the LEP report stated that a good student/teacher ratio for English as a Second Language (ESL) is 20/1 and the ratio for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro System is currently at 40/1. Also, the number of students being served in this program is growing at a rate of 10% to 20% each year. Neil Pedersen indicated that they continue to locate students who are not being served who could benefit from this program and for that reason they do not expect to make significant progress in decreasing the student/teacher ratio. SCHOOLS & LAND USE COUNCILS MEETING: John Link reported that these Councils have been meeting for approximately two years. Three specific products have arisen from the work of these Councils. The first is a process by which the Managers and Superintendents inform each other when a certain threshold of new housing units has been reached. When 30 units have been approved a memo is drafted from the appropriate Manager to the Superintendent. When 60 units have been approved, a written information message to the School Board is drafted. Finally, when 100 units have been approved, a meeting is called of the members of the Councils to discuss the impact. The Councils recently received verbal reports from each jurisdictions about current development and its impact. The Councils have produced a Memorandum of Agreement which provides coordinated site and facility planning. Members of the Councils are currently engaged in a final review of this document. When they are finished with their review, the Memorandum of Agreement will be forwarded to each jurisdiction for review and adoption. The Memorandum of Agreement is designed to facilitate collocation and efficiency. The joint Councils have been considering the issue of a coordinated, managed development process for the entire County. Council member McClintock's summary of the March 10th meeting presents a review of the report given by County Attorney Gledhill and County Planning Director Benedict. A copy of this memorandum is in the permanent agenda file in the Clerk's office. Geof Gledhill stated that agreement among the local elected bodies is the first step toward creating a concurrency plan. This includes the towns, county and the school boards. The Agreement would contain an adequate public facilities plan for each school system which would be reviewed and agreed upon by the County. This would require an interlocal agreement. After the facilities plan is approved, a funding plan would be developed. The planning jurisdictions could then enact an ordinance which would say that when residential development is proposed it would not be approved if it would cause the schools in that jurisdiction to be over capacity. Part of the process would involve the developer going to the school system so that they could advise them about the potential impact of their development. They would then talk about the projected enrollment and a decision would be made by the schools on whether the facilities plan that is in place would meet the demand created by the proposed development. If the demand could be met, then the school system would issue a certificate that would be taken by Q:\19990331 a.doc I