Minutes - 05-03-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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teaching positions. Because of the limited teachers, there will be no summer school for almost a third of the ESL students in the district. She asked the Commissioners to support the total budget request of both the school systems. Jennifer Ventura is a UNC-Chapel Hill student teacher at Culbreth Middle School. She said that she just finished her ESL internship in February and already has job openings available. She is scared to teach ESL in North Carolina because of the stories she has heard of the situations that ESL teachers could be put in. She does not want to be required to teach in five schools in one week and have limited materials. She asked the Commissioners to allocate the money to make ESL an option far future teachers. Commissioner Brown asked about the difference between the reading programs and the ESL programs at Culbreth Middle School. Claudia Haskins said that the students who are in the regular reading program are students who have not passed end of grade tests far reading or are in jeopardy of failing. These students can also be non-English proficient. With so many limited English proficient students coming into the district, they very quickly overload the reading classes. She said that for the students who do not speak English at all or read anything, it is not an appropriate placement because the reading teacher has not been trained in ESL. She said that at Culbreth, they are able to have both whole language classes at different levels and ESL reading classes. Commissioner Brown clarified that the Commissioners do not pick out items to cut from the education budgets and that the Board of Education decides what will be funded and what will not be funded. b. Matters on the Printed Agenda (These matters were considered as the Board addressed the items on the agenda below.} PUBLIC CHARGE Chair Carey read the public charge. 3. BOARD COMMENTS Commissioner Halkiotis said that the Orange County Board of Commissioners allocates more than 48% of the County's budget to the two school boards. He said that there are two public hearings for the budget process -one in Chapel Hill and one in Hillsborough. That is the proper forum for people to make comments. He said that the County could not fully fund everything because County government has many needs and services to provide besides education. Chair Carey does agree that it would be nice to hear comments at the appropriate time - during the public hearings set aside for the budget. Commissioner Gordon said that there would be a Department of Transportation {DOT) Secondary Road Improvements Hearing tonight. Also, atone of the previous meetings the Board discussed their desire far the Triangle Transit Authority {TTA) to have an additional planner to plan for phase two and beyond in Orange County. A letter was written to ask for an additional Planner, and the Manager and the Chair met with Jim Ritchey, who is the TTA General Manager. Mr. Ritchey seemed receptive and said that there was some money that could be used for planning. The TTA board was also receptive to this proposal. The managers are going to meet with TTA in June. Commissioner Gordon said, with regard to the transportation assistance program mentioned above, TTA does have a mobility manager who can provide limited assistance. The Transportation Advisory Committee will meet an Wednesday, May 10t" in Durham. It would be appropriate to have the letter regarding I-40 ready to submit at that time. Commissioner Gordon said that the Schools and Land Use Council is meeting on May 10t" at 7:30 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center to discuss Adequate public facilities. Commissioner Gordon said that at the last meeting she made comments about improving the presentations in the Southern Human Services Center. She said that she met with Pam Jones and Beverly Blythe and they thought of suggestions far improvements to the presentations. Pam Jones will write up these suggestions for the Board's consideration and input.