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important to bring to the attention of both school boards some of the opportunities that are available for teachers. Housing and Community Development Director Tara Fikes gave a review of the affordable housing opportunities in the County. Executive Director of the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust Robert Dowling said that Orange Community Housing already works with both school systems. He said that rather than each non-profit coming to each entity (schools, County, and towns), they thought it would be better to have a systematic way to get information out about affordable housing for school employees and County employees either through emails, flyers, posters in break rooms, etc. He welcomed any ideas from any of the boards. Superintendent Neil Pedersen said that they all have promoted opportunities in general. He asked about specific houses and how to notify staff members about availability. Robert Dowling said that usually it has been houses in developments like Meadowmont. Now they have re-sales and cannot afford to work with realtors. It would be good to have a mechanism to get the information out to people. Mr. Sechrist asked about emails to the teachers about houses. Superintendent Neil Pedersen said that if houses come on the market it would be no problem to notify people through emails. Dana Thompson said that they would quickly direct the staff to begin working closely with the affordable housing organizations to get the information. Commissioner Halkiotis said that this information could go as an addendum on all three websites (two school systems and the County) within the Human Resources Department. A picture of the houses could go there with a description, etc. 2. Issues Identified/Presented by Orange County Schools Dana Thompson expressed thanks for meeting with the Board of County Commissioners. There have been many challenges for them — looking for a new superintendent, changes in the school board, opening a new high school, and looking at building a new middle school. a. Office Space for Orange County Schools Support Services Staff Interim Superintendent Mike Williams distributed a hand out with a list of the number of staff that will be disbursed to other areas as a result of the renovations at Hillsborough Elementary. He said that there are air quality and space issues. The architect shared that the best use of the support services space and the most economical approach was to return it to classroom use. He said that even if they were not talking about expanding the number of students, they still would have needed to capture this space. He reminded the Board that Hillsborough Elementary is the only year round school and the only School of Choice countywide. It is important for this school to grow. He said that they need to consider where they are going to house the support staff long term. Susan Halkiotis reiterated that housing some of the staff at the high school is a temporary luxury. Chair Jacobs made reference to a letter from DPI from 1996 where they were projecting that Orange County Schools would have 1,875 high school students by the year 2005-2006. Orange County Schools already has more than this. He said that DPI's projections are not accurate. Dana Thompson asked where the discussion was with funding for central office expansion. John Link said that the Board of County Commissioners addresses the CIP on an annual basis. He said that the Board could address the proposal for support staff space at the same time that they address the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools' third high school. Commissioner Brown asked if they were looking for any possibilities at this point for the support services staff to be located. Dana Thompson said that the plan from the beginning was a package deal. They have not made any decisions because the funding has been up in the air. Commissioner Brown asked if they were thinking about building something and Dana Thompson said that there is nothing else available at this point, so they would have to build.