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is, in each case you have a majority that empowered and is happy with the system the way it is, but they don't understand that the status quo is causing the problem for the minority. It's an unintentional consequence. In this case, we have an unintentional consequence of something that was passed in 1908, before my grandfather's time. It was a time before women had to vote. It was a time of Jim Crow America. It was a time in which it was perceived that the educational needs for boys and girls were different. African Americans and Whites were different. And that for county and city schools, or village at the time, were different. Well, you know, Chapel Hill is not a village any longer. There is very few of us who would actually say that educational demands on our children are any different from each other. They are the same. I think the first thing that we have to do. I've heard a lot of great ideas. I think the first thing we've got to do is kill that old district tax. Where do we move from there? I was just looking at assets this community has got -two great school systems, great teachers. My daughter goes to school at New Hope. She thinks her teacher is the best in the world. I agree, she's here. What I want to suggest is this, that we take our assets that we have in this community, and we've got the University sitting over there, which we haven't talked about tonight, we've got a school of government, we've got a school of education, and we've got a lot of really passionate parents, which we've seen tonight. And let's put them all to work and see what we can come up with. But first let's take care of the equity in funding, and then we've got a little time to work with. Let's put our assets to work far us and dream what we can have and not what we can do to each other. Thank you. Keith Caak: I'm Keith Cook; I'm a member of the Orange County school board. And I think I'm well versed in budgets, and funding issues, and student achievement, and the many issues that the school community goes through everyday. And I do know that our school districts have mare in common than we have differences. Our elementary programs are quite similar in offerings, in content, and both use research-based approaches to teaching. On the secondary level, both districts have challenging and diverse offerings for students including many opportunities for post-secondary credits. More advanced placement options in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, but fast-forward in Orange with international baccalaureate to be implemented soon. Both districts offer community college credits as well as diverse choices in career and technical education. And both make industries certification possible in a number of areas such as web design and XP. Both systems have active student organizations at the local, regional, state, and national levels, and both offer a wide variety of athletic options. Both of our school systems are recognized as leaders in the State in the innovative use of technology as a tool for instruction, assessment, and communication. Special education and English as a second language, elementary, and middle after school programs, pre-kindergarten, reading recovery, accelerated reading, alternative education programs, web academy, and nova net instructions are all important elements in the learning environments in both of our school districts. Our school district is not broke. It's not broke at all. And all we need is some additional money. It doesn't take merger to do that. What it takes is some additional monies. One of the suggestions that is on the table is the district tax for our school district. I firmly believe that Orange County schools can make it an a district tax of ten cents. I don't know that we need to have the exact same amount of money