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Commissioner Gordon asked if the Orange County Schools would accept transfers between <br />Cedar Ridge High School and Orange High School. Keith Cook said that they have students <br />traveling back and forth from OHS and CRHS now. He said that they want staff to look at it and <br />see what is being done and how many students are taking advantage of this opportunity. <br />Commissioner Halkiatis said that for the past two years there have been extremely difficult <br />weather conditions and people are up and making calls to each other all through the night. The <br />two school systems have been doing this kind of collaboration for a long time. He said that this <br />past Friday he and Steve Scroggs met with the two transportation directors to start discussing <br />alternative fuel -bio-diesel, propane, solar-powered and wind-powered school buses. They <br />decided to recommend to both superintendents that they endorse the creation of a task force <br />that would bring together people from Chapel Hill and Carrboro Public Works, Orange County's <br />Dave Stancil, Commission for the Environment, and others that are interested. He said that, as <br />of Friday, state contract diesel fuel was $1.06 per gallon and state contract bio-diesel fuel was <br />$1.51 per gallon. <br />Commissioner Halkiotis said that the idea of collaboration is very exciting. He would like to <br />bring Durham Tech to the table to do something meaningful like a middle college with bath <br />school systems. He said that both school systems could save money by looking at an <br />alternative school to meet the educational needs of students that do not do well in traditional <br />settings. He said that it was a whale lot less expensive to spend money educating a child than it <br />is keeping someone in prison. He said that collaboration would go a long way to show people <br />that they are all committed to helping kids. This County puts up almost 50°~ of its budget to the <br />publlC Schools. <br />Andy Sachs asked Chair Jacobs to speak about the planning. <br />Chair Jacobs said that part of what they discussed was to change the way they usually sit at <br />these meetings because they want to have a sense that they are all in this as partners and no <br />one is pulling rank on anybody else. <br />Chair Jacobs said that he was interested in the middle college idea and Maria Palmer from the <br />State Board of Education suggested it. He was also interested in the middle school athletic <br />conference. <br />Chair Jacobs said that he was interested in seeing items 9 and 7 (Early Childhood Programs <br />and the new paradigm}. They are listed as way down the road and also in the top ten. He <br />wonders haw they can be high in the list of priorities, but in the category of things not in the near <br />future. <br />Keith Coak said that creating more early childhood programs was something that both school <br />systems saw as very important, but they also realize that this will take some time to implement. <br />Next year a committee will be formed to look at this. <br />Elizabeth Carter said that some of the conversation was related to a centrally located early <br />childhood center. The question was where a facility could be located so that it would be <br />accessible to the parents and still be on public transportation. They deferred looking it at this at <br />this time so that they could review the logistics of locating the facility, and parent involvement <br />related to transportation. <br />