Minutes 04-28-2022 School Boards

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12 Commissioner Bedford that the school nurses were the contact tracers during the first year of COVID-19 and that they provide a natural connection to the Health Department that can be built upon. Carrie Doyle said state funding doesn't cover all services, so anything beyond that would need to come through local funding. Bonnie Hauser said that in the conversation about masters pay for teachers many people don't realize that includes the social services counselors as well for a loss of the masters pay. Chair Price asked how many nurses, counselors, and other professionals there are in schools now. Rani Dasi said there are nurses in all schools now. She said they will provide information on counselors and mental health providers during their budget presentations. She said they are trying to work toward having psychologists in schools. Chair Price asked if that was two in each high school or just two for high school. Rani Dasi said two in each high school. Carrie Doyle said there is a nurse in every OCS school and that there are currently no vacancies. She said that they have added a floating nurse position, which is now vacant. She said that they have had some recent vacancies in the school counselor positions. Dr. Felder said there is one counselor per school in elementary schools, 4 at high schools, and around 2-3 at middle schools. She said the ratio of counselors to students is very high, so there is a need for more. She said that if they were only funding through the state allotment then there would be even fewer counselors without local funding. Rani Dasi said CHCCS has mental health providers in high schools and will be adding those to elementary schools with local funding. Chair Price asked where the schools send students if they have a mental health need at school. Rani Dasi said the front line is nurses and counselors, who are increasingly overburdened. She said that this continues to be a challenge. She said that the UNC System can't support the need for extreme crisis situations in the community. She said they do what they can with the frontline but there is an intense need for mental health services. She said that if they do not have community care provided then their only help is at school. Will Dudenhausen asked OCS to speak on Teacher Retention and Recruitment. Sarah Smylie said there is a national shorage of educators and that has been growing for years and gotten worse because of challenges with the pandemic, challenges in the state with school funding, and even a lack of salary adjustment for inflation for teacher pay. She said there is also a shortage of teachers of color and college students of color interested in going into education. She said that staff is exhausted. She said that OCS has lost their competitive edge with compensation. She said that some other surrounding districts are offering higher compensation. She said that their certified teacher supplement is the lowest in the region. She said that their classified pay is below the regional market thus leading to an increase in turnover. She said they need to retain and attract talent to school system. She said teacher attrition has improved over past 2 years but still not to where they need it to be. She said that OCS has standardized recruitment and hiring practices. She said that the human capital team is working to diversity their candidate pool through recruiting at HBCUs. She said that they have had some success with the TA to teacher program and that this has helped increase the staff diversity. She said that the use of some ESSER funding for retention bonuses and pay incentives helped reinforce the value put on staff. She said that some of the things that the team is working on is further expanding Grow Your Own so more staff can become teachers. She said they are expanding collaboration with Elon University and North Carolina Central University for teacher intern placement and teacher recruitment. She said that the budget is