Minutes 05-10-2022 Budget Public Hearing and Work Session

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14 roles. She said substitutes are appreciated, but students are frustrated and demoralized with the disruptions and lack of relationship building. She said data shows that the most important factor in student success is the relationship between students and teachers. She said a survey of Orange County Schools' staff showed the top reason they would consider staying would be a raise in pay. She said the OCS budget request seeks to address long-standing issues with the way school staff is paid in OCS. She said one of the worst examples of the unfairness in the OCS pay scale is that hourly workers don't receive a raise until they have worked in the district for 22 years. She said classified staff perform numerous tasks that make it possible for administrators and teachers to do their jobs. She said turnover in these positions is unsustainable. She said it is not easy to learn the interworking of a school from scratch, but classified staff are not paid accordingly. She said fully funding the OCS budget request is a vital responsibility to this community and impacts all other areas of the Commissioners' work. She said her organization is committed to pressuring OCS to spend their budget responsibly and holding them accountable to investing in school staff. She said Orange County should be leading the state in innovating education, not losing students to charter schools and online corporate education. She requested the Board fully fund the OCS budget request. Ashley Sherman said she is the school counselor at Ephesus Elementary and has been with CHCCS for 10 years. She thanked the Board for their work and expressed appreciation. She said she is the only counselor at her school and serves 400 students, 90 colleagues, and several hundred family members. She said this is double nationally recommended average counselor to student ratio. She said in the past couple of years she has been hit, stabbed, punched, had a fire extinguisher sprayed on her, and run into traffic to try to prevent a student in crisis from being hit by a car. She said it is not news that working in schools is hard and compensation is not keeping up with the demands. She said she has seen a spike in mental health concerns in students and colleagues. She said she loves her job, it is important, she is good at it, and she is here tonight because she wants to be able to keep doing it. She said she is also here for veteran colleagues who make less now with inflation than 20 years ago, those who have put in 15 years of service and will not receive an increase for another decade, those who have to use donated leave time to stay home with newborns, and the 23 colleagues that have reached out this year for mental health referrals to cope with the impossible job they are all doing. She said most importantly, she is here for students and families that are losing educators who cannot afford to stay in the job. She said the CHCCS budget request is a first step in addressing the unprecedented school staffing gap. She said it isn't fair that this need has fallen to the Commissioners because in a perfect world the state of North Carolina would be leading the way in across the board educator compensation. She said Orange County is lucky to see increasing revenues and have the ability to meet school needs head on. She said CHCCS budget request includes salary increases and family leave benefits which will demonstrate a commitment to schools and directly support students. She asked the Board to amend the County Manager's recommended budget to fully fund the CHCCS and OCS budget requests. Brian Link said he is the president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Association of Educators. He said all in attendance want the best for school teachers, students, and staff and asked the Commissioners to keep the image of support in their minds when making budget decisions. He said there is a historic amount of building taking place in Orange County, valuation of homes are at historic rates, unemployment is at historic lows. He said those in education are told the budget doesn't look good, but these circumstances are as good as it is going to get. He said there is also historic inflation, record turnover rates and vacancies, the highest cost of living for one adult and one child in the entire state of North Carolina, record concerns about dissatisfaction in schools, mental health and safety, EC teachers are leaving in droves, and students have gone 100 days with a teacher. He said while the budget is better than past two