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

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18 improvement team is eye-opening because teachers don't make much money. She said the budget is strategic and lean and is focused on creating positions that can best care for student needs. She said she sees the challenges teachers are facing and understands why they wouldn't continue doing this work. She said she understands how organizations can get into a death spiral when there is continued understaffing and asking people to do more. She said it's about investing now vs. letting things spiral into a greater crisis later. She said it was great to see the budget presentation, but if you average out the proposed per pupil increase recommended for this year with the lack of an increase the past two years, this increase isn't that big. She said she would rather the issues be addressed now than have a crisis later. Molly Beak said she is a teacher at a Title 1 school in Chapel Hill and also has family members who were educators. She said she loves her job and wouldn't do anything else, but she sees people in other jobs, administration, decision-makers, etc. throw up their hands and say there just isn't money, supplies, and resources, while teachers have to go in and face students every day. She said teachers can't throw up their hands because they have to face the students every day. She said she understands the Commissioners have to make hard decisions, but asked them to imagine if they had to walk into a classroom the next day. She said she only has three students who speak English at home and got 5 new students between Thanksgiving and Christmas, including 2 from Afghanistan who had been in refugee camps. She said she didn't throw up her hands, she got to work and all of her students have grown. She said teachers have to continue to do their job every day no matter what they are given, and then have to beg for more pay. She said the only time she throws up her hands is when her own child wants something and she tells him it will have to wait until the end of the month. She said she loves her job and wants to continue to do it, and asked the Commissioners to imagine that they have to go into a classroom and tell students why they made the decisions they did. Hope Love said she is a theater teacher at East Chapel Hill High School, married to a science teacher, and has a child who attended elementary school in CHCCS. She said she was going to discuss a metaphor. She said there is a lot of equivocating and debate in her household. She said she asked her son to do something on Mother's Day and he explained to her that it wasn't a job for him and it was too hard. She said her husband told their son that his mother does things he asks her to all the time without explaining how she gets it done and instead of gifts, she needs his help when she rarely asks. She said educators have asked. Auburn James said she is a science teacher at East Chapel Hill High School, and it is her 7t" year teaching. She said her third year of teaching was the best year, which was also when she started working at East Chapel Hill High School, and felt like she won the lottery getting to work in CHCCS. She said that this year has been the worst of her career and is working 3 times harder than any time before to make up for learning loss from last year. She said she has held over 30 evening virtual office hours for her students to give them extra help and prepare them for AP exams. She said she can't keep working like this without appreciation. She said the rate of inflation is causing her grocery bill to go up. She said she doesn't know if she can afford to be a teacher anymore. She said she doesn't have a spouse's income and she pays her own mortgage. She said she wants to continue doing her job for her students and colleagues who deserve her best and asked the Board to fully fund the CHCCS budget request. A motion was made by Commissioner McKee and seconded by Commissioner Richards to close the public hearing. VOTE: UNANIMOUS