Minutes-09-26-2023 Joint Meeting with School Boards

Browse Search

24 Slide #41 QUESTIONS ILAI WOOLPEPT David Sturtz said the team would review this information with administrative teams in conjunction with budget considerations. Commissioner Richards asked a question about slide #8, Educational Adequacy. She asked if there is no line for adequacy shown, does that mean there is nothing. David Sturtz said it is showing that it is either not there or there and undersized. He said the data would be in the State of the Schools report. Commissioner Portie-Ascott asked about what the space looks like in CHCCS for exceptional children. David Sturtz said it is a traditional, regular classroom, which has been repurposed for exceptional children. He said this would be a classroom likely designed in the 1960's. He said that standards now are for exceptional children's classrooms to be much larger. He said they have a room but not all of the space that you would ideally plan for. He said the support space, such as a lift or washer and dryer, would not be there. Commissioner Portie-Ascott asked how many exceptional children are in the classrooms. Nyah Hamlett said it was about 8-10 students in each. Sarah Smylie said there are meaningful differences in the SAPFO projections, which when reviewed place all of the elementary schools at over capacity. She said she wanted to make sure the options Woolpert presents are based on the real-life capacity of the buildings. David Sturtz said the aggregate differences are about 10% but individual buildings are greater in some cases. He said that they developed options with both in mind. He said they were not looking at any major reduction strategies for Orange County Elementary Schools. He said they look at capacity as what can the building hold in the long-term. He said policies can change, but the building will stay fairly constant. He said Orange County Schools need relief in capacity. Sarah Smylie asked about the difference in the state law between classroom sizes. David Sturtz said they looked at state law and that is a big one. He said that they look at standard loading. He said when they walked the building, their assessors could not distinguish between K, 1, and 2 classrooms when walking through the schools over the summer. He said they used NCDPI loading standards and averaged them across K-5 to 20. He said they then use that against core classrooms. Bonnie Hauser asked what assumptions they made about Pre-K. David Sturtz said Pre-K is loaded at 18. He said they looked at spaces that designated Pre-K to get to 18. He said the only rooms that had capacity at elementary were Pre-K and core classrooms.