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Roy Williford said that the Board of Aldermen just wanted to be sure that the information did not <br /> go directly from the staff to the County Commissioners without them being in the loop with these <br /> numbers. <br /> Craig Benedict said that an Assembly of Governments meeting in January would be tricky <br /> because of the timeframe. It is possible to use 20th day numbers instead of 40th day numbers and then <br /> get recommendations in the fall. <br /> Discussion ensued about the membership date of November 15th. <br /> Chair Gordon asked when Hillsborough would be discussing the MOU. Michael Gehring said <br /> that it is scheduled to go to public hearing for the MOU and the proposed ordinance on July 23rd, <br /> Chair Gordon said that the staff should make up a letter to send to all parties saying where we <br /> stand at this time with the MOU. <br /> Craig Benedict asked if the SLUC wanted to vote on the amendments to the MOU as made <br /> above. Chair Gordon said that we should wait until all comments were received. <br /> ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD <br /> Craig Benedict said that the Orange County School Board had a meeting on April 29th where <br /> they discussed the APFO, and from that meeting a letter was generated by Brenda Stephens, Chair of the <br /> Orange County School Board to Barry Jacobs, Chair of the Board of County Commissioners. This letter <br /> is in the agenda packet. There were some concerns related to three primary issues-school capacity, <br /> student projections, and start-up cost for new schools. There needs to be a consistent method of <br /> determining building level capacity for both school systems. There is also a need to determine what <br /> method will be used to gather data for student projections. Orange County School systems feels that the <br /> 3/5/10 year models being used may not be applicable to their system because of the difference in rate of <br /> growth between the two systems. The start-up costs for the two new schools opened in the last three <br /> years have drained the fund balance. <br /> Dana Thompson said that they only learned in the last few months that they were allowed some <br /> discretion in determining capacity for exceptional children,pre-K, foreign language,etc. <br /> Chair Gordon said that they have not decided that there was going to be any discretion from the <br /> Department of Public Instruction guidelines. She thinks that the County Commissioners do not want the <br /> school systems to unilaterally change the capacity of the buildings. Both school systems need to be <br /> consistent. She asked Bill Mullin for any comments. <br /> Bill Mullin said that he agrees that there should be some consistency. He said that the Chapel <br /> Hill-Carrboro City School system was back to doing it the DPI way. <br /> Craig Benedict said that this would be decided by the School Facilities Task Force and-it will be a <br /> consistent method. <br /> Regarding student projections, Craig Benedict said that there are five different methods. Staff has <br /> recommended that we continue to look at the five models for a few more years of testing. He thinks that <br /> an average should be used for both school systems for the first few years. He said that once school <br /> capacity and school projections are discussed by the School Facilities Task Force,then there can be an <br /> agenda item and we can go forward. <br /> 3 <br />