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Navigating the "minibudget" and Public School Maze · The SEANC View

• 0:00
  Hello, and welcome back to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
• 0:04
  My name is Samantha Klein, and I am our digital communications specialist slash
• 0:08
  podcast producer here at Scenic.
• 0:10
  Our usual host, John, is on vacation this week, so I will be filling in.
• 0:15
  Alongside me, as always, is our executive director, Artis Watkins,
• 0:19
  our government relations director, Suzanne Beasley, and today we have a very
• 0:23
  special guest, Brad Longhans, our public school liaison.
• 0:27
  How are you guys doing today? Great. How are you? I'm doing good.
• 0:31
  Doing very well. We kind of miss you, John. Yeah. Yes. It's been weird.
• 0:37
  All right. Well, without further ado, let's get into the episode.
• 0:42
  Music.
• 0:51
  So we are recording this on Thursday, July 31st. It's almost August. I'm ready for it.
• 0:59
  Almost. I'm ready for it. And as always, let's start with some budget talk.
• 1:04
  Suzanne, you've been down at the General Assembly this week.
• 1:07
  They're back in session just for this week.
• 1:09
  They were. They were indeed. We're recording this on Thursday afternoon.
• 1:13
  So there was a skeletal session today to wrap up the week's activities.
• 1:17
  It's been a week. So the legislature returned on Tuesday. They came in Monday for rules.
• 1:22
  Both chambers met on Tuesday. The Senate finished up their veto overrides actually
• 1:27
  on Tuesday and went home.
• 1:28
  The House had some absences so they did not have the votes to complete all of
• 1:33
  the overrides that are on their calendar.
• 1:35
  So if you look at the calendar and you still see bills on that calendar as time
• 1:39
  goes forward, just know that when a bill is put on the calendar like that,
• 1:43
  it's going to sit on the calendar.
• 1:44
  So don't be alarmed that there's a session happening that no one knows about.
• 1:48
  They passed an adjournment resolution that will allow them to come back once
• 1:53
  a month all the way till the short session in April.
• 1:55
  So it's a bit disheartening because we just we don't get an interim anymore
• 2:00
  and it just extends what we're all going through right now.
• 2:03
  House Bill 125 was a mini budget, so it addressed some things that needed funding right away.
• 2:09
  Unfortunately, it did not include an across-the-board pay increase for state
• 2:14
  employees or non-certified public school employees, and it didn't include any
• 2:18
  kind of money for retirees.
• 2:19
  If you're in a step pay plan, the steps will still happen.
• 2:24
  Explain the step pay. A step pay plan, and this is even for public school employees
• 2:29
  who are on a step pay plan, the state troopers, correctional officers,
• 2:34
  probation, parole, they have step pay plan that has an increase built in.
• 2:38
  So they will still get their steps.
• 2:40
  But your average state employee. Yeah, is not getting anything.
• 2:44
  Now, we've heard everything across the board this week.
• 2:47
  Representative Lamba spoke on the floor yesterday and said, you know,
• 2:51
  they were closer than everybody thinks on a big budget. So maybe the end of August.
• 2:55
  And then I had another member of leadership tell me we're not doing anything.
• 2:59
  We'll be we'll see you in April before we take up that business again.
• 3:02
  And then I had staffers from the speaker's office talk about many budgets.
• 3:06
  So I don't know. So, you know, nobody really knows what they're going to come back and do.
• 3:09
  We're going to remain hopeful that maybe in August we do get the budget.
• 3:13
  Well, when they talk about things they needed to address in the mini budget,
• 3:17
  state employees are pretty clear, and retirees too, they're something that needed
• 3:22
  to be addressed and is not.
• 3:24
  And it was said out loud this week that the sticking points for the whole kit
• 3:28
  and caboodle is the tax package, state employee pay increases, and retiree money.
• 3:33
  Those are what they're hung up on. Well, but the problem is,
• 3:37
  when you have a mini budget that spends money, and this one obviously does, that's less money.
• 3:41
  Every time money is spent and your issue is still out there as a state employee
• 3:46
  or a retiree waiting to hear what you're going to get, the pool's getting less
• 3:50
  and less from which there could even be anything new. Picking things.
• 3:54
  Right. And so contrast that with the way local governments are being handled right now.
• 4:00
  Because the League of Municipalities and the North Carolina Association of County
• 4:04
  Commissioners did a survey of all the local governments around the state and
• 4:08
  said, what are you planning on doing for 2526?
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  In terms of pay increases. And 79% of the local governments,
• 4:17
  whether it's city, county, whatever, said, we have plans to provide those cost
• 4:21
  of living adjustments at an average between all of those local governments of around 3.1%.
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  And then on top of that, 57.5% of the local governments reported they were doing
• 4:35
  merit increases on top of those cost of living, averaging 2.7%.
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  So you got local governments taking care of business, taking care of the employees,
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  and in so many cases, taking care of the employees. If you've been doing a good
• 4:49
  job, you're making nearly 6% as an increase.
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  State employees are waiting while all of these other things get chiseled away
• 4:57
  from the money, the pot of money, still in some kind of purgatory,
• 5:01
  waiting to learn, do they get anything?
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  And out of what little bit of pie is left? Now, that's not right.
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  If the local governments can get it done. The state government can get it done.
• 5:11
  Well, and I've talked to members this week, too. I mean, you know,
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  the general feeling of being disrespected is very real, you know,
• 5:17
  with our folks out there.
• 5:19
  Well, it's just certainly not being a priority. No, no. I mean,
• 5:22
  and somebody could say all day long, well, I respect them plenty.
• 5:25
  But if you prioritize them, then they'd be in the budget.
• 5:29
  They'd be in the mini budget. You're not just talking the talk.
• 5:31
  Right. Yeah. And there's, again, there's a lot of spending in this mini budget.
• 5:34
  There is. Let's talk about that. There is.
• 5:37
  DMV. Everybody wants to hear about DMV. So there was 1.2 million to create 40
• 5:43
  additional full-time driver's license examiners, one and two, in fiscal year 25-26.
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  So everybody would be glad to hear that. There's going to be more people in our DMV offices.
• 5:54
  But that's still not as many as the previous commissioners had been coming to
• 5:59
  the legislature for years saying they needed.
• 6:01
  And in 26-27, they get 21. Yeah.
• 6:04
  More. That gets them closer, but still not even to the number that they've been
• 6:08
  told for years we need. And yet the population is still growing.
• 6:13
  Okay. Good luck, Commissioner. Well, that's something. The State Bureau of Investigation,
• 6:16
  SBI, they got $1.4 million to
• 6:19
  fund some, let's see, six administrative positions, non-sworn positions.
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  So they got some extra help that they need.
• 6:27
  Medicaid got $640 million for a rebase.
• 6:31
  And my understanding is that's $200 million less than what they need.
• 6:36
  So where is that coming from? And there was conversation yesterday that that's
• 6:40
  going to have to come from inside the agency.
• 6:43
  Representative Lambeth spoke on the floor about that, that they were working
• 6:46
  with the agency to determine where that could possibly come from.
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  That's a big red flag for us.
• 6:52
  How would you cut that much? Yeah, that's a lot of cuts.
• 6:55
  Let's see. Yeah, the state employee step plans. Y'all forgive me.
• 6:59
  I've got notes. There was a lot going on this week. I know the highway patrol.
• 7:02
  Yeah, the state state troopers got 26 full-time non-sworn administrative positions.
• 7:07
  That was three million. So, yeah, there was a lot of money spent.
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  So, here's the deal. You can increase the number of positions,
• 7:14
  but you got to increase what they're making if you want to retain the ones you've got.
• 7:19
  So, like with DMV, that's wonderful that finally, finally, finally,
• 7:23
  there is a response to the many cries for, I think it was nearly 100 employees
• 7:29
  they said they needed for years.
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  But it doesn't stop the exodus of people who already work there,
• 7:35
  who are tired of waiting for raises that are piddly when they get them.
• 7:39
  Now, all of this is a bunch of what sounds like bad news or just inertia at best, but it's not.
• 7:47
  And we're not just reporting to you, this is bad.
• 7:51
  We're telling you, you better get in here and make those calls to the General Assembly Yes.
• 7:58
  Because things happen when legislators hear from you, their folks back in their
• 8:03
  districts who tell them, I live in your district and I vote in your district
• 8:07
  and I not only don't feel valued, no one's done anything to show me I'm valued.
• 8:12
  So those phone calls, those emails, go to the Scenic website if you need to
• 8:17
  know who your representatives are and how to get in touch with them.
• 8:21
  It's www.scanc.org.
• 8:24
  And don't think that just because they're not in full session right now that
• 8:28
  they're not getting your emails or your phone calls.
• 8:31
  There's staff that still check the phone messages.
• 8:34
  There's a lot of staff that's still at work, even though legislators are not in the office.
• 8:38
  If somebody's going to get your message, but they're not going to hear you if
• 8:41
  we don't everybody pick up the phone and start calling.
• 8:44
  Everybody get on your computer or your phone and send an email.
• 8:47
  They need to hear from the people that are being directly affected by what they're
• 8:50
  doing. Yeah, and I hear especially retirees say oftentimes, nobody cares about retirees.
• 8:55
  Hey, people care about whatever is bringing in the most complaints or phone
• 9:01
  calls or emails to their office.
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  Because that tells them what the problem issues are.
• 9:07
  What's important to the people. It's kind of the same even living in apartments and stuff.
• 9:12
  If the same people are calling you over and over again to fix the same problem,
• 9:16
  eventually you're going to go fix the problem. Yeah.
• 9:19
  Because you're tired of hearing it. And I heard getting back to the DMV at some
• 9:25
  of these to get back to school school bus driver meetings.
• 9:29
  The DMV trainers are in there and they're telling them, you know,
• 9:32
  you heard that rule that came about where if you don't have your bus license, you may have some extra.
• 9:38
  It's still eligible for about up to two years.
• 9:40
  Not for CDLs. You still have to go in and you have to get those things.
• 9:45
  You cannot drive at that CDL. CDL, you have to, you can, you're not eligible.
• 9:50
  So to get your CDL renewed, you still have to go, okay.
• 9:53
  And that's just, let's go ahead and talk about that for a minute.
• 9:57
  School bus drivers, there's a shortage. So lots of staff that were in the school are being...
• 10:04
  I don't know if they're required, but I guess in some cases they are to get
• 10:07
  their CDL so they can drive a bus if they need to. It's a part of their employment.
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  If you're an hourly or classified staff in many school districts now,
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  the expectation is for you to have that school bus or commercial driver's license.
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  That doesn't mean that you will have to drive, but you have to have that bus
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  license unless there is some medical issue or something that's been documented
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  so you're not eligible to have that.
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  But every one of those folks is expected, if you're not driving a regular bus
• 10:38
  route, you're expected to fill in as a substitute bus driver or as needed.
• 10:44
  So, yeah, and we talked a little bit about this yesterday. So we'll go ahead
• 10:47
  and jump into what Brad does.
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  Brad, tell us who you are and kind of what you're doing for Scenic now,
• 10:53
  how we're trying to get into this space.
• 10:55
  Well, we could go all the way back to childhood or not, but I was actually a music educator.
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  I was hired and taught down in Craven County. I spent most of my time as a public
• 11:07
  school employee down in Craven County.
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  I met my wife at West Craven High School. She was the cheerleading coach.
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  I was the band director, and that's how we met.
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  And the interesting thing is, I think the two of us are an example,
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  particularly in a rural county like Craven County, of making things work because
• 11:26
  you're bringing in new hires.
• 11:27
  Well, if you can get them married, get them settled there, then you have an
• 11:32
  employee for life. And that's true.
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  We stayed there in Newbern for 30 years and have two sons.
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  And so we were a part of the community as well as working within there.
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  And that was a time where in that time in education, I was one of maybe four
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  people out of a 60, 70 person faculty that was new.
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  So there was a core group of faculty members who stayed there.
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  And I think that's something that's very different and more in rural areas as
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  opposed to suburban environments.
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  I'm not saying it's just a blanket statement, but it was nice to have those
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  folks there, a wealth of experience that you could talk to and help them out.
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  And they certainly helped me out along the way.
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  I did move out of the classroom and moved into a beginning teacher mentor role.
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  And so I was working with all the younger teachers, me and a team of three others,
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  to try and help them, not just with the curriculum side, but with the who do I call?
• 12:27
  Yeah. And I think some of that happened because there was school districts saw
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  the need to have those mentors in place in a more formal setting versus informal
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  to try and make it more codified. And here's the thing you're talking about, who do I call?
• 12:40
  So Scenic has stepped up and tried to, we heard you.
• 12:44
  We heard you. Who do I call? who can help with these issues.
• 12:47
  Well, and I think that when you're saying we heard you, that explains why people
• 12:51
  don't even know scenics in the space of public education.
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  And there, by the way, there's a number of groups that go into schools,
• 12:59
  just the same way there's a number of groups that go into state agencies.
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  And those groups, in many cases, serve very different purposes that are useful
• 13:09
  to the needs of specific people.
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  But why scenic in the public schools? What precipitated that?
• 13:16
  Well, I think most of it is an advocacy issue. I just know personally from,
• 13:21
  I've got a handful of school employees that reach out to me specifically to
• 13:25
  find out what's going on because they're not getting information from anywhere else.
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  And they had joined. They had joined without us recruiting in really surprising numbers.
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  But then they were asking, hey, I want to be part of you and I am now,
• 13:40
  but can y'all come see us? Yeah.
• 13:43
  So we've been working to that end. Correct. Hence, we have Brad,
• 13:47
  who is a critical part of our membership team now.
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  And I'll let you expand a little bit on what it is you're doing.
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  Like you were saying, I taught 29 years and my wife taught 32 years.
• 13:59
  And when I saw the job posting, I asked Debra, I said, have you ever heard of these folks?
• 14:03
  And she said, no. And that was one of my questions. I know when I was talking
• 14:08
  about that with them was, who are you? and then come to hear about what your
• 14:12
  mission is and how you're trying to expand.
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  And it is an area where coming from a local teaching, again,
• 14:18
  in a rural area, it's very easy to get siloed in and feel like no one's listening
• 14:23
  to me. I have concerns, but I also think I might have some answers and some suggestions.
• 14:28
  They may or may not work, but you don't know until you try. And you don't know
• 14:32
  who to give them to. Correct.
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  And I think my role within Scenic now is kind of many different layers where
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  I'm going out and just educating the public school community.
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  And I think particularly the certified people have enough different organizations
• 14:48
  within their own subject matter.
• 14:50
  That they can be a part of. And it's not that we won't reach out to them,
• 14:53
  but it's the classified folks, the teacher assistants, the bus drivers,
• 14:56
  the mechanics, the custodial staff, all of those kinds of folks who really feel left out.
• 15:02
  That's where seeing it can play a vital role. Because I remember when we used
• 15:08
  to have No Child Left Behind and schools would get bonus money for testing results,
• 15:14
  growth, and things like that. That's true.
• 15:17
  If you met growth or you had high growth, You did get money,
• 15:20
  but it was only to the teachers.
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  None came to classified staff. So I didn't say we did it every year that we
• 15:27
  had it, but there was several years where we would give a little bit of our
• 15:31
  money, Debra and I would,
• 15:33
  to some of the clerical and some of the classified staff. We couldn't help them all.
• 15:38
  But if you don't help those folks out, I mean, because they were,
• 15:40
  I'll be honest, you could feel the resentment because they are just as important
• 15:46
  to the success of a school and to a school community as the teachers are.
• 15:51
  Talk a little bit about how pay bonuses, that kind of thing,
• 15:54
  are funded because, you know, they're locals and they're not.
• 15:58
  And, you know, so how one county is funding pay and bonuses,
• 16:01
  it's completely different. Yeah, a lot of teachers insist that they are not state employees. Yes.
• 16:05
  So talk a little bit about that, Brad.
• 16:08
  Education staff are funded by three different pots of money,
• 16:12
  local, state, federal, and.
• 16:14
  And depending on what subject area you were in, depending on where you work,
• 16:18
  depends on which pots of money you were pulled out of as far as your salary
• 16:23
  and benefits are concerned.
• 16:25
  And that's, again, the disconnect of where some teachers feel like,
• 16:28
  well, I work for Duplin County Schools. I'm not working for the state.
• 16:32
  Well, you're paying into the teachers and state employees retirement system.
• 16:36
  So, yes, you are. You are that. You are having the health plan right there.
• 16:40
  So those things are in there. And I think what has happened historically is
• 16:46
  the same thing is true in many other areas of public government,
• 16:49
  in that when we were trying to create.
• 16:51
  In this case, public education, one of the big foundation points is that we
• 16:57
  can educate those children and make them significant to the growth of the society,
• 17:01
  but we can do it at little to no cost.
• 17:04
  And so when you do that, it's implied that, okay, we're going to do it as cheaply as we can.
• 17:10
  Yeah. So we're going to make things, you know, when you're talking about whether
• 17:13
  it comes from building contracts, you know, we're not going to go with just
• 17:16
  substandard, but we're going to go just enough to make things work.
• 17:20
  And the same thing happens over into the same kind of thing.
• 17:22
  Correct. But if you're working in a school and you think I'm not a state employee,
• 17:26
  I'm a local employee because I'm a school district employee.
• 17:29
  But at the same time, I think what folks saw who worked in schools really became
• 17:34
  apparent in 2018 when we got $15 an hour minimum wage for state employees.
• 17:39
  And then you have people from schools saying, wait a minute, why not me?
• 17:44
  Well, the legislature controlled that.
• 17:46
  So that's a state government issue. And that was, you know, partially,
• 17:51
  it's not totally, but I think some of the issues were at that time,
• 17:54
  there were some rumblings within the education establishment.
• 17:59
  And there were some big profile events that happened up in Raleigh and some
• 18:03
  other areas. And I think, you know, some of the ramifications from that happened
• 18:07
  to be that there was that separation, again, of school employees versus the
• 18:11
  rest of state government employees.
• 18:13
  And it took an extra four to five years for those school employees to make that work.
• 18:18
  Well, and Suzanne, you can address that. Y'all worked very, very hard to make
• 18:22
  sure they were included.
• 18:23
  Yes. Yeah, because that was so wrong. And, you know, for the longest time,
• 18:27
  the legislature refers to classified employees as non-certified when they're
• 18:31
  doing budget. But for the longest time, you know, we were the same pot of money.
• 18:34
  Right. And it changed at that $15 an hour. Yeah, they used to come out of the
• 18:38
  same line item in the budget as the rest of state agencies.
• 18:42
  Now what you see is what they do call it non-certified employees in schools.
• 18:48
  Anybody who's not a teacher is generally getting the same amount of raise as
• 18:52
  the rest of state government in the, at least from a legislative standpoint.
• 18:57
  For the most part. And I do think...
• 18:59
  Sometimes, again, that's a it's a communication misnomer thinking when you're
• 19:04
  talking about budget, you talk about, you know, they say state employees will
• 19:07
  get this, but teachers are going to get this much more.
• 19:09
  And it's almost as if it's again, it kind of comes back to that thing of,
• 19:13
  OK, we're going to make the teachers a little bit more profile in the general public's view.
• 19:18
  And so they, you know, the general public who doesn't understand all the budget
• 19:21
  thing to go on, they see that, oh, well, teachers are going to get an 8 percent raise.
• 19:25
  Okay, well, let's dig more into the numbers and see what's happening to make
• 19:30
  that pay, not just for that, but for the support staff and for the operations of a school.
• 19:34
  And the local supplement, the additional money that a teacher can get,
• 19:40
  depending on the county, it's very different, or school system,
• 19:43
  not just county, where they live, that does not extend beyond teachers, does it?
• 19:49
  Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Explain that a little. I was in a county earlier
• 19:53
  today where their transportation director was saying that they were going to
• 19:57
  try and give more from the local side to their drivers and try and give them more hours.
• 20:02
  Maybe not much of a race, but the way he had to do it was he was getting his
• 20:06
  money. He had money allocated to him from the state.
• 20:09
  No one else in the district could touch it. But then there was a small amount
• 20:12
  because it didn't all add up to his expenses.
• 20:14
  So he had to get some from the local school district.
• 20:18
  And so what he has been able to do through just trying to trim things down,
• 20:21
  not make it where it was unsafe, but to make it where, you know,
• 20:25
  they just shorten their edges as far as their operations were concerned.
• 20:28
  He's been able now, it's his fourth year, he's been able to make it where they're
• 20:32
  not asking the school district for any extra money.
• 20:35
  In fact, they had a little bit of a surplus. So now what he's saying is,
• 20:39
  let's take that money that I have a little surplus of.
• 20:42
  Now let's put it into raises for his mechanics. Right.
• 20:45
  But that's not the supplement. No, that is not. Yeah.
• 20:48
  That's not local. But there's some districts will supplement like bus driver
• 20:53
  pay, but it depends on the county and it depends on how much is coming from local government.
• 20:59
  Because there's some places, I had another transportation person tell me it's
• 21:04
  a rural county at Borders, Virginia.
• 21:06
  He can only pay them X amount of money. That's all he gets. It's a small county.
• 21:10
  It's a one high school county.
• 21:12
  The municipality above him in Virginia is basically giving those drivers to come.
• 21:17
  They're advertising that. It was an average of $5 more an hour. Wow.
• 21:22
  Wait for it. Then they're going to pay, cover the tuition costs for their children
• 21:25
  to come up and go to schools in that town in Virginia.
• 21:29
  So if I have a family and I'm going to go up to blah, blah, blah,
• 21:33
  and go drive a bus for six hours. What am I going to do with my child down here if there's an issue?
• 21:38
  Just bring your child up here. We'll pay the tuition fee. We'll make them go.
• 21:41
  Because it's a public school.
• 21:43
  Sometimes at those border counties, I guess that you have to,
• 21:45
  there's a little bit of a stipend that has to be paid.
• 21:48
  So let me ask you this, since you were in the schools forever.
• 21:52
  Suzanne and I have been around long enough that we saw when the education lottery,
• 21:56
  when that bill was passed, and it was a dogfight for that bill to get passed.
• 22:00
  And the idea was that it would supplement rather than supplant the money that
• 22:06
  the legislature would put into education.
• 22:09
  Now, that was changed at the very last minute. The way the bill was passed is,
• 22:14
  didn't say that it would be in addition to. It just would be money towards education.
• 22:18
  Which left the door open. Yeah, but up to 35 percent was the goal.
• 22:23
  They didn't make it a requirement that 35 percent be spent, but a strong preference.
• 22:29
  And I think the last I saw, about 20 percent of the lottery proceeds actually go to schools now.
• 22:36
  You know, again, the idea was for 35 percent of the proceeds.
• 22:39
  And I believe you still have to apply for those lottery funds.
• 22:43
  Yeah, I was going to ask you, so if 35 percent actually went in,
• 22:47
  do you think that would solve the issue in some of these counties that are struggling
• 22:51
  to keep people? It could.
• 22:53
  It depends on which capital are you going to go into. Are you going to go into
• 22:57
  physical capital or human capital?
• 22:59
  And if you're going to split them up. Because, to be honest,
• 23:03
  in many places, the physical capital is having an issue, too.
• 23:07
  Well, the big purpose of the lottery in the original statute was to do those capital improvements.
• 23:14
  I visited a bus garage, and again, I will keep them anonymous.
• 23:19
  20% of their building is condemned.
• 23:22
  They cannot use it. It is structurally unsafe.
• 23:26
  What could be more important than a bus garage? I mean, our children are getting
• 23:29
  on these buses that are being serviced and maintained at these garages.
• 23:34
  I mean, what can be more important than that? You're putting your children on these buses.
• 23:39
  And so there's, that's an example.
• 23:41
  And there's, you know, the average age of school buildings now, it's really high.
• 23:45
  And I understand that, too, because the price of land, whenever a county commissioner
• 23:50
  or a school board say, we need to build another school, the developers are all of a sudden going, okay,
• 23:55
  let's go ahead and buy all the property around this proposed area because we
• 23:59
  know we can see the growth trends.
• 24:01
  We know where that's going. So now we're going to make land a premium.
• 24:05
  So school design, if you've noticed in the past 15, 20 years,
• 24:09
  school design has not spread out in a physical building. It's gone up.
• 24:13
  They're having to make that work, which is fine. And it works really well,
• 24:17
  but you have to still provide all of the different facilities.
• 24:21
  You have to make sure everything works well within the building.
• 24:24
  And so when you're trying to talk about that versus upkeep of a facility,
• 24:28
  there's always different issues when it involves upkeep.
• 24:32
  One of the big things is mold, because here's something, a little insider trick,
• 24:37
  people aren't telling you. And it's happening.
• 24:39
  We've heard this in the news, and it's been happening for years.
• 24:42
  As a cost cutting measure, particularly in the summertime.
• 24:46
  But it happens, I think, regularly throughout the year.
• 24:49
  To save money, school districts will make it so that at a certain time at night.
• 24:54
  The air and the heating will shut off.
• 24:57
  And then it will shut back on. It will turn back on automatically because they
• 25:00
  have those controls in place.
• 25:01
  And I would say most of the time, the maintenance folks, they're doing exactly
• 25:04
  what they're being asked to do. And they make that happen.
• 25:09
  But what you're systems operational. It could be at a different temperature,
• 25:13
  but you're putting humidity in that atmosphere.
• 25:18
  For example, in the auditorium where we had, we were blessed to have an auditorium
• 25:21
  at West Craven High, and they were starting to do that.
• 25:23
  I said, we have a baby grand piano in here that the district has spent thousands
• 25:28
  of dollars on, and we have all this other equipment.
• 25:30
  We have this nice floor, but you're going to turn the air off.
• 25:33
  And on weekends, they were turning it off the whole time. Oh, wow.
• 25:36
  Well, I mean, they always tell you don't go on vacation.
• 25:39
  When you go on vacation, don't cut the air off at your house because you could
• 25:42
  cause a real mess. But it was like, again, it was kind of short-sighted.
• 25:45
  It was like, again, it's kind of the, you know, the whole thing.
• 25:48
  A person's a widget philosophy. So we turn it all off and then we forget about it.
• 25:52
  And you're forgetting it needs, the system needs to run off and operate that.
• 25:56
  And any, you know, most HVAC people will tell you that correctly, as you just said.
• 26:01
  It's easier to keep it running and then you can maintain that.
• 26:04
  But when you turn those things off, mold is one of the many problems that start to develop.
• 26:09
  Go ahead, Suzanne. We were both about to speak at the same. I think we have
• 26:11
  so many questions for Brad. Well, there's so much.
• 26:13
  I mean, you're a volcano of information over here about public schools, school districts.
• 26:19
  I was just going to move on to. And you know, there's a lot of people smarter
• 26:22
  than I. I live with one of them. I don't believe that, Brad.
• 26:26
  She could tell you even more. We probably need to bring her in sometime.
• 26:29
  Because here's the thing, is that she, I mean, I understand a lot.
• 26:33
  I understand more than other folks, only because Debra moved out of the math
• 26:38
  teacher role into admin.
• 26:39
  And so she was an assistant principal. She was a principal. So she was a site
• 26:44
  leader. and then she moved to central office and she was the chief academic
• 26:47
  officer, which was awesome.
• 26:49
  So she got to see the 100,000 feet view of everything that's going on and she
• 26:54
  got to understand the other pieces of that too. So having those different perspectives.
• 26:59
  It'd be great to have someone like that in because, you know,
• 27:01
  she can offer some insight in there, too.
• 27:04
  Debra, coming for you. The invitation is there, Debra. Come on.
• 27:07
  We're coming for you. So I was just, I was going to kind of slide on into how
• 27:12
  Scenic has expanded to focus on this block of, we've got some members in public
• 27:17
  schools, so to focus on them.
• 27:19
  So to that end, we are going to convocations this month.
• 27:23
  Well, and we're going to a lot of back-to-school events. I think it's 40-something
• 27:27
  different events we're going to.
• 27:29
  Now we're adding them as we come in. And so it's a little stressful,
• 27:33
  but it's a good stress because if they're wanting us to come and participate
• 27:36
  as a vendor and we're really an outside vendor to come in and speak,
• 27:40
  this is probably one of the few times in a school year that a district will
• 27:45
  allow outside folks in to come and speak.
• 27:48
  And so we're able to be at a lot of bus driver back to school meetings because
• 27:52
  they have to have different trainings and things that they go on.
• 27:56
  And we're actually a little bit getting into child nutrition.
• 28:00
  I'm going to a couple of child nutrition meetings because, again,
• 28:02
  they only meet one time a year because they're so busy doing everything else
• 28:06
  during the rest of the year.
• 28:07
  But the convocations are a little different. And it goes back.
• 28:11
  It used to be 20, 25 years ago.
• 28:13
  A lot of school districts had them. I know in Craven County,
• 28:16
  where I taught, we had it was a big pap rally and it was at the beginning of
• 28:19
  the school year. Well, I liked it.
• 28:20
  And then it was like it was it was an extra thing because they wanted the high
• 28:24
  school bands to go and play. So once every three years I had to go and I had
• 28:29
  to corral all the children and come down and equipment and get all that together.
• 28:32
  And we would play some selections right there, you know, as teachers and staff
• 28:36
  are coming in for this pep rally.
• 28:38
  But with that calendar law that was passed 20 something years ago,
• 28:41
  it reduced so much of the non-instructional days that folks are required to attend.
• 28:46
  And a lot of the convocations started becoming smaller sometime with the advent
• 28:51
  of, you know, more technology. It can be virtual.
• 28:54
  And other things like that. And so they're starting to come back again.
• 28:58
  I think it's almost like a post-COVID thing. I think school district leaders
• 29:01
  have realized, oh, we need them to physically see one another again.
• 29:05
  Right. They need that interaction.
• 29:08
  They don't need to look at a screen. When they get together and you have a chance
• 29:12
  to talk to people, what do they feel when you talk to them about scenic?
• 29:16
  What is appealing to them about scenic? They're just learning,
• 29:19
  trying to figure out, how are you trying to help us with our pay and our benefits
• 29:23
  because a lot of times, and I know we talk about, we talk at one of our first
• 29:26
  things when we're out talking with folks is we're trying to,
• 29:29
  we know the floors is raised up.
• 29:31
  We're trying to stretch the steps and stretch the ceiling. And that rubber band
• 29:35
  is a little bit harder to pull than it was for the $15 floor.
• 29:39
  And so another thing they're worried about, and I've heard this across the state
• 29:43
  is how can you help us with all the extra duties and extra paperwork that we have to do.
• 29:49
  Yeah, their actual working conditions environment.
• 29:52
  For example, and we talked about this earlier, let's say I'm a teacher assistant.
• 29:56
  Let's say I'm an exceptional children's teacher assistant. So I'm getting up in that morning.
• 30:00
  I'm either a monitor on an EC bus or I'm driving a bus, whether it's exceptional
• 30:04
  children or regular bus.
• 30:06
  So I'm driving that route or routes.
• 30:08
  Then I have to clock out there. I have to race inside the building.
• 30:12
  If I'm an exceptional children's teacher assistant, then I've got to go in and
• 30:16
  I have got to assist that teacher and the other assistants with the children that are in there.
• 30:21
  And there are certain things by law you have to follow.
• 30:24
  And so it's all different than a regular classroom teacher.
• 30:27
  And so they're doing all that. They're getting the paperwork.
• 30:29
  They're managing all that stuff.
• 30:31
  And they're making sure those children are being serviced in the way they need
• 30:34
  to and trying to get them to grow in whatever he or she can and trying to get
• 30:38
  them to reach their potential. And driving a bus. And driving a bus.
• 30:42
  You have to go. And then at the end of the day, you have to stop a little early
• 30:44
  because you have to go out and you have to pre-trip inspect your bus.
• 30:47
  Because if you don't pre-trip inspect your bus and the DMV person catches you, that bus is parked.
• 30:52
  There's so many things that we just don't realize he's employed.
• 30:55
  So you go drive your bus an hour or two afterwards.
• 30:58
  And by that time, you get to go home. And if you have a family,
• 31:01
  then you have to, as my children would say, then you have to put the,
• 31:04
  you know, the chicken tenders, the French fries and the green beans.
• 31:07
  That's what my two boys thought that that's what their every meal was every day.
• 31:11
  Just to get something on the table.
• 31:14
  So it's interesting how the, you know, we've talked a lot about the pressures
• 31:18
  of agency employees, you know, short-staffed.
• 31:20
  And it's interesting to talk about how these employees.
• 31:24
  And CNET can be a great portal for that information. It's number one, you're listening.
• 31:29
  Right. You're not hearing. And so you're trying to help them understand that they are not alone.
• 31:34
  And I think that just that little bit of a pat on the shoulder,
• 31:37
  I mean, I can't tell you how many times just in this past week I reached out
• 31:40
  to when I was talking to bus drivers and they come and they say, thank you.
• 31:44
  Then I would put a book in their hand and they wouldn't necessarily join scenic,
• 31:47
  but they know someone is there working on their behalf.
• 31:50
  I've got we've got to get them past the finish line of being a member so they
• 31:54
  can physically be a part of what's going on.
• 31:56
  Yeah, I feel like there's a it's a building trust. Correct. With these folks.
• 32:00
  It's building trust. You have to keep going back. People just want to be heard.
• 32:03
  And honestly, people tell me things that I don't understand or maybe don't know.
• 32:08
  So that gives me a direction to go find an answer or, you know,
• 32:13
  how does this work in the past? retirement are the two things we got the most phone calls about.
• 32:18
  When people were first calling and saying, I want to join,
• 32:21
  I saw and they would have seen some media article where we were out there saying,
• 32:27
  this isn't right, that the health plan is paying way too much to hospitals for
• 32:33
  the care of state employees.
• 32:34
  And then that keeps the benefits down and the costs higher for the state employees
• 32:40
  because the state's willing to pay too much in terms of reimbursement to these
• 32:44
  big corporations that run hospitals.
• 32:45
  So between that and then the retirement where we said Wall Street fees that
• 32:50
  we're paying are too much, but we can't even get the documents because they're
• 32:55
  allowed to be kept secret from the public and from the employees by law,
• 32:59
  despite the fact that the employees are paying 6% of their check every month
• 33:03
  into this retirement system and yet have no rights to any transparency about
• 33:09
  how it's being invested or, you know, what they're paying in terms of fees for investments.
• 33:14
  And those things seem to be resonating with a lot of, particularly,
• 33:17
  I think, teacher school employees who were calling and saying,
• 33:20
  I don't see anybody else taking up this cause.
• 33:24
  And I think part of it, too, a lot of questions I receive out in the field,
• 33:28
  it becomes political and not in a bad way, but a political thing of,
• 33:32
  okay, is Senate affiliated with a party?
• 33:34
  And you have to keep telling them, no, we are nonpartisan.
• 33:37
  The party's supposed to stay mad at us. Right. Our focus is on you as a state
• 33:42
  employee and your other employees and retirees. That's it.
• 33:45
  And I think some of it is they've got to see, you can show them the previous things we're doing.
• 33:49
  But I think I've kind of steered them more towards also listening in on the
• 33:54
  social media posts that you have been putting out, Suzanne Daly,
• 33:57
  from legislative updates and
• 33:59
  artists' kind of little mini TED Talks as she's trying to put them out.
• 34:02
  And it's those kind of things that you have to keep showing them.
• 34:05
  They're little bite-sized, so it's not like it's a big, huge volume.
• 34:09
  Well, attention spans are so short these days, but they're not,
• 34:13
  there's nowhere else for them to be getting that kind of information.
• 34:16
  So that's one of the gaps we can fill for public school employees.
• 34:20
  And it's just, I think, a fact that, and I've noticed it in my own career,
• 34:25
  where we had those people who were helping, and it was informal.
• 34:28
  And then it became more formalized.
• 34:31
  And I think another negative outcome of the whole testing thing that came along,
• 34:36
  particularly when it came to Teacher A, Teacher B, Teacher C,
• 34:39
  well, Teacher B's scores are much better.
• 34:42
  So then Teacher A and C are a little envious, and they may come to Teacher B
• 34:46
  asking for help. And Teacher B says, well, you're not going to mess with my money.
• 34:50
  So I'm not going to help you. And so a lot of folks have become more siloed.
• 34:54
  And I think that paperwork versus all those other outcomes, I'm not saying that
• 34:58
  it's totally hollowed out like that.
• 35:00
  But I think the veteran teachers are being pushed to isolate themselves.
• 35:06
  And they just say, I can't keep doing this and making that work.
• 35:10
  That's where the hollowing out is coming.
• 35:12
  It's from the person who's been in there 10 to 20 years. That's getting hollowed
• 35:16
  out. And it's not just in North Carolina, but it's getting hollowed out nationally.
• 35:19
  And I think it's those folks say, well, I need to go do something else.
• 35:23
  Yeah. And that's a shame. I mean, that's across state government, too.
• 35:27
  That institutional knowledge is so important to pass along to the up and coming
• 35:32
  employees, teachers, teachers assistants.
• 35:36
  That's so critical. And if they're not being treated well and they don't want
• 35:40
  to pass that information on, then, yeah, then the younger people are going to.
• 35:43
  And you just gave an example of someone working with exceptional children.
• 35:48
  We've obviously been on a bit of a tear because of the huge expense of the opportunity
• 35:54
  scholarships at a time when there is no extra money.
• 35:57
  And also the fact that a school where somebody could spend the money for those
• 36:02
  scholarships doesn't have to meet the same criteria and they don't have to take every student.
• 36:09
  This is where, right. I've heard folks say, well, we need competition in education.
• 36:14
  And I'm not against competition in education.
• 36:17
  Make us play on the same plane. Yeah, I was going to say.
• 36:20
  Because in public schools, anyone who comes in off the street,
• 36:25
  the public school community, I say we still, but the public school community
• 36:28
  has to meet those child's needs right then and there.
• 36:33
  No matter if it's just regular ed, they have to assess them.
• 36:35
  They have to take whatever's going on. if they're labeled exceptional children,
• 36:39
  and they shouldn't be. But if it happens that way, then they have to do that.
• 36:42
  We have so many folks now. I know where I was a teacher for years,
• 36:46
  we had a big influx of Burmese students coming in from Southeast Asia,
• 36:52
  and it was all coming through a couple of churches, doing some things,
• 36:55
  and that's awesome, and that's wonderful.
• 36:56
  But then in rural eastern North Carolina, we have to find translators who understand Burmese.
• 37:02
  It's a big deal, yeah. You can find Spanish.
• 37:06
  You can find others. We can find German, French, all those. That's where we
• 37:09
  had to be very intelligent about our outreach and reaching those.
• 37:12
  We had to reach out with those community partners and make that work.
• 37:15
  And that was the only way it worked.
• 37:17
  But that's what happens in public schools. We have to take them in.
• 37:20
  We have to show their growth as they assimilate in to the public school community.
• 37:26
  Whereas with your other schools, there's no fault behind that.
• 37:29
  But they can be more selective from the student population that they pull in.
• 37:33
  It's not discriminatory. They're just more selective about that.
• 37:36
  And when you can pick and choose, that's not a level playing field. It's not.
• 37:40
  And I mean, I think most scenic members are like most voters in North Carolina. You ask them.
• 37:46
  Do you think parents should have school choice? They're probably going to say,
• 37:49
  yeah, that sounds good. I think people should have school choice.
• 37:52
  If you say, is it okay if government money goes to these schools,
• 37:56
  but they don't have the same requirements as the other schools,
• 37:58
  they're like, hold up, because that's when it resonates with any of us.
• 38:03
  Like, wait a minute, what are we doing? Because that starts to sound like a giveaway.
• 38:08
  And especially, and I don't know how much you're hearing this out there,
• 38:11
  but we've heard it repeatedly, that these schools are starting to charge more.
• 38:16
  These private schools are starting to charge more. Absolutely.
• 38:18
  And you could see that one coming.
• 38:20
  Yeah. And it's, again, that's an economic reality.
• 38:23
  Sure. If I was doing one of those schools, it would be foolhardy not to do that.
• 38:28
  And there's not a lot of families who are taking their kids out of public school
• 38:31
  and sending them to private school, you know, because of this.
• 38:35
  And there's a significant part of the population also that homeschool their
• 38:40
  children. That's right.
• 38:41
  And again, this is where technology has been a great equalizer in that and making that happen.
• 38:48
  So a parent, if they so choose, and it could be for any different reason,
• 38:52
  if they choose to homeschool their child for a short period of time or for longer
• 38:56
  periods of time, I understand that.
• 38:59
  But at the same time, to me, I think you learn more from understanding people's
• 39:05
  differences as well as their similarities.
• 39:07
  Well, but, okay, let's say I'm a parent who's freaked out over my child's in
• 39:13
  public school, and it seems out of control at that school, that behavior's out of control,
• 39:18
  that it's not a good learning environment, and it's not a good environment.
• 39:24
  For my children to be in morally because there's fighting all over the place.
• 39:29
  There's ugly words being said every other three feet you walk,
• 39:33
  that it's a bad environment because things have changed so much.
• 39:37
  You know, when I would walk through my kids' schools, that stuff would never
• 39:41
  have happened in the ancient times when we were in school.
• 39:44
  So I get it that a parent would say, I don't want to do that anymore.
• 39:50
  If they can afford it, they're going to look for something else.
• 39:53
  But a teacher or a school employee doesn't want that kind of environment any
• 39:58
  more than the parents do.
• 40:00
  What's the answer? I mean, I'm sure you dealt with it. There is no one answer.
• 40:05
  If there was, it would already been invented and I would not be sitting here.
• 40:09
  I would be on my own place somewhere in Europe vacationing.
• 40:13
  I think it's difficult for the parents, too, because there are times that my
• 40:17
  parents look at me and say they regret not taking me out of my public school
• 40:21
  because I've dealt with a lot at that school.
• 40:24
  And there were times that they were like, we couldn't homeschool you,
• 40:27
  but we couldn't afford private school.
• 40:29
  We didn't know what the option was. We didn't know what to do.
• 40:33
  All we knew is that you lived in this school district. You have to go to this
• 40:38
  school because we couldn't provide you transportation.
• 40:41
  But I guess what I'm saying is with opportunity scholarships,
• 40:44
  they still probably couldn't have afforded it because the tuition has increased
• 40:48
  at all these places. So the money they would have been handed still wouldn't
• 40:52
  have gotten you in the door.
• 40:53
  And I've gone to, you know, I have been blessed to go travel and go to a lot of different places.
• 40:58
  And I've seen, you know, one of the things I think it's the educator and as
• 41:02
  we go look at the schools, at the school buildings whenever we're away,
• 41:06
  and some of them look really great and they're very helpful.
• 41:08
  But then I've seen some in other countries where it's almost a compound,
• 41:12
  And what I mean is it's fenced in, high fencing around the school.
• 41:16
  And I think, are they doing things to keep people from coming in or to keep
• 41:21
  the children from going out?
• 41:23
  And which is it? And you may not like the answer all the time.
• 41:27
  I don't think public education, it's never been perfect. And it's, we're not going to be.
• 41:32
  I think if you asked 10 different teachers, what are three or four different
• 41:36
  things you could do to fix inside their own school, they could come up with
• 41:40
  a pretty good list and make that happen.
• 41:42
  If you ask the teacher assistants, they could do the same thing and so on and so forth.
• 41:46
  It's never been a thing of public education is perfect, but public education
• 41:50
  has gotten a bad rap because a lot of outside influences and people believe
• 41:54
  that educators are trying to train children what to think.
• 41:59
  No, you're trying to teach them how. So many great teachers.
• 42:03
  And how to think, how is a very different question.
• 42:07
  And I think that's at heart. And I can, you know, I understand the safety piece
• 42:11
  and the things that going up because I know as a student myself,
• 42:15
  I'm not telling you every day I went to school, I was like, yippee,
• 42:18
  I get to go to blah, blah, blah school today.
• 42:21
  Because there were days, you know, many times where it was hard and things growing up.
• 42:25
  But I do think you've got to put those things in place. And as a teacher,
• 42:29
  I know you've got to have those those systems in place and processes where the
• 42:33
  teachers feel like that then whatever may happen in their room,
• 42:37
  good or not good, that there's going to be an administrator there that will help support them.
• 42:41
  And the administrators feel they've got to have the support of the folks at
• 42:45
  the central office and so on and so forth.
• 42:48
  And then the parents at the end of the day have to back up the teachers. Yeah.
• 42:52
  I mean, I remember when I was growing up, my mom telling me,
• 42:55
  if you ever came home and told me, you know, it was the teacher's fault that you got in trouble.
• 43:01
  She said, just know, I'm not going to think that.
• 43:04
  I'm going to think that it was you because what teacher, you know.
• 43:07
  And yet we're just not in that place now. No.
• 43:10
  And I try and say this when I'm at bus driver meetings. And I try not to say
• 43:14
  it as I know everything and I'm being, you know, scepter of knowledge.
• 43:18
  But I tell them from my own personal experience, if you're picking up that child
• 43:23
  on that bus route, I made sure that as an employee of Craven County Schools,
• 43:27
  when that child got on that bus, the first thing they heard from a school's
• 43:30
  employee was good morning.
• 43:32
  That can be. Sets the tone. It sets the tone for the whole day because you don't
• 43:37
  know what happens behind those doors at home.
• 43:39
  That's right. Well, Brad, I've heard you talk about, you know,
• 43:42
  your experience educating and your views towards education.
• 43:44
  And I think that's where that's another place where scenic's view of state government
• 43:49
  is not about we have to represent the rights and the pay and the benefits of state employees.
• 43:55
  But our members who are state employees are focused on the taxpayers.
• 44:00
  They are there for the taxpayers in their mind. And I know educators,
• 44:04
  most of them very much feel they are there for those students and that they
• 44:10
  know what their students need in a way that government can't know.
• 44:14
  But I think the idea is if somebody represents educators or school employees,
• 44:20
  that that's all they care about.
• 44:22
  You know, I know that was a big thing during COVID, the dialogue that they just
• 44:26
  care about themselves and not about these students. And that's not what I've
• 44:30
  ever gotten from the educators that I've talked to.
• 44:33
  But was it your experience that there were a bunch of people who really didn't
• 44:37
  care about the students?
• 44:38
  In every place, no one is ever going to be perfect. And I think there were some
• 44:43
  folks that were colleagues that I would not want my children in their classroom. Yeah.
• 44:48
  But there was others. We made sure they were in their classroom. Yeah.
• 44:51
  In whatever way we could. We didn't have tremendous amounts of pull,
• 44:55
  but we would try and help that out.
• 44:57
  Sometimes it just didn't work because of schedule. But I do think one of the
• 45:00
  reasons I became an educator was because, particularly for me,
• 45:04
  the first three years I had in high school and then my last year,
• 45:08
  I had moved my senior year.
• 45:09
  And it was that experience. But I think above all else, I was able to go.
• 45:13
  I was in South Carolina and I went to the Governor's School for the Arts. It was a summer program.
• 45:17
  But it was paid for. And I auditioned for it and I got in there.
• 45:20
  And it was that time, it was literally like it imitated the life of a music student in college.
• 45:26
  And when I got finished with that six-week program, I said, yep, that's what I want to do.
• 45:30
  And making that happen. It's those kinds of experiences that make things work.
• 45:34
  I can remember, again, it's one of those things where we were doing an accreditation visit.
• 45:39
  And this is something where scenic, I don't know that we want to jump into these
• 45:41
  waters, but it would be nice if we could. We had an accreditation visit at our school.
• 45:46
  You know, every school has to be accredited, in our case, down here by Southern Association.
• 45:50
  And one of the folks, we had a group meeting at the end of the day,
• 45:54
  and one of the assessors came back and he was in tears, not for something bad.
• 46:00
  He said, I was in blah, blah, blah's classroom, and the children were writing.
• 46:05
  It was a personal narrative or something, but it had to be something in their
• 46:09
  lives that was a, what they called, it was something about the road not taken.
• 46:14
  It was based off that poem.
• 46:15
  And it was like, which road and which road would you have not chosen?
• 46:19
  And the teacher, she was going around now. She was a veteran teacher.
• 46:23
  If you listen to her talk or whatever, you would think, I don't know that I
• 46:27
  would want my child in that class.
• 46:28
  But he said he watched her.
• 46:30
  And there was one student who was writing and that student had to stop.
• 46:34
  And the student, she was sitting there and she was visibly upset.
• 46:37
  And the teacher went over there and just put her hand on her back and just rubbed
• 46:41
  it for a little while and whispered to her for a couple of minutes.
• 46:43
  Encouragement and encouragement and that child was able
• 46:46
  after a couple minutes gather herself and finish writing and he said in the
• 46:51
  meeting he said he said if all of you show that much care and concern then we're
• 46:55
  not ever going to worry about test scores or the outcomes and stuff because
• 46:58
  it's focused on the children you're growing a person yes you're growing a person,
• 47:04
  Well, and I have to say one of the things that I will always remember about
• 47:08
  when one of my children was in elementary school, the lady that was at the front
• 47:13
  desk when you first walk in, she basically ran her own social services out of that school.
• 47:18
  She knew which students needed clothes or, you know, she could tell the folks
• 47:24
  in the cafeteria who might need a little extra on their tray because they probably
• 47:28
  weren't getting enough.
• 47:30
  And it amazed me. I mean, the dedication.
• 47:33
  It just, it really, really struck me. So everyone knew that if you had things
• 47:38
  to bring in, you just give them to her.
• 47:40
  And that she had, there was a little room in there and she could take students
• 47:43
  in there without any kind of big hoopla or where they'd be embarrassed.
• 47:50
  And those kind of things are not in the job description.
• 47:53
  And you hear them all the time. You hear about teachers buying supplies out
• 47:58
  of their own pocket and things like that. And we know those things happen.
• 48:01
  But there's also the people like Ms. Reed who took care, just knew how to take
• 48:07
  care, knew everybody's circumstances.
• 48:09
  That's a special person. Yeah. My hat is off to everybody that works in these
• 48:14
  schools. I do think it's especially hard in this day and time.
• 48:17
  I think people are, I think students, especially when they get middle school
• 48:20
  or older, are oftentimes completely out of control.
• 48:23
  Seventh grade. Yeah, and...
• 48:26
  Yeah. And it takes a real. And, you know, my wife, my wife was she was certified
• 48:31
  in math secondary. So she taught high school.
• 48:33
  But then as an administrator, she was moved into a middle school.
• 48:37
  And at first I thought, oh, these children and parents don't know what's what
• 48:40
  the Deborah's about to do because Deborah.
• 48:43
  And I just didn't know. But she by the end of her time and doing that towards
• 48:47
  the end, she said, leave me in a middle school as a principal and I'll do it
• 48:50
  all day long. She said, I love that.
• 48:52
  Oh, gosh. She said, I love those kids at that age. She said,
• 48:55
  now, you have to understand that they're different.
• 48:58
  And you're talking about, again, the support staff and something that's,
• 49:01
  you know, my two sons, Griffin and Hunter, they remember still to this day the
• 49:05
  cafeteria manager at their elementary school because every Thursday was fried chicken day.
• 49:10
  And along with the fried chicken came collards. And the collards came with them.
• 49:13
  And they didn't care about the healthy stuff.
• 49:16
  No, didn't care about that because they both got packets of Texas peat to go with their collards.
• 49:21
  And to this day, when they come back to North, they're both in Texas.
• 49:24
  And when they come back, we know we have to get collards and there's a bottle
• 49:29
  of Texas peat and then the fridge.
• 49:31
  This has been such a good conversation. It's got Sam emotional.
• 49:35
  What's happening, Sam? Yeah, when I was in middle school, I had great teachers
• 49:38
  who really cared about me. but the administration did nothing to help.
• 49:43
  I was getting bullied every single day.
• 49:45
  Did not want to get up. Did not want to go to school. Came home crying pretty much every day.
• 49:50
  My mom had student teacher conferences and they would look at me and they'd
• 49:54
  be like, oh yeah, she's getting bullied but she's doing fine in class.
• 49:58
  And my mom's like, okay, well that doesn't help her.
• 50:00
  Yeah, there's more to it. That's where the support system has to be in place.
• 50:05
  So there was no support system. The administration never did anything about
• 50:08
  it. It just happened to my whole entire seventh grade and eighth grade.
• 50:11
  Which is part of the reason that my parents look back and they're like,
• 50:15
  we regret not taking you out of that environment, but we couldn't do anything.
• 50:19
  Yeah, they couldn't do anything about it. This makes the work that Scenic is
• 50:22
  trying to do to support educators, public school employees as a whole,
• 50:28
  this right here, addressing the needs of the whole child is why we need to be
• 50:32
  out there. Because teachers cared.
• 50:34
  They cared. But the administrators were like, well, has she been hit?
• 50:39
  Well, the administrators, to be clear, are always first in the budget.
• 50:44
  Yeah. Always. Well, and I say this, too. You're getting there.
• 50:47
  And look, I've been in those positions as a parent and as a teacher saying, we need to address this.
• 50:53
  And you feel like it's not being addressed.
• 50:57
  And I think, you know, another thing that would be good maybe for Debra to come
• 51:00
  in because she can say from the teacher side,
• 51:03
  from the parent side, and then from the administrator side, sometimes their
• 51:07
  hands are tied, too, based on law, based on what may or may not be happening there too.
• 51:13
  Because again, it kind of comes down to the presumption from the public that it's got to be bad.
• 51:21
  Everything's got to be bad going on in public schools. And you do hear the bad stuff.
• 51:24
  It kind of comes in the A block of the news and all that stuff that comes in
• 51:28
  and where things happen.
• 51:31
  We don't talk about the good stuff. We don't talk about the things,
• 51:34
  you know, like for example, that we don't talk about it at high school,
• 51:37
  I went by a couple of days ago in Harnett County, 730 in the morning,
• 51:41
  they're the band children out there on the field.
• 51:44
  You don't talk about, you know, all those times where you have the athletic
• 51:47
  teams or the other stuff. And I was at a school up in Nash County and it's summertime
• 51:52
  and those volleyball players are in there.
• 51:55
  I don't know how successful or not they're going to be, but those things are
• 51:58
  going to happen. You have all these other workshops.
• 52:00
  You know, you have some kids that look back, and it's these wonderful memories of school.
• 52:05
  But, Sam, I think there's more people than we want to think about whose memories
• 52:10
  of school are more like what you're recalling right now.
• 52:14
  And that, as a society and as an association, working to try to help folks working
• 52:22
  in the public school help children, we have to really focus there, too.
• 52:26
  Right. I think scenic can be, you know, we always try to tell students,
• 52:29
  no matter what, if you go to middle school, high school, or even if you're going
• 52:32
  to community college or a four-year school, get involved in something.
• 52:36
  Yeah. Because that's going to be a great place for you to grow yourself,
• 52:40
  but it's also... And find support.
• 52:41
  Right. And the same thing, scenic can be that. for anyone who works for the state.
• 52:45
  And it can also be that way for retirees because I know as a retiree,
• 52:49
  that first six months when I retired, it was kind of, it was long.
• 52:53
  You need some resources. You need some resources. You need that.
• 52:56
  And we need to do that where we can check in. And I think CNET can,
• 53:00
  I don't know that we can fill the void for everybody, but we can fill the void for a lot more.
• 53:04
  You know, I understand it's an investment, but you have to be invested.
• 53:08
  If you're not invested, then you're not going to get that return that you want,
• 53:12
  whether it's spiritually, physically, whatever.
• 53:14
  Right. This has been awesome. So I think wrapping it up here on Public Schools,
• 53:19
  we are out at the convocations, at these back-to-school events.
• 53:23
  Look, our whole staff is engaged right now because we want to have these conversations with you guys.
• 53:30
  So look for us at your convocation, look for us at your back-to-school events,
• 53:34
  and come talk to us. We want to hear from you.
• 53:37
  And I almost forgot, we have a giveaway that communication staff has put together.
• 53:45
  And rather than giving away an iPad or some piece of technology that will become
• 53:50
  obsolete in 12 months, the communication staff is giving away five $100 Amazon gift cards.
• 53:58
  Any school employee. It's not just for teachers, but we're going to give it away.
• 54:02
  We're going to make the drawing during our state convention in the first week in September.
• 54:07
  And to do that, that would mean if you're at a convocation or a school bus meeting
• 54:12
  and look at our social media because it's up there.
• 54:14
  It's posted up there too. So go check that out. All you need to put in is your
• 54:18
  email address and your name.
• 54:20
  We are not going to call you five times a day like a telemarketer.
• 54:24
  Thank you for being here with us today, Brad.
• 54:26
  I enjoyed it. Definitely learned a lot. Now, I have one more topic of conversation
• 54:30
  before we shift to our Gen Z minute.
• 54:33
  Suzanne, you were at the Retirement System Board of Trustees meeting today at
• 54:38
  the Treasurer's Office.
• 54:39
  Yes, I was. As well as Ms. Margaret Reeder, who is a Board of Trustees member.
• 54:43
  She is. And Mark Dearman, who is on our Retiree Council. Yes, he joined me.
• 54:47
  This was not the heavy valuation meeting where they, you know,
• 54:52
  share all the information about investments.
• 54:54
  So it was a little lighter than that. but we did get some information.
• 54:57
  The portfolio for the retirement system is performing well.
• 55:01
  Sam Watts, the director of the retirement system, is so good at breaking things
• 55:05
  down. So we enjoyed Sam's presentation today to explain smoothing.
• 55:10
  There are some gains from investments, which some of you may have seen a video
• 55:14
  from Treasurer Briner talking about those gains from returns.
• 55:18
  There's a smoothing process that happens with the retirement system.
• 55:21
  So just because gains happen this year does not mean that all of those gains
• 55:25
  are going to be available to bend in this year because it has to be smoothed
• 55:31
  out over a certain number of years, which is 12.
• 55:33
  It's an accounting technique. It is. It is.
• 55:36
  So, you know, so we'll talk more about that when they come back in October to do the valuation.
• 55:41
  We also touched on the Duke and Aetna issue.
• 55:45
  That's going on because there are a lot of questions from everybody.
• 55:47
  We have a meeting with the state health plan administrator, executive administrator,
• 55:52
  on Friday to talk about where they are right now.
• 55:54
  Sam, he told the board and all of us who are present today that they do feel
• 55:59
  optimistic about things being worked out between the state health plan,
• 56:03
  Aetna, and Duke Health. So just stay tuned.
• 56:06
  As soon as we're getting information, we'll push it out to you.
• 56:09
  A little bit of good news. Legislation passed some of the stuff that the plan
• 56:14
  was seeking from the legislature.
• 56:15
  But y'all remember UNC Health and ECU, the dental school and school of medicine.
• 56:21
  New plans, health plans, retirement system.
• 56:23
  And they had, you know, they wanted to move the new people and that's in place.
• 56:27
  New hires are not in the traditional plans anymore, but they wanted,
• 56:31
  the schools wanted to offer current employees the opportunity to come out of
• 56:36
  the traditional systems and into the new systems.
• 56:39
  And that's not going to happen.
• 56:41
  Oh, it would just decimate the retirement. Yeah, it was such a hit to the retirement system.
• 56:46
  So new hires, yes, current employees will be staying put.
• 56:51
  Like I said, there were no actuarial presentations today.
• 56:54
  That'll happen in October. And, you know, if you guys have got questions,
• 56:58
  you know where to find us.
• 57:00
  Awesome. Well, I normally have John to throw me into my Gen Z Minute,
• 57:03
  so I'll throw myself into it today.
• 57:05
  Sammy, what's going on in Gen Z world? I'm glad you asked. So this week for
• 57:11
  the Gen Z Minute, I found an article talking about how to attract and retain
• 57:15
  Gen Zs amid the impending labor shortage.
• 57:20
  So this one came from Inc.com, and it just had three little quick points.
• 57:26
  The first one was mentioning that we need to treat Gen Zs like investments, not a commodity.
• 57:32
  This refers to a working environment where veteran managers are not making emotional
• 57:37
  connections with their young team members and Gen Z want to feel like they're
• 57:41
  being invested in and building personal relationships is something that is very important to them.
• 57:46
  Another aspect that they had talked about was creating a culture of belonging.
• 57:52
  A study shows that Gen Z employees decide how long that they will stay at a
• 57:56
  position within their first week on the job. Wow.
• 58:00
  And a lot of it is based on the feeling of do they feel like they fit in with
• 58:05
  their colleagues, like fit, or do they feel like there is not necessarily an
• 58:11
  organic community, but one that feels manufactured and pressured.
• 58:15
  And the final point in this article was letting Gen Z's weigh in on decisions as early as possible.
• 58:23
  No matter how little experience they may bring to the team, they are often looking
• 58:28
  at the future far more and can sense where the culture is shifting and where it's going towards.
• 58:35
  So sometimes just listening to their ideas and taking them into consideration
• 58:39
  can make them feel like they have more of a role in the company and feel more valued.
• 58:44
  Hence the Gen Z moment. Well, now I have our question of the week.
• 58:50
  Sunny's wacky weird question of the week.
• 58:54
  It's a fun little one. So it is still summertime, which is when all the fun
• 58:58
  reality game shows and competition shows come out, like Big Brother,
• 59:02
  Survivor, Bachelor in Paradise, all of those.
• 59:05
  So my question this week is, what game show do you think you have the best chance of winning?
• 59:13
  1% Club. You,
• 59:15
  What is that? It's not a summer show, but it's a show show. It's kind of like it.
• 59:21
  Is it kind of like Price is Right?
• 59:23
  Well, what it is is the premise is they have 100 people in the room.
• 59:28
  And they asked questions. They asked a poll and they had, okay,
• 59:32
  it went to 90% of the people we polled got this question right.
• 59:36
  And it could be anything from knowledge to maybe it's a spatial visual question or something.
• 59:41
  You have to look around to say, what colors are these things that come around?
• 59:44
  And so what happens is it starts at 90 percent and then they give them like
• 59:49
  maybe 20 seconds to answer the question.
• 59:51
  Everybody has their own keypad and they answer it. And then as as it dwindles
• 59:56
  down for every person that's out, they add to the pot a thousand dollars.
• 1:00:00
  So you can get up to one hundred thousand dollars if you get down to the one
• 1:00:04
  percent question where one percent of the people polled got the questions correct.
• 1:00:09
  Oh, my God. Now, there's certain spots along the way where at different areas,
• 1:00:13
  you could walk away with your $1,000 and be okay.
• 1:00:16
  And then they have this where you could, you know, when it gets closer to the
• 1:00:20
  end, you can get your share of $10,000.
• 1:00:25
  But like there was the last episode that I watched,
• 1:00:28
  there was a question and there was like four, three or four people that were
• 1:00:32
  left and they had the option to split 10,000,
• 1:00:36
  their share or to go for the 98,000 because two of them had used a lifeline
• 1:00:40
  so they were able to skip a question and get credit for it. But they had to give up their $1,000.
• 1:00:46
  So they had $98,000. So the four of them would have split it.
• 1:00:50
  And they asked this question, and I can't even remember the answer or the question.
• 1:00:54
  You probably knew it. All four of them missed it.
• 1:00:57
  So they all walked out with nothing. This sounds like some Squid Games, except less deadly.
• 1:01:02
  Right. It is less deadly version of Squid Games. Funny because Squid Games was
• 1:01:05
  in my life. Sorry. You remember Wipeout?
• 1:01:07
  Oh, yeah. I mean, I would never win anything on there, but it was funny to watch me get knocked off.
• 1:01:11
  That's always funny to watch for like 20 seconds and then I keep on going.
• 1:01:14
  I got the Wii video game for that.
• 1:01:16
  That's always fun to play. Sorry. The ninja games. All right.
• 1:01:19
  Ladies, go ahead. I'm sorry.
• 1:01:20
  No, I'm fascinated by how into that you are. That you are. I was into that.
• 1:01:25
  This is a pre-Sam quote, but I was into the who wants to be a millionaire. Oh, yeah.
• 1:01:31
  All right. So I qualified sometimes and it was when I was teaching. I qualified for that.
• 1:01:36
  Sorry, Craven County Schools. But there was one time, there were some times
• 1:01:40
  in there where if you got it right,
• 1:01:42
  then you had to be by a phone for a certain hours of time where they could call.
• 1:01:47
  And so I would gave them the direct line to the band room.
• 1:01:50
  So I would have a child, I would have a student sit in there and wait.
• 1:01:53
  And I said, and I told him, I said, if you don't answer this phone. I'm giving you an F.
• 1:01:56
  You're giving an F. I said, no, I'm not going to fail you, but your life,
• 1:02:00
  your life will not be very pleasant for the rest of the semester.
• 1:02:04
  So I had a couple of trusted students that I would, you know,
• 1:02:07
  and they were like anything, if I don't have to go, if I don't have to hear
• 1:02:11
  you tell me one more time from letter E to letter F in this piece of music.
• 1:02:16
  That's funny. That's commitment. You've been on, like, the mud runs before, so I can see you winning.
• 1:02:23
  No, I don't have one right now. Now, back in the days when they had the Nashville
• 1:02:28
  Network, there was a show, You Can Be a Star, and you could send in a videotape,
• 1:02:34
  and then, you know, there was, like you said, the progressions of getting towards
• 1:02:38
  being on it, And I got as far as going to Nashville and going to the Grand Ole
• 1:02:43
  Opry and doing that last audition.
• 1:02:46
  And then the show got canceled.
• 1:02:49
  So I feel kind of like cosmically I canceled that show somehow.
• 1:02:53
  But I was really excited. I wanted to go on that show. You could do The Amazing Race.
• 1:02:58
  I could not. Yes. No. Nothing where you might perish from physical activity
• 1:03:04
  or, more importantly, perish from no food. I look at the shows like Survivor or Naked and Afraid.
• 1:03:10
  No, The Amazing Race is, no, it's kind of a global thing. Right.
• 1:03:13
  Traveling the world. You have different challenges and things, but it's a partner gang.
• 1:03:17
  There was a couple from Raleigh that won it. Yeah, the Holderness.
• 1:03:20
  So, yes, you could do that.
• 1:03:22
  Now, you'd have to stop. You know, you couldn't stop for a sidebar,
• 1:03:25
  and if your son was with you, you couldn't stop for a sidebar and have a,
• 1:03:28
  you know, 45-minute conversation with somebody else. Yeah, well, we wouldn't win then.
• 1:03:33
  What about you, Sam? What would you win? I think Big Brother.
• 1:03:37
  It's not just a physical competition game, but it's also a big social strategy
• 1:03:42
  and understanding mental comps as well.
• 1:03:44
  And I think I could do very good at that. I've been watching Love Island UK. You should go on that.
• 1:03:49
  You should also watch The Perfect Match.
• 1:03:52
  It's on, I believe that's on Hulu. It's kind of funny.
• 1:03:55
  I haven't seen that one. It's kind of funny because they get sent into this
• 1:03:57
  room to discover because each person there is paired up with their perfect person.
• 1:04:02
  But they're not paired off. They've got to figure out who their perfect match is.
• 1:04:07
  Brad was shaking his head at me, I want to say, really judgmentally over Love Island, UK.
• 1:04:13
  We read bills and serious stuff all day. I'm going to watch something about Love Island.
• 1:04:20
  You have to have a guilty pleasure. Oh, you do. And I understand it 1,000%.
• 1:04:25
  We have friends who are Big Brother fans. They jump on the podcast.
• 1:04:28
  They do all that other stuff. And I judge, but I judge silently.
• 1:04:33
  Okay, I will not pay for the live feeds ever because you have to pay CBS because
• 1:04:38
  they have live feeds that you can, because this show, they have a thousand cameras
• 1:04:42
  on them 24-7. That's just weird.
• 1:04:45
  So you have to pay money to watch the live feeds. And I'm like,
• 1:04:48
  no, I'll just watch what's important on the show.
• 1:04:50
  And if people think it's important to the show, but they don't feature it,
• 1:04:54
  they'll post it on TikTok.
• 1:04:55
  Well, we hope to see you on it one day. I would do that. All right, Professor Beasley.
• 1:05:00
  It's been a fun time, y'all. Good podcast. What's your answer?
• 1:05:03
  What is your game? I told you.
• 1:05:04
  She did. Like, just wipe out shows or something. Oh, that's right.
• 1:05:06
  Wipe out. I would never win it, but it'd be fun. Okay. Here's a bonus.
• 1:05:10
  I am not going to say this on the podcast, but if people want to know,
• 1:05:14
  they can reach out to me. There was a game show that I saw I would never participate in.
• 1:05:19
  I saw it when I was overseas. When we were in Ireland and Scotland last year,
• 1:05:23
  there was a game show I saw, and I just happened to be flipping late night,
• 1:05:27
  one night. Daked dating. There it is. There it is.
• 1:05:30
  Naked attraction. I said, oh, my goodness, what are these people? And it's on the BBC.
• 1:05:35
  I said, right there on TV. I'm sorry, this is probably right.
• 1:05:39
  Let the record state I did not jump down that rabbit hole, did I?
• 1:05:44
  It was the executive director that did that. I might have watched it just because
• 1:05:48
  I couldn't. I was like, this can't be real.
• 1:05:50
  It was real. Correct. I used to be confused on thinking naked and afraid.
• 1:05:55
  I didn't think that was a real thing.
• 1:05:57
  Oh, wait, this was It's very different. We'll talk about that after the podcast. No.
• 1:06:02
  It's a no. Thanks for joining us today, Brad. Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 1:06:07
  Well, we hope you guys enjoyed listening to this very long special episode of
• 1:06:11
  the Scenic View podcast.
• 1:06:14
  And we will see you guys next week.
• 1:06:16
  Music.