Board Chair Pete Wildeboer said the district had a productive meeting with county representatives about the upcoming financial requests concerning New Hanover High School (NHHS). Wildeboer said they’ll present the requests for qualifications for firms to complete a master plan and facility study for the school campus at the New Hanover County commissioners’ August 19 meeting. They’ll likely ask the commission to fund those plans, which are estimated to cost around $300,000 and will fine-tune exactly what work the NHHS campus needs. The district will also present overall long-term needs for the school.
Assistant Superintendent Eddie Anderson said that while the school has significant overarching needs—the price tag is over $90 million—they have to focus on the short-term ones.
They are continuing construction on the main building and starting to get three trailers (split into two classrooms each) ready for the new school year, which begins on August 27. Earlier plans for a new security vestibule for the school are on hold.
Leanne Lawrence, the district's director of facility planning and construction, said it’s an “optimistic” goal to have them ready by that date. Anderson added that it’s been “next to impossible” to find even those three trailers—and that they had to go to a particular location because of access to utilities.
In the meantime, New Hanover High principal Phillip Sutton said they have backup plans should those trailers not open in time, including a proposal to have 8-12 teachers floating into other classrooms during planning periods.
Sutton also discussed the possibility of moving some New Hanover students to programs at Mosley; however, he said he needed to talk to more parents to see if that’s plausible for them. Acting superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes echoed Sutton’s statement that they take stakeholder feedback seriously and will work with the parents on where they’d like their students to go. He added that many had already said they’d like to stay at NHHS.
The district is also offering New Hanover students the opportunity to move to other district high schools, but they have to fill out an application indicating this preference.
Sutton said he’s working with district staff to build a website showing parents how to access the main office and visitor parking. The website will also include videos showing where the construction is taking place. They said they hope to have this up before New Hanover’s open house on August 21.
The board praised Sutton for his leadership and said he would lead the staff through this construction planning. Sutton responded that the school is a “special place. It’s the people; the things they’ve been through make it that way.”
Presentation on prosecuting students for pornographic material on phones
Assistant District Attorney Ashton Herring presented to the board the different severities of felonies that can be involved when students have pornographic materials on their phones. She said most students and families don’t even realize engaging in this behavior is a felony offense.
Herring boiled it down to three different felony types: a Class H would be possessing the material on the phone, a Class E would be distributing the material (i.e., sending it to others), and a Class C would be soliciting people to engage in sexual acts and then duplicating/sending them out to others (i.e. filming them and sharing the video).
She said students engage in this behavior for a number of reasons. For example, they may send photos or videos to a significant other or someone they trust, and that person would then send them around to others in retaliation or as a “joke.”
Herring said she’s been disturbed by three cases at three different schools over the last six months. The cases involved young male students filming another student engaging in masturbation and then proceeding to send the video/images to others. Herring said students told her they felt it was all a “joke.”
She added that students are often unaware that, after law enforcement seizes their phone, prosecutors can access almost all data on their phones, including from apps like Snapchat.
Currently, Herring and other prosecutors have some discretion in keeping offenders in juvenile court or sending them along to be tried in adult court. However, NC law has changed, and starting December 1, 16—and 17-year-olds charged with Class A-E felonies will be automatically charged as adults. This means that they will no longer have confidentiality, and it will become part of a person’s criminal record. (These cases can be moved to juvenile court, removing that adult record, but only if the prosecution and defense attorneys on the case agree.)
In juvenile court, judgments can include probation, evaluation and treatment, community service, being sent to a treatment facility, losing privileges to play sports and/or accessing their phones, and the possibility of registering as a sex offender (for adult court, it’s mandatory to register for sex offenses). Class C, E, and H felonies all come with the possibility of prison sentences in adult court.
The board and district staff debated how to share this information with students and parents, as Herring said this is a “dire situation we’re in.”
At first, there was a proposal to have Herring speak to Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs). But she said she would like to talk directly with students about these problems, especially now that the law is changing and offenders could move straight to being tried as adults.
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Patrice Faison said she wanted this to be included in some of the physical education curriculum so the students could hear this information within the school. Assistant Superintendent Julie Varnam said the best way to teach this is in small groups so students can ask questions and engage with this challenging issue. They said they’d converse with district principals and athletic coaches about how this knowledge could be shared.
While the agenda review concentrated on pornographic materials on cell phones, the board is looking to formulate a districtwide policy on them, as there are issues with them negatively impacting the overall academic and social environment. One potential proposal, suggested by board member Pat Bradford, would be locking cellphone bags that allow students to keep possession of their phones while restricting access to them on campus. The estimated cost for all K-12 students would be around $600,000.
They’re set to discuss it at their next meeting on Tuesday, August 6.
Cell Phone Bags by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
