For members who supported the ethics policy, Democrat Judy Justice and Republican Pat Bradford agreed that the provisions governing board behavior were clearer. Merrick said that while he supported the stipulation that all board members undergo both a background check and fingerprinting, some of the behavioral requirements were redundant and already covered in other policies.
The board also voted unanimously for the changes to academic contracts, but the policy on how many hours to charge for copious staff and IT resources to produce public records was sent back to committee.
Also during the meeting, Perry’s resolution on how the district collects and stores student data failed 6-1, with only Perry voting in favor.
He had proposed terminating the use of third-party cloud-based applications that store highly sensitive information about district employees and students – and replacing them with applications installed on the school system’s cloud servers.
Perry cited security breaches involving software applications such as PowerSchool and Canva as one of the reasons for his resolution.
However, the rest of the board and district staff were not convinced this was necessary, primarily due to additional costs and the limited staff needed to run the proposed in-house servers.
Further, staff said they were confident in the systems they have in place now to protect student privacy and data. They also have two cybersecurity personnel on staff – and they carry cybersecurity insurance, as does the state.
Additionally, at this meeting, the superintendent also announced a public listening session on Tuesday, August 25th, from 5-7 p.m. at the New Hanover County Board of Education building.
Barnes, in his report to the public, also touted that there were only 14 vacancies in the district, which is a 99% fill rate, before the start of school.
- Read staff analysis on cloud-based applications in NHCS
