001good afternoon my name is tim burbidge and i'm the parent of six current williamson county students two recent graduates of williamson county schools and one that's getting ready to enter the school system next year i'm here to ask you to approve the application for founders classical academy my oldest two was it were educated in a classical curriculum before we moved to williamson county there are four things that i want to leave you with from a parent's point of view that might be useful for you number one is my children learned about the development of western civilization in our place in it by reading primary source materials they read the works of the founding and critical thinkers that formed western civilization which gave them a very solid understanding of our concept of what western civilization actually
002is that's critical for them number two they pursued they learned to pursue knowledge just for the sake of knowledge not for some utilitarian end of education that created them a lifelong love of learning number three they learned how to learn which is serving them very well right now in college number four they learned what it means to be a citizen in the united states in the context of this concept of western civilization that they had studied they learned that along with the rights of an american citizen comes responsibilities thank you very much thank you our next speaker is mitch imhoff hi my name is mitch moff as a long time williamson county resident i was concerned and decided to try to open a classical charter school but didn't have the educational expertise to do it
003founders classical academy does have that expertise and they also now have a huge amount of parent support that we garnered previously so i urge you to please consider founders classical academy in their application there are three reasons why williamson county can use this one that a lot of people are moving to private schools and home schooling and away from williamson county school system and another is if you don't take action then the state will decide on your behalf and you'll lose control over this option thank you our next three speakers are trisha lucente janae lilly and christy harris hi i'm tricia lucente mom of a kindergartner in williamson county schools the fifty thousand dollar fifty thousand dollar fhs report describes us as a county divided with an elementary curriculum focusing on social justice this is
004no surprise the epic app is just another example of the williamson county school board and williamson county administration failing our children and our teachers even with the option to opt out epic is still filled with age and appropriate material mr golden said himself that the app is not used in lessons or curriculum at school outside of small groups or free choice so why keep it at all what happens when a child sounds out the word lesbian and turns to their teacher and asks what is a lesbian what happens when the child to the left or right who have been opted out look and hear that as well what position does that put our teachers in what are they supposed to say to that removing the app does not remove those books from the face of
005the planet if you want to read those books to your kids please buy them please rent them from the library take them home read them at bedtime who divided this county time is it janae christie oh is janae here janae lily okay please go ahead christy christy harris solo mom of four and proud ally of the lgbtq community of which some of my children in williamson county schools are a part of i'm here to ask that the school board and speakers consider the lies identified differently than you but they are watching and hearing your words perhaps your child who doesn't feel safe talking to you because the words you say today all families should be represented in the books our children read otherwise we must remove any book that refers to cisgender heterosexual families as
006well lgbtq youth are prone to increased risk of suicide not because of their identity but because of their mistreatment in society votes today or in the future should be based on facts not on long-held opinions please educate yourselves before we harm those in our community who are most vulnerable our next speakers are gary chapman bob britton and hannah rosen i'm gary chapman one minute i can't tell you how much i hate ticks in one minute but i'm going to spend the next minute of my life explaining why i know in my heart i'm wasting the next minute of my life that's the simple fact that most of us know this is a foregone conclusion you're not going to you're not going to prove these fine folks application because if you do you're going to lose
007some power and nobody that has power wants to lose it feel free to prove me wrong but i don't think i am but know this godless woke agenda which has permeated our education system will be stopped when you see the tsunami value-based education headed your way you should run the truth wins god's in charge and i'm giving you back 10 seconds in change thank you bob britton hello i'm bob britton i have twin grandsons at the trinity elementary i thought it was ironic and sad during the week we were celebrating the national library week a vocal minority an unnecessary an overreaching piece of legislation was able to shut down a library with forty thousand books in it the epic app i was even more dispaid when i saw the same group celebrating their win on
008the internet when someone wins someone loses i think it was the children that had that lost access to the app that they use for developing their reading skills and the one and enjoying the wonderful books and the teachers who use the app for their lessons that's what a shame by speaking here tonight i'm asking the vast majority of parents and grandparents who believe in our public schools to make your voices heard don't let the vocal minority shut down your libraries threaten your teachers and librarians ban books which celebrate diversity inclusivity and tell the truth about our history can to contact or meet with your school board representative your legislators and the school administration but most importantly let the teachers and the staff thank you my name is hannah rose and i'm a special education teacher
009at brentwood middle school when you make the decision to remove a library of over 40 000 books that decision costs more than the resource itself it costs students with disabilities the opportunity to independently and discreetly access engaging age-appropriate and context-specific texts it costs the comfort and safety of lgbtq students who are already so frequently other than cast aside by this district the future of williamson county lies in the hands of those of you before me i ask you to take that responsibility with the same weight i take mine each day as an educator the words we speak actions we make and ideals we cast matter take your leadership and be inclined to do good with it do not listen to the minority because it's the loudest voice in the room listen to the needs of
010the voiceless instead listen to the middle school student with an intellectual disability he uses epic to blend with his classmates listen to the trans student who finds comfort in seeing themselves represented in text remember that you are here to represent all students our students deserve more than leadership that takes the majority to cater to the minority please do better for all of us our students deserve it our next speakers are jennifer halle carol pringle and lisa rooney jennifer i don't think she's here hello my name is carol pringle and i'm here to speak in support of founders classical academy my husband and i reside in our homeowners in williamson county my son and his family also reside in williamson county we are the grandparents to two precious young boys that are just beginning their academic
011years we know that education plays a foundational role in the development of children and to moral productive citizens we have close knowledge of charter school programs through friends that have seen very good experiences and outcomes currently we see the public schools are drifting further and further away from teaching classical education and we believe this does not prepare our children for the future we're very impressed with the curriculum of founders classical academy classical education has proven record for success we believe that the focus on latin history science mathematics civic virtual will blend well with our family's values while teaching the children what they need to be successful in life my son and daughter-in-law are in agreement about founders classical academy they're small business owners who want the very best for their children which is why they
012live in williamson county they cannot cannot afford the choices some families have to look at private educational time classical education thank you good evening excuse me good evening my name is lisa rooney and i'm the parent of a kindergartner at oakview i'm speaking tonight to show my appreciation for the teachers and leaders working in schools and throughout the system i like them support access to a rich and diverse curriculum and ask that we continue to support and defer to the expertise of the school and district professionals and allow them to keep their focus on learning and teaching and creating spaces where all students can see themselves in the books and the content i also support the district's strategic commitments related to building excellent teams improving student-centered operational support systems and preparing students for the future
013note that focus on student-centeredness using district teams and resources including that really precious resource of time defending and constantly explaining why certain books and platforms are appropriate does not seem to be aligned with our stated goals and commitments i urge the board to continue to name ways of working that honor the adults working in schools time thank you next three speakers adina kish namanthi kimberly jamont and meredith daniel can i start okay my name is edina cashanti and i'm here to speak in support of the application by responsive ad to establish a charter school in williamson county the founders classical academy i believe that this school will fulfill an important need in the county for too long now parents such as myself who complained about the district's politically loaded social studies and english curricula were
014brushed aside families like mine had no choice but to pull our child from the district's public school because in our opinion the new written wisdom curriculum is not only harmful but also academically substandard as it focuses more on a political agenda and fuzzy social emotional concepts than actual english i have looked at the proposed learning materials of founders academy and i can tell you that i would enroll my daughter in that school in a heartbeat the materials they have chosen are politically neutral and academically rigorous i think this is great and i know that many other parents who were driven out of the district schools feel the same way time hi my name is kimberly jamot mother of a kindergartner in williamson county schools when i grew up i had two parents who were military
015veterans both vietnam vets and we only had one rule in our house about reading if you can read it you can read it my parents didn't have a college education and so they gave me full access and reach to be able to read what i could to learn more than what they knew they didn't let their imagination limit my education they would be ashamed right now to know that there are books that their granddaughter cannot read because of the fact that someone decided that it wasn't appropriate for her the other side of that is that she is the only black girl in her entire class that is hard for her being able to have her peers see people who look like her and character roles that are outside of historical and context is amazing for
016her and her losing that app was incredibly hurtful she came home immediately and told me about it and she asked me could i put it back on time my name is meredith lock daniel and i'm a fourth generation williamson county native on my mom's side and a fifth generation on my dad's side the college grove and grassland communities respectively i'm a product of williamson county schools and so is my husband i am also a wcs teacher my take-home salary is roughly 32 000 a year this makes it a pipe dream for me to live in williamson county like the generations before me yet i must pay tuition for my child to attend school here even though i cannot afford to live here because of the salary i am paid we must attract and retain good
017quality teachers the cost of living in williamson county makes it virtually impossible to live here on a teacher's salary i am also a director of an extracurricular activity at school which means over the years i have volunteered and invested thousands of hours into this community i love this community and i love my students i just want my child to be a member of the community of students that i serve and nurture every day i urge those of you who are still on the fence to reconsider the student tuition for teachers and recommend eliminating or reducing it to the county commission thank you next three speakers are mallory hampton ashley webster and natalie showalter good evening my name is mallory hampton for the first 30 years of my life williamson county was my home two years
018ago the housing market pushed my family out of the county now we're forced to pay thousands a year under the philosophy that we don't contribute financially to the county sure we don't pay property taxes here that's because we can't afford a property my husband and i are both county employees we cross the county line before we even leave our neighborhood we get gas shop purchase groceries work out dine and work in williamson county to say all things that are taxed to say that we don't contribute financially to the county's fictitious it's been questioned if an elimination of this policy would be a fair and benefit to all teachers but i feel it's only right our paychecks equally reflect the work time and commitment that is listed on our pay chart and that we've earned we're
019in a competition for recruitment if eliminating this policy helps with recruiting and retaining more teachers it benefits those who are continually taking the brunt of staffing shortages and vacancies williamson county is growing but it's not a family of teachers that are buying these million dollar homes while some might think i don't have skin in the game i sure do have my heart soul blood sweat and tears in it i thank mr golden for his work on the current proposal and it's in your hands to help make this right thank you hi i'm ashley webster and i'm speaking today as a parent of two adult children who graduated from williamson county schools here we are again having to speak out for the majority when a small minority of 130 people complained in a school system that
020has 41 500 students i hope you're seeing a pattern know who isn't seeing a pattern the fine folks at epic we are the only county that has shut down their app in our system for this reason of cherry picking and censoring books and expecting them to publish a comprehensive list of the selections in their collection we don't require that brick and mortar libraries and so we shouldn't require it of online libraries either limiting the access to online apps like everett disproportionately affects students who lack transportation to the local brick and mortar library it puts another obstacle to learning in place for hard-working low-income families the administration has put a solution in place time hi i'm natalie showalter sorry i wish to speak about the push for implementing more dei concepts in the williamson county schools
021on its surface few would argue against the desire to embrace the diversity found in this country this county and appreciate how our unique individualism makes our county stronger yet now most diversity programs have become divisive many dei programs emphasize questionably age-appropriate content which many parents of wcs have already are identifying as permeating their curriculum can you cite several studies showing that dei concepts lead to better academic performances of our children instead of the decreasing motivation reducing academic creativity and critical thinking should we not be emphasizing optimism kindness and communalities we remain a county divided concerning the involvement the school system should play in parenting our children until there is more transparency and active communication between wcs and parents pushing a one-sided agenda will just create more dissension thanks our next speaker i'm going to call
022everybody else up at this point zach swanson lindsey hornick scott cutcher and leanne white and leanne you're our final speaker for the evening hi my name is zach swanson parent of williamson county daughter goes to nolensville and really it's been a good experience my dad was a principal for 40 years crawford county i am a public product of public schooling but i am here to really champion choice and for the founders classical academy i think that as adults we have the luxury of choosing where we want to shop and dine and vendors and goods and services but yet our greatest asset our greatest special sacred gift as parents don't have a choice and i'm here to promote that and it's really become antiquated and out of touch with today's progression right so there was the
023rotary phone there's the iphone there's cable they're streaming but our education structure has been the same and it's time for a change it's time for a choice for these families again i'm happy but i think choices are good it makes us strong i just pray that you ex really embrace this choice it's a powerful thing thanks for your time lindsay my name is lindsey hornick i'm a junior at franklin high school one of the very very few jewish students at our school in the past six years in williamson county i've been called to the k word showing up to class with swastikas drawn on my desk i've been asked questions about that insult my religion and i have been referred to as that short jewish girl i believe that the main reason i have experienced
024the amount of anti-semitism here is not because my fellow classmates are filled with hate it is because they are ignorant to it in other words they have not been exposed to what hate leads to as high school students we should be mature enough to handle sensitive information such as anti-semitism and many other discriminatory beliefs of minority groups we should be able to study the holocaust in a way that exposes every bit of disgusting and disturbing aspects because we have to prevent it from ever happening again and if high school students are not immature enough is because they lack prior education to the sensitive sensitivity of the topic this is why i believe censorship is stupid a simple way to describe an incredibly complex topic do not shield us from reality to protect our feelings we
025should feel strongly about events such as the holocaust because we're human in my opinion emotion is the easiest way to learn about compassion and empathy and allows us to connect on a deeper level if that's the future i have encouragement right there my name is scott cutcher i am a father of two that have been pulled out of the school system i am that statistic that's not being reported so the reason being is because of posts like this which really is disturbing this is a post from one of your teachers not sure where the parents should control what is taught in schools which is not what we're saying by the way has originated but parents do not have the option you know to choose where their kids go and hand selected private schools which we
026can't afford at their own expense and if they desire the purpose of a public education and this is where it goes sideways in the public school is not to teach kids only what parents want them to be taught is to teach them what society needs them to know this client of the public school is not the parent but the entire community and public wrong it's the children period end of story you're all wrong if you believe this for one moment this is the dysfunction so please give us a choice i keep hearing people wanting choices tonight give us founders academy give us a choice if you don't like our beliefs great give us a place to go please leanne leanne if you're home issues miss white excuse me for the interruption good evening my name
027is leanne white and i represent wcea first a quick overview of the professional learning communities or plc process wcs is committed to the plc process this process rests on four deceptively straightforward questions what do we want students to learn how will we know if they learn it how will we respond if they do not learn it and how will we respond if they do imagine answering those questions for just one student now imagine answering the questions for your class of thirty then scale that across the entirety of the day if you're an elementary teacher and across all the sections you teach if you're a secondary teacher answering these questions goes to the heart of why teachers teach and that is to help students learn and succeed throughout the years secondary teachers have been afforded additional
028time to answer these questions through late start or power mondays the benefit of district-wide early release days will allow all teachers to plan together something that cannot be accomplished in the context of a typical school day stop excuse me time sorry this concludes our public comment we'll take a five minute break oh mr welch thank you board members mr mitchell we'll wait another minute here board members the next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda do we have a motion to approve mr welch makes the motion to approve do we have a second mr wimberley makes the second is there any discussion i don't see any discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is 10 yes 0 no thank you board members the next item on tonight's agenda is the
029approval of the consent agenda do we have a motion to approve i'm sorry mr brown makes the motion miss dura makes a second any discussion if not board members please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes 0 no thank you board members with that vote you've approved the march 21 2022 school board meeting minutes and the recommendation for field trip fee requests the next item on the agenda is communications to the board and we'll start with mr goldman's superintendent report thank you madam chair and i want to thank those who spoke today at public comment i know there were a number of topics but we certainly do appreciate your sharing i do want to address a couple of items that were discussed at the work session specifically we had a pretty detailed discussion about
030the epic app and some of our curriculum and content that's available to families so i encourage everyone to go back and look at the work session time that we had in the discussion about that particular app and of course everything else that we make available to students the comments that we had today from from from some of our parents and teachers just emphasize what you as a board have known we serve everyone we serve our whole community we serve anyone who chooses to come to public school and as part of that we know that with our curriculum we have a structure in place so that if a parent wants to opt out of a particular lesson they have that opportunity and just in the past year we went through a very detailed process related to
031curriculum where we reviewed the state review and selection of curriculum choices and then our board's choice and the conversations that we had with teachers leading up to that and the whole extent of that a couple of months ago we had the discussion from our fine librarians about the process they go through with library books that if a parent has a particular selection they want to make sure their child can't check out that their child has that opportunity likewise the right thing to do is to give parents that opportunity for supplements additional materials that we have available for our teachers and students we did have a request a few weeks ago from someone related to particular selections in a particular app happen to be epic that is an online library with forty thousand plus selections and
032when we review that app we recognized that there was not on its face an opportunity for us to remove a particular selection from the app so given that we have a mechanism mechanism in place for our curriculum our libraries have that process in place for libraries the appropriate thing to do the right thing to do was to step back and evaluate how we can continue to honor that parent choice with this selection and we made that decision in the short term to do that review and then we also made the decision in the long term to give those parents that option to the extent we could with a particular app and this particular app did not have that function for us to to to remove a particular book and so the option that we landed
033on was to give parents an opportunity to opt out of of that particular app and again we serve everyone so it is important for us to honor those parent choices as much as we possibly can do you want to let you know in this particular example our use of the app closes at 3 pm and then parents can actually subscribe to the app themselves and purchase the app for for after hours but i want you to know also that i anticipate that discussions like this will continue because there is a lot of content out there the internet's not going away use of content will continue to come up and i want you to know what i want everyone to know that a basic standard that i believe we need to have is to the extent
034we can honor parent choice i do encourage and i am encouraged by the possibility that the next time we go through selection process at the state level that then comes to the locals we will have more engaged parents i'm encouraged by the discussions that our parents are having i want parents to be more involved in their child's instruction and i certainly encourage everyone to do that and i know our teachers are encouraging that as well that's a nutshell of the discussion that i started at the work session but again i encourage everyone to go back and look at some depth related to that i'm not going to speak specifically to any item that's on the agenda tonight because i know we'll have that time for that discussion but i did want to mention one final
035item that we did talk about that's actually not on the agenda did talk about at the work session that's not on the agenda our planning and zoning department did a presentation per the goal you all set for me for some regular operational reports it was timely because we were applying a new out of zone format based on a new state law and we anticipated that at least one school that at least at one school we would need to do a lottery because at the time the day before the deadline we were one student short of the maximum that the board voted on when it was said and done we actually were too over the number but we found out that four of those applicants actually don't live here yet and so we actually fell below
036the number so this year we do not need to do a lottery so everyone who applied for an out of zone will get a response in the next day or two from our from our planning department asking for the comp confirmation of which out of zone school they'd like to attend i tell you that because there are a small number who actually selected two because we used to have a first come first serve you get notice immediately under this new state law it takes a little bit longer so for those who are watching this board meeting wondering about their opportunity to be at an out of zone school our numbers our review indicate that everyone will have that choice so with that version of my superintendent's report madden chair i see that carol birdsong is
037waiting in the back and we are going to have some really good announcements about some excellent celebrations for our students and staff yes we are thank you mr golden board members we are going to start with fairview high school because they are the future farmers of america state superior chapter that's the award they received their teacher is david harper also along the same lines future farmers of america state division five social systems champion bryson boone page high again state farm business manager champions bryson boone molly mckenzie sarah malazzo and parker pugh ffa state wildlife management champion cole cruz ffa state beef production placement champion morgan riley we did pretty well at the ffa competition i'll just say now moving on to national speech and debate association these are your state champions they get to move
038on to the national champions or national competition this summer public forum debate william hong and sully murphy harriet medlen and matt grimes are their coaches also from brentwood high school well brentwood high school they won the overall sweepstakes and debate champions harriet midland matt grimes again their coaches ravenwood high school won the leading chapter award their speech and debate coaches are rachel cahill and nathan meredith we have another perfect act student from ravenwood high school ut kale congratulations to her and y'all we have a ton of students going to the vex iq world champion competition so most of them are from brentwood high school so bear with me but these are your state champions moving on to the world competition and they won the excellent tournament excellent award and their world qualifiers is conor harris
039austin schultz colt king deborah schaefer is the coach at brentwood middle school these this team won for team design award leighton stevenson jack harwell mikhail french jasmine merrick and izzy alino this team cameron work and neil and avalo won for think team think award their world qualifiers now the team world qualifiers also from brentwood high school william pankow ander yawn and jett holt and we have a few more from brentwood high school this is bryson breese caitlin arnold ashley she emerson wiley and from brentwood high school these are your vex robotics world championship qualifiers anthony beckett you are chai kai grant carpenter lucas clevenger luke haas chinook moggy quinn weeby and vikram venayagam dr robert marrero is their coach and not to be outdone from ravenwood high school your vex robotics world championship qualifiers and
040jrotc vex national championship qualifiers mark bell adit swadawati and connor tasik josh peck their coach now to some staff spotlights the tennessee performing arts center teacher of the year for 2020 21 noticed that was last year they're making up for a covered year but they just announced it recently stephanie higgs from crockett elementary school won that award and tennessee association of secondary school principals for the middle tennessee region our principal of the year dr pam vaden ravenwood high school congratulations to all of our students and staff members thank you miss birdsong and on to a quick board chair report board members we've got lots of celebratory events coming up it's that time of year just want to remind you that the shining apple awards ceremony for our top volunteers is this week and closely followed
041by our upcoming military graduation for our military not graduation but ceremony to honor our graduates who are going into the military i guess is a better way to say that's always a great event so look forward to seeing you there and then we have the district-wide fine arts festival on may 5th and just a note about graduations i know that everybody has had a chance to sign up for graduations if you have a last-minute cancellation and can't be there make sure that you have let your school know because you are listed in the program and you're generally introduced and you don't want that empty chair to be there when they call your name and ask you to stand up so please please give your schools the courtesy of of informing them if you won't be
042there so that's all i have for the board chair report and i do see that mr welch wants to make a comment here probably mr welch something about the superintendent report yes okay let me let me get your mic there you go thank you so i just wanted to follow on the student spotlight which is always my favorite part of our board meetings what's wonderful to see and just kind of add one more spotlight to that without really focusing on any of the specific content or the word said just want to recognize real quick anytime we've got one of our student speakers who who come to to one of these all the time even when they're angry and criticizing us they are poised and fearless and it just couldn't be prouder when we get student
043speakers here and what's an intimidating environment when you're 16 17 years old to stand in front of a daze and everyone's raised and the adults are looking at you and you don't hear the waiver in their voice or the nervousness they are clear-eyed and bold and say what they think and i've just every time you speak i thought that i said you know i'm just going to acknowledge it for one time as our student spotlights our kids are just phenomenal when they come up and tell us what they think even if we you know it's when they're telling us they don't like us or something we're doing they're still phenomenal at that thank you thank you mr welch now we'll move on to new business the first item under the new business category is approval
044of out of county tuition rate for full-time employees mr golden thank you madam chair as the board discussed at the work session two months ago the board passed the county tuition rate it happened to be the seventh straight year that the number had been flat and not gone up after much discussion that started about a month ago we went back to use a phrase one of you mentioned to sharpen our pencil i recommended that we drop it by about half it'd been about 12 years since we'd had a significant drop and that was two thousand dollars i spent some time after the thursday night meeting having as many conversations as i could with with individual board members commissioners mayor anderson et cetera and we have come up with a recommendation for this year and i
045included that in a memo that we added to your board packet in the essence of the recommendation is that two thousand dollar annual family tuition rate down from 38.50 with the addition that we reduce it by 20 doubling the reduction that we've had in place administratively and at it for for every year that an employee is with us so that in years two through five there's a twenty percent reduction per year and then after five years with wcs it's zero the intent of this is that proverbial middle ground to find a way to honor those conflicting discussions that you all have had and that you've heard among commissioners and among our county leaders really dating back decades and i finally put in the last paragraph of this recommendation a reference to next year's discussion what
046i'm hoping is that this is a half step towards a deeper discussion next year and i think there's a couple of key points that may make next year different number one is there's a lot of discussion for a new funding model and this new funding model has the potential to render this question that's been brought so many times to us moot if the funding is based on a per student funding model it could be that this is no longer an issue even among those who argue that we need to continue this second i think it's going to give us some insight this coming year about how many folks want this how many of our fans how many of our staff members want want this and we've heard very discussions about that but the reality is
047every individual matters every individual decision matters we've had some discussions with our principals about recruiting and their experience has been mixed over the last few years some have said yes i believe i might have lost someone because of the tuition and others said i've never gotten that indication if we spend time with this substantial reduction knowing that those teachers who have been with us a number of years have that reduction even more significantly it's going to give us some insight into where we go from here so with that's my recommendation do we have a motion to approve mr hall mr welch makes the second any discussion miss apria i just have a quick question so i think by what i'm reading it means if if a teacher has been here five years currently and has
048been paying the tuition up until now at 38.50 will they automatically go to zero okay thank you mr brown thank you madam chair jen asked one of the questions i was going to ask so thank thank you for that jason i appreciate you putting further work into this i know we talked about this at length on thursday and i'd expressed then that i believe that the time has come for this to be eliminated entirely and i still think that this is a good step in that direction and i think for the for the five-year and beyond people who are going to get right away that immediate relief down to zero that's very very significant i guess one question i would ask is how many of our teachers i asked this on thursday night and i
049don't know if we have the answer to this now how many of our teachers who are paying the out of county tuition currently are at that five-year mark now or beyond i'm gonna i've got a nod from miss farmer if you would address that question there's 23. so i want to make sure that 23 is clear 23 of our 108 full-time employees who are using this service have been paying this for five years correct from 2017. this structure as proposed would actually step a little further using for data we don't have and increase that number to those who have been employed by us for five years so i'll give you a quick example somebody gets right out of college one first year they might have a child five six years later this would still apply
050to them so it's a minimum of 23. our hr staff keeps the information of of does not have access to information about whose children are taking advantage of this or our zoning does we're going to have to actually integrate the data to make sure we answer that second question so any teacher who's been employed or any teacher or staff person who's been employed more than five years could could now if they're not paying out of county tuition for one of their children could now bring their child to williamson county schools and pay no tuition that's right i think this is a really good compromise i think i think we should eventually get to zero for everyone but this is a really good step in the right direction so thank you miss cleveland just clarification fssd
051does it include them and our current bus drivers or do we even have budget bus drivers over five years so number one fssd we do have that standard for franklin special school district and the idea is high school franklin special is a k-8 if there is an out-of-county resident at franklin special who has been using franklin special service we allow them to matriculate up the same standards you vote on now would apply to franklin special teachers at the moment we have less than a handful right out a handful five students so that's the fssd answer bus drivers all our full-time employees have this option right now that would not change that includes all our bus drivers years ago a few years ago i'm estimating six maybe five somewhere in that range we try to pilot
052with bus drivers when we were at the height at least what we thought was a height at the time of our bus driver shortage and the board voted to allow up to 25 bus drivers to be hired and bring their children out of county we never got close to 10 with that but we and so we discontinued that pilot but we made a commitment to those bus drivers who chose it to grandfather them in and we still have some of those bus drivers using that service if i'm not mistaken it may be four or maybe six five i'm splitting the difference again it's always five apparently okay thank you very much oh thank you actually i had a whisper of sros our our policy as written allows any school or county employee who works in
053our buildings to use this service we have had from time to time sros use it at the moment we don't have any sros using it mr wimberley thank you madam chair my questions have been answered but jason thanks for this revised proposal well it's a product of our deep discussion thank you mr galbraith thank you madam chair jason thanks for for making a couple of the changes that we talked about this afternoon i think that helped in just in wordsmithing the thing but the i'm still i'm with josh i'm i'm still in favor of reducing it but if if the will of the board is to is to take it into a step i'm i'm fine to i mean this is a this is a really good compromise and it does it does honor the
054for for for those on the for the mayor of the those on the commission that want to they want to say that the teachers have skin in the game i think working for for the past five years has certainly proven that they're that they're dedicated to to their job especially the ones who who have paid the tuition in advance but i'm glad we're not making it just the ones that making paying the paying the tuition in advance for the last five years and that's not a prerequisite so i appreciate that i will i mean i'll gladly support this look forward to to hopefully eliminating it next year thank you mr mitchell thank you madam chair jason i also wanted to thank you for for bringing this forward and am a supporter of it appreciate us
055getting to this point board members i don't see any further discussion so please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero no thank you board members our next item on the agenda is the approval of the facility's use schedule and this isn't an annual agenda item mr golden thank you madam chair we are recommending one change to the facilities you schedule it's an ad a dollar an hour for our staff members who monitor the building unlock it etc that's to to catch this up with the dollar an hour increase all classified staff received in february recommend approval do you have a motion to approve mr cash makes the motion and miss apria makes the second board members any discussion i don't see anyone requesting discussion board members please cast your votes your vote is
05611 yes zero no thank you our next item is board policies for first reading and the first board policy is that we're going to discuss is 4.600 report cards and grading systems mr goldham thank you madam chair this is first reading and just as a reminder every board policy change takes two readings so this will be go back to the policy committee the heart of the proposed change related to report cards and grading systems is the weighted grades for for adding pre-ap courses to honors courses we do recommend approval of this at first reading do we have a motion to approve mr hall mr welch makes the second board members any discussion i see no one requesting discussion please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero no thank you our next policy is
0574.6051 credit requirements for graduation mr golden thank you madam chair if if i may refer you to the last page of the policy with the proposed change in which we are proposing to change the past fail status of online learning courses at the high school level to actually have gpas and grades added to the students full gpa so do recommend approval on first reading of this change is there a motion to approve ms supreme makes the motion mr makes a second board members any discussion mr galbraith thank you madam chair jason i forgot to ask this i've thought about it over the weekend but particularly talking about online classes with with a couple of my kids but the if you take a class outside of the olp so right now if you're not in the
058if you're not in the online program the is it i know discovery and vanguard right so if you're not in the vanguard program do we still have the option to to take classes that aren't available to them through other programs and as are those in addition to the ones that students take prior to enrolling at wcs are we saying that all of those are going to be graded on a on a letter grade scale yes that is our plan so to your point thank you for mentioning that we do offer a number of online courses and i think that's we were have we already have had registration for over four thousand course seats this year for courses we teach but there are occasionally particular courses that we don't teach where a student can get credit
059that will include getting that whatever grade they receive from that provider okay and so the ability to go outside is limited to to courses that we don't take or would it also be limited or also be available for someone who wants to take a class that is full for personal finance for example well we can we continue to it applies to both but for personal finance that example in the phraseology you often hear at the college level is did a class make we add sections to personal finance regularly because that is a requirement for graduation but in those other examples then yes it would apply to both thank you board members i don't see any other questions please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you our next item is policy
0606.309 zero tolerance offenses and i keep hearing a pinging noise if everyone could check your phones please and turn that off if it's your phone thank you mr golden thank you madam chair on page three of four of this policy we are proposing to add in the appeal section for zero tolerance offenses that the disciplinary hearing authority must include the student support services director and or designee to make sure that there are more special education professionals available in the event of a need at the appeal i do want to add one extra piece of information a question came up about facsimile guns airsoft guns etc those actually fit within the zero tolerance reason judgment standards that if someone is actually using something as as a weapon it would be subject to a reason judgment offense
061that gives discretion to a principal for for discipline so we do recommend approval at first reading for this policy change is there a motion to approve mr hall second miss apria mr mitchell item for discussion yes thank thank you madam chair real quick this is the first reading of this requires two readings correct will the second reading be part of the consent agenda or will it be in a full agenda item our default is it goes to the consent agenda they're at the policy meeting there was a discussion to change one of the definitions so i would recommend it not this particular policy for second reading not be a part of the consent agenda okay because we'll make and we're still on track to review that change yes that change will be at the may
062policy meeting all right thank you thank you mr mitchell board members i see no other members requesting to speak so please cast your votes your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you our next item is the founders charter school application mr golden thank you madam chair included in the board packet as you recall from the work session is the memo that's actually showing on the screen with a recommendation from the committee in addition to that dana osbrooks has added a draft resolution for your review should be the next document in the in the board packet i'm going to ask tim if he would to pull that up so i do recommend that you follow the recommendation of the committee as part of that the recommendation would be that you approve the resolution sitting before
063you which is titled the resolution of the williamson county board of education denying the charter school application submitted by founders classical academy ms alls brooks is here for any questions you may have as well as dr webb who actually chaired the committee so do recommend approval of the resolution is there a motion to approve oh mr galbraith and mr welch is that a second yes okay board members any discussion mr cash thank you madam chair over the weekend i did a little bit of reading up on the founders classical curriculum and i found it very interesting and very down-to-earth and i'd like to thank the committee for the scoring and the hard work you all did and you know that's what committees are for and that's who what we need to do but you know
064after reviewing all that curriculum i feel it could be an alternative for parents maybe a little bit more diversity in our curriculum and you know hopefully the founders of the classical will come forward and resubmit in 30 days an application that is more more complete and possibly see some changes in this because i think it would be very important for them to do that so i'm going to abstain from this vote thank you mr galbraith thank you madam chair i really enjoyed the process the that we went to participating on this on this committee thanks dr webb and all the members of the committee i don't know if anybody got a chance to to read through don't lie and say read all all 300 pages of the of the rubrics and you got to see
065a lot of the same same themes because we were we kind of operated in in committee structures so we each focused on our on our area and then and got reports from everyone else but we all went through the entire document and did answer all the questions even with kind of page number references to to individual answers to individual questions just want to talk a little bit about the about the process and the and the rubric itself i think i said this on thursday night i think it's really important to to understand because it's easy to to look at this from the outside looking in and say oh well you know i expected them to to not recommend approval because it's the it's the lea and they don't want to give up control to to
066a third party and while that may or may not be true the rubric isn't is pretty specific and while it's some of the some of the answers are subjective and that every not everything is objective though the rubric doesn't really give much leeway to to your personal preference on whether or not you whether you want it or not or whether you think it provides even something that the district doesn't offer it's more on a lot of the rubric it depends on the detail the specificity and kind of go in line item by line at them on on the rubric line items themselves and so the the process in place is that if we if we're if we're shown to not have following the rubric that's what the state well i guess us they're going to
067come back to us assuming that they do come back to us with a with an appeal and we get a chance to look at this again if in if at that time we deny again it would go back to it would go to the state charter commission if the if the applicant chooses to to go that far and they're basically going to look at us look at it and they do take our recommendations in in place but they also are going to look at it by the rubric and say did we do we analyze this fairly or were we biased in any way and i really feel like given the fact that we got to see two applications and one was pulled we did get to see him side by side and i really i
068really look forward if if the if the applicant chooses to if we if we do deny this as a as recommended and i'm going to recommend that we that we do i would i would like to see and i've we got a chance to speak to them in person and as as part of a request for additional information and i just felt that this overall it was lacking specificity in some places incomplete on the financial side that i was looking at on the academic side it the applicant is partnering with a couple of organizations that have existing schools in arkansas and texas and i thought that they would have more information about from them the vast resources that they have at their disposal and they just didn't they just kept on saying oh yeah they
069have that they have that they had that but didn't go into specifics about what they have and i thought they missed an opportunity to do that but that being said i will i will not be recommending i'll be recommending that we deny the application thank you mr brown thank you thank you madam chair just not to really get into the review process that was done because jay's done a good job of explaining that and dr webb did a great job last thursday of walking us through that we've had a chance to read the documents and see the reviews and the ratings and scoring but my comment's really more of a big picture comment about charters and you know what i what i worry about a little bit is that this process because it's a relatively
070new process for for most of us is that it's going to give the impression that it's predetermined that charter schools are not going to be accepted in williamson county and i for one would not want that to be the impression and you know some of the speakers spoke talked about this you know that the fear is that we're we're closed off to this idea and i just think that's the one of the unintended consequences of this process into this vote is that might be the impression that gets left so i want to say that the outset i too hope that this starts a conversation this is not the end of it that i hope it starts a conversation where this applicant or other applicants come forward and learn from this process that we learn from
071it that they learn from it and that we can you know continue this kind of conversation in the future so i just want to get that out there on the record that just speaking for myself i would not want for people who are coming in in good faith who have shown that this can work in other places feel like that we're entirely closed off to this conversation and i said this at another in another meeting at some point about a month ago where you know charter schools if you look at it on the whole have proven to be really successful in a lot of places i think anybody who looks at it objectively would tell you that it has to be the right fit it has to be the right context and it has to
072be the right offering i think jay pointed out that there were some things that we needed to see that we perhaps didn't see but maybe we learned again we learned from this going forward so thank you mr mitchell thank you madam chair dr webb a couple of questions for you as the chair chairman of the committee how many members were on the committee 14 members on the committee and off you may not know this exactly but in a ballpark how many different areas of of operation school operations did the rubric or the committee review the rubric specifically addresses three areas academics operations and finance and then within each of those areas there were subcategories correct if i remember yes subsection and so within how many total subsections across those three categories do you know off
073the top of your head there were 30 subsections and after each subsection each individual in the committee was asked to summarize or to grade that entire category so 33 total feedback aspects of the rubric for each individual and that goes to jay's point of over well over 300 pages of of comments and reviews from the 14 members across these 37 did you say 30. 30 total with 33 additional so 33 total okay and when it was all said and done how many positive recommendations were there from the out of the 14 members overall recommendations i'll have to add those up for you but in regards to each subcategory i can speak to that so in regards to the first category of academics 11 individuals indicated that it did not meet the rubric 11 of the
074fourteen eleven of the yes and three indicated that it was partial in regards to the section second section there were forgive me one moment please i'm sorry i didn't give you a heads up i was going to hit you with all the forgive me in the second section and of all of those subcategories all 14 individuals indicated that it did not meet and what was that second subsection the second subsection was operations okay the third was finance 11 individuals indicated that it did not meet and one indicated that it didn't meet or exceed okay thank you and the third subsection was finance finance right thank you all right i guess the point i would i would make here is i was trying to find a good analogy you that not every kroger you walk into
075is is as well run as the one you might as the one next to it or down the road from it and i think it's the same point that we're trying to make with these with the review of these applications is it's we're looking to make sure that they've got all of their ducks in a row and being able to truly operate a school for children over a period of 12 months or however you know in year-over-year recurrence and so ideas and operations don't always line up in every example of it so i think that's kind of that was probably not kroger not being a good good analogy maybe walmart or mcdonald's they're not all equal i guess in quality run and presentation as well so thank you for that information i just thought it
076was important that the audience here the detail and the effort that went into this review mr welch thank you madam chair so i just one of the comments that there was a predetermined outcome or the perception that maybe there was freedom outcome of the board not wanting to give up authority and that's what was driving it and then that may or may not be true maybe that was just worded poorly that was the attention but i just want to say i think it's definitely not true i look at the members of this board and i do not think that is the driver for this at all whether we approve it or not prove it or what have you we have you know first we have petitionary responsibility of the taxpayer of approving schools that are
077set up for success and to succeed in that and more importantly i think we have responsibility to students for the same mr brown accurately made the point you can objectively look and you can see many examples charter schools that have been successful but you can also objectively look at that you can see as many or maybe even more examples of charter schools that have not been successful even many that have shut down and have burdened the district with the costs for facilities having to put those students back into other schools and move them mid-year catching them up and so it did not serve the community or the students in that case so in this example dr webb went through we had 14 individuals from varied background members of the community we had a representative of
078this board and it was i think there's a very clear indication of you know appreciating the work behind it and you know the good faith and thought behind it but i think there was a clear indicator of what the committee thought about that system that particular charter being ready to meet the williamson county schools standard that way and as dr golden indicated her earlier school indicator earlier you know we fully support parental choice and everything else but here we're not really talking to people choice we're talking about taxpayer funding of it and so i think there's a an additional level that has to meet and that's to be successful and to get the board's approval thank you board members i don't see any further requests for discussion before you cast your votes just let me
079clarify and mrs osbrooks please please help me with this if you vote yes that is a recommendation of the approval it's it's a it you're saying you approve the charter school review committee's recommendation to deny the application that's correct yes if tonight if you vote yes on the resolution you're voting to approve the resolution and voting to deny the charter school application if you vote no you are voting not to approve the resolution and you are in fact voting to approve the charter school application thank you mrs brooks board members please cast your votes your vote is ten yes zero no one abstain thank you the next item on the agenda is the approval to close discovery virtual k-8 for the 2022-2023 school year mr golden thank you madam chair as you recall we're and
080i am making a difficult recommendation to you related to discovery ka virtual school when covet hit and the governor had schools close right at two years ago for the fourth quarter a little over two years ago we spent some time finding ways to provide instruction that next fall we offered fully online as a program an option for students to stay in a particular school and still be fully online this particular year in preparation for this particular year the state regulations changed to the point where if a student was to be fully online it required the lease the local education agencies to actually establish an online school we had enough demand from our families to offer that school those schools really k-12 so the kate we started a k-8 in a and a high school a
081core part of our k-8 was synchronous instruction with teachers and students interacting because we learned in that previous year how important that was especially at those at those younger grades at the end of the first four weeks of this school year we had 343 students in that k-8 school and it's been going well we went through the enrollment process the re-enrollment process and that 343 in the first four weeks has dropped to 86 at the deadline for individuals to say they wanted to go to this school for nine grade levels 86 just isn't enough we can't provide the service that we know we need to we can't provide wcs service at the quality we want for those few students the enrollment at each grade level ranges from three to eight a couple of elementary grades
082to 17 at eighth grade even at 17 that doesn't work in middle school we had seven and seventh and seventeen and eight even at that doesn't work because at those upper grades you need specific licensures you need ela math science social studies plus related arts plus special education we just can't even offer full-time jobs to our teachers based on the appropriate licensures while we could do this asynchronously it just piecemeal with somebody doing a little bit extra on a supplement we've learned that for us that's not our quality that's not the right thing to do so in short we recognize that there just weren't there wasn't enough interest and that big a drop is not a question of marketing it's not a question of letting folks know because a lot of phone calls are made
083even to those who were there who are there this year there's just not enough enough interest in our community for us to continue that ka on the other side of the coin we have good interest at the high school level that structure is different those courses are largely asynchronous where we do have all the specializations in this in the in the licensures met where a student can take an asynchronous course it's not the right thing for do for to do for the middle school so based on all this i am sorry to say that we don't have the capacity to do it appropriately here in williamson county and i do ask that you approve our closing of discovery virtual k-8 for next year i recommend approval of that do we have a motion to approve
084mr wimberley makes the motion is there a second mr welch makes the second there are some people wanting to discuss this motion miss cleveland yes thank you madam chair do we have placement for those teachers thank you for that we are working on everything finding a placement for every single teacher at the moment i think we may have two maybe that haven't i don't know if i have the right number but we made a commitment to them that we would find a place for all those teachers mr hall thank you man of chair mr golden thank you for bringing this to us i know this is a difficult decision i think there's probably not too many things tougher than closing a school especially when you acknowledge that the quality of work that's been done i
085can't help but notice how this ties into our previous agenda item discussion and this shows how we really tried to be responsive and meet the needs of the community parents and families with different different situations and trying to come up with ways to serve students but but in this case and in the other we've got to preserve a level of quality and i think i think it's an appropriate decision given those constraints and the level of interest that's been expressed it's it's disappointing to have to do this but i liked what mr cash said in the work session last thursday about mothballing this and taking lessons learned and i hope that it's not perceived that this is for naught that we did gain some positives out of this so we can apply to our regular
086learning methods and educational opportunities but i'm supportive of this but disappointed that we have to do it thank you mr hall for those comments the quality of the instruction has been great i participated once or twice in readings for students just like we sometimes walk into our brick and mortar buildings the work is really good it's just not enough of a demand mr mitchell thank you madam chair so a couple of questions mr golden fro from for the middle school in particular we had three three grades i think we indicated we had a little over 40 maybe 41 students across those three grades why can we not take existing middle school teachers and give them a single section of this online school teaching it synchronously because you're you're basically having a different teacher per section
087i'm assuming that in middle school you're changing classes you're going to you have a dedicated teacher for your math class and a different teacher for your science and social studies and language arts and so on why could we not source those instead of having hiring us you were saying you didn't have enough for a full-time teacher in middle school we could source it across all of our middle school in the district and take you know see see what teachers are interested in doing that and continue to offer this synchronous type online for the middle school why why was that reviewed or is there a reason that's not viable we did discuss that those teachers at those other schools are committed to their schedules what we were able to do at the high school level is
088either shorten a day because of the because of the peculiarities of a very a very wide open high school schedule structure and give those some of those high school teachers an extra section that they can teach outside of the school day so we could do it asynchronously doing it synchronously it was not readily apparent that we could find a particular teacher and pull them off a commitment they already made at some other school that was their challenge so i'll i'll push back a little bit here in the thought that we're still hiring middle school teachers for next year i'm assuming and i again i think we could it's it's a scheduling issue from my standpoint and that we could potentially have done that because across all of the middle school teachers you're looking for basically
089four four maybe five five or six sections across all of it each of them teaching one section for for a day so i'm not going to support this closure because i do believe that there's a way to support the middle school side of it from a synchronous standpoint and so therefore i'm and i like us to consider looking at how we can at least keep the middle school part going thank you mr cash thank you madam chair i couldn't say it better than mr hogg it just it just saddens me that so many teachers so many students so many parents have emailed us and it's it's just been total positivity from them they have they have just overwhelmingly praised this program i i just hope we're not moving too fast with this but like i
090guess we can bring it back if if necessary but just kudos to all those involved in the program and thank them for their their efforts in their dedication thank you mr welch dan kind of said what i was going to it's it's just want to acknowledge this is not over performance but just simply participation in it and you know as a board wanted to express appreciation for all of those teachers and administrators and students and you know the families and the students especially who really built this program from not in the ground up in the sub ground up they dug the foundation and laid the foundation and everything else and built from scratch and turned it to really something that we can point at and be extremely proud of and this is this is not
091a happy event it's it's a sad event but i think it is sometimes you have to make difficult decisions and the best needs of the community but doing this again just saying how proud we are of everyone who is involved in getting that program to where it is mr galbraith thank you i guess i'll have to say that i was i was skeptical that we would have the demand or that this would even this would even work it was i think i was proven wrong that we have shown that we can do this well i appreciate you taking a good hard look and i think you all understood what the numbers had to be going into to this to this process to to evaluate if it was going to be just feasible at all and
092so i appreciate you sticking to that it's really not it's not easy to to close something down that you've started especially when so many people are depend upon it they see the they like it fits their lifestyle for so many reasons that it worked i guess my question what has dr miller communicated to these families especially the ones that really still i mean obviously they still want to do this but what are what are their options going forward thank you for that dr miller did have a meeting that's the with with families the same day that we had a meeting with the faculty and i'm trying to remember somewhere over 40 or so families participated in that in that online discussion one of the reasons we let them know as soon as we knew the
093numbers weren't going to make was because there are other options and there were some some deadlines we know our deadlines and the out of zone issue was coming up in mid april there is a tennessee virtual academy which is run by another public school system in tennessee that's been statewide one and there may be more actually and i know for sure one has existed over 10 years and so we knew that their deadlines would be coming up as well so dr webb i'm sorry dr dr miller and her staff made sure that they had one-to-one conversations with all family family members who had not been in that majority who just had already decided to go back to campus going back to campus is an option that's what we can offer the other options that may
094be out there were discussed and made available to families as well my hope is that anyone who will is would be willing to come back to us but knowing that if their number one is to have it online there are state options out there in public schools that are designed to to cover the whole state so that they can have enough students to make it work sure thank you and for the for the budgetary impact on on this after upon upon thinking about it more or are we going to leave it as is like you said and just shift the staffing dollars to unassigned and will kind of give us give ourselves a well we always ask for additional staffing throughout the years that the and we and we're in our estimates or of student
095needs and staffing needs are really estimates and so we is that the plan we're looking at a number of things related to the budget we had budgeted 27.2 teachers for this that's in the budget that you all approved plus administration support staff etc i anticipate it may be a combination of things number one on the revenue side mayor anderson made it very clear that he was not going to be recommending to the county commission that they increase property tax this year with this reduction that just makes it doubly clear that our plan you know the budget that you all approved is projected to be within that parameter where there's no where there's no tax increase but there we may have a little bit more flexibility this these positions have the potential to help with growth
096another item that i've asked our staff to look at knowing that we are bringing our pay plan to you as a board probably in may it's actually on the agenda it's on the annual agenda for june but we believe will probably be ready in may is to look back at the draft teacher pay schedules that we've talked to the wca about and see if there are any spots that we that were lower than we hoped because that was all we could afford and see if we could you know bump those up just a little bit in spots that's something our staff is working on and we'll bring to you in may thank you mr brown thank you thank you madam chair jason i know this was set up as a result of the covet pandemic
097and then i see in the in the memo that there were as of about a year ago roughly a year ago there were 343 students enrolled what do you but of course at that point in time we were in a substantially better position on kovad than we were a year before that obviously so what do you what do you attribute the drop to i mean going from 343 down to fewer than 90 now you know a year less than a year later i do attribute it largely to covet it's hard to remember right you go through painful processes and it's hard to to go back and remember but back then the 343 in the first month those folks actually had registered in january and february of the prior year after having largely many of them
098haven't been online in the program the previous year largely is coveted now for those who stayed i think the my impression from the stories i've heard from from those who have shared that they that they really would love to keep it's largely not coveted among that smaller group it's largely not coveted and is there is there a particular profile of a student that remaining 90 or less kind of fits into in terms of i mean for future reference if we're going down this road again is there a type of student particularly that's more inclined to this versus another i have not seen something that i can just attribute into one big bucket i've heard a lot of different stories some of it's lifestyle some of it's parent jobs some of it is anxiety related it's
099really a broad spectrum of choices all right thank you board members for that robust discussion so i don't see anyone else wanting to speak so please cast your votes at this time your vote is ten yes one no our next item is approval of the coding one instructional material waiver request mr golden thank you madam chair we are asking you to approve a request to get a waiver ask for a waiver from the state for the coding curriculum just to use this short language as shorted language as i can the textbook that's currently available for coding is not something that we want to use we want it to be more interactive and more present and up to date for coding so we do re request your approval that we make that waiver request of the
100state do you have a motion to approve ms supriya a second miss cleveland board members any discussion mr galbraith thank you madam chair jason for we've heard a lot about curriculum approval i'm not sure how controversial coding can be but but from a process perspective how would one like how how will our what will our process be to to make the make the curriculum available make the curriculum available to families well just to to to be able to because we're we're bypassing that we're asking to bypass the state process and so just asking just process-wise how they've they've been able to to have access to the to the cte on the years when the cte curriculum is passed those books are our curriculum is all made made public so how how will they do that
101thank you the state actually has a process anticipating that this may happen from time to time and step one is the process the board asks the state for a waiver step two is the state reviews our proposal and they decide on whether to approve the particular request and we have a particular request that's actually in the in the memo it's e-dynamics learning we have reached the determination that it does meet the state standards for this particular course but obviously well the state has to make that decision themselves before they grant the waiver so when they grant the waiver they will have approved this proposed curriculum and it would it won't be a bypass it will be them making a specific approval for this specific recommended curriculum so it will meet the state process through that
102well i guess the part of the process i'm asked i'm asking about i appreciate the clarity there but part of the process that i'm specifically asking about is the public review of the of the curriculum i actually have to ask dr alan if you if if you can address that question yes thank you for the my life be good hold on i didn't push it try again it's the other one yeah it's the one next to you now we good okay thank you thank you for the question so the process has changed a little over the last few years so the the request actually goes to the department of education they put together a committee of experts in the field to review the requests that we're putting forward there's not a step in that process
103currently for us to have public review of that but we are happy to provide you with the link so that you could dig into it but there's just not a step in the waiver process right now so it does go to a professional committee that the state will bring together that state the state the tennessee department of education will then make a recommendation to the state board of education state board of education actually makes the approval which has been a change from tennessee department of education making that request but to specifically answer your question there's not really a step in that process right now to make it available especially with a product like e-dynamic learning it's an online platform that we really can't make available for copyright reasons but because you're a member of the
104school system we can make it available for you to review we have done a crosswalk to the state standards to your point we've not we've been using that as a supplementary resource the request now is to move it as our primary at the request of our teachers and our ccte directive director we've not had any issues with with topics in curriculum or anything of that such related to coding one so thank you for that so is there a so is there a way obviously i mean if you can if you can give us access could their can we offer access to to come to the central office by appointment and come and view that's a good suggestion yes we can do that thank you so board members there's no further discussion please cast your votes
105your vote is 11 yes zero no thank you our final agent item for tonight is the approval of tenure recommendations thank you madam chair i'm excited to make this 10-year recommendation this is a big deal for teachers we have a number of teachers on our list those who might know old history of tenure there's an old rule that after three years if you kept if you stayed in the district you would automatically get tenure it's more complicated now and actually the second page the top of the second page tim of this particular the top there you go actually is a short paragraph describing the state standards for tenure it includes a combination of time with the district plus performance and a teacher evaluations of above expectations are significantly above expectations these are excellent teachers who
106are who have who have who have stood the test of time here at wcs i am proud to make a recommendation that these teachers receive tenure i'll make the motion to approve is there a second mr hall makes the second any discussion board members mr hall thank you ben of chair mr goldman i just want to echo that it's always fun to look through this list and recognize some names and there are great talented professionals that are very worthy of this recognition and status so thank you for bringing those to us mr cash thank you madam chair i'd just like to congratulate those teachers so often we look to the future and say man i got five or six years to go and all this stuff but it happens just congratulations and enjoy it thank
107you i see no further requests to speak board members please cast your votes your vote is eleven yes zero no thank you board members and this concludes our meeting for tonight this meeting is adjourned