001e good evening everyone thank you so much for being here tonight this is the Williamson County County school board meeting we're going to go ahead and call the meeting to order board members if you will record your attendance there are nine members present thank you next item on our agenda is our Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence and School Board member Sheila C Cleveland is going to lead us to tonight please face the flag and follow me in the pledgees of Allegiance I pled Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you may be seated the next item on our agenda is items of particular public interest this is the time of the
002night that we get to hear from members of the public who have signed up in advance to come and speak with us so thank you very much for taking the time to do that we have a little over 20 members of the public who have signed up tonight so that's going to allow everyone about a minute a piece to speak I'll call you up two at a time but you don't have to come until it's actually your turn to speak so you're not having to wait behind the scenes but ravita Rockman is our first Speaker followed by shandas Parish good evening I've had the chance to hear the perspective of a victim of racial bullying as well as talk to one of the parents who's had a child discipline for racial bullying it's a tale
003of two vastly different experiences in one scenario the perpetrator's family didn't raise their son to use racial slurs and were heart BR broken to learn that their son had had used one that student was sent to ISS and nothing restorative was done he got to skip classes interact on his phone all day at ISS the punishment did nothing to prevent him from doing this act again in the next scenario the student was told shut up nword twice before saying I'll kill all the black students at Indie high school she will not forget what that student said nor would she forget the lack of appropriate consequences none of her classmates supported her which is scary to witness the violence of others a threat that we can no longer take for granted during times when school shootings
004we must trust a person means what they said we do not feel this was handled at the same level for offense as based on the WCS code of contct conduct showing the punishment to be exposion or AOC if we want to truly do something about the problem of racial bullying in WCS we have to look at the discipline disparities our District's bullying numbers are steadily increasing we have black students being sent to Al for cursing while we have a white student who makes a threat to kill and doesn't get the same measure of discipline the system is flawed we are no longer in living in the days where we cannot take someone at their word and we expect WCS to follow their own discipline policy with the seriousness this complaint deserves thank you thank you
005and I did want to call out the time is up on that is it showing up on that screen okay thank you go ahead and then and following shandas pish is Vanessa buers okaye my name is chandice parish and I'm here as a parent of two children in the WCS schools and I'm asking you all to join many other state school boards and passing a resolution opposing Governor Lee's private school voucher program this program will cost almost $800 million as proposed and programs like this have been proven time and again across the country to provide noed educational benefit my biggest concern is the detrimental impact this will have on our public schools and our children proponents try to say this will not impact Public School budgets but when the Money Follows the child that is
006directly impacting the bottom line of our schools expenses like electricity and facility maintenance cannot be reduced proportionally so important programs like music art and sports will be the ones cut when we can't hit our bottom line why bother passing a resolution I think it sends a message to our community that you prior PR ize the interests of our public school children and that you won't sit back quietly and let our state legislators undermine our District's goal to provide the best education for our children I hope you will step up and send a loud and clear message that in Williamson County we prioritize our children over political games thank you thank you and my apologies apologies for mispronouncing your name Vanessa buers next we'll have Jody Barnwell Smith hi my name is Vanessa buers this is
007my husband John and we have four kids in Williamson County Schools we have two at Ravenwood High School one at Sunset and we have a kindergartener at Jordan Elementary and I'm here tonight because I am concerned about my daughter at Jordan Elementary I sent an email to all of you earlier today I don't know if you received it or not but there is a lot more information than this one minute will provide me I'm concerned about SE Georgia has a severe allergy and she was failed to be flagged in the system and I found out 8 weeks into the school year that Georgia was not flagged in the system in the cafeteria I found out by accident by calling to find out how I find allergy information and was told that it is not listed
008online that anytime I want if Georgia wants to eat in the cafeteria I should call into central office and let them know what Georgia would like to eat and they would then look it up for me and let me know if that is safe for her eat then my kindergarten should go to school and order this so that has sent me down a path of calling the USDA well actually actually talking to Brian King and James redy and also Mr Golden and through email and Jay galberth and so where we are I know I'm out of time I've spoken with the USDA Tennessee Department of Education I know we're following up but I'm here to ask for your help to to make this better for Georgia and for all kids in Williamson County thank you
009very much our next guest is jod Barnwell Smith followed by doritas Jones Thank You Madame chair and board I'm the mother of a grassland Elementary student in District 8 and across the state many rural Schoolboard leaders have spoken out against the voucher program they know the data shows that vouchers will not help their kids instead the voucher program will take away resources from public schools and hurt their most vulnerable children vouchers spend substantially more taxpayer money per student than we spend today and with abysmal results we only know this because of data collected on the pilot voucher schools in Tennessee going forward our legislators propose collecting no such data to show results one way or the other and requiring no accountability our children will suffer our schools will suffer and our state will endure the
010long-term effects in Arizona the voucher cost has exploded to many times the original projections it's just not fair to give our taxpayer money to un unaccountable private schools I'm here today to call you up as leaders in our County and our state to write and pass a resolution against Tennessee's voucher program thank you thank you our next our next guest is Dorita Stones followed by Janet Sha hello I'm Dorita Jones mother of three Independence High School students I'm here because my daughter endured racial bullying at Independence High School on February the second on February the 2nd a classmate lashed out at Elena Reed calling her the nword she was shocked and she told him that he was not supposed to say that and that was inappropriate well the classmate came back and called her the
011n-word again and said f you and that he would shoot all the blacks Elena was stunned she immediately went to the principal's office and reported the incident I was immediately alerted of what had happened and I was also told there would be a full investigation so I met with the school on Monday because this event is concerning my daughter received a threat along with everyone else that looks like her in the school I was told that I asked for an incident report and also they told me there would be no formal report until until the investigation was complete so once the investigation was complete we learned that no one stood with her the student that was standing right by her to hear her classmate say she would he would shoot all the blacks all of
012them stood together they didn't stand with her that left Elena feeling alone and humiliated so after I feel that this threat was not taken seriously the student was removed from her class but the student is still attending class at Independence High School she does not feel safe and she feels targeted so how are we going to keep students safe that look like her and that's not the only incident thank you our next our next guest is Janet sha followed by Carol neuser hi I'm Janet sha I don't have kids in the public school system anymore my youngest child is 28 years old he's a child with autism an adult with autism he entered school here at 3 years old and he exited at 22 I speak as a member of the disability Community First of
013all this voucher proposal is a long anticipated step toward private ing public education and dismantling our Public Schools so there's that if the state has this kind of money to spend why aren't they spending it on our Public Schools why are we giving it to private schools I'm particularly concerned because our kids don't get the supports and services that they need the kids with disabilities are often times having to have their parents get Advocates to get the appropriate supports and services but I'm a big fan of public schools because private schools discriminate there aren't public or private schools that would take my child they just wouldn't the vast majority would not even consider him and then if a lot of Po Folks pull their kids to go to private schools we are going to be
014left with the highest need students the students whose parents can't afford to supplement that $7,000 coupon the parents who can't arrange transportation the students who can't qualify like mine for private schools and WCS is one of the draws for this County if our reputation begins to suffer because we are left and I don't say this un unkindly if we're left with the lowest needs students excuse me the highest need students in this District our reputation is going to suffer and our property values are going to suffer and people are not going to want to pay taxes to improve a system if their kids in private school thank you thank you our next guest is Carol newuser followed by Peggy kingsburry I'm GNA have to shorten mine again anyway I'm Carol newhouser and I'm tonight speaking
015as a citizen and a taxpayer George Washington emphasized the importance and the need for public education he said that the purpose of education is to create a strong economical base and to preserve the government and to provide Liberty for students I am again here for all students in the K through three curriculum and I have somewhat of an ally because I wrote Dr Sarah who said ultimately the pedagogically techniques used to deliver instruction are driven by The Local District and school leaders and teachers themselves indicating that the boarding that the boarding the district that it has some leeway and instruction but as I look at the curriculum for K through three we are lacking citizenship involvement first of all children's brains is the op optimal time for them to learn about themselves and Human Relationships
016that's what the brain is working on and we are teaching them subject matter and that's not what we should be teaching them we should be going along with brain development and teaching them human growth and development and who they are and how to relate to other people period thank you our next guest is Peggy kingsburry followed by Claire Jones thank you and thank you for serving I also would like to see our Schoolboard member sign a resolution against vouchers and I've done a lot of reading about it as I know all of you have and my peers here will probably give you much better reasons than I'm going to but I'm going to give you an analogy my husband and I love to work out at the Williamson County Rec Center it's wonderful it's close
017to our home it offers everything we need and it's inexpensive because it's subsidized by Williamson County I love that everyone can go there I love that I can see my friends young and old alike we could go to Lifetime Fitness and work out couldn't we the treadmills might be a little bit newer it might be a little more exclusive and if we chose to do that I would not expect my tax pay or money to go to it I would not expect them to pay for it or you to pay for it that would be my choice please sign the resolution thank you thank you our next speaker is Claire Jones followed by Ashley Webster hi thank you for letting me speak tonight my name is Claire Jones I'm a mom of three I have
018two students in the district and one soon will be I love our schools they are my children's community shout out to Mr Allard bus driver voucher expansion poses a threat to that community and others like it I don't need to tell you the data regarding vouchers does not demonstrate efficacy I don't need to tell you our property taxes will go up and our schools will suffer I don't need to tell you it's fiscally irresponsible I think you already know that I'm asking you to stand up for our kids at a time when our Senator Jack Johnson has flip-flopped on this issue and another legislature Gino bulso is currently suing this body I expect more from elected officials so I'm asking you to please pass a resolution against public vouchers I want you to stand with
019our schools stand with our teachers our communities and most importantly our kids thank you thank you our next guest is Ashley Webster followed by Diane Cochran thank you madam chair I am Ashley Webster and I live in Franklin and I have two adult children that graduated from Williamson County schools and I'm here to say that while you're not state legislators and you're not going to get to vote on this bill you are here serving at the municipal level because you care deeply about public schools as board members for the state's best school district in my opinion you have influence and I would like for you to use that influence by passing a resolution against the voucher program you will not be alone Campbell County Schools Jacksboro Tennessee has already done so this proposed voucher program
020will serve 2% of the 1 million students in Tennessee so it's a very minority of students that will be served using public funds for private schools Arizona's had a bad experience with it they spent too much money over 75% of those kids were already in private school before they even implemented the program and in Louisiana they scored poorly even worse than during the covid pandemic or Hurricane Katrina enough said thank you our next guest is Diane Cochran followed by Denise andrejack thank you madam chair and board my name is Diane Cochran and I'm a former WCS parent so with the Statewide Voucher Program money sent to private schools will leave our schools underfunded for example if there there are some students from one of our schools that goes to a private school the public school
021can't reduce their spending to make up for the removed funding so teachers administrators Food Service Transportation maintenance utilities All That Remains relatively the same instead our schools will have to cut services that they provide like staff and courses this would provide those in public schools especially our needest students with an education substandard to what they receive today today and I would like to see WCS maintain the exceptional range of courses and services especially for special needs kids that are currently available for our students ultimately the goal is to provide the best possible education for every student with the available resources I would like to see our board stand unanimously against a Statewide voucher program thank you thank you our next guest is Denise andreac followed by Erica boutton good evening I'm Denise Andre Shack of
022Franklin I have no children or grandchildren in Williamson County Schools public or private I'm simply interested in public education for my young friends that live here so I am here tonight to voice my support for a resolution against School vouchers and I really do thank you for allowing me the opportunity after listening to your work session there seems to be some difference of opinion among you the Williamson County School Board this resolution opens the choice of a private school education to all students and would lure many out of our community's public schools to reduce both numbers and budget for the count County's business and of educating students other Tennessee county school boards have already voted to oppose vouchers spotlighted voucher efforts in Wisconsin and Ohio revealed no increased academics academic success there but open quotes
023based on Spring 2023 teap results from the Department of Education Williamson County Schools ranked highest overall in achievement and end of course performance unquote Williamson County School Board I urge you to vote oppose the voucher resolution and protect public education thank you our next guest is Erica Bon followed by Michael Miller hi my name is Erica Bowen I'm a mom of three so far over 40 Tennessee district school boards have asked legislators to reject voucher programs and I urge this board to do the same even if reporting and accountability measures are required based on numerous other voucher programs the only thing accountability is going to show us are the massive cost and academic underperformance in Arizona it's costing the state nearly a billion each school year in other states the majority of students who received
024vouchers were already in private schools only 25% of Arizona vouchers went to children leaving public schools and what happens to those children Studies have shown record-breaking learning loss vouchers have become fraught with the same cultural War rhetoric plaguing our country and public school system a way to escap AP so-called race and gender ideology but in reality just signal intolerance in Florida some voucher funded schools have banned lgbtq kids from admittance pause and consider that we need to invest in a school system that supports diversity special education free lunches expanded medic mental health Serv Services quality faculty and staff and teacher attention vouchers undermine these goals and it forces tax players to play for two separate school systems accountability won't solve the problem please urge legislators to reject our next guest is Michael Miller followed by
025Laura graner evening thank you I'm Mike Miller I a father of two children in WCS I come here tonight to state that the parents of WCS students do not want vouchers in Williamson County and ask this board to steadfastly pass a resolution in support of what the parents want here in WCS I'm going to make the argument a little more local for you we have a $50.5 million budget shortfall next year that was talked about in your work session last week this shortfall is going to cut things like interventionists and other special Support Services on the flip side we've got a voucher program which is going to give $7,000 to every private school student that wants to apply for one the estimates that there's about 5600 students in Williamson County who go to private schools
026that's $40 million in vouchers a year that's 80% of your budget shortfall right there if that's not enough reason I don't know what will be the fact is the state has the money now it's up for you to go get it article three article three section two of this code of conduct states that you will strive to secure resources that allow our employees to perform with Excellence that's your duty that your assigned Duty as a Schoolboard member so I ask you tonight come to you tonight to ask you to please pass a resolution with requiring a yay or nay vote from all members of of the board on to den denounce the voucher program thank you thank you our next guest is Laura graner followed by Herbert Reed good evening my name is Laura grineer
027I raised my four children here in Williamson County Schools I have three grandchildren that will be going to our incredible schools here before I get into what I came to speak about I would like to speak about this issue of racism at Indie all four of my children went to Indie and if they were there now and I heard this how could I send my kids to that school how we have school shooter after school shooter after school shooter and we have a child there may not be the evidence against him because we don't have recording of that evidence and there is no backing but this is not something to be ignored in any way I could get in and in and out the security measures at Indie today are the same as they were
028when my children were at Indie I could get in and out of any door at Indie all I had to do is watch the kids go in and out to go to the port the portable classrooms kids will allow you they'll open the door for you if they think they recognize you I was able to get in and out of that school no problem this is an issue and it needs to be addressed I came I'm not even going to go into what I came for other than I am standing and asking you to support the resolution to not to make the resolution to not support the vouchers there's just too many studies we know it doesn't work we do not need to fall into that same trap that other states have thank you very
029much thank you have two more speakers our final two speakers are Herbert Reed followed by Rebecca by Becca Ripley oh good evening my name is Herbert Reed and I do have three daughters that go to Independence High School I just want to finish up a few things that the mother and I also received complaint about it was an incident where Dr Wise notified us that a student called our youngest a monkey and made monkey gestures to a daughter and a friend and another incident that we had that was from a teacher with Elena being the only colored black in there okay made the comment which she felt uncomfortable would you go in in a store that said whites only no blacks allowed would sing out made her feel ashamed how could she answer that you
030know it's ridiculous and in our opinion know no student should be made to feel inferior and I do agree y'all do need to have procedures and policies in place when somebody do make threats something you can't take lightly these days May being a public servant it's personal okay I it could be your kids any of our kids you had a threat what would you do thank you thank you and I do apologize we did Miss have one other speaker we do have Becca Ripley I'm going to go ahead and have you come up but we do have Elena Reed that did check in so we will be calling Elena up after Becca thank you all so much for your hard work my name is Becca Ripley and I'm a product of public school education I'm
031the daughter of a retired public school teacher who five decades ago is one of two newly hired white teachers desegregated her Vicksburg Mississippi school and I'm a granddaughter of a public high school principal I'm also a parent of grassland and middle school elementary students my children's father a graduate of a prestigious Nashville private school lobbied hard for our children to follow in his footsteps but like so many well apparently everyone yay here tonight T I'm a huge proponent and supporter of public schools I can't abandon Public Schools vouchers feel like abandonment to me I believe in investing and in and supporting free and fair education and public education's vital role in creating sustaining and maintaining strong diverse and involved communities please go on record as a board as other boards have done opposing vouchers with
032public funds voucher programs are rooted in racism and discrimination and I think that we have as we have heard we are still dealing with a lot of that and we're not doing it right and we don't need to feed it more we stand to lose millions of dollars that are already underfunded public P public education system can't afford and private schools choose their students Public Schools serve everyone strong Public Schools equal strong communities thank you our final speaker is Elena Reed I'm Elena Reed I was scared when he said he was going to shoot up all the black people I have two sisters and friends that go to that school right after I heard him say all that I went directly to the principals and I was like just really scared I'm still scared till
033this day to go to that school thank you thank you this does conclude the public comment section of our agenda and we as a board cannot thank you enough for spending your time with us tonight and coming in and sharing your perspectives we greatly appreciate your time and I know it's hard to stay within a minute and I do want to acknowledge that so thank you for for trying to do that we appreciate that our next item on the agenda is to approve our agenda thank you Mr Welch do we have a second Mr Pria thank you I'll open the floor for discussion if no discussion we will move to vote the vote is nine yes zero no thank you with that vote we did pass the approval of the agenda which moves us along
034to the next item which is a privileg consent agenda do we have a motion Miss Apria do we have a second Mr Elliot or Mr Mitchell thank you any discussion on the consent agenda okay four members let's move to a vote the vote is nine yes Zer no thank you that motion passed to approve the consent agenda and the items on the consent agenda are approval of the January 22nd 2024 school board meeting minutes and the following board policies for second reading revenues fundraising activities purchasing cards credit cards and credit lines credit for prior courses testing programs and the Family Medical Leave Act policy the approval of the e- plan's title 3 immigrant Grant was also approved the medical the Middle Tennessee Electric easement at paage high school was approved the Brentwood Middle School video
035scoreboard the Sunset Elementary School GaGa ball pit the St Barbara Coptic Orthodox Church at Clover cth Elementary School the soo Church DBA citizens church at Perry Creek Elementary School and the recommendation for field trip fee requests our next item on the agenda is Communications to the board just before we do that I do want to acknowledge Deputy Randy Purcell thank you so much for being here with us tonight we appreciate you being here Mr golden thank you madam chair and thank you those of you who are in the audience for coming and speaking at our public comment over the years especially I've been encouraged that our public comment time has been an open time where our community can speak and feel comfortable that they're going to be heard and so I especially want to thank
036our student who spoke today those of you who followed the board and spent time with our board over these last few years know that we have thoughtfully been working on improving how we serve our students especially in the context of safety and when I talk about about safety you know there was one mention of physical safety in the buildings and folks who know the schools know when you go up to a school these days it's a very different entry point than than what you've seen in Prior years but especially we have worked hard on on on student safety in relation to each other and with their teachers and we are thoughtfully working on improving how we respond just this year every one of our principles established a standard for their students in at the beginning
037of the year of what they expected and consequences for behaviors that were threatening to others we also established a structure where our human resources department actually received information from each of those investigations and I want everyone to know that we will make sure that in each of those our human resources department double checks those to make sure that we do have consistency ac across the district and I got to tell you it's a work in progress it's going to take constant attention and I very much appreciate you all sharing with us U your experience because we need to hear that regularly as we continue every day every year to make sure our students are safe also I want to thank our community members who came and spoke about the vouchers today our I if I'm
038not mistaken one of the speakers mentioned that they watched the work session that our board had and our board spoke at length about about the proposed legislation from the governor right now there's no legislation that's been filed it still is at the proposal stage for the governor I encourage you all to go back and watch that discussion that our board had at our work session we happen to be about 10 days out from our work session which is actually pretty unusual because of because of schedules as as I heard it there were three main themes that were discussed during that time one the question of funding and you know where where might this money come from how might this affect us and I'll tell you as I sit here I don't know how those how
039something might affect us directly if and when it's passed because we won't know until number one until it's passed and then number two until students make decisions but what we do know is that the Tisa funding model that we receive from the state increas inreased our per pupil funding last year but it is quite apparent that the state does have some fund balance the governor has U published his budget proposal without any specific legislation related to this being in there and if I'm not mistaken the proposal included $144,200 th000 for this particular for this particular program I do anticipate that our board will continue to be discussing this so again I encourage you all to to to continue to to watch what our board does and especially pay attention to the state legislature for this
040and many other many other bills that are coming up I got to mention this specifically at the right now I am very concerned about the law regarding third and fourth grade retention I know that there's been a lot of discussion at the state level over additional avenues for students to to go from fourth grade to fifth grade we have 134 students and parents who are worried about this upcoming teap we have if I'm not mistaken somewhere around 3,100 fourth graders of those 134 are still concerned about the upcoming teap so there are so many things I encourage you all to to to pay attention to finally finally I I do want to mention one other bit of information that I think follows the theme of what our public speakers talked about the state actually published
041and the state board approved the list of reward schools on Friday we have 31 reward schools which is a record for us which broke last year's record which in turn broke the year before record so we're very proud of the team that we have that we put together and I want to thank you board for some of those decisions you've made in these last few years to find time for our teachers to collaborate I sent an email to a to a parent just a few days ago using some some vernacular that I heard regarding those professional learning communities in those teams where those teachers are getting together on a regular basis to evaluate how their students have mastered the standards so that they can make adjustments on the fly in the middle of the school
042year to their pacing to make sure those students Master those standards I've heard it compared to the difference between a doctor's visit and an autopsy which is teap for us I know that's kind of an odd comparison but our teachers are making adjustments in Midstream in the middle of the Year based on those particular student needs and I'm proud of the work they're doing in ensuring our Student Success as part of that I want to thank Mrs Baker and the Clover coft Elementary choir who came and sang many of you were able to see some of that I know we weren't broadcasting at that point but that was a great that was a great event for those students and we appreciate the work they're doing so with that Madame chair again finally I do encourage
043you all to stay engaged in the work that's being done here in Williamson County Schools Madame chair we will celebrate those 31 schools more specifically next month because the announcement came out so close to this meeting we weren't able to schedule all those principles we actually have a couple of principles in the audience who get the privilege of coming to two straight board meetings because we will invite them back for for for next month Madam chair that's my report I know Miss bird song is here to speak to to some of our student spotlights and then I will conclude my report thank you Mr Golden board members we are combining our January celebrations and our February celebrations so we have several students that we will be recognizing this evening and this is the first for
044for me because I don't recall ever having two students earn a perfect PSAT in middle school and so this is udara from Mil Creek Middle School now it's a different test let me let me be clear it's a it's a middle school test but yet very impressive so and this is sadar jida from Woodland Middle now we also had seven high school students earn a perfect PS a t and this is an impressive number as well this is parsa caroi from brenwood high school this is Lucy Wyatt from brenwood high school renez Jamal from Franklin High School Connor Britt from Independence High School Huntley peek from paig high school AJ balage from Ravenwood high school and Nathan Phillips from Summit High School now we have 14 students who have earned a perfect ACT score this
045is Thomas Bay from Brentwood this is Maria Choi from Brentwood Ty Glenn Brentwood Grace Walter Brentwood Natasha Valero Brentwood Lauren Reeves Centennial Cadman Holland Franklin Alex SRA McDonald Franklin Hannah Whitfield Franklin Andrew Chatterton Independence Kieran Kieran row Independence Megan Wallace Nolanville William fizzle Ravenwood Megan Freeman Summit now we are going to celebrate students in the area of the Arts and these are all St State students as named by the Tennessee theater Educators Association and this is Lauren Gilder from brenwood high school and she was named all state in the area of acting and in all state musical theater Claire Billingsley from Centennial High School was named to the All State acting troop Franklin High School's Tatum Lander All State acting and all state musical theater from Franklin High School Melody Brook Meers all State acting
046and all state musical theater from paig high school vimaya shapa all state acting and all state musical theater from Independence High School this is Ben Allen All State acting also from Independence High School R Russell gargas All State acting Independence High School Tristan Valdez All State acting and all state musical theater Anna Wadsworth Independence High all State acting in the area of design and Tech Mary Mell Centennial Kylie Rasmus Centennial Haron Smith Centennial Jameson Whitlock Centennial from Fairview High School Owen Keeler in All State Design and Tech from Nolanville High School Ava Adams All State Design and Tech now for our allate musical theater students I know we have a bunch and I'm going to pause right there and say if you mark your calendars for all the fun spring musicals that are coming up
047because you guys if you've never attended one of our high school musicals wow they are fabulous okay back to Brentwood High School Reagan schnicker from All State musical theater got off track Centennial High School Abigail ly musical theater Fairview High School Karen Newman musical theater kalista McIntyre from Nolanville High School Whitney reamer Osco from Nolanville High School from Ravenwood High School Addison Rogers and from Summit High School Landon Wilson and as we wrap up the Arts we have one athletic team that we want to celebrate first ever for Williamson County Schools this is the Tennessee Middle School Athletic Association class 2A boys basketball state champion from Thompson Station Middle School so congratulations to all of our students staff and their coaches thank thank you Carol and ma Madam chair I actually mentioned three main topics
048and I only spoke to one of them because I started talking about fourth grade retention law I kind of kind of got onto that the other the other concerns that you all spoke to at our work session including concern over funding was concern over the accountability standard and what might come from from that voucher program and then third a concern over our students with disabilities and and what where that might lead so with that's my report thank you Mr Golden congratulations again to everyone that Carol recognized it's my favorite part of our agenda next item board chair report I just want to let everybody know if you came for public comment and would like to leave and don't want to stay for the voting part of the meeting you are welcome to leave we can
049take a quick couple minute break so you can exit you're not going to distrupt us under new business is Schoolboard budget first Schoolboard budget item is approval of the central cafeteria Amendment supply chain assistance first award 99328 to Mr golden thank you madam chair this is a grant from the USDA for for funding school systems based on supply chain struggles that we've had with food service so I do recommend approval of of of this particular Grant thank you do we have a motion Mr Welch and M Miss Cleveland seconds open the floor for discussion no discussion four members let's cast our votes the vote is 9 yes Zer no thank you the motion did pass to approve the central cafeteria Amendment to the supply chain assistant first award in the amount of $993,000 next item
050is the approval of the general purpose fund Amendment for disproportionality carryover from idea in the amount of $ 27,999 Mr golden thank you madam chair you have heard us talk about disproportionality funding over the last five or six years if I'm not mistaken somewhere around there we are no longer under that requirement from the from the federal government based on disproportionality of discipline this is request to move that $ 27,999 remaining to an appropriate fund for a professional development do we have a motion Mr Pria and a second Mr Cash thank you any discussion on this item Mr Mitchell thank you madam chair Mr Golden can we but maybe get a update on what the statistics are currently for the schools that were under that disproportionality U ruling from the federal government now sure I
051can speak it to it generally I don't have any statistics that I can share specifically related to that but the issue was related to disproportionate discipline at a school for students with disabilities and if I'm not mistaken Dr Dr web well did I miss any detail of that so that we were we were under a plan from the federal government with idea funds individuals with disabilities and Education Act funds to to plan a structure and a system that would eliminate that disproportionality of of discipline for students with disability versus students who who who were in the who did not have IEPs based on the review over these last few years we are no long no no longer under that requirement to use those IDE funds idea funds for that purpose because that issue has been
052resolved statistically and so the remaining funds that were designated for that are that are the amount that's here we're going to roll that into professional development for for for special education services thank you I can I can email you some specifics I'm assuming we're still we're still reporting those numbers up oh yes oh yes we yes we do report and actually in Myriad ways our discipline is reported to the state who then reports some of that to the federal government and it includes it includes discipline at grade levels discipline based on based on what the state generally calls subpopulations students with disabilities is one of those Mr I just wanted to add if you if you Google APR indicators on the Tennessee Department of Ed website it has all the statistics there and they report
053it annually and it's coming out in a month for this year by District that's right it is by district and the current data that's up there is for the 2021 122 school year if I'm not mistaken ending 22 and the ending 23 school year is not has not yet been published it has not been reported yet we're working on that right Miss OS Brooks oh yeah thank you super board members if we don't have no more comments we can go ahead and cast our votes the vote is 9 yes no thank you that motion passed to approve the general purpose School fund Amendment for disproportionality carryover from idea in the amount of 27,999 next item is approval of the central cafeteria fund resolution for Central cafeteria excess fund balance in the amount of $2 million
054thank you madam chair as the USDA or the state annually audits our Our Food Service budget any excess Beyond on four months operating expenses must three months operating expenses must be must be designated annually for spending so it's kind of the opposite of traditional you actually have to spend down rather than our gen General budget which is of course the opposite so this is an approve this is a request for approval for you to move that into food service equipment so that we can comply with the requirements related to our cafeterias I will say one bit related to that is we did receive substantial grants to last two years related to food service and that is largely the reason why we have this fund balance do we have a motion Mr Welch and do we
055have a second Mr Beasley thank you do recommend approval thank you any discussion okay board members let's cast our votes vote is nine yes Zer no thank you motion passed to approve Central cafeteria fund resolution for Central cafeteria excess fund balance in the amount of 2, 33,8 65 last item under budget is the approval of family tuition which is an annual agenda item Mr golden thank you madam chair as you mentioned annually we make a recommendation and you vote on the family to rate I want to mention a couple of specific items number one we serve any anyone who lives in the county with in our schools occasionally there are those who have a contract to move into the county and we allow those students to start school the beginning of the year even if
056they might be moving in in October with a non-contingent contract that's one example of how this family tuition rate might apply we charge them on the front end and if they move in in that semester we actually reimburse them for that based on the funding we receive based on that Miss farmer prepares a recommendation related to the funding that we receive from the county because the state will fund us if a student here but the but this covers those the additional County cost for those who don't live in County as part of that the final line that she has in her memor I just want to bring your attention to the employee rate will be $2,000 for the first for the first year and follow the SOP that we created after you all voted a
057couple of years ago I've given too much information probably but I want to let you know that the reduced rate that you voted on for teachers two years ago if I'm not mistaken our Revenue has been almost the same these last two years in other words we have had more teachers come in using that and we have had no substantial change in the revenue line related to that even though the cost or the receipt has gone down per student okay super do we have a motion Mr Mitchell in a second Mr Pria thank you and we have Mr Brown on the floor thank you madam chair Mr Golden I'm wondering at this point in time how many students roughly or or teachers have students taking advantage of this program out of County program it's you
058all Rachel Miss farmer you may have that off top of your head because we talked about that yesterday and I'm afraid I'm going to get the number wrong it's in the low hundreds total teachers participating as a comparison in 22 23 was 59 this year we have 133 and in the students there were 71 students in 22 23 and this year there's 153 so on its face that appears that it's been a good recruiting tool for our teachers is there any reason to believe I know we dealt with this issue a couple years ago about whether or not to eliminate it entirely and there's some disagreement among others in County government about that but I know some of us had advocated for doing that is there any reason to believe that if we took that
059down to zero that would be a significantly better recruitment tool or is it only marginal or do we think that matters at all thank you for the question we do occasionally of course have people some of our staff members ask about it I will say the response we got two years ago was quite positive because it was such a substantial change we'll have a discussion about that I appreciate you bringing that up in our budget we're still in our budget talks we have not had a discussion in that context I will tell you right now we are staff for teachers at about 99% special education remains a big challenge I think if I'm not mistaken we're somewhere around 9 92% for special education teachers and continue to compete really hard with our neighbors so we'll
060examine that question and see if there's a possibility that could help my quick math says that would be on based on 153 students would be $36,000 I mean maybe not the best year when it's a potential deficit that we're trying to to solve but I think something's still worth considering thank you Mr Mitchell thank you madam chair Mr Golden do you have any idea maybe Miss Miss farmer might as well how many out of how many teachers we currently have that live outside the county live outside WS County total we do not have that I will say generally speaking last time we checked actually Miss Hall I think you're about to speak to it I think our Inc County residence is close to 70% so it's under 70% 30% out of count about 30% live
061outside so is that is that if we were to graph that over period of years would we show that as show out of County Teachers or teachers who live out outside Williamson County would we show that number increasing staying the same decreasing I don't think we have enough data on that yet with the with the with the change in the tuition so we can't really attribute the growth and teachers taking advantage of this towards whether we have more teachers that are unable to afford to live in Williamson County or not I guess that's really where I'm getting at is that I know that we have difficulty the sheriff's department has difficulty pretty much all City municipalities employees are Al also struggle to live in this County based upon their pay so my question is I'd
062like to understand whether that's a percentage that 70% near 70% of teachers who live in the county whether that number is growing or decreasing over the last three or four years and I would also support turning this into a benefit to where it's a if you're a teacher in the school district you're allowed to bring your children to the district District thank you for that there there are some ways that we could do some approximations with zip codes I know I know your chair and I have had that discussion I will tell you also one one question that we've asked ourselves we haven't quite figured out how to how to get that data is age of of teachers right because I have heard the an anecdotes from experienced teachers I couldn't buy my house now
063right I was able to buy it 20 years ago but I can't now so we're still doing a lot of researching and digging related to some of those items I will tell you one of the focus points that we've talked about publicly repeatedly is making sure that we provide a professional living income for our teachers and I actually spoke to our building level teachers Representatives about that very issue last week so and last question if I might is do we still offer this benefit to bus drivers I know years ago we passed a allowed bus drivers to bring their out of- County bus drivers bus drivers who live outside Williamson County to bring their children into the district for free is that still a benefit that we that particular benefit that was piloted is not
064still there but all our full-time employees who live out of County can send their children to the district based on this reduced tuition rate Mr Brown my question okay all right do we have any further discussion on this topic Mr Golden your recomend approval members let's pass our votes the vote is nine yes Zer no thank you motion passed to approve the family tuition rates thank you oh I'm sorry yeah jump jumping ahead of me next item on the agenda is approval of school fees which is also an annual agenda item Mr Golden go for thank you madam chair annually based on some some State parameters we recommend to you approval of our school fees and I always make sure I point out that the state refers to these as fees in their regulations but
065they really aren't fees they are voluntary payments it's really in essence a fundraiser where we ask parents for for for curricular needs to donate a particular amount that includes the curricular time and also we do have some extracurricular fees as well related to that the state does allow schools to say that paying of those extracurricular fees is a condition to participation but we actually don't do that either we allow students to participate whether or not they pay the quote unquote fees the from a from a change standpoint this year's fees include some increases largely related to us making a decision to increase security at our extracurricular events which means paying for Sheriff's Office staff to to be present at our activities certainly open any questions that you may have related to these do we have
066a motion Mr Welch and a second second Mr Prius okay open the floor Mr goth thank you also on the ual agenda is me objecting to to the fees that we that we charge are our parents for for academics and I got the numbers from from Rachel from this past year and I lost my spot but it's it's in the $900,000 range for $928,000 for the high school and 283,000 for for Middle School I would equate the the classroom Supply fee as largely a request for a donation at the elementary school so that's not really my concern it's the it's the middle and high school fees and they're granted we've we've made great strides in how we communicate this so no longer are we holding we're we're not giving extra credit and we're not holding
067this for a for a grade or anything like that as far as I'm concerned which were which were issues years ago back when I got on the board but I just I just find it if we I find that if we would go to our parents and actually treat this as a fundraiser rather than treat this as teachers asking for for money for their supplies we could we could vastly we raise we raised 10 times this amount from our boosters and our PTO and our and our athletic boosters and if we would just flip this on its head we could raise more money and actually make it a donation rather than charging our families this and calling it voluntary even I know it's not we're not we're not there's no ramifications but it's not it's
068not looked at as voluntary I bet we have a very very large compliance rate with this but I just have a fundamental issue and I think we could do so much better and partner with our parents rather than charging them these these fees for for algebra and chemistry thanks Mr Welch thank you I'm gonna sort of take a little bit different angle on on frustration with the fees and I'm going to tie it back to your comments earlier Mr Golden that here we are with a budget deficit where we're trying to fund our school system somewhere around 42nd to 45th nationally and what the state spends on education per student we're we're at the bottom half of the state and here we are with proposal from the governor to to give nearly twice as much
069money to private schools and the place of a voucher which I will say I'm agnostic on vouchers I I don't care I don't care where you go to school and I'm unop to it but the concept of you know this apples to oranges it's it's a separate but unequal set of systems where one has twice as almost twice as much money has no oversight is allowed to discriminate against kids based upon their their special needs religion ethnicity what have you so I know that's kind of not what this is about and going off a little bit of tangent here but for me it's it's interrelated and it's tied in it's it's a frustration point and I know we didn't take up a resolution tonight but I hope that we can look at this again next
070month and you know we'll we'll have the courage individually to to kind of go on the record with this and say what we say thank you Mitchel thank you madam chair and I kind of like to feel like I become somewhat consistent like Jay has in asking this question so on the fees that are listed as quote required fees can you provide me assurance that students who who are not able to pay these fees are not prohibited from participating in these extracurricular activities yes they are not prohibited and we actually had that specific discussion as our leadership team was reviewing the fee recommendations and Dr Webb I'm going to invite you to speak to that as well if you would question Mr Mitchell absolutely any student or family who can't meet these required fees conversations
071with their coach the school administration they'll ensure that they are still able to participate often times our booster clubs if there's an offset that needs to be fundraised booster clubs help cover that difference if there are several students who can't pay their fees and there's still things that need to be purchased for the athletic program but no student is turned away for participating in our extra curriculars due to an inability to pay a fee and can you assure me that that policy and is communicated out to students and families on an annual basis so we because I mean you're we're talking marching band football cheerleading bowling I mean there's pretty much almost every extracurricular activity that we have from an athletic standpoint or a art standpoint has this required fee to it and I want
072to the term required makes me makes me concerned that we could be having students that are interested in in participating in this but are somewhat fearful of of coming forward asking for assistance embarrassed embarrassed yes I think would be a good way of putting it I could verify that for you it's communication that happens typically from for us with School administration at the beginning of the year when those fees are typically collected but we do have fees that are collected all throughout the year and that is a constant refrain in our communication to School principles my last question is as I'm saying this is athletic fee is per person per Sport and CTE ort can you tell me what CTE ort is that we're charging a $125 a student to participate in Esports are electronic
073G activities I want to use the word games yeah I'm going to use word games too and we're charging $125 a student to participate in that's the cost of participation so those those activities those games that the students play in competition with each other by serving on the Esports team that's what it costs to purchase those materials in order for the students to compete with one another and I will say also if if I'm not mistaken for some of those competitions they actually pay some administrative cost so that whoever's putting on the competition can can meet those expenses whether it's judging referees that kind of thing that's typically what most of those expenses go to but referees and Esports y believe it or not there there's a anytime you hit competition there needs to be
074an Arbiter I will tell you that fair enough fair enough I get that point Thank you thank you for that and Mr Mitchell I do want to specifically mention what you said that it is list that this these documents are listed as voluntary fees and required fees so thank you for that comment so that we have that discussion in detail no further disc Mr Welch thank you I'm sorry for just the last minute jumping in there but also a good moment I think just for us to recognize and thank our pto's that has been alluded to tonight Mr Gold Dr web of of how much they do contribute and give and the generosity of of heart and spirit on across all of our activities whether they're you know sports or band or or other clubs
075our parents are certainly generous and care and we could not do this without them so want to take that opportunity to just say that we appreciate them so very much thank you for that and actually Mr galberth mentioned I think you said 10 times this amount if I'm not mistaken our PTO and boosters donated somewhere around $ 11 million last year and I'm sorry he's up to 13 now okay so it we could not do what we do without our without our parent support so we do very much appreciate that thank you Mr Cash Madam chair I was just kind of calculating here I got three high school students and we're looking at about $400 in fees and AP classes included in that but I've not heard my son complain but I that just grabbed
076a hold of me when I just started really reading this so you know I gota I tend to go along with Jay on this you know I think it's time we we started helping out with this stuff and I know the pto's and everyone fundraisers they those are on the emails every day and they do work and I think we could probably do better with fundraisers thank you we'll take your comments to heart as as we mentioned we are in the budget discussion so we'll have a leadership team discussion about that and what what that might look like and and really drill deeply into that question about what this might mean for our community Mr Brown thank you at the risk of belaboring this even further it made me think as we were talking about
077this that we had a discussion I'm not sure when it was year or 18 months ago about the foundation the Education Foundation that's that's out there that exists as an entity but we I think probably everyone would agree we don't do a lot with it anymore or the or the foundation doesn't do a lot maybe that's not a fair statement but it doesn't appear that a lot is happening with the foundation I just wonder is it's more of an observation than a suggestion but I wonder if that's a vehicle to do some of the things that were that have been referred to that Jay mentioned and Dan and others that if we're really thinking about a way to get get away from the fee schedule the fee model and go to a more donation model
078where it's tax deductible and the way that it is with I presume with most of our PTO donations that would that be a vehicle to do that and then maybe that's also a way to elevate this with corporate community that there's a specific thing that they're giving money towards so it's not just an open-ended donation just a thought thank you for that thought I I do want to speak to it briefly you're right about the foundation from a fundraising perspective it's they got started and actually had a one employee years ago and a large proportion of their of their fundraising was spent on the on the overhead and that's been years we have had some some discussions with those who were still responsible for that corporate entity and some discussions with our business Community about
079is there a way so we're still working on that Mr Gabbert thank you madam chair just wanted I just want to add there's there's never going to be a good time to to get rid of a revenue Source this was added after this was added in the recession because of a budget shortfall and that's when we initiated fees this is before my time here was about 2008 2009 I believe and since then we've had had plenty of opportunity to do it but you never you never see a revenue Source go away and so this is it's just going to it's going to take an effort and I appreciate you saying that you'll look into it because I'm I'm proposing to kind of take a revenue Source away and replace it with a bigger Rue source
080is potentially the answer but and I know this is not the time or and place to figure that out but but we hopefully we can hopefully we can try thanks there's no further discussion Mr Golden do we have your recommendation recommend approval board members cast your votes the vote is seven yes two no thank you and the motion did pass to approve the school fees last item on the agenda is the approval of the Encore summer enrichment program fees thank you madam chair annually our elementary schools host what we call Encore program fees for lack of a better phrase and I'm looking over at Dr or it's a it's fun kind of Camp kind of activities for our students during the during the summer summer we do have the fee recommendation based on our need
081to have you approve any fees this happens to be the exact same dollar amount is last year so I do recommend approval thank you and do we have a motion Mr Welch in a second Mr Beasley thank you we'll open the floor for discussion okay no discussion let's cast our votes the vote is 9 yes Z no thank you and the motion did pass to approve the Encore summer enrichment program fees that was our final item on the agenda thank you so much for an efficient meeting forward the meeting is adjourned