Williamson County Board of Education Meeting - June 17, 2024

001good evening everyone I'd like to welcome you to the Williamson County school board meeting we're going to go ahead and call the meeting to order and we done it there are 11 members present check check okay here we go next item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence and tonight our school board member Jen Aria is going to lead us in both to FL of the United States of America to the repu for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for thank you may be seated okay the first item on our agenda is items of particular public interest and this is the time of the evening where we get to hear from members of the public who have signed up to come and speak with

002us tonight we have 11 individuals and Lydia is it 2 minutes and 45 seconds 2 minutes and 45 seconds okay all right so only cut 15 minutes or 15 seconds off the three minutes so but everybody you can see your time up here on the monitor so just follow along and I will have to give you the cut if we get too far over that two minutes and 45 seconds so I apologize in advance but the first two guests are Bill Petty and Noah Craig and Noah you can just hang out until Mr Petty is done and I'll call the next individual up after good evening I'm Bill Patty I've been here a few times it's nice to see you all tonight you're all looking well and I sat through the laborious Thursday night work

003section I think you know if I was a board member I would just dread those those hours there but a lot work a lot of work is done you guys made make a lot of decisions I appreciate I really do appreciate the time that you that you spend doing that it's it's not easy so I realized that the thing I want to talk about tonight is you know we got an issue U I know it's not on the agenda but the Title Nine and I'm sure everybody's heard today that a preliminary injunction was filed this it's going to put a stop to that for the time being and it includes the state of Tennessee so this was supposed to go into effect August 1st but that's that I think that's substantially changed now if I

004understand correctly I see people nodding I've been accused of not knowing anything about the law and you know I shouldn't be talking about it but so I have be really careful but when I get a nod from an attorney I say okay I must be on the right track so I I want to talk about that a little bit because over the last four or five years we've seen an explosion of transgender and young people and most all all of the medical associations have gone along with it they've gone along with thing called W path which is an which is treatment of CARE program it's been around since 1978 and finally there is a major medical organization that's come out and said no this is wrong and it is the American College of Pediatricians and

005I want to read what they have what they have to say here and first of all I want to make it really clear about whether or not a human being can switch from one sex to another scientifically that is impossible every somatic cell in your body has either XX or XY by chromos chromosomes period at science but this is what they have to say the these are doctors these are research people these are scientists these are people that are treating young people and this is what they say therefore given the recent research and Revelations of a harmful approach advocated by W paath and its followers in the United States we the undersigned call upon the Medical Professional Organization of the United States including the American Academy of Pediatrics the indoctrinator indoctrination the American Psychological Association

006and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent psychology to follow the science and their European professional colleagues and immediately stop the promotion of social affirmation puberty blockers cross- sex hormones and surgeries for children and adolescen who experience distress over their biological sex Mr P instead these organizations should recommend comprehensive evaluations and therapies Mr Petty I'm sorry we have I finish no we okay well you got the point thank you very much thank you thank you for marking my time I appreciate that thank and I do want to pause one second because I neglected to turn over the Florida Mr Golden he did have an announcement he was going to make actually about well thank you madam chair we had actually talked and the an order did come down from the US District Court for the

007from the eastern district of Kentucky that our attorney shared with us we mentioned at the work session that the state of Tennesse and some other states did challenge the proposed regulations from the US Department of Education and that was those regulations that were scheduled to go into effect on August 1st were enjoined by that Court it does apply to Tennessee and our attorneys and we are going to going to read read the detail of that of that order but I do want to mention a couple of lines from it at the in the conclusion the US District Court does say at bottom the department that meaning that the US Department of Education would turn Title 9 on its head by redefining sex to include gender identity but sex and gender gender identity do not mean

008the same thing so as a result the applicable well as a result the proposed regulations are not at this time applicable to us right so we'll continue is your Mone I can't hear very so I don't know that Tim okay so that District Court decision was issued this morning and those proposed Title 9 regulations from the US Department of Education are not currently applicable to us because that District Court did enjoy application of those so we will continue with our existing policy that is in our policy manual related to title n were you guys able to hear Mr Golden no okay so am I correct Tim is this microphone on okay yeah all right I'm gonna say a third now it's on yeah thank you thank you maybe it's not responsive the US District Court

009for the eastern district of Kentucky did make a decision and released it this morning that en jooin the US Department of education's regulations related to Title 9 that were scheduled into effect on August 1st so we are we are currently under our existing title 9 policy which you can find in our handbook and in our board policy manual and as a result of that decision we are not going to be required as of August 1st to to implement those proposed regulations we've talking to our attorneys going to make sure that we that we understand all the details of that and I can't speak for the attorneys with a with a schedule but I did read a piece of that order certainly encourage folks to to go out and read that order thank you Mr Golden

010yes sir remind the audience courtesy yeah yeah thank you yeah yeah Mr Welch makes a good point so this is a business meeting and we do invite members of the public to come and speak at the microphone so if we could reserve comments and call outs that would be really good to allow the speakers to be heard and I know it's we like to clap Etc when we hear things that we agree with but if we could reserve that as well we do want to keep this business meeting moving along okay thank you Mr Welch our next guest is Noah Craig and followed by Genevie payos good evening and thank you board members and other Williamson County leaders my name is Noah cre I'm here independently representing my family and thank you for the announcement

011of regarding the title 9 issue very pleased to hear that again I represent my family I have four kids in the Williamson County School System three girls and a boy across three different schools want toana Grove grassland middle and then my oldest going into Franklin High so I do appreciate your hard work as a school board on on all the issues involved and want to express my appreciation regarding title N9 changes this is something of course that there's been a recent decision on and I appreciate Dr Golden's update on that but of course because of the cultural forces I'm sure this is going to be an issue going forward as well and I just want to express my personal opinion on this apart from all the legal aspects the cultural forces and so forth I

012think that this thing to me as a father really boils down to having schools where children can feel safe and then also feel Fair especially in sports programs that this touches directly on you know there there's a there's a lot of things that work politically I don't know how this became a political issue but I'm sure there's a lot of pressure on our school board to kind of try to make progress on this to to avoid being labeled this or that maybe hateful or even on the wrong side of History I'm after speaking a platform like this tonight I fully expect also to be labeled some kind of extremist or bigot possibly who cares to me again this boils down as a father for do I feel safe to send my girls to a school

013where where there may be changes in the current Title 9 program or regulations and then also into sports program where they're it may not be fair for them going forward so I appreciate your consideration on these issues and thank you for giving the opportunity for for members of the of the county to come speak tonight thank you thank you next we have Genevie phos followed by Izzy Rose and thank you for holding your applause was pleasant thank you hi my name is geneveve I have a daughter that attends Public High School in Williamson County and I'm here for a very simple reason today which you guys talked about and it's it's adding a little bit of confusion to me honestly with the with the recent ruling but the simple reason I am here is biological

014boys do not belong in locker rooms bathrooms and on the sports field with females period it's very simple this used to be common sense I don't even I can't even honestly believe that I have to come up here and say that because I want to be able to send my daughter to school and know that she's going to go in the bathroom I don't have to worry about it and for everybody who says oh it's all safe it's not a big deal to allow boys in girls rooms all you have to do is look at ladden County and look at what happened to the female student there it's it's not a safe a good thing to do so now there seems again this confusion over the policy so the attorney for the school board said

015that even with the changes in Title 9 that it would not affect Sports bathroom locker room and kids speeches but attorney generals throughout the country including Tennessee disagree with that so what I was coming here to ask for which I think we're going to need anyway is either a resolution or a policy I'm honestly not sure which is needed just stating that you can only only students can only go into the bathroom locker room and play on a sports team that aligns with their biological sex simple easy in common sense and I'm confident that is what the majority of Williamston County parents and citizens want so that's it thank you so much thank you next we have Izzy Rose followed by grey Rose hello again my name is Izzy Rose and I was here at

016this Podium about 2 months ago discussing the many reasons why our WCS Arts teachers deserve a raise the last time I was here you guys made it seem like you were willing to talk through this and make a change but that was simply not the case for no changes were made there was some hopeful chatter that this could get addressed but I realized that has not yet happened the intentions of saying you are going to do something and actually doing it are two different things there are still major differences in the pay that our own Arts teachers make when compared to other paid after school positions I was recently in a Middle School production that involved my rehearsal time alone being close to 100 hours the Fine Arts teachers that made it happen put in

017so much more time than me nearly 400 hours to be exact I noticed that Mr Wimberly attended a recent High School thespian club fundraiser just this past weekend he was talking to some of the Fine Arts teachers I am grateful that he took the time to speak with them and make these connections these are professional teachers and they deserve professional pay if you don't pay them enough for their hard work you risk losing such a dedicated teachers again why does the leader of my preferred after school activity make so much less than any other after school program why do the art teachers continue to get paid so much less than the coaches for their after school time still the Arts teachers get a set amount that does not increase year after year coaches and assistant

018coaches get an amount that does increase year after year because it is a percentage of their salary instead of a set stipended I want to make it clear that coaches do not deserve to be paid less but the Fine Arts teachers deserve to be paid more this is inadequate and must be addressed by you our school board members once again our district vision statement says WCS will provide a supportive environment where students are challenged to pursue excellence in academics Athletics and the Arts we have the excellent teachers and staff to inspire us but please let's make sure the leaders of my preferred after school activities are paid in the same way that coaches are paid why offer them anything less I understand that this needs to be negotiated with the wcea we'll get that meeting

019on the calendar because it needs to happen WCS knows better and needs to do better Williamson County you get what you pay for and it is simply unacceptable that we have had to stand up for this again and this is my second time speaking here about the same topic and I will continue to return until these changes are made I'm willing to do whatever it takes if that means speaking at every board meeting from here on out so be it hopefully I will not have to see you guys again in 2 months and if I do it will be on a different subject thank you for any attempt you can make to rectify this discrepancy and pay thank you next we have grey Rose followed by Spencer List hello I'm gry Rose and I was

020here two months ago to talk about the unequal pay for the Arts teachers that was 2 months ago and nothing has changed these including kind and loving teachers deserve the same amount as money as Sports coaches I encourage you to do something about this issue before we lose great teachers if we are going to do something we have to do it now because we don't want to lose great art teachers to this unequal pay also as a kid I am not like like weirded out by other gender kids being in the bathroom with me so if I'm not weirded out I feel like the parents shouldn't be weirded out thank you thank you next we have Spencer List followed by Rita Rockman hi everybody thank you for your time I'm a recent graduate of Williamson

021County high schools and I just wanted to talk about Title 9 for a second I'm sure we all understand that the new expansions under Title 9 help to ensure the protection of children from sexual harassment but we're forgetting but what we're forgetting is that this is not only protecting the students but the countless number of lgbtq plus teachers within our district teachers that put so much effort into providing a quality education for us these teachers do not deserve to be subjected to harassment based on stereotypes sexual orientation or gender identity let's not forget that the purpose of this law is to protect our children and friends especially female students from sexual assault regardless of what you feel about lgbtq plus people it is reprehensible to reject such a large sum lump sum of federal funding

022with the express intent of denying protections to human beings nobody deserves to be harassed belittled or distracted from their purpose in the school building thank you for your time thank you next we have Rita Rockman followed by Heather Thomas hello the WCS bullying numbers are consistent with last year too many the data shows that only 243 racial bullying cases were verified out of 1,111 reported bullying incidents this past school year according to pacer.org only 20% of bullying cases are even reported that means our actual bullying numbers are higher many students of color have expressed to us they don't feel the need to report anything because of the perception that nothing will be done and now we have a documentary reality that many of their reports will be left unresolved we've had families report how a

023teacher became included in a bullying issue rather than standing as a trusted adult are there trainings that staff will complete as trusted adults to help victims WCS has worked on fair and consistent consequences by adjusting the code of conduct we are happy with that review but recognized interpretation has varied from school to school we can't continue to do the same thing and expect a different result so I asked before the students return what measures are we taking to change this data point and decrease racial bullying in WCS how do we let students know that they're valued and listened to a few suggestions are Incorporated in modules to encourage students to be upstanders instead of bystanders can modeling inclusive behaviors be an answer are there supports for students who are bullied regularly are there any efforts

024to monitor the hotpots where most of these incidents take place which lack adult supervision these are just a few of the anti-bullying strategies that could be incorporated while many of you school board members won't be returning in the fall I want to express our thanks to you for your service and for those trying to get your jobs we ask them to continue to help create environments that encourage student safety and support for every student thank you thank you next we have Heather Thomas followed by Jenny caparos I'm a will Co resident my children are my myself attended Williamson County schools and my mother worked as an elementary teacher for 30 plus years I'm asking you to please rely on facts and not miss information fact being trans is not a choice nor anything anyone could

025possibly be indoctrinated into or any parent would desire for their children the fact is there are three issues that many times get intermingled one is sex sex is the parts that you were born with at Birth two is gender the way that you feel inside for instance I was born female and I identify as a woman three for some people biologically things simply do not match one another these people are non-binary and transgender trans kids are not a threat to anyone filed they're filled with anxiety particularly in a restroom sta statistically trans folks are much higher risk of being bullied and physically abused than their peers these kids have much higher bladder and kidney issues because many of them are too afraid to use the restroom and hold it all day day my own son

026did this and now has bladder problems at the age of 25 who cares who's in the stall next to you in many other parts of the world restrooms are gender neutral access to restrooms and sports are supported with perfectly valid factual information in sports if children cannot have not gone through puberty or have already transitioned with hormones for over a year they do not have an advantage in athletics other than perhaps their higher weight which plenty of girls possess those characteristics I'm going to quote my moer Brentwood High School athletic Department's mission statement to create a positive educational environment that changes students to improve team building prepare for lifelong learning teach technique but also Foster relationships the value of work work ethic fairness discipline self-motivation goal setting that will stick with them for a lifetime

02712 years ago our family went through the hardest Time Of Our Lives the sole reason was because our child was fix physically sexually and emotionally abused at school by countless bullies instead of holding them responsible my child was the one who suffered the qu consequences of their behavior his academic performance crashed his confidence was killed his mental health was and still is filled with PTSD and Trauma my child and others like him should have had the ability to be cared for treated kindly and with empathy for what they were going through is confusing and difficult enough without external factors finally had the administration of my children's Middle School treated Sports the privilege and a responsibility of representing his school those kids would have been suspended for games gone to a different school and their parents

028would have been alerted when they were that they were bullying my child would have had a continued to have a sports that he loved to be able to have being a goal oriented competitor that he was once had he been taken care of and treated safely remember your mission as Educators is not about winning in scholarships but about all children thank you thank you next we have Jenny caparos followed by Josh Scott good evening my name is Jenny caparos and I live in Brentwood with my husband and four children I'm standing here today to speak about possible changes to Title 9 and how that will affect Williamson County schools and more specifically how that will affect girl Sports in Williamson County it is my belief these changes will harm our girls and make things less

029equal on the fields and in the locker rooms here are some points to ponder number one these changes in Title 9 violate the right to bodily privacy students have a constitutional right not to be seen undressed by students of the opposite sex number two male athletes have clear biological advantages over female athletes such as taller body height more lean body mass more muscle mass greater M muscle strength larger hearts and lungs number three allowing males to compete with females is not safe last school year in Massachusetts female field hockey player suffered significant facial and dental injuries resulting in hospital hospitalization when hit in the face by a male playing on the opposing team in North Carolina a female volleyball player suffered head and neck injuries in a long-term concussion after being spiked in the head

030by a male playing on the opposing team these are just two of many examples ironically today is 4 years to the day that my husband and I moved our family to Tennessee we left in part because our once familyfriendly suburb of Chicago had become a cesspool of woke ideology that was seeping into public schools I'm hoping and praying the same thing does not happen here I'm standing here today fighting for right over wrong truth over lies science over fiction and good over evil what are you here for thank you for your time thank you next we have Josh Scott followed by Sarah Landing hey thanks for letting me be here my name is Josh Scott I'm the lead pastor of Grace Point Church in Nashville and I'm here speaking because whatever happens with title N9

031is going to impact students who are part of our faith community and it matters to us one of the things I've become convinced of in my life is that the one thing we all share in common maybe besides you know needing air the other thing we share in common is we all really want to belong it is built and woven into to us as a species to want to belong to want to have safety to want to feel like we have a community we want to take up the space that God made us to take up we want to Bear God's image in the way God created us to Bear God's image and that is all trans kids are asking for to take up the space God made them to take up in the world

032and to Bear God's image in the way God created them to Bear God's image in the world thank you thank you our final speaker is Sarah Landing this is a bit of a shift U my name is Sarah landing and I'm a resident of Williamson County missa pria's District to be exact and I'm a parent and a teacher thanks in Williamson County Schools I like to call this the sweet Trifecta I'm actually here tonight to say thank you to all of you to members of the school board and to our central office employees who have done so much work on the 2425 budget first and foremost I appreciate you prioritizing the 6% across the board raise I fully believe that all WCS employees deserve that so thank you for preserving that in this new budget

033at the same time I will say that I am a bit disappointed albeit not surprised that the majority of the work work and concessions on the budget Gap were made by Williamson County Schools I am guessing that you all made the proposed changes to the budget because like me you suspected that the commission would not ultimately fund anything over the original allotted amount I am grateful to Mayor Anderson for proposing for giving the $1.14 million loan payment to help with the budget Gap but I am disheartened that the County Commission wasn't willing to do more on their end I am still concerned about the cuts that have been made but still I believe that you all did the best that you could with what you had to work with what I really want to say

034to you and to our community as a whole is this was and is about more than just a raise it seems to me that the raise is likely to happen but I am still here tonight because for me this is about value at the end of the day we spend our time and our finances on the things that we value every commissioner and Schoolboard candidate I've spoken with has assured me they value our schools and our teachers but words without action is meaningless but back to you if there is one thing I know it is that public service whether it's working directly in public education serving on a local school board or even holding a commission seat it is often thankless we seem to be the targets of constant criticism some of which can be

035rather nasty my principal recently reminded me of Teddy Roosevelt's man in the arena metaphor he begins with it is not the critic who counts the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly who hirs who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming but who does actually strive to do the Deeds who knows great enthusiasms the great devotions who spins himself in a worthy cause who at the best knows in the end the Triumph of high achievement and who at the worst if he fails fails while Dearing greatly we all have plenty of critics but it is you and I and my colleagues who are actually in the arena fighting for public education

036every day none of us is perfect but we are fighting for a worthy cause so thankful for so thank you for all you do it is my hope that one day this County will also show that it values the work thank you thank you and thank you to everyone for coming tonight and thank you so much for your polite holding of Applause that was really Pleasant to be able to hear everybody fully and completely and I do want to acknowledge too before I move on deputies Mark Gorman and Phil hunt thank you both so much for being here with us tonight this concludes our public comment section of the agenda so thank you guys so much for being here our next item on the agenda is the superintendent contract review and extension this is an

037annual agenda item that must be addressed at the beginning of our agenda so we will start here and I'm going to open the floor right well actually I'm going to open the floor for a motion Mr Walch thank you do we have a second Mr Brown thank you we'll now open the floor for some comment and discussion if necessary okay looks like no comment oh miss Clemens go ahead thank you madam chair I know that we had talked about the Sumit the work session and I would there's a couple things that I'd like to see on this that are not on here one thing is the current salary is it still not it's just real light so if you want to lean forward into it get really close up here there's a couple things I'd

038like to see on this on the contract I'd like to see the current salary because we are way off about I think $60,000 off and I I did I realized this was coming right up after the comment so I was trying to get this together but it looks like we've had five addendums added to this and to me I think there's something that's important about having someone get close to their contract versus just keep pushing it down the road so these are some areas where I'd like to see this changed on in on this but especially the current salary I feel like needs to be on there okay are you making comments or did you want to propose a revision or Amendment to the I would be open to an amendment for that if anybody

039would be interested I just I thought there would be more conversation on this before it went forward so I jumped in got to see if there's any other comments Mr de brown thank you m CH Jason it might be helpful to give context to the the period of time in which these addendums and extensions have been done and maybe that would help illustrate a little more about why we're doing this tonight the way we're doing it and then maybe that would inform you know further discussion sure so when when the school board first made the offer to me a little bit over five years ago the draft contract included a four-year a four-year ter which is actually the max that the state allows as part of that it had a maximum 2ear buyout if if

040the board unilaterally terminated my contract without cause we're struggling again there's something about the microphones tonight yeah and maybe continue to project our voice the entire time while we're speaking the contract included the maximum four years that the state allowed for a superintendent's contract with a provision for a two-year maximum buyout in the event the school board unilaterally terminated my contract without cause part of the discussion we had was not through the contract but through the discussion of our annual agenda having my evaluation which is required by state law and also potentially the discussion of extending that contract at the end of each year from the from a three-year window to a four-year window to this point we've done it I've had some thoughts here and there mixed thoughts about that from year to year

041wondering what's the appropriate time as we sit here today if you all make that offer to extend it I will accept that no other provision would change based on what's currently on the on the floor so that would be that window of time with of course that potential two-year buyout so nothing would change there if this passed on the pay side I don't remember the exact numbers but I think my pay started at $279 $9,000 and there's a provision in my contract that includes that I would get a pay raise that other staff members got and actually in preparation for the discussion about our budget I had actually printed this out in I started in 2019 2020 we did not get a pay raise and some of our teachers did get a role based on

042their experience but no one else got a pay increase that year in 2021 we did a 4% pay increase on July 1st and then and then effective January 31st of 2022 we did a 3% increase based on based on available funds largely through sales tax I don't know if you all remember some of that some of that detail at the time and then in 2023 we did a 2% for staff that included me but the teacher chart had major increases along with a classified chart mooved moved on as well I take that back there was also one a dollar per hour increase for for for our hourly staff back in January of 22 as well and then last year we did a 6% pay increase and so as a result of that I have gotten

043those pay increases the 0% the 4% then 3% halfway the school through through the 2122 school year and then the 2% and 23 and then the 6% % just last year thank you Mr Golden Mr Brown did that conclude your comments okay Mr gal thank you madam chair so Jason I know we talked about that I just wanted to I guess we're we've got the annual agenda coming up and we have we've talked a little bit about the timing of of when these happen so would you and it's it's a lot easier to talk about these this kind of in advance of of us kind of bringing this up on the on the annual agenda but if haven't reflected on it would would you be open to to to kind of changing the annual agenda

044to to do in this increase every two years I've always felt like it's a little it's a little weird like I mean even just related to coaching salaries and coaching hires to to do an extension every year always just seems seems a little odd to me it's kind of the only kind of a really a unique situation of Course Superintendent's kind of a unique position reporting to an elected board but just would you be would you be open to that have you just yes I would be open to that tonight I am asking for that one-year extension with the discussion later on about doing it every two years and you we've we've had some discussions about what does it mean for there to be a one-year contract extension in any particular year if if if

045if it if a board votes not to extend the contract and there's three years on a contract I'd be asking questions about individual board members what does that mean and so especially with my leadership of our team and the work we do in the community I think it's important for that for when when it comes before the board for you all to make it clear your your view of it and so as we sit here tonight I do think for our team the best thing is to approve that but we do meet we do speak annually about the annual agenda and I think there may be some wisdom in discussing that long term that's fair and just for the I'm not I'm not saying we don't I'm I'm going to vote for the extension today

046I wasn't I wasn't trying to make that on the agenda tonight but just I wanted to kind of think for think about it for the future thanks thank you Mr Cash thank you madam chair I'm not sure if this is where we're talking about the actual superintendent evaluation or this is the contract I'll save mine for later thank you okay Mr HW thank you madam chair one thing I would say about the extension and the fact that doesn't seem typical maybe in in other lines of business is that it is very typical for superintendents and that's what we need to keep in mind is that we are in one of over a 100 districts in the state and we are a very desirable district with an award-winning superintendent and I recall that the salary was

047bumped up as a result of some of that those efforts to attract our Superintendent at the time so any tweak that dials back the contract or pulls back in any way is a concern to the district and may have a concerning effect on the assistant superintendant or the teachers or the other staff in the district so the commitment to the superintendent is stated by extending it a year in accordance with a very positive evaluation as well but I think it is like that with it's a vote of confidence but I think this the more tangible part is that buyout I mean that's the executable part of the contract anyhow but that extension of a year is really a message to the district and to the people that we serve that we have faith in the

048leadership here and we want to have some continuity and peace of mind that will continue thank you Mr Hall Mr Brown thank you madam chair I just had one more thought about the salary based on Miss clemens's comments earlier I mean it's fully reasonable to be transparent about what your salary is I mean that's I don't think anyone objects to that is it is it something that we could consider just stating tonight what the new salary would be based on this going forward year get that get that on record versus making that part of the actual contract addendum itself I'm just storing that out for discussion if I'm not mistaken Miss farmer my salary currently is 329,000 so that's that's before the 6% raise that's pending or that's the current salary that's right okay so

049the new salary would be roughly 350 340 something probably 3 348 348 okay thank you board members for discussion do we have any further discussion before we move to a vote okay we are ready to proceed with our votes the vote is 10 yes one no okay thank you motion did pass to extend Mr Gold's contract for an additional year next item on the agenda is to approve our agenda do we have a motion thank you Mr Welch and a second Mr Wimberly thank you we'll open the floor for any discussion about the agenda itself no discussion we can move to our votes the vote is 11 yes Zer no thank you motion did pass to approve the agenda but Mr Cash yes okay okay gotcha can I like to clarify that and change that

050okay so Mr Cash is going on record to state that he intended to click no on the item number three contract review and extension can we have that reflected in the minutes ma'am thank you okay thank you thank you Mr Cash that's updated to be reflected in a minute thank you madam chair okay next item on the agenda is the approval of the consent agenda do we have a motion Mr Haw thank you and a thank you Miss Clemens for a second we'll open the floor for discussion on the consent agenda okay no discussion we'll move to vote the vote is 11 yes Zer no thank you motion was approved for the consent to approve the consent agenda approval of the May 20th 2024 School board meeting minutes was one item on the consent agenda

051approval of the E plan applications for fiscal year 2025 to include the esa grants idea Part B idea preschool and the Carl Perkins and third item on the consent agenda was recommendation for field trip fee requests next item on our agenda is the communications to the board we'll start with Mr golden thank you madam chair and thank you board members just as a quick reminder there's actually a Tennessee state law that requires a superintendent's contract to be the first thing on the agenda that's why it was there feels a bit awkward just because of the structure I did want to mention a couple of items related to some of the public comment that you all received first I'm I'm disappointed a couple of our students left they've mentioned pay for for their Arts teachers want

052to give you a reminder we've talked about this we started going through the process a little bit after our budget year started this year to start gathering information in conjunction with Williamson County Education Association through our collaborative conferencing responsibilities to start gathering information on our arts and Athletics teachers to prepare for the possibility of making some some changes for next year so it's encouraging to hear that our students have heard about some of some of that work they may not know that they heard about that work through US initiating that process but I very much appreciate those especially those middle schoolers coming and talking about the value they receive reive from their Arts teachers for for everyone else who spoke I noticed a theme and it's a theme that we've shared safety student safety we

053know and we are committed to all our students being safe not just physically safe but also have a sense of safety on a daily basis and it's a work in progress we talked a little bit you madam chair you asked me about that District Court decision that came down earlier today that addressed some of the procedures that we spoke about at our work session and what we anticipated might be coming but no matter what happens with those discussions with those court cases with what happens at the legislature I want our folks to know that our commitment is that student safety I appreciate the comments given us some specific some specific thoughts about how to improve that student safety our team is Con constantly working on that I encourage folks to go back and look at

054the discussion we had at our work session where we shared that data we know that sharing that data publicly is important we know that letting our students know on the front end of every school year about the expectations we have is important and we know that following up on that is important we're going to continue to talk with our students continue to talk with our parents about that and find ways to implement improvements in in those in in in in how we protect against create a culture that does not allow and respond to bullying behaviors it's a work in progress I do want to specifically mention one particular piece of data that we talked about at the work session on Thursday night we have the we have seen that the majority of those issues happen

055in Middle School and that's been a focus point you may remember that Dr web and I spoke to that directly that doesn't mean it doesn't happen everywhere else we actually gave you the numbers for that as well so community members students graduates I encourage you to continue to talk about it continue to talk and come to us and share your experiences not just here at this public meeting but in onetoone conversations give us your thoughts you know we set a standard this year and it was reflected in a lot of the goals that I had to increase parent involvement in the decision-making process we recognize that some of our decisions might slow down because we're getting parents involved earlier on in those processes as an example we did it with with with our with our

056bus plan one of the goals that we had we did it with our strategic plan and we're going to continue to do that so in especially in the context of student safety we encourage you all to continue that as well well because it's going to be a focus of ours you all may remember that about a month ago we had an art celebration tomorrow is our athletic celebration our annual our annual celebration it's it's our will co I know many of you board members attended the art celebration certainly encourage you to attend the will cod that are scheduled for tomorrow night as well final item I want to mention we are halfway through a little bit more than halfway through now our summer school prr program we have about 1,600 students in our summer school

057program the vast majority of them those, 1600 students all but 22 of them are attending because they want to because they wanted they want to get that additional instruction 22 of those are third graders who took teap for the first time and scored at a particular level where as a condition of them advancing to fourth grade they needed to take the summer school program and do tutoring the next year there's another group who actually had a choice of doing tutoring or or the summer school program to advance the fourth grade but as I mentioned on Thursday our legislature actually made a change this year after hearing from so many of us that ultimately if students do elect through their parents to choose those interventions during the summer they can advance to fourth grade and even

058as fourth graders can advance to fifth grade without having to be retained based on their teap scores one of the key pieces that we shared with our legislators of over the last couple of years is our intervention structure you guys have heard these these terms we give tier one instruction and we give tier two and tier three instruction based on how our screeners identify that extra help a student needs we've done tutoring for years that's improved our summer school program is actually a really good program students are getting that additional instruction during the month of June so as Dr Allen spoke to on Thursday night they might have less summer slide because they are getting good instruction during the summer so I'm encouraged about where we are with our state legisl legislators they are listening

059to us that's one example we had other examples through the past legislative session it might not be on the timetable that we want every time but our legisl is listening to us next month we don't have a board meeting scheduled but this coming Thursday is the county commission's final Bo vote on our budget and we have some items on this agenda related to that so with that Corey Mason here our assistant director for communications is here to speak about our celebrations that's right good morning or good evening I should say we have an exciting round of student and staff spotlights this evening we are going to begin some of you may recall it last month's board meeting Miss bird song hinted that we have a number of perfect ACT students that we want to recognize

060well we have more than a few we have 27 students who have earned that honor and we're going to recognize them tonight we're going to begin with Brentwood High School and JC zarnik she earned a perfect 36 on her act Cole Hawkins did as well Rachel HW Prav sathu Joy shuran Colin youngberg Dennis De Janeiro and Andrew Gan all got that perfect ACT score as Centennial High Natalie blank and Ryan Hyler also earned the perfect ACT Franklin High School had Ava Bayer Judy Sue finnean sailor and Gabriel palakonda who got the perfect ACT at Independence Payton Brandon Elliot Lindsay and Carter Marshall and out east east at Nolensville high school we have Benjamin hwit Samuel Samuel McCarthy and Bryce Russell and Emily Cheryl at Ravenwood high school we have Oli Amon Aiden Young Sonia kolani

061and pry patil and at Summit High School Caroline Constantine and Nathan Hoffman we recently had the Middle School track and field state championships and we had several students who walked away with gold one of them being Liv Garrett from grassland Middle School she won the girls 100 meter hurdles Liv was also part of the track team that won the 4x400 meter relay at grassland Middle School their coach Mark Dickinson at Spring Station Middle School Laura Li Wht got the 1600 meter run state championship her coach Elizabeth yansy and Savannah hack from Paige Middle School won the girls long jump her coach Sean Carter at the high school level the springling Championships were held at the end of the school year and our students did did phenomenal brenwood came away with a lot of trophies you

062see some of them there in that photo we're going to begin with the brenwood boys track team because they won the overall team ranking in class 3A Hudson Elaine who was on that track team he won not only the 400 meter dash state championship also the 200 meter dash Championship Canon ker won the competition in P Vault and decathlon the team of Jackson white Sam boner Joseph vaugh and Hudson Elaine got the 4x200 meter relay and Jackson white Sam boner Cameron high and Hudson Elaine came away with the 4x400 meter relay Daisy oatsvall from brenwood high school she won the high jump state championship and Lydia Cromwell won the 3200 meter run and last but not for track at brenwood high school Rachel HW Lauren banovac Elise truell and Leah banovac came away with the

063state championship for the 4X 800 meter relay all of those students from brenwood high school their coaches Steve Brock and Michelle Dodie Let's Talk Tennis the girls tennis team at brenwood high school they came away with the state championship for the team tennis and they are made up of Ellen Evelyn Risner Maya Bell Elmsley Mir Vivy hudston and Audrey U but not to be outdone the boys tennis team at brenwood high school they had their own state championship they are made up of Steven Smith Evan lie Drew Miller Austin Victory and Andy Gan the duo of Drew Miller and Steven Smith came away with the championship for boys doubles at brenwood high school and Evelyn Risner won the girls singles state championship ship from brenwood high they are all coached by Kristen young at Fairview

064High School going back to track the team of Reese luron Andy luron Lauren Sloan and Lela curtain work together to win the 4X 800 meter relay they are coached by Corey Phillips and Chris Smith Claire stal at Owensville high school she just keeps winning year after year after year she has has more trophies to add to her case she won the girls 800 meter run and the 1600 meter run she is coached by Kyle Manderfield and from Ravenwood High School Donovan star won both the boys high jump and the 100 meter dash in class 3A he is coached by Pete Mueller so we started off with academics then Athletics and we're going to finish with the Arts because we have two Educators in our staff spotlights who were named CMA Foundation m music teachers of

065Excellence the first one being Michael Holland you see him here he's the band director at Franklin High School and joining him is Evan Burton the band director at Paige Middle School congratulations to all of this month's student and staff Spotlight Award winners thank you so much lots to celebrate at the end of this year Mr Golden any other comments no ma'am that is my report okay super thank you so much NE next item on the agenda is the board chair report and the only thing I will Echo from our work session is that this is our final meeting of the summer but we do have one more set of board meetings work session and board meeting in August with this current sitting board and then in September your new board members will be sworn in

066so definitely show up for the August meeting so we can have our final meeting together okay next on the agenda is new business first item under new business is evalu ation of the superintendent which is an annual agenda item do we have a motion thank you Mr Wimber a second by Mr Welch okay we'll open the floor for discussion Mr Welch I think just repeat what I said last or not last night but at the work session I think when you look at the totality of the review of the scores and where it came in as as a board it was again exceeds expectations of the job and I think it's fair to say the expectations of this particular job of superintendent Williamson County Schools is high it's it's higher than it would be at

067at nearly any other District so for myself at least just want to appreciate the hard work that you've done again and look forward to having you continue to lead our district thank you thank you Mr Welch Mr Cash thank you madam chair you know we had a great work session Thursday night it was a lot of dialogue a lot of lot of discussions and I'm the superintendent evaluation I have I have never been real happy about this evaluation this type of evaluation and I've made that plain and I think some of the other board members had concern about that the waiting 80% just on the Strategic plan and whatnot 20% on everything else I think there there can be a lot a lot of work done on this to help out and then I just

068I just wanted to say that I feel like superintendent golden has done a good job and everything but I just and I've talked to you about this before I just feel like some decisions need to be made a little bit faster as far as school issues go and I'm not going to go into detail you already know all that and that is why I said no on the extension this time around but overall I I thank the staff the teachers the principls and everyone for their dedication to the students and the hard work that's been done this year thank you thank you Mr Cash Mr Cleveland yes thank you it's been a tough year and for superintendent you know people need to realize he answers to 12 board members he's got a staff that he's

069got to run he's got to answer to the County Commission or not too but work with the County Commission he's got to constituents you know the people and work with the students so it's a job I don't think I'll ever want I think being on the school board's a lot easier but Mr Golden does check all the boxes to be an exceptional superintendent and he goes beyond those expectations also and I just want to reiterate again and congratulations that he did get recognized for being the as a mid-cumberland superintendent of the year so I congratulate you again on that thank you thank you Miss Cleveland Mr HW thank you madam chair I was waiting to see if Mr Wimberly was going to speak but since he's not I'll reiterate something that he pointed out on

070Thursday I'm not complaining mind you oh but of the of the different elements and the opportunities to check the boxes I believe if my math is right and I think this is what you were getting at that out of 99 elements 90 of them were graded collectively as meets or exceeds expectations and I thought that was really good I also want to give kudos to my fellow board members for some really thoughtful comments I think this is one of the better Collective evaluations I've seen where it was apparent that everybody put a lot of thought into it and Mr GTH I'll I'll give you credit for putting into words something I wish i' had said too where I really admire the ethic leadership of Mr Gum I think that we have a very straight shooter

071as a superintendent and I think that your relations with the various stakeholders in the community is very well reflected in the comments and the evaluations but the diplomacy and the courtesy that you extend to board members County Commissioners all of our various stakeholders in the community is very commendable and it's it's great to see this evaluation reflect that thank you Mr Hall Mr Brown thank you madam chair I was going to also say something about the comments and really it was kind of keyed off of something you said Jason at the work session that you I think I'm paraphrasing but you pay more attention to the comments than you actually to the scores yes so in light of that I guess I'm putting you on on the spot a little bit but maybe give us

072your reaction to the comments you know maybe in a general sense and are there some that you wanted to key in on I think it'd be beneficial for us to year kind of have two-way feedback here well and for the public to benefit from your thoughts about the evaluation too sure so number I'll do briefly related to The Numbers it's on a five-point scale and you know meeting expectations is a three so so that's part of the reason I you know I don't I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the scores I pay attention to the comments and I pay a lot of attention to the individual discussions that we have on a regular basis over over the course of the year as I don't know I I feel like this is human

073nature but maybe it's just me and some blank segment of the population I focus on the on the opportunities as opposed to the praise so when I hear something related to communication especially I look back and say can I do a better job of communicating with you that's that's a that's a big one for me you all can only make decisions in a public setting you all can only make decisions as a body and so for me it's a personal challenge to communicate with you as much as possible and I feel like I've got room to grow there and so if I hear something that know for example well the decision wasn't made quick enough I think about communicating the processes we go through to make sure that you understand where we are on issues

074like that so I feel like I can do a better job communicating with you as individuals I suspect as long as I'm superintendent I'm going to feel that way and I I I know and am convinced that this is an excellent board we talk about our Student Success regularly and we know why we're here we know why so many people moved into this community and it's about it's about our Student Success success is tenuous so that's on my mind when I see opportunities to grow just that little 1% I want to do that I do worry about those items that tend to be in conflict with each other from time to time trying to move quickly versus making sure all our stakeholders are involved involved in the decisions and so that's a constant Challenge and

075so one commitment that I have internally based on the comments that I've heard from you all this year is I have I have made a commitment to myself that I'm going to share with you as individuals more give you one recent example I talked to each one of you individually about budget issues last week talk to you somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes each probably right and there's 11 of you it's exhausting but it was worth the conversations and so I'm I'm going to make sure that I do that more often regardless of the issue I appreciate that and I just echoing something Sheila said about having so many different sets of stakeholders it's hard to manage that and so you know I certainly appreciate the job you've done and the way you hand the

076way you handle yourself with integrity and in the way you're willing to be honest about the areas for improvement that we all can we all have so thank you okay if we do not have any further discussion we can move to a vote but welcome any last minute comments from you Mr Golden can I recommend approval on you can you can recommend approval all right board members let's cast our votes the vote is 11 yes Zer no thank you motion did pass to approve the evaluation of superintendent Mr Golden next item on the agenda is the approval of the 20242 revised budget Mr golden thank you madam chair I gave you some detail at the work session and of course in those individual conversations I mentioned just a second ago we started the budget year

077knowing that absent help from the County Commission we could not actually do a 6% raise we did get a little bit of help a little bit in the great scheme of things in the aggregate but it's over a million dollars from the county our proposal to you is to find a way to use every tool that we had available to find a way to get a pay increase for our faculty and staff without a property tax increase and we did find that way and we presented that to you that's what's before you in this document and it and it uses some help from the County Commission which is item one above moving High School Chromebooks and and technology from our operat our operating budget to contingent Capital that's number two number three and four actually

078we made a commitment to the County Commission that we would have a net zero Staffing increase in our budget compared to last year we project a moderate student increase of 0.49% this year again that's projections so you can see in paragraphs three and four the proposal to give a net zero and then finally to reduce the request amount in this budget for science textbooks knowing that if the expense actually exceeds that going back to the County Commission to to to to to to fund that through our fund balance I want to mention a couple of key items related to budget that we talked about repeatedly both at this level and at the County commission level number one because of how we budget and how the county budgets there are funds aail available it's just a

079question of accessing them and how we can access them under the state rules we have to start our budget with the 3% undesignated fund balance and on the property tax level we budget at 92% of property tax receipts so the money that is not spent in a particular budget year rolls to help fund the next year's budget so every time we do something like this that issue becomes just a little bit tighter so the next year is just that much more difficult but I don't know that's a bad thing when we're talking about tax money being conservative with with our with our tax funds second that I want to mention is our board and our commission has been conservative in our spending even in an environment where the state puts that additional burden on Williamson

080County more so or very close to the same as as the as the highest burdens in the State because of the structure of the how the state funds us we have what's called a fiscal capacity indicator where where if it is to be it is up to us often with our budget even through that from 2005 to today just under 20 years the Williamson County property tax rate has dropped from $284 for every $100 of value to a188 for every $100 value in the last 19 years the property tax rate has dropped by 96 C I'm not going to get into the details of how they're calculated I invite you to look at your tax bill to figure out how they do that math but I'm proud to live in an environment where where where

081we can be conservative and still find ways to succeed and so thank you guys for your work I do I am going to recommend approval but there may be some discussion yeah okay well thank you for that precursor we do need to go ahead and get a motion to put this on the floor so Mr Wimberly thank you and we have a second thank you Mr Brown looks like Miss Pria would like to offer some comments thank you I just wanted to say I'm going to vote to support this but as was mentioned in the comments earlier the public comments I just I am a little bit frustrated with the fact that we're going to have to kick a lot of things down down the road a bit Kick the Can down the road and

082pull from our own contingent contingency Capital funds and our fund balance for some of these expenses I hope this conversation has kind of opened the door to us collaborating a bit more with the County Commission especially on the topic of the state funding that was eliminated and pulled back where they found us more fiscally Capa capable in this County to to fund the schools I know Rick Wimberly had brought a resolution in I think it was 2022 back when the state was putting a lot of kind of red tape undue burden on some of the responsibilities that teachers had and how we were having to fund them and the resolution stated that we would have asked the state to take a look at those things to see if there were any that could be cut

083to to make lives easier for teachers and if we can work with the county to go to the state and Advocate as a team to say maybe there's some things we can look at cutting some undo expenses things like that we can find a way to fund these things a little bit better but just seeing the I know you mentioned we still have a we only have a0 49% growth in our County but looking where I live in Nolanville that's probably all majority from there and Spring Hill so I just want to speak to the fact that when we pull from contingent Capital funding and things like that is going to hurt our area kind of the most because we really need a new school and if not to and those are things that are

084going to kind of come up again next year when we look at this so I just wanted to mention I'm supporting it because I'm really relieved we didn't lose that 6% raise I'm really relieved we didn't have to cut any positions we're cutting positions that weren't already there so there's going to be a pain point on that but at least we're not no one's no one's losing their job so that was it but thank you for your work on this thank you Miss Clemens thank you madam chair I just wanted to thank Mr Golden and Miss Farmer for all the hard work that you guys put in and rolling up your sleeves on this I feel like when we got back when we got down to the 555 I felt like we were so close

085and then you know we got some messages from teachers who were saying we're excited about the 6% raise but if we get a property tax too is kind of they kind of cancel each other in some way so I'm glad that we did y'all put in the hard work to really make it happen so that they can still get their 6% raise and no property tax increase and so I just wanted to thank yall for that and I just want to say I'm going to be going to work to speak with my state delegation about about you know really kicking in some of the some of that funding on the requirements that they put on us so thank you thank you again thank you Mr gal thank you madam chair I mean I do want

086to I take to heart the comments that we've heard over the over the last couple of weeks or months really regarding the art supplement I will I'll I'll put forth an amendment if if there's if there's interest among amongst you guys otherwise I'll just I'll just leave it to to my comments but I think the I just want to go on record to to say that I believe we're making a mistake and not and not giving a a bigger percentage raise to those on the lower end of the scale I was I was willing to to couple that with a with a smaller raise on for the higher end of the scale and just recognizing that we with $16.8 million we could have given everybody in the district a $3,000 raise that would have been

087quite significant to those on the bottom end of the scale it wouldn't have been as much to the to the top end of the sale but it would have been the exact same amount for everybody I think that would have actually been a more prudent way to to do this but in addition on the art supplements I'm I'm still in favor having having received the numbers today and and maybe maybe even Friday some of them we could we could increase all the art supplements for about 20% for $250,000 you know I don't think I would be we could pay I mean there's just a couple of the numbers half of the of the of the salary increase for for those making over $120,000 would also be $250,000 but even I would not be in favor

088of of doing that unless we were going to give if we if we wanted to give the classified staff making less than $50,000 a year a 99% raise rather than a 6% raise that would cost an extra 1.3 million and we could do all of those things and the teachers would all get a 5 a half% race so and I get how it's frustrating to me how how this could be somehow somehow flipped and turned that I would be advocating to cut the teacher pay when when I when I've been advocating this entire time that I wish we wouldn't have been talking about a putting a number on it rather than putting a dollar amount on the on the total amount that we've been raise if we if we would have done that this entire

089time we could have we could have accommodated everybody and teachers getting a five and a half% raise would be would be quite happy with that and and yet somehow I have a feeling that it's going to be tough to to get anybody to to agree to to reduce the amount of the increase of the of the teacher pay but just know that it is it's completely possible we can give the Arts teachers a little bit more and bridge the gap and get them to get them an increase that they that I think they deserve honestly I would I'm actually in favor as we as we move forward for for next budget year to start earlier I'm going to be talking about the annual agenda and hopefully we will we'll put on the agenda some you

090know all things around Staffing and pay and get those get those things do a do a really a more thorough dive into those in October and November of next year before we start the budget season to give staff plenty of time to to to process and we and we look but I'm in favor of not only these flat increases but I want to I want to pursue just kind of everything on the table and you know Jason is something we've talked about in the past but but having some discretionary funds for the principles to be able to to give to to their to their best teachers we want to make sure want to make sure that we retain those and rewarding those teachers who do who do an excellent job is one way to do

091that as well I mean I'm in favor of of looking at at all the supplements across the board and giving more money to to those people who are pouring in extra over and above and so there's there's several things that we can do I and I regret that I can't that I'm not going to be able to make that happen this time but you know if anybody is interested and wants to wants to pursue going down this road with me I'm happy to go there thanks thank you Mr galri Mr Welch thank you super golden can you Briefly summarize kind of what you talked about at at Frank talks today regarding the tax rate that we've have in the county and sort of historically where it's been versus where it is today sure and I

092mentioned the those two points in time 2005 our property tax rate was at $284 and that's the countywide tax rate and the schools take a portion of that and it's currently at a188 so the basic structure in Tennessee for the property tax rate is that when there is a reappraisal and that happens every few years it actually is scheduled for next year here here in Williamson County in the aggregate the County government is required to receive no more funds at the reappraisal than they received before the funds in in other words the tax rate would drop to cover whatever increases in values happened through that window of time from one or appraisal to the next so that's a big reason why the property tax rate has gone down the County Commission defaults to that lower

093rate after an appraisal that's the aggregate but individual property tax bills might change based on the relative value of their home compared to somebody else in the county so the most recent example was downtown Franklin the property values increased substantially compared to some of the rural areas and their their tax bill went up substantially when some of the rural areas tax bills bill went down so that's the aggregate effect versus what happens to individuals but for school purposes it's the rate has gone down as we have growth more more potential funds more funds actually come into the county as a farm becomes a neighborhood that there's more tax revenue likewise there's increased need for services because people move in and so that's part of the structure of of of how things work so the County

094Commission has to make those decisions on the county state relationship side the state has a structure where they they set up a minimum amount of of funding that's required for schools across the state and they basically say the state's going to cover 70% of that and the counties cover 30% of that by the way that's a minimum there might be one small school district in the state that does the minimum for most everyone else to be able to provide things like College and Career Technical teachers AP classes Etc you can't get by with a minimum but that minimum is in the Aggregate and we don't we're not responsible for anywhere near 30% it's a substantially larger percentage and Rachel I'm trying TR remember I didn't mention this at the Frank talks but our percentage is

095much higher than that 30% because of that fiscal capacity indicator that may be too much information I think my comment next year is going to be on something around the definition of briefly I I say that in in good humor and intention that was that was actually very helpful I think one of the big takeaways I was looking there for there was you know in the past 19 years here we've gone from $288 per 100 to a188 that's a 53% drop in the tax rate and I don't like paying taxes I prefer to keep my own money instead of having somebody else spend it but you know I'm not an anarchist either and I realize we need something and so when we start talking about these six cents and throwing up these numbers so it's

096the end of the world I think it's important to put into some context in the last 19 years it's a 53% % drop it we went from 288 to a188 284 I'm sorry 284 to it went down considerably and as you said the reason we've been able to to do that is because property values have increased so much here and one of the big Reasons I'm going to argue the primary reason for that increase in the property value increase which I love it's it's free money and equity in my home is the value of this school system right here as well as our neighboring Franklin Special School District Partners as well so this has been a very frustrating budget cycle and I'm going to vote for it just because you and I have discussed it

097you've asked me to vote for it and I agreed that I would because I you know I think you quote former President Reagan you know you fight like hell and get the best deal you can declare victory move on but it's it's frustrating because we got the 6% raise for the staff and you know and I think all of our staff deserve it I think our principes who are in most high I think they deserve 6% as well but we've done it at potentially the cost I know we're going to try and come back and get some of these things a bit later but we're talking about laptops that have a three-year life cycle that we've pushed to 5 years now we don't have the money in there we have push them to six years

098and anyone who has used an old computer at work that locks up or shuts down knows how difficult that can be to doing your job and in this case these laptops we talking about having to be used on TCAP tests which in some Cas is what a quarter of a student's semester grade I believe that high in some cases in other cases we're talking about impact of having to take summer school and tutoring in order to advance you know at the end of day it's just old computers that we're using we're talking about whole high schools that can't have an admin and so instead we're going to have to beg parents to you know come in and do administrative that or it's going to take away from administrators doing their their job so it's very

099frustrating unless and it's frustrating too we got Short Change $25 million this year from the state and that's on our delegation our delegation we've had our senator who who put his priority on on subsidizing private school for kids already in there instead of getting us the money we need for our existing students and we had another representative who's suing us who didn't even bother showing up to our legislative meeting blew us off so he could attend a fundraiser and the implications of that now are here the butcher bill is due is that we're talking about things like old computers not being able to hire computer science teachers for classes we're not able to we're we're completely robbing our fund balance and contingency plans so when we do construction and heaven forbid we hit rock or

100or we hit a sinkhole we're going to have to go back for more money in that case this is these are challenges and we're gonna have to raise that tax R next year we know that so we can build the juvenile detention center which is needed but I can't help get over it that here we are talking about well we can't raise six cents now to educate these kids but we know in a year from now we're going to have to raise it more so we can build a detention center for them and so this just sort of sticks in my craw quite a bit and I have to put this out there but I will still vote for it at the end of the day and I hope we can get some of those

101supplementary items funded a little bit later when the politics of the situation which is driving it subside somewhat thank you thank you Mr Brown thank you madam chair I'm going to reiterate something I said Thursday night and that is that the good news in all of this if there's good news is that everything save the position increases the 10 and a half positions are things that we plan to fund we're still going to fund we're just going to fund it differently and maybe on a different time time schedule I think that's an important takeaway I think there's there are plenty of issues with the way the budget process works I've had that conversation with multiple County Commissioners individually that I think we can do better over over the entire year in conversations with them about

102how we tackle some of these issues how we look at their budget our budget and I think there's plenty of room for conversation there but that's probably a conversation and a battle for another day but something that Mr galber said and was May me made me think for a second about can I ask Madam chair for Mr galberth to come back and recite the amount I believe it was the a number you cited for increasing the Arts teachers sub by a certain percentage and the and the dollar amount I believe you said was $250,000 what was that percentage 20% 20% question for you Jason and I guess Rachel hypothetically if we were to do that what are the ways in which that could be done within the budget number that we're working off of tonight

103in terms of shifting things around or I mean I know it's not planned for in the current numbers that are calculated in front of us but hypothetically are there ways for what is relatively speaking a small amount of money that could be done or is that at the stage of the game impossible or nearly impossible to do so I'll give you my answer as the administrative leader and then Rachel may be able to give you an answer from Finance at this stage I think it's close to Impossible because we'd have to pick out on the Fly some piece another concern I have is what is what does this mean for potentially academic supplements if we do an increased AR supplements might that trigger another another issue with academic supplements that might be similar another another

104potential issue related to making a change now is we do have that responsibility to talk to to the teacher team through the Pekka process and when anytime we talk about pay for a position that that requires a teacher so because of those things my advice to you all is after this budget passes let us look at it I think it will it will it will touch on a few things first of all as a threshold I I like and agree with the basic principle that Mr galberth is sharing about about finding ways to meet those needs and the not in last year's budget but in the previous two we did make some substantial Market adjustments that weren't just simply a blank percent we increased classified employees pay we increased teacher pay especially at that at

105at those earliest career years we did that after subst stantial research on Market and comparing our our all the pay charts and having those conversations when appropriate with the wcea leadership through that Pekka process so I gave you too much detail probably but short version I think this discussion deserves to be had in the next few months once the budget passes I did make a comment that at least one commissioner tossed out the possibility that it may be that our sales tax projections might be a little conservative this year based on based on what might happen down the road might we have some more funding it's a possibility we made a commitment already with u with the teacher leaders to to research that and have some discussions and I and Rachel you may you may

106figuratively kick me for it but I I think there's a possibility we may be able to come back fairly early in the budget year based on those discussions making sure that we do right by all our folks JU just to maybe dig a Little Deeper on that so is there is there a way the arrangement that we have with through the pekou is that something that if just for my clarity again I think since we're talking about this later on in the agenda as well is that something that we are bound by only when there's an agreement between the parties or is it something that we can act upon after a conversation takes place even if the action that we take might in some instances be different than what they would have agreed to that

107may be an attorney question but I can speak in general we have a responsibility Ann annually to talk about pay about benefit s and working conditions those are the three things that Pekka requires of us I have made a commitment to the teacher leaders to have a conversation before we make any recommen recommended changes to pay no matter what because our experience tells us every time you make a change it might have a an impact that you can't foresee unless you talk to your to to your professionals so it kind of gets back to what I what I talked about in more general terms regarding convers ations with our stakeholders I think the short answer is once we've talked we could make a change and we don't have that commitment until until the theou passes

108but my practice has been honor them and have those discussions the specific example I just gave is we do have academic supplements in addition to Art supplements some of those extracurricular activities may have similar times and responsibilities that we ought to discuss but so technically speaking not to not to beat a dead horse here but technically speaking if the conversation happens in good faith which it should and then a decision is made after the fact by this board that differs from that conversation we are allowed to do that if it's the will of the board even if it contradicts even in any even in a small way the nature or the terms of the pre of the previous conversation not the agreement but the conversation that's correct okay thank you okay thank you Mr galri

109thank you madam chair Josh made me look at something and I think I think I will propose a propos an amendment to to the budget I got to figure out exactly how to do this Bobby beat but I found a potential funding source for the for the Arts well and I'm and I'm I'm not I'm calling it The Art supplement but it's really it's really all of the flat fee supplements under section 5.3 of the so it's all the supplements except for the band The High School band director that's already at 177% and on par with the with our athletic supplements and what I would like to do and I'll I'll I'll present the wording in a second but but I just want to make sure the Gap Rachel that you have on the negative

110$193,000 Gap that means we that means we exceeded the funds that were due by $193,000 so my proposed amendment is to is to increase all of the flat fee supplements under section 5.3 of the Pekka mou with funding in the amount of $193,200 percentage as an equal percentage of the of those supplements prior to I guess as part of this budget does that make sense Bobby it does are you going to have a liability where are they going to get the funds it's got to still balance your budget's still got to balance so well it's balancing from I mean it's going to go into just one n item to another well right right now that 193 is going to be is going to be going to fund balance sure the only concern about doing that

111would be we still are going to have to even though the board approves our budget and the commission approves the budget the state still has to approve the budget and I'm not exactly sure if we have zero available that they will approve the budget I'm not I can't say that they won't but that would be a concern for me that if we truly zeroed that out and we had nothing Les listed as undesignated fund balance I don't know what the state will do well we've got our 3% is under designated fund balance right so you're saying we're required to keep that balance and so this would just be an addition and like I said I can't say that they won't approve it but I don't know that they will so you're saying that they would

112approve 3% plus 3.02% but they wouldn't approve 3.0% again I can't say that I just wanted to throw that out that could be we still will have to go through the state as well that's fine well I will I will take my chances that they'll allow us to have 3% rather than 3.02% balance can I also say one other thing is we have not put pen to paper on that so I don't know what the bottom line number would actually be understood well then I will I'll amend my amendment to to say allocate the you can to allocate the excess funds over 3% fund balance then and we can we can determine what the what the final number is after the after you get get through putting the pen to paper okay so we just

113need a second to get this Amendment on the floor thank you Mr Pria we'll open the floor now to discussion around Mr Gabbert's Amendment and I can read that if if anybody do you need me to read that what that entails Okay so what what Mr galberth is proposing is to in increase the flat fee supplements under section 5.3 by allowing superintendent golden and CFO Rachel farmer to allocate excess funds over the 3% fund balance to fund these increases in the supplements okay if I may Madam chair double check I think Mr gabber also included a percentage element to that motion no I said I said specifically excluding the high school that was high school is the only one that was the percentage gotta okay okay so we will open the floor now to discussion

114and questions if we need to clarify anything that Mr galberth is proposing missia thank you yeah I had a couple of questions I think you may have answered one of them just now when we're we're not talking about making this percent base then which is what the Arts teachers are mostly asking for is being the same as what the athletic supplements are second question you pulled up or you mentioned section 5.3 can you do a double check that Middle School drama is included in that because I if that's the same category we looked at Thursday night they were not included and I think it's important that they are that is correct Middle School drama is actually not in that list okay so for a couple of reasons I even though I seconded I did want

115to have the conversation and ask the questions but I think it's important important to follow the process and have the conversation with WCA I think they're very aware of this concern and that it sounds like most of us are on board with making this Equitable and getting those supplemental pays to the percentage based way but at risk of messing with the budget at the last at the ninth at the final hour and maybe unintentionally missing some folks that deserve the same increase I won't support doing this right now but I agree with what you're trying to do thanks Mr Brown thank you and I guess I needed clarification too on we started off Jay started off with the $193,000 number and then it's now more open-ended as anything over 3% is there a chance that

116I guess this is for Rachel is there a chance that over 3% could be more than 193,000 or do we need to go back to a fixed dollar amount as the budget passes I mean if it were to pass this week that the number we're looking at but as we close out the year yes fund balance could change it could go up or it could actually go down a little bit I'm almost wondering whether it would need to be tied to whatever the beginning fund balance is ultimately and I will say too we won't have that number until we actually close out June 30th which will be most of the time we try to do it the third week of July so we won't have an actual fund balance number until then okay I'll pause

117for now okay Mr Wimberly thank you madam chair Mr GTH I like what you're thinking but I'm wondering is there some reason that we're dealing with this tonight because isn't it true that what we are really going to the County Commission with is a number not a percentage and don't we have the discretion to allocate that amount of money any way we want to so I just wonder if this wouldn't be better to deal with after we get the budget approved and perhaps we attach them an amendment or a resolution that makes a commitment that we will look at this in another month or so because we know that staff is working on conducting the study we know that we need to get wcea involved and we know we want to do this I just

118wonder if we would I think we know we want to do it but I just wonder if it wouldn't be better for us to tackle in another in our next board meeting and maybe have a work session on it because it wouldn't go into effect yet anyway right thank thank you for the question I think about the go into effect it would take the County Commission ultimately voting for the budget for it to go into effect I'm going to ask Rachel in a minute to address the question about the procedure with the County Commission but I will say I like this thought of what money we have available given that it's probably low six figures to to to have to to initiate a discussion with the WCA about those supplements I like that idea I

119I I want to re-emphasis emphasize that those unforeseen consequences that I've mentioned to you are I have some good examples here Middle School drama is an example Middle School choir aren't on this list but I would want them to be on the table if we had some discussion likewise academic supplements so if I may make a commitment that we have a discussion to prepare for our next meeting which is in August see what we can do with the WCA leadership with a pekka team and project out some some estimate somewhere somewhere below $200,000 to say if we had this what could we do with it now as the school year starts at the August meeting short answer is Mr wimbley I think your suggestion is wise because I do worry about somebody who might get

120missed I mean I wholehearted believe our Arts teachers Etc need to be paid better I that's just beyond me to think that anyone would think that's not true but the truth is everybody's underpaid everybody in the school system is underpaid with no exception and it seems to me that we need some help from the County Commission and the and the public with their support to to make this happen but first we got to get this budget approved I think thank you Mr gal so thank you so Jason I'm I'm pretty sure if we don't allocate this money then we've got to go ask for it before we can spend it so the only way for us truly to have to have this money at our disposal is to put it in the line item that

121we that we wanted in so we at least have to put it we have we at least have to put this this remainder this 200,000 you know up to $200,000 of the of the remainder after applying the 3% fund balance we have to we have to put that into the supplement category even even if we weren't going to prescriptively tell how we were going to allocate it so that's one way we could we could say that we were going to to go to put it there and then I could leave out the prescriptive nature of telling them how we're going to allocate it and then we come up with how we come up with a formula to allocate it after tonight but then we won't but then we don't have to ask the we don't

122have to ask the County Commission again to move the money like it's already there either way we do have to get to your point either way we have to get County Commission approval whether it's now or whether it's now or either they approve our budget with that item in there or an amendment so I'm going to ask Rachel about that so when we bring amendments back to you all an amendment itself sorry if you can't an amendment itself means that the expense is in this right major category and it is in a payroll line and you can shift or it's in a major category and in an operational line you cannot transfer funds from an operational line to a payroll line and you can't transfer funds between major category without the County Commission approving so

123the transfers we'll see like later tonight are all major category within a major category and appropriate so that's why there're an amendment for you but an actual resolution would be required to move between major categories or from payroll to non-payroll so if I may to that point Miss farmer given the discussion here is there a number that based on your professional judgment given our budget as it sits right now that could be appropriately placed in that line and still project out that we could get an approval at the from the state to be perfectly honest this does make me exceptionally nervous because the only money we have that 193 if fund balance again is projecting right now comes back less than that then I may not have 193 and then we've committed 193 in expense

124and then I may not balance so that is concerning for me so no sir I do not necessarily have a number that I would feel comfortable with at this point Mr Wimberly so are we saying that in order to do this we would have to increase our budget request by what whatever the you know 200,000 whatever it is over what we have on the floor now we would have to do thatc it's coming from fund balance but the expenditure is not in the line right now so yes we would ultimately have to increase the budget amount by that number whatever the number may be so where the total that we've given you for the budget you would increase it by whatever number we would be agreed upon to to apply so in effect we'd be

125going to County Commission with a request for 200,000 more than they are anticipating correct and it's probably true that the County Commission is resist would has given us the number because they don't want a tax increase with taxes have to be increased to pay that $200,000 taxes would not have to be increased because it would it's in fund balance and so it would not require property tax increase but it would require an increase to the actual budget amount I know the motion's still on the floor the motion to amend I have a suggestion given the concerns that Miss farmer has shared why don't I let the commission know that our that the board the board's intent and discussion is that when those final numbers are actually under fruition in mid July we intend to come

126to you with with a request to use some of that undesignated fund balance in excess of 3% for for this purpose for supplements and let them know it's going to come that's another possibility because either it needs to be approved now and I'm concerned about the risk of of the of the budget based on what Miss farmer said or it's got to be approved later based on num numbers that actually come to fruition Mr brown or Mr galbert okay Mr Brown so it's question for clarification Rachel when you say the budget has to be increased by that amount the revenue side would not have to be increased would it but you're the expense side would correct so we wouldn't be going back and asking for more revenue from the county correct we would just be

127increasing our expense line by that amount but still within the revenue that they have said they would approve correct they really when when they are our funding body but they are also approving how much we can spend that is what the actual resolution that they'll be voting on is the expenditure side but we sorry I didn't me interrup so we would have to increase by whatever the amount is over 548 617 028 is where we have are currently recommending so whatever you would want to add would have to be added to that total for them to to vote on but again not not on the revenue side though because they've they've said that all they're going to approve on the revenue side was the 548 and change correct but there the fund balance that we're

128proposing is within that 548 correct the excess fund balance yes is above the 548 it's above the 548 add using fund balance to balance our budget and then last year's fund balance yes and so 193,000 is what's left over as an estimate again we're estimating because we don't have the final numbers yet that would be what was left over and that is what you're suggesting that we commit to using towards the supplements to do that we would have to increase the supplement line as part of one of the expenditures and so the expenditure would go up it would not have an effect on the County Commission and know anything that they are committing for us they would just be giving us permission to spend an additional whatever $200,000 in our budget but the okay so

129but the 3% fund balance that we're required to have is within the 548 it is a require fund balance is not an expenditure fund balance is more of view it as a savings account so no that number is not included in the to expenditure line it's on top of the expenditure line of what we have to have it's on the revenue side but they're only giving us 548 in Revenue right they're giving well total revenue is 493 509 547 currently let let us give you a visual of your question Tim can you pull up the document that's right behind Rachel's memo in the board packet it's going to be a summary it's got blue lines on it's the summary of the operations general purpose School fund budget and I'll refer you to the bottom of

130that document oh we've got some real oh good he's going to increase the font or the enlarge it go to the bottom good there you go so our projected revenue is the 493 our estimated fund balance is 71 759 that gives us total resources of 565 the expenditures that they have approved or have indicated through the budget Committee in the resolution last week was 548 61728 then we have to have the 3% on top of that so our total funding so to speak that we need is that 565 075 if you go back up our total resources are 565 268 so that gives us that additional 193 so if you would go back to where you were so I want to make earlier this week the County Commission budget committee recommended approval of expenses of

131548 61728 and then that 3% is undesignated and Rachel I'm just to make sure I understand what what you've been saying that 193 296 is a app I'm going to use my terminology that is a fail safe against estimates compared to actual that we won't really know until mid July correct if we approved this though where would that 193 go it would be added to the 548 617 so it would be in the expens and then that's going to adjust that 3% just a little bit because the 3% is based off of the actual expenditure line the approved expenses but to be clear the 548 617 028 is what the current property tax rate would support all revenue sources all revenue sources including fund incling that property tax rate yes yes I think that's where

132the including fund balance is throwing me off because it's included as a roll up into the next year number but it's when you start the year it's added on to that number right so we're the 71 million we're rolling over gets us to the 565 and then we're backing out the 16 million for fund balance that's right correct so other question on the Middle School teachers or middle school Arts question the reason why those if I think if I think I heard you correctly last week the reason why those were left out of the mou is because they're not necessarily required to be performed by teachers that is correct so then they wouldn't those positions wouldn't necessarily be subject to a discussion with WCA not necessarily but all the Arts positions well some of the

133Arts positions do require that and the academic positions as well and I'm concerned about the relationship between those that it's a POS there's 's a possibility there may be some similar responsibilities and I want to make sure that we have that discussion because it could trigger a challenge with some of those positions that do include it okay thank you okay Mr Hall thank you madam chair U Mr Golden I think you have you've been pretty subtly informing us of the concerns of unintended consequences with this and I appreciate that we are trying to dig under all the couch cushions here to come up with a need that is pronounced but I also don't feel comfortable that you staff have taken the opportunity to look at all of the needs and assess this as the highest

134priority that you need to address and if I'm wrong about that then let me know but I think that what you said what I've heard you say is that you haven't had the time to look at all all aspects of this consider all stakeholders ensure that there would be nobody forgotten just because they haven't spoken up in Mass about an issue I would not want to slate anybody in the service of trying to do something good and I appreciate that you would say You' made a commitment that you would talk to the County Commission in July about this but I also wouldn't want to get out over our skis if that doesn't give you enough time to do the due diligence that you would like to do to ensure that there are no unintended consequences

135of this so I'm very supportive of Equitable pay for our volunteer folks who are volunteering their time to massive extents and I applaud their efforts and I want to make sure that we do this right and do something that is very thorough and well considered and has given been given the appropriate analysis that it deserves and I also heard our CFOs say the phrase exceptionally nervous so I'm factoring that in heavily to in in my decision thank you Mr Galt thank you madam chair so I'm just gonna with with Jen's approval obviously I think to make this to make this more easier to easier to swallow would be to essentially remove the remove remove the detail about the about what you have to increase as far as the flat fees and just allocate the remainder

136to a supplement to the to the supplement payroll major category and then with the with the details to to be approved in in August after after staff reviews and consults with WCA so that would give time for the Middle School positions to to be added you can figure out what the what the amounts need to be and then we can we can just vote on how that's going to be allocated presuming that the that the commission approves the money but given the fact that we've we've come you know eight what $85 million do or so towards the towards the middle I mean I think I think $200,000 funding without a without a tax increase I think would be would be sufficient for the I don't I don't I don't presume to think that they're going

137to begrudges the ability to to do this for for our people so does that make that make sense so I just so basically allocating the excess over and above the 3% into into supplements and I and I'll just say up to $200,000 so if you have an excess if if the if the if the balance ends up being $300,000 then we're only allocating $200 to to the supplements and the other 100 will just go to fund balance and if it's only 100 then 100 will go to fund will go to the supplements okay it's all I have to say about that thank you Mr Welch thank you so I think we've been doing it this four months now and I'm I'm very nervous that we're trying to change the budget in the last 20 minutes

138before we pass version 3.0 of of this also our CFO talking about concerns about the state not approving it that's a huge red flag that I'm just not really want to casually roll the dice and I think it's pretty clear that our superintendent is opposed to that as well but let's let's put all that aside our theater teachers I think I hear Universal agreement yes they need more money and as Rick said everybody needs more money and I think you know we need to get them that but I think we need to look at it holistically as well if if you are comfortable this is just the one position that needs it more than the others and you're comfortable with your understanding of the supplements and not just Arts wor Athletics but let's let's sort

139of talk about the e ademic ones I pulled up our chart you know as you go around TP think to yourself do you know what the supplement is for the library lead or student council or yearbook or newspaper or model un does everyone here know what the hours are on those what the percentage is what the dollar amount is or forensics or robotics what is a department chair what is their time commitment and number of hours that cost does it vary by Department ACT Testing coordinator how's our tennis supplements what are they currently at are they sufficient are they way behind how does that Stack Up versus wrestling or flag football and if we want to do the Arts well what about chorus or Jazz Ensemble or strings I'm not opposed to the ideas that

140have have been brought up tonight but this seems very halfhazard done and I'm just really worried about the any unintended consequences that come out of this not the least of which is not getting our budget approved by the state having to come back here for version 4.0 so I for those Reasons I'm not real Pro let's let's change up the budget here at the not in the 11th hour but you know the 11th Hour 59th minute and whatever seconds into it this just not seemed to a good way to sort of form our budget moving forward on that thank you thank you Mr Pria thank you just a quick clarifying question if we do not pass this amendment right now the 193,000 or whatever we discover to be left over once the books are closed

141mid to late July goes to our fund balance for next year it still rolls over and we can figure out what to do with it okay thanks that's it Mr Brown ju just a quick comment maybe as a as a thought for later you know as as we get further into the year the new budget year and you start to think about ways to do some of these things I just would be really as a general principle concerned that we would ever take a position that just because we can't do something for everybody that we would do nothing do we wouldn't do anything for anybody I think that's a really narrow way to look at it because I think there's opportunities that we have to selectively try to boost certain things as we see them

142come along and I would just be cautious that we not take an approach as we go into analyzing and thinking about this that if we can't do it for anyone we do it for no one just food for thought for later thank you for that the thought that has gone through my mind repeatedly over the course of years is kind of a contrapositive to that if we can do something we should right and so I I do hold that thought if there's no more comments Madam chair let me let me let me speak to this just a little bit more I want to repeat this I like this idea especially given this tight budget year of finding a way to get what funds we have have available to our staff in this context we're talking

143about really hitting that 3% right at that 3% I like it for a handful of reasons one it's because if we can do something we should or or what what Mr Brown said I also like it because I'm projecting out where where we think we're going to be next year we have science textbook adoption this year we don't have a large textbook adoption scheduled from the state next year we've had a substantial cost for Chromebooks we've covered it with capital this time and we may have some mitigating factors next year with our Chromebook schedule we don't know how much is how you know because we're we're evaluating elementary schools and and our need there it's possible the total might be less but then we do have to figure out where we where we fund that

144so there's some differences there will be some differences in in next year's budget year but I want to ask this question of Rachel before I before I'm prepared to make a recommendation related to this when you've talked about mid July are you confident that we will actually know the for sure dollar value of fund of fund balance before our August work session we will have a better estimate what can also happen how ever is State Auditors they're currently in our offices now and they will be with us through probably October and they do come back from time to time with adjustments that we need to make and sometimes that affects fund balance and so while we will have a good estimate on our end there actually could be adjustments made to this fiscal year through

145the auditing process that we will not know probably until October at at the earliest we have a better idea but not but we will not have the final final numbers last year they finished with us and we got the audited numbers in November but they were able to give us the report where they felt like it was going to be in October okay I think this brings us to a vote board does everybody yeah go ahead yeah superintendent recommendation I do not recommend approval of this with a caveat that I if if this does not pass I will let the County Commission know that we intend to bring back to them in the fall a request for an amount to meet the 3% to cover additional supplements if that makes sense Mr Wimberly I think

146Mr gber said that he wanted to change the language of the amendment so we can we get the language as we're voting on it yes it is to increase the flat fee supplements under section 5.3 by allocating excess funds over 3% fund balance into the supplements up to $200,000 okay board members let's go ahead and cast our votes on this amendment I'm still thinking the vote is five yes 6 no thank you motion fails no oh one two three oh so actually this passes because okay we only need six five yes five yes one two three four five okay thank you yeah motion fails for this amendment which brings us back to the original item on the agenda which is the approval of the 2024 2025 revised budget and so now we should get a

147motion on the do we already have a motion for the okay so now we can open floor for comments on the actual budget itself and if I may before we start Madam chair I am going to speak to the County Commission this Thursday about what we just discussed and let them know that okay okay thank you okay board members if we don't have any further comments we can go ahead and move to a vote on this and I know Mr wly yes you have a comment I do thank you again for the last time I rick wly have an immediate family member who is employed by Williamson County Schools who may be affected by this proposed budget resolution my vote on this budget resolution is nevertheless in keeping with with my oath of office to

148fulfill my responsibility as an elected Board of Education member I say to you once again thank you for the last time Mr galberth for the first time I have a Jay galberth have a an immediate family member who is now employed by Williamson County Schools who may be affected by this budget proposed budget resolution my vote on this budget resolution is nevertheless in keeping with my oath of office to to fulfill my responsibility as an elected Board of Education member okay thank you Mr galus board members we may now move to our votes the vote is 11 yes Zer no thank you motion did pass to approve the budget for the new school year which brings us to the current school year 2020 232 for Schoolboard budget first item for discussion is approval of general

149purpose School fund Amendment for the idea Grant in the amount of $25.20 do we have a Jason thank you madam chair this is a carryover for a revenue side for the ID Grant of 20 again $25.20 do recommend approval thank you do we have a motion to approve okay Mr Wimberly second by Miss Clemens thank you any discussion okay board members let's cast our vote the vote is 11 yes Z no thank you motion passed to approve the general purpose School fund amendment in the amount of 2520 for the idea Grant next item is the approval of the general purpose School fund Amendment for summer learning camps Grant in the amount of by the state we're making this change at the state's request okay thank you do we have a motion Miss Clemens in a

150second Mr Hall thank you open the floor for discussion no discussion board members let's cast our votes the vote is 11 yes Z no thank you motion passed to approve the general purpose School fund Amendment for learning learning camps Grant in the amount of $1,079 next item is the approval of general purposal fund paid parental leave reimbursement in the amount of $1 million thank you madam chair the state now requires additional paid parental leave we are projecting the cost for that to be a million dollars the state has told us that they will fund that so long as funds are available so we do recommend moving moving this line item for that purpose thank you we have a motion from Mr Cash do we have a second Mr PR thank you any discussion on this

151item okay board members let's cast our votes the vote is 11 yes Z no thank you motion passed to approve the general purpose School fund amendment in the amount of $1 million for paid parental leave reimbursement next item is the approval of the central cafeteria fund Amendment for Commodities in the amount of 6 2,814 and10 thank you madam chair this is a annual reconciliation of Commodities in the self-contained Food Service budget which actually moves that number in both the revenue and expense categories do recommend approval for accounting purposes okay thank you do we have a motion Mr Pria and a second by Mr Brown thank you any discussion on this item all all right board members let's pass cast our votes the vote is 11 yes Z no thank you motion passed to approve the

152central cafeteria fund Amendment for Commodities in the amount of 62184 1010 next item is the approval of the general purpose School fund entra category adjustment and Amendment thank you madam chair this is our annual Capital fund request that we bring to the County Commission it's actually already been approved by you once and taken to the County Commission budget committee and education committee this is actually the resolution for funding I'm sorry the inter category transfers first oh the oh sorry intercategory transfers for general purpose School fund I'm just going to say I recommend approval okay okay do we have a motion Mr Beasley and a second by Miss Clemens thank you any discussion on this item okay board members let's cast our votes the vote is 11 yes Z no thank you motion passed to approve

153the general purpose School fund entra category adjustment and Amendment next item is the approval of the central cafeteria fund enter category adjustment and Amendment thank you madam chair the last one was intercategory transfers I've explained this one already I do recommend approval of of this Capital request to be taken to the County Commission thank you do we have a motion Miss Pria and a second Mr Cash thank you any discussion on this item okay board members please cast your vote the vote is 11 yes Zer no thank you motion passed to approve the extended school program fund enter category adjustment and Amendment next item is the approval of capital resolution intent to fund in the amount of 13155 596 thank you madam chair this is I'm sorry I have a hand rais from you just

154approved cafeteria you haven't approved the extended school yet is extended extended school is the third one so you had three so you justed cafeteria so you have to do it Madam chair I apologize I created this challenge I looked at the wrong line to start with thank you let's go back to item seven which is the approval of the extended school p school program fund intercategory adjustment adjustment in Amendment thank you that is that is the end of year intercategory adjustments to the ex the self-contained ex extended school year program easy for you to say okay thank you do we have a motion miss a Pria and thank you Mr Brown is a second now we can cast our votes for the extended school program adjustment Amendment the vote is 11 yes Z no thank

155you motion did pass to approve the extended school program fund enter category adjustment and Amendment last item under budget for this year is the approval of the capital resolution intent to fund in the amount of 13155 596 thank you madam chair finally this is the item that I was looking at for the annual Capital that you have seen once the County Commission education and budget committee have looked at and we are now bringing to them in resolution form okay thank you do we have a motion Miss Apria thank you a second Miss Clemens thank you any discussion okay board members please cast your votes the vote is 11 yes Z no thank you motion did pass to approve the capital fund or Capital resolution intent to fund in the amount of 13155 596 which brings

156us to board policies for second reading the item under this category is the library materials policy Mr golden thank you madam chair this is the proposed second reading for the library materials policy that has changes made pursuant to the new state law it has been removed from our traditional practice of being on the consent agenda second reading based on the detailed discussions we've had Lisa Carson our County attorney is here as you know she's been walking through the through that with us as we've been working on putting together a policy to comply with both both state law and federal law she's available for any questions you have thank you do we have a motion Mr Beasley thank you and Mr Brown thank you for the second any discussion on the library materials policy Mr Wimberly

157I really do appreciate the time and effort that and the discussion to draft this policy but we already have a policy that ensures that our students are exposed to age appropriate material materials not only that we have a practice that's been longstanding for years and all parents or a guardian all a parent or a guardian has to do if they don't want their student exposed to some of our library or other materials is just ask and we do have a policy and a process so that interested parties can request that a particular material be moved out of the library although it's kind of Beyond me why someone should want to remove materials for someone else's child so I don't think this policy is necessary it overreaches local control and it may be unconstitutional so I'm

158a no vote on it thank you Mr Welch thank you I don't think it's not only unnecessary because we have a existing policy but but I think it's inferior to the current policy that we have and I don't mean that as a slight to everyone on the policy Comm in everything that worked on it please please don't take it that way the work you've done here is appreciative and is appreciated and you were given an impossible task to to do on it I think the library material decision tree is excellent ellent phenomenal work and it gives a thought process with the ability to to put some knowledge in it but frankly it conflicts with what we see in the policy itself which I know is taken from the law and there's nothing we can do

159about that I'm I'm very convinced that it's unconstitutional I don't say that as a legal scholar member of the bar myself but based upon the input we've received from three members of the County attorneys as well as our own board attorney as as well as what I think well I don't want to put words in your mouth Jason gold but I haven't seen you disagreeing with with any of the input we have received from the other four lawyers that way so to me and as we're just sort of talking here I just start jotting down some of the authors that you know growing up but just read and have sense you know that I look at this policy and it would pull their works out of the library if applied and I'm not saying it

160will pull them out of there but if we applied it the way it's written it would pull out Hawthorne Hemingway Bradberry hosi rice Joyce Shakespeare Steinbeck Duma Haley po Elroy it would pull out the holy works of the world the Holy Bible the Torah the Quran there are sections in there that do not apply to these guidelines simple art history books we would have to to pull out so for these I'm just not going to vote for it and anyone that does vote for it I understand why and I don't fault you at all for for doing so again we've been put in this awful challenge but it's just vot in my conscience it's not something that I can put my name to or want to put my name to to to to ban books

161so I realize it's somewhat peeing into the wind on this but I have to put that just because it sits my cross so much thank you Mr Brown thank you madam chair a few thoughts about this one is I don't really think it's a question of whether this policy is inferior or superior to the existing one it to me it's an issue that the existing one is inadequate given what is transpired in the state legislature and what we're required to do in response to that and putting Miss Carson on the spot but if if it's appropriate to ask her to come up I have a question yes sorry Lisa no no worries that's what I'm here for can you remind us and remind the public that there's a part of this policy that recites verbatim

162significant part of this policy that recites verbatim to state law right and there's also a provision that you added into this policy that if that those provisions of the state law are deemed unconstitutional at some point after July 1 that those Provisions would be removed from our policy can you speak to that please sure basically as I've said the board before state state jurist Prudence is very clear that as an elected body you are required to presume con constitutionality of state law but there are as has been pointed out some concerns about how this statute might operate as applied and so as as a safeguard the portions of the policy that quote that language that comes not from local discretion but from state law that may be constitutionally problematic specific speically says if these if

163the law goes away mandating these Provisions these Provisions automatically drop out of the policy so that your policy would only contain that for so long as the law required it so in your opinion is the is the policy we have today if we didn't make these changes that we're proposing tonight that we've been working through for a couple months now if is our current policy adequate to do what this Board needs to do to comply with the law I don't think if challenged it would be found to comply with state law as it currently the current policy would not be found to comply with state law as it will exist as of July 1 okay thank you thank you Miss Carson Miss Cleveland yes I agree I don't like what I don't like the policy

164but as Mr Brown noted that this is something we have to comply with but also if we also know that if there are books you know we can just make a general broad statement that you know we're going to be challenged or you know the number of books or whatever but if we are challenged and there is a question that I don't well if the board doesn't feel goes along with the policy we can always challenge it at that time and then bring it to the state kind of drop it in their lap because at that and that's what I feel we should you know the due process is right now we have to follow the state law but if there's a situation we get into that we don't feel that particular book should be

165removed we can challenge the policy at that time and go to the state so I'd approve this a policy thank you Mr Cash thank you madam chair we've had discussion after discussion in policy about this and it's been my understanding from the get-go that this is the state law it says K through 12 new to will not be in our classroom books and or library books and also magazines and other you know Paran our policy does not cover this stuff the cons the existing policy will not cover this we're we're going back to square one if we do this if this doesn't pass you go back to square one we did nothing about it then and this is why we've got this policy that's why it's so strict is because we really didn't ever think

166this was going to happen now it's just like Miss Cleveland just said if if we get overwhelmed with books we can turn it over we can turn it over to the state and say hey what do we do about this there are books that you know are going to need to stay in that might have some of these articles or something to do with violence or nudity in in the Arts and whatnot but this has got to pass so we've got to do something we don't have a policy and I still I still suggest that to show good faith I believe our Librarians who have vetted these books are going to know which books to tag that are going to be a problem and I think that should be the first thing we look at

167in the 10% we don't have to change policy to do that but that's going to keep coming up if we don't do it and we don't start looking at this stuff the general Public's going to do it we're going to get slammed and I don't want to see that happen so let's do the best we can to make this work there's been a lot of work in it we've got a we've got a pretty good decision tree here where we can you know walk through some of this stuff and you know get some of the Hemingways and you know the other authors authors that Eric talks about we're going to keep those we'll keep some of those and if they have to make an amendment at the you know legislature or do something be it

168we can put it in their laps thank you thank you Mr Hall thank you madam chair so I didn't think to ask this on Thursday at the work session but as a matter of process if books are challenged and then we do go to the state what do we need to do immediately do we leave the books in place or do we have to pull them my recommendation would be that if you were making a request to the state to interpret the statute as applied to particular books that the books would remain in the library until you get some type of response from the state there is a provision also that a person objecting to a book can go directly to the state as well if if they don't believe that the board is acting

169quickly enough but I think given First Amendment jurist Prudence if you are actually proactively going either to a court for a declaratory judgment or the state for a declaratory order about interpretation of the statute it would be appropriate not to remove the books pending that process thank you thank you Mr Beasley yes thank you Madame chair my question was Miss Carson as well okay sorry about that I should have gave you a heads up so with these current policy that we're about to vote on tonight right do you feel confident that you could defend the Williamson County schools with this policy and keep us out of litigation no not at all and and I've been I've tried to be very candid about that and tried to give you the best advice I can but I

170cannot advise you not to follow state law you are obligated to do that I've I've said before I think the policy as written is constitutional we' we've spent a lot of time trying to write it in a manner that's constitutional but but as you start to get challenges how you respond to those challenges will impact whether or not I'm able to successfully defend because if decisions are made to pick and choose based on whether you like the message in the book then that becomes extremely problematic and so what this state law that is so broad does is it actually puts you in the untenable position of you're probably safer if you remove more books I'm not encouraging you to do that as you know what I've encouraged you to do is ask for a declaratory

171order when you get confronted with with the concern but but it is an extremely precarious position and I think you'll have to and and it's yet to be seen whether you'll have a flood you know with with the first with the first passage of this act in 2022 I think we thought there was going to be a flood and there were five so you may the floodgates may open or or you may have just a few and they may be ones that you can deal with reasonably but but that's that's going to depend on what happens and then what your reaction to it is as I said the other night at the work session ju there's no First Amendment right to have an art book with nudity in it in in a school library but

172if you were to begin to remove art books that depicted certain types of indigenous persons for example and not a picture of the Statue of David then suddenly you're looking at something that could very easily open itself into a First Amendment challenge so no I'm not confident at all I'm doing the absolute best I can am I confident that this policy complies with state law absolutely and am I confident that we have written it the best we can to comply with the Constitution yes but I I can't tell you it's bulletproof because it just simply isn't okay thank you so much it's going to require us to proceed very carefully thank you board members if we have no further comment we'll ask Jason for his final recommendation thank you madam chair because this policy does

173is written to comply with state law and it's best calculated to comply with federal law I do recommend approval thank you board members let's please cast our votes the vote is8 Yes three no thank you motion did pass to approve the library policies for second reading the library materials policy for second reading and the next item on our agenda is the approval of the differentiated pay plan thank you madam chair the state requires a differentiated pay pay plan report submitted to them annually voted on by the board that includes differentiated pay that as as an example includes our hard to fill positions that document is in your board packet I do recommend approval of that to report report that to the state okay thank you do we have a motion Mr Welch thank you do

174we and a second by Miss Clemens thank you any discussion on this item okay board members let's please cast our votes the vote is 11 yes Z no thank you motion passed to approve the differentiated pay plan the last item on the agenda is the approval of the Pekka memorandum of understanding thank you madam chair annually our Pekka team meets professional Educators collaborative conferencing act team meets with leaders selected by teacher leaders selected by our teachers through a formal State process we have the proposed revisions for 2024 including a memorandum from Dr Lee web that includes a screenshot of a portion of the supplements section 5.3 which actually we had some discussion on earlier do recommend approval of of the proposed changes again with a caveat that I will be letting the County Commission know

175that we intend to bring something to them later on regarding that difference in the three% fund balance in our in our proposed budget thank you do we have a motion Miss Clemens thank you Mr Welch for a second any discussion on this item Mr Brown thank you madam chair Jason can you talk about whether just big picture whether there are any meaningful differences between our agreement in Williamson County schools and say other districts in the state in terms of how they approach this process or how the kinds of things that get included I mean I know there's the three basic things we have to talk about which you've cited but how do we compare in terms of our process and our content in term as far as you know well number one most school districts

176don't actually have anou it requires an election process from the from the teachers to select it and I'm trying to remember off the top of my head I think it's 15% of the of the eligible teachers must must say they want it I may be off a little bit on that percentage and then they select which entity represents them and different seats can be at the table most school systems end up not reaching those thresholds from a from a comparison to those that do I don't really have a firm grasp of that because there's so few but I can tell you grievance procedure as an example which is article four has been something that we've spoke to in detail about over over the years making sure that we we maintain the flexibility of making employment

177decisions while still honoring honoring this agreement that's one that jumps out at me that's one that's had a lot that at least before before the terminology and the language of it stood the test of time we had a lot of discussion on which is a little maybe a little bit different from what I've seen beyond that I can't I can't speak to any other comparisons thank you Mr grith thank you madam chair I guess just in in light of the discussion on on pay I guess I'm I'm just a little disappointed on on this on theou being being brought up a after after the plea by the by the Arts teachers and all the students and and you've got a board who's who's overall willing to to make the make the adjustments I'll I'll be

178it not at the last minute I get I totally get that but but I'm just I'm I'm just I'm just a little disappointed that they didn't and I guess in collaboration with it's not just this isn't just a WCA thing but just with the combination between WCA and the and the administration who is who's collaborating with them couldn't couldn't find a way to to bridge the gap a little bit a little bit better in in this document so I mean it's been like this for obviously for years shame on me for for not seeing it until people brought it to our attention but but that's kind of what we do people people bring up things we U we decide if they're if they're worthy to to be changed and we kind of make make moves

179in in meaningful directions and so I guess between this and the fact that and I've never really thought thought a whole lot about it before but it it was just very apparent during this budget cycle with the fact that the WCA doesn't really speak for all employees particularly the classified staff the it's just it's just apparent that it's that WCA you know serves its purpose for for its members and ultimately you know negotiates a this memorandum for pay for all for all professional staff but we just need that I guess I'm I'm recognizing that we need to me we need to be more more aware of of as a board what's going on at the at the pay level and so I look forward to to doing that again U but I'm just really really

180disappointed that they in light of all the all the feedback that they that we and they received that there there wasn't more more that was being proposed here but that's it thank you for that I do want to make sure that I'm clear that based on all the information I had our Arts central office staff working with Dr Webb and Dr David Allen initiated questions of our staff to start gathering information for supplements the prompts we gave prompted some of the discussion that ultimately you all heard just a few months ago in our board meetings we solicited information from our teachers about how how their work was in the supplement in the in the in these supplements ask questions related to how much time are you spending how many Productions are you doing on an

181annual basis to start that study what you got was a was a request let's let's make a change that was again the result of our Arts leaders saying I think we need to make a change let's start gathering information to make a change we have that commitment and we're going to be doing that and time it's obviously not going to going to be on everyone's timeline but it is going to be done as close as we can to the right way to make sure that we honor everyone and protect all those nuances that may be out out there with pay but thank you for thank you for sharing that Mr Brown thank you I'm sorry I just have one more question I was thinking I was reading this document and thinking back to my earlier

182comments about if if the board going forward after this is agreed to decides to do something different can you speak to maybe this is a question for you Jason or Bobby what what section 2.1 effectively means I think I know what it means but I'm I want to make sure I'm not misreading it as far as the position the board is in relative to the relative to the WCA in terms of the provisions of the agreement or any other actions we may take the the language that the participants in peka recognize that all rights which are vested in the board except those those which are clearly and expressly relinquished by the board there there are some additional procedural rights that are given in this mou that aren't in state law the grievance procedure is one

183example of those I think there may be some value in us as we prepare making sure you all have a clear understanding of all those I think it would be helpful because I think we you know we go through this exercise every year and we kind of just you know Breeze over some of this but I think it's worth digging in a little more especially when you see language like except those that are relinquished these rights shall continue to be vested in and exercised exclusively by the board without prior notice to the association or the participants in Pekka either as to the taking of action under such rights or with respect to the consequence of such such action am I misreading that just that it says we can take an action without their their knowledge

184or approval what is that really fundamentally mean the way I'm reading it is basically if youve not those excluded rights specific excluded rights we cannot the board cannot take any action without their approval or without their say so if it's one of those rights that is not then I do believe based on this language you would be able to vote on something that you didn't need to go to for their approval okay but it would have to be outside of those excluded rights and by by something that we've relinquished it means something that we've agreed to further into the into the document right into theou something that we've spelled out as a part of the agreement that's right that's the way I read that in Prior notice you know yeah okay thank you thank you

185if no further comments we are ready to move to a vote as long as we have Mr Golden's approval Madam chair if I may make one final comment this mou is a 2022 through 2025 document it's a it's it's approved every three years with modifications within the content in those mid years next year is a is the new three-year one did I explain that well a three-year document 2025 is the beginning of the next three-year period next year correct cor that's right Mr Pria did you I thanks I just wanted to ask a clarifying question about the High School drama supplement going to 5,000 on on Thursday's work session that one was highlighted as being a change right but that's actually isn't that the same as what they've had previously thank you for that actually

186Dr Webb let me know and and that question came up over the weekend that that change was not in theou but that pay actually started last year so there was a there was a there was a missed change in last year so I misstated that I thought it was a change for this year we're one year in a rear on that hey Mr Cash thank you madam chair just one quick question Jason peka and wcea are two different memorandum of agreement right well kind of Pekka is the state law governing negotiations or discussions with teacher groups the teachers through the process established in Pekka selected wcea okay to represent them and what percentage of teachers have selected WCA I don't know that off the top of my head I we can pull back our records

187from from two years ago and let you all know yeah I remember that coming up thank you okay okay thank you board members let's go ahead and move to a vote the vote is 10 yes one no thank you motion passed to approve the peka memor memor random of understanding that was our last agenda item so we are now adjourned thank you have a good summer thank you